Startrek: Keash and Derf

Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Way Way, Out there.

Whoever had initially founded the Cities on Out There colony had to have had a strange sense of humor. The three main settlements that the initial settlers had founded were named "All the Way", "Way Way" and "Stay Way". Of the three the first had grown into a major metropolis surrounding the biggest spaceport on the planet.

The last had grown into some sort of governmental and financial district for the local region of space. The second one, Way Way, hadn't grown into anything in particular and therefore not much. It's main plaza was almost solely surrounded by Inns, Hotels, Bars, casinos, clubs and brothels and the in the surrounding suburbs the main residents were those either running the establishments around the plaza or worked for those doing the running. In all the city, if it deserved the name, held 90.000 local residents.

The small spaceport, and cargo storage area around it formed of warehouses, provided for the economic machinations that kept just enough visitors coming in and doing business of some sort there to provide the plaza's businesses with a means to make some profit, or keep hope they might once make some.

Derf had come to Way Way, Out There, some six months ago and had in one week managed to loose all his possessions, his small warp yacht and racked up a debt he couldn't repay with one of the local shady people involved in a gambling scam. Since then he'd been scraping by a survival by hanging around the spaceport and offering services as a guide and hustled the naive for what little the naive tended to have. He hated himself for what he had become and only the stubborn refusal to die was driving him to continue living as he did.

In desperation and with total loss of self respect he had, two weeks before when he'd been given the phaserpoint choice of arranging payment or part ways with a limb decided to call in the debt he was owed by Gzernms. The Zakdorn with never proven ties to the Orion syndicate owed Derf his life and the only chance of getting out of his mess with all his limbs attached to his body was to hope that Gzernms would put a worth to that life adding up to more then what he owed his debtors.

Turns out he did and he had promised Derf he'd pay up his debt soon. The night before Derf finally received a message, encrypted and bounced around half the galaxy to make it untraceable, that Gzernms had diverted a transport of certain items to Out There and that Derf could keep everything he was able to sell it for. The only demand Gzernms made was that whatever happened Derf would forget he ever knew someone named Gzernms.

The transport that was hauling the cargo had confirmed it's ETA soon after that and that was what motivated Derf to nervously pace back and forth near the small spaceport. The rain, which seemed to be eternal in the area around Way Way pored down on him in the steady cadence that never seemed to change and had soaked every piece of clothing Derf wore hours earlier. He stopped noticing he was wet an hour after that and conscious awareness of the rain itself left him an hour after that. His mind was racing and the longer he had to think about everything the less comfortable he felt about the whole thing.

Gzernms was reputed to have less than admirable ethical and moral values and was not above breaking a few laws. The cargo he had so conveniently and voluntary diverted was probably illegal, and Derf was afraid to wonder what the underlying motivation for diverting it to Out There had been.

He doubted more and more that it was his sense of guilt and honor. Just when he decided he wasn't going to be there for the arrival of the transport ship he noticed the three thugs that had been his method of communication with his debtor and he knew that somehow they'd gotten wind of his fortune and were there to make sure their boss would get his moneys worth out of it before Derf had a chance to make off with it to a warehouse or something.