I had to at least warn the Dusters. I had to help them, if I could. Things had definitely sunk into a state of barbarity out here on Haven-7. Just look at me now, with alien animal blood running down my thighs. It was little comfort, but at least it was red blood.

  Finishing my meal, I stood up, wiping the gore from my mouth. I had a long way to go.

  On the third day, I stumbled upon a ruined caravan. It must have been Duster refugees, trying to escape the Techborn’s iron grip. They looked like simple farmer folk. They hadn’t stood a chance out here in the Red Desert.

  I rummaged through their scattered belongings. I found some water and a bit of food. Enough to keep me going for another day or two. I was wearing my clothes differently by this time, turning everything I had into a hat and cloak. The sun was brutal, beating down on my back like a hammer. But at least it wasn’t burning me up. This whole damn planet was a furnace.

  The sound of hoofbeats came in the distance while I was poking around in a wagon with broken wheels. Mounted bandits were coming from the west, from the looks of it.

  Shit.

  Probably Techborn lackeys, out here to prey on the weak and helpless. I reached for my buzzblade, but then remembered I didn’t have it. Malcus had taken it when he captured me.

  Crouching down behind an overturned wagon, I hid and watched as the bandits approached. There were three of them, all heavily armed and armored. They were laughing and joking among themselves, like they didn’t have a care in the world.

  One of them dismounted and started poking around in the wreckage. He kicked over a few bodies, looking for valuables. The others stood watch, their eyes scanning the horizon for any signs of trouble.

  I knew I couldn’t take them all on my own. Not without a weapon, anyway. But I couldn’t just hide in a broken wagon forever, either.

  Looking around, trying to find something I could use as a weapon, my eyes fell on a broken piece of wood, about the length of my arm. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

  I gripped the makeshift club tightly in my hand, feeling the rough grain of the wood against my skin. I had to be smart about this. One wrong move and I’d end up just like these poor bastards—eyeless and drying out in the open sun a little more each day.

  The bandit leader barked an order, and they started to mount up. I felt a wave of relief. They were going to leave me hiding in this makeshift graveyard.

  “Hold!” a voice called out. “I see fresh footprints!”

  I turned to see the three mounted figures pause. The leader was a big man, with a bushy beard and cold, calculating eyes. I recognized him as the group drew nearer. It was Kade, the Techborn bastard who’d bet against me back in the UnderDeck Arena.

  Kade followed the prints I’d left. I guess the winds had covered up everything in sand. My feet had betrayed me. Kade walked his mount to the broken wagon, and he stopped a fair distance from my hiding spot.

  “Well, well, well,” Kade said, grinning. “Look what we have here, boys! Another rat, drawn in by the scraps we left behind.”

  He turned to his followers, his voice taking on an instructional tone. “You see, cadets? All you have to do is leave some junk lying around after a raid. Fresh rats will always come scurrying out of their holes. More easy pickings.”

  I gritted my teeth, my grip tightening on my lame club. It was time to gamble, and to gamble big. There was no way I could beat three armed and mounted men with a chunk of firewood. That wasn’t going to happen—not if I played fair.

  “Is that Kade Janson?” I asked, showing myself. “Oh, hold on… no, it isn’t. You’re no Janson. I hear your momma was an UnderDeck whore. Is that true, Kade?”

  Kade had been laughing and amused a minute ago. His demeanor changed in a hurry when he heard my mean words and recognized the throat they were coming out of.

  A look of sheer hate came over old Kade. Just as I’d hoped it would.

  “Usually,” he said, “I return escaped slaves to their owners after I geld them. But not you. After the gelding, we’re going to keep going until there’s nothing left to cut off.”

  While he was making this impassioned speech, I’d stepped into a mess of broken wheels and boxes. I’d spotted something shiny. A glint of metal caught my eye. A long knife was sticking up like a flagpole, thrust into a dead man’s belly and left behind.

  Three long steps, and I lunged for the weapon. I dropped my pathetic chunk of wood and hefted a significant upgrade. I yanked the long knife free from the corpse’s gut and brought it up just in time to accidentally catch a slug from Kade’s gun. The shot ricocheted off the blade, sparks flying. The knife was almost knocked from my hand.

  Kade urged his walker forward, his eyes blazing with fury. He leveled a shredder at me, his finger tightening on the trigger.

  I dove behind the wagon and crawled among rocks as bullets sprayed in a deadly cone. Shredders had almost no barrel length and they were low-powered, designed not to punch through the walls of a spaceship.

  Kade and his goons were all firing wildly, trying to flush me out, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

  The hail of lead whizzed by, mostly over my head. I was crawling in sand and dried stains. Wood splintered and flew. Rocks sparked. New holes were punched all over the length of the wagon’s thick walls.

  “Is that the best you got, bastard-boy?” I shouted, my voice echoing off of rocks. “Callista told me you were the fancy type, but I thought you Techborns were supposed to be able to aim, at least. Superior my ass!”

  Kade snarled in response, and he finally lost it. Pride is a terrible thing. It can make a man take chances when he doesn’t need to.

  My smack-talk had finally gotten to him. He charged me, his gun rattling and popping steadily as he came close. He marched his walker right into the broken wagon, then, realizing I wasn’t there, wheeled and headed for the rocks.

  More bullets ricocheted off the rocks, sending up a spray of dust and debris—then he was out of ammo. Instead of pausing to reload, to circle and get an angle on me to finish me off, he drew an electric lash instead.

  The last he’d seen of me, I’d been holding a chunk of wood. I guess he figured he could take one starving madman in the desert with his lash from the back of his walker.

  But he’d thought wrong.

  Suddenly, I stood. Kade’s eyes widened in surprise as I lunged, crossing the distance between us. His butt-monkey cadets couldn’t shoot me now, their weapons were too inaccurate, and they hadn’t charged in close with their crazy leader.

  In that single moment, Kade and I were face-to-face. We were inches apart. He tried to bring his lash to bear, but I was too fast. My knife flashed in the sunlight as I stabbed upward and thrust deep.

  Kade screamed as the blade bit into his belly, punching through a crack in his armor where his gut met his thighs. Blood sprayed, painting the sand crimson.

  His lash caught me with a glancing shock, but I didn’t let up. I pressed my advantage, hacking and stabbing, though my knife was no buzzblade. Kade’s walker was in reverse, but I didn’t let him get away and run. I managed to nearly sever the hand with the lash next, then I thrust for the throat, but missed.

  Kade was a tough one. I’ll have to give him that much. He didn’t slide down in shock, to shiver and piss himself—nothing like that. He tried to defend himself with his remaining hand, but it was no use. I was like a man possessed. The truth was, I’d had enough of him and his kind.

  With a final, brutal strike, I separated Kade’s head from his shoulders. The head hit the ground with a sickening thud, rolling away in a spray of blood and sand.

  The other two Techborns stared at me in horror. They were young, obviously in training. Their shredders aimed in my direction, but they didn’t fire—maybe they couldn’t believe that Kade was really dead.

  Then, Kade’s body slid off his walker and thumped to the ground, raising a halo of dust. I grabbed up the gun he’d dropped. I went to ground, out of sight, a moment after that.

  As I’d hoped they would, the two young Techborn turned tail and ran. Their walkers kicked up clouds of dust as they fled. It was all fun and games abusing unarmed Dusters, but they hadn’t liked the last fight they’d witnessed.

  Sucking in dry air, I stood in the wreckage among the dead. My knife dripped with Kade’s blood.

  The rush of battle was fading now, replaced by a sick feeling of all-out exertion. I poked at the headless corpse at my feet and smiled. Here was one less enemy to worry about. I was sure this man had come out here to find me. He’d probably heard of my escape, and he’d come out to the desert with a raiding party, possibly just to find me.

  Well, he’d managed to do that much.

  I knelt down and started rifling through Kade’s pockets. Might as well see what the prick had on him. Ammo, a few credits, some half-eaten rations. Nothing much, but I took it all.

  Then, as I searched his saddle, my hand brushed against something familiar. I froze. It couldn’t be!

  I pulled the object out, my cracked lips splitting into a grin.

  It was my buzzblade. The same damn one I had lost back at Gritstone Hollow, when that twisted freak Malcus had captured me. What the hell was Kade doing with it?

  Turning the weapon over in my hands, I examined it closely. It was definitely mine. It has the same sleek, Earth-made design. The edge was still razor-sharp. I even found my initials scratched into the handle.

  I activated the blade, feeling the familiar hum of the vibrating edge. It was as deadly as ever. I took a few practice swings, the blade slicing and humming through the air with a satisfying whoosh.

  How had Kade gotten his hands on this? He must have been tracking me since the day I left, and he’d found this somehow? Or had he gotten it from Malcus himself?

  Either way, it didn’t bode well. The Techborn were still after me, still haunting my every step. I thought I’d escaped them back at Arabella, but it seemed they weren’t done with me yet.

  Well, that was just fucking fine. I wasn’t done with them, either. I still had a few scores to settle with these assholes on behalf of the Dusters.

  I attached the buzzblade onto my belt, feeling its reassuring weight against my hip. I cast the chipped knife aside. It was good to have a superior weapon for infighting. With my old blade at my side, I felt more dangerous.

  The desert was an endless expanse of red sand that stretched out before me. Somewhere out there was the Sanctuary Zone. The preacher would be there, and he held the key to my getting home to XCU.

  But first, I had to find some shelter and some water. I was running on empty, and I needed to recharge if I was going to make it to the Sanctuary Zone in one piece.

  I took Kade’s walker after disabling the tracker and remote shut-down module. Then I set off across the sand, my mount’s feet kicking up clouds of dust with every step.

  The sun beat down on my back like a mean father, but I would forever count today as a good one.

  Chapter 19

  The swollen orange ball in the sky never let up as I rode across the Red Desert. My hands were exposed—I should have stolen Kade’s riding gloves, but one of them had his hand in it, so I’d passed. Soon, the exposed skin blistered. My lips were cracked and bleeding, too. I’d been out here for days, with nothing but the clothes on my back and the weapons I’d scavenged.

  The walker beneath me moved with a steady, mechanical gait, its metal legs kicking up clouds of iron oxide dust with every step. I’d never ridden one of these things for so long before, but I was getting the hang of it. It beat the hell out of walking, that’s for damn sure.

  My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten lately. I’d run out of rations yesterday, and I was starting to feel the effects. My head was pounding, my vision blurring at the edges. I needed food—and even more, I needed water. Soon.

  Squinting into the distance, I tried to make out any landmarks through the shimmering heat haze. I did that every few minutes, but rarely did I see anything more interesting than an outcropping of rocks that looked like they were straight off the rusty surface of Mars back home.

  When the sun was sinking, I spotted something different. There was a glint of metal on the horizon, reflecting the harsh sunlight. I urged the walker toward it, hoping I wasn’t going to have to kill for food and drink.

  As I drew closer, the shape resolved itself into a cluster of buildings, nestled in a shallow valley between two rocky outcroppings. There was a shitty, ramshackle wall of barrels and logs all tied together encircling it.

  Cinder Hollow, I’d found it—the Duster sanctuary that Megan had told me about.

  I felt a surge of relief to finally find a tiny patch of civilization, a place to rest, to resupply. Maybe I’d even get some answers about what the hell had happened to the XCU man I was supposed to locate.

  The walker’s metal feet clanged against rocks when I got close. It was a primitive road of sorts. I could see people moving about now, tiny figures scurrying between the shacks and outbuildings. They’d spotted me too, from the looks of it. I saw a few of them pointing in my direction, shouting to each other.

  I hoped they were friendlier than the last bunch I’d run into. I was in no mood for another fight. All I wanted was a hot meal, a cold drink, and a place to lay my head for a while.

  Cinder Hollow’s gates were open, and my walker’s metal feet thudded on a packed dirt road that ran through the town. There was only one road in this town, and it was just as unimpressive as you might imagine.

  The place was a dump, a huddle of unfortunates in a valley between three rock walls and the open desert. The people looked rough, too—all sunburnt faces and tattered clothes. Still, I was happy to be here.

  They had a grand total of three beggars at the entrance. I guess that was all they could afford. They held out their begging hands and pleaded for coins. Two of them were faking it, I could tell. They had that look in their eyes, the one that said they’d just as soon slit your throat as take your charity.

  The last one was a kid, but I ignored them all and moved to pass them by.

  The kid didn’t let it go. Maybe I was the first dumb-looking stranger he’d spotted all day. He jumped up and followed me.

  He was young, maybe twelve years old, with a shock of dirty blond hair and water-colored eyes. He followed me, but he didn’t paw at my legs or dig into my walker’s saddlebags. That was a wise choice on his part.

  “Mister? You got a credit on you?”

  “No, kid. Nothing for free.”

  “What can I do for you, then?”

  He said this with a suspicious air. Maybe he’d heard a few bad suggestions in the past.

  “You know where I can find Silas?” I asked him.

  The boy’s eyes widened, and he took a step back. “What do you want with him?”

  I held up my hands in a placating gesture. “Easy, kid. I just want to talk to him. I’m not here to cause trouble.”

  The boy wasn’t buying this. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? An assassin, come to kill the preacher.”

  I frowned. “What? No, I’m not an assassin. I’m just looking for some answers.”

  But the kid wasn’t listening. He turned and bolted, his skinny legs pumping as he ran down the street.

  Cursing under my breath, I rode after him. I couldn’t let him get away, not if he knew where the preacher was.

  I caught up to him easily, my walker’s strides eating up the distance between us. I slid out of the saddle and grabbed him by the arm, spinning him around to face me.

  “Listen, kid. I’m not going to hurt you, or the preacher. I just need to talk to him.”

  The boy struggled in my grip, his eyes wide with fear. “Let me go! I won’t let you kill him!”

  I sighed. This was getting me nowhere. “What’s your name, kid?”

  He hesitated for a moment, then mumbled, “Jared.”

  “Okay, Jared. I’m Dane. I promise I’m not here to hurt anyone. I just need the preacher’s help. Can you take me to him?”

  Jared squirmed in my grip, his eyes full of distrust. I loosened my hold on his arm, not wanting to hurt the kid.

  I decided to take a big chance. “Look, I’m not from around here. I’m from Earth. I came through the XCU portal to find the preacher and get some answers.”

  The boy’s eyes widened even further, if that was possible. “Earth? The XCU? You’re... you’re from the home world?”

  Anybody else would have laughed at me, I’m pretty sure. But Jared was a kid. “That’s right. I’m here on a mission, and I need the preacher’s help. Can you take me to him?”

  Jared hesitated for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll take you to him. But if you’re lying, if you hurt the preacher...”

  I held up my hands. “ I promise I won’t.”

  The kid still looked skeptical, but he turned and started walking down the street. I followed close behind, keeping an eye out for any trouble.

  We wove through the narrow alleys and side streets of Cinder Hollow, dodging scavengers along the way. The place was a maze of sticks and bricks, but Jared seemed to know where he was going.

  Finally, we came to a stop outside a small, nondescript hut. It looked like any other shack in the settlement, but Jared pointed to it with a nod.

  “The preacher’s in there. But I’m not going in with you.”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Techborn coin. I’d lifted it off of Kade’s body, figuring it might come in handy. I flipped it to Jared, who caught it with a surprised look on his face.

  “For your trouble, kid. Now get out of here.”

  Jared didn’t need to be told twice. He turned and ran, disappearing into the maze of buildings with the coin clutched tightly in his fist.

  I watched him go, then turned to face the preacher’s shack. It was time to get some answers.

  Knocking did nothing, so I let myself inside. The shack was more of a squalid hut. A medieval peasant would have been ashamed of it.

  A stench of sickness and decay was overpowering. The place was a mess, with dirty rags and empty bottles scattered across the floor. In the corner, I saw a figure huddled under a threadbare blanket. A rumbling cough came out of that—then I knew.