There was nothing but blackness. No sound, no passing of time, there was absolute nothingness. Like the cold void of the distance between the systems themselves. Except this wasn’t cold at all. It was warm. There was a slight poke in his neck and then the world rushed back in, his eyes wide open as the stimulant hit his system. Looking into the mans face he remembered. He thought he was dying but it was only a nerve toxin. plentiful in many parts of the galaxy, though usually not very cheap if you wanted to keep your trophy alive.

He was bound and gagged and there was the tourist standing in front of him. His face hurt like hell, he could feel dried blood on it when he winced, the cords keeping him bound were digging into his wrists. The man obviously needed him for something or he wouldn’t be here experiencing what might be the last few minutes of his life. He was in a sitting position, leaning against Triv’s skimmer, silent running still on. Only a few minuted had passed judging from the position of the sun. It would have jumped in the sky if he’d been our for hours, also the sky was purple and it hadn’t passed on to night yet. The air was still fresh and warm, the scent of the forest here was fragrant.

The man knelt down and rested easily on the balls of his feet, arms resting across his knees, hands clasped together. He was looking at him calmly, as if they were still back in the tavern talking about the weather. The eyes were calculating, measuring him as he evaluated his position in the situation. He seemed to know what was going on inside his head just by looking at him. He knew this wasn’t going to end well if he didn’t give the man whatever it was he wanted. He sighed. It would be what it would be.

Seeming to sense the conclusion he had come to, the man in front of him began to speak. “I’m going to ask you some simple questions and you’re going to simply shake your head yes or no to the answers. Do you understand?” He nodded that he did indeed understand. “Good, ” the man continued “now take a look at this holo and tell me if you recognize the man you see.” as he held up the device and pressed the button. There was a face he recognized, leaning into the camera and saying three words before repeating. “Come find me.”

He tried to piece together what was going on, the man in the holo was a nobody, a tradesman, he was just a guy that was in the next system from here on Teranis III, the man did very well for himself there manufacturing environmental suits for the planets there and moving other goods that the people there needed in and out of the system but there wasn’t anything about the man that stood out other than his wealth, which there were people here on Noble who had ten times as much as this man in credits.

He looked at the man with questioning eyes. The man took a breath and released it before continuing. “The man in the holo, do you recognize him?” Malyc thought quickly about what he was going to do, if the man had some kind of rivals he didn’t want to be involved in whatever it was, he just wanted to go on living long enough to curse the day he’d looked at either one of them. He’d helped the man in the holo get some muscle for one of his operations. He remembered something about a conflict with another group on Teranis IV , but that place always had it’s issues and only the desperate or unlucky would stop to get refueled at that run down planet. Nobody wanted to risk bringing a refueling ship in there, the pirates on IV or the expatriated denizens on III would view it as a ripe target and only the larger outfits would have enough hardware to defend it on the way through. Sometimes it was worth the risk depending on the galactic market in the surrounding systems but he hadn’t heard of anyone shipping from there in years.

Most people just passed the place by unless they had dealings with someone there and even so it was a risky place to be. Maybe if you were a bounty hunter or criminal it might hold some value but everyone else just preferred to be elsewhere in the galaxy. He decided he’d just try to stay out of the conflict altogether, none of his business anyway. He looked at the man and shook his head no. The man frowned a little bit and sighed as he stood up.

He walked and grabbed him by the shoulder, leaned him forward and grabbed one of his fingers. The pain was immediate as he wrenched the digit sideways and an unnatural angle, the pop was loud, almost as shocking as the pain coursing through his nervous system. He yelled loudly but the gag kept him muffled. He knew the man was serious but he also knew the man wanted him alive. He wondered if he’d kill him if he told the man what he wanted to know. There was no telling, he’d given up judging people’s character shortly after Triv and Warrek went to see the Maker. No, the man wanted something from him and if he wanted to keep his life he’d keep his mouth shut. The man would believe him now, he’d already broken one of his fingers. Breath heaving he unclenched his other hand, took a steadying breath and opened his eyes.

The man was still kneeling behind him. He leaned closer to Malyc’s ear and asked him in a measured tone. “Now Malyc, you just lied to me and I really, really, dislike liars. We’ve gotten to know each other a little better over the past few hours and I know you want to do the right thing. The man in the holo has done me quite a lot of harm recently and I’d like to return the favor. Now, be a nice guy and tell me if you know my friend here.” Malyc had a shot to get out of this and just leave the system, why did this have to happen to him, sure he’d done some rotten things to people but none of them had been hurt. He’d only robbed the people that could afford it, and never people with kids that he’d taken on tour. He turned his head slightly to look towards the man as he shook his head no.

There was another loud pop, followed by a muffled scream of pain. The Malyc had sweat on his brow, eyes squinted shut tight in pain as he yelled into the gag in his mouth. His face was bruised in several places, blood crusted in a few spots, mostly lip and eyebrow. The man let go of the Malyc’s ring finger on his left hand. His nostrils flared and his breathing kept a fast, steady pace, like bellows stoking a fire. His eyes now wider and darting around, even though out here, no one was very likely to stumble across either one of them.

Pulling out one of the pistols, the man stepped in front of him and pointed it directly at his face resting the tip of the barrel on his forehead as he leaned his face forward. “Last chance Malyc, no more chances, I can find out what I need to know without your help and you know it, this was just the easiest way to get the information I want.”

Malyc looked at the man. There wasn’t any hint of falsehood in his voice or his actions, this was it and the man would do what he said if he didn’t cooperate. “Have it your way.” The man said as he started to straighten, finger moving toward the trigger. Malyc’s eyes went wide, well, the one that wasn’t beginning to swell shut and he shook his head no while yelling loudly into the gag. The man paused. He stared at him a moment longer and then squatted back down again. “Malyc, you don’t know who I am and maybe you never will but understand me when I tell you that I keep my commitments. If you tell me what I want to know, I will let you live. I’ll pay you for the information and you can use it to get off this planet and go wherever the credits take you, I will do this for you and you will owe me one favor for letting you live through this day. I will give you a decryption key, one that only you will have access to. This key will decrypt a specific communication signal that has a specific spectrum hop. The header of the communication will have a single identifiable word in it’s makeup, that word will be the name of the silver and black bushes that surround this glade. When you see the word moonshade you will think of this plant and you will remember this conversation. If you see that message, you had better come give me aid. It means I need your assistance and that is the payment I require for giving you your life. It might be something as simple as information or I might need something a little more, shall we say, hands on. It may be tomorrow or it may never come, but if it does, you will do what that message asks and your debt will be paid. You will do it or I will find you and I will kill you then as I could now. I give you the blood oath of my life.”

Malyc stared at the man. The blood oath of my life. That was a phrase some of the hunters of a particular sect further out towards the Vanduul controlled systems used. More of a code of honor than a threat. Few used that phrase, it was only something you could use if you had proven yourself after years of service in only a few of the most respected guilds. If you were caught using undeservedly it by the wrong people, they were likely to kill you for your deception. Many had some military training in their backgrounds from some of the governing bodies in various systems, some of them even had UEE training. Most of the other organizations might have the bottom rung signing up but these guys attracted many and selected few. Say whatever you might about the rest but these people had earned their honor by performing admirably in nearly every assignment they were given and protecting their reputation against everyone in the outlying systems, even against the Vanduul. They wielded great respect and influence in the right circles and invoked envy and hatred everywhere else, sometimes because of their profession, but usually because of their success at it.

Malyc sighed and nodded. There was no way out of this, he could lose his life now or maybe lose it later but he didn’t want to die today and he know the man would give him the credits. Ironically that was what had brought him out here in the first place and here he was nearly getting what he wanted anyway, just not in the way he wanted it. The man knew what motivated people, he’d give him that much. Then again it was why they did so well in their profession. He’d made up his mind. The man removed the gag and held up the holo again. “Do you know him?” Malyc looked at the holo again briefly before sighing once more. “Yes.” he said hoarsely. As he explained what he knew of the man.

It had been nearly two years but he was ready. He’d done enough jobs in the right places to afford enough cargo to get noticed by Chase’s outfit. He never used visual comms without his helmet on and audio the rest of the time. It wasn’t like Chase’s compound was very high tech either, it had the usual scanners and alarms but really, most of the security was human and it was just like any other of hundreds of other places scattered around the galaxy. It was really mostly just a business, with other, more secretive dealings going on around the fringes of what was otherwise an actual business. He’d always been good at that sort of thing. He’d outfitted his cutlass with high class weapons, shields and scanners, better power units, it was a machine that was well suited to the business of moving low volume high credit items in, out and through patrolled space.

Sometimes it was a person with intel, sometimes it was contraband mixed in with the bulk of the regular goods. He’d purposefully stayed away from the bounties, they would attract attention he couldn’t afford if he was to get closer to Chase. Chase of course was no fool. He’d be looking for him, his security forces would likely spot him the instant he removed his helmet. Men like that surrounded themselves with competent people, how else was one to make it in this universe? He’d been slowly using the last of his credit reserves to get himself established here. He’d traded goods all over the surrounding systems, and he sold to both Teranis III and IV. The two planets did whatever they could to pull something over on the other but they knew better than to alienate or harm the few merchants willing to do business in the system, though piracy was often a worry no matter who you were. If you paid the bribes and did business in larger groups of cooperative entrepreneurs, you could generally keep yourself and your cargo safe while still turning a decent enough profit.

The more he thought about it the more it made no sense. Of course he’d kill the man with his hands if he had to but what the hell did he want? Why go to such measures? He knew they had not parted on the best of terms but for the life of him he didn’t know what would drive the man to destroy the life he’d been building. Maybe he blamed him for something, some part of his life he’d missed or wished were different. Whatever the case he’d have his answers soon enough. He’d managed to get a meeting setup with the man himself, all he had to do was get close and they could work the rest out one way or the other.

He wouldn’t be able to get his weapons near the man anywhere near the center where his office was, at least nothing overly useful. People could wear them in most every other part of the compound but they wouldn’t let an armed man near the bosses office. That pretty much had left him with his only other option, that was to get Chase to come to him. If you were trusted enough, and had done enough business to get noticed, there were special landing pads on the north western side of the compound for special clients, clients that were more lucrative to the operation than the everyday rabble selling whatever base commodities the system needed. Not the usual bare minerals or clothing but the higher grade weapons and energy cells. Higher end parts for ships that were in short supply in the system. He’d worked hard getting the things at the right price, sometimes renting larger ships to haul them into the next system and then shipping them to some of the smaller merchant ships that he knew he could trust.

It was ideal really, everyone got what they wanted and money was good as long as you knew when to grease a palm and when to grease the owner. There was always money to be made out in the belt, mining always had it’s rewards if you could stay away from the most common materials and pull in some of the more rare items that were used to manufacture special components of weapons, gear or ships, things that frequently needed replacing here, not infrequently along with their owners. He’d worked very hard and he was nearly there. Just one last piece of this left and it would be settled, one way or the other. There was little room for error and he wasn’t completely sure how this was going to work, there just weren’t any better options.

He’d gotten the proper clearance and brought the modified cutlass down onto the approved landing pad, these were just standard landing zones like the others, though less patrolled and less busy. You couldn’t land here without the proper codes or the automated defenses would send you a decidedly unfriendly hello message and keep repeating it until you fell out of the atmosphere. There were two turrets guarding this landing zone, large and sinister looking, tracking ships as they came stopping only when they were below the level of the walls, the twin cannons protruding from each one ready to deliver high energy devastation to any trespasser. A few hits with those was all it would take to overwhelm your shields and eat through your hull. Once they had tracked you in, they would pivot around and wait until you took off or until someone else was cleared for landing.

The compound itself sat on the top of a canyon, one of the turrets placed in a position to guard it, along with a missile turret mounted below it on the other side of the wall, they didn’t want anyone coming in here uninvited. The blaster turret didn’t have enough dexterity to point it’s lasers down into the landing area but it had plenty of authority over the canyon beyond, local people and traders from the surrounding area could use the canyon to enter through the lower part of the compound and do business or if the landing area was not available for civilian use, they could always land in one of the surrounding villages and bring one of the local skimmers into the cavern market below.

He guided the craft down below the level of the walls and reversed thrust briefly as he settled onto the pad gently with the hiss of hydrolic landing gears taking the weight of the craft. He thought about what was about to transpire and then got up and walked towards the back of the ship. He put on the hat he’d picked up back on noble, hit the rear hatch button and grabbed the hand shuttle to help him maneuver the cargo off the ship and onto the designated space surrounding the cutlass. There was a lot to move and not a lot of time to move it.

He was sweating when he heard the large doors at the far end of the room unlock and begin to part as he was positioning the last of the containers towards the front of the cutlass. He could hear the footsteps of three men approaching one familiar voice going down an itinerary as he paused here and there giving orders to men about the landing pad who had walked up to inquire about this or that shipment or some aspect of the shipping schedules to the surrounding areas.

He kept his head down as he reached up and placed the small breather over his mouth and nose and pressed his thumb into the side of the pliable surface. There was a slight hiss as it created a seal on his face, allowing him to breath normally through the device as it filtered any irritants out of the air. The men stopping on the other side of the small barrier of containers constructed between them as he pushed the button to the left of his thumb. There was a faint series of clicks from the containers. There was a brief pause as Chase raised his voice to be heard above the din. He pushed the shuttle under the container between them and paused as Chase spoke. “Well then, you’re the man I’ve been waiting to see! I’ve made quite the gain because of you and this last quarter was particularly……” The man trailed off as he raised his head, eyes locked onto the face that raised up to meet his own. “Men!” Chase yelled as the containers hissed breaching, one by one the seals breaking and a thick cloud of vapour rushed out engulfing the area and obscuring anything from view. Tools and clipboards hit the terrasteel flooring followed by the thuds of several nearby bodies.

A laser lanced out of the smoke, heating the side of his scalp and curling the short hairs there followed by a groan and another thud, adding to the already haphazard collection of unconscious men lying there. He vaulted the container in front of him, squinting through the haze and looked for the body direcly on the other side, firearm still in hand. He kicked it away as he turned and flipped the lid back on the nearest container. Inside were four canisters, neatly settled into a caddy with a handle on the top, he reached down and heaved it out, setting it on top of the container next to it. Reaching down he unceremoniously dumped Chases body inside the container and hit the seal, creating an airtight bond again. He could still hear men shouting, mostly heading away from the chaos unfolding around the pad.

Sliding back across the cargo container he hit the lift button on the shuttle and began to pull it back up the ramp to the ship. One more surprise left, he thought as he reached inside his vest and pressed a button on the device concealed there. The roar of the missles were deafening as they screamed away from the ship in both directions, instantly locking on to the largest heat active signatures around as they sailed just above the heads of the onlookers. The noise of metal screaming apart in a shower of shrapnel and molten metal as the missles intersected the walls just beneath them overwhelmed the shouts as alarms began to blare. There was a second series of explosions, much louder than the first as the missile turret on the other side of the wall gave it’s contribution, one after another, the payloads erupting in quick succession. The wall collapsing far on either side of where the turret was mounted, both now tumbling down the cliff face and into the ravine below.

He hammered the button on the other side of the hatch and ran into the cabin, removing the filter from his face and sitting down, bringing the ship online. He began by flipping on the power generators and cannons online as the engine systems lit up. He hammered the landing thrusters and the ship leaped to life as the hatch finished closing in the back of the ship. Pivoting he turned the ship around 180 degrees and briefly hit the boost button. The ship lurched forward suddenly slamming him back into his seat, he heard the faint thud of the cargo container as it slid and hit the back wall of the ship as the gap in the wall loomed ahead. He could see men running towards some of the ships on the landing pads. Chase wouldn’t be waking up with that container still half filled with the gas, though he couldn’t keep him in there for too long either, as the seal would prevent air or anything else from entering it.

He flashed past the breach in the wall and drove the nose down hard as he curled his legs under the seat to keep himself from floating out of it as the zero G maneuver pointed the cutlass at the planet, which was rapidly rising to meet him, along with the remaining wreckage of the blaster and missle turrets still smoldering at the base of the cliff. He pulled back and the nose lifted, the canyon beyond not more than three ship lengths wide. He incrased the throttle and shot off away from the base putting as much distance between them as possible before the other ships were even off the ground.

As the canyon weaved to and fro he followed it the smooth walls a blur, carved out by the winds that blew down it across the long years of it’s life. The ripples in the walls reminding him of the bottom of a slow moving river. He wouldn’t be able to stay here much longer, there was only one place this canyon led and he didn’t want to come out at the other end with more guns pointed his way. He glanced up at the sky a moment as the seconds ticked by. Nothing was ever easy.

With a few miles still ahead of him he pulled back on the stick and pointed it towards the heavens, the box thudding again on the back of the ship as gravity did what it did best. The other ships would be heading to try to intercept him soon but the ships werent exactly Murray Cup quality, mostly haulers or muscle used for mercantile ventures and armed escort but they would still be in pursuit.

His sensors told him company wasn’t too far behind as he hit the end of the atmosphere and punched in the coordinates of the quantum drive. The ship’s quantum spooler spun up and space broke apart around them as they flashed towards the destination. The ship tore through space along it’s path while quantum space hummed all around them, he finished strapping himself in as the bright parts of the system raced past and they headed out towards the edges of the system, heading for the jump point that would take them back to the Ellis system.

He tensed as the seconds went by, and then with a sudden tug that sent the ship spinning, they dropped out of quantum travel as the ship neared the asteroid belt at the fringes of space in this system. He flipped off the quantum drive as he stabilized the craft, then he tapped in a series of commands and set the timer for 5 minutes. The coded message directed towards one of the larger asteroids that made up the belt below the ship. This one was at least a hundred meters across, certainly not the largest around but a good size by any means. As he brought the ship in closer the asteroid looming below them he tapped one final button and the quantum drives spun up with a hum without engaging. He hurried back and slipped into his modified suit, sliding the circular clasp on the neck as he locked his helmet on.

He tapped a quick code into the panel mounted in the suit on the forarm, the soles of his boots mag-locking onto the deck as he tapped in another code, the gravity generators shut off an instant later. He hammered his fist down and there was a slight jolt as the air rushed out of the side door of the craft, pulling the cargo create with Chase still tucked inside along with it.

He walked to the edge of the hold, then turned off the mag-locks as he kicked off the edge of the deck towards the crate slowly rotating away from the ship. The asteroids surface directly under them. With another series of commands, the interdiction field generated by the asteroid shut off and the cutlass shot away towards the jump, now with just a rudimentary AI piloting the ship, designed to fire off a few shots and then jump out when fired upon in a new direction in the system. That would keep them busy for a while before they figured out what was going on. As he neared the cargo container he grabbed the large handles on the side and pulled himself toward it, using the leverage to match his body to the rotation of the objectas he placed his finger over the buttons on the back side of the handles.

With a few taps, compressed air rushed out in a few short bursts from the edges of the cube. There wasn’t much trapped into specialized spaces built within the thick walls of the box but there was enough to send him towards the face of the asteroid. As he approached, the giant rock slowly getting bigger, a very large circle formed in the face of the pocked surface, there at the center it slowly blossomed like a welcoming flower and devoured him into it’s dark interior and there, faintly glinting in the darkness below, parked on the surface of the landing pad contructed inside the hollowed out interior of the rock was a vanguard.