It was 9923 Empire Time (ET) when Tang found himself landing on this godforsaken planet in a most unceremonious manner. The ship’s descent was rough, jostling him about until finally ejecting him onto the dusty surface below.

Bounty hunter Tang wiped the dust off his pants and glanced around him. He was not the kind of person who would stay down when pushed over.

“Damn it,” he cursed, his frustration palpable in the barren landscape.

The planet stretched out before him, its desolate terrain devoid of life as far as the eye could see. Tang took a slow breath, forcing himself to push past the sting of impact and humiliation. He scanned the horizon the way a seasoned hunter would—methodically, looking for anything that didn’t belong.

A glimmer caught his eye. Not sunlight on rock, but something sharper… metallic. A faint plume of steam curled upward in the distance, too deliberate to be natural.

“Survival pods,” he muttered. Or maybe engines. Either way, signs of people. And where there were people, there were answers, supplies, trouble, or all three.

He adjusted his gear and began walking toward the shimmer, sand crunching under his boots. “First things first,” he said to himself. “Find the punk. Then figure out a way out of here.”

He made it all the way into the town square without hassle, boots kicking up little ghosts of dust as he walked. Once there, he paused, taking stock of the place and mentally sorting through his options.

That’s when a voice crept in from the side.

“Hey, boy,” an old man said, shuffling up to him. “If you need help figuring out how to eat and sleep here, I can show you.”

“Don’t call me boy,” Tang retorted, suddenly aware he was no spring chicken himself. “I’ve got plenty of credits to cover both.”

The old man just chuckled — a dry, knowing sound — and wandered off without another word.

Tang frowned. Then he looked up.

A faint tinge shimmered across the sky, a subtle sparkle like heat haze woven with metal. A security network. A cage in the clouds.

And slowly, it dawned on him why the old man had laughed.

He remembered the stern faces of the men and the looks of pity on the women’s faces in the crowd. Moreover, he noticed a large placard on the side of the square. Its attention grabber, was followed by a list of do’s and don’ts. On top of it, someone had sprayed in large red letters: “Abandon all hope of ever escaping.”

The building itself housed the most popular local bar. There was a promising rumble of sounds coming from inside. Tang entered the bar, deciding he could read the list later, as he had great confidence in his people skills.

Thus, he missed the important warnings: “Don’t ask for credit” and “Payment only in local currency.” When he slammed the door behind him, the placard moved with the wind as if laughing in evil anticipation.

“History rarely begins with glory.
Sometimes it starts with a crash, a grudge, and someone too stubborn to stay down.”
— Tales of Madane

But even after he had received a thorough beating and was working shackled in the mines under the whip of the big fish in the local little pond, he found a reason to smile.

He had found the man he was after.

Now all that he needed was a way to break the chains, get around the mean guards, find the most protected man in this village, grab him, lower the security grid, find a ship that’s space-capable, stay invisible to the space pirate orbital station, figure out where he actually was – this planet was not on any map he had heard of – then map the route home, and collect his bounty.

He was still working on step 1.

***

The mines taught Tang how to keep his head low, but it didn’t teach him how to hold his tongue. Sooner or later, trouble came looking.

It found him when two guards dragged him, half-starved and iron-wristed, into the torchlit square. A gathering was already in progress: scientists and engineers corralled in the center, pirates flanking them, townsfolk lingering at the edges.

At the heart of it stood Radok.

Up close, Tang saw what the others had missed. Radok wasn’t large, nor loud. His presence wasn’t in his fists but in the quiet gravity of his gaze. He spoke of resources, of tools, of rebuilding Madane into more than dust. He spoke of order where there was none, of wealth carved from scarcity.

Tang spat dust and muttered, “Sounds like another tyrant dressing up his greed.”

The guards shoved him forward. He stumbled into the circle. For the first time, Radok’s eyes met his.

“You think I am a tyrant?” Radok asked. His voice was calm, almost amused.

“I think you’re another man with a whip and a plan,” Tang shot back, “and I’ve worked for enough of those to know where it ends.”

A ripple of tension spread through the crowd. The guards bristled, eager to teach him silence. But Radok raised a hand, and the square went still.

“Perhaps,” Radok said evenly. “Or perhaps you are wrong. Time will judge. And maybe you will too, when you’ve seen more than dust and chains.”

For a moment, Tang almost laughed. He was shackled, bruised, staring at a man talking about destiny like it was something you could mine from the ground. But the steadiness in Radok’s eyes unsettled him.

That night, chained in the dark, Tang turned the words over and over. He had called Radok a tyrant. He still believed it. But somewhere, faint as the hum of the grid overhead, another thought gnawed at him: what if this one was different?

Years later, he would know.

Time would change his mind.