A Whore at Dread Harbor

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Draw his gun.

Words wouldn't work with men like these. Promises made by blackmailers were as empty as a Troll's morals.

Deckard had a rule, one he had kept to throughout his time as a lone operator out on the frontier. It was a simple rule, but it had saved his life more than once as a Sheriff on Tasitov:

He

never

drew his gun without intent to use it, but if he did, he shot to kill.

Questions were an easy thing to leave for later; wounds were a lot tougher to recover from than guilt.

It was always strange for Deckard, how things seemed to slow down for him during lethal moments like these. All the uncertainty and conflicted feelings fell away; there was only the here and now. It was chillingly refreshing.

His fingertips brushed across the grip of his revolver, his gaze widening to the periphery of his senses. He wasn't focusing on specific details, but rather movement. Whichever bounty hunter responded fastest to his gesture got the first bullet.

The Loupian twitched first, so Deckard aimed for his head. A split-second was all it took. In less than an eyeblink Deckard's gun was free from its holster.

BANG BANG

. Double tap. The Loupian pitched backwards as he was thrown off his feet by the round that tore through his cranium and blew out the back of his head.

The smoking barrel of Deckard's revolver pivoted as if on an automated track to point at the human bounty hunter, who had managed to draw his taser and point it at Deckard's chest.

The two fired at the same moment, jets of electrified wires bursting forth from the Bounty Hunter's weapon as Deckard put an errant shot in the centerpoint of his enemy's chest cavity. The thick round punctured his armor like a cracked egg, sending him hurtling to the ground from the force of the bullet.

The Bounty Hunters were sloppy. Greenhorns confronting a trained killer. The buzzing strands of the dying human's taser shot wide to Deckard's left, missing him by nearly a foot in it's owner's haste to fire.

Two down, one big boy to go. The Centaur let out a bellow with his too-wide mouth and rushed forward, his clawed toes scratching against the landing pad as he galloped forward at Deckard at top speed, intending to trample him with his larger bulk.

Deckard fell to one knee, raising his revolver to point at the final threat as he steadied his aim with his other arm. He misjudged the speed of the Centaur, and it swept its long, gangly arms out, smacking him hard to the ground.

Deckard was knocked momentarily senseless, his eyes rolling in his head as his gun clattered out of his grasp. He lifted his gaze just in time to see the behemoth looming over him, raising his clawed hoof to pierce its helpless quarry.

He never finished the follow through. The distinctive chitter of an MPK-5R went

rat att att att

att

! The bulky Centaur shuddered and twitched as little pinpricks of blue spurted out from his chest.

He collapsed forward, his legs giving out on him as he fell with boneless weight onto the flight deck. Deckard rolled on his hands and knees to avoid being crushed by the creatures ponderous mass. The Centaur twitched once, twice, three times, then lay still, blue blood pooling into a growing puddle on the ground.

And just like that, it was over. The whole confrontation had taken less than five seconds. Three men lay dead or dying on the ground.

The last Bounty Hunter, mortally wounded from the bullet Deckard had lodged in his chest, groaned in agonized pain. Corani strode past him, pausing just long enough to lift her MPK-5R and fire a round into his head, ending his suffering.

She sprinted the remaining distance, sliding to her knees next to Deckard as he coughed and tried to pick himself up off the hangar floor.

"Easy, Deckard. You took a nasty hit there."

Deckard gritted his teeth, his vision narrowing as he realized he'd had the wind knocked from his lungs. It took several seconds of strenuous effort, but at last he began to breathe again.

He couldn't afford to give himself the time to recover. In a rush he was struggling to pick himself up off the ground. "Come on!" He grunted, retrieving his revolver as he staggered up off his knees.

He was unsteady on his feet. In a moment Corani was at his side, throwing his arm over her shoulder as she supported his bulky frame.

"I've got you, Deckard." She said, hustling him up the

Deliverance

's open gangplank and hitting the lifting mechanism on the way in. The door sealed shut behind them.

Together the two made their way through the ship, past Deckard's ramshackle lounge and map room and into the cockpit. Corani lowered him slowly into his chair before taking her place in the dusty copilot's chair, clearing off a stack of rubbish that had accumulated on the rarely used seat.

"You okay to fly?" She said, her hands a blur as she switched on flight systems.

Deckard slapped himself in the face to clear out the remaining cobwebs, profoundly thankful that he had had the foresight to warm up the ship's engines. "Yeah." He said, flicking on the cockpit lights as the nav-computer booted up. "I'll be fine."

The

Deliverance

rattled and hummed as she lifted off, pivoting in a circle as she turned to face the void of space. Deckard punched the engines, and they lurched out of the hangar bay, leaving the three dead men behind.

Traffic was sparse, a rare lull in

Dread Harbor

's endless stream of incoming and outgoing shipping. Deckard had chosen this time to take off for this exact reason. Now he cursed himself for his forethought, feeling very much exposed as one of the only ships in transit

"My baby's not built for a foot race," Deckard said, his ship lumbering out into space with agonizing torpidity. He glanced over at the edgeline of the asteroid belt, noting with a pit in his stomach that there was a nearby GFP corvette on patrol. One good blast from its main guns, and the

Deliverance

would be dust.

Corani's eyes flickered with color as she stared at the corvette's gentle flight path, skirting the other edges of the asteroid field. "We won't need to. By the time Port Authority gets word to GFP patrols, we'll be out of range."

"You sure about that?" Deckard said, tilting the ship in a lazy right turn away from the bulky, hammerhead shape of the

Proteus

-class corvette in as inconspicuous a manner as he could. His muscles were tense, his body electrified from the recent fight. He couldn't get the images of the Bounty Hunters' faces out of his head.

Corani reached across the cockpit console and put a comforting hand on his back.

"Relax, Lieutenant. This isn't the first time a gun battle erupted in a hangar bay on

Dread Harbor

... hell, it's probably not even the first one this week." She squeezed his shoulder in sympathy. "It's just another crime statistic. One of a thousand on this station. If the GFP cared to look into every settled grudge and deal-gone-wrong, they'd have no time for the Goblins."

"

I

care." Deckard said, his nostrils flaring as he stared straight ahead. He looked out into the void, feeling as empty and barren as it was.

He was a lawman at heart; the thought of the killings he'd committed - however justified they were in the moment - being left unpunished ate at his core. Had it been almost any other situation, Deckard would have turned himself in, pleading his case before whatever passed for the 'authorities' in this lawless place.

The mission comes first

. He repeated like a mantra in his head. His grip tightening hard around the flight controls, his knuckles going white.

The mission always comes first.

Corani watched Deckard's inner turmoil play out of the corner of her eyes. "...What was all that mess even about? Who were those men?"

Deckard let out a deep sigh. "Bounty Hunters. They were looking to cash in on my reward with the Goverian Conglomerate after I broke up their slaving ring. I refused to pay it off. It's apparently high enough now for men to take a shot at cashing in. Those poor fools thought they had the drop on me..." Deckard shook his head. "I guess, in a roundabout way, you could say they're just three more victims on the list of Ararat's crimes."

Corani's ears pulled back against her head, her face hardening to stone. "...We'll deal with him when the time comes, Deckard. I promise you."

Deckard shook his head, letting out a deeper sigh. "Revenge is a fool's errand, little mouse. I just want it all to stop."

"We don't stop until we're dead, Deckard." Corani responded. "You survive, you keep on fighting, it's the only way things will ever change for the better."

Deckard chuckled humorlessly, turning the ship into the asteroid belt as he watched the jump calculator slowly tick up in percentage. "You know better than I do how little things change, Corani. I killed three men just now, and for what? A bounty I never paid off because I was either too stupid or too stubborn to admit that there's no real justice in this galaxy?"

"I killed

one

of them." Corani responded, as if that was somehow enough to free Deckard from his guilt.

"No, you just defended me." He retorted, "You had no idea what was going on, you saw me in danger and you reacted. I

could

have bribed them, I

could

have stalled, I

could

have run. I

chose

to kill them instead."

Corani stared at him, the flickering color of her eyes were too much for Deckard to bear in that moment. He glanced away.

"You're a good man, Deckard."

"You keep saying that, little mouse." A button on Deckard's console started flashing bright red. His finger hesitated over it. "...We're being hailed."

Corani glanced at the jump calculator, pointing at its nearly-completed cycle. "Ignore it."

"That's a GFP ship." Deckard said, though he continued on his evasive course.

"-And we're out of firing range." Corani shot back.

Deckard stared at the blinking light, his natural instincts screaming at him to answer the call. He resisted the temptation, reminding himself that this was the price he was paying for the sake of his friend. If

he

was the one who had to pay it, then so be it.

Corani tried giving him a comforting smile, flashing her fangs. "Don't worry so much, Deckard. I have clout with the GFP. Trust me: when we return to

Dread Harbor

, you're more likely to receive a medal than a prison sentence."

Deckard pulled out a cigarette from his coat pocket, only noticing when he pulled it to his lips how much his hands were shaking. He let out a huff and put the cigarette back in his pocket. "Frontier justice. How wonderfully hypocritical."

"

Ohai-dii da nah Go

, Deckard." Corani replied. Hypocrisy is the fate of the mortal spirit. "Maybe if you'd stop running so hard from that fact, you'd be more at peace with yourself."

"-And are

you

a hypocrite, Corani?" Deckard asked, feeling an anger he couldn't explain rise up like a pyre in his chest.

"Yes." She answered, without missing a beat. "A bigger one than most, I think. Bigger than you, for certain."

He had nothing to say to that. The jump calculator beeped, indicating that the ship was prepped. Deckard reached out, pulled the lever, and felt the telltale

whoosh

in his chest as they made the jump. He watched with tired eyes as the stars faded away to nothing.

They had left

Dread Harbor

behind, along with three corpses, whose fate no one would mourn but the man who killed them.

For better or for worse, the mission had begun.

* * *

It was a few days' travel to the abandoned moonbase. Days of awkwardness and uncomfortable silences. Deckard's last conversation with Corani had been an unpleasant one. That, coupled with their recent, passionless lovemaking had left both a bit unsure of where they stood with the other.

Deckard offered her the Captain's quarters, but the stubborn Catian had refused on principle. She took a spot in the copilot's chair instead, doing her best to avoid intruding on Deckard's personal space as much as possible.

How ironic: the tables had now completely turned. She was now in

his

world. A world of gunpowder and cigarette smoke, of bare amenities and the cold loneliness of space.

As the days passed, Deckard took the time to read through the trove of information that Corani had brought regarding the mission. It was sparse, all things considered. Barely enough to broadly hypothesize the situation on board. Had this been a mission briefing back in his marine days, the squad might have mutinied; there was nothing more dangerous than to face the Goblins with an incomplete picture.

But this was no GFP mission. And Deckard wasn't a marine anymore. So he took a different tactic. He treated it like a criminal investigation: pouring over the scant details, sussing out truth and motive through what little info was available. Every mitigating factor mattered, every bit of information could be the difference between life and death when they finally arrived at the moonbase.

He started with the easy details: the who and what of the mission. He read through the crew manifest for the salvage team. Lounging on the rugged brown couch in the map room, he flipped through the files, sipping at a glass of whiskey as he read up on the brief biographies of each squad member. After perusing the list of names for a moment, he let out a contemplative hum.

"...Your salvage crew are all Loupians."

Corani, standing nearby, with her arms planted in front of the star map depicting the northern half of Wild Space, nodded, "I had to hire from off station, and I needed people I could trust."

Deckard took a sip from his glass, noting that every name he flipped through had a military background. "Mafia men?"

"No. The Loupian Mafia have no idea what I've been up to. I hired a private mercenary company, former Alpha State military unit."

Deckard's eyebrow rose, "Well, that explains your empty bank account."

Loupian mercenary companies were a unique breed. Most got their start as discharged units from the Alpha State military, excess chaff whom the hegemonic star empire could no longer afford to maintain in the aftermath of their near-constant wars and border skirmishes with their neighbors.

Having been raised into a rigid life of service, patriotism, and loyalty to the state, most Loupians who found themselves discharged struggled to adjust to civilian life. Many chose instead to keep the command structure of their original unit and strike out on their own, loyal to their commanding officer in a way that most mercenary leaders could only dream of.

They were a pack. A tight-knit family who valued loyalty and honor above all.

Such mercenary companies were renowned across the Galaxy for their professionalism. When they signed a contract, they swore an oath to their employer to either fulfill their duty or die trying.

They often commanded exorbitant prices in direct contrast to their size. Woe betide any employer foolish enough to go back on a contract. Deckard had seen the brutality of Loupian frontier justice himself many times on Tasitov.

He flipped through the file, counting two dozen names in total. "...Small unit, usually the Alpha State discharges in cohorts of a hundred."

"This company has been in continuous operation for nearly fifty years. They're what's left of a Legion disbanding."

Deckard let out a low whistle. "Five thousand men, and they whittled down to just twenty four? This... 'Argos Company' are practically commandos."

"I paid for the best." Corani said, a note of defensiveness entering her voice, "I didn't want to take any chances."

"Everything's a chance when it comes to Goblins, little mouse." Deckard said, memorizing the names for future reference. "...if things have gone bad for

them

, I'm not sure how much help you and I will be."

"I never said this wasn't a suicide mission, Deckard." Corani said. "I only said I was out of options. Had I

anyone

else to turn to, I would have never contacted you in the first place."

"Desperate times call for desperate men." Deckard said, downing the rest of his whiskey. "Given the kind of company you hired, I'd guess that the usual rookie mistakes aren't what killed them."

"

If

they're even dead." Corani corrected him.

Deckard's eyebrow rose. "Two months alone on a Goblin controlled station? The invasion of

Dread Harbor

lasted for less than a month."

Corani's fists clenched against the holo-table. He'd inadvertently struck a nerve. "-We were a station of

refugees

. No supplies stockpiled, no weapons, and no way to comprehend what was happening. I sent in an elite team with enough resources to last a

year

. They knew what they were getting themselves into."

Deckard, unwilling to press on that particular pinched vein, let out a contemplative hum. "...What happens if we arrive, and find out everyone's dead?"

Corani stared at him. It was the coldest look he'd ever seen her wear.

"Then we leave, and never look back. I'll send an anonymous message to the GFP warning them about the station, and leave the rest to them."

Deckard chuckled humorlessly. "-And so the cycle continues."

Corani stood up, turning to face him with a hard glare on her face. "What do you want me to do, Deckard? Admit that I fucked up?

I did.

It's my fault that those people are stuck on that moonbase. It's

my

job to get them back. If you don't want to help, then drop me off at the station with the transponder."

Deckard set his glass down on the end table next to the couch. He set aside the holo-viewer, rising to his feet. He walked over to the map table, staring at Corani's angry eyes from across the flickering galaxy map.

"You know that's not what I meant, little mouse."

"Don't treat me like that frightened girl at

Dread Harbor

, Deckard." She growled, baring her fangs. "I know I messed up, okay?"

"I wasn't blaming you."

She let out a shuddering sigh, the stoic visage of the cool operator breaking once more, now that she no longer had an audience to play to. She looked down at the swirling stars on the map, her face lit by the light.

"You are. Or at least, you should be." She grimaced, her tail twitching behind her in frenetic circles. "I never wanted it to come to this. I swear to you, Lieutenant: I

never

wanted to bring you into this."

Deckard's expression softened. He knew now what was vexing her. It was only here, stuck on the ship bound for that inevitable conflict on the moonbase that he realized just how frightened she was of going back to that place. To the life-and-death struggle of

Dread Harbor

.

She knew what was coming, but like a panicked animal it was only now, trapped in her cage that she was coming to terms with what that really meant.

"Corani." He said, keeping his voice as calm as he could. "You don't have to go with me if you don't feel up to it." Wet lines of water dribbled down her cheeks as she covered up her mouth with her hand. "You can keep watch on the

Deliverance

. Coordinate with me while I sweep for survivors."

Corani shook her head back and forth in a slow pivot. "I... I

have to

go, Deckard." She gasped out. "I'm the reason those people are stuck in that hell.

I'm

the one w-who-"

Her shoulders shook, and she grasped the edge of the table in a desperate attempt to hold herself up. Corani gritted her teeth as she broke down into tears. "I'll be fine." She whispered in a raspy voice. "I need to get this out now, while there's still time to let loose." She sniffled and wiped at her nose.