Playing the Waiting Game

Forces move in on our pair while hints of something darker is happening withing the Alyuan Empire

Dark side of Mars’ moon, Deimos

Daemon patrols through her ship, inspecting the crew’s status, she discovered many of them were very discontent at the moment. Indeed they now have a magnificent ship at their disposal along with many of its riches, but at what cost? They’d lost almost half of their fleet taking this ship, many of them losing their friends and family in the raid. And instead of cashing in on their costly victory they now are on a mission to go after one lone Alyuan.  Along with all that, being stuck inside the captured vessel for so long is making them extremely irritable.

Just the other day she watched a pilot gouge the eyes out of a mechanic for accidentally disrupting the power to her ship. The ship was eventually repaired but the mechanic is useless to her now. Perhaps she’ll throw another feast to calm the crew down, it’s not a permanent solution, but hopefully her scouts will inform her that capturing the Alyuan will be a in and out job. If it weren’t for these primitive natives she’d be long out of this system by now. She knows too little about them, which for a galactic criminal, is never a good thing. She didn’t gain her infamy by being reckless and going in guns blazing, she’d seen too many fool die because of that.  For all she knows they’re aware she’s in the system and are simply waiting for her to get in close to strike.

“They may not have seen other lifeforms, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t prepared for them.” The lizard thinks to herself as she continues her observation.

“Shipmisstress, I have news to report.” She pauses, turning to face the voice. It’s a young male, from the planet Sgria-II, based of his vibrant green scales.

“Well then speak.”

“Our probes went to the planet and located this hovering around in orbit,” the Renuein presents her with the distress beacon, “it appears damaged, but was still sending out a signal when we retrieved it. It was surrounded by debris with Alyuan language on it, the pod may have been damaged when entering orbit.” She snarls at this, their anonymous payer wants the Alyuan alive.

“Is there any sign of the Alyuan on the planet?”

“We intercepted a signal from the planet, you may wish to take a look at this.” He pulls up a holopad presenting her a video of the Alyuan forcing something upon the head of a native alien. Soon after she and the alien are forced into a vehicle by other armed natives. A low rumble fills her throat, it would make things very complicated if she has to steal the Alyuan once more.

“There’s more my Matriarch,” The video skips ahead showing the instance of the vehicle they’d entered careening off an overpass smashing into the ground. Soon after the Alyuan and the same native alien crawl out running into a building under fire by alien weaponry.

“Hmm…is there any news of where she might have gone afterwards?”

“No ma’am, this is the last known sighting of her.” She growls hearing this, though it is comforting to know that her investment is still alive, it’s upsetting to know that she’ll be competing with the natives.

“Very well, return to your post and come to me if any developments arise.” She turns continuing her observation of the crew.

“Yes Shipmisstress, but if I may ask, shouldn’t we go to market and cash in our earnings?” Daemon stops in her tracks and faces the male teeth flaring.

“We leave when I say we leave, do you understand!?”

“Yes, but we could leave a small number of our force here and return wh-” the Renuein is cut off receiving a backhanded slap from Daemon’s spiked gauntlet. He falls to the floor, a puddle of blood forming beneath him.

“Let me correct you with your assumption, this is MY crew so you and everyone else will do exactly what I say when I say it! Secondly we need the Alyuan to get the real pay, all of this, why else would you think we’re be in the middle of nowhere! So unless you’d prefer me to toss you out of the air lock, you’ll stop questioning me! Do we have an understanding!?” The Renuein holds its snout as blood trickles through his fingers. He stands up bowing his head in submission before waddling off head hanging low.

As he walks away she could hear him make a quiet growl, if she could afford it she’d shoot him in the back for doing so. Daemon instead, walks away, with the crew being at the state it’s in that kind of discipline could spark mutiny. With the discovery of this remote system, along with the extremely generous payment she’ll get from delivering this Alyuan, she couldn’t afford that. Not when she’s so close of revitalizing her species to what it once was.

“Damn you Alyuan.” She murmurs continuing her inspection of the crew.

 

Seattle, WA; 1:34 A.M. Sunday, Sammy’s Bar.

Santiago rubs his brow irritated that it took his teams this long to get another lead on the pair, and that’s not even mentioning how they got pass all of the checkpoints. Now he’s in some old bar talking to a woman who can’t seem to focus on a single question.

“Did you hear me mister?”  The waitress asks.

“No, sorry I was lost in thought miss…”

“Oh no need to be so formal, please call me Janet.” Janet answers.

“Yes… anyway Janet, what were you saying?”

“Oh nothing mister, just that I couldn’t imagine that sweet young man as a criminal. I guess you can’t tell who a person really is anymore huh?  I mean I’ll tell you, he was just so polite to me and brave stepping in for his woman when she got attacked by some lousy drunkard.” She rambles on.

“Woman? Did you get a look at this woman?” He questions dissecting her sentences.

“Yeah mister, some Asian gal, couldn’t tell you from where exactly but she was most definitely Asian. She was just about as tall as he was, maybe a little shorter. Her skin tone was lighter than his but not by much, and she had long black hair. She was…well… how do I put this politely… she was well-endowed, both upstairs and in the basement if you get what I’m saying.” She describes as he jots down her description.

“I think I do, but did they ever say their names or mention where they were going?”

“No sir, they just hopped into a car after talking to that lovely British fella… wait he’s not gonna get into any trouble is he?”

“That remains to be seen Ms. Janet, now if you’ll excuse me I need to make a phone call.” Santiago walks away pulling out his phone.

“What did you find out Santiago?” The Colonel immediately answers.

“Well they made it out of the city but it doesn’t look like they got very far. I’m having a team go through all the cab fairing services that came to the bar in the last 36 hours. And it would seem that Mr. Bartholomew was not entirely honest with us about talking to his friend. I’ll have some people have another chat with him soon. As for their current whereabouts, that’s still unknown, but now that we’ve got a trail it shouldn’t be too long before we apprehend them.”  The agent reports.

“Has the boy tried to contact his family at all?”

“No sir, all the conversation we picked up from their phones have either been family members, news media, or bots.”

“Well wrap this case up quickly Santiago, the folks back in Washington are getting anxious. They’re receiving international pressure regarding the alien, so we need to inform the world that all is well and under control.”

“I understand sir, I’ll get it done.” He hangs up the phone.

The Colonel is right, the world is beginning to panic because of this whole ordeal. All the news outlets have been covering this and stirring up people’s fear. On the drive here a man was carrying around signs claiming the end times are upon us. The man then proceeded to cuss him and his agents out for dooming all of mankind.

People were flooding stores stocking up on supplies in case of an invasion. One news station reported that gun sales have gone up nearly two hundred percent. And that’s not including any sales made on the black market. If things aren’t settled soon, riots across the country might sprout up. And though martial law may make capturing the pair easier, it could also cause some revolts, weakening the country further.

Santiago shakes his head to stop his mind from going any further, he needs to be in total control of himself. He can’t let any irrational fears get the better of him and cloud his judgement.  “The country, no… the world needs you Santiago. You gotta keep it together.” He thinks to himself. Walking over to another agent on the phone, he’s determined to get this job done.

“Report, any word on where they went to after coming here?”

“Yes sir, take a look here,” she presents her laptop, “It says there was a pickup for a Richard Bartholomew. It took them to the address 3054 E Laurelhurst Drive Northeast. It’s the residence of Jacob McCorey and his daughter Jennifer. The latter of whom has a romantic relationship with Mr. Bartholomew and was recently contacted by him.”

“Good work we’ll stop to make a house call and send some people to pick up Bartholomew. Report to me if anything else comes up.”  With that he walks back to his vehicle gathering some of his agents creating a convoy. The convoy splits off into two groups of three vehicles one heading south the other east. Their sirens echo and flash through the empty street on the dark warm summer night.

 

Zylioud-System, Feterous Waterhole

Both the Zylioud-System and Feterous Waterhole are places that Baraxl is familiar with. It was where his father left him for good all those years ago, “Good riddance.” The assassin thinks to himself as he finds a seat at the bar. From what he remembers of him the man was another a*****e drunk who traveled to the outer rim of the empire to escape its rules. And when business venture fell apart one by one for him he turned to the drink. It was here that he met his mother all those years ago, she was a working woman that had the misfortune of being too pretty for her own good. Needless to say his conception wasn’t that of romance. Tapping on the countertop he surprises the bartender, “Who’s that!?”

“I see you’ve been sampling your supply again Nyruhg.” The bartender stumbles to the counter and leans in close to Baraxl’s face.

“Oh it’s just you Baraxl, I thought for a moment you were someone I owed. How are you my boy?” Nyruhg stumbles back over to the dish conveyor grabbing a clean glass for the merc.

“If I’m honest with you I don’t know. Hey where’s Rebruine, isn’t she supposed to be keeping you in check?” Baraxl asks looking around to find the lady of the establishment.

“She’s busy upstairs with some fool who thought he could lay a hand on one of our girls, you know how it is, a degenerate gets too much to drink and loses every bit of decency.” He answers rummaging through bottles of booze.

“Does she need my help?” He asks lifting his antenna hearing the commotion going on in the background.

“I don’t think so, but I’m still looking for your favorite so feel free to have a look.”

With that he gets up from the bar and strolls over to the lift, admiring the images hanging on the bar’s wall.  Several of them show the bar’s history of with early pioneers having fun. He remembers some that were taken while others were only proof of stories his mother told him as a child. As he enters the lift his hearts hardens recalling her and what his father did to her, and how much he wished he killed him. All he could think about now as the lift slowly ascends is how bruised her face was. Her blood spilling out from her severed antennas, and how he had stepped on one of them after he was done with his father. And how she was mumbling something incoherent because of her broken jaw. In truth he’s grateful he never found out what she’d been saying before she died, because the thought of her begging for help, or worse for him, would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The ping from the lift snaps him out of his recollections bringing him to the task at hand. Even from the lift he could hear Rebruine going to work on the guy. Gathered outside the door are a couple of the girls who worked at the bar, they all were huddling around one Alyuan tending her cheek that looked pretty nasty. Stepping out of the lift he waltzes over to the girls to check out the injury himself. The girls stop what they’re doing to see who this giant was towering over them, noticing that it’s him they all give him smiles with some getting up to hug him, well all with the except the one with the nasty cheek. He crouches down gently grabbing her head to inspect the wound himself, it wasn’t anything life threatening, but it looked as though whatever pierced it was a stiff blunt object. The girls were medicating her with some bio-gel which had stopped the bleeding, but she was going to have to have either a surgeon to repair and hide the damage or some stitches that’ll leave a mark on her. Knowing how cheap both Rebruine and Nyruhg are, they’d opt for stitching the girl before considering anything else.

“I’ll transfer some money into the Waterhole’s account to get a doctor out here to fix you up.” Letting go he knocks on the on the door. The response he’s given is the sound of flesh being pounded followed by pathetic pleas. So again he knocks, “I told you girls to leave us be, so you should either tend to Juliax or go back to work.” An angry female voice shouts at him.

“Just thought you should know that Nyruhg has been sampling the products again.” With that the other side of the door goes silent followed by the door swooshing open.

“Just the man I needed get in here.” Rebruine shoves the large Alyuan into the room where he discovers a burned, bloody, and beaten man tied up to a chair.

“Hey, wake up you fool,” She slaps the tortured man to keep him conscious, “Do you know who this is?”

The man painfully cranks his head back to get a look at the tall Alyuan’s face, “No, should I? Because all I see is some evil w***e who owns some rundown bar, and a pathetic nobody who enjoys riding some used women.” The man spits out some blood laughing at his own statement. Baraxl walks up close to the man before delivering a breathe taking punch to the man’s gut.

“This is my favorite bar. Let me ask you something, are you familiar with the name Baraxl, because that’s me?” He says as the man looks up still struggling to inhale, “So why’d you stab that nice girl out there? She was rather beautiful before you came and messed her up like that?” It takes the man half a minute to recompose himself before he is able to speak, 

“Because the w***e wanted to charge me a hundred seventy-five credits for using her, but she wasn’t worth even half that much.”

“Ok…so you decided to stab her.”

“That’s right, she wasn’t even worth my blade so I use the closest thing I could get my hands on to do it.”

“Which hand did you do it with?” Baraxl asks unsheathing his blade from his hip.

“What does it matter what hand I used.” The man says with voice trembling as plasma from Baraxl’s blade crackles the air around it.

“It matters because whatever hand you say you used is the hand you’ll be losing. And in the case that you can’t tell because you suddenly forgot, I’ll just take both of them instead. So what hand was it?”

“I-I-I…it was… it was my right hand!” As the man finishes Braxal slams his fist into the man’s left forearm breaking through the bone. The man screams and contorts in agony as the flesh is pulverized.

“You sir, are a liar.”  Baraxl grinds his fist into the tenderized flesh.

“It’s the truth, I swear!”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe the words of a man who doesn’t have much to swear on at the moment. Nonetheless you are a liar. You see if what you said was true, that you must be the most talented drunk I’ve ever met to stab a girl through her left with your right hand.” Baraxl steps away from the man handing his knife to Rebruine.

“Please, don’t let this w***e cut my arm off!” The man starts crying pleading like a baby.

“No, she’s not going to cut your arm off,” as he finishes he grabs the man’s broken arm and starts pulling, “I’m going to tear it off.” The man start screaming and squirming more violently making all sorts of incomprehensible noises. Baraxl can feel the man’s muscles tearing before the skin even breaks; he twists and turns the semi-severed hand getting even more of a reaction out of his victim. Despite his efforts the artery is still pumping, he sees the large vein beating rapidly through the showering gore around it. He grabs it, tearing it into two before stepping back with his prize.

The man sits still, either from dying or passing out from the pain, bleeding all over himself. Getting a nod from Baraxl, Rebruine presses the blade against the man’s gored stub, the blade sizzles against the fresh blood. The man lets out a weak wince letting the pair know he’s still alive.

“Well Baraxl, I should have known you were coming when this degenerate showed up. Trouble seems to always appear with you.” Rebruine stares at their work handing him back his knife.

“It’s good to see you too.” Baraxl scoffs tossing the hand on the floor before washing the blood off his hands in a nearby sink.

“Looks like I’ll have to have the girls clean this room again.”

“Always could buy a machine to do it for you.”

“Ugh…no too expensive for my taste, besides you of all people should know how good it feels to have power over someone.”

“Yeah, well…not anymore.” He dries off his hand with a nearby clothe.

“What happened?” She asks giving a condescending tone.

“Couple of the Empire’s boys jumped me on my last job, put a good number of the scumbags down before they brought in their gunship. Took a gamble and ran pass the idiots on the ground hoping they wouldn’t shoot their own people, they did. Still I was able to get by the and sneak into my ship and take down the pilot, who’s a lousy shot mind you, before escaping into orbit. Little did I know that one of them was stowed on my ship and he caught me in my sleep. Now I thought it was going to be all said and done at that point, and that they were going to execute me the second we arrived at the nearest system. After some beatings and starving me half to death, I find myself in the middle of the Empirical Fleet. Admiral Starlot, the worm, wanted me to take on a job and capture this lovely young lady.”  He pulls out a hologram projector from one of his pockets.

“A little young, pretty short too, this guy must have some sick fetishes.” Rebruine comments wiping the blood off her hand.

“Whatever the case is he made me swear allegiance to him, so naturally I led the guy on, gave him a nice convincing oath.”

“So what’s the problem? If you don’t like him why don’t you just do the job and kill him the next time you see him.”

“It’s not that simple the guy has a reputation well throughout the empire. He’s dangerous Rebruine, I mean I can kill him easily, but there’d be no way of me making it out alive. He’s got a whole army at his disposal, and me? Well I got my guns, my blade, my ship, but not much else.”

“Well what do you want me to do about it, you’re the killer, and I’m just some used w***e who owns a rundown bar.”

“Well maybe it’s time you packed up and leave this place, maybe try setting up in a better system than this.” Rebruine looks up giving the assassin an odd look.

“Why would I want to leave this place, it’s all I have?”

“I’m just saying, a man like Starlot roaming the galaxy with an army like that can’t be for any good reason. I’m just giving you a warning before it all goes down.” He answers her, his tone low and serious.

“Before what goes down?” She give him a concerned look before he walks towards the door.

“I don’t know, but like I said, it can’t be anything good. I’m putting some credit into your account to get the girl a doctor, I want to see her fixed up the next time I see her.” With that he steps out of the room walking back towards the lift. He hears the door open behind him, turning Rebruine gives him a concerned look. The lift’s door closes and he whooshes back down to the bar.

“So I take it you helped Rebruine take care of that miscreant.” Nyruhg says pouring booze into a cup.

“Yeah, and I talked with her about some other things,” he takes a sip of the liquor nearly spitting it out the second it hits his tongue, “You trying to poison me Nyruhg, what is this?”

“Sorry Baraxl we’re all out of your favorite, that stuff is hard to come across with all the new laws going around.” The bartender apologizes wiping away the wasted booze.

“D****t Nyruhg, I always take a drink before a job, it’s for good luck.”

“We don’t have any, I don’t know what you want me to say. Just drink something else and hope for luck with that.” Baraxl though simply transfers money to the bar and sulks back out to his ship.

Author's Note

It's feels good putting out a new chapter and not just editing an older one. Anyway as always thank you so much for taking your time to read another chapter in my book, it'll always be appreciated. Helpful and constructive comments are always welcomed, and I'll see you in the next chapter.