Fated But I Hate Him

Chapter 1

VROK

Syfer Station greets me like a bad habit—warm in all the wrong ways, a stink that clings to skin, and the unmistakable sense that if you're not looking over your shoulder, you’re already prey.

The recycled air tastes faintly of machine oil and cheap smoke.

It's got that burn to it, like someone tried to filter despair and failed. Lights overhead flicker with that terminal buzz—the kind that makes even innocent faces look like they’ve got warrants.

Everything hums here. Not friendly, not welcoming.

Just... loaded. Like the whole station's holding its breath, waiting for someone to twitch wrong so it can exhale violence.

I shift my weight as I stride through the main concourse, boots heavy on grimed deck plates.

I'm too big for this space, always have been.

Seven-foot-two of red-scaled Vakutan muscle doesn't exactly whisper harmless. I know what people see—hell, I built what they see. Shoulders like bulkheads, arms lined with battle scars that weren't stitched pretty, a jaw made for biting more than talking. My golden eyes track every flicker of motion, every twitch, every sudden stillness. Predator’s habits. They never leave you. Especially after what I’ve seen. Especially after Horus IV.

A pair of humans pretending not to stare nearly trip over each other trying to clear a path.

I don’t acknowledge them. Let the myth breathe.

I pass a storefront—plasteel window smeared with soot and desperation. My reflection stares back, distorted and jagged. The jagged part’s accurate.

I keep moving. I’ve got a list of fixers, most of them reluctant, some of them gutless. One or two might have the nerve to talk. All of them know who I am.

That’s the problem.

I knock on the first office, a flimsy sliding door with peeling holo-lettering that promises “Opportunities” like it’s a brand of snack cake. The door scans me, pauses, and doesn’t open. Subtle.

“Tryin’ the polite route,” I mutter to myself. “Cute.”

I hit the buzzer again. Louder.

The speaker cracks. “We’re closed.”

“It’s mid-shift,” I growl. “And your ‘closed’ sign’s on a loop.”

A pause. Then static. Then, “We don’t hire... contractors like you.”

Like me. Right.

I lean in close, let my voice drop low and slow, just to see if I can make him piss himself through the intercom. “If I was here to kill you, you’d already be pieces.”

Another pause. This one longer.

Then nothing.

I back away from the door, not because I’m done—but because I’m not stupid. There’s a camera behind that soot-glass. No sense in earning a station ban for pounding some fixer’s face through his console.

Another rejection, logged and counted.

This is how it’s been for three straight days.

Everywhere I go, doors shut before I knock. Eyes slide off me like I’m a smear they’re hoping someone else will clean up. My reputation hits the room first—like a slap or a scream or a gunshot. Doesn’t matter which. It does the job.

I used to think fear was a tool.

Now it feels like a wall.

I hit three more spots, each one colder than the last. I’m running out of leads, patience, and the kind of currency that buys second chances. Mercenary work used to be simple—problem, weapon, solution. But the problem now is me.

They all know my name. Not Vrok—not really. They know the Collateral King. The Berserker. That asshole. The one who charges first and explains with blood. The one who turned Horus IV into a massacre and made survival look like a curse.

I earned the name. But I didn’t ask for the fallout.

I don’t even know what I want anymore, except to matter. And maybe bleed for something that means more than just not dying.

But mostly?

I need a damn job.

My stomach growls like it's ready to mutiny, and I consider pawning one of my knives. Not my main blade—never. But one of the spares. Enough for food, maybe a night’s bunk. Just long enough to hit bottom a little softer.

I shake the thought. Pride’s a bastard, but it’s kept me alive this long. Might as well let it finish the job.

My comm buzzes. Not a message—an alert.

One fixer left.

The worst one.

I don’t groan out loud, but the air around me sure does. I can feel the station groan with me—like it knows where I’m going.

Don Gnotz.

Old, slick, overdressed, under-loyal. A Glimner crime boss with a talent for staying just legal enough to thrive. I once saw him trade a life for a bottle of liquor and make it look like a business expense

So I go to Don Gnotz anyway.

Because when you’ve hit the bottom, you might as well scrape it loud.

The noodle stall front is still a noodle stall, except the scent of whatever synthetic sludge they're boiling is stronger this time—burned oil and something trying way too hard to pass for pork. The cook behind the counter doesn’t even glance at me.

He just twitches his elbow toward the back like he’s getting paid not to care. Probably is.

I push past the plastic curtain, and the temperature drops ten degrees the second I cross the threshold. The lights inside are low and indirect—like shame, or a bribe nobody wants receipts for. I duck under a rusted crossbeam and step into Gnotz’s private warren.

He’s waiting, of course.

He always is.

Don Gnotz is dressed like he’s about to negotiate trade rights with a planetary governor—slick obsidian suit, lapels like blades, rings fat with gemstones.

His dark green scales gleam, polished like a crime scene that got buffed out too fast. There’s always a fresh cigar in his hand, and it always smells like something he ordered from a catalog labeled "Decadent Regrets. "

“Vrok,” he says, not standing. “What a surprise. I was just thinking it’d been too long since someone tracked ash into my office.”

I don’t smile. “Still hiding behind noodle grease and false walls, I see.”

“Security theater,” he says breezily. “It keeps amateurs guessing. And you’re no amateur. You’re more like a recurring act with a demolition clause.”

“I need work.”

“Mm. And I need a back massage from a Pi’Rell courtesan. We don’t always get what we want.”

I step closer. “I’m not here to trade insults, Don.”

He finally lifts his eyes from the compad in his lap. The expression on his face is the same one I’ve seen right before a bounty hunter makes a bad call—calculated boredom, topped with just enough curiosity to tempt fate.

“No,” he says. “You’re here because nobody else will touch you with a ten-foot plasma rod.”

I say nothing.

He sighs, takes a long drag from his cigar, and exhales the kind of smoke that clings to lungs like guilt.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” he says. “You’re not just dangerous. You’re radioactive. Hiring you is like inviting a bomb to dinner and hoping it’s too full to go off.”

“You used to like bombs,” I say.

“Controlled detonations,” he corrects. “You? You’re a fireworks show on bath salts.”

I lean on the edge of his desk—just enough pressure to make the surface groan under my weight.

“Why?” I ask.

His brow ridge twitches. “Why what?”

“Why not me? Why not this time?”

He barks a laugh—sharp, mean, unfiltered.

“Last time I hired you,” he says, pointing the lit end of his cigar like an accusation, “you ate a guy.”

“There were mitigating circumstances.”

His eyes widen like I just suggested sunshine is a side effect of explosives. “How could there possibly be mitigating—” He stops himself, squeezes the bridge of his snout, and groans. “Never mind. No jobs for you, Vrok. Try the arena. Maybe they’ll let you hit something until it stops breathing.”

“I’m not leaving Syfer.”

That makes him go still.

“I’ll keep asking. I’ll keep knocking. I’ll keep haunting every fixer on this station until someone gives me something to do. You think your reputation suffers now? Wait ‘til the mercs start whispering that Don Gnotz’s turf is where the Berserker prowls, bored and broke.”

He doesn’t blink, but his jaw shifts—just a little.

I press. “Give me a reason to stay busy. Or I start breaking things out of boredom.”

For a moment, there’s only the low hum of the climate control and the faint crackle of his cigar.

Then he sighs—deep, theatrical, and loaded with equal parts irritation and reluctant respect.

“Maybe,” he says, “I do have something for you.”

I don’t move.

He leans back, steeples his fingers over his gut like he’s about to tell a bedtime story for sociopaths.

“There’s a problem on Kaerva.”

“Which one?” I ask. “Slavers? Raiders? Rebels?”

“Large Marj Suppiko.”

I don’t answer. Don doesn’t need me to.

“Thought that name would get your attention.”

“She’s real?” I ask. “I heard she was a ghost. Or a title. Like an inherited identity.”

“She’s real,” he says. “Nine feet tall, meaner than a tax audit, and more patient than a Reaper nesting party. She controls Kaerva and the surrounding moons like they’re personal property—and the worst part? She doesn’t rule with firepower. She rules with reputation.”

He swipes something on his compad, tosses a holo into the air between us. It shows a flayed corpse hanging from a tower. Stylized. Ornamental. Ritualistic in that way only real bastards manage to be.

“This is how she broadcasts failure,” Don says, tapping the image. “Three separate hits. Three different crews. All ended up like that. She’s not just killing assassins. She’s making art out of them.”

“And you want me to be next?”

“I want you to end her.”

I raise a brow. “Alone?”

“No.” He grins—slow, crooked, sharp. “I want you to recruit someone.”

“Who?”

“The Butcher.”

The name lands like a metal ping—echoing in the low pressure of this room.

I snort. “You want me to find the galaxy’s most infamous urban legend and drag them into a suicide job?”

“Call it a team-building exercise.”

I stare him down. “You don’t even know who the Butcher is.”

“Neither does anyone else,” he says, with a shrug. “Which is what makes them perfect. Last confirmed sighting was Novaria. After that—smoke and whispers.”

“You don’t hire whispers, Don. You need a body, a record, something.”

“Or a reputation that’s bigger than the truth.”

His voice turns clinical. Cold. Like he’s describing weather patterns on a storm-world he has no plans to visit.

“This is how she rules,” he says. “She kills myths. Turns legends into jokes. She wants people to stop believing in impossible monsters, because monsters give people hope. If the Butcher shows up on Kaerva and fails? That’s game over. No one resists after that. But if the Butcher wins…”

“Then she breaks,” I finish.

He nods.

“I take it she’s already prepped her stage?”

“She’s waiting,” Don says. “Probably with a front row seat and a live feed. So yes. She’s expecting someone. Might as well give her a show.”

I don’t hesitate.

“I’ll do it.”

He blinks. “Just like that?”

“Sounds like a death worth having.”

He studies me. “You know you might not even find the Butcher. Might get yourself strung up like discount wall art on day one.”

“I know.”

“And you still want in.”

“I’m not hopeful, Don. Just overdue.”

He doesn’t smile, exactly. But the corners of his mouth twitch—like he’s watching a train pick up speed and wondering which part will derail first.

“Alright then,” he says. “Novaria’s your first stop. Try not to punch any civilians unless they start it.”

“No promises.”

.