1

Hunter stirred.

The ache pounding through his head nearly overwhelmed him as he shifted. It felt like his head was wrapped in metal.

Voices filtered through his awareness like they were dripping through a sieve.

"Aw, blast! . . . waking up again."

"Again?"

". . . enough before! . . . should've knocked him out!"

"He's a clone, you clothead. Their metabolism is faster. How much'd you give him before?"

"I gave him enough," the voice said again, defensively. It was a younger voice, female.

"However much you think you need, double it. We need him knocked out for the next cycle at least." An older female. Raspier.

"Fine."

Hunter's proprioceptive senses slowly resurfaced. Even past the thickness swimming in his head, he determined that he was lying on his side, on a hard surface. His hands were bound in front of him.

He sensed something moving off to his right. Heard the click of a hydraulic injector. The mechanized whirr as it sucked up liquid.

"No. No," he said with as much strength as he could muster. "Please…"

"Sorry, big guy."

"No!" Hunter was blinking, trying to focus his eyes, but they felt blurry. Thick. "Please, I can't – I can't… argh…"

He sensed her hesitate, and from the sound of her voice he could tell she turned her head to call over to someone else. "I think this stuff is screwing with his head, Rafa."

"I'm about to be screwing with your head if you don't give it to him! Do it!"

"It's not gonna hurt, okay?" she said in a hushed whisper to him. "It's just gonna make you fall asleep."

Fingertips gently pressed to his neck, and he recognized the sensation – she was bracing his skin in preparation for an injection. With each passing second that the drug was out of his system, he could feel the oppressive fog in his head clearing more and more, and he knew that another injection would push him back under again. He fought to get his breath, his voice, under control. "Please, what's… what's your name?" he asked. "I'm… I'm Hunter."

The fingertips retracted. "You have a name?" she asked, sounding intrigued. "But you're a clone."

He let his body slacken with relief for a second. For the moment, at least, he'd caught her attention. "We all have names," he said in a whisper. With effort, he opened his eyes.

Even the dim light, was so bright against his eyes that it felt like a physical force pressing against his pupils. He squeezed his eyelids shut again with a groan. "Where – where are the rest?"

"The rest of what?"

"The rest of my squad," he said.

"You were the only score the bounty asked for," she said. "We didn't need anyone else."

He opened his eyes again. This time, he was able to withstand the pain long enough for his pupils to shrink against the light. He blinked and focused.

He'd been right – the person in front of him was a young woman, probably around nineteen or twenty years of age, given the fact that she looked human.

He pushed himself up to more of a sitting position. "What's your name?" he asked again.

"Trace!" The other voice barked from the doorway, suddenly much closer than Hunter had heard it before. "Are you talking to him?"

Hunter ducked sideways at the strength of her voice, bent nearly in half as pain rang through his ears straight through to his skull. Catching his breath, he made an effort to raise his cuffed hands in the direction of the voice. "I won't cause any trouble," he said quietly. "I promise."

"Oh, well, by all means, if you promise –"

Hunter realized now that he recognized the voice. He turned to her, his eyes narrowed to block out the light as well as in irritation. "You," he said.

Rafa, standing in the doorway, had her arms crossed. It was the same woman who'd offered to help guide them back to their ship on Montin 4. The same one he'd been with when he'd been overwhelmed with that screeching noise.

"You were supposed to be helping us," he said with a curl in his lip.

"Yeah, well, you know what they say. People change." She snatched the hydraulic injector out of her sister's hand. "Time to go back to sleep."

Before Hunter could recoil, Trace caught her wrist. "Our buyer did say to deliver him unharmed," she reminded her. "What if this stuff really is hurting him? We might not get paid."

Rafa glared at her sister for a moment, her hand hovering in the air with the injector still poised in her hand.

Hunter's eyes flicked between them. "What is it you want with me?" he asked. "Maybe I can help you."

"You can help us by being a good little bounty and let us deliver you to your buyer," Rafa snapped, gesturing at him with the hydraulic injector. Apparently seeing some logic to Trace's argument, she tossed the injector aside. It clattered to the floor.

Hunter's eyebrows raised. "You're a bounty hunter?"

"I'm whatever I need to be for whoever's willing to pay me a decent enough price," she said, crossing her arms. "So today, yeah. I am."

"Who's your buyer?"

Rafa uncrossed her arms and started walking back towards the bridge. "You'll find out when we deliver." Over her shoulder, she tossed a glance at her sister. "You want him awake? You keep an eye on him."

The ship landed.

Sensing the shift in gravity, Hunter looked up. "Where are we?"

"Not at your stop yet," Rafa called from the front of the ship.

"Then where are we?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but we're making a pit stop," Rafa said. "Trace, stay here and guard him. If he gives you any trouble, use this."

She tossed her sister a small cylindrical device. In a flash of silver, Hunter recognized it – it was the very device Rafa had used on him earlier. The high-pitched shriek that had incapacitated him in the first place.

Rafa pointed to him. "Stay."

He shot her a dirty look.

The building pulsed with club music as Rafa ducked through the ratty curtains. Clouds of spice smoke hung heavily around the corners of the room, obscuring the details of the interior. Fortunately, she knew her way around.

She came to the room she was aiming for. The room was hidden in the deep interior of the building, in the heart of the club. Rafa stepped through the rectangular doorway.

The door sealed behind her, along with most of the noise. The music from the club on the other side of the room still pounded through the walls like a faint heartbeat.

"Bombo!" Rafa said warmly. "My favorite knucklehead in the Outer Rim."

"Yeah, yeah." The Gorlug, broad and fat with skin pebbled with large rounded warts, stuck a pipe in his mouth. "What've ya got for me this time?"

"A delivery. From your usual anonymous partner." Rafa set the parcel down on the table, leaned one elbow across it. She raised an eyebrow at Bombo. "Sends their love."

He grunted dubiously. "This the stuff they told me they were gonna send two cycles ago?"

"Hey now, better late than never, right?"

Bombo gave her a dubious look. "Mm-hm."

"Aw, lighten up, old man. It's here now. Besides." She paused in the doorway. "I heard there's a little somethin' extra in there for you this time." She gave a sly smile. "So I'd take a real careful look."

"So, are you a pilot?" Trace asked.

Sprawled diagonally across one of the chairs along the wall of the ship, she twirled the toe of one boot in circles in the air.

Hunter glanced towards the exit of the ship, as if Rafa's presence were still there. "Are you supposed to be talking to me?" he asked.

Trace shrugged. "Rafa tends to exaggerate," she said. "Besides, you don't seem so bad."

Her cavalier attitude rubbed Hunter the wrong way. Someone so young shouldn't already be desensitized to trafficking like this. "You run these kinds of… missions often?"

"We've done plenty of high-stakes supply runs before." Trace hesitated, then straightened up in her seat to put set both feet on the floor again. "But – no. Never… live cargo before."

Picking up on the sudden unease in her tone, Hunter realized she was reconsidering talking to him. He answered her original question. "Yes," he said. "I'm a pilot. Do you fly?"

She visibly perked up. Although she was considerably older, certain mannerisms of hers reminded Hunter of Omega; wearing her heart and emotions on her sleeve. "I'm practicing," Trace said. "I'll be ready to go for my pilot's license next cycle."

An idea was formulating in Hunter's head. Using his cuffed hands for support, he got up from the floor and pretended to stretch his back. "You ever flown this bird?" he asked, indicating the ship with a toss of his head.

Trace hopped up from her seat too. "Have I ever flown it?" she scoffed. "I built it." With pride in her eyes, she placed a hand affectionately against a metal support beam. "From cockpit to thrusters."

Hunter raised an eyebrow, quietly impressed. He glanced around, trying to determine what class of ship the design was based on. It looked like a basic freighter, likely a repurposed Nebula-class. "Guessing you didn't think to rectify the weak spot between the cockpit and the cargo bay, though," he said, his eyes sliding back to her.

Trace's eyes widened at the challenge. "Oh, I didn't think to?" she scoffed. "Come with me."

Concealing his smile, Hunter followed behind her as she led him to the connecting area between the cockpit and the cargo area.

"See?" she said. "How's that for rectified?" She reached up to smooth her hand along the metal. "Reinforced crysto-steel."

Hunter's eyes cut to her.

In one quick move, he lunged forward and looped his cuffed hands around Trace's neck, tightening his grip so she was pinned against him. "Ey –!" she gasped in surprise, both hands reaching up to grab at his hands around her throat.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said into her ear. "Not if you cooperate. Do you understand?"

Letting out a frustrated grunt, she struggled against him.

Hunter tightened his grip, making her cry out, and pulled her ear closer to his mouth. "Do you understand?" he asked again.

She stopped her squirming in resignation. "Yes," she hissed out.

"Good. Where are my blaster and comm?"

Trace pointed to a storage locker built into the wall of the ship closer to the cockpit. "Over there," she said through gritted teeth.

"Good. Get them." In an awkward halt-step, they moved over to the locker together. Trace typed a code into the colored keylock at the side of the door, and the locker popped open with a hydraulic hiss.

"Pass them to my hands."

Reaching into the locker, she withdrew his blaster, reluctantly passing it into his hand right behind her ear. She reached back into the locker, but after a second her body stiffened. "Hey." Her arms started moving faster as she rifled through the stuff in the locker. "Hey, your comm's gone."

"I told you, no tricks," Hunter warned her. Though he had his blaster securely cupped in his hand now, he really didn't want to have to use it against her.

"Hey, I'm telling the truth! I know Rafa put it in here!"

Using his weight, Hunter swapped their positions, still keeping his wrists tight to Trace's throat. He glanced into the locker himself.

Trace had been telling the truth. The comm was gone. But he did catch a glimpse of his orange blade, glowing softly in the darkness of the locker.

"Fine," he said. "But get my blade."

"You crazy? I'm not passing you the knife!"

He winced. Even though the worst of drug had worn off, the shrill of her voice so close to his ears was still an assault on his senses. "Look, I told you I don't want to hurt you," he said in a low voice. "You can slot it into my vambrace if you want."

"Fine," she grumbled. "Rafa's gonna kill me for this."

She retrieved the blade from the locker. Twisting her head to see over her shoulder as best as she could with his arms still trapping her, she slid the blade into the slot on his forearm armor.

Hunter sighed. It was a start. He just had to get away from here.

"Get away from my sister."

Rafa's voice suddenly sounded from the entrance of the ship, deadly quiet.

Hunter spun them around, Trace braced in front of him like a human shield. At the entrance of the ship, silhouetted by the bright sunlight outside, Rafa faced them down a barrel of a long blaster.

Hunter immediately leveled his blaster back at her. "Rafa," he said, a warning in his tone. "I don't want any trouble."

"Thrilled to hear it," she said. "Now let go of her."

"I need to get back to my squad," Hunter said.

"And we need to deliver some cargo." She didn't budge, one eye circled by the blaster's viewfinder. "If we don't deliver, we don't get paid."

"Not my problem," Hunter said.

"Oh, I can make it your problem, Skullface."

Hunter narrowed his eyes. He'd had enough of this. He had to go, now.

Lifting his blaster in the air, he instead pulled back on his cuffs, pressing the hard-light band harder into Trace's throat. She gasped, making a choking noise as she tried to take a step backward. He continued pulling them tighter, knowing that they were cutting off her oxygen.

Rafa's eyes changed, widening in concern, and she lowered her blaster to look at her sister.

Hunter took his chance. Aiming his blaster again, he fired at her.

The white circle of stun-energy hit her, and her body tensed up with the paralytic before collapsing to the ground.

"Rafa!" Trace cried out.

Hunter unhooked his hands from around Trace's neck, releasing her. As she stumbled over to Rafa's crumpled form, he ran out the ship's open door.

Bright sunlight flushed through his senses. He blinked in the sudden shock of it, but kept running. They'd stopped on a desertlike planet, and the orange glow of the sun was dazzling against the hot sand.

They'd docked just outside of a tall city wall. Hunter glanced up, taking in the breadth of it as fast as he could. The city rose out of the desert like a snow globe, protected by thick glass walls.

Clustered around the entrance of the city was a market, cluttered with people and ships docked too closely together. Hunter's mind raced as he glanced through the crowds, sizing up each vehicle; with so many people around, it was going to be relatively easy to take over a ship. He just had to pick which one.

"Hey!" He heard Trace's voice behind him. "Stop!"

Hunter didn't bother turning around. She wasn't going to catch up in time, and if he didn't have to stun her he wasn't about to.

He'd caught sight of a Class III stardrive vessel, and he was running towards it. It was fast, and he knew how to pilot it. It would do.

Suddenly, though, even as he ran, he felt a foreboding cloud of precognition close over him, like all his senses were warning him that something was coming.

A second later, the sound screeched out across the busy docking port. It was the same sound that had crippled him earlier. The sound from that device.

Hunter let out a cry, his feet stumbling in their momentum. Passersby around him looked startled at his outburst, moving quickly away to give him a wide berth. Of course, the sound was nonexistent to them; Hunter was the one who looked like he was crazy.

He spun around, wincing, trying to pinpoint the source.

Standing just outside of their ship, Trace was holding the sound device up like a flare, her expression just as flushed and scared as she had been moments ago.

The sound echoed around the port, bouncing off of the starships. The feedback doubled back to the device, compounding it, making it scream. Making Hunter's skull feel like it was being ripped apart from the inside.

Gasping, Hunter stumbled down onto the sand. This time he didn't have his hands free to cover his ears with. He could only writhe on the sand, praying for his overloaded mind to shut down on its own.

Within a few seconds, his mind went blissfully blank, and he slumped onto the dirt, unconscious.