The outer airlock cycled open and Elijah grabbed for the hatch frame, instantly engaged his magboots. Of course there wasn’t any augmented gravity. Why would there be? All he felt was what the spin gave him, and the station wasn’t spinning particularly fast. Flathmin had stuck him at the ass end of the garbage dump. And that five-eyed goat turd had tried to scalp him five hundred unies for this?

He checked his suit sensors. Not hard vacuum, at least. Not quite. He felt more than heard the environmental systems kick in, cycling the waste heat from his body into the internal cooling grid. He had about an hour, he figured, to get somewhere with a real atmosphere, or he was going to have to start dumping suit coolant to avoid cooking on the hoof.

There wasn’t much light. He could see where the fixtures had once been along the walls and ceiling, but the majority had long since been stripped away, leaving just enough illumination to give anyone traversing the area an even chance of not falling through a hole or crashing into an obstruction. Both of which were in plentiful supply. Still, he didn’t turn his suit light on just yet. Not when he might still be a target.

Gravity kicked in four or five frames in, finally, and he killed power to his boots. The air wasn’t any better, though.

The three figures who ambled nonchalantly out from the right side passage of the next intersection might have surprised him if he hadn’t been already been expecting them, or some form of them. He scowled at the composition of the mob, not much liking it.

The tall, wolflike centauroid in the back was a Shallarran. A male, all of eight feet forepaws to hindquarters, and better than six feet tall. That was bad. You never saw the males alone outside of their home territory. Not past adolescence. They were pack hunters, and fiercely tribal. To see one all by himself way out here away from Shallarran space meant he was the worst sort of outcast.

He was wearing a pressure suit and some sort of armored gloves. A respirator enveloped his long muzzle, and his eyes were about half crazy. He’d have to go first if they were all gonna dance. He’d be lightning quick and mule strong. And he’d have a taste for blood. They all did, the Shallarrans.

The goon on the Shallarran’s left wasn’t anything Elijah had ever seen before. It didn’t even look alive. More like a smoothed over rock golem, seven or so feet high. It wasn’t wearing any sort of protective gear, although it had a respirator clenched in what was presumably its mouth. Elijah couldn’t see any visible weapons, but that didn’t mean anything. The bastard looked like a walking blackjack.

The final thug, and their apparent leader, was something he’d seen before, although he’d never gotten this close to one. It was an Urtharak. One of those out at the end of the rim species that may or may not once have been under the K’trin’al umbrella prior to the end of the war. It was about six feet of leathery muscle arranged along the lines of an upright, hornless minotaur stuck on top of four thick legs with multiple joints and spatulate feet that stuck out at his corners, two in front and two in back. This one was holding a Lyrran trade carbine in both hands, its slug rail pointed at the ground in the general vicinity of Elijah’s feet.

Elijah raised his left hand to the side of his helmet, but the Urtharak shook its shaggy head, and said something that his translator turned into lingua as, “don’t bother, Terry, we got a damper running. Just us four here now. No calls for help.”

Elijah felt his teeth itch and his ears sting. The alien’s actual voice was a few thousand hertz above human hearing range, and it was painful to be around. He couldn’t imagine what it was doing to the Shallarran’s ears. He tabbed comms anyway, and was rewarded with static.

“Flathmin send you idiots?” he asked, a hint of irritation in his voice.

The Urtharak snarled. “That dung ball doesn’t tell us what to do,” it said. “It pays us not to do what we’re about to do to you. But, since you weren’t willing to pay....”

Elijah frowned. He wasn’t sure he believed that. The station had a pretty good security team, for all of its faults. He couldn’t see how three— “You knuckleheads part of some big gang?” he wondered. “That why you’re so confident you’ll get away with this?”

“What’s it to you?” the creature demanded. “You’ve got more than you can handle with just the three of us.”

The static of his comms crackled and dimmed, and Seraphina’s voice came through to him, faint and fuzzy. “Elijah,” she warned. “Somebody’s engaged some sort of powerful jammer out there. It took me awhile to break through to you. What’s going on?”

He narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t expected this. He hesitated. He didn’t want to make any moves just yet, including another reach for his comms switch. He still hadn’t decided how to proceed, and didn’t want to invite any hasty moves.

After a few seconds of silence, Seraphina’s voice came through again. “I’ve disabled your suit’s local transmitter, Elijah,” she told him. “You can talk to me without those things knowing.”

“You can see them?” he wondered.

“I-One is out there with you,” she said. “About thirty feet back, at the edge of the damping field. It has a clear view. Do you want me to call station security?”

He thought that over for about half a second before answering. “No. The last thing I want is for station security to know I’m not alone—” he paused mid-sentence, clamping his teeth together. He’d forgotten again. “Just tell me, do you know what that stone looking thing is?”

“It’s called a— well, EarthGov calls it a Thok. It’s a hitchhiker species the Urtharak carried into space. Not very intelligent, not much good for anything but menial labor and bashing things on the brain case. It’s very strong and its skin is like level VII armor.

“Your Marauder won’t dent it,” she cautioned. “Maybe not your Scythe. I can send I-Two out there with a sprayer of Spallaway that’ll play merry hell with it’s carapace, but it’ll take a few minutes to rig it and get it out there.”

“No,” he told her. “If I can’t talk my way out, I’ll handle it. Now release the block and clock me up. Four hundred.”

“Elijah,” her voice broke.

“Clock me up!” his voice turned sharp. I only need four or five minutes. And record this mess in case there’s fallout,” he ordered. “Now turn my local mic back on and clock me the hell up!”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The Urtharak had leaned its head forward and was peering at him as though trying to decide what he was up to. “You scared frozen?” it demanded. “You owe us money, and you’re going to pay.”

“Take it up with Flathmin,” he told it, hooking his thumb in his weapons belt at the center buckle, feeling the world slow around him.

The Shallarran followed the movement with his eyes. A fraction of a second later, those eyes widened, his head rearing back. “Blood in your teeth, hunter,” he said then. “We have no quarrel. My hunt carries me elsewhere, the prey is yours.” and he began to back slowly away, holding his arms wide and back.

“Uhm,” Elijah narrowed an eye. “Blood in your teeth, hunter,” he responded uncertainly. “Fresh scents and slow prey.”

The Urtharak jerked and turned its head to the now retreating Shallarran. “What are you doing, you excretion?” it demanded. “Get back here!”

“I don’t fight Terran Rangers,” the Shallarran snarled back. “You want to live, you don’t either.”

“I’ll remember this, doggy,” The Urtharak spat. “You’ll pay!”

It turned back to Elijah, confused. Ranger? This offal, all by himself in his faded suit? Bah! “Don’t think you’re off the hook, Terry,” it sneered. “We don’t need the ass sniffer to take you. And now I think I’ll take your ship instead of the money you owe, just because I don’t like you.”

“How you gonna pass that off?” Elijah wondered. “Steal a whole ship right off its assigned collar? You got that much pull around here? A rillflop like you?”

The Urtharak coughed something the translator couldn’t deal with and turned to the Thok, who surged forward.

Elijah heaved another great breath and tugged the spool sword clear of his belt, bringing it alight and on line, its blue-white field and high-pitched whine announcing its high level to any who’d ever experienced its like.

The Urtharak’s eyes goggled, and it drew breath to call its minion back. But the Thok had already closed the distance.

As the creature’s clublike arm descended on him to crush his skull, Elijah sidestepped, feeling his muscles pull at his augmented speed. He flicked the incandescent blade up and around, altering its shape as it bit into solid hide. The blade pulsed and shifted from narrow bar to leaf-shaped oval as it passed through the rocklike flesh of the Thok’s arm.

The creature stumbled, and a high-pitched wail assaulted Elijah’s ears as the lower portion of the appendage crashed to the floor beside him.

Without waiting for the Thok to turn, Elijah again reformed the blade, spooling out extra line and feeding it more power. He flicked the reformed and much longer blade to the side, slicing through the carbine the Urtharak was bringing up to shoot him in the back.

Back again to the Thok, and he sliced down hard, foreshortening the blade as it moved, widening it. At this power output and spooling speed, the counter-rotating monomolecular wires, whirring around the edges of their shimmering field of magnetic containment, would slice through the inner bulkhead of a starship in twenty or thirty seconds. The outer in a couple of minutes. The Thok wasn’t nearly as tough as either, and it dropped to the decking, cleaved nearly in two.

Elijah gasped in another deep breath and turned back to the stunned Urtharak. “Empty your pockets, motherfucker,” he growled.

The Urtharak didn’t respond immediately. It was staring dumbfounded at the shape in the Terran’s hand, seeing it clearly for the first time. It had never seen one in person before, although the tales of them were everywhere the Terrans had ever fought. A spool sword. Gift of the Pellan priesthood to their Terran allies in the early days of the war. The decorations adorning the hilt and basket gave testimony that it had seen much combat and many campaigns. High level, it thought. Very high, the way it had cut through its companion. It thought the number of terries in all the universe who could wield such a thing would be hard pressed to fill a single sports stadium.

It began emptying its pockets, struggling to retain control of its bodily fluids.

“Where’s the jammer?” Elijah demanded as he closed on the alien, sword held at the ready.

The Urtharak pointed with a shaking claw. Elijah shifted his sword to his left hand and drew his marauder, taking aim at the suitcase sized box the Urtharak had indicated where it hung from the bulkhead wall beside a gutted light fixture.

“It’s offline,” Seraphina’s voice came through his comms strong and clear as the sparking, sputtering device clattered to the deck.

Holstering the marauder, Elijah shifted the sword again and closed on the shaking Urtharak, his left hand out. “This all of it?” he demanded, giving the spool sword a little swish close to the creature’s eyes.

The Urtharak drew back, nodding violently, a response not native to its kind, but learned through some past contact with Terrans.

“Am I going to regret leaving you alive?” Elijah hissed.

The violent movement of the cow-like head this time was horizontal.

“You understand,” Elijah pressed. “This is a one time deal, right? I ever see you again....”

The Urtharak took an involuntary step back.

“Beat it!”

The creature took off running, trailing an ear biting string of unheard bleating.

“I’m clocking down and coming back in,” Elijah sighed. “I think maybe I need to lie down for a bit.”

“Full clockdown,” Seraphina’s voice sounded stern. “You temperature is elevated again and your blood pressure is through the roof.”

He nodded without answering as he shuffled back in her direction, feeling his muscles spasm and scream as his body slowed back down to human norm. His heart was thumping like a point defense cannon, trying to tear loose from its moorings in his chest.

He nearly forgot to reenergize his magboots as he passed out of the augmented grav zone.

“You were a ranger?” Seraphina’s excited voice hit him as the inner airlock cycled open. “Daddy never told me!”

He didn’t answer at first. Instead, he staggered to the weapons locker and stowed the carbine and marauders. Then to the suit locker. “No,” he rasped as he shoved his helmet onto the shelf inside. “I wasn’t a ranger. But I knew one.” he went silent for a long while, leaning his head against the locker door. “One of the best of them.”

Seraphina allowed him to finish climbing out of his suit, examining him carefully. He looked awful. His skin was red and the veins beneath it swollen, the speckles of burst blood vessels dotting him like freckles. She’d never seen a human actually overclock his own body before. Hadn’t known it was possible.

Once he was back down to his Nylara tee shirt and shorts, he leaned again against the closed door of the suit locker, his forehead resting on one forearm. “Get that sonofabitch Flathmin on the horn,” he spoke into the polymer of the door before levering himself clear and heading for the pilot’s cradle.

The field came alight as he collapsed into the cradle, showing the security officer’s startled face (for sufficient values of), all five eye stalks twining in shock and agitation.

“What’s the matter, asshole,” Elijah growled into the field. “Didn’t expect to see me again in one piece?”

Flathmin stared with all five eyes at the haggard Terran, his sphincters clenching at the glare in the bloodshot eyes. “O-of course n-not,” he stammered. “I... I mean, n-no! Not that. I mean, I’m just surprised to see you calling from your ship, of course. I... I expected you to be halfway to the station market by now. You’ve only payed for—”

“Two standards, right, Flathmin?” Elijah’s voice chilled the security agent. “Two standards and a ten percent discount on coolant from the station’s tanks, right, Flathmin?”

“What?” the dacot was outraged. “That’s ridiculous! Why would I—”

“There’s a dead Thok laying in the passageway a quarter klick from my collar, Flathmin,” Elijah bored in. “I let the Shallarran and the Urtharak live. This Urtharak, Flathmin,” and he held up the ident he’d taken from the mugger. “You want me to go have a few more words with them about who gave them the idea to wait for people outside their paid for collars, Flathmin? Maybe carry that word to your superiors? Maybe to Moogit?”

Flathmin stared at the human for a long while before his eyestalks slumped and his entire body seemed to deflate. “Two standards,” he burbled dejectedly. “And a ten percent discount on coolant.”

“I thought you’d see it my way,” Elijah nodded. “Don’t send the coolies yet, though,” he cautioned. “I’ll call when I want them. Wouldn’t want any accidents, would we, Flathmin?”

The security chief bobbed three of his drooping eyestalks and signed off.