Chapter 1: Sol-Hub

Sol Hub positioned right at the edge of the so-called heliopause. Almost exactly one lightyear from the actual star at the center of this system.

As star systems went, this one was without question one of the most important. While every rock and floating pebble big enough to put a boot on was occupied or utilized. It was all about the third planet; by all accounts, he heard, one of the most beautiful and perfect garden worlds in existence, with a rich diversity of climates and life forms. All this was still secondary to the fact that this planet, brought forth one if not the most war-loving, aggressive sentient primates ever known, Terran Humans.

Roy sat on a bench at mooring quay 445. Lower Hemisphere 1200, rim Sector Blue 122. This was where the info-bot and his marching orders said he had to be today at Six-Hour sharp. But right now it was still a few minutes into One Hour or in other words the wee hours of the morning. This being Sol Hub, it was of course not only displaying Standard but operating everything by Old Terran Time.

Even the largest space station there was, appeared much less busy at this time, at least around Rim Sector Blue 122.

Roy had left everything providing him with the usual comfort behind, All his weapons: Vibro-Machete, Combat-Knife, back-up blaster, and of course his TKU 12. It was Sam who strongly recommended leaving these things behind when reporting for Boot-Camp. He was alone, not his beloved Partner was with him, nor elusive Cara. He often wondered whatever had become of her. Neither was his girlfriend present, gosh even thinking about her made him all excited. He genuinely loved her.

While he had almost six hours to go before the military charter would dock and take whatever recruits had decided to show up to Camp Mattis, there was not enough time in his opinion to check out some of the supposedly famous sights to be seen in the Sol system.

This being Sol-Hub it offered many traffic options, including Trans Matter Tunnels to TNO-Hub, Viking-City, Earth-Hub, and a dozen other destinations. While he was mildly curious about Earth; it was were his species were supposed to come from; he didn’t know where to start and had no particular ties to the Sol system or that old planet.

The docking-platform was quite empty, and except for a brightly lit robot attended Coffee shop at the far end, and technically below the actual platform, nothing seemed to be open. The bright red sign of Terra-Coffee-Bean Inc looked quite inviting and Roy decided to get some coffee and from the looks of it, the place offered donuts too.

So he abandoned the variform bench and took the short slide-belt ramp that took him ten meters lower onto the clean, quiet concourse.

He had seen how busy and crowded the Hub was at the equator level far above his current location, on this moon-sized station, so this abandoned concourse seemed particular eerie to him.

True, it was very early in the morning and the other businesses available were not of the late-night entertainment type.

From an Info-Bot he had learned that Rim Sector Blue 122, was only one of over 20,000 such outward-facing station Sectors. Like all these Rim Sectors, this one was located at the outmost sector with landing bays for spaceships.

The same information; he read it all because he was bored; told him that most of these Rim sectors were owned, rented, or leased by organizations and corporations that operated or used spaceships as part of their operations,

Freight forwarding companies, private charter companies, and such. This one was permanently leased or perhaps owned by the Union government to accommodate military personnel transports.

The Space Train from Spindlar Hub had reached Sol Hub almost seven hours ago, but the next train would have been too late.

He carried a black credit strip, Tanya insisted on him taking it, with probably enough credits to buy the entire Sol Hub, in addition to his. He had also his one along, his mother had generously added 10,000 credits to it. Technically he could have taken a room in the finest super-lux hotel and waited there, dined at the finest restaurants, but such things did not cross his mind.

He remembered the price for a cup of coffee at the winter-sport resort terrace and was glad the prices displayed on the brightly lit field screen were much more reasonable.

The friendly robot handed him a big paper cup with lid and a similar friendly warning that the content was hot. While he sipped on the aromatic and invigorating hot beverage, he checked on the donut selection.

It was right there, his sense of danger warned him.

Roy whirled around, doused a masked guy holding a dangerous-looking E-Zapper. Dangerous for the user that is. The weapon looked as if taken out of a recycler in the last possible moment, crudely repaired with all-stick tape and goobs of Stick and Fix.

While he doused the masked humanoid with the hot coffee, he hammered his left on the humanoids wrist, deflecting the E-Zapper and most likely breaking the unfortunate mugger’s wrist.

The mugger, however, was not alone, three more similar shabby dressed individuals had stepped into the bright lid circle created by the coffee- shop lights.

The robot snarled. “Law enforcement has been alerted.”

The guy with the mask, an elasto-plast Halloween disguise representing a garish colored Ult face yelped in great pain, not certain what was hurting him more, the broken wrist or the very hot coffee, now scolding him partially behind his disguise and partially progressing down his chest, inside the smudgy t-shirt.

His companions, all three of them masked, carried a makeshift weapon and only now reacted to the situation.

Roy, warned by his senses reacted fast enough to evade an Arrow Wasp and faster than anything these muggers encountered so far.

Things turned out even worse for the muggers. The concourse outside the Coffee shop that seemed so empty and abandoned, was not that that empty after all. Four beings now also stepped into the light, prominently a Petharian. The bulky bruiser of the Andromeda galaxy was in the company of a muscular completely hairless human, a Dinosaur being, while the last of the group also appeared to be of lizard or Sauron origin. This one wore an elaborate and richly decorated leather suit of some kind and his exposed scaled skin was bright red. Spikes connected with skin membrane decorated the sides of his elongated lizard-like head,

The Pertharian grabbed one of the muggers by the head, much like a human would reach for an apple or a similar round fruit and lifted the guy right off his feet and gave him a good shake and judging by the gargling sound the mugger was not appreciating it. The other two disguised and armed associates of the still yelping and hurting want-to-be-Ult did not fare much better.

The hairless human, approached the situation simply and directly, knocking one of the muggers of its feet, with a very nicely executed uppercut. The Shiss mask clearly didn’t do much in terms of diverting some of the impact energy, as a matter of fact, it didn’t even stay on the smudgy human’s face while he performed an impressive backflip, and with a solid sounding thud came to rest on the clean but hard tarmac of the sidewalk before the coffee shop without any additional moves or sounds.

The lizard with the red skin grabbed the last one by the throat and argued with the Sauron, who tugged forcefully at the same guy’s arm.

“I had him first, so I eat him. I leave you a leg.” This statement made the man behind a flexo-plast mask of a Klack ant cry in fear.

The situation developed further with the arrival of a Flesh and Steel team of the local police.

The policeman, a blue-skinned Thauran stepped off his ride bot and the first thing he did was shake his head and then he said. “The Kluken gang, of all places they decide to raid Rim Sector Blue 122 and mug Marine recruits. I know you guys are desperate, I had no idea you were that stupid though. One of them beyond medical help and the rest in serious condition.”

Roy said more surprised than he was angry. “Sir, who are these guys?”

“Crevice-rats, caught in the light after having made a very bad decision to add this Rim section to their hunting ground. Can I scan your CITI and have a statement?”

After the policeman took statements, checked the Poli-Analyzer data, and received a recording of the incident from the Coffee Shop robot, he tipped his helmet. Robotic drones swooped in, grabbed the immobilized goons, who were wrapped tightly with generously applied layers of memory tape, and flew away.

Roy still perplex, asked. “I thought this is Sol Hub, does this happen a lot?”

“Citizen, this is one of the largest Space stations and one of the oldest too. There are always Gal Drifts that get stuck. There are Tox-Freaks, Non-Cit scum, and Runners. As much as we try to keep this thing clean and orderly, there are always a few cracks where those who shun the light find a place to hide.”

The policeman left and the hairless guy said. “It’s not unusual to find Crevice-Rats and Port-Roaches in big places like this. I bet there is a number of them at any of the Blue Moon ports.”

The red lizard agreed. “Even Pluribus has an underground, as small as it is. Subsubs they call it I think.”

Roy sighed. “It seems that I am still a Backwater noob, despite quite some travel last year.”

“The four-armed Petharian thumbed against his chest with a digit each of his upper arms. “Name is Dirmon Srook, you are fortunate then Backwater Noob we came to save you. You looking at a genuine future Marine. God Stahl be blessed.”

The Red scaled bipedal lizard laughed. “To me, it didn’t look he needed much help with those Desperates. From what Backwater planet are you coming from, Noob?”

“I prefer you to stop the Noob thing, I am aiming to board that transport headed for Camp Mattis, and from what I heard such words tend to stick and become nicknames. I am from Green Hell, and you?”

“I am Faragon, and I am Huǒlóng, from Hearth planet.”

The other lizard said. “He is a genuine Drach, not a mighty and vicious Tyrannous like me and part of the Sauriens or a lizard-like the Diechsen.”

Roy sighed, “You know my mother is a real biologist scientist and I think she knows all the different species, but I still don’t know most of them. Well, I do know Petharians of course.”

The Petharian sighed and it sounded as if he was gargling gravel. “I wish you would know about Petharians because we are so famous, but you said you are from Green Hell, I bet you remember those fools taking part in Akrun Nokhar challenge a few years back.”

Faragon asked. “What could stop a Petharian?”

Rou shrugged, “A great number of things. Dragon Ants, Buzz-Saws, Stompers would be at the top of the list, and of course Water Snakes. I recall one of the Petharian survived, Nokhar didn’t by the way.”

The Petharian again made the gravel crunching noise.”Yep, one of them survived he was severely wounded when the Ranger found him. That was an older member of my brood pod by the way.”

“How is he?”

“Those Buzz Saws you mentioned managed to get into his brain somehow, my pod eldest tossed the useless idiot into a volcano. He never really recovered.”

That impressed the others. The hairless guy said. “I am a Triple Strong, I say that because we are more or less human and don’t look different from your average Homo Galactus, my name is Ken Kener, but everyone calls me Canadien because I am from Mount Royal, planet and a battle-hockey fanatic.”