Chapter 1

There was blaster fire as he turned the corner. The ship was falling apart while they were still trying to capture him. Devlin N. Raiden was his full name, but people rarely ever called him that. He was known as Linc. He was nicknamed Linc because he usually attacked someone with a chain if anything. He was the kind of person you didn't want to piss off. Right now, he is trying to get off of a ship that's under attack from another Merc ship that wants its payday. Unfortunately, for him, he's one of those people that other people pay money to catch. He's already eluded the police, but now he's running from bounty hunters that are crazy enough to take the job. More blaster fire was heard down the hall from where he was.

"Damn, I'm never gonna get outta here." He whispered to himself.

He turned another corner and backed up back into the hall in which he had come from. There were people that hung back, just in case he doubled back. The ship shook and a lot of the people fell down not expecting it. This gave him an idea of who he should look out for in the future, if any of them had one. He turned around looking back down the hall he had come from. They were turning the corner now. He was shrouded in shadows, which worked to his advantage. He let them come into the shadows to meet the others.

"Did you see 'im?" One of them asked.

"No." Dominic said.

Dominic was one of the few bounty hunters that just kept coming back to find Linc. He was also the biggest dumbasses and one of the very most annoying people Linc had ever met. Dominic looked around even though everyone knew he couldn't see much. Linc snuck out of the shadows back down the corridor he had come from and turned right. He was almost to the hangar, but he knew that the ship wouldn't hold out long enough for him to get there.

"Damn!!!" Dominic shouted as he noticed what Linc had done.

Luckily, the ship had another shiver which gave Linc enough time to run to the hangar. And as always he ran right into more Mercs. He was a little less than 20 feet away from a ship.

"Caught ya." Dominic laughed from behind him.

Linc reluctantly put his hands on his head and backed up into Dominic's hands.

"Guess you aren't a big a dumbass as I thought." Linc said.

Dominic laughed as the others did. He soon stopped laughing and put a blaster to Linc's head.

"Miss bein' in your favorite slam?"

Dominic pushed him away from the ship and into another. They put an electrical collar around his neck and handcuffs towards the wall of the ship so that his hands were in front of him now. Linc wasn't surprised that he got caught; he hadn't slept for 2 weeks and no food for about 3 days. He was starving and starting to close his eyes lazily. But then he thought, "at least now I don't have to drive the damn ship."

Three words for where he was going, no daylight slam. Otherwise known as Level 6. Level 6 is worst to get into, but he's broken out of them before. Normally they don't get that far, but they might actually this time. They were going to Cassin's slam, Linc's so called "favorite". Cassin was the owner of the slam, who seemed to like to torture people, a lot. Especially Linc. Linc had spent a total of 6 days there before he broke out and he had hated Cassin the moment he saw the smirk on his face when he first came there.

"Brace yourselves." The pilot said as they attempted to exit the ship.

There was another explosion in the ship and half of the ship drifted off into space. At the moment everyone was freaked, all of them except Linc. There was an explosion from behind them and everybody was jerked forwards. The engines revved and the rockets spluttered into life. As they pulled away from the other Merc ship the tension in the ship released. Linc laughed quietly to himself. Dominic came to the back of the ship to where Linc was forced to sit, with his favorite weapon crawling up his arms.

"So how many?" It seemed as if Dominic wanted to strike a conversation with his payday.

"Between what time periods, the past week, past month?" He would play the game… For a little while.

"Week" Everybody seemed to have their attention on the two now.

Linc thought for a moment, "Near 30 somewhere."

Dominic's eyes widened and then went back to normal.

"Guess how much is on your head." Dominic said smiling.

"A lot…… Obviously." Linc said looking at all the people in the small, little ship.

Dominic giggled, "Close to 3 mil."

Linc found this rather annoying. For all the rookies he's had deal with, he thought that it would be more.

"At least that's what it was on Icarus Prime."

"We're going to Cassin's right? What's he offerin'?"

"Closer to about 5 mil."

Linc knew it would be harder to get out now that Cassin knew what he could do.

"We'll be there in about half an hour." Dominic said slapping him.

Something didn't feel right. There was a different kind of presence on the ship Linc noticed all of a sudden.

"What's a girl doin' on this ship?"

Dominic found this question rather quiet amusing knowing that Linc hadn't seen any girl on the ship when they had captured him.

"Women are quiet useful in this business. They are quite seductive to the small minded weasels we have to go and catch all the time. But that's why I didn't use her on you, you're not small minded. And you wouldn't fall for it anyway."

"Tell her to stop wearin' perfume. Kind of ruins the element of surprise."

"I'll tell 'er that."

She swallowed hard.

She came and had to sit down next to Linc, because there was no more space in the front part of the ship. Linc smiled, he could tell without even looking at her, that she was scared shitless of him. She sat the furthest away from him as possible. There was almost absolutely nothing he could do, and there was nothing that he wanted to anyway. They didn't really need to put chains on him, Dominic was watching constantly and almost never blinked. The ship rocked and she fell into him. Linc sat completely still as she tried to untangle her hair from the chains. Dominic came back to see what was going on. She kept yanking her head up to pull the hair away from the cuffs. She was starting to cry. Dominic hopped over the seat to help her. Linc leaned back in his chair and rested his head back.

"Calm down honey, it's alright I'm here." Dominic whispered with concern.

Dominic yanked a key out of his pocket and looked to his other Merc friends. Dominic unlocked his cuffs and the other Mercs behind him pulled him backwards, off of his seat and away from her and Dominic. Once away from the two they put two pairs of cuffs on him and locked him on to another part of the ship. She stopped crying soon and Dominic got her hair out of the cuffs and put the cuffs into his back pocket. The Mercs covered his eyes so that he couldn't see where Dominic was putting the key.

"You touch her one more time and this blaster will go in your head until its pulp." Dominic seemed extremely emotional.

Linc just giggled quietly to himself thinking of how pathetic Dominic seemed. But about five to ten minutes later, they reached where they were trying to go. Dominic gathered himself and stepped off the ship with all of the other Mercs. Before the last one left, he set the electrical collar to any movement what so ever that it would send a large current through his body. He heard laughing and talking outside of the ship. Then he heard, "This way, we've got 'im."

"Seriously?" Linc heard the excitement in Cassin's voice.

They came on to the ship and showed Cassin that they weren't kidding. Cassin poked him to make sure it wasn't a hologram.

"Is that you?"

"The one and only."

Cassin had asked that question the first time they had met, and only the two of them would have known that. Cassin did a strange little dance and tried to help Linc up. The electrical collar picked this up and electrocuted him. It was such a high voltage that it burned through Linc's skin and made him bleed.

"Who did that?" Cassin said seriously.

Dominic picked the control to the collar up and turned it off. He removed the collar and revealed the smell of burnt flesh and blood on the collar and Linc. Dominic also removed the cuffs from the wall and gave the chains to Cassin. Linc stood up and pushed Dominic into the nearest wall, which made a dent. Dominic hated to be pushed around more than anything and tackled him back. Linc tripped over some baggage and fell over the front passenger seat. Linc hopped over the chair and right before he could barely touch Dominic he was pulled back by the chains Dominic had given to Cassin. But it wasn't Cassin who pulled them apart. It was the girl. She yanked so hard and Linc was taken so much by surprise that he ended up falling down the ramp to the sandy ground, and landed hard on his neck. Something cracked both his neck and his patience for these dumbasses. He saw the girl in front of Dominic to see if he was okay.

He felt himself losing control. He knew wanted to kill them horribly but he knew he couldn't. His muscles tensed trying to hold himself back. He knew he would have to kill someone soon. Adrenaline was bursting through his body and he felt compelled. Suddenly someone touched him. Linc reacted so quickly that nobody could even blink. Linc took the arm and twisted it around to the way your arm isn't supposed go. He snapped it backwards towards the persons head then flipped the person so that they landed on their stomach. He grabbed the person's leg and put his foot on the person's back. He grabbed both the person's arm and leg and pulled back. There was a loud crack that everyone heard.

Luckily that person was only a guard. If it had been anybody else he would be executed. Cassin suddenly pulled back on the chains, and Linc was pulled back towards the door of the slam. He looked one more time. The ship flew away and left him here on this forgotten planet.