There were six of them: Mean-faced men with an air of belligerence that Gaylen had long since become familiar with.

They strode forth like a pack, seconds after he had stepped out of the Addax. They spread out as much as the confines of the landing bay allowed for, and straight up to the cargo ramp.

“First time here, huh?” the one in the lead asked, with that bark to his voice that was universal to his type.

“On the planet? No,” Gaylen replied.

“So that’s a yes,” the man said. His fellows were only a step behind him, and Gaylen was low enough on the ramp that his height advantage was minimal. He took their measure, estimating the danger each one posed based on mass, confidence, visible weapons, and protective clothing.

As petty thugs went, he put them at about average.

“Go away,” he said.

“Go away?” the leader repeated though a showy grin, as if he’d just heard something amusingly absurd. “Go away? No no, my friend, we-”

“You are not my friend. Go away.”

“Ha!”

The man turned to face his comrades, still being so damn unbearably showy with every movement of his body. Gaylen restrained himself from just taking one step forward and punching him in the kidney while he was being an idiot.

“What do you think of that, boys?” the showman went on. “He doesn’t like us!”

One of them slowly cracked his own neck while staring at Gaylen’s face. Another one chuckled. The rest just waited for the show to continue.

The leader turned back to Gaylen.

“You’ve touched down on Jubba-Tar, spacer, and you’re not in the daycare centre of the Fringe anymore. You’re going to have to pay.”

“If you had authority here, you would have led with that,” Gaylen told him. “Go away.”

His outward calm was visibly frustrating the thug. He wasn’t following the script these types acted on, after all.

“Make me go away, spacer,” the man, with all the intensity but none of the false cheer from before. “You’re nothing and nobody here. You’re paying our tax, and I’m adding a bad manners charge to the bill!”

“One more time…” Gaylen said. He kept his hands down by his side, but his nerves and muscles ready for a feint that would send the leader’s defences in the wrong direction. “Go away.”

The man’s laugh was as angry, fake, and poorly acted as everything else. He held his hands out wide, and his chin was such a tempting target.

“Ohoho no. You’re paying our tax, AND you’re letting me see what you’ve got in that cargo hold, spacer. Because if you think you can just land here and-”

“Bers!” Gaylen said, without taking his eyes off the group.

The response was an angry snarl behind him, followed immediately by rapid footsteps.

There was a reason why these types tended so much towards showy displays. It was the same reason most non-engineered animals mostly threatened and postured when facing rivals. It was because fighting was difficult and dangerous. But the large, wild-eyed, wild-haired, wild-bearded man who came striding down the ramp was cut from a very different cloth.

The primal fury on Bers’s face was very genuine, and he let out a scream as his charge turned into a sprint. He slammed into the group like a ball hitting a line of pins, and his first blow caught a man right on the chin with a crunch.

He fought with absolute disregard for defence, or sparing his fists, or stamina. He just punched and punched and punched in the chaotic mess of limbs that he’d created.

One man staggered out of it all, but that put his back to Gaylen. The goon was wearing a plain cloth shirt, so that was nothing to protect his kidneys as Gaylen rushed up to him and put a one-two combo into them. The man fell, and Gaylen stomped on him for good measure.

The other five were tangled up in each other and Bers, and caught in the narrow space between the ship and the wall of a raised portion of the bay. Bers continued his work, beating, kicking and breaking, letting out roars and grunts that for brief moments turned into throaty laughter.

“Don’t kill them, Bers,” Gaylen said as he walked around the whole scene to a short flight of stairs. “Bers!” he said louder. “No killing this time!”

He wasn’t sure he’d been overheard, or comprehended if he had been, but the Outer Fringer hadn’t had time to work himself into the full rage Gaylen had witnessed on occasion. None of those suckers had guns, and with all of them on the ground already he saw no need to get personally involved.

One man tried to crawl away on all fours, and Bers took a break from throwing body shots into a curled-up goon to grab the escapee. He lifted the man up in the air and then, with a happy yell, he drove him down into the others.

Gaylen walked up the steps. He’d found that having Bers on board was a bit like having a ship dog. He needed to run wild now and then.

“Not a good first impression,” Herdis said as she descended the ramp. She had her compact military rifle, although it was folded.

“You didn’t sign up to see the tourist side of the lanes,” Gaylen reminded her.

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“I sure didn’t, and I sure am not,” the soldier-medic said through a slightly bemused smile. She only spared Gaylen a quick look, keeping most of her attention on the still-unfolding violence.

Kiris and Jaquan came down the ramp as well. The former walked around the mess and rushed up to join Gaylen on the raised area. The latter stayed behind, with Herdis, and let out an “Oooh!” as Bers broke a leg.

“Keep an eye on things,” Gaylen told them, then walked to the only door into the bay. Kiris followed on his heels. He adjusted his pistol holster so that the weapon was no longer hidden by his green coat, then stepped up to the door. Above it was a glowing sign that announced “No Guns Past This Point” in two languages Gaylen understood, and two that he didn’t but saw often enough.

He pressed the big, green open button and the door slid open. On the other side the doorway included a very standard-looking scanner, but he only had to wait in front of it for a few seconds before a man came running over. He wore the yellow vest that was halfway standard issue to dock managers on the Fringe, but given the sight behind the two of them he lacked the usual bored calm.

“The… what…”

He noticed Gaylen’s pistol.

“The… Trade Leagues ban projectile weapons beyond each individual bay,” he went on, recovering somewhat as rules and regulations kicked.

“And how do they feel about extortion attempts towards freighter crews?” Gaylen asked, and kept his manner stern but calm. “The people who keep this place alive? People like me share news, you know.”

“Those, ah… those men do not work for me,” the dock manager said, looking past Gaylen and Kiris with horror. “They are local troublemakers. Look, every place has its scuffs!”

“Hm.”

Gaylen turned and looked. Bers was finished, and Gaylen was rather relieved to see that none of the six were dead. Jubba-Tar wasn’t exactly the beating heart of galactic civilisation, but it also wasn’t the kind of place where you could just kill with impunity.

“I checked your docking fee during planetfall,” Gaylen said, and reached into his jacket. “And here you go.”

He handed over a stack of cash, which the manager absent-mindedly took as he watched Bers walk over.

“And now that I’m officially making use of this dock, I do want those guys removed, please,” Gaylen went on.

Bers joined them. He was breathing heavily, and looked like he’d just finished a good exercise routine. Aside from the blood around his mouth. He’d used his teeth again.

“This is Bers,” Gaylen said to the manager. “He’ll be guarding the ship, just as a precaution.”

“Mm,” the Fringer vocalised.

“I mean, I assume this is a one-off incident,” Gaylen went on.

“It should be,” the manager told him, and looked at Gaylen as Bers picked something out of his front teeth. “As I said, they are not mine. We just get a lot of foot traffic in here.”

He turned to his employees and hissed a few words in what sounded like some pidgin language. One made a call, while the others walked through the doorway. Gaylen let them pass, and they headed to the broken, bloodied men by the ramp.

“Anyway, I am here to trade cargoes,” Gaylen said. “I picked this job up on Tansalon. I was to come with thirty tons of soil nutrients, and leave with twelve tons of rhodium, to be delivered to Gingunn Station, off the shoulder of-”

“Yes, yes,” the manager said awkwardly and held up a hand. “Look, your rhodium is right over there in our outgoing warehouse…”

He pointed, and Gaylen looked at a small warehouse in the centre of the main yard.

“... but all offworld shipments are currently on freeze.”

“That is even less helpful to trade than muggings,” Gaylen pointed out.

“It only started two days ago,” the manager told him. “By order of Central Chairman Macario. There is some… upheaval going on. The leadership of the Trade Leagues is possibly being centralised. Macario insists that there needs to be a shakeup of the way shipments are taxed and regulated, and furthermore has made public noise about people going behind the board’s back.”

His own back, sounds like, Gaylen thought.

“The rhodium I am to deliver is needed for industry,” Gaylen told him. “The job is dependent on speedy delivery. Do you have any idea how long this will last?”

“Look…”

The manager sighed, and set aside formalities to give Gaylen an earnest look.

“We don’t get told much, in advance. It is a constant problem. Business does flow through here, but it is an unpredictable flow. I know there is going to be a big meeting in the Red Tower in about sixteen hours. A meeting hosted by Chairman Macario. It is open to the public. Public relations, you know.”

“I think I do know,” Gaylen told him.

“Right. Well, I went to something like it in the Tower last year, and the head Chairs did take questions. You folks could go and ask him yourself.”

Sixteen hours. There was about a fifty hour leeway with the Gingunn job, so while Gaylen didn’t like it he could spare that kind of time. Assuming that this Macario actually opened for trade again.

“Alright, I’ll do that,” Gaylen said. “Thanks.”

“Freighter crews can ride into the city for free,” the manager added. “That hasn’t been frozen.”

A couple more dock workers arrived, driving ahead of them a multi-person stretcher that seemed to have originally been some sort of industrial machine.

“But again, you will need to leave your guns behind.”

The manager wagged a finger at the doorway scanner.

“Any triggerings automatically register with the Peace Guards. That would mean hassle for both of us.”

“Right.”

Gaylen turned and walked back towards the ship. He turned and looked at Kiris. Her golden eyes met his from beneath a baggy hood.

“I saw no real duplicity in him,” she said at low volume. “I really do think these worms were on their own.”

She indicated the scene of the goons being loaded onto the stretcher.

“Well, that makes me feel better,” he said. “But I still want the ship guarded. Bers: No leave for now, I’m afraid.”

“Mm.”

“But then, we weren’t planning to stop here at all.”

“Mm.”

They went back down the stairs, and up onto the ramp to join Herdis and Jaquan.

“There’s a freeze on shipments, both to and from,” he told his ship’s medic and gunner, and his engineer and best friend of many years. “I’m going to go into the city and see about talking to the one in charge, but it’ll be a while. Herdis, I want you and Bers guarding the ship in case of any trouble.”

Herdis patted her trusty rifle.

“While the rest of you go out on the town?” she said with a smile.

“While Kiris’s people-reading skills do their part, and while Jaquan serves as a third set of eyes in general,” Gaylen said.

“That’s fine,” the woman told him. “I’ll just spend the time beating Bers at the board games.”

“Ha!” the Fringer said. “Never happen, sveilo!”

“Oh, we’ll see about that.”

“We may be gone for a full day, so take what you think you’ll need for that time,” Gaylen said to Jaquan and Kiris.

“And no guns, right?” Jaquan said.

“No guns.”

“That doesn’t stop us from being creative, does it?” the engineer said, with a bit of a glint in his eyes.

“No, it does not,” Gaylen said, as they all accessed the lockers in the entry area beyond the airlock.