Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The gun blast rocked out in the cold dusk air. It sent Kith sprawling as the pellets hit his vest. He sat up slowly, drew his CLK-44 pistol, and before the “innocent” pick pocketed mark could draw a bead on him, Kith sent him down with a shot. He rose to his feet, touching his ribs tenderly.

None broken, at least I’ve got some luck tonight, he thought to himself.

He rushed over to the body, the blood seeping out onto the pavement. He opened the front flap on the victim’s shirt and uncovered a badge. His mark had turned out to be an Syrinct cop. The Worlds of Syrinx was a huge interplanetary theocratical state born out of (in Kiths opinion) an absurd religion, and had started govern the whole solar system, under one continuing line of God-kings. They were strict, persecutive, controlling, and had absolute power. No firearms were allowed on the inner planets, and on the most inner planet of Knossos-2, they had gotten to the point to where the government chose your job for you, and if you didn’t fulfill them, they would erase your genes from the gene pool, killing you and any children you had. Kith thought it a bit extreme. Still, out here on the outer realms, life wasn’t that different from the way it was.

He turned to the person he had just pick-pocketed and then shot. The mark happened to be in the lowest of the “Syrinx Protection Clergy” or “Monks”, the normal run of the mill police. What he had not expected was the Monk to be carrying his STG-12, a light, short-barreled shotgun. Kith touched his ribs again, and then drove one size 11 boot crashing down on the enforcers face. He grabbed the gun, put it under his Bullet-Blok leather jacket, grabbed the man’s valuables, and ran for it. He did not want to be here when someone came looking.

He ran off into the streets, his attire looking sorely out of place, but he dashed into a large jostling crowd, who had apparently not heard the shot. Once he got into the crowd, he knew he was pretty much safe. His crime had been committed in a back alley; he didn’t have much to fear from witnesses. He eased the thong back over his pistol, and lowered the hammer.

Kith was tall, around six foot, but kind of thin. At first glance one would think him underfed, but his muscles spoke of wiry strength, and the multiple scars all about his body spoke of a life of fighting. He had dark skin and black hair that grew with an ever so slight curl. His clothing was made for fights, a mixture between armor, sheaths, holsters, and wraps, to provide both good offense and defense. His bearing and confidence said military.

He’d become a fighter young. Drafted to fight back against the Priests when they started invading his home world, he was fed a steady diet of propaganda, stories of glory, and instructions on how to fight. He and his comrades had fought, young and hard, but fell inevitably. Him and his boys…

Kith shook his head as if to scare off a hungry mosquito. He must get his head out of the past. He was twenty-five now. He had his own ship to take care of.

He was an independent cargo carrier, but he was generally known as a smuggler. Truth be told, he was a jack-of-all-trades. Extortion, embezzlement, murder, smuggling, any job would do, as long as it was profitable and semi-moral. Kith had an odd sense of morality, truth be told. As long as it benefited him, and hurt those he considered deserved it, he would do a job. Hell, he’d even pick up the odd legal job just for a little fun. They were generally something boring, like transporting beets, but it threw the feds off.

Kith walked back to his ship, where the engines were sputtering a little. He wasn’t surprised to see that he was almost completely alone, save for the mechanobot whirring around repairing engines. He went to his cabin, and deposited his new stash, and went down to the cargo hold. There, sitting newly deposited in the hold, was 4000 kilos of Erowid-14, delivered anonymously, a rather high priced psychoactive drug that would make a killing in the richer inner planets. He hid it in the secret smuggling hold, and then sat down and waited for his motley crew to get back. Apparently they had gotten some passengers for a little extra money.

Kith hoped these ones weren’t jackasses like the last ones. He hated dumping bodies into space, it just didn’t seem right.