The trip to Tuscan from the space station Astracus only took about twelve hours. In terms of space flight, it was just a short jump away. The ship’s intercom alerted him when they were in close proximity to the planet, and he walked back up to the nav-cockpit and had a seat. He reached out to toggle the display on the front monitor, which switched back to a “windshield” view and he gripped the controls.

The planet was now in sight, and he took over control from the autopilot and eased it a few degrees to enter the atmosphere at a straight angle. The planet grew larger and larger in the viewscreen until he could see the ground sprawling out in front of him. He adjusted the angle so that he was no longer flying straight towards the planet and headed West. According to the onboard map, Romagna was just over a thousand miles in that direction.

Tuscan was a beautifully lush planet, full of green fields and wonderous forests. Much of this had been artificially manipulated of course, and from what he had heard in the past, had taken a good twenty years or better to terraform the planet into the state that it was in today. They had first worked to tweak the atmosphere, and then a whole army of robots owned mostly by the rich Iscallion crime lords had worked to plant the trees and grasses that now covered the planet.

Lupis continued to fly over the dreamlike nighttime landscape. The stars were blanketed across the heavens above and the tidal locked moon, which loomed gigantically in the sky provided enough light that this world seemed to be in eternal twilight, even in the dead of night. There was a beautiful reddish pink swirl streaking through the sky from the edges of the Strawberry Cloud Nebula. It truly was a magnificent sight to behold, and he was so captivated by the landscape, he barely even registered when a little light on the console began to flash warning of the proximity to his destination.

The bounty hunter eased the spacecraft’s speed as a large body of water and a quaint little village sprouted up in a picturesque little valley below. It looked like a town out of time, hidden here on this little planet. No modern technology could be seen from the air, just sprawling fields and vineyards that stretched inland away from the coast that the village was nestled within. In the other direction, a great sea stretched out, and caught a breathtaking reflection of the Strawberry Cloud Nebula overhead, and the waters literally sparkled like red and pink diamonds in the moonlight.

Lupis cut off the planetary thrusters and slowly made a loop around the village, which was much larger than he had assumed from the air. It took a few minutes to pick out a spot to land on the outskirts of the village, somewhere where he would not be disturbing the cozy cottages and the rolling vineyards. He chose a spot on the edge of a raised treeline, where it would be hard to see the craft on the crest of the hill from the town below. The ship’s landing gear engaged, shuddered once as the craft descended onto the grass and came to a stop. Lupis flipped off the engines, keeping only the auxiliary power on, and rose from his chair.

Though the scene outside was of an enchanted nightscape, the Rhapsody was still clocked to Titan time, which was about 1300 hours, and thus, the interior lights were still on the day cycle. As he folded his ears back and slid his helmet back over his head, he used the internal Net-Comm to communicate to the ship to synch with the local planet’s day-night schedule, and a moment later, the lights darkened leaving only the dimmed running lights on.

Lupis walked to the rear of the ship and opened his armor case. A few moments later he was stepping into the familiar second skin once again. He next took his weapons off their chargers. He had two Roland model Series III E-machine pistols, full ammo. These went into the holsters hidden inside the leg armor. A folding bullpup Roland assaultmaster rifle compacted to the size of a pistol went into a compartment on the armor’s back. The last weapon was his energy sword, which he attached to his hip. He was now ready to go out and gather some information.

Before he left, he set the ship’s scanners to gather some various information for him, terrain, lifeforms, atmosphere readings, just the standard stuff. He synched his helmet’s Net-Comm to the Rhapsody so he could peruse this data later and headed towards the back of the ship. He pressed the button that opened the cargo hatch and extended the ramp, which opened with a pneumatic hiss. He then stepped out onto the alien planet.

* * * *

Lupis walked through the doorway and into the darkened structure. He pulled out the collapsible torchlight and turned it on, since there was no light within. The spear of light penetrated the darkness, and he began to look around. Next, he brought out the Spectroscope scanner and tried to get some readings from this strange building. As the circular indicator began to show the percentage of the scan that was complete, he kept his eyes and nose open for any signs of life.

An eerie stillness hung in the air. It was almost more than just an absence of life, it was more like some form of sound dampening, the Titan thought, though how and for what purpose he could not guess. An unnerving feeling crept over him as he walked through the tomblike building. It took much longer than normal for the Spectroscope to complete its scan, but when the circle finally completed and showed one hundred percent on the screen, he opened the menu to get a detailed readout.

The readout on the small screen on the handle was disappointing, but interesting. The scanner could not identify the metal the building was constructed from and seemed to be a new alloy altogether. There were traces of silicon carbide, Rhodium and artificial nanolaminate alloys. Far beyond Titanian technology. There was only one signs of life within a hundred-yard proximity, and this seemed to be classified as animal and not intelligent as deemed from the beta waves present in the atmosphere. Armed with this knowledge, he clipped the scanner back to his pants and began to move deeper inside.

The ground floor had nothing much in the way of scenery. It looked much like a large hanger, devoid of any furniture. When he shined the beam of light on the walls, he was surprised to see the same pattern of alien texts appearing on the interior of the building as well. He decided to take out the scanner again and aimed it at the writing to see what the scanner could make of it.

As it turned out, the scanner processed the alien looking symbols in about thirty seconds. It was a largely mathematic binary based language, but a highly articulate one. Where Titanese had only around two-hundred thousand words, this language had at least two million, with twice as many variation components. The bounty hunter scanned a few areas and transmitted the picture scans to the datapad for analysis.

As the datapad was translating based on the information from the scanner, Lupis decided to keep moving. He saw a small alcove in a corner and recognized it as a sort of mag-lift. There was a definite rail going higher up into the structure, but no car to get inside. Once he stepped onto where the platform should be however, he quickly saw why. Some form of antigravity propulsion caught him up and began to quickly lift him up the shaft. As the Titan ascended through the air he was surprisingly at peace with the whole thing, despite normally being an obsessive control freak.

When he reached the top, he did not smash into the ceiling but instead his upward momentum stopped so that he was simply floating. He stepped onto the next floor and kept going. Some things were better not questioned too deeply he concluded.

Inside this new room he was in, unlike the empty downstairs, there was all kinds of consoles and machinery. A ring of windows lined the walls creating a panoramic view outside the tower. He made his way to the closest window and could see a large island in the distance from here. Now that he had a higher view, this island did not look too far to swim to at all. Perhaps that’s where the missing survivors went to. There weren’t many other options at this point.

Lupis shined his light around the room, wishing that the morning would come so that the sun would shine in through those generous windows and melt away some of the creepy long shadows. As he made his way to examine some of the equipment panels lining the room, he felt a peculiar sensation tickling the back of his mind. For some reason, this strange almost itching sensation, like the distinct feeling of being watched only magnified, felt familiar and almost inviting.

Lupis spun around and shined the torchlight around the room, as the feeling grew more intense, he was now sure that someone was watching him. Only there was not another Titan, or any other Titanian-like creature to be found. And then the globe of light that his torch provided fell upon a Titan sized tank in the corner of the room. At first it appeared empty, until he looked closer and saw a relatively small shadow within.

“Come to me Titan. We are old friends now. Your new mission is to come towards this tank.”

He heard the voice as clear as a bell, though not from sound vibrations in the air. His peripheral vision began to flash hypnotically, like static snow.

“Hurry now, we don’t have much time to waste! Break this glass so we might both live!”

“I’m coming!” Lupis heard his voice for the first time in his life as he ran towards the tank. Though a nagging feeling called to him from some distant gulf that this was all too familiar, all other motivations had faded into the scenery.

* * * *

The Rhapsody had climate control that kept the temperature comfortable year-round, as did every space station that Lupis had been on. But even so, months of living on stations and in his ship with the processed recycled, carbon scrubbed air grew tiresome, and he hardly noticed until he was out in a real atmosphere once again. He saw a gentle breeze rippling the blades of grass and tree branches and he nearly took off his helmet to enjoy the moment. Here he was in a non-processed environment with a real breeze for the first time in months and he was wearing fully climate-controlled battle armor.

What stopped him even as his fingers were on either side of the smooth helmet was lights in the sky descending. He recognized this immediately as two more ships landing on the other end of the village.

“Zoom” He thought into his Net-Comm.

His helmet’s HUD zoomed in on the ships as they landed. They were not Zenith ships, which was somewhat of a relief but also puzzling. Were they civilian? Ramps descended from the hulls barely having a chance to come to a complete landing first, and his question was answered. Dozens of armed goons came rushing down the ramps and sprinted towards the village.

These were not military, these were Iscallian crime pack gangsters. Now here was a mystery. Why in the galaxy’s suns would they be here rushing one of their own colonies as if rushing into war? Then the answer came to him, and he was ashamed that he did not realize the scene for what it was. There were four major crime packs back in Iscallio, the Barksdales, The Romans, The Slaughterhouse, and the Full Moons. Although there were other gangs and crime organizations across Titan, the four Iscallian crime packs were always competing to control all illicit vice trades in the galaxy. This was likely a war between two rivals going on in front of him.

The only problem with that theory is that his Net-Comm zoomed in on the last Canid to exit one of the ships. His Net-Comm was using Gabriel, the preferred AI for law enforcement officials across the galaxy and had 10 Zettabytes of cloud storage holding every criminal database across the universe. Flanked by four combat armored Titans with E-rifles, a Canid wearing a pinstriped suit and fedora came down the ramp. Gabriel identified this Canid as “Carbone”, the Chieftain and Monocrat of the Barksdale pack.

Lupis brought up Gabriel’s database and used the EEG function to search for Boss Rancor. A moment later the small Rodentia’s file came up and he began pouring through it. Boss Rancor was also an affiliate for the Barksdale crime pack. So, was the pack fighting among itself?

Lupis’s suit was at full power after recharging in his ship, which was good because what he was about to do used a lot of power. He punched a few buttons on his wrist console and brought up the greatest feature on his custom-made Phantasm Model 3 armor. The light began to bend around the armor, at the same time a series of tiny cameras began projecting an image of what was behind the suit onto the front of the suit itself. The end result was that the Titan instantly became nearly invisible to the naked eye, and the suit was equipped with jamming tech that would also make him invisible to most computerized optics and sensors as well.

Lupis fled down the hill towards the village, dying to get a better understanding on what was happening down below. The dynamic servo enhanced combat armor made running at a speed far faster than a normal Titan could achieve nearly effortless and took a fraction of the energy that running at top speed would normally take. In fact, with the assistance of the Class 6 Leviathan armor, which was the heaviest on the market currently and more like a walking tank, soldiers in field tests were able to run for up to six hours without getting winded or tired. So, for Lupis in the ultra-quiet Phantasm armor, energy conservation was no obstacle.

He entered the village from the other end and made his way through the winding narrow streets. As he passed by the little villas, he began to realize something. There were no signs of life. No smoke from the chimneys, no smells in the air of food that had been cooked for dinner, no lights on anywhere. He switched on the Net-Comm helmet’s HUD display and scanned for life, while at the same time switching to infrared. The oppressive moon overhead offered enough light in the nighttime sky to see almost as well as during a cloudy day. But it was not his night vision that he needed the infrared assistance with, but to search for ambient heat in his environment.

Lupis barely paused to do this, he was instead still running at supernatural speeds through the city streets. It only took a few moments to cross the city and he still saw no signs of ambient heat within the walls of the villas he passed. As he grew closer to where the other Iscallians were, he leaped atop one of the houses and began running across the rooftops as the houses and storefronts grew closer together nearest the town square.

“I don’t see any sign of ‘em.” Came an intrusive voice that seemed to crash through the serenity of the village and echoed loudly against the night. Obviously, these gangsters were not concerned with stealth.

“Neither do I. This is crazy, it’s like they all up an’ left.” Came the voice of another criminal goon that came walking around the corner into the bounty hunter’s view.

Lupis strolled to the edge of a two-story building overlooking the town square and lowered to his haunches. He then watched as the remaining troupe of gangsters came into view below. At the head of this gathering was Chieftain Carbone, flanked still by four ominous bodyguards in combat armor. Carbone stopped and lit a cigar before looking around at his troops.

“Well ain’t this a bitch.” Carbone growled as he contemplated the desolate surrounding square. “Rufus, Stitches…you guys see anything on your armor scanners?”

“Naw boss.” One of the armored Titans stepped forward. “There ain’t nuttin’ or no one here.”

Carbone took a few puffs from his cigar before he replied.

“The rest a’ youse go fan out. Try ta find some clues a’ what happened here.”

Nobody moved at first, they all seemed to look at each other, which angered the boss.

“Well, whattya waiten for? Get movin!” He yelled.

The rest of his team reluctantly did as requested and spread out disappearing into the village. Lupis watched with interest at the new development. So, the boss of the crime pack was as clueless as to the whereabouts of the villagers as he was. He moved quickly to the other side of the rooftop, dropped down silently, and began shadowing a pair of gangsters as they passed below.

They entered a house and Lupis waited for them to wander in further before following inside. Their torchlights searched the rooms as they moved, and the house was significantly darker than the moonlit garden out front. Besides a few patches of moonlight coming in through the open windows, there were no other lights within.

Though it did not matter much to him or his mission what had happened to this village, he had a good feeling that if he meant to find these cultists and the objects that they made off with, his search would begin right here. Somehow, the fate of these villagers would probably turn out to be linked with the ones he was truly looking for. They would probably turn out to be some kind of evil death cult, didn’t they all turn out that way? He figured they probably took the villagers and used them for some nefarious ritual sacrifice.

“There’s nothin’ here. It’s like they all just got up and walked away.” One of the mobsters said incredulously.

“Don’t be stupid. Where would they go?”

“I dunno, but they ain’t here and I don’t see any signs of ‘em.”

Lupis moved to the side of the door to avoid the pair as they made their way back out of the doorway he had been standing inside. He remained after they left, waited for a few minutes until he heard them turn a corner and travel further down the street, and then dropped his armor’s cloak to preserve power. They had not found any clues, but his armor’s sensors did, and crossed the room and entered the small kitchen to further investigate.

Lupis knelt and passed the room through his spectrometer examining the electromagnetic spectrum along with UV and infrared. There was residue of a strange oily substance on the ground. It was a sticky membranous mucous, that his internal memory banks could not identify. He then ran the molecular composition from his scan through his Net-Comm and again found no known matches across the entirety of the Titan-Net. He thought over the situation for a moment before changing tactics.

Instead of attempting to identify what it was, he instead locked his armor’s sensors onto the unique composition signature and did a scan for it. Sure enough, his armor’s sensors lit up. Whatever this stuff was, there was a lot of it, and it seemed to be leaving a trail out the door. He smirked underneath the helmet and moved to follow his new trail, thrilled to see what it would lead to.