The stale air blew through his hair, light sparked his green eyes. He brushed the dark hair from his face and grasped the railing in front of him. It was all fake, he thought, looking up at the gleaming city in front of him. Everything was fake on Adamo IV, he had been here once some years ago, with a different crew. Another time he thought, tilting his head up to see the coldness of space that he so preferred. Preferred at least to socializing with the Niveian aristocracy sitting in their little snow globe floating through the dark expanse, a snow globe filled with casinos, whores, and gambling, where not even the air was natural. He let his mind wander as he placed a cigarette in his mouth, the sweet smell of Chikauaki tobacco piercing the recycled air as he lit it. He wondered how he got here, he felt himself looking at him in the third person. How small he was, just standing there, at the railing of an artificial lake, breathing fake air, focusing on-
“Hey El!” he heard a voice shake him from his thoughts “Come help me with this”
Elio Helsing pushed up the sleeve of his long gray coat and looked at his watch, it had gotten late. He walked towards the short man beckoning to him, pulling a cart full of boxes and crates. Elio shook his hand.
“Glad to see you in one piece Ray, I thought you’d maybe g-gotten caught up in the whorehouse” he remarked
“Yeah? Go fuck yourself” the other man said in a joking tone “Ana’s coming behind me with the rest”
“Sounds good, let's load this up before Cap gets back,” said Elio
The other man grabbed the cigarette out of Elio’s mouth “Glad to see that you're enjoying the fruits of my people’s labor” he joked.
“Maybe next time we go there I can enjoy some of that famous Chikauak *labor* I’ve heard so much about”
He cursed at Elio in his native tongue, but he couldn't understand it and laughed it off.
He helped pull the cart with one of his oldest friends, Rayan Castillon, towards the large ship docked behind him. It was an old ship, scarred from years of service, but still a beauty in Elio’s eyes. The Antigone, a former Class Seven cargo freighter, is owned by Captain Leora Veliarix, and modified for the crew’s many means of employment including but not limited to smuggling, bounty hunting, and mercenary work. Elio lowered the elevator platform to enter the cargo bay and the two men loaded the supplies onto it. As the two men lowered on the elevator with an empty cart, a short woman with dark skin and long, gold-streaked mahogany hair tucked under a wide-brim hat approached with more supplies.
“Good to see you, Ana,” said Rayan as he walked up to her
Elio moved his mouth to say something but he choked on his words
“What’s wrong El? Something you wanna say to me?” she said, amused
Elio cleared his throat, “I-it’s nothing, Ana, good to see you”
She smiled “If talking isn't what you are good for, how about you take all this stuff off my hands”
“Sure,” Elio said, approaching the elevator, “Any of you guys wanna help?”
She and Rayan chuckled and shook their heads, Elio uttered a curse under his breath.
As the elevator was climbing, he heard a voice behind him, “Careful there starboy, wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself”
Elio was beside himself when Anahita Hassani called him that. The crew had picked her up a while ago on their last stop on Javeda and Elio couldn’t have been more conflicted. Both Javedan men and women were known for their good looks but Ana was different. Elio lost himself in her enchanting gray eyes that sparked with all of the constellations in the galaxy, her embrace was one of the rare things in the galaxy that comforted him. Aside from her beauty, Elio found her both charming and easy to talk to. While he had known Leora for years and Rayan long before that, Elio felt so different about her, however, Elio always felt like he contributed more to their conversations than she had and, while she seldom talked about it, he knew that someone was waiting for her back on Javeda.
Elio returned outside to Ana and Rayan, seeing a tall, older pale man with cropped blonde hair leaning on the railing with them. Elio approached
“Nice to see you didn't get lost, these streets can be scary sometimes,” he said sarcastically
“Oh yeah? Is that why the captain put you on guard duty?” the man said flatly, in a vain attempt at a joke
Elio leaned against the railing next to first mate Dorian Pramitch, an expert pilot from Brinnan, and lit another cigarette, noticing that the one that he’d so mercifully given to Rayan was almost burnt out.
After a while, a tall, tanned woman with violet eyes, tall polished boots, and a long, open-cut maroon coat approached them.
“Well ladies, and madam, let's get this show on the road,” she said in a sultry tone, her bravado and swagger blinding even the most stoic of men. Her crew was immune to it but they had all seen how men would throw themselves at her feet for a chance to even talk to her, however, she disregarded them, her interests lying elsewhere.
“What have you got?” asked Dorian
“Well, I met some very knowledgeable gentlemen at the station and they informed me that he’s here in the city at a local spot called the Nebula Club. He’s paid off some of the local authorities and they’ll be looking for bounty hunters so we're gonna have to do this with a certain level of… finesse” the woman said, looking at Elio and Rayan.
“Easy Leora, it wasn’t our fault that bitch escaped onto a train full of hydroxium last time… Besides, we got her anyway, right?” said Rayan
“Not after you two fools blew up half of Kybos VII” interjected Dorian
“Enough you two, the point is, this needs to be done quietly, payment is only if he’s taken alive so don’t fuck it up. Anyway, here's what I’m thinking; me and Ana will take the east train into town and Elio and Ray will take the west. The train stop cityside isn’t far from the club so Ana and I will head in first to draw him out, I want you boys to be waiting outside. Dorian, I want you here to get ready for a quick takeoff, make sure she’s ready.” she explained
“Yeah boss,” Dorian said, heading toward the ship
“The rest of you, let’s have fun, we’re on Adamo after all, get drunk, find some billionaires to fuck, play cards, you know the drill” joked, Leora
“Just make sure you leave the poor b-billionaire’s daughters alone, don’t want a repeat of the Dozara III incident” Elio joked as the group split
The captain threw up an offensive hand gesture as she and Ana walked away.
Elio, with his friend, walked to the train station along the brick-lain edge of the artificial lake, since their station was on the west side of the spaceport, they had a bit more to walk than the two women had. The two men had been friends for quite some time, they had met on Brinnan, shortly after Elio left his homeworld of Skjolder. Rayan Castillion was from Chikauak, a small isolated jungle planet known for its agriculture, reclusiveness, and esoteric culture. He had left the planet with his family at a young age with his parents were sent as diplomats to the Niveian Confederation. On their long journey, his family’s ship crashed on a small moon, Rayan couldn’t remember the name of it and was left with only him and his sister as survivors. The pair were rescued by a band of pirates and brought to Brinnan, a small sun-bleached world known as a hub for criminals, pirates, and the like. Rayan and his elder sister survived, living in a small room they had been fortunate enough to rent, by doing odd jobs, his sister, named Lyssa, was talented with robots and computers, not a bad skill to have in a Brinnanese spaceport. He had met Elio there, who was running with a shady crew of rovers, about a year later. Both boys were about the same age and were fast friends, Despite their almost opposite temperament, Rayan’s short stature and fiery hair were a natural complement to his hot-headed personality against the brooding presence and awkwardness of Elio. Rayan had joined the crew that Elio was with some time before they had met Leora and joined “The Antigone” together. Lyssa, his sister, had chosen to stay on Brinnan, having saved up enough to start a family with a man named Ewan, a man whom Rayan was not overly fond of but made his sister happy nonetheless.
The two men approached the train station and purchased tickets to the city. Elio threw his cigarette butt on the ground as they leaned up against a wall to wait for the train.
“So what’s up with Ana?” asked Rayan
“What do you mean?” said Elio
“You know exactly what I mean, all that *careful there, starboy* business,” he said in a mocking tone
“She’s just joking around man” Elio stated “It's nothing like that”
“Sure, it’s nothing like that” Rayan rebuked “I’ve seen the way you look at her”
“I- sh- she”
“Easy there *starboy*, she looks at you too, Ley and I have a bet on who’s gonna pass out first when you both get in the same room”
“Call me f-fucking starboy again and you’ll be the one passed out”
“Easy man, I just think it’s cute that she has a name for you, that's all,” Ray said, feigning offense
Elio glared at Rayan. “You know she has someone waiting for her on Javeda right”
“Javeda’s so far away, you know? You’re so much closer, I think you should take your shot while we’re on this side of the galaxy” Rayan explained.
A bell rang
“There’s something seriously fucking wrong with you, you know that?”
The sleek pearl-white monorail car whooshed onto the platform and opened its doors.
“Just give it some thought”
125Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqWCnTXOMOz
125Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNIIruGxcNN
