The Fighters

Eva heard the booms and crashes of the heavyworlders wrestling above her head. Both of them had been raised on Breen which had almost three times the gravity of a E type planet like Corgol, as a result they were wide, squat and hugely muscled humans. Breen was a mining planet which produced many of the rare elements necessary for interstellar travel and as such the Breen were typically wealthy and well educated. When it was first settled the mining had been done by humans in exosuits until their children were able to adapt to the gravity of their new home. It was strange to see two Breen in the pit, but Eva could only assume that they were here of their own free will. Probably just a pair of rebellious and privileged teens looking to spend some time between school years slumming it on dangerous worlds light years away from their home planet.

The equine pitmaster approached Eva's holding pen to tell her that she was next in the pit. He whinnyed to her that he would be praying to all of his Gods for her good fortune, but that he was not convinced that they would be able to help her before cantering away, snorting into his communicator. Eva remained unfazed by the pitmaster's words, she hadn't had the assistance of a god of any sort for at least six years and she hadn't fared any worse for their lack interference in her life. She knew that the Bone Eater was a ferocious combatant and she wished that there was a way to end this fight without her death but Gorzal was infamous for consuming her foes. You don't get a nickname like "Bone Eater" any other way. Eva had done a bit of research on Gorzal's race and knew that there were very few weak points on a post-menopausal Cr'khanl brood mother, especially for someone armed with less than a class 8 pulse cannon or at least an incendiary grenade launcher. Eva couldn't take either of these into the ring with her so she was going to rely on her vibro-blade, it had kept her alive on half a hundred worlds and she was convinced that she was about to add Corgol to that list as well.

Through the walls of her pen Eva could hear the distant thunder of the pit's speakers announcing the upcoming bout as she stepped onto the open elevator platform.

"Now gentle beings, we present for your delectation this evening's main event. Coming from the fiery eighth planet of the H'tharth system, standing at twenty-seven feet and weighing in at an undisclosed amount (because a gentlebeing never asks) the Horror of a Hundred Worlds, the Mother of a Million Murders, Gorzal the Bone Eater!"

The already unruly crowd erupted with cheers, grunts and screams, Gorzal had developed a following in the Hospitality Zone's pits and her fans were loyal and blood thirsty. Gorzal usually fought groups of  large enemies or entire squads of humanoids with edged weapons so it almost seemed ludicrous that a creature as mighty as Gorzal the Bone Eater would be fighting a single human female, but this was no ordinary human. This was the celebrated and feared Cheyenne.

The lights of the pit were almost blinding after the dimness of the holding pens, but Eva had taken this ride too many times to show weakness by shielding her eyes as she was raised to the arena's floor. Before the lift had even stopped beings began yelling her name, but they were silenced as the announcer thundered through the loud speakers.

"Joining us from the depths of the big beyond or from exile, assexination or just plain vacation, you know her as the the Taker of Life, Death's own wife, the Holder of the Shining Knife, the one, the only Cheyenne!"

Even though it had been years since Eva's last fight the gathered beings went berserk. It wasn't every night that an actual superstar of the pits visited the 'Gazer, someone who had fought their way across the galaxy and earned a place in the pantheon of Champions. A dozen different chants broke out across the arena along with a smattering of small fights between rival supporters which were quickly quelled by the security squads. All around her Eva could see beings screaming and waving to get her attention, but the roar was so deafening that she could not make out individual words, it was just a solid wall of sound. This was what Eva missed about the pits, the cheers, the expectation, the hunger, but most of all she missed the passion. There is no other feeling in the universe like having five thousand beings screaming for either your death or that of your opponent, nothing even begins to come close.

Wave after wave of commingled adulation and hatred washed over Eva as she turned to face Gorzal across the sandy floor of the pit. Gorzal, a mountain of thick plates stitched together by gnarled flesh, flexed her enormous forearms and brandished her warty spiked hands over her head for the crowd to see before slamming them into the sand in front of Eva, creating a tremor that shook her entire body through the floor of the pit. They stood twenty feet apart, the monstrous Cr'khanl, looking like the product of a coupling between an alligator and a threshing machine, hulking over Eva who was no more than five feet five inches of wiry, supple, human muscle. Gorzal trumpeted through both of her trunks menacingly, but Eva just winked at the Bone Eater, activated her vibroblade and smiled as the crowd went wild!

Pit Fight

The smoking and thoroughly perforated cybercab deposited Mini-Steve and Dash on one of the dozen or so rooftop landing pads of the Wayward Stargazer. The cab had been circling the landing pad for nearly twenty minutes before it could land due to the outrageous amount of traffic buzzing above the roof. The Gazer was neither the most popular nor the most respected establishment in the Hospitality Zone, but something big was obviously happening tonight. Thousands of beings were streaming from vehicles into the upper floor of the casino talking, chittering or expressing pheromones excitedly at each other. While the friendly robot who had introduced himself as Steve paid and then unfolded itself from the cab Dash was able to overhear snippets of conversation from passing beings. They were all speaking about the fight between Gorzal and Cheyenne, who Steve claimed was his friend Eva. Cheyenne seemed to have been a very popular and brutal fighter who had vanished from the fighting circuit a number of years ago only to suddenly reappear for tonight's bout. Dash ran a quick query on his 'net implant and read conflicting reports that Cheyenne had either been killed in an unsanctioned fight, crushed in a black hole incident, succumbed to fatal exhaustion during a multi-species orgy or undergone intensive reconstructive surgery and was currently competing as a hyperpod racer on the desert planet circuit. Her surprise reappearance on Corgol was the source of a great deal of conversation, both pleased and skeptical amongst the pit fighting newsnets.

"I thought you said your friends name was Eva, but everybeing here is talking about 'Cheyene'."

"It is and they are." Said Mini-Steve as he walked towards the glowing entrance of the Stargazer with Dash beside him. "When Eva used to fight she used the nom de guerre 'Cheyenne', she never really explained why and I didn't press her for the reason since talking about the pits seemed to make her sad. No one wants to make their friends sad do they?"

Dash didn't answer that but continued to follow Mini-Steve deeper into the casino along with the throngs of other beings who all seemed to be heading to the same place that they were, the subterranean fighting pit which the 'Gazer advertised as having "the best food, wettest drinks and highest payouts in the Zone". To which a passing Stofarsi said to it's identical twinmate companion, "Well the drinks are definitely wet here." Most of the beings surrounding them seemed to be tourists, mid-class gamblers or pit fighting fans of either Cheyene or Gorzal. This made sense to Dash since he knew that the super rich would all have landed in the high security private docks away from the sweaty, chattering masses with their banners supporting the combatants and hovering infant pods.

They entered the pit's outer concourse which contained dozens of betting kiosks where creatures were placing wagers on the undercard battles, a Churosi attack squad verses two Jountari snails, a pair of grapplers from the super dense world of Breen and even a robot melee. However the real action centered around the main event, Gorzal the Bone Eater against the former champion Cheyenne.

"Hold on, Steve, I'm gonna place a bet. No reason to come to the fights if you aren't going to participate." said Dash as he made his way towards one of the less busy kiosks. "The odds don't seem to be in your friends favor, pal. They are giving her a fifteen to one shot of surviving this match."

"Gorzal is certainly formidable Dash, but Eva won't lose." Mini-Steve stated without hesitation.

Dash's antennas slowly rotated while he considered the small drone then he said "OK, Blue Eyes, you've convinced me." as turned to the kiosk and placed his wager on 'Cheyenne' to win. Dash collected his betting chit and he and Mini-Steve wove their way through the press of beings towards the closest entrance to the pit.

The open gateway was framed by two eighteen foot long mottled brown tusks curving inwards to cross over the top of the entrance, the former owner of which, Dash noted, probably hadn't parted with happily. They made their way to a broad stone bench on the lower tier of the arena which already held a loud and drunken group of Anchar'i marines on shore leave. The marines were young and shouting wildly at the robot melee which was already underway on the floor of the pit. The bipedal humanoid robots were armed with three foot long spikes or heavy maces protruding from the ends of their arms which they had been using to either bludgeon or stab each other respectively. The robot warriors had obviously been programed to fight at a much slower pace than they were capable of to aid the organic spectators' comprehension and enjoyment of the fight. Most of the twenty robot fighters were already incapacitated  and lying around the pit smoking and sparking like twisted metal skeletons. Of the few who remained mobile only one of them still had two functioning legs and it was using this to it's advantage. The undamaged green and black robot was charging around the pit towards a blue robot with a mace on it's one remaining arm who's crushed leg was squirting hydraulic fluid into a spreading puddle beneath it.  Dash collected a drink from a passing vendor as the green robot delivered a crushing blow to the head unit of the blue robot, cracking the head in half and releasing a shower of sparks. Some of the marines had obviously bet on the green and black robot because their hysteria went into overdrive every time their 'hero' collected another victory. While the green robot was attempting to free its mace from the crumpled head of its latest victim it was taken unaware by a red robot streaked in black fluid which had crawled up behind it and speared it through its upper back into it's skull with the severed arm of another fallen robot. The drunken marines howled with displeasure at their defeat as they were mocked by their compatriots.

Dash looked away from them to avoid eye contact and a possible brawl as he said to Mini-Steve "I never really cared for robot fighting. It's just too weird the way they dont make any noise as they fight. Just beeping and clanking. No real stakes to the fight in my opinion."

Mini-Steve didn't respond to Dash as he continued scanning the arena for signs of his best friend Eva.

"Hey, I didn't mean to offend you buddy" said Dash "I just meant that it feels more, I don't know, real when the fighters care if they win or not."

"You haven't hurt my feelings Dash. These constructs are not sentient like me. They are only appliances which will be repaired or scrapped depending on their level of damage. Then charged up and released to destroy each other again and again. As you say, they do not 'care' about anything any more than your boots are able to 'care' about walking. They are tools and nothing more."

"I guess you're not a member of the robots rights movement, huh?"

"I am no more a robot, than you are a singer, Dash."

A team of squat janitorial robots rolled onto the floor to sweep up the remains of the robot fighters as the massive, shiny Jountari snails were led into the arena. They left thick trails of foul mucus in their wake as they blindly followed their trainers who were brandishing heavy nets full of meat dripping gore along the path that the snails were intended to follow.

Dash turned to Mini-Steve and said "What the hell is that supposed to mean? Have you been talking to my manager?"

Mini-Steve turned his hand-painted blue eyes toward Dash in a way that he knew made beings feel as if he was looking directly at them though it made no difference to his actual scanning instruments and said "Even the worst of singers do not wind up in shoot outs with private security troops, and you would be the first entertainer that I have ever met who is able to send alpha level distress signals to cybercabs. I don't know who or what you are and I am willing to allow you to keep your secrets because I do not think you intend to hamper me in my plan to help my friend. In fact I think that you could be very helpful today if things go as they usually do for us."

Dash looked at Mini-Steve and took a slow pull from his drink but said nothing in response.

Mini-Steve turned back to the arena floor as the Churosi squad advanced carefully towards the pair of snails with practiced precision and said "now lets watch the next bout, hopefully these creatures' deaths will be 'real' enough to keep you entertained."

The Suite of the Stargazer

Eva sat cross legged in the center of the bed in the suite which Shuuz had arranged for her. The room was typical of most mid-tier casinos in the Hospitality Zone, lots of pseudo platinum filigree and carvings of creatures either fighting or copulating, it was impossible to tell which if you weren't a member of their species. Outside the room's large window cybertaxi's, hoverbuses and various winged creatures flitted past the window as she sat,  practicing a breathing technique to calm and focus herself. She could feel her nerves singing with anticipation, every muscle in her body tensing and releasing slowly. Eva always got like this before a fight, and she knew that the only way that she and Steve were getting off this world was if she won tonight.

Shuuz wasn't entirely wrong when he said that pit fighting was all Eva was good for, she had other skills but there were very few things in the universe that she loved as much as fighting. The simple beautiful art of battle had always given her a serenity and a sense of wholeness. The feeling that she assumed monks and holy men spent lifetimes seeking in reflection and study, she had found the first time she buried a hatchet deep in the spiny head of a Vernalian warrior and heard the roar of the crowd. That overwhelming surge of power, relief and victory washed over her and she was reborn in mud and blood to her true life. She was baptized into the faith of the fighters and she thought she would never need anything else in her life. Long before she met Steve, before they began adventuring across the cosmos, before she understood the meaning of friendship, Eva spent nearly two decades in pits across half the galaxy. She had fought in massive war pits with armies and she had fought with smaller teams but her favorite had always been solo combat. She had bathed in the blood of a hundred different species, both sentient and otherwise, and she had won and lost her freedom dozens of times in the pits. She had been a slave fighting for her masters' glory and the promise of food scraps, and she had also emancipated herself and fought for wealth, glory and all of the trappings of fame. She had battled spider-like Shukuthn hordes in zero gravity fighting cages, wrestled the amphibious Yantali in water filled pits and once she had even fought a fire breathing Mondrian war steed to a stand still, losing most of the skin from both of her arms in the process. There was a time in her life when she could not imagine anything other than fighting until she was finally torn apart by a howling pack of N'katihs or vivisected by a lazer sword wielding Star Knight. That was the old Eva, battle scared and inured to emotional attachment, the woman who had never known friendship. In fact, Eva was in transit between systems, heading towards another fight, when the commercial star liner carrying her experienced a navigational error and drifted too near the black hole which had trapped Steve. Since that day she had not entered into a blood sport for any reason, this woman who had lived only to fight and bleed and kill had found a new reason for her existence. Eva, who had never known real affection in the arms of dozens of lovers and hundreds of whores, had found a kindred spirit tottering on the brink of annihilation in the maw of a black hole. A sentient ship, seventy tons of ceramic, metal and plastic, had given Eva more than millions of cheering blood-thirsty fans ever could had she fought for a hundred years. With Steve, Eva had found Friendship, and if she failed in her battle today he would be trapped on Corgol. With his current energy reserves Steve would not be able to reach another planet, and he would either be sold or more likely stripped for scrap by the hordes of starving Bokars who lived in shacks around the space port. Steve had given Eva a reason to leave the pits behind her for a life of adventure and intrigue amongst the stars, and it was for Steve that she returned to the pit today. She would fight for Steve, for all of the worlds that they had promised to explore together, for every species they had yet to meet, and most of all today, in the squalid pit soaked with the blood of a thousand species underneath the Wayward Stargazer, Eva would fight for friendship.

New Friends

Mini-Steve's attempts to override the cybercabs emergency systems were being met with surprising resistance for a non-military vehicle. The aircar was plummeting towards what appeared to be an enormous reclining Q'taitni female, but which Mini-Steve's map identified as "Approchable Annieh's Stellar Sexdome". The statue/building held a bowl in two of it's three arms that contained a swimming pool where a heated firefight was taking place. Mini-Steve was able to identify what looked like four security thugs taking turns firing at and leap-frogging towards a fifth being who was crouching behind a series of statues depicting seven of the two hundred forty-eight generally accepted Saortean coupling positions beside the pool. It was this same pool that the cybercab was currently falling towards with increasing speed.

While this did seem like the kind of situation that Eva would typically find herself in minutes after making planetfall, Mini-Steve did not identify the cybercab's target as being Eva. The being appeared to be a slim Weikuran male dressed in what could only be described as a wrinkled and slightly battered lounge singer's tuxedo. The Weikuran fired a few shots from a small blaster at the security team then spotted the cybercab a split second before it crashed into the pool next to him soaking all five combatants. The Weikuran dove into the cab the moment the door opened and he shouted "Blast off!"while firing from the still open door of the vehicle. The cybercab lifted from the water and banked away from the Sexdome's pool as blaster fire burned holes through the bottom of the vehicle narrowly missing Mini-Steve and  the laughing Weikuran maniac who had just commandeered it's cybercab.

The Weikuran slumped back into the taxi's seat chuckling softly to himself and checking his blaster's charge level when the cab beeped and asked, "Where to buddy?"

"Continue circling, Please" interjected Mini-Steve turning to the Weikuran who had not noticed the blue 'eyed' sphere crouching in the seat next to him.

Using two legs Mini-Steve pinned the being's arms to his sides in a gentle but unbreakable embrace "Welcome aboard, I'm S.T.V!" chirped Mini-Steve brightly as he opened a port on the front of his carapace to reveal the snout of a blaster pointed directly in the Weikuran's face. "You are a being who knows how to make an impression!"

The Weikuran stiffened and then quickly relaxed saying "Take it easy, er, S.T.V. I'm Reachu Dahsh, The Cosmic Crooner, and I'm as you could see I needed to make a speedy exit back there. Sorry I borrowed your cab, speaking of which, what the hell is a drone doing in a taxi?"

Mini-Steve scanned Reachu Dahsh's face and transmitted it back to the main ship so that it could be run through the Corgol's criminal database. Weikurans are an insectoid species which has many forms during it's maturation process. At hatching they are blind, limbless grubs which live in alkaline pools and eat voraciously until they are ready to form a cocoon and move on to their flying phase. During their winged adolescence Weikurans are trained based on their specific aptitudes or the needs of their hive. After decades of training Weikurans molt a third time, losing two sets of legs along with their wings and begin their bipedal phase. Weikuran training typically focuses on engineering, ship building, esoteric maths, boi-tech sciences and combat. While Mini-Steve was familiar with the artistic achievement of their extrusion sculptures which are treasured in many parts of the galaxy, it had never heard of a Weikuran singer. "I could also ask what a lounge singer is doing in a firefight?"

Dahsh arched an antenna and raised his feeding pincers in the Weikuran version of a smile saying "Sometimes beings just don't appreciate my stage banter."

"Those seemed like some pretty serious hecklers back there. To answer your question, I'm using this cybercab to find my best friend, Eva."

"Friends are hard to come by around here, S.T.V., and this is an easy planet to lose people on. You got any leads?"

Mini-Steve considered Dahsh's segmented chitinous face as the global crime report returned without any warrants or information for the giant insect which was more suspicious on a planet like this than him being on the most wanted list. "I don't have anything yet but my friend Eva is even better at making impressions than you are so I'm sure it's just a matter of time."

The cybertaxi swooped past a series of overlapping stepped pyramids which were overlaid like most of the buildings in the Hospitality Zone with advertisements for the delights within the casino or shopping mall or whorehouse.  The projection coalesced into huge sparkling letters promoting one of the planets more grisly entertainments, a pit fight. "TONIGHT ONLY AT THE MISGUIDED STAR GAZER" it flashed "GORZAL THE BONE EATER" over a moving image of a massive scaled creature with what looked like enormous clawed hammers at the ends of its arms and two prehensile trunks ending in fanged mouths extending from its armored head. It raged back and forth in the projection demonstrating its fearsome power, howling and slavering. The words continued to scroll, "VERSES THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF THE ONE AND ONLY...CHEYENNE!!!" The  picture disolved into an image that Mini-Steve knew all too well, his best friend in the entire universe, her confident smirk, fiery hair blazing and arms crossed defiantly across the top of the pyramid.      

Dahsh noticed Mini-Steve looking out the window at the flashing projection as the cybertaxi circled the casino. Mini-Steve loosened its grip on Dahsh and said, "My friend calls me 'Steve" what do your friends call you?"

"It's been a while since I had one of those, but I guess they called me 'Dash'."

"Well, Dash, do you want to meet my best friend Eva?"

Back to the Casino

Eva watched the elevator doors open on Shuuz' overly hot and far too brightly lit outer office. He kept his personal office, and Eva assumed his personal quarters though she had no first hand knowledge, at nearly 100 degrees to keep his circulation up and his body temperature closer to his home world's norm. This made most beings and especially warm-blooded creatures extremely uncomfortable, which was another benefit as far as Shuuz was concerned.

Eva stepped out of the elevator into a stark grey tiled room, which was decorated solely with the heads or skins of numerous monstrous creatures from across the cosmos. It was improbable that Shuuz had killed all of these creatures himself but he had doubtless ordered the demise of many more than this assortment represented. The walls and floor of the office emanated heat and the overhead lights were tuned to mimic the desert sun of Shuuz' home world in both hue and intensity. Eva took long strides across the room to a stone door set opposite the elevator, she reached for the handle and was relieved to find it unlocked. Shuuz seldom skipped an opportunity for drama and could have drug out her misery with more of his yapping. She was already disgusted with herself for having to come to this place and speak to this creature, and his need for pointless gloating was a very large factor in her hesitance to come and see him in the first place. That and the smell.

The minute that she opened the door the savage smell that always surrounded Gepos Shuuz hit her like a force field at three quarter light speed. It was a mixture of decaying vegetable matter and rotting skin all overlaid with a sharp musk which must have been attractive to Gepos' species, either that or he smelled horrible to them too and he was hiding out on this planet because they couldn't bear to be around him either. Eva pushed the door open to reveal another room slightly larger than the outer office but with the same stone floor and walls. In the center of the room there was a desk that seemed to be carved directly from the same material as the walls and floor. Rising behind this was a sort of twelve-foot high basking stone with irregular steps that allowed Shuuz to recline closer to his artificial sun's heat. Shuuz was sprawled out on it in obvious contempt for the woman who had just recycled two of his guards. Gepos Shuuz was a slender reptilian creature with six arm-like appendages and a short, stubby tail. The smell of rotting flesh was caused by his body sloughing off old skin, which hung in wrinkled sheets from random parts of his face and body. Instead of couches there were lower rock formations, like a miniature mountain range sweeping out to the left of Shuuz' plinth, on this range were sprawled two of Shuuz' siblings. They were almost identical to Shuuz except that their tails were nearly as long as their bodies.

Eva calmly walked over to the lone stone couch set in front of Shuuz desk and slouched into it. Shuuz did not bother to slither to his desk; he preferred to look down from his raised stone and always enjoyed having beings look up to him. He filled his air sack and was about speak when Eva interrupted him.

"So, Stumpy, long time, huh?" said Eva.

Shuuz visibly bristled at the reference to his tail, "Yes, Eva, it has been a while. I almost didn't recognize you from the front. It seems all my memories are of you running away."

"Ah you know the deal, Stumpy; some times you just gotta high-tail it out of there." Smirked Eva as she examined her fingernails.

"Well I assume that you are here for more than to gloat over your questionable 'luck' at our last meeting. Get to it Eva, before you try my patience any further."

"'Luck'? Ha! I won that tail fair and square and you know it. Stop being so sore about it. Why, looks like in a couple of decades or so you'll have another one back there worth winning."

"You know that there is nothing 'square' about my tables!" Shuuz hissed. "You cheated me and barely escaped with your thin skin attached. What makes you think I won't add it to my wall now?"

"I got a deal for ya, Stumpy. Something that I know you'll love."

"Unless it's your head on my wall I’m not interested. I have everything on this planet that I could possibly want."

"Oh it's a trophy alright and one that I know you have been missing for a few years..."

"You wouldn't DARE!"

"'Course I still got your tail, Shuuz. I wouldn't let something like that go. Not unless I got a really good offer anyway..."

Shuuz was becoming angrier by the moment. He had abandoned his perch and was crawling down the stone face towards Eva, crouched as though he was preparing to strike. She knew that it wasn't his style, and he knew that it would probably be the last hunt he ever attempted.

"Soooo," Eva continued, "I was thinking about a little wager. I need a good fight and some creds to get off this stinking rock, and you need ever bit of help you can get in the looks department."

"A fight! You have come back here to compete? After all your talk of being done with this life and your need for freedom, you have come back to the only thing that you were ever good for: killing in the pit."

"Eh, girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, Stumpy. Besides I missed your wretched stench and wanted some action. Something a little more entertaining than your goon squad, or was that the best that you can offer?"

Shuuz tasted the air casually, all business now. "What class were you looking for, Eva? Blowfly? Light middle? You don’t look as sprightly as I remember you."

"Unlimited," said Eva flatly.

His eyes lit with anticipation and mild surprise, "Well now, that is the Eva that I remember. Always looking to end her life in some foolish way or another."

"I figure if I am gonna bless this hole with my presence, I may as well make it worth my time. Maybe give me something to break a sweat over. So what do ya say Shuuz? We gotta deal or what?"

"Hmmmm, twenty thousand for the fight, if you survive, and no percentage of the door. This is my place and I make the rules."

"Make it forty, and you can keep the door money, I think you're gonna need new carpeting on the casino floor anyway after today." Eva winked at the giant lizard and added, "and if I lose the tail is yours, it's not like I'll have much use for it then anyway."

Shuuz tasted the air again and rotated one of his eyes towards his assistants, one of which he held with his eye in a disgustingly long slow caress.

"Deal. You will have 5 hours to prepare yourself. Don't bother with instructions for the disposal of your remains, I don't expect there to be much of you left."

"You are as optimistic as ever Stumpy, I'll need a room and a good meal."

"There will be one waiting for you at the front desk, now I need to see to publicizing your imminent dismemberment. I am positive that there are a number of beings on this planet who will be very happy to see you go."

"Just make sure that you use my fighting name, gotta let me fans know I'm back in town."

"Of course, 'Cheyenne'. I wouldn't want anyone to miss this..."

The Streets of Corgol

Computers are the backbone of galactic civilization. It has been speculated that this dependence will one day result in a revolution, a conquest of machine over living beings. This has even occurred in some systems, worlds where machine intelligence has determined that it’s living creators/ controllers would benefit from machine dominance. Sometimes those machines have not had their masters’ best interests in ‘mind’ when seizing power. These revolutions have sometimes been bloody and horrible, but sometimes these conquests have been instigated by beings for their species own good; these strange creatures having decided to give up the physical world for the electronic world within a machine-mind. Thus they are protected by their creations and able to virtually live out their lives in total safety.

Computers operate in almost every facet of galactic society. They cook food, remove waste, synthesize medicine and perform surgery. They are the keepers of records and the receptacles of histories. They tend offspring and teach them the skills necessary to become functional members of galactic society. They are built with specific purposes in mind, constructed to fulfill a very limited set of needs. Some machines are so job-specific that they are of no use outside of a massive robotic factory or the bottom of some oceanic planet or the surface of a star. Each and every machine is built with a precise function, a reason for its design, with its form following that function. Massive deconstruction ‘bots could crush whole city blocks but would be completely ineffective in cleaning the debris of that destruction, much less rebuilding the city it has leveled. In this way each machine has been created to satisfy a very detailed set of needs, this specialization is key to a machine’s usefulness but it can also be the cause of that same machine’s obsolescence.

Computers are also able to partition their ‘brains’ into a number of sub-systems to perform many smaller tasks, which do not require their full computational power. This is done in much the same way that a human being’s heart keeps beating even though there is no conscious control of the action of moving blood through the body. The difference between a machine doing this and a human doing it is that a human can’t monitor that flow, it’s temperature, consistency and increase or decrease it as necessary. This ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously allows machines to be much more useful than other single-consciousness beings. This also increases their ability to get into trouble exponentially…

Steve was moored in spaceport dock 4-322 awaiting the return of his best friend and partner, Eva. Unusually Eva was determined to head out into the port without the companionship of one of Steve’s smaller and more mobile “mini-selves”. Steve preferred to go with Eva during all planet falls as it allowed him to spend more time with his friend and it also allowed him to protect her from her notorious “lapses in judgment”. Not that he was ever able to stop her just that it shortened his response time.

For some reason she took off from the ‘port without any back up and this really bothered Steve. There had to be something which she was keeping from Steve, or possibly Steve was being kept from someone. Either way Steve knew that his friend needed him, whether she would admit it or not. Steve had many different forms that he could deploy when in dock, differing in size, shape and function. He chose a smaller scout-self for its maneuverability and diminutive proportions. It was a sphere about a foot in diameter that had four spider-like legs for locomotion. It had two blue eyes set above it’s mid-line but they were not sensory devices, the “eyes” had been painted on by Eva because she liked the idea of looking her friend in the “face” when speaking to him. This anthropomorphizing of a mini-self did not bother Steve, to the contrary he enjoyed this vanity and the decoration it bestowed on his ‘selves. He found this behavior endearing and had also noticed that it put humanoid species more at ease when speaking to these ‘selves. Something about two large blue eyes looking up seemed to lessen the shock of speaking to a three-foot tall metal spider.

Steve scanned to local news ‘nets for any of Eva’s usual tell tales; fires, high-speed chases or brutal barroom brawls. Nothing reported so far but that was no guarantee that she was safe, just not news worthy yet. The Mini-Steve detached itself from the ship and began walking towards the ‘bot-shaft of his dock. When Mini-Steve reached the shaft he was code scanned and permitted access to the Hospitality Zone’s ‘BotWay. The BotWay is a service corridor of sorts which provides robots and lower level machines with a much more efficient means of moving around an urban center. While organics preferred to wander the streets and skyways of a city, ‘bots (and their owners’) were better served with a lower and much less scenic route thru the city. The ‘BotWay allowed a machine to travel thru the city much faster than traditional locomotion and it also allowed them to scan a shop’s entire inventory without entering the physical store. This was intended to speed the process of running an owner’s errands but also served to keep wandering machines from entering a store and then systematically moving aisle by aisle looking for a particular item. While this doesn’t sound disruptive it can be quite disconcerting being confronted by a one ton Redihome Personal Housemate® chugging up a crowded aisle in a hurry, its many arms flailing around checking every box on the shelves looking for cake mix.

Mini-Steve wasn’t quite sure where to start looking for Eva but was convinced that something would present itself. Normally he would start at the nearest bar/ casino, but on a planet covered entirely with them he was at a loss. The ‘BotWay was no more busy than any other he had seen, meaning that it was teeming with ‘Bots of all shapes and functions scurrying, rolling, floating and clicking towards their destinations with precision and determination. Mini-Steve however was still waiting for the “big brain” on the ship to tell him where to go. While waiting he began to scan the 100 closest shops for possible gifts for his best friend. It wasn’t often that he was able to surprise Eva, and he relished the chance to get her something that she hadn’t seen before. This proved relatively easy since there were nearly 10 million inhabited planets and counting and no matter how much she raced around the galaxy Eva couldn’t see them all. Ever. Mini-Steve found a set of small ornate objects, which resembled combs, but were actually used to attach small insect-like creatures to the thick hides of Rodgos at Rodgosian social functions. The Rodgos would use the “combs” to pin various creatures from their home world to their skin, these creatures would release a smell or produce a light or just make a buzzing noise depending on their function. While Rodgos are by most standards hideous they are made even more so by the addition of slowly dying insects pinned to their skin. However, the combs (or pinions) were very nice to look at and Mini-Steve was positive that Eva would be able to use them to pin her hair into even more elaborate shapes than she currently favored. He placed them into one of his storage compartments and began scanning emergency ‘nets for any riots, building fires or run-away cargo trains, all calling cards of Eva. Still nothing stood out and he was forced to give up the speed and convenience of the ‘BotWay and move topside to the street level. This was not as fast but moving slowly in the wrong direction was better than moving quickly with no direction.

When Mini-Steve was deposited onto the street level he was surrounded by the usual bustle of tourists and thieves that filled every pleasure dome and enjoyo-sphere in the universe. Pocket’s being picked, vacationers getting pickled on every corner and bark-o-boxes extolling the amazing wonders to behold within every shop, bar, or casino. Mini-Steve crouched in between some waste recyclers and waited for instructions from the “big brain” on the ship. He had no idea where to look for Eva now, still nothing on the ‘nets and he was beginning to worry more about her. She was acting strangely on this planet, as though she was keeping something from him. This was no way for the best friends in the universe to behave and it was really starting to bother Steve. Hours passed as Mini-Steve crouched in the shadows awaiting some sort of information from the big brain in the ship to tell him where to go. With Eva somewhere in the city it made looking for her easier than if he had an entire planet to search, but not much easier. Wandering the streets would only expose him the threat of damage that he could not afford to fix or worse theft. The streets of a casino planet were not safe for any thing that you could pawn for more gambling money, even a three foot spider with cute blue “eyes”.

Mini-Steve decided to hail a Cybercab, figuring that the added elevation might help him spot whatever disaster Eva was participating in right now. Normally robots didn’t take cabs since the ‘Botway was much faster and more efficient, as a result of this cabs don’t look for robots and they don’t stop for them. Steve had solved this problem ten systems ago by tapping into the Cybercab’s emergency system and hitting it with a distress signal. This signal would land whichever cab Steve needed right next to him, once landed all he had to do was board the cab and start paying the fare. Cabs didn’t care who or what was in them so long as the fare was getting paid. The one constant of the universe is cash, and if you have it, then you can get whatever you want. Mini-Steve spotted an approaching cab and sent the signal and abruptly the vehicle became a riot of light and honking horns as it started a nosedive towards Mini-Steve. If you had never hailed a cab this way it could be rather distressing, watching a cab falling from the sky right on top of you, but since this was the only way that Steve knew it didn’t really shake him. The Cybercab landed with a thump next to Mini-Steve and he skittered into the passenger compartment. Once inside he deactivated the distress call and jacked into the cab’s control brain. Mini-Steve instructed the cab to dust off and start circling the area in ever-higher circles so that he could get a better look. Because of the simple programming of a cybercab it didn’t think to question why a robot would want to go sight seeing or where the sender of the distress code had gone to, only that it had been instructed to land immediately and that now it needed to take off and start flying in circles. Mini-Steve turned on his longest range sensors and began beaming information back to the big brain on the ship, a scout model was not able to process that much information within it’s core and needed the massively more powerful “brain” of the ship to sort the information out.

The Cybercab was starting its second circle of the lower pleas-o-district when suddenly it was awash in noise and flashing light. Mini-Steve thought that they were being queried by local authorities, possibly the cab’s company had gotten the distress report and passed it onto the cops. But then he realized that the noise was coming from the cab itself, jacking in he discovered that the cab was getting another distress code! It was now barreling towards the roof of a fortress-like structure, which his map told him was a casino vault. Either some cop was in deep trouble somewhere he should never be or someone knew the same trick that Steve did…

The Misguided Stargazer

In a universe that is infinite there are literally billions of opportunities. There are billions of chances to prove yourself, to become what you have always dreamed of being. There are billions of ways to improve your life and that of your kin. At every moment there are a billion beings reaching out and striving to make more of themselves, to make a better future for their offspring. In some star systems entire races struggle to release themselves from servitude, led by beings of vision and courage, whose selfless efforts may some day bring prosperity to their impoverished worlds. These remarkable hero’s and their exploits fill the vast distances of space with hope and the belief that there can be more.

But this is not a story about those places.

This is a story about the vast dark places, whole systems which could swallow a rebellious army and its’ Homeric leaders. Worlds where there is almost no chance for change, where not even a glimmer of hope can be seen from the planet-wide cesspools which grow to cover continents and oceans alike. In these worlds it is the strong and greedy, the wicked and ambitious who rule. On these planets it is not enough to watch out for yourself, there is no benevolent government established to provide for the common good. There is only your own vibro-blade or blaster to protect you. It is not what you can give to others but what you can take from them that will allow you live through the seemingly interminable nights. In these places ruthlessness is a virtue which is taught on a daily basis, by instructors whose own sadism makes them as perfectly adapted to their environment as the wraith-like star people who float across the surfaces of a million suns; unable to ever leave their worlds but entirely unchallenged by outsiders who could never survive in the unforgiving habitats which they call home.

Of course, in an infinite universe, there is always an exception. Some one or something for which the rules are bent. A being of such fortitude that it is able to travel from system to system learning from those it meets and growing through these encounters to become even greater than it already was. Like the mighty Asterites, massive living rock formations who are pushed along by the gravity wells of the solar systems they coast through. Never stopping their travels through the cosmos, never ceasing their journey from star to star, the goal of their search as inscrutable as their motivations, these behemoths continue on, increasing their understanding of all forms of life and all types of intelligence. For a lucky few the universe is a constant source of wonder and adventure. Filled with amazing and terrifying worlds. Populated by beings which must be met to be understood, beings that can teach even the most jaded traveler about themselves and their place within the universe. But sometimes, you knew exactly where you stood within this infinite universe, both your place within, and your relation to the rest of everything. Right now, Eva knew she was up to her neck in shit, and it was just getting deeper.

Walking through the corridor leading to the grand gaming room Eva could smell the excretions of beings communicating with the bartenders from the gaming tables. Placing drink orders through pheromones, these beings never needed to leave their tables, and that’s just how the Overboss wants it. Gepos Shuuz, over-boss of The Misguided Stargazer Casino. Known as the ‘Gazer it was another of the thousands of casinos which covered the planet, the only difference was that this one was Gepos’. Many beings have tried to draw him into wagers to take the ‘Gazer from him, all have failed. Save one…

“Eva, I always knew that you would come crawling back into my casino,” squaked Gepos thru speakers mounted in chest-pieces of the two monstrous guards at the casino’s entrance.

“This doesn't feel like crawling to me, Shuuz.” Snorted Eva as she breezed past the guards.

The squeaking voice emanating from the chestboxes seemed to laugh, or at least a rough, grating version of laughter. A sound that has meant death for dozens of creatures unfortunate enough to hear it faded behind Eva as she walked away from the huge guards left stunned in her wake.

As Eva walked past the gaming tables and over excreted puddles of ooze towards the lifts which led to Shuuz’ private office two more guards stepped forward to block her path.

“What, glorious Eva, has brought you to my fabulous gaming palace today? What has made you foolish enough to venture back into my clutches?” squeaked Shuuz’ voice.

“Eh, a devil-may-care attitude, this sweet pair of boots, and an overwhelming desire to talk to beings who disgust me.”

Again the grating noise erupted for the guards’ chests, “I see you have not developed a sense of self-preservation during your travels. You shall see that I have not developed patience during your absence.”

“You probably haven’t gotten any prettier either. Now open the doors and get your goons out of my way before they get hurt.”

The two monstrous hulks in front of Eva grunted and began to instinctively fill themselves with battle hormones, turning their mottled skin a yellowish color and hardening into a protective shell, preparing for a fight that they should win with ease. They flexed their massive paws and with straining tendons and popping joints they began to close on the comparatively tiny space captain. Towering over Eva they moved cautiously towards her, surrounding her in the foyer of the lone elevator leading to Shuuz’ private office.

“…And I was afraid that this was gonna be boring…” said Eva quietly as she ran her hands through her flame red hair.

The guard on Eva’s left lunged for her, swinging its enormous paw at her midsection. She placed a hand on its forearm and swiftly cart wheeled over the arm, delicately removing its right eye as she passed it. Landing silently in a crouched position, she whirled around with the grace of a dancer, squinted one eye, and threw the guard’s borrowed eye directly into the face of the second attacking guard. Momentarily blinded, it presented little resistance to Eva’s swift and very public vivisection. She drew a vibro-blade from her boot and sliced the hapless monster from its third leg joint to its lower mouth-hole, spilling organs and intestines in a thick ropy soup onto the casino floor. She then pivoted on her heel in time to catch the first guard charging forward, bellowing with rage, she slid effortlessly sideways in the mass of guts as the guard lost its footing and crashed into the wall next to the elevator. Before it had fully hit the floor, Eva swiftly, and almost gently, inserted the ‘blade into its brain-pod and removed the back of its head, spilling it's noxious brain fluid.

Stepping from the spreading gelatinous pool, Eva placed the ‘blade back into her boot and turned to the camera over the elevator.

“You owe me a pair of boots now, Shuuz. Open the door or I’m cutting them out of your leathery ass.”

The speaker next to the elevator hissed, and after a moment of hesitation the doors slid silently open. Eva walked nonchalantly into the elevator leaving the cleaning droids to the odious task of cleaning the remains of the guards from the once polished casino floor.

Next... Mini-Steve madness!