by Maia Tanith
I haven’t even had breakfast yet. There’s not the slightest chance I’ll get a surprise alien version of bacon and eggs now. I hiccup as I try to hold my sobs down. I won’t give the infuriating Azr a reason to tease me about crying again. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
Instead I round on him and jab my finger in his chest. “This is your karma, and mine for agreeing to go along with you.”
My finger hurts from jabbing his rock-hard chest with so much enthusiasm. I pull my hand back and rub my finger discreetly. Ouch.
He smirks at me. “What is a karma?”
“It doesn’t matter does it?” I throw my hands in the air. “You wouldn’t understand it anyway.”
Azr doesn’t look the slightest bit worried that we are abandoned in the middle of space with nothing.
I put my hands over my head. “He’s going to steal all your treasure and then we’ll have nothing. And you won’t be able to take me back home. I’ll be stuck on this Zillyan planet forever.”
Azr chuckles. “Firstly, it’s called Xillian. And secondly, he’s welcome to that treasure.” He chuckles again and wipes a tear of mirth from his eyes. “Oh yes, I hope he finds it. He might indeed enjoy it too, although it’s not going to be quite what he was expecting.”
I glare at him. “What are you talking about?”
“My dear, sweet, earthling kit, did you ever think to ask me what the treasure my beloved uncle left me actually is?”
His tone infuriates me. “Gold. Jewels. Money of some kind. I dunno. Whatever you aliens value.”
Azr lets out a howl of laughter. “My uncle was an interesting person, that’s for sure.” He wipes another tear from his eyes. “Oh, he valued some strange things. He valued his little collection a lot.”
I hold my glare. “Fine. I’ll ask. What was in the treasure? Why is it so funny?”
Azr is gasping for air now, he is laughing so hard. “Before I get to that, did you not think it was strange that we were in the Games for barely a few minutes before we were freed?”
“We weren’t freed. We won. Those dog-things were vicious. They would have killed us if they could have. What’s this got to do with your dead uncle?”
Azr starts walking and I follow him. He’s heading past the fuel pumps, towards the darkened and deserted looking squat building behind the pumps. It looks like it was once a motel of sorts.
“We were meant to fight wild animals. They didn’t fight us though. They lasted minutes. One jumped, and I sliced it open. While you sheltered behind me, I might add.”
I glare at him and open my mouth to interrupt, but he shushes me with his hand and carries on.
“They were poisoned. It’s the only answer I can think of. They were poisoned before the Game, so that we’d survive. So that I’d survive, and so that I could lead someone I know to a network of people who traffic in stolen weapons.”
I frown. “Do you mean that lady who arrested you? She is still following you?”
“Correction—was following me. I figured she’d put a tracking device on me.” I tap my collarbone, where my dragon’s tooth necklace had sat. “This was the only thing on me they could have put a device in. I broke it open the other day. There was a chip inside it. She’d set it up so I’d survive, in the hope I would lead them to a network of dealers. She wants to save her career.”
I shiver. If it wasn’t for that, I would be dead. I could have been partnered with any number of lawless aliens in those horrid games. “I don’t follow, though. Why steal a ship? Why are you so happy we failed?”
Azr is at the door to the squat building now. He tries to open it, but it’s evidently been locked for a long time. It doesn’t budge. He shoots me a grin. “We didn’t fail. It all went according to plan. My tracking device is now on its way to the other side of the planet in Dezar’s ship, while he goes on a treasure hunt for my inheritance. Lila will get a nice surprise when she realizes she’s been sent off on another wild goose chase. And Dezar—let’s just say he’s going to be disappointed.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What did your uncle leave you, Azr?”
He snorts with laughter. “Only his forty turns worth of graphic holograms of Kargans mating with Shyniors. They’re a species of—well, similar to a pig on earth. They have six penises. He was sick, sick man.” Azr chuckles again. “As Dezar is about to find out.”
My mouth gapes open. “Your uncle’s treasure is a porno stash? A bestiality porno stash?”
“These are not just any pornos. When you play the holograms, it’s very realistic. Almost too much so. They’ve managed to incorporate smell, and even taste, into the more recent ones. I prefer the ones without smell. Not that I have watched all that many.” He coughs. “I mean, when I got my inheritance, I had to check it out. Briefly.”
I can’t help myself. I let out a giggle. “He is going to be so mad at you.”
He winks at me. “I know.”
“So you never intended to steal his ship?”
“Never.”
“But you made me think you were going to.”
“Of course. I couldn’t risk telling you the truth. You might have given the game away.”
“I never would have,” I start to protest. Then I think about how I almost told that sleaze of a pilot that we, or rather that Azr, was planning to steal his ship, and I fall silent.
He grins at me as my words tail off into nothing. “Exactly.”
“So, what now, then? We’re no better off than we were before. No ship. No money. No way off this planet. No way for me to get home.”
“Is that all you think about? Getting home?”
“No. I also think about the fact that I’m hungry and I’m hot and I have nowhere to sleep tonight.”
“Chill, babe,” he says easily, as he sticks his hands in his pockets and strides off. “I have a plan.” He whistles under his breath as he walks as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
I follow him out of the spaceport. Of course he has a plan. Men like him will always have a plan. I’m equally sure that I’m not going to like it, whatever it is.
Azr
I head out into the refuel station, my heart thumping. I still feel a little dizzy with the aftereffects of the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
The Earthling doesn’t appreciate it, but we are incredibly lucky that my plan worked. It could have gone so wrong in so many ways. Dezar could have knifed me before he tossed me off the ship. That was the most likely outcome. I could have offered the Earthling little protection if I was wounded or dead. He could easily have knifed her as well and tossed out two dead bodies or kept her and sold her off to the nearest slaver.
Dead bodies are a nuisance, though. They tend to attract all sorts of questions. I pegged Dezar correctly. Enough of a fraud to want to cheat me, but not enough of a rogue to want to murder me.
His greed was useful. It got me to where I wanted to be.
While I was being tortured, I had a lot of time to think about what I was going to do when I was free. If I ever got free.
There was only one thing for me to do. It was a huge gamble.
If I won, I would have a ship again. I would salvage my pride. I would even salvage my finances to some extent, though there would be no relaxing in a pleasure planet for the rest of my natural days.
If I won, I would get my old life back. Before Lila had come into it and wrecked everything.
I wanted that life back. Besides, I wanted her to lose, and to lose badly. It was worth risking my own life for.
Because if I lost this gamble, then my life wasn’t worth spit.
The Earthling is sulking. “Is everyone in this galaxy evil?”
“Evil? From my understanding of the word, it’s quite a strong definition.”
“Slavery is rife. You have monsters that steal vulnerable species, like humans, like me, for profit. You like to see people cut up and dismembered and killed in front of you. For goodness’s sakes, your ruler set up the Games to kee
p your people amused. That’s what I would call evil.”
I meet her eyes. “I would use the word evil hesitantly in most cases. For the Emperor himself, it is probably the best word to describe him. As for the rest of us-” I shrug, and motion around us with my arms. “We just try to survive another day.”
“By pirating? Enslaving humans? Kidnapping? Killing?” Her voice gets higher with every syllable.
“By doing whatever we have to.” I turn my eyes back to the ground and keep trudging. “You’re mad at me, at all of us, because our morality differs from yours. But what makes you the arbiter on what is right and what is wrong? I’d be willing to bet you’ve never been in a situation where you’ve been forced to steal to have enough to eat. Or where you’ve been forced out of your own planet so it can be mined for minerals.
“You’ve not seen, or at least lived through, the deaths of most of your kind. And you haven’t fought hard, and fought dirty, to save your planet, and still lost, and now the few left of your race are so shunned that the only acceptance you get is in the darker echelon of society where operating in the shadows gets you fed, and clothed. And so you don’t harbor a resentment towards anyone who still has a planet of their own to call home.”
“Are—are you talking about the hyena men?” Her voice wobbles. “I didn’t know...”
“Of course you didn’t. Why would you? The few Hyaks that are left don’t exactly go around justifying their actions to those they wrong. All I’m saying is that sometimes there is more to someone than you first see.”
The refuel station is quiet. I pick my way across the docking stations and over to the transport hub at the far end. We should be able to find food and a bad there easily enough. And to put in action the next part of my plan.
The Earthling follows me, quiet for now.
Good, I hope she stays that way for a while. I’m tired of her moralizing. She has insulted me in every way possible, and yet she still expects my help. If she wants to get back to Earth so badly, she can’t afford to be fussy as to how I get her there.
After all, there is nothing holding me to keeping that promise but my own sense of honor.
The transport hub looks decidedly livelier than the rest of the refuel station. Another lucky break. Sometimes gossip and news you hear in the course of your day is sadly out-of-date by the time you get it. Sometimes, like now, it is just accurate enough.
The refuel station may be old and tired, but the transport hub down the way is booming.
I scan the place quickly. There are two bars to choose from. One is loud and brash and raucous, filled with youngsters drinking themselves silly. The other is quieter, even a bit seedy looking.
I choose the quieter one.
Inside, a handful of regulars are slouched over their drinks, eyes red, sprawled over their chosen couch like they own it. They look like they haven’t moved for half a dozen turns or so. I wonder idly how long it would take for someone to notice if they died there, sitting up in a booth with one gnarled hand clasped around a drink.
Definitely not ‘til closing time.
Maybe not for a week or more.
I turn my back on them and head towards the bar.
Delia follows me, making a tutting noise under her breath.
I ignore her. I’m hungry and I want information.
The bartender doesn’t look impressed with my most charming smile. “What can I get you?” he growls, as he wipes a dirty cloth over some glasses.
“Food?” I suggest, pulling a stool up to the bar. “Whatever you have. Enough for the two of us. And a couple of shots.”
“It’s a bit too early to be drinking,” Delia mutters. “Don’t we need to save our money to get another ride on a spaceship?”
I ignore her again. There is no ‘our’ about my credits. They belong to me. If she wants to claim ownership of them, she can damn well steal her share. Dezar may have been piloting an old tin bucket, but he’d had a few credits stashed away. I’d felt no compunction in stealing from him, just as he’d felt none in stealing from me.
It’s a harsh world, and we all get along in it as well as we can.
The food, when it arrives, is of dubious quality, but there is plenty of it. I flick the bartender an extra credit and his expression eases just a little. Not enough to call it a smile, but there is a definite loosening of the tension lines around his eyes. I take it as a good sign.
Delia is digging into her food like she hasn’t eaten in a week. I follow suit, but more slowly and with better manners.
It never pays to let anyone see that you are hungry and desperate.
Even when you are both.
The bartender hovers just within earshot.
He’s out of luck. Nothing interesting to report from us. Delia can’t possibly talk and eat at the same time without spraying food everywhere, so we eat in silence.
She finishes her plate and gives a sigh of satisfaction. “That was great. I was starving.”
Edible, yes. Great, no. I’d rather have a bloodied goss steak than a mixture of raw greens and a lump of bread, but whatever. It’s food, and I’ve learned to never turn down a meal because it might be a long time before you are offered another one.
I push one of the shots I ordered over to the bartender.
He nods and downs it in a single swallow. “So, what do you want?” he asks.
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“No one ever buys me a drink for nothing.”
“I’m looking for a ship.”
“Any ship in particular?”
“One that I can buy.”
He looks me up and down. I’m clean enough, but Dezar’s cast-offs are hardly good quality or high fashion. “You don’t look like a man who’s flush with credits.”
I shrug. I’d lifted a fair amount from Dezar’s store, but not nearly enough to buy a ship. I had no way to buy one on my own. No way to steal enough credits to buy one. And no way to steal one. “I’m not.”
“Then how are you planning on purchasing a ship? Or are you looking for a toy store?” He said the last with a smirk on his face.
“I have a plan on how I’d pay back the ship twice over. I was hoping you could point me in the direction of a financier.”
The bartender raises his eyebrows. Yes, it might be risky putting this out on the table after a recent bartender tricked and betrayed me, but bartenders are useful sources of information.
“I might know of someone,” he says quietly. He looks at me meaningfully. I grimace and slide another credit over the bar to him.
“I’ll see what I can do for you,” he says. “Do me a favor and go sit in a corner somewhere, will ya? I’ll help ya but don’t want no conversations that like in front of the honest customers.”
I stand and Delia follows. We head to the darkest corner of the bar and slide into a booth. It’s a small booth and Delia is uncomfortably close.
She is staring at me with a reproachful gaze. Mercifully, she is quiet.
A stumpy Galgog squeezes in next to me only minutes later. I refrain from shivering. The lizard kind always give me an uneasy feeling. They’re a bloodthirsty bunch at best. The few I’ve met have not left a great taste in my mouth.
“I hear you’re looking for a financier.” His voice is low. He doesn’t look at me, but rather scans the room, watching for any listening ears or darted glances towards us. His forked tongue darts out between his lips.
“I have an offer that will be hard to refuse,” I reply, coolly.
“Is that so? The tone of his voice suggests that he doubts it. “Still, you look desperate enough. What’s your plan then? Are you an assassin? A smuggler? A pirate? Where’s your crew, and what’s led you to come begging a bartender for a contact?”
As if I’d tell the mere messenger what my plan is. “That’s between me and your boss.” I extend a single claw and examine it idly. “He might have heard of me, although perhaps not by name.”
The lizard hisses. “Don’t talk down
to me, Kargan. I’m the gatekeeper. If you want an audience with my employer, you’ll damn well give me something.”
I grasp my hands together to keep them from shaking. I’m not going to back out of this now. “I’m a smuggler. I’ve successfully run my operation for the past ten years and recently made the mistake of getting caught by the intergalactic anti-piracy league after stealing a weapons delivery. I was tortured. I was thrown to the pits to die. And yet I’m still alive. Now it’s time for me to take revenge on those who have wronged me. So you can tell your boss that yes, I’m damned desperate right now.”
He nods slowly, then stands up leisurely. “Follow me. But keep a distance.”
Delia clutches at my arm, her eyes wide. “Azr, this isn’t a good idea.”
I shrug her off. I know it’s not a good idea. But as I said, I’m desperate. And I’m out for revenge.
She has no choice but to follow.
We keep a few yards back from the lizard man as he ambles through the transport hub. He heads to a shiny, new looking hovercraft docked amongst the smaller space craft.
Hovercrafts are highly practical for quick travel over short distances. The financier must be close.
I give him a minute after boarding before leading Delia on board. Such elementary precautions will serve no practical purpose, but I will play the Galgog’s game.
It’s a lot nicer than Dezar’s ship, that’s for sure.
The lizard man is joined by another of his kind, a large dirty beast of a thing, with grimy scales and a scar running across his face and down his shoulder.
The second one doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t need to. I’m well aware he’s there to restrain us. Should we change our minds and try to back out.
“Buckle up,” the first says.
Delia and I choose seats. I buckle myself in and watch her struggling with the strap until it’s too painful to watch any more, and I give her a hand. She shoots me a grateful smile that makes my insides churn for some reason.
The lizard man starts the hovercraft and we take off. Really take off. His employer must be loaded indeed, if their smaller, cheaper crafts are this highly specced.