Cade was beginning to miss the days when no one expected a thing from him.
“Cade, I know what you’re thinking, and I get it,” Kira said. “I’m afraid, too. I am. But this is our chance. This is our only chance to make a difference. And that’s why I’m saying that being in this place might be, I don’t know, fate.”
“Don’t even talk to me about fate,” Cade grumbled.
“Okay, not fate. It’s the opposite, in fact, because we’re not sitting around waiting for the solution to drop into our laps. We can make the solution ourselves.”
“Kira, take a look around,” Cade snapped. “You are surrounded by nothing but criminals—”
Kira interrupted, raising her voice above Cade’s. “Who’ve been to every corner of the galaxy and back. Someone has to know how Praxis shields the War Hammer, and if we can just find that one—”
“You’re talking about people who can’t be trusted and have no interest, none, in helping you. Or anyone else that isn’t themselves.”
Cade stopped and realized he’d been yelling. He felt his chest as it swelled and contracted in rapid bursts. The discussion had gotten too personal—Kyysring made it personal; the Rokura and the albatross it was to Cade made it personal. Kira couldn’t have understood any of this, though, and as he scanned the crowd to make sure they hadn’t caught unwanted attention, he felt disappointment in himself for lashing out at her.
Kira stepped close to Cade and brought her voice down to a conciliatory hush. “What are we going to do then, Cade? Just sit back and watch Praxis destroy our home and seize total control of the galaxy? Unless you’ve magically become the Paragon in the past five minutes, my plan is all we have.”
“That’s low,” Cade said.
“I don’t mean it to be, but it’s the truth. You want to be pissed about fate?” Kira asked, impassioned. “Then be pissed that we allowed the idea of the Paragon to control all of our fates. We sat around like idiots, myself included, when we should have been working to save ourselves.”
Since Tristan’s death, Cade found himself wishing, desperately, to see him one last time. He dreamed of his brother; he had him in his thoughts all the time. Memories of things he said, memories of the moments they shared, memories, simply, of what he looked like. All things that, he knew, would fade in time. But if he had one last moment with him, one last memory he could freeze in amber and know to hang on to because he knew it’d be their last, he felt like that could see him through the wilderness he was lost in. All he wanted was to ask Tristan what do. His brother always had the answers. He always knew where to direct the both of them. And now, when Cade needed him most, he was gone. His final words came to mind: Tristan had apologized. Cade couldn’t understand what he could possibly be sorry for, but now he understood: He knew he was leaving Cade alone, and in his final moment, all he had on his mind was Cade’s well-being, knowing that he couldn’t guide him any longer. Knowing that, for the first time, Cade would be on his own.
Cade couldn’t run. In everything they’d been through together, Tristan never had them hide. He never made them abandon their courage. Cade refused to go against his brother’s example now.
“All right,” Cade said, resolved.
“All right? All right what?”
“That thing you said about us saving ourselves? Tristan said the same thing. He agreed, completely.”
“Sooooo…” Kira said, tilting her head so her smiling face crowded Cade’s vision.
“Don’t be cute, it’s unbecoming.”
Kira clapped her hands like she was smashing their discussion. It was over; the decision was made. Now it was time to get to work. “All right, then. So, who can we find to help get this thing made? A smuggler? A disgraced Praxis soldier willing to trade some secrets? What’s on the menu around here?”
Cade scanned the area, considering all the paths open to them. There was no shortage of unscrupulous options all around, but only one provided Cade with at least a little bit of confidence.
“We want someone who knows how to make things, someone who has an eye on getting a leg up on everyone else,” he said. He then turned down a narrow alleyway where a trio of zep addicts were roasting botho meat over a flame that roared out of the bottom half of what was once a service drone. “If you want to find people trying to outdo each other with crazy tech, there’s only one place to go.”
“And where’s that?” Kira asked.
Cade stopped and looked back over his shoulder at Kira. “The drone fighting pit.”
* * *
The galactic consensus on drone modification was clear: The practice was immoral, cruel, and, therefore, forbidden. Even though the decision to outlaw customization was driven by a philosophical premise, the Galactic Alliance spent an unusually small amount of time passing an official ban. To be fair, the Alliance’s deliberation was buoyed by an overwhelming majority of sentient, drone-owning beings from across the galaxy who all agreed that, over time, drones unquestionably developed their own personalities. They had their own likes and dislikes, their own sense of humor, and in some cases their own prejudices, much to most people’s chagrin, against alien cultures. All of which defied their programming and demonstrated the capacity to become individuals, bringing into question the very idea of sentience. As such, the manufacturing of drones—from companion drones to stellarbots—continued unabated; but once they were activated for the first time—their “birth” date—any further modification, save necessary repairs or routine updates, was illegal.
Except on Kyysring.
The drone fighting pit was exactly as advertised—it was a pit. Dug into the reserve of the planetoid’s softest minerals, the oval fighting ring descended deep into the ground, while an arena expanded upward and out from its center. The grandstand’s seating pods were stacked in staggered columns all the way up to where the vestibule and its fortified walls separated the arena from the outside world. The place smelled of grease and, strangely, of blood, both of which commingled with the zep smoke that wafted overhead. Cade closed his arms tightly at his sides and let his wrist rub nonchalantly against the sidewinder that was holstered on his waist. He felt it important to make sure it was still there.
When Cade and Kira entered the arena, the final match of the undercard was getting under way. On one side of the oval pit stood an older model alpha drone, upgraded so that it was now equipped with a shield welded to its right forearm and a ten-inch blade grafted to its left. Protruding from its protective helmet was a tightly bunched collection of wires, grounded in the drone’s central nervous system located in its spine. Cade assumed these wires enabled more advanced enhancements like speed, reflexes, and battle readiness. The drone would need all the help it could get, as its opponent, a Nootharian service drone that’d undergone such extensive modifications Cade could barely discern its original frame, waited on the opposite side of the oval. Overlaying the Nootharian’s body was a cache of weapons that could have jump-started a small militia—very little was forbidden in the drone pit—including a personal shield generator, and even, if Cade was seeing things correctly, a cloaking device.
“I kind of want that Nootharian drone,” Cade said.
Kira shot him a sidelong glance. “This is disgusting.”
And she was right. But Cade couldn’t help but feel a small amount of exhilaration being in the drone fighting pit. Forbidden to minors—especially poor orphans—the pit tantalized Cade and Tristan, their adolescent imaginations running wild on the possibilities of what happened beyond the giant steel doors that kept them locked out. Because, really, when you stripped away the morality of it all—which didn’t mean all that much to a couple of kids—what remained was robots fighting each other. And that was awesome. Of all the illicit things they witnessed and heard about on Kyysring, they couldn’t imagine anything that would truly shock them. But then there was the pit, taunting them with its promise of robot warfare.
Cade and Kira found an empty pod just as the betting
opened. The pod’s gaming screen turned on, beckoning them to lay a wager. All around them, the near-capacity crowd roared as the lowlifes and crooks made their bets, then immediately lobbed taunts and jeers at their opponent. Cade moved to get his own wager in the mix, but Kira stopped him.
“No,” Kira said, blocking Cade’s coin from the intake slot. “We’re not doing this.”
“You want to blend in?” Cade asked, gently moving Kira’s hand away. “Well, this is how you blend in on Kyysring.”
Kira acquiesced with a grunt, and Cade dropped a fifty coin on the Nootharian drone.
An air horn boomed throughout the arena, bringing the crowd to a roar as the match began. The Nootharian quickly went on the offensive, firing a series of concussive blasts at the alpha drone, which it blocked easily with its shield. With incredible speed, the alpha ran to the pit wall, leapt sideways onto it, and used it as leverage to propel itself toward the Nootharian. It rocketed past the Nootharian, who was too slow to respond, and used its blade to pierce through its shielding and slice off a considerable portion of its weapons array. The crowd exclaimed at the maneuver and the turn of events; they had a real match on their hands.
“What, exactly, are we looking for in this place?” Kira asked, making no attempt to mask her contempt.
“The … thing we’re looking to build—we need someone who can think outside the box. Someone who is willing to take risks that are, well, some may call them unconventional, others may say illegal.…”
The alpha attempted to launch itself at the Nootharian again, but this time it was ready; its forearm broke off into a spinning propeller that sliced off the alpha’s blade just as it was about to strike. The blow silenced the crowd, who, regardless of their wagers, had grown invested in an underdog victory. Cade spotted a lavender-skinned Nootharian in the front row with his arms raised, presumably the drone’s creator, arrogantly calling for the crowd’s cheers.
“And you really think we can trust one of these unconventional risk-takers?”
“On Kyysring, with the right amount of coin,” Cade said, just as the Nootharian ripped off the alpha’s head, “you can buy anything you need. And we just doubled ours.”
Two fifty coins in hand, Cade stepped out of the pod and joined the throng of people heading upward.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Kira yelled after him.
“To get us a drink. Remember? Blending in?”
* * *
In the main concourse, Cade shuffled his way forward, sandwiched between a pair of guffawing Toofars and an amphibious Arkly. The Toofars communicated through a series of guttural sounds that, to Cade, sounded like “ar ar ar” repeated over and over, but to them was a complex language. When the one closest to Cade got a little too worked up about what he was “ar”-ing about, he threw out his arms and shoved Cade onto the Arkly, who was none too happy about their collision. Arklys conveyed their moods by the changing colors of their scales. Though Cade had never seen one in person before, he had to figure that her scales going from a neutral soft gray to seamless black wasn’t indicative of her being amused. Cade smiled, awkwardly, and her scales only got darker.
The line was going nowhere fast, and Cade didn’t want to leave Kira on her own for too long. Not because he was worried about her safety, but because he didn’t trust her to stay out of trouble. Kira didn’t suffer fools lightly, and the pit was crammed full of fools. Inebriated ones, at that. Plus, no shot of root was worth missing the main event, a spectacle he’d practically waited his entire life to see.
Cade sidestepped his way out of the mass of people—holding his arms straight above his head as he went so any contact he made was understood as purely incidental—and onto the concourse ramp leading back to the pits. He turned down an empty corridor that he hoped was a connective artery that would avoid the crowds and lead him back to his pod. It was completely empty, or at least it had been when he entered. But then he heard his name, first and last, echoing off the walls, and it was such an unexpected thing that he assumed he was just hearing things. His name echoed again, and Cade understood that it was no illusion. Somebody was behind him, and that somebody knew who he was.
Cade stopped and considered his best defense: He had a sidewinder at his side and a shido and the Rokura strapped to his back. The latter would take some doing to get free, and, if Cade was being honest with himself—and now was an ideal time to do so—he had to admit he was a slow draw with a sidewinder. Still, it was the surest bet he had to put up some kind of fight. And a fight, he was certain, was what waited for him the moment he turned around. It was just a matter of who it was going to be with. The old-ass Fatebreaker he encountered on Ticus? A bounty hunter? Some Praxis loyalist out to do his overlords a favor? Cade fretted how many people would do anything to get their hands on the Rokura as he whipped around, drawing his sidewinder. But the moment he turned, he knew he didn’t need his weapon. That’s not what kind of fight this was going to be.
“Hello, Cade Sura,” the scarred, portly man said. “How’s life pretending to be the Paragon treating you?”
Cade stammered. Here was a man he never thought he’d see again: Valis Portnoy, infomerchant.
“Valis,” Cade finally said. “It’s … good to see you.”
“Hmmm, I’m sure,” Valis replied. “Come, come closer. We have much to discuss.”
Cade tore his eyes off Valis to assess the stone-faced guards that stood a step behind him, one over each shoulder. They weren’t holding any weapons, though Cade easily identified the shock rifles under their cloaks. It was fair to assume both were very, very quick draws.
That didn’t matter, though, because Valis was the real threat, and Cade had no choice but to start walking straight toward the most dangerous man on Kyysring.
CHAPTER TEN
“Oh, don’t look at me like I just killed your pet meesema, Cade. I haven’t told anyone what I know.”
Cade hadn’t laid eyes on Valis since he was a kid, yet the infomerchant looked remarkably the same. If someone would have asked him, in those intervening years, where he figured Valis was, Cade would’ve assumed he was dead. Not that he wished it, but he figured all the games Valis played and the people he manipulated had to catch up with him at some point. Infomerchanting—collecting dirt, trading secrets, dealing in blackmail with the casualness of brushing your teeth—wasn’t a career known for its longevity. Still, somehow, Valis managed to survive and, judging by his looks and the muscle he could keep on payroll, thrive. He stayed one step ahead of everyone, and Cade feared, with dread settling like a stone in his gut, Valis was half a dozen steps ahead of him.
“Who said anything about me pretending?” Cade asked, trying to shove a noble tone from his mouth, one that took umbrage against Valis’s accusation. “Who would dare?”
“Please,” Valis replied. “You may be surrounded by magical-thinking fools at the Well, but it’s no mystery to me what happened when you and your brother went to retrieve the Rokura. Making sense of information and events is what I do.”
Cade groaned. He knew there was no dodging Valis’s conclusion. Valis knew, and that’s all there was to it. It was just a matter of what he planned on doing with his knowledge.
“So what do you want, then? You know I can’t pay for your silence, and I wouldn’t trust you not to sell me out if I could.”
“Well, someone’s grown curt,” Valis snapped. His brow furrowed, calling attention to the scar tissue that formed over his left eye socket, where an eye used to be. Rumor was he lost the eye after trading information to a gang of gunrunners who were supplying arms to an insurgency against Praxis on Tor-Five. It might have been the only time Valis didn’t come out on top of a dangerous situation. “I never, ever double-cross anyone. That’s bad business.”
“Well excuse me, Valis,” Cade said. “I didn’t know you were so sensitive about your conduct for extortion.”
Valis sighed and eyed Cade up and down. “You look like your father, but you’ve g
ot the fire of your mother. Wasn’t the Well supposed to straighten you out?”
“I guess it didn’t take,” Cade said. And, with such pointedness that it made Valis’s guards gesture toward their rifles, he added, “And don’t talk about my parents.”
Valis casually gestured for his guards to ease, then turned back to Cade. “Understood. I know it’s a difficult subject for you. But I do want to give my condolences for the loss of your brother. I don’t know if you were aware, but Tristan and I crossed paths just a few years ago. He helped me out of a … a misunderstanding, let’s call it. He was one of the good ones, and I know he’ll be missed.”
“Yeah, and you also know he was supposed to be the Paragon, not me. Which gets us back to my question: What do you want?”
Valis began to stroll down the corridor, and Cade walked by his side.
“It’s so generous of you to offer, Caderick—”
“Cade. Nobody calls me Caderick. Are you trying to piss me off?”
“A little. But I just want to wish you luck. Listen, I wouldn’t dream of selling you out to Praxis. Those beasts have done nothing but make my business harder and harder. Every time I turn around there’s new laws, new restrictions, new curfews. I swear, if their mission is to make the galaxy a boring place, well, bravo. They’re doing splendid job of taking all our fun away.”
“Yeah, Valis, that’s really what’s at stake here. Good times.”
Valis waved him off. “Oh, you know what I mean.”
Cade stopped and let Valis take a few steps away from him. He turned around, his reptilian smile as intimidating as ever. Cade knew there was an angle in this meeting, somewhere, and he didn’t have the patience to entertain Valis’s gab as they circled around the point. “I appreciate the sentiment, Valis, but I should get going. Thanks for the kind words about Tristan; that was nice of you.”
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