"Pssshhh—"
Accompanied by the hiss of equalizing pressure, the heavy airtight hatch on the side of the New Hope slowly slid open.
A pungent wave of smells — aged machine oil, mildew, cheap spices, and the collective body odor of millions packed together — poured in through the widening gap.
Six stood at the hatchway, furrowed his brow slightly, then relaxed.
An old underhive rat like him actually found the smell rather familiar.
He strode out.
Behind him, twenty heavily armored guards filed out in succession.
Every inch of them was encased in matte-black T-9000 heavy exoskeletons, the hydraulic actuators emitting a low, rhythmic hum with each step. In their hands they carried CBS-12 high-explosive crossbows, bolts already nocked, the warheads glinting with cold menace in the dim light.
Gamma-9 walked at the head of the formation.
A black commissar's coat draped over his shoulders, a grenade pistol at his hip, his lone eye sweeping the surroundings with an icy gaze.
Berth B-74, located in the mid-level district of Landing Port.
The moment the squad stepped out of the berth's gate, their path was blocked.
Roughly two hundred men had gathered.
They wore a hodgepodge of scavenged armor — some draped in chains, others with industrial scrap welded onto their bodies as makeshift bulletproofing. Their weapons were equally varied: sawn-off shotguns, chainsaw axes, and a few wielding powered mauls.
Their gear was trash, but they had numbers, and every face wore an expression of naked greed and brutality.
Any newly docked ship — especially one like the New Hope, which looked flush with valuables and flew no merchant-wanderer flag — was expected to be fleeced before it could set down roots.
The leader was a hulk standing over two meters tall.
Half his face was gone, replaced by a crude iron plate, giving him a ferocious, grotesque appearance.
"Stop right there."
The iron-faced brute hoisted a heavy wrench onto his shoulder and planted himself in the middle of the path.
"New arrivals. You know the rules?"
Six halted, his professional smile still fixed on his face.
"Friend, we already paid the docking fee to old Harry at the control tower when we came in."
"Harry?" The iron-faced brute hawked and spat a thick glob onto the floor.
"That one-eyed bastard collects money for the parking space. He runs that patch of void." He banged his wrench against the deck plating beneath his feet — clang, clang. "But this ground belongs to the Iron Hook Gang. You want to pass through here, you pay the landing tax."
"And furthermore—"
His one good eye raked greedily over the workers behind Six who were unloading cargo crates from the ship.
"You're hauling this much freight, you owe us a cargo tax too."
"I can see you've had a rough time of it, so let's make it simple. Leave that one crate behind, and the rest of you can go."
The crate he pointed to was the sample case packed with high-purity antibiotics.
The smile on Six's face did not waver, but years of surviving in the underhive told him this situation could not be resolved peaceably.
Calling it taxation while running a straight-up robbery.
As a fellow gangland veteran — though Six's own methods were comparatively refined — he'd done his share of the same. Gangs were almost all like this: bullies who only backed down when met with force. Show weakness, and they'd only push harder.
"Friend," Six said evenly, "a stomach that greedy tends to burst."
"How about this — I'll give each of your brothers two bottles of good liquor. We make friends, you let us through. What do you say?"
"Liquor?"
The iron-faced brute burst out laughing, and the mob around him joined in with jeers.
"What in the hell would I want with your liquor? I want your lives!"
He swung his arm down in a violent chop.
"Brothers! Move in! Grab the cargo — and don't kill the one in the white coat. Keep him alive for ransom!"
Over two hundred thugs let out a chorus of wild howls and charged forward, weapons raised.
In their minds, the other side might be wearing strange armor, but there were only twenty of them.
You could drown twenty men in spit alone!
Six let out a quiet sigh, stepped back, and retreated behind the defensive line of the heavy guard unit.
Over the comms channel came Andy's voice — cold and utterly devoid of emotion. Andy was seated on the New Hope's bridge at that moment, watching everything through the surveillance feed.
"Tch. Clear them out."
Gamma-9 received the order. His lone eye blazed red in an instant.
He ripped the grenade pistol from his hip and fired a single shot at the iron-faced brute charging at the front.
Bang.
The round punched straight through the iron faceplate and blew out the back half of his skull along with it.
"All units — free fire!"
Gamma-9 roared.
All twenty heavy guard members raised their high-explosive crossbows simultaneously.
No need to aim. In these narrow dock corridors, the enemy was packed as dense as sardines in a tin.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
The dull thrumming of bowstrings releasing.
Twenty bolts, each packed with RDX high-yield explosive, screamed toward the surging mob.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Violent blasts detonated throughout the crowd. The shockwaves ricocheted off the walls of the enclosed corridor, shredding the thugs apart — a chain of bloody mist, severed limbs and scattered flesh flying in all directions.
In a single volley, more than half of the opposing force ceased to exist.
The remaining thugs stood frozen in slack-jawed terror.
They had assumed the other side was carrying some kind of melee weapon, or maybe a slow-loading primitive firearm.
Who the hell could have guessed these people were packing miniature missiles?!
"What in the — what is that?!"
Someone screamed and tried to run. But the men behind were still pressing forward, and the scene collapsed into pandemonium in an instant.
"Push forward."
Gamma-9 showed no mercy. Twenty black steel giants began to advance.
The T-9000 exoskeletons granted them terrifying strength and mobility. They needed no cover, no evasive tactics.
Anyone who came close got a fist through them.
Crack.
A thug who had lunged in with a chainsaw axe for a cheap shot was caught by the back of the neck in one guard's reverse grip. The hydraulic gauntlet flexed, and the man's neck snapped instantly, his head lolling forward like a deflated balloon.
A completely one-sided slaughter.
Iron Hook Gang bullets pinged off the guards' composite armor and raised little more than a few sparks — barely scratching the paint. But every attack the guards made, whether an explosive bolt or a close-quarters strike, was lethal.
Three minutes passed.
The battle was over.
The dock corridor, which had been packed and raucous moments before, was now as silent as a tomb.
A thick carpet of corpses and shredded flesh covered the floor. Blood dripped through the grating and fell away into the void below.
Nothing stirred except the heavy breathing of the guard unit and the low hum of their exoskeleton motors.
The Iron Hook Gang, which had been so insufferably brazen just minutes ago, had been stricken from Landing Port's list of active gangs.
"Hmph. Worthless scum who didn't know when to die."
Gamma-9 ejected the spent magazine from his pistol and slapped in a fresh one.
He turned to look at Six.
"Six. We're clear."
Six walked forward from behind the line and surveyed the carnage spread across the floor. His expression didn't flicker by so much as a fraction.
After everything he'd been through these past few days, a scene like this barely qualified as noteworthy.
He was a man who had ridden a starship with Andy, after all.
Six didn't consider relocating. "Set up here. Get the stall going."
A few workers, though visibly pale and fighting the urge to retch, nonetheless obediently wheeled several cargo crates over to a spot beside the pile of bodies — not daring to do otherwise under Gamma-9's baleful eye.
The crates were opened.
Rows of neatly arranged glass vials were revealed inside, each filled with a pale yellow liquid.
"Andy Biochem No. 1."
High-purity broad-spectrum antibiotics.
Six picked up a vial casually and turned it between his fingers.
The corridor was far from empty. From every shadow and corner, countless pairs of eyes were watching.
Gang scouts from rival factions. Passing merchants. Scavengers scratching out a living in the cracks.
They had all just witnessed the massacre, and the terrifying firepower had left them paralyzed. But now, as the crates opened, greed conquered fear.
In a place like Landing Port — where sanitation was nonexistent, radiation ran rampant, and injuries were a daily occurrence — even a small cut left untreated could turn into gangrene or sepsis within days, killing a person in slow agony.
Most medicines circulating on the market were counterfeits. But the clear, pristine injectable solution in Six's hand looked like the real thing at a glance — top-shelf product, obviously.
"Everyone!" Six's voice carried through the corridor.
"I am a trade representative from the Nebulous Star Domain. I know you're watching. I know what you want."
He gestured at the bodies on the floor.
"These blind fools tried to rob our cargo. So they died."
"We are businesspeople who honor our agreements. Keep things civil, and we'll be your best friends."
"New shop, grand opening."
"High-purity broad-spectrum antibiotics. Even if your intestines are hanging out, one injection, and you'll be back to swinging a blade by tomorrow."
"I don't accept Imperial Credits — that stuff is wallpaper out here."
"I want hard goods only: rare minerals, high-grade electronic components, unknown xenotech, cryo-condensation equipment, and ancient relics. Quality merchandise, negotiable price."
The moment he finished speaking, a commotion rippled through the shadows.
Finally, a figure swaddled in a tattered robe shuffled forward.
Carefully picking his way around the bodies on the floor, he held out something bundled in oilcloth with both hands.
"W-would this... work?"
The man tremblingly extended the bundle. Inside was a fragment of some creature's shell plating, still faintly warm, with several neural tendrils still twitching faintly along its surface.
Six didn't know tech. He looked to Gamma-9.
"Remnant xenotech from the Wraith species. Neural conductivity is off the charts." Gamma-9 ran a scan and gave a single nod. "Quality material."
Six smiled and tossed the man a vial of antibiotics.
"Deal."
The man clutched it to his chest like it was his most prized possession and bolted, terrified someone would snatch it.
With the first customer came the second.
The crowd that had been hanging back erupted into motion.
Most of them had some strange object they'd dug out of the ruins or seized from someone else along the way. Normally this junk went unrecognized, or the buyers drove the price into the ground.
Now here stood a magnificent sucker — ahem, a magnanimous patron — willing to trade life-saving medicine for their scrap!
Business exploded instantly.
Meanwhile.
In the upper levels of Landing Port, inside a lavishly decorated palace.
A senior steward of Casbaligha Kassindiga sat swirling a wine glass, watching the footage playing back on the surveillance monitors.
On screen: a squad of soldiers in black exoskeletons, and a merchant selling medicine while standing on a pile of corpses.
"Interesting," the steward murmured, taking a measured sip, eyes cold and calculating.
"Firepower of that caliber. Medicine of that purity. These are absolutely not ordinary smugglers."
Caca was one of Landing Port's dominant powers, monopolizing the trade in condensed alien artifacts — xenotech smuggling. They were not the kind of outfit that brawled in the streets. They operated like a corporation: organized, disciplined, and vast. When it came to a powerful new competitor appearing out of nowhere with both muscle and product, their response was typically one of two things.
Absorb them, or annihilate them.
"Go dig up everything you can on them," the steward said to the subordinate behind him. "If they're sheep, we slaughter them."
"If they turn out to be wolves—"
"Then we'll see if we can fit a collar on them."