Goddess

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The whole place stank of piss to him. Piss and refuse and poverty. The surroundings - metal plated streets lined with ramshackle huts of old rubbish - were illuminated with sickly green, yellow, purple, or red lights reminiscent of tacky neon from the 20th. He could feel the desperation around him. The struggle to live. To survive. The gutters overflowed with waste, and the stench of maggots in rancid meat filled his nostrils with death. The scents, the sights, the noise - it was nauseating.

Samuel Shrike breathed deep and smiled.

It wasn't a particularly pleasant expression, though Shrike never suspected otherwise, judging by the attention he received from dancers at the clubs. As he grinned, his lips tightened the scars crossing his face from forehead to chin, each leaving deep furrows in his nose and bare lengths in his short-trimmed goatee.

Shrike left the leer in place as he strolled through Beta Station, breathing in the stench of life. Real life, not the farce at which those rich pricks in Alpha pretended. He nearly started whistling a tune. The scramble for subsistence carried with it the uncertainty of every minute, as well as the ever-present chance for a fight, where the winner walked away with both life and the loser's valuables. Unfortunately, he didn't get many surprises like that anymore. Perhaps the lithe movement of his lean frame, the iron look in his dark eyes, or the MK tattoo peeking from beneath his collar frightened potential challengers. More likely, everyone was unnerved by the sheer shock of seeing a human.

Maybe if he slouched the nearby Korvak packs would gamble. They relaxed menacingly along the walkways and in the alleys, looking passersby up and down with ill-concealed hostility. Alone as he was, he should have made a tempting target. After all, his Predator X battle armor was top-notch and worth a small fortune, outfitted with high-tech kinetic shields against projectiles and ceramic plates to absorb even superheated particle bolts. The Korvak might get in close enough to use their razor-sharp fangs, claws, and dark matter electro blades. They would lose a man or five, but those who were left could live a life of privilege in a place like Beta on the profits from his equipment.

No takers. In fact, most looked away uneasily. Shrike got on well with most Korvak he knew. They were stupid but violent. The predatory origin of their race was apparent in their crooked limbs, ideal for agile movement, and in the serrated teeth jutting from their skeletal faces. Korvak were always ready for a fight. Shrike shook his head with disappointment, until he realized his hand was tight on the Skar M-500 particle accelerator shotgun strapped to his thigh. No doubt he looked like a tox-junkie, grinning as he clutched a high velocity, 500 particle shred slug-thrower. Little mystery he wasn't getting hit by anyone, not even the Korvak. He was working against himself.

It didn't matter. Shrike couldn't suppress his grin. As much as he loved Beta Station, however, it wasn't the locale that had him high. It was a special day.

It had been four months since they last met. Four laggin' months; it always seemed longer. This time he got to pick the location, thank the eternal star-lag.

The walkways became better lit as he drew closer to Smuggler's Den, just as the streets cleared of beggars. The Den's owner, a vicious Liari called Vasir, ran this quarter of Beta, and she wasn't fond of freeloading vagrants cluttering up her establishments. Her muscle kept them well clear.

Shrike thought on his choice of the Den with satisfaction. It offered all the vice and danger of Beta with none of its beggarly mewling. Plus, it offered some of the best entertainment to be found on the station. The Den was one of the few clubs on this rock where you could drink without fear of food poisoning, and they had the best dancers around. Most establishments here would throw anything with tits on the stage, but Vasir only hired quality dancers, and mostly Liari, at that. It was too bad she hadn't conjured up any humans, but hell, he couldn't even remember the last time he had seen another of his species.