Bounty hunter in the red
In the Galaxy, there’s three ways to make money: the easy way, the hard way, and the sleazy way. Everyone dreams of easy money, but only the lowest of the low have the cunning and ruthlessness needed to make it; everyone else has to sweat and bleed for their money. It’s dog eat dog out there...
We start our story down at a dive of a bar, the kind that have pests running around on the floor, the walls, and even around the drinks and food. Only the lights advertising particular brands of alcohol illuminate the place, though the constant cloud of cigarette smoke below the ceiling reflects the light. The smell of spilled beer, cigarette smoke, and roaches fill the air, along the hollering of a Xabrian.
“That’s when I got mad,” said the Xabrian as he poured beer down his gaping jaw. Xabrians are a race of aliens that resemble salamanders from Earth, with gorilla-like arms and legs, six eyes, wiry hair on their heads, and tails that drag through the floor. They tend to stand at around seven to nine feet tall, and their bodies are usually very thick. “I told that Terran I didn’t give away any drop for free, so when he tried making with the merch, I pulled out my gun and started blasting the poor ape!”
“Oh my,” said the Ikillian female in the Xabrian’s arms. Ikillians are large, intelligent worms that possess thousands of hair-like fibers that they use as appendages. They tend to be about five to six feet long. Though they have no eyes, their skin is sensitive enough that they can still perceive light with it. “Then what happened?”
“Then I took the remains and ate’em!” Bragged the Xabrian, grinning, as he ordered another beer. At that moment, the bar’s door opened, only to close soon after. “And that, baby, is why I’ve got a bounty of ten thousand Wong!”
Click. The Xabrian’s eyes widened as he felt the gun
“You’re coming with me,” said the Terran male holding the gun. Terrans are humans from the planet we call Earth, but which is officially called Sol III by everyone else. “Warm or cold; how are we doing this?”
The Xabrian grinned and whipped the man using his tail, turning around to watch the Terran male on the ground. The Xabrian kicked the gun away; it was much too small for his thick hands.
“Nice try, monkey,” said the Xabrian as the Ikillian female fled to the backroom. “But you and me both know loaded guns ain’t allowed in town!”
“True,” said the male Terran as he got up, bleeding from above his right eye, a crushed insect on his cheek that he wiped off. “Guess I can’t bluff my way outta this one.”
“You ain’t getting outta this one,” grinned the Xabrian as he grabbed a bar stool, ripped off a leg, and sharpened it with his teeth. “I’m having ya for dinner tonight!”
The Xabrian attempted to stab the human male with the sharpened stool leg, but the Terran male easily dodged by jumping to the side. He grabbed a beer glass and threw it at the Xabrian’s head, which caused the glass to shatter.
“Ah!” Yelled the Xabrian, as shards of glass fell onto the eyes furthest back of his long head. “My eyes! You’ll pay for that, you-”
At that instant the Xabrian got hit by a bolt of light, courtesy of the Terran male’s gun. The gun had a box-shaped barrel that was four inches long, a switch at the top, and it was colored white. The Xabrian fell to the ground, electrified to unconsciousness.
“God damn,” said the Terran male as he ran a hand across his curly, graying hair. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a small metal ball that was around a centimeter in diameter, and threw it at the Xabrian. Within moments a light enveloped the alien, causing him to disappear as the ball grew to ten centimeters in diameter. “All this, for ten thousand Wong...”
He picked up the ball, placed it on his belt, and exited the bar. There is no sunlight in the city of Havenport, specifically because it was built on an asteroid orbiting a blue gas giant. This city, with a population of fifty five million, is pretty much either a glorified pit stop for spacers, a hole in the wall for criminals to lay low, or it’s the hellhole people are unlucky enough to be born into.
The man lifted his arm and pressed the green button left of his wrist communicator’s round screen; a hologram of a triangular emblem began to emit.
“Frederico Cuevas Navarres here,” said the man. “Got the bounty; I’ll just take my money, and be on my way.”
“Please place the capture orb on top of the screen,” said the robotic voice from the hologram. Fred did so, and the ball instantly disappeared. “Ten thousand Wong have been added to your bank account. Thank you and goodbye.”
Once the hologram dissipated, Fred rubbed his temple, sighing. He gazed up at the city’s glass dome, staring at the gas giant, a forlorn look on his face. Shortly after, he turned back to the communicator, turned the round screen twenty degrees to the right, and pressed the button. A hologram of a robot with a cylindrical head and a humanoid body appeared.
“Klank, check my banking account,” ordered Fred.
“Your bank account currently sits at twenty seven Wong,” said the robot, Klank. “Congratulations on a successful bounty, sir.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Fred, sighing. “Got any more jobs?”
“Only a simple freighting job,” said Klank. “Two thousand Wong, sir, plus payment for fuel and gate jumps. You are to ship nine crates of Spacer’s Choice brand beer to the port city of Xenhia, in Xeylon II. Due to the low pay, the job is officially listed as a private delivery for one Haliya Handal.”
“That sounds like scab work,” said Fred, sighing in frustration. “Alright, I’ll take the job. Right now I’m just glad to be in the green; we haven’t been in the green for weeks now.”
“Excuse me, sir, but you’ve just been charged for today’s docking fee,” said Klank. “Your bank account is now at negative one thousand, two hundred and seventy three Wong.”
“Oh God,” said Fred as his face fell. “Ask Spacer’s Choice if they can forward an advance, and get the ship ready to fly; we’re leaving in two hours.”
Fred took the metro tram to get to the spaceport where he’d had his ship docked. The tram was filthy, its walls covered in graffiti. He spared a second to glance at a particular bit of graffiti, written in a language he could not read. He tapped the spot just above his right brow, where he’d gotten a fresh scar.
“Shit, gotta get Orbus to fix my visual translator,” Fred whispered to himself. Within half an hour, he had arrived at the spaceport. He showed the guard his ID badge; once he was cleared, he walked towards his ship, where a forklift was bringing in several unmarked crates of beer to be delivered. “Thank God these crates are unmarked; I’d hate to run into someone from the Guild seeing me do this.”
“Hey, you!” Yelled a foreman from the catwalk. “The one with the G1-XX ship!”
“Shit, that’s me,” Fred groaned. He raised his arms and walked towards the foreman. “I’m unarmed, and I’m not here for trouble.”
“What’s in the crates?” Demanded the foreman. “Because the Spacer’s Choice crew are on strike, and we’ve gotten word that the company’s been hiring scabs!”
“It ain’t me,” Fred lied, noticing that the foreman was looking at the crates. “I was hired by a private citizen to make a delivery for her. I have no idea what’s in the crates, but-”
“We’ll be watching you,” said the foreman. “We don’t tolerate scabs around this port, got it?”
“Yeah,” said Fred as he watched the foreman leave. With a heavy sigh, he turned back to his ship.
A G1-XX model ship is the quintessential star faring ship there is. A long, cylindrical shape for easier departure from planet surfaces, hydraulics and pressure engines for easier surface landings, strong engines that can go up to fifteen light years without refueling, and enough room inside to comfortably fit a crew of five people, bots not included.
“This is the Benito, requesting permission to depart,” said Fred as he sat in his ship’s navigator chair, pressing a sequence of buttons to get the ship ready to depart. “I’ve input the coordinates; ready when you are.”
The Benito, Fred’s ship, began to levitate off the ground and turn its nose around to the gate that was slowly opening. At the other side of the gate was an asteroid field, where several lights were blinking on.
“This is Havenport’s Port Authority,” said the robotic voice on the intercom. “Benito, you are cleared for take-off.”
Fred pulled back a lever to the right of the control panel, which made the Benito move forward, exiting the port. The Benito followed the lights towards a wide ring that was a mile in diameter, the inside of which began to glow. As the Benito approached the ring, it kept gaining speed, until it disappeared once it went through.
“Ahh, hyperspace,” said Fred as he relaxed in his chair, gazing at the light show outside his window. “Never get tired of this.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Klank as he entered the cockpit, the light from hyperspace bouncing off his blue chassis. “But I just ran a scan through the crates, and Orbus and I found something that demands your attention.”
“What is it?” Asked Fred, getting up, an alert look on his face.
“Well, bio-scanners indicate that one of the crates houses a sentient being,” said Klank. Fred nodded, picked up his gun, and made his way to the ship’s hull...
