Author's Note: This is the fourth fic I have written for Treasure Planet. The first three form a trilogy, but this story is independent of all of them, a completely different story of the years after the movie ends. The only thing that is the same is the romantic relationship between Jim and Silver, as I have always seen them as having a very sexually charged relationship, though they would probably be the last to admit it to anyone! Anyway, this story takes place outside the Etherium, and has some sci-fi elements, which is a completely new genre to me, so it probably won't always make sense, heh. Try to enjoy it anyway, though fair warning, this first chapter does contain strong sexual activity, between Silver, and a character I created.
Planet: Earth
Location: Haulover Beach, Miami, Florida
Summer, 2039
She could not believe she had been afraid of him at first. Sleeping soundly on his side, his mechanical parts running at minimum capacity while resting gingerly against his torso, the low whirring sounds were nearly drowned out by his rumbling snores. He resembled a hibernating bear, a mountain of tanned flesh and muscle, buckling the frame of the flimsy motel bed. It was rare for Vega to stay this long after her business was complete, and she was quite disappointed in herself to allow any emotion to pervade her. But lying beside him, nestled against his barrel chest, there was no denying that he was not a typical john, soliciting her for a night's sport. He was in desperate need of physical contact, someone to cherish and give pleasure to as much as receive it from. Vega had seen it before, men in mourning after the death of a wife, developing near-phobias of sleeping alone in a bed, seeking a woman to fuck to exhaustion and drown out the gaping vacuum sounds of loneliness, replace them with the quiet roar of a female climax. This was not the case with this man though, he did not appear to be mourning anyone. What he exuded earlier as he pounded into her, thrusting into her from behind as she lay pliant on the bed beneath him, was a deeper loneliness, one born of circumstances in life rather than death. There was no anger in his vigor. He was very careful not to harm her, and was not the least bit threatening, so she was quite comfortable in taking her own pleasure from the experience.
The three-quarter moon shone through the tattered curtains, enticing Vega to stare out the window towards the nearby marina. She remembered the news reports about tidal waves destroying most of the east coast of Florida, and was terrified by them as a child, afraid one day a huge wave would reach across the state and destroy her family's home in Fort Myers. There hadn't been a wave in nearly seven years now, the last one completely swallowing the Florida Keys the day after her parent's car was swallowed by a lake beneath a collapsing overpass on Interstate 75, with them inside. It was the day after her fourteenth birthday. Rather than take her chances in a State children's home, Vega ran away to what remained of Miami, deciding that the flooded mess of a city would suit her best in her current state. Anything even remotely comfortable would give her too much time to dwell on her losses. Survival was what she decided to focus on. It wasn't long before she learned that survival meant learning to glean from wreckage what could be useful, whether it was taking up temporary residences in the half standing hotels and office buildings, or offering a night's comfort to sad, broken men who were good for a fifty, maybe a free meal to go with it. At the moment, Vega was living in a rebuilt trailer park on West Dixie Highway, sharing a tiny aluminum sided hovel with another prostitute. Julia was probably wondering why she had not come home yet. "Just putting in some overtime," Vega mumbled, failing to convince herself that she was staying with him only for his sake.
Her words roused him out of his light sleep, and his mechanical hand reached out towards her face, the silicone padded fingertips tracing her forehead and cheek. She did not know how much he could feel out of the artificial digits, but it seemed to be enough, for he sighed contentedly. "Yer still here…?" he half-asked.
"You asked me to stay," she reminded him dryly. Vega inched closer to him, absorbing the warmth of his body. There were definitely worse places she could have spent the night.
She remembered walking into the Marina Bar in the downstairs lobby of the Haulover Inn only six hours ago, how the air inside was thick with smoke from makeshift cigars and rank with the sweat and grime of the fishermen just returning to shore from a long day on the water. Some of them she knew, some were strangers. Many came and went, especially since the newest intergalactic gateway was located just offshore. Vega was always fascinated by those that came from other worlds, fascinated by the fact that the first official contact between Earth and any other world, a tiny planet in a parallel life plane known as the Etherium, occurred on the day she was born, a day that marked the end of Earth's isolation from the majority of other worlds and dimensions. In the twenty-one years since, so many definitive elements of the world had faded into oblivion, particularly the intertwining of religion with politics, as both now needed to branch out in their own right to accommodate the new perspective humans were given of the universe. Learning that Earth was not the be all and end all of existence caused massive chaos only now being tapered off. The papers in the last few weeks have proclaimed Earth to be the latest planet to join the Etherium and Galactic Provinces Allied Union for Peaceful Trade Between Co-existing Worlds, with former American president Armstrong Daly named Earth's Allied Union Ambassador. The planet would now have access to technologies and materials never before even considered, a cause for celebration in the most war torn cities and places ravaged by natural disasters. The alien races pouring into Miami from the offshore spaceport were very interested in her, as many of Vega's clients were passing travelers. Some were remarkably human. Some, like the man beside her now, had recognizable human qualities among their own personal traits. The more garish looking creatures, garish by Earth standards anyway, did not tend to pursue her, and for that Vega was quite thankful.
He had been sitting in the darkest corner of the bar, and the only empty seat was beside him. Vega caught a flash from something metallic beneath the sleeve of his coat, and mistaking it for expensive jewelry, decided he may be worth conducting her business with, so she took the seat, realizing quickly that he was a cyborg, and a huge one at that! It wasn't long before he was speaking to her, more politely than she was used to. He spoke in vague terms, of crimes and betrayals, of isolation. He planned to stay here on Earth now, it was the farthest he had ever traveled alone, and the best place to start anew. She sensed he wanted to be civil to her, needed to be, as if he was attempting to redeem himself, and she told him so.
"I've done enough in me life to warrant a thousand executions, Miss, but the worst I ever done was allowin' someone ta love me enough not t'care 'bout any of it, " The man's weathered face softened briefly at the mention of a lover. "Sometimes, I need a night's distractin' ,or I be lost in me own mind's morass…" He reached into his coat pocket, retrieving several crumpled bills, holding them out for her inspection. Looking closer in the darkness of the bar, Vega saw that they were hundreds, and looked up at him in shock. She had never been offered that kind of cash before. She wondered what the exchange rate of the monies from wherever he was from was to American Earth money. Composing herself, she reached out and touched his mechanical arm, the vibrations beneath her hand not as frightening as she first thought. "I'm no expert in love, either, but I know quite a bit about distraction, and… I'd be more than happy to help you with that," she purred in his ear, slipping back into her character, taking on the fantasy persona she built her trade around, the one that protected her from going mad sometimes.
She walked in front of him as they ascended the narrow stairwell, up to the rooms above the bar, allowing him to study her, adding a subtle swing to her walk, her hips swaying from side to side seductively. He didn't speak, but she knew he was watching her. They entered his room together, and he closed the door behind them. Wasting no time, the man proceeded to roughly remove her clothing, having her nearly undressed before she even had time to touch him. Vega tried to slow him down, give him his money's worth, but he would not be denied, and now that he was standing, she could see how massive he truly was, and knew better than to dispute him. With one swift yank, he had her form-fitting velvet pants down near her knees, and another quick flick of his organic arm had her spun around and laid on her stomach on top of the bed. Her head swimming with both fear and anticipation, Vega remained as still as she could while he tugged at her pants, drawing them down her legs and over her feet, her sling-back shoes discarded on the floor. She waited for that feeling to come over her, which usually arrived at this point. It was her escape, the quiet dream for Vega to slip into until it was over. Over time, she had stopped controlling it, and her mind would naturally seek out a pleasant place, leaving her with no sexuality of her own. When she felt the warm flesh of his hand on one of her thighs, and the cool, metal embrace on the other, drawing them apart, she began to panic, for she was still mentally present, acutely aware of his hands, his breath on her back, the overwhelming solidity of him. He was so massive, so mysterious, it was impossible to forget his existence. Tears pricked her eyes as Vega felt him lower himself to his knees beside the bed, insinuated between her legs, which stretched out halfway off the mattress. His gaze burned into her, sending slight vibrations up between her legs, her entryway tingling from the exposure.
She felt the roughness of his jaw chafe her inner thigh and barely had time to gasp before his mouth made contact with her, his tongue sliding between her dewy vaginal lips. Vega didn't know how to respond. The first few moments alternated between ticklish and exhilarating, and she found her hips bucking up and down, urging him on. Without breaking the rhythm of his tongue, the slow, drawn out lapping over her entire cunt, he groaned audibly in satisfaction.
Vega was on the verge of climaxing just as he lifted his body up and over hers. The dizzying sensations began to ebb away as she heard his belt unbuckle, and, believing the pleasurable part of the night was over, she braced herself for the dirty work. Just as she suspected, his member was huge, and though he entered her slowly, she had to bury her face into the mattress to muffle her cries. When she thought herself stretched to the very limit, he stopped, remaining motionless inside her. Vega wrapped her legs around the back of his, trying to accommodate him within her body. When he finally began to move within her, plunging with sharp, quick strokes, she was surprised to find that the pain had subsided, replaced by the warm, slippery sensations. Digging her nails into the mattress and lifting her head up, Vega cried out, arching her neck as his hand curled into her hair, nearly wrapping around the back of her head. For all his strength and power, he was obviously holding back, studying her responses. She began to build again, her cunt grasping him, drawing him further in. Her mind swirled, then grew cloudy. It became cloudy enough for her to lose the whore's persona, the Seductress, the Pliable Prostitute. She forgot all her lines, the carefully arranged groans and mumbled pleas for more that sometimes resulted in a few extra dollars, and was only able to release low, throaty sighs as she came for the first time in her life, the rush of sensation leaving her limp and breathless. Moments later, he achieved his release, withdrawing from her at the last second, spilling onto the back of her thighs with a mumbled curse. Vega could only whimper.
The sky was turning gray, and out over the water, a faint pink line indicated the oncoming sunrise. She had been lying in the bed for hours listening to him breathe, but it was time to leave.
Pulling away from him, she eased herself out of the bed and proceeded to gather her clothing. The soreness within her, and the bruises from his grip on her thighs ached every time she moved. When she was dressed, the money he had given her tucked safely in a hand sewn pocket in the crotch of her underwear, Vega turned back to the bed. She felt a need to bid him a proper goodbye.
"Well, for the distractin' I thank ye again, Miss, eh…" When he spoke, she realized they had not actually introduced themselves.
"Vega," she whispered.
"Do ye always give yer name, Vega?"
"Only if I am asked, so, no, not really," Why was she telling him this?
"Yer not the average, eh, girl, working these docks, are ye now?" Even in the dark room, she could see he was smiling, his teeth moist and white against the backdrop of his rugged face. "Ye must be different, as you attended to me, despite the… circumstances."
His mechanical fingers curled into a fist to punctuate the statement. He was obviously a dejected man, one who had loved someone once, when he believed it was not possible to be loved. Vega didn't know his story, all of it anyway, but she knew what loneliness was, and her heart went out to him. Crawling back into the bed one last time, straddling him with her legs and resting against his chest, Vega broke the most common rule of streetwalkers, and kissed him softly on the lips. "I would gladly tend to you under any circumstances," she assured him, "Just tell me your name. You know mine, after all."
His torso shook beneath her with a low, rumbling laugh. It had been a long time since he had told anyone his name, since he was still a fugitive. But, he planned to settle here on this new little planet, far, far away from the Etherium, from Treasure Planet, from Jim…
"Silver," he told her.
Vega did not know it, and neither did Silver, but Ambassador Armstrong Daly was dead, as was his wife, his daughter, and most of the crew of the Comet, the ship commissioned to take him to the Union Headquarters in the Coral Galaxy. It had been attacked by pirates three days prior to their meeting, soon after departing from the port on Earth, pirates in cahoots with the Miner's Guild of Montressor, as it was no ordinary robbery. They had been hired by the Union leader to assassinate Daly, who planned to make steel and other construction metals one of Earth's main exports, making tiny mining planets like Montressor obsolete. Earth was nearly larger than all the main metal producing planets in the Etherium combined, and Daly's plans for domination of the industry didn't sit well with many. The Montressor Guild theorized that his brutal death would discourage his replacement from forming the same plans. The political motives meant nothing to the attack's sole survivor, Captain James Hawkins, who stumbled into the Haulover Inn in the wee morning hours, in dire need of a drink.
He nearly collided with a young woman coming down the stairs into the lobby. She was about as tall as he was, her buttery blonde hair and heavy black eyeliner so disheveled, she could not have come from anywhere but some john's room. Even through his misery, Jim could see her beauty, the wide, heavy hips encased in velvet pants and the pure white flesh of her breasts overflowing from the too-tight halter top. She looked exhausted, and avoided his gaze as she veered to the left and made a quick exit out the side door of the lobby.
It's a cold time to be alive, he thought to himself as he sat at the bar, the only patron in there. He'd been wandering around the marina all night, his arm in it's sling and his ribcage bandaged, all hidden beneath his coat. He knew he shouldn't drink, he had barely survived the fight, his lungs were still recovering after one had collapsed when he was shot, his ribcage nearly shattered by the spray of titanium ball bearings. But here he was, a disgraced captain, cheated out of an honorable death protecting his envoy and crew, left only with the bitterness of being only twenty-seven years old and forced into retirement. His pension had been wired to a new account in the Earth Bank, and a representative from the Royal Etherium Fleet had set up a room at the inn for Jim to stay at while he recovered. Given all this, the risk of pneumonia or bronchitis from over-drinking didn't seem so bad.
Staring into the mug of dark, cheap beer, he remembered the ancient words of the first person to ever believe in him. "Take the helm and chart yer own course," he muttered out loud.
Well, he had, but it still brought him here. This wasn't just a squall to get through, this was the fucking apocalypse….
Hopefully, I will have enough of an attention span to continue on with the next chapter sometime soon, and finish this story, cause I am really enjoying it!
Planet: Earth
Location: Haulover Beach, Miami, Florida
Summer, 2039
She could not believe she had been afraid of him at first. Sleeping soundly on his side, his mechanical parts running at minimum capacity while resting gingerly against his torso, the low whirring sounds were nearly drowned out by his rumbling snores. He resembled a hibernating bear, a mountain of tanned flesh and muscle, buckling the frame of the flimsy motel bed. It was rare for Vega to stay this long after her business was complete, and she was quite disappointed in herself to allow any emotion to pervade her. But lying beside him, nestled against his barrel chest, there was no denying that he was not a typical john, soliciting her for a night's sport. He was in desperate need of physical contact, someone to cherish and give pleasure to as much as receive it from. Vega had seen it before, men in mourning after the death of a wife, developing near-phobias of sleeping alone in a bed, seeking a woman to fuck to exhaustion and drown out the gaping vacuum sounds of loneliness, replace them with the quiet roar of a female climax. This was not the case with this man though, he did not appear to be mourning anyone. What he exuded earlier as he pounded into her, thrusting into her from behind as she lay pliant on the bed beneath him, was a deeper loneliness, one born of circumstances in life rather than death. There was no anger in his vigor. He was very careful not to harm her, and was not the least bit threatening, so she was quite comfortable in taking her own pleasure from the experience.
The three-quarter moon shone through the tattered curtains, enticing Vega to stare out the window towards the nearby marina. She remembered the news reports about tidal waves destroying most of the east coast of Florida, and was terrified by them as a child, afraid one day a huge wave would reach across the state and destroy her family's home in Fort Myers. There hadn't been a wave in nearly seven years now, the last one completely swallowing the Florida Keys the day after her parent's car was swallowed by a lake beneath a collapsing overpass on Interstate 75, with them inside. It was the day after her fourteenth birthday. Rather than take her chances in a State children's home, Vega ran away to what remained of Miami, deciding that the flooded mess of a city would suit her best in her current state. Anything even remotely comfortable would give her too much time to dwell on her losses. Survival was what she decided to focus on. It wasn't long before she learned that survival meant learning to glean from wreckage what could be useful, whether it was taking up temporary residences in the half standing hotels and office buildings, or offering a night's comfort to sad, broken men who were good for a fifty, maybe a free meal to go with it. At the moment, Vega was living in a rebuilt trailer park on West Dixie Highway, sharing a tiny aluminum sided hovel with another prostitute. Julia was probably wondering why she had not come home yet. "Just putting in some overtime," Vega mumbled, failing to convince herself that she was staying with him only for his sake.
Her words roused him out of his light sleep, and his mechanical hand reached out towards her face, the silicone padded fingertips tracing her forehead and cheek. She did not know how much he could feel out of the artificial digits, but it seemed to be enough, for he sighed contentedly. "Yer still here…?" he half-asked.
"You asked me to stay," she reminded him dryly. Vega inched closer to him, absorbing the warmth of his body. There were definitely worse places she could have spent the night.
She remembered walking into the Marina Bar in the downstairs lobby of the Haulover Inn only six hours ago, how the air inside was thick with smoke from makeshift cigars and rank with the sweat and grime of the fishermen just returning to shore from a long day on the water. Some of them she knew, some were strangers. Many came and went, especially since the newest intergalactic gateway was located just offshore. Vega was always fascinated by those that came from other worlds, fascinated by the fact that the first official contact between Earth and any other world, a tiny planet in a parallel life plane known as the Etherium, occurred on the day she was born, a day that marked the end of Earth's isolation from the majority of other worlds and dimensions. In the twenty-one years since, so many definitive elements of the world had faded into oblivion, particularly the intertwining of religion with politics, as both now needed to branch out in their own right to accommodate the new perspective humans were given of the universe. Learning that Earth was not the be all and end all of existence caused massive chaos only now being tapered off. The papers in the last few weeks have proclaimed Earth to be the latest planet to join the Etherium and Galactic Provinces Allied Union for Peaceful Trade Between Co-existing Worlds, with former American president Armstrong Daly named Earth's Allied Union Ambassador. The planet would now have access to technologies and materials never before even considered, a cause for celebration in the most war torn cities and places ravaged by natural disasters. The alien races pouring into Miami from the offshore spaceport were very interested in her, as many of Vega's clients were passing travelers. Some were remarkably human. Some, like the man beside her now, had recognizable human qualities among their own personal traits. The more garish looking creatures, garish by Earth standards anyway, did not tend to pursue her, and for that Vega was quite thankful.
He had been sitting in the darkest corner of the bar, and the only empty seat was beside him. Vega caught a flash from something metallic beneath the sleeve of his coat, and mistaking it for expensive jewelry, decided he may be worth conducting her business with, so she took the seat, realizing quickly that he was a cyborg, and a huge one at that! It wasn't long before he was speaking to her, more politely than she was used to. He spoke in vague terms, of crimes and betrayals, of isolation. He planned to stay here on Earth now, it was the farthest he had ever traveled alone, and the best place to start anew. She sensed he wanted to be civil to her, needed to be, as if he was attempting to redeem himself, and she told him so.
"I've done enough in me life to warrant a thousand executions, Miss, but the worst I ever done was allowin' someone ta love me enough not t'care 'bout any of it, " The man's weathered face softened briefly at the mention of a lover. "Sometimes, I need a night's distractin' ,or I be lost in me own mind's morass…" He reached into his coat pocket, retrieving several crumpled bills, holding them out for her inspection. Looking closer in the darkness of the bar, Vega saw that they were hundreds, and looked up at him in shock. She had never been offered that kind of cash before. She wondered what the exchange rate of the monies from wherever he was from was to American Earth money. Composing herself, she reached out and touched his mechanical arm, the vibrations beneath her hand not as frightening as she first thought. "I'm no expert in love, either, but I know quite a bit about distraction, and… I'd be more than happy to help you with that," she purred in his ear, slipping back into her character, taking on the fantasy persona she built her trade around, the one that protected her from going mad sometimes.
She walked in front of him as they ascended the narrow stairwell, up to the rooms above the bar, allowing him to study her, adding a subtle swing to her walk, her hips swaying from side to side seductively. He didn't speak, but she knew he was watching her. They entered his room together, and he closed the door behind them. Wasting no time, the man proceeded to roughly remove her clothing, having her nearly undressed before she even had time to touch him. Vega tried to slow him down, give him his money's worth, but he would not be denied, and now that he was standing, she could see how massive he truly was, and knew better than to dispute him. With one swift yank, he had her form-fitting velvet pants down near her knees, and another quick flick of his organic arm had her spun around and laid on her stomach on top of the bed. Her head swimming with both fear and anticipation, Vega remained as still as she could while he tugged at her pants, drawing them down her legs and over her feet, her sling-back shoes discarded on the floor. She waited for that feeling to come over her, which usually arrived at this point. It was her escape, the quiet dream for Vega to slip into until it was over. Over time, she had stopped controlling it, and her mind would naturally seek out a pleasant place, leaving her with no sexuality of her own. When she felt the warm flesh of his hand on one of her thighs, and the cool, metal embrace on the other, drawing them apart, she began to panic, for she was still mentally present, acutely aware of his hands, his breath on her back, the overwhelming solidity of him. He was so massive, so mysterious, it was impossible to forget his existence. Tears pricked her eyes as Vega felt him lower himself to his knees beside the bed, insinuated between her legs, which stretched out halfway off the mattress. His gaze burned into her, sending slight vibrations up between her legs, her entryway tingling from the exposure.
She felt the roughness of his jaw chafe her inner thigh and barely had time to gasp before his mouth made contact with her, his tongue sliding between her dewy vaginal lips. Vega didn't know how to respond. The first few moments alternated between ticklish and exhilarating, and she found her hips bucking up and down, urging him on. Without breaking the rhythm of his tongue, the slow, drawn out lapping over her entire cunt, he groaned audibly in satisfaction.
Vega was on the verge of climaxing just as he lifted his body up and over hers. The dizzying sensations began to ebb away as she heard his belt unbuckle, and, believing the pleasurable part of the night was over, she braced herself for the dirty work. Just as she suspected, his member was huge, and though he entered her slowly, she had to bury her face into the mattress to muffle her cries. When she thought herself stretched to the very limit, he stopped, remaining motionless inside her. Vega wrapped her legs around the back of his, trying to accommodate him within her body. When he finally began to move within her, plunging with sharp, quick strokes, she was surprised to find that the pain had subsided, replaced by the warm, slippery sensations. Digging her nails into the mattress and lifting her head up, Vega cried out, arching her neck as his hand curled into her hair, nearly wrapping around the back of her head. For all his strength and power, he was obviously holding back, studying her responses. She began to build again, her cunt grasping him, drawing him further in. Her mind swirled, then grew cloudy. It became cloudy enough for her to lose the whore's persona, the Seductress, the Pliable Prostitute. She forgot all her lines, the carefully arranged groans and mumbled pleas for more that sometimes resulted in a few extra dollars, and was only able to release low, throaty sighs as she came for the first time in her life, the rush of sensation leaving her limp and breathless. Moments later, he achieved his release, withdrawing from her at the last second, spilling onto the back of her thighs with a mumbled curse. Vega could only whimper.
The sky was turning gray, and out over the water, a faint pink line indicated the oncoming sunrise. She had been lying in the bed for hours listening to him breathe, but it was time to leave.
Pulling away from him, she eased herself out of the bed and proceeded to gather her clothing. The soreness within her, and the bruises from his grip on her thighs ached every time she moved. When she was dressed, the money he had given her tucked safely in a hand sewn pocket in the crotch of her underwear, Vega turned back to the bed. She felt a need to bid him a proper goodbye.
"Well, for the distractin' I thank ye again, Miss, eh…" When he spoke, she realized they had not actually introduced themselves.
"Vega," she whispered.
"Do ye always give yer name, Vega?"
"Only if I am asked, so, no, not really," Why was she telling him this?
"Yer not the average, eh, girl, working these docks, are ye now?" Even in the dark room, she could see he was smiling, his teeth moist and white against the backdrop of his rugged face. "Ye must be different, as you attended to me, despite the… circumstances."
His mechanical fingers curled into a fist to punctuate the statement. He was obviously a dejected man, one who had loved someone once, when he believed it was not possible to be loved. Vega didn't know his story, all of it anyway, but she knew what loneliness was, and her heart went out to him. Crawling back into the bed one last time, straddling him with her legs and resting against his chest, Vega broke the most common rule of streetwalkers, and kissed him softly on the lips. "I would gladly tend to you under any circumstances," she assured him, "Just tell me your name. You know mine, after all."
His torso shook beneath her with a low, rumbling laugh. It had been a long time since he had told anyone his name, since he was still a fugitive. But, he planned to settle here on this new little planet, far, far away from the Etherium, from Treasure Planet, from Jim…
"Silver," he told her.
Vega did not know it, and neither did Silver, but Ambassador Armstrong Daly was dead, as was his wife, his daughter, and most of the crew of the Comet, the ship commissioned to take him to the Union Headquarters in the Coral Galaxy. It had been attacked by pirates three days prior to their meeting, soon after departing from the port on Earth, pirates in cahoots with the Miner's Guild of Montressor, as it was no ordinary robbery. They had been hired by the Union leader to assassinate Daly, who planned to make steel and other construction metals one of Earth's main exports, making tiny mining planets like Montressor obsolete. Earth was nearly larger than all the main metal producing planets in the Etherium combined, and Daly's plans for domination of the industry didn't sit well with many. The Montressor Guild theorized that his brutal death would discourage his replacement from forming the same plans. The political motives meant nothing to the attack's sole survivor, Captain James Hawkins, who stumbled into the Haulover Inn in the wee morning hours, in dire need of a drink.
He nearly collided with a young woman coming down the stairs into the lobby. She was about as tall as he was, her buttery blonde hair and heavy black eyeliner so disheveled, she could not have come from anywhere but some john's room. Even through his misery, Jim could see her beauty, the wide, heavy hips encased in velvet pants and the pure white flesh of her breasts overflowing from the too-tight halter top. She looked exhausted, and avoided his gaze as she veered to the left and made a quick exit out the side door of the lobby.
It's a cold time to be alive, he thought to himself as he sat at the bar, the only patron in there. He'd been wandering around the marina all night, his arm in it's sling and his ribcage bandaged, all hidden beneath his coat. He knew he shouldn't drink, he had barely survived the fight, his lungs were still recovering after one had collapsed when he was shot, his ribcage nearly shattered by the spray of titanium ball bearings. But here he was, a disgraced captain, cheated out of an honorable death protecting his envoy and crew, left only with the bitterness of being only twenty-seven years old and forced into retirement. His pension had been wired to a new account in the Earth Bank, and a representative from the Royal Etherium Fleet had set up a room at the inn for Jim to stay at while he recovered. Given all this, the risk of pneumonia or bronchitis from over-drinking didn't seem so bad.
Staring into the mug of dark, cheap beer, he remembered the ancient words of the first person to ever believe in him. "Take the helm and chart yer own course," he muttered out loud.
Well, he had, but it still brought him here. This wasn't just a squall to get through, this was the fucking apocalypse….
Hopefully, I will have enough of an attention span to continue on with the next chapter sometime soon, and finish this story, cause I am really enjoying it!