Corey Vash did not like being surrounded, but it kept happening. Since becoming a bounty hunter a few years back, he’d been surrounded by what felt like half the aliens species in the known universe, and at least one from outside the known universe. Right now he was staring down no less than two dozen gray-skinned strangers. One among them stepped forward and drew a saber of blue-grey metal that shimmered in the light, and waved it towards Corey.

In response, Corey drew a saber of his own. His did not shimmer in light, it created light. The one trophy he’d claimed from the Horuk invasion was an energy sword, the only one of its kind in all the universe. The blade of light and heat reflected against the metal blade held by his opponent as the two squared off.

With a single flick of his wrist, Corey sliced right through the other blade, turning the long metal saber into a white-hot stump of scrap metal. The owner of the blade stepped back, mouth agape -and then started to laugh.

The rest of the circle surrounding Corey started to laugh, rattling expensive jewelry and liquor glasses as they did so. Corey laughed along with them, just to be polite.

“So much for grandfather’s indestructible saber,” the debutante laughed. He kicked the fallen half of the blade aside and handed the molten hilt to a servant to carry away.

“Don’t underestimate it,” Corey said. “Molten metal like that is how I got this sword.”

As the crowd ooh’d and aah’d about his anecdote, Corey deactivated the blade and put it back on his belt. As cool as having his own lightsaber was, the blade gave off an uncomfortable amount of heat. Having it on for too long gave him something akin to a sunburn, and he was starting to get worried it might be giving him skin cancer. No one he’d talked to was quite certain how the blade worked, so there was no way to be sure it wasn’t.

After offering a few more quips and stories of the Horuk invasion, Corey finally managed to break free from the crowd of wealthy socialites and get back to the party at large. Unfortunately, most of his crewmates were similarly encircled.

While the crew of the Wild Card Wanderer (formerly of the Hard Luck Hermit) had been hired as “security” for this event, they were being treated more like guests of honor. While they had never been paid for their role in saving the galaxy, word of the Horuk Invasion, and the random crew of bounty hunters that had managed to thwart it, had eventually spread. The crew were perhaps the first people in the universe for whom being paid in exposure had actually worked out. Only a few months after thwarting the invasion, the money had started pouring in. Wealthy citizens across the galaxy were suddenly willing to pay a premium for their services -many even wanted them to act as “security” at events that were perfectly safe, just for the prestige of having the universe’s saviors as bodyguards. While Corey greatly enjoyed the money, he did not necessarily enjoy the company.

“Corey Vash, the civilized universe’s only human!”

Corey rolled his eyes as someone he did not recognize approached him as if here were an old friend.

“The one and only,” Corey said. There had briefly been two, but Corey’s abusive cultist uncle was long dead.

“Have you heard the news? That might be about to change.”

The Galactic Council knew of Earth, but last Corey had heard, did not have the budget to get humanity up to speed with the rest of the universe, and so had left them isolated. He knew that would change at some point in the future, but he hadn’t heard it might be so soon.

“I try not to pay too much attention to Earth,” Corey said. It was even sort of true. Thanks to all the abuse from the cult he’d grown up in, Earth had never felt like much of a home to Corey.

“Well, I’m sure it’ll be fun, getting to tell all your cousins about how things work out here in civilized society,” the alien socialite said. She also introduced herself and started ranting about what she did for a living, but Corey started tuning her out.

More humans in the stars. Corey was not at all attached to his status of being the only human among universal society (especially not since he had the status of universe-saving bounty hunter on top of that) but having millions of lightyears between him and the nearest human had been therapeutic, in a way. Interstellar society had its own problems, but they were at least new and interesting problems. The idea that he might soon have to deal with humans again, and all the human problems and human politics, felt strange.

“Excuse me for a second,” Corey said, brushing off the ranting debutante. “I need to go confer with my pilot.”

Corey cut through the room, elbowing his way past millionaires of many different races, and made his way to the bar. As expected, Tooley was there, admiring her own periwinkle-blue reflection in the bottom of an empty glass.

“Tooley.”

“Corvash.”

“How’s your night been going?”

“Some rich bastard offered half a million cece’s for me to have his babies,” Tooley said. “Wants to make my ‘exceptional piloting genes’ part of the bloodline.”

“Oh god. You didn’t hurt him, did you?”

“Nah, his wife was right there and watching her ream him out was way funnier,” Tooley said. “Came close, though.”

“Thank god this party’s almost over,” Corey said. At the very least, the time they’d been paid to provide security was running out. Then they could leave without breaching contract.

“That means the worst is yet to come,” Tooley said. “Kamak said this guy likes to put on a show at the end of his parties, remember?”

“No. When did you start paying attention to Kamak?”

“When I started drinking less,” Tooley grunted.

“Wouldn’t that make things worse?”

Two of Tooley’s least favorite things were being sober and Kamak. Corey couldn’t imagine combining the two was helpful.

“No, see, I listen to him when I am drunk,” Tooley said. “It’s like reverse conditioning myself, so I don’t get to enjoy being drunk anymore.”

“Ah.”

“Ladies, gentlemen, and various honorifics of all other genders!”

“Oh boy,” Tooley said. She quickly grabbed and downed another drink. She wanted to associate whatever unpleasant thing was about to happen with booze.

Their host for the evening, an atmospheric vent manufacturer named Loback Loben, took the stage, wobbling all the while. He had a mic on his lapel that hooked up his voice to every speaker in the ballroom, so that he could be heard wherever and whenever he wanted. Unfortunately for everyone else in that ballroom, he wanted to be heard everywhere and often. This was his seventeenth grand gesture of the night.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“As our evening winds down, and as I am at increasing risk of falling down,” Loben said, to a smattering of polite chuckles. “I’d love to start thanking all our guests, lovely lovely guests, like our partners at the Moshitan Manufacturers, their lovely CEO and his equally lovely wife.”

The magnate who had propositioned Tooley for breeding earlier and his wife briefly paused their blowout argument long enough to smile and wave politely to the crowd. Tooley waved back and then gestured towards her uterus to really get the wife pissed off. The shouting started again as soon as the spotlight rolled away from them. Loben continued down the list, giving requisite and contractually obligated thank you’s to various corporate guests.

“And finally I would like to thank our esteemed security! The universe’s saviors, the crew of the Wild Card Hermit!”

“Wild Card Wanderer,” Tooley snapped back. That was her ship, and she would never allow it to be misnamed.

“Yes, thank you,” Loben shouted. “That was their pilot, she’s great, and where’s their captain, Mr. Kamak!”

Much to his chagrin, the spotlight found Kamak and lingered on him. The bald-headed alien’s skin ridges wrinkled with displeasure as the light hit him, and he gave a mock salute to the crowd. Rich bastards like this loved that faux-military stuff.

“Thank you all for being here to keep us safe,” Loben said. “Seems like your reputation scared off any trouble, though!”

Kamak shrugged and nodded. They were on an isolated mountain villa on a garden world, miles away from the nearest lowlife. They could’ve held the door open all night and the most trouble they’d get was someone stealing the silverware.

“And I am sure our guests would’ve loved to see our heroes in action,” Loben said. “Let’s drink to our disappointment. You there, lady with the tray of glasses, gimme something strong.”

One of the no-doubt-underpaid serving girls walked on stage and let Loben take his pick of the litter. He chose a large glass, downed it in one gulp, and then tossed the glass aside.

“Excellent, thank you dear,” Loben said. “Now, one more thing.”

In a surprisingly coherent flurry of movement for someone as drunk as Loben was, he grabbed the serving girl and pulled her close, then removed a small pistol from his jacket pocket and held it to her temple. The tray of drinks crashed to the ground and shattered as a chorus of screams rang out from the audience.

“Don’t worry so much, people,” Loben said. “The experts are here!”

The spotlight narrowed in on Kamak, who was still sitting in his chair, looking as disgruntled as he possibly could.

“Let’s see our guests in action, eh,” Loben said. He pressed his pistol a little deeper into the server’s temple. “Come on, the folks who saved the universe can save one waitress, right?”

Kamak sat in his chair and did nothing. Corey waited for any cue to move, but nothing came.

“Nah, not really,” Kamak said.

“Whuh?”

Kamak turned around and started pointing around the room.

“I don’t have a good angle, Doprel’s still out on the balcony, Farsus might be able to make the shot, but at that distance with that pistol of his he could just as easily shoot the girl.”

Farsus waved politely from his posting by the door, and nodded in confirmation of Kamak’s appraisal.

“Corey might be able to make it, except he only brought that fancy sword of his, as requested,” Kamak said. “And Tooley can’t shoot worth shit so she didn’t even bring a gun.”

Kamak turned back to Loben and shrugged.

“Yeah, you got us beat,” Kamak said. “Go ahead and kill her.”

The waitress shrieked with despair as Kamak relaxed back into his chair.

“Please, Mr. Loben, please, I have a family Mr. Loben, please.”

“Come on,” Loben said, ignoring the desperate pleas in favor of being annoyed at Kamak. “No gambit? Nothing?”

“No. Like I said, just doesn’t work logistically.”

“Not even going to try?”

“Nah,” Kamak said.

“Well you’re no fun at all,” Loben said. He tightened his grip on the gun as the waitress and several spectators screamed.

Click.

Click click click. Loben pulled his gun away from the waitress’s temple, looked directly down the barrel, and pulled the trigger again. Click.

“Looking for something, Loben?”

Kamak reached into his pocket and held up a battery cell of the exact size and shape to slot into Loben’s laser pistol.

“Farsus clocked your gun twenty drops ago,” Kamak said. “Pulled the battery out and put it back before you even noticed.”

It helped that Loben was drunk, but Farsus had surprisingly nimble fingers for someone with such a large, bright-red body. Loben looked absolutely delighted to have been outsmarted. He dropped the useless gun, and let go of the waitress (who promptly fled) and started to applaud, as did much of the crowd.

“Now that is the canny thinking that saved all our lives from the Invasion,” Loben said. “Let’s hear it for the crew of the Wild Card Wander!”

“Wanderer!”

***

Loben laughed and chuckled with his guests, and mimicked the action of holding a gun to their heads as they walked out the door. The ballroom was all but empty now, but for a few straggling guests, a few serving staff who did not come within twenty feet of Loben, and a few bounty hunters.

“Loben.”

Doprel grabbed Loben by the coat and lifted him off his feet. The hulking blue-green titan carried Loben all the way across the ballroom and dropped him off on the empty balcony, next to a very irate Kamak.

“Time to talk about payment.”

“Oh, of course, I’ll wire your payment to you right now,” Loben said. He pulled a transparent datapad from his pocket and punched in the necessary commands.

“Appreciated,” Kamak said. “But I didn’t mean our payment.”

Kamak pushed the datapad down and looked Loben in the eyes.

“See, Loben, I’ve been trying to be a better person recently,” Kamak said. “And there is a lot of debate over what that means, but something a lot of people seem to agree on is that you’re supposed to tip your servers.”

Doprel took a few steps forward, giving Loben much less room to move between him and the balcony’s edge. The manor balcony was situated overlooking a high cliff, meaning any unfortunate misstep came with a risk of a lofty fall.

“I think there’s a server you owe a very big tip,” Kamak said.

“Oh, come on,” Loben said. “All part of the show! You even knew she was never in any danger.”

“Despite your best efforts,” Kamak said. “You thought you were going to kill that girl.”

He had added an element of pomp and showmanship to appease the crowd and keep people calm, but Kamak was genuinely fucking furious about the stunt. Had Loben been someone poorer and less connected, Kamak might have thrown him over the ledge already.

“I knew you could handle it,” Loben said. “You should be grateful I hold your abilities in such high esteem.”

“Hmm. Doprel, what do you think?”

“I’m already mad he didn’t provide any appetizers for me,” Doprel said. Resembling a hulking cross of simian, aquatic, and insectoid traits, Doprel’s exotic alien species had very different nutritional requirements than the average humanoid species. “Not a very good host.”

“Wow, no good appetizers and you’re a bad tipper,” Kamak said. “Not making a very good impression here, Loben.”

“Are you trying to intimidate me, Mr. Kamak?”

Kamak pulled out his own gun and held it directly under Loben’s chin.

“Yes.”

The datapad Loben had been clinging to dropped to the floor. He stared silently into Kamak’s eyes as the gun’s barrel pressed deeper into his chin. Kamak didn’t blink. Behind Loben, Doprel’s massive limbs tensed.

In a quiet, subtle motion, Kamak reached into his other pocket, and pulled out the battery for his gun.

“Oh! Oh, hah,” Loben said. Kamak started to chuckle, and Loben did as well. “That was very clever, oh stars, you really had me going there for a second.”

“All part of the show, like you said,” Kamak said. He put his gun and its battery aside, on a nearby table, and reached down to grab the datapad. He brushed his hand across it twice and then turned it over a few times to inspect it for damage. “Let me get that for you. There you go, no harm done, right where you left off.”

Loben looked down at his datapad, and saw that it was now set to another bank transfer, with the amount listed as fifty-thousand cece’s -roughly a year’s salary for a waitress.

“Like I said,” Kamak said. He picked up his gun, and the battery, and connected them with a loud click, making direct eye contact with Loben as he did so. “Right where you left off.”

“Yes,” Loben said. “Right where I left off.”

He pressed a button to finalize the transaction, making sure his movements were very slow and obvious, so Kamak could confirm. He gave a sharp, approving nod as the money transfer was sent.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Kamak said. “Come on, Doprel, we’ve got other shit to do.”

Doprel took the first steps towards the entrance. He clicked his mandibles at Loben one more time before they executed, leaving a scared and slightly poorer millionaire alone on the balcony.