As the speeding PTC traveled over the strange mossy landscape at a blistering speed for such a small vehicle, Lupis turned on the holo-overlay that flared to life across the spacious head-to-foot windshield. The overlay instantly showed any vital statistic about the vehicle that one might have needed to know. Speed, remaining battery life, and the most important statistic that his eyes went to, the current distance between him and the rapidly compromised Triumph.

  The vehicle had an impressive engine and top speed, but the rough terrain was far from an idyllic paved surface, and thus he was lucky to be chugging along at about forty miles-an-hour, which felt much faster in the small vehicle. After ten minutes, the road advisor showed him that he was halfway out of the danger zone, and he began breathing a little easier with every mile that he put between him and the ship in the distance. As he watched the instrument gauges, his mind began to wander once more into the past.

* * * *

  “So, as you may know from my reputation, I like to play host to as many important and importantly rich Titans as I can. Everyone imaginable comes through here, movie celebrities from the Rook Coast, the top mining moguls from Gunrock, high ranking Zenith officials, and governors from every colony and space station in the quadrant.” Boss Rancor began his self-aggrandizing speech as though he were in front of a crowd, rather than an audience of a lone bounty hunter.

  Lupis sat opposite the crime lord in his mirrored, featureless helmet unmoving.

  “There was an incident several days ago with one of my guests. I had the distinguished Governor Uldan the Second of Planet Saxon as my guest. He relayed to me a little story about his colony that became of particular interest to me. It seems as though they have been having a problem with a little cult on Saxon, one that has become increasingly bothersome. They had recently broken into the governor’s personal storerooms and stolen several important items that were among the governor’s personal collection. These were absolutely priceless, and the Titan would give anything to see them returned.”

  “Why seek me out personally for this job?” Came the intimidating built in armor speakers from Lupis that was phrased more as a comment than a query. This, he felt was a fair question, as he had carefully cultivated a rather mysterious and omnipotent persona over the years. He could be a ghost that could slip into any facility undetected, or a whirling tornado of death that could decimate entire population centers, depending on who you spoke with. This seemed a straightforward job that any muscle or goon for hire in the galaxy could feasibly pull off.

  “Because the politics and legality of the entire situation came into play. You see, these cultists, after making off with a tidy fortune worth of the governor’s belongings, fled to Romagna, which is a colony on Tuscan. As a Titan who no doubt does his research, I’m sure you know that I am originally from Iscalio, and it was Iscalians that founded and colonized Tuscan. Tuscan has a strict…” The Rodentia cleared his throat and stalled a moment as he thought of the most tactful way he could word what he was to say next. “…no extradition policy. They welcome all refugees and handle all disputes on planet with their own police system.”

  “Which is of course controlled by the Iscalian crime packs.”

  “As am I. We all dance to a master, one way or another, even you I suspect. So, you see, sending word to Tuscan and asking them to hand over the criminals will not be of much use. Neither would sending my own dogs after these Titans, which could risk a war with the other packs. This job requires more experience…more tact.”

  Lupis stood up without saying another word, and puzzling to his host, began to leave.

  “Do you accept then?” Boss Rancor asked anxiously.

  Lupis paused in the doorway, yet he did not turn around. His head cocked barely perceptively back towards the Rodentia’s desk.

  “I’ll renegotiate the terms after I find them.” Came the reply from the imposing helmet.

  “Tell me one thing before you go, friend.” Boss Rancor interjected as Lupis was exiting the lavish room. “I have to know, I promise on my life not to tell a living soul…what are you under there? A Canid right? You have to be a Canid.”

  Lupis stayed still in the doorway for a long moment before finally leaving without another word. This brought a heavy sigh from the casino owner, who slumped back into his oversized chair.

* * * *

  Lupis snapped back to his senses as an AI voice announced that he was now passing beyond the twenty-mile EPZ fallout area. He checked a clock that displayed in the upper right-hand corner of the windshield which was still set to Titan time. Had it really been nearly a half hour now since he left the doomed ship? The time had flown by so fast, maybe he had nodded off for a moment.

  He next turned on the onboard radar and sonar projection, and a small overlay map of the surrounding landscape came up in the lower corner of the screen. He continued to pilot the craft in the general direction that the other survivors had headed, knowing that finding them would not be easy.

  After driving for nearly an hour, Lupis jerked the steering wheel, suddenly bringing the small craft to a halt. The tires spun around in the heavy mossy terrain and lurched its occupant forward before coming to a stop. A dreadful moment went by as a growing fear that the only way to open the hatch was through voice activation passed through the bounty hunter’s mind. He figured it out quickly though as he disengaged the steering column, which sucked back and clicked into place in the floor, the hatch opened automatically.

  Lupis stepped out from the seat and looked ahead. A massive dark brooding body of water extended far into the distance. This was no mere river to be crossed easily, this looked more like an ocean. He went back to the vehicle and checked the map again, since he had managed to download the last known coordinates of the survivors from the Triumph’s AI system. He checked and then double checked before looking back out over the ominous water. There was no mistaking, they had come this direction.

  But how in the galaxy’s suns did they cross those waters, and why? A shudder of deep revulsion overtook his body as he looked upon the calm dark waves. What manner of creature might be hiding deep underneath those waters? What tentacled horror may be lying in wait, ready to devour an alien Titan snack? As he thought longer about it, being eaten alive may be the best-case scenario alone on that body of water.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  But something caught his attention then. Up on a hill in the distance, something exceptionally large that did not look like a natural part of the landscape silhouetted against the sky. He studied the object for some time before deciding that at this distance, he would not be able to determine much. He went back to the PTC and started it back up. It took longer than he expected to reach the object, which at first did not appear that far away, but the closer he got he realized that it was further away that it had first appeared, but was much bigger than he could have imagined.

  After traveling approximately four miles, he again brought his PTC to a halt, this time in front of a towering new mystery. One thing was for certain, as Lupis looked up at it, his hunch had been correct, and this was no natural part of the landscape. This was in fact, some artificial tower crafted by intelligent hands. Whether those hands were Titans hands or not, he intended to find out. But his base instinct said not.

  The now obviously metal tower was unlike anything that Lupis had before witnessed. The strange geometry and odd patterns that adorned the outside of the building carried high overhead and looked to be a mixture of some type of primitive hieroglyphics and an ornate patterned design at once. This pattern covered most of the visible surface of the object. It was not built in a logical manner, how someone from Titan would expect, but rather was segmented, in an almost chitinous insect fashion. Lupis stepped out once again and began walking towards this structure.

  The Titan soon ran into another problem when he approached. There was no visible entrance. Nothing like a doorway or mechanical aspect to it at all from what he could observe. He ran his hand across the smooth reflective surface. It was a metal of some kind for sure, but a dark obsidian metal unlike anything he had come across in his past planet hopping space explorations. He ran his hand next across the strange alien symbols, expecting to feel grooves in the metal and was shocked when it was completely smooth. It was actually more of a giant viewscreen displaying the characters. Even with Titan’s advanced holo-technology, he could not imagine being able to reproduce such a thing as an entire building that was also a monitor back home.

  Then, as the Titan watched in amazement, he saw before his eyes the symbols and patterns moving. They were moving ever so slowly, so slowly in fact to have been nearly imperceptible by most viewers. He looked up into the sky towards the apex of the structure high overhead and imagined the entire thing being like some form of a giant book perhaps. Whatever these symbols were, he was convinced it was a communication, a language of some sort. It was written using some form of completely alien technology. And that brought a terrible chill down his spine as the realization slowly sank in.

  For thousands of years, Titan had been alone in the solar system. Before Zenith-One had attained the Artificial General Intelligence that had forever changed the technological capabilities of the Titanian species, catapulting them into the future, the astrologers and scientists had searched for signs of life among the stars and had always come up empty handed. And then when Titan became a space-faring planet, and the rapid great colonization took place, they began to know for sure that they were indeed alone. As they colonized the solar system and began to push beyond, they found that they were adrift among the galaxy.

  Only here was something tangible before him that may very well prove otherwise. Something had built this and left this here, how long ago was impossible to tell for sure. By the looks of it, it was certainly no Titan. He remembered the star charts that he had gazed upon within the Triumph and thought about how far out into the galaxy they were. Further than anyone had ever been, as far as he knew. Could it be possible that aliens were closer than everyone on Titan had assumed?

  Then something shifted under his hand, and before he knew it, his hand was trapped. The wall in front of him began moving, panels turning and undulating and suddenly there was a doorway before him. The movement continued, releasing his hand, and he noticed that much of the symbols and writing had changed as well.

  Knowing full well how stupid his next actions truly were, as anyone that had ever watched a holo-vid from Furwood on the Rook Coast could have told him, he moved anyway. With purpose he made his move to enter the building. After all, he thought, it was probably far from the stupidest thing he had ever done in his life, right?

* * * *

  It was cold aboard the SV Rhapsody as Lupis pulled away from the dock and left Astracus behind. He reached across the console and toggled the menu for the environmental controls, bumping the heat up a few notches. Something about this mission was nagging him, but he couldn’t decide just what it was. He had worked for mob figures in the past, and had traveled to dangerous areas of the galaxy, so he couldn’t imagine what it was about this mission in particular that was eating at him.

  Lupis pushed a button and brought up the holomap that appeared floating above the console and turned it around until he found his destination, Tuscan. He selected it and the ship’s computers began calculating the route promptly. While that was happening, he determined to get up and relocate to the back of the ship. He passed by his small cabin on his way towards the little cargo bay that made up the rear of the vehicle.

  Once inside the open space, he sent a command message through his helmet’s Net-Comm and the room immediately began to transform. Tiles moved aside and the walls shifted around, bringing out exercise equipment that was tucked away inside the walls when not in use. Knowing that the ship’s autopilot would engage once the calculations were complete, he did something next that was very rare for him, and something that only happened when he was absolutely alone, like he now was in the deepness of space. He took off his helmet and set it aside, and then with a push of a button on his wrist controller that brought up a menu, he thought out the password command that disengaged his armor.

  With a hissing noise, the armor panels folded away and opened up, allowing him to step out. Once out of his armor, it began folding up even more, compacting into itself until it was in the shape of his armor case, which he crossed the room to bring over. He carefully put his armor away inside the case, which had limited self-repairing and more importantly, cleaning functions as well as mag lifts for ease of transportation. Armor could get funky when you spent as much time in it as Lupis did. Once he clicked the armor case closed, a blue light appeared to display that the cleaning cycle had begun.

  Lupis then began a vigorous workout cycle. Spending so much of his time aboard a spacecraft as he did, most of his time in fact, he was well aware of how easy it was to grow out of shape without even realizing it. Even with the artificial gravity, sitting around in a tight space like this was not beneficial for prime physical fitness. He first engaged in a weight-lifting workout, mostly just incorporating heavy compound motions, then finished up with a cardio routine.

  After his workout he made his way back towards the front of the Rhapsody. He paused outside his cabin before walking in. He changed the clothes that he had been wearing underneath his armor for two days now and tossed the old ones into a chute streamlined into the wall. A moment later a soft hum began as the wash cycle engaged. His bed automatically dropped down from being hidden away into the wall, and he had a seat on the edge of it.

  Lupis’ eyes wandered to the small nightstand next to the bed within the cramped living quarters. It was barren except for a frame that sat alone, and his hard eyes fell heavy onto this. His hand reached out slowly to take the frame up and when he did, it engaged a mechanism that turned the picture frame on. An old picture from another time flickered and appeared on the display of a cute young couple, so full of promise, so full of love.

  He stared longingly at the smile on the young female Titan’s face in the picture, over the years he had studied every line, every detail. Those eyes of his that had become so hard and so calloused over the years softened while he stared at the picture, they would never again be as soft and carefree as they were in that moment frozen in time within the picture frame, but for a moment, he remembered his bestiality, he remembered that he was in fact a Titan, and not some machine. No more tears could he shed over the past, enough had been spent to last a lifetime.

  Lupis stood and set the picture frame down, which went into sleep mode and darkened once more. He made his way back up to the small navigation cockpit and took a seat in his chair. He pushed a few buttons and changed the display screen which was currently showing the outside of the ship like a normal windshield. From left to right the display changed so that it now looked like a window showing a scene of the night sky over Titan, overlooking the Iscalian Sea. He reclined the chair and closed his eyes, falling asleep to the gentle crash of the waves breaking against the rocks that the ship’s speakers provided in stereo surround.