Episode 1.1

Jiao Tu twitched his nose beneath the black cloth he wore over it. He hated working the Below. His lagomorph eyes were used to the Mid, with its verdant fields and regular cycle of light and dark. The Below remained in a perpetual red twilight, further obscured by patches of radioactive steam released from faulty pipes. And the lower grav made his stomach turn circles within him.

But the worst part of the Below was the smell. Not the open, grassy scents of the farms or even the antiseptic clean of Central. This was a heady melange of oil and corrosion, grime and rotting charnel bound for the reclamators. And just when his nose and stomach adjusted to the mix, an internal vent belched out a new noxious aroma of sewage, chemical waste, or something worse.

A pipe hissed behind him, like the warning breath of a great serpent before it breathed fire. Jiao Tu rubbed at the tip of a long, lopped ear. He would not be here at all if the contract had not been so good—hard creds, half paid in advance. So he tightened the rag around his nostrils and pressed on.

“Lost, bunny?”

A ratling stepped around a curve in the corridor, and he could see more shadowy forms in the vent steam beyond him. No doubt there were more of the pack behind him. Another reason to hate the Below stink. No way this lot could have snuck up on him on a Mid deck. Jiao Tu could smell the body reek of the leader even through his nose cloth. The lights made the ratling’s eyes glow red.

He smiled under his mask and showed his empty paws. “No child of Mama Nuli is ever truly lost, friend.”

The ratlings in the shadows mumbled behind their leader, and he turned back to glare at them. Jiao Tu had confused them with his use of the phrasing of the canine-led Builders’ cult. Good. 

He studied them more openly. In addition to the leader, there were four, maybe five ratlings in front of him. Probably as many again behind him. On an open Mid deck, he could take a dozen unskilled opponents easily. Here, in a narrow corridor where they knew the ground and he did not, he gave his survival even odds. He was not yet ready to take that wager.

Their leader slouched a little more than most ratlings, and he had several fleshy protuberances without fur on his head. One of these oozed blood. Engine sickness, then, and a bad case of it. Jiao Tu would be surprised if most or all of the gang did not share the affliction.

Fear wafted off the leader, causing the lagomorph to frown. The gang had him outnumbered, and Jiao Tu had made no threatening move against them beyond the mere fact of stepping into their territory with a sword on his hip.

What was the ratling so afraid of?

One of the pipes hissed with a sound like a loud sigh. The leader’s eyes darted around, while several of his underlings cried out.

“He’s in league with it!”

“Kill him now!”

Several brandished improvised weapons: wrenches, lengths of corroded pipe, or steel rods. One had begun to whirl a length of chain. Jiao Tu’s paw went to the hilt of his sword without looking.

“Sorry, bunny,” the leader said, his smile showing sharp, yellow teeth. His tone was anything but apologetic. “The lads have to eat.”

A couple of the ratlings snickered. This was it, then. Jiao Tu felt muscles tense under his fur, his body already remembering a thousand other combats before this.

A scent hit him, like chum left too long in a predator’s mug. Then came a whoosh like the release of a pressure-sealed door. Jiao Tu pivoted to his left on instinct, and something rushed past him, tendrils of hot mist streaming around it. The ratlings began to scream. Some ran off. Others flailed their weapons at the enemy shrouded in mist.

No, Jiao Tu realized. The mist was the enemy…