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TRAZ

G limner stinks like rust and rotting ambition.

I crouch on the edge of the broadcast tower, the wind cutting across the city’s night like a blade.

The skyline shimmers with filth-drenched light—neon pulsing in time with the heartbeat of crime.

Below, hovercars hum between broken spires and gangland shrines.

Somewhere in that glowing hellhole is the man Petru wants dead.

I don't ask questions. I get names. I get locations. I get paid.

But Petru didn’t keep his mouth shut this time. Too proud. Too twitchy.

“He’s a senator,” Petru spat two nights ago, pacing his office with that glass of glowing blue swill he calls wine. “Human. The new breed—talks soft, but he’s organizing resistance. Wants to put ‘limits’ on Kiphian territory rights. Limits, Traz. Like we’re some parasite he can control.”

I didn’t blink.

Petru kept going.

“He's not just dangerous because of what he says. He’s dangerous because he’s clean. Untouchable. No bribes. No dirt. Just a soft-eyed revolutionary with too much influence and too much damned hope.”

That’s the thing Petru hates most—hope. It disrupts the economy of fear he’s worked so hard to build.

“Make it clean,” he said, pushing a data chip across the table. “Make it final.”

I took it. Not because I care about Petru’s politics, or his empire of back-alley slaves and smuggled tech. I took it because the money’s good, and because putting my blade in the spine of someone who thinks he’s untouchable still gives me a flicker of satisfaction.

Now I’m here.

Three blocks down, across from the diplomatic compound where the senator likes to sleep like a goddamn prince while his guards sweat in shifts.

His suite’s on the top floor. Private balcony.

Only two exits. One guarded. One facing a sheer drop.

Petru said he wanted it done tonight—no explosions, no trace.

He wants the man to just stop breathing.

I check my PerComm. Countdown synced to the senator’s daily schedule. He eats the same late meal, listens to old Terran jazz, takes a shower, then checks messages in his study. Every night. Like clockwork.

I wait for the right beat, then hook into the side of the building with magnetic boots and drop to the balcony.

The guard’s inside, back turned. Rookie mistake.

I slide open the glass just enough to fire a dart. It hisses—quiet, efficient. The guard twitches and folds like wet cloth. No sound.

I’m in.

The suite is a monument to hypocrisy. Vials of aged Kiphian wine. A statue from Seleron. An Earth painting on the wall—“Starry Night,” I think. I never understood humans and their obsession with chaos frozen in color.

The senator is where I expect him. Back turned, hunched over a console, ranting quietly into a recording device.

“I’ve confirmed Petru’s weapon shipments to the Outer Rings,” he’s saying. “The merc he’s working with is?—”

He doesn’t hear me.

I move silent.

The blade’s out before he finishes the sentence. I don’t hesitate. Don’t give him time to look back and understand. I slip it between his ribs, under the shoulder blade. Twist. His breath catches, eyes wide. No scream. Just shock.

Then nothing.

I ease him down, close his eyes. Doesn’t matter that he was clean. Doesn’t matter that he was trying to fix this system. He got in the way of power—and power doesn’t negotiate.

I clean the blade on his cloak.

Slip out the way I came.

The night swallows me whole.

I melt into the night, boots kissing rusted metal and stained concrete. Glimner’s arteries pulse with crime—steam hisses from sewer grates, shadows shift in doorways. Somewhere, a woman screams. Somewhere else, someone laughs at it.

This place never sleeps. Doesn’t even blink.

I take back alleys, stick to the darker veins of the city. Less eyes. Less noise. There’s no alarm yet. The senator’s guards won’t find the body until morning, maybe later. The way I left it—hell, they might think it was natural at first.

The credstick’s heavy in my pocket. Clean transfer, top-tier coin. Could disappear for a year, maybe two. Drift between planets. Pick up side work. Drink somewhere warm. Find a reason to forget.

But I never do.

I stop beside a rusted vendor stall. The owner, a one-eyed Vakutan, nods once. He knows me. Or knows the kind of man I am. Doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask. Just sells me a bottle of Garlis fire and goes back to pretending he doesn’t live on a dying rock held together by corruption and blood money.

I take a swig. The liquor burns hot down my throat, a familiar ache that doesn’t do a damn thing to dull the voice in my head.

Used to be I didn’t think about the jobs after they were done.

Now… sometimes they linger.

Not the faces. Not the names. Just the silence that follows.

I keep walking. Past a strip of clubs glowing with pink and blue haze, past a row of dead-eyed girls in glass booths pretending they’re enjoying themselves. I glance at one. She flinches.

I look away.

I didn’t come from money. Didn’t come from much of anything. Kalei was war-torn when I was born. A planet of soldiers. My blood was sharpened before I ever learned to speak. Loyalty was measured in kills. Compassion got you left behind.

Mercenary life suited me. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t care who wanted who dead. You hire me, you get results. That was the rule.

Still is.

But lately… something’s shifted. Small things. My knife doesn’t slide quite as clean. I notice more than I should. I’m starting to care what happens after.

That’s dangerous.

I pause under a flickering streetlight, watching two Kiphian boys kick a half-broken drone across the alley like it’s a game. Their laughter echoes. Pure. Honest. The kind I haven’t heard in years.

One of them stops and stares at me. His eyes go wide. He nudges his friend and they scatter like leaves.

I can’t even blame them.

To them, I’m a monster in a leather jacket. A hired blade. A ghost that walks through war zones and leaves silence in his wake.

I finish the bottle and toss it in a trash bin already overflowing with someone else’s regrets.

Petru will want to talk. Throw a party maybe. Show me off like some exotic animal that just brought down a senator. He’ll have his lies ready. His offers. His strings.

But I don’t belong to anyone.

I never have.

The truth is, I’m tired. Not in my bones. In my head. My soul, if I’ve still got one. There’s a weight I can’t shake lately. The kind that makes me wonder what happens when all the contracts run out.

What’s left for a man like me when there’s no one else left to kill?

The street curves, leads toward the Spine—Petru’s fortress dressed up as a palace. I can already see the glow of it in the distance. Hear the pulse of music, the fake laughter.

He’ll have something new waiting. He always does.

I straighten my spine, square my shoulders, and walk into the lion’s mouth.