Chapter One

    Chapter One

My name is Kane. I am a bounty hunter based on the planet Kacef, in the Dirantian system. I am dying. I leave this record on my ship, the Shadow. I do so because I have learned the truth. I know now that the universe is much larger than anyone dared dream. I know I am dying, and I know it is because of what I have learned. The Creator is not a god, but instead a hellish being with no sense of compassion or empathy for any other being, and there are more like him. Or perhaps it. It is an it. I am only human. I cannot comprehend the full extent of the being who created us. It calls itself a mad scientist, but I call it a devil. It has a name. I do not know it, and I do not dare to try to learn it. It is here, in my ship, at the end of my journey, that I finally know where I came from, and why I was created. Perhaps my record will inspire others to confront the thing that we call God. It lives in the Crowfall, beyond the mountains of Myanta and under the Radsta galaxy. You may say that there is no such place as under a galaxy, but you do not comprehend the true path. The Creator made a Way, for pilgrims to come to it. Only those who suspend their belief in what is possible can find its Way. It told me that all ways belong to it, for it created them. It may have created all ways, but I do not believe that all ways belong to it. I am merely a messenger now.

My story begins when I was called on a bounty. My life was always a hard one, by which I mean I was hard and cruel. I cared for myself only, and treated all others with suspicion. My upbringing was well, though I lament that my mother had to watch me fall into darkness. This bounty was a princess, and regret to say that I treated her with less than respect. Her name was Idanza Ryuna. She was heir to the planet of Fyalcor, which was rich due to the fact that it was a farming planet. Hundreds upon thousands of villages, each with fields upon fields of crops. The villagers lived in peaceful pods of five beings each. Fyalcorians are not human. They are a felidean species that resemble Earth sand cats, but they are bipedal and speak primarily the Inter-Galactic Common tongue, Sylphi. Their fur is mostly only on their paws, faces, ears, and tails. Their females only grow their breast tissue when they are pregnant, and both the males and females of the species wear tac-fab bodysuits. They are farmers, and it is their way. 

Princess Idunza Ryuna was of the royal line, and this gave her distinctive golden eyes. She knew I was coming; how could she not? She had run away from her family and she was valuable to them, she knew someone would come. What I did not know was that she was shrewd and prudent, for at once upon leaving the capital city of Cristta she had arranged passage on a coach to the next planetary system over, Peryt. Peryt was a good place to hide, for it was there that a Way Station was based. The Way Station was where the coaches stopped, where people transferred sky-trains, and just outside the station were food vendors, prostitutes, entertainment, and other manners of diverting one’s attention. 

“Curse this jeruch,” I swore when I landed. I had been contracted to fetch a princess from her own planet, not to chase her across the galaxy. The attendant came to offer me water and tickets to a theater while I waited for my ship to be re-fueled. I waved him away and flashed my badge. His face fell. 

“Could I perhaps direct you to the Perytan chapter of the B-Guild, Sir?” He asked in a trembling voice. 

“No, my good man, instead I would like to be shown to the nearest observation deck. Quick as you can, chirrut,” I said quite rudely. The man bowed to me and hastened to alert his clear superior of his task while I waited, scraping my boots upon his shining clean floor. A moment later he returned and, with a face full of false cheer, led me through the Way Station and up the mag-lift to the observation deck. He left me there, in the presence of an aging human couple and a Skirset family, both clearly on a vacation. I ignored them and set to my task. It is said that everyone in the universe will pass through a Way Station eventually, and my lost princess was no exception. Of course, the question of which Way Station was greatly enhanced by the fact that princess Idanza had not yet purchased any tickets off Peryt. She would be here, and she would walk past the observation deck. The other folk on the deck left as soon as they saw my equipment, the hand-held face analyzer and the ID scanner. I had more gear, but it would be pointless and fool-hardy to carry it all with me when I only had need of three things. My stunner was still in my pocket. I needed no other tools, for this was an easy bounty. The princess had not cut out her ID chip, nor had she yet tried any means of changing her face or going anywhere she could disappear from. She was merely a child, playing at running away when all she really wanted was to play games and pretend she was dangerous. Truth be told, she was most likely terrified, being off of her planet for the first time, and without her parents at that. 

My ID scanner beeped. The princess’s file popped up on the screen. I hit a button and a holo-map of the Way Station sprang to life, a scarlet dot showing me where the princess was. I smiled unkindly and shut off the face analyzer, placing it in my pocket before activating my Grav-Boots. I held my scanner tightly and vaulted over the observation deck’s railing, falling almost the entire seventeen levels to the main floor. My boots kicked in a half meter before I hit the ground, giving me a couch of reversed gravity to jump from. My coat flapped behind me and I strode through the suddenly silent crowd. They didn’t know if I was a terrorist or an officer or, perhaps, a bounty hunter. Only one figure moved; the princess Idanza was running. Without breaking stride, I unhooked my stunner from my belt and removed the electro-strings. I swung them around my head and loosed them. The people relaxing were almost audible, once they realized what I was, and they returned to their business, the sound of chatter and movement filling the Station. 

The princess was screeching, and those around her ignored the noise. The electro-strings were wrapped around her ankles and she was dressed in a space rig, ready to jump out into space at any moment. 

“Quiet now, little one,” I said as I reached her. I ignored her protests as I grabbed her by the scruff and lifted her up so I could take back my electro-strings and fasten her in cuffs. There was a beep as they locked. 

“I am the princess of Fyalcor!” The princess hissed. “You cannot touch me, you cannot move me, you cannot force me-“

“Silence, kitten!” I snapped. “I am a hunter of the B-Guild and I was legally contracted by the king and queen of Fyalcor to bring you home. You will come with me, little one, or you will be forced.”

The princess Idanza quieted, but her face remained stony and haughty. “I am a princess, sir hunter, and you will treat me with respect.” 

I laughed as I frogmarched her up the stairs. “Your highness, may I remind you that I am a bounty hunter. Rank and high breeding make no difference to me, I am born and made to bring people home or to prison, or indeed if the job requires it, to death.”

“That may be, but I still am royalty, and it is against Inter-Galactic law to kill a planet’s heir.” 

“Is it?”

There was silence from her as we continued up the stairs to my ship. The princess was thinking so hard it was almost audible, as though in her brain gears were turning and computers were loading. She remained stoic even as she saw the rows of tools on the base level of my ship, even as she saw the open gun cabinet and the chair where she would be making the journey; it was harsh and bare save for the cuffs for wrists and ankles. She spoke up only as I was replacing my tools in their places.

“Sir hunter, please. I do not want to go home.” Her voice was plaintive and small, a far cry from the defiance she had displayed earlier. 

“What you want makes no difference to me,” I said matter-of-fact. “I go where I am bid, and I do what I am paid for.”

“Have you no empathy? No compassion? The palace is stifling and I am made almost sick every day I must spend there!” The princess begged. 

I shrugged. “I am not responsible for your comfort, only for fulfilling my contract. Be cheerful, child. I have not put you in the brig.”

“But still I cannot walk or go where I may,” the princess argued. 

“No, you cannot.” I left her there and went out to speak with the attendant. When I returned, the princess was quiet and subdued. I started the engines. It was only once we had lifted off that the princess again spoke. 

“May I at least know the name of my captor?” she inquired. 

“Only if I may ask my captor’s reason for knowing,” I countered. 

“When I am queen of Fyalcor, I will contract every hunter and lowlife to hunt you down and kill you for daring to disrespect me,” she stated bluntly. 

We cleared the Way Station and I entered our coordinates into the navigation board before settling in across from the princess Idanza. Our trip was not long enough to excuse using the hyper-light engines, and so our journey would last one and a half day-cycles. I regarded the princess with mild interest from underneath my hat’s brim. 

“You will not have me killed,” I said after several long moments. 

“Why sound you so sure, sir hunter?” Idanza asked smoothly. 

“My disrespect, as you say, is a simple refusal to acknowledge authority that intends to impose itself upon me. The only authority I obey, chirrut, is the authority I designate as such. My Guild-lord and myself are the only sources of authority that I recognize. You, kitten, are nothing more than a bratty child to me. When you grow up, you will understand that your royal blood means nothing to the greater universe. It is as they say, one must know what it is to be a slave before one can know what it is to be a king. Your time will come, little one.”

“You are wrong,” the princess said after a pause. “However, if you are indeed so sure, why not tell me your name?”

I watched her in silence for a moment. I saw defiance in the set of her limbs, in the way she held her head and in her steely gaze of her golden eyes. I saw no shame or danger in telling this foolish child my name.

“They call me Kane,” I told her with an uninterested tilt of my head. “It is the name on my license, on my ID chip, and even on my life-substantiation.”

“But is it the name your mother gave you?” 

That question surprised me. Since I had become a hunter, nobody had questioned me. Not my name, not my family, not my place of origin. 

“Does it matter?” The question hung in the air, like a sheet of gossamer slowly floating down to blanket us in expectation. The princess blinked on consternation. She had not expected a rebuttal of that kind. 

“Does the name your mother gave you truly mean so little?” The slow hum of the engines filled the air as I considered her question. 

“The simple truth of the matter is that I was a different person when my mother named me. You see, princess, people change as their lives go on. Some choose to change their surroundings, or their companions, or their profession when they change. I chose to change my name. I am not the man I was. That man is dead.”

“But still you live.” The princess’s voice was quiet and solid, and I could not read her face. I chose not to answer her. I stood and walked past her to the tiny cabin where I slept. Removing my boots, I ignored her questions as the door slid shut. I hung my coat and stripped to the waist. It was time for sleep. I curled under the soft furs and blankets and, with the lights dimmed and the smooth hum of the engines beneath me, sleep took hold.