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From behind cover, she watched the Ghost. It moved like prey, cautious and darting about. All alone in the wide expanse of universe, one small light in the darkness. Always at risk of being snuffed out. And despite that, still focused on the goal, still searching. At that very moment, it seemed intent on the task. Something in the wreckage had caught its attention. A thin line of light scanned over a charred chunk of bone. Hefty. Definitely human if a Ghost was interested in it. A femur, she'd reckon.
It was distracted, but she held back. Partnered Ghosts were worth nothing to the King. If this one was on the verge, then it was a waste of her time, too. But it finished its investigation fruitlessly, and moved out from the scant cover of the wrecked ship.
Her crossbow sounded a sharp twang in the air as she fired, and her target didn't have time to more than halfway look towards her before the restraint hit. The Ghost's eye dimmed and it dropped to the ground, the sound of it hardly louder than her weapon.
She waited a moment, just in case. Sometimes they weren't so alone as they looked, shepherded around by a Guardian. Those weren't such easy pickings and something about them made her skin creep. Dead things, living and dying and living all over again. Miraculous, maybe, but all miracles were unnatural at their core.
No one and nothing else stirred, so she hopped down from her perch and collected her prize. Its eye moved slowly, but the restraint kept it from talking at her or trying to send for help. She'd tried bagging one once without a restraining bolt, and she'd nearly been reduced to a small crater when a pack of Guardians answered the distress call. Getting out of there had been her own miracle, made possible by a highly convenient explosion on a tanker docked nearby.
With the Ghost tucked away in her pouch, all she had to do now was get to the next rendezvous point and wait. The King's fleet was always roaming, but it wasn't too hard to catch if you knew where to be. Luckily Sancys Terminal was less than an hour away.
It wasn't a big place, protected by razor wires and electrified fencing. Low tech, but effective in keeping the rabble out. The turret towers fended off some of the aliens prowling around, but places like Sancys didn't have a long lifespan. They popped up, a buzzing hive of trade and treachery, and when the Cabal steamrolled through or the Fallen came to scavenge, the corpse was left to rot and a new port took its trade. No safety, not really. Not from the enemies outside, and certainly not from the people within. It was hardly a wonder so many people flocked to the City.
She'd heard lots about the City, seen it, even. Big place. Big walls. Big rules. Kept you safe as long as you never left it. The frontier was rough, and grim, but at least folks out here were free. It had its own rules, sure—survival was dependent on a quick wit, a quicker draw, the quickest blade.
And she could keep her distance from the Guardians.
The King made her skin crawl fiercer than the rest of them, but he paid. He paid damn well for the Ghosts, and glimmer was the only thing that made life on the frontier any easier. It was hard to find a dishonest day's work. Even harder to find an honest one. So she didn't feel the need to ask him any questions, like why a stray Ghost was worth anything to a Lightbearer, or what, exactly, he fancied he was the king of.
She sat herself down in the corner of a canteen and nursed a drink, waiting. Watching. Hand resting on her pistol. Sometimes not bothering anyone was enough to avoid trouble, but she'd also passed through Sancys a few times now, and the regular crowd knew who she was waiting for. Even that slim connection was enough to buy a little room between her ribs and the nearest knife. Normally she wouldn't have thought twice about it—protection was protection no matter where it came from—but as she reached the bottom of her second glass she got to wondering. How'd he get people so scared so quickly? Did he make everyone feel like a deer in a wolf's jaws? What in the hell did a Lightbearer need more Ghosts for?
Lucky for her, there wasn't much time for that kind of dwelling. A sleek black jumpship landed in the hangar bay, worth more than all the other junkers in port combined. Then there was a second one, a third. And lastly, the Crown Jewel, a long-hauler larger than any she'd seen. The Crown didn't fit in the hangar, or inside the port itself. It landed just outside the fences with the rest of the jumpers in the fleet.
Some said the Crown had been space-faring since the Golden Age, and to look at it was to believe. No one was building anything near so pretty these days. The black paint was little battle scarred in places, sure, but the ship beneath was still majestic. The curves of its hull were engineered not just for practicality but for beauty, a seamless flow from bow to thruster, everything placed just so. Tinted glass wrapped around the hull, so those inside could watch unseen, and she swore she could feel their eyes on her, even from the canteen.
That was another question that was never going to be answered: how'd the King get his hands on a ship like that? It didn't matter, though. She left her empty cup and a small cube of glimmer on the counter and went out to meet him. A few of his crew milled by the jumpships. She tried not to pay them any mind. They weren't all as bad as their leader, but there was only one or two she'd call pleasant enough to share a drink with. The Crown let off a hiss of steam, and its hatch lowered.
The man himself came striding down the ramp.
She always forgot how short he was until he was right in front of her, barely a few inches over five feet. Maggoty pale like something that had spent its life under rocks. Fine boned, almost delicate. But he moved like a viper and she didn't doubt his venom.
“You brought something for me.” It wasn't a question.
She pulled the Ghost out of her pouch and offered it to him. He took it, gave it a quick once over to make sure it wasn't dead, and when he was satisfied, handed over her payment.
“Do you have restraining bolts left?”
She nodded.
“I'll let you know if this is the one,” he said, dismissing her.
And she should have gone, back to the canteen to wait for one of his crew to tell her whether or not the hunt was still on—and it always was. Even better, she should have put Sancys behind her and never looked back. She should have stuck to her rules, not let that nagging, creeping wonder get to her. She should have, but she didn't.
“What do you want them for?” she asked.
He stared at her for a moment, with those cold, dead eyes of his. Dark pits with nothing at the bottom. “Would you like to see?”
Far too many other mercs had disappeared through his darkened doorway and never came back out. All sense said no. Said run for it. But he was offering her a chance to see the inside of the Crown. She could drink for free off that story for months. Hell, it'd get her a free cup here and there for the rest of forever.
“I would,” she said.
The King turned, and walked back up the ramp. She hesitated, shot a look back over her shoulder at the port, and followed.
The interior of the Crown was a marvel compared to the ramshackle existence everyone eked out of the frontier. The walls were brushed steel, dully reflecting the overhead lights—none of which were burnt out or flickering. Doors led off from the hall, coupled with functional keypads. She recognized the tech as things she'd seen before in ruins, battered and hardly working. As they passed an open doorway, she caught a glimpse of the galley. The lights inside hung down from the ceiling, surrounded by refracting crystals. A couple of the crew were lounging at a long dining table covered in a dark cloth and lined by chairs. One sat up straight and took his boots off the table as they passed. Through another doorway, she saw a room full of sofas and plush rugs, the kind of place she'd only imagined might be hidden away behind the City's walls.
The King stopped and pressed his thumb to a pad on the wall. A beam scanned his eye, and then the door in front of them slid open with a faint puff of air. The room they stepped into was clinical, clean and white. But what caught her eye and held it was the skeleton, laid out perfectly on a gurney in the center of the room.
“One day,” the King said quietly, “I'll find his Ghost.”
“Is that how it works? I didn't think there were enough Ghosts out there for everyone.” She was still staring at the skeleton, a scavenger reading the bones. A fractured arm that never had time to heal. Cracked ribs that did. Left leg broken badly but mended well. She saw a history of violence, rough even for the frontier.
“A Ghost for everyone the Light chooses.”
“And what makes you so certain it'll choose him?” The words were out before she could think, and she tensed, unsure of the reaction.
“He was the light of his village,” he said, “it will choose him.”
She heard a rustling sound and turned, expecting to see him draw a gun. But he was holding the Ghost she'd brought him. He pulled the restraint loose and let it go.
The Ghost hovered, twitching the point of its shell. “Please let me go,” it said in a soft female voice.
She'd never heard one speak before. The fear sounded human.
The King didn't notice or care. He gestured to the bones. “Bring him back to me.”
The Ghost hovered closer to the skeleton. “I can't.”
He sighed, the sound of a man who'd been told the same thing too many times before.
“No, wait, please—”
The Ghost didn't have time to finish protesting before he grabbed it out of the air put the bolt back in place. She paced around the body as if she could move away from the guilt. She shouldn't have come in here. It was easier not knowing, seeing little drones and not having to consider that maybe they felt, maybe they feared.
“What got him?” she asked, eyeing the hole in the back of the skull. Entry wound.
“Despair,” the King answered. He ran his nail along a bone, the sound of it crackled in her spine.
“Gets a lot of people,” she said. “Same price for the next one?”
“Yes.” He didn't look at her.
This time, she accepted the dismissal and left, retracing the path down the corridor. She didn't look back. Despair did kill a lot of people, but it didn't break your bones and come in through the back of your head. It left that way. Mercy was a blow like that. Murder was a blow like that.
And somehow, she didn't think anyone had ever accused the King of mercy.