It was well into the evening when they saw the gates of Junkyard Town. If they could be called that. The gates were more like one big rusted portcullis laced with barbwire, which glowed with tell-tale signs of high voltage electricity all over it.
The town walls were made from compacted metal garbage that shimmered with the same signs of deadly voltage. As they strolled up to the closed gates, their path was blocked by two heavily armed guards, who stomped their way toward them.
“Hey, Brother Brayan, ain’t that a Concordat runt.” Grunted one of the guards, who cockily approached them with a chunky, high plasma gun of battered tungsten and scratched steel balanced in both hands.
Veronika frowned as she observed the guard’s features.
He looked like a stocky human man, dressed in a black biker’s leather jacket, gray t-shirt with a red hawk image printed on the front tucked into black leather pants.
His feet were encased in heavy dark gray studded boots that ran up the length of his calves. A wide utility belt held up his pants. Small belts holding ammo cartridges were banded around his thighs and arms. But it was the first time seeing a man with shimmering blue skin and amber-red dread lock hair, where the tips ended at his bulky shoulders and wide upper trapezius.
His face resembled a human’s, with high cheekbones and thick lips. But his bright green eyes were something slightly different. They were almond shaped and three of them! A pair of eyes were set similarly to a human’s, but the third was set at his forehead; dead set at the center. All of them were glaring at her.
The other guard who approached from behind him looked similar, but his dread lock hair was held up in a ponytail, and he looked older.
[Careful. They’re Lakionian, known to shoot first and ask questions later] System warned her.
“Hey, nice weather, huh?” Veronika nervously greeted them with a gulp.
“Pfft. This runt looks like a Casey Fodder.” The younger guard sniggered.
“What’s a Casey Fodder?” She discreetly whispered to System.
[Pansy]
“Right. Figured it wasn’t anything good.”
“Hey, Runt. Check out my gun. It’s the last thing you’ll see when I blow your brains out.” The young guard smugly declared when he raised his gun and cocked it to charge it up.
“Not this again!” Veronika groaned and wondered if facing charged up guns was going to end up an unexpected hobby for her.
She ducked to avoid the deadly plasma beam that had been aimed for her head. It found its way into a nearby junk pile behind her. She gulped when she turned her head and saw a smoking, melting hole in the pile.
“Engaging combat.” Scot swiftly unhooked his rifle and fired at the young guard within a fraction of time.
The young guard cursed when he saw his firing mechanism had been shot to be rendered useless. He dumped his gun and whipped a sub-machine gun from his back.
“Young guns.” The older guard sighed as he kicked the gun out of the younger lakionian’s hand.
The older guard holstered his weapon to show a sign of truce. “Don’t want trouble, Biodroid.”
Scot disengaged his attack and stowed away his rifle. “Acknowledged.”
“Really?” Veronika raised a brow at the unexpected switch of attitude.
“Listen, Concordat runt. If you weren’t with a Starcharter biodroid, I’d let this young brat paste your brains on the ground.”
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Veronika huffed, feeling confident of her chances. Especially having Scot around: realizing he was going to be useful to her after all, as a shield.
The younger lakionian complained and shouted that he demanded they grovel at his feet for forgiveness. The older guard heaved a sigh and tossed the busted gun to him.
“Go get that gun fixed, then back to your post,” the older lakionian told him. He nodded to Veronika and her group. And, stomped away to a side area, where he opened the gate for them.
“Don’t cause trouble.” Was his advice as they passed through the gates to enter the town.
“Hey, Scot. Didn’t you say that clones and synthetics aren’t welcomed here?” Veronika offhandedly asked as they strolled down a concrete path that was surprisingly squeaky clean.
“That knowledge hasn’t changed,” Scot firmly answered.
“Then why did it look like that guard was about to kowtow you?”
“Unknown.”
From his tone, it seemed he wasn’t going to admit that his knowledge might be slightly askew or situations could have changed.
“Doesn’t like to be wrong, does he?” she mumbled to herself and moved her attention to the next thing of interest.
The buildings were stark white metal prefabs on low stilts. Plastic crates, old radiators and power cells were stacked against walls. Most had the company brand logo’s scratched off or graffiti all over. A stale stench of eggs and god-knows-what was heavy in the air.
“Do I smell sulfur?” She was doing her best not to screw up her nose at the stench. But couldn’t help her nostrils from twitching.
“Hah.” Kami chuckled.
Veronika’s eyes glowed with a scan when she passed one of the barcodes on a rectangular box near the corner of a lane. The box was identified as a comm-node.
[From my scans, the prefabs use a biofuel converter on their lavatories. This converter is what powers most of the buildings and equipment]
“Wait. Are you saying that when you go for a dump, you’re also powering up your oven?”
[More or less. It’s why these streets are surprisingly spotless. No one wants to waste a drop]
Kami laughed at Veronika’s example, who groaned and was keen to switch her thoughts to something else.
No sooner had they entered the main streets of the town, they had to dodge and step around street fights between lakionians and humans.
[There’s some animosity between these species] System casually commented and added that it was because of early settler contentions.
Veronika learned that humans had arrived to the planet 100 years ago to colonize it, unaware that lakionians were the planet’s natives. This started a war between the species called the Ground Contact War, which lasted for two decades before the Star Council had stepped in to arbitrate a peaceful resolution.
[Those resolutions mostly favored the human species. The Lakionians signed onto a treaty, where they had to provide labor and military aid. As such are considered second rate]
“How sinister,” Veronika said with a low voice.
[Indeed. The human corporations took advantage of the Lakionian’s distrust for the Star Council to slip into the treaty watertight clauses in their favor]
“Why did they allow them to intervene then?”
[In theory, the Star Council doesn’t intervene, they arbitrate. But, yes, they did intervene by presenting a convoluted treaty as a non-participating party. It had appeared to be a peaceful benefit to both sides. But it was a Trojan Horse. There were ambiguous clauses that allowed humans to take advantage. The treaty was a coup, which saw humanity gradually own the planet. By the time the Council Secretary had discovered this deception, it was too late. Naturally, the Star Council won’t admit any wrong doing, as this will make them appear incompetent. So this imbalance is allowed to continue. Severing any political relations the council had with the Lakionian species]
“What’s the Star Council?” Veronika frowned, instantly not liking this group.
System opened up an article on the council and what they represented.
The planet they were on was called Seria, which was part of the Zion System. This system resided in the Del Cluster of the Linus Sector.
The Star Council governed all the clusters within the sector, and many others in their galaxy, which was called the Starway Galaxy. They were the overall galactic governance.
[The Star Council provides governance for galactic law and order, and military alliances. They arbitrate over 120 races] System matter-of-factually noted of the council and copied some additional files on them to her surface memory for later reading.
“Sheeze.” Veronika sighed. It seemed corruption and power was the same no matter the era or environment.