by Elsa Jade
She’d learned to step quickly and quietly over the scrub and rocks, and in moments, she crouched near the body. Their long hair was spread on the ground, their body lay awkwardly like a dropped doll. When the body had been dumped, Marita had thought it a woman. Despite the black-painted nails and long hair, the body was most definitely male.
Drakh.
She rocked back on her heels. Men were allies until they wanted one thing. She couldn’t team up with a man. If she wasn’t allied with someone, they were the enemy, and Riel rewarded deaths with more weapons. She’d made one accidental kill and a drone had dropped ration bars—Riel didn’t want his test subjects dying of starvation—and some gel caps for a gilding gun. Getting the weapon itself was much harder, and she wasn’t going to take on the stronger fighters.
Survive and escape. That was her plan.
There was no fence keeping them in the valley.
Only the drones. She’d seen one new arrival try to run away only to be shot down by a drone with some kind of pulse weapon that had made him explode. There was always a new way to die.
The man still hadn’t moved. Maybe he really was dead. If she slit his throat, would she be given a weapon or water?
The sun was hot on her back. Sweat formed, wasting what little fluid she had.
Breadbasket for the Rim, her ass.
This place was warm, overly humid, and deadly. Add in random tiny whirlwinds and it made the whole place some kind of possessed planet. She drew in a slow breath and then made herself look around. No humans lurked in the shadows, and the dead didn’t come out until dusk.
She kneeled and put the blade to his throat. She could almost feel the heat of the camera’s eye. The drone high above would be zooming in. All she had to do was make one cut. Deep, so if he had nanobots they couldn’t heal the damage. He was one of Riel’s men, but he’d ended up here.
Tossed away.
What had he done to Riel? Served him cold tea?
The man grabbed her wrist and opened his eyes. She yelped and tried to pull away, but he was too strong. She should’ve stayed back and watched…and if someone else had found him and been braver?
She hadn’t survived for this long by being brave. Being smart was more important.
“Where am I?” His voice was rough, his gaze watchful. But aside from grabbing her, he hadn’t moved.
“Let me go.”
“So you can slit my throat? No.”
She trailed her fingers in the dirt, grabbing a handful. He turned toward her, curling in, knocking her over. The knife fell out of her hand as her ass hit the dirt.
He lunged and put his hand over the blade. She smacked hers over the top. It was her only weapon, and she needed it.
He glared at her. “I don’t trust you.”
“Same.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“I was thinking about it. Totally different.”
His eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head like she was being ridiculous. Then he sat, keeping his palm on the knife. She started to feel more than a little silly with her hand on his. It was too friendly.
He smiled, all white teeth. “Where am I?”
“Mayit.”
He laughed and shook his head.
“It’s a real place,” she added.
“I know it’s a real place.” His smile melted, and he scanned the area. There wasn’t much to see. Rocks, trees, a few makeshift shelters, and if you looked closely, the remains of weapons. “Fuck.”
He moved through the shock of waking up on Mayit fast. It had taken her three days of terror before she’d been able to think. But she had woken up near a pack of undead.
“Can you let go of my knife now?” She needed to get to shelter before dark.
“No. Why are you here?”
“Bad luck?” Getting caught had been bad luck. But her options had been limited. Loyalty or do the right thing. “You?”
“Same.”
“You worked for him.”
The man frowned and glanced at his legs. The burgundy uniform stood no chance of blending in here. Her white pants were now brown. The cream shirt she’d taken from someone who no longer needed it. Same with the boots. She tried not to think about how they’d died wearing the shirt and boots—the clothing hadn’t helped them. But it was better than sandals and a red shirt. They might have looked nice in the compound and at her workstation, but on Mayit they were a liability.
The man nodded. “Yeah. Guess I don’t anymore.”
“This is his land.”
“Figured that. It’s a bit of an effort to travel to Mayit just to ditch the people who piss him off. Too close to the destabilized zone. The vac would be simpler. So why are we here?”
“Why are you talking to me? Why haven’t you tried to kill me?”
“There’s no one else to talk to and you seem to know a bit.”
“There’s not much to know.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Ten Mayit days.” And she had no idea how many standard hours was in one of them. She knew of Mayit in the way most people did—poor planning and too much hope had turned into a nightmare—but she’d never studied the planet or the history. She wished she had. She wished she’d never realized what Riel was doing and spoken to her supervisor.
The man studied her. She was a mess. She probably looked like she’d been there ten months. “And how true are the stories?”
“Don’t eat the plants.”
“So how have you made it to ten days?”
“Riel didn’t just drop us into the middle of nowhere for fun.” She leaned a little closer. “He needs people to test his weapons on.”
Emry Dan stared at the woman who was keeping her hand over his like she stood a chance of taking the knife. While it wasn’t the first time he’d woken with a knife to the throat, or in a strange place, or even without working nanobots, it was the first time he’d woken with a sense that maybe this time his luck had run out.
Mayit was where Riel played with his new toys. It made a sick kind of sense. No one came to Mayit. It was too close to the galactic dead center caused by the Oblivion War, and too dangerous. The stories spread by those who’d fled Mayit’s original colony were the tales kids told each other in the dark. Mayit was the reason why grown food had to be tested and was eaten warily when far from home.
And he was far from home…and far from the Dead Sun base.
Fuck.
“How many people are here?”
“I’ve seen ten.” She licked her lip. “And five who’ve been eating the plants.”
“And?”
“And the good news is they sleep during the day because the sunlight hurts their eyes.”
“But they get up at night?”
“No, they hunt at dawn and dusk. The protein cravings…they go for muscle, not fat. They work as a team. I think the bacteria, or parasite, or whatever causes the infection, can coordinate the hosts.”
Emry stared at her.
She stared back. “What?”
“Why are you so calm about this?”
“Why are you?”
Because he’d been a Dead Sun mercenary for long enough to know it was better to try to work through the problem than run around screaming—although that option was becoming very appealing, if only so he didn’t have to face the reality that he was going to die on this piece of shit planet. “This may not be Mayit. Riel might have just said it was.”
Hope. He hadn’t prayed in a very long time, not since he’d packed his bags and left the anti-tech colony where he’d grown up so he could see more than fields and do more than break his back harvesting. He’d wanted more from life than scraping by, but his credits wouldn’t help him now. Nor would his team.
He swallowed; his mouth already dry.
He could survive three days without water. Longer if he’d still had bots.
“It’s Mayit. So, are you going to be one of those who surrenders and tries to die just to ge
t it over with, or will you fight?”
What were they fighting for? So Riel could enjoy the death of the people he considered enemies? “Why are you fighting?”
She didn’t look like a mercenary, but he’d been wrong before.
“Because I refuse to give Riel the satisfaction of watching me die.”
As reasons went, it wasn’t a bad one. Wasn’t great either. “You can’t do this kind of thing for someone else.” He slid his hand free of hers to take the knife which was little more than a sharpened piece of metal with a rag bound around the center to create a handle. It was a shit weapon, but all he had.
She kicked him in the arm. “My knife.”
He grimaced but held onto the blade. “I know how to use it. If you were going to kill me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation…why were you going to kill me?”
“They reward violence with food, water or weapons.”
That made survival a little less bleak. “Where do these gifts come from?”
“The drones. But you never know if it’s an attack drone or one delivering supplies.”
That made all drones a danger. “You’ve gotten supplies? You’ve killed?”
“It took me three days to find the knife. Give it back.”
“So you can take a second stab? I don’t think so.” But she’d survived for ten days, watching how things played out, and for that alone she was valuable. She was also a hazard who planned on glaring at him until he died given her current expression.
“I’m Emry.” He extended the hand not holding the knife.
“Marita.” She didn’t shake his hand.
The sun was harsh on his back and the uniform was making him sweat. He was losing fluids and had no idea how long he’d been unconscious before he’d been dropped on the ground. The fall had kind of woken him, but no one had been around so he’d been happy to lie still, catalogue the aches in his body, and wait to see what happened. No point in getting up and running at half strength when he didn’t know where he was running to or what he was running from.
By the time Marita approached, he’d been ready to get up and investigate, mostly because he was thirsty. He swallowed and pretended it was a drink. He was going to have to get used to having a sticky throat.
They couldn’t sit out in the sun all afternoon. This wasn’t a holiday and no waiter would come and take their drinks order. “What now?”
Marita lifted an eyebrow. “Now I’m going to look for shelter because I don’t want to be out at dusk.”
In the sky, the sun was three quarters through its arc. “How long?”
She shrugged and stood. “I don’t know. I don’t have a watch. It doesn’t really matter, does it? Or do you have a more pressing appointment with your manicurist?”
He looked at his nails; the black polish was chipped. Her nails were broken, dirty, and unpainted. He let his gaze slid up her legs, across the once white pants to the cream shirt which had what looked like a bloodstain up one sleeve.
“Do you still have working nanobots?” His ribs hadn’t healed, and there were abrasions that were raw and stung as the sweat rolled over the open skin.
She hesitated.
“What?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Why aren’t you shocked that I asked that?” He got up and did his best to mask any winces. Painting a target on his back would be a bad idea if she told others he was weak.
“I’m a scientist. I heard things.”
Oh… “You worked for him.”
“So did you.”
He almost denied it but swallowed the words before they could form. “We should be more careful about who we work for in the future.”
Marita laughed like he was funny, then shook her head. “You actually think we’re ever going to leave this place?”
It would be easy to tell a pile of drakh, but she’d see through it. He was the rookie here. “One in ten odds.”
“No one leaves.”
“If there’s drones, there’s people operating them. They’ll be watching. Weapons testing requires observation, yes?”
She gave him a small nod. “They’re probably on ships.”
While it was possible to deploy drones from a ship, those drones were the spy kind that drifted above the atmosphere. “The kind you’re talking about have to be operated down here. That means Riel has a crew he trusts. People who don’t mind watching others suffer.”
“Mercenaries.”
The way she spat the word made him wince. “Not all mercs are assholes. The ones Riel has most definitely are. I have the boot prints on my ribs to prove it.”
“Mercenaries will do anything for DICs.”
Some mercs had standards, but he didn’t say that. “Will you show me around?” He offered her the knife. It wouldn’t be hard to take it off her if it came to a fight.
She stared at the knife. “Do you know how to use it?”
“I grew up on a no tech colony. I can hunt, kill, and skin my own dinner.”
Her eyes widened, and she accepted the knife. “I don’t trust you.”
“How do I know you won’t lead me to the others so they can finish me off?”
“What makes you think I’ll lead you anywhere?” She spun on her heel and strode away.
Emry watched for a few breaths before he followed. He didn’t want to find out what the locals were like at dusk.
The Obsidian Rim Series
Gravity: Cryoborn Gifts by Maggie Lynch
Rock Rift: The Edge of Sunrise by Elsa Jade
Traitor’s Code: Freelancer by Jane Killick
Coexistence: Pipettes & Plows by Shree Aier
Fire Strike: Edge of Sunrise by Elsa Jade
Mercenary Royal: Dead Suns by Shona Husk
Aces Odds: Fate’s Favor by Sela Carsen
Catalyst: Cat Ship by Jody Wallace
Hunter Green: Ghost Planet by C. J. Cade
Magnetism: Cryoborn Gifts by Maggie Lynch
Prince’s Mission: Freelancer by Jane Killick
Deep Claim: The Edge of Sunrise by Elsa Jade
Mercenary Ethics: Dead Suns by Shona Husk
Queens Gamble: Fate’s Favor by Sela Carsen
Catapult: Cat Ship by Jody Wallace
Singularity: Cryoborn Gifts by Maggie Lynch
Assassin: Freelancer by Jane Killick
Also by Elsa Jade
More science fiction romance from Elsa Jade
* * *
Intergalactic Dating Agency: Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides
Alpha Star
Red Shift
Dark Matter
After Burn
Freefall: Team Prism (The Great Space Race)
* * *
Intergalactic Dating Agency: Black Hole Brides
The Intergalactic Duke's Inconvenient Engagement
The Interstellar Rake's Irresistible Kiss
The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight
* * *
Intergalactic Dating Agency: Cowboys of Carbon County
Mach One
Delta V
Big Bang
Total Eclipse
* * *
Science fiction romance from Jessa Slade
Queen of Starlight
Prince of Passion
Assassin’s Hunger