We arrived at the Granis system with me standing just behind the two seats in the cockpit. The sight of the swirling stellar mass around the two stars was just as spectacular as it had been the first time I saw it. This time I could see the Presence of both stars as the white dwarf siphoned off the red giant's outer layer. For such large celestial bodies, the process was taking a long time and it would continue to take a long time. This particular tourist attraction was going to be around for at least a billion years or so.
“Are we docking on the main ring on the station?” Rhubin asked.
“I'd say that would be better, even though we're not here for the station's main purpose.” I said.
“Are you sure?” Luxea asked. “We didn't see it the last time we were here.”
“And why was that, exactly?” I asked her with my eyebrows raised.
“I was having fun with a man I picked up in the lobby of the hotel.” Luxea said, completely unabashed by the admission. “I was a different woman then.”
“You don't know how nervous I was to be around you alone.” I said and she looked at me with wide eyes. “I was warned that you would eat me alive.”
“Excuse me?” Luxea said in a deadly tone.
“A woman with a voracious sexual appetite and could pick any man that she wanted?” I asked, and this time she did blush. “I was seriously debating if it was worth it to take the chance that you would eat me alive, just to see if I could survive the experience.”
Luxea wasn't sure what to say to that, because it was both a little insulting and flattering.
“Be flattered.” I said and kissed her cheek. “You almost seduced me and you weren't even trying.”
Luxea's face stayed red as Rhubin flew the ship through the system and docked us to the main ring.
“Don't forget your blast shield.” Rhubin reminded me as we left the cockpit. “You had it on the last time you were here.”
“You're telling me to make it a big reveal?” I asked with a smile and he chuckled.
“You're not going to need much more of a shock after giving what's her name that bundle.” Luxea said. “I'll head into the main promenade and get us a room at the hotel.”
“You might as well check and see what else they have for sale here.” I reminded her. “Anything you want or think we'll need for what we're doing.”
“You do realize that I could easily empty both of our credit accounts with that statement.” Luxea said and I laughed.
“If you have to do it, do it.” I said and she stared at me. “We've scraped by on almost nothing before. We can do it again.”
“You're serious.” Luxea said in a whisper.
“Who have I trusted to handle all the finances, run both the transshipment business and the bounty hunting business, and to handle vetting the clients for both?” I asked and gave her another kiss on the cheek. “Get changed into something not too sexy and go do what you want with our money.”
“I'm glad you didn't add my money in there.” Rhubin said as Luxea walked away. “I like being flushed with credits, thank you very much!”
I laughed and tapped the Wave patch on his vest. “Make sure not to sully our good name.”
“Hey, Madame Esayys is a reputable establishment.” Rhubin said haughtily and I laughed again.
“All right, just have fun.” I said. “We're staying for about a week.”
“See you in a week, then.” Rhubin said with a huge grin and left through the main hatch. I stood there and waited, then turned to look at Luxea when she came back from our room. She wore a nice medium cut blue skirt and had a blouse that was both tight and loose in the appropriate spots. She had her hair done up in a complicated bun-like shape and it drew the eye to her neck and her ears.
“Such sexy ears.” I whispered and her face flushed red.
“Stop that.” Luxea said without any conviction, so I leaned down and kissed her earlobe, then moved to the other side of her head and kissed the other one.
“I'll meet you at the hotel in a little while.” I said. “If you have any trouble...” I tapped my ear.
“I'm still having a hard time believing that you can do that without an electronic device.” Luxea said.
“I'll speak to you when you check into the hotel to prove it.” I said and gave her a kiss on the lips. “Have fun shopping.”
“Not too much fun.” Luxea said. “I'm with Rhubin on this. I like having lots of credits.”
“Just wait until we get the network up.” I chuckled. “What's a small percentage of a covert interstellar call worth these days anyway?”
Luxea's eyes lit up with that information, then she kissed me hard and ran out through the open hatch. I had to laugh at her enthusiasm at getting to play with an entirely personally-built intergalactic stealth satellite system.
I knew she would be happy with the idea, just not this happy. I thought in amusement and slipped on my blast shield. I left through the main hatch, locked it behind me, and stepped into the line waiting for the security scanner. Luxea had somehow bypassed the line and disappeared into the crowd.
“You're not carrying any weapons?” The alien behind the screen asked me when nothing showed up.
I took out a Light sword hilt from my hidden thigh pocket and held it up.
“Ah. No wonder.” He said. “If you kill anyone with that thing, make sure to hide the body.” He waved me forward. “We don't need the headache.”
I laughed and put it away, then took out a fifty credit chip and tossed it to him. He didn't even glance at it and put it in his pocket. I entered the main part of the station and looked around, then I eased my Detect Presence technique out to a hundred feet, then another hundred and another. I found Luxea and she was just entering the hotel's lobby. I stepped to the side of the entryway I was in and watched her. When she booked the room and handed over the credits, I spoke to her.
“I'm glad you sprung for the top floor.” I said and used Presence so that only she could hear me. I saw her startle and turn around to see if I was standing next to her. When she saw that I wasn't, she accepted the room key and and walked over to sit down in a lobby chair.
“Where are you?” Luxea whispered.
“I'm still beside the exit by the ship.” I said.
“You're kidding!”
I chuckled. “Take out your datapad and see for yourself.”
Luxea did and she brought up the feed from the stations monitoring system. With just a few keystrokes, she was looking through the camera across from me. I turned and waved to her, then blew her a kiss.
“This is weird.” Luxea said.
“I'll be a little busy when I go into the other section, so I'll only talk to you if it's an emergency.”
“Can you really keep monitoring for my voice while doing other things?”
“Easily.” I said. “I won't violate your privacy, though. I'm only listening for when you talk to me directly or if you're in distress.”
Luxea relaxed. “You always know what to say to make me feel better.”
“Go. Spend. Money.” I said, and she laughed. I blew her another kiss and walked away from the camera's pickup and towards the less reputable section of the station. I took my time and kept expanding my detection range to keep Luxea inside of it. I came to the right section and the single secured door that used to be there had been replaced with a security field and four people. Two were men and two were aliens.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“What's your business here?” One of the men asked.
“Special delivery for...” I didn't want to say her name out loud, so I leaned in close. “...the woman who really runs the place.” I whispered. “She gave me a mission to return something to her.”
The man clearly didn't believe me and thought I was just someone that wanted to try and get to her, so I held up a hand and produced a very small amount of Presence and shifted its color to that of the golden glow that Aphatoris had. The man jerked as if I hit him and he grabbed onto his communication console as he tried to call someone important to handle a situation that he knew he didn't want any part of. I absorbed the Presence and waited patiently.
“N-name.” The man asked.
“Hunter.” I said and tapped my blast shield. “They should all know me. I spent a week here as a prisoner and several of them tried to kill me.”
“Y-y-yessir.” The man said as his face went white and he relayed the information. We all heard a loud squawk from his earpiece and the man winced. “Yes. Yes, really. He's right here. Okay. Yes. All right.” He pulled the thing from his ear. “Someone will be here in a few minutes to greet you.”
I nodded and stepped to the side to clear the passage, and used Stealth to disappear when someone else came down the passage behind me. The two men and the two aliens stared at the spot I was and couldn't believe their eyes.
“Griglesnap! Lishack nook lidhassep!” The alien that stood there waiting to be checked said.
“Huh? What?” The man that was supposed to be clearing him said.
“Stewpid U-man! Check me throo!”
“Uh, right. Right.” The man said and did a quick scan, told the alien to deactivate its concealing energy field, then waited for the scan. A second later, the other man raised a laser pistol and shot the alien in the face.
“Who's the one that's stupid?” The second man asked and stepped over to the body and dug out a small electronic device. “Trying to smuggle a backdoor computer virus into the system is an immediate death sentence.” He looked at the device and wondered what to do with it.
“I'll handle it if you want.” I said and faded back into existence.
“What? How?”
“Like this.” I said and covered the device in Presence, crushed it into the size of a grain of sand, then dispersed the energy inside of it. The four of them stood there and didn't know how to react. The other man's suspicions had been confirmed and he really didn't want anything to do with me now. The security field dropped and the man that had tried to arrest me the last time I was here, came through.
“It really is you.” He said and held a hand out. I shook it and he glanced down at the body. “Not your doing, I hope?”
I chuckled. “Nope. Backdoor virus smuggler.”
“Ha.” He let my hand go and clapped the shoulder of the man that stood there with the speck of dirt on his palm. “Good work.”
The man nodded and looked down at the speck, then he looked at me.
“Just toss it. It's just dirt now.” I said and followed the man who came to retrieve me through the doorway and the security field was back in place. “I see that you've taken a more proactive view of the security around here.”
“Yes. The last time you were here and told us what had been going on, we decided to change things up a little.” The man said. “A preemptive solution for things that might happen here.”
“If it had been in place before, I might not have gotten in trouble here the last time.” I said and then chuckled. “Maybe.”
The man glanced at my face for a moment and then smiled. I followed him into his office and to the back, then we entered a hidden door and went down the stairs. We entered the same tunnel system I had been in before and we went to the same building-like structure that I knew had her private apartment at the top. I looked up and could see that her golden glow was as strong as it had been back then.
Just to make sure that she knew it was me that was coming, I let a touch of my Presence enter my detection range and saw her shiver. A few people in the room saw her reaction and came to her assistance. She waved them away and they took up their positions between her and the apartment door. The man and I entered the guarded elevator and we went up to the top floor. We passed two more guards as we stepped out and two more were in front of her apartment door. After another quick scan with a handheld device, the door opened and we were allowed inside.
“I suggest you bow to her.” One of the guards whispered.
“She doesn't want me to.” I said in a normal voice and stepped into the apartment. The people in front of me didn't seem eager to move. “Do I need to make a path this time as well?”
“Step aside.” Aphatoris said and the people split in half and made a path just wide enough for me to pass through. I assumed it was supposed to be intimidating, so I created two Presence Walls, left them slightly blue, and shoved the people back another foot and held them there.
“Hey!” “What the hell?” “I can't move!” They said at the same time.
“That wasn't necessary.” Aphatoris said, slightly amused.
“I didn't want to take the chance that they would try to trip me and I would have to kill them.” I said casually. A few people in the room laughed, because they assumed I was joking. The man behind me, Aphatoris, and the rest knew I was completely serious.
“Do you have what you promised?” Aphatoris asked and everyone knew she was very apprehensive.
“I wouldn't be here if I didn't.” I said. “May I approach?”
Aphatoris nodded and I walked up the aisle I had made. When I stood in front of her, I took out a wrapped bundle. Her eyes were very wide as she stared at it as if she could see through it.
“Oh, that's my dirty laundry.” I said and tucked the bundle away. “Just a second.”
One person let out a laugh that was quickly stifled.
I took out the real bundle and you couldn't tell what was inside. I had made sure of that. “I delivered the head to The Order already.”
Gasps and murmurs went around the room. Some were full of disbelief and a few had a lot of respect for someone with a bounty on their head to show up at The Order's home planet to collect on a bounty.
“You don't have to accept them.” I said. “I know you were angry and upset and asked me for something that you thought wouldn't... or couldn't... be delivered.”
Aphatoris looked at my face and I could see the indecision on her face. I smiled reassuringly as I reached up and took off my blast shield, and everyone froze as I revealed my secret. My eyes were fine.
“By the goddess' shimmering light.” Aphatoris whispered and her hand reached out to touch my cheek.
I let her admire me for a few moments and then spoke. “Shall we have a little funeral for the man that you loved?” I asked, and after a few moments, she nodded. I slipped the blast shield back on and turned away, then created a Presence Box and made it solid, removed the top and put the wrapped bundle inside.
“I want to see.” Aphatoris said in a soft voice.
I slowly unwrapped part of the bundle and she saw the blue skinned hands that had held her close so many times, and tears came to her eyes. I placed a small wooden engraved plate inside and put an arm around her as I enclosed the box.
“We are gathered here to lay to rest the man that this woman loved. Though he had died long before his physical body did, the memory of who he had been to her lingers on.”
Aphatoris started crying and hung onto me.
“It is that man we honor today with a funeral befitting that memory, and not the man he had become.” I said and powered up and activated the Fireball spell engraved on the wooden plate. The Presence box filled with fire to everyone's surprise, then I let in more oxygen and increased the flames tenfold. They tuned from orange to blue and started to incinerate everything inside. Aphatoris was sobbing pretty hard by this point, so I waited for several minutes before speaking.
“Do you want to keep the ashes?” I whispered to her and she shook her head. I turned the flames to white, like the white dwarf star, and even the ashes were quickly consumed. When the box was empty, I snuffed out the flames and dismissed the Presence. I kept my arms around Aphatoris as she tried her best to calm down. She hadn't realized just how much she had invested emotionally into (Undecipherable) and his 'death' had hit her pretty hard. She clung tightly to me for several more minutes until she had composed herself and took several deep breaths.
Aphatoris slowly let me go and looked up at my face as she wiped at her tears. “Thank you, Hunter.” She said as a dozen thoughts ran through her mind and she came up with several different ways to thank me. Personally. I smiled and took my arms from around her shoulders. She understood and I didn't have to actually say that I was taken.
“Even though I wasn't sure if you would ever return, I had these prepared for you.” Aphatoris said and stepped back from me as a female alien that looked almost human came over to us. She stopped before she touched the Presence Wall I had made, knowing she would be caught if she did. I smiled and absorbed both walls and let the people attached to it go, then she stepped close and held out a small wooden case. It was identical to the one Aphatoris had given to me the last time I was here and it had twelve focusing crystals in it.
“I really shouldn't accept...”
“They are a gift.” Aphatoris said. “You kept a promise that none of us here expected you to survive, let alone return to keep.”
“Thanks for the confidence.” I said sarcastically and she smiled.
“Please take them and put them to good use.”
I reached out to take the wooden case from the female alien and she gave me an odd look. It took me a few moments to realize why she seemed to be familiar. I stopped blocking my mind off so much as I directed my thoughts towards her.
You're a telepath? I asked her and she caught her breath at the strength of my mind.
Y-Yes. She responded. I... you're not the first... I've met others...
It's all right. Calm down. I was only curious. I thought to her and gave her some amusement. Would you like to have dinner with me? Strictly platonic, of course.
Yes. She responded immediately, not wanting to pass up the chance to 'speak' to another telepath.
“Thank you.” I said and took the wooden box. Our mental conversation had happened in less time than it took for her to take a breath, so no one had noticed and I turned to Aphatoris. “I'm staying at the Hamilton with my partner for a week.” I said. “I'm doing the whole tourist thing.”
Aphatoris nodded. “I hope you enjoy everything that the station has to offer.”
“I can't enjoy everything.” I said with a smile and looked at the female alien. “Would you mind escorting me outside, and maybe through the section? I'm sure my first escort has some things to discuss with you-know-who.” I motioned with my head and eyes at Aphatoris, twice.
The female alien smiled at my attempt to not say Aphatoris' name. She glanced at Aphatoris, who nodded, so she stepped close to me and motioned to the door. I put my arm partially around her waist and we walked out of the apartment and to the elevator.
*
The man that had escorted me walked over to Aphatoris. “Are you all right?”
“By the goddess, he's powerful.” Aphatoris whispered and had to sit down. Her body shook from being so close to the man and he wasn't even leaking any Presence. “I couldn't offer to boost his abilities like I had planned.”
“Why not?” The man asked.
“He doesn't need it.” Aphatoris said. “He is so far beyond needing anything that I could ever give him.”
“Is that why he rejected you?”
Aphatoris shook her head. “He really is with someone else... and yet...”
“What?”
“Neither of them has agreed that it's exclusive.” Aphatoris said. “I don't know why I know that.”
“I think we just have to accept certain things when he's around.” The man said.
Aphatoris nodded and looked at the three eyed and bald alien across the room. “Keep an eye on him. If he needs anything, help him if you can.”
The alien nodded and left the room at a fast walk.