PixiePunk #1
by
Size: 6.00 x 9.00 in
Pages: 286
Size: 6.00 x 9.00 in
Pages: 286
Pages: 286
Welcome to Hub!
Just a few simple rules apply:
1. Never Steal from Dragons
2. See Rule #1
3. Never Work for Dragons
In Hub, a city of treachery and deceit, Gelsey, a pixie, is one of the best thieves around. When a smash and grab assignment turns into a job interview with a powerful dragon, Gelsey finds herself a part of a crew including five more of the best criminals Hub has to offer.
Her crew includes Silai, a con artist with a deadly secret. Kelthar, a mage who’s bent on self-destruction. Aikila, a smuggler set on avenging her father's murder. Nyx, a hacker coming off a busted run, and Lorcan, a mercenary whose child is being held hostage. The dragon pulls all their strings, forcing them to accept an impossible job: break into a fortress nobody in all of Hub’s long history has ever cracked. And if they fail, they’ll end up dead one way or another.
A wild mix of fairy tale and Cyberpunk that hits all the marks of classic crime capers. Reads like Elmore Leonard and Neil Stephenson playing D&D in a pixie-infested bar and having the time of their lives way past last call.
Kat Richardson, Bestselling author of the Greywalker novels
Dugan weaves an excellent heist story by blending the fantasy, cyberpunk, and even noir genres. The world building is top notch, including the lore which uses familiar creatures, but in new ways. This is the book for you if you enjoy cyberpunk, urban fantasy, heist stories, or any combination thereof!
Bishop O'Connell Author of American Faerie Tale series and Two-Gun Witch
The first rule of the Hub is never steal from dragons. The second
rule is, see rule number one. Gelsey repeated this to herself,
pushing her wings for every drop of speed as she dodged
through the warehouse rafters, avoiding targeted EMP blasts from the
Clan Caerlux guards below her. Granted, hitting a six-centimeter flying
target made aiming difficult. She swerved as a blast struck close by,
causing her cybernetic wings to cut out.
Gelsey’s stomach lurched as she fell, tumbling toward a stack of boxes
and the shouting kappa guards. She pulled her fléchette pistol from the
holster and fired a spray of micro-darts at the closest guard. The kappa, a
meter of slimy, mottled green reptile, ducked into its craggy shell. The
darts grew as they flew, no longer affected by the magic that allowed
pixies to shrink their possessions. The darts impacted the kappa’s back
with a multitude of explosions.
A large crack appeared in the shell as the
target screamed in pain. One down.
By design, the mechanical aeronautic restart on Gelsey’s wings
rebooted the software before she smashed into the boxes. The wings
unfurled, swooping her out of the path of yet another blast. Amateurs.
They should use something heavier than EMP cannons if they were
trying to kill a pixie. Gelsey whizzed between two rafter supports and
through a tangle of old spider webs.
Landing softly, she wiped the webs off her goggles. She needed a
moment to survey the room while the guards peered into the dim
recesses of the rafters for her.
Using her enhanced vision, she searched until she spotted the
doorway her client had sent her to find. The air vent above the door
checked out as per the plans. Clan Cerelux guards shouldn’t be in a ware‐
house in this part of the Quad, not to protect a low-rent stash house. The
whole thing smacked of a setup.
The gig had been advertised as a standard crack-and-grab job to steal
a piece of nanotech that someone in the Dregs wanted. At ten thousand
glint for the run, this tech was a must-have item for somebody. In Hub,
everything’s value came down to how much glint a customer was willing
to pay for it.
The kappas below ran in circles, randomly firing into the darkness of
the elevated roof. Turtlemen weren’t known for brains, though they were
loyal to a fault and tough to kill. She’d fly circles around them. If they got
their claws on her, they’d kill her. Luckily, these were just street-level
goons and not enhanced mercs, like most of the dragon clan’s guards
were.
Gelsey took off, once more darting between the rafters, studying her
surroundings until she found a workable diversion. Across the room the
electric panel came into view, solving her problem. She sighted her pistol
and gently squeezed the trigger, firing a volley of darts. Shards of metal
burst from the panel in a geyser of sparks, as the explosive projectiles
found their mark.
The warehouse plunged into darkness and disarray. Well, for the
kappa, anyway. A couple of enhanced mercs and this would have been a
whole different dance.
The silicon array that had been fused to her cornea increased the
existing illumination. With the power out, the darkened maze of stacked
pallets glowed in a soft amber. Flying in reduced light could be chal‐
lenging given the inability to pick out fine details like wires or glass
panes. Ending up flattened against a window like a wayward sparrow
would make her the butt of every joke in the Quad.
The warehouse was a front for the nanotech dealer they had paid her
to rob. Pixies by nature had sticky fingers, and Gelsey had climbed to the
upper echelon of the Quad’s thieves. The wetware she rocked helped. Not
only that, but other thieves couldn’t match her brains or street smarts.
Gelsey had learned her skills from a life spent in the worst district in Hub.
The Dregs
