Dawn found Rex already moving. Mounted on bio-camels, he felt like a king—though one beast was barely grown, it already hauled impressive loads.

  A light tug on the reins launched his first desert crossing. Water was survival. Shade before noon. Vigilance against gerbils after dark. Sandstorms weren't common, but when they came, they came as sky-swallowing hurricanes.

  The chief would be drowning in problems for weeks. No bandwidth to track Rex's movements. He'd slipped out with surgical care—Uncle Blacksmith his only confidant.

  Bio-camels were marvels of endurance. Docile, modified, uncomplaining. Twin-humped, seventy-five kilometers per hour top speed, capable of ten days without food or water. Ships of the desert.

  By mid-morning, the murderous sun poured radiation across the dunes. This wasn't even peak heat. Come noon, the sand could fry eggs. Post-atomic humans had evolved resilience far beyond their ancestors, yet this environment still pushed them to the edge.

  Hot. Only hours out and I'm already craving the cold tunnels. Everything's a furnace. Without gene-tuning, this temperature would break me.

  Relatively speaking, Rex held up well. Merchant caravans demanded weeks of acclimation before first crossings. Reckless youths weren't rare—few survived. Never underestimate the trade. Cooling techniques were proprietary secrets, as precious as the maps each Shipwreck family guarded. Capital. Advantage. Survival itself.

  Rex pulled his waterskin, tilted it back. His scorched throat eased. The nearest oasis lay thousands of kilometers ahead—famous for lemons and figs. The lemons fought scurvy, giving the settlement its reputation.

  Long ago, oases warred constantly. Resource conflicts, scorched-earth defeats. Better destruction than surrender. Eventually, restraint prevailed. Limited resources demanded reverence. Many had tried terraforming this world, but Tuhuan's water scarcity made it impossible. Containing the gerbil damage alone consumed all available energy and funds. Green dreams withered.

  Noon found him curled behind a dune, gnawing dry biscuit. Water discipline mattered—dependency killed.

  Damned star. Everyone warned about desert sun. Now I understand. This isn't harsh—it's murderous. He glanced backward. The village will boil with activity. Gao probably takes the chief's seat. Either way, I'll wander a few years, then return for Light-brain's education. Millennium-old aristocratic tutoring—not everyone's privilege. Another gene-tuning reward, and maybe I'll see the stars myself.

  He watered the camels. Until he secured a hoverboard, they were his best partners. Even then, he wouldn't abandon them. Mechanical transport guzzled energy—expensive to maintain. Combined tactics worked best.

  Afternoon sent him forward again. Solitary travel meant loneliness, but he'd adapted. Caravan discipline would suffocate him. Worse, guild protection cost seventeen percent of profits—higher for rookies. Better independent. Better hungry and free. Someday he'd match Chairman Brax himself. Fulfill his mother's dying hope.

  The camel bells carried far. Isolation meant thinking time. Rex figured he could handle fifty gerbils now. But gerbils weren't the real threat—humans were. This was a cannibal desert. His long-light crossbow rode within arm's reach. Machete on his hip. Ceramic blade sewn into his clothes. Paranoid inventory.

  Caution made sense out here, but Rex's preparation ran deeper. The culprit: Shipwreck's Light-brain.

  Millennia ago, aristocratic children had apparently feared kidnapping intensely. Beyond standard education, one course covered improvised weapons, hostage negotiation, escape tactics, emergency medicine. Years of training. No kidnappers materialized, but the skills accumulated. His survival owed everything to that curriculum. He considered himself an expert.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Sparse cacti marked the route. Green only appeared along trade corridors. Desert temperature swings were brutal—self-knowledge mattered. Illness meant weakness. Weakness meant death.

  He'd expected merchant traffic. Days passed. Nothing but gold and blue.

  This afternoon, Rex licked cracked lips, raised his scope, scanned emptiness. Not even a decent rock formation. He muttered, "Should be near the oasis. Where's the traffic? Wait—Chairman Brax warned the chief about pirate gangs. Is that it?"

  Noise.

  Rex hauled his camels behind a dune. Dust clouds rolled toward him.

  Thunder. Thunder.

  Dozens of hover-bikes screamed past, each overloaded with families, drivers haggard with exhaustion. Whatever they'd endured showed on their faces.

  The motorcycle corps. Oasis guards. Usually strutting with power—now fleeing. Can't continue forward. The oasis has fallen.

  Rex wheeled immediately. Darkness swallowed the sky. Three small craft flashed overhead, pursuing the bikes.

  Mother of—fast. Hunting that convoy. If I don't run, I'm dead.

  Rex wasn't stupid enough to spectate. Pirate legends stopped children's tears, froze adult blood. Butchers. Demons. Destroyers. He spurred his camels opposite, maximum speed.

  Two hours at full gallop. Sweat-soaked, chest heaving, Rex counted himself lucky.

  Then sand exploded skyward. A vessel hundreds of meters long descended slowly, belly thrusters scorching the ground. Three figures ejected from its hull.

  No. No way they deployed that for me. These pirates are insane.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  The impacts snapped his attention back. Three armored figures stood in settling dust. The leader's face was exposed—cold eyes assessing Rex. He spoke to his companions: "Excellent. Vital signs strong. Prime acquisition. Age within parameters. Bring him to the ship. We move now."

  "Yes, Commander."

  The other two hovered ten centimeters above ground, speaking Standard—universal, unmistakable.

  Snap.

  An electro-net flew toward him. They really did treat humans as game. Rex's body moved before thought—waterskin hurled at the net, eyes never tracking result, body already sprinting toward his camels.

  The net contracted around the skin, ozone and scorched plastic in the air. The three showed surprise at the boy's reflexes.

  His hand found grenades. Primitive, but functional.

  Crump. Crump.

  Heat waves. The blast pushed them back half a step. Their armor absorbed everything. The leader's force-shield flickered, unconcerned.

  Damnation. How do I fight this?

  Rex cursed, never slowing, pulling bundled vials from his pack, hurling them forward.

  Laser fire shredded the bottles mid-air. Multicolored liquid rained down. White smoke rose from contact points.

  "Toxic acid. High grade. The prey has combat experience."

  The leader's shield held. His subordinates weren't so fortunate—lower-grade protection, joints corroding, movement stiffening.

  Rex abandoned camels and cargo. A leopard in flight. He wouldn't contemplate capture. Slavery meant existence worse than Tuhuan's surface by magnitudes.

  "Defy me? Pathetic."

  The leader engaged. Thin jets lifted him, skimming across sand, banking around dunes, closing faster than running legs could escape.

  Wind screamed. Rex fired the crossbow blind, dropped the weapon to shed weight, nostrils flaring, sucking furnace air, legs pumping.

  Ping.

  The bolt struck the leader's forehead—impossibly—before the shield deflected it.

  The man chilled with near-death. No helmet. A harder strike would have killed. Difficult prey. Perhaps suitable for the master's needs? Must capture alive.

  Decision made, he accelerated, closing again. Rex exhausted, stopped dead, dropped his blade, raised both hands, screaming: "I surrender! I surrender! Don't shoot!"

  Crack.

  Lightning took him. Nerves screaming, darkness swallowing consciousness.

  "Embarrass me? Expect mercy? Learn pirate mercy."

  The leader fired again into the unconscious form. Rex's eyes snapped open, body convulsing, then nothing.

  "Return. Satellites show another wreck distant. Send other teams to raid. Our quota is filled."

  He hoisted Rex, sand exploding beneath his boots, ascending toward the waiting ship. His men followed, ignoring camels and scattered weapons—worthless against their technology.

  Moments later: latches releasing. Body thrown. Consciousness drowning in void. Endless void.