1 Prologue

"What do make of this, Vix?"

Rain pattered gently to the pavement as Vixen Bache regarded yet another gruesome tragedy taken place snug in an alleyway. To her side stood her partner, his somber question still lingering in the air as he rested a single hand to her shoulder.

"Yep, he's totally dead."

Silence reigned as the comforting hand was removed and replaced with a side-eye.

"So, you graduated from the most prestigious law enforcement academys on Kepler--"

"Your point?"

"His head, Vix. His head is blown off his goddamn shoulders."

Blown was an understatement. The strewn body before them was nothing short of a rolled up tube of toothpaste. Brain matter, shards of bone and bloody visceral coated the space where a noggin was meant to be, and the cadaver itself was bloody-near flattened. Vix simply nodded.

"I ain't wrong though."

"I asked for an observation beyond the obvious, you twit." DA1, experienced patroller as much as he was overworked, gave Vixen a stare that was anything less than cordial as he crouched down with his scanner. From Vixen's knowledge, the officer worked day in and out for his position, sacrificing everything short of the shirt on his back.

Yet in a week, she'd be his superior.

"Blast damage, maybe a FC due to the damage. There's no leftover Freq, so it can't be suicide--"

DA1 abruptly cut her off with a single wave of his hand. "You're telling me an FC flattens a whole body? Bullshit." He snapped a few images with the scanner, and rose back up as the hum of it signaled they were going through. "FC's have the damage of a damn pistol."

"Like you'd know," Vixen snapped back. "Your weapon percent was in the damn 20s, 80 too low to even know what a rifle is."

"Vix, you're in the goddamn negatives."