Chapter 12

Backwater.

1 year prior to at what cost.

Kaden found himself coughing heavily as he regained consciousness, smoke beginning to pile into the cockpit of his ship.

Fighting with the strap around his waist proved fruitless making him swear to himself, feeling around he managed to grab a large shard of what felt like glass, cutting through the fabric strap he let himself fall to the floor, feeling around for his guns as well as his wrench.

Crawling through the broken hatch he hissed in pain, blood trickling down his exposed forearms.

Surveying the ship he cursed and kicked up a mound of mud, he was lucky to have survived the crash, the ship having been turned into an unrecognisable hunk of metal, not entirely unlike how it was when he first got it.

Brushing the glass off of himself He sucked in a breath as he caught sight of a form in the mud that made his heart skip a beat.

His gyrocycle.

Making his way over to it he couldn't help but feel annoyed, a simple trip across the galaxy had ended up with him crashed on some frontier backwater moon in his own solar system, some idiot having clipped him just above the planet.

Pushing the machine upright he rubbed the mud off of it, a grin spreading across his face as he kicked the device on, the electric hum vibrating under his grip.

Looking up at the sky he felt the first drops of rain spill from the grey clouds, a heavy mist overlapping the trees in the distance, an endless field of waist high grass on his left.

Squinting he could just make out a dot on the horizon above the mountains and ridgelines, a dot that was rapidly growing larger as it approached, the sound of an illegally modified engine music to his ears.

Throwing caution to the wind he started waving his arms at the ship, flying low to the ground it sliced through the grass, specks of dust flying from underneath the ship.

Landing a few metres away from the wreckage the ship hissed and shook as the engine cut out, sounding more like a tractor than an interstellar vehicle.

Kaden recognised the ship as the one that had clipped him earlier, hands on his blaster he didn't know what to expect, could've been anything from a drunk Blarg to a native with a debt to settle.

He did not expect to be greeted with the sight of an almost comically dressed man, ginormous hat and Knife giving him away way long before the heavy stench of tobacco and grog attacked Kaden's nose.

This man was a smuggler.

Knowing smugglers Kaden had to mentally prepare himself for the conversation that was going to happen, fully expecting to either end up being threatened or swindled.

"Say partner I think you might need a hand."

Kaden fought the urge to roll his eyes as he pat himself down once more, even smaller bits of glass and dust falling off of him, his clothes pretty much torn to shreds.

"How much is it going to cost me?"

The smuggler wheezed out a laugh, his eyes becoming fixed on the gyro cycler. Following the smugglers eyes Kaden let out a huff, his breath coming out as a fog as the temperature continued to dip, the grey clouds above rumbling.

"Let me guess you want to race for it."

The smuggler looked back at Kaden with a look of amusement before he returned his gaze towards the wheel in front of him like it was a gift straight from the lords.

"I was thinking we play a game of Tarxan hold 'em for it. You win I get the Gyro and a lift to wherever you want within reason, I win I get the Gyro and you have to give me 50 kilos of Lombax pure, those crazy Meridian city boys can't get enough of the stuff."

Kaden looked up towards the man, his ear twitching slightly.

"Are you talking about nip?"

The smuggler nodded as he circled the gyro cycler, Kaden having to slap his hands away from the controls a few times.

Before either of them could continue their conversation the heavens erupted, the sky's splitting with thunder that reverberated through the landscape, echoing off mountains in the distance.

Glancing over the green hills Kaden could make out a lone brown building that stood out in the sea of tall grass, squinting hard he could just see the silhouette of someone hunched over out the front, no doubt throwing up.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's where we're headed?"

The smuggler nodded as he squinted at the building as well.

"You got good eyes friend, ever thought about being a hunter? Its good money."

Kaden rolled his eyes as he went back to the gyrocycler powering it up, a faint force field barely visible cocooning the entire device.

"I never got your name Lombax."

"Kaden."

Extending his hand out Kaden was met with the smugglers glove.

"Joe."

"Well Joe, I suggest you take a step back so I can show you just how fast thing is."

"I doubt it's as fast as you Lombaxes claim they are."

Kaden shot the smuggler a smug grin before kicking the bike off, getting air time as he shot off like a furry bullet.

The smuggler stood wide eyed for a second only moving when he remembered he should probably explain to the bar full of outlaws why a Lombax was about to come crashing in the front door.

Walking into the bar the first thing Kaden took note of other than the twenty pairs of eyes that glared his way was just how armed the inhabitants were.

Blasters as big as his furred head sat on their hips and he had to suppress the urge to back out slowly, instead opting to slink towards a booth in the back, the silence in the dingy building slowly evaporating as they all returned to their drinks, talking about nothing in particular.

With nothing better to do he took out his own blaster and started tinkering with it, the nickel paint around the bolts long since faded, a faint hum resonating from it.

His thoughts drifted to Fastoon for the hundredth time that day, here he was in a bar full of vagrants on the fringes of the solar system while his wife was about to give birth to his son.

It annoyed him to no end, of all the people to get sent to the absolute frontier just to investigate what the council had called a 'threat to society'.

That 'threat' had turned out to just be a bunch of young Cazar who had learnt how to tinker with Lombax ships, he had ended up spending a few days teaching them how to install super chargers on race cruisers. He had a feeling their species had a lot more in common other than their tails and ears, if the constant tinkering was anything to go by.

Interrupting his thoughts was a large barrel chested man who had decided to take his time to stand over the top of him in his quiet booth, glancing up Kaden suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, the long crocodilian snout of the man had three separate pipes sitting in between jagged teeth, the stench indescribable.

"What brings a city slicking space rat out on the frontier?"

"Same as you I suppose."

"You here hunting Lombax too friend?"

Kaden looked up at the crocodilian man with a blank expression, the smoky haze warping the man's face underneath the large hat he wore.

"First of all we aren't friends don't mistake me not killing you the moment you came up to me for tolerating you, secondly any chance you had of killing me you lost as soon as I walked into this sad excuse for a bar, you want to deal with business here or take it outside?"

As he said this Kaden stood up hand hovering over the blaster that sat on his hip, any person with a shred of intelligence would've backed down as soon as a scrawny space cat with the technology to turn someone into a fish threatened them.

The Snivelakian lacked the intelligence to read the situation and laughed loudly inbetween coughs, his own hand twitching over his gun.

"You'd make a good dog toy rat, can already see the mutts fighting over your bones."

"Tell your story walking pal before I turn you into a purse. Hell, might be the only time a girl considers touching you."

After a few seconds of silence the Thug drew his blaster with a snarl, Kaden pulling his own faster.

As soon as the guns were out in the open the Smuggler intervened, only just entering the bar. Putting his hands on both of their guns that were beginning to glow an ominous green.

"Easy Cleet he's with me, catch you even look at him wrong and I'll put another hole in your head, regardless of your boys looking pretty at the bar."

The threat sat heavy in the air, Cleet finally giving in and holstering his weapon, mumbling something about 'goddamned inner belt planets'.

Sighing heavily the smuggler sat down pulling out a huge novelty playing card set, Kaden found himself wondering how the almost foot long cards fit into such a tiny vest pocket.

"Don't worry about those clowns, they're mostly just talk."

Kaden let out a scoff as the bartender placed a bottle of amber liquid along with two tall shot glasses onto the booth table, giving Kaden a dirty look as he did so.

"They really don't like us out here huh?"

In between shuffling the massive cards the Smuggler shook his head, looking up with a crooked smile.

"Can you blame them?"

Kaden found himself agreeing somewhat as he filled the glasses up, a stray drop of liquid landing on the table making the wood bubble and hiss.

In-between the constant fight over the dwindling resources on Fastoon and plague ravaging the inner three Lombax dominated planets there was also the rapid expansion and taming of the outer rim planets that the big boys up top had deemed necessary in spite of the boiling pot they had found themselves in.

It didn't help that a goddamned Cragmite had convinced Alister and the other generals to stretch the military even thinner across the expanse of space, more often than not sending 3,000 men to man a 2000 year old Cragmite fort on a dwarf planet filled with outlaws and very angry locals.

The Lombaxes were slowly taking over the entire system, all the while slowly crumbling from the inside, the interdimensional exploration didn't help either, trillions of bolts being spent to send a few hundred people to the complete unknown, most of them cutting off communication with Fastoon once they learnt just how bad the situation back home was.

"No, can't say I can."

The smuggler slugged down the almost toxic liquid in one gulp, not even grimacing as he dealt two hands placing the deck in between them.

Glancing at his hand Kaden almost smiled as he put his cards down towards the table, throwing a handful of cash to the centre of the table, the metal bolts almost bouncing off a table.

The smuggler didn't even acknowledge the several hundred bolts as he flipped the first three community cards, Kaden having to practically lean over his hand to see the cards.

"You have the worst poker face friend."

Kaden only glared at the man across from him in response before looking back at his cards, his ears subconsciously perking up at what he had.

Full house.

Throwing another hundred bolts down he sat smugly as he studied the smugglers face, it was blank to the point of being almost creepy.

"Guess you are one of the cocky ones."

"No, just stupid lucky."

The smuggler stared at Kaden as he put his cards down, pulling out a bag of what had to be several thousand bolts from the same pocket that housed the cards, dumping a handful of it into the pile raising the pot to what had to have been 3,000 bolts easy.

Kaden shrugged as he grinned, with all the money he was going to win he'd be able to get a replacement bike easy.

Watching the fourth community card flip his ears perked up again.

Straight flush.

Dumping another few thousand bolts on to the table Kaden began to seriously doubt the sturdiness of it, the wood groaning under the weight.

Kaden didn't even bother looking at the smuggler when he called, this one was in the bag.

Not even waiting for the fifth card to be dealt Kaden dumped his hand out in front of him, the smuggler going wide eyed for a second, his mouth slightly agape.

"Damn I guess you are lucky!"

Sitting smug Kaden just smiled as he went to grab all the winnings.

"Not lucky enough though."

Kadens jaw dropped as the Smuggler revealed his hand by flopping the oversized cards on the table.

A royal flush.

Opening a large sack the Smuggler scraped all the bolts into it, Kaden blankly staring ahead as his money went tumbling into the darkness of the bag.

"Unlucky, friend."

Kaden's ear twitched at the remark and he had to resist the urge to flip the table and have a crack at the man across him.

Half a decade ago with Alister here he would've regardless of the consequences.

Instead he let out a laugh and shook his head, running his hand over the patch of fur that grew longer on his chin, smoothing it out.

"Another hand?"

The smuggler raised his eyebrow at the question cracking a smile of his own.

The sun was well past the horizon, a dark purple filling the sky.

Almost ten thousand bolts lighter and Kaden was fine with it, he had more than enough to live comfortably. He was enjoying himself without worrying about life back home for the first time this trip since leaving.

The bottle had been empty for a long while, Kaden well and truly buzzed.

The smuggler seemed to still be sober enough to be carving away at the table while listening to the story that was spilling out of the Lombax across from him, his expression unreadable.

"We were hunkered down in that temple for days, most of us ended up either dead or dying, only managed to get out once we cut the dead weight."

Stopping to throw in a handful of bolts he continued.

"Was half the reason we stopped with taking every job that came our way, can only do so many peaceful negotiations with cultist outer rim planets before they realise the whole reason there's two dozen armed Lombaxes guarding their Raritanium isn't to praise Gubglobagalam."

The Smuggler let out a small huff at the statement.

"Lombaxes stealing resources from natives, who would have thought."

Kaden only rolled his eyes at the man as he sunk into the booth, stewing on the memory of what had been the past.

A brave and noble promise to claim what was theirs from the outlaw filth that inhabited their planets.

Age had brought him the truth to what the council really meant by the propaganda.

A cowardly and dishonourable attempt to steal land and resources for an idea that doesn't work anymore, by refusing to acknowledge what was wrong internally.

"You trying to stare that bottle to death?"

Kaden snapped back to reality letting the alcohol and confliction shake around his head.

Going to fish out some more bolts all he found was lint and a crushed wrapper of gum.

"I guess I'm spent." He said with a sigh, resting his head on the table with a loud thump.

The smuggler laughed as he packed up the oversized cards, tucking them neatly into one of many small vest pockets.

Opening his mouth to speak the smuggler instead dumped half of the bags contents onto the table, some of the bolts bouncing off of Kaden's head.

"Never said we were playing for money." He said with a smug grin.

Kaden raised his head and smiled back, scooping the bolts into his coat.

"So about that lift, you able to drop me off on Fastoon?"

"Sure, as long as you're ok with the possibility of being arrested for being seen with a wanted fugitive."

Standing up Kaden starred at the smuggler with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't worry it's nothing too serious, just drug trafficking."

"Now you can add extorting gyrocyclers on top of that."

A wheeze escaped the smuggler as he unlocked his ship, the loud click echoing through the night.

"She'll be put to good use don't you worry about that friend."

"I hope so, also thank you for giving me a ride, don't know what would've happened if it weren't for you saving my ass."

"Any time friend, as long as there's 50 kilos of Lombax nip involved I'll be happy to give you a ride to the ends of the universe."

Kaden shook his head as he climbed into the ship, the co-pilot seat practically absorbing him.

"Could probably go legit if you wanted to, can see you in a fancy ship hauling lost wanderers across the galaxy."

"Did that a few years ago, not enough money for the effort."

With that they took off leaving the mostly uninhabited planet for Fastoon, with any luck he'd get to hold his child before dealing with a mountain of paperwork.