Blood Fever

CHAPTER ONE “THIS STOP IS D4 PRIME. Passengers for D4 Prime, please disembark in an orderly fashion. This line will now run express to the central planets. On behalf of TS Cruisers, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for any delay in your journey. Thank you for traveling with us today.” Mich Janelle bit back a groan at the timestamp on her comm unit. D4 Prime’s travel hub time was currently half ten. She was late—really late. The sweat beneath her armpits and her hot, tacky skin raised her ire. Lack of sleep lowered her tolerance. To everything. It put her in quite the feral mood. Not a great mental state for a job interview. Fleetingly, she thought about rescheduling. TS Cruisers were notorious for running over their posted arrival times. Her hopefully soon-to-be boss would understand. She needed this job. It was the only interview she’d been able to secure. If she didn’t get it ... she shook the dark thought away. She’d get it. She had to. Grabbing her bag from the overhead bin, she hustled for the exit. D4 Prime wasn’t a big world and she’d arrived at an awkward hour. With luck, she’d get through security quickly. Lack of funds meant she’d have to walk, adding further to her delay. Moving rapidly down the kinked jetbridge, she eyed the rips and worn edges with unease. It allowed dull sunlight into the gloomy interior. D4 Prime had been hit hard in the initial bombardments and it seemed the local planetary officials hadn’t started drip-feeding the rebuild money into this sector yet. Hardly surprising. In the aftermath of the war, most worlds had prioritized government spaces and medical hubs. Mich stepped over a particularly nasty gash in the bendable smart plastic and headed into the travel hub beyond, pushing past the stragglers, her temper simmering. When her position in the security check line didn’t move for twenty minutes, she was ready to boil over. She felt every tick of passing time as a pounding beat counting down to her empty future. At last, she arrived at the stained counter, held out her wrist for her identification chip to be scanned and glared at the green-suited security official. He eyed the projected hologram of her face then tilted his long nose up as he made a show of carefully examining her actual features. She mashed her lips together to prevent complaints about his time-wasting and forced a smile. “And your purpose for traveling here today?” His wrinkled face scrunched as his gaze tracked the Red Alert line on her ID profile. Mich knew what it said. She gritted her teeth. “Job interview.” “Uh-huh. And your permission to travel?” “Is right there on my hologram, as you can see.” He sneered. Leaning closer turned his gray skin shiny under the harsh overhead light. “We don’t want troublemakers here.” She bit back the response she wished she could give and forced out, “Yes sir.” Time ticked away in the back of her mind. “The name and location of your interview?” She sighed. “Daeh’s Private Investigators Agency. The interview is for a detective role with the owner, Steven Daeh. And I’m very late.” The security officer grinned, exposing sharp teeth. “Good luck with that. You have a temporary visitor pass. You don’t get the job, you depart D4 Prime within three days. Understood?” “Understood.” He gave her another long, searching look that was probably supposed to be intimidating before waving her along. Mich ran past milling passengers and burst out of the hub into the weak natural light of D4 Prime’s distant twin suns. “You need a ride?” Mich glanced at the local woman sitting inside her hovering taxi. Her gray skin appeared almost silver under the gloom of the vehicle’s interior, and her white hair held an oily sheen. Not a flattering light for anyone. Not that the sunlight outside was any better. D4 Prime was a world that never saw darkness and it showed in the depressed facial expressions, gray-tinted skin and heavily shadowed eyes of its native inhabitants. Unable to afford the fee, Mich shook her head at the driver. Instead, she raised her eyes in search of a street sign. She spotted one, obscured by holographic graffiti. Hell’s spawn. She called up her comm unit’s holomap and plotted a course, feeling more time ticking away. She turned left and moved off at a fast trot. #