CHAPTER ONE – SERPINT
As soon as we exit the gate there is nothing to see but the unimaginable beauty of Harem Station. Backlit by a reddish-purple nebula when entering from gate one and the Seven Sisters from gate two, it looks like a piece of Heaven no matter how you get here.
Hundreds of spacecraft orbit, waiting for clearance to dock on the lowest levels of the spinning ring. Thousands of outlaws, assassins, and hunters inside losing and winning money in the casinos, or fucking girls in one of the many harems, or drinking themselves stupid as they forget their recent losses or celebrate their wins.
But it wasn’t always that way.
When we first found the place it was an abandoned mystery left over from some long-ago golden age of people who have since all disappeared. We weren’t the first to come along and take notice of the empty station. The gates were already here. But everyone knew better than to try and travel through them.
It was owned and operated by a single artificial intelligence that claimed to be tens of thousands of years old. The discovery team who first noticed the AI’s station hundreds of years ago were able to send back a single report warning others to stay away before they disappeared, never to be heard from again.
When we first arrived it was nothing but servo bots whirring about in eerie, dark silence. No sound except the continuous clicking and humming of the cleaning bots as they polished and re-polished the gleaming obsidian floors.
In other words… it was creepy as fuck.
It wasn’t that we were particularly brave when we arrived, we were just desperate. And just kids. Crux was the oldest at sixteen and Draden and I were the youngest at twelve. The rest were somewhere in between.
We’d done something horrible. Something unforgivable. We had to go somewhere because we couldn’t go home to the Akeelian System ever again. From what I remember of that trip, we had an invitation of sorts. Some code that would get us through the aggressive security system on the far side of the gate and allow us to dock.
The AI was charismatic and cordial. But we’d read the report of the first contact team and were expecting that.
We weren’t expecting what came next.
Apparently even an AI can get bored after a few millennia. He—ALCOR is his name—had been alone for too long and was craving interaction, so we made a deal. We could stay if we connected him to the galactic web and let him rejoin civilization.
We didn’t ask anyone if it was a good idea, we just said yes. Tray—resident evil genius of our depraved gang of seven—happily obliged and several hundred spins later the AI was content and happy and we had a new home.
He was the one who really built this place, but we were the ones who benefitted.
Call it luck, call it fate, call it whatever the fuck you want.
Point is, it’s ours now.
And it’s magnificent.
There are millions of people on the station at any given time. Most live here full-time, working in the service industry or as AI enforcers. But we get tourists. Not families with kids looking for a beach. No. We get the outlaws. Gunslingers passing through, femme fatales who need a little break, ownerless bots and cyborgs who maybe can’t go home anymore because they had an accident with their defense systems… people like that. In fact, the Draco Assassin Association had its headquarters here.
So yeah. We’re that kind of place.
But it’s a helluva nice city with ALCOR in charge. A mile-wide city center along the entire perimeter of the ring filled with parks, and buildings, and there’s even several rollercoasters.
And every time I come out one of those gates and see this place… well, my heart just fills with happiness. We all feel that way.
Except for today.
Because there is no we on my ship as I pilot towards my private lower-level docking bay and ease the Booty Hunter inside.
Draden is dead. Our bot, Ceres, blown up. Even my ship is damaged. So damaged that there is no autopilot right now and I have to concentrate so I don’t kill any of the dock workers floating around inside my bay as I bring the Booty to rest.
And even though my cargo on ice is none other than the Cygnian princess Corla herself, a princess Crux has been desperate to get his hands all over for the better part of two Akeelian decades, I just can’t make myself care.
Draden is dead. Ceres, blown up. Booty is damaged.
I will join the many who drink themselves stupid over recent losses tonight.
Crux and Tray wait for me on the other side of the airlock. I stare at them through Booty’s side window as I pull on my helmet, pressurize it, and wait for the door to open and the stairs to unfold.