Bloody Black Chains

[Setulan]

Beggars Cove, Vaggar Reach

Screams. So many screams. So familiar. So close. So close.

Breath coming ragged out of her throat Korra Wicks crushed another warrior bug with her hammer, the being exploding from the force of the strike. Towering over the creatures around her she took another lurching step and unleashed a hail of automatic fire from the spinning Vulcan cylinders on her wrist. More bugs turned to pink mist under the volley and added to the pile of corpses at her feet. Another step, mud clinging to the burned bottoms of her black armor. She tried to fire her micro-missiles at a cluster of insects dashing in her direction but only two coughed out of their launcher before her HUD flashed red, the telltale ammo out symbol in her eyes for mere moments before she swung up her Banshee and let loose more heavy rail fire. The barrels were glowing red and heat warnings were glaring persistently in her face but she ignored them all. She was almost there. Almost to...

The screams stopped and the squad status in her helmet flashed from yellow to red.

"Collins! Collins!! COLLINS!"

Ignoring the warnings that flashed and shrilled, threatening her with sensory overload, she engaged her jump jets and blasted out of the sucking mud on a parabolic arc that took her over a group of hissing warriors. Her jets failed halfway through their burn and she plummeted back to the surface. As the undulating mass below looked up she hit the ground like a blood stained comet and began to swing. She had to get to Collins. She had to...


Azure View District, Illesia, Alversia
5 Months Later


Korra took one step into the bar and smiled as the smell hit her. It wasn't a good smell, really; cheap beer, a slight hint of piss from the corner bathroom that probably hadn't been cleaned in a week or two, stale tobacco. It was, however, a smell that scratched the itch she had been looking for. It was so hard to find a good dive bar in Illesia and she had almost given up hope after being told the nearest dive was the five star reviewed pub two blocks from her hotel. She'd checked it out just to be sure but after a quick inspection of the bathroom showed no penises doodled onto the stalls she realized it wasn't what she was looking for. She didn't even know the name of the place she found herself in now. It was perfect.

Sidling up to the mostly empty bar the Confederate slipped onto a stool that seemed just a bit too tall for her, eyeing the ass on an Alversian woman who was stumbling to a table. She smiled as she turned back the bartender, nodding a quick greeting.

"Something Setulan and strong."

"We got some Lilith Brown on tap. Last keg I could get my hands on, with the supply down. It'll cost." Korra had to resist rolling her eyes. Damn near every bar she'd been to across AXIS space sang the same song. She knew good and goddamn well that the woman probably had a storeroom full of Setulan beer. Bartenders using the Exile War to jack up prices left a bad taste in her mouth, but it wasn't like she was at the nice pub down the street either. She knew what she was getting into.

"That'll work."

Credits slid across the bar and beer was returned. A perfect half inch of head on top earned the bartender a small salute with the glass that was returned with a self satisfied nod. So settled Korra pulled out her phone and accessed the 'net. She had been on Alversia for two weeks so far and was already bored. It wasn't the place that made her want to tear out her hair - it was the people. They all walked around like they had sticks up their asses. Everything was clean, everyone was so nice and snotty. She'd come to Alversia on the recommendation of a friend on Carson who had served alongside the Alversian 16th Field Army during the Liberation War. He would go on and on about the tough as nails badasses and how fun they were. The friend he'd hooked her up with on the surface was, unfortunately, still in the Army, and had been rotated out of system three days before Korra's arrival. So with no place to crash, no one to show her around, and nothing to do, she had been left to her own devices.

Fuck it. No one could say she hadn't given it a good try. It was time to move on, maybe come back some other time when her friend's friend was around. Absentmindedly playing with the black chain around her neck she flipped through spaceport schedules. Where to go next? She'd been to Setulan first, of course. Describing it in religious terms made some people uncomfortable but the fact was that for many Confederates travelling to the Liberator's planet had become something of a pilgrimage. It was still devastated from the war though recovering as well as could be expected and they loved having Confederates around. Setulan and its moons had been interesting, sure, but they'd also been incredibly fun. It was hard to pay for her own drinks most nights and she'd ended up travelling around with a Drakon of all things, the two of them seeing the sights for months together before he returned home.

Then there had been a quick hit to the Berrax homeworld, followed by a slightly longer stay with the Alumina. Alversia had been a natural next choice. But next...?

She was still pondering when a large figure eased onto the seat next to her. The Alversian woman towered over her even while seated and her leer was clear as she not very discretely looked down the front of Korra's shirt.

"Double of Vat 99, Jenny, and another of whatever my friend here is drinking." She turned to the Confederate. "Hey baby. You don't mind, do you? You're just very beautiful."

Korra eyeballed the drink in front of her, which was still three quarters full. Shooting a glance at the woman next to her she gave her a half smile.

"I'm good. Thanks." She turned back to her schedules. Maybe Xiscapia? She had put off going because everyone said it was so great, which she acknowledged intellectually was stupid. She resented feeling pushed to it, but...

"You're not that good, actually." Her tone now nasty the Alversian leaned in, breathing sour whiskey into the Confederate's face. "Don't know where you get off saying no. With that face you'd think you should take anything you can get."

Korra sat up straight and breathed deep. The heat rising in her face highlighted the faint white scar that still ran from somewhere in her blonde hair all the way to her collarbone.

Don't engage. She's drunk. Leave it be.

Fuck it..

She stood up and glared the woman in the eye.

"Get the fuck up out of my face with your stank-ass breath, bitch."

Staring the woman in the eye became much harder as she stood, towering a full head over the relatively short Confederate.

"What the fuck did you just say to me?"

"Did I fucking stutter?"

"You better get the fuck out before something bad happens to you."

Korra smiled sweetly at the woman. She took her beer off the counter and took a deep drink. Then, still smiling, she sucker punched her right in her smarmy goddamn face.

Chucking her glass at another Alversian's head she turned to face the charge.

Maybe Alversia isn't so bad after all...

[Huerdae]

Beggars Cove, Vaggar Reach

Tal'Ricka had been doing rotations through most of the main worlds he had been to, looking for work or other distractions for a time, but when he came to the APR, he found himself repeatedly stuck. Even their underworld had no need for a sniper. They were polite, organized, and barely even seemed to resort to threats, which left him without even the slightest hint of a job to get him off-world. Instead, he found himself 'enjoying' the peaceful atmosphere and polite society the giant women had come up with.

And the place he found he enjoyed it most was where they stopped being nice. When the few rascals of society found a dirty little place to stop being so polite and pretty. It was his third day coming to the dive, and he had yet to be thrown out. Not a single other bar in the city had given him the same respect. Once he started getting along with his drinking, the place politely and quietly ushered him out the back door and out of sight until he sobered up. They later simply asked him not to drink there.

So when he had walked into this dingy little joint, he had been pleased to see not one, but three drunks arguing loudly in the center of the room around a table, with one of them making the hand motion of rolling dice, followed by a spirited conversation about what those missing dice actually rolled. It was finally a breath of stale air that smelled somewhat of alcohol and sweat. The beauty of the place was not lost on him.

It was where he got drunk, having tried and failed to acclimate to the local brews, and finding the Setulan drink unreasonably priced, while a lot of the Xiscapian stuff was just not to his taste. Everyone wanted to have something far too complex and full of pointless little hints of tastes and aftertastes. Somehow, in a whole new galaxy, the stuff he found that he liked came from way back home. It cost a tiny bit more than local stuff, but it wasn't matching the hike they had on Setulan. Dead Man's Mead, S&M, Suronne Mead, it had a million names and a dozen colors, but it was nice to have a sweet, simple drink wash over your tongue. Especially when things were always so damned quiet. Every day waking up felt so much like those two days after both his eardrums had burst following a Tocrowkian airstrike that missed him by sheer luck. He could only assume they hadn't fully identified his position.

It all felt wrong. To have so many in the galaxy fighting and dying, and these people were worried so much more about if you said 'please' or 'thank you', and whether or not the correct response was 'you're welcome' or 'no problem'. The idea of it tasted worse than the locally famous brew they sold around here was.

He was halfway through his second bottle of S&M, with his eyes glowing a striking yellow, and the veins just barely becoming visible on his arms and the back of his hands when he saw the Alversian come on to, get rejected by, and then drop a pile of shit on a newly-entered confederate gal. He watched for a moment, mildly annoyed that this sort of thing was a problem here, of all places, but it didn't seem like it changed anywhere. There were always people who were so full of themselves they couldn't conceive of the idea that someone else may just not be interested in them.

Another sip down and the confederate put a blow in on snooty's face, but the lady apparently had some sort of wingman around, because a haymaker came around from behind that staggered the big woman. While the confederate turned to deal with this sudden blow, the bartender hopped the bar and started swinging, too, apparently the friend of snooty. With three on the lone girl, he grit his teeth, but it was when the barkeep grabbed onto the shining black chain and pulled back on it to choke the confederate, that he moved. Grabbing his bottle of mead he threw it at the keep, clocking her hard on the shoulder and causing it to shatter, spraying the yellow-glowing liquid across the entire bar, and splashing blood across the counter to mix in with it.

It was, he realized, probably a dumb move. While the barkeep released the girl, most of the rest of the bar were up in arms about him attacking the barkeep. What had been a minor scuffle quickly was becoming a brawl, and his only obvious ally was halfway across the damn place from him. He took only a moment to get to his feet and start running, trying to dodge into the fray as fists and blows started coming at him, too.

He managed to divert the first and second, but a third smashed a chair big enough for half his surviving family into the back of his right shoulder, sending him sprawling. His gaze drifted up as the original three kept brawling, with the confederate seemingly holding her own, though snooty had stayed back, and was pulling something out of her pocket.

It took him a moment to recognize the monkey fist when he saw it, the knotted ball big enough to be carrying some sort of additional weight in it, enough to be quite a problem. There was nothing he could do except call out to the girl.

"Chevron! Snooty's right hand, monkey paw!"

Almost immediately he got a fist to the side of his head, but this time he grabbed on, pulling hard and bringing the Alversian woman down on top of him where his greatly decreased reach didn't much matter, and he set to sending a series of quick jabs into her gut as she tried to get up and get out of the way of the others who were trying to get their kicks in while he kicked at her arms to try to keep her from having enough support to rise. Of course, it put the woman's crotch up against his face, which wouldn't have been so bad if only it was voluntary on both their parts, and the woman wasn't such a closed-minded idiot as to pick the wrong side.

[Setulan]

Azure View District, Alversia
Random Bar in the Process of Being Torn to Pieces


Throbbing torso aside, Korra had to admit she was having a lot of fun. Only about twelve seconds had done by since she threw the first punch and she had managed to hold off the ravenous horde with a series of rapid jabs and one devastatingly accurate cunt-punt to an overconfident woman who thought she was distracted. In fairness to the Alversians they couldn't know that she was packed full of Huerdaen augs, but they were still having a rough go of it. Right up until the bartender grabbed her chain, anyway. The black iron wasn't going to break before her neck and she began to choke, hands rising rapidly to her neck as the others closed in.

Sudden relief flooded her as the pressure let up and she could breath again, the sound of exploding glass and splatter of mead all over the back of her head telling the story, and even through the blood pounding through her ears she could still hear the shouted warning.

"Chevron! Snooty's right hand, monkey paw!"

Korra responded to the warning - and the accent that gave it- without thinking, throwing herself into a desperate dive as a big fist whistled through where her head had been. She came to her feet quickly and darted across the bar to the knot of women kicking a figure on the ground. She dropped one with a devastating kidney punch that folded her like a wet towel and front kicked a second square in the chest, sending her ass over teakettle over a table. The third backed off smartly and the Confederate reached down with one hand, grabbing Tal by the collar and hauling him out from under the bleeding and moaning Alversian on top of him with a heavy grunt.

"If you want a weapons fight, you got it, bitch." Korra reached out and pulled a pool cue off the wall, snapping it in half over her knee and giving the thinner end to her new found ally. She shot the Huerdaen a manic grin made all the more crazed with the blood smeared across her face. Six pissed and bloody Alversians were approaching them cautiously from across the bar. Two had small switchblades, the snooty bitch had her monkey paw, two were carrying broken chair legs and one had a bottle.

"Six on two, Shield. Think it's almost fair?"

[Huerdae]

Azure View District, Alversia
Random Bar in the Process of Being Torn to Pieces

Protected by the body of the Alversian who was really starting to regret her larger size as she was kicked and beaten by her friends as Tal'Ricka kept her close. It was only when the kicks rather abruptly stopped and the woman was forcibly dragged off him that he rose, revealing that he was still in surprisingly good shape. A few kicks had landed against his shoulders, upper arms, and legs, but the woman had been more than enough protection to have him quickly on his feet, looking at the twig he was handed as a weapon like it was a joke.

At her question, though, his slightly-glowing yellow eyes shot up to her with a grin. "What are you talking about? Sis, neither of us was taught to fight fair. We were taught to win."

He turned, just as one of the switchblade holding women lunged for him, thinking him not paying attention. His movements were slowed slightly by drink, but even so the woman's blade never came near him. A quick duck and a step forward put him right inside her guard, holding the pool cue close to his chest as he spun it quickly, slamming the wood against the nerve bundle in the side of her neck. In an instant, he rotated on his foot, driving an elbow into her gut and knocking the wind out of her lungs as she started to fall.

One last time the cue came around, smacking once more against the other side of the woman's neck, against the side he hadn't hit before, leaving her stunned and on the ground as he stomped the switchblade into the ground, snapping the blade off and shattering the handle as he took another step back, falling back into line with Korra.

This time, when the group came on, they came on in force, leaping over their fallen comrade as they changed the grinning pair.

"You know, maybe the APR isn't so bad after all..."

[Setulan]

Azure View District Municipal Courthouse
Room 23B


"Docket 21-2-1987, Republic v. Korra Wicks and Tal'Ricka. Charges as follows:

Assault on police, four counts;
Assault inflicting serious bodily injury, three counts;
Simple Assault, twelve counts;
Destruction of property, two counts;
Disturbing the peace, one count;
Public drunkenness, one count."

"And that's for which defendant, council?"

"Both, your honor. They insisted they be tried together."

The judge raised an eyebrow before waving a hand.

"How do you plead?"

Korra stood up - painfully - and cleared her throat. The bruises on her face stood out starkly on her pale skin but she managed to stand tall anyway.

"Uh. Not guilty to most of that, your honor." The judge raised her eyebrow a second time.

"Not guilty. Are you sure?" The prosecution stood up abruptly.

"Your honor we have video of them starting the fight, this really is an open and shut case."

"Respectfully," Korra replied, cutting the attorney a dark look, "I may have thrown the first punch but it's pretty clear in the video that it was a set up. I mean, it was. Things just got a little out of hand."

A panel slid back from the wall and a screen was activated with the push of a button. Korra and Tal, along with the crowded courtroom full of people waiting for their turn before the judge, got to watch the two veterans trash the entire bar in a matter of minutes. Standing over the whimpering bodies of those they had been fighting the two had just given each other high fives and had another drink when the police broke down the door. Korra winced as she watched herself kick a cop full in the chest and send her flying into one of the only tables that had survived the melee as Tal picked up the officer's partner and threw her bodily into the doorway, where two more cops had just come running in. Someone in the gallery cheered. The next minute of video was a half dozen of Illesia's finest attempting to taze the fighters before subduing them with liberal use of their batons and foul language.

Korra shot a quick look at the judge and could have sworn she saw a quickly masked smile.

"Uh. Sorry about that part. Got a bit carried away. Heat of the moment and all."

"Uh huh." The judge leaned forward. With her graying hair pulled back tightly into a bun she had a stern aspect but there was a twinkle in her eyes that the Confederate couldn't help but like.

"Miss Wicks, I don't get many Confederates in my court. And Mr. Tal'Ricka, I'm certainly surprised to see someone from a nation as known for their laws as yours in here. Miss Wicks, to which order do you belong?"

"Mountain, ma'am."

"How long since you demobilized?"

"Four months. Give or take." The judge nodded in understanding.

"And I assume at some point you served with the Star Empire. Hence the reason why two total strangers destroyed a bar in my jurisdiction."

"Yes ma'am."

"I am familiar with the bonds formed in combat. I have friends from my time in service that I would do anything for, even now. And I am also familiar with how difficult the transition out of active combat service can be. There are hiccups along the way. I certainly had a few of my own. But what you did is not acceptable."

"Um. I'm sorry about that, your honor." The judge smiled briefly.

"I'm sure. My verdict is plain as day: guilty. There is no getting around it. However I am willing to consider mitigating circumstances in regards to your sentencing. Due to your circumstances, the circumstances surrounding the fight, and the...overzealous use of force by the officers, you are hereby sentenced to time served. You will be escorted by the police to Illesia's star port. There are ships leaving this planet every day. You will be on one of them by close of business." She banged her gavel.


Illessia Star Port, Reception


After the surly officer drove away Wicks shouldered her bag, turned to Tal and gave him a smile.

"I don't think I ever properly thanked you, stubs. Not my first time waking up in a cell but definitely one of the more fun ones. So thanks for having my back. Want to do it again sometime?"

[Huerdae]

Illessia

During the trial, Tal'Ricka remained generally silent, simply standing at attention with an almost too-stereotypical Huerdaen glare leveled on whoever would meet his gaze. Surrounded by Alversians and Korra, he seemed almost childlike in stature. Despite that, it was the darkness in his eyes that kept most from approaching or questioning him. His Dread Black dress uniform had a small golden chain that went from his right shoulder to collar was and only barely complete, matched by only two theaters listed on his right arm. His rank, as well, showed him only a Senior Lieutentant, and a specialist. For those who recognized it, though, the true meaning of his gaze came from what those golden markings meant, and where this small man had been, and what challenges must have come from earning each of those many, many commendations that appeared on his arm under the twisted gold of the warzone of Sojent-Ra during the Gate War.

Even as Korra spoke out, SLT-ret. Tal'Ricka stood firm, arms at his sides with the empty holster that went with the dress uniform looking awkward next to his hand. It wasn't until they were finally out of the courthouse that he opened his mouth, words slick with venom as he ranted.

"'Your honor'? What sort of title is that? The lady's a judge. What sort of backwards nations still enforce that sort of entitlement? My nation is known for laws? We're also known for being responsible. I don't know what sort of fuckworld they come from, but how can they think drawing weapons in a fight is reasonable? To get an advantage? Even drunk, that's not how it's done. Not right. Not fucking right."

His spitting and cursing continued almost the entire way to the starport, where the officer was happy to get the angry man out of her way and leave them with the starport security. It was Korra's words that drew his gaze up, and he considered her a moment before smiling, ever so slightly. "Never fought beside a chevron before, you know. On the same battlefield, I've seen what you folk do, but never in person. Haven't been on a battlefield much lately. Thing is, I got a lot of brothers and sisters out there still alive because of chains like you."

After a second, his smile widened. "You find a good drink, we can see what a few more cells look like. Just...not here. This place is the pits. We need somewhere good and dirty after this. At least then it's honest. I really don't know much about the Home Galaxy, though. At some point I'll have to pick up my gear, but before and after we can find a few places. My side of the gates, or yours?"

[Setulan]

Illessia


"Yeeaaaah. I'm pretty done with AXIS space, honestly. I know everyone says Xiscapia is exciting but that's pretty close to home. I can always hit them when I come back. Know any nice places on your side of the gate?"

At the mention of Su'Kauma, the lake-filled leisure planet in the HSE, Kora lit up.

"That sounds fantastic, and I could use a massage with a pretty sunset. Let's see what we have..."

The two companions looked at the departures board and found a tramp freighter that was heading for the Milky Way. They couldn't find anything even remotely close to reasonably priced going through the gate at Sinnis ("Been there anyway") so the ship they picked was on its way to Foxfire, the Republican fleet base and heart of Setulan power in the far away galaxy. They were off Alversia by close of business as ordered and well on their way into the black.

Dumped off at Foxfire the duo managed to find yet another freighter with limited passenger accommodation heading towards HSE space and the pleasure planet. They jumped aboard after a few days perusing Setulan dive bars and sampling the local vintage both liquid and biological before once again throwing their gear into another rusty tub. Star Piercer certainly did not live up to its grandiose name, and based on the state of the prow it had attempted to pierce things on several occasions and failed. With a dismissive "beggars can't be choosers" conversation the pair settled in for a long and boring journey.

They had been travelling together for almost a week by then and Tal'Ricka had begun to learn more about his companion. Korra Wick had been born into Danaversian slavery like most of her countrymen and worked on an agricultural plantation from the time she could walk. Still a child during the liberation, she had joined the Warriors of the Mountain in the waning days of the Fringe Campaign and missed her opportunity to go to war alongside the great coalition that had cleansed the theater. When the Black Chevrons began joining the HSE on their campaigns she had eagerly jumped the line and fought with the Star Empire in two operations before she went to the Vaggar Reach.

Her stories - usually full of dirty jokes and laughter - ground to a halt when she mentioned the Reach and Tal gently redirected the conversation to safer ground.

They were in the ship's gym ("Gym? Yeah fucking right. Ghetto ass excuse for a gym. They don't even rack their weights.") when a loud bang shook the ship, rattling the hull and causing alarms to sound throughout. They barely had time to register surprise before a series of what could only be explosions rocked the walls and the intercom squawked in panic.

"Boarders! All hands repel boarders!"

[Huerdae]

Kora's question drew his attention as he considered their destinations, and he shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Heard that Su'Kauma was good. Land of Walking Lakes, they call it. Some sort of massive moon pulls the lakes across the surface and erodes any significant elevation, so the entire ecosystem formed around getting dunked. A lot of water in the air so it rains a bit, but it's pretty much the only place people go in the Star Empire if they're looking for a vacation joint. Warm sun, breathable atmosphere, a bunch of services, all that. They have a pretty famous Suronne orchard in a deep care there that makes some well known meads, but it's hard to get off-world. Pretty sure the place has three times as many people visiting that live there at any given time. My cousin went by once, she said the place had the best ladies she's had in a long time, but she's odd and only goes for women. It's about all she's interested in, honestly, so I don't know much about the rest but I've heard some good things. Apparently they average twice as much alcohol consumption per person per day than the rest of the Empire? Heard that somewhere, but I didn't check the source. Could have been an exaggeration. At the north hemisphere city there's a bar that's sixteen modules tall that's supposed to be pretty damn impressive."

It didn't take long for them to decide on a ship that looked generally spaceworthy to start their journey, but Tal wasn't much interested in how they got there. A cheaper trip took longer, but it gave him time to rebuild his own money in a few ways so he went along with it and he hadn't been to Foxfire either, though he made mention of it having a silly name more than once, but he didn't complain about the trip. He merely had to organize a quick pickup from a less-than-ideal looking person who lingered in the starport 'waiting for a friend' to get some gear that apparently the APR wasn't allowing in their borders. When they got to Foxfire, it turned out to be Tal'Ricka's not-insignificant assortment of weapons in a void-sealed crate that must have been waiting out of the way somewhere, a standard move for a lot of people who smuggled or wanted to keep their personal items out of sight of prying eyes. It included everything from one of the big old Sauron rifles that the Star Empire protected so much to the man's own Kratos armor, to simpler weapons like a Hellfire SMG, Akki, and a couple different Maedar rifles. There were two of the newer KKI guns as well, the joint-developed Scorpion SMG and an Arachnid pistol that he had recently picked up and was 'trying to get the feel for'. A few foreign weapons were in the crate as well, from a few Tocrowkian weapons that looked like they'd been scavenged from actual combat to a handful of more exotic weapons like a Thrashian blaster.

Where Kora spent her time lifting weights, Tal'Ricka kept his time spent doing more common exercises among the Huerdaen, though that was limited by the lack of a gun range. Most of his physical effort was put into parkour and gymnastics, keeping his body fit and nimble instead of forming muscle. Huerdaen rarely built up muscle as others often did simply because it made little to no difference to their cybernetics. There was a small gain, but the majority of their effort was spent becoming confident on their feet and moving quickly, a fact that became quite apparent as Tal'Ricka easily vaulted over and under obstacles with apparent ease. However, the amount of actual exercises available to him even with an option of running circles in the halls meant that for most of the time, he sat quietly playing games on a console he had stored with his equipment, or just talking to Kora as she worked out. He had once taken out some of his weapons and cleaned them, but otherwise left the ones he wasn't carrying in their small shared cabin.

The Huerdaen was not as talkative as Kora, but while they traveled, she learned her share about him. He was young, surprisingly young for a man who had seen so much death. He had only just become a specialist before Sojent-Ra, where he earned his name, and it served as the majority of his service. He had been on the planet when the Tocrowkian attacks began, and was there when they made their desperate withdrawal from the Huerdaen-held world. His words on it were few unless he had been drinking already, but mostly he just spoke of those he knew from the time. Those he served with, kind memories and small smiles that always ended in silence and another drink.

He spoke more of his time after the years-long Gate War. Moving from place to place and working and trying to find a new purpose. A lot of his life had been put to killing ticks, and many saw him as a hero but that always seemed fake to him, and it was clear enough to Kora. He never mentioned why he stuck with her, but it was pretty clear that having another to talk to and explore the galaxy with was a stabilizing influence he clung to, someone he felt he could trust and who understood the shadows that dogged his every day.

Despite his general demeanor, Tal'Ricka had spent most of his time in port looking for fights and fucks. He found his way home alone as often as he spent the night with others but he always ended up back with Kora the next night, drinking and picking fights. Sometimes he found a few fight clubs or boxing matches and even fought for money a few times, putting bets down and handling matters in a ring hidden away from the eyes of the police, quite often among the few other Huerdaen that were found in the ports, but the night always ended in drinking back with Kora and generallly discussing whether he won or lost. At times, he would tell her about some new content in the games he spent time on, but that seemed more of a distraction than a genuine hobby, and it seemed to just fill the air for him.

He was sitting near Kora and playing on his gaming console, visor down over his face and seemingly lost to the world when the ship shook from weapons fire. In an instant, the console was pushed aside and he was scrambling to his feet. Even before he hit the doorframe with his shoulder to peek out of the room to see where enemies may be coming from, he was cradling the new Arachnid pistol in his hands, flipping off the safety with the practiced ease of someone who knew the weapon inside and out.

A quick peek revealed nothing in the hall, but that could quickly change. Still, it was only around twenty meters and a few turns to their shared cabin, so he steeled himself for the run. "One way in and out of this room, it's not a good place to hold. Let's get our gear, you on my back?"

A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed her response, and he quickly stepped out into the hall, staying low and to one side as he kept his eyes on the far corner, expecting trouble at any moment while Kora covered the hall behind him. He was barely two steps into the hall when gunfire sounded throughout the ship, bouncing through the halls and making it almost impossible to hear where it was coming from. For an instant he dropped to a knee, making sure it wasn't at him before he was moving again at a run toward the corner.

As he reached the corner, he peeked around the edge only to immediately bring it back away from the hall, as a handful of rounds ricocheted off the metal plating near where he stood. The impacts didn't even flinch, but just as the fire stopped he leaned around the corner, his small pistol cracking three times loud enough to feel like the air split in half from the report, as one of the pirates wearing what appeared to be scavenged armor went down hard, two holes in the chest and one in the head that blew out the back of the skull and left a gaping hole the size of the man's fist.

The pirates coming down the hall were haphazard, but the fact that there were nearly twenty of them put the odds heavily in their favor. Even with the one down, and most not even wearing armor comparable to his, Tal'Ricka and Kora were at a massive disadvantage. Tal'Ricka put his back to the bulkhead, forcing his breathing to slow and calming his mind as he considered the options, listening to enemy fire. At a break, he popped out again to fire a few rounds down the hall, but he quickly had to back away from the door, as a voice could be heard down the hall.

"It's a fuckin' chibi! Took out both Gregor and Ilsanti! Keep your goddamn guns on that corner and move up slow. Don't be a void-damned hero thinking he'll just panic. We gotta murder the fuck!"

Grimacing, Tal'Ricka gestured for Kora to go the other way from the gym, letting her take the lead heading around away from the group. As he did so, more enemy fire lit up the corner, and he hurried away from the suppressing fire, trying to clear the hall before the group of enemies could simply rush around the corner and overwhelm them. "Go! We can't get stuck here!"