by Bret Brown
P-T and Seeker make their way to the front. Solid, thick concrete walls with a single window creates the boundaries of the facility, as it stands out from the corridor. Two automated, heavy caliber, EM cannons sit on each side of the window, pointed directly at those who approach the window.
An older woman with flamboyant, curly blonde hair is standing behind the window. The faint smell of her perfume, made from synthetic endorphins to enhance her sexual prowess, catches your nose as it passes through the window. She's wearing make up to hide her age, as her large breast peek through her bust purposely to gain attention for any lonely miner willing.
With an agonizingly bored look she says, "ID scan".
Seeker steps up puts forth his arm through a small square hole where the glass meets the counter. The woman holds Seekers arm down as she operates a device. Under a red light, an alien form of barcode begins to illuminate in bright blue and shows the letters "SKR-890342". The computer then says "Identification confirmed fifty credits awarded." The woman then pulls out another scanner and scans his arm to give the credits to his account.
Seeker and P-T leave the area and walk down a new corridor away from this facility. While they are walking away, Seeker pulls out a similar scanner from under his cloak. He scans his arm and then a small handheld device that P-T has and puts 25 credits on this device.
Feeling satisfied from getting paid, Seeker says, "Let's go get have some fun."
They enter a make shift cantina from a hollowed out mine closed off by a shaft collapsing. It's mostly dark as a monotonous tempo, underscores music that blasts out loudly from equipment found irrelevant, while lights flicker nearly in unison with the beat. Walking in, you can see people getting high, drunk, and the occasional whore conducting a transaction indiscreetly. Throughout the cantina, there is an abundance of intoxicants, it's simple as picking your vice, as the smell of sex, vomit, and smoke filled the air making an already turbulent ambiance more volatile by nature.
Seeker and P-T split up and go their separate ways in search of their own entertainment. P-T, with a large bottle of alcohol and a glass, sits down at what can resemble a booth. A spare part for mining equipment large enough to sit in seclusion with a couple of people faces the crowded room. In front of the 'booth', are a couple of containers stacked on one another resembling a table.
Two particularly promiscuous whores approach P-T. One much older, seemingly more seasoned than the other come and sit on each side of his lap. The smell of sweat and sex rises off their bodies as they get even closer. The elder of the two whores grabs P-T's hand and pulls it to her now exposed breast, which P-T willingly accepts and starts to massage aggressively. The younger whore takes her hand and rubs the outside of P-T's crotch as she kisses his ears. Sitting there with a smile, P-T lets the women continue their art form as they start to remove their clothes dancing in rhythm the music.
Five burly men with square, broad shoulders approach P-T's table causing him to take notice. The whores cover themselves up, but stay on P-T's lap looking at the men. These men dressed in dark blue overalls are covered in patches of black soot from working the mines, and their faces and beards are grimy from not cleansing oneself.
The alpha of the group gives P-T a cold, long stare, "You there, I've never seen you on any of the shifts in the mine. Who the fuck are you working for?", he says.
P-T, ignoring the man's question, whispers something into the ear of one of the whores and she gives a giggle.
Irritated from being ignored, the alpha man gets close and gives a hard kick to P-T's boot. "Hey, asshole I'm fucking talking to you."
Annoyed, P-T moves the girls off of him and stands face to face with the intruder, sizing him up and his buddies. P-T's strangely obese body looks like a stout strongman covered with an unhealthy dose of fat. He has a large pot belly protruding outward, but he has broad, strong shoulders and bulky muscular arms.
As he stands, this seemingly grotesque physique starts to shift, bulking up his physical attributes into a dense muscular structure. As the pot belly recedes, his chest and arms gain even more muscle mass. The muscles around his neck thickens, giving him nearly a triangular shape from the back of the jaw on down. On his brow, the bones above the eyes grow thicker in bone mass, deepening his eye sockets, making him look more sinister.
In shock from seeing this transformation, the alpha gasps, "What the -!"
A large, bony spike enters the man’s skull from under his chin before he can finish his statement. Blood erupts from the opening on top of the skull, as well as, brain and bone fragments. His eyes roll to the back of his head; showing only the veined white part as blood runs from both corners. The spike pierced his tongue leaving it hanging out as more blood oozes heavily from the mouth. This bony spike was once the large right hand of P-T, now morphed into a lethal, razor sharp weapon. Before the others in the group could defend themselves, P-T quickly kills each of them, severing heads and limbs with the newly formed bone cleaver where the bone spike was.
The bar patrons, too high to care, are scarcely disturbed by the skirmish and continue in their indulgences. Standing in the middle of gory scene, P-T calmly picks up the bottle and drinks a massive swig, then washes off the blood from his hand as it is back to normal form.
Out from the shadows, a couple of naked, tumor covered cannibal scavengers scuttle up to the recently deceased on all fours staying low to the ground; dodging any bar patrons in the way, and begin to drag what they can to their depths. Two more hideous scavengers appear and they begin to quarrel over the ownership of the corpses and limbs.
P-T waves at the bartender to bring more drinks and then he gets the attention of two different whores while reaching in his pocket for some S.L.A.G., having a few bites while he waits.
Not long after, Seeker finds his way to P-T's booth. As he gets closer, he slips and nearly falls on the blood in front of the table. "Whoa shit!" He exclaims as he regains his balance. "Six, after you get your rocks off, meet me in cargo bay fourteen. I've got something cooked up for us."
Nodding, P-T motions with his hand for Seeker to go away; not wanting to divert too much attention from the whores on his lap.
Acknowledging, Seeker steps back "Hi.", he says to one of the whores with a grin.
As he turns around to leave, he slips again in the blood and this time goes all the way down to the floor. Investigating what's on his hands, he exclaims "What is this?...", he sniffs his hand, "...blood?! What the fuck? ....You've got to be fucking kidding me!". He gets up shaking off all the blood he can from his hands. "I fucking hate this place!", he says as he walks away and out of the cantina.
Chapter 2
With a look of satisfaction and content, P-T strolls casually in to cargo bay fourteen to meet up with Seeker. The cargo bay, mostly empty, has only has a couple small personnel ships docked at the port. Near the entrance to the outpost is several caches of small equipment containers stacked on each other. Out to the left of the entrance from the outpost, the pale, blue halo of the forcefield glows brightly as it keeps the cargo bay and the hazards of space separated. Beyond the forcefield, you can asteroids whizzing by at various speeds. The dim glow of a star far away from the outpost shines what little light reaches the asteroid belt. Seeker, with a fresh wardrobe, emerges from behind the containers near the entrance.
"Six, you rotten bastard!", he says jovially, "Have I got good news for you. See... unlike you... living from one moment to the next, I like to plan things. You know... think beyond the next five minutes." Pointing to his head while he struts back and forth proudly; as best as he can with his limp. "So, while you're out fucking around and only thinking about YOU, I found something for US."
"Just fucking say it already.", exclaims P-T.
Amused, Seeker replies, "It speaks! Well... my good friend... the warfront has shifted directions and the Ictarians are sending troop transports to the N'bahru quadrant. Some shit about unclaimed planets out there rumored to be rich in ore. Who cares? Si
nce the Ictarians want this all for themselves, word has it that they are sending transports without escorts to get to N'bahru 4 first. 'What does this have to do with us?' you may ask. See my friend, if we can get to a couple of those transports and sell them to the Kangguns then I'd say job well done and our future is bright. Of course, when I say 'we' I do mean you. I'll be more of a backup in case anything gets out of control. The job is as easy as fuck. We'll standby in the ol' Phantom. Once the first transport breaks hyperspace to enter the system, you'll board it and secure it. I'll then land in its hangar and pilot that transport while you take the Phantom and capture and secure the next transport that drops out of hyperspace. Like I said, easy as fuck."
P-T absorbing all of this plan, ponders for a moment and then quips, "I'll need weapons this time."
Repulsed, Seeker answers back "You know what your problem is? You got a fucking shitty attitude.", pointing his finger at P-T. "Do I gotta do all the thinking around here?"
With a smirk, P-T replies "That's the arrangement."
After some careful thought, Seeker says, "Well.... it's.... nah, no one could do that.... Fuck it, there's the Kanggun armory on the outpost here but those weapons will be impossible to get to and they are too large for humans to use. However, you can definitely try. It's your fucking life. Whatever you do, you'd better hurry. It's a two-month trip to N'bahru 4 and we need to be there before any of those transports get there and we lose out."
P-T stands quietly reflecting on the recent statements. Once he gathered his thoughts, he nods his head in agreement. He then turns around and leaves the cargo bay alone. Walking briskly with a purpose, P-T makes his way down several corridors on the outpost before removing a power conduit access panel and entering the conduit shaft.
Inside the shaft, a very dull, scarlet red, light radiates from the energy lines supplying heat, power, and all other critical functions for maintaining habitable conditions on the outpost. Inside the shaft, there is barely giving enough light to make silhouettes in the dark. The temperature is about thirty to forty degrees hotter than beyond the conduits walls where the miners live, and the humidity is surprisingly high for an outpost on a rock. A rancid stench of filth and foul from the human cannibal scavengers is nauseating to say the least, as the smell of shit and rot is so intense that it's nearly impossible to breath.
P-T buries his face in his bicep in attempt to mask the horrid smell with his shirt sleeve, but it has little effect. He begins to make his way down the conduit shaft; stopping occasionally to vomit. Due to the low level of light and nausea, P-T clumsily advances down the shaft making his presence overly known from kicking the trash and skeletal remains on the floor.
The constant racket that P-T is making from vomiting, and cursing as he trips up on the trash on the floor has stirred up several scavengers. As they begin to take notice of his presence, they start to follow him.
Hearing his pursuers give low throatily growls in attempt to intimidate, P-T looks back to see the pack he's attracted, but only vague silhouettes and reflections of light from their eyes is all he can see. They move quickly from side to side of the shaft as they dart and slither in the dark. As they become increasingly offended, the scavengers become more vocal. They begin to hoot and growl louder, as they get aggressively closer to P-T while he trespasses in their domain.
Outraged, a scavenger grabs a femur bone from the floor and attacks P-T. The nasty creature charges at him with the bone held high above its head, giving a shrill of a war cry as it runs hunched over at full speed. Once within reach of P-T, the creature brings down the bone as hard as it can; aiming at P-T's head.
Disoriented from the nausea and the grotesque aroma, P-T narrowly deflects the blow. The bone weapon hits him hard on the forearm. Still practically blind in the dark, P-T feebly swings down a hammer fist of his own on the creature, knocking the scavenger down. Normally, such a glancing blow would have killed a person if P-T was at half strength, but in such a weakened state, he is becoming more and more vulnerable by the minute.
Thinking that they have P-T defeated, more scavengers come forward to stake their claim to his corpse. P-T becomes enraged, as these filthy creatures begin to claw at him, tugging on anything they can touch.
As his blood boils with rage, P-T instantly morphs both hands into curved bone swords from the elbow down to his fingertips. The serrated blades have large teeth on their razor-sharp edge for ripping the most flesh off possible. Swinging wildly into the dark, P-T starts hacking away at the shadows in attempt to ward off his attackers. The sounds of flesh being cut and bones being broken mixed in with the howls of agony echo in the dark; as the spine chilling feeling of bone scraping against the concrete for each one of P-T's misses. The deadly encounter ends as quickly as it started; leaving several limbs strewn about in the dark and shrieks of pain in the distance.
From the fight, blood has gotten under P-T's nose and its unique smell pierces through the rotten stench in the air. P-T feels around in the dark to find what's left of his attackers. Finding a fresh corpse, he reaches down and slices off a patch of skin the size of his hand. The greasy flesh is hardly cooperative in discerning what was probably exposed flesh and what was internal.
He places the slippery hide over his nose and mouth giving him a much needed break from the rancid aroma. Having earned their respect or gained their fear, P-T continues down the shaft without further altercations. Reaching his destination, he tosses the disgusting flap of skin aside and starts to remove the conduit's panel.
Behind the large metallic panel, a very large room several hundred yards deep in all directions. Its bright fluorescent lights temporarily blind him as he's coming from the dark. He's located the Kanggun's weapon cache. With thousands of weapons to pick, P-T begins his search. The only problem is finding one small enough for a human.
Aisle after aisle, P-T searches speedily for what will catch his eye. In the first few aisles he checks, he finds weapons that stretch seven to ten feet long weighing nearly four hundred pounds, lined up by the hundreds in storage racks; but none are satisfactory nor practical.
Finally, he comes across an aisle that stores their smaller side arms, slowing him to a stop until he decides on one. The weapon he chooses, the smallest of the cache, is nearly five feet long and weighs one hundred and fifty pounds. However, it'll do the task; even if it's cumbersome. He throws the weapon onto his shoulder and proceeds to leave out the main entrance; running down the corridor back to cargo bay fourteen.
As he passes people in the corridor, they scamper to the sides giving a wide berth to P-T, as they have a look of shock and horror as to who would have the audacity to steal from the Kangguns.
P-T reaches the cargo bay, and gets on the Phantom. Exhausted, he is still breathing quite hard and sweat is dripping from his body. He reaches in his pocket to grab a S.L.A.G. bar and begins to eat it in between breaths.
Seeker, emerging from the cockpit greets P-T, "Did you - Whoa! What the fuck is that smell?", cries out seeker recoiling back, covering his nose and mouth after getting a whiff of P-T.
Seeker says, "Could you find a bigger gun there, guy? What are you fucking compensating for, tiny?"
Not amused, P-T picks up the oversized gun and heads to his quarters. Seeker heading back to the cockpit says, "Can you do me one favor before we get stuck in this thing for the next several months? Can you wash that fucking stink off and burn your damn clothes?"
However, P-T had already closed the door to his quarters leaving Seeker alone with his request.
Talking to himself, Seeker continues towards the cockpit, "I don't know how the fuck I put up with this guy."
Sitting down at the helm, Seeker starts up the Phantom and inputs a code in the computer. The computer responds back in a woman's voice "Cargo bay shield deactivated in thirty seconds. Standby."
The Phantom starts to hover and loud alarms with flashing red lights start off warnings in the cargo bay. A countdown has begun from the computer "10...9...8..
.7". Once down to zero the computer says "Cargo bay shield deactivated" Seeker, hits the throttle and leaves the cargo bay and outpost in a hurry. The cargo shield reactivates almost instantly once the ship passes its threshold. As they get further away from the outpost, a bright light comes from the engines as it quickly disappears from view.
Once they have enough separation from any potential hazards and celestial bodies, they activate the hyperspace drive on the Phantom; instantly leaving the solar system of the outpost.
Chapter 3
On the outskirts of the N'bahru system, near the furthest planet from the sun, the Phantom is orbiting a moon, one of eight. The moon encircles the sixth planet of the uninhabited N'bahru system, a ringed dwarf planet. The tiny ice satellite is too far away from its own star to feel any affects from the light, but due to a massive iron core, it has an extraordinarily strong magnetosphere.
This magnetic field makes it difficult for ships to detect the Phantom and for the Phantom to see anything on its own sensors. Out beyond the planets magnetic field, lie several sensor probes, spread out millions of miles, creating a perimeter for a large section of the solar system; enhancing the limited sensor scans available.
