Retrieval for Hire

         The ship’s clock rolled over, having counted to the pre-set time, and the reactor began to power up. Fuel was released, the seals opening to allow hydrogen into the chamber, and the lights throughout the small shuttle flickered as they came on. The computer gave a small beep, a series of letters and numbers flashing across its screen. A few more minutes passed and a siren played out across the speakers.
    The sole occupant of the shuttle groaned as the sound woke her, and she attempted to roll over, cursing when she found herself floating somewhere between the bed and the ceiling. Blinking in the harsh lighting, she muttered to herself and fought against the blankets that had wrapped themselves tightly about her while she had slept, finally kicking the blankets off. They floated gently away, leaving her suspended in mid-air and yawning widely.
    Scrubbing a hand through her hair and attempting to smooth it back and away from her face she looked about the small room, searching for her clothes. Having found them, she gathered them in one arm and pushed off the nearby wall, drifting towards the door leading into the bathroom. Floating to a stop before the mirror in the lavatory, the woman looked into it, sighing deeply.
    Auburn, shoulder length hair floated about her head as though she were underwater and piercing green eyes looked back at her. Smooth cheekbones and small lips were among her defining features, all set in a face that appeared no more than twenty or so years in age. Her upper lip twitched and pulled back as she looked at herself and she sighed again as she twisted to the shower.
    After showering and drying herself off, she dressed, sliding into the tight fitting black cargo pants and ribbed vest of matching colour. She ran a brush through her hair, tying it back into a ponytail, high on the crown of her head. She continued on with her other ablutions before leaving the small bathroom, taking a moment to throw her towel, and the clothing she had slept in, into a nearby cleaning receptacle.
Drifting on slowly down the corridor, she bounced between the floor, walls and ceiling, pushing off with her arms and legs to move herself along. She reached the cockpit, pressing her hand to the panel to activate the door. It sighed opened and she slipped inside, pressing the corresponding panel on the other side to shut the door once more.
    Gripping the seat of the pilot’s chair in one hand, she pulled herself up and over the top, dropping into the seat. As she did so, she buckled the safety restraints, and the display, set in the dashboard between the pilot’s and co-pilot’s seats, flashed text across the screen and a disembodied voice spoke.
    “Good morning, Rebbecca.”
    “I’m awake,” Rebbecca mumbled as she flicked several switches and typed a series of commands into a keyboard to her left. “What’s good about it?”
    “I’m sorry, Rebbecca,” the shipboard AI replied. “But I do not understand the question. Please rephrase.”
    Rebbecca sighed, pausing in her checks and dropped her head onto the back of the chair, briefly shutting her eyes. She hated the older AI. The designers had thought giving them some semblance of a personality would make them easier to deal with, to get along with. All it really did was annoy her.
    “Forget it,” she said, opening her eyes and returning to preparing the ship for travel. “Just get the engines ready, would you?”
    “Of course, Rebbecca,” the AI replied.
    Rebbecca briefly paused to clench her jaw. Another issue of the older AI; they used names in nearly every sentence. A feature that, again, was designed to make the AI feel more ‘alive’, but failed miserably in practicality.
    The ship was in high orbit about the world of Forsten IV. Located deep within an area of space commonly referred to as ‘the Zone’, the Forsten system had a grand total of twelve worlds, four of which were habitable, and hundreds of moons. In addition, there were dozens of space stations and deep-range space craft. Each world, moon, station or ship was run by a different faction or group. It was, by far, the most cluttered system Rebbecca had ever visited, and in her line of business that was extremely helpful.
    “All systems are active, Rebbecca,” the AI proclaimed just as small vibrations began to shake the ship, signalling the reactor had reached full power.
    “Good,” Rebbecca replied, settling into her chair and gripping the yoke in her hands. “Send down to the space port and let them know we’ll be landing in fifteen minutes.”
    “Understood, Rebbecca.”
    With a slight movement of the controls, thrusters set at key locations on the hull of the vessel fired, dropping the nose so the ship pointed towards the far curve of the planet, revealing the greens, blues and greys of the world. Rebbecca pushed softly on the throttle and the main engines lit up, raw plasma driving the ship forward.
    Forsten IV was a heavily industrialised world, with factories covering much of the southern continent. The only areas where there were no factories were uninhabited. While hardly a planet-wide city, the world was the closest thing to it. At some point in the distant past, several cities had marked the southern continent. But as time passed the individual cities had spread, their borders finally merging to form one metropolis stretching from shore to shore. With the merging of borders, however, the underworld had also been forced together. Soon enough the gang and organised crime lords had sectioned off the city and, after several decades of chaos, the world was abandoned by the more civilised and left to the criminals; which created a home for those individuals shunned by societies across known space, or people simply looking for somewhere to disappear.
The hull of the small vessel began to glow as the ship brushed the upper atmosphere. With the nose tilted upwards, Rebbecca held onto the controls as they shook violently, the ship’s passage through layers of atmosphere creating a bubble of super-heated gases. As the ship finally dropped into the lower atmosphere and the thrusters compensated for the pull of gravity, the brilliant reds and oranges vanished and the shaking subsided.
    On the horizon, the space port came into view, the sprawling structure of metal and ceramic nearly blinding in the light of the sun. At its centre sat the mass driver responsible for throwing ships into orbit.
    As space travel became popular and soon filtered down to the general public level, new methods of having a ship reach orbit were required. Traditional chemical rockets were impractical, requiring far too much fuel to generate the required thrust. The end result for many civilisations were mass drivers; large tube-like constructions that were powered by geothermal vents or another more exotic power source.
Of a size to accommodate a medium sized shuttle, the tubes generated an intensely powerful magnetic field that would lift the vessel and throw it with enough force to put the ship into low orbit where its own engines could then take it the rest of the way. Landing, however, was the same as it had always been; a controlled fall from orbit.
    As she approached the space port, the display to Rebbecca’s right flickered and displayed the docking pad port-authorities had assigned her vessel. On the forward view port, a blue indicator came to life, marking the direction to her assigned platform. Having slowed the vessel enough to be able to manoeuvre, Rebbecca eased the controls in the direction of the nav-marker, and the vessel made its way towards the ghostly indicator.
    After landing the vessel and seeing to the proper check-list, Rebbecca powered the engines down and had the shipboard AI, Lucy, set the reactor to a level where it could be brought to full power at a moment’s notice, but wouldn’t chew through the fuel reserves unnecessarily.
    Moving to the airlock, she pulled her boots from where they had crashed to the floor when gravity once more reasserted itself, and slipped into them. Knee high and with a sizeable thick sole, the boots where made of hard leather, with buckles running much of the length up. They weren’t what one might call ‘fashionable,’ but they served their purpose.
    In addition, she lifted a belt with an attached holster and slipped it about her waist, drawing the pistol it held to check the charge of its energy cell before sliding the weapon back in. It sat low on her hips, leaving the grip at just the right height so that when her hands hung at her sides, her fingers just brushed the weapon. The effect of wearing the holster so low was two fold; it made others underestimate her, assuming she’d be slow on the draw, or it made others fear her, believing her to be quicker than she was. Either way, it provided her with an advantage.
    Outside of the ship, Rebbecca made her way across the cracked, dusty and hot landing platform, one hand held over her mouth and nose to keep her lungs free of the particulates floating in the air, blasted there by the power of her ship's engines.
    Having entered the main terminal of the space port, Rebbecca coughed and blinked dust from her eyes, muttering to herself over the uselessness of having taken a shower before landing. Still blinking through the irritation, she squinted about the confines of the terminal and took note of the myriad of races and peoples busily going about their business.
    There was but one space port on Forsten IV, jealously guarded by a local syndicate. Though it was the only property they owned on the world, the syndicate was able to keep themselves safe and in business by a monopoly on space travel. Without the mass driver to reach orbit, others on the world would largely be trapped.
    The space port itself possessed a total of well over one hundred landing platforms, nearly half of which where ‘reserved’ slots which required a special ‘invitation-only’ membership; a membership Rebbecca had come to possess some years earlier through… unique dealings with a local. The platforms doubled as a conveyor system which would carry the landed vessel to the end of the mass driver and load the ship for orbital launch. A single terminal serviced all the platforms, making it extremely crowded, and extremely noisy.
    With a grimace at the assault on her olfactory centre, Rebbecca began to push through the crowd, dropping her right hand to occasionally brush the butt of her pistol. It was a force of habit which provided her some comfort in the still-alien surroundings, as the occasional brush of the weapon diverted probing eyes and curious stares; Humans were rare on Forsten IV, the Alliance unheard of. With her pale skin, green eyes and auburn hair, Rebbecca drew the attention of many in the congested, smelly station.
    She finally pushed through to the far side of the station, her ears ringing with the volume of the noisy patrons, and made her way outside to where a street ran out to the space port, cars of various shapes and sizes slowing to deposit or collect passengers.
    The terminal and its platforms were built on an island, with a bridge running from the city to the building. Various taxi services, their vehicles marked by glowing signs atop their roofs, pulled up to the terminal, the vehicles slowing so that their drivers might yell to waiting potential customers.
    Stepping up to the side of the street, Rebbecca lifted an arm and signalled to a passing cab. With a squeal of ageing technology, it pulled up to the side of the street and the door whined open. At the sight of rust on the lower side of the car, Rebbecca hesitated, but finally chided herself and slipped into the seat, once more suppressing a sneer at the alien scents that assailed her sensitive nose.
    The driver turned in the front street and glared at her through the wiring separating back from front, all three of his stalked eyes blinking as they traversed her body. Rebbecca swallowed and tried to ignore the urge to vomit as the creature opened its mouth and spoke, revealing rotted teeth in diseased gums.
    “Where do you wish to go?” it asked in one of the local languages. A translation appeared on a ticker that scrolled the words in two or three other languages across the top of the divide.
    Rebbecca swallowed once more, trying to smooth her contorted face, and gave her destination; a small bar on the outskirts of the commerce district. With what might have passed for a nod, the creature turned back to the road and, with a sudden jerk, the vehicle began to move. As it did, however, the driver reached down to turn a dial and a hideous sound filled the cab.
    To Rebbecca it sounded like little more than shrieking cats, but the driver began to bob along to the music, tapping its meaty hands on the steering device of the vehicle. With an exhausted sigh, Rebbecca pressed her fingers to her temples and massaged her head, attempting to will away the growing headache.
    The city was organised into several districts, sectioning the city into uneven quadrants. They were the Commerce District, the Industrial District, the Pleasure District, and the living area of the world. The Commerce and Pleasure districts were, by far, the largest of the four, with the former servicing the needs of the population, and the latter servicing the desires. Rebbecca had ventured into the Pleasure district only a handful of times when various contracts had required it of her, but, by and large, she avoided the area as though it were infested with the Plague. Which it had been, at one point or another.
    The ride took only a small amount of time, little more than a half hour, as traffic was mild that day. With a handful of local currency, Rebbecca paid the driver and climbed out of the vehicle as quickly as she could, taking large breaths of air and a moment to wait for the nausea to subside. When it had, she looked about her surroundings.
    Buildings, several stories high, climbed about her, most of them appearing to be office towers of some sorts. Many of them were stores and malls, dealing in various illegal products. Weapons, narcotics, whatever the civilised realms had decided were wrong, it could be bought for a price, usually an exorbitant one, on Forsten IV.
    Directly across from her stood a small, two story building, grey with the paint peeling. An unlit sign ran diagonally across its front, proclaiming the place the “Lucky Dog.” It was a small establishment with one of the few decent people Rebbecca had met on Forsten IV doubling as the bartender and owner. To Rebbecca, it was the closest thing she had to a home, excepting her ship.
    After waiting for a break in the traffic, Rebbecca dashed across the street, ignoring the various jibes and jeers thrown at her from passing pedestrians and drivers alike. She made her way to the front door of the building where a large individual stood, its arms crossed before its chest.
    It stood at close to seven and a half feet tall and was vaguely reptilian. Scales covered the exposed flesh, of which there was plenty, and a pair of tight fitting leather pants concealed its lower half. Several knives sat in holsters strapped to the thigh of its left leg, a pistol sat on its right hip, and a strap attached to a rifle of some sorts was slung over one shoulder, the large weapon resting on its back.
    At her approach, the creature’s tongue flickered out to taste the air and its head moved ever so slightly, directing a single bulbous eye towards her. She raised a brow at it and reached for the door.
    “Stop,” it hissed, its speech sibilant, its enunciation revealing sharp incisors.
    Rebbecca once more raised a brow and let her hand drop as she turned to the large creature and folded her arms, bending one knee and resting much of her wait on the other.
    With her head cocked to one side, and annoyance threading her tone, she said, “Yes?”
    “You may not enter,” the creature said, turning its head a little more, but remaining largely motionless.
    “I may not?” Rebbecca echoed incredulously. “And why the hell not?”
    “No weapons,” it said. “Leave it, or go away.”
    “Excuse me?” Rebbecca said slowly, her brow furrowing.
    “No weapons,” it said again in a patronisingly slow way.
    “Who the hell are you?” she demanded, her temper flaring. “And what gives you the right to decide who enters and who doesn’t, armed or no?”
    “Bouncer,” he answered simply, his lips twitching in what could only be described as amusement.
    “Bouncer,” she repeated, narrowing her eyes at him. “When the hell did Maky get a bouncer?”
    “Quite the mouth you have,” mused the large creature.
    “Yeah? Care to find out what kind of teeth I have?”
    The creature made an odd ‘sss’ing sound that could have been laughter as its shoulders shook mildly. Briefly looking away, it turned back to Rebbecca, holding a list. Clearing its throat, it flipped several pages and made a show of searching the page.
    “Name?” it asked without looking up.
    “Richards, Rebbecca,” she said through clenched teeth, her hands gripping her arms painfully.
    A single thick digit was placed on the page and dragged up and down the list several times, at last stopping. The creature looked up and peeled back its thick lips, exposing its teeth.
    “Ah. Here you are. You may enter,” it said, mirth dancing in its eyes.
    “Gee,” Rebbecca said sarcastically, flashing her teeth. “Thanks.”
    Ignoring the ‘sss’ing behind her, Rebbecca stepped up to the door and pushed it open, muttering to herself as she entered the establishment. Inside, it was dingy and smelled of alcohol, smoke and grease. The lights were dimmed, as Maky liked it, with the overall décor that of an old tavern, stained wooden beams overhead and in the corners of the bar.
    Tables were set up about the inside, with no more than four chairs set around each. On the left was the bar itself, stretching the full length of the wall with Maky, the barkeep, standing behind it, predictably cleaning a glass with a rag. To the right was a set of four stairs leading to a raised section of the bar with several booths spread around the area. The entire establishment held just under ten individuals, most of them sitting alone with their heads down and a drink or three clasped in their hands, claws or whatever other appendage they possessed.
    Clearing her throat as she stepped up to the bar, Rebbecca slid onto a stool that would match her general physiology and let out a sigh, resting her elbows on the bar and her head in her hands.
    “Long day?” Maky asked as he stopped before her, speaking the patois of the world.
    “Define ‘long,’” she muttered.
    “That well, hmm?” he said.
    She scrubbed at her face, grunting as she pulled at her features and looked up at the barkeep. Short fur covered his face and what she could see of his upper body. A muzzle and whiskers were the first noticeable features, followed shortly there after by the large eyes and pointed ears. She could never decide if he looked more like a dog, a cat, or something in-between. She never did bother asking, either.
    “I have just the thing for that pretty little head of yours,” he said, winking in a very Human gesture. “Fresh Graask, all the way from Yellow Moon.”
    Rebbecca made a sound of disgust as the bottle of liquid was pulled from beneath the bar and held up to her face.
    With one hand out to push the container away, and the other pressed firmly to her nose, she said, “Get that away, Maky! You know how sensitive my nose is.”
    “Come now, Becca,” Maky said,  flashing a smile that revealed the chipped lower canine tooth he was famous for. “Just a taste? You'll like it, I promise. Make you feel better, it will.”
    “Maky,” Rebbecca said, swallowing hard. “The distilled, fermented piss of a carrion eater from a world whose name I can't even pronounce is not what I need right now. In fact, if it is ever something I need, I will put a bullet in my brain sooner than I will drink that stuff. Now get it out of my face.”
    Maky sighed and put the bottle on the bar top, pushing it an acceptable distance away from her. She relaxed, slightly, and said, “Thank you.”
    “The usual, then?”
    “Provided you make sure the glass is clean this time,” Rebbecca said, letting her head drop to the bar top.
    “Care to talk about it?”
    “No,” she said sullenly into the scored and gouged wood.
    Maky snorted and the sound of clinking glassware was all she heard for a moment or two, then the dull thunk of a full glass being placed beside her head. When she didn't hear any footsteps she turned her head in place, seeing Maky still standing in front of her. He held a glass and was cleaning it with the stained rag he usually carried over one shoulder.
    “What?” she all but snarled.
    He shrugged and continued cleaning, eyeing the glass beside her every so often. Rebbecca was almost certain there were more smears on the glass he was 'cleaning' than when he started.
    “Maky, if you're going to stand there and stare at me while I wallow, I swear I'm going to kick you. In the shin. Hard.”
    “Oh, please,” he said, his eyes going wide. “Please don't let me stop you from wallowing. I was just standing here, is all.”
    “Standing in a very pointed silence,” Rebbecca said, sitting up straight and grabbing the cup of liquid. She took a sip, nearly gagged, and put the glass down.
    “If this is Graask,” she said, her throat burning. “I'm going to be violently homicidal.”
    “Tengra,” he said with a frown. “From Ma'alor'his. Didn't you spend some time there?”
    “Grew up there,” she said after a pause, blinking and eyeing the glass. “And that is the worst glass of Tengra I have ever had, Mak.”
    “Oh,” he said looking hurt, his lower lip almost trembling and his ears folded over. “But I have five bottles of the stuff. Wasn't cheap either.”
    Rebbecca let out a sigh and shook her head at the ceiling.
    “Alright, alright. Keep the crap. I'm sure I'll be drunk enough one night I might actually drink the stuff. It's not like it could get any worse.”
    Instantly Maky's ears picked up and he beamed, reaching out to push the glass closer to Rebbecca. She half expected to see his tongue slip out one side of his muzzle, and his tail start to wag.
    Risking another sip of the awful stuff, Rebbecca said, “What's with the bouncer out front?”
    “Lic? The Sillian? Guard, actually,” Maky said, squinting at a spot on the bar before vigorously rubbing at it. “Him and his seven hatch-mates. Had a spot of trouble when you were off-planet. They are there to intimidate some of the more negative clientèle.”
    “Trouble?” Rebbecca said, sitting up straighter, instantly suspicious. “What kind?”
    “The Renaal kind,” Maky said with disgust. “He came looking for you, day before last.”
    “And what did that spawn-eater want?” Rebbecca growled, her grip tightening on her glass.
    “What I paid for,” said a throaty voice from the entrance to the bar.
    Rebbecca spun on her seat and froze, eyes going to the voice. Three creatures had entered without her knowing - Damn, she was slipping – one of whom was Renaal. The remaining two were clearly escorts, and Grenta ones at that.
    Some seven feet in height, they had four muscular arms and even more muscular legs. Their hands, three fingers and a thumb, were large enough to easily encase her thigh, and they were violent. Not very bright, but bright enough to be dangerous. One of them was holding the bouncer Lic – bound and gagged, a nasty looking cut dripping blood from above his eye - with three hands, the fourth had a weapon trained on her.
    Between them was Renaal. With large bulbous eyes and an overly large mouth, he wore clothing vaguely reminiscent of a business suit, but it was a disgusting colour of green which clashed with his dull purple skin. Rebbecca suspected his people were related to frogs in some way, but didn't care enough to find out what breed he was. She wanted as little to do with the creature as possible.
    “Renaal,” she said, her lip curling as she said the name. “Whose boot did you get dragged over here on?”
    “Rebbecca, manners,” Maky said, coming out from behind the bar. “Gentlemen! Take a seat, please. Can I get you a drink? I have some lovely Graask I just got in this morning, and I've also recently acquired -”
    “Shut-up, Maky,” Renaal said and made a sound remarkably close to a 'ribbit'.
    Maky snapped his mouth shut, spun on his heel and retreated behind the bar, grabbing another glass to 'clean' along the way.
    “Where's my package, Richards,” Renaal continued, his one eye never leaving Rebbecca's face. His second moved independently from the first, tracking some small insect that buzzed nearby.
    “Package?” Rebbecca asked lightly. “What package? You mean that package I went all the way out to FreeGate to collect? The one you never paid me for?”
    “Pay you?” Renaal barked and snorted. “Couriers don't get paid when they don't deliver, Richards.”
    Rebbecca slowly reached behind her to lift her glass, watching as the guards tensed. The second Grenta had drawn his weapon and now pointed it at Maky, who was moving behind the bar.
    “Well, now the wallowing makes sense,” Maky muttered. “You didn't get paid.”
    “Shut-up, Maky,” Rebbecca said, shifting her attention between the guards, the muscles between her shoulders tensing.
    “The package,” Renaal repeated.
    “You lied,” Rebbecca said, lifting her glass to take a drink. She resisted pulling a face and continued. “I was hired to haul cargo from FreeGate to Hinta station, with twenty-five percent up front; which barely covered the costs of the trip, by the way.”
    “So?”
    “So,” she sneered, her eyes narrowed. “Imagine my surprise when the 'package' started crying for his mother half-way to our destination. You never said anything about live cargo, Renaal.”
    “You failed to ask what the cargo was,” Renaal said dismissively. “Not my problem.”
    “Oh, but it is,” Rebbecca said slamming her glass down on the bar to emphasise with her fingers. “One; I never haul narcotics or outlawed weapons. Two; I don't deal in slaves. You knew this, Renaal. I made it very clear to you when you approached me about a contract. You should have told me what you wanted.”
    “'No Questions Asked.' Isn't that your motto?” Renaal said in a mocking tone.
    “I'm not a fucking flesh peddler!” Rebbecca screamed, rapidly rising to her feet. “You sent me to pick up some kid, and worst of all you underpaid me by half for a flesh-job. You tried to cheat me, Renaal. You lied to me. And you violated my code.”
    “I don't give a damn about your ethics,” Renaal snarled. “I want my package, you whore!”
    “Hey!” Maky said, his meaty hands banging down atop his bar. “I'll have none of that talk in my bar.”
    “Shut-up, Maky!” Rebbecca and Renaal said in unison.
    Maky made a disgusted sound and threw his hands in the air, muttering, “No respect for old Maky One-Tooth. You'd think with my history I'd get just a little bit of respect, but do the ones today care about any of that? No; it's all ancient history and I'm just a washed up old Worgen.”
    “I want my package,” Renaal seethed, his breath coming quickly, both eyes now focused on Rebbecca. “Now. Or I'll -”
    “You think I'd keep some alien kid?” Rebbecca asked. “Are you mentally deficient? I took him back to his mother, then dropped them both off somewhere on the way back here. Sorry, but 'where' seems to have permanently slipped my mind.”
    A second passed and Renaal shrieked, his eyes bulging even more than usual. He rounded on the Grenta holding Lic and, drawing a weapon from the inside of his coat, put the muzzle to Lic's head and squeezed. A sharp 'pop' echoed throughout the room, a flash of light and Lic crumpled, blood and brains spraying the far wall as the sharp tang of burnt flesh filled the air, followed shortly by the contents of Lic's voided bowels.
    The suddenness with which things happened startled Rebbecca, but she kept her face still, her body ready. She couldn't afford to let the Grenta, or Renaal, see the spike of fear that had jumped through her.
    “If you don't have my package,” Renaal said in a rough voice. “Then I want my money. Two hundred, plus the twenty-five I paid you.”
    “Get bent,” Rebbecca said, lifting her chin.
    Renaal vibrated with fury, his delicate looking fingers white where they gripped the pistol. Maky cleared his throat from behind Rebbecca and shifted. The other patrons, those not hiding beneath their tables, watched silently from their seats. The two Grenta alternated between watching Rebbecca and glancing to their employer.
    Seconds stretched and slowly, very slowly, Renaal regained his composure, the shaking subsiding.
    “You are trying my patience, Richards,” Renaal said. “My money. Or Maky dies and the bar burns with you in it.”
    “Rebbecca,” Maky said, dropping into passable Terranese. “Not again. Please? I just got the smell back into the place.”
    Rebbecca pursed her lips, allowing her eyes to half-close. She breathed deeply through her nose, felt the tension in her shoulders ease and her heart start to speed.
    “I never did like the smell, anyway,” she said.
    Faster than any there could follow, she dropped her hand to the pistol at her side, drawing it and squeezing. There was a low 'whumpf' followed by a terrible shrieking as a bolt of brilliant, coruscating energy blasted from her weapon, across the room and blew through one of the Grenta's legs. Everything below the knee was instantly vaporised and a hole was burnt through the wall behind him.
    As the Grenta cried out and began to topple, Rebbecca tensed and sprung, leaping into a flip that carried her back, over the bar. At the apex of her jump she looked 'up' and squeezed off a second shot from her upside down vantage. As she landed behind the bar the second Grenta collapsed with a six inch hole blown clean through his chest.
    Renaal screamed and unleashed a hail of bullets, just as Rebbecca ducked down, the projectiles spraying the top of the bar and the wall filled with bottles behind it. Maky dropped just as quickly as Rebbecca had, his hands going to his ears and he let loose with a string of expletives which Rebbecca, gratefully, could not translate.
    The other patrons suddenly drew their own weapons and added their fire to the mess, just as Maky cried out, “The Graask! Not the Graask!”
    “Maky!” Rebbecca managed as Maky stood and fumbled for the bottle he had left atop the bar. She spun and slid out the side of the bar, squeezing a few shots off into the establishment, firing wildly.
    With a grunt Maky dropped back behind the bar, covered in splinters of wood and bits of glass, but otherwise unharmed. He was clutching the bottle of Graask to his chest the way a mother would grip her child.
    “What the hell is wrong with you!” Rebbecca screamed over the din of barking weapons, slamming a fist into his shoulder.
    “It's Graask, Rebbecca,” Maky said as though that explained everything. Perhaps it did. Maky loved his liquor.
    “Richards!” Renaal roared as a lull in the fusillade occurred. “I'm going to rip out your innards and feed them to you, you bitch!”
    “Oh yeah?” Rebbecca yelled back. “Well... uh, good.”
    Silence met her comment and Maky stared at her, blinking.
    “What?” she said with a shrug. “I've been up two hours. You want witty? Get me some damn coffee.”
    “Coffee? That black stuff? Blech,” Maky said, miming a gag. “Terrible stuff. You can't even get drunk off of it.”
    “Oh for the love of...” Rebbecca rose to a crouch, quickly popped over the top of the bar and placed two quick shots an inch or two about Renaal's head before dropping back behind cover.
    The cacophony of noise returned and once more the bar began to explode around them, showering the two of them with debris. A quick glance around the edge of the bar showed that more of Renaal's men had charged through the door, two with riot-shields. The patrons were dropping to the assault weapons carried by the four guards and Renaal was using the distraction to run for the door.
    “Run, you slimy little bastard,” she shouted after him, adding emphasis with another round that skittered off a shield. “Run like the devil herself is after you!”
    “A bit melodramatic, but better than the last comment,” Maky said to himself.
    “You going to help me?” Rebbecca demanded as a flurry of rounds chewed into the spot she had just been crouching behind. “It won't be long before those cannons start to eat through the bar itself.”
    “Not likely,” Maky said with a shrug. “After that last time I had the core of the bar made out of hull-grade neosteel. We should be safe, unless they have any Streamers out there.”
    “Gee, that was good thinking,” Rebbecca said, slipping her pistol back into its holster and reaching passed Maky for the rifle he kept beneath the bar. “Mind if I borrow this?”
    “Not at all. But it is low on ammo,” he said as she popped up out of cover, swore when the weapon failed to fire and dropped back down. “And the spares are in the office in the back.”
    “Maky,” Rebbecca said, her lips pressed tightly together. “If we get through this, remind me to kick you.”
    “In the shin. Hard. You got it. Mind the bad guys, now.”
    “Where the hell are you going?” she demanded as the old male turned and crawled on all fours along the length of the bar, vanishing around a corner.
    She swore again and re-drew her pistol, blind-firing over the top of the bar. The other patrons were all dead or close to it, their weapons' fire having withered a moment before. But the four guards kept up a steady pace, hammering the bar. She was also fairly certain they were getting closer.
    “I knew this day was going to suck!” she screamed at the ceiling. “I just knew it. Who the hell takes a job from a freaking talking frog?”
    Suddenly a roar sounded over the weapons fire, followed by the sounds of clashing armour, and the thud of flesh on flesh. Rebbecca risked a peek out the side of the bar and saw Maky had found a way around and had leapt on one of the guards. He had him in a headlock and had grabbed a second by the throat. A third was wrapped around Maky's legs while the forth fumbled with his weapon, which appeared jammed.
    Rolling from cover, Rebbecca shot out the fumbling guard's feet. The man went down in a messy pile, shrieking in agony. A second shot ploughed through the side of his head, ending his screams.
    Running forward a few steps, Rebbecca hooked a foot under the dropped assault rifle and flicked it into the air, snatching it up. A jerk and a bang of her fist and the weapon was cleared. A few quick pulls of the trigger and the remaining three guards lay dead at Maky's feet.
    “Gods, woman,” Maky said after a moment, his arms held out from his side, the blood of the dead men soaking into his fur. “Why is it you always make such a mess when you come to visit? Couldn't we have a nice quiet massacre for once?”
    “You're saying this is my fault?” she said, incredulous.
    “I'm just saying that a lot of people seem to die when you're about,” he said, looking around.
    “I  didn't fire the first shot, Maky,” she spat, hurt by his comments. “In case you forgot, Renaal shot your bouncer before I drew my weapon. And if it weren't for me, you'd be dead.”
    “Easy, girl,” Maky said, raising his hands. “I meant nothing by it.”
    “Don't ever call me 'girl' again,” she snarled, walking up to him and slamming the rifle into his chest. “I'm not a damned child.”
    “Rebbecca,” Maky said as she turned to the bar , amazed to find her glass of Tengra unscathed. “I know what you are. It's just hard when you look... when you look like you do.”
    “Forget it,” she said, her voice rough from draining the dregs of her drink. “Sorry about the place, Mak.”
    “They're only walls. They can be painted.”
    “And the people?” Rebbecca said, turning to survey the damage. She and Maky were the only living beings left in the building.
    “They're only patrons,” Maky said with a shrug, a hard look in his eye. “They can be replaced.”
    “That's cold, Mak. Real cold,” Rebbecca said, her brow creasing.
    “Maybe,” he said with another shrug, racking the gun. “But some of those 'patrons' were shooting at us, too. Way I see it, they got what was coming, even if it weren't by us. The rest? Well, none of this lot were regulars, and they were cheap; A drink or two a piece and none of the quality stuff. But now we've got business with Renaal.”
    “No,” she said, shaking her head and putting a hand to Maky's furred chest. “We don't. You stay here. Protectorate will be along shortly, and you need to give a report.”
    “Protectorate?” Maky said and spat. “What use are they?”
    “None on this world, but you still need to stay. You're too old to be running about getting into gun fights.”
    “So are you,” he said quietly, a meaningful glint in his eye.
    She pulled a face and picked up her over turned stool, putting it back beside the bar.
    “You just don't want to do the clean-up,” Maky continued, throwing the rifle onto the bar-top. “Make all the mess, then run along to the next party; you kids are all the same.”
    “That's us; party, party, party,” Rebbecca said absently, stopping by one of the corpses to pick through its jacket and pull some credsticks from a pocket.
    She lifted one of the shields and slung it over a shoulder, along with another rifle and whatever ammunition she could scrounge.
    “Ashley,” Maky said, using a name few had ever been given permission to use. “What are you going to do?”
    “I'm going to see a woman about a frog,” she replied over her shoulder, face to the door. She could hear sirens in the distance.
    “You can't kill him,” Maky said quietly. “Someone worse will replace him, and you'll be a target.”
    “I'm a target now, Mak.”
    “He has ties with the Cartels, Becca. You kill him, you bring them down on you.”
    “And you,” she said, shutting her eyes, unable to turn and face him. “I'm sorry, Maky. I'm so sorry.”
    “Don't be,” Maky said, coming up beside her to put a hand on her shoulder. “Twenty years ago you put a bullet in my leg, ending my days as a Runner. You saved my life, Rebbecca.”
    “And I've put it in danger ever since,” she said, her eyes stinging as she looked up at him. “Everyone I get involved with ends up in danger. Everyone ends up dead. Like you said, Mak; people have a way of dieing around me.”
    He grinned evilly and said, “I'm a lot harder to kill than you give me credit for, Human. And I'm not old and decrepit yet.”
    “If I have my way,” she said, swallowing the growing lump in her throat. “You're going to die a grey old dog, reeking to high heaven of Graask. Don't stay up; I might be late.”
    “Rebbecca,” he called again as she pushed open the door, letting the sun stream into the dingy, smoke infested interior. “What are you planning?”
    “Something I'm regretting already,” she said and let the door shut behind her.