try, asshole. Tell me again where the ship is. And maybe you want to consider what happens if I don’t like your answer.”

Fear twisted in my gut. Was this maniac actually going to kill Ana-Zhi in cold blood? I knew that the MCP had a reputation for being psychos, but this was unbelievable.

He began to count aloud. “Three…”

“Not a word,” Ana-Zhi said.

“I told you—” I said.

“Two…”

I stared right into his beady eyes. “Nine. Klicks. East.”

Then he smiled at me. It was a chilling smile. The smile of a psychopath.

In slow motion I saw his arm tense. Ana-Zhi and I locked eyes.

There was no fear in hers.

But all of a sudden the Mayir’s pasty head jerked back in a puff of red mist which splattered Ana-Zhi’s face and hair.

The rest of the Mayir froze in disbelief. But I didn’t. I was too well trained for that and I knew that a sniper—probably armed with a high-powered railgun—was firing into the alley. So I threw myself to the ground and rolled towards a toppled crate. Ana-Zhi did the same, searching for any kind of cover.

The shots kept coming. They must have been some kind of flechettes, because two of the riflemen were hit through their armor and taken out as they tried to bring their weapons to bear.

I still didn’t have any idea where the shooter—or shooters, more likely—were. Or even who they were.

The Mayir leader’s radiant blaster was less than a meter away from me, but even if I could get to the weapon, I wouldn’t be able to use it. Not with my hands in cuffs.

A loud clacking sound caught my attention. The Mayir gunner whipped his big Gauss around and started spraying the rooftops, blindly trying to flush out the sniper. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Especially since the sniper was behind him.

It took two shots—torso and head—but the gunner pitched forward, slumped dead over his shredder.

The remaining Mayir legionnaire freaked out. I didn’t blame him. He threw down his rifle and took off towards the end of the alley, trying to seek shelter through an archway.

He never made it. One shot to the head took him out.

Ana-Zhi and I both remained motionless. We were bound and pretty much helpless, but we were the only ones left alive. And that meant something.

One more shot rang out.

Above my head the jiren drone exploded into a million pieces.

4

I didn’t expect the sniper to be a human female, but that’s who it was.

A tall woman strode into the alleyway, flanked by a dozen Obaswoon armed with primitive rifles.

I twisted to get a better look at the woman. She had long tangled red hair streaked with gray, and was dressed in a tattered flight suit. I couldn’t really determine her age.

“This is unusual,” she said with a Beesanian lilt to her voice. “Mayir versus Mayir.”

“I’m not a Mayir,” I said.

She lifted her goggles and regarded me with striking-looking green eyes. “Then why are you wearing MCP crimson?”

“He stole it,” Ana-Zhi said through swollen lips. She looked horrible. Her face was battered and bruised almost beyond recognition. “We’re not exactly on the best of terms with them. As you saw.”

“Indeed.”

Who was she? I wracked my brain trying to figure out where she had come from.

“Anyway.” Ana-Zhi motioned towards the bodies that littered the alleyway. “Thanks for that.”

“Don’t thank me,” the tall woman said. “I haven’t decided whether to kill you or not.” She lifted her rifle for emphasis. It looked like an old Benham model. Maybe a M-115. But it had been modified.

“We’d be much obliged if you didn’t,” Ana-Zhi said woozily. “And doubly so if you’d be so kind as to remove these cuffs.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Then I got it. I knew who this woman was!

“You’re Nerissa!”

One of her eyebrows arched up in surprise. “It’s Narcissa, actually. But how did you know that?”

“We met your ex,” I said. “Up on Taullae.”

“And he spoke of me?”

“Extensively,” Ana-Zhi said. I could hear the pain in her voice. She was obviously not doing well.

“He said you had left the system,” I said.

“Hmm. What else?”

“He went looking for you. I think he mentioned Ordilon, but he was convinced that you hitched a ride back with another expedition. Or the Rhya. Which you obviously didn’t.”

“Interesting,” Narcissa said. “You just bought yourself a few hours. I’ll hear your full story. Then decide whether or not to kill you.”

After Narcissa barked some orders at her men in their own language, they quickly and silently stripped the dead Mayir legionnaires of everything remotely valuable. She commanded me to remove my exosuit and my Aura, and then the Obaswoon checked me for weapons.

Each of the non-humans stood well over two meters tall and had long, muscular arms and legs. They dressed in loose hooded robes the color of sand—with belts and bandoliers holding weapons and ammo. None of the Obaswoon seemed to show the slightest interest in either me or Ana-Zhi.

“The Mayir will be back with reinforcements,” I said.

I didn’t add that Ana-Zhi and I had misjudged the landing force. We didn’t anticipate the Mayir deploying a full fire team. It made me wonder what else were we wrong about.

Narcissa didn’t appear concerned at all. She just motioned us forward and we marched through the ruins of Roan Andessa, flanked by Obaswoon warriors.

Soft rain began to fall and a heavy mist settled into the city. Ana-Zhi only lasted a few blocks before she stumbled and fell. At Narcissa’s command, one of the soldiers effortlessly tossed Ana-Zhi over his shoulder as if she was a child and carried her.

Several times I tried to strike up a conversation with Narcissa, and asked her if she had seen any Rhya wardships around, but she made it clear that she wasn’t interested in speaking with me yet.

As she strode purposefully through the ruins, she appeared to be lost in thought.

We wound our way through the maze of the ruined city, past ancient ziggurats and temples that had been reclaimed as dwellings

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