Digger spiraled in toward Ceon 12, the home planet of the city of Techterra. Kinnit radioed for permission to land outside the city. She wanted to keep her interaction with official Imperial channels to a minimum, so she chose to land in Duskwind, a small civilian town nearby.

She received landing instructions and brought the little shuttle down for a landing that was slightly less rough than her docking on the Argosy Mule.

Kinnit socketed her scanner to pay for the parking spot, and made her way into the tiny, run-down spaceport.

Sharp smells assaulted her senses as she walked in. She wrinkled her nose. The stink of hydrocarbons hung heavy in the air, mixing with the odor of a multitude of unwashed species. It was a distinctive and revolting mixture.

Kinnit walked over to an information kiosk. The data entry screen was filthy, coated with the gummy residue of ten thousand fingers from across the galaxy. A quick glance at the other kiosks showed that her kiosk was not especially dirty compared to the others.

At least this one didn't have visible bodily fluids on it. She shuddered.

The old screen was glitchy, and reluctant to accept her input, so she had to press firmly to get her keypresses to register. With reluctant determination, she entered "Gunstar, Dass" into the search. The kiosk whirred for a long minute before finally coming back with a response.

No Records Found

Kinnit frowned. Maybe she was misremembering. She tried "Gunnstarr, Dass"

No Records Found

She began trying every variation she could think of, gritting her teeth with frustration as she added her own layer of finger oils to the decrepit screen. Then she just tried last names. Always with the same result.

No Records Found

Annoyed, she pulled up business listings. She pressed "Cargo hauling" and began laboriously scrolling through listings of local businesses.

After fifteen fruitless minutes of tedious, janky scrolling, Kinnit found herself at the bottom of the list, staring at "Zip Cargo."

She took a deep breath. She'd thought through so many scenarios, prepared for so many eventualities, but she'd never expected to just... not be able to find the man.

Kinnit stepped away from the kiosk to think. She headed for the restroom to wash her hands. As soon as she found the light switch, she turned around and walked right back out without touching the sink. She would wait until she found a cleaner restroom.

Well. She needed to get to Techterra in any case. Perhaps she'd have better luck searching for him there. Maybe in Techterra the terminals had been cleaned this century.

Kinnit mentally shook herself. Stay positive! She put a smile on her face and tried to relax.

There was no line for bus tickets at this station. One terminally-bored, dark-muzzled Nulvex rested his head on his hand, watching her approach. Nothing moved but his eyes as she arrived at his desk.

"One ticket to Techterra, please!" she said, forcing a note of jollity into her voice.

The Nulvex's eyes slid over to a hand-written sign nearby. It read "Cash Only."

Kinnit's smile became a little fixed.

"Can you direct me to a cash machine, please?" she asked.

The Nulvex's eyes slid over to the other side of the station. With the barest nod of his head, he indicated an eldery machine in the corner.

"Thanks so much!" she said stiffly.

After wrangling some local cash out of the machine, she walked back to the bus terminal, absolutely seething about the exchange rate and fees.

The Nulvex watched her approach with the same utter disinterest.

"Hi, yes, I'd like a ticket to Techterra, please."

The Nulvex sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. His looked at a little price sheet taped to the desk. On the smeary, blurry list, Kinnit was able to find the line: "Techterra: 20 credits"

She silently slid a 20-credit note across the desk. He slid a small slip back to her. She took it and looked around uncertainly. He glanced toward a nearby door.

"Thank you," she said, and walked through the door to the waiting bus.

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Once she'd arrived in Techterra, Kinnit had gotten a small hotel room, but another scan of the local databases frustratingly yielded no clues about the whereabouts of a certain disreputable Duroclade.

After some quiet fussing with herself, she decided that she'd need to scout Techterra herself until she could figure out how to find Dass.

She dressed herself in civilian clothes and wandered around the local neighborhood.

This area of Techterra was run-down. Faded storefronts lined the streets, shadowy despite the late afternoon light of the pale yellow sun. The area was run down and economically depressed, but it was cleaner and better maintained than anything in Duskwind had been. There was one burned-out building on the corner, still cordoned by yellow tape. It looked as though it had once been a restaurant.

Kinnit wondered how a local neighborhood could be so economically depressed in a city that housed both the seat of the Imperial Navy and the Clarion, the largest media outlet in the galaxy.

A frown creased her brow as she wandered. People-- and by extension cities-- accreted around money, power, and safety, and Techterra had plenty of all those things.

She just didn't understand why things were this way.

Dusk began to creep over the city. A neon "Open" sign flickered to life a street down, lighting the window of a bar with a hot pink glow.

Kinnit nodded and marched forward, her goal set.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A disreputable bar was exactly the kind of place Dass Gunstar would be found. Or at least that's where people who knew him could be found.

She walked in and took a slow look around the small establishment. It was about half-full and reasonably well appointed, considering the area it was in. The lighting was a little dim for her tastes. Hostile eyes glared back at her.

She meekly walked to the bar. The bartender raised an eyebrow.

"A strawberry fizz, please," she said, clambering up onto one of the tall stools. The bartender shrugged and set a bottle in front of her. She pushed a couple small bills across the counter and opened the soda.

"Do you know a Duroclade named Dass Gunstar?" she asked. "Tall, looks kind of like a badger?"

"I sell drinks, lady, that's it." The bartender moved away from her.

Undaunted, she hopped back down with her drink, scanning the patrons. She tapped the shoulder of a fellow at the bar.

"Do you know a Dass Gunstar? Duroclade? He drives a big box truck?"

The man grunted and turned away from her.

She circled the bar, interrupting conversations and asking after Dass. The kindest responses she got were the grunts. Everyone refused to talk to her.

She was nearly ready to give up on this bar. She began to despair. This was one corner of one street in the vast city of Techterra. Grimthorn had told her that Dass was trustworthy, but how did that do her any good if she couldn't find him?

Hoped sparked in her as three men approached. Perhaps they knew Dass and heard she was looking for him?

The ugly looks on their faces chilled her. She caught a whiff from them, a hint of the same fury and danger she used to get from the cat-bears back on Takkar.

"You're in the wrong place, lizard," the lead man said.

Kinnit decided this was not the time to get particular about being called a lizard.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to cause trouble," she explained. "I'm just looking for a friend of mine--"

"Oh, you found trouble," the man said hoarsely. "This is a Terran bar." he pointed at the collar on her neck. "No SSes allowed."

Kinnit's mouth dropped open. She'd heard of such things, but she'd never thought she'd find one. She'd assumed that Terran-only bars were the stuff of adventure novels.

"Oh," she said. "Oh. I'm very sorry, I had no idea." She began to edge around the men toward the door. "I'll leave, then."

The man in the lead moved to block her exit.

"Not so fast," he said.

"Not in my bar!" yelled the bartender.

The man in the lead frowned. Slowly, and with ill grace, he stood aside. Kinnit scuttled by, throwing apologies over her shoulder as she left.

She paused on the sidewalk outside, breathing heavily. She glared at the bar.

They should put up a sign or something if they didn't want SSes, she decided. Avoid this kind of misunderstanding.

And she'd left her strawberry fizz in there. She frowned. Well, she wasn't going back in for it.

Kinnit stalked off, her thoughts a scrambled mess. It wasn't as if she'd never been looked down on for being an SS. There were plenty of folks in the Navy who'd had opinions about her because of her golden collar. But most of that had been expressed in snide little comments or subtle hazing. She'd never faced such open hostility before.

Kinnit wasn't paying attention, with all her thoughts turned inward in anger and fear. So it was that she was taken completely by surprise when she was yanked into an alley.

The three men from the bar. She realized she should have been circumspect.

"You think you can come into our neighborhood, kill our people, burn our stuff and get away with it?" the lead man growled. He reached out and grabbed her collar. Kinnit jerked back, but she couldn't break the man's grip.

"I don't have anything to do with any of that!" she said, steadily pulling to try and escape. "I'm just looking for a friend. Let go of me!"

"Your kind come in here throwing bombs and now you want to pretend you're some innocent bystander? Do I look that stupid?"

"No," she snarled. "You look a lot stupider than that."

With a growl he raised a fist. Kinnit hissed, bared her teeth and lashed her head over.

The man howled, releasing her, blood flowing from his arm.

"She friggin' bit me!" he cried.

The trio surrounded her in the narrow alley. Kinnit spun slowly, her eyes hopping from one assailant to another.

"Let me go and we can all walk away from this," she said, trying to force down the hiss in her voice.

"Oh, we're way past that," said one of the lead's compatriots. He reached out and grabbed her by the throat with both hands. "Blood for blood."

"Please, don't," she choked out as his hands tightened around her throat. "I... I can't afford to go back to prison!"

The man paused in confusion for a moment.

"What?"

Kinnit lifted her legs and lashed out with the heavy claws on her toes. Long stripes of red opened on the man's shirt. He grunted in pain and dropped her.

She turned to the next compatriot. Her teeth were red, dripping, bared. She hissed steadily. The man fumbled a knife out of his pocket.

Kinnit leapt on him, a whirl of claws and teeth and fury, like three cats fighting in a sack. His knife clattered to the ground. He screamed and sank to his knees she moved faster than sight. He tried ineffectually to fend her off, but his arms and hands were already bloody shreds. She was a nonstop dervish of fury.

The leader of the trio came up behind her with a steel rod he'd picked up nearby. He swung with all his might.

The rod clunked off her horns. She turned to him. Her pupils were narrow slits. She spat and hissed.

He raised the rod again and Kinnit launched herself at him like a slingshot. They slammed into the wall of the building and fell to the ground.

Kinnit stopped herself. One hand was tangled in his hair, holding his head to the ground. Her teeth were around his throat. She heaved, her jaw flexing, wanting to chomp closed. Her slitted pupils rolled over to look at his eyes.

His white-rimmed eyes stared back at her in terror.

With tremendous effort of will, she opened her jaw and pulled her head back.

"Leave me alone," she hissed directly into his face.

Then she turned and dashed out of the alley.

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Kinnit stared at her haggard face in the mirror the next morning. She'd barely slept. Nightmares had been waiting for her every time her exhausted body tried to drag her deeper into sleep.

The hot water in the shower last night had failed far too early. She'd spent too much time scrubbing at her skin the in the icy water, trying to wash away redness. Her clothes she'd simply thrown away.

In spite of her hours in the shower, she felt like she still reeked of blood.

She wondered if the men had survived. She closed her eyes and saw her people on Takkar. Their chances of becoming a full species would be gone if she'd killed any of those men. Their chances might already be ruined, regardless. She sobbed, clinging to the edge of the sink.

There was a gentle tap at the door. Kinnit spun to stare at it, her teeth showing.

The tapping came again. Kinnit stalked forward slowly, and put her eye to the peephole.

Standing outside her room was a familiar Duroclade, his saucy expression unexpectedly somber.

She scrubbed the tears off her face and unlocked the door.

"Dass," she said, her voice on the edge of tears. "How did you find me?"

Dass Gunstar came in and locked the door behind himself.

"Word gets around. Pack up," he said. "We need to get you out of the area."

"Wait, no," she said. "I need answers. I tried so hard to find you, and now you just show up out of nowhere?"

"I'm an information broker, and you're about as subtle as a brick to the face."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Dass sighed.

"Okay, let's see. An SS shows up out of nowhere in a decidedly non-SS area, makes a scene, and asks every single person in a Terran bar where I am, like she's some kind of cop. Then the SS puts three men in the hospital and holes up in a local hotel. Yeah, word got back to me pretty quick."

"They attacked me!"

"Do you think that matters? Let's pack you out of here. I can smooth things over, but only once you're out of sight. Out of mob range."

"Did they... die?"

"They'll live, but you didn't make them any prettier." He darted around the room, picking up her things and piling them on the bed.

"Hey! Leave my stuff alone!"

He spun. His body distorted, shifted, flowing. He bubbled as his form melted and he shot over to her, faster than sight.

Kinnit let out a shriek, her frayed nerves beginning to snap as he forcefully reminded her that he was not actually a Duroclade, but a slime-man. Dangerous. Unpredictable.

"You pack, or I do," he said, his voice now a bubbling, burping growl. "We need to leave now."

Trembling, she nodded and grabbed her things.