The room was filled, wall to cavernous wall, with the animate dregs of the universe. Grotesque creatures from the lowest star systems, drunk on spiced liquor and their own fetid vapors. Gamorreans, twisted humans, jawas—all reveling in base pleasures, or raucously comparing mean feats.
(James Kahn, Return of the Jedi: Star Wars: Episode VI, Kindle Edition.)
Tr’lang, coordinate 154.843/+17.332/6921.24
August, 16th, 666
Kyle paid Kamaaljit Sangheera with a microscopic, low-grade zircon, leaving him utterly drowning in a sea of effusive thanks and dramatic vows of loyalty “unto death.”
While Ufu’lan and Shirl kept a vigilant eye on the luggage—and on Twiglet, who was looking visibly worse by the minute—he turned and headed toward the entrance of the inn. He was just about to push one of the double doors open when he suddenly remembered Wolfram. In a flash of foresight, he retraced his steps to grab the bag containing the alien pet. Hungry as he currently was, the creature might easily slip away into the dark; it was far better not to have to launch a search party for him in a literal cesspit like this city.
“Wait for me right here,” he ordered, slinging the heavy bag over his shoulder. “I’ll try to rent us a couple of rooms.”
“Ask thhem where’ss a ssupermarketh thoo!” Ufu’lan called out after him.
Kyle didn’t bother to answer.
“Let’s just hope this actually works…” he muttered under his breath as he stepped inside.
The interior of the bar was small, cramped, and utterly stifling.
The very first thing that hit him like a physical blow was the rancid reek of rotten meat and crushed cockroaches. Everyone in the establishment seemed to be talking simultaneously, shouting at the top of their lungs, while thick, acrid smoke poured from mouths, snouts, and various other biological orifices. Rolled sleeping mats, earthenware jugs, and woven baskets hung haphazardly from the overhead wooden beams, secured by fraying bits of rope or tightly knotted rags.
A lone reghuul sat slumped at a nearby table with his primary snout buried deep in his own coils, while his spare, secondary head rested peacefully at the end of a perfectly aligned row of empty Janxx-Cola bottles. The remainder of that table—and all the mismatched chairs surrounding it—were completely unoccupied, so Kyle decided to chart a course through that specific gap to reach the counter, carefully threading his way through a chaotic sea of hairy, scaly, flayed, scarred, and overly muscular creatures.
For a long, tense moment, he stood there waiting for the four-armed bartender to finally acknowledge his presence.
Then, he instinctively flinched at a sudden, piercing shout directly behind him.
“Hey, you! You laced this Janxx with Xetor—admit it!”
Kyle turned on his heel and saw that the accusatory voice belonged to a burly human sitting a short distance away, aggressively waving a half-empty Janxx-Cola bottle. The man possessed closely cropped hair and oddly pointed ears, and he spoke Galactic Basic, albeit laced with the thick, harsh slum accent typical of the Empire’s outermost fringes.
“What’s that?” the bartender barked, carelessly scooping a greyish mush from a chipped ceramic mug.
The pointed-eared man snickered unpleasantly, jabbed his elbow into his neighbor’s ribs, and then yelled out again:
“Tell the absolute truth, pal! There’s heavy drugs in this swill!”
The bartender merely shrugged his upper shoulders and dropped a few chunks of black-speckled ice into a cracked-handled mug, before shoving it roughly toward a customer who was already desperately lunging across the counter to grab it.
“And what the hell do you want?” the barman snapped, turning his attention to Kyle.
“Well… I’d like to rent two rooms for the night.”
Suddenly, the only thing possessing any movement in the entire room was the swirling, lazy patterns of smoke. Only the deep, rhythmic snoring of the sleeping reghuul broke the suffocating silence.
“Did I happen to hear you right…” the bartender prodded, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice, “…two rooms?”
“Why? Don’t you have any available?” Kyle asked, the fine hairs on the back of his neck instantly standing on end.
A swift glance around the room revealed the mocking, predatory grin of the man who had been shouting seconds earlier, now flanked by three or four visible cutthroats. They were all watching him with malignant, sadistic glee, their faces heavily flushed from a combination of cheap alcohol and the oppressive heat of the bar. They didn’t look particularly drunk—but they looked very, very dangerous.
“Oh, you want them? And would you like them with a private bath or a shower?” the bartender asked, his tone dripping with the sickening sweetness of a moshaawk.
The entire bar abruptly erupted into a chorus of raucous, mocking laughter. The bartender smirked, thoroughly satisfied with his own wit.
“House specialty!” the barman cried out, sliding a large mug of green, violently steaming liquid toward a hideous, multi-eyed creature.
Kyle seriously considered smashing one of those heavy mugs directly over the man’s head. Or simply turning around and walking out. It was objectively better to sleep outdoors in the freezing wind than to get caught in a tavern brawl with a highly uncertain outcome.
What exactly had triggered such an absurd, hostile reaction from these absolute idiots? It was something he had said. Or perhaps something he had done. Who the hell knew. Or maybe it was just the simple, unforgivable fact that he was a stranger in their territory. Still, he was hardly the type of man to back down when there was actual fighting to be done…
He spun around at a sudden, unexpected noise, and what he saw froze him completely to the bone.
Shirl had just entered the bar and was walking directly toward him.
She stood out like a sore thumb—the lone, refined human at a rowdy K’rell party.
He watched in horror as she followed the exact same path he had taken—past the sleeping reghuul’s table—approaching him with complete confidence, as though being in a place like this were the most normal thing in the world. And maybe to her, it was. Two months prior, he reminded himself, Shirl had been working at Onkalo, a subterranean sewer dive that wasn’t much different from the Loup-Garou.
Unfortunately, the bar’s current patrons were broadcasting the precise kind of micro-signals that anyone who had spent significant time in such wretched places—and wished to stay alive—rapidly learned to decode. Everything in those tense faces, in the restless, predatory glances, in the sudden flash of a sharp fang, and in those short, angry bursts of laughter spoke volumes. It spoke of irrationality. Of murder. Of rape.
He had to act this very second—or it would be the absolute end for both of them.
“Kyle!” she said quickly, entirely ignoring the hostile stares of the other patrons. “Twiglet fainted again, and—”
He struck her hard across the face, cutting her off mid-sentence. He desperately hoped he hadn’t hurt her too severely. She let out a sharp cry, born mostly of absolute shock, and collapsed onto the filthy floor, instantly clutching her burning cheek.
“Stupid bitch! I explicitly told you to wait outside!” Kyle roared.
The tension in the room, which had been explosive just a millisecond prior, began to noticeably ebb away. Bit by bit, the tavern regulars lost interest in the newcomers and turned back to their drinking, their doping, their loud belching—or whatever wretched activity they had been engaged in. The general hum of conversation slowly resumed.
“Hey, friend!” the bartender called out, his tone completely altered, now dripping with a twisted form of deference. “I was just about to tell you that we don’t have any private rooms available, but… I can easily find you a couple of decent bunks in the main dormitory!”
The bartender, whose name they discovered was Ghast, guided them down a pitch-black corridor with a slick, dangerously slippery floor. The stagnant air reeked of urine—a foul cocktail stemming from at least a dozen different alien species. Leading the way was Ufu’lan, balancing a pair of massive duffel bags under one arm and holding the still-unconscious Twiglet under the other. Kyle and Shirl followed closely behind, both bearing heavy rucksacks on their shoulders.
“How is it that I’m always the one who catches the raw end of things, huh?” the synth muttered, her lower lip pouted in a sullen scowl.
“Shh!!” Kyle hissed under his breath, shooting a worried glance ahead toward Ghast. “Look, I’m sorry!” he whispered urgently. “I had no choice. If I hadn’t done that, those cutthroats would have torn us to shreds right then and there!”
They passed a heavy, closed door from which an intense, deafening roar of the crowd echoed. They could hear voices cawing, screaming, and screeching indistinguishable phrases.
“What’s going on in there, pal?” Kyle inquired, feigning the casual curiosity of a regular Loup-Garou customer.
Ghast smirked unpleasantly. He came to a dead halt and ceremoniously flung the door wide open. A sudden shaft of harsh light illuminated his small, needle-sharp teeth.
“Cyber-fighting!” he exclaimed proudly. “Maybe you’d like to lay down a few credits on the match…”
Kyle could scarcely believe his eyes: cyber-fighting… here on Tr’lang! No automated robotaxis, no navigation signaling beacons, no basic supermarkets, but they somehow had cyber-fighting…
Dominating the virtual arena was a ten-foot-tall cybernetic demon, currently locked in brutal combat against a gargantuan boa constrictor. Kyle had witnessed plenty of these virtual monstrosities throughout his travels, but this particular build was in a terrifying league of its own. Its face was a grotesque collage of human and alien anatomy, spliced together with features that only the deepest pits of hell could have vomited into existence. The physique was deformed and monstrous, yet possessed a twisted, functional symmetry: pitch-black, immensely powerful, heavily matted with coarse hair in some areas and completely raw and naked in others. Above all, the demon was obscenely, monstrously sexualized—rendered with a hyper-detailed, anatomical precision deliberately calculated to shock and unhinge the mind of anyone who looked upon it.
“That right there is Urdu,” Ghast explained, gesturing with an upper arm. “He’s our reigning champion. No challenger has ever managed to put him down!”
As if confirming the bartender’s boast, the black demon violently uncoiled the serpent from around his neck, gripped it tight, and ripped the massive reptile entirely in half. A torrential shower of dark, blackish blood instantly sprayed over the spectators packed into the front rows. It was purely holographic blood, of course, but for as long as the simulation cycle ran, the visceral effect was entirely too realistic. A barrage of foul curses erupted across the room from those who had lost, while the patrons who had backed Urdu applauded thunderously.
“Hmm… Yeah, why not? Maybe tomorrow…” Kyle deflected smoothly, backing away.
He noticed that Shirl was staring intently at the atrocity through the doorway. She seemed almost fascinated by it.
“Please, Kyle!” Ufu’lan interjected, his bulk shifting uncomfortably. “Thwigleth really thshould be rippossthsing in a real bedth!”
“Move it, Ghast!” Kyle commanded sharply. “Show us to this godforsaken dormitory already!”
They reached a narrow back door that led out into the open air. After the stifling, humid heat of the bar, the biting chill of R’lieh’s atmosphere felt even more punishing. Under the pale, unmoving glare of the full green moon, they crossed a dirty courtyard cluttered with the familiar, depressing shapes of vagrants huddled beneath piles of filthy rags.
“Here we are! End of the line!” Ghast announced, violently kicking open the door to a squalid, dilapidated shack. “This is our first-class dormitory room…”
The interior was cast in near-total darkness, save for a pair of buzzing, dim yellowish bulbs. The room reeked like a livestock stable; the walls were peeling, rotting, and heavily encrusted with mold. The bunks—so small and narrow they closely resembled industrial storage shelves—were severely overcrowded, with two or three occupants crammed into a single slot in some cases. The air was filled with a chaotic symphony of deep snoring, wet gurgling, and hushed whispering. Somewhere in the dark, someone was hacking up a wet, persistent cough.
“There should still be two open slots left over here…” Ghast explained, leading them through a veritable labyrinth of filthy bodies, gutted mattresses, and ruined, split-soled boots.
He stopped short in front of a three-tiered bunk bed, where the second and third levels were still vacant. Sleeping soundly on the bottom level was a creature Kyle couldn’t even begin to biologically identify. Even wrapped as it was in a coarse, threadbare blanket, it was painfully clear that the entity possessed too much of absolutely everything: too many arms, legs, heads, eyes, and who knew what else.
“Not bad, eh?” the bartender chuckled. “Two bunks all to yourselves for just four people!” He glanced with sudden uncertainty at Ufu’lan, whose colossal physical frame would have easily required at least four of those microscopic berths just to sit down. “Oh well, I did the best I could with what’s available…”
He extended an upper hand toward Kyle, executing an unmistakable, universal gesture.
“Advance payment, huh?” Kyle grumbled.
He dug into his pocket and pulled out another zircon, this one barely a fraction larger than the gem he had handed to their guide. He fully expected Ghast to laugh directly in his face, but it was imperative that these local cutthroats didn’t peg him as a man traveling with a deep wallet. Instead, Ghast eagerly snatched the small stone and held it up to the dim bulb, admiring its facets.
“Hey, friend!” the bartender gloated, his demeanor instantly brightening. “Thank you, you’re incredibly generous! For a sum like this, you’ve earned yourself a little something extra…”
He utilized one of his four hands to pocket the zircon, while his remaining three hands frantically rummaged through the interior pockets of his filthy tunic.
“Aha! Here we go!” he exclaimed triumphantly, presenting Kyle with a standard dream crystal.
The storage surface appeared completely opaque, so heavily coated with decades of grime and sticky residue. Kyle took the device with visible reluctance.
“It’s completely loaded with girls! Totally naked, and they’re doing… things! If you catch my drift…”
He laughed raucously, flashing a double row of sharp teeth that resembled those of a newborn moshaawk.
“Uh… thanks.”
“No, don’t mention it! It’ll help you sleep a whole lot better tonight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back… business calls, you know how it is. Good night!”
“…Night,” Kyle muttered, letting his heavy rucksack slide off his shoulders. He let out a profound sigh of relief as he watched Ghast’s silhouette recede back into the darkness of the courtyard. “Hey, Ufu’lan!” he whispered urgently. “Let’s get Twiglet settled into the middle bunk. You and I will just have to manage somehow.”
The K’rell didn’t need to be told twice. He dropped the duffel bags and delicately laid the frail form of Twiglet onto the stained, unwashed mattress. He then gently pressed his massive hand against her forehead and cheeks.
“She hass a very high fever,” he murmured worriedly. “AND thsthiss maththresss is sso incredibly dirthy…”
“There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it for tonight, Big Boy,” Kyle said grimly. “At least we have a roof over our heads. Even if it’s almost as cold inside this shack as it is out on the street,” he added quietly to himself. “Shirl, check the contents of that pack; there ought to be a blanket in there somewhere…”
He unslung the satchel carrying his pet from around his shoulder. For some time now, insistent, muffled meows had been emanating from the fabric.
“Come on out, Wolfram. It’s dinnertime…”
“Meowrrrr!”
Holding the black cat securely with one arm, Kyle used his free hand to unzip the exterior pocket of one of the rucksacks where he had stashed a few tins of rations. As he did so, he cast a wary gaze around the room. He could see that their arrival had aroused a dangerous amount of interest: hostile, stealthy, ravenous eyes were staring at them fixedly from the surrounding shadows.
“Please, Shirl, open up a tin for Wolfram right now,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “If this little rogue slips away from me, I’m terrified he’s going to end up in someone’s stew pot…”
Ufu’lan, meanwhile, simply couldn’t stomach the idea of Twiglet resting her sick body on that disgusting mattress. He figured that perhaps if he flipped it over to the other side… He gripped the right corner of the mattress, hauling it outward from the metal frame of the bunk.
Instantly, a sound like hundreds of sharp fingernails scratching frantically against raw wood filled the air, accompanied by the sharp, acrid stench of a chicken coop caked in ancient excrement. Cockroaches—each one easily the size of a standard field rat—flooded out from beneath the mattress, completely inundating the metal frame of the berth. They rained down onto the floor in a frantic torrent, scurrying wildly to right themselves before scattering in every available direction to find cover.
The sudden commotion triggered a brief moment of lucidity in Twiglet. Or perhaps it was the unmistakable, evolutionary buzz of living insects that had jolted her awake. She cracked open a single eye.
“Uf… Uful’lan… what was that noise?”
The K’rell demonstrated an extraordinary display of raw reflex. He snatched an abandoned, dented metal bucket sitting nearby and, in a fraction of a second, slammed it upside down over the retreating army of cockroaches. The insects unfortunate enough to be caught directly beneath the metal rim were instantly crushed, but he had successfully trapped a significant cluster of them within the makeshift enclosure.
“A litthle ssurprisse for you, Thwigleth…”
“Fantastic work, Big Boy!” Kyle congratulated him, swiftly handing the wriggling Wolfram over to Shirl. “Hold on, let me help you gather the rest of them…”
Working quickly in tandem, they managed to fill the bucket with the large, brownish, squirming insects. Ufu’lan then gently propped the Mahjit up into a sitting position.
“Here you go, Thwigleth! Ththey mighth not be the glykz of Bageechaa, buth…”
She didn’t let him finish. Her claws instantly rocketed out to grip the rim of the bucket, and she buried her face directly into the squirming mass. For several uninterrupted minutes, the only sound echoing from her bunk was the wet, rapid noise of swallowing—a pace so frantic that, without a shadow of a doubt, many of those insects were reaching the depths of her stomach completely alive.
“Take it easy, or you’re going to choke yourself to death…” Kyle warned her, half-impressed and half-disgusted.
A few minutes later, Twiglet drained a thermos completely full of fresh water. She collapsed back onto the berth and drifted back to sleep, looking noticeably refreshed, even though her fever still ran dangerously hot. Ufu’lan carefully draped their solitary blanket over her shivering body.
“Well, I think I’m going to try and get some shut-eye myself,” Kyle commented, letting out a massive yawn. “As Kamaaljit would say, I am ‘dead tired’. What about you, Big Guy?”
“I’ll ssetthle myssself right here, nextth thto the luggage.”
Kyle secured Wolfram back inside his travel bag and hung it safely from a rusted nail protruding from the wall. He then expertly scrambled his way up to the third-tier mattress of the bunk bed.
“Hey! Where exactly am I supposed to sleep?” Shirl demanded from three feet below, looking up at him.
Kyle turned onto his side to look down at her.
“Well, you don’t exactly have a wealth of luxury options to choose from, sweetheart. You can either stretch out right there on the filthy floorboards, or… you can share this berth with me.”
Shirl didn’t offer a verbal reply. Instead, she silently reached her hand upward so he could haul her up into the cramped space.
The physical area available to them was extraordinarily tightly budgeted; to avoid rolling off the edge and plummeting to the floor during the night, they were forced to press their bodies flush against one another. After a lengthy, awkward series of physical adjustments—which caused the entire metal scaffolding to sway precariously and drew a sharp groan of protest from the sleeping Twiglet below—they finally settled down, lying back-to-back.
The ancient mattress beneath them produced a sound identical to a piece of old parchment—dry, stiff, and thoroughly encrusted with filth. Beneath Kyle’s cheek, the coarse fabric emitted an unsettling crunch. Growing highly suspicious, he retrieved the small tactical flashlight from his pocket and clicked it on.
A long time ago, a previous occupant of this bed had been very, very violently ill. Kyle let out a venomous curse.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me… someone completely threw up all over this side!”
He immediately shifted his weight, invading Shirl’s half of the narrow bed.
“Hey!” the synth protested sharply, driving a hard elbow directly into his ribs.
“Ouch! Take it easy, I didn’t do it on purpose. Look, what do you say we just flip our positions?”
“You mean sleeping head-to-toe?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Fine… let’s do it.”
In short order, they maneuvered themselves into the inverse position. Unfortunately, the mattress on the opposite end proved to be almost equally disgusting. Kyle closed his eyes and attempted to drift off, but rapidly discovered that sleep was entirely elusive. He was freezing to the bone, despite the heavy insulation of his flight jacket. He thought with intense, agonizing nostalgia of those comfortable, thermal sleeping bags that were currently floating uselessly through the void of space, somewhere out in the Orion Arm. To make matters worse, he was hungry—ravenous, like a starving wolf. His absolute last proper meal had been consumed way back when…
“Kyle… are you awake?” Shirl whispered into the dark.
“What is it?”
“I was just thinking about that holographic demon from earlier.”
“Ah, right. Yeah, I noticed you were practically staring a hole through the door.”
“Do you remember what the bartender said?” she continued, her voice low. “He’s their absolute champion. Which means that if we were to place a wager on his opponent, the payout odds would win us an absolute fortune in credits…”
“Yeah, assuming his opponent could actually manage to beat him. But who the hell do you think could pull off a stunt like that? You saw what he did to that massive serpent…”
“I believe I can do it. In fact, I am entirely certain I can.”
“You what?!”
Utterly flabbergasted, Kyle spun around violently, causing the entire triple-bunk assembly to rock on its mounts. Below them, Twiglet let out a weak whimper in her sleep; meanwhile, the gelatinous multi-limbed entity occupying the first-floor berth grumbled a low protest in a bizarre, alien language that sounded like thick jelly splashing against a wall.
“Listen to me,” Shirl insisted, turning onto her side to face him in the tight space. “Back when I used to fight on the underground circuits for Nagatomo, I encountered dozens of cybernetic opponents just like him, and—”
“No, you listen to me!” Kyle hissed venomously. “I used to frequent the fighting pits at Onkalo myself, and I have never in my life laid eyes on a digital abomination like that thing. You wouldn’t last ten seconds in the grid with him!”
“Oh, I am well aware that it’s going to be incredibly dangerous; what do you think I am, stupid?” Shirl shot back, her eyes flashing in the dark. “But we have to take some risks if we ever want to get off this rock! Besides, I know how those specific types of virtual gladiators are programmed. They all possess a critical vulnerability—a glaring legacy bug in their combat code present in every version prior to the 9000.02 patch, the latest to hit the market. All you have to do is execute a precise strike just below the belt line, and their processing parameters completely lock up. They’re finished!”
Kyle let out a heavy, dismissive scoff.
“And what happens if that champion downstairs is a recent model? What happens if he structurally flattens your avatar into a digital pancake before you can even get close enough to strike below the belt? No, absolutely not. Forget about it, do you hear me?”
“But… think about the sheer volume of credits, Kyle! Are you honestly telling me we don’t desperately need that money?”
“Hey, since when did you get promoted to Captain of this outfit? I am the one who decides what we need and what we don’t!”
“Ugh…” Shirl sighed heavily, turning away from him to face the wall once more.
“Look, it’s not that I’m undervaluing your skills,” Kyle resumed quietly after a long, heavy silence had settled over the bunk. “Far from it. You were absolute magic when you pulled our asses out of hyperspace. It’s just that… I don’t like the idea of it, okay? It’s entirely too dangerous. I’m not risking you.”
Shirl remained completely silent, her back still turned to him.
“I am so incredibly cold,” she whispered softly after a few long minutes had ticked by. “Would you mind terribly… holding me?”
He didn’t need to be told twice.
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