“Best not to mess with folk who’ve made it their life’s work to survive in harsh places.”
—Former CID Lawman Aster Parga
Zaina scrambled to stand up and pulled herself atop the plateau. The children immediately noticed them and stopped playing.
“Hello!” Xyrthe said, waving.
The kids ran away screaming, tearing back toward the village.
Zaina turned to Xyrthe and asked, “Should we follow them?”
Her mentor nodded. “Yeah, something’s up with this place. Let’s get in there.”
With a nod, Zaina reached for the particle hook-gun strapped to her waist, but Xyrthe shook her head and said, “No, not with that. I think we should take it slow.”
“Take it slow?” Zaina asked, incredulous.
Staring at their quarry, her mentor replied, “Yeah. Who knows, maybe they are willing to talk—and if they are, I’d rather not blow that chance by approaching the wrong way.”
At a loss for words, Zaina scoffed. This whole time Xyrthe had seemed like she wanted to get this over with—get in, kill Fell, get out. She preached vigilance and caution—and now she wanted to walk headfirst toward a town that, for all they knew, was guarded by a psychopath with long-range weaponry?
When her mouth was able to form words again, Zaina hissed, “What about the mission?!”
Xyrthe glared. “The mission is whatever we decide it is. We assess the situation and proceed however we deem best for the commonwealth of the galaxy. We don’t have to kill Fell just because that’s what that asshole Ondor wants.”
“Fell sent marauders after us! Captain Gilvus, or whatever that guy’s name was! He’s going to attack the second he lays eyes on us!”
“Then we let him,” Xyrthe said, activating her hex-guard. Without waiting for Zaina’s response, she started strolling toward the desert village.
After a frustrated, raspy sigh prickled Zaina’s throat and escaped her lips, she turned her own hex-guard on and jogged to catch up. After pulling up beside her mentor, she said, “I still think this is a bad idea.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure about it myself. But I have a feeling—”
A green bolt launched from the city and rocketed over their heads. Heart pounding in her throat, Zaina raised the hex-shield and got down on one knee, making herself as small a target as possible.
We’re out in the open—we’re dead, she thought, closing her eyes and awaiting the end.
The next shot never came. When Zaina opened her eyes, Xyrthe was standing tall behind her, having turned off her hex-guard. Her mentor leaned over and said, “It was a warning shot.”
“So they want us to stay away?”
“Yes—or if we gotta come, we gotta come right.”
Not quite sure what she meant, Zaina rose. Keeping her hex-guard active, she followed closely behind Xyrthe, who appeared unbothered. At a leisurely pace they made their way into the town—the outskirts were littered with trash half-covered by the sands; blankets, sheets of tin and rotted board, and broken wooden toys were all held by the desert.
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Up close, the people’s homes were even more disheveled. Every structure aside from the central tower was patchwork, rigged up with rope and kept together with prayers. Some people milled about, but most were inside the decrepit shacks, peeking out from holes in the wood and tin walls, or from behind hanging blankets where walls once were.
At the forefront was a mechanical bodysuit, gunmetal-gray and black of color with stripes of gold and navy-blue. Marks and scratches covered nearly every inch of the outer surface. It stood eleven feet tall, with great, broad shoulders, tree trunks for arms, and tall barrels for legs, with exhaust ports and thrust-boosters for mobility. The chest panel was fastened together like a zipper, with faint blue and red lights bleeding through from the canopy. The helmet was short and dome-shaped, with a cracked red visor above a circular breathing filter with prongs like the teeth of a wild beast. A gold-lined, tattered dark-red cape hung from the suit’s massive pauldrons, hovering a foot above the desert floor. Two makeshift turrets, each loaded with explosive ordinance, were connected to the shoulders, and a roll of scrap peletins was looped through one of his arms.
Both of its hands were outstretched, holding something resembling a sword—the edge was ten feet long by itself and had been strapped to a large, oversized engine and grafted into the bodysuit’s right palm. A handle jutted from the engine’s other side for two-handed wielding. The blade, sharpened from a massive hunk of metal, was buried in the ground. It was as damaged as its wielder, with notches running up and down either side.
Standing beside the bodysuit was a dark-skinned woman with a wide-brimmed hat, a gray checkered blouse, and black combat pants and boots. On her shoulder was a patch Zaina couldn’t make out. There was fire in the woman’s eyes as she stared down the scope of a birifle with a phase cycler attachment—aimed directly at Zaina.
Xyrthe stopped forty feet from the bodysuit, and Zaina stepped up beside her. Silence hung over the town and its visitors as both sides took measure of the other. Zaina gulped—the bodysuit had enough firepower to kill them a few hundred times over.
Finally, Xyrthe broke the ice. Stepping forward, she said in a loud voice, “Thanks for the warning shot.”
The birifler scoffed and gestured toward the person next to her. “His idea—heretics.”
“Lancers, actually,” Xyrthe shot back.
The woman flinched, then glared and tightened her grip on the birifle. “Nice try, but they don’t accept your kind.”
Xyrthe rolled her eyes. “Whatever, lady.”
The bodysuit pulled the sword from the ground and took a step forward. A slightly distorted voice—deep but calm, authoritative but a little friendly—emitted from the suit’s helmet. “Leda, that’s enough.” The war-suit’s helmet then tipped forward in a nod toward Zaina and Xyrthe. The voice continued, “Pardon the hostility, but I had to know your intentions—best way I’ve found, is to let ‘em know you know see ‘em. They try to go around, find another way in, ain’t no need for talking ‘cause you know what they’re there for. But someone who approaches honest, direct—that person, I’ll meet face-to-face.”
Xyrthe smirked. “Direct always works best, I’ve found.”
“Yeah,” the man replied, “would’ve been less talking any other way. But, seeing as you’re a rarity—strangers not immediately opening fire or trying to kill me, I’m intrigued enough to hear you out. You’ve got my attention for another minute or so.”
Without hesitation, Xyrthe said, “We were asked by Ondor Almada to track down a dangerous criminal by the name of Reister Fell. I’m guessing that’s you.”
“All right, now you’ve really got my attention.” The bodysuit shifted slightly, as if preparing for things to go wrong. “And let me guess, he sent you to talk?”
“Ostensibly,” Xyrthe replied, “but I think you and I both know he was hoping we’d kill you instead.”
After a pause, the metal fastenings on the war-suit’s chest unraveled, revealing a blue-furred Cytomoid in similar clothing to the woman beside him, but with a bigger patch on his shoulder. He placed a foot on the front of the bodysuit’s canopy and rested an elbow on his knee as he leaned out to examine Xyrthe and Zaina, his free hand resting near a scrapshot pistol strapped to his waist.
In a calm voice, he said, “All right, you came all this way looking for Reister Fell—well, you’ve found him, though here I go by the warden. And what exactly do you plan to do now that you’ve got me in front of you?”
Zaina shot Xyrthe a glance—this was their target, the man responsible for so much suffering, standing before them. This was the person they’d come all this way to stop. Her mentor shrugged, then turned to Zaina.
“Well, rook?” she asked. “How do you want to play this? I think we should at least hear them out if they’re willing to talk.”
Tired of the games, Zaina seized the moment. She took a step forward and summoned her cipher, pointing it at their target. Xyrthe shot her a surprised glance—the birifler, weapon still trained on Zaina, twitched, but didn’t fire. Fell didn’t react.
In a low voice, Zaina said, “Reister Fell—you’re going to answer for your crimes.”