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I wonder which of the numerous farms surrounding Touchdown belongs to Elena and her Vakutan husband? It’s primarily a goat ranch, or whatever passes for a goat on Verdan. Not the most glamorous of locales for my vacation, but then again, I’m pretty much always on vacation. I can slum it for a while.
Besides, Elena is one of the few friends I had growing up. I only went to the primary grades with her, because as soon as I was old enough my parents dragged me along with them on their travels. But we've stayed in contact ever since and remain good friends.
The ship makes it through the upper layers of the atmosphere and the skies around us change from dark blue to light blue. Verdan has a very close atmosphere to Earth. It’s considered an S class planet, suitable for habitation by the vast majority of sapient beings in the galaxy, who either breathe oxygen, nitrogen, or carbon dioxide. Three gasses the planet has in just the right amounts.
Landing is so much less dramatic than the actual flight. The antigrav drive kicks in, the thrusters die out, and we just gently float down to the spaceport’s tarmac.
I unbuckle my crash webbing and join the other passengers as we filter toward the exit. My first gulp of fresh air is a welcome reward for lungs that have been breathing the tinny recycled atmosphere of the luxury liner for days.
“Well, New Verdan,” I said as I made my way into the starport terminal. “Let’s find out what kind of excitement you can offer me.”
Two
Yarvok
“Not a damn thing happens in this hick town.”
I glance over at my drinking buddy Taylon. His green-scaled face is drawn into a bored expression as he stares out the window at the main thoroughfare of Touchdown.
“That’s not true. They had a livestock show just yesterday.”
Apparently he doesn’t realize I’m joking. He gives me the stink eye. Back in the day during the Centuries War, a Grolgath like him would never have shared a bar with a Vakutan like me. Not even in the frontier regions of the galaxy. But now he’s sort of my friend. I mean, we drink here almost every day, sort of together.
He slowly moved closer to me over the past week before we started conversing. Our ‘friendship’ will be over the moment he tries to get me to pay his bar tab. Until then, I tolerate his presence because he hasn’t given me any reason not to.
The human bartender comes over to us and plops another of his shitty microbrews on the counter in front of me without asking. I pick it up and salute him with the bottle before draining half of it in one go. The sour tasting beer is far from my favorite, but it has one thing that makes it desirable.
The cheap price.
It’s a local brew, and is the only reason they can afford to serve it at a dump like this so called ‘tavern.’ The EC doesn’t tax the hell out of it with tariffs like it does with imported booze. It doesn’t pack much of a punch for a Vakutan’s metabolism, but it's good enough to dull the boredom. Slightly.
“Say, Yarvok,” my Grolgath companion says. “Are you still fighting at the Underground?”
I shake my head and take another sip of beer.
“No, I was barely making enough money to cover my medical bills. Now that they hired an Odex as the house champion, I’m not setting foot in that cage again.”
He sneers at me with undeniable contempt.
“Odex are nothing,” he says with a loud burp. “They are the least favored of Ataxia’s children. Nobody says it but it’s true.”
I snorted and gave him the evil eye.
“You only say that because you fought on the side of the Ataxians during the war, and therefore never had to face a brigade of Odex wielding power blades. If you had, you would be singing a different tune.”
“I can’t sing.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Grolgath can’t carry a tune in a bucket, if it was welded shut. Which is weird considering some of them are shapeshifters and can change everything about themselves, including their voices. There’s a reason there are no grolgath on the Novarian All Unified Choir.
“I hear they’re hiring crew for the cargo crews down at the space port,” the bartender says helpfully. One of these days I should learn his name. “The pay is supposed to be pretty decent.”
“How decent?”
The bartender shrugs.
“What do you need money for? Don’t you have a lot of savings?”
I turn back to Taylon and scowl.
