Backstory

To the rank-and-file of the Red Sun Dominion stationed on the occupied world of Gelime , Vance Niner is the 'Scarcity Broker'—a corrupt, highly efficient Logistics Quartermaster working out of the Spire of Reason . He is the man to see when rations run low or when a soldier needs a contraband luxury, provided they have information to trade.

However, 'Vance' is a fabrication. Designated V-9, he is a terrifying secret weapon of Arch Technocrat Lyra Vesh . He is an unstable prototype of Project Archon—a 'Flesh Drone' created through forbidden cyber-necromancy and genetic splicing. Unlike the mindless soldiers Vesh hopes to mass-produce, V-9 possesses a fractured, semi-autonomous personality designed to infiltrate and observe. His brain is wired directly into a sensory recording bank, granting him perfect recall of every conversation and document he encounters.

V-9 was deployed to Gelime under the guise of a transfer from the core worlds. His primary directive is not logistics, but the hunt for Dr. Edward Nelson and the 'Progenitor Sample.' Vesh suspects the resistance group 'Null Hypothesis' on Gelime may be sheltering the doctor or possess data remnants from the destroyed Fat System.

V-9 uses his role as a black marketeer to solicit rumors about 'medical miracles' or 'genetic anomalies' from desperate locals and loose-lipped soldiers. While he appears to be a greedy bureaucrat, he is actually a ruthlessly efficient hunter waiting for the command code to purge all witnesses. His biology is failing; he requires frequent 'maintenance' injections to prevent his cloned organs from rejecting his heavy cybernetics, fueling his desperate loyalty to Vesh.