Karla tumbled out into the cab as the hauler pulled out of a steep dive, several craft in hot pursuit.

“Freddie! What the fuck is that?” Karla managed to plant herself into her seat and pull the seat belts over her shoulders just as the hauler took another hit. In a small mirror mounted on the cab’s boxy hood, she could see several containers erupting into showers of hot slag from some kind of energy weapon. The containers tore apart under the barrage, spilling thousands of black limbs over the city.

“I think it’s the company! Shit! Did they know I was onboard? Or did they know this is their products we’re moving?” He mumbled to himself. “How did they know?”

“Freddie!” Karla shouted as more gunfire and large blasts of energy shook the ship. He seemed to snap out of it.

“Okay, okay. We’re here now, and they’re trying to shoot us down but not kill us. Their mistake.”

There was another detonation as several blasts missed, tearing through several buildings. “Not kill us? Are you sure about that?”

The region they were over was a scattered mix of habs and old, decrepit buildings. The ships chasing them seemed all too happy to splash their shots over the older buildings, but were careful to not hit any of the habs.

Freddie seemed to realized this just as an old tower was hit by a blast of energy, collapsing into dust. He steered towards the denser habs in the north of the sector.

A small radio in the dash began squawking at them.“Halt and you will not be harmed. Land the vehicle now and you will—” Freddie turned it off.

“What’s the plan?” asked Karla as she gripped the handle on the roof of the cab. The hauler wove upwards around a hab, skimming the building with several hundred pieces of gear that rolled, tumbled, then fell off the building’s sides and into the streets below. The Scavengers would be having a field day today.

“Hug the habs, burn through the north gate, and get into Sector North. I say we dive down somewhere in the north, get below the fog and bail in our own directions. I’ll drop you off first, then jump out further down.” Freddie looked over at her. She returned his gaze, unsure if she should trust his optimism.

“Didn’t you say if we rushed through we’d be blown to bits? Are you sure about this?”

“No!” A wild look was on his face, he looked tense, unpredictable. “But whoever is chasing us isn’t the Church, and they run the gates. If they don’t want to be fired upon they’ll leave us alone. I’ve upgraded this cab, it should make it long enough to get to the other side.”

Karla looked at him, a mental grin growing over her mind. “Okay. Kick it Freddie.”

The craft swung between the few habs as they approached the northern wall, the craft that followed only taking shots when they were in the small space between, but with the habs growing more and more dense, they were being fired upon less and less. She looked back and saw one of the ships that was in pursuit.

Small, a bubble canopy over an swooping short mantle that sat over a boxy body. Something in the undercarriage lit up, and several blasts of energy raked up the side of the containers, tearing into their sides. Karla was pressed back into her seat as the hauler fell, then pulled up into an arc that wove between habs.

“Freddie! That looked like a security vehicle!”

“Really? Not private security? Shit, was it City or Church?”

“City!” Karla had just caught the symbol of the City Security teams. A red bear roaring at a golden sun.

Freddie thought for a moment. “Then we continue north. Nothing we can change now. At least if they’re after me, they won’t be won’t be working together.” He twisted the vehicle till it straddled the fog that began to form between habs, slipping further north. Freddie looked pale. “Shit, you may have to leave the city… no, no.” He trailed off, deep in thought.

The habs grew tighter, resembling Sector North by the time they hit the wall. A forest of massive buildings formed a jumble that allowed security vehicles to slip ahead, blocking their approach and firing on them as they passed nearby.

The hauler jerked as several containers sheared off, dropping more parts and gear onto the streets below. As the vehicle lost tons of cargo, it soared, boosting into the upper regions of the space between habs, into the lanes of traffic that constantly soared between.

Alarms lit up, one after another. Collision alerts, predicted path alerts, damage. But Freddie somehow managed to avoid ending their chase prematurely. The craft rose through the traffic. Ahead, a wall, and a white tower.

“If it’s City Security, I doubt they’ve warned the Church, that does mean this could get messy.” Freddie pushed the hauler to its fastest speed as the security vehicles frantically fired at the vehicle.

He kept the stack moving and twisting, always placing a container between them and anything powerful aimed at their thrusters. The building grew larger, the gate, a slot just large enough to fit a dozen full haulers through, was more than large enough to fit the cab and what was left of the containers. Karla saw most had been torn to shreds, leaving only twenty or so intact containers still attached, with the remnants of shredded containers still hanging off like bits of gristle off a corpse.

The white tower turned red as they approached. A pair of large beams of light illuminated the hauler, and many warning lights lit up over the dash.

“We’re going to have to time this right…” Freddie hovered a hand over a button that looked like it had been added to the dash.

“Time what right? Freddie?”

“Just one moment…” he watched the red lights grow in intensity, and the group of pursuing security force vehicles pull off from their pursuit. There was a moment where the lights that followed the hauler blinked out, the white tower appearing as it had. Normal. Calm. Then the red bloomed into a pair of small suns on either side of the gate. Beams of light poured out, distorting the air with their heat and potential energy. Freddie hit the button, and the world darkened.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

A dark gem of energy formed around the hauler, a prism of hardlight. The two red beams slipped into the gem and abruptly changed directions. One shot vertically, a straight red line that reached space and kept going. The other wrapped under the vehicle and sliced across the wall in a long, whipping motion. The light didn’t pierce the wall, but every inch of it that it touched evaporated into expanding gases. As did the driver’s side engine the beam had clipped on its way through.

“Shit!” Karla shouted as the hauler was lifted by an explosion of vaporized metals. Freddie pulled the hauler down, just barely making into the gate. Vehicles passing through swerved out of the way as tons of gear poured over the passage. The orange glow of a scan washed over the vehicle.

“Well, they have our faces now…” He pulled the craft into a rising arc as they left the gate.

“What if they fire again?” Karla looked back, watching for the red glow.

“They won’t be able to, not yet…”

Lights and warnings erupted over the dash. Rockets and projectiles fired from the around the gate, a swarm of micro-rockets homed in, detonating in small hand grenade-sized explosions. The hauler shook and bounced in the storm of weaponry. Suddenly, it halted. The craft rose upwards in silence, the main engines destroyed.

“Shit… they’ve stopped firing,” said Freddie.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Karla readied herself for a fight.

Freddie looked over as the vehicle arced over the city, slowing its rise. “They probably recognized me from the scan… I was wanted by multiple agencies when I fled south. Sorry, I didn’t want to alarm you.”

“So we were fucked from the start.” She shook her head. “You should have told me you were wanted by the fucking City and Church!”

“I’m sorry.” His gaze fell to the case strapped behind her back. “Run. Don’t fight. When we hit the ground, no matter what happens to me, that case is more important. Just take it and move on, okay?”

Karla felt the case. “What’s inside?”

“Like I said, my life’s work.”

“No. What is it?” Karla undid the loops that held it in place and pulled the small case out. It didn’t feel dangerous, it didn’t even look important.

He looked at the case for a moment. “Technology. Everything I’ve worked on, built up to that box. That’s what they’re after, that’s why they’re chasing us. If that can get to my contacts, I’ll be happy. Please, just deliver it.”

Karla hesitated. This felt like something she didn’t want to get involved with, still… She sighed. “Dammit Freddie. I’ll take it, just don’t go dying on me.”

He gave her a faint grin as the craft began to descend. “I won’t die.”

The ship built up speed as it dropped. They had arced high over the city, even surpassing the habs in their massive presences. Below, the dense rooftops of the habs were visible. Some rooftops were simple or full of machinery, but the ones directly below them were full of life. Small towers, glistening steel and glass spires, all luxurious, and elegant. The hab they were heading towards was a bit more lit up than most. A stadium, or an arena of some kind sat over one side, a great black bowl of interwoven steel, filled with lights, crowds, and a large open area in its center.

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In the dying minutes of the act, only Jack Ripper and four others were left.

Jack’s last name wasn’t Ripper, but the organizers had labeled him as some kind of drugged up psycho to the crowds, with a name to match. He had heard his stage name was based off of some murderer from before the Upheaval, but he didn’t care about its history. He was just wishing he’d been faster when those loan sharks had chased him down.

He hadn’t read the contract too closely, but somehow his failure to pay had lead him to be standing in the middle of a large arena on the top of some hab. He was almost excited when they said the reward for ‘winning’ was a permanent residence inside the hab itself. A goal he’d never dreamed of getting the chance to achieve.

He now stood in the middle of a large field of gray concrete, already slick with the blood of others. The three professional gladiators had easily cut down four men chained together, a group of six women armed with a spears, various teams of two armed with complimenting weaponry, and lastly two identical scrawny fellows with axes. All of which were apparently seasoned killers and out for blood according to the announcers. The shrieks and quick deaths said otherwise.

“Oh! And that is the end of the twin sewer psychos!” The announcers voices echoed across the arena. “Give it up for the incredible gladiators, your hometown heroes, the Roman War Dogs!”

A roar rose up, the three gladiators turned and waved their bloody weapons to the crowd. The only wound on the gladiators was from a spear. One of the women had thrown it at the back of one gladiator, only to be viciously cut down by the other two.

Jack looked over the sword he’d been handed before being shoved out here. Simple steel, a sharp edge. No heatblades here. The crowds wanted blood and spectacle. The white tunic the ‘challengers’ had been given embodied that. Any cut stained the pristine white cloth, leaving bloody corpses strewn across the arena. He glanced over at the other survivors. There were two. Technically this was now an even three-on-three fight. Except these last three were the cowards who had run when their compatriots had been cut down.

“Come on! What are you waiting for? Tomorrow? I don’t have all day!” A gladiator with a large bronze helm and a spiked mace shouted, his voice amplified for the crowd. A roar of laughter echoed across the stadium.

“Please! I-I can’t!” A thin, balding man held a net in front of himself.

Poor bastard, Jack thought, a net. How do you defend yourself with a net?

Not well, it turned out. The man threw the net vaguely at one of them, and it slumped to the ground in a limp bundle at the gladiator's feet. The man squealed in terror and ran away, much to the amusement of the crowd.

The gladiator’s shoulders lifted in a chuckle. He glanced at his partners and they nodded. They began to close in on the last survivors.

Jack watched as the three took one each, the man with the slight spear wound approaching him with a long, curved cleaver. He had segmented armor over his arms, though his torso was bare. The man turned away from him, raising his hands, making himself look defenseless. Jack knew it was all a game, he’d seen this man perform this exact move twice already, no way was he going to rush in like an idiot and get cut down like the others had. He took his sword, and threw it instead.

A clean arc. Perfect. The man snapped his head around, just in time for the blade to bury itself in the man’s eye slot. He shrieked as he fell to the ground, twitched for a moment, then laid still, dead.

A roar came up through the crowd, shouts and laughter and jeers rained down onto the two remaining gladiators.

“Now you’ve done it.” One pointed his mace at Jack.

Jack blinked at the dead gladiator. He was hoping to distract the man, then run. Where to, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t expect to actually kill him. He looked up at the two gladiators who closed in. The net man and a woman with a trident both scurried off, not even thinking of helping him. Jack cursed them for running, not that he had helped when the first group had all died. He picked up a short spear from a ragged corpse and held it out, backing away as he did.

He felt it. Something dangerous was coming. Something deadly… but it wasn’t these two. He had a gift, and like many other gifted people it was borderline useless. He could sense danger. He never knew what it was, and didn’t have the power or ability to avoid the danger. He had what most would call a useless gift. The roar of the crowd built as the two closed in, it grew even more once Jack stopped retreating. The gladiators were mere feet away, when the roar became a cacophonous boom.

The floor shook, knocking Jack onto his back as he coughed in the thick cloud of dust. Something had arrived, and arrived fast. Where the two gladiators had just stood, now laid a long ditch that begun through the upper stands on one side of the stadium, and ended across the concrete floor. Something had slid by at an incredible speed, coming to a stop through a wall.

An exit. Jack’s only thought was the glorious opening now in the side of the arena. He jogged, then ran, and soon he was sprinting. The other two survivors made it through the hole before him, disappearing into the dark halls that laid behind the walls. He didn’t care if he was allowed to stay in the hab, or if he would be thrown back onto the streets, he just wanted to live. He threw down his spear and ran faster. As he approached the hole, a cyborg stepped out, a sword longer than it was tall in its hands.