“I tried. You decided to sic Shaq on me instead.”

  “No hard feelings though, right, Ben?”

  “That depends. What’s your plan?”

  CHAPTER 43

  Once Emerald joined us, we all went back into the command center. The interior wasn’t much to look at. Thick stone walls supported heavy metal hatches that creaked and groaned as old motors moved them aside upon our approach. Offices and storage areas flanked the main passageway leading to the CIC, most of the rooms converted into bunks for the killers, with cots and mattresses imported from other places.

  Emerald couldn’t stop giggling as she repeatedly poked Coil with her sniper rifle, which according to Druck was the same one that had been used to shoot at us the day before, its original owner obviously dead. The handful of killers we encountered immediately inside the bunker didn’t look happy to see their leader captured, and a few of them even tried to shoot the colonel only to be violently pushed into the wall and quickly disarmed.

  The CIC occupied the center of the hardened structure, a large hexagonal room lit up by battery-powered lanterns Coil had scavenged from somewhere. Workstations rested on each of the six sides, surrounding a solid block of metal with a large, flat surface and buttons along the sides. From its position in the room, I assumed it was some kind of planning board or touchscreen. Or maybe it was a holographic display. Not that it mattered. There was no power to any of the equipment. Instead, other scavenged material had been laid out on top, the shapes and sizes creating a good-enough replica of the city while smaller bits of debris like bottle caps and small stones were arranged as stand-ins for different members of his group.

  Only one other killer was in the room when we arrived. A bald woman with a narrow face dressed in fitted urban camouflage. Druck recognized her right away.

  “Chantal?” he said as he cleared the entrance behind Emerald and Coil, noticing the woman. She had a blaster on her hip, and she started reaching for it when she realized Coil was a hostage.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” I said, ready to push her to the floor or pull the gun from her hand if she continued making a move to use it.

  “Emil?” she said, eyes narrowing, her hand easing back from her blaster. “What the hell are you doing here?” Her gaze drifted to me. “And you…you’re Murdock.”

  “You two know each other?” I asked Druck.

  “Long story. But yeah. She’s a merc too. We had a thing once.”

  “Don’t remind me,” she said, hand again moving slowly toward her gun.

  “Chantal, it’s all right,” Coil said. “We’re negotiating.”

  “If that’s what you want to call it,” Emerald said, again jabbing the high-powered rifle into his back.

  “We both want the same thing,” Coil told Chantal. “Besides, if you try to use that gun, it won’t end well for you. We’re already down nine this morning.”

  “You’re welcome,” Emerald said.

  “So what is this about?” Chantal asked.

  “We need to get off this planet,” I said. “Coil swears he has a plan.”

  “He told me that too.”

  “Did he tell you what it was?”

  “Ben, you don’t get it, do you?” Coil said. “I can’t go blabbing about my plan to just anyone. We’re all being spied on…all the time. Though I’m sure the viewers really enjoyed what Chanty and I did the first night.”

  “You…with him?” Druck said.

  “What’s it to you?” she replied. “We were over years ago.”

  “Yeah, but…him? In public?”

  Chantal rolled her eyes. “Mind your own shit, Emil.”

  “You don’t have a plan, do you?” I asked. “Emerald.” I gave her a chin lift in Coil's direction.

  She shifted the muzzle to Coil’s head, finger sliding to the trigger. “I was hoping you were full of shit.”

  “Wait!” Coil said. “I just said I can’t talk about it to just anyone.” He turned his head slowly to look back at me. “I can share it with you. In private.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone with my boo,” Emerald snapped.

  “I can take care of myself,” I said, pushing the end of her rifle away from Coil’s head with my hand. “After you, Colonel.”

  “We can talk in the latrine,” he said. “Chanty, can you entertain our new friends while I chat with Murdock?”

  “What do I look like, a frigging—”

  “Just do it.”

  She glowered but nodded. I followed Coil out of the CIC through a door on the other side of the room, which lead to a more proper barracks. A few killers were sleeping in cots there, but they didn’t pay us much mind now that Coil didn’t have a rifle pressed into his back.

  “I’m damn impressed by you, son,” Coil said as we walked. “How do you do that voodoo that you do so well?”

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to tell you.”

  He laughed. “There are eyes and ears everywhere, so I don’t blame you. You can’t even trust those Sanguine Studio bastards. You aren’t careful, they’ll rat out your position the first chance they get.”

  “Been there, done that. Got the t-shirt,” I replied.

  “Whatever that means,” he growled back as we stepped through another door into the bathroom. The lack of running water had left the combined excrement of the gathered killers to create a nearly unbearable stench he didn’t seem to notice. “Anybody in here, get the hell out before I put a hole in your head,” Coil shouted.

  When Coil was certain we were alone, he closed his eyes before reaching out for me with his hand, wrapping it gently around my wrist. I activated enhance just in case he planned to try anything, but he used the grip to guide himself close to me so that his lips brushed uncomfortably against my ear.

  “Listen up, son. I’ve been a fan of this game for longer than I’ve been incarcerated. So I know how it all works, right down to the nitty gritty. If there’s a manual, I wrote it. Anyway, I smuggled a certain device here in my asscrack that can hijack the signal the bastards are using to keep us from going AWOL. But of course, I can’t let them see it or they’re liable to shut us down right quick and burn out all our peepers. So I pulled it out when I came in for a shit and stuck it in the can. Good thing it’s sealed up tight. I don’t need to look at it to activate it. But what I do need to do is make them assholes think the killers whose feeds they lose are dead. Which means we need to finish cleaning up the spill and then pour on the bleach, if you get my meaning.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” I whispered back.

  “Sheeeet. Take out the wimps, keep the warriors. I’ve got a list. Then when we jam the feeds and replace them with our own, they’ll know something’s amiss and they’ll come down to investigate. That’s when we jump ‘em.”

  “You actually do have a plan.”

  “Gave you my word, didn't I.” It wasn't a question.

  I had to turn my head to put my mouth to his ear so I could whisper quietly enough. “If we can get everybody out, then why does anyone else have to die?”

  “Do you think they’re going to drop a team if there are too many players left? Plus you? Nuh-uh. Ain’t gonna happen. Some of these other contestants need to die so we can escape.”

  “I don’t want any part of that.”

  “I’m sure Emerald won’t mind helping me take care of it. If she hasn’t already.”

  “Sprite told me there are forty-three contestants left. Well, thirty-four now, I think.”

  “I got my fourteen in the bunker. Already sent out the lambs, just got to go sacrifice them.”

  “So other than not killing you, what do you need me to do?”

  “I figure with your magic, you’re worth at least twenty men.”

  “Then why were you so eager to kill me and my friends earlier?”

  “Because I already had my list and you weren’t on it. I had to cross off some pretty good soldiers to fit you in.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I give you my word as an officer. Plus, come to think of it, you can help me get the device out without the bastards knowing. And you don’t need to stick your hand in two days’ worth of shit to do it.”

  “I knew these abilities would prove to be useful for something.” The statement cracked Coil up, sending him into a fit of laughter that left my ear ringing even as he pulled away. “I’m going to need something to eat,” I added.

  “I’ll have Chanty show you to the mess while I organize a hunting party. Your group’s welcome to come along.”

  “I’m sure Emerald will join you. I recommend not trying to turn on her.”

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever been given a better piece of advice than that. Glad to have you on board, amigo.”

  CHAPTER 44

  I ate most of what was left in the bunker’s emergency storage locker, not really giving much thought to the potential side-effects of downing five pounds of two hundred year old canned ham. I was pretty sure restore would keep me from getting too sick from it, and I really needed the boost to my energy levels.

  I tried not to think about the fact that while I was eating, Coil, Chantal, Emerald, and Druck were back outside, literally hunting for the killers who weren’t on Coil’s warrior list and who had the audacity to still be alive. I understood why the colonel wanted to thin the herd a little more before we put his plan into action, but the idea still turned my stomach. Matt tried reminding me that every contestant on Kill Spree was a convicted murderer, Including him. Even if he hadn’t actually killed anyone. It helped a little, but I still didn’t like it.

  Nearly four hours had passed before Coil returned to the bunker, having confirmed with Sprite that the remaining killers were all accounted for in the command center. The rest and digestion had helped restore a good portion of my chaos energy, putting me in a much better position to deal with the extraction team when they came to the surface.

  It took another two hours to whisper along instructions to the remaining killers without making it look suspicious. As Coil had designed his plan, there were fourteen in total, including Matt, Shaq, Druck, and Quasar, which meant four of the warriors on his original list had been culled to make space. I sympathized somewhat with that group, but I felt more fortunate none of my team had been killed during the spree. I chalked it up to one part luck, one part skill, and one part my intervention.

  Sorry, not sorry.

  Evening was approaching again by the time we were almost ready to make our move. With all of the killers taking their places, there was only one thing left for me to do.

  I stood over the toilet Coil had indicated contained the signal jammer and replicator, looking down at the half-filled bowl of excrement that had melted into sludge with the addition of urine added to the mix. The smell was horrendous, bearable only because of my desperation to get off the planet and back into the fight to stop Sedaya from gaining complete control over the Hegemony. And like Coil had mentioned, the only reason I believed I could complete this mission at all was because I didn’t need to stick my hand into the putrid muck in which the device was cached away.

  Activating my construct, I had just started pulling the contents of the toilet out of the bowl and dropping it messily onto the floor when part of Head Case’s flight deck appeared around me, overlaying the disgusting scene.

  “Kid?” Keep said once the collator brought me into his view.

  Startled, I dropped the action instinctively, the sudden loss of control sending some of the crap splattering on the floor. A big glob of it landed on my boot.

  “Why are you digging in shit?”

  “Oh, man,” Justus said. “That is disgusting.”

  “It’s not what it looks like.”

  “It looks like you’re hunting for buried treasure in a toilet,” Justus said.

  “Okay, it is what it looks like.”

  “Did you get off Merton yet?” Keep questioned.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Merton. The planet.”

  “Not yet. I’m working on it.”

  “By cleaning toilets?”

  “Whatever it takes,” I said, spotting the edge of a thick slab mostly mired in the noxious goop. I pushed the crap aside, revealing the device.

  “Is that an MIMC-34?” Justus asked.

  “I don’t know, is it?” I answered.

  “Sure as hell looks like it. What are you…ohhhh.” He smiled. “I get it.”

  “You do? You must watch Kill Spree a lot then. Coil said only an avid viewer would think to jam one of these things up their butt to smuggle it onto the playing field.”

  “What?” Meg said, fading into the collator’s range. “You told me you didn’t watch Kill Spree?”

  “I might have seen it once or twice,” Justus said.

  “Or a hundred times,” I said.

  “Not that many.”

  “Enough to know what an MIMC is for.”

  “Let me guess. You make the production team think there’s a winner, they send the extraction team down to collect, you jump them and ride their lander back to the mothership.”

  “You really have thought all of this out before, haven’t you?”

  “I might have spent a little time strategizing how I would escape if I ever found myself as a contestant on Kill Spree,” Justus admitted. “After all, I am a space pirate as far as Sedaya’s concerned. And it’s always good to be prepared.”

  “So how would you get off Melchior?” Keep asked.

  “How would I know?” Justus said. “I’ve never thought about that.”

  Keep raised an eyebrow, drawing a laugh from Meg.

  “Keep, you can see this isn’t the best time. What do you need?”

  “It’s not what I need, kid. It’s what I can give you. Or rather, what Justus can give you.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, turning to him.

  “I just got off the comms with Her Grace. She met in person with Duke Callispo and Duchess Amara, who rule over the duchies adjacent to Draconian territory. Sedaya’s had his eye on their worlds for some time, and they’re concerned that if he consolidates power he’ll be able to launch an assault against them with the approval of the Empress. They’ve agreed to help in whatever small ways they can.”

  “Great,” I said. “But I don’t see how this is important enough to use the collator to tell me. Especially because I’m a little busy right now.”

  “She also said the Empress has put out a notice that she’ll be making decisions on which nobles to raise to the seats of the dukes, duchesses, and their families who were so senselessly murdered by operatives with connections to the outlaw Benjamin Murdock. She also put a two hundred million electro bounty on your head.”

  My blood immediately ran cold. “What? She’s pinning the assassinations on me?”

  “Are you really surprised, kid?” Keep said. “It’s the most logical thing to do under these circumstances. You should feel honored. Two hundred million is the most ever offered for one man’s head.”

  I had almost forgotten that Blorb had put the blame on me. Because he knew I had survived and I’m sure wasn’t very pleased about it. “I think Shaq might consider turning me in for that much. So everyone in the universe probably knows I’m on Merton by now. If they want to come get me—”

  “You know there’s only one ship that can get there that fast,” Keep said.

  “That’s not true,” Meg said. “There are two.”

  “Who else?” Justus asked.

  “Think about it. They’ve been in orbit for the last few days. I’ll wait.”

  “You mean—”

  The door to the bathroom opened and Emerald stuck her head in. “Oh man, it freaking reeks in here. Yuck. This has to be the most disgusting head in the entire Spiral. I bet it could win an award for the worst possible smell known to man. Or even to—”

  “Emerald!” I snapped, cutting her off. “What is it?”

  “Sorry to bother you, my love,” she replied. “But we’re under attack.”

  “Shit, I’ve got to go,” I said to Keep. “I’ll get in touch if I survive.”

  “Kid, wait,” Keep replied. “The third thing. Rendezvous coordinates. We’re going to hyperspace. We’ll come out there. Ready?”

  “You want me to remember star coordinates?”

  “Bingo!”

  “I can’t even remember Levi’s phone number, and it's only seven digits.”

  “Spill it, old, wrinkled and troll-like but also mysterious, intriguing and oddly sexy,” Emerald said. “I’ll remember.”

  “Who are you?” Keep asked.

  “Emerald Jones. Ben’s girlfriend.”

  “I thought you were dead.”

  “Nope. Give me the numbers. I won’t forget.”

  Keep spat the long series of numbers that served as the coordinates. What I had always found interesting about them is that they were all calculated based on the position of the parcel of space with Earth as the center point. “Do you have it?”

  “I have it,” Emerald said.

  “Recite it back.”

  She rattled it back without hesitation, impressing me and everyone on Head Case. “Satisfied? Ben, let’s—” She gasped and grabbed at her head with her free hand. “Shit!”

  “What is it?” I asked as she looked toward me. Her pupils were suddenly way too big.

  “Son of a bitch. Those assholes killed the feed before we could replace it. I’m blind.”

  CHAPTER 45

  I stared at Emerald in terrified disbelief. If she was right and the feed had been severed, then everyone else in the bunker with me, except for Ixy had just gone blind, including Druck, Quasar, and Shaq.

  “That can’t be,” I said, looking at the device still on the floor beneath some of the muck. If I turned it on, would it restore their sight? Or was it too late?

  “Bennie,” Keep said. “They’re coming for you. Two hundred million electro is too rich for even Sanguine to pass up, Kill Spree be damned."

  Gunfire echoed from somewhere else in the bunker. Had the extraction team arrived already? Or were the remaining killers literally firing blind? “Keep, I’ll meet you at the coordinates. Give me an extra day from today. If I don’t show, you need to go forward without me.”