The Reforged Trilogy: Book 1 — Crucible of Stars
Chapter 14
Mark
“Laws are for those who cannot make their own moral judgment.”
– Eru Illith, pyrad rebel (10,100 MA)
Scouring the first four levels of Axis yielded little. No one knew or cared about a Dailon named Vyron Fethru. The lower-level gangs and the dangers they posed were safely beneath the notice of the rich and powerful. CWAAF and the Axis police kept most people safe enough, so why concern themselves with the criminals? Those few who recognized Vyron’s name did so only because other bounty hunters had been through before Coldhand. They could tell him just what they had told the other hunters — nothing.
Three long days into Coldhand’s hunt, as he moved methodically down through the levels, he finally caught the first scent of his mark. Prompted by the barrel of a Talon-9 against her sunken cheek, a human chem dealer working a street corner admitted she recognized the name.
Vyron had been a local boy in a local gang. But his talents had moved him quickly up the ranks, and eventually, he was recruited — stolen — by another gang that called themselves the Steelskins.
The frightened human chem dealer stumbled over her own words in her rush to tell Coldhand what she knew in hopes of preserving her own decidedly unsteely skin. These Steelskins ran a much bigger and more dangerous game, one in which Vyron was now a key player.
An evening of research over a cheap protein pack and a rented computer terminal on Level Five yielded useful information on the Steelskins that corroborated the charges of Vyron’s bounty posting. The gang was under frequent investigation for major counts of drug trafficking, numerous murders and kidnappings against their rivals. Individual members received sentences ranging from fines to life in CWA prisons, but the Axis police had made little progress with the Steelskins as a whole.
It was good to have something to back up the charges listed on the bounty, though. A search through the Axis police records had turned up no prior convictions or even accusations against Vyron. The gang might have run into the police, but Vyron himself had never been one of those indicted.
An archived news story — originally broadcast more than three weeks earlier — recounted a brutal shoot-out between the Steelskins and Axis police on Level Seven. Since then, the gang had been keeping quiet, probably increasing their numbers to make up for those killed in action. Small wonder the police hadn’t been able to hunt them to ground yet… The lower levels of Axis were crowded and full of places to hide.
Coldhand frowned as the video clip ended and was replaced by a shiny, rotating Alliance News Network logo. If the Steelskins were in hiding, it would make his task far more difficult. The bounty hunter didn’t have the time or inclination to sift through every filthy alleyway of the lower levels. Each moment he spent on Axis only let Maeve get further and further ahead of him.
There were better and more efficient ways. Coldhand would just have to convince Vyron to come to him. It was among the hunter’s favored tactics, one that saved him valuable time yet allowed his marks to come at their leisure, full of unwarranted confidence. Easy pickings.
Coldhand brought up and enlarged the map from the shootout story. On a different world, one not covered entirely by a single overgrown city, it would have been in another province. The place was about seven hours away, if he took city transports and made good time. Coldhand tapped his illonium finger on the map, thinking. He knew someone near there.
He drained off the last of the bland but nutritious protein paste from the plastic tube and dropped it into a trash can. The terminal refunded him four cenmarks for the unused computer time, spitting the silver chips into a tray. Coldhand pocketed the change and went in search of a place to sleep.
The bounty hunter rented a small room from a sour-faced man. It was all cheap, sterile white, from the paint on the walls to the stiff sheets. Coldhand lay down on the narrow bed, not bothering to undress or remove his gun. The discomfort didn’t bother him and there were more than a few rival hunters and enemies on Axis that wouldn’t be above ambushing Logan Coldhand in his sleep. He pillowed his head on his right arm, his left lying motionless at his side. Coldhand counted the beats of his mechanical heart until he fell asleep. Two hundred eighty-eight before he tumbled down into unwelcome dreams.
The hospital gown was made of paper. It crinkled and crunched with every movement, but Logan wasn’t listening. He cradled the guitar in his lap while the monitor beeped in time with the steady, even beats of his new artificial heart. Jess sat next to him, politely not looking at his maimed left arm. She rubbed Logan’s back through the paper gown and smiled encouragingly.
“Try Bristler’s Call,” she suggested. “You know all the hawks at the office will want to hear it when you get back. It’s one of their favorites now.”
Logan closed mechanical fingers around the guitar’s neck and pressed down on the strings, strumming with his whole hand. His real hand. But his illonium fingers slipped on the guitar’s neck and the note went sour. Jess flinched, but Logan only stared blankly at the instrument. She kissed his cheek and stroked his hair. He knew she was trying not to cry, trying so hard to be strong for him.
But he just… didn’t care.
“They’re all asking about you, love,” Jess said. “The service for Reginald is next week. I helped bring in some of the wood for the pyre. The captain was hoping you’d speak. They all miss Reg, but they are glad you’re still alive. It’s a miracle, really. I love you, Logan. I don’t know what I would have done if… if…”
Logan wasn’t listening to Jess. He tightened his grip on the guitar, pushing down on the strings. One of them snapped under the pressure with a weak, discordant twang and curled up around the neck like a dead thing. Logan dropped the guitar to the floor and Jess burst into tears.
The Rusty Frigate looked for all the worlds like an actual crashed ship. The exterior of the crumpled hull was artfully painted to look corroded since the ship had never been exposed to the elements long enough to rust. The nose — smashed and ripped open to form the entrance to the bar — lacked the sharp, ragged edges of a real crash. They had all been smoothed out, probably to avoid injuring drunkenly reeling customers.
At some point — years before Coldhand lost his hand and heart — the bar’s owner had purchased the shell of a small cargo freighter. Rather than equipping it with expensive engines and life support systems, it had been meticulously cut and pulled back, the equipment inside rearranged to create a bar. The Rusty Frigate was a popular watering hole for those who had once made their living in the stars, but whom circumstance had grounded on Axis.
Coldhand went inside. A husky Lyran bouncer eyed his Talon, but thought better of trying to disarm the bounty hunter.
It was early in the afternoon and The Rusty Frigate was only half full of customers. Behind a row of dark, powered-down consoles that served as the bar stood Sarah Marcus, the bar’s aging owner. Steely gray peppered the Prian woman’s blonde hair and her once-curvaceous figure had many years ago become quite plump and matronly. Above her head, a display glowed with a selection of drinks and their prices. She scowled deeply at Coldhand as he approached.
“What the hells are you doing here?” Sarah asked. She reached under the bar, doubtlessly going for the big antique shotgun she kept there.
“I need some information, Marcus,” Coldhand said.
“Why should I help you?”
Coldhand said nothing. Finally, Sarah sighed and turned over a glass, then filled it with a colorless liquor that smelled like it could melt lead.
“What kind of information?” Sarah asked.
Coldhand reached for the drink, but Sarah made a rude gesture at him. She finished it off herself in two large gulps, then refilled the glass. After a moment’s thought, Sarah poured another and nudged it across the bar.
“I’m looking for a gang called the Steelskins,” Coldhand said. “There was a shoot-out with the police a few weeks ago, and now they’ve gone into hiding.”
“Yeah, those boys work a couple levels down from here,” Sarah said. “They brawl with the other gangs from time to time, usually the Grinders and the Sisterhood. But they make their color on Vanora White. The Steelskins have a lab somewhere that produces the stuff.”
“Do they sell the White themselves, or deal wholesale to someone else?” Coldhand asked.
He took the sharp-smelling drink in his cybernetic hand, the metal of his fingers clanking loudly against the glass. Sarah winced at the sound.
“The Steelskins deal their own White,” she said. “Guess they don’t want to cut in a middleman. You going to drink that or let me talk it to death?”
Coldhand stared at his drink. Light shone through the glass.
“Twenty percent,” he said to himself.
“What? It’s on the house. As always, you damnable robot.”
Sarah thought he was talking about paying for the drink. Coldhand was silent. His failure with the cedrophin didn’t inspire him to try again so soon. Strong drinks, good chems, beautiful women… All of it was pointless.
“Well, no reason to let it go to waste,” Sarah said. She reached out and took the glass, slipping it easily from the bounty hunter’s cybernetic fingers. The stout bartender threw back the shot and swallowed hard.
“The man I need is named Vyron Fethru. Do you know him?” Coldhand asked.
“Sure. Vyron’s their salesman. A smooth-talking Dailon,” Sarah answered. “A hawk, I think, but it can be difficult to tell with them. Knows how to cut a deal, that one.”
Coldhand nodded. Sarah had given him enough information to hunt his mark to ground and take him. Without thanking her, Coldhand turned away and strode out of The Rusty Frigate.
Sarah watched the hunter leave, still holding his glass. The dregs of kyn were bright at the bottom, clear as the starlight back home. Sarah sighed and tried to relax. It had been four years since she first met Logan Coldhand, and it had never gotten any easier to deal with the ice-hearted young hunter. Even now, he always managed to give her a bad case of jitters.
Afterward, Sarah berated her bouncer for letting the obviously armed Logan Coldhand into the bar and threatened to replace the retired pounceball player if he couldn’t handle the job. In spite of all he had done for her, Coldhand was a dangerous man and she prayed that he would never walk into The Rusty Frigate again.
Had it really been four years? It seemed like so much less. Four years since Coldhand had hunted down her husband’s killer, the man who had knifed her beloved hawk over a cheap drink. Sarah traced her fingers over the polished surface of the bar she and Durwin had built together. She knew every nick and scratch, every dent Durwin put in the thing. God, how he had loved the Frigate.
But love wasn’t money. Fifty cenmarks was all Sarah could offer as a bounty for her husband’s killer, not even enough to pay for recharging the batteries of Coldhand’s gun. The hunter had taken the single orange chip without complaint, though, informing her in that cold voice that Durwin’s murderer was dead and his body in the custody of the Axis police.
Sarah still remembered the tears of gratitude and fumbling for the words to thank him. The young man offered no comfort, pulling away from her weeping embrace with his reward in hand and stalking away without saying another word.
The next day, Coldhand made his way down to Level Nine, pausing in his descent long enough to spend some of his dwindling color on some new clothes. Despite the neutral temperature of the environmentally controlled city, he bought a large coat and full gloves, effectively hiding his cybernetic hand when he pulled them on. No one would recognize Coldhand’s face. It was his namesake metal limb that might be recognized, but the hem of the coat reached his knees, concealing his Talon.
By early afternoon, Coldhand had spoken to almost every chem dealer in that part of Level Nine. From each one, he tried to buy fifty vials of Vanora White, far more than any of them kept in stock. About the time that Coldhand’s stomach was growling in protest of a second neglected meal — having missed breakfast already — he finally found what he needed. For the last of Coldhand’s money, the chemical vendor sold him two vials of White.
“I could put you in contact with someone who can sell you the rest of it.”
The dealer was an Axial man with mismatched eyes. One green and one brown, and both focused on Coldhand.
“Down here, only the Steelskins have that much White,” he told the bounty hunter. “I could probably get thirty vials from north side in about a week for cheaper, but you’re in a hurry. You’ve got better things to do than wait around, right? Meet me here tonight and I’ll have a contact for you.”
Coldhand was waiting for the odd-eyed chem dealer later that evening. The man was smirking and rubbing a pair of grubby white cenmark chips together between his fingers. A finder’s fee from the Steelskins for bringing in a new customer, no doubt.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said. “The Steelskins will send their man here at eight with the goods. A Dailon fellow called Vyron.”
“Will you be here?” Coldhand asked.
He would need to know how many combatants to prepare for if things came down to a fight, but the dealer misinterpreted and gave Coldhand a slick smile.
“I’ve got me some business on the other side of Nine,” he said, patting Coldhand on the shoulder companionably. “But don’t be nervous. As long as you have the color to pay, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”
“Will Vyron bring… friends?” Coldhand tried to sound worried. He wasn’t a skilled actor, but the pause in his question was enough to convince the other man.
“The Steelskins usually send Vyron with a couple of their own for muscle these days,” he said, nodding. “Vyron used to deal alone, but I hear he got caught a level down by another gang. They had a Nnyth of a time getting him back.”
“I’m surprised they went after him,” Coldhand admitted.
“Count me in on that. But Vyron’s a damned sweet talker. I guess they didn’t want to have to replace him. Be here in the morning with the color and they’ll have your White.”
Coldhand thanked the other human curtly and left. He was out of money, but it didn’t matter anymore. He had what he needed. Once out of sight of the empty fueling station, Coldhand tossed the two vials of Vanora White he had purchased into a rusty trash can. He had no use for a depressant that would only deaden his already artificial nerves. If it did anything at all.
Late that night, when the lights in the distant ceiling of Level Nine had dimmed to a faint approximation of starlight, Coldhand returned to the empty station. He prowled silently through the dark streets, slipping past the vagrants slumbering in doorways without waking them. The chemical dealer was gone, probably gone home to an apartment that far outstripped the homes of his customers. Coldhand suspected that he had stepped over several of those customers as they snored on the sidewalks.
He had hoped that Vyron would come alone tomorrow. It would have made Coldhand’s job easier, but the Steelskins apparently deemed his mark a valuable member of their organization. Anyone sent along with Vyron would fight hard to defend the Dailon.
Coldhand examined the abandoned fueling station for hiding places or cover that his opponents might use. The four freestanding fuel pumps were flimsy, the dispensing mechanisms covered only in thin aluminum siding. They were long since decommissioned and wouldn’t present a volatile hazard.
Coldhand checked the door to the office. It was boarded over and closed with a heavy padlock. The lock showed signs of violence as Coldhand angled it in the artificial twilight, but hadn’t been broken. Circling the small building, he found the same treatment on the rear entry and all of the windows.
Nothing here could be used to much advantage by either side, Coldhand decided. He could take the high ground against Vyron and his companions, but a fire-fight would make it harder to catch the Dailon man. Stuck on the rooftop, he would be irrecoverably behind if his mark ran. Coldhand carried only his Talon-9 and he didn’t have the time or color to get his hands on something less lethal. No, despite the disadvantages, Coldhand needed to be on the ground to capture Vyron intact.
He pulled his com off the gun belt around his waist. It had been left clipped to the leather when Xia had disarmed him aboard the Blue Phoenix, recovered when the bounty hunter made his escape. The blocky green letters there blinked 2:38. He still had hours to wait until Vyron showed up.
Coldhand walked a short distance away until he found a recessed doorway, the entrance to a flooring store long since driven out of business. The sign was gone, leaving an only slightly paler smear on the building’s façade where it had been. The windows were filthy, inside and out, making it impossible to look through. Coldhand sat down in the niche, positioning himself so that he could still watch the empty station. He pulled up the collar of his coat and leaned back. No one would be able to discern him from the countless local vagrants.
Nights in the lower levels of Axis were timeless, a single, unchanging gray moment stretched from the planet’s dusk until dawn. Coldhand looked up. There was no mistaking the ceiling of Level Nine for a sky. The daylights were set at regular intervals to create a predictable, geometric net of dim lights that were nothing like the sea of stars that shone over Level One.
From the first time he saw it, Coldhand had found the glittering sky of the core almost claustrophobic. It was so different than the sparse, diamond-studded black of Prianus; more like some cosmic giant had upended an entire jewelry store over his head. The stars would have been beautiful, Coldhand thought, if he could appreciate beauty at all. But he much preferred the muted lower levels with their pale mimicry, lights dimmed down to twenty percent.
Coldhand waited for the unchanging night to end.
Vyron and the other Steelskins arrived early. They walked past Coldhand’s hiding place without glancing down. Vyron carried a metal briefcase scratched all across the ribbed sides. The Dailon was tall and lean, with deep sapphire skin and long, glossy black hair worn in a braid. Vyron’s eyes were the same pure obsidian as the rest of his race, but they had a bright, nervous shine to them. They were difficult to read, but Coldhand thought that the Steelskins’ frontman wasn’t as confident as he should have been.
Vyron glanced back often at his three companions. All four wore denims and shirts in varying shades of the black and gray that seemed to be the Steelskin colors. Two of Vyron’s associates were huge, at least half Hadrian. They both towered nearly as tall as Vyron, with dark skin and pale eyes. At their waists, half covered by the hems of their shirts, each carried a holstered laser pistol with tape covering the power indicators.
Those lights were probably flashing orange or red, Coldhand guessed. The gang’s weapon resources would have been taxed to their limit by the recent shoot-out with the Axis police. Leaving the lights uncovered would warn their targets as much as their owners that the precious power cells were running low. But with those indicators covered, the bounty hunter couldn’t count how many shots each had left.
Walking well behind the other three, the last Steelskin was an Arcadian. He had blond hair shaved close to his scalp and the point of his right ear was clipped off. The fairy man wore a long gray coat, slit high up the back to accommodate his wings. Half-concealed underneath, Coldhand saw a glitter that reflected the artificial sunlight in a hundred tiny rainbows.
Glass.
He would have to be careful of the Arcadian, Coldhand decided. A year chasing Maeve had taught him the dangers of their strange glass weapons. They were archaic compared to laser and nanotechnologies, but were wickedly sharp and very nearly unbreakable. Maeve had come close to gutting him on several occasions with her spear.
Coldhand waited until the four Steelskins had taken up positions at the abandoned fueling depot, all standing around an empty pump. Coldhand crept closer, slipping his Talon free and turned off the safety. The two humans leaned on the derelict pump, boasting and telling stories. Vyron seemed distracted and didn’t answer.
Relegated to the only real work to be done for the moment, the Arcadian Steelskin stood at the corner and watched the street for their promised customer. Coldhand circled to the far side, behind the fairy. As the bounty hunter closed, one of the Hadrian men was thumping Vyron on the shoulder.
“Relax, Vy. When we’re done here, we’ll send the bird–” he said, jabbing a finger toward the Arcadian. “–back to Jainna with the color and then we’ll take you out for a drink. You need to unwind.”
“You deserve it, Vy,” the other Steelskin agreed. “You’ve been flat ever since the Sisters.”
Vyron shrugged noncommittally and craned his head from side to side, searching for his customer with large black eyes. He spotted Coldhand approaching and smiled until he saw the gun in the bounty hunter’s hand. The Dailon didn’t have a chance to warn his companions before the shriek of laserfire raised the alarm for him.
Coldhand’s first shot — fired as he came around the corner of the boarded up office — caught the nearest Hadrian right in the knee. He had been leaning against the pump, but now without half of his support, the man tumbled to the ground. His skull impacted the pavement hard enough to make his eggshell white eyes roll back in his head.
The second human shouted in surprised rage, whirling on the threat as he drew his own gun. Vyron backed away and held up the case of White like a shield. His dark eyes were wide with terror. In an instant, the Arcadian was in the air, beating his wings in a frenzy to gain altitude and yanking a pair of glass daggers from under his coat. Coldhand pulled back behind the corner of the empty station as the remaining Hadrian freed his weapon and fired. His aim was sloppy and the shots burned silently into the side of the office, but the noise generator had been modified into a shrieking scrape of metal on metal.
Coldhand didn’t dare stay behind cover for long. Vyron was going to run. Coldhand darted out from the office and tucked into a low roll to minimize his profile. Molten laserfire flew over him before the Hadrian could readjust his aim, but the bounty hunter bounded back to his feet, swinging his Talon around and firing two return shots.
The first laser bolt clipped the enraged human in his gun arm. He screamed and fumbled with his weapon, but it was already on the ground. A shot through his calf laid the Steelskin out beside his weapon. Coldhand kicked the gun into the street, far out of reach, while the injured man howled obscenities.
Vyron turned to bolt, dropping his briefcase. The metal clanged on the pavement and Coldhand heard glass shattering inside. He lunged to tackle the Dailon to the ground, but there was a rush of wind and the Arcadian was on him. Coldhand parried the fairy’s first face-seeking slash aside on his cybernetic forearm. The glass blade rang hard off the illonium, but Jumo’s welds held. For now.
The hunter ducked a second thrust, letting it glide past his right shoulder. Coldhand tried to grab at the Arcadian’s overextended arm to drag him down, but his hand closed on something smoother than skin or cloth and the man slipped from his grasp. Pulled off balance, the Arcadian’s wings slapped against the ground, momentarily tangling in the long tails of his coat. The fairy tugged it off and coiled his legs under him, leaping back into the air.
No longer concealed, Coldhand could see the Arcadian Steelskin’s suit of armor. It looked a lot like the steel plate mail that he had seen illustrated in books as a boy — worn on Prianus almost two thousand years ago — but this armor was crafted entirely of shining and transparent glass. Tiberius claimed that Maeve had been some kind of knight on her homeworld, but Coldhand had never seen her wear such armor.
He brought his aim up as the Arcadian wheeled through the air. Vyron was running away. Coldhand heard his feet pounding on the asphalt and his sobbing, labored breathing. There wasn’t much time left before the Dailon was too far away to catch.
Coldhand fired a shot that should have dropped the Arcadian with a smoking hole through his heart, but the laser dispersed as it struck the glass armor. No wonder the suit of crystal armor glittered so brightly, even in the flat artificial light of Axis’ lower levels. The refraction index was probably more refined than diamonds, so low that a couple of angles harmlessly dissipated laserfire.
The Arcadian folded his wings and plummeted again, daggers extended. Coldhand stood his ground as the Steelskin dove. When the fairy was almost on top of him, Coldhand stepped aside and smashed his cybernetic fist into the side of the other man’s unprotected skull. No helmet, no head or face protection. The Arcadian crashed into the street hard enough that Coldhand heard bones break, but his armor didn’t so much as chip.
Coldhand didn’t have time to see if the Arcadian was alive. He whirled and sprinted after Vyron. The Dailon was half a block away — gasping with terror and fighting for breath — when the bounty hunter caught him. Coldhand grabbed Vyron by the back of his shirt, jerking him to a halt and putting the hot muzzle of his pistol to the man’s temple.
“Are you Vyron Fethru?” Coldhand asked.
Vyron was shaking so hard that he could barely stammer out an answer. “Yes, that’s me. What… what do you want with me?”
His mark’s identity confirmed, Coldhand dragged Vyron away without answering.
