Chapter One

CHRISTINE

A mountain of twisted scrap metal and spare parts teetered above my head. While most people would see nothing but a pile of stinking garbage, I saw an opportunity and hoped for treasure.

I tightened the straps on my backpack. Activating the adhesive on my gloves, I found a precarious handhold and started climbing. Even though I wore a mask over my face, a faint hint of what smelled like rotting eggs seeped through the pores of the charcoal filters.

Closing my mouth, I continued moving up toward the peak. I don’t know why I didn’t hear it. My ears must have been overwhelmed with the echoes of my breath and jingling tools fastened around my thighs. When I reached the top, I deactivated the adhesive and grabbed onto a wing embedded in the wreckage.

Seeing the movement shocked me. A small spherical robot emerged from behind an ancient laser cannon and charged in my direction. The rusty D-162 model was about as big as a golf ball, but I knew it was deadly despite its deceptive size. The series would self-destruct upon the detection of any intruders and was packed with enough explosives to eliminate anything within a hundred-foot radius.

“Halt!” the bot screeched, stopping only inches from the tip of my nose. “Identify yourself.”

I pulled out my intergalactic explorer’s license from a waist pouch and presented the card with a steady hand. The bot quieted down and backed away as a projector lens extended from the center of its tiny body. A red shaft of light shot out from the lens, sweeping back and forth across the card.

“Scanning.” A blinking bulb on top of the bot turned yellow. “Name: Blackwood, Christine. Issued on Earth. Expires in one thousand, seven hundred forty-two days.”

After a breathtaking pause, the light finally flashed green. “Access granted.” The unit turned around and concealed itself behind the weapon again.

I lowered my shoulders, checking around me and wondering if anyone had seen my encounter. Slipping the license back into my pouch, I resumed my scavenger hunt. I pulled down my visor, which tainted everything in my vision green. Thanks to the screen, virtual bubbles appeared around the various objects in my path, overlaid with estimated values on the black market. I dropped to my knees and moved in the most promising direction. Along the way, I picked up lucrative objects for closer inspection.

“I’ve got three of those. Someone seems to have peed on that, no, thank you. That’s a mummified rat. What’s this?”

I wriggled out a box wedged between a deflated tire and half of a cracked viewport. The rectangular device had about a dozen knobs and came attached to a transmitter. Something had burned a gaping hole through the top, exposing its internal electronics. I peered through the hole, studying a dusty circuit board and accompanying cluster of half-eaten wires. A bubble around the transmitter turned white and spun as it tried to communicate with a base ship which was no longer listening for it.

“Radio-based scanner from an Echilean military twelve-seater craft. Model HB-12. Only two hundred fifty credits as it is, but eight hundred credits restored.” I clicked my tongue and broke into a grin. “Nice.”

I swiped across my visor, scanning through the list of the transmitter’s components. Luckily for me, I had most of the parts necessary for repairs in the workshop back on my ship. I had fixed similar equipment in the past, and if I needed help, I could always call in favors.

I set down my backpack and loosened the drawstrings. I had to push around the loot in my bag to make room for the new treasure. Among the contents were a trio of glittering gatbi corals, six different eight-inch bolts, and a gorgeous pendant featuring a scuffed but salvageable yellow gemstone. Cushioning the transmitter between two wrapped bundles of dila weed, I pulled up the zippers as far as they would go.

If my calculations were correct, I had made a few thousand credits today, give or take a couple hundred. That wasn’t bad at all.

Dusting off my hands, I stood up and stared out at the eerie Echilean panorama before me. Beyond the fenced-in junkyard lay a sparsely lit city filled with squalid slums. The usual residence here was a hut constructed out of bark, with flimsy metal sheets for a roof. Crackling bonfires tended by vagrants, foragers, and violent scavengers peppered the filthy desert. A rhythmic clanging from makeshift instruments rang across the open space. The cacophony was beautiful, yet haunting.

Long ago I came upon a collection of photographs purporting to show what the planet had looked like hundreds of years ago. If I hadn’t found them in a reputable source of information - the intergalactic archives, filed with the Celestial Historical Society tag – I would have thought that someone had digitally altered the images. Apparently, the Echilean capital was once home to skyscrapers, dazzling superstructures, and a multitude of natural resources.

In the past, glinting transport pods in all colors and sizes zipped through the city, parking in the sky or landing on conveyor belts attached to the sides of buildings. The beginnings of trouble were visible even back then. The wealthy lived in cloud-scratching glass pyramids, but the ground served as a prison for the lower classes. The less fortunate made their homes in charming villages surrounded by lush foliage and gorgeous green lakes.

Fast forward a couple of centuries, and the city had become a wasteland. It was barely a shadow of its former glory. Over eighty unique species of Echilean animals were on the verge of extinction. Most of the lakes and creeks had dried up. The few that remained were now black as soot, polluted by trash and toxic chemicals.

I glanced to my right. I couldn’t keep myself from staring at a pair of enamored Echileans rolling around on a dirty, naked mattress. If I wasn’t mistaken, the two hundred story Tilwang Towers, the hub of all trading on the planet, once stood on that very spot.

The destruction of the city began after a terrible invasion by Makroid forces during the foreign government’s ruthless campaign for territory expansion. The war targeted seven of the richest planets on this side of the galaxy. The Makroid successfully established strongholds on four of the planets.

Echiles suffered the worst. The other planets would eventually rise from the ashes. On Echiles, the high-ranking officials and wealthy families fled in droves, seeking refuge on neighboring planets. Echiles never recovered, and the last remnants of the community spiraled downward into prehistoric chaos. The planet was the living definition of a war crime.

Slipping one strap of my backpack over my shoulder, I continued north until I found a piece of metal. I scanned the object, hoping it contained a valuable alloy. As I positioned myself over the slab, I noticed a brilliant gleam out of the corner of my eye. I turned to my right and adjusted the dial on my visor, zooming in on the area. There was nothing there.

I shrugged it off and faced the flat piece of metal. Before I could get set up, I saw a sparkle again. Frowning, I set the hunk of metal aside and walked over to the origin of the curious gleam. The bubbles on my visor screen were all pulsing red, suggesting there was nothing of value in the area. Still, the computer had been wrong before. That was why scavenging operations needed organic brains behind them. I bent down on my knees for a quick look.

My eyebrows knitted together in concentration. I dug through the pile of junk, tossing cogs and ship yokes over my shoulder until I saw it. My lips parted.

“What do we have here?”

I pried a small, heavy parcel out of a glittering pot. The package was about the size of my forearm and swaddled in a dark, silky cloth. Whatever this thing was, the packaging alone ought to be worth a pretty penny. I unwrapped the bundle hastily, and my eyes doubled in size.

A golden statue stared back at me. I peeled off my gloves and adjusted my headlamp, weighing the gilded beauty in my hands. The strange sculpture looked like an alien totem pole. It had carvings on both sides, displaying four sets of frightening faces stacked on top of each other. The images were ancient caricatures of Metazoan and humanoid extraterrestrial gods.

“So how much is it?” I fiddled with the dial on the visor. For reasons that escaped me, no price estimates formed around the statue, not even in red. Was it working? I picked up a screw from the ground for testing. A tiny bubble appeared almost instantly, listing the value of the part as a fraction of a credit.

I hurled the screw away and tried to scan the totem pole again, but I couldn’t get a response. My visor would not process the mysterious item.

I pushed up my visor and pulled down the loupe stored behind my headlamp. I magnified the statue to study it carefully. My face was so close that my breath fogged the object. For a moment, I wondered if it was counterfeit, but it seemed too elaborate to be fake. There was a real weight to the thing. Its details were too exquisite, and the minuscule flaws too distinct to have been a reproduction.

I ran my fingertips along the dimples and ridges of the ravishing statue, tapping the winking jewels studded into the eyes, crowns, and headdresses.

“If someone won’t buy you, I’ll keep you for myself.” I put away the loupe and gazed curiously at the item. “You’re coming home with me.”

After tightly clutching my latest prize in my fist, I lost my appetite for further exploration. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. With luck, today would be my biggest payday yet. I started to re-wrap the statue, happily spinning around with a spring in my step.

My grin faltered when I spotted three Echileans in shaggy tunics and beast hide loincloths on one end of the walkway. Each one wielded a spiked club and carried a sharpened steel pole on his back. I looked around, hoping I could slip away without conflict. Another pair snuck around behind me.

Tattoos covered their scowling faces and stopped around their necks. Yellow and blue crosses covered their creased foreheads. The marks were a symbol of the Gravvez, a well-known group of scavengers who frequented the district and claimed the territory as their own.

I cleared my throat, licking my lips as their eyes darted to the parcel in my hands. “Good evening, gentlemen. Don’t mind me. I’m just passing through.”

I strolled up to the pair of aliens, intentionally moving away from the last one. If I had to fight, I would take any advantage I could get, even if it was only one fewer enemy. Under the glare of my headlamp, they narrowed their bloodshot eyes but refused to move an inch. I turned around and tried to pass the Echilean on the other side, but they weren’t going to let me through.

Maybe a stern voice would help. I was running out of patience. “Excuse me. If you could take one little step to the right, I would appreciate it. Neither one of us wants to get into a fight today.”

The Echileans blinked at me, gnashing together silver, yellowing teeth. I pushed my visor back down and swiped through a translation menu. I repeated myself, speaking in the Echilean tongue instead of Standard.

“Haba dangahe!” An Echilean without eyebrows barked at me, extending outstretched fingers at my belongings. I had a feeling he wasn’t trying to shake my hand.

The visor translated the words in real time. “You have something that belongs to us.”

“Hey guys, I have every right to be here, just like you. I don’t think so.” My voice sounded calm, but my hands were starting to sweat. I casually tucked the statue behind my tool belt. “I’m not looking for any trouble. I’ll say this again slowly. Get out of my way.”

The Echileans threw their heads back and stretched their mouths open to roar. Their cries sounded like a chorus of foghorns. As gang members on either side of me lunged at my body, I ducked and rolled out of the way. Two crashed into each other. The blow knocked them off their feet. I blindly groped around my body looking for a gun and my stomach fell. I had picked a bad day to forget the plasma pistol.

All I had to use was a bow. I started to reach for the arrows stashed in the side pocket of my backpack. Before I could get the arrow nocked onto the hemp line, a club aimed at my face swished through the air. I darted to the side, bangs rustling from the sudden movement.

I managed to deflect the club with my bow, but I didn’t have a defense against raw alien strength. A set of thin but surprisingly powerful fingers grabbed me by the throat and slammed me up against a pile of junk. I groaned, bones rattling from the impact against the back of my head.

Blood rushed to my face and sweat suddenly coated my skin. My bow slowly slipped from my grasp. As the Echilean throttled me with one hand, another reached for the statue on my belt. Wheezing, I pathetically scratched at the hand on my throat. When I saw the other aliens slowly closing in, a final rush of adrenaline surged through me.

I needed a weapon.

I blindly groped around behind my back. My fingers wrapped around the plastic head of a power drill. There wasn’t a bit installed in it, but it would still serve my purposes. Tightening my fingers around the mouth of the drill, I swung the tool forward and smashed the side of his head with the handle. As soon as his grip loosened around my throat, I kicked him off of me. I scooped up my bow and arrow from the ground, gasping for breath as I fell backward.

When my vision started to come back, I pulled out the razor-sharp shuriken from my tool belt and began hurling them at the Echileans. Only two of the projectiles hit their intended targets. The first pinned one of the thugs by the sleeves of his tunic against a wall of junk. The second sliced across an assailant’s arm before flying off into the night.

The distraction was all I needed to turn the situation around. I lowered myself into a shooting position and loaded my bow quickly, aiming for the legs of the rapidly approaching Echileans. My arrows struck three directly in their thighs, making their oily faces twist into grimaces. When I only had one arrow left, I pushed myself off the ground, shooting the guy stuck onto the wall.

It was time for me to go.

I took off, streaking across the walkway and dodging the never-ending line of hoodlums. As the last one spread his arms, attempting to corner me, I pulled out the statue and swung at his face. My reward was a satisfying crunch. He collapsed behind me, clapping his hands over his nose as blood gushed down his chin.

“Yikes. Sorry about that!”

I raised a hand to apologize, but that was all he was going to get from me. I didn’t even look at him, choosing instead to stare straight ahead and continue running. The thugs limped after me, impotently raising their fists into the air. I reached for my ship remote, smashing the Unlock button furiously.

As I came closer to the ship, I noticed a small figure on the sideline who stopped me dead in my tracks. I incredulously turned my head toward the stranger. It was an Echilean child, crouched over the dirt and carrying a thin pipe. She had spent time drawing on the ground with a stylus, and she pointed at her creations, smiling proudly.

“Hey!” I urgently called out to the girl. “What are you doing out here? It’s not safe. Come on, you should be anywhere else. Go away!”

To my dismay, the child stayed where she was. I had to think fast. With the Echileans’ shouting growing louder in the background, I lifted her off the ground and shoved the kid into a hollowed-out engine.

“Stay right here!”

Now that the girl was safe, I whirled around and bolted up the ramp of my ship to retrieve my plasma pistol. But I wouldn’t need it. The Echileans started to stagger forward, passing out before they hit the ground. The venom on the arrowheads was finally beginning to take effect. I heaved a sigh of relief and threw my backpack into the ship.

“Don’t worry about them.” I smiled kindly, trying to reassure the girl curled up in the engine well. “They’re just unconscious. In a few hours, they’ll be upright and angry again.” I stepped into my ship, waving to the child before she disappeared behind the closing door.