Alex glanced at the space station they were approaching over Tristan’s shoulder. It didn’t inspire confidence.

Only at a distance did it look like a space station, a ring floating in space for people to come buy and sell things, meet potential customers or employers, or just rest. Although how anyone could rest in this thing Alex wasn’t sure.

At a certain point, what the ring was made from became visible, ships welded together, ships that had been old before they were repurposed, and had had to be patched so often since then some were composed of more repair plating then original hull.

How it looked, and the fact that no one had requested their ship’s registration, were two good indicator this was a Merc run station. It wasn’t his first time on one, but none of the others had looked in this bad of a shape.

Merc stations were all over the place; around uninhabited worlds, in debris clouds, even in the middle of empty space. Anywhere the corporations had no reasons to go. There, a retired mercenary might set up a place to provide other mercs with what they needed. If it was successful, it grew. If not, it vanished.

What such stations were built from depended on how much money the merc had to put into it. Most of them were actual space stations, old or possibly no longer turning a profit. They were bought, then moved to a new location. Some were built from available materials, asteroids broken down and turned into permacrete, then reinforced for the vigors of space. One enterprising merc had build his station inside an asteroid. Alex had been to that one, and hadn’t been able to shake the feeling he was stuck inside a cavern complex the entire time.

Then there were those like this one, which looked like it might fail at any moment. Those that took using available material to an extreme and didn’t even bother taking them apart, they just slapped them together and hoped it held up long enough for them to make some money.

They were here because it was the closest place Tristan had felt confident they could wait for their employer to contact them. He’d had Alex investigate the state of the message node Tristan was supposed to use, and it had been utterly destroyed, sterilized. Whoever their attacker worked for, they hadn’t wanted Tristan to be able to warn their employer they’d been compromised.

Alex had left a thin program floating around the dead node that redirected to the one where Tristan left the location of where they’d wait. It would be very hard to detect, but if he did employ the best like he’d claim, their employer’s coercionist would notice it.

Chatter over the communication system consisted mainly of people arguing, screaming at each other over stolen berths, being cut off. As Tristan flew around the station, Alex saw two ships in the distance caught in a firefight.

There were no central computer here directing traffic, assigning docks and travel lanes. There wasn’t even someone trying to maintain a semblance of order. Most stations had at least that. Here, every mercs was left to fend for himself.

Information about the station scrolled on Alex’s screen as Tristan controlled it from his. The numbers did not inspire confidence. Tristan was looking for a dock for them to use, but with what Alex was seeing, most of them could lose integrity with the slightest bump.

It took Tristan three circuit around the station for him to find one he was happy with. Alex wouldn’t have picked any of them if he’d been in charged. He would have stayed floating around the station rather than risk it.

Alex kept an eye on the scans during the docking sequence, and even once they’d stopped moving. The numbers didn’t change, so it would hold for now.

“Check on the boy,” Tristan said, heading to the cargo hold.

Emil was still under. There was no point in bringing him out of cryo until it was time to hand him over. Alex made sure the cryo system was working, and avoided looking at Emil. He didn’t deserve to be in this situation, but the universe didn’t care about that.

He joined Tristan in the hold. The Samalian had on a gun harness with two large guns at the front, and extra power packs. He put on boots with a knife strapped inside one.

Alex put on his knife harness, then attached the sheaths to it. Fifteen in total. He strapped the sheathes to his forearms, his left hip, and his calves. On his right hip he attached his gun holster, then he put on his jacket.

Merc stations didn’t have rules about not bringing weapons. Most had very few rules, only whatever the owner decided on, and could enforce. By the state of this one, there would be very few rules.

The lock cycled and the door opened to chaos. Cables hung off the ceiling, sending sparks over the head of the people hurrying about. In the distance there was he sound of construction, or possibly destruction. He reminded himself the scans had shown this section was secure, because looking around, it didn’t look it.

A fat man waddled in their direction. “Welcome to Derelict Station,” he said with a wave of a cybernetic arm. “I’m Warick, master of this little corner. I like to refer to it as the Sturdy Wing.” He indicated around them. “Docking fee’s fifty a day, half your planned stay upfront. I take any kind of electronic transfer, so long as you can prove it can’t be traced.”

Tristan flicked the man a credit chip and turned to close the shuttles door. The man scanned it, then looked at the Samalian’s back speculatively. The light reflected off his bald head and Alex noticed a joint, where the color of the polymer of the cranial dome didn’t quite match the man’s skin tone.

“You’re planing on being here a while?” the man brought up the chip.

“No. That’s to make sure no one touches my ship. It’s wired to explode if anyone tries to enter it, so keep people away of you want your little world to remain sturdy.”

The man beamed. “You don’t have to worry about anything, I run the safest part of the station.”

Tristan didn’t bother acknowledging the blatant lie and he began walking. Alex could see in the man’s eyes he was already trying to come up with a way to enter the shuttle. He couldn’t do anything about that himself, as he had to keep up with Tristan.

The Samalian moved quickly and people got out of his way. Alex followed in his wake as they walked by vendors who sold weapons, prosthetics, computer parts, and one even sold organic body parts. Alex would have liked to take a look at the weapons, but he didn’t want to risk loosing Tristan. In this place he didn’t know if he’d be able to find him again, or find his way back to their ship.

Tristan had a destination in mind, that was clear to Alex. He ignored the vendors, didn’t hesitate when he reached intersections and shoved aside anyone who didn’t move fast enough. What he could want here was beyond Alex.

For himself Alex couldn’t stop looking around. It wasn’t the novelty of the station. He’d gotten jaded to how chaotic merc stations were a while back. No, something was setting him on edge. His instincts were screaming loudly that he was in a very bad situation.

He had to divide his attention between trying to find out what was setting off his mental alarm and keeping up with Tristan, so he couldn’t come up with much, everyone looked questionable, everyone was armed, and given the right circumstances, everyone could want him dead. And then there was the poor state of the station itself. There were plenty of reasons for him to be nervous right now.

He was so distracted, trying to identify what had him on edge that he barely noticed Tristan had stopped moving in time to avoid running into him. Alex stepped aside.

Three men and a woman were standing in their way, hands on the guns at their hips. Alex glanced behind and three others took positions there, two women and a man. He’d seen them looking in a shop’s window earlier.

The man at the head of the ones before them smiled. “What do we have here? Some guy taking his pet furball for a walk?” He looked Tristan over. “You’ve got to know that there’s a strict no-pet policy in this section. We’re going to have to confiscate it.”

“You get this warning only once,” Tristan said, “get out of my way.”

In the silence Alex caught motion behind them. The three there were moving to get a view of those in front, probably looking for their next cue, and people were gathering beyond them, an audience looking for entertainment.

The man shook his head, done considering the words. “I don’t think so. The payout on your head is just too bloody good.”

Tristan didn’t say anything, or move. Alex turned his back to Tristan to cover his rear, wondering what payout it could be. There couldn’t be a bounty on Tristan’s head, as far as the universe at large knew, he was still in prison.

As Alex took position the men pulled out his gun. Alex threw a knife in his shoulder and was already running toward the women. He needed to be close before they took out their guns. Guns weren’t as practical when your opponent was in your face, that was why Alex preferred knives, they gave him reach, but were still good in close quarters. 

He had one in each hand by the time he was within reach and swiped at them, forcing them off balance. The woman on his left tried to pummel him with her gun. He blocked it and slashed at her stomach.

He felt some resistance as the knife cut through her jacket, but the mono filament edge cut through the armor and let a line of red on her flesh that was swelling. It wasn’t as deep as he’d hoped, none of her insides came spilling out.

Something clattered to the floor on his right. The other woman had dropped her gun and was holding her own knife. The edge shimmered, letting Alex know she was wielding a vibro-blade. Vibro beat mono every time. He dodged her sloppy swipes and put one knife away. He had three vibro-blades on his person, but if he wanted to up the ante he’d reach for one of the four laser edge knives.

He didn’t bother getting another knife. He wouldn’t need them. It didn’t matter how advanced the blade was if she didn’t know how to use it. She waved it about haphazardly. She was so bad with it Alex was able to maneuver her to hit the man as he got up. Alex had made a quick circle, offering him his back and then stepped out of the way as she struck, the knife entered the man’s stomach and moved to the side as if there was nothing there, no armor, no bone, no muscle.

The man crumbled back to the floor, and Alex blocked the next strike, forearm against forearm, and slashed back, but while she wasn’t good, she was fast and stepped out of reach before he cut her.

Something moved to his right. Pale color, skin, dark clothing, something reflecting the light. Already too close for Alex to avoid getting hit. He turned and raised his arm to take the hit there instead of his torso.

Pain flashed and he kicked the man back. He’d come from the crowd and was dressed in tattered clothing, not the armor of the others. Alex side stepped and spun to put the too women and this new attacker in his sight. The motion gave him a quick view at Tristan, breaking one of his attacker’s neck, there was already another man at his feet.

Emboldened by Alex’s injury the woman charged him in a blind attack. But while his arm stung, he still had full functionality. He blocked the knife and planted his own in her stomach.

The other woman growled and approached more carefully, holding the cut with one arm, and a blade in the other. Alex moved around her until she was lined up with where he’d last seen the man who had stabbed him, but he was gone, vanished back in the crowd. Just some local who’d hoped to get in on the fight and then had enough when he got hurt.

She kept her distances, waving her blade back and forth, making figures with it that would intimidate anyone who hadn’t received training. She was all show, had probably learned how to wield a knife from watching movies.

The edge of her blade didn’t shimmer, so it wasn’t vibrating. Alex took out one of his mono-edge. It didn’t matter if she was trying to lull him into a false sense of security. Like her partners, she wouldn’t be able to do anything to him. He held the knife in a reverse grip and waited for her to move.

When she did it was to run at him, knife still waving about. He watched her eyes, they were wild with anger and some fear. She had no idea what she was doing.

Alex blocked her arm, stepped in, slashed up and across and then stepped away.

She turned to continue facing him, but she was done for. Blood flowed freely from the deep cut starting at her stomach and ending through her left shoulder. It looked like he’d missed the heart, but the bubbling through the blood told him he’d opened up a lung.

Looking at him confused, she dropped to her knees. Her eyes were glassy before she fell face first on the floor.

The man was already dead, having bled out, the other woman was too busy trying to keep that from happening to give him any trouble. Alex looked over the crowd for that impromptu attacker, but he was truly gone.

Tristan now had three bodies at his feet, He held his fourth attacker by the arm, twisting hard enough Alex winced in sympathy. Past them along the corridor a man was aiming a rifle at Tristan. Alex threw the knife he was holding.

He’d aimed for the middle of the chest, but was a little high and to the left. Still, the man went down, his rifle clattering away, to be grabbed by someone in dirty rags and vanish away.

Tristan snapped the neck of the man he was holding, then looked around. The crowd backed a step under his gaze. His eyes fell on the dead man and woman, then the one still breathing.

He considered her for a moment. “Kill her.”

Alex wanted to protest. It was one thing to kill while defending himself, but in cold blood? Tristan leveled his eyes on him and that cold, calculating, gaze was a reminder of the conditions Tristan had set as part of Alex’s continued stay, and probably continued survival.

He reminded himself he’d chosen this. He’d chosen to stay when he had had the chance to walk away. He clamped down on his emotions, picked up the vibro-knife off the floor and crouched next to the woman.

She looked at him in horror as he worked up the nerve. She tried to move away, but the ground was slick with blood and she couldn’t find any purchase.

He looked her in the eyes. When he’d picked the knife over guns, he’d been asked if he was planing on looking in the eyes of everyone he killed. He remembered the question having a derisive tone to it, but yes, he’d answered. He was going to look them in the eyes. He was going to see the suffering he was inflicting on them. He was never going to anonymize them.

He’d relaxed his stance over the years, it wasn’t always practical in the middle of a fight. But this was different. This wasn’t the heat of battle. This was cold, calculated, just like Tristan was. This was the price he had to pay to find out what that look he thought he’d glimpse at the clinic was about.

He plunged the knife in her heart and didn’t break eye contact until the life had bled out of them. He didn’t move after that. He felt like he was going to throw up, but he wouldn’t allow himself. He wouldn’t show any sign of weakness before Tristan. 

This was the cost.

Once he’d forced his stomach to settle he stood. Tristan watched him impassively. His eyes glanced to Alex’s arm.

“What happened?”

Alex looked at his injury. A small hole in his forearm. It had already stopped bleeding. “One of the audience thought he could get in on the action. A swift kick reminded him of the price of admission.”

Tristan looked the crowd over and it backed again, then started thinning since the show was over.

“Is the gunman dead?”

Gunman? What gun— oh. Alex looked down the corridor where the man had fallen, but he wasn’t there anymore. Alex sighed. “No, I must have missed the vital organs.”

“I know.”

Alex winced and prepared to his blow, but none came. When he opened his eyes Tristan was heading away, toward the man’s last position. Alex ran after him.

“You’re not…angry?”

Tristan stopped by the small pool of blood. “No. I need one of them alive to find out why they attacked me.” He began walking again, and Alex noticed the drops of blood on the floor leading away.

“What if I had killed him.”

“Then I would have questioned the woman.”

Alex almost pointed out that Tristan had him kill her before he’d asked about the gunman, but he realized it meant he’d already known.

People were quick to get out of their way as they followed the blood trail to a closed, and locked door. Tristan considered the lock for a moment, then banged on the door.

“Open this door. If I have to disable the lock, I will make you suffer for it.”

“Right,” the voice inside replied, “And once I do, you’re going to kill me. I know the kind of person you are.”

“Unlock this door, and you have my word I will not harm you in any way.”

“Your word?”

“Yes,” Tristan replied impatiently. “My word.”

The lock indicator switched to green. Tristan opened the door and stepped in. Alex followed him.

The man was on the other side of the room, seated at a table with the bloody knife on it. “Stay there,” the man said in a shaky voice, pointing a small gun at Tristan. By the bed, computer and cooking area, Alex guessed this was where this man lived. He’d managed to make a crude bandage over the knife wound.

Tristan stepped to the middle of the room. Alex thought he was trying to get the man to shoot him, but nothing happened, except that the gun was shaking now.

“Your boss said there’s a price on my head. Who put out the bounty?”

“That kid’s father, who do you think? I don’t know what it’s about, but you picked the wrong man to piss off. He’s all over the media. He isn’t just going to take you down, he’s going after all of us because of this and he can do it too.”

Tristan nodded to the wall. “Show me.”

The man reached for the wall and left bloody prints where he touched. Part of it became a screen and he searched through the streams.

A man appeared. He wasn’t wearing white this time, but Alex recognized him. He was talking to the recorders. “I don’t care to what length I have to go to, I will not stand down. I have always advocated for stricter laws when it came to the spaceways, and that they responded in this way shows that they fear what we can do. Mercenaries are no better than the pirate, most of them have committed acts of piracy. They are criminals, but this is too low, even for them. My son had nothing to do with this.” 

The man pressed a button on his wrist band and a holo appeared next to him showing Tristan putting someone in the trunk of a black car with Alex in the driver’s seat.

“If this is what you stand for, do not expect mercy from me, but I give the mercenaries out there who think there should be some rules governing your actions a chance to show that to me by bringing me this Samalian. But I know what language you really speak. You don’t care about the rule of law, all you care about is money, so that’s the language I’m going to speak. I’m offering fifty million to anyone who brings him to me.”

Alex swallowed. Fifty million? This was going to turn into a blood bath. They wouldn’t just have mercs and bounty hunters after them, for that kind of money even regular folks would come after them. What kind of chances did they have against Tristan?

The man paused the screen. See? Like I said, that guy wants you—” he looked down at the knife in his chest. He looked up at Tristan, blood beginning to drip from his lips. “You said you wouldn’t—” the man slumped over the table.

Tristan looked at the screen. “Find me everything you can about the man who hired me.”

Alex nodded and sat at the dead man’s computer. It was easy for him to find the origin of the stream, but it was a little harder to get into the broadcaster’s system. His earpiece only let him connect to the computer he sat at, then use it to infiltrate other systems, and this computer wasn’t much. It barely had any personality of its own.

He was able to track down the segment, and from that the name of the person being interviewed, Thomas Masters. The segment also provided basic information on him; he worked for the Galactic Government.

The Galactic Government, which most people referred to as SpaceGov, had supposedly been formed in the early days of space travel. Because of how vast space was, individual systems had trouble keeping order within their borders, let alone outside them.

The stories went that they’d all gotten together and agreed to form one gigantic control system to keep order in the space between systems. And so SpaceGov was born.

If Thomas worked for them, it wasn’t good news for Tristan and him. How someone joined SpaceGov, Alex didn’t know. Like most people he knew it existed, but had never really paid attention to it, even as his time as a pirate. Technically, SpaceGov was the Law in space, but they hardly did anything, spending most of the time acting as arbiters between system to help them settle disputes.

Corporations were the Law in most places where they had influences. And if someone broke one of their laws, they put a bounty on their head and let Mercs and bounty hunters dispense justice for them.

Oh, there were Law ships, and some of them even worked for SpaceGov. Looking back on it, Alex had decided that trap ship that had almost caught him and his crew when he was new at this had to be SpaceGov, they were the only ones with the kind of resources to have such an operation.

Other Law ships worked for Systems or Corporations and tended to enforce only those locality. Someone had to really piss them off to get them to chase you across multiple systems.

If Masters worked for SpaceGov, he could have the backing to enforce his will.

With a name, and an employer, he was able to send programs out over the net to look for more connections, and the only things that lit up were banking institutions. He gave his programs another five minutes while he tried to get more information from the broadcasters, but neither he nor them, had more. He’d have to coerce his way into the banks to get more, and that wouldn’t happen from here.

He turned to tell Tristan what he had found, but he wasn’t there. He’d left while Alex was busy. He looked at the body slumped over the table. He’d left him alone with a murdered corpse. Alex headed for the door and almost opened it, but Tristan hadn’t told him he could leave.

Alex looked around the room, he’d shed skin cell everywhere by now. Even if he left, unless he was able to make it off the station before anyone found the body, he would be in trouble. It didn’t matter that this was a merc station, it was one thing to kill in a fight, or someone who had attacked you, but there was no way he could show this guy had been one of the attackers. It wasn’t like the corridors were monitored.

How long could he give Tristan before he had to make a run for it? They’d killed his associates, but had they killed all of them? Could someone show up to check in on him? How long did he have the room for? That at least he could find out and deal with.

He sat back at the computer and quickly got in. This station was schizophrenic, coming from so many computers being connected together and told to work as one. It made his job a harder, but he made it to the lodging manager, then found this room. It was long term lodging, being charged every local month to an account. So long as the money was there, no one had a reason to show up.

The door opened and Alex spun, hand inside his sleeve, ready to draw a knife when Tristan entered carrying a package. He eyed Alex’s hand, and Alex took it out without holding the knife. Tristan had come back. He looked at the package Tristan opened on the table.

The Samalian handed him the sprayer. “You know what to do with this?”

Alex looked at it, the white container any criminal recognized, even if there was never a name on it. He nodded.

“Spray the entire room. Even if there’s nothing there.”

Alex watched Tristan as he sprayed. He took a roll from the pack and unrolled it next to the body. He rolled the body onto it, then closed it over it, sealing it. He tapped a control and even across the room Alex felt the heat come from it. A portable incinerator, of course that would be available here. With the body destroyed and every traces of DNA dissolved, there wouldn’t be a way for anyone to know someone had died here.

“What did you find out?” Tristan asked while Alex worked and the body burned.

“Not much, the system here isn’t powerful enough to get into any systems with serious protection. The man’s name is Thomas Masters, he works for SpaceGov. I’ve linked his name to a few banks, but I couldn’t get in them. I’m going to need the computer on the shuttle for that.”

Tristan fixed his gaze on Alex and narrowed his eyes.

Alex swallowed. “I just did a quick evaluation of the computer there, to determine what it was capable of. I didn’t really talk to it. I know it’s much more powerful than anything available to the public here, and it should be powerful enough for me to get into at least one of the banks.”

By the time Alex finished spraying the room, the bag beeped and the room cooled down. If it had worked correctly, all that was left in it were ashes. Tristan looked around the room. The blood had been dissolved into a pink goo. He handed the knife back to Alex then rolled the bag, put it under his arm and left. Alex followed him.

Alex couldn’t be sure, but he thought they took a circuitous route back to Tristan’s shuttle, keeping to lightly populated corridors. It didn’t keep them from having to fight a few mercs, or maybe some locals who wanted the bounty to get off this place, but none of them survived.

By the time they reached the dock they were covered with enough blood for people to keep their distance. The corpulent man didn’t give them a second glance.

“Your ship’s here and secured, as I promised.”

Tristan ignored him, going to the door and did something to the lock Alex couldn’t see, but took too long to be simply entering a code. When it opened Alex followed Tristan inside.

“Wake the boy,” the Samalian said as he headed to the cockpit.

Alex froze. Wake Emil? Why? If they were leaving, why take him out of Cryo? Alex entered the room as the outer door closed. Tristan had implied Alex couldn’t protect him, and now he was going to prove it.