Death or Glory

Death or Glory
An unexpectedly extensive story of space, stealing and sympathy by Loquacious Jango

WARNING: Mostly character stuff and world building, but there’s a slice of yummy TF bacon in this bready story sandwich, so feel free to skip to that part if you like.



“STOP, THIEF!”
The words echoed across the cold, grey corridors of the space ship, alongside the tapping footsteps of someone in a dead sprint. The running figure rounded a corner, his eyes bouncing in their sockets looking for a chance at respite from his pursuer.
“Dammit, THINK” he chastised himself. “You know this place better than anyone.” The young miscreant concentrated on the mental blueprints of the massive ship that had been gradually etched into his memory ever since he was old enough to walk. Electrical service tunnels, air vents, messenger tubes. All were thoroughfares that he was either nowhere close to or too big to fit through. Unless…

The young kyroptian scanned the far left wall ahead of him without slowing down, searching for an alcove that he knew was there. Rounding a tight corner, he spotted it; a small out-of-the-way recess that spelled salvation. He flattened himself to the wall, then dropped into a crouch, tugging at a hatch between his feet. The thudding footfalls of his pursuer grew closer and closer, spurring him to haste as the young boy found a latch, which he twisted open. The small trapdoor swung open, sending out a blast of cool air. His dull grey fur stood on end, but he didn’t hesitate, diving headfirst through the tiny maintenance hatch. The boy’s clawed feet gripped the handle on the underside of the hatch, relying on his own weight to pull it shut. The bat-like creature dangled upside down in the chilly tunnel by his feet in pitch blackness. His wide, pointed ears twitched as he listened to the receding sound of his pursuing party slowly fade away as they passed by unaware. He was out of the danger zone. Relatively speaking.

The kyroptian cracked open his mouth, a set of secondary vocal chords letting out a supersonic shriek several octaves out of the audible range of most creatures. The sound waves bounced off of the walls and floor of the pipe he was inside, returning to his large ears and painting a fuzzy picture in his mind from quicksilver. Instinct laid the groundwork basics of his echolocation, but the child would need a lot more practice if he ever wanted to get back clearer pictures. From what he could tell, he was in a very cramped cylindrical passage, with a current of frigid industrial coolant flowing less than a foot beneath him. It was just his luck that a massive colony ship like the one that he was on needed a lot of these tunnels to transport all manner of materials and liquids. They presented plenty of opportunities for an enterprising young street urchin to pass about unseen and make a quick getaway. That said, the aforementioned urchin had two options. Either he could vacate the tunnels and find his way back home, risking capture from the guard that may have circled back around, or crawl along the ribbed ceiling of coolant pipe until he hit the next junction and could escape. While he could definitely avoid capture, this option carried the added fun of being swept away by an unexpected coolant flush if one of the local generators overheated. The boy was young, but he wasn’t stupid, and he honestly considered that his odds in the pipe weren’t much better than trifling with the ship’s security detail. The Kyroptian reached upwards, flattening himself against the top of the pipe and started to crawl forward, still clutching his stolen prize close to his chest with one hand, where it hadn’t left since he had grabbed it and run. The child knew for a fact that his ill-gotten loot was worth a lot more than him.

*********************************************

Eckelson Kwillit had seen better jobs. Granted, he had seen worse jobs, but that was a thoroughly twisted scale that he graded by. His opinion often widely varied depending on how many people were trying to kill him, how insultingly simple the job was, and what exactly he had been hired to steal. That grading standard had recently been warped further by a contract on the industrial word of Mijharr that had gone horribly wrong, which had caused him to include the addendum that better jobs involved not being blown up like a balloon.

Eckelson was a professional thief or a “Retrieval expert” as he insisted, and he prided himself with the first half of the former title. Professionals did their job cleanly and neatly. Professionals were paid exorbitant sums of money for doing difficult things correctly. And professionals did not complain. So, when an Ibycai with a chip on her shoulder and suspiciously deep pockets hired you to secure a piece of hardware from a black market trade on some backwater moon, you did it.

“I’m building something” was as much as she would divulge as to why she hired the slippery Kyroptian “And I need you to pick up a component that is both crucial and…difficult for a civilian to obtain”

“Difficult for a civilian to obtain” was a not-so-subtle way of saying “Blatantly illegal for private citizenry”, which explained why he had been contacted, so Eckelson pressed further.

“So where exactly would I find the item in question? Would I have to look for it in a laboratory somewhere? A military bunker perhaps?” Kwillit struggled to supress the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth, the idea of cracking into a government installation sending a flicker of giddiness through his mind.

“Nothing quite so dramatic” his client responded. Kwillit had worked with this particular bird before, and always made a point of knowing who was hiring him. Her name has Hanuro, a high-level project manager at one of the larger Ibycai tech companies. She had plans of her own for the future and always seemed to be in the middle of building a new weapon or piece of black-market tech on her own time that necessitated the accruement of questionable components.  “What I want is a 50 exobyte masking signal data board” She continued “It’s about ten centimeters square and bright red, held in a case of the same colour and size. You can’t miss it. I’m sending the exact specs now”

Eckelson opened up the file that Hanuro had sent him. It contained a simple rotating picture of the piece of circuitry in question aside a scrolling wall of text. Eckelson was no engineer, but his job required a healthy level of tech-savviness and from what he saw, this device was a cloaking component, capable of jumbling a multitude of incoming and outgoing signals. In the right place, a gizmo like that could render a sizable ship invisible to everything save the naked eye: of course, very forbidden for civilian use. Kwillit’s eyebrow arched at this; something like that would be more than handy for a thief who liked to avoid attention. But he quickly banished such thoughts. What few principals he had, he stuck to, and if a client hired him to acquire a specific item, it was already theirs. He had a reputation to uphold after all.

“You aren’t going to have to break into anywhere” The Ibycai continued. “There’s a deal going down on some backwater planet, and that board is on the market”

“Then get a courier” Eckelson shrugged “I’m not here to pick up your laundry”

“The board already has a buyer” Haruno sneered “I need you to steal it from him while it’s in the open”

Eckelson’s ears perked up at this, as obvious a sign of interest as the wagging tail on a dog. “Now, you have my attention”

***************************************************

The young kyroptian clambered upside-down along the length of the pipe, ignoring the rush of coolant beneath him and the steadily dropping temperature. He knew that he couldn’t stay for long, and every second he clung to the top of this pipe, he ran the risk of losing feeling in his fingers and plummeting into the cryofluid below. He entertained images of his tightly frozen corpse being dug out of an outlet valve by maintenance workers to spur him on. If he remembered the schematics for this deck of the ship like he thought he did, then the next maintenance hatch would just be another hundred feet ahead of him.

Not every species in the galaxy has the good graces to have a single planet that they can call home. Some founded their identity as nomads, others spread themselves across a dozen worlds before ascending to the point of interspecies civilization and others still were exiled from their own world when it became inhospitable, whether by their own hand or natural phenomena. The Kyroptians were one such species. They were young by the standards of galactic civilization, barely a century into faster-than-light travel and still struggling with the delicate game of inter-species politics. Of course, there were anthropologists and historians that would argue that the kyroptians were not yet ready, that a certain level of cultural advancement should have taken place before they took a position among the stars. Then again, those who made these astute observations usually belonged to a species that had some choice in the matter.

***************************************************************

The planet that Haruno’s co-ordinates sent Eckelson to was too much of a crap hole to even be considered a joke. Nothing but dense marshes and rocky terrain, with the occasional forest of tangled vines, barren trees or swollen fungus. Aside from a breathable atmosphere, there was nothing worth landing on this rock for. There were no usable resources, the soil was a chemical dump of sodium and sulfur, and the fauna were all either vicious scavengers or microscopic. Eckelson winced whenever he looked back on his frequent trips to planets like these. A professional criminal got used to these kinds of environments. Generally, when dealing in truly valuable ill-gotten goodies, the further removed from civilization, the better.

The landing was rough. There probably wasn’t a truly habitable stretch of land on this entire rock, so Kwillit had to set down his ship The Bad Penny in the nearest suitable clearing, a couple of kilometers or so off target. Kwillit’s ship closely mirrored it’s owner; a sleek, pointed stealth craft, the majority of which was hidden by a crescent-shaped sheet of detection-proof alloy draped across its frame, like a great pair of leathery wings. The Bad Penny was built for maneuverability and going unseen, intended to avoid a straight up fight whenever possible, as noted by its only armament, a single missile battery slung along the bottom. Eckelson ran a hand along the slick, curved side of his ship as he circled around it from the bay doors in the back. The thief rarely assigned anything more than monetary value to objects by principle, but he could occasionally feel a twinge of sentiment for his space craft. It was one of the few things he had legitimately bought, and had been with him almost his entire professional career.
“Can’t take you any farther” he muttered, patting its hull lightly before setting off from his landing zone.

The rest of the way was to be made on foot and by wing. After clambering to the top of a nearby outcropping a short distance from his landing zone, Eckeles surveyed the gauntlet that lay between him and his target. A curled, impenetrable mass of thick, thorny vines reached up from the earth directly beneath his vantage point, stretching out towards the horizon. Just beyond that however, the kyroptian noted that the tangle seemed to give way to a forest of some kind. Deciding that he shouldn’t waste any more time, Kwillit lowered the pair of goggles that he almost perpetually wore on his brow over his eyes and flared his wings, the sinew that ran from his armpits to the tips of his three lower, elongated fingers billowing slightly in the breeze. Kwillit smirked and launched himself into the air, achieving a low, gliding flight. After a few seconds of airtime, the spiky ground rushed up to meet him, causing Eckelson to flap his wings and swing his bare, clawed feet underneath himself. Alighting on an upward curving vine, Eckelson pumped his knees and leapt back into the air, gliding forward another few meters before continuing his game of leapfrog. It wasn’t exactly flight, but it beat walking.

**********************************************************

Kyroptians are not the only species to suffer the unenviable position of losing their home planet, but few have been hit the hardest by their own local apocalypse. It was epidemic that had destroyed the populous of Hylagos, the kyroptian’s home. A vicious, all-consuming plague that had scoured everything with a functioning vertebrae off the face of the planet. Of the few that escaped, only a comparatively small number of the indigenous species now live scattered across the galaxy, having abandoned any concept of government or economy long ago in the desperate struggle to escape the virus that had strangled their world, even if it meant seeking sanctuary in the oblivion of deep space. Ironically, it was the Ermin fleet that made first contact with the dwindling race, empathizing with another kind that had lost their home and pulling them back from the brink of extinction.

Kyroptians still live on, though a cynic would say that they are circling the drain. The most usual spot for a species of refugees would be on the massive colony stations that drift through deep space; self-contained cities and communities that are willing to offer shelter and work to anyone that can pay the tithe. Every now and again a family of bats can be spotted amongst other refugees, trying to build a life for themselves. Or sometimes it’s just a young street orphan, willing to cheat and steal in order to make ends meet.

One such street urchin was in the process of clambering out of a maintenance hatch, keeping his eyes on a swivel and his ears doubly so. With the way apparently clear, he bolted along the auxiliary corridor towards a sizable set of doors, light and sound flooding from the other side. He quietly slid one side of the portal open and slipped through into the mob waiting for him.

The small boy easily lost himself in the commotion all around his narrow frame. Judging by the blaring commercials and blinding ultracolours being projected overhead, he was on this quadrant’s commercial level, one of many. The tiny urchin’s delicate ears folded to his skull against the cacophony as he threaded his way through the sea of people. A nearby tarturan manning a kiosk boisterously promoted his wares to everyone, including the boy who flitted past his stall.

“You little man!” the fish merchant clicked away. “Want some delicious fresh seafood! You’d swear it was from the ocean!” He almost manically waved a hunk of filet in the boy’s face. “Always trust a tarturan about the ocean, boy!”
The thief ducked away from his new friend, in between a vacant deli counter laden with dried meats and spices, and a seedy looking “massage parlour”. He needed to avoid attention of any kind, especially as he saw a nearby video screen flash red and white, displaying a security alert concerning stolen goods. His ill-gotten prize clinked slightly under his jacket and he steadied it with one hand, unease rising in his gut. He had made it out of the executive levels, outrun colony security and escaped the initial dragnet; not bad for a colony ship orphan, but he wasn’t out of the woods yet. So long as he didn’t hit any more obstructions, he just had to keep his head down and make it home. Just had to make it home…

“Oy, Kype!” a harsh voice called out, shattering his thoughts. The boy winced, turning to face the figure that had addressed him. A young ermin slunk towards the kyroptian, a malicious smirk playing on his features.
“Ah, balls” the thief cursed under his breath.

*********************************************************

“Ah, balls” Eckelson breathed, his voice barely a whisper. He was perched on a large, bulbous fungus, keeping his eyes on the clearing ahead, and his ears on a rather nasty looking predator that was circling the base of his spherical roost. His grey fur bristled as the wolf-like creature gave off another growl, glaring up at him. It hadn’t been there long, and Eckelson hoped that it would give up after deciding that it couldn’t scale the rounded side of the mushroom-like growth. The carnivore’s maw split open, spittle hanging in strings between twin lower jaws lined with way too many teeth. It gave off a sharp bark and scarpered off, it’s bladed tail slashing through the air behind it as it disappeared into the jagged rocky landscape, dotted with more protruding vegetative orbs.

Kwillit rolled over onto his back from his splayed position and gave off a few bursts of sonar, painting a quick map of the surrounding area and contenting himself with watching his ferocious new friend continue to run in the opposite direction, hopefully to chase a pigeon or some such.
The kyroptian had managed to flap his way through the tangle of thorns to a less densely forested rolling wash of rocks and dirt, and from there, had managed to find a good vantage point of the supposed meeting place, a roundish flat clearing. That bothered him even more than the wildlife. There were no alcoves down there, no crevasses or overhangs. There was nothing to hide behind, dangle from or slip between, and certainly no darkness to rely on. The orange-tinted sun was high in the sky, shining down through a thick layer of clouds on the whole sorry scene and casting short, useless shadows across the ground. Eckelson might as well just saunter up to the oncoming band of arms dealers and cheerily ask for a bolt of plasma in the face. And until he came up with something a little more nuanced, that was honestly his best plan.

Kwillit rapped his knuckles against the taut surface of the fungus he was reclining on, feeling a rush of very odd memories flood through his mind. The smooth, curved surface beneath his fingers brought back sensations of tension, of helplessness and humiliation. Then of course, there was the thrill. Even now, Kwillit could feel a slight chill in his spine at the thought of being that full and round. It felt like a strange itch that needed to be scratched, just one more time so that he could understand it, figure out why it had clung to his thoughts with such adhesion. Granted, he wasn’t liable to forget an incident like the one that had played out on the industrial planet Mijharr any time soon. A job gone sour would have been enough, but this contract had to involve a shoot-out with mercenaries, some very questionable incapacitants and of course, a very odd bounty hunter. Kwillit wondered how that Protean would have reacted if she had seen him all blown up, taut and barely able to muster up a wiggle. At the mercy of the elements, completely out of control. Stretched tight and seemingly one sharp jab away from exploding…

Eckelson snapped out of his reverie as an idea lit up his brain. He drummed his knuckles against the side of the fungus again, hearing the hollow resonating thud from within. Whatever these things were, they sounded like they contained a pretty substantial gas pocket. And that meant with the right detonator, he was sitting on a potentially a large, organic bomb. Double checking to insure that the carnivore from earlier was long gone with another burst of sonar, Kwillit slid from his perch and unzipped a pouch strapped to his thigh.

Within lay a small, neatly organized array of charges, of a variety of functions. While Kwillit naturally relied on his guile and ability to remain undetected to pull off the average heist, he had long since learned that a little chaos made great cover. The tiny hermetic seal on the back of the explosive secured it tightly to the base of the mushroom, leaving Eckelson to spread the rest of his party favours around the perimeter of the clearing. The charges were primarily concussive and smoke-based, more built for shock and awe that genuine damage. By the time the last one was placed, he could already hear the turbulence of ion drives in the upper atmosphere, signalling the arrival of his quarry.

******************************************************

The young thief avoided eye contact with the ermin that stood in front of him. His aggressor had a good head of height on him, though most of that was lost to the arrogant slouching posture that he adopted.

“Something I can do for you Tiller?” the kyroptian muttered.

“You can tell me what you’re doing amongst decent folks, kype.” Tiller offered a malicious grin, filled to the brim with sharp rodent teeth.

The thief grimaced internally. A lifetime of living on the fringes had jaded him to insults and judgement, but the old, hateful slur that the ermin seemed to be capping his every sentence with still stung.
“Not lookin’ for trouble” he mumbled into his shoes.

Tiller closed the distance between them and promptly flicked his quarry right between the eyes. “Then you shouldn’t have brought your scrawny ass to my level. There’s a lotta ruckus kicked up around here, in case you can’t read the notices”

He jabbed the young boy’s collar, which caused a wave of panic to rise in the thief’s gut. If the ermin so much as placed a hand on his chest, then he would feel the prize hidden beneath the kyroptian’s jacket. He had to get out of here, even if that meant something drastic. He started to inch away from his tormentor, backing up towards a nearby deli kiosk.

“I’m thinking that maybe you stole something…” Tiller sneered, unaware if the truth in his words “That’s what your kind does right? Wouldn’t trust a bugsucker like you with my laundry”

The kyroptian appeared to be bracing himself against the counter behind him, when actually he was feeling through the bins of spices that lined the front of the table. He felt a slight burning sensation in his fingers when they touched the coarse powder in the third bin, telling him of its potency. The young thief knew that he would pay dearly in the coming days for what he was about to do, but he had to keep telling himself that it was worth it.

“You can always see right through me, Tilly” the thief said through gritted teeth, encouraging the ermin to take another step forward.

“The hell did you just call me?” Tiller growled, balling up his fists.

“I said” the kyroptian breathed, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “That you’ve got the right idea. Maybe you should keep an eye on me. At least, if you can.”

With that, the thief grabbed a fistful of the spice behind him and hurled it directly into the smirking face of his tormentor. He made sure to shut his own eyes and fold his large ears against his skull to avoid splashback, but still could feel his nostrils burn at the volatile dust in the air. He could only imagine what the ermin was going through.

The kyroptian ducked away from the corner he had been occupying, clearing the burning cloud of dust that was still hanging in the air. He opened his eyes, affording a peek at Tiller as he thrashed blindly, tears streaming from his eyes. The bully probably would have been yelling all manner of profanities if he wasn’t hacking and sputtering so much.

Taking a small amount of satisfaction from that display, the thief grinned slightly and disappeared back into the throngs of the market. From there, it was just a matter of keeping his head down as he wandered towards an innocuous rug shop on the other side of the marketplace.
A single, sleepy Tarturan manned the counter, and waved the young boy through. He unhesitantly strode to the back of the shop and pushed his way past a particularly ornate carpet, revealing a door flush with the wall. He rapped out a sequence of short knocks, prompting the passage to swing open.

The room beyond was already well populated with a dozen or so children, every colour and species of the rainbow. All of them muttering amongst each other, a few of them flashing their own prizes and showing off. The young kyroptian was bumped and jostled by his fellow street urchins, a few of them asking him to show off what he had won that day. He stayed silent, waiting for his moment as he kept his eyes and ears fixed on the heavy door along the far wall. It lay next to a pane of plasma-proof transparasteel, beyond which was a cash register and a multitude of valuables. Trinkets, electronics and the occasional bit of jewelry shone from within, much of which had been gathered by the army of disenfranchised children that stood before it, like some kind of altar to larceny.

The security door finally swung open with the thudding clicks of its many locks. The kyroptian stood to attention as his boss lumbered into the room, a hefty colungan by the name of Bernan.
“Good afternoon my little darlings” he laughed, settling into a large chair that creaked beneath his weight. “I can see it’s been a fruitful day for many of you. What do you have for me today?”

******************************************************

From his vantage point, Eckelson could see the assorted individuals of ill repute disembark from their respective crafts, five ships in total, gathering together in the center of the clearing. Many were dragging out heavy crates, and everybody seemed armed in one way or another. Fun, fun, fun.

Slightly separate from the crowd, a sleek single-seater opened up to reveal its passenger, a kark clad in a simple leather jacket and carrying a case in one hand. Kwillit focused the zoom function of his goggles on this newcomer, specifically the glint of what looked like an IGPD badge clipped to his belt. He was making no attempt to hide it, so this wasn’t an undercover job. A law man in a den of thieves. Curiouser and curiouser.

Kwillit watched the gathering as they greeted, bickered and bartered. Even from his distant perch, the kyroptian could hear their entire conversation, though most of it wasn’t too relevant. The policeman handed his case, presumably full of something valuable, to an austician, who returned with what looked like a small weapon locker. Eckelson could only guess at its contents. He perked up at the mention of the words “masking board” and watched as a large colungan produced a small square, red case, pinched between his meaty fingers. Eckelson waited for his target to change hands, a protean gingerly taking the case back to her own ship. Everything was in position.

Eckelson held up his compact detonator with one hand, securing a small breathing mask over his snout with the other. With a press of the small silver button, the charges were armed, giving him a scant twenty seconds to hunker down and wait for the fireworks. The thief quickly surveyed his surroundings to insure he was in good cover, only to glance directly into the multi-jawed face of one of another of the creatures from earlier, less than two feet from him.

Kwillit stumbled backwards, stifling his yelp. It took him a second to realize that the fearsome predator was making no attempt to pounce on him, and yet another to realize that he seemed to be looking only at the head of the beast, apparently lodged in one of the bulbous fungi like those that he had set charges against. It feebly clicked its jaws at it’s would be prey, before letting off a tired whine. Kwillit stayed low to the ground, circling the circumference of the growth. He could pick out a few claws here, and the tip of a tail there. Kwillit gawked. He had seen something a lot like this before…

From the looks of things, it had been a while since the beast had seemingly grown into one of the large mushrooms that dotted the landscape. How on earth had this happened? Some kind of poison, or defence mechanism? Kwillit’s train of thought was interrupted by a series of shrill beeps from all across the area, indicating that he and everyone else was out of time.

“Oh, bollocks” Eckelson swore as he quickly ducked behind a heavy rock. Whatever was about to happen, it was going to be a lot more interesting than planned.

The first explosion went off on the far side of the clearing, which set off the daisy chain of booms. Kwillit’s guess had paid off, with each of the bloated fungi detonating like a hydrogen balloon, sending out a cloud of orange dust that spread through the area. Immediately weapons were drawn and pointed amongst each other, the peaceful black market meeting quickly devolving into a haze of shouted accusations, humming blasters and wary eyes bouncing across the landscape. Smoke charges mingled with the orange fog that the ruptured mushrooms were giving off and swept over the area, creating an impenetrable haze. A career thief couldn’t ask for better cover.

Assuring that his mask and goggles were firmly in place, Eckelson flared his wings, leaping from his elevated hiding place. He came in fast, directly into the cloud of dust and smoke and hit the ground rolling into a crouch. Normally, his echolocation would allow him a completely clear picture of the insanity around him, but the respirator clamped over his muzzle severely muted his sonic call. He had also decided to keep his large ears folded against his skull, in an attempt to prevent any of the potentially volatile dust in the air to get inside him. As such, the kyroptian was limited to a small sphere of visibility all around him. He still had the advantage over anyone else, and that allowed him to weave his way through the tangle of flailing crooks, making a beeline for his target.

Suddenly, Kwillit picked up the strangled, roaring voice of the colungan as he shouted to his subordinates.
“Gelly, get back on the ship and fire up the turbines!” He took a moment to cough heavily. “Get rid of this crap!”
Couldn’t have that.

Eckelson grabbed a flashbang clipped to his vest and hurled it in the direction of the voice, already having drawn the small blaster strapped to his thigh. Just as the piercing light and noise of the crowd control device went off, Kwillit fired several shots into the air. He was rewarded with another bout of confused yelling.

“They’re firing on us! *kaff*”
“Get the stuff! Bastards are trying to double cross us!”
“Hey, did anyone see that? *cough*”
“Hands on the ground! *kaff* *kaff* Gelly, help me here!”

The obscuring fog lit up with blaster and plasma fire, red and green bolts zipping every which way. Kwillit hit the ground, savouring the sensation of blood pumping in his ears and his racing heart. Keeping his head down, he sent out another net of sonar. The protean’s ship was meters away from him. The other crooks were busy shooting at each other and the lawman kark had disappeared. Another protean that may have been Gelly seemed to be fumbling with her belt, and a nearby cochran had doubled over, hacking and wheezing as he gripped his belly. Kwillit paused for a second, sending out another call. And like that, his suspicions were confirmed.

Everybody in the clearing seemed to be getting…spongier. The colungan’s large form appeared to be growing even larger, and rounder. The austician with the weapon crate had lowered her blaster to poke at the billowing gut that had appeared between her waistband and suddenly stretched turtleneck. Gelly had fallen back onto her blimping backside, already struggling to remove her way-too-tight belt.

Kwillit ducked behind a landing strut of the other protean’s ship, its owner far too busy dealing with the fact that her already stubby arms and legs were having trouble bending. Eckelson reached out and grabbed the red case from its spot atop a few other goods. With the prize now safely in his possession, the thief really should have started running for the treeline. But something in him, perhaps that same morbid curiosity that had played a hand in constructing this plan, compelled him to stay and see what happened next.

As the assortment of dealers and buyers continued to breathe what the kyroptian now identified as a massive cloud of spores, they were growing larger and rounder. The austician had started to kick off her pants, permitting room for her waist, legs and massive rump to grow. The colungan that had arrived with Gelly has now resting on his huge, still expanding belly, desperately reaching for his fallen plasma rifle with arms that resembled widening traffic cones. Gelly herself resembled a beanbag with limbs and was in the process of waddling up the ramp of her ship into the relative safety of the cargo hold. Before she reached her destination though, her body finally over took her stumpy legs, rendering her immobile. Gelly teetered for a moment, thrashing against her own expanded form, then tipped backwards with a muffled yelp. Eckelson had to stifle a laugh as the protean rolled backwards, end over end back down the cargo ramp, slamming into her boss’s bloated backside.

Nobody here seemed capable of being any kind of threat now, provided the kyroptian kept his distance. He emerged from his hiding place, and skirted around the owner of the ship as she lay on her rounded side, sputtering in confusion and outrage at this newcomer. She didn’t seem capable of forming words, sounding as though her mouth had been packed with bread. Eckelson turned back and cocked his head inquisitively as the amphibious individual’s skin started to lighten in tone just as she became truly spherical. The slick, wet sheen of her protean hide faded into a dull lustre, and began to reach a tone that seemed very similar to the earthy orange of the surrounding fungi. Kwillit gazed through the steadily clearing cloud of spores with his eyes and his ears, watching the last of the changes assert themselves. Of the dozen or so people present, they were all now an assortment of differently sized puffballs, capable of only the occasional wiggle. The clearing had just been filled in, and if it weren’t for the starships parked here and there, it might have looked just like another section of the fungus-laden forest.

Before he could really stop himself, Eckelson reached towards the protean-turned mushroom in front of him. He just wanted to feel the skin for a second, feel the tension and the helplessness contained in that spherical, twitching form…. The kyroptian paused as he heard a pair of footfalls behind him. Whirling around, he locked eyes with the kark from earlier, fully on his feet and slim as ever with a gas mask of his own clamped over his face. Apparently he had retreated back to his ship to retrieve it. The mystery weapon locker was open at his feet, revealing three rows of what looked like simple grenades, one of which was in the police officer’s hands.

“Time to see what the Lieutenant is paying for” he growled, wagging his tail as he pulled the pin and pitched the piece of ordinance directly at the kyroptian.

Just as the grenade left the kark’s hand, Kwillit was in motion. Time seemed to slow down for him as the explosive sailed through the air. He twirled in place, tracking the weapon’s parabolic arc with sonar as it tumbled towards him. Kwillit flared his right wing at the last second, backhandedly swatting the little bomb with enough momentum to redirect it right back towards it’s wielder, but hopefully with enough of the force spread out across the surface area of his wing to avoid detonating it. With his back to his attacker, Eckelson tactically rolled out of the radius of the grenade just as it went off between them, exploding more like a water balloon than a bomb.
The odd weapon discharged a shower of greyish sludge, its trajectory meaning most of the payload splattered all over the lawman. Kwillit peered over his shoulder at the kark as he went from in control to abject panic, trying to peel off his drenched jacket.

Almost too fast for the eye to follow, and with an audible *SHLORP*, the dirty dealing police officer was gone. His jacket and trousers fell to the floor in a heap and a large, heavy object hit the ground with a thud. It was a large, slightly shiny and completely round ball, about half a meter in diameter. It rolled out of its clothes slightly, coming to a rest against the weapon crate.

Eckelson got back to his feet and dusted himself off, walking towards the mysterious orb. The mushroom protean may have just been an odd curiosity, but he absolutely HAD to see this. The sphere was completely smooth and hard, like a bowling ball, and as heavy as one too. It took a second for the thief to realize that it was the exact same colour as the kark’s fur. He placed both hands on the polished surface of the orb and grunted as he rolled it over, revealing a pair of dazed yellow eyes, so flush with the rest of the ball that they looked almost painted on. They peered dolefully up at Eckelson, who merely shrugged in response.

"Well” he finally said, thankful that his face and voice were both obscured by his own filtration mask. “All points aside mate, you have to admit that was a pretty slick move I pulled just then”

He stood up and gave the karkball a hard shove with his foot, sending it rolling across the soil to rest alongside the other groaning spheres. They probably all had a lot to talk about. Eckelson certainly hadn’t made any friends here today, but he had definitely made a tidy sum of cash. As he turned to leave, one foot brushed up against the case of what the thief could only refer to as “Ballification Bombs”.

He glanced down at them, a thread of temptation tugging at the back of his head. Kneeling down, Kwillit inspected the open crate. Among the three rows, he could see a small note tucked away in between. He quickly opened and read it.

Omnigrenades: Made as per specification.
3 dozen

“Omnigrenades?” Kwillit scoffed “I’m still callin’ em Ballifiers”

There was a small handwritten note underneath the typed words, which read:

“Hope these are to your liking. As requested, the omnigel only bonds to living tissue, leaving weapons and clothing untouched. Still working on a reliable method to reverse the effects. Hope to see you on my docket again soon, Meszaros.”
- J

Kwillit stuffed the note into one of his pockets, looking back down at the crate as a decision formed in his mind. Meszaros…something about the name seemed familiar.

“Sorry Lieutenant” he smirked “I saw ‘em first”

He promptly locked the crate back up and gripped one of its handles, carrying it behind him. These would certainly be handy, and not only that, they seemed damned fun to use.
As the last man standing strolled away from the whole sorry scene, he paused for a second time.
Despite all appearances to the contrary, the cluster of spheres behind him were all still people, and he was the only one who knew that they were out here. He had certainly thrown caution to the wind here, but still, only two people had gotten a solid look at him, and he had kept his face covered.

“Oy” he muttered, returning to dig around in the discarded clothes of the former detective. Withdrawing his IGPD badge, Kwillit admired its silvery sheen briefly before pocketing it and returning to his search. He finally withdrew a compact black radio earpiece. Turning it over in his hands, he found a small red button on the back. It was a standard police panic button, usually meant for undercover cops. By giving it a hard press, he was sending out a distress beacon on any official frequencies. There was a hefty chance that almost everyone here would be headed to jail, but at least they wouldn’t be stuck here, like this.
Eckelson tossed the little black earpiece at the collection of twitching orbs and finally set about making his getaway.

“Oh, and officer” he called back “Lugging your big heavy crate all the way back to my ship is quite a long walk. Hope you don’t mind if I use yours to get there before your friends in blue arrive!”

Eckelson slid into the pilots chair after safely tucking away his payload, quickly firing up the grav thrusters of the officer’s cruiser and lifting off. He left the scene, the assorted spheres and the job in its entirety in a kicked up cloud of dust, making short time back to the Penny.
As Kwillit loaded his cargo into the back of The Bad Penny (double checking the red case to insure it in fact contained the circuit board he had been sent for, whole and intact) he made effort to avoid mentally patting himself on the back for his actions back at the scene of the crime. For all intents and purposes, he should have just left those people back there. He usually avoided having any kind of witnesses on a job, and he feared the repercussions of his actions in the future. But for now, he could deal with the little tingle of euphoria that came with the knowledge that he had sort of done someone a favour. Granted, it was after royally screwing them all over, but hey, one step at a time.

Kwillit activated the whisper drives of The Penny, quickly climbing out of the atmosphere and into the diamond-studded oblivion of space. It wasn’t as bad as before, he thought, twirling the purloined IGPD badge in his hands as he activated the autopilot. It wasn’t like back when he was a kid on that old wreck of a colony ship, having to cheat, lie and steal whatever he had to survive. Where he kept telling himself that mercy was nothing but a one way ticket to the recycling vats. Nowadays he was better, both at his job and at being around people. Hell, maybe with all the money he was making nowadays, Kwillit could finally afford to be half decent to people…

******************************************************

The assorted dregs and orphans gathered before their master. Of course, not all of them had something to show for their efforts, but those who did were rewarded in some way. Those with a handful of coins or even bills were quickly relieved of their offerings and told to do better next time.  At least they’d be getting a full meal tonight.

The real payoff was in material goods. A pickpocketed ring here, a stolen camera there. One young protean that the kyroptean knew as Venna even came forward with a blaster, which she was quickly relieved of, receiving a pat on the head, a few bills and a small packet of cookies.
But even that paled in comparison to what the kyroptean had. He stepped forward, plunging his hand into his jacket to finally reveal the prize that he had fought so very hard for.
All he could feel was his own torso.

The boy felt panic rise in his gut as he frantically patted himself down, desperately looking for something that wasn’t there. He scanned the floor, hoping that it had merely slipped out of his jacket and hadn’t been noticed by anyone else.

“Excuse me sir, but I think I’ve got that beat” a young voice sounded out from across the room.

Oh Gods, no.
A lean figure stepped out from the crowd, another kyroptean, about the same age but a tad taller and thinner. He had something bright and gleaming clenched in his fist.
“And what do you have there my boy?” Bernan inquired, leaning forward in his seat.

The exhausted thief felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as he watched the other kyroptean reveal what he was holding. It was a necklace, comprised entirely of white, dagger-like jewels that shone with iridescent natural light. Wisps of colour seemed to flicker in each one, dancing like oil on water. The crowd gasped and even Bernan seemed taken aback.

“Where…where did you get that?” the old Colungan muttered.

“From some ol’ bint in first class” the tall kyroptean chuckled. “Duchess of some and such, I think. Stole ‘em right outta her room when she weren’t looking. Haven’t you seen alla them news bulletins?”

Bernan nodded. “Never thought it was one of mine that did it”

As the crowd of children erupted into cheers and applause, one lone kyroptean silently bit back bitter tears. He raged, he wept, he screamed, but all internally. There was nothing he could do now. If he came forward and tried to claim the necklace as his own work, he’d be shouted down and possibly even ostracized for daring to besmirch such a hero of their little thieves den. All of that work, the pain, the close calls and the beatings he would surely receive from Tiller and his cronies, all for nothing. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.

Venna clapped a hand on his shoulder, looking up at the undeserving champion with the same look of reverence as everyone else.
“Hell of a thing, huh Deke?” she said “How d’you suppose he even managed it?”

Dekaan the kyroptean recoiled from her grasp, still staring at the floor. How did he even manage it? Even he could admit that the pull was very impressive, which presumably occurred when he was being jostled amongst the crowd. Pickpocketing a pickpocket wasn’t easy even for an expert, and Dekaan hadn’t even felt a thing. How long had one thief been following the other, tracking him, waiting to make his move? The bastard wasn’t even looking at him, too busy taking praise from the old colungan fence.

“Well” Bernan said to his new golden boy. “What you did was silly, suicidal and damn near impossible” he waved the jewelry through the air. “This is so high profile, I probably can’t even sell it on this station. But I have my ways, and guarantee you’ll see a tidy share of whatever I can fence this for, ah….” He trailed off. “What did you say your name was again boy?”

“Eckelson” the tall boy said, his face spitting into a toothy grin. “Eckelson Kwillit”

“Well, Eckelson” Bernan clapped a hand on the young thief’s shoulder. “I’ll be watching you very closely. I have a feeling that you’re destined for great things.”