The story so far:
Aaron Damerson, or Dam, as he is better known, and his prey turned ally, Porten Ve’Tan, are two men on the run from a rather large number of people willing to do just about anything to make the kill. All this is happening because Aaron made the decision to spare Porten’s life. Now, the seedy underworld wants the do-gooder and his former hunter dead.
The story continues…
Aaron’s ship, ANDI, landed hard on a landing pad near the surface of Aurorus-3. The sprawling city of Thresia rose around the small craft, making its already small size even seem even more diminutive.
Porten was the first to exit the ship, stretching his arms and yawning as though he had just been through a long journey.
“I so dearly hate space travel,” he said, mouth still open.
“It was only a seven minute flight,” Aaron said, opening a hatch to reveal a cache of weapons. He took out a small pistol and inspected it before handing it to Porten. The portly man looked as though he were planning to refuse, but he accepted the gun with a nod and tucked it neatly away inside his jacket.
“So, where do we go now?” Porten asked, adjusting his sleeves.
Aaron seemed a little preoccupied as he pulled a significantly larger handgun out and putting it in his holster. “Oh, we’re headed to an old friend of mine’s place. A little hole in the wall bar that I like to visit when I’m in the system. He’s got a room upstairs that he rents out.”
“Well, that sounds very nice.”
Aaron nodded and pointed in a vague direction before starting to walk off. Porten had to hurry to catch up. The crowds were enormous. Porten had to hand it to Aaron, this place truly was the train station of the galaxy.
After several wrong turns and misleading signs, the pair of fugitives finally arrived at their destination, the Yellow Orval Bar. The sign for the place was a dingy old neon sign that was in the shape that Aaron assumed was an orval, whatever that was. It glowed yellow and some of the letters didn’t quite light up anymore. The place hadn’t changed in the past year, at least. To be honest, Aaron was not sure how long it had been since he was there last.
“Dam, you crazy old piece of scum,” a clicking voice called from behind the bar.
“Flitrick, my old friend, how are you?” Aaron said, moving closer to the speaker. Flitrick stood only about two feet tall and very little of that was head. If someone unaccustomed to seeing aliens were to see him for the first time, they would assume the bartender was a frighteningly large cockroach of some kind. If that same person were to say that to Flitrick’s face, he probably would calmly correct them, saying he was actually more closely related to a beetle than anything else.
“What brings you around to my neck of the woods?” the enormous beetle asked, his mandibles clacking wildly in an approximation of Galactic Common. It was especially hard for species evolved from insects to convert to more mammalian speech patterns.
“We seem to be in need of a place to crash for the next few days, Flit.”
Flitrick’s eyes passed over Porten, his antennae flitting back and forth. His face was stern, or as stern as a beetle could look. Body language was another difficulty for him, as most insectoid races merely used pheromones to convey their moods. “And who’s this?”
“I am…” Porten began.
“I’d rather not say,” Aaron said, shooting him a glance. “All that matters is that I keep him alive for the time being.”
“Very well,” Flitrick replied, pulling a key off the wall, “let me show you to the room then.”
With a new place to stay, our dynamic duo plans to wait for Thenar’s first move. The only problem is how trustworthy is Flitrick? Does the beetle already know about the bounty? Will he let the news of his new visitor slip to the wrong person?
Leave your comments below or on the Facebook group. The story continues on Thursday with Mileena’s section of the adventure!
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