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  “Right! At ease!” Warden Coates snapped at them as he held out a hand for one of the gray-suited staffers to pass a data-pad to him. The warden was a small man, constrained and wound-up like a spring, with a small peaked cap on which was a singular gold star. He wore the gray suit of a staffer but had a gold band running down the lapels and arms to indicate his position.

  “The results of your recent training exercise have been analyzed, and I can say that they were…interesting,” he said in a slightly more normal voice, but Jezzie still winced. What was interesting to the Warden might mean atrocious to anyone else, she thought.

  “Hiu! Farnham! Gigi! Cready!” he called out a list of names from the pad, ordering them to take a step forward from the throng until almost a third of their number—ten people all told—stood in a line in front of him.

  “Back of the gymnasium, hop to it!” He pointed for the group to move, which they did, quick-marching to the opposite wall and once again reforming into a line.

  Oh no… Jezzie had a bad feeling about this. It was never a good sign if you got singled out by the warden.

  It turned out that she was right.

  “Outcasts,” the Warden sighed melodramatically. “Do you know why they call you that?”

  It was a rhetorical question clearly, and thankfully no one actually dared to answer the warden.

  “It was a joke.” He looked up at the group that he hadn’t called out, ignoring the ten men and women that had Cready in their number. “The Marine Commandant told me to call you that, because you were the dregs of society. The unwanted. The last-chancers.”

  Wow. Great pep-talk, Warden, Jezzie glowered.

  “But instead, I took that name and I have endeavored to create something…magnificent.” A rare smile from the warden’s face, and Jezzie strangely found herself feel a shiver of pride at that. If she had done well enough to make even the horrible and mean little Warden Coates proud, then wasn’t that a good thing?

  “You, my schlubs, were hated and reviled by everyone,” the warden continued, apparently crowing with glee at the thought. “The rest of the Marines thought you would be no good. The Justice and Defense Department thought you were no good. The people of Earth turned their back on you.

  “Only I have put my faith in you. In what you can be. Other people might see you as the Outcasts, but I call it a badge of honor! Let yourselves be different! Let everyone look in fear and envy at what you can do, above and beyond any other!” The warden snarled and goaded them, his throat swelling with passion, before taking a deep sigh and standing back, as if worried that he might explode. When he next spoke, his voice was soft and serious.

  “And I can say that in many ways, my faith has been rewarded. Everyone here—” He spoke to the group in front of him, of which Jezebel Wen was part of. “—have been proving me right. You have excelled at your training and your studies. You are becoming the sort of fighting force that I had envisioned when I first proposed this idea to the Rapid Response Fleet. However…”

  The warden half-turned to include the line of ten other Outcasts that he had separated against the back wall. “There are some of you who are not performing to the standards which I expect.”

  Jezebel could swear that she could see the flicker of fear spread through the ten people standing there.

  “Farnham. Gigi. Cropper. Step forward,” the warden barked at them, and the four adjunct-Marines snapped to attention, one step in front of the others.

  “As you all know, we observe and collate every iota of data. Your physical performance, your mental stamina, your proficiencies with weapons or Marine procedures…” Warden Coates said. “And all of these ten people here have been falling behind.” There was a pause, and Jezzie’s thought chimed with everyone else’s in the room, even if she did not know it.

  What punishment was going to come for this?

  “Schlubs, I need you to understand one thing. That your success or failure—my success or failure—depends on your ability to perform. To perform as an individual Marine and as a group. If you cannot do that, then your failings are bringing down the rest of the Outcasts!” he said tersely, berating the ‘failures’ in front of their comrades.

  “You three?” the Warden looked at Gigi, Cropper, and Farnham. “You’re out. Collect your things. Return all Confederate Marine property to the lockers and await immediate deportation.”

  “What?” the adjunct-Marine named Farnham—a youngish man in his thirties with a good-looking, if slightly babyish face—burst out. “But, Warden sir, I can do better—” he started to say quickly.

  “SILENCE!” Coates roared at the man, and Farnham immediately shut up as if slapped. There was a tense moment as everyone watched Coates watching the three, wondering what would happen, until the warden just cleared his throat.

  “I thought I told you three to get your things and get off my base?” he said to them, and the cold realization hit. Yes, they had really just been dismissed from the Outcast training program, which meant for most of them a life sentence on Titan, never to see Earth or any green and growing thing ever again.

  “But—” This time it was Cropper, a larger woman, who was frantic. Jezzie couldn’t really blame her, as when your only option was dying frozen and alone on a blasted ice-moon far from home, you might as well try to argue your case, right?

  But Coates was having none of it. Without pausing, his free hand blurred and there, in its place, was the small hand-held controller that he used to—

  “Ach!” As the warden hit the dial, the three would-be Titaneers fell to the floor, writhing in agony. It’s the chip we all have in the top of our spinal column, Jezebel Wen knew, feeling suddenly hyper-sensitive of that spot at the base of her neck. They had all been injected with the micro-control chip, which was apparently a tiny drone, following their blood vessels to where the spinal column met the largest nerve cluster in the human body. Through it, Jezebel Wen knew—because she had experienced it herself—crippling electric shocks pulsed straight through the middle of the body, able to cause a minor discomfort or completely paralyze.

  It was the paralyzed, drooling option that Coates went for this time as he stood over the three twitching bodies. Now it became clear what the gray-suited staffers were for, as they hurried forward at a nod from Warden Coates to pick up the twitching, rictus bodies and carry them out of the gymnasium.

  “Let that be a lesson to all of you,” Coates called out. “You all need to perform better, but you six especially…” He frowned at the remaining failures, of which Solomon was one.

  “So, because you six seem to be unaware of what it takes to be a Marine, and to be an Outcast Marine, I will leave you with a small lesson.” Coates hit the dial once more, and the remaining six failures all gasped and stumbled, before straightening up. The shock that he gave them wasn’t as crippling as the one that he had delivered to the dismissed Outcasts, but Jezzie could well imagine how painful it must have been. The six that stood there were twitching and shaking as they attempted to maintain their stances at attention. The combat specialist saw beads of sweat on Solomon’s brow as he gritted his teeth.

  “Pain will make you better, Outcasts. Struggle will make you better. Better than you allow yourself to be!” the warden barked at them, turning on his heel and stalking back out of the gymnasium as their lesson resumed, leaving the six still being shocked behind him. Jezzie saw Doctor Palinov hesitate where she stood, looking at the retreating back of Warden Coates and then back at the six men—did she focus on Cready specifically?—before she, too, turned and hurried after her superior officer.

  Oh hell, Jezzie thought, breaking into a jog to get to Solomon’s side as soon as the green light flared over their door, which signaled the start of their training.

  “How bad is it?” Jezzie hissed as she held up the sparring gloves in front of Solomon once more.

  Their lesson today was simple combat techniques, with all of those assembled—both the six failures and the twenty-od
d ‘successes’—practicing or trading blows in pairs.

  “Had worse,” Solomon grunted, his thin face still tense and with a waxy sheen of sweat that wasn’t just from the sparring lessons.

  Coates was keeping the electric shock running on them, Jezzie realized, as she spared a look at the other five members of the disgraced, who all seemed to be in a similar state of agony.

  “Hyurgh!” Solomon threw a punch, clearly meaning to capitalize on the moment that Jezzie was distracted with the other shocked Outcasts. But Jezzie was a combat specialist, and before that, she’d had a lifetime of sparring and fighting in the streets. Solomon was quick, but she was quicker, especially now that her commander was also battling muscle spasms and central nervous system pain. She stepped back with ease and raised the training pad once again.

  “Nice try, bigshot,” she said, watching the man move as he took another swing at the offered pad this time. The pain was slowing him up, she saw, but he was resisting it remarkably well, keeping his eyes focused on her and what she was doing. This time, she accepted the blow on the fist-pad, and then swung her own other hand and strike-pad out as if it were a retaliating punch.

  Smack! Solomon was supposed to duck it, rolling either forward or back on his hips, but he batted the attempted, lazy blow with his right forearm, and instead shot out a jab with his left, back at the pad.

  Thump. A good, solid jab, but that wasn’t what this training exercise was about.

  “Nice idea, champ, but keep your mind on the parameters,” she said, raising the pad once more and preparing to swing with her other fist again. A simple agility and counter-strike exercise, which she would speed up until Solomon’s body memory was able to duck and counter-strike at lightning-fast speeds.

  That was the plan, anyway.

  “Screw the parameters,” Solomon hissed through bared teeth, not striking out at the offered ‘target’ pad but instead blocking it by stepping in with his left forearm.

  “Sol, what are you…” Jezzie was already on the returning, lazy counter-strike when Solomon blocked that with his right forearm and raised his foot to kick forward at Jezzie’s chest.

  “Hey!” The woman jumped back easily, out of the way, but Solomon kept coming, this time swinging with his lead right arm in a powerful roundhouse.

  It sailed harmlessly in front of Jezzie’s face, inches from her nose as she dodged the easy to recognize, broadcasted blow.

  “Sol!” she snapped again. They weren’t supposed to be doing full sparring yet. It was supposed to be practice moves.

  Another wild jab with Sol’s left, and this time, Jezzie met it with her own practice pad, already anticipating the uppercut which Solomon was sure to follow with, turning on her hip and dropping her shoulder so that she stepped inside his blow and gave him a hard shove with both hands on the chest.

  “Oof!” She was stronger than she looked for a slight Anglo-Japanese woman, and Cready had been caught off guard. He slipped his footing as he stumbled backward, before landing on the floor with a heavy groan.

  “What did you do that for?” Solomon gasped in pain, which Jezzie thought must be coming from the electrifying chip in his neck, not the fall.

  “Get it together, Cready,” Jezzie said, a little out of breath. She offered him her fist-pad for him to grab, but he resolutely ignored it as he stood up on his feet again. “You can’t afford to stand out from the crowd right now,” she murmured to him, but his heavily shadowed eyes told her that he didn’t want to hear it.

  “What does it matter anyway, right?” he muttered back at her. “You know Arlo smuggled a weapon into the last training mission, right?” he admitted.

  “What?” Solomon had never mentioned that, and the ‘Break and Enter’ session had been almost a week ago now!

  “Yeah. Just to try and intimidate me, I think. But one of these days, he’s going to try and kill me for sure.” Solomon’s face was a mask of fury. “I’ve got people here who want me dead, and Coates will find any excuse to bust me back down to convict, for sure.” He looked exasperated and upset. “And I know for a fact that my test results can’t be that bad. I’ve been acing the study lounge, and the command lessons.” He appeared to be working himself up into a fit of rage—another thing that Jezzie thought wouldn’t help his chances.

  “Sol, calm down. Think. So, the warden is picking on you, right? Think it through. What are you going to do about it? How are you going to beat him at his own game? Use some of that amazing strategy advice you’ve been given in command!” Jezzie’s voice sounded harsher in her own ears than she would have liked.

  I’m annoyed with him, she thought. Maybe too annoyed, but she knew that her would-be Gold Squad Commander couldn’t afford a moment of self-doubt or despair. He was right that the warden probably was picking on him for his past crimes. The warden had declared in front of all of the Outcasts that he didn’t trust someone like Solomon Cready—murderer of his own best friend.

  “You gotta be better. You can’t give him any excuse,” she tried to explain, earning a jagged snort of disgust from Solomon.

  “Change up,” he snapped, looking over to where the nearest sparring partnership had broken up, meaning that it was time to swap fight partners.

  “Hold on, Sol, this is important…” she was saying, but Cready had already stalked over to the next partnership and was starting to square off against one of them, lowering his stance into a combat hunch.

  There was nothing she could do, if she didn’t want to draw attention to Solomon’s erratic behavior, but she saw that the second person of that group that she was meant to fight was already begging off. The Outcast sat on the floor, holding his hand where he appeared to have strained or sprained a wrist.

  “Fine, I could do with some water anyway.” She waved at the man that it was alright, and instead turned to stalk to the water dispensers at the side of the gymnasium. It had become customary to be able to break off a fight for injury or exhaustion, each Outcast being responsible for their own peak physical fitness, until they joined the sparring once again.

  But Jezzie was still annoyed as she got to the large wall-mounted units and took one of the flimsy plastic cups and started filling and refilling the cup until she had quenched her thirst.

  “Wen.” A voice startled her. She wasn’t used to being surprised and thought that she must be angrier with Solomon than she had thought.

  “Yes?” When she turned around, she saw that it was, strangely, one of the gray-suited station staffers who was busy pulling a trolly loaded with water barrels towards the dispensers.

  “Oh, sorry,” she murmured an apology and stepped out of the way. Almost ready to get back to the sparring, anyway, she thought as the staffer knelt beside the wall unit, and with a control pad started to transmit the codes that would unlock its interior workings.

  It was at that point that the staffer muttered something down into his data-pad as he worked, which sent chills of recognition through Jezebel Wen’s spine, almost as if the warden had activated her implanted drone-chip.

  “Boss Mihashi has a job for you.” The staffer didn’t even look at her.

  “Boss Mihashi!?” Jezzie felt as though the station’s gravity had suddenly been turned off, and she was floating in surreal freefall even though she hadn’t moved an inch.

  I came up here to get away from them. There’s no way they can reach me out here…

  “You heard,” the staffer muttered under his breath as he worked, unloading the empty barrels of water to replace them with new ones from the trolley. If any of the other Outcasts even glanced over at them, they would simply see a gray-suited staffer apparently ignoring Adjunct-Marine Wen as she watched him work.

  “But that’s impossible.” Jezzie felt faint in a way that no amount of training could do to her.

  The staffer’s shoulders jumped as he apparently suppressed a chuckle. “You think the Yakuza can’t get off-world?” he asked lightly. Of course Jezzie knew that they could, as they constantly
managed to smuggle weapons, people, goods, and services up and out of Shanghai’s space elevator, even though that platform was nominally under the control of the Chinese Triads.

  But that wasn’t what the man was saying, was it, she thought. This staffer was Yakuza. Like her. Like she had been. She looked at the man now, really looked at him to see that he, like her, was Anglo-Japanese—the Yakuza had let their ‘ethnic purity’ standards slip in the last century or so, as the world had become a truly globalized metropolis.

  Jezzie Wen was also willing to bet, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that were she to pull the guy’s work suit off right here and now, she would find some sort of coiling dragon racing up his body, just as she had a long-bodied Chinese water dragon curling from her left ankle, all the way up her thigh, around her belly, across her back and finally resting its watchful head on her shoulder and neck.

  That dragon was the symbol of the most brutally punishing criminal group in the part of the Confederacy known as the Asia-Pacific Partnership—a cute, catch-all term for the old nation-states of China, Japan, Korea, large parts of Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia—all the way down to the South East Asian islands. The APP, as it was more formally known, was a powerhouse of poverty and industry, with a booming population that controlled half the world’s industries—everything from machining cheap consumables to consuming said consumables in high-rise megaflats.

  Of course, the Yakuza were only one of a number of criminal gangs and syndicates that operated in the APP, just as a whole range of underworld organizations ran the Anglo-American parts of the Confederacy too. The Yakuza ‘shared’—well, savagely fought to the death, Wen clarified—the APP with the Triads, and elements of both the American Mob and the Casa Nostra Families of Europe.