A Whore at Dread Harbor Ch. 01

A single vid call. Apparently, that's all it took to make a man return to the scene of his own desolation.

The hulk of the Dread Harbor drifted through the Kornous Asteroid Belt like the pale-gold carcass of a gutted shipwreck. She hung there in the void, glimmering in the distant starlight of the otherwise-empty system's tiny dwarf star. Through the darkened cockpit of his ship, the Deliverance, Deckard Pryce stared at the frame of the behemoth. His tired eyes passing across its contours for the first time in nearly a decade.

"There she is." He murmured to his ship, letting out a breath of nicotine. Smoke hung heavy in the darkness of his cramped cockpit, like misty fog swirling in the starlight. "...Seems like a lifetime ago since we left, huh?" The Deliverance's hull rattled in response. Deckard grunted at the ship's silent admonishment and put out his cigarette on the dashboard, tossing it amongst the others.

"Cool your valves, we're almost there." Deckard flipped off the autopilot and took hold of the flight stick. He kicked the throttle up a notch, feeling an appreciable pull as his modified freighter streaked towards the foreboding starbase.

Dread Harbor was many things, but a pretty station it was not. It lurked in the crowded asteroid field like a malignant gremlin. Bulky, boxy and practical to the point of unpleasantness, the Dwarves designed their vessels to be sturdy, not appealing. Deckard let out a soft sigh.

"I suppose I should have known it would come to this, huh?" He patted the console of his ship, letting out an appreciative huff of air. "I know. Still gives me the creeps, too."

He opened comms. They crackled with white noise. For a brief, terrible moment Deckard wondered if there was anyone on the other side waiting to answer the call... and then a bored sounding human on the other end began droning in his ear.

"Identification?"

"Deckard Pryce, Captain of the Deliverance." He pressed a button on his console. "ID transmitted."

"Confirmed." Came the disinterested voice on the other line. "Proceed to Docking Bay K."

"Home Sweet Home." Deckard muttered. Hardly the most auspicious return for the savior of Dread Harbor.

* * *

Deckard strolled through the northern residential deck of the station, feeling in many ways like a ghost wandering amongst the living.

Corani hadn't lied to him in her message: Dread Harbor had changed. The station had been a hub for outgoing colony ships headed to distant systems once, and as such their population had been largely transitory.

No longer. Now that most of those colonies were settled, there was no need for such a large transport hub. The station had become instead a gateway into the wider galaxy, with more than half of the populace living permanently on the station.

The changes were visible on an almost microscopic level. Where once the walls had been bare chromium and functional lighting hung from the ceilings, now the thoroughfare was a riot of color and neon light. Graffiti dotted the walls, and gaudy holographic signs attempted to goad Deckard into stepping into one of the dozens of Megacorp-owned subsidiaries and purchasing their fine products.

The culture was different too. Gone were the quiet migrants huddling together in temporary hab blocks like transients waiting on a shuttle flight. They had been replaced by the rough and tumble folk that Deckard had come to know well from life on the frontier: men and women, humans and aliens alike. Grifters, cheats, liars, criminals, bounty hunters and mercenaries.

Scum of the Galaxy. His kind of people.

He dimly recalled Corani once telling him that this portion of the station had been known as the Warrens. And Deckard could see why. The sheer mass of sapient life crowded together made him feel claustrophobic. He kept his hands in the pockets of his Kevlar-padded duster coat, his right hand hovering mere inches from the pistol at his hip.

He made his way through the hazy mass of people, shuffling through the crowd till he reached the place Corani said she'd meet him at: an old bar called The Ratty Kat. It's curving green letters rippled across the holographic front of the bar like an open invitation to alcoholism.

Without a word the weary veteran stepped through the portal, his eyes sweeping the room for his old friend. More than a dozen Loupians, Catians and Humans crowded the narrow tables, soaking in the dim ambiance. He swiftly deduced that she wasn't amongst them.

The bar itself was an ancient throwback: wood paneling ensorcelling a sturdy countertop, with bottles and bottles of assorted alien alcohol crowding the shelves behind the bar like a raucous crowd at a concert. Upon the wall behind the bartender's head reclined a naked Catian, her pale skin contrasting with the vibrant colors of a holographic jungle all around. A large vasas snake draped itself across her form, covering but not quite concealing her genitalia.

As Deckard stared at the old walls, thinking about what this place must have looked like less than ten years ago, he felt an old feeling well up inside him. Something strange, like nostalgia and despair all rolled into one.

Oh well. Nothing straight whiskey couldn't cure.

Deckard stepped up to the front of the bar, shooting eyes at the feline-looking Catian who was tending bar. She caught his look and smiled, slinking over to him with her species' typical smoothness. Deckard smirked and wiped a hand across the rough blonde of his stubble.

"What can I get you, sir?" She asked, her catlike ears pricking up.

"Whiskey. Neat." He said.

"Comin' right up!" She said. Her hands were a blur as she poured and served him almost before he could blink. Catians were exceedingly dexterous.

Deckard took the glass from her hand with a smile. "Shai-gai-yoh." He said, thanking her in her native tongue.

The Catian smirked in a mischievous manner. "...Do you even know what that means?"

Deckard shrugged and downed his glass. "It means thank you."

"It means a bit more than that to us Catians."

"Sure." Deckard said, raising his eyes to meet hers. The neon light of the dim bar made her eyes glimmer like phosphorescent beams.

"You speak with the correct inflection. You must use that pick-up line a lot." The Bartender stopped polishing her glass and leaned upon the bartop, staring him down. "You 'speak' Catian, then?"

Deckard shrugged, huddling over his drink. "Choii." A little bit.

The bartender's eyebrow quirked. "Jaa? Shaiya-no ga jopa zii." Really? A clever man would know better than to lie.

Deckard chuckled. "Ah, Shaiya-no ya-soi Ze tah." Fortunate, for I am not a clever man.

The Catians slitted green eyes dilated. "...Hoh-saa-jia?" ...Then what are you?

Deckard smirked, finishing the old Catian proverb for her. "Aja-Aii-Yat." A fool with no tail.

The bartender fluttered her long eyelashes. Her pitch black tail swirled behind her as she quirked an eyebrow. She smiled, pouring him another whiskey.

"My name is Dai-Ah-Naa." She said in her native tongue.

"Pleased to meet you, Diana. May the Heart embrace us both." Deckard replied in Catian, toasting to her health before downing the second shot. He grimaced at the burning sensation as it slid down his throat. "You can call me Dah-Ehk-Ard."

"That one's on the house." She said, switching to the more human pronunciation before returning to her native language. "You speak Catian well, Deckard. Your cadence is beautiful."

"I've had a lifetime of practice." He replied.

Diana smiled as she bent down to retrieve a glass and bottle. "What brings a man like you to Dread Harbor?"

A mercenary clad in gaudy blue armor at Deckard's back was making a scene. He seemed drunk, loudly shouting over the ambient music and gesturing rudely in the direction of the bargoers at the table across from him. Deckard ignored the man and focused instead upon the bartender. "What makes you think I'm not from here?"

She scoffed, "Take it as a compliment: you don't look like a local."

Deckard cradled his shot glass and stared down at the bar top for a long moment. "I'm waiting for someone."

"Everyone's waiting for someone, sweetie." Diana replied.

"Sure." Deckard said, allowing a faint smirk to build upon his care-worn face. "You'll just have to keep me entertained until she decides to show up."

Diana let out a laugh, her eyes trailing back to a belligerent voice calling to her from the tables behind him. She winked at Deckard, slinking around the bar with a tray of drinks balanced on her palm. Deckard watched as she circled behind him towards the blue-clad Mercenary sitting alone in his booth.

Absent any alcoholic refreshment for the moment, Deckard scanned the space of the bar again. There was no sign of Corani yet, but the butterflies in Deckard's stomach refused to settle. He worried she might not recognize him at first; so much had changed in the space of ten years.

Deckard wasn't the same man he once was. Neither was Dread Harbor the same station he remembered. Odds were, Corani would be no different. He didn't know whether to feel relieved or terrified of that fact.

The sound of commotion behind Deckard drew his attention away from his gloomy introspection. Diana let out a shout of alarm as the drunk mercenary roughly groped her ass, kneading her through her outfit as he tried to pull her down into her lap. She struggled in his grasp, and the mercenary let out a grunt of dissatisfaction.

Diana 'accidentally' spilled the contents of her tray across the mercenary's chest and lap. He finally let go of her, letting out a shout of surprise. The Catian bartender cranked her arm back and slapped the bald, drunken brute square across the face. The mercenary roared in anger and flipped the table, sending the empty glasses on the table toppling off to shatter into a million pieces on the ground.

Deckard was up and out of his seat at the bar in the blink of an eye, his gun hand darting to the loaded pistol at his hip. His duster coat twirled around him as he swiveled to face the mercenary, who rose red-faced from the table, his eyes full of anger and his lips clenched into a snarl. Diana backed up, lifting her hands to ward off the drunken patron who made ready to move towards her.

Deckard took in what details he could in the moments he had to react. The Mercenary was clad shoulder to feet in blue-painted Corsis-metal armor. It was impervious to smaller weapons fire like Deckard's pistol, but it made him slow and ungainly. The Mercenary was armed, a service pistol was at his hip, though Deckard had no idea what else he kept concealed on his person. He hadn't yet reached for his gun, but who knew how this situation would escalate. A closer look at the company logo stamped across his chest told Deckard he was a member of the Wellion Crusaders, an outfit that operated on numerous worlds across the fringes of Wild Space.

Funny. Deckard had toyed with the idea of joining them once years ago on Tasitov. They were a hard bunch, ruthless to competitors and those they didn't like. It seemed the group was operating on the station, likely in the employ of one of the numerous Megacorporations who made the station home.

Deckard had seen drunk soldiers in bars before. He'd had to be fished out of the tank himself on occasion as a younger recruit. Men with such deadly skills but muddled faculties often made for trouble.

How does Deckard choose to Intervene?

1. Try to deescalate the situation.

2. Physically interpose himself between the mercenary and Diana.

3. Deal with the problem by any means necessary.