Chapter 1: Mr. Mercury

A low, gyrating pulse reverberated around the large room. The sound grew louder as a hulking figure in a dark, decorative five-piece armored suit stomped across the long stage in the middle of the room. It waved its four limbs to the patrons seated at small tables lining the platform with a wide, fanged grin stretching its face. “Coming all the way from Fortunra Prime is Lydia the Heart. Show your appreciation for her new hit number, Dance on the Ion Trail!” the Froth yelled out in a guttural voice, his arms stretching wide.

The beat of the bass ramped up as the announcer walked down the small stairs leading up to the platform. Lights strobed around the club as white smoke billowed out from beside the stage. The lights dimmed until only the running-lights around the stage and bulkheads lit the large room. A strobe light lit the stage in brief flashes of white, revealing a curvy four-armed humanoid in a dark, skin-tight jumpsuit. Tentacles framed her angular face as she smiled at the crowd. Cheers followed Lydia across the stage as she appeared and disappeared in the pulsing light.

“DANCE ON THE ION TRAIL!” she screamed into the darkness. Her melodic voice boomed out as every light on the stage flared. The scream from the crowd shook the bulkheads, louder than the bass of the music.

“Not my kind of music,” Ethan muttered as he turned back to his empty table. He reached up and adjusted the knob on his visor. Once he found a comfortable volume setting, he scanned the room with his eyes as words ran along the bottom of the visor. Snippets of conversations at tables around him scrolled across the edge of his vision. Some of the words were highlighted in different colors as the rudimentary artificial intelligence built into the out-of-date visor picked up on keywords and phrases. He glanced over to read the rough translation of the couple’s argument at the table next to his as he grabbed his drink that was rattling across the metal table from the music.

The female Proccus told her companion he could pick an orifice of his to shove his spiked trunk in if he thought she would go out with him again. The short-snouted woman swished her overly large hips and waddled away from the table. Her two heavy teats, barely concealed in her red dress, knocked into Ethan’s table as she tried to squeeze past the crowded seating area.

“Where in the Abyss is he?” Ethan thought as he caught his glass from being knocked to the floor. He didn’t glance at the pig-like woman as she apologized before moving away. His eyes roamed the club, trying to find his contact. He scrutinized every patron he saw before moving on to the next, marking any that looked like they might be his contact or could cause him trouble.

Everything about his meeting with the unknown contact sent claxon alarms off in his mind. When he told the waitress he wanted to see Gorgolash, her bright amber eyes dimmed and her olive-skinned face blanched. Her smile never wavered as she led him to Table Eleven near the far corner of the club, where his contact said a waitress would take him if he spoke his name. If he wasn’t already in a financial bind, he wouldn’t have accepted a meeting from the possible Dark-Runner Agent.

Demeter Station overtaxed him on all the organic-based supplies he sold them and tried to swindle more out of him for endangering the station with his ship. The obnoxious Head Mechanic tried to make him sign an agreement that said his ship didn’t pass inspection and that he would pay the inflated hazard fees. It was a standard scam stations, settlements, and colonies tried to run on unsuspecting traders. He debated leaving and cutting his losses when a figure stepped out of the crowd near the dance floor.

The muscular Riboyit, dressed in a dark jumpsuit with red stripes accenting the straps and buckles gave off a militaristic vibe. The frog-like species was known for their pacifistic nature and struggled to gain muscle mass. The wide bulbous eyes of the figure locked onto Ethan as he made his way across the room. “Mr. Mercury,” the Riboyit croaked as he approached the table.

Ethan stood and splayed out his right hand as far as it would go before touching his face with his palm. It was a standard greeting of respect to the Riboyit culture. “Mr. Gorgolash,” he said in an even tone.

“No need for diplomatic gestures, Mr. Mercury,” Gorgolash yelled over the music and stuck his webbed hand out for Ethan to shake.

After shaking the offered hand, Ethan sat back down, his eyes wide so he wouldn’t miss anything. To the Riboyit culture, ceremonies and customs were ingrained into every aspect of their lives. The fact Mr. Gorgolash didn’t return the sign of respect was a calculated slight against Ethan. The slightly upturned lip of the Riboyit told him that Mr. Gorgolash intended to not honor or respect his greeting. He inspected his possible new employer again and didn’t like what he saw. Mr. Gorgolash’s impressive muscles bulged beneath his dark jumpsuit, a telling sign that he’d spent countless hours training and using genetic alterations.

“I understand there is a contract for components and materials,” Ethan started but was quickly interrupted.

“There will be no contract, Mr. Mercury. I am late because I had to go over the specs of your ship again and they came up lacking. You won’t have enough cargo to transport what we want so I had to come up with a solution that works for both of us,” Mr. Gorgolash croaked out with a dismissive wave of his hand. He looked away to stare at Lydia gyrating her hips on the stage to the music. “The only thing I have is a contract going out to the Rim. It will fit in your cargo pods and you will make a decent profit off the run. Simply go there, drop it off, come back, and you’ll be paid the fixed price,” he said, his eyes locked on the stage and not looking at Ethan.

Sitting back in his chair, Ethan seethed inside. He knew he was being played for a fool by the frog sitting in front of him. The station required the applicant for any contract to meet the storage requirements before they can even apply for the contract. He figured the real reason Gorgolash had been late was that he needed to make sure the station canceled the original contract. Keeping his face blank, he breathed out slowly and replied as evenly as he could, “Alright, what’s the cargo and which Rim world is it going to?”

“The cargo is need-to-know, only. Visage is a small colony in the DH8 Oculars Cluster just within the Alliance’s Arm. You will sign a non-disclosure contract before taking the cargo and the seals must remain intact when you pass it off to my contact. Payment on completion, again, is when you get back here with the proof of transfer. The time frame,” Gorgolash croaked, but Ethan cut him off before he could finish.

“Not interested, two runners have disappeared in that cluster in the last Galactic Year. Thank you for the meeting, but I must decline,” Ethan quickly said and stood, hand hovering near his shock-baton. Riboyits were known to be very fast if they decided to attack and he wanted to be ready if Gorgolash was going to. The moment the frog had started his description of the contract, Ethan wanted to put two slugs into his oversized head.

“Now Mr. Mercury, it’s not as bad as it sounds. We’re careful traders and want proof of,” Gorgolash tried again now fully looking at Ethan.

Ethan didn’t wait for the suspicious trader to continue and walked away from the table. He was acquaintances with one of the traders that had disappeared in the cluster and she had always been extremely careful. He wasn’t sure if it was Gorgolash or his associates that made her disappear, but between his bad feeling about the contract and the location, he felt it was time to cut his losses and return to his ship to look for another possible job.

He was careful as he walked to the bar, constantly scanning his perimeter. The last thing he wanted was to be attacked in the club, where the noise and people would hide an attacker. Paying his tab was another source of anger for him. The outrageously high bill was another byproduct of the hidden “tax” on the station. Suppressing his desire to hurt something or someone over the injustice of his night, he paid the tab with his DataLink and cast one last glance around the club. Gorgolash still sat at the table, staring at him.

The two massive human bouncers let him leave without a problem. He strode across the main corridor of Deck Two. He’d spotted a dark corner across from the club, near the CleanBot station. The cylindrical tube that housed the janitorial robot was fully extended, nearly double his height, and would provide decent cover to watch the front door unnoticed. The long line of men and women of different species waited in the queue impatiently for the bouncers to allow them in. A large group of humans approached the bouncers and were quickly rebuffed from entering, much to the group’s displeasure. He spotted the same Proccus in the red dress from earlier standing beside a new companion at the back of the line.

Five minutes later, Gorgolash stepped out of the club croaking loudly into his DataLink, “ ... new runner. This last one smelled the bait and didn’t want it. Call back when you’ve got someone more desperate.” He looked around slowly once and rubbed a webbed hand across his head, about where his ear was and took off up the corridor.

Ethan could understand why the Riboyit’s ears might hurt. If the visor hadn’t filtered out almost ninety percent of the noise in the club, he would have had a headache at best and a ruptured eardrum at worst. Gorgolash’s words could have been staged, but he didn’t think so considering the man probably couldn’t hear himself think and took what he heard at face value, it had indeed been a dodgy run. He would need to explore other options available and was glad he hadn’t been desperate to take anything headed his way, yet. He couldn’t stay on Demeter Station forever, but he didn’t want to leave without some sort of cargo.

As he walked the corridors towards his ship he wondered how many people were killed or sold into slavery from runs like the one Gorgolash probably had in mind. He breathed in and out to calm his nerves as he continued to pay close attention to his surroundings. Demeter Station was well within the sphere of influence of the Alliance Core Worlds, but it didn’t mean it operated by the same rules or laws so it paid to be careful. The station’s main export was raw ores, metals, and basic manufactured electronics. He had delivered a shipment of food stores but got shafted by the docks inspector on the tariffs for any food or organic-based products coming into the station. If he hadn’t needed the credits so badly he would have jumped back in his ship and left for a different station in the same sector to sell the goods and damn breaking the contract. He barely broke even after docking fees, fuel, processing fees, and “required” maintenance fees. He promised himself he wouldn’t be returning to this station again if he could help it and if he did, he would be requesting a very high-profit margin to make the run.

The docks were in worse shape than his ship, Twisted Bolt. Parts, grease, discarded metal, and he thought he saw a body littered the grimy deck corridor that led to Hangar 5. He muttered obscenities at the forced repair bill when the station couldn’t even keep their own docks clean or maintained. As the airlock for Hanger 5 cycled open he stared at his baby. The Twisted Bolt was a C-Class Trade Jumper that looked like a metal monstrosity. He had gotten the hull cheap at a junkyard and rebuilt it from the burned-out husk it had been. She was meant to crew 3 but he solo flew it to make more room for his custom engines. A long, cylindrical tube ran down the middle of the ship that connected two front-loading cargo compartments. Attached to the back of the cargo pods and back of the cylindrical tube were the FTL drive and main thrusters. What was left of the crew quarters, living area, and a cockpit made up the front half of the ship. It looked like someone had taken a tube of metal, strapped thrusters anywhere they would fit, connected two cargo containers on each side, and welded it all in place; which is exactly what he’d done. The ship flew, and flew fairly well, but she was ugly and more than one station had tried to deny him docking clearance once they saw the ship.

The only way onto his vessel was through one of the cargo compartments. He put in his code into the outer hatch for the cargo pod and watched as the loading ramp lowered itself to the deck. It made going outside the ship while in space hard because of the chance of cargo getting damaged or floating off. He spent a lot of effort securing everything and kept sealed and unsealed cargo separate whenever possible. The empty cargo compartment made him frown. He strode to the middle of the compartment and cycled open the hatch to reveal the spartan living space in the middle of the ship. Walking through the living space and down the corridor, he marched past his cabin on the left and the armory on the right as he made his way to the two-man cockpit. Plopping down in the pilot’s chair, he breathed out and shook his head at the night’s lack of progress so far.

The station’s network was the standard Alliance Station Net and he was allowed a trader’s access to the inbound and outbound message board. Merchants, private traders, and individuals could post information on available contracts, verified by the Alliance Trading Commission, and merchants could bid or buy out the contract. Nothing jumped out at him within the cargo mass he could transport so he tried a few of the other possibilities. An hour later, he had all but given up on finding anything to transport from the backwater station when he found a request for a transportation contract. He technically had a passenger license, but only had one cabin that was available for passengers and that was his armory. With nothing else to do, he clicked the contract and read over the details enclosed.

The contract was for two passengers leaving from Demeter Station with a destination to Nero Prime in the Arcturus Sector. The distance was only a five-day run; if he didn’t have any other cargo aboard. He might be able to live out of the cockpit or his armory for five days. The contact had a timestamp of being approved through the Alliance Trade Commission minutes before. The individual’s contact information was displayed at the bottom. He glanced at the offered price and was unsettled when he read “Price Negotiable”. Transport prices were commonly established throughout the entire Alliance, one of the many laws the government passed to regulate trade, but those that needed a fast transport or had special requests marked their contracts as price negotiable. He had no desire to rip anyone off, especially if they had to spend five days on his ship, but it was worth a shot to put in a bid. He clicked the contact information and watched as the call started to go through.

“Hello Mr. Mercury, to what do I owe the honor of your call?” Mrs. Lane’s silky voice asked over his loud-speakers.

His contact information would show up before she took the call but it still shook him a little to have someone sound as if they knew you intimately. “Mrs. Lane, I’m calling to place a bid on the passenger transport contract. Would a meeting in person work for you?”

“A meeting would be best, Mr. Mercury. My daughter and I will need to meet you before we can discuss your bid or the price of transportation. Would the Comet Drop Diner work for you?”

He glanced at the corner of his visor and grimaced. The number displayed showed a seventy-nine percent chance she was telling the truth but something in the woman’s words raised alarm bells in the back of his head. “That would work just fine for me, Mrs. Lane. When would you like to meet?” he said hoping she wouldn’t say immediately.

“Why Mr. Mercury, I can be at the diner shortly if you’d like to meet within the hour. Does that work for you?” she asked, her silky voice caressing his ears.

Ethan stifled a groan and made sure to clamp down on it so the woman wouldn’t hear. Immediately meant the woman and her daughter were in a hurry, probably being chased, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with that. Looking around his ship, he realized he didn’t really have a choice and he could at least hear them out. “Alright Mrs. Lane, I’ll meet you there in less than an hour or right at an hour if I have trouble finding it.”

He scrubbed his chin with his fingers and cursed his luck. The woman sounded beautiful just by her voice alone and he always had a soft spot for beautiful women, which would make the meeting even harder. Bringing up the station map, he spotted the diner less than fifteen minutes away from the docks. He looked up hotels and off-station apartments in the area of the diner and saw a hotel directly across from the diner. Bringing up the contract again, he saw it had taken a day for the contract to go through the screening process and wondered if the “mother and daughter” had arrived at the station on the same day as the contract going up. Tapping his foot, he breathed out, got up, and stalked towards the starboard cargo compartment to leave the ship and meet his potential customer.

He stood outside the diner less than twenty minutes later After looking around, he debated if he wanted to go inside or wait outside for a little bit so it would be closer to the hour he’d promised. Making a snap decision, he decided on waiting so he took out his tablet, strode over to an empty spot a little way up the corridor, and sat down in between two shops to blend in and keep an eye on the diner. It became clear that loitering was a common past time because there were multiple people doing the same thing down both sides of the corridor. He knew more than one person was looking for a mark, but some were just people watching or wasting time. A patrol of station security went by without a glance at anyone and just kept their heads forward marching on. He didn’t know if that was standard for the station, but if it was he didn’t like it at all. Any colony, station, or world he’d ever been to the security stared at everyone accusingly. His decision paid off when he spotted a busty redhead and a smaller blonde duck out from the hotel and march to the diner across from them. He wanted to beat his head against the corridor’s bulkhead. Instead, he waited for a few more minutes before standing up and walking towards the diner.