Continued From E1:P2

The weathered metal decking under his wide clawed feet crunched as they walked, thin layers of frost covering every surface around them. He grimaced slightly again as he passed the fourth bar so far and then paused. Turning and giving it a second look he nodded and gestured to it with a single arm. “Does that one look familiar to you as well Bobbie?”

She squinted at it, her cheeks flushed from the chill and her teeth chattering slightly. “Y-y-yess-s. Now-w c-c-can we g-get out-t-t of this d-damned-d-d cold-d??”

Aquillas nodded briskly, he hadn’t realised just how cold it was, the temperature must have been in the negative tens centigrade. He motioned to the warm looking establishment, “After you then.” He chuckled as Bobbie rushed into the building, the doors swinging closed behind her as she disappeared inside.

The bar was called ‘The Drunken Gweawa’ and was the lowest and dingiest type of dive bar imaginable. Terrible drinks and scummy food that cost far too much with a truly horrific ancient jukebox playing music that was nearly a century and a half out of date. But it was the perfect cover for a fence. In fact it was the establishment of their employer Boogas.

Aquillas walked into the bar to see that Bobbie already had her frozen hands wrapped around a mug of steaming spiced argline, the fermented gragnos beverage low in alcoholic content but quite flavorful. He quite liked the stuff as well and had actually bought a case of it from the establishment last time he had visited.

He wandered up to the counter and sat by Bobbie who gave him a shivering nod as she took a long drink from her steaming mug. “Ohhh, that’s nice…” she sighed contentedly.

Aquillas smiled slightly, just the corner of his lips but enough for her to notice. She gave him a small smile back. Turning his attention back to the bar, he flagged down the razah’vool behind the counter, the light grey color of its wrinkled skin marking them out as a young male.

“Yes? What can I get for you, perhaps a mug of argline like your friend here?” the tetrapodal alien inquired. Three of its four primary eye’s fixed on him as it awaited his answer. It was doing four different things at once, one arm washing a glass while another sorted through various packets on the counter beside him. The third arm seemed to be adjusting objects on the shelf behind it as the fourth ten fingered hand held a small datapad with credit attachment. Every time he was around one of the strange quasi-amphibious aliens he felt a little strange. Their ability to perform multiple complex tasks at once a symptom of their unique neural biology.

He was about to answer when the razah’vool spoke seemingly to itself in a slightly different voice, “You simpleton, this is commander Aquillas, likely here to speak to Boogas I assume?” the alien asked, its eyes once more focusing on him. He noticed however that the razah’vool had turned around, what was once its back now being presented as its front.

He hated it when they switched dominant personalities like that mid conversation. It was downright creepy. Before he could respond he heard another voice, this one much more mature in timbre as a voice spoke from behind him.

“Ahh, my dearest captain. It is good to see you returned to me safe and sound.”

Aquillas turned, in the beaded doorway at the far end of the bar stood an incredibly weathered looking razah’vool matriarch. The normally wrinkled skin of the alien was even more textured by age and her skin was a very dark shade of grey. She was likely well into her third century of life, from what Aquillas knew of her people’s biology. She tottered over to him and grabbed one of his large four fingered hands in two of hers as she spoke from the mouth situated on the very crown of her wide mushroom-cap shaped head. As she did so he noticed, not for the first time, the many iridium and platinum rings on her fingers. She seemed to have at least two or more per hand.

He released himself from her grip after a second and nodded politely. He wasn’t really a fan of her or her business in the grand scheme of things. But he needed capital if he was going to make any kind of difference in the way things were. And one thing that she seemed good at was raising capital.

“We finished the job…” He paused and glanced around the room, his pale blue eyes settling on the younger male razah;vool behind the bar as he asked “Are you sure we should be discussing such things in the open?”

Boogas waved several arms and tugged at his tight fitting uniform top. “Sure, we can discuss this matter in a more private setting. Follow me to my office if you will.” she chuckled, the slightly gurgling sound not exactly pleasant to his enhanced hearing.

As they passed through the doorway he took a deep sniff, she smelled strange. Like old weathered wood almost and a hint of sweet cream. It was the same as she had smelled the last two times they had talked, except there was something different this time. He detected a hint of spice, the tiny whiff just noticeable. Was she excited that he had returned? He would have to keep his senses keen and figure it out.

He followed her down a short hallway that led to an adjoining office space, the room relatively modest in comparison to the vast wealth he knew she had access to. She probably lived somewhere else on the station, kept her furnishings there.

“Okay, we got the goods, and there were minimal complications. Though one guy did…” But Boogas cut him off with a tutting sound, her mouth pursing as much as it was able to at the top of her head.

She shook an arm, her version of disagreement. “No, no no. I don’t listen to the details, the less I know about your activities the better. Just tell me, were the crates there like I saw them in my report?”

Aquillas took a moment to respond, the somewhat uncomfortable chair he had sat in while she spoke not allowing room for his long tail to escape properly. As he shifted she continued speaking, her tone capturing his interest before her words.

She spoke excitedly, her arms moving as if they had their own minds, because they did. “So, tell me. How is my shipment of medicine?”

Aquillas raised a brow at that. “You mean the combat stims?”

She waved a hand dismissively while another clenched into a fist. “Yes yes, whatever. You have the shipment I requested?”

He smiled at her obvious discomfort, he didn’t get it. She was a black market fence, she dealt in far worse items than combat stims he was sure. What was it about the adrenaline stimulants that set her teeth on edge he wondered. Instead of asking the obviously inflammatory question, he answered her simply and to the point.

“Yes, we did. And there were no complications, though the information you had on the shipment was incorrect. They weren't twenty-thousand units of stims…” he paused for emphasis.

He chuckled internally as her head tilted ever so slightly as the old woman slumped. “There wasn’t?” she asked, crestfallen sounding.

Time for the big reveal, now that she had gotten her hopes down, it was time to blow her out of the water with the good news. “No, there were in fact only fifty-thousand units.”

He watched in satisfaction as the number obviously didn't sink in all the way at first. A strange noise came out of her mouth, a sort of ‘eek’ noise that was definitely not a normal sound for a razah’vool. She jerked a bit as if fighting with herself and then croaked, “What? Fifty-thousand…”

Aquillas nodded as casually as he could, trying to appear nonchalant. “Yes, ten full crates. I know it isn’t what we agreed on, but I figured more is better… So we just grabbed 'em all. Of course I would be happy to get rid of the excess if you didn’t want them.”

He looked at her. She seemed frozen in shock still. He was a bit worried she might have a heart attack, could the razah’vool even get heart attacks? He might be about to find out first hand, the woman seeming to be at a loss for words. He could see the muscles that ringed her lipless hole of a mouth twitching for a moment before she sputtered out finally in a slightly different tone, “What-t. Throw out… Do you have any idea what that amount of product is even… How do I know you grabbed the right one?” she asked suddenly, the three primary eyes he could see narrowing in suspicion.

He had expected a somewhat dishonest individual like her to ask that at some point, so he had raided the cargo and grabbed a few samples. He dug into the pocket of his grey shorts and pulled out the long tube-shaped capsule within before tossing it onto the table between them. It landed with a thump as the hard polymer cased item rolled towards the still reeling matriarch.

She grabbed it instinctively and then held it close for inspection. Her secondary eye that was facing him seemed to light up as she read the label. “This is.. exactly what I was hoping… And more. Fifty-thousand units you said?”

Aquillas nodded, not able to keep himself from smiling widely this time. The air in the small room felt a bit heated, the scents filling the small space a bit overwhelming as her powerful emotions caused a myriad of conflicting information to enter his nose. He pushed his heightened perception to the back of his mind, a practice that had been drilled into him during his military training so many years ago.

Boogas stood from her small stool, her hands moving through the pockets on her harness as if looking for something. Presently she pulled out a small notebook and handed it to herself, the other arm opening the small booklet and rifling through the pages for a few moments. “Well, you certainly exceeded my expectations, Captain..”

“Commander, actually.” Aquillas interjected. “I am the captain of the Mortifying Command, but I am a Commander, not a Captain.” He explained as helpful as he could.

Boogas waved an arm as she pulled a large ledger off the back wall. “Nevermind, it isn't what’s important here. What is important is your pay. With this additional haul, making acceptance for the limitations of moving this much product…” she muttered to herself for a few more minutes as he watched interestedly. He was curious to see what her final calculations would be, would they be anywhere near his own? He was about to find out.

She closed the book and sat again, her demeanour clearly excited as her arms kept moving and fidgeting behind her. “Well, this was always going to be a profitable venture, but this is unprecedented. I haven't seen a haul this lucrative since the celestite heist back in seven-fifty-eight. With your standard cut of eight percent, you are looking at a payout of just over three-point-seven-million osmir. Of course I don’t have that much cash on hand, but I can pay you one-point-two-million in cash right now and give you the rest in credits if you like.”

Now it was Aquillas’ turn to be shocked. The black market value for the stims must have been much higher than he anticipated. That was almost three-quarters of a million osmir more than he was expecting on the high end. “I will uh.. Yeah, that would be acceptable for sure.”

One-point-two-million osmir, in cash. That was incredible. That was ten times, twenty times more than he had ever seen in one place before. “How the dark do you pay out that much cash all at once? In pallets?” he asked her incredulously.

She seemed to smile with her eyes, her mouth incapable of such a movement. “It isn’t as difficult as that, no. I will have you transfer your ship to the loading arm so we can exchange cargo. Ten pallets of product for me, five cases of osmir for you. That’s what, only about sixty kilograms of currency. Should be easy enough to transfer I think, much easier than fifty-thousand units of this.” she hefted the adrenaline stim he had given her.

Five boxes, twelve kilograms each. That seemed so small a prize to be worth so much. “That sounds like a plan. How long would it take you to get the rest of that in cash, out of curiosity.”

“If you were willing to wait for it, I could probably get my hands on that much cash in a few weeks. But I could give you credits right now if you wanted.” Boogas stated matter of factly.

Aquillas thought it over, he would be happy to wait for an untraceable method of payment. It’s not like they had anything pressing them to leave the area anytime soon. He thought about the crew, they would be perfectly happy to get paid any amount of cash. “Okay, I’ll wait for more hard currency. I don’t want to be tied down with a credit account, not with the high potential for investigations on my location.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Boogas made a hand gesture that substituted for a nod as she couldn't physically make the gesture. “Okay. Now that that’s out of the way, I have another job proposition for you. This one pay’s next to nothing in comparison, but let's just say I would owe you one.”

Aquillas’ pointed ears perked up at that. Boogas knew a terrific amount about the workings of the outlaw community and the area in general. Having her owe him one was likely to come greatly in handy. “What’s the job?” He said a bit too quickly.

She made the nodding gesture again and gurgled quietly. “I thought that would get your attention. I have a small liquimite claim a few systems over. Nothing major, but a nice little nest egg in case things go south here. The only problem is the shipment is three days overdue and they aren't answering my calls.” There was a moment's pause as she gathered her thoughts.

Aquillas was pretty sure he knew where she was going with this. And he was a little unsure, this sounded less like a rogue employee and more like some seriously bad news.

Boogas continued, she didn’t seem to have noticed his reserved expression. Or if she did she didn’t care overmuch. “Seeing as how you have a sturdy ship and are capable of handling yourself, I was hoping I could get you to go and check on things for me. Nothing too fancy, just warp in, check on them and then come report back.”

Aquillas waited but she seemed to have finished speaking. “What if they don’t answer, or tell me to get lost?”

She shrugged all four arms at once. “Well, if they don’t want to play nice then you have my full permission to uninstall them from my claim. Just be sure not to damage anything vital if it comes to that.”

He chuckled. “What, just blast the shit out of them if they are getting uppity? Surely you can afford a new crew, yes, but what about a more diplomatic option? Do I have permission to try negotiation if I feel it may end things bloodlessly?” He was no stranger to combat, but he never sought out the fight. He was more than happy to end things peaceably if at all possible. Not at all like Bobbie, she was more of a shoot first ask questions later kind of person.

His question didn’t seem to affect the old razah’vool very much as she simply waved a ten fingered hand and replied “If you think you can end things peacefully without any need for destruction, be my guest. But the last time the shipments were this late with no communication I had to hire… Well, I had to take care of several problems.” One of her side arms waved in a manner as if trying to grab attention but then stopped.

Aquillas frowned but asked “Okay then. Let's say I do decide to help. Where are you sending us?”

She tutted with another slight gurgle, likely her attempt at a chuckle. “Not so fast, I trust you boy, but not as far as I could throw you.” She gave him a pointed look, the skin just above her forward eye crinkling in a strange expression he wasn't sure he understood.

“Okay, I’ll help you out with this. But I have my reservations. This has all the hallmarks of marauders, not disgruntled employees.” He leaned forwards to grip her offered arm and to seal the deal. Her strange ten fingered hands felt so small and delicate in his own large four fingered one, her skin slightly warm with the texture of old leather.

Boogas’s mouth moved a little, as if she were trying to speak but without sound. He ignored it. The razah’vool were a strange race of people, their mannerisms odd at the best of times. Their split personalities making them difficult to truly understand at the best of times.

She stood from her stool and moved around the desk. “Well, can I escort you to the door? I will send your payment when we come to pick up the cargo. In the meantime, enjoy yourselves, you earned it. Take a day to recover and then I will send you the coordinates to the claim.”

Aquillas wanted to argue that they should be moving out as soon as possible, but the thought of buying a hot steak dinner on the station appealed to him and he nodded. He twitched his ears as she spoke again. “Well, it seems your crewoman here has already started ahead of you.” Again with that low gurgle he was now sure was a chuckle of some description.

They had entered the bar again and he shook his large furred head. Bobbie was slumped at the bar, an array of empty glasses around her and a slightly scared looking razah’vool bartender arguing with the plastered human woman.

“I cannot in good conscience serve you any more alcohol. You have had nearly a toxic dose already, if I served you any more you could die, and I would be directly responsible.” the young alien bartender argued, his arms moving aimlessly as he seemed at a loss for direction.

Bobbie aggressively smacked one of the empty glasses onto the genuine wooden countertop, likely denting it slightly. “And I told you that I aren't even close to my limit, you.. you stumbling moron! Now give me another or I'm gonna…” It was then that she noticed him as he entered the room with Boogas. He gave her a mildly disappointed look as she slurred happily, “Oh, it’s so good to see you captain.” She pointed at the slightly shaking bartender. “This asshole won’t serve me any more drinks.. Says I’m cutted.. cut? Cut-off..” she hiccuped a bit as she stumbled over her words.

Aquillas glanced at Boogas and muttered to himself. “This is going to be a pain in my ass.”

Boogus just gestured towards the door. “I assume you will deal with it?” He nodded slowly. “Then it’s settled. I will send a pickup crew to your ship once it’s moved. And expect to hear back from me tomorrow afternoon, standard time.” With that she wobbled off, her strange twisting gait causing her to look like she was having trouble remaining upright. They were a mostly aquatic species by nature after all.

He turned back to the rapidly deteriorating situation in front of him and sighed. Bobbie was a good friend, as good as one could expect in a fucked up universe after all. But she had her problems, and one of them was her propensity to get blind drunk at every opportunity. He understood she was just drowning unpleasant memories, but he still hated to see her in such a state.

He stepped over to her side and grabbed her shoulders, steadying her. “Ok, I’ll be sure to have a word with him for you. But wouldn't you rather have a nice cup of steamed milk and a nap?”

She looked up at him and he jerked back a bit as she poked the tip of his snout, right on his nose.

“Boop! Got you!” she giggled girlishly.

Snuffling slightly, he wrinkled his snout and gently pulled her to her feet. “Okay there, you got me. Now, let’s go.”

Aquillas gave her the most gentle of suggestive pushes towards the door of the establishment. She frowned and looked back towards the bar, the angry looking razah’vool bartender still furiously wringing their bartowl in two hands. “But I wanted to get another drink…”

He shook his head as they reached the door, he put a hand on it and looked at her. “Fine, one more, but you can get it from the ship. I'll open up a bottle of three year bitern just for the two of us.” She nodded and he gave her a smile, top lip peeling back to reveal sharp yellow teeth just briefly.

As he pushed open the door a blast of cold air hit them and he took a deep refreshing breath. Bobbie was much less impressed, goosebumps immediately popping up over the exposed skin of her forearms and neck. She clung to him a bit closer, trying to hide herself from the cold behind his larger frame. It was futile and he had to partially drag her out into the cold.

“It’s so c-cold..” she stated obviously, her slightly slurred voice mixing poorly with the chattering of her teeth.

Aquillas gave a sigh, “I told you last time we were here that you don't have insulating fur and should be wearing a jacket. Or at least a long sleeved uniform.”

She shook her head. “I don't like the way they constrict my movements. Why do w-we have to w-wear these dumb uniforms a-anyways?” she chattered as they walked down the icy sidewalk.

Aquillas looked at her from the corner of his eye and sighed, she was shivering and looked so miserable. Stopping he nudged her away, before she could protest he started taking off his uniform jacket, the brass buttons taking him a second to undo. All too soon he had it off and draped it over Bobbie’s shivering shoulders. The freezing air was cool on his furred shoulders, his sleeveless white undershirt only covering the shorter fur on his chest.

Bobbie gave him an almost unreadable look, but his nose told him different. That strange sweet scent was back, the one that told him she was thinking about him more strongly than she should. He ignored it for the moment, no time to dwell on it as they needed to get back to the ship and move it to the loading dock before tomorrow. He liked to be ahead of things.

Bobbie and him made their way back along the frozen streets quickly, other passersby giving them cursory glances due to their dark military uniforms but that was it. Nobody stopped or accosted them, not anymore. The first time they had made landfall here there were some that gave them suspicious looks, but all the time they had been in the area he had never seen another military craft visit the station, or even the system. They had become part of the known, a regular enough sight to no longer draw attention.

It felt nice to blend into the background once in a while. Not to have to constantly worry about being seen or reported, they were deserters after all. Bobbie patted his arm and he looked over as she pointed. Following her finger he paused and stepped closer to the wall, drawing Bobbie into the relative shadows with him.

Walking down the street ahead of them were a group of people, several humans, slaaveth and a single tall nerivith female. All of them wearing dark red synthleathers or spiked falsehide jackets and sporting numerous tattoos. They didn’t notice them and soon disappeared into one of the many dingy taverns that dotted this cursed hulk.

‘Pirates, scum, degenerates.’ The words rose like bile in his mind unbidden, the thought of such malcontents living freely and attacking innocents with relative impunity still ranked his hide. He knew he no longer had the direct authority to stop them, but he still hated their kind. He stole from the corrupt Union with a purpose in mind, they stole from anyone for their own selfish benefit. He was better than them in every way.

He realised he was snarling as Bobbie tapped his shoulder. “Are you okay Quilly? You are making that noise again like you do everytime you look at the scum of the galaxy.”

He shook his head and stepped back into the light of the street side. With the way now clear they started back down the street, but now he was a bit more wary as to their surroundings. He had only a few direct ruins with such unsavory characters so far, but almost every time had ended in general hostility. Once it had ended in outright violence that had nearly taken the form of a brawl before it was broken up by station security.

As he thought of it he saw two of them, big burly atraxses brutes wearing heavy riot gear. Their large wide frames perfectly suited for carrying heavy loads for extended periods of time, and their long shaggy fur made them nearly impervious to the freezing temperatures. He knew from experience they were armed with microwave guns and voltaic batons, the less lethal weapons capable of emitting a wide beam of microwaves that would cause muscle seizure and uncontrolled spasms, effectively rendering their targets completely helpless.

He gave them a nod as they crossed paths, one of them giving a friendly nod in return while the other simply grunted in a bored fashion. While not exactly prone to violence as some of the races of the Union were, the atraxses came from a hostile ice world. Their survival instincts giving them a markedly more developed fight reflex than some of the other Union species. The umraghj immediately came to his mind, the cowardly aliens always hiding on their chlorinated space stations and ships. He had never even seen one himself in real life, his only knowledge of them coming from holovids and other digital media..

He shook his head, it was unlikely that he ever would either. They were the second least populous species in the Union, only marginally more populous than the crystalline jeseo.

The path widened suddenly and he looked around to see they had returned back to the docking area they had originally boarded the station from. He glanced down at Bobbie and smiled again slightly. She was nodding off, barely awake enough to walk as he steered her towards the ship and a place to lie down.

He took a few minutes to get her to her own quarters, opening her door and escorting her to her bed. She flopped down and was asleep almost immediately, his uniform jacket still wrapped around her body, he thought about prying it from her but decided not to. She looked so peaceful cozied up in the large garment and so he shook his head slowly and left, the door hissing closed behind him.

Almost as soon as he turned around he was met with the glib features of his quartermaster, the slim slaaveth female looking straight out of a megalite swimsuit magazine. Her azure scales delicate on her face, her pronounced cheekbones framed large eyes black as the oceanic abyss her people evolved from. She gave him her version of a wide friendly smile, her pointed serrated teeth making even him pause in slight apprehension. Whereas his own teeth were sharp, they were made for tearing meat, not like hers which seemed designed for cutting through bone.

He just gave her the most cursory of looks so as not to encourage her. “Yes Swarth? What is it?”

She fell in alongside him, much closer than she needed to be, and pulled out a dataslate. “Well, I just wanted to point out a few things we seem a little understocked on. First on the list is water, the reserve tanks are starting to get low and the recyclers can only do so much. If we don’t get some capital soon then I'm afraid we will start having to drink each other’s pi…” he cut her off.

“It won't come to that, I'm afraid.” He frowned slightly as she actually seemed a little upset. He prayed to Frine that it was just because he had interrupted her prepared speech. “We are getting payed for the last job tomorrow, we should have more than enough coming in to cover all current and backlogged expenses.”

She frowned, her head frill drooping ever so slightly as he made her entire prepared speech insignificant. She perked back up after a moment though and moved even closer to him, somehow. “So, it seems that I have finished all of my assigned duties. I have some free time now, oh, what to do?” she said in an almost pouting manner.

He was a bit speechless. Was she flirting with him again? What was with the fucking crew of his ship, they were all such horny bastards. He shook his head and replied as sternly as he could “Well, I heard that Neama might need some help peeling a few buckets of Shooms. You could always help her with that if you like, it could be fun, who knows.” he chuckled as she physically recoiled.

“Shooms?! No way, I have much more important things to do than shuck stupid shellfish. Er, let me know if you want, I mean, need me.” and with that final stumbling pass at him she scrambled away as fast as her dignity would allow.

He chuckled again, nothing would get that prim woman to scuttle off quite like the promise of manual labor. Especially if said labor was in any way messy or smelly. He was still chuckling when he reached the bridge of the Mortifying Command and took the main command throne. The day was almost over, according to the ship’s Union standard clock at least. Local time it was only about three past noon, but his circadian rhythm was dead set to Union standard time after all.

He leaned back into his throne and closed his eyes. He wasn't so tired that he would fall asleep where he sat, but he did finally let himself relax. He didn't really care what was happening on the rest of the ship, there would be plenty of time to worry about it tomorrow after all. Instead he simply sat and listened to the subtle sounds of the ship creaking and groaning as it sat moored in that deep black void amongst the stars.

Continued In E1:P4