The Only Game in the Galaxy Read Free

could be heard. Flashes of light filled the sky and screaming commenced.
    Maximus lunged to his feet, white-faced, shaking.
    Straightening his tunic, he hurried from the office and took the drop tube to the lobby. Calming his breathing and slowing his racing pulse, he waited for the package to arrive.
    He wished the Envoy were there so he could discuss this with him. But the alien was – unavailable. At least for now.
    Maximus had sealed off his life from the interest of the universe with breathtaking success. Sealed it off from emotional ties and loyalties, from the possibility of trust itself. And why not? Everyone he had trusted had betrayed him. His father, his mother, his friends in the squalid slave pens. Everyone.
    No one had protected him. No one had cared enough.
    A lump formed in his throat and his eyes itched. Suddenly, he despised himself. Self-pitying fool , he grunted inwardly. You are weak. Sentimental!
    He clenched his jaw, in his mind reviewing all the horrors and betrayals he had lived through (ignoring those he had perpetrated), and the old armour returned to cloak him in its protective folds, along with the icy calm of hatred.
    Everyone has bad days , he consoled himself. Okay, bad weeks .
    As he waited for the package, he stood before the ancient memorial in the centre of the lobby. A small statue of heroic Herik of Vane with blaster drawn, gazing at the skies. A plaque explained how Herik had brought the evil Old Empire to its knees a thousand years ago then promptly vanished, along with the rest of the famous Lost Legion.
    A hero, mused Maximus, his dark eyes flashing scorn. Somebody in the right place at the right time. If the cowardly and disloyal Commander Quizko had not handed over the great Fortress of Kestre on Se’atma Minor, betraying the empire at its darkest hour, then history would have been different.
    But Maximus should thank Quizko. Without him, there would be no empire to resurrect from the ashes, no fat galactic society to plunder and dominate.
    Although no revenge to exact, perhaps. Would slavers have operated under the iron grip of the old empire? Probably not.
    That would have changed Maximus Black’s life in ways he could barely imagine. Nor wanted to. He was happy the way he was. The Envoy said he was the Instrument of Kadros. Of destiny. But what he actually was, was far more interesting. He was, Maximus reflected, an instrument of revenge .
    With this thought in mind, he turned towards the package counter and came face to face with Anneke Longshadow.

A NNEKE Longshadow paced as people stared at her from across the chain-link fence. She was in a small dirt-floored compound to the side of a bustling marketplace. Dressed in a ragged tunic and with a fresh wound on her exposed thigh, haphazardly heat-sealed, Anneke observed the small crowd of traders.
    Her expression was stark, her emerald eyes bleak. She did not know where she was or how she had gotten there. She had woken in a city park, been rounded up by the local cops and tossed into a holding pen along with a throng of street urchins, riff-raff, and a few ‘cruise girls’. All clamorously demanding to be released, professing their innocence.
    Only Anneke did not cry out. The truth was, she did not know if she was innocent. The painful truth was, she did not know who she was.
    A quick assessment told her she was healthy, strong, well-developed and looked after; she had a tan, the collagen-fullness of youth, and her teeth were in good order, even if her attire wasn’t.
    She smelled distinct chemicals on her clothes and in her hair; chemicals she knew ( how did she know?) were used in explosive devices. Hence, the state of her clothes and – she surmised – the flash welding of her gouged thigh.
    She was not street trash , a term she’d already been on the receiving end of a dozen times, and she’d only been wherever she was for a few hours.
    What did she remember? A bright flash of light, an explosion of noise. Then