“I’m going to propose you a deal. And you won’t be able to refuse.”

The slick corpo suit smiled in a predatory grin. All his teeth were flawless alabaster, arranged in a model example of the platonic ideal of teeth. In fact, they were so perfect, that it was a challenge to not feel self-conscious about my own teeth. This in itself was an intimidation tactic. Along with the impeccable décor of his suit, his oh-so-wringable necktie, and his hair so flawlessly molded with gel, it was not hard to deduce that he worked for one of the big megacorps in the sector. But in this backwater?

“What do you want?” I inquired, tightening my grip around the neck of the sack.

“That sack,” he answered, “for 615 credits you need for your friend’s treatment.”

He drove a hard bargain.

“And... if I refuse?”

“You would?” He chuckled, lighting a spicer and taking a smokeless puff. He furrowed his brow as if to ask whether I was really that inane. “Really?”

“You tell me what this is first. Then I give you the crystals.”

“Just some old rare crystals. Jewels. Gems, maybe. Looks to be worth quite a sum, given your words,” the corpo slick continued with casual airs. “It’s a gamble for me, but there’s never been a gamble that’s failed to work out in my favor.”

A knowing glint flashed across his eyes. He knew exactly what these crystals were and what price they could command, but wasn’t planning on telling it.

I glanced at my watch.

12:14 pm.

I glanced at my sack, nudging it to feel its weight. I’d taken a haphazard chunk out of it more than an hour ago, because I felt like I could negotiate with it. But in this brief moment of clarity, it felt to weigh more than five pounds – more than two kilograms. 20,000 credits.

20,000 credits sold for a paltry sum of 615 credits. The corpo slick knew what he was doing. He’d buy it at a garbage price like this, and sell it for ridiculous percentages of profit. Even a toddler could deduce that he was exploiting my desperation.

To save Maine, I could throw away 20,000 credits like it was nothing. But it was also by his blood and effort that we earned these crystals, whatever their true name was. The scar upon his forehead skewered my memories. It wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t dragged him into the mess I made. If I gave the crystals away like nothing to anyone who asked... it wouldn’t be right. I needed something extra on this deal to make it right.

“You know what these are,” I said, teeth clenched. “That’s why you’re standing in front of me, aren’t you?”

“Oh, you’ve got a discerning intuition,” he said, flicking close the lid on his lighter. “Well then, to a lady like you, I won’t keep up the charade. Yes, I know what your sack contains. I know the exact price it commands on the markets both light and black, what it’s used for, the list of systems that wants it, which merchants to deal with and which to avoid, and every nook of its fringe uses. Impressed?”

I stood there mute without a way to counter such a flood of information. I didn’t expect him to...

“Didn’t expect me to reveal it all in one go? Why, hardly. That’s the bare minimum knowledge required of a dealer like myself. But unfortunately, you don’t need such information now, do you?” He took another sip from his spicer, longer this time. “As it stands, you were desperate enough to make that ruckus just now, and time’s a-ticking for your friend. If you left him, say, an hour ago in Hangar 72 as you said then, boy, is he really safe alone? Sepsis is hard on the body. If you want –”

I pushed the sack into his chest and held my chipscreen to his, startling him just enough to break his demeanor. But it returned as briefly as it broke.

“Ah, ah, ah, not too fast,” he said, lightly pushing the sack away and wiggling his index. “I’m not satisfied with just a single golden egg. I want the goose.”

“You’re gonna take it or not?”

“From your decorous and rather uninspired fashion sense,” he pondered, completely ignoring my query, “you didn’t steal this, no, not two kilograms. You don’t have the guts. You found this, didn’t you?” He chuckled. “I’ll give you the 615 credits for your sack and where you found the cryst –”

He didn’t finish his words, because I pinned him to the wall there and then. He was much bigger than me, and should’ve been much stronger, but feeling the pressure on the knifelike tip of a broken piece of crystal upon his back must’ve spooked him.

“Thought wrong, slick corpo son of a bitch. You think I came a hundred lightyears just to get fucked by you?” I drove the crystal shiv deeper into his suit, crinkling it. Its serrated edges drew blood from my own palm, but I didn’t care. “To come into this backwater shithole and race my ass off while you take advantage of my desperation while my friend lays dying?”

I drove the tip in deeper. It began tearing the suit.

“You know what they used to say in my dirtworld? It said never to pick a fight with someone who has nothing to lose. And right now, I am that someone.”

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” I whispered in his ear. “You’re gonna tell me exactly what this is. And you’re gonna transfer the 615 credits in my chipscreen right now. And if you are lucky, I’ll toss a crumb your way, because that’s what I think you’re worth.”

I heaved the tip in further. It got past the suit and the shirt and was drawing blood, prompting him to mouth a wordless scream. Yet, no one in the boulevard – deserted mostly anyway – seemed to care. The air around his slick corpo persona seemed to vanish into thin air.

“Okay, okay, OKAY!” he relented.

My chipscreen gave a positive ping as six-hundred-and-fifteen credits flooded into the account.

“And the NAME,” I pinned him harder.

“Livyatan Adamantite. Leviathan Diamond,” he admitted as fast as the words could carry him.

“What’s it do?”

“Weapons! Weaponry! Energy weaponry!”

I kicked him as hard as I could between the legs, and shoved him aside. He tumbled to the moss-laden street, rolling, groaning in pain.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I swung the sack to the ground and shattered the diamond chunk, and fished out a snowball-sized piece to toss it his way, racing back towards the direction of the hospital.

***

The same guards shook their head and tried to push me out, but I shoved my chipscreen into their face before they could object.

“I’m here to pay. Now fuck off.”

The same receptionist clutched her head. “Miss, I already told you that –”

“I’ve got 615 credits. I’m paying in full right now,” I said, smashing my fist down to show her the number. “Hangar 72. Satisfied?”

“It’s not that, miss. We just filled our emergency room capacity. The waiting time has been extended...”

“WHAT?” I roared, frightening the awaiting patients once again. “HOW?”

“There was a mining accident planetside an hour ago. They’ve just ferried critical injuries to our –”

“What’s the waiting time? GET TO THE POINT!”

“AAH!” The receptionist screamed, shielding her face. “Ei...eight hours!”

“Archon-DAMN IT!” I said, kicking the garbage can loose. The guards were at a loss whether to intervene or watch.

I glanced at my chipscreen.

12:42pm.

Maine would be dead by then. His intestines would rupture. Hell, it may as well have ruptured given the sweet time these heartless bastards took to break the news.

I stormed out of the reception, racing as fast as my legs could carry my weight, the sack hitting my back.

I had to get back to the ship, because this station didn’t have another hospital. But where to after that? I didn’t know. Elysion station was perhaps the only option at this point. But to do that, I must throw out the kilograms of crystal – diamond – and to keep it safe, just where? Here? Wrap it in a sack and shove it into a corner of the hangar and pray that no one would notice? It’s not like –

A bullet wheezed past my ear like a crackling whip. I could taste the sizzle of its path with my nose. Had I been a little slower with my sprint, I would’ve been shot dead.

I immediately ducked and rolled into a corner, catching a glimpse of assailants at the far end of the station junction.

I made out incoherent ramblings as civilians shrieked and dodged and flooded out the junction into shelter. The group of assailants shot at the corner again, chipping off a section of concrete, and began to sprint across the road in my direction.

Half a dozen with old patterned rifles, dressed in barony jackets with red bandanas. There was no one else but me in the corner.

It wasn’t a gang fight.

They were hunting me.

It was still more than a five-minute race to Hangar 72.

My legs felt frozen. For a moment I couldn’t unglue myself from that piece of corner street. But I had to live. I had to run. I slapped my legs to sprint again, and barely dodged another bullet as it ricocheted off the street and embedded into a ‘stop’ sign with a thunk.

“BLIS! MENOSH! HUN-KAYA-KAYA!”

One of them hollered into the dark as they clambered over the ledges and metaled staircases to get a better shot at me.

I took an alley to the side that led to the hangars, and felt two bullets lodge into the sack and blunt the diamond. Flashes pierced the undulating dark, and sparks of firelight echoed off the walls of station Persephone.

“IPN-KOSH! KOSH SUYA!”

“KOSH-SUYA! KALI-SUYAH!”

They chanted and ordered each other in a language foreign to my ears, which made it impossible for me to discern their strategy. All I knew was that I must run, run until I got to the mudskipper.

I leapt down entire sets of grated steel staircases, swinging like some sort of jungleworld ape from one railing to another as bangs and flashes peppered the heavens above and stormed down a tempest of bullet-fire. I held the sack over my head as I leapt down and down, foregoing the elevator, stepping off the many walls – shit, it was a straight hallway – dodged sideways with a bullet grazing my pant leg, ripping the fabric off – hugged behind the wheels and legs of many docked spaceships, larger than mine –

“TIRAE-TIRAE!”

“TIRAE-TIRAE!”

Two of them hollered in unison as a freaking rocket-propelled grenade whizzed past, missed me, and hit a section of the hangar wall, blasting it off. Bits of dust and shrapnel clouded down, which I thankfully was able to dodge – and ironically, the smoke cover gave me a thin window of time to run a zig-zagged line through Hangar 71 into Hangar 72.

I climbed the ladder of our mudskipper at breakneck speed to see sparks of bullets hit the steel, banged the hatch door open, climbed it, and shut it close.

If they had another rocket...

No, now wasn’t the time to consider that. I practically flew into my seat on the cockpit and pushed the throttle to hard start, crashing into the hangar wall, swerving back and to the right, and out of the plasma barrier into open space.

I banged the nav closet open and punched in a destination to Elysion station once again.

//8 minutes. Thank the archons it was one minute less.

The stench of vomit, pus, and blood assaulted my nostrils as I raced into the quarters. The sight was horrifying to behold. Maine’s stomach was distended and bloated, and all the skin was stretched purple. I held my head to his heart to hear it beating, but only just, when a loud crash and drumming bang hit the back of our shuttle, throwing me out of the bed.

From the cockpit, the comms console blared a warning siren.

‘Warning! Hostile fire detected!’

Hostile fire? From what, where – and that’s when my heart sank.

I’m so sorry Maine, I’m so sorry, just hold in there a little longer, I thought, racing back to the cockpit.

‘Warning! Incoming Missile Ordnance!’

I grabbed the joystick hard and rolled the craft as I banged on the chaff button with my free fist. The missile avoided hitting the center hull by a mere inch, and I saw it careen past the shuttle, reorient itself, and fly back towards the cockpit.

“What the FUUUUUUCK!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as I banged the chaff button again and nosedived the shuttle towards the ring of the gas giant, and slapped the emergency button.

The single thruster on the mudskipper screeched and shrieked as I was pushed into the seat. Maine would be – he would be okay, since his back would be to the wall as well. If only just –

The radar signatures on the CRT screen made out 2 crafts, slightly bigger than ours, at about a mile or two out from our position. It was evident that they were chasing us – most likely the gang of pirates – mercenaries – that chased me at Persephone. Either way, they wanted me dead.

The ring of the gas giant grew closer until I could make out the asteroids in the belt. This was a more even place to engage in a chase – all the rocks and dust clouded the radio sensors, which would make it harder for them to track me. But still, I had to get to Elysion, and...

Several bullet rounds with an accompanying sound of buzzing chainsaws slipped just past the cockpit canopy and impacted the surface of an asteroid on my right, flinging dust and debris.

I swerved, rolled, and cajoled the mudskipper to what was possibly its maximum limit, stressing the hull and frame. I could hear the cacophony of distended metal grating against each other, screws popping and things coming loose, diving, ducking, flying past the asteroids in a survival dance. A loud bang erupted out to my back, accompanied by a flash of light, and I saw a blip on the CRT screen disappear off the radar – one of their ships must have accidentally run face-first into an asteroid. Yes, this was a good place to run and hide.

But every second I was doing these maneuvers, Maine approached closer to death. I couldn’t keep it up any longer – I had to get the remaining ship off my tail, or risk losing everything I hoped for.

I ducked past a sizable asteroid, skimming its surface as closely as I could, and kicked up a tempest of fine-grained dust. My radar frizzled with minute signatures, and so must’ve been for the tailing ship, because when I looked again, the little blip had gone. There was no crash, no bang, no thud – but at least, it was off my tail.

I continued my cruise, cognizant of every single particle and reflection outside the cockpit canopy, as well as the steady blip blip blip of the CRT monitor, but it looked as though I’d escaped the clutches of our assailants. Hopefully.

There was no time to waste.

I got into the nav closet again and charted course for Elysion station.

//23 minutes.

My chipscreen read 1:43 pm. More than four hours since Maine fell into a coma.

Fuck! I pounded my fist, lamenting the time it’d take to get back. The chase had gone on for far too long.

But just as despair began to seize my head, the comms console read out a new notice in a strange voice. It was a voice that I’d never heard before on the mudskipper.

‘Voidnet signature detected in proximity. Establishing query.’

What? I pondered with bated breath.

‘Query established. Establishing secure channel...’

My eyes grew wide as our little shuttle finally made past an asteroid that was blocking our sight. An unfathomable visage lay before my eyes.

The voice of the Voidnet protocol continued as steadily as ever.

‘Tartarus Station welcomes you, Hana Makoto Reiss.’