Another story. I think the intention is for this one to be a shory story. Untitled as of yet. Its pretty rough, fair warning.
Devon stood in the
sprawling field of grass, shaded his eyes with one hand, and muttered, “Fuck.”
With a sour grimace, he watched the rapidly diminishing silhouette of his ship,
The Star King. Soon enough, she was
nothing but a speck of light in the atmosphere, and he turned away to take in
his surroundings. The grass, a tall resilient species tinted with the slightest
shading of blue, went on forever around him in waves, raising and falling with
the uneven ground, lazily swaying with the gently urgings of a dry wind. In the
distance, a cloud of dust was already approaching. The gondyr moved fast; they
would be upon him in minutes, and there was nowhere he could hide. The damn
beasts would be able to track him upriver through a bloody stream of lava
anyways, so running would be pointless at best.
He sighed in bitterness, and sat on the naked ground in a huff.
He took quick appraisal
of his possessions; he was wearing a battered brown shirt, dark grey jeans, and
simple running shoes; his pockets contained his small pocket knife, acquired on
his first salvage operation so long ago, a stick of gum, and lint; he had no
weapons, and even his sunglasses were still aboard the King. He muttered quietly about the glare from the sun, and popped
the stick of gum into his mouth. He chewed the sweet with a sour expression.What a colossal bitch, he thought fiercely. So maybe he had pushed her limits a little further than usual; he deserved a good hard slap –knowing her as he did, a sharp roundhouse to the face might be a better fit. Stealing his ship and ditching him on a medieval alien crap hole of a world? That was just mean. And his good-for-nothing crew had gone along with it. Sure, she had been armed; but they could have stopped her, if they wanted. He was reasonably confident they would eventually come back for him; he just had to make sure he survived that long.
The ground started to vibrate underneath him, so Devon climbed warily to his feet, facing the near-dust storm his hunters were kicking up, and rested his hands on his hips, his thumbs tucked into his belt. They arrived with the rumble of thunder, trampling the grass around him. They rode massive lizards that he knew could run him down without breaking into a sweat. As they circled, bowstrings were drawn back, as the gondyr took careful aim; not that it made a bit of a difference, Devon thought. Laser or poisoned arrow, dead was dead. The leader of the gondyr party unslung a particularly nasty looking rifle, and took careful aim; “damn it, what are the odds?” He easily recognized the model of rifle; he had sold it to them earlier that month. He could also clearly make out the display that indicated this rifle still had plenty of charge.
“Well Captain, this be justice harmonic,” the leader with the rifle said with amusement.
“I think you mean justice poetic, Kiiya” Devon scowled. He found little about the scene amusing.
Kiiya laughed; the sound reminded Devon of a ruptured valve, leaking gas with a stuttering hiss. Kiiya sat atop his lizard with a straight back, his rifle firm in unwavering hands, and the muzzle casually yet clearly aimed at his chest. He looked like a million other of the gondyr; Devon admitted he could seldom tell them apart, but Kiiya wore the badges of office that he had earned as tribal Entat.
The gondyr were short heavy creatures that sometimes walked upright – most often, Devon figured, when they wanted to impress aliens with the opinion that they could be as civilized as any space faring bipedal civilization. They had short stubby fingers on beefy hands, just barely nimble enough to manipulate the controls on a particle rifle. When on all fours they could actually run faster than the lizards they rode; they had only begun using the creatures for transportation in the last hundred years or so. Devon suspected that some of the early “traders” to trade with them had given them some old westerns; likely that was also when a number of words showed up in their language, like sheriff, jail, and a favored expressed, you are under arrest. He’d also heard them say “howdy, pilgrim” enough times that it had stopped being funny.
“You are under arrest, you lying cheat,” Kiiya announced now, doing his best to imitate a human smile. Devon sighed. It was hardly the first time he’d heard the words, but they never really sounded any better. He watched the expression of the Entat’s face. It was hard to read the alien faces of the gondyr, but he thought Kiiya looked pretty serious. Their thick muzzles kind of made it look like they were smiling all the time. Devon actually thought it was a little creepy.
“C’mon now, Entat Kiiya. Why would you call me that? You trying to hurt my feelings? You know I would never cheat you. Hell, that’s my rifle you have pointed at me, which I’m none too happy about. You know as well as I what happens if you pull that trigger. You wanted strong weapons, my friend, and you have them. What’s with all this hostility?”
Kiiya growled. Devon did not lose hope; the growl could be meaningless. As the Entat -the leader of his tribe by right of fierce, brutal combat – he pretty much had to growl, or lose face. They might shout and threaten, growl and posture, but at the end of the day the gondyr were as interested in the almighty dollar as pretty much everyone else. Unfortunately, this time, there was a good chance he actually had cheated the gondyr.
“Yeah,” Kiiya grumbled. “This gun work good, for sure. This the last though. The others, not so much. You told us these guns gone make us strong, and would not need ammo like the others. You lied, captain.”
Devon signed; it was exactly what we was afraid of. He should have figured the bastards would fly into blood frenzy the minute he left, and use up what should have been several months worth of charge. He wondered how many neighboring tribes were now distant memories; the gondyr certainly had no qualms against genocide.
Most of the weapons that had found their way to the primitive world had been good old powder weapons, guns that required shells and ammunition. Some of the earliest traders had even provided the skills to produce native gunpowder, and the ability to replace the ammunition. Devon, when he had been here a few weeks back, had needed something special; the usual weapons had not cut it, and he had traded them some rather powerful energy weapons. He had not lied, exactly, when he claimed they needed no ammunition; they did, however, need a standard power outlet to recharge.
“Look, Kiiya, maybe you managed to break the others? I could take a look at them, if you’d like,” he stalled. He knew damn well they would not let him anywhere near the weapons.
“You think we is stupid?” Kiiya demanded. The heavy gondyr leaped from the saddle, and rushed him on all fours -a sure sign the Entat was pissed off. The creature was fast; before he even knew what had happened, Devon was on the ground, and Kiiya was on top of him. The Entat’s muzzle was inches from his face, and yellowish ooze dripped from slathering jaws, splashing all over his face with a sickening odor; he held his breath, knowing that their slobber, while not actually poisonous, held enough bacteria to cause him serious issues.
“You under arrest, liar! We gone hold a lawyering, and when I prove you the lying scumbag I’m gonna bash your stupid face!” The Entat pulled back, and then lunged forward with both arms falling like comets towards his face; Devon didn’t even have time to flinch. Pain. Blackness.
