3. Starlight Burning

Niko knew the Vhesa Station Arena was huge, but somehow, he hadn’t accounted for just how massive the entertainment venue really was. The station was a tangle of high-ceilinged corridors, wings, and smaller arenas all surrounding the main attraction concert hall, and every free space his gaze fell on was either full of little opportunistic pop-up merchandise shops or brightly neon holograms showing the singers and hyping up the show to come. The entire station was surrounded by a parking dock ring, which was full to the brim with ships of all sizes and shapes. The traffic to get in had been almost more challenging to navigate than the job itself would likely be. Even the exterior of the station had been covered in various animated holograms of the bedazzling Gheroun and Heenva star celebrities.

Just as he’d done on Yhanwe-ha, once Niko had presented his bounty hunting license and collaboration with Galapol, he’d been let in to walk the endless wings of the labyrinthine entertainment station. He was grateful for the map Zann had managed to snag and send his way; Niko had it loaded into the visor interface of his helmet now. Without it, it would have been all too easy to get lost, swallowed up in the chaos of a galactic crowd.

There were other bounty hunters out there stalking through the crowds too, Niko could see. They stood out from the fans and staff alike, usually carrying multiple weapons on them. Their aesthetics tended towards the more eccentric and extreme, too—myriad tattoos, brightly colored hair, clothing that made a statement. They made a generally rougher, more rugged looking crowd. Niko could hardly judge, though. He knew he must look intimidating walking about in his full armor, rifle attached at his back. He shared the other hunters’ fondness for tattoos, his body covered in them from neck to toe, though none of that could be seen beneath the suit.

Niko wouldn’t judge them on their appearance, but he definitely would judge them on another criteria, the very thought making him grimace. Likely many out and about for the concert, weaving their way through crowds and trying to figure out how to find the Kestrel in their own way, were fully mercenary, working for themselves without a sanctioned contract with Galapol nor any local authorities. Niko had always been wary of them. They operated in a rapacious sort of way that he found often straddled the line between cold disregard and outright brutality.

He craned his neck to follow a mean looking lavender Heenva, armed to the teeth in every which way. The man appeared to be hassling a group of music fans who had crowded in and blocked his path. Voices began rising as the group refused to capitulate now that the Heenva was demanding them to. Niko began walking towards them, wondering if it was going to progress to the point of needing to break it up—

—and was nearly knocked off balance. A short human woman shoved past him, her hair a shade of pink that Niko could only think of as bubblegum. Off her back hung a frayed, magenta backpack covered in obscene patches and pins. She eyed his armor up and down as she walked by, not stopping, and sniped over her shoulder, “Out of the way, dipshit.”

She was several steps past him before Niko could retort. Bubblegum—Niko’s brain imprinted the name on her—was coming right up on the altercation before them, but didn’t seem fazed. Instead, she spared no effort in shoving the snarling Heenva out of her way, just as she had with Niko. The man looked so shocked at her audacity that he just stared, too. Then she was gone as the same crowd who’d blocked the Heenva parted quietly to let her through. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to get knocked on their asses.

Another hunter? Niko shook his head. He’d never seen so many in one place before. The idea made his pulse quicken. Every one of them was after the same bounty he was. Every one of them wanted to be the one to get there first. Niko wasn’t about to let that happen.

He turned and began making his way to what the map overlay indicated was the central arena. A congregation of young Gheroun women dressed in glamorous, sequined outfits looked at him and giggled. They wore sparkling bracelets on their tentacles.

“What’s with the armor?” one asked. They couldn’t be older than adolescents. If the Kestrel really was here tonight, they’d all be witness to his violence.

“Security,” Niko grunted back, before moving on. It wasn’t entirely a lie.

When he reached the main arena where the concert was due to be held, a wave of trepidation flooded over him. He paused, scanning the vast area and crowd ahead of him. There had to be a few hundred thousand people on this station already, if not more. And almost all of them were gradually crowding their way into this arena. Finding a single person—especially one who was exceptionally good at not being found—among this many was daunting, to put it lightly. The arena was vast, with an arching glass ceiling several stories high that granted a straight view of the hazy blue Yeuronea against a backdrop of stars. The walls of the arena curved, forming a colossal circle. Just like the halls outside, nearly every surface was covered with bright, fast-moving holograms that advertised the singers, refreshments, and upcoming shows. Niko couldn’t stare at them for long or the telltale ache behind his eyes began to threaten him.

Instead, he glanced upward. He had to be smart about this. The countless crowds filing into the arena, the constant onslaught of color-pop of the holograms meant nothing. He did his best to tune it out like the visual static it was. If the Kestrel was here tonight—and Niko couldn’t shake the feeling that he was—the sniper would again go for high ground. There were no rafters to maneuver across—Zann had revealed that out of an abundance of caution with the Kestrel murders, though the show hadn’t been canceled nor postponed, the lightwork infrastructure had been dismantled and light-tech bots and drones deployed instead.

That left one other option.

Hanging along the room in a great circle were dozens upon dozens of private balconies, undoubtedly for those with an extra bit of clout and a lot of money to pay for them. Niko pulled up the map again and maneuvered towards one of the private elevators that led up to them.

A hefty Dvaab wearing her own thick armor pads and plates—all stamped with the Vhesa security logo—stepped in his way. “You got a pass?” she asked warily.

“No,” Niko said, projecting his license and other relevant info from his visor, “but I’m working in contract with Galapol and I have cause to believe the Kestrel may be here tonight. I’d like to scope out the private balconies.”

The Dvaab processed his license number, running it through a quick check for authenticity, then murmured into her radio too quietly for Niko to hear. Finally, she turned a bland gaze on him again. “No one’s up there yet but they’re due any moment. Station sec says you can take a look at this one but not for long.”

Niko nodded to her in thanks and stepped into the elevator. Several seconds later, the doors opened and he stepped out onto the balcony, looking down now at the arena below. It was easier to think up here, but he had limited time.

Niko turned his attention to the other adjourning balconies. The Kestrel could be on any of them already, watching him like the predator he was. He could be on this balcony, mere feet from him, just like he had been on the roof before. The thought of being so close, of being observed by something so deadly made goosebumps creep along Niko’s skin.

But something didn’t seem right. He ventured forward further onto the balcony. It was, for the size of the arena, shockingly small, with only ten seats per, all crowded in beside one another. This was a sold-out show. Every one of these seats would be full. And even if the Kestrel had managed to buy himself a seat ahead of time, there simply still wasn’t enough room to set up and make a shot with a sniper rifle. Not without it being left completely empty, and an empty balcony would be sure to draw the attention of every security guard and bounty hunter present.

The balconies weren’t feasible.

Then where?Niko glanced up. He was on the highest spot in the arena, above two other rows of balconies. There were no other doors, no hidden panels, no platforms on which to stand.

For the first time since he’d seen the concert website, a pang of doubt speared through Niko. Had he misjudged?

No. He just had to think harder. Be cleverer. Crawl into the Kestrel’s head and think like he did.

Somewhere else, then.

He entered the elevator and descended, skirting along the edges of the arena at ground level once more.

If Niko were the Kestrel, he would take extra precautions not to make the same mistakes twice. Though the assassin had still completed what he’d come to do and had killed the Quwa-quay leader, Niko had at the very least thrown a wrench into his plans. He’d been found out. Uncovered. It was a thought that pleased Niko a little—he hadn’t managed to stop the man, but he at least had forced him to flee and think on his feet. That was more than almost anyone had accomplished so far.

He had to think this time of what the Kestrel wouldn’t do as much as what he would. It was one thing to predict a skilled assassin; it was another to predict how a clever mind might learn from and react to almost being caught. Even if the balcony seats were viable, the Kestrel might not go for them anyway. It would be too easy to be found twice.

In the precious few minutes Niko had spent on the balcony, a flood of people had made their way in. He was barely aware of voices calling out announcements over an echoing speaker. The show’s start was imminent. Maybe he had gotten it wrong after all. Maybe Zann and his team of researchers were spot on, and the assassin was a trillion miles away, lining up his shot at one of the Toliai politicians this very second.

All around him, a sea of music fans, security guards, and hungry bounty hunters who’d had the same idea he did maneuvered through the station.

Niko couldn’t shake the feeling his first instinct was right, even though there was no sign of anything amiss whatsoever, and absolutely nowhere for a sniper to work. The Kestrel could find some level of anonymity among the crowds, but hiding something as big and obvious as a sniper rifle among them wasn’t feasible either.

A voice rang out again across the arena, so loud and intense now that Niko felt it in his chest. The warm-up act was starting, welcoming everyone for coming and asking if they were ready for the show of a century. The arena was beginning to pack in now, more seats filled than not at this point, and as the music began, so did a neon array of nearly psychedelic, rapidly dancing colors and imagery through the air and along the walls, projected by various hovering tech. The colors changed with each beat of the rhythm, and Niko’s headache pressed in again, dangerous and stabbing and threatening to grow into a rare migraine. Niko felt like he was rapidly spiraling into a dreamlike, hyper-sensory experience that blended sight and sound. Around him, the music hammered relentlessly, loud and jamming the thoughts out of his head.

Everything was drowned in music; the combined voices and deep bass and drums of alien music were enough to vibrate the floor and walls. There was still absolutely no sign of anything off, no presence lurking in the rafters. Around him, the crowd thrilled and cheered at the warm-up band and growing hype. Niko was at a loss. There was simply nowhere the Kestrel could be. Nowhere felt right. Taking out the singers in their changing rooms before the show made little sense either. His kills had always been as public as possible. Maybe Niko really was wrong. Maybe the instinct he had always so easily relied on had dried up and vanished completely in his years of quiescence.

Did I lose my spark?

It wasn’t impossible. He may have once been one of the best in his field, but three years was a long time to sink into stagnation and stop honing his skills or doing much of anything. Three years was a long time to not think fast and in the moment. To have let himself go in several different—and damaging—ways.

The warm-up band finished their act to screams and applause, and the real event of the night took center stage as the two alien singers Niko had seen on every commercial, in every hologram, stepped onto the stage.

“Are. You. Ready?” The lead warm-up singer screamed, and the crowd erupted into shrieks and cheers so passionate that every voice bled together into one great, hungry roar. Hayura—the pale green of her tentacles dotted with glinting diamonds, likely collected from the rain of some gas giant—clung to a keytar as she grinned at the crowd. Beside her, Kuliedi Taan sported an asymmetric, pink bob and barely concealing shimmery dress. Her branching antennae were swathed in strings of jewels, a detail Niko could see when he magnified his visor’s view.

She gave an elegant bow and the crowd screamed again. Both women began addressing the audience, thanking them for all their love and loyalty, before going on to compliment each other. Niko’s heart was in his throat. He could barely pay attention to any of the showmanship, and hardly cared. It wasn’t why he was here anyway. If the Kestrel was here, now would be the time. Niko felt ill, the beginnings of a nauseous migraine churning through his gut, tightening its grip on his head. One part of him felt acutely alive, buzzing with the anticipation of tragedy about to strike. And another part was just tired that he had fallen so far out of instinct, out of skill. Out of everything that had once been the greatest passion of his life.

The introductions gave way quickly and the real treat of the night began. A pulsing heartbeat rhythm shuddered through the air, louder than over a million excited screams, the holographic and surreal twisting colors, shapes, and phantom dancers even more intense than they had been with the cover band. The music was pure camp—the same plasticine pop Niko had heard from the Kestrel’s frequency.

Its pulse pounded so heavy through his chest that he couldn’t tell where it ended and the anxious hammering of his heart began. Maybe they were one and the same.

Zann’s argument began to sound more and more convincing, but there was something in the air—that electric rainstorm tension—that Niko just couldn’t shake.

As though Niko had summoned him, Zann’s contact photo appeared on his visor screen, the beeping notification of an incoming call nearly inaudible against the music. Niko answered, straining to hear his brother.

“Niko. We’ve got a lead here. Rooftop figure has been spotted at the parade—”

Shit. No.

An uncomfortable tangle of emotions wormed through Niko. Humiliation, surprise. Disappointment. Deep, deep disappointment. He hadn’t wanted to be wrong. He’d wanted to be the one to stop him, to—

“He’s got a sniper rifle. My guys are closing in now,” Zann continued. Niko winced. He knew he should be happy about this. He should be thrilled. Relieved. They were about to bring down the man who had wrought unspeakable horror across multiple civilizations. Having this guy off the streets and unable to hurt anyone ever again should have been nothing but a relief.

Shouldhave been.

But his string of misjudgments and failures since coming back only told Niko that hunting wasn’t meant for him anymore after all. He should have left it behind for good. Niko just wasn’t what he’d used to be.

He wanted the glory, the satisfaction, the recognition that he was still at the top of his game. That he still had it, even after his accident.

Accident? Is that what we’re calling it now?He shook his head, trying to clear it of the cruel, biting thought.

It had been a risk to return to hunting. It had always stirred up dark habits in him. Self-destructive ones. But he’d taken that risk, because the truth was, life had felt empty without the hunt. It had felt meaningless. Niko needed to know he was still capable. Instead, all he would ever get now was a failed job and a wrong prediction with the data he was given.

Niko didn’t like to lose.

“Be careful, Zann,” he warned, swallowing down the oily cocktail of wounded pride. He knew first-hand how slippery this guy could be. How dangerous.

“They’ve got him. He’s down. You owe me a beer, Niko. I was beginning to doubt we had the right idea over here. You actually almost had me convinced.” Zann laughed. “Threat has been apprehended and neutralized.”

“That’s great. Good.” Niko hated hearing the strain in his own voice.

“Got a little bit rusty, Niko,” Zann said. Niko didn’t respond. “Listen, I need to go. But I wanted to let you know we finally got the fucker. I’ll call you.”

He hung up with Zann, peering out at Hayura and Kuliedi Taan as they sang on stage. Both women seemed to be genuinely enjoying performing together. Either that, or they were incredible actresses. The music was especially grating on Niko’s nerves now that he knew all the time, effort, and certainty he’d had in this being the target was wasted.

“It can’t keep me down, can’t hold me,” they sang.

He felt hollowed out, scraped clean inside. But there was another feeling too. One that remained, persistent and nonsensical: that instinctual alarm, the feeling that something was off. That something was wrong. That Niko had picked the right place.

Yet Zann’s guys had found the Kestrel. They had him under arrest now, were bringing him into custody. He’d been exactly where Zann had predicted he’d be. There was nothing left to guess at or feel anxious about.

But then—why wouldn’t his skin stop crawling?

He thought about what Zann had told him. The Kestrel had been spotted and subsequently taken down on a rooftop near the parade, sniper rifle in hand. It was exactly the thing a skilled and clever strategist would want to avoid after being discovered once already in the same situation. These were middling mistakes expected of an amateur.

And Zann had said they’d spotted him. The Kestrel had been plainly visible to Galapol’s spec ops team.

The Kestrel had stealth tech.

Oh. Shit. The hair on the back of Niko’s neck rose and he looked up, purely by instinct. Another phone call began ringing through his helmet, Zann’s image filling the corner of the screen. He answered.

Zann sounded breathless, his voice coming in torn and desperate. “False alarm— Niko—”

Something caught Niko’s eye: a misty spray of crimson, scattered through the air, spurted out from atop one of the balconies. It caught peculiar and uncanny in the shifting neon lights, like alien rain from the stars above. Then a body followed, a man with his throat sliced open in a red, macabre smile who fell—no, was pushed, Niko could see now, with particular force—from one of the private balconies above.

It happened fast. So fast that Niko barely had time to unlatch his own gun and fumble in shock with its safety.

“—some sort of copycat—” Zann panted. “He might still be there, Niko. You have to hurry before—”

A scream filled the air, louder even than the music around him. Niko realized it was his own voice, hoarse as he shouted unthinking at the people below.

“Move! Get back! Move!”

None of them could hear him. The man dropped, dead weight, and struck the ground well behind the nearest floor level seats. If he’d somehow survived the initial injury, by the sight of his contorted and broken figure, Niko could see there was no chance life still inhabited the man’s body. Several seconds passed, painting the scene surreal as holographic colors danced around the mangled body. The people nearest glanced behind them at him, briefly confused at what they were looking at. Beyond the nearest attendees and closest security, no one even knew a life had just been taken.

The music continued on. “Gravity can’t touch me when I’m with you.”

“Niko?” Zann said.

“Oh, he’s definitely here.”

“Shit! Niko, you can’t let him get away.”

“I’m on it.”

Niko was already moving. He knew he could never find the Kestrel in a crowd this dense—especially now that the realization of what had just transpired was beginning to spread like a shockwave. Concert attendees were screaming, trying to back away from the body. Some were frozen in place, openly staring, while a disturbing number were trying to make for the exits. He hoped this didn’t turn into a stampede.

“Free me, love me, take me, remake me—”

The singing stopped abruptly as security flooded the stage to whisk Hayura and Kuliedi to safety. The background music track ground to a halt, the dreamlike, dancing holograms and neon lights still sweeping across the arena, ghostly and wrong against the lack of music.

It could have been anyone. It could even be another copycat, just like Zann’s team had encountered. In over four months, the Kestrel had never once killed with anything but a sniper rifle. But Niko knew. He felt him. He’d known the Kestrel would be here tonight.

He’d had to use another method. It was that simple. Where there had been no room to take a shot, the man had simply used a different means instead.

Niko summoned the map again, pinpointing which balcony the body lay under. B64, whose private elevator opened near an exit to a series of corridors and branching offshoots and—

There.

—eventually Gate E64 to the parking deck ring. This was a station and the Kestrel was just as trapped as anyone else there until he could get to whatever transport out of there awaited him. But he wouldn’t be for long. Niko burst into a run, pushing himself hard, electric jolts of pinpricked nerves singing up through his legs as he moved. He had no time to think about the pain.

It felt strange to run like this, to push himself again on two legs until his body ached and lungs burned from the effort. It was disorienting, too, though—he had no feeling in his legs, having to trust and rely on imagining himself running in a visceral, physical sense, trying to send the sensations of moving those muscles and nerves into the suit for it to respond properly. It was a technique that had taken months to master, but right now, it was worth it.

Even if he would have to pay for it tomorrow.

Nothing was going to stand in his way now. Not limitations, not pain. Niko wasn’t letting him get away this time.

“Zann, I need to go. Get a hold of your undercovers and tell them he’s here. Gate E64.”

“Niko, be careful—”

Niko cut the call, no seconds to waste. He sorted through frequencies as fast as he could while running until he reached the one used by Vhesa security, if the cacophony of panicked orders and questions filling the line was any indication. It seemed the Kestrel had thrown them for a loop as well.

“You need to close Gate E64 to the ring. I am in pursuit of the fugitive and believe that’s where he’s heading.”

A pause on the other end. “Who is this?”

“Hunter 44-8783-332, in contract with Galapol. You need to close the gate.”

Another flurry of voices and the security officer he’d spoken to addressed him again. “Gate E64 is locking down. We’re sending backup. Good luck out there, hunter.”

Niko pushed himself harder, willing himself forward. The Kestrel was fast—infuriatingly so—and if Niko had any chance of catching up to him, he’d have to be faster. Each stride was exhausting to a body unable to run, let alone walk on its own for years. Niko was too close to let himself stop now, though. He wove through confused and panicked bystanders who turned to stare at him as he bolted past.

“Find a security officer. Get yourselves somewhere safe,” he called out several times as he ran, but the crowds paid his warnings little mind, some even filming him.

The further he ran, the more the crowds began to thin out. Niko’s lungs burned, desperately thirsty for air. His body ached, covered now in a thick sheen of sweat beneath the suit that he wished he could wipe off. His map told him he was nearing Gate E64. It wouldn’t be long now. It was going to be a crapshoot if security had managed to get the large gate sealed in time. If Niko had been too slow to get the message through, he may have just shot himself in the foot, putting six-inch-thick steel between himself and the fleeing assassin.

He rounded the last corner, the gate falling into sight in the distance. It was still closing, the thick metal plates grating loudly as they came down, a red light flashing above it in warning to keep clear. Even this far out from the arena, several people stood around, gazing at the gate nervously. They had likely arrived late to the show.

Then Niko’s gaze caught on something else. A distorted image, transparent and difficult to follow, moving swiftly down the hallway towards the gate. A slender, athletic figure gliding ahead of him, ethereal as a ghost.

It was him.

This ends here.

If he stopped and took aim, Niko could hit the man before he reached the gate. It was descending rapidly, the gap leading into the vast parking deck beyond growing smaller by the second. But it could go either way still. The spectral runner could still just make it at this rate.

Niko couldn’t stop, though. And he couldn’t shoot. The scattering of civilians around the gate was too much of a risk. He no longer possessed the lung capacity to command them out of the way, pushing himself to his limit to keep up now.

A bullet whizzed past him from behind, exploding on impact as it collided with the gate. The explosion was strong enough to make the floor and walls of the hallway shudder, and those who were scattered around ducked and cried out. Some had the smarts to run.

Niko stumbled but caught himself, turning quickly to find the source: Bubblegum.

The small woman had caught up to him, her whole body heaving with heavy breaths from her exertion. In her hands was a thick, short-barreled gun of some sort that Niko didn’t recognize. Something homemade or black market custom. She pumped it and aimed again.

“Hey—no! There are civilians here,” Niko shouted at her.

“Then they can get out of the way. So can you,” Bubblegum said. She fired again, the shot eliciting another round of cries from the now terrified bystanders. Niko bristled immediately. This was why he hated unlicensed hunters.

Instead of hitting the gate, this time the shot exploded mid-air, a distorted shockwave rippling outward from the bullet’s impact before it fell to the ground. Like Niko had before, she’d hit the Kestrel’s barrier with no result.

“You’re mine now, you little bitch,” she snarled, and pulled a neon green grenade from her open backpack.

Niko’s heart leapt into his throat at the sight. He recognized that vibrant, toxic green for what it was: bog-theun corrosive, a rare toxin harvested from its namesake endangered alien swamp animals, dealt in black market trades for exuberant credits.

It digested almost anything it touched.

“Oh, fuck no. There are innocent people—” Niko started. He surged forward without thinking, running straight towards Bubblegum and body-slamming her.

He was too late. Behind them, near the closed gate, the telltale stench of bog-theun toxin spread through the air, followed by screams of pain and panic, then the sizzle of the floor and walls as the corrosive substance began to eat right through them. Niko craned his neck, glancing up over his shoulder to see the damage, and Bubblegum took the opportunity to slip out from under him. She delivered a solid kick to Niko’s side, and he took a small satisfaction in knowing it probably hurt her foot more than it had his armored body.

He struggled to pull himself to his feet. Come on. Just like you practiced. It took longer than he’d have liked, but soon Niko had his feet planted beneath him and stood. He turned to assess the damage ahead of him with dismay.

The floor before them was slowly dissolving, its melted, foaming pieces dripping down into the growing hole. Gate E64, which had managed to close and corner the Kestrel, now had a similarly growing series of holes. Most of the terrified concert goers had managed to flee in time, but Niko could see a few had clothing that was already beginning to singe away.

Niko disdained hunters like Bubblegum. This was exactly the kind of carelessness espoused by the unregistered and those who were only in it for easy money. They didn’t care who else got pulled into their destruction. Niko at least had the pride to say the only person who ever got wrecked in his pursuits was his mark. And, sometimes, himself.

Niko opened the comm channel to security again. “You’re going to need medics. We’ve got injured civilians at E64.”

At the center of the chaotic scene stood the Kestrel. His barrier faltered, the air rippling and shuddering around him as a layer of neon green corrosive clung to it, until finally it fell away completely, whatever powered the stealth tech going with it. The man behind so many assassinations stood vulnerable and revealed now, clear as day.

A few drops of caustic green from the broken forcefield landed on his masquerade-styled bird mask, the plasticine material of it sizzling and smoking as it began to melt. With a panicked grunt, the man grabbed wildly for it and pried it off, tossing it to the ground.

There was a brief second when everything around Niko paused. He looked at the Kestrel, and the Kestrel looked back at him.

He was the most beautiful thing Niko had ever seen. The face that peered back at him now was so perfect it made him ache. It stole his breath away. He hated it, hated the leaping twist it gave in his chest and the burning heat it bid in his cheeks.

Niko especially hated that such breathless beauty was wasted on someone like him. It only made him despise the assassin all the more.

The Kestrel was clearly in his early or mid-twenties, with a pale complexion and equally pale blond hair that hung around his face in messy cowlicks and loose curls where each strand ended. He had a strong nose, his mouth twisted downward in frustration, his eyes a stunning gray-green Niko had only ever seen before on the oceans of Eanan. Right now, those eyes were boring right back into Niko, both wickedly intelligent and very, very pissed off.

Then the Kestrel tore his gaze away and glanced towards the wounded. He then stared at Bubblegum, his expression darkening into a deep disgust—disdain, even.

“You fucking asshole,” he said.

Rich, coming from you, thought Niko. He remembered how to function again, aiming his gun towards the Kestrel.

“Oooh, you’re a pretty boy,” Bubblegum retorted, her own homebrew gun trained on him as well. “Look at that face.”

Niko wasn’t the only appreciator of fine art, it seemed.

He fired, but the assassin was already moving. Bubblegum had erred in more ways than one and the Kestrel took the advantage as it presented itself. He slipped through the expanding hole eating its way through the gate, bursting into a full sprint through the parking deck. Niko’s bullet pinged uselessly off the gate.

“Little shit,” Bubblegum growled, slipping through right after him.

Niko paused, frozen, glancing again at the wounded. Should he stay and help them, make sure they were alright? Or pursue the Kestrel and make sure he never killed again? In the end, Niko had no medical training beyond basic first aid to adequately know he was helping rather than harming, and medical professionals would be on their way soon. With a silent apology, he pushed through the gate in pursuit.

He didn’t want to give Bubblegum the satisfaction of claiming the bounty either, after the damage she’d caused others. To be awarded money and fame after sacrificing civilians was contemptible to Niko.

Yeah, she’s definitely not registered.

The parking deck was vast, forming an infinite, curving hangar that ringed Vhesa Station. Side by side, ships of all different make and size were parked. Some were like Niko’s—small and meant for one to two people. Others were hefty carriers equipped for transporting groups of several dozen. The one closest to him was a mid-sized Dvaab craft, its hull twisted into the sacred spiral designs typically favored by their people.

Every ship here only served to make Niko’s life harder, forming a compact maze miles upon miles long. He pushed forward, weaving between packed-in vessels, following the heavy sound of Bubblegum’s boots as they echoed through the parking deck. Niko grimaced at his own heavy footfall giving away exactly where he was. With the armored suit, it couldn’t be helped.

A voice rang out from somewhere ahead, breaking the tense and heavy quiet. Masculine and clear as a bell. “The two of you are really the best they could send?”

There it was again: that same arrogance from before. It irritated Niko to be lumped in with somebody like Bubblegum—a messy, unregistered hunter who clearly only gave a damn about money. He moved towards the voice, rounding another wide-winged silvery ship, but stopped up short when he saw Bubblegum. She wasn’t running anymore, her body still as she tilted her head around to try and decipher the direction of the Kestrel’s voice. Something shifted inside Niko, an old and paranoid instinct that had kept him alive on his jobs. Something wasn’t right. The voice had had something to it, something uncanny—

“I’d say it was a good effort, but it really wasn’t.” The Kestrel’s voice came again, and Niko could hear—and see now—that it emerged from off to the left of Bubblegum. A small, rectangular two-way radio lay on the ground. “In fact, you were pretty pathetic resorting to banging up civilians just to get your way.”

“The fuck?” she asked, kicking the radio and turning on heel, her gun raised.

She was too slow.

The Kestrel was already on her from behind, a flurry of pale gold hair and black clothing. He drove the blunt handle of the same bloodied knife he’d used to kill with against the side of her head, and Bubblegum crumpled instantly, unconscious.

Niko wasted no time, charging towards the Kestrel with everything he had. He closed in quickly on the assassin as the man staggered back from Bubblegum’s collapsed form, taking him by surprise and slamming him to the ground before he could escape. He heard the air escape the Kestrel’s lungs in a sharp exhale as both men struck the floor. The Kestrel was quick, though, and rolled to the side before Niko could get him pinned down. The blond man sprung up and sprinted further into the parking ring, disappearing behind a bulky, pearlescent Quwa-quay ship.

Niko hauled himself up—more quickly than he’d been able to after tackling Bubblegum—and followed, every part of him threatening to collapse in exhaustion from burning, pleading muscles. An insatiable need to finish this carried him through the pain and fatigue now.

“Why?” he panted out, weaving around a tiny but sharply designed two-seater ship that belonged, possibly, to another hunter somewhere on the station.

To his surprise, the Kestrel answered as he ran, forever several steps ahead. Niko caught him in glimpses—a swift peek of darkly clothed limbs here, a flash of wild, pale gold there, before disappearing again around another ship. He sounded tired too, the words pushed out in a huff of air. “Why what?”

“Why kill these people? What do you get out of this?”

The Kestrel ducked under a colossal, blocky ship that nearly took off Niko’s head as he stooped to keep up and breathlessly follow.

“What do you care?” the Kestrel spat. He sounded just as breathless, despite how easy he made it look to keep ahead.

Niko knew the implications of the question—he was, after all, a bounty hunter. To anyone who didn’t know him personally, he came off as little different from Bubblegum, he was sure. Bounty hunting was typically about the pretty bounties it paid out, and many were called to the siren song of getting those credits, no matter what shortcuts they had to take to be the one to get there first. To Niko, it had never been about the money. Something greater called him to bring in the dangerous and cruel.

“I—I want to understand,” Niko said, his voice dripping with sincerity. He did. It was easy to pin ego and fame as the reasons for the Kestrel doing any of this, just as easily as it would have been to pin Niko as a money hungry trash hunter with only self-interest at heart. But the Kestrel hadn’t come here tonight for the two biggest, easiest, most high-impact targets. He hadn’t gone after the obvious star attractions. Instead, he’d come for someone in the audience. Kuliedi Taan and Hayura were left unscathed.

The Kestrel did something Niko never expected, then. He stopped running.

He slowed to a pause between two towering fleet ships and turned to regard Niko, chest and shoulders heaving as he panted for air. It was so bold—and open and shocking—that Niko stopped in his pursuit as well, wary and waiting for what came next. He kept a several yard distance between the Kestrel and himself, gun half-raised.

The assassin looked tired, those painfully beautiful seafoam eyes watching Niko back just as warily. His unruly hair hung around his face, damp with sweat, his cheeks flushed from exertion. Niko couldn’t comprehend it. Stopping here was madness for the Kestrel. Security was likely to catch up at any moment, as well as the undercover Galapol agents Zann had stationed and the myriad bounty hunters Niko had seen prowling about before the show. And Niko himself had been clearly intent on bringing the man down. Something settled uneasily in the air around them, a brief trust between Niko and what was almost like a wild animal: cagey, dangerous, and feral, but pausing to consider you instead of fleeing or attacking. This moment was fleeting and liminal, and Niko could feel it.

The Kestrel’s eyes narrowed, serpentine distrust creeping back in, and he spoke again, pushing a long curl of disheveled blond from his face. “I don’t believe you.”

Niko swallowed, holding his ground. It took everything in him not to shatter the fragile moment and take the opportunity to tackle or shoot the Kestrel again. Every second he spent here, waiting, listening, doing nothing, was giving the other man the chance to get away and kill again in the future. But every instinct told Niko to wait. Told him he was on the precipice of learning something vital, some piece of a puzzle he couldn’t even see the whole of yet.

“Why do this?” Niko chanced. “Is it fame? Do you get some kind of thrill from killing?”

The Kestrel’s expression closed off again immediately, hard and cold as it had been in front of Bubblegum. Niko had said the wrong thing.

“Oh, I get a thrill, alright.” His tone was laced with malice.

Niko scrambled to keep him talking. He couldn’t lose this when he was so close to grasping… something. “But why? Why hurt innocent people?”

“Innocent? That’s where you’re wrong.”

“What?”

“They know what they’ve done,” the Kestrel continued. He looked as disdainful as he had when gazing at the wounded people Bubblegum had deemed collateral. “Every one of them—”

Gunshots tore through the air, bullets ricocheting dangerously close off the side of the ship nearest them.

Their conversation had come, painfully, to an abrupt end. Niko was out of time.

“If you don’t want to end up dead too, then stay away,” the Kestrel said, already turning to flee again.

“I can’t do that,” Niko said, raising his gun.

A searing flash of light exploded across Niko’s vision and he scrambled to switch on his visor’s darkening feature, but it was too late. Imprints of swimming light and color danced across his blinded eyes, temporary damage from what Niko recognized as a flash grenade.

Without being able to see where he was going, he was all but useless, unable to follow. The Kestrel must have grabbed it off of Bubblegum when he’d assaulted her from behind. The deftness of his hands was—grudgingly—impressive to Niko.

By the time backup arrived, the Kestrel was long gone, leaving Niko only with the feeling that he’d stepped off an invisible ledge and was caught in freefall, no ground below to catch him.