“The Invulnerable Gat Hathor, ruler of all that he surveys, will now listen to your cries for mercy,” announced the jester across the vast swarm of sleds, maran, and lagoon. “Seriously.”
All around Tyrus, on the deck of the floating sled, pathetic souls who’d somehow double-crossed the fearsome crocosaur’s criminal organization, or who had been found wanting in the take, began to do just that. They wept and pled with an emphatic abandon the greatest of actors would have admired. Some even threw themselves onto their faces and tore their clothing.
High above, on the third level of the pleasure-maran, Gat shook with laughter at these woeful displays. The slow tilt of his croc snout indicated he was indeed enjoying their immense suffering. And what he intended to reward it with.
There would be no mercy on Suracaõ this high noon. The jester hadn’t lied about that.
The first victim was unceremoniously tossed by two of Gat’s thugs into the churn and froth of the violent lagoon below. This action was done so suddenly that the man didn’t even scream. Or at least, he didn’t scream until a tentacle snaked out of the water and caught him seconds before he hit the surface. An instant later another tentacle surged forth, and the two limbs tore him apart before pulling the bloody pieces down into the gaping maw of the monster below the water.
One massive eye leered up at the spectacle above, conveying a primordial horror that cut through the violence taking place among the sleds as more victims were shoved into the water. Some hit the foam and waves, flailing and trying to swim, while others were again caught in midair and torn apart, or coiled and squeezed until their juices oozed from eye sockets, ears, nose, and mouth.
The crowd aboard the pleasure-maran erupted with joy at the bloody spectacle.
A hundred thousand credits, Tyrus, came the message over his HUD. It was from the slicer. The Samurian spider-woman.
The trap that had caught Tyrus had in fact been part of a more elaborate snare set by the infamous bounty hunter himself—a snare intended to lure the reclusive Gat Hathor into public. Executions were a surefire way to get an appearance out of the legendary kingpin. Nailing the prince at any of his satellite businesses had proven… difficult. And costly. Most were guarded like small Legion fortresses. And the help was on point. No one working for the prince wanted what was currently happening to the victims on the sleds to happen to them. A base’s entire security team would be fed to the tyrannasquid if anyone allowed a threat to Gat to get even remotely close.
That sort of thing was a strong motivator.
Below the hovering sleds the monster surfaced from the waves, its tentacles pulsing to drive it through the water like a jet engine. It reached a swimmer who’d been making for the rocks and, with little effort, flicked out a tentacle and tossed the screaming woman into its grotesquely toothy mouth.
Revealed, the tyrannasquid was a cross between an ancient Earth giant squid of myth and legend, and the Tyrannosaurus rex of its prehistory. It was the living embodiment of the word “monster” to all unfortunate enough to view its terribleness in person. The enigmatic leviathans existed on almost every world that had a compatible ocean, and it was surmised by the scientists who studied tyrannasquid that the fearsome lifeform had once been some kind of guard dog for the mysterious Ancients who’d once ruled the galaxy. There were, of course, other theories about how the species reached so far across the stars, but this one was the most popular, even though much of the scientific community viewed the hypothesis as nothing more than a conspiracy theory, given that it relied on an unverifiable hypothesis.
And here one was on Suracaõ… truly terrible to behold. Especially if you were on the verge of being tossed into its gaping maw and devoured. And despite the number of victims it had already consumed, it seemed ravenous for more.
As it roared volcanically like some prehistoric beast from the lost ages of time unknown, its cry was matched by the excitement of those aboard the pleasure-maran hovering less than three hundred meters off the sled’s port side—well out of reach of the monster’s whipping tendrils. A thousand bad choices ended in seconds of greedy gobbling for the victims, and their moments of judgment were punctuated by choruses of “oohs” and “ahhs” from the self-righteous spectators above.
As one of the guards moved behind Rechs, the thug controlling the sled yanked on the yaw controls and slipped the sled almost directly over the open chasm of the mighty creature’s mouth. The tyrannasquid’s two liquid eyes rolled upward knowingly in anticipation of more tossed “treats.” It had been trained to be worshipped and supplied with food and adoration by the minions of Gat Hathor. It was an actor playing its part. A psychotic thing that had fallen for all its own lies. And… something worse. Something older, that knew things about the nature of the galaxy mortal man could not handle. Things hidden inside the pyramids of the Ancients no modern Republic scientist had been able to penetrate.
Rechs was to be given over to his doom. No special address from the jester. No final judgment from the prince. This was Gat’s way of making a statement. Of saying to Tyrus Rechs, the most feared and notorious bounty hunter in the galaxy, that he was no different than the petty
