Three weeks passed in a blur of missions, training cycles, and too many hours running simulations in the mercenary guild's back chambers. SynSpec had paid out for the recovered data, two hundred thousand credits, clean and verified. Split four ways, that meant fifty grand each. Not bad for a day's work, though it vanished faster than Kali liked to admit.
In the days that followed, he ran several more ops with the team, low-risk contracts, mostly, but also a few solo gigs as well. He was no longer as broke as when he first set foot in Caladrian, but the climb toward a real ticket was still steep.
And then, there was the exosuit bleeding funds like an open wound. Turner was dragging his heels on the repairs, and every delay seemed to come with a fresh invoice.
After a quick lunch from the synth-meat place near the tramway, greasy and cheap, but it filled the gap, Kali made his way to the Mercenary Guild. Inside, it was packed. The usual crowd, freelancers, bounty rats, adrenaline junkies, and the occasional corporate spec-ops burnout.
He shoved his way past a knot of aug'd-out bruisers arguing over contract rights and headed for the job board.
There were plenty of contracts posted on the guild board, rows of flickering holo-ads promising fast credits and faster deaths. Most were the usual fare: bounty retrievals, security details, smuggling runs dressed up with euphemisms like "logistical insertion." But one listing caught his eye.
High-Risk Target Elimination – 20,000 Credits
Client: Anonymous
Objective: Remove a high-ranking syndicate asset operating within Tanneth-3 in the Canticle Verge.
Details upon acceptance.
Kali's eyes lingered on the posting. Twenty grand was a solid payout, and it wasn't some vague "intimidation" job, the client wanted blood. Straight-up assassination.
Most mercs avoided those contracts. They were magnets for trouble, messy, high-profile, and often came with a side order of planetary law enforcement breathing down your neck. Worse, you didn't always just kill a man. You killed his alliances, his legacy, his protection rackets. And sometimes, those didn't go quietly. Vengeance had a long reach, especially when the target had syndicate ties.
He scrolled past it, eyes flicking across the rest of the listings. Bounties, mostly. They paid well enough but took too long days, sometimes weeks, spent hunting some two-bit fugitive through rustworld slums or backwater mining colonies. And protection gigs? No thanks. Kali had no interest in throwing himself in front of a bullet for some jumpy rich kid or half-drunk trade rep with delusions of importance.
Still, twenty thousand. He glanced at the assassination contract one more time.
He weighed it for a moment longer, then tapped his guild card against the interface. The screen blinked green. Contract accepted.
Less than a minute later, the briefing file arrived, compressed, encrypted, and grim.
Target: Amedeo Rossi
Affiliation: Rossi Syndicate
Location: Tanneth-3, Canticle Verge
Details: Eldest son of the late crime lord Marco Rossi. Poised to inherit leadership of the syndicate. Elimination required prior to succession.
Note: No specifications on method. Discretion advised. No extraction provided.
Kali read it twice, letting the implications settle. Amedeo wasn't just some mid-tier enforcer, he was next in line for one of the oldest crime dynasties in the Verge. A high-profile hit, even if the client insisted on anonymity. No prescribed method meant freedom, but it also meant responsibility, if it turned into a bloodbath, it would be on him.
He stayed at the guild a while longer, watching the flow of mercs and message drones, thinking through the logistics. No backup. No cleanup crew. One shot, in and out.
By the time he made it back to the docks, his mind was already working angles.
His shuttle was where he'd left it, small, angular, patched together from a dozen salvage lots, but functional. After a brief systems check, he powered her up and pinged flight control for clearance. The jump gate to the Canticle Verge was open and available.
Permission granted.
He guided the shuttle out of the docking clamps and into the slow crawl of outbound traffic. Piloting was getting easier, less panic, more instinct. The ship responded well, despite its age, and Kali threaded his way toward the shimmering oval of the gate's event field.
He took a breath and angled in, letting the grav-rings pull him forward. Tanneth-3 awaited.
The jump was smooth, smoother than most. A brief moment of light-stretch and sensory blur, like being pulled through a needle's eye while dreaming. Then the stars snapped back into focus, cold and sharp in the cockpit glass.
Getting to the the Canticle Verge took a while but when he did, it sprawled out ahead of him, an under-policed fringe system orbiting an aging blue-white sun, its planets scattered like bones. Tanneth-3 hung low in the system, a deep green-and-gray sphere wrapped in thick cloud bands and industrial static. On paper, it was a trade world. In practice, it was a holding pen for syndicates, mercantile warlords, and anyone else who preferred their dealings without the oversight of chartered authority.
He ran a scan as he closed in. Civilian traffic was moderate, mostly bulk freighters and courier-class shuttles weaving toward the orbital docks.
The planet grew larger on the scope, mottled with jungle and ash plains, the northern hemisphere choked in smog from old mining cities. Tanneth-3 didn't bother to hide its scars. Even from here, Kali could see the clusters of lights that marked arcologies and criminal strongholds.
He keyed into the planetary net using a burner ID and requested temporary landing permissions under a generic cargo manifest, salvage components, non-critical. No weapons declared. It was a lie, but a common one.
The request was approved after a ten-second delay. No questions. That was the kind of place Tanneth was. If you weren't worth scanning, they didn't care who you were.
Atmospheric entry was rough, typical for planets with weather patterns this volatile. The shuttle rattled as it hit turbulence, clouds streaking past in fast-blur motion. Heat shimmered on the hull. He adjusted course manually, setting his descent vector for Valshier, a port city known for its nightlife, weapon markets, and merc-neutral bars, perfect for disappearing into, if you knew the terrain.
As the shuttle broke through the cloud cover, the city unfolded below, spires of vertical slums stacked like rusted needles, neon veins pulsing through fog, and the flicker of gunfire somewhere in the distance. Surveillance drones drifted overhead like lazy flies. Far off, in the higher districts, he could see the glow of syndicate estates, gated compounds that held wealth, violence, and people like Amedeo Rossi.
Kali guided the ship toward a private dock he'd booked pre-jump, unregistered, cash up front. He felt the landing struts hit tarmac with a dull thud.
Engines powered down. Cabin lights dimmed. The city waited, breathing heat and rain and tension. He checked his weapons, zipped his jacket, and stepped out into the humid, stinking air of Tanneth-3.
Kali was just stepping off the landing pad when his guild card pinged.
He paused, feeling the soft buzz against his forearm through the synth-leather sleeve. A priority update from the client. That was unusual, clients rarely followed up once the contract was accepted. He slid the card out and tapped it to his syncpad, letting the encrypted file decrypt and unfurl.
New Intelligence:
Target will be conducting business in the Wet Plains in approximately 48 hours.
No security details listed.
Location is remote, unmonitored, and ideal for strike operations.
Proceed at discretion.
Kali narrowed his eyes at the screen. Remote meeting, few entourage listed, perfect for an ambush? It stank of inside knowledge. This wasn't random surveillance or scraped syndicate chatter, this was planted information, freshly harvested and gift-wrapped for his benefit.
He stood there for a moment, letting the rain bead up on his shoulders, watching steam rise from the heat vents on the street below. Something about this was off. Whoever had commissioned the hit knew Amedeo's movements intimately, too intimately. That kind of detail didn't come from a casual grudge or corporate grift. This was someone close.
He pulled out the syncpad again and brought up public syndicate records, what little of them were accessible through open nets. Most of the data was filtered, fragmented, and outdated, but enough of the bones were still there.
Marco Rossi.
Deceased.
Founder and long-time head of the Rossi Syndicate. Brutal enforcer turned patriarch, known for consolidating power through precision violence and iron-fisted diplomacy. Revered by allies, feared by rivals.
Survived by three children:
Amedeo Rossi – Eldest, expected heir.
Gian Rossi – Younger son, formerly in charge of enforcement operations.
Corina Rossi – Youngest, known liaison to off-world interests, rumored to have ties to multiple black-market biotech networks.
Kali rolled his eyes in annoyance.
Amedeo may have inherited the name, but he hadn't inherited loyalty, not from everyone. This reeked of an inheritance war already simmering beneath the surface. Someone wanted Amedeo out of the picture before power could officially transfer. A brother, a sister, maybe even a consigliere playing a long game. It didn't matter, not really, not to him.
Let them claw each other to pieces after the shot. He wasn't in this for the drama. He was here for the kill and the credits.
He closed the syncpad and slipped it back inside his coat. He had two days. Enough time to get familiar with the terrain, scout for vantage points, and map out escape routes. The Wet Plains were going to be messy, mud, fog, and wide-open spaces. Perfect for a rifle kill, if you could find the right hill.
He turned toward the transport hub, already planning.
Kill the man. Get paid. Leave before the whole bloody empire cracked open.
Let the survivors clean up the mess.