Page 1 of The Price of Peace
1
PEACE
Goddess blast this fekking sand!
Growing up on a desert planet, I should be used to it, but it still drove me crazy, invading every line and crevice of my body no matter how tightly I wrapped myself. The tiny granules scratched my cheek, trying to excavate under the rubber of my goggles as I crouched to examine my quarry’s tracks in the pre-dawn light.
I pulled my desert wrap tighter around my face, fighting the sand and trying to conceal my silvery-white hair I kept styled in dreads like my adoptive mother’s. Out here, far away from my village, my unusual appearance would make me too memorable. Being memorable was bad for business in my line of work. Rykantos’ twin suns were just beginning to peek over the horizon, casting long shadows across the dunes. I knew the heat would soon be unbearable, so I needed to catch him and find somewhere to hole up for the day before we both cooked.
I’d been trailing this bounty for almost two cycles now—two cycles of heat-induced headaches, annoyingly persistent sandstorms, and the growing realization that this criminal wasn’t your typical my-mommy-didn’t-love-me-so-you-shouldn’t-imprison-me fugitive. But I wasn’t your typical I-couldn’t-make-it-as-a-real-galactic-law-enforcement-agent-so-I-became-a-bounty-hunter bounty hunter either, and this loser was about to find out.
Zaiyara, my adoptive mother, always told me the desert played games with you. She also taught me how to listen to the land under my boots, and Rykantos was speaking loud and clear this morning, telling me exactly what was going on with my prey. His prints told me he was tired but still moving with purpose. The footprints I was studying were fresh—within the last hour—and matched his distinctive pattern. The depth and spacing showed he was conserving energy, adapting to the brutal desert environment. He had experience. Not your typical corporate criminal on the run, like his rap sheet had suggested. In fact, nothing about this hunt had gone like I’d expected.
Following the tracks in my line of sight, I watched them cut across the dune ahead, leading toward the skeletal remains of an abandoned mining facility I knew was there but was too distant to see. My lips twitched into a wry smile. Either Xyrox was counting on me losing his trail in the endless sands, or he thought himself clever enough to use the terrain to his advantage.
Newsflash, bounty boy. I’ve spent my whole life learning from this desert. And from someone much smarter than you’ll ever be: my mother.
Before finding me as a baby and becoming my zame, Zaiyara had spent half her life as a warrior in the Rykantosian special forces. Something happened causing her to give up that life to become a healer, but she wouldn’t tell me exactly what it was.Whatever happened, afterward, she took to healing as zealously as she did everything else.
She taught me everything she could. I knew becoming a bounty hunter was a disappointment to her, although she denied it.
“Just admit it, Zame,” I insisted last time I was home. “You’d rather I join you as an apprentice at the clinic like Daisha, or even join the Rykantosian army.” I kicked a red rock in frustration. I knew that my taking the bounty hunter job had to frustrate her, but I didn’t feel a calling to anything yet and I couldn’t continue to live off of her forever. I was twenty-five now.
It was time for me to make my own way in the world. When I saw the ad for recovery agents, it was a perfect fit for my skills. I could track and hunt. I could live off the land, and I was anxious to travel. I could work independently. And the fact that it paid well didn’t hurt, either.
“You have your own path to forge, Peace,” Zame often told me in that calm, steady way of hers that drove me crazy. “The universe will point you in the direction you are destined to go. You were put in my care to teach you. What you do with those lessons is not up to me.”
Rolling my eyes, I crossed my arms across my chest. She wassoannoying when she was in her Zen space. Especially when I was prepared to argue. I knew, deep in my bones, she had to be disappointed. Her best friend’s son had won a coveted spot to Galactic Resonance University and was leaving in a week. Another had just had an engagement party for her daughter, who was marrying the provisional governor’s son.
Me? I was becoming a recovery agent—a bounty hunter. Not even an official warrior like she’d been.
“Zame, be honest with me. I can take it. I can’t leave wondering what you really think.” I hated the whine in my voice,but I really couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to hear the truth before I left.
She stopped grinding whatever she was working with her mortar and pestle and wiped her hands on her apron. Her dark, callused hands cupped my cheeks, and she gave me a tender smile … before she smacked me.
“Ow!”
“Had I known how hardheaded and irascible you would grow up to be, I’d never have kept the name you came to me with,” she groused. “Peace, ha!” she scoffed. “I have not had a day of peace in your entire life, though goddess knows I have tried my best to teach you the ways of destiny and truth.”
I chewed my bottom lip. She wasn’t wrong. I questioned everything, taking nothing at face value. And once I realized I was so different from everyone else I knew, I wanted to know where I came from.
Unfortunately, Zaiyara couldn’t tell me much. She’d found me as a baby in a pod in the desert one night on a walk. My bright violet eyes, tawny skin, and platinum baby fuzz on my head were clear indicators I was not from around here. The Rykantos people had dark red skin, dark hair, and green or blue eyes.
Zame told me that a woman’s voice in the pod said my name was Peace before going dark. That, and the incandescent spiral tattoo on my chest with a strange symbol in the middle, were the only clues about who I was. The pod was advanced tech but heavily damaged. Over the years, Zame had trusted friends look at it to see whether they could fix it. But so far, no one could turn it on, much less do anything with it. Zame kept it hidden in our root cellar, convinced that someday she’d find someone who knew something about it.
“One thing I have learned in my many, many rotations of this planet, my girl,” Zame’s voice resumed in my head, “is that everyone has their own path. Not everyone’s is obvious. I spenthalf my life fighting and taking lives for my people. I’d never have guessed I’d spend the second half healing them and raising a stubborn, smart-mouthed starchild.”
Her words seemed harsh, but I didn’t miss the way her lips quirked up on one side as she called me one of her favorite names. And, to be honest, she wasn’t wrong.
I sighed, spitting more sand out of my mouth. Back to the chase. This fugitive, a disgraced intergalactic agent, Xyrox Quorath,was about to pay for my new Kang One ship. He just didn’t know it yet.
2
XYROX
Porous black rock tore through the back of my thin shirt and scratched my skin. I crouched in a tunnel, trying to slow my breathing.Fekk!That damn female bounty hunter with the crazy white hair had been on my ass for three rotations. She was worse than a Mallockian burr.
I was lucky I’d stumbled upon this mine so I could get out of the sun for a while. Another day hiding under the sands would have cracked my skin down to my bones. I could go several days without water, pulling from my stores, but even Rykantosians had a limit.
