To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch12 Secrets

Secrets

Alwen had been on the ship for thirty-six standard Terran cycles and they had visited several backwater stations, all of which Alice insisted on escorting Alwen through. Alwen enjoyed her company, and the noticeable swords she kept on her hip, because unlike the grand and impressive Femeri station, Parox was a shithole.

It served primarily as an off-world prison for dangerous criminals, and as a trade stop in between several major Orion hyperlanes. There she got to meet the largest Terran 'community' outside of the Sol system. Community wasn't exactly the word Alwen would use herself, slum or ghetto fit much better for the packed and filthy Terran quarter on Parox. With some real respectable business's rising from the muck.

Space was always a premium on stations were any expansion came at great cost, but at least there was an order to the tight spaces and compact living areas on Femeri. The Terrans there all seemed largely ambivalent to any sort of urban organization and just built wherever they found space. Her visit into the Terran quarter left her feeling claustrophobic and dirty, and the hole in the wall bar Alice had found for their group wasn't very impressive. At least the booze and company were fun.

She even got to meet a few more of her 'fellow' deathworlders. The bartender was Kaydic, a massive shaggy bipedal mammalian man with an impressive three horns on top of his head. To her eyes he seemed a cross between Ursiloids and Lycanoids. Mostly herbivorous despite the fearsome visage. Though apparently they chewed on small lizards to help supplement their diet, which meant they received the classification as Omnivore. The marines referred to all Kaydic'ah as Trikes, simply for the three horns on their heads.

The Balikstro women took an instant liking to Alwen on account of the natural bone structures on her face. Rather than a woven fiber clothing, her kind took to wearing molded bone plates instead. A small quirk in their homeworld's biology allowed for animal bones to became soft and moldable like clay when properly prepared. The Balikstro covered their midnight black bodies in these plates and painted them proudly in many colors and pictographic writing.

The night, despite the location and the strange discussion meeting of the other deathworlders, had been very fun. And the morning blindness almost felt worth it.

Since then the three other stations they visited followed the same general model, a Terran slum overflowing with ex-convicts, mixed easily with several other deathworlders. These places were apparently where the Astaroth could easily unload her 'cargo' and leave without anyone the wiser.

Today Alwen was in the med bay checking Gato's progress when the ship entered condition three, and like always the burly marine struggled against his loosened binds.

"Vi I'm perfectly fine, I've fully healed." Gato complained, like he always did when the ship entered combat.

"Mmm-hmm" she hummed as she stuck her thumb into the raw patch of exposed skin.

"Ahh, dammit, why'd you stick your thumb in it" he growled.

Alwen looked up from her chart and batted a lash at him "To prove to you that you're not fully healed"

"Fine, it still hurts. But I'm healed enough to start working out again"

"Not until Doctor Djani says you're clear and won't tear it open again" Doctor Bachir mumbled from the microscope in the corner.

This had become their little routine; Alwen would work with the patients while Bachir would attend to his studies. Apparently he had been primarily a medical researcher before he was expelled from Olympus Mons university.