The trio trudged slowly through the black and red smoke-swept landscape. The air was thin and suffocatingly hot. Deputy Boyd limped between Dobson and Misty, leaning heavily against the latter, barely conscious. His head sagged like a limp rag doll, bobbing up and down with each jostling step. The deputy dragged one foot through the sand, stiffly, as if his legs were made of wood, and then planted it, soon followed by the other. Rinse repeat. Over and over again.

  The early stages of shock had already set in. Boyd’s movements were automatic, body disconnected from mind, driven purely by the instinct to survive.

  His stunned silence was preferable to the alternative. Any loud disturbance would betray their position, forcing Dobson to reconsider whether keeping him alive was worth the effort. Alas, it wasn’t a black and white decision. Comms were fickle devices. All implants came custom-tailored to their host, designed for one user and one user alone. Dobson doubted even Misty had the hotwiring skills necessary to pull off a successful comm swap. Meaning they needed Deputy Boyd alive.

  For now.

  The only thing left to do was keep moving. The surrounding area, an artificial pocket drilled deep into the heart of the planetary satellite, was an open expanse of shadow, dull red sand, and rock. The impenetrable veil of darkness beyond the light tower prevented Dobson from seeing the portals to the mines, but she knew they existed. The mines were the very reason settlements like Misery Gulch existed.

  Stillwater owned the mineral rights, just as they owned the prison, the supply trains, and everything else on the godforsaken hunk of moon rock. The pockets rich with iridium were mined exclusively by the company. But the lesser digs, the ones that produced barely above operating costs, had been opened to the public decades ago, attracting civilians from all across the universe, eager to make a quick buck.

  Over time, entire towns formed within the civilian pockets. The people leased the land, ensuring a cut of their profits went back to the parent company. In exchange, Stillwater supplied each civilian outpost with sufficient oxygen and mining equipment. Food, water, and all other necessities cost extra and had to be ordered through Stillwater directly. No outside suppliers. Orders arrived once a month via train—along with an additional fee for delivery, of course.

  With the company controlling both the supply and the demand, it wouldn’t take long for a settlement to go underwater, Dobson wagered. Cut off from the outside universe, forced to depend solely on the fickle whim of a corporation for survival, financial delinquency was inevitable. No, worse than that. It was intentional. Unable to afford to stay, unable to afford to leave, the civilians would have no other choice but to work off their debt to the company indefinitely.

  And they had the gall to call her evil. At least the people she killed deserved it.

  “Dobsy, you’re still with us, yeah?” Misty’s hushed whisper drew Dobson from her thoughts. “Still wondering what rhymes with orange, are you?”

  Dobson grimaced. Just as she’d finally gotten the puzzle out of her head, it came waltzing back in like a showgirl on stage. “I am now.”

  “Town’s up ahead,” Misty said. “We’ll need your eyes and ears.”

  Dobson nodded without speaking.

  Misery Gulch loomed ominously overhead. And beyond that, the company locomotive. Dobson and Misty had taken the long route, keeping the still smoldering remnants of the prison train between them and their target. The landscape offered little in the way of cover, forcing them to stick close to the shadows, just out of range of the light tower’s unsettling red glow. They passed several pieces of abandoned mining equipment half-buried in sand along the way, including a loader. Its heavy iron sides were green with rust and littered with bullet holes.

  Bullet holes? Dobson narrowed her eyes at it.

  Another mystery.

  One for which Dobson did not have time to solve. She tore her gaze from the rusted loader and focused on the town, eyes straining to capture the finer details from a distance. Like most underground mining settlements, Misery Gulch was not a set of free-standing buildings. It was a single structure carved from the landscape itself. A mazework of stairs, walkways, and sunken entrances littered the face of the dull red cliff. Houses, businesses, and communal areas shared the space alike. The more populated the town was, the deeper the inhabited tunnels went. Sometimes burrowing for miles into the moon rock.

  Dobson’s gaze swept across the sheer cliffside, silently tallying the number of levels. The settlement was four stories high, dotted with a dizzying number of doors and shuttered windows. Her stare settled on the first floor and remained there, perplexed. The lower levels were typically reserved for services—food, laundry, repair—but the signs over each shop had been torn down. The windows were shattered, and the doors crudely busted in, if not missing altogether. Most troubling of all, however, was the array of bodies strewn about the empty street below, their still forms hidden by the unlit streetlamps.

  They were civilians.

  “Damn you, Misty McClain,” Dobson hissed, throwing an accusatory glare Misty’s way. “What in tarnation is this? We’ve got enough trouble as it is.”

  “How should I know?” Misty snapped back defensively. “I got off the same prison train you did.”

  “You didn’t see any information at all while you were tapped into Stillwater’s network?”

  “I saw a town with a private company train stationed outside. That was all I needed.”

  “And you never considered why a private company train was stationed at a civilian outpost?”

  “As shocking as it may seem, pumpkin, I had more pressing worries on my mind at the time.” Misty’s sharp mouth formed into a tight smile. She spoke at Dobson through clenched teeth. “Plotting my escape, for instance. Yours too, thank you very much.”

  They were on the edge of town now. Close enough for those not equipped with heightened vision to make out the gory details. Deputy Boyd stopped dead in his tracks. His drooping eyes grew wide. A whimper caught in his throat, emitting from his trembling mouth as a wet gurgle.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  “Don’t you start, too,” Misty grumbled. She turned back to Dobson. “I didn’t know, alright? But we can’t stop now, Dobsy. We have to keep going.”

  There wasn’t any sense in arguing the matter further. Misty knew as much about the carnage as Dobson, which amounted to jack squat. As much as Dobson wanted to turn tail and run, her partner was right. They didn’t have a choice. The town was their only source of cover. Redistributing the dead gunslinger’s weight over her shoulder, Dobson pressed on, careful not to disturb the scattered bodies of the townsfolk as she picked her way through the bloodied street.

  The victims had been gunned down from behind, shot dead while running for cover. Most were citizens, but Dobson saw a handful of Company Men as well. Their suave clothes and polished boots stood out against the ragged clothes of the townsfolk like a painted lady in church.

  “Dobsy, these are all women. Some children, too.” Misty’s smile slipped from her face. The ashen look that took its place tried unsuccessfully to pass itself off as disinterest. “Where are all the menfolk?”

  The gnawing dread in Dobson’s gut started anew. It clawed up her stomach and into the back of her throat, sinking its talons deep into her flesh. Dobson forced it back down with a difficult swallow. Getting sentimental wouldn’t do her any good. Not here. Not now. They had a single goal. Get the train and get out. Neither she nor Misty could afford the distraction.

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s not our concern.” Dobson’s gaze swept along the lower floor, jumping from one broken doorway to the next, searching for one establishment in particular. It proved slightly more cumbersome without the proper signage, but soon enough, she found what she sought. The double swing doors were a dead giveaway.

  “In here,” she said, ducking inside. Riddled with bullet holes, the wooden doors still dutifully swung, allowing Dobson entry into the ransacked saloon. There were two other bodies inside, both Company Men, lying dead near the entry. Dobson stepped over them on her way in. Shattered glass crunched underfoot as she picked her way through the minefield of broken tables and chairs.

  A single battery-operated lantern hung from a hook at the center of the ceiling. Its weak glow still dutifully illuminated the room in sickly shades of yellow. The drink counter was made of solid rock and remained largely untouched by the destruction. Unlike the back bar behind it. The splintered shelving hung lopsided. The array of green and brown bottles that had once lined its shelves now rested on the dirt floor below, shattered to pieces. An abandoned pile of loose boards and nails rested on the counter—someone’s last-ditch effort to board up the windows and doors cut short, most likely. At the very least, it explained the missing signage outside.

  Dobson shoved the supplies to the side and dropped the dead gunslinger unceremoniously over the top of the bar. “This is the closest you’re going to get to an operating table,” she told Misty.

  “I’ll make do.” Misty cautiously approached the counter with Boyd in tow. She surveyed the sitting area for an intact chair but came up empty. Shrugging, Misty decided the floor was just as good and plunked the poor man down into the dirt. “Here you go, Mister Boyd. Rest your heels for a bit while Dobsy and I get things sorted.”

  Deputy Boyd slumped against the bar without protest.

  Misty rolled up her sleeves and dove right in. Unbuttoning the gunslinger’s left cuff, she tugged the fabric to the elbow and examined the surgical grooves along his wrist. Taking his hand, she twisted left, left, right, producing several metallic pops, before detaching the prosthetic from the rest of the arm with a single, deft tug.

  “You gonna stand there gawking or are you gonna do something useful?” Misty detached the crude pincer prosthetic from her left wrist and replaced it with the stolen hand.

  Dobson had never seen a live hotwiring in action. Morbid fascination gnawed at her, demanding she stay and watch the grisly process in its eternity. Alas, time was a resource she could not afford to squander. Reluctantly, Dobson’s gaze tore from Misty and settled on the pile of discarded boards and nails. “I’ll see about barricading the entry points.”

  “Start with the front door, would you?” Pleased with the dexterity of her new appendage, Misty put it straight to work. She moved up and down the dead gunslinger’s forearms, popping open access ports and pulling enhancement vials from his chambers like candy from a pi?ata. “The thought of anyone just waltzing on in here guns a-blazing gives me the heebies.”

  “That’s what gives you the heebies?” Dobson turned for the door. “Not the fact that you’re elbows-deep inside a dead man right now?”

  “Oh, spare me your judgment, Dobsy. One of these hands is his, after all. In a way, it’s like he’s helping.”

  “I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.”

  Misty cackled in delight, calling over her shoulder in a sweet tone that dripped with poison, “When you’re finished boarding us up, be a dear and bring me the two gents by the door, will ya? Waste not want not, as they say.”

  Dobson crossed the compacted dirt floor, listening to the soft clink of glass as Misty pilfered the gunslinger’s stash of enhancement serum and arranged the stolen vials on the stone countertop beside her. It sounded like a decent haul. That, added to whatever the other two Company Men were carrying, and they stood a slim chance of being able to fight their way out. Through the first wave, anyway.

  One concern at a time, Dobson reminded herself. Secure the room first and then worry about how you’ll die.

  While she was feeling moderately hopeful, she supposed perhaps she could learn what rhymed with orange in what short time she had left as well. Corange? Storange?

  Why was it so stupidly difficult?

  Dobson arrived at the dusty tack piano shoved against the wall that formed the front entryway. The piano’s wood and chrome were marred with stray bullet holes from the fight and was leaking a questionable substance into the dirt. It was an early electric model, brimming with clunky tech. Dobson pressed her palms against the side, testing the instrument’s weight. The damn thing was solid. Precisely what she needed.

  She slammed her shoulder against the rusted chrome and shoved. The piano moved protestingly along the compacted dirt floor, kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake. Gritting her teeth, sweating bullets, Dobson wrangled the blasted thing across the open doorway, blocking any entry. It wasn’t much, certainly not against augmented Company Men, but a momentary barrier was better than nothing.

  Dobson worked from the front of the saloon to the back, using the boards and nails to seal the windows and interior entry points, including three hidden doorways that led deeper inside the settlement. She kept a watchful eye on Misty and Deputy Boyd as she did so. The former continued to strip the body while the latter remained slumped over in the dirt, staring blankly at the wall, like a dog that’d taken a hoof to the head.

  Dobson moved behind the bar, running her fingertips along the bullet hole-riddled wall until she struck a seam in the wallpaper. She followed the crease, tracing the shape with her index finger, revealing the hidden outline of yet another secret door—this one cleverly camouflaged by the gaudy green and yellow wallpaper. Three boards and a fistful of nails had the doorway secured to her satisfaction.

  Finished securing the entry points, Dobson supposed it was time to address the deputy’s deteriorating condition. Snatching a vial of serum from the counter, she started to make her way over to him when Dobson realized her error. She’d missed an entry point. A trap door, specifically. One situated behind the bar not far from where she stood. It was cleverly hidden and, thus, easy to miss. In fact, the only reason she noticed was because of the way it lifted, allowing the barrel of a shotgun to slide through.

  “Misty, get down!” Dobson dove for cover a split second ahead of the blast.

  The slug slammed into her chest. Dobson hit the ground in a cloud of dust and broken glass, the breath stolen from her open mouth. Her chest tightened, skin burning as her internal circuitry flashed within her head, screaming. Stifling a snarl, she dragged her titanium bulk around the corner, out of the shooter’s crosshairs.