Slipknot

Chapter 1

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. With my eyes closed, and my lungs empty. The thunderous racing of my heartbeat rang through my ears, deafening against the silence. I relaxed, letting the sharp nothingness of raw, empty space envelope my naked skin. Rapid decompression was always painful, but it was a pain with which I had become accustomed.

Speak to me, I called out, struggling to still my adrenaline filled body. Listening for the cry no one expected to hear. The scream of the stars.

Behind me, the ship exploded. The heat hit me first. I had mere moments before the shrapnel would tear into my body, atmosphere exploding through my ears.

A familiar voice burned through my mind. The angry scream of the star I had been born beneath. She burned, bright and beautiful and furious. Calling me home.

I latched on to her voice as the boom of the explosion reached me, and folded across space. For a moment between thoughts, the universe inverted. I burned where I had frozen, the pressure of a star’s heart crushed me where space had meant to pull me apart. Light blazed through my closed eyes, pushing away the darkness. I welcomed her embrace, knowing that one of these times she would not let me go.

An enervating numbness coursed through me and my body gasped for breath. Air, cool, neutral, filled my lungs. Weak, gentle light caressed my eyelids. I still lived.

Disappointment edges across my soul.

A soft ding tried to get my attention. I ignored it.

The stars called to me. Tempting me. They could fill the chasm within me. A chasm pushed a little wider each time I traveled. I only needed to reach out…

“Rionnag!”

The sharp voice cut through my mind, pulling me back.

“Are you there?” the voice on the comm demanded. “I’m not paying you to lay around. Rionnag!”

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. Glaring at the console below me, I twisted my body through the zero-g atmosphere. “I’m coming,” I muttered, pulling myself along the hull to the comm.

The ship dinged at me again, and I waved away the notification, muting the ship.

“You were supposed to check in an hour ago,” the whining voice continued as I shoved my legs into a jumpsuit I’d left out. I ignored his muttered comments about human laziness.

Slipping my feet into the mag-boots by the comm, I switched on the screen. “You have my money?”

Hobeks paced before his comm, fidgeting. He started and rushed forward, his dark face taking up the entire monitor. “Of course I have your money,” he scowled.

I pulled up my account on a nearby screen and raised an eyebrow. “Hobeks, you don’t hire someone like me and then try to con them. I can get what is owed in person, if you’d like. I can be there now.” I leaned away from my camera to give Hobeks a better view of my lithe form. “Come to think of it, I am a bit hungry.”

“No, no!’ Hobeks cowered away from his screen, as if that would protect him. “The credits are transferring now. There’s a fuel drop waiting for you as well at Etres IV.”

A notification dropped over the screen, hiding the account. I swiped it off, annoyed. The numbers on the screen changed. The coward had paid more than the agreed on price. I nodded, settling my ear-comm in place. Tips were always appreciated. “A pleasure doing business with you.”

Hobeks nodded and I cut the comm. My stomach twisted, and for a moment my vision blurred. Kicking off the mag-lock on my boots, I pushed off toward the mess. I really did need something to eat.

“Anything come for me while I was gone, Narissa?” I asked the ship, unmuting her.

“Well,” the ship’s sassy voice responded, moving along the corridor with me. “If you hadn’t muted me when you returned--”

“Remind me to deactivate your personality, Narissa.”

“Well if you don’t want to know, I just won’t tell you,” Narissa huffed.

“Works for me.” Who wanted messages anyway? Light from Etres flowed through the large port in the mess, filling the room. I paused before the glass, soaking up her glory.

Force slammed across my back, pushing me into the hull. Adrenaline filled me as I spun, using the hull as leverage against my unseen attacker. My heavy mag-boot connected solidly, winning me a grunt from my attacker.

In a single, fluid movement, I drew the knife from my belt. The attacker twisted away. Nondescript clothing covered them, obscuring their face. They reached for the blaster at their side. I aimed a kick, and they deftly blocked it, metal armor clanging through the cloth. The move knocked me askew, my boots orienting before their chest.

Teeth flashed in a wicked grin beneath the hood.

“Narissa, mag hold!”

The shipped huffed in my earpiece.

The hooded attacker drew their blaster.

“Narissa!”

The ship did as I asked.

The hull behind the attacker hummed, suddenly becoming down. A force several times that of standard g slammed us against the hull. My boots slammed down on either side of the attacker’s torso with enough force to have crushed them.

Using that momentum, I swept forward, my glass knife pressed against their throat. A small bead of red blood well against the soft throat. Human. I almost pulled back.

“I expected more from you, Reatha.”

I jerked, nearly losing my grip on my knife. I knew that voice. His voice. “Why are you on my ship?”

“Aren’t you going to kill me?” His voice was playful. Mocking. “You are an assassin, aren’t you?”

That voice wormed its way into my mind. I wanted to pull back the cowl, longing for what I’d see there. Terrified for what I’d find.

Held on the edge of choice, the blade of fate, waited for the chance for everything to change. Or nothing. But which was which? Waiting for my decision lay my mentor, my first lover, my first assignment.

Caith Siar.

He’d been my first kill.

Somehow alive.

I pulled back his hood. The gold-flecked eyes looked back at me, as piercing as the one that haunted my dreams. “Caith.”

He gave me a curt nod, wincing at the knife.

“Do you have any idea how much cleaning services cost?”

He shifted beneath me, as though to get comfortable, and I pressed the knife closer. He tilted his head away and stilled. “Fortunately, I just got paid.” I reached above him, and plucked the blaster from the air, tucking it into my own belt. Now why would he have worn armor like that but brought a specialty blaster?

“I would hate to waste your hard work.” He grinned, not even trying to be charming.

Curiosity nudged at me. “Are you here to kill me?”

“If I was, you wouldn’t have even known I was here.”

I pursed my lips. I had bested him once, or thought I had. If there was one thing I’d learned in the years since then, it was that trust was for the stars alone, and one day, even they would kill me. Pressing my knife a little deeper, I leaned closer. “Tell me then, why are you here?”

His armor made a gentle snick, and before I could react, he was pushing my knife from his neck. I didn’t need to look down to recognize the muzzle of a blaster pressed against my gut.

Etres’s warmth raked across my mind, offering me escape.

Caith smiled, a feral look in his eyes. “I’m here to hire you.”