The bubbles were starships, held close by a pressurised umbilical running between the two. Down the umbilical pounded Dar the Luxxan, yelling dire imprecations in his own tongue. In response, Vapour’s squeals and shouts came through the comm-bead nestled in his ear, pleading with him to hurry. In trying to take down the Ashen Knife pilot on the other ship, Vapour was clearly outmatched and Dar surged ahead, his muscles straining as he used every available surface to propel himself forward.
As Dar disappeared around a junction, Bonto tried and failed to keep up. His cortex was still fizzing from his battle with the enemy data core AI, and his responses were sluggish as a result. As he floated forward, he heard Vapour take a heavy blow and apparently fall to the floor. His suspicions were confirmed when he heard the harshly-accented voice of the Ashen Knife pilot roaring at Vapour to let go of his leg and fight honourably.
At that moment, Dar shot through the cockpit hatch and collided feet-first with the enemy pilot. As the figure shot backwards, Dar stamped downwards and felt at least one bone crack in his opponent’s chest as he did so. The Ashen Knife hit the far wall and crumpled, the figure’s arm bent at an unnatural angle beneath it. Bending down, Dar wrenched the figure’s helmet off to deliver the coup de gras…and stared slack-jawed with a shock of recognition.
For a moment, Dar was back on that mining colony on Lithios, running from the figure before him as it fired shot after shot at him. Try as he might, Chon-Zek always managed to track him down sooner or later. No matter how far he ran or covered his tracks, the bounty hunter caught up with him, driven by a peculiar hatred for his species. Chon-Zek was beyond Enhanced, spending all of his cred on whatever new edge the Hegemonic gene-splicers could come up with. But such extreme genetic editing had a cost; in Chon-Zek’s case, it was an obsessive personality that was simply unable to leave a job undone. In his quieter moments, Dar suspected the Hegemonic scientists had added the trait on purpose, to make Chon-Zek the most tireless pursuer he could be and finish the extermination of the Luxxan species.
All of this ran through Dar’s mind in a split-second; then he punched Chon-Zek very hard in the face until his opponent was thoroughly unconscious.
All in all, things could have been worse. Vapour was badly wounded but still very much alive, whilst Bonto was still slurring his words and seemed faintly cross-eyed. Dar was likewise still recovering from his near-miss on the Susan earlier that day. But they’d managed to capture the Ashen Knife vessel intact, and with Javierra Gallia and the artefact safely on board in cryo-stasis. After reviving her and checking all was well, Dar took great pleasure in loading a now-conscious but heavily-restained Chon-Zek into the vacant cryo-chamber. As the lid closed, Chon-Zek strained against his bonds and hissed dire threats of what he’d do to Dar, all of which was cut off in a moment as the freezing process activated and he was turned into a seething, malevolent statue. Patting the top of the casket, Dar hummed a Luxxan war-hymn and wore what could have passed for a smile.
For their part, Vapour and Bonto turned their attention to stripping the ship of everything that they could conceivably steal. Bonto was particularly intrigued by several large, encrypted data files he’d managed to retrieve from the Knife data core. Something told him that these would be more valuable than anything physical they’d be able to haul aboard, assuming he could break the encryption. Once they’d taken what they could from the ship and its data cores, the crew took the Ashen Knife vessel and moored it to a lone asteroid making its stately way through the void. Powered down, it would be undetectable. Dar permitted himself a small grin at this, knowing that his enemy would be spending the foreseeable future frozen aboard an abandoned ship with no chance of escape.
Of the two other Ashen Knives, one was dead and the other was badly-wounded. After spacing the deceased Ashen Knife, Dar explained very carefully that it would be in the best interest of the remaining Knife that he should disappear and never cross the crew’s path again. As he did so, the Knife nodded seriously at all the right points and tried not to wince every time Dar looked meaningfully at the airlock during their discussions. When they finally returned to the Indri Orbital to return Javierra and collect their pay-out, the crew was heartened to see that the Knife left the docking bay without any posturing or false bravado. Perhaps their negotiation had been fruitful after all…but only time would tell.
Almost as soon as the Knife disappeared, a different airlock opened and a strange entourage entered. First came two hulking ‘Protector’ class urbots, weapons cycling as their advance threat-recognition algorithms evaluated the vicinity. Finding no immediate danger, they stepped aside to allow three other figures to enter. Two of the figures were of roughly baseline-human size, but there the similarity to standard humanity ended. Both were identical, androgynous, with pale skin through which a thin network of blue blood vessels could be seen. Instead of eyes, they had smooth featureless skin, and both wore floor-length black robes. But even their strangeness was eclipsed by the much taller, skeletal figure that entered last of all. The crew stared open-mouthed at the alien figure; few people outside the upper reaches of the Hegemony ever saw a Sahi’ir in the flesh, so for one to turn up in a docking bay aboard a backwater orbital facility was unheard of. Ignoring the awkward silence, the two eyeless figures began to speak in unison with high, melodious voices. ‘The Prime Wi-13-Meti greets the crew of the ‘Lazy Susan’ and gives thanks for their service.’ The crew’s cred chips chirped cheerfully as the promised huge payment was transferred into their account. The Speakers continued in unison, undeterred. ‘The Prime Wi-13-Meti also greets Javierra Gallia’. At this, the short xenoarchaeologist stepped forward, carrying the Ur artefact with her. Without a further word, Javierra walked past the strange group and disappeared through the bay door. As she passed, one of the Speakers stepped forward and held out a data stick to Bonto. ‘This may assist in unlocking the encryption on the data files you retrieved from the criminal vessel’. Without any further word, the Sahi’ir turned and left the bay, preceded by one of the Protectors with the two Speakers following close behind. Lastly, the remaining Protector urbot left the chamber, its weapons cycling once more as it left.
The Sahi’ir data stick did indeed prove useful in breaking the encryption of the Ashen Knife data. It turned out that the kidnappers had been tasked with delivering Javierra and the artefact to a set of coordinates on the dark side of Sonhandra in the Holt system. A tidally-locked world, Sonhandra always presented the same side to its local star whilst its dark side remained in eternal night. More ominous still was the fact that all light sources failed within a few kilometers of the surface of Sonhandra’s dark side, meaning that it was almost entirely unexplored and unexplorable. On hearing this, the Sahi’ir immediately offered the crew the job of scouting the co-ordinates and determining the purpose behind Javierra’s kidnapping. However, the crew were in a bad place, exhausted and strung out. But as their reputation had grown, the crew had attracted those of the same mind who also wanted a piece of whatever action the Lazy Susan was getting. Perhaps the crew could call on some of these kindred souls to help out in their time of need…
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