“Anyone who says pretty much any serious topic is simple is usually some combination of stupid and malicious.”

—Rezori Afaraium, Professor of Non-Linear Mathematics at The Vylensus Institute of Mathematics

Once the desert rider came to a stop, Chimara detached from the control panel and rested on Xyrthe’s shoulder. The glyph was whispering something into Xyrthe’s ear, too low for Zaina to make out. Her mentor nodded, her expression solemn.

“Hey, rook,” Xyrthe called out. “You get down there and get the fire started, all right? I want to, uh, run a test.”

Even though Zaina knew Xyrthe had mischief in mind, she couldn’t think of a reason to protest; she climbed down the ladder and started kicking at the sand to make a pit.

Xyrthe peeked her head over the edge of the transport and shouted, “Not right beneath the rider, dummy!”

Zaina groaned and walked twenty feet clear of the desert rider before starting to clear another fire-pit. A metallic shriek burrowed into her ears—her head swiveled toward the desert rider. Xyrthe had plunged her cipher—a bright-blue spear with streaks of red running from tip to bottom—into the heart of their transport. Foul, black smoke emitted where it was pierced.

Zaina reached out, mouth opening to shout; before a word came out, Xyrthe retrieved her cipher and leaped into the air. With a grunt, she heaved the spear downward, striking the desert rider in the same spot and running it through—with an ear-splitting shriek, the transport burst into flames. It rumbled and creaked, then broke apart, each burning piece falling into the sands.

Xyrthe, with her propulsion system active, glided to the ground near Zaina, who had her hand raised and was shaking.

In a loud, trembling voice, she asked, “Wh—what the hell was that about?”

A smirk spread over Xyrthe’s lips. “I have my reasons.”

“What? No!” Zaina stood and took deep breaths, trying to quell her racing heartbeat and stop her body’s shaking. Then she shouted, “That’s not good enough! You need to tell me what’s going on right now!”

A deep sigh erupted from Xyrthe as she tilted her head back. “Fine.” She met Zaina’s gaze. “That transport was bugged.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Chimara ran some diagnostics on the changes made to the rider,” Xyrthe said. “It had an implanted recording device so our friend Ondor could listen in on our conversation, make sure we were still on a path that benefitted him. Now we can talk freely.”

Zaina’s mouth was agape as she shook her head. “Next time warn me when you’re going to do something stupid like that!”

Xyrthe shrugged. “I couldn’t. If I warned you, it would’ve given it away to Ondor over the recorder. This way, maybe he thinks the marauders did it.”

At the end of her rope, Zaina shouted, “What do you have against him, anyway?! He’s done nothing to us this whole time! So what if he wants to put recorders on his transports, hear what people are saying? Why do you think he’s so evil?”

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“Because I’ve met people like him before,” Xyrthe said. “People—lancers—entire worlds, they’re all just transactions to him. I had him pegged the moment I met him.”

“Yeah, well,” Zaina replied, heat rising in her neck and cheeks, “maybe he’s that bad, maybe he’s not—but either way, isn’t stopping Reister Fell a positive? Isn’t this what we’re supposed to do—stop dangerous bad guys?”

Xyrthe scoffed. “I doubt this Reister Fell’s half as dangerous as that bloated idiot Ondor says. If he really was this awful, terror-inducing warlord, do you think Ondor would even come to this planet in person—much less without a much, much bigger private army? I mean, he’s got what, four or five people on his personal detail? And this Fell is supposed to be some blood-thirsty, unstoppable force—no, I don’t buy it.”

Zaina threw her hands up. “Then what’s the play? We go back to Ondor, tell him he’s the real villain here, and ignore Fell? Go back to the Order and explain to them why one of their donors isn’t going to be able to make contributions anymore?”

With an incredulous expression, Xyrthe said, “Do you actually think the Order cares about any one donor? It’s not like the galaxy has a shortage of rich assholes who think they can buy their way into having us as their personal mercenaries.”

Zaina’s jaw dropped—she was at a loss for words. As her gaze fell to the ground, her shoulders slumped, her body sinking under an invisible weight.

Xyrthe sighed and closed her eyes. With a shake of her head, she said, “Look—I have no doubt Reister Fell’s a bad person. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. They can both be dicks. If this mission is still really what you want to do, I’ll help because I kind of have to. But if we go through with it, expect me to complain.”

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to return a spark of enthusiasm to Zaina, lightening the weight; she perked up and said, “I still do. Ondor may be bad like you say, but I’ll bet Fell’s worse—and we can do something about him right now.”

A yelp escaped Zaina’s lips as Xyrthe clapped her on the back. “That’s the spirit—choosing violence. Now you’re a true lancer, through and through.”

The spark was gone as quickly as it came. Zaina shook her head. “That’s not what this is about. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, either. And that means—”

“Stopping bad people, yes. You’ve already said that,” Xyrthe said, rolling her eyes. “Pretty simplistic view of the universe, don’t you think?”

“Isn’t that what you think, too?” Zaina asked, annoyance spilling over into her voice.

“Huh?”

“Well, you think Ondor and other people like him are bad, don’t you? Isn’t that a little simplistic?”

An amused smile crossed Xyrthe’s lips. “Well, maybe we’re not so different after all.”

Zaina threw her hands up. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“Yeah, well,” Xyrthe said lazily, “no one ever said I was easy to work with. Come on, rook, get ready for a long walk. I have a feeling those marauders are gonna catch wind of us.”

Under her breath, Zaina said, “Yeah, probably because you blew up our transport.”

“What was that?”

Zaina’s mouth opened to say, “Nothing,” but the word wouldn’t come. Instead she replied, “I said, probably because you blew up our transport.”

To Zaina’s surprise, her mentor wasn’t angry. Xyrthe nodded and said, “I’m glad you had the balls to say it to my face.”

“I don’t have—”

“It doesn’t matter!” Xyrthe said in a stern voice. “You really want to sail through the desert on a thing like this, anyway? Look at it—we have no cover on that top deck. If we get attacked, we’re completely exposed from every direction. Our only play would be to jump down, probably under heavy fire. And what do I say about being midair in a gunfight?”

Zaina rolled her eyes and said, “Never be midair in a gunfight.”

“That’s right. You’re making yourself an easy target for people with processing chips—like our friend Veimla back there. Look, the point is, those desert riders were probably designed for peacetime transport through uncontested territory. If we rode in on that thing we’d get fucked up.”

A frustrated grunt escaped Zaina’s lips, prickling her throat. “So what, then? We walk through the desert and hope the marauders don’t notice us?”

Xyrthe snort-laughed. “You really think these pirates don’t have scanning equipment that can pinpoint active engines? Or eyes that can see a fucking ten-foot desert rider sailing the sands? Get real. They probably already know about us, and besides, what’s done is done, anyway. We’re walking.”

“Right now?” Zaina asked. “I thought you were hungry!”

Xyrthe’s lips pulled into a taut frown as she shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder about you, kid.”

Without another word, Xyrthe turned and continued on the same path as before. A deep sigh rushed from Zaina’s chest before she followed her mentor into the twisting sands on foot.