“Don’t fuck with lancers too hard, ever. Learned that lesson in my youth. See, they try to put on a good show of being respectable, honorable warriors, but push them too far, in the wrong way, and they’ll fuck you up. Let’s just say I’m called, ‘One-Arm’ for a reason, and there’s a story behind it that involves a very pissed off lancer. Everyone else who was on my ship that day is still on that ship, albeit in pieces.”

—Eldibor Abscrond, famed pirate lord, in his post retirement memoir, The Other Ship: the Inner Life of Pirates as told by the Scourge of the Star-lanes

Zaina held her hands up. “You sure that thing’s working? Pretty sure that bombing run did a number on Fell’s hostages, too.”

“Not when he ushers them into shelters,” Ardual said. “The instruments are calibrated to account for user error. No, the only explanation here, is a falsehood. You’re standing with them.”

Sensing the situation turning against her, Zaina summoned her cipher and readied her hex-guard. There was no way out. Sweat was dripping off her face and caking all over her body as her muscles tensed. She wasn’t ready for this.

The mercenaries laughed. Ardual pointed and said, “Look at the little lancer! She’s gonna kill us all, all by herself. Oh, we’re trembling in our boots, we are!”

A quick glance around told Zaina she wasn’t getting out of this without a lot of luck. However, right when the mercenaries seemed primed to fire, another familiar voice cracked through the air.

“Stop!”

The word belonged to Ondor, who strode to the front of Ardual’s rider. He stared down at Zaina, sighed, and said, “Captain Gilvus, I thought you performed your job.”

“I did!” the captain shot back. “I told her it was Fell that hired me like you told me to. I don’t know what she’s doing here.”

“Zaina,” Ondor said, “why have you done this? Sided with those barbarians—do you know what you’ve done, how much it costs me to keep these mercenaries here another day? Why, I’m losing rebu by the second that that little village still stands.”

Her last hope was that Ondor would see reason. Zaina said, “I have a way that they can leave—”

Ondor waved the idea aside. “No, I’ll not hear it. I purchased this planet for my use—including everything on it not protected by Synatorium law. Those people legally belong to me, and I’ll not hear otherwise.”

Her eyes narrowed into a death-glare. So Fell was telling the truth. “So, what—you’re going to kill them like you did everyone else?”

“At this point, yes,” Ondor said, a hint of boredom in his voice. “You know, I’m disappointed. All the money I give to the Order over the years and this is the thanks I get? This is how my contributions are repaid? No wonder most of the civilized galaxy holds their little cult in such low regard.” He was no longer talking to Zaina. “Gilvus, take your rider and fix your mistake—dispose of the girl. Fredan, you and your team will help him. The rest of us are heading to—what did she call it, again? Freewater?” He scoffed. “You know, I’ll give it to them—they gave their pile of desert trash a fittingly poor name. Come, let’s get this over with. I know some of you are itching to see your families—and after two years, I want to see the bastard dead myself.”

A rowdy round of whoops and cheers erupted from the mercenaries as Ondor’s desert rider, the transports, and the dreich all broke off, making for Freewater.

“No!” Zaina shouted, then raised her hex-guard right as an energy bolt closed in from above—the crushing impact sent waves of pain up her hand, through her arm, and into her shoulder and chest as she was thrown back ten feet, skidding to a halt on her back.

Gilvus fired off another few rounds, some scorching the sand near Zaina’s face, some smashing against her hex-guard and jamming her arm with fresh agony. She increased the hex-guard’s size to cover her entire body as the biriflers, having descended to ground level, pelted her shield with munitions— the hex-guard held out against explosive, incendiary, and electromagnetic rounds, but each hit took its toll. Each impact pressed Zaina’s back further into the sand. The bones in her shield arm were about to break. Heat engulfed her entire body from the bombardment. Black spots danced across her vision.

Gilvus’s voice cut through the invading darkness. “First one who brings me her head gets a promotion to captain third-grade! Make it happen, and fast!”

The biriflers approached, keeping her pinned to the ground with a steady barrage of fire. When they were close enough, they surrounded her and started punching and kicking at the shield, but she held it tightly to her body. One birifler dug his arm through the sand and grabbed her hand from below.

“Come on out, little lancer!”

“One to the brain, you won’t feel a thing! Promise!”

“No! Stop!” Zaina shrieked, but was unable to pull her arm away amid the chaos. The mercenaries laughed and chortled as they kicked and stomped her guard to roll her over. One of them pulled out a knife and tried to jam it beneath the guard. Her heart was about to jump out of her chest—and despite the situation, the last thing she wanted to do was hurt anyone.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Please, stop!” she shouted, but there was no mercy. The mercenaries mocked her cries as they kept up their assault. A sharp crack pierced her ears as the hex-guard, at its limit for punishment, started to break apart.

No, no, no—I don’t want to die—

“Can’t hide forever!”

“Come out and play!”

The birifler yanked on her wrist, nearly pulling her out—she managed to resist, staying under her fading cover; it was hopeless. Zaina was about to die, and here these people were laughing away like it was all a joke to them. Which it was—her life, the lives of the people of Freewater, everyone’s life—it was all one big joke to these people. They’d laugh while they killed Zaina and sleep perfectly well.

“Come on, little girl!”

“Come out and fight, little lancer!”

“Please!” she cried. “Please, I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

Another round of laughter broke out. “All the easier for us!”

Something in Zaina’s brain snapped—there, getting beaten down in the sand by mercenaries who mocked her struggle as she tried to defend innocent people—hearing their laughter, hearing the sheer joy in their voices—it was unforgivable. In her mind was a split, a fracture that broke her. They weren’t going to stop. She wanted to live—and she wanted them to pay.

As the hex-guard cracked apart, a raspy, crazed shriek erupted from Zaina’s lungs. The birifler holding her wrist tried to pull back, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him into a punch; with a sickening, moist crunch, her fist sank into his chest, caving it in, and then pierced through to the other side, ejecting his heart and torn sections of his lungs. A layer of fresh, dripping blood drenched her outstretched arm, and the man spat up a mouthful on her face, emitting weak, choking gurgles as his body shook and jerked about.

The biriflers stepped back in shock, their expressions having turned from jolly to fearful; exactly like Zaina wanted.

She pulled her arm free, allowing the soon-to-be-corpse to fall—in one smooth motion, she snatched the falling man’s birifle out of the air by the barrel—pivoting, she roared and smashed the butt into the next closest foe’s head. The man’s helmet shattered and his skull cracked open like an egg, showering brain matter and blood on the sand and snapping the birifle in two.

By now the others had their birifles trained on her, but it was too late—Zaina sidestepped a haphazard, panicked salvo of scraps and charged. Somehow, her cipher was in her hands, and with a full-powered swing, she diagonally bisected the first enemy. A scream burst from her throat as the next-closest mercenary was decapitated from the upper-jaw mid-cry, falling to the ground and spewing blood into the sand. Within seconds the remaining biriflers were finely minced.

Zaina stood over their dismembered corpses, breathing heavily—instinct took over, and she leaped to the side to avoid a bolt of green energy as it crashed into the sand, further mutilating a mercenary’s torso. She turned toward the rider—Gilvus was atop it, pistol drawn; several of Fredan’s long, mechanical arms were extending from his backpack, helping him descend the desert rider’s legs.

Oh, he wants to play.

After sidestepping another bolt, Zaina drew her particle hook-gun and launched the tracker into Fredan’s chest. One of his arms curled inward to peel it off, but not before Zaina pulled the trigger and rocketed toward him at high speed—her cipher dissipated as she reached out and crashed her open palm against the mercenary captain’s head, pulling him off the rider’s legs. They flew for thirty feet before Zaina landed and smashed his head into the ground, shattering his skull and smearing its contents in a red-and-gray line across the desert sand. She slowly rose and turned back to Gilvus, who was already lining up his next shot.

Zaina leaped aside, avoiding a salvo of bolts; in her mind, every limp thud from one of Gilvus’s shots impacting the sand only further cemented her victory. No more running—no more hiding.

With a roar, Zaina reactivated her hex-guard at normal size and ran straight for the desert rider. Gilvus desperately fired rounds off, but Zaina batted aside or dodged every blast—she was moving faster than she ever had, faster than she thought possible; she had a hair’s breadth of a split-second to react, and that was more than enough with a little anticipation.

The desert blurred by as Zaina leaped at full speed, batting bolts aside with her hex-guard while shouting furiously. A metal clank rang out as she landed atop the desert rider’s nose. Gilvus, his human eye staring in horror, was less than five feet away, and was aiming his phase cycler—

Before he got a shot off, Zaina sliced through Gilvus’s arm at the elbow. Crying out, he turned to jump off the rider. Zaina caught the back of his shirt and held him midair for a moment as he kicked and screamed. With a shriek, she slammed his stomach against the floor.

A glint caught Zaina’s eye—Gilvus had a grenade in his other hand. She sliced through his wrist and kicked his severed hand off the ship. It detonated too far away to hurt anyone.

“Now,” she said, “let’s get that microchip out, shall we?”

Giving a panicked grunt, Gilvus tried to crawl away. Zaina stepped on his back, pinning him to the ground.

“Ah! Get away from me, you crazy bitch! Stop! No! Please!”

“Oh, come on, now,” she replied, “fair’s fair, isn’t it? You weren’t upset when it was me dying.”

“No—please! Please don’t kill me! Please—”

“And why not?” she asked, pressing her foot into his torso. Sparks and metal screeching erupted from his back as it slowly collapsed—but she knew better than to think that’d be enough. Gilvus’s screams of pain were real, though.

The mercenary captain shrieked and begged for his life as Zaina leaned down, grabbed his head from both sides, and pulled. His metal spine refused to relinquish his skull, so she extracted that, too—with a series of damp pops and crunches, she removed his head and spinal cord. It was made up of millions of miniscule connective wires, all covered in sticky, clear fluid; mixed in were multi-colored oils spewing from the gaping hole atop Gilvus’s torso.

Zaina turned the head around to stare into his eyes. She wanted to be the last thing he saw—and heard.

In a low voice, she spat, “You made me do this. I hope there’s a hell for you to go to, you fucking—”

With all her strength, Zaina pushed inward and crushed his head with both hands. Then, she did it again, folding the part-android-part-human metal skull in on itself. Not a chance of a microchip surviving that. With a primal growl, she threw the flattened head into the desert.

Zaina’s chest rose and fell with deep, heaving breaths as she took in the carnage she’d created. Suddenly, her legs were wobbly, her inhales sharp. She fell to her knees, moisture stinging her eyes, her lungs giving deep, sobbing spasms. It was too late to hold back tears now—she wept uncontrollably, pounding her fists against the hull of the desert rider.

After two straight minutes of crying, Zaina struggled to her feet. Ondor and the rest of his mercenary army were going to Freewater—she glanced over at the bodies once more, unsure of how to feel. None of it had alleviated the anger still searing the inside of her chest.

With a leap, Zaina descended from the desert rider. Upon landing, she broke into a sprint. With blood already spilled, it was too late to prevent things from turning ugly—but it wasn’t too late to save Freewater’s people.

I hope.