Chasm City

Want to strengthen your relationship? Try winning a fight to the death.

It worked for Mava and me.

We’d met on the planet Janest at the Starfighter Academy, assigned as teammates on the same zeroball team. Seven players, one ball, few rules.

She never flaunted the fact that her family was the second wealthiest on the planet. Only the Pels topped them, and they’d founded the colony itself.

Mava tore through the Academy like she owned nothing and had everything to prove. Small in stature like me, she had thick, curly brown hair and enormous dark eyes. I thought she was stunning long before I knew who she was.

I was from the other end of the social ladder, a ward of the Saret Federation Navy. After a murderous royal bloodbath wiped out most of my siblings on our homeworld, they hid me away on a Federation dreadnought. Six years there, the only child among thousands of crew. It was their only way to keep me alive.

At the academy, we’d both tried other partners. It never stuck. We always found our way back, like we were meant to be, circling each other in the same orbit.

Facing two months stuck on campus alone over the summer, Mava saved me.

“It’s one of our smallest houses, Beryn. Bare minimum staff. Plenty of time alone together.”

She could’ve stopped after those last five words. Making love to a beautiful young woman for weeks on end or spending months in a campus dorm room? Mentally, I was already packing.

We took an aircar to the southern continent. Her family’s idea of small was a sprawling beach estate with sixty staff. I learned fast that I’d no talent for surfing. I wiped out spectacularly every time. Mava coasted across the waves like she was half mermaid, laughing whenever she flipped her board.

We explored empty coves, left intermingled footprints in the sand, made love under wide, star-scattered skies. Days blurred into sunburn and salt and the ache of laughter. We sailed her family’s yacht to hidden islands. Finally, I impressed her at something. Horse riding, an old skill that earned me a rare, breathless look of wonder.

***

One morning, Mava bounced onto the veranda, hair still wet from an early swim. “I’m taking you to Chasm City.”

I’d heard of it. Everyone had. Set on the coast, it was the hottest entertainment spot on the planet.

Long before the Saret arrived, an earthquake dropped an area of the plain just inland from the ocean. It left a steaming gash that cooled eventually, sculpting a spectacular cliff face overlooking twisting, hidden depths.

The upper side of the chasm was home to all Chasm City's high-end residential estates. The most expensive were built right on the cliff edge. Others spilled down the escarpment walls, but the steepest parts had been left bare, maintaining its striking appearance.

The chasm dropped four hundred feet below sea level, becoming something… else. Something wilder, darker―almost feral. A true adults-only playground where any entertainment or perversion could be found if the price was right.

Almost respectable close to the surface, it became downright dangerous in the depths.The twisted sprawl of ancient hotels, flophouses, restaurants, drug dens, stim parlors, and multi-sex brothels held more bars than anyone could count.

It was an easy place to flirt with danger without ever actually being in any. The unwary could be robbed or beaten but, if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time…?

The Sentinels rarely solved those murders unless, by chance, a high-profile celebrity died.

Everyone from every level of Saret society visited Chasm City at some point. It was said the city would keep secrets even your best friend wouldn't.

In reality, the death rate was only slightly higher than other Saret cities. Still, the city's sinister reputation lived on. Its ruling council didn't seem particularly disposed to change it.

Mava’s eyes danced as she told me about her first visit at fifteen, gripping her father’s hand so tightly she’d left bruises. “We didn’t go more than a couple of streets in. One level down. Even then, we were shadowed by a six-person security team.

“It was terrifying,” she said, smiling at the memory. “Terrifying and amazing.”

Now, we stayed in her family’s cliff-top townhouse, safe above it all. But Mava didn’t want safe. Safe was boring.

One night, lit by the swirling glow of the chasm’s lights rising like eerie flames in the mist, she turned to me, eyes alive with reckless joy.

“Let’s stay down there,” she said, nodding at the forbidden levels below. “Just one night. One of the old hotels. No security. Just us.”

Every instinct screamed no. Every stupid male reflex screamed “Hell yes!”

I agreed to go.

It nearly cost us everything.

***

Temptation’s Way

The hotel’s lobby wore security like a second skin; layered cameras, armored doors, and staff who looked ready to mix cocktails or break bones as required. I approved.

First thing I did after we checked in was scatter a few hidden weapons around the room, old instincts rising easily. It felt almost comforting, slipping back into my childhood on Taspel, where murder was just a hidden assassin away.

Mava wanted to dress up. I persuaded her otherwise. Advertising wealth or softness here was dangerous. We dressed down, prepared, and slipped into the Chasm depths as darkness swallowed the surface.

The air buzzed with neon and noise. Garish signs flared across every bar and restaurant. Callers out front shouted deals and promises, waving hands or flashing wristbands to hook passersby. Incense and spices thickened the air, mingling with bitebugs attracted to the lights. Crowds pressed close, laughing, shouting, jostling. An infectious riot of sound and color.

Yet, even as I smiled for Mava’s sake, a gnawing unease chewed at my gut. Not from the crowd. Not from the city. From me.

I didn’t belong here.

I shot a glance at her, walking confidently at my side, eyes shining with excitement. She belonged in this world of easy money, unthinking luxury, inherited privilege.

The rich wandered through Chasm City like they owned it, even when pretending to slum. I was a ghost here, a child raised in a steel coffin, a stray plucked from the wreckage of a dead dynasty.

The laughter around me felt sharp, mocking, like knives scraping bone. I tightened my grip on Mava’s hand without thinking, needing the anchor of her presence. She glanced, smiled, squeezed my hand in return. It helped.

Not enough.

I wanted to be strong for her. Protector, partner, not a fraud wearing borrowed clothes. I forced the doubt down, burying it under the practiced calm the Federation had hammered into me. One breath. One step. Then another. Always forward.

We stopped at a couple of bars to wallow in decadence. I sipped water, observing the crowds. Mava drank wine and teased me with sidelong smiles.

The second bar had an open balcony jutting over the chasm’s drop. We leaned against the rail, gazing three levels down where the narrows twined and snaked deeper into the abyss. Lights glittered like a reversed sky, fractured by the mist rising from still active vents.

The crowd thickened, Saret and a dozen other species moving through tangled streets. It was whispered everywhere that if you wanted something forbidden, something twisted, something untraceable, you came to Chasm City.

The air tasted of roasted spices, lust, and secrets.

Dinner came next, at a circus-themed restaurant lit with flickering holograms of alien beasts. Off-world performers twisted through impossible acts while we dined. The food was incredible, the price eye-watering. Mava followed the spectacle with the glee of someone raised in privilege but still able to marvel at it. I found myself smiling, tension bleeding away.

Mava wasn’t ready to call it a night. Not yet.

"Two more levels down," she said, voice bright with mischief. "A club my cousins dared me to visit."

I knew the cousins. I raised an eyebrow. "I’ll guess. Sex show?"

She grinned. "They said I wouldn't dare. So, I have to."

I had everything I could ever need or want in her already. But Mava’s stubborn streak flared. I liked being part of it too much to spoil her fun.

We set off again, following the winding streets along the edge of the chasm wall where the path doubled back on itself, rising and falling with the rough terrain, heading deeper into the maze. Deeper into bedlam.

The club’s entrance was a neon wound against the stone, its garish signs promising things no sane person should want. A bulky caller lounged at the door, sizing us up with a sneer.

"We don’t let kids in here," he drawled. "Come back when you’se hit fifteen, yah?"

I felt Mava stiffen beside me, and a very different version unfurled.

"Mistaken, my man," she snapped, voice dripping pompous venom. "I am Mava Sulen Dal’ Nevel Lir. My family owns a quarter of this city. I am nineteen. Admit us now. And it better be the best seats."

The Caller’s eyes popped. His mouth worked for a second before he scuttled aside, hurriedly ushering us in. Mava paid double for a private balcony near the stage. She cursed his slowness, then tipped him lavishly.

I barely kept a straight face as we sat. She cracked first, dissolving into bellowed laughter.

"Sorry," she gasped. "I was channeling Admiral Pruce."

I leaned closer, grinning. "Worked a treat. We owe the old gasbag a thank-you."

That set her off again, and for a moment, the world outside the club faded, replaced by just us, our laughter twirling together in the drug infused air.

The shows were... yeah. They were something. Something else.

Some acts were erotic. Others seemed designed to confuse more than arouse, especially those involving sex between completely different species. Others felt like watching an alien nature documentary set to bad music.

Strangely, what got Mava most excited were the male-on-male Saret acts. I teased her quietly, mentioning how easily our classmates Elos and Geram would have let her watch.

“Too late.” she laughed.

They already had.

Time passed in a surreal haze of color, sound, and increasingly bizarre performances. When the first act cycled back around, I called enough. We made for the exit.

The caller grinned as we stepped outside. "Hope you have a very exciting evening."

I thought he meant sex.

Wrong.

Dead wrong.

We headed back the way we’d come, crowds thinning, night cooling. Mava sagged against me a little, the wine catching up. She still moved with innate surety, pausing at an intersection to point toward a narrow alley ahead.

"If we cut through there, we’ll shave ten minutes off," her voice low and a little slurred.

I was tired too. My guard slipped. I nodded, following her into the dark.

It was a mistake.

A fatal mistake.

***

Take That Jikal Pel!

The alley looked safe at first glance. Bright pools of light at either end, shadows curling darker in the middle. We strolled happily hand in hand, the hum of the city falling behind us.

Halfway through, a large man stepped from the gloom, blocking the path. He grinned, all broken teeth and bad breath.

"Aw, look at ‘em. Little lovebirds out for a stroll in the moonlight," he drawled.

"Shame you’se picked the wrong alley. Gonna be an expensive night. If’n you’se are smart, you’ll contribute you’se credit disks and jewelry. Walk away. Still breathing."

Mava beat me to it, unleashing a storm of language that would have shamed a Taspel dock whore. The thug blinked, stunned, clearly not expecting it from a petite girl in a little black dress.

"Big mistake," he muttered, voice hardening. "Could’a gone easy."

He snapped his fingers. Two massive men slid from the shadows. A scraping sound behind us warned me even before I turned. Two more, knives glinting in neon reflection.

I glanced at Mava, weighing the odds. No clean escape now.

I dropped to one knee, raised my hands in surrender, voice quavering, trying for terrified.

"Please, sir," I whimpered. "Don't hurt us. You can have everything."

Mava’s head snapped toward me in disgust. "Beryn, you pathetic worm. Try acting like a man for once in your miserable life."

Part of me burned with shame, hearing her taunt, even though I knew it was an act for their benefit.

The other part, the part that had survived a cruelly murderous family and six years aboard a Navy dreadnought?

That part knew survival came first. Let them think I was weak. They wouldn’t think it for long.

The leader threw back his head. Roared with laughter.

"Too late for that, little man. She’ll pay her toll. Hell, she’ll probably enjoy it more than with you. Don’t worry, Sibas here likes boys. You c’n play Mommy too."

He strutted toward me, sure and overconfident. One of his men grabbed Mava’s arm, rough enough to make her stumble.

Big mistake.

She moved fast, jamming her mini shock rod into the man's ribs twice. He collapsed screaming. As he fell, she hit him six times.

I launched upward, hands clubbed together, hammering my fists straight into the leader's crotch. He doubled over with a strangled grunt, and I drove stiffened fingers into his throat. He hit the ground gagging.

I stamped hard on his fingers, trying to shatter the bones before he could rise, weapon in hand.

The third thug hesitated, blinking stupidly at the chaos. Mava ran at him, shock rod sparking, and he panicked, backing straight toward me. I ripped my collapsible baton out, snapped it open, and slammed the small, dense metal ball on the end into his skull. The crack was sickening. I felt his head cave with the strike. Blood sprayed hot across my face, and I knew I’d killed him instantly.

He crumpled without a sound.

Mava ran to the leader, who was trying to use an arm to rise. She jumped straight up and brought both heels down on his straining elbow, Bones cracked under her heels, completely shattered. He screamed in agony and collapsed again. Mava began kicking his head as hard as she could.

He wailed, rolling away, but she was already stamping, furious. Every blow punctuated by a grunt.

"Foul. Rapist. Misogynistic. Incompetent. Prick."

I heard the other two thugs charging, boots slapping against the alley's cracked pavement.

I collapsed the baton again and turned.

The first lunged at me knife ripping. I spun, stuck a foot out. Sent him sprawling.

The second thug swung wildly at Mava, but she slid away, elegantly, like the ballet dancer she was. Twelve years of pas-de-deux and martial arts made it graceful and effortless.

She shocked him once, twice, three times in the chest and legs. As he stumbled, I extended the baton again and cracked him across the back of his knife hand. Metal clattered to the ground. Mava hit him again and again with the shock rod. He screamed and fainted. I collapsed the baton.

Stupidly, the thug I’d tripped scrambled up and charged, knife out. I crouched low, baiting him. He came in fast, thinking I was defenseless. At the last moment, I snapped the baton outward again, aiming for his face. I got lucky, the dense ball smashing into his eye. He dropped like a stone, twitching once.

Mava darted in and kicked him a few times for good measure.

She spun back toward the leader, adrenaline raging through her. With a snarl, she rolled him over and stomped hard between his legs. He shrieked, unable to dodge.

"Take that, Jikal Pel!" she roared, grinding her heel into him.

I blinked, startled by the name. Jikal Pel—the spoiled heir of Janest’s founding family. He’d made my first months at the Academy hell, attacking me with his friends on the first day, before learning that bullying a Taspel Prince came with painful consequences.

The alley stank of fear, piss, and death.

Mava raised a boot to stomp the one with the liquidized brain, but I grabbed her wrist.

"Leave it. He’s gone."

She looked surprised, then pleased, then guilty, as we ran to the alley exit we’d been heading for.

I yanked her to a stop before we broke into the light.

"Walk," I hissed. "Blend."

Her face was wild, cheeks flushed, hair loose around her shoulders. I knew she’d stand out in people’s memory. I needed to ground her.

"Jikal Pel?" I said lightly.

She looked embarrassed, then burst out laughing. The sound spilled out of her in helpless waves, raw and bright.

As she started calming down, I added, "Incompetent?"

She collapsed against me, laughing so hard she could barely walk.

Massive adrenaline swings do strange things to your head. And your hormones.

One level up and two streets across, we ducked into an auto-run sexhall. I used an untraceable card chip for a room with foam spa tub to wash the blood off.

The second we stripped, Mava attacked, hunger and need flashing in her dark eyes. I had to extend the rental twice before she was sated.

Finally, we stumbled out. A hired floater took us to the monorail. Two quick floater changes later we were back at her family’s clifftop townhouse. The rides were quiet except for the occasional stolen smile between us.

Next morning, her security detail collected our things from the hotel we’d abandoned. They were stunned when I passed them a plan of the hidden traps and weapons I’d cached in the room.

The news mentioned a body found in an alley but gave no details. No one ever linked it to us.

After that night, something changed between Mava and me. Our bond grew fiercer, deeper, welded by fire into something real.

Unbreakable.

***

So, if your relationship needs a boost…

Survive a death match with a gang of would-be rapists and murderers.

Works every time.

Guaranteed.

***