Midmedia express – Part 9.

“Okay,” the purple girl said. “We’re off the air now. No way they can reach us with that heavy bull of a drone. Gunnar, what in R’zrod’s name is the matter with you?”
“Eh?” Gunnar asked. The woman was young, not a woman yet. She looked efficient, attractive and confident. Gunnar could not avoid noticing her slim figure and the good face features. He also noticed that she was angry.

“Lady,” he said, “don’t know how to thank you for…”
“Don’t lady me Gunnar,” she said. “I’m not your earth good Samaritan. I’m employed by the network.”
Gunnar swallowed hard. “The network has me rescued?”
“Cleverly reasoned.” She stated with a tiny small mile in the edges of her very thin and very purple lips.
But why?” he had to ask.

“Look, this is an expensive show, Gunnar. We have to turn in a good performance. If your rating and likes slip we’ll all be in the streets selling candy duneworms. And at the moment you aren’t exactly cooperating.”

“WHAT? WHY?” Gunnar almost shouted.
“Because you are terrible,” the girl said bitterly. “You are flopping, turning into a fiasco. Are you trying to kill yourself? Suicide is your aim? Haven’t you learnt anything about survival?”
“I’m doing the best I can.”

“T’dizd and H’srov could have you a dozen times at least by now. We told them to take it easy,  stretch it out. But it’s like shooting an unmoving can on the wall. They are cooperative but they can fake it only so much. If I hadn’t come along they would have definitely kill you. Doesn’t matter what the bosses said.”

Gunnar stared at her almost shocked with her cynicism. Too young, how the hell, he thought; but then quickly he looked back to the road.

“Don’t give me that look, earthman.” She said. “You chose to risk your life, you singed and you took the money, dude. And plenty of money so far. A lot lot more to come. And you knew the score. Don’t act like some little innocent bystander who finds nasty bullies after him in the middle of the Byram Core square. That’s a different plot  and you are not part of it.”
“I know.” Gunnar said.

“If you can survive well at least die well!”
“You don’t mean that,” Gunnar turned to her.
“Don’t be too sure… You’ve got three earth-hours and some change until the end of the show. If you can stay alive, fine. The treasure is yours. But if you can’t at least try to give them a run for their money.”
Gunnar nodded, staring intently at her.

She checked her kPhone. We were out for a bit but in a few minutes we are back online streaming. I developed an engine problem so I will have to land and let you off. T’dizd and H’srov are just behind us and they are going all out now. Now orders from the bosses.” Gunnar didn’t say anything.

“They kill you when and if they can as soon they can. Understand?” she bit her lip angrily.

---

Read all the Midmedia express chapters in order, HERE!

Midmedia express – Part 8.

The train came to a stop, jolting him out of his reverie. Gunnar observed across the alley a man staring at him and whispering something to a skeletal thin woman next to him.
Had they recognized him?

He stood up as soon as the doors opened and glanced at his kPhone. He had five earth hours to go. Steeped out and run for the station’s exit. At the exit he stepped into a drone and told the screen to take him to Byram Core.
“Where in Byram Core, sir,” the robotic voice asked.
“Station,” he almost screamed.

The screen didn’t say anything more except flashing a warning about seatbelts. After Gunnar locked his the drone started taking off. Gunnar frowned wondering if it had been a signal. If the robo-dronepilot had reported of him. He thought there was something about that voice. He felt that there was something familiar he couldn’t pinpoint.

“Let me out here,” Gunnar said. The robo-dronepilot didn’t show surprise or any other reaction to his sudden decision and after charging his card the door opened upwards. Gunnar began walking down a narrow road that curved through spare parks. In the edges of Byram Core and he could already feel the privileges of the rich and famous. Perhaps one day he will live her, he thought but let the thought vanish inside his worries.

There was a heavy drone approaching in low orbit. Gunnar kept walking but the track drew closer. He heard a voice from the kPhone in his pocket. It cried, “Watch out!”

Gunnar flung himself into the ditch feeling the cold air of the heavy truck careened millimetres over to where he was walking before. And it didn’t go far. It stopped just meters away and the pilot opening his door started shouting, “There he is! Shoot, T’dizd, shoot!”
Yellow and orange rays clipped leaves from the trees as Gunnar sprinted into the park.

Running like mad he could still hear the driver shouting, “T’dizd, H’srov, go around with the spare. We got him boxed.”
Gunnar checked his kPhone, bright yellow letters on black background, “You are boxed Gunnar, you are fucked!”

Gunnar ran through the park and found himself on a concrete highway with open spaces all around him. One of the killers was trotting through the park just behind him while the truck was heading for the other side of the highway coming fast towards him from the opposite side.

Lights were approaching for another direction. Another drone flying low. Gunnar ran into the highway waving frantically. The drone came to a stop just over him.
“Hurry,” cried a purple woman from inside the drone while lowering it and opening the side door.

Gunnar dived in. The purple woman made a sudden u-turn. A ray hit the windshield. She pushed the stick and flew fast away from the truckers’ fire range.  Gunnar leaned back and shut his eyes tightly. The woman kept focus on her flying and the truckers on her screens. “Lucky Gunnar, plunked again from the jaws of death thanks to a woman. Never underestimate Gunnar’s charm,” the text was flashing on the screen in front of him. The same exactly text appeared on is kPhone.
He didn’t feel lucky.

---

Midmedia express – Part 7.

Gunnar stood up miraculously engorged and took another sword from the pile standing on the side of the pit. Then he went over the neck again with his eyes closed.

The god who protects children and fools must have been watching, for the sword slid in like a needle through butter and the Elephine looked startled, stared at him unbelievably and dropped like a deflated balloon.

They paid him ten thousand credits and his collar bone healed in practically no time. More mail including a passionate invitation from an Aorian girl in New Bayou, which he ignored.
And they asked him to appear on another show.

By then he had lost some of his innocence. He was now fully aware that he had almost killed for pocket money. The big loot lay ahead. Now he wanted to be almost killed for something worthwhile.

So he appeared on Steam, sponsored by Fry Skinners. In head helmet, respirator, gravity belt and knife, he slipped into the warm waters of Crosk’s moon with four other contestants, followed by a force field protected crew.

The idea was to find and bring up the treasure the sponsor had hidden there.

Helmet diving isn’t special hazardous. But the sponsor had added some frills for public interest. The area was sown with giant spiderlike clams, Cromos eels and of course several kinds of flesh eater full of teeth giants with many poisonous tentacles and other dangers of the galaxy’s waters.

It was a stirring contest. A lizardoid from Camer II actually found the treasure early in a deep crevice but a Cromos eel found him. Another diver took the treasure from the dying Camerian and a spiderlike clam took him.

The odd pink green water became cloudy dark blue with the blood of the Camerian which rolled well on the streaming services. In the meantime the treasure slipped to the bottom and Gunnar plugged after it popping a glove in the process. Ten meters form the top he had to fight another diver for the treasure.

They feinted back and forth with their knives. The purple creature struck, slashing Gunnar across the chest. But Gunnar with the self-possession of an old contestant dropped his knife and tore the man’s respirator out of his helmet.
That did it.

Gunnar surfaced and presented the treasure at the standing by floating ship. It turned out to be an airtight canister with Fry Skinners hot sauce. ‘The greatest treasure of all’ according to the sponsor’s network message.

That netted Gunnar twenty-two thousands credits in cash and prizes and over a thousand of fan mails and a new proposition from a girl from Glasr, which he seriously considered. He received free hospitalization for his knife slash and a burst eardrum plus injections for poison water infection. But best of all he was invited to appear on the biggest of the streaming shows. Risk.
And that was when the real trouble began.

---

Blood Bayou – Part 06.

I must have looked at him as if he had just taken a live Thrimworm out of his pocket. He sat there with a proud smile all down the front of his ugly face.

“Cold T’Jinj is dead.” I said. “Dead. Period. They got him after the flats arrested Quiet Con and locked him in Raven. Big chase in the Nebula, lots of ray exchange, boom, Cold T’Jinj dead. Period, Liam.”
“Yeah, I heard the story. Quiet Con arrested and all that. Poor sod, he was an easy rap.” He said holding a smile on his face.

“Your story is fine, minor one small detail, dear Jon. Pal Jon. Boom never happened.” His smile got wider. Liam enjoyed knowing something I didn’t.
“Chase happened, ray exchange happened, boom didn’t. What happened was flats inside Cold T’Jinj seriously damaged boat and then a dark cell in Raven. For eight and a half earth years. And then he got out. Free. And he decided to take it easy for a while. Dark cells in Raven are not a jolly holiday experience. Only flats couldn’t let him enjoy it for long. Flats thought he could be their man inside while some boys he had met in Raven had other dreams for good old Cold T’Jinj. And then one day while feeling the pressure from both sides Cold T’Jinj reads in the net about Big Zzryd, the king of the smugglers got caught in Galeran. Fire girls’ house, they said. I know what you are thinking…”
I nodded.

“I thought the same, at the time,” Liam continued without waiting for me to say anything. “The net took it really big. They made you think that Cold T’Jinj was some kind of beauty celebrity, a senator or something. Anyway, I thought it was all part of a game and why shouldn’t be after all there were weird stories about Big Zzryd and his cosmic business. But then it died. On the way to Raven the big bad Big Zzryd had died; natural causes. And then for all things, he was buried for Bri’ns sake, in Cosmos.” He paused and took a quick sip from his glass.

“Oh man, and the story doesn’t end here,” he said with mouth still half full of the liquid. “somehow they buried the wrong Zzryd, or a non-Zzryd. They changed the bodies and the new Zzryd was big enough and burned enough to look like a Big Zzryd, especially if you never met the man. And that was it.”

“What about eye iris?” I had to ask.
“You know that Big Zzryd was strong with the flats, don’t you? They never checked. They let it go and kept going partying with a buried body.”

“There is another chance, maybe the let him go intentionally so they can track him and get his with all the loot.”
“Oh Jon, the always romantic.” Liam laughed loud. “Big Zzryd body was the body buried in Cosmos.” I looked at him in shock and surprise.
“What?”
Big Zzryd is dead and buried for good. End of game for the big guy. But the name lives and the stories help. You see the same period big Zzryd went all that and death, Cold T’Jinj decided to take a trip to New Bayou and then he vanished in the desert air. A body everybody knew it wasn’t Big Zzryd buried in Cosmos, Cold T’Jinj disappears in New Bayou and Big Zzryd appears in the Nebula Cold T’Jinj knows so well.”

“Cold T’Jinj took Big Zzyrd’s place?”
“You getting there old pal.” Liam smiled.

“And then what,” I had to ask.
“Then my kPhone vibrated.” He said and took a deep sip from his drink emptying his glass.

---

Read all Blood Bayou chapters in order, HERE!

Koelian Tomb – V.

S’iug planted his feet over the regulator taking deep breaths of his mask and letting Koelian air surround him.

The bottle was half empty when S’iug heard it suddenly. A door closed stealthily, a furtive footfall from the rear of the house. He sat upright, alert with narrow eyes. The feet shuffled and advance along the immense hallway. Then miraculously, Brong Vrop, ray in his hand, was framed in the doorway.

S’iug calmly took a last sip from his drink before he spoke. He set the bottle down and said contemptuously, “Brong, you are a fool.”

“Maybe,” said Brong Vrop. “I’d rather be a fool than a corpse.”
“You’ll be that, too, if you kill me. Twice you’ve threaten me before Elias. Whom do you think he’ll look for when they found my body?”

Brong Vrop grinned. It wasn’t a pleasant grin. “When you are in hell,” he said, “maybe you’ll find out I’m not such a fool after all. But let’s not waste time. First I want you to come down to the cellar with me.”

S’iug shrugged.
He poured another drink and made no move to get out of his chair. Brong’s face became did brown with anger. He crossed the room with three long strides. He thrust the maze of his ray against S’iug chest.

“Damn you!” He shouted. “I’ll shut all three of your damn hearts here and now damn purple worm. Get up now. Lead the way to the cellar.”

Elias in the meantime was working the late morning shift. It was few minutes after earth-ten when he arrived at headquarters. He was greeted grumpily by Keln, his chief.

We got a murder,” said Keln. “Guy named R’iun. Photographer for the Blade Blog. That means the media and the social media will raise hell with us.”

Elias seated himself on the edge of his desk.
“Any details?”
“Not many. Holdup apparently. His credits gone and his kPhone. Stuck up in his own home very early this morning. Body was just found by a friend of his. You think it was Brong Vrop’s gang?”

Elias shook his head. “Not enough dough in it. Sounds more like an amateur. Vrop’s not crazy enough to commit a murder for a few credits. He doesn’t fool around with…”
Elias broke as he noted Keln’s gaze travel beyond him and register astonishment. He turned his head around, slid off his desk, sharing Keln’s surprise.

For walking past the desk sergeant towards them was a grinning and bowing Brong Vrop. Vrop’s presence in a flat station was at once an amazing and unprecedented occurrence. Since he had been thirteen years old, Brong Vrop’s chief purpose in life had been to avoid anyone remotely concerning with the forces of law and justice.

“Well,” said Keln heavily as Vron approached his desk. “Have you come to give yourself up?” Brong Vrop threw back his head, all eyes looking at the ceiling, and laughed as if something deeply funny had been said or happened.

---

Read all the Koelian tomb chapters in order, HERE!

The colour of the armband – Eli 05 – END

Silence fell again. Somewhere deep in the dune the haze was slowly coming with whatever it carries with it, Kevin was holding his riffle and his fear close to his chest and the others seemed lost in their own fears and troubles. Jan was calling Eli.

“Come sweetheart, come to daddy and eat the bad guys,” he was calling the baby beast from the dark. Then the engine roared again this time louder and closer and a voice called “Rikuuuuuuu,” again. But Riku didn’t come. A quick swivel of light somewhere above their heads and the roaring spent away fast leaving behind his partner crying. Literally crying and Kevin was sure for that. No sound from Eli.

“Who thas?” A panicking voice heard in the dark.
“Surrender or become dinner,” Jan shouted.
“Sreder, sreder, elp me.” The voice answered immediately.
“Through you riffle and stand up so I can see you.” Jan shouted again while Kevin kept quiet in a case the other tried to be clever or something.

The sound of a riffle falling in the sand a few yards away made Kevin jump but the man was obviously obeying Jan and that was however small, a relief. “Mi leg, elp.” The man said in a quieter tone. He was wounded.

“Just stay there with your hands up so we can see them and we will come to you,” Jan ordered again and then turning to Kevin’s direction he shouted, “Kevin, are you allright?”
“I’m fine man, just come closer so we can end this, the haze is coming fast and I can feel it in my bones.” He wasn’t planning to start a conversation but after all this tense the words came out of his mouth without any control from his brain. Jan laughed loud, he understood. But then the laugh turned into a loud howl and a light suddenly hit them all three while they were trying to stand up, friends and foe. What followed was a single pap-pap and a groan. Then for a second silence and back again an engine getting fast closer.

“Kevin…” Jan shouted. “I’m fine, I’m fine, wasn’t me.” And they both dived into the sand looking desperately for a cover. Then silence again.

“Are you going to wait for the haze?” A familiar voice came and the same time a heavy doop-doop broke the silence followed by a storm of pap-pap-boom-boom-pap-pap…
“What the fuck was that?” The voice said again. “Ida, stay under, they fucking trained Elephines now?” 
“Eli…” Jan screamed and ignoring any danger he stood up and started running towards the voice.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot. It’s Eli.”
Kevin had recognized Sven’s voice and he was trying to stand up while Ida had opened the door of the bus checking around, riffle in hand. “Who the hell is Eli?” Sven asked.

The baby beast was lying next to the dead soldier. Brown ribbon on his left arm, three legs with claws instead of fingers in the hands and a huge emptiness instead of head. Trunk and tusks on the ground and next to the beast was Jan on his knees crying.

“No shit,” Sven cried. “Them again.”

THE END

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Read all The colour of the armband chapters in order, HERE!

A flat kill – Part 07.

The old creature’s hand entered inside his jacket and brought out a very old vape. “Those two troubles are going to knock a lot of walls before they get to their cell. A lot of walls.”

Two flats elbowed their way through the outside crowd and into the diner. They looked down at the gray haired man silently and then one of them went out to the squad drone.

I tried to pick up my cup of black from the counter but my fingers didn’t obey and I was spilling so much o it that I set it back again. Instead I pulled my vape and took a deep drag.

A couple of minutes later more flat drones arrived and in the end two more serious flats entered the in. They took me to one of the booths.

“I’m Officer Sr’ydd,” one of the flats said. He was as tall as I am and deep purple. The combination of his very erect antennas and the fact that he was much thinner than me in the end made him look taller. He cocked a thumb at the other flat. “And this is my partner, Officer Skyyyzd. Your name, please.”
“Mug,” I said. “Princess Quad Mug.” I added shyly.
“Address?” I gave them the one in Typhon III. As he wrote it down, I added “I’m here for my birthday. Shopping and all that. I have a ship to catch at ten.”

“Miss Princess,” Officer Sr’ydd said looking up. “A flat’s been killed. Your ship can wait.”
“Tell us about it,” Officer Skyyyzd said. “From the beginning.”

I gave the story and described the two troubles.
“You recognize any of them if you saw them again?” Officer Sr’ydd asked.
I hesitated. “Well I don’t know. You understand I was pretty scared….” I left my sentence intentionally unfinished and I tried to look scared.

“You gave a pretty good description of the events, Princess,” Officer Sr’ydd said. “I bet you will.” He got up. “You and grandpa here, better come down to the headquarters with us. We’d like to have you look at some holograms.
Panic was boiling inside but I was keeping it under control. Or at least I thought so.

At headquarters they took old creature and me into a small room and began uploading holograms of troubles.
“Put your bag in the corner if it bothers you,” Officer Sr’ydd said. 
“It doesn’t bother me a bit,” I aid irritably.

After two earth hours my liquid had gone and Officer Skyyyzd loaded more holograms. I was pulling off the red strip when the next hologram appeared to be the tall kid who did the killing. I vaped nothing slowly and I thought it over.
Finally I looked up. “This is one of them,” I said.

Officer Sr’ydd go to his feet and came over. He studded the hologram and scrolled the record that came with it. “All right,” he said. He send the hologram to the other corner where the old creature was sitting and moved over.

---

Read all A Flat kill chapters in order, HERE!

Blood Bayou – Part 05.

“For all the Canelian Ale, Liam,” I said, “you must have been hitting the heavy stuff hard to seriously go for this. There are kindergarten classes who use maps like that to keep the infants busy. Every living and breathing being on the system has seen one of those and I never heard any of them paid or been paid for one of them. You get them for free with a portion of green beans in the local, man.”

“No?” He said looking sly. “Perhaps they never had the right one or they never looked in the right place for the right one. You know where this is?” He pointed at the map.

“Liam, what you show me might be round the corner, the far side galaxy, outside the system or in Up Nebula for all I know.”

“If you knew what Medium this was,” he pointed at the map again, “could you read it then?”
“I might,” I said  more out of curiosity to hear his arguments than anything else. “If I knew the Medium and the close by molecular stands. And if this isn’t too old, the space changes Liam, you know that.”
“But not that much,” he said somehow surprisingly comfortably. “If I can take you to the exact Medium and molecular stands, can you work it out from there?”
“I might,” I said carefully, “It depends on how it’s changed.”

“That’s all I want to know,” A new Liam was emerging, a more good-old-days Liam. “Let me buy our next drinks,” he said and nodded to somebody I could not see.

“You better hold on a while,” I said. “All this has been just talk. Suppose I could find the place. I’m not going back t the Nebula and let myself eaten by the gangs, aliens or get jammed by the flats like an idiot falling into a treasure hunt con.”

“Jon, Jon, Jon.” He leaned back and started to purr. “That’s just it. This ain’t a treasure hunt con. You think I’m the kind of guy what falls for that kind of stuff?”
I wanted to say yes but I let it go by.
He leaned over confidentially. “This isn’t any smugglers treasure, Jon. This is the stuff that makes you mythically rich and it has a dead man’s pitcher on it.”
“And nobody has seen this map before?” And how the hell found its way where you think it is?”

He sat back and got cunning again. “You will never guess in a million years…”
“I’m not going to guess,” I snapped. “But you are going to tell me Jon.”
“sure. Sure Jon. I’m going to tell you.”

But there was something I wanted to know first. “Why me, Liam? If you knew where it is why not go yourself to get it? And did you know that I was going to be here, at Broker’s tonight?”
“I don’t know the damn Nebula, Jon. Period. And I don’t know how to fly inside a Nebula, Jon. And I didn’t know that you will be here tonight. I was hoping you will be, you’ve been seen around. And it might takes two to find the damn thing.”

There might be an explanation here. “There is somebody else, Liam. It isn’t just waiting there to be found, is it Liam? There is somebody sniffing around it or sitting on it, Liam.” I was feeling angry and irritated.
“Maybe.”
“That means we have to take it away from somebody?”
“That’s the way things are sometimes, Jon.”
“And if this guy or whatever it is, doesn’t want to give it?”

He just sat there and looked at me and let me think about it myself. I did. The  more I thought about it the less I liked it.

“I don’t want any more fights and I definitely don’t want to put somebody down,” I said in a voice full of anger.
“Hell, Jon, you were in the army man.”
“That was different.”
“Yeah? And a million credits is different. Hell, you knock off guys you never even saw before, guys you got no beef with, and you did it for dimes and duty, and now you start talking like a dustgas. “Who’s the guy, Liam?”
“It’s …hell, you know the guy, Jon.”
“Who?” I almost shouted.
“Cold T’Jinj, Jon.”

---

Read all Blood Bayou chapters in order, HERE!

A flat kill – Part 06.

The short trouble hit some buttons and obviously moved the ten credits to his account and then moved out from behind the metal. “Empty your pockets on the floor,” he ordered.
I took my wallet out of pocket careful and tossed it down. I watched the gray hair ,am get to his feet. Oh earthmen, the galaxy’s heroes.

He liked his lips for a few seconds and then seemed to take a deep breath. The air wasn’t very clean with the skinners’ smell and all that. Then his hand went to the button of his jacket.

He didn’t get his ray out of his belt holster. The tall trouble’s ray spit yellow beams twice. The earthman in the booth crumpled and he slid between the table and the bench.
The trouble’s eyes turned to me glowing with killer madness.

I dove under the counter as beams came and sprayed hard against the self with the mugs and glasses. I lay there hugging the floor, my heart pounding wildly.

After a couple of shots, I heard the sound of a hard slap. “Snap out of it, you damn duneworm,” I heard the chunky trouble say. “Let’s get the Skriizs out of here.”

I heard their footsteps moving fast forward the door and then I heard the door slam. I lay there unable to get up right away and marvelling in a detached way at my trembling and weakness.

Finally, the old creature strained up. He looked at me over the counter and picked his kPhone out of his pocket.

I came to my senses. It was time to get out. I couldn’t get mixed up in anything like this. I got shakily to my feet.

Then I saw the faces pressed against the windows and far away I heard the sirens of the flat drones reaching. Old man hadn’t still press the buttons, I realized suddenly. Somebody had heard the shots and done it for him.

I picked up my bag and looked at the glass door. My stomach tighten around fear. It was getting too late to get out.

There were about twenty people, all colours, heights and shapes out there and keep coming. Their fascinated eyes travelled a thrill circuit from the body of the gray haired man, to the green creature with four arms shaking uncontrollably to me.

I put down my bag and wiped my palms on my trousers. I looked at the old creature with a weary indignation.
“Why did he do that?” I asked hoarsely. “Why did the damn fool go for his ray?”

The old green creature glanced at the body and then looked way. “Gromlyz Fjerd, he said. “Just a new flat. Off duty and all he wanted was quiet and something to eat.” Old creature’s eyes harden. “Flats ain’t all perfume and flowers,” he said, “but there is one thing that gets every flat mad. You don’t kill a flat, Miss.”

---

Read all A Flat kill chapters in order, HERE!

Blood Bayou – Part 04.

He got around it slow enough. “You remember when we was with Cold T’Jinj?” He asked. I nodded.
“You was pretty handy with all kind of ships those days,” he said. “You used to run the stuff up into the Nebula, right?”
“Me, Quiet Con and some more guys.”

“Yeah. But now Quiet Con is liquidated and most of the other guys too. Maybe. Or anyway, they are nowhere around to find. Probably none in New Bayou.”
“You might find somebody if you hunt through the McCoy Quarter.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “But I want the best and that leaves only you. Damn it Jon, this was a lucky night for both of us, hey?”

I couldn’t see my luck because all it got me that meeting so far was a few touches from the good old days, some names for the past and less credits in my wallet after paying Liam’s drinks. But I let it go.

“How would you like to make a million credits, Jon?”
I picked my vape from the table, stuck it in my breast pocket and started to get up. When the Liams of this universe start talking like that, it’s time to get out.

“Wait,” Liam was saying. “Wait a while Jon. Please sit down my friend, take it easy and let me show you…” And with one hand he was trying to pull me back into my chair and with the other he was pawing at his pocket, he sounded as if he was getting ready to cry.
I felt sorry for him so I sat down again.

He got whatever it was out of his pocket and sat there looking at me as if he wasn’t sure yet if he should show it to me. Then a kind of helplessness took over his face and he slumped back in his chair.

“I got to let you in on it, Jon,” he said. It’s the only way I got, the only way I know. You want let an old friend down, will you Jon?” his voice was shaking.
“Liam, don’t give me that old friend crap,” I said in a quiet voice. “For some reason you got a use of me or in your drunken mind you think you have. Now let’s put it on the line and see how it looks.”

“Okay,” he said. “I need a pilot who can handle any boat and knows the nebula as the back of his hand. There is enough dough in it and we can both get rich. You think I was lying about the million, but it’s on the level.”

I said nothing for a bit, just sat there looking straight in his eyes and trying to find I don’t know what. Truth is so rare in these short of places.

“Look, I don’t know what this is,” I said in the end. “But I know that there are running boats all around the Nebula. I know if they are running smoke, Garelan prostitutes. Spices. Perhaps some other kind of aliens. Perhaps viruses. I don’t want anything to do with all that shit. Find yourself another boy.”

He shook his head. “It ain’t none of those things,” he said. “It’s as big as all these things but… and that’s the best part of it, Jon, it ain’t outside the law.
I looked at him, he must be lying. “All right. Get to it,” I said.
And he pushed his hand across at me and spread something on the table.

A piece of leather, old and beat-up with all the blood and life gone out of it. It was covered with cuts and lines of some kind and burns. I looked closer and the lines started taking form. It all began to look like a kid’s drawing of the drainage system of the Nebula North on the edges of the 6DR85 system and on a corner of all the twist and cuts there was an X.

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Read all Blood Bayou chapters in order, HERE!