Tales of the Graveyard: Welcome to the Graveyard

None of us know exactly how this place came to be, how an entire Solar System became filled with the rusted corpses of derelict war-ships, star-fortresses and the detritus of a thousand would-be star empires. Yet here we are, floating through the void and enjoying the absolute mystery of how all these things now clutter the space between.

To everyone else it is nothing more than a nightmare they’d rather not think about, but to our people, it promises a grand life of adventure and understanding. Death and all the things that make life worth living can be found here.

After all, it’s why we exist. We guard and explore, kill and learn, we are many things but always remember, we are the ones who are willing to go into the dark.

We call it the Graveyard, a simple name for something so inherently insane...

Dolsen’s foot tapped a rapid tattoo upon the gantry. Wearing an expression of tightly pulled skin at the corners of his eyes and mouth, his arms were crossed in a futile attempt to conserve his body heat in the frigid atmosphere of the abandoned station.

He hated late clients. This job was supposed to have taken no longer than a day tops but what did he get instead? Glancing down at the illuminated screen of light on his left wrist he willed the blinking light indicating the shuttle in the middle of docking procedures to hurry its glacially slow progress.

“Come on, come on!” he fervently complained, “for a bunch of lizards living on a planet that’s just as likely to melt you as give you a bad sunburn you’d think they’d have a bit of fire in their step.” The breath fueling his fifth complaint of the last planetary rotation came out as a small wisp of cloud, the heat contained in the small bit of artificial cumulus fogging up the screen. Wiping it clean the entire corridor shook, his magboots energizing upon the internal sensors detecting the sudden jolt of movement as they kept him from floating off in the low gravity. His dour expression vanished as his face split open a grin, “Damtighm already.”

Feet clanking as he walked to the porthole he keyed in a few commands in the embedded wall panel, ensuring that the airlock was pressurized along with a surprise or two should his erstwhile “friend” decide that he wished to sever their long standing partnership. Stepping back he released the small securing strap that kept his lastol from spinning out into the void, his palm comfortably resting on the butt.

Gentle clinking noises came from the other side as the shuttle pilots operated the mechanical pulley that opened their side of the airlock, before the ssss-shick sound of the bulkhead closing and the room repressurizing sounded. As Dolsen’s side began to open he gently shifted his weight on his backfoot in case he needed to kick off. Though the orbital still had some form of gravity from its days of spin motion gravity, the decades of disrepair had left it decayed enough that a firm enough push would still send any person flying from one end of the docking tube to the other in less than a minute. As airlock door swung open his lithe form relaxed a fraction, his hands coming up in a voidsign of agitation,

“You iron scaled bastard, what the hell took you so long?” In front of him stood the towering figure of a Vultoth clad in their usual embellished armored suit. The saurus’s snout snorted in derision, producing twin puffs of crystallized vapor clouds.

“Your route is no longer secure, we had to power down the shuttle and drift through a small cloud of debris two days from here when we spotted a cloud of Gel’tar.” The deep bass of his voice sent gooseflesh down Dolsen’s neck as every conversation with this ancient lizard did. He grimaced at this new piece of information.

“Tell me you still have her medallion.”

“Telora?”

“No you idiot, your whore goddess of fire, Of course I meant Telora! Who else Drid?!” Duldrid snarled at his outburst, clawed hands clenched annoyance at his sides as his answer hissed, “Yes.” Dolsen’s head leaned back an inch in relief, lungs releasing a breath he unconsciously held, “Good, had you not we would have been–,” a gentle tap of talon on the plating was the only warning Dolsen had of the strike.

Kicking off from his forefoot the blade barely missed his scalp as he pushed himself backwards. Panicking from the sudden yet expected attack he had overcompensated the kinetic force propelling him backwards, the force of his movement slamming him into a canister of fire foam. Breath knocked out of him he experienced a split second of blackout and wrestled movement in his vision before using one hand to grab the metal tube to arrest his free spin, while using the other to draw his humming lastol, ready to punch a new breathing hole in whoever decided to take his head today. A second later, lastol trained on his aggressor with the side selector pushed to full charge he let out an audible groan.

“Seriously? A Snailshell?” Laying on the floor with one of Duldrid’s clawed feet restraining him, eyes burning with a fierce thirst for murder, was another Vultoth. Slipping his lastol back into his holster Dolsen bent one knee to examine his assailant, judging from the ebony sheen of the shell along his head this was a particularly young one.

“Don’t.” Duldrid’s voice was underpinned with his annoyance. The corner of Dolsen’s lips slightly crooked in amusement,” You really-,”

“I was talking to you,” the saurus interrupted him, “if your expertise in navigating The Territories wasn’t so expert, I’d be departing with a heavier purse…and your head.” Dolsen glanced up at him, his lips still bent in a crooked grin of amusement.

“And if your people weren’t so pious, mine would be much lighter.” Movement in his peripheral vision drew his eye to small beads of crimson drifting in space, glinting with the light of small rubies. Touching his temple with two finger he felt a small graze that was lightly wet, reaching into his chest pouch he pulled out a small bandage with which he wiped away the excess vitae before securing it’s adhesive sides around the light wound. Wound bandaged, he leaned down to meet the gaze of the snarling Vultoth.

“Now little Snail, what’s your name?” The young lizard gave no response, instead continuing to glare at Dolsen with his challenge of murder. Dolsen gave a small sigh before he pulled his lastol and placed the muzzle against the young lizard’s head.

“Apparently your parents chose not to educate you in any form of manners. True such niceties are a rarity out here, but dear Drid here knows that I expect a certain level of decorum in our dealings,” the foot restraining the younger Vultoth shifter slightly as his jailer snorted in amusement. Dolsen ignored his old friend’s mirth as he continued, “But you see, he has lived long enough far enough from your little lava ball to understand that pride can get one killed here. Me though?” He put away his weapon and indicated Duldrid to let his younger companion up.

Looking down he saw the weapon which nearly removed his head, picking the sword up he took a moment to admire the blade. Two and a half feet long and made from the same keratin shell his assailant’s scales were made of, it nearly glowed with milky light in the corridor’s dark gloom against the pale skin of his tattooed forearm. Flipping over the tip he handed the weapon back to the young fireband hilt-first. The young Vultoth hesitated, the desire to take his weapon back warring with some sense of personal honor before taking the proffered weapon and sliding it back into its sheath along the breathing apparatus hooking to his suit’s backpack. Dolsen grinned at his anger.

“I find the lack of awareness it brings you little lizards an entertaining bit of fun.” Nodding behind him the Vultoth turned and slightly blanched at the small turret on the wall, barrel tracking his movements. Hands on his hips Dolsen cheerily continued, “So, what’s your name?”

The Vultoth turned back to face him, hesitating a moment, “...Vumrin.” Dolsen’s grin widened.

“Well Vum welcome. Welcome…to the Graveyard.”

Later Within the Void

Small pebbles of meteoric rock pinged off the hull of the cargo container as it passed through the ConGon Belt. Drifting through the hull of an ancient titan-class warship it seemingly passed through the desiccated hull with a mind of its. Blown a foot by solar wind from a still-active torpedo lodged in a rusted mess hall compartment here, the graceful flip of it’s end to receive nothing more than a shallow graze from the jagged edges of a starfighter wing there the pod seemingly danced through the bones of the forgotten god. And as it finished its dance upon the ancient grave with a fine pirouette through a twisted observation frame, an imperceptible dart of light completed the performance, before a rain of its kind filled the space and turned the container from an unyielding box into a blossoming lotus of rent metal, and finally into dust dispersed upon the winds of the void.

The empty void was soon filled with the bright lights of ship engines as they darted through the wreck. One looking from a distance would think the nimble vessels were a cloud of fireflies dancing through the corpse, rather than fighters trying to take and defend their respective territories. Vumrin saw all of this from the small inspection plate on the side of the cargo pod that this contemptible human had shoved he and his garu into shortly after that humiliating display on the orbital. Looking behind him he saw the human lounging on a stretch of tarp suspended between the pod walls, something he called a “Amok.” The young warrior had refused when offered the smuggler’s spare Amok, instead occupying himself with the view outside the thin plate of glass, so vastly alien from the heat of his birth planet.

“Now now little Snail, there’s no need for such an ugly expression. You should be getting your rest, I know how painful this little jaunt can be for you babes.” While his scoundrel of a guide still had his eyes closed and lounged from his amok with a leg swinging on the side, Vumrin saw from the feeble light of his glow stick that the corners of his lips had curled into that smirk he hated. His lips peeled back to reveal his grimace of anger.

“Silence ape, you should feel blessed to-“, ” -blessed to act as guide for one so touched by the goddess blah, blah, blah. Winds you little snails are always so quick to fall back on that little speck of pride.” The ape lightly pulled his torso up from where it lay, arms pointed behind him as he leaned on his palms despite the absence of any gravity.

“If I had a fighter for every time one of you shels gave me that line, I could take this entire trash heap of a system myself with enough left over to kick those sorry bastiches in the next system over. Oh don’t give me that look, plenty of you snails want to be adorably colored little Lonqi. Be glad you know Drid, otherwise you’d just be another faceless little Kai. Oh and if you decide to indulge in a second round, any amusement I have won’t stop me.”

Vumrin’s talons stopped their unconscious movement to grab his blade’s hilt.

“Enough Dolsen, cease your taunting,” came a low voice from behind the ape.

“Then stop bringing me such volatile little snails.”

“One of these days I’m not going to be able to keep them from taking your head.”

“Nah that won’t happen, you enjoy me teasing them. How else will you keep your skills sharp if I don’t set them off?”

“That’s not what she told me.” There was a pervading moment of silence. The stanchions securing the tarp quietly squeaked as its occupant shifted his weight.

“Oh my darling dragon, if only you wielded that forked tongue’s tact as well as you do your blade.”

“Says the man whose lack of tact exiled him from his kin.”

“Oh that was by choice my dear friend. That rock was getting to constrictive for my wings, I need the room.”

The old reptile snorted, “And you always tell me you never lie.”

“I don’t, at least not to my friends.”

“You don’t have any friends.”

“Then to my family,” came a sheepish reply.

“You don’t have any family.”

“Not true my friend, you have brought me so many brothers and sisters. So many in fact I could start my own li-”

“Shut up you hairless ape and go back to sleep.”

A chuckle came from the smuggler, “You’re no fun.” Seconds later the light snores emanating from the amok indicated their wretched guide had fallen back into whatever rest he could find. Vumrin pulled his hand away from where it hovered during the exchange and placed it back on the glass, resuming his observance over the void dance once more, anticipation high as they continued their long drift through the space between stars…