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  ‘No!’ Re’lien screamed.

  The dark figure turned as Franc fell to the ground, forming a crimson puddle.

  ‘Who next? The monster or the sow?’

  Re’lien couldn’t breathe. But there was no foot on her back. Pains erupted but she wasn’t being touched. Rocks. Chains. Fists. Whips. Everything. Torment. Torment. Torment.

  And something she knew all too well – fear.

  ‘The monster first. I can’t bear one of them to be alive for even a second longer.’

  ‘No!’ Muur screamed. ‘Don’t kill her. I’ve got creds. Lots of creds. I can make you all rich. Just leave us be. Please. Not her.’

  No stitch of the cool, exanoid charm left. Just desperation. Re’lien was struggling to see through her tears. Her vision was blurring. Her head was in a vice grip.

  ‘We don’t want pig-money, sow. Only justice. No creds can buy back Ganymede. Only death.’

  Re’lien’s vision cleared as she was pulled onto her back. Her hood was pulled off her head too roughly. It hurt her ears. She tried to struggle, but they held her down. The man with the knife held it above her, like a sacrificial dagger.

  ‘We remember Ganymede,’ he chanted, as a brown blur tackled him to the ground.

  ‘No, Muur!’ Re’lien struggled against her captors.

  Muur pulled the mask off the knife-man and punched him in the face. He threw her off and spat out a tooth.

  ‘Not so pacifist, after all. You can die first.’

  ‘No. Just me. Just kill me,’ Re’lien pleaded.

  Muur looked Re’lien in the eyes. Her eyes were afraid. But fear was a tool, and you couldn’t run with your back against the wall. Couldn’t run when you’d run far enough. Muur charged. The knife-man grunted as they made contact, and Muur fell to the ground. Blood stained her tunic. Her eyes were void.

  No.

  Why?

  No. No. No.

  Re’lien shook.

  Not with fear.

  That was too weak a word.

  But it would have to do.

  She shook with fear. But not her own.

  She embraced the terror. Moulded it to her whim. Her captors let go, as they felt it too. Their eyes widened behind their dishonest masks. Their fake Trooper regalia. They wet themselves as they backed away.

  Re’lien looked at Muur and then looked at Franc. Blood pooled on the black metal.

  Re’lien felt something. Something painful. It was sadness as wind was to a hurricane. A despair as deep as void.

  And then she felt nothing.

  But she understood.

  Fear was a tool. And she was its master.

  “She walked without destination

  Gliding purposefully without meaning

  Driven by nothing

  An unstoppable tide

  Spreading dread

  A force of nature

  Fear itself.” - Gai'Tenra, Edal Poet and Survivor of Xerl

  Chapter 13.

  Fear Itself

  Re’lien screamed. A piercing screech that reverberated across the district. The Gan thugs fled even before security-syns awoke and flooded the street with searchlights.

  Re’lien screamed. A banshee cry that made the ears bleed. She smelt the stench from the Gans. Their expelled fear. Their malice, turned to utter despair.

  The security-syns shattered around her. Their glass-eyes cracked and they beeped wildly. They did not even attempt to detain her.

  A Gan foot disappeared around the corner, and she gave chase. She tore through the air, feet barely touching the ground. She didn’t pant as she sprinted. Her body didn’t need to breathe. It had a single mission. A hunt. She rounded the corner and fell on the Gan missing a tooth. His eyes were white. His face was covered with sweat and tears. He kicked away from her and crawled backwards. He was panting too fast. He vomited over his chest and backed himself into a wall.

  Re’lien approached him, like a fog. Her feet seemed to float above the ground. A spectre. A wraith. A nightmare made manifest. She placed her hand around the man’s neck, and squeezed, lifting him up above the ground. He kicked, but didn’t try to wrestle away from her. He was an animal, hoping for a quick death. Only the last stitches of his humanity made him cling onto survival. In vain. She watched as his face went blue and then pale. His eyes were whiter than Muur’s. He was more afraid. He didn’t understand the fear. Couldn’t understand. There was nothing to understand. His eyes seemed close to popping out. He kicked wildly and impotently in the air.

  Crack, and then he went limp.

  She let the body fall to the ground, and continued the hunt.

  The Order-Administration district ended and she tore through the grey tarmac streets of a bazaar. Brightly coloured canvas adorned metal-case street stalls. All manner of humans and their syn-assistants perused the exotic wares of the market. She burst through the crowd. People darted out of her way. To many, she was just a blur. To others, who looked too closely, she was a nightmare. People reeled. Automatic shutters on stalls closed as their monitors detected danger. Even a Trooper, a rifle slung over his shoulder, recoiled and fell to the ground, screaming and clutching his head. Syns retreated to their charging bays. Mothers abandoned their children in their haste to flee. People attacked one another in a fervour of violent terror. Groceries and merchandise were strewn across the tarmac. Fragile goods were destroyed in the terror-wrought stampede.

  Re’lien, or whatever she was right now, escaped the packed bazaar. The trail. The invisible, scentless, impossible trail. It led wherever Re’lien took herself. Down another road. It smelt of skite. Smelt of fear.

  She stopped. A glowing blue energy field blocked her path. Floating syns held the barrier up, blocking the narrow street.

  ‘Halt, edal. You are under arrest,’ a synthetic voice announced.

  Re’lien didn’t respond. She stood with clenched fists. Stood still, unthreatening, if not for her aura of sheer terror. A hovering syn approached her, bearing hand-cuffs. They looked like the clamps from Xerl. The scraping, skin-tearing restraints used on her as the Devil Child. The syn approached slowly, emitting a faint buzz.

  Re’lien broke its eye and innards with a single punch. The blow pierced its sturdy frame. She didn’t feel the scrape of metal on her flesh, or the broken glass digging into her knuckle. She pulled its lifeless body off her arm with the other. Syns opened fire. She dodged the hail of bullets and energy pulses, darting towards a steel-crate and then the energy barrier. The syns closed in. She kicked off the wall and leapt. She landed on the head of the one syn, and kicked off it, catching the edge of a balcony. She pulled herself up and crashed through the glass window. She didn’t give the syns time to give chase. She had the trail.

  

  The trail took her to the edge of the platform-block. The wind buffeted her raven black hair, that had grown past her shoulders in the past few weeks. The air was filled with the cacophony of airborne traffic. Hums, buzzes, the whirl of engines, the hooting of horns. Shuttles, hover-cars, air-busses. Some were pristine. New Obsidian models with fresh paintjobs. Others were old, with peeling paint. Fresh sports models were trapped in traffic alongside hovering junk-heaps. Creds could buy many things, but traffic was always the equaliser.

  The air smelled of plasma rods. A searing smell. Like cold fire. She saw the trail. It wasn’t a physical trail. Not a scent. Not tracks. But a direction given by some metaphysical entity. Or maybe just intuition. But like a wolf chasing its prey, she couldn’t stop following it.

  She stood at the edge of the platform. On the precipice, arms outstretched, she stepped forward. The cold-rush didn’t faze her. If she could have felt anything, she might have felt it refreshing. She landed with a thud on a shuttle, grabbing onto some hand-holds to steady herself. The hover-car swerved, but corrected itself. Birds and debris hit cars all the time. The hover-car descended towards its destination, Re’lien atop it. She jumped off before its final stop, landing on the edge of a darker, danker platf
orm.

  The city was alight with syn-patrols, Trooper guardsmen and corporate police. Sirens sounded in the usual joyous nightlife of Mars.

  Re’lien looked at her hands. They were bleeding red over her bruised, blue skin. Flakes of glass were lodged between her knuckle-bones. She looked up and saw the trail again, leading through a dark street with a sewer leak dripping from an apartment to the concrete below. She blankly stared at the dilapidated scene and walked between the dark-concrete apartment blocks. A junkie looked up at her and recoiled. He scuttled away, tripping over himself multiple times.

  She stopped, and looked up. The trail went up. She cocked her head at the smooth wall. No hand holds. No low-lying windows. Impenetrable. At least for now. She proceeded down the narrow alley, rounding the building.

  A group of kids stopped and stared at her as she rounded the corner. Their eyes went wide. White as an untuned holo-screen. They ran, leaving their mini-syn combat game abandoned.

  Re’lien entered the apartment. The trail led upstairs.

  She ascended the stairs and heard panting. Swearing. She smelled fear, sweat and skite.

  ‘Where is Jas?’

  ‘Oh vok. We vokken left him, man.’

  Re’lien reached the door where the trail stopped and the voices sounded. In their haste, they hadn’t closed it fully.

  ‘Skite, skite, skite…’

  ‘What the vok happened?’

  ‘I don’t skiting know!’

  ‘That…thing just…it screamed…’

  ‘I don’t even remember. Oh vok. Oh skiting Terra protect us. I didn’t sign up for this.’

  ‘Shut up! None of us did…’

  Re’lien entered.

  Two faces, wearing familiar outfits. Their already pale faces went paler. But there were more people in the room.

  ‘That’s her!’

  Re’lien screamed. Not a cry of fear. A deafening roar. Every Gan recoiled, covering their ears. Some tried to run. One jumped through the glass window, sending shards flying. The rest, those who did not want to die despite the pain, the fear, the torment and the loathing, were cornered. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to jump.

  And as any cornered vermin would do, they attacked the predator.

  Re’lien ducked low. The bat collided with the door-frame. Before the Gan could recover, Re’lien tackled him to the ground. Other Gans fell on them, not caring if they hurt their own. They were too terrified to notice who was who.

  Re’lien, or not, recalled all that Eri had taught her. And more.

  She rolled onto her back, lifting the Gan on-top of her as three Gans stabbed towards where she had been. She kicked off her punctured shield and jumped into a crouch, side-swiping a Gan and tripping him up. He dropped his knife and she retrieved it.

  At the back of her mind, she told herself, ‘Stop.’

  But she was too quiet. The visions had stopped. The memories had stopped. No Xerl. No Mars. Not even Muur, Franc and Grett. Just fear. Fear and death.

  The Gans had no finesse. No skill. They used knives as a blunt instrument, not a work of art. Not a tool to be mastered. She was not a master, but she didn’t need to be.

  A Gan lifted his club above her. She slit his throat. Blood sprayed onto her, staining her clothes and smattering her face. She felt a blow from behind. She reeled and then dodged before another found its mark. But an assailant tackled her to the floor. She felt fist after fist meet her flesh. A kick to her side.

  Unconscious memory. Torture. Blow after blow. Never stopping. Never ceasing.

  Until now.

  She moved her head and the fist went into the metal flooring below her. She followed through by grabbing the thugs face, placing her thumbs in his eyes and pushing.

  He screamed.

  At the display, the others tried to run. Re’lien was faster. She killed every single one. Stabbing, beating, strangling, mutilating. All the torment. All the pain. Everything.

  And then she woke up, covered in blood, in a room filled with corpses.

  ‘Muur?’

  But Muur wasn’t there. She was dead.

  Her face was wet. Sticky. She felt it and then looked at her hands. They were caked with blood.

  Re’lien collapsed onto the floor, and wept. She was not sure if for Franc and Muur, for the Gans, for what she had done, for herself or very any of the many reasons she had to cry. She only wept, as metal-clad Troopers poured into the room, circling her with their rifles levelled.

  “Justice without order is chaos. Order without justice is worthless.” – Inscription on the High Court of Mars

  Chapter 14.

  Trial

  ‘Re’lien en Xerl, Imperial dissident arriving in 3551 T.C. Final year student at the University of New London. Diplomatic Corps grant recipient. Previously upstanding citizen.’

  The syn behind the Trooper insignia emblazoned podium paused.

  ‘You stand accused of one act of second degree murder and a further seven acts of first degree murder. This stands alongside accusation of vigilantism, vandalism, destruction of Order property, disturbing the peace and of causing mass psychological damage through, currently, unknown means.’

  Re’lien didn’t respond. She was not expected to respond. She stood in a small, bright-white room. The voice from the judge-syn emanated from no distinct source. A squad of Trooper guardsmen stood outside, armed with military-issue firearms. She had not tested their aim. She let them hand-cuff her and put her into the shuttle. Not even the most battle-hardened Trooper would shoot an unarmed, surrendering, weeping girl – even if she was an edal.

  A holo-screen appeared and Re’lien saw herself, holding a young man by the wind-pipe, and crushing it.

  She didn’t remember doing it.

  Another screen showed her running through the bazaar. People around her hurt each other, trying to get away from her. She was almost a blur, but she left chaos in her wake.

  Another screen opened. She saw herself up close, and then her fist, and then static.

  The final screen was an assortment of photos. Blood, everywhere. Strewn limbs. Corpses.

  She gagged. And then saw the final photo. Herself, covered in other people’s blood. She vomited onto the white floor.

  ‘Please refrain from dirtying the courtroom,’ the judge spoke.

  The screens disappeared.

  ‘The evidence is irrefutable, Re’lien. While self-defence is a sovereign right of all individuals, this went beyond any reasonable grounds for self-preservation. As the evidence shows, you purposefully tracked down your victims, who were retreating and posed no further harm to you. In fact, you tracked them to another district, coming close to hijacking a vehicle in your pursuit. We cannot prosecute for that act, as riding a flying vehicle is unprecedented, but the other charges will suffice. Pending intervention by the High Court of Mars or the High Command, you will be executed…’

  Pause.

  ‘In 17 hours.’

  Re’lien couldn’t breathe. She collapsed onto her behind and stared into the piercing whiteness of the room.

  17 hours.

  17 hours for everything else.

  No Diplomatic Corps. No more Frontier. No v-flicks…

  But so much had stopped already. No more Franc. No more Muur. And very likely, no more Grett.

  Re’lien forgot about her own impending death, and she covered her face.

  She tried to tell herself it wasn’t real. That Muur would still need some help crafting. That Grett would be coming around the corner of the cabin, grinning and carrying a dead dugobeck. That Franc would change every topic to a debate on ethics. Tears mixed with the dried blood on her jacket. Her bones hurt. The glass shards lodged in her skin hurt. Her bruises from her beatings hurt. She didn’t care. The hurt would go away. The wounds wouldn’t even need to heal.

  16 hours.

  Re’lien thought about Eri. About Sola. She wouldn’t see them again. She wished now that she had mended things with Sola sooner. If only…

&nbs
p; 15 hours.

  She left so much unsaid with Muur. So much left to learn about Franc and Grett. None of which mattered anymore. But it did matter.

  14 hours.

  Re’lien slept. Mercifully, the lights dimmed in the room.

  

  A storm.

  A storm the likes that Re’lien had never experienced, in and out of v-link. Not even the storms of Frontier could come close. Not even the storm that had destroyed the watchtower in Unity. Such ferocity. Such anger and power. It was as if the torrents of rain had been sent down in a hellfire, shot by the Armada ships that Franc had so despised.

  But this was more than a storm.

  Re’lien heard the cracks of lightning, but saw no electric-white. The rain fell like artillery, but no water fell from the sky. The sky was neither the white, grey or black of a tempest. It was a translucence with nothing behind it. Like staring through a window, but without anything on the other side. All that Re’lien could see was the blue. That dreaded blue. The wisps and tendrils of warp-energy, twisting throughout the gale.

  She stood on a cliff-face of blackened rock. In the distance, a sea. It was the only thing that looked alive. But barely. It was kept in a flux. A constant and unnatural mess of waves and torrents. It looked tired, but unable to stop. An undead sea on a dead world. For everything else was dead. No grass. No foliage. No colours. Just the rock, the sea and the storm. She looked down. Her hands. Not Kei’s. So, he was free, after all. Re’lien felt a small relief. At least one of them didn’t have to face the torment. Hopefully, when she awoke, she would also be free.

  Re’lien looked around and tried to walk. But she couldn’t move. Her feet refused to obey her.

  Very well. I’ll stay here.

  She looked towards the sky and guessed that this was a warp-storm. Or at least a rendition of one. Nobody could survive being in a warp-storm. Much less without any sort of protective gear.