The old Terran winced as she surveyed the scene laid out in front of her.
Not even a “raider” deserved this.
“Do we have an ID?” she asked the uniformed Terran Peace Officer holding a scanner.
“Those guys over there aren’t in the system,” he replied, gesturing to a pile of formerly living threen, “but the guy strapped to the chair is Khakaron Harkeen, the owner of this place.”
“Good job identifying… that,” the old detective replied.
“He was receiving regular medical treatment,” the officer shrugged. “His genome matches.”
“Harkeen?”
“It’s listed as his official last name,” the officer replied.
“An actual Harkeen family member?” the detective replied, “Oh, they aren’t going to be happy about that.”
She turned and grinned at the peace officer.
“Oh no! Do you think this will turn into a gang war?” she smirked.
The peace officer laughed and shook his head.
“Perish the thought,” he replied.
“So, what’s your call, boss?” another peace officer asked. “This legit or what?”
“Well...” the detective mused, running her fingers through her silver hair, “One confirmed Harkeen family member and half a dozen-ish… Do we know how many are in… that… yet?”
“Eight,” the other officer replied, “… we are pretty sure it’s eight.”
“Close enough,” the detective replied, “Eight undocumented young adult male threens, several of which are bearing Harkeen tattoos, combat scars, and the like… I don’t like to profile anyone, living or dead, but we got a verified Harkeen family member, a loose assortment… literally (heh)… of likely gang members, in a laundromat that has a suspicious number of credit transactors and a pile of bootleg drugs in the back room?… What’s the estimated height of the shooters again?”
“(snort), Around 135 centimeters,” replied the officer holding the scanner.
“So, unless one of the Tiny Tyke paintball teams has decided to go pro… Some of those goddamn Chuckies that the frog princess is using dropped by… And who would ever have thought that sentence would make sense,” she added with a chuckle. “Those little guys have been one hundred percent accurate thus far… So, yeah… Just scan ’em and tag ’em. No sense burning overtime over this one.”
“How the hell are they finding them?” a Kalesh officer called from the adjoining room. “We had no idea this was here.”
“You know all those people who were too scared to rat out these assholes?” the detective smiled, “They won’t talk to us, but they have no problem talking to the frog. Can you blame them? We promise them due process and ask them to have ‘faith’ in the system. Sheloran promises results and only asks for names.”
“Yeah, but isn’t this just replacing one thug with a worse one?” the Kalesh yelled back. “and what about when some innocent threen gets a visit from these guys?”
“These ‘people’ that the frog hired are professionals,” the detective yelled back. “The only non-Harkeen target they have visited are a couple of people who gave them bad intel. Turns out you don’t want to do that. It pisses them off.”
“Still, this is not… Oh, Gods… There are more of them back here!… by the void… One of them is still alive!” the Kalesh shouted.
“Medic!” the detective shouted into her communicator. “We have a live one! Repeat! We have a live one! Get your ass in here!”
***
Bergaron sighed as he idly polished the genuine silica glass counter of his empty establishment.
He had tried. He really did.
He had tried so hard!
Tired of watching his family starve, he had accepted inescapable debt to the Harkeen in exchange for passage off of their homeworld to somewhere, anywhere.
Turns out “anywhere” was Terra of all places…
It wasn’t his first choice, his second… or even his last choice, for that matter…
Still, it didn’t matter. He worked as a slave for those thugs for years, trying to pay off the unpayable…
But at least he didn’t have to be one of their thugs, not that they hadn’t offered. He was exactly what they wanted in a foot soldier, big, tough, strong, and dumb…
Or so they thought…
Oh, he was big and tough, even tougher than they thought, tough enough to work not only the back-breaking labor they assigned but tough enough to work even more when they weren’t looking…
Enough to actually pay off his debt, something his “masters” certainly did not expect.
Oh, they weren’t happy, but one thing about the Harkeen is that they were one of the established families, and as such, they had a reputation to uphold. That included sticking to their agreements.
So, he was actually “free”… almost.
You were never actually free of those bastards. They always dropped by to collect “insurance” or “taxes” or “charitable donations” or whatever they felt like calling it that week.
He had to pay. He had family back home, and they knew exactly who they were and where they lived.
Even so, he was free, and Terra was the land of opportunity with jobs for everyone, right?
Yeah… about that…
Still, he was strong and tough and an insanely good worker, and there was always something that needed picking up and moving or a shop that liked having a huge scary-looking floor sweeper.
It was all for his family, who he hadn’t seen in years except for the few moments of screen time he could occasionally afford or were given to him by a sympathetic boss. The Harkeen were what the Harkeen were, but the protection money he paid was actually protection money. The word was put out that his wife and daughter were “paid for”, a source of income for the Harkeen, a pretty good source of income. Bergaron paid them quite well.
The few remaining credits were a pittance on Terra but for his wife and child? They were mana from heaven.
It was enough for most Threen but not for Bergaron. He managed to learn from everyone and everything, and he learned how the places he swept and carried for operated. Terrans were what Terrans were, but they appreciated hard work, and most were all too happy to answer his “stupid” questions.
One of them, his last “boss”, a small woman by the name of Maly, even started letting him ‘run’ her business, a small take-out place in Startown favored by Porkie free-traders.
Terrans were what Terrans were, but they love their families. Once Maly learned of his, she just smiled and told him that she had a little feeling that things would work out for them.
Two months later, he showed up to work and burst into tears. Standing there was his wife and daughter. Standing beside them was the local Harkeen boss with a strange, very uncomfortable look on his face.
Maly just looked at the fidgeting gangster, smiled, and said, “Thank you, you can go now.”
And that’s exactly what the Harkeen did… and never returned.
Maly never explained, just told Bergaron “not to worry about it”. Bergaron had long ago learned when not to ask any questions, questions like why some porkie traders picked up their orders around back.
The months turned to years, and Bergaron never left Maly’s side. A Threen knows a good “boss” when they see one, and a Threen knows loyalty. What Maly did for him could never be repaid, not that Maly ever asked. She didn’t have to.
One day, she called him into the office and told him that she had decided that his services were no longer required.
He begged to know what he did wrong, how he could fix whatever unforgivable offense he had made. She just shrugged and told him that he had done nothing wrong. He had just learned all she could teach him.
She then handed him his “severance package” and smiled.
As Bergaron struggled not to faint, she made the observation that the ice cream he made was already a favorite with her customers and that there wasn’t a decent place anywhere around.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
She also mentioned that there was a place that had just gone out of business that would be perfect, right across the street…
So, that’s what Bergaron did. He opened a place specializing in his favorite of all Terran foods, the one thing he loved making more than anything.
It wasn’t easy, and he almost went under half a dozen times, but with a little luck and a lot of hard work, something Bergaron was quite familiar with, he had built his little ice cream parlor into one of the most popular in town. “Normal” people would even venture deep into Startown for a scoop of his genuine dairy cream based delights.
He had finally made it…
Until the whole galaxy went mad…
With the epidemic came a sealed border, and with a sealed border, Startown ran dry. Imperial ships landed in Imperial berths and went to Imperial establishments in their tacky gold leaf splashed avenues.
The Federation ships were gone, as were a lot of the independents who couldn’t get through. His local customers were unable to pay rent or buy groceries. Luxuries like even his cheap synthcream products were out of the question.
As the situation worsened, desperation rose and, along with it, crime. Startown never had been exactly “nice,” but you could walk from your apartment to your job without having a hand on the blaster you now had tucked under your jacket.
And with that desperation, the Harkeen and people like them thrived. Labor contractors promising passage back to the Federation (which was a lie. May the gods protect you if you get on one of those ships.) and loan brokers of all stripes prowled in the shadows or brazenly rented retail space.
Thank the gods for Maly and other Terrans. Terrans were what Terrans were, but they did not put up with much and kept the Harkeen and the rest from taking Startown over completely like they had other places.
But even they weren’t immune to the crisis, and more and more of them were closing up shop every week. Startown was never particularly popular with Terran spacers, and what few who didn’t just zip over it on their way to Belfast or Dublin were now put off by the growing number of homeless xenos and stranded spacers who were becoming more desperate and aggressive as time went on.
Still, he had managed somewhat. He had established himself as “the ice cream Threen” so he had a dedicated Terran following who would still brave Startown to get their fix (or have a cab drop them off right in front of his door in any event). Times were tight, but he was keeping his head above water, barely…
Until last week…
Those idiotic Harkeen decided to tangle with a real crimelord. He had made the mistake of letting an overly excited Terran show him “the video”…
It was horrible! Why did they think they could go against something like that? That beast was a demon. Even the Terrans said so (and they would know).
Of course, the Harkeen took it as “disrespect” because it was. She ate his food, called him what she called him, and then said what she said as she sliced him into wafers…
They had to answer, or they would lose so much face back home they would be out of business…
Exactly as that… fiend… planned.
She was waiting for them. What happened next wasn’t a fight. It was a hunt, complete with horns and vketo beasts carrying hunters down the freaking streets!…
They were set up and slaughtered like livestock. What’s worse, the frog demon had put the fix in and arranged it so that the Harkeen would be classified as “raiders”…
Brilliant… He was a Threen, after all, and he knew a gangster lord when he saw one. The Harkeen got played and played hard by a master of the game. That frog beast would be the Overboss back home, no question about that.
But Sheloran wasn’t done with them (that was the crimelord’s name, Sheloran). If “The Battle of Free Port” (It wasn’t a battle but mass murder.) was bad, what happened next was a nightmare.
Gods, why did they cross that thing?
That Sheloran sent teams of… monsters… to systematically hunt down and slaughter every single Harkeen everywhere in the galaxy. The humans called them “Chuckies” because of their size.
Tiny or not, those things were death incarnate. Wherever they went, slaughter followed.
Not just slaughter… violation… the nature of the brutal killings, and the precise way the bodies were desecrated meant they couldn’t have proper burials. She wasn’t just killing them. She was actually sending them to hell!
And she did all of this while in Tartarus… One of the most secure facilities in the galaxy!…
Not that she was going to be in there for long…
Because she had tricked the Harkeen into getting themselves classified as “raiders”, the multiple murders she did on camera were pretty much moot.
She was going to walk free. Everyone was saying so… exactly like she planned…
He shuddered…
Whoever can do that to the Harkeen must be something evil. He had heard that she was so bad that her homeworld actually did NOT want her arrested. That would mean she would be coming back, something they desperately wished to avoid, even if she would be in chains…
They said that she was that awful… And he believed it!
And the Terrans were all raising their cups to the fiend… Well, Terrans were what Terrans were after all… and even Bergaron had to admit she had style. With the Harkeen, they would find you behind a dumpster. With Sheloran, they find you hanging from a streetlight…
The Threen in him couldn’t help but respond to that. There was a new “boss”. He just hoped that when the inevitable happened, she didn’t charge too much for her particular brand of “insurance”… Even Maly wouldn’t be able to oppose something like her.
If he survived her in the first place…
So far, the slaughter was confined to the Harkeen, but he was a Threen businessman running a cash business and a restaurant at that. Even Harkeen thought he was Harkeen. He had directed a lost or new henchman to the actual “Threen restaurant” about six blocks over more than once.
Turns out that a lot of his regular customers thought he might be one too. Ever since Sheloran sent out those “Children of the Corn looking motherfuckers” (whatever that meant). His shop had been empty. Nobody wanted to be caught in the crossfire when they showed up for him.
He had taken to keeping his wife and daughter home just in case, but he still showed up every day to open an empty shop so he could stand there with a target hovering over his head.
He wondered how much longer he could even be able to do that.
***
Outside, a long van with blacked-out windows pulled in front of his shop.
“Don’ like dis,” the small driver muttered. “U sur dis rite playce?”
“Dis da playce,” a small blonde girl, looking no more than fourteen, replied, “I dyd my reesearch. Dis da playce! ‘Puter says so.”
“Dis knot smart,” the driver grumbled, “We—“
The blonde threw the door open and sprinted into the ice cream parlor.
“Goddammit...” the driver muttered as he jumped out and followed her.
***
A bead of cold mucus formed at the tip of Bergaron’s snout and dripped down into his mouth, frozen in a terrified grin.
Moments ago, two “scary children” wearing trench coats entered his ice-cream parlor, Scary children with big eyes… Chuckies… they had to be.
Oh, Gods… I’m not going to get a proper burial… My wife isn’t going to be able to burn incense or leave flowers to remember me...
“I… I’m not Harkeen!” Bergaron blurted in a terrified squeal. “I promise I’m not! I swear!”
A child-thing with long pale yellow fur on the top of her head stepped forward. The other one backed away, carefully keeping his distance from her as she moved.
She looked at a tablet and then up at him with huge, impossibly blue eyes, making the blood freeze in his hearts.
“Chil, zeno,” she replied in a strange, barely comprehensible voice. “U r knot on da list. No pay, no slay,” she added with a smile that made his bladder clench. “Didn’t kno U Threen.”
She stepped forward with that same unnerving smile. Bergaron clenched his eyes shut in terror. He had gotten quite used to humans during his time on Terra. They no longer frightened him…
...but that child-thing was definitely NOT human!
“P…. please…” Bergaron whimpered. He had seen pictures of what these things did. They would have to burn his body… He couldn’t go to heaven… Oh, ancestors….
“I say chil!” the child-demon hissed. “U r knot Harkeen, rite?”
“I’m not… I promise I’m not...” Bergaron whispered. “I just run an ice cream parlor… I just make ice cream… That’s all…” he whimpered. “... that’s all...” he added rigid with terror.
“An’ dat’s Y we r hear,” the child-fiend replied. “I wan’ ta tri sum an the ’puter say u r da best.”
“… You want… ice cream?...”
“Yeh!” the thing replied. “Nevr had real i-keem befor. Wan sum.”
He heard something hit the counter. He cracked open one of his eyes.
It was a data crystal.
“...Ice cream...” he gasped, “s-sure th-thing… Which flavor would you like?”
“Dunno,” the ‘child’ replied, gazing up at him with those unnatural eyes. “I saw on vidya dat dere’s dese tinny spoons? Ta tayste wit?”
The little monster looked over at a tray of small plasti-wood paddles.
“Yes! Of course!” the threen bleated. “Samples!”
He scrambled for the tray.
“W-what would you like to try—“
The front door flew open, causing his ‘customers’ to whirl unnaturally quickly as an oddly shaped submachine gun appeared from beneath the male Chucky’s trench coat, and two thin rods magically appeared in the blonde “girl’s” (Bergaron wasn’t sure she was a child anymore) hands.
“Hold on!” an old creaky voice hissed.
It was Maly!
Behind her were several members of her family and a few regular customers, all holding firearms.
“Bergie, here isn’t Harkeen!” Maly growled, holding a sawed-off auto-shotgun at the ready. “You got no business with him.”
“Mutherfuk!” the blonde snarled. “I jus’ wan’ i-keem!”
“Giv uz sum kredit,” the other “Chuckie” snarled. “Only Harkeen, no kolatral damage. Kontrakt klear as void. Boi not on lyst. Boi iz sayfe. ‘Puter only say best i-keem. Know say Threen run playce. We knot kome if we no dat.”
“Now start sumthin’ or put da toob away,” the blonde sneered. “I buy you i-keem… or send sum to ur wayke… whicheva…”
“You are just here for ice cream?” Maly asked in confusion as the barrel of her shotgun wavered.
“dyd I skutter?” the blonde sneered.
She dismissively turned her back to Maly (the other didn’t).
“Now joyn me or fuk off,” she said as she turned to the still terrified Bergaron. “I’ll tri dat one!… Dat chokalyat? Rite?”
“Y-yes it is!” Bergaron replied nervously as he scooped up a small portion on one of the paddles.
The tiny blond merc took the paddle and excitedly put it in her mouth.
She gasped.
It was even better than she had imagined.
***
Over the afternoon, the number of Chuckies grew from two to nearly twenty, all excitedly sampling every flavor and then promptly being “too full” to actually order anything.
Bergaron didn’t mind. He wasn’t being horribly killed and mutilated.
He considered it a win.
Maly and a dozen locals were also there, just in case, which made him feel better.
Some of them even bought something.
As he was rapidly scooping up samples and handing them out to tiny grasping hands, an old grizzled “Chuckie” walked up to the counter.
“What flavor would you like to try first?” Bergaron asked pleasantly.
“None fer me, thank you,” he said in a surprisingly understandable voice. “I no what these idjts don’. We r not built for things like i-keem. Dere buttholes will be screamin’ tonite... Here.”
The Chuckie pulled out a transactor, and Bergaron’s register beeped.
Bergaron’s eyes bulged in surprise.
“Fer scarin’ the shit outta U and eatin’ up all your free samples.”
“T-thank you!” Bergaron stammered. It was a LOT of money, several weeks’ worth of business back when he actually had one.
“If any other Chuckies show, U charge them for… sumthin’, right?” the grizzled Chuckie said with a smile (that still made Bergaron clench).
“I… I could make a ‘sampler’… price it the same as two scoops...” Bergaron replied, “and if you tell me more about your digestive requirements, I could try to make something more agreeable.”
“U wuld trayde wit’ uz?” the old merc asked in surprise, the shock rattling his “perfect” Terran.
“I’m a Threen,” Bergaron replied, “This isn’t my first gang war or my second. At least you aren’t shooting up the place, burning down the neighborhood, or killing innocent people. If you want ice cream, I’ll sell you ice cream… Just put in a good word for me with Sheloran, ok?”
“Ok!” the old “Chuckie” grinned.
The door suddenly flew open as duster-clad peace officers burst in, causing every tiny customer to whirl as oddly shaped submachine guns or telescoping steel rods appeared in their hands.
“Officers,” Bergaron said pleasantly, “Nice of you to finally drop by. Would you please not hassle my customers?”