M.T. Preston, Jr.

Chains rattled as Krieger shifted in his restraints, eyes burning like dwarf stars.

Jamila swallowed and clutched her holo pendant. It held an image of her daughter, Isa, a perfect moment forever frozen in time.

This man—this multiple murderer and interstellar fugitive—suspended above her in the ship’s holding sphere by a mechanical arm, was her only hope of getting off this rock alive.

Her only hope of ever seeing Isa again.

“I need your help,” Jamila said, releasing the pendant and lifting a controller. “The rest of the crew are dead. They’ll be coming for us soon. We must work together, or we’ll die too. Do you understand?”

Krieger said nothing, his expression hidden by a respirator. But the look in his eyes told her he did.

Ignoring her every instinct, she disabled his restraints. The mechanical arm descended.

Krieger stepped onto the metal grating and rubbed his wrists, where the magnetic cuffs had cut into his pale flesh. He towered over Jamila, muscles straining the orange fabric of his jumpsuit.

She resisted the urge to flee.

To her surprise, he raised his calloused hands, palms up. “Do you trust me?” he said, voice muffled by the respirator.

“No.” She decided honesty was the best approach with someone who could kill her on a whim. “But I don’t have a choice. We need each other. If we escape, I don’t care where you go. What you do. I’ll say you died in the crash, if you want.”

The sound of screams had faded to an eerie silence when they emerged from the wreckage of the prison ship. Fires crackled, and Jamila adjusted her breathing apparatus as she scanned the impact crater for signs of their attackers.

How the scavenger pirates had found them so quickly still perplexed her. Drawn to the ship’s emergency beacon, they had dropped from the skies like vultures, harvesting the crew first, then the prisoners until only she and Krieger remained.

Clutching a shock baton, Jamila climbed up the crater rim and gazed out across the rocky horizon. A handful of moons dotted the firmament like polished stones.

One of the ship’s androids twitched and sputtered in the blue sands below, its body torn apart at the waist.

She knelt by it, cradling its head as conductive fluid spurted from its gaping wounds. “S-sabotage,” it said. “K-Krieger—”

Its organic power cell died, and Jamila looked up at the prisoner. He shrugged. Had all this been part of some elaborate escape plan?

Upon exiting the wormhole, the prison ship had struck a rogue plasma mine—probably a leftover from the clan wars that had devastated this region of the outer spiral.

Since the crash, Jamila hadn’t been able to figure out why the collision had occurred. Her latest theory was that someone had screwed with the navigational sensors.

But how could Krieger have managed that while locked up in the holding sphere?

The roar of thrusters drew her eyes skyward.

A planet-hopper swooped down from above, jump jets blasting a torrent of dust into the air.

The locust-like craft was totally unlike the patchwork pirate ship—made from bits of pulverized asteroid and scavenged parts—huddled in the distance.

“Friends of yours?” Jamila said.

“We must go.” Krieger faced the transport. “Now.”

“You did this. You’re responsible for their deaths!” Jamila activated the shock baton.

She leaped at him, but he turned into her attack and threw her to the ground. He kicked the sparking baton from her hand and planted his boot on her wrist. “Stop.”

“Fuck you!”

Jamila gritted her teeth as pain exploded in her arm. Krieger lifted his boot and extended a hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it. He dragged her to her feet.

His eyes focused on the holo pendant at her throat. “You want to see her again? Follow me.”

Krieger led her across the crater-blasted landscape toward the idling transport. They passed an abandoned harvester rig, where the captain’s butchered remains had been strung up in a crucifix, his innards removed with surgical precision by the rig’s robotic manipulators.

Jamila retched, a sour taste rising in the back of her throat.

When they’d almost reached the planet-hopper, a buried spider mine uncovered itself and exploded, scattering debris in all directions.

Jamila’s ears rang, and she stumbled, disoriented by the blast.

She scrabbled for her shock baton, but before she could retrieve it, an enormous hand closed around her throat. She clawed at it until her nails bled, but her efforts were wasted.

The pirate boss lifted her like a rag doll, one of his lumpy heads flashing a lopsided grin. Mucus and saliva oozed from his orifices, and malformed arms sprouting from the veined hump on his back grasped the air.

He spoke in a guttural language she didn’t understand. A pair of bleached skulls dangled from a chain at his distended belly. He wore a long, sleeveless coat made of tanned human flesh sewn together with bits of tendon.

Jamila struggled in his grip, watching Krieger climb to his feet through blurred vision. He glanced back at her, a look of pity in his eyes. Then he turned toward the planet-hopper.

No, no…

The pirate boss drew a serrated blade from a sheath at his hip and pressed the tip against Jamila’s sternum.

She kicked and punched and tried to wriggle free, but it was no use. At last, she gave up, her muscles relaxing, the tension in her spine releasing. She closed her eyes and imagined Isa’s face, tears streaming down her hot cheeks.

The pirate boss gasped and unleashed a gurgling howl. His hand spasmed, dropping the knife.

Jamila opened her eyes as the boss’s throats erupted in a fountain of blood. Both of his misshapen heads tumbled to the ground and his mountainous body toppled over in an avalanche of mutated flesh and bone.

She rolled free, hands clutching her bruised neck.

As her vision cleared, Jamila saw Krieger towering over her, a blood-stained wrist blade retracting into his arm. He held out his hand. “Do you trust me?”

Trembling, she choked back tears and collapsed in a fit of manic laughter.

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