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Antithesis:

Love and War, Book 0

By R. A. Steffan

Copyright 2017 by R. A. Steffan

CHAPTER ONE

THIS, THOUGHT SKYE, must be what going into shock feels like.

She was cold all over. Chilled to the bone, even though it was the height of summer in the Capital on Ilarius. The door to her modest flat in the unfashionable lower district slid shut behind her with a soft whoosh. Her hands engaged the three separate locking mechanisms with the ease of long practice, but she couldn’t feel the smooth duraplast under her fingers. It was as if she were watching from outside as someone who looked like her went through the familiar motions of her life.

She knew she should be terrified. She knew she would be terrified, eventually. At some point, everything would come crashing down on her, reducing her to a shuddering wreck, huddled in the corner.

But she couldn’t afford that right now. None of her fellow humans in the city could afford it. Everything rested on her.

Everything.

Shit. How had this happened? The entirety of her existence had just been ripped from beneath her feet in the space of a single morning, leaving her reeling.

She and her foster brother Temple had been growing increasingly worried about their father these past few months, as his communications grew farther apart and oddly distant. Stilted. She’d thought… well, she’d thought maybe he had some health problem that he didn’t want to tell them about. She’d been gearing up over the past couple of weeks to confront him about it.

Ha. If only she’d known.

All this time, she’d thought his job working in the scientific research and development department in the Vithii-run government was keeping their little patchwork family safe. The irony was so bitter, she could barely choke it down.

He was a prisoner. The Regime was holding the threat of his wife’s life over him. Skye might have despised her stepmother with a flaming passion, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see the woman imprisoned, acting as a hostage against her father’s good behavior.

Her father. He had…

She swallowed.

He’d spent the last six months developing a bioweapon for use against the humans in the Capital. His Vithii overseers had threatened him with the death of all those he held dear, and cajoled him with the promise of evacuation to safety for him and his family if he cooperated. And he’d… caved. He’d given in to their demands. Done the unthinkable.

Suddenly, she felt as if she might throw up.

She was still standing frozen just inside the door, she realized—her hands hanging limp by her sides, her eyes staring at nothing. That was bad. Apparently, the Regime had her under surveillance, too. Her and Temple, both. The pair of them would be additional leverage, if any were needed.

Was her flat bugged? Could they see her right now?

She had to act normal. She dragged a hand over her face, as if she were merely tired, and deposited her bag in its usual spot on the table next to the door.

What should she do now? What would allow her to just sit and think for a bit, without it looking suspicious? Her skin crawled at the idea of Vithii eyes watching her through a viewscreen somewhere, maybe taking notes every few minutes describing what she was doing.

Subject is reheating three-day-old takeaway.

Subject entered the shower for fifteen minutes; appears to be using a new brand of shampoo.

Subject masturbated to orgasm twice before going to sleep.

Her gorge rose again. She moved with jerky steps toward the holovid unit in the corner and flipped it on. She would sit on her dilapidated sofa and pretend to watch the news. Normal. That was totally normal, wasn’t it? Nothing strange or suspicious about watching the news after a morning out with your foster brother.

The chirpy human news anchor was going on about some meaningless fluff story—some feel-good crap about the government increasing funding to a Vithii orphanage. Skye flopped down on the uninspiring beige sofa, trying to make it look as if her knees hadn’t just given way unexpectedly.

She still couldn’t feel anything. The too-soft center cushions that nearly swallowed her whole might as well have been light-years away.

It was only Temple’s penchant for getting into trouble and spending time with the wrong crowd that had allowed her father to get a message to him at all. Apparently they were both being watched too closely for him to contact either of them directly, except with occasional bland—and no doubt carefully vetted—communiqués. It was the tone of those odd, stilted communiqués that had raised Skye’s suspicions in the first place.

Finally, under the auspices of acquiring hard-to-find restricted materials necessary for the final stages of the weapon’s production, he’d managed to get a coded message to someone who knew someone, who knew someone, who knew Temple. And Temple, in turn, had invited her out for a casual morning wandering around the city zoo, on one of the few days of the month when humans were allowed in.

In the raucous confines of the aviary, surrounded by screeching birds descended from those originally brought by the human colonists from Earth, Temple quietly told her what he knew, confident that the ambient noise would prevent eavesdropping on the off chance that either of them were bugged.

He told her that their father had secretly managed to develop an antidote to the weapon at the same time he was working on the weapon itself. Now he wanted them to help him smuggle the formula out before the Regime decided to deploy the bio-agent, killing tens of thousands of humans in a horrific bloodbath the likes of which Ilarius had never seen in its hundred-and-twenty-year history.

Her father had to be insane.

She was an accountant at a university. A fucking accountant. Not a spy. Not a soldier. Not even a scientist. There were so many things that could go wrong before she could get the formula somewhere it could actually be manufactured and put to use, she couldn’t even count them.

It would make more sense for Temple to do it. She’d begged him to do it. But he’d only put his hands on her shoulders in that strong, steadying way he had and explained that anyone watching—the Regime included—would expect their father to give the formula to him. So he would act as a decoy, drawing them away while she snuck out with the real data crystal.

Their father had arranged for a family visit on her birthday in a few days—which would no doubt be closely supervised. During the visit, he would pass a fake data crystal to Temple, and the real one to her, in the form of a gifted earring.

With the help of one of his human lab assistants, he had arranged for a decommissioned shuttle to be secretly serviced and made flight-ready. While Temple led the guards on a merry chase in one direction, she would steal the shuttle and head in the other direction—toward one of the unaffiliated worlds at the edge of the Seven Systems, where she might find help manufacturing the antidote and getting it back to Ilarius.

Or not. It seemed much more likely that they were all going to get killed.

Alternately, they were going to get captured by the Regime, which was, she knew, an even worse fate. It was a horrible, stupid, ridiculous plan. And right now, it was all that stood between her people and annihilation.

Gods and prophets help her.

A red ‘Breaking News’ banner on the vid display caught her fractured attention and drew her unfocused gaze back to the chattering inanity across the room. The banner was replaced with a photo of a Vithii man’s face, the candid pose and the telltale blurring identifying it as an enhanced frame pulled from some low-res surveillance video.

It was a face that practically everyone knew these days. The Rook. Leader of the criminal gang known as the Shadow Wing. The most feared and hated fugitive in the Seven Systems, wanted for a litany of charges including murder, rape, torture, theft, sabotage—crimes that would make the most hard-hearted misanthrope blanch in disgust.

The Rook’s features were distinctive, not only for their cold, brutal cast, but also for the feathered black tattoos that covered almost every exposed part of his body. Those tattoos had earned him his nom de guerre.

The name wasn’t surprising, really, since Vithii in general were fascinated by birds. The planet Vithara had never produced animals larger than insects that were capable of flight. When the Vithii who now called Ilarius home had arrived after fleeing civil war on their native planet, they’d been shocked and amazed by the birds living there.

Sparrows, starlings, hawks, robins, cardinals, rooks, and finches populated the colony—all brought to the planet by the humans who had already established a fledgling settlement there. The Vithii scientists had barely been able to contain their glee, and birds had quickly worked their way into Vithii culture.

Now, Skye stared at The Rook’s feathered tattoos as the vacuous news anchor cheerfully reported on the breaking story.

”Government officials report that two members of the notorious Shadow Wing cartel have been cornered by Regime forces in an abandoned warehouse situated in an undisclosed area of the Capital. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, assured Mishaara News Network that one of the two had been positively identified as The Rook—the gang’s leader—and that the fugitives’ capture or elimination was imminent.”

Skye snorted, feeling particularly cynical about that. Though, to be fair, she was feeling particularly cynical about nearly everything right now. Her gaze was drawn to The Rook’s strangely compelling light green eyes. Even with the poor quality of the enhanced image, they did not seem to fit with the cruelty of the rest of his face. They had depths—a window into the reality of a man who was more of a legend at this point than a real person. A bogeyman used to frighten people and divert attention from all the other terrible things the Regime didn’t want them thinking about.

The Regime had claimed that The Rook’s capture was ‘imminent’ so many times that it was becoming something of a running joke. She’d believe it when she saw it… assuming she lived that long.

Which was… yeah. Pretty unlikely, actually.

Just like that, her thoughts came crashing back to the ground as quickly as they’d floated away. Skye continued to stare at those green eyes set in that rugged and callous face.

Too bad my father didn’t contact someone like you to help him, she thought. I imagine you’d be a hell of a lot better suited to this cloak and dagger stuff than I am.

The green eyes stared back at her, and she dismissed the ridiculous thought.

Ha. Right. Too bad you’re Vithii. Not to mention a ruthless, amoral killer. Who am I kidding? You and your criminal friends will probably throw a party while the humans in the capital are coughing up their own lungs and bleeding from their eyeballs.

There was no one to help her. Least of all a Vithii fugitive currently holed up in a warehouse somewhere with a bunch of people shooting at him. It was all up to her.

And she was completely, utterly unprepared.

CHAPTER TWO

“SO, HAVE I MENTIONED lately what a stupid fucking idea this was?” Kade asked.

Hunter Tarthasian, better known as The Rook, ground his teeth and ducked as another stray blaster bolt flashed through the shattered window. It hit the support pillar he was using for cover, scattering bits of concrete shrapnel in a broad arc. Hunter was well acquainted with Kade’s tendency to moan like an old woman whenever people were shooting at them, but even so—

“Have you somehow forgotten that it was your contact who set up this meeting?” he snapped. “This meeting, I might add, which turned out to be nothing more than bait for an ambush?”

Kade cursed as a blast exploded uncomfortably close to his head. “You mean my contact, who’s going to be sporting a few extra holes in his body once I get my hands on him? That contact? No, I haven’t forgotten.”

Hunter sighed, and went back to calculating odds.

“For what it’s worth,” Kade continued, “Ash should have the specs on this warehouse for us before long.”

Hunter grunted agreement, not bothering with more of a reply.

One of the soldiers outside made the mistake of peeking around the edge of the broken window. Kade squeezed off a shot at him that went wide. Hunter looked at Kade’s hand, holding the blaster. Saw the nearly undetectable tremor in it. Raised an eyebrow.

“Withdrawal symptoms already?” he asked.

Kade glared at him. “Hmm… let’s see. We’ve been pinned down here for nearly two hours, and I took the only dose I had with me two hours before that. So, yeah. You could say that.”

“You gonna be able to hold it together until Ash comes up with something for us?”

His only response was a flat, dead-eyed stare. Hunter held it for a minute before shrugging; as if it was no matter to him that his only backup was losing fine motor control and mental stability just when they both needed to be at their sharpest.

Fortunately, Ash chose that moment to open comms, his human-accented voice crackling in their earpieces.

“You both still breathing?” he asked. “Hearts beating? Bodily fluids still mostly inside where they’re supposed to be?”

A growl rumbled through Kade’s chest. “Mostly.” His eyes flicked down to the bloodstain slowly spreading across the front of his right thigh, where a fragment of exploding concrete had hit him.

“Your faith in us is as heart-warming as ever, by the way,” Hunter added, deadpan.

“Hey, I figured it was worth asking before I started rattling off escape plans to a pair of corpses,” Ash replied. “Looks like half of the Capital’s security forces are surrounding that warehouse.”

“We’d noticed,” said Kade. The sarcastic words were undercut by the now-familiar sound of concrete shattering, as blaster fire blew another chunk out of their cover.

“So. Escape plan?” Hunter prompted.

There was a pause that Hunter didn’t much like.

“Yeah… um.” Another pause. “No, you’re going to love this, really. Trust me, we’ll all laugh about it a few days from now.”

Hunter closed his eyes and let his forehead rest against the pillar for a bare instant before straightening again. “Spit it out, Ash.”

“Okay, so before the owners walked away from the building, it had a whole bunch of problems. Code violations, that kind of shit. Right?”

A bolt of energy sizzled past Hunter’s shoulder, missing him by an inch. He jerked back, a curl of smoke rising from his scorched flightsuit.

“Cut to the chase, Ash!”

“Sorry. Anyway, the place had horrible drainage problems. The plumbing backed up every time it rained. So… they dug up the connection with the main sewage line in the basement. It’s… uh… it’s still open. As far as I can tell.”

There was a beat of absolute silence.

“Seriously,” Kade said. “The sewers. Seriously?”

“How do we get there?” Hunter asked, resigned.

“There’s a lift shaft,” Ash said helpfully.

“With a lift in it?” Kade asked.

“Erm. Not so much.”

“Stairs?” Hunter asked, still resigned.

“Not… so much.”

Another beat of silence, before Ash added with forced cheerfulness, “But on the positive side, getting down the lift shaft will be quicker this way.”

“I’ll kill him,” Kade muttered, possibly too low for the comms unit to pick up. Or possibly not. “If we get out of here, I’m going to kill him.”

“No you’re not,” Hunter said in a tired tone. “If we get out of here, you’ll thank him very politely for saving our asses. Again.”

“Fine,” Kade growled. “I’ll thank him very politely… and then I’ll kill him.”

Hunter ignored him. “Right, Ash. We need to move. Where’s this lift shaft?”

“Northwest corner, about sixty meters from your current position.”

“We’ll have to keep the goons outside distracted for a few minutes,” Hunter said. “Ideas?”

Kade grumbled something and rummaged in the pockets of his leather flight jacket. Hunter squeezed off a couple of shots through the busted-out window to cover him. A moment later, the other man held out a pair of Shur-Stik pads, each with a loop of metal attached, the ends circling into a small actuator at the back. A little duraplast cylinder like a holster completed each of the devices.

Kade held one of the jury-rigged devices in his teeth, and placed the grip of his compact hand-blaster in the holster of the other. He fumbled a bit with shaking hands, but a moment later it slid in snugly, leaving the metal band wrapped around the trigger. He eyed the angle to the window and pressed the Shur-Stik pad to the side of the concrete pillar, leaving the blaster suspended, aimed at the window and the Regime goons hunkered down beyond it.

When he flicked the switch on the actuator, the device whined into life and the metal band contracted, pulling the trigger and firing off a shot through the gap in the broken glass.

“It’s on a random firing pattern,” Kade said, and held out the other device to Hunter. “Here, get yours set up.”

Hunter took it from Kade’s trembling fingers. He glanced at the simple, yet clever toy and shot Kade a look from under lowered brows. “I never know what it says about you that you carry shit like this around in your pockets, Kade.”

Kade narrowed his eyes. “Fuck off. It says that I get bored easily. And that I like to tinker.”

Another shot from outside sizzled past, and a moment later the metal band on Kade’s blaster trigger tightened again, firing off a round as if in response. Hunter rigged up his own blaster and aimed it at the window as well. Once they’d confirmed that both actuators were working properly, the two of them crouched low and made for the northwest corner of the old warehouse, dodging debris left behind by the owners and whatever squatters had called the place home in the interim.

Behind them, their blasters fired off shots at random intervals, hopefully covering up the fact that they were on the move. The lift shaft was exactly where Ash had said it would be. It was obviously derelict; the metal doors were off the tracks, leaning haphazardly across the dark maw of the open shaft beyond.

“Ash,” Hunter said. “You said basement level? One floor down?”

“Two, actually,” came the helpful reply. “You’re on the first floor. Ground floor is beneath you. Basement is beneath that.”

“Of course,” Kade said, still sounding as if he was fantasizing about creative ways to kill their human ally. “Because dropping one floor down in an open lift shaft would have been too easy.”

Hunter wasted no time, shoving the broken doors out of the way so he could lean over and assess the shaft’s interior with a small flashlight pulled from his pocket.

“Stop whining,” he said. “There are access rungs.”

Kade looked sour. “And how badly rusted out are they?”

Hunter played the light over the metal hand- and footholds. “Moderately. So try to spread your weight over three or more at any one time. I’ll go first.”

He didn’t add that by descending first, he’d be in a position to try to catch Kade if he lost his grip. He didn’t have to.

“I’m not a fucking invalid,” Kade snarled.

“No,” Hunter said, disappearing over the edge of the lift’s doorway and starting down cautiously. “You’re a long-term neurotonin addict who hasn’t had a fix in more than four hours. So move, while you’ve still got some degree of muscle control.”

After a brief pause, Kade followed him into the shaft, moving slowly and deliberately. Hunter made it a little more than halfway down before the rung under his left foot screeched and snapped off, clattering to the concrete floor below. He caught himself, hanging from his hands for a moment, the rung in his right hand squeaking ominously.

Carefully, he stretched down, finding another foothold, and redistributed his weight. “Third rung beneath the one your lower foot is on feels iffy,” he told Kade. “Sixth one is gone.”

“Right,” Kade said, his voice still a frustrated growl.

They made it down the rest of the way safely, but slower than Hunter would have liked. There was no telling how long the rigged blasters would fool the Regime forces gathered outside the building. Realistically, they would have been ironing out the details of a full-blown assault even before that. He and Kade had rigged all the entrance points they could find with low-grade microexplosives, but that wouldn’t keep the goons out forever.

Without the natural light they’d enjoyed on the floor above, the warehouse’s basement level was nearly pitch black. Hunter retrieved his flashlight again and shone the beam around them in an arc.

“Well,” he said, breathing in cautiously, “I don’t think there’s any question about the sewer access having been closed off. Not with that stench.”

“We should move,” Kade said.

Even if Hunter hadn’t been able to detect the strain behind the words, the mere fact that Kade had ignored an opportunity to complain about their predicament was cause for concern. Generally speaking, Kade’s wellbeing was inversely related to how badly he was moaning about things. When he went quiet and direct, it was usually a very bad sign.

“We’re moving,” Hunter reassured him, and suited action to word. He led them in a broad search pattern, sticking mostly to the walls until the combination of the increased stench and a two-meter-tall pile of dirt and chunks of concrete marked the sewer access.

“Looks tight,” Kade said, eying the filth-encrusted pipe leading down to the city sewer system below. “I’ll lead this time. I’m skinnier.”

Skinny was a misnomer, but it was true that Kade’s form lacked even the barest hint of fat or softness—all bone and sinew and corded muscle, and not much else.

“Go on, then,” Hunter said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

The pipe was not even a meter in diameter. Kade removed his leather jacket with shaking fingers to further reduce his bulk, and slid feet first into the unwelcoming space.

“I really am going to kill him,” he reiterated matter-of-factly once his head had disappeared from view, his voice oddly attenuated by the metal pipe. There was a splash at the bottom. “Come on, hurry up.”

Hunter dropped the leather jacket down after him, to the accompaniment of a heartfelt curse, presumably when Kade fumbled it. His own flightsuit was fairly form fitting. He took a deep breath—regretting it immediately when the stench hit him anew—and slipped down into the claustrophobic, disgusting space.

The unidentified black slime coating the interior of the pipe did have one saving grace—it was slick. Even so, he had to wriggle from side to side, letting gravity pull him down a centimeter at a time, his arms held over his head and his shoulders scrunched up to his ears.

After a couple of profoundly uncomfortable minutes that he sincerely hoped not to repeat anytime soon, his legs and hips emerged into open space. He dropped into filthy, hip-deep water a moment later. He managed to catch himself and stay upright, but couldn’t prevent the wave of muck that splashed against Kade, to the accompaniment of more heartfelt cursing.

Rather than waste time, Hunter spoke into his comms pick-up. “Ash? You still with us? We’re down. Where are we going now that we’re here?”

The earpiece crackled, the weight of brick and cement above them interfering with the transmission. “Signal… intermittent… walk forward a… meters so I can orient you.”

The gist was clear enough. Hunter played his light over the walls of the sewer, before picking a direction and leading Kade forward a short distance.

“Got it. You need to… other direction… about a klick and a half.”

“Copy,” Hunter said grimly. He just hoped Kade was up to a one-and-a-half kilometer slog through the sewers. “Come on,” he said, heading back in the direction they’d come. “You’d better have Ryder inject you with every antibiotic in the med-bay when we get back. I don’t like to think what’s currently making itself at home in that wound on your leg.”

Kade merely grunted.

* * *

As far as Hunter was concerned, the less said about that slow, painful trek through the Capital’s filthy underbelly, the better. People had been calling him a gutter rat for most of his life. He didn’t have to relish the idea of them being proved right.

By the time they finally zeroed in on the out-of-the-way access point where Ash was waiting for them, pacing nervously back and forth by the open manhole cover, Hunter was supporting most of Kade’s weight. Kade was shuddering, sweat pouring from his face, his arm draped over Hunter’s shoulder as he mumbled to himself in a low monotone, only half of the words making sense.

It took both Ash and Hunter to wrestle him up the ladder to street level, at which point Ash nearly dropped him on his face as he reeled back from the stench.

“Oooh-kay, then,” said the dark-haired human. “Remind me not to suggest that particular option again. You both reek like ten-day-old fish.”

Kade snarled and made a clumsy lunge for him, which Hunter intercepted.

“You might want to keep your mouth shut for now, leetha,” Hunter advised. His own temper wasn’t doing too much better, for all that he knew Ash had saved their lives. “I still haven’t talked him out of killing you.”

Ash threw up his hands in an exaggerated gesture of surrender. “Right you are, boss. The back entrance to the hangar is one street over. Has he got, you know—” He mimed injecting himself in the neck. “—in the fighter?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said. Kade couldn’t trust himself to carry multiple doses of neurotonin on his person without risking an overdose in a moment of weakness, and he was too proud to ask anyone else to hold it for him. But he also wasn’t stupid enough to travel without a stash for emergencies like this one. The extra injectors were in a time-release container on Hunter’s ship.

“Follow me,” Ash said. “This alley will lead us straight there.”

Hunter nodded and aimed Kade in the right direction, supporting him again when he staggered. “You got new registration and security codes for me so we can get off-planet?”

“Of course,” Ash said, as if he was offended Hunter would even ask. “I uploaded them while I was waiting. You’re the son of a minor diplomat on a scheduled run to a meeting on Kritaan. Details are logged in the usual file.”

“Thanks, Ash. For all of it.”

Ash glanced over his shoulder with a brief, tight smile that said he knew just how close everything was to imploding around them. “Yeah, don’t mention it. Hopefully I’ll have something big for you in the next couple of weeks. I, uh, think I’m finally getting somewhere with the adjunct to the Premiere’s clandestine operations office.”

Hunter’s jaw tightened. He knew what price Ash would be paying for the intelligence he gathered for them. It was a price he would never ask of another, and one he would die before paying himself. Too many of his fellow Vithii would have only contempt for what Ash was willing to do to get the information they needed. But Hunter knew the strength it took.

“Be careful, leetha,” was all he said.

“I’m always careful,” Ash shot back. Not, Hunter knew, entirely truthfully. The human palmed the sensor of a nondescript door and waved them through, into the clandestine hanger where Hunter’s old fighter awaited them. Kade’s labored breath was loud in Hunter’s ear as he struggled to maintain control of his body, even as his nerves and synapses rebelled against him.

Hunter turned back. “Report to the base as soon as you know anything useful. You know where to find us.”

Ash nodded. “Fair winds until then, Hunter. Do me a favor, and try to talk Mister Sunshine-and-Light out of his plan to kill me before I arrive,” he said, jerking his chin toward Kade’s shuddering form.

With that, he was gone, the service door sliding shut behind him. Hunter sighed and dragged Kade across the echoing space, toward the familiar form of his ship. The ramp lowered at his retina scan, and within moments he had his companion installed in the copilot’s seat. Kade let out an unsteady breath as the hypo-injector hissed against the vein in his neck. His hands clenched the edge of the console as the strong dose of neurotonin washed through his bloodstream.

“You gonna crash on me?” Hunter asked, watching him closely.

Kade drew a deep breath and let it out, his eyes screwing shut as his white-knuckled grip on the console tightened briefly.

“No,” he said, and very deliberately pried his hands loose. They were no longer shaking. “Well, yes, probably. But not until I help you get us past the blockade in one piece.” He took another slow breath, his head bowing forward until his chin nearly touched his chest. “I hate this shit, Hunter. I hate it.”

“I know you do, tei’laal.” There was nothing else to say. It was what it was. “Come on, let’s get this bird in the air and see if we can avoid becoming anyone’s target practice.”

* * *

Some time later, after they’d been cleared through the blockade, Hunter allowed his mind to wander. They were on final approach to the small moon they’d been using as a base these past months. Kade had passed out shortly after they’d entered the wormhole gate at the edge of Ilarius’ system. Hunter let him be, knowing his body needed the downtime to recover from the withdrawal symptoms.

Sometimes, it was hard to remember exactly what they were fighting for. Maybe he was getting maudlin as he got older—a weakness he could ill afford. But, just as Kade could not avoid the reality of his body’s reliance on the artificial neurotransmitters he’d been dosed with in prison to keep him docile and confused, Hunter could not avoid the reality of his species’ need to bond with a mate and form a family unit to protect and care for. Without that grounding presence, Vithii males were rudderless. Adrift.

His fight against the corrupt Regime was a personal one as well as a political one, but at times like this, it seemed very distant and abstract compared to the cold, empty bunk that would await him once he’d dragged his drug-addicted best friend back to the motley collection of criminals and fugitives that was the closest thing he had left to a family.

He told himself that he was fighting for them. He was fighting for the people he’d lost—people whose lives had no value in the eyes of the fanatics who now controlled Ilarius. It was enough. It would have to be. There was no one else to fill the place inside him that longed for completion.

As far as the galaxy was concerned, he was a monster. And maybe the galaxy was right. He certainly wished monstrous things on those who held his home in an iron grip, and he would be more than happy to deliver those monstrous things personally—with his own bare hands, given the opportunity.

Just once, though, it would be nice to look into someone’s eyes and be reminded of why he was fighting. Of what he was protecting.

But that was not destined to be.

His comm unit crackled as whoever was on duty hailed him from the lunar base where they were hiding. He sighed, and flicked the switch to reply. He was ready to go home… or at least, what passed for home among a group of misfits trying to stay one step ahead of the laser targets focused on their backs.

Kade would recover. Ash would find out what information he could, in hopes that they could use it to change things, somehow.

The fight would go on for another day.

The End. Or is it?