“Thanks,” said Rechs, finding she had also reactivated his external vocal system. “You’re a real peach.”
She laughed wickedly. “The thought occurs that you might want to beg the prince for mercy, Tyrus Rechs. But, spoiler,” she said, moving in close and hissing, “there’s no mercy here. So don’t bother.”
Rechs blinked his eyes, fighting the sudden glare of Suracaõ’s three suns. One massive burning orb. Two smaller, distant, lesser stars. The armor dialed in a shadow filter, and Rechs was able to see what was going on. Turning that filter to full opacity must’ve been how the slicer had made him blind.
The jester continued to assure the prisoners they would die badly. Recounting the various ways a humanoid might be eviscerated by beak, tentacle, or razor-sharp sucker, for the general amusement of all who came to witness.
A small, rocky island came into view off of Rechs’s left. The place was stuck in the middle of a vast aquamarine ocean, and apart from its one rocky, sea-vulture-laden spire there was little to distinguish it from any other rock poking up out of the water as far as the horizon extended. It didn’t seem to be a place where anything lived.
Save the vultures.
The sled charted a path along an exposed tidal reef lagoon that jutted jaggedly away from the lonely island rock. Other speeding sleds, already circling the island, came into view.
The armor began to do its number-crunching thing, counting those who’d gathered to watch Tyrus Rechs’s public execution. Accounting for any who were armed. Long story short… everyone was armed.
But that was the Maelstrom.
Even dangerous people thought twice about running this section of the galaxy. The Republic didn’t even bother most years unless someone important got hurt. Then it came in with an expeditionary force and laid the Legion hammer down—if only to serve as an example. Or more likely to stroke the Republic’s ego. A get-tough show like that was just the thing to win re-election campaigns and keep House of Reason delegates in power.
Below the circling sleds lay an angry churn of foam, the ocean rushing in and out and throwing itself against the jagged black volcanic rock that formed the deep lagoon. And if one looked closely, one might catch through the foam-tossed aquamarine a glimpse of massive tentacles undulating down in the depths below the surface.
“If anyone wishes to throw themselves on their faces and do obeisance to the all-powerful Prince Gat Hathor,” advised the jester, “the possibility of mercy may be extended at this time. But seriously, you unlucky bastards… I wouldn’t bank on it.”
Gat Hathor was currently the most wanted being in the galaxy. Officially. Unofficially, Tyrus Rechs held that dubious honor. The House of Reason’s secret bounty on Rechs had doubled as of late, and rumors were that some freelancers were making noises they’d like to try. The worst thing that could happen right now—and Tyrus always expected the worst—was that one of the Nether Ops kill teams assigned to get him would show up right in the middle of his plan and ruin everything.
He scanned the skies.
From beyond the slave sleds, out of the burning blue of Suracaõ’s sky, descended a floating pleasure palace, lumbering into the pattern over the Whirlpool of Death, as the jester had called it during his rant. It was a tri-hulled pleasure-maran fitted with heavy blaster turrets aft and fore on the outer hulls. The central hull was laden with partygoers, all pushing toward the rails to watch what was about to happen.
And on the topmost deck, surrounded by guards and what was clearly some kind of inner circle, a throne worthy of any fantasy barbarian prince reigned supreme over the spectacle. Ensconced on that throne was a hulking crocosaur draped in fine silks. In one claw rested an ornate stun mace that could have crushed a human body in one blow.
At least it was of only average size. An average-sized crocosaur was a little over nine feet tall.
Gat Hathor, lord prince of the Maelstrom’s largest criminal enterprise, had lived a long time. And as both the jester and the Samurian had promised, he was merciless. He had recently unleashed a bio-plague on a fringe Maelstrom world that had refused to pay for protection.
It was then that Tyrus Rechs had decided to come and collect the bounty. Enough was enough from this particular lizard.
Except crafty old Gat Hathor hadn’t lived long by being stupid and available for termination or capture to every usurper, assassin, and bounty hunter that fancied the job. He never showed his scaly hide in public, opting instead to run the Hegemmy Cartel from a network of shadows one couldn’t quite get ahold of.
Rechs had chased down leads on twelve worlds within the Maelstrom, leaving a trail of bodies to make it clear he was coming for the old dragon regardless of the opposition.
Gat had set a trap for him on Jint’s Folly, a played-out old mining rock deep in the Maelstrom. It was there that Rechs’s armor was hacked, and from there he was brought to Suracaõ—Gat’s rumored hideout world. Rechs had cased the world early on in the hunt, but no one had talked, because everyone was working for the malevolent old lizard. After three gunfights and a running battle to get to the Crow, he’d had to pull back off world, hoping to nail his target out on one of his inspection tours of his many criminal operations bases throughout the Maelstrom.
But instead he’d been captured.
Or so they thought.
Have to leave your armor powered down until they throw you in, came the message over the HUD’s comm.
This was part of the plan. The Samurian’s double cross. There was no way Gat
