Chapter 14: Mark | page 1

“Laws are only for those who cannot make their own moral judgment.”

- Eru Illith, pyrad rebel (10,100 MA)

Scouring the first four levels of Axis yielded nothing. Few knew or cared about a Dailon named Vyron Fethru. The lower levels gangs and the dangers they posed were kept safely beneath their notice. CWAAF and the Axis police kept them safe enough, so why concern themselves with the criminals? Those who knew Fethru’s name did so only because other bounty hunters had been through before Coldhand. They could tell him only what they had told the other hunters. Nothing.

Three days into Coldhand’s hunt, as he moved methodically down through the levels, he caught the first scent of his mark. Prompted by the long barrel of a Talon-9 against her sunken cheek, a human chem dealer working a street corner admitted she knew the name. Fethru had been a local boy until work with his new gang moved him across the megatropolis. He was now a member of a Level Eight gang that called themselves the Steelskins. Stumbling over her own words in her rush to tell Coldhand what she knew and hoping to preserve her own decidedly not steely skin, the dealer said that she had dealt with Fethru a couple of times.

An evening of research over a cheap protein pack and a rented terminal on Level Five yielded useful information on the Steelskins that corroborated the charges of the bounty posting. The gang was under frequent investigation for major counts of drug trafficking, numerous murders and kidnappings against their rivals. Individual members received sentences from fines to concurrent life sentences in CWA prisons, but the Axis police had made little progress against the gang as a whole.

It was good to have something to back up the charges listed on Vyron’s bounty listing, Coldhand thought. A search through the Axis police record had turned up no prior convictions or even accusations against the Dailon man.

An archived news story, broadcast three weeks earlier, recounted a brutal shoot-out between the Steelskins and Axis police on Level Seven. Since then, the gang had been keeping their movements quiet, probably shoring up their numbers to make up for those killed. Small wonder the police had not been able to hunt them to ground yet. The lower levels of Axis were expansive and full of places to hide.

Coldhand frowned at the news as the clip ended and was replaced by a shiny, rotating Alliance News Network logo. If the Steelskins were in hiding, it would make his task that much more difficult. The bounty hunter didn’t have time or inclination to sift through every filthy alleyway of the lower levels. Every moment he spent on Axis only let Cavainna get further and further away from him.

There were better ways. Coldhand would just have to convince Fethru to come to him. It was one of his favored tactics, one that saved him valuable time but allowed his marks to come at their leisure, full of unwarranted confidence. Easy pickings.