by Trey Deibel
Kemmer’s Bar had an atmosphere closer to a tavern than a bar, with the smell of wood and stylized country music to lighten the mood. The décor was inviting, and the furniture was spread enough to allow for plenty of pockets for those seeking some privacy. A prestigious collection of alcohol from all across the known galaxy fed the vastly different beings within these walls. Various cultures mingled together, resulting in an atmosphere you could only find at Kemmer’s Bar.
“Do you have the mercenary in your sight?” I asked Shadow-Walker, who was sitting to the right of me.
He nodded to the opposite corner of the bar at a booth slightly hidden behind curtains. “That’s her. That’s Erryn Wolph.”
I bent my head down and peeked over to keep myself from looking suspicious. Erryn was speaking with a jenjarian male, who sat across from her. Her legs crossed over the table while she flipped a stasis coin in the air over and over. It was powered by the same material as my stasis shield, only it was the size of a coin. To hide her face, she wore a worn-down, brown western hat with two gold laced strings tied around it. A tattered scarf rested below her breathing mask but above her body armor. Her right arm had been replaced with a robotic arm, and a golden-ink skelven, a galactic symbol of survival, was tattooed on her left arm. Her skelven tattoo was animated, showing she spent a lot of jemns to have it done. Around her waist she carried two ballistic revolvers holstered on a utility belt.
“Would you care for a beer?” one of the bartenders behind the counter asked me.
“Bring six Woodstones to that table over there once we sit.” I nodded toward the table where the mercenary sat.
The jenjarian man was in conversation with Erryn, but she wasn’t listening. Frustrated, the jenjarian man began to yell. Because of all the commotion around me, I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Slamming one hand on the table, the jenjarian man reached for his gun with the other. Erryn Wolph flipped the energy coin to the side of the table. Before he could pull out his pistol, she shot at the coin with her revolver. The bullet ricocheted off the coin and pierced the man in heart. He was dead before he got off a shot. All eyes flashed toward the incident before returning to their drinking and conversations. It was as if nothing happened.
“She just shot a man dead, and nobody gives a rat’s ass!” I blurted out to Shadow-Walker.
“Welcome to daily life at Kemmer’s Bar. This place is full of scoundrels like her. And do you know what they say about a scoundrel?”
“No, I don’t actually.”
“They always shoot first!”
“A mercenary who knows how to handle herself. Hell, I like her already.” I signaled for everyone to follow me over to her table.
The circular table was large enough to fit everyone. Erryn Wolph watched with curiosity as, one by one, we each packed around the table; all visibly avoiding stepping on the corpse. When she spoke, her voice was muffled by her mask.
“My-oh-my, it’s amusing to see you back around here, Shadow. It been quite a long time.” Erryn smirked.
“A pleasure as always, Erryn.” He didn’t sound as enthusiastic as her.
“I suppose you know her, Shadow?” Uslar asked.
“I was the one who stole his business back in the day,” Erryn Wolph answered for him.
“No way. You ripped me off, Erryn. We were supposed to split deals with each other,” Shadow-Walker retorted.
“Oh… sweetie. I can’t help that I'm a better mercenary than you,” Erryn said with a laugh.
“No… I--” Shadow-Walker failed to complete his sentence. I looked at him in amazement. I rarely saw Shadow-Walker at a loss for words.
“Six Woodstones.” The bartender placed the beers on the table and left as another man dragged the dead body away from our table.
“You’re an omelic, right?” Uslar asked.
“What gave it away? Was it the purple skin, the black lines running down and over my eyes, or my curvy frame?” she teased him. Her figure is a near perfect reflection of a human woman’s figure. Other than the clear distinctions she'd already made, she could be mistaken for a human female. The common saying that omelics and humans came from the same tree seems to hold some merit.
She looked at me and noticed me studying her. “Howdy, big boy. It looks like I’m the first omelic you’ve seen.”
I smiled and took a sip of my Woodstone. “Trust me, you aren’t the only species I've yet to lay eyes on. Let’s just say my family couldn’t afford to hop around the galaxy when I was a young stud.”
“That’s disappointing. I've had the pleasure of a few humans, but I've never seen one with orange hair. It’s kind of a turn on,” Erryn flirted.
Our table filled with sexual tension. Narrisa and Valiic glanced at each other with uncomfortable expressions. Uslar remained curious about her, ignoring her suggestive words. Shadow-Walker seemed to be the only individual here who expected this. I didn’t know what to say. However, Uslar decided to break the tension by stating, “Humans call them red-heads.”
Shaking out of my minor trance, I began to introduce the rest of my squad. “Now, let’s get to buttering the bread. I’m James Stone, this is Valiic and Narrisa, he's Uslar Kip, and you already know Shadow-Walker.” I gestured to each person respectively. “We're here to hire someone for transportation and rescue.”
“Sweetie, no offense, but I’m a bit out of your pay grade,” she sneered.
“What’s the cost?” I asked.
“Depends on many things.”
“For example?”
“Such as where you want to go, where the person needs rescuing from, whether or not you'll offer assistance… etcetera… etcetera.”
“In that case, we need to go to the Draynought System. We traced our person of interest to the Grando Military Prison on the moon called Delkeedo. My squad and I are elite soldiers enlisted in the ARW. Simply put, we'll pull our weight.”
“Pretty big job… means you’re looking at about a million jemns right there. All up front,” she assessed.
“A million? Are you throwing me for a loop?! We can buy a high class transport ship for that price!”
“The charge includes my expertise and contacts, neither of which you have.”
“Umm--” Uslar raised his shaky hand. “I can cover it.” We all looked over at Uslar in surprise. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll pay you four hundred thousand upfront and seven hundred upon completion of the mission.”
Still surprised, Erryn reached out her robotic arm. “Sweetie, you have yourself a deal.”
“Wait!” Valiic finally jumped in. He looked at me. “Why are we about to pay this mercenary? I've yet to hear one thing about her skill or reliability,” Valiic asked. Narrisa nodded in agreement.
Before I had a chance to question Erryn, she pulled up a video on her cyberwatch. It opened with a female gatero reporting the news. The reporter spoke towards the camera.
“Here we have reports from local law enforcement that the tyrannical leader of the Jerro terrorist organization has been shot in the head. A man seemingly untraceable… was proven how wrong he was today. Now, the law enforcement officers won’t release an official statement about the killer, but rumor suggests it is the work of the infamous Erryn Wolph - a mercenary with a job success rate virtually unheard of.”
The clip changed, and we viewed a series of different news clips from different worlds, some of which I never knew were out there, and all of which were to show off Erryn’s reputation.
Valiic signaled for Erryn to cut the video, and she did. “That’s enough. You’re everything you say you are.”
“And much more.” She grinned. Uslar shook her hand, and he used his cyberwatch to transfer the jemns into her vault. “I’m curious. What's a rich boy like you doing as a soldier?” Erryn asked Uslar.
“Field medic,” Uslar corrected her. “I’m from a family of doctors. As doctors, my family had to learn the anatomies and diseases of dozens of species. That’s where the jemns came from. All my
life, I was pressured to follow the family path and become doctors like my parents. Even my two siblings followed in my parents’ footsteps. I wanted to be different. So, I joined the ARW’s military and train--”
“Enough with the exposition,” she interrupted. “You’re boring.”
Shadow-Walker broke into laughter. Uslar wasn’t happy at this, so I signaled for Shadow-Walker to stop. “Now that we've paid you, what’s the next brick on the yellow brick road?” I asked Erryn.
Lifting her legs off the top of the table, she got up. “We head over to my ship. Come on, I’ll lead you there.” We followed her to a starship stationed at docking bay one - the closest bay to the bar’s door. With her cyberwatch, she opened the hatch. “I call it the Striking Star.” She led us into the ship.
“This is the loading bay.” She gestured to the first area of her ship as we walked up the ramp. When we passed the loading bay and entered the second room, she said, “This is the common lounge. It has a bar, a bathroom, and space to relax.” She pointed down the hall. “The sleeping quarters are over there.” She pointed in the opposite direction. “Down there is the armory, followed by the turret docks. At the end is the cockpit. No one goes in there unless I say so. Got that? Good.” She gave us no chance to answer.
I signaled for everyone to start exploring. Once my squad had dispersed, she gestured to me to come over to her. “Are we going straight to the Draynought System?” I asked her as I approached.
“Not until we make a stop first… bit out of the way. A mission like this will require precautions and a fair share of planning, meaning I need to gather blueprints, reports, and find new sources.”
“And where is this mythical stop full of everything we need?”
“A town… one in particular. There's an archive library with just about everything I’ll need. Only problem is… it, uh… it's a place controlled by an intergalactic gang that calls itself the Immortals. Lately, I haven’t been on their good side, so entering this place may prove difficult.”
“Just let me know how I can be of service.”
A lascivious spark flickered in her eye. “Let me tell you a secret.” She leaned in and whispered, “Qwayks aren’t the only species that can sleep with humans.”
“Qwayks never did turn me on. It’s the vantors; they’re kind of distracting, if you know what I mean.” I smiled back.
“Do you know what makes an omelic different from a qwayk?” She placed her hand on my chest.
A warm sensation bubbled in my chest. “Erryn, I’m getting a flurry of mixed vibes here.”
“Omelics and humans can reproduce. Both our species have the same chromosomal number and a nearly identical DNA makeup.”
“You’re smarter than you let on.”
Her lascivious smile disappeared, and she mocked, “But I would emasculate you. Human men are too weak. I would break you.”
She turned around and began to walk away, taunting me in the process. Her sudden rip on my manhood was embarrassing and unexpected. I got that sudden rush of anger any man would understand and caught her arm before she got away.
She turned back, and I looked into her bright yellow eyes. “Woman! You've never met a man like me.”
Erryn pulled out her revolver and spun open the chamber. She tilted the barrel to the ceiling, and the bullets clanked against the floor after sliding out of the weapon. She smiled with devious intent.
“Let’s see!”
Faster than any human ever could, she aimed the revolver at my junk. With speed even faster than her, I lowered my hand and swiped the gun toward the ceiling.
Click!
She pulled the trigger, but with no gunshot to follow. With a strong grip, I held her robotic arm up high.
Despite her struggles, she couldn’t move her arm. “That’s impossible! Omelics are twice as strong and fast as humans. You shouldn’t be able to do this.” Her eyes and face painted a mask of shock.
I mocked, “Then that makes me four times stronger than you. Huh… maybe you aren’t as good as you conjured up in your thick skull. You're just a tease seeking any attention you can gather.” I let go of her arm.
With a flicker of curiosity and steamboat full of surprise, she pulled back her arm. “You’re wrong about me,” she snapped back, then stormed off toward the cockpit.
“Sure I am,” I muttered sarcastically.
Chapter 13: Hunters
October 4, 2111.
Malcolm Richardson
The ARW will not stand for desertion, and James Stone is no exception. And for situations like this, the ARW has just the response needed: Hunters. And that's where Malcolm Richardson, captain of the 51 Hunters, comes into play. He's the card the ARW needs to play.
Under the doorway leading into the 51 Hunters’ room stood Commander Sizar; fiddling with his fingers, eyes glued to Malcolm. He noticed this and felt pleasure seeing his commander in such an anxious state, waiting for his own deduction, like a child waiting to be handed a cookie. It didn’t take much to see this was no ordinary case, and after skimming the highlights of the file in his hand, Malcolm had an idea as to why.
“Soldiers often say aces are a second coming… the draw of the deck we need to stand a chance in the war. But they’re wrong. All’s they need to do… is look in a mirror. Call me old-fashioned, but the only thing that'll win this war is soldiers… soldiers willing to do what's commanded of them and put everything on the line to complete their mission. And it's exactly those kinds of soldiers who are the heroes, NOT aces.” Malcolm finally gave Sizar the acknowledgement he so clearly craved.
“From what your last commander told me, Malcolm, you're more than capable of tracking down James Stone and his rogue legionnaire unit,” Commander Sizar stated.
“James Stone may be an ace.” Malcolm choked the word out of his mouth. “But like everyone else, he makes mistakes. You can rest assured I'll rub those mistakes in his face and use them to bring him back here to face justice for his desertion.”
“There's one more bit of info you should know before taking this mission.” Sizar shuffled his feet.
“Spit it out.”
“We believe James Stone and his squad are headed to the prison where… where Clover Landis is locked up. Given your past history with her, I need to know your head will remain straight.”
“I’ll do my duty, at any… and every cost. Just as I always have.”
“So we have an understanding, then? You must bring back the 1070 Legionnaires to stand trial under the charges for desertion.” Commander Sizar stood there on precedence, already knowing what Malcolm’s answer would be.
“I promise you, sir, one way or another, James Stone will be brought back to this ship.”
“With your reputation and keen mind, I have my highest faith in you.” Sizar took that moment to leave the hunters to their new mission.
“Malcolm, we've never hunted a squad like this before, let alone an ace. It'll be our biggest challenge to date.”
Vaalima Stoox, the newest member to this hunter group, grabbed her maelkii shield from the wall above her bunk. Just like she always does before a mission, she slid out a metal case that contained her armor from under her bunk; starting with her left shoulder, she began the process of putting on the armor. It was these little things Malcolm always noticed.
“Shit’z like any hunt. We go in, kick azz, n’ bring back da prize.”
Brad Swift, the lieutenant of this hunter squad, lay back in a seat at the darkest corner of the room with his Prototype-2 power armor on, sharpening his knife. Malcolm can all but guarantee Brad will be lurking at the darkest spot of a room, nearly always in his power armor. At this point, Malcolm only had theories as to why: Either these actions were to distance himself from reality, or, more likely and disturbingly, it was his instinct to gain an upper hand if something went south; always on edge like a predator. And who knows, maybe it's both or neither. To this day, Brad remains the hardest person for Malcolm to read.
; “I admire your confidence, Brad, but Vaalima is correct. This is far from any other hunt. Even the vigorous training required to be a hunter didn’t include a guide on how to take down an ace. And James Stone isn’t just any ace, he’s thee ace… first ace in the ARW. His history and reputation speak with words… words that must be analyzed to each layer of detail. If we make any mistake in our analysis, we lose him. We must be near perfect with this hunt.” Malcolm stacked all the files together.
“Ah done mission ‘n my head,” Brad agreed. “Ace or not, I’d kick da shit outta him.”
“Like hell you will, Brad,” Vaal interjected. “James is an ace, and you aren’t.”
Brad gave only a snicker, and Malcolm chuckled at her naive attitude. Being new, Malcolm couldn’t expect her to understand though. “I already mentioned soldiers are what the ARW needs. Brad is no better an example,” Malcolm told Vaal.
“If you say so. So what’s the plan anyway?” Vaal asked.
“Get us a transport ready.”
“And what should I pack?”
“Everything. Until I devise a strategy, we must prepare for every scenario.” Malcolm looked to Brad. “I know you hate paperwork, Brad, so you pilot the ship. Vaal, you'll assist me with the files.”
“Bozz, y’know me so damn well.” Brad holstered his knife on his left shoulder.
“Why do I always assist with the files?” Vaal complained.
Brad gazed to Vaal. Even through the tinted glass of the visor of his helmet, Malcolm could sense a mocking stare. “Seniority, woman,” Brad answered for Malcolm.
Brad is a man built on little trust in others. Malcolm has worked with Brad for many years, and even he's yet to reach the honor of having Brad’s trust. Nonetheless, he's gained Brad’s respect - a word of lost meaning in this era. But to Brad, respect is a measurement that determines how Brad treats someone. Vaal has yet to gain any of Brad’s respect, and the impact shows.
“Don’t call me a woman like… like you’re somehow above me,” she hissed.
