Aboard Phantom-2-7[Class XII Medium Cruiser], Exiting Metrog
Condor [star system]
19 December; 17:19:40 Hours
Syia stood up on the ramp of the cruiser as her messy hair blew in the gusting wind. Her heart was pounding as she made eye contact with Throx for what she hoped to be the last time. His guttural and thunderous voice echoed through the skyscrapers around them as he roared and the ramp closed. She slowly looked down to her right where she found Rapirous, the rapier her father had given to her upon her tenth birthday, was shattered.
“<N-n-nah-no,>” she whimpered as tears rolled down her cheeks, but then quickly her head shot up and she looked around.
Syia unbuckled a pouch upon her belt and removed a doom grenade - a small orb the size of a golf ball, which could release a plasma charge powerful enough to wipe out everything in a 50’ diameter. She held it tightly in her hand while raising what remained of her rapier. She slowly and carefully maneuvered her way through the cargo carrier of the cruiser. Her heart was pounding again while adrenaline rushed through her veins, and the hairs on her neck slowly raised as she walked through the common area where the cockpit was up ahead.
The door was open just enough that Syia could see through the front view shield, that they were leaving Metrog and flying into space. Then as she inched her way closer, she could hear two men. One who spoke with a slightly deep, but snarky tone, “Come on, Augur! We can’t let the damsel be in distress…Well, she would’ve kind of been, uh, dead.”
“<That’s the kind of attitude that got us on the run, to begin with,” the other man snapped, as his tone was slightly higher pitched yet weathered, “and soon, we’ll be DEAD too.>”
Syia was ready to barge into the cockpit when one of the men came walking out, startling her and himself but he was quick to smile.
“AUGUR! She’s alright! She’s—” the man called back into the cockpit, but Syia quickly grabbed and threw him up against the wall where she placed the shattered blade against his throat. “Um, uh, yeah, she’s, woooo, she’s okay.”
“<Who are you?>” Syia hissed, as she looked him in the crimson eyes. “<Why did you save me?>”
The man grinned as he sized Syia up. “Hey, toots, you mind, uh, taking your blade from the throat of the handsome hunk that just saved your all too fine ass?”
Slowly, and hesitantly, she pulled the blade back from his throat. Syia squinted at him as she slowly took a step back. The man, 6’3” with a shredded muscular physique, yanked upon the collar of his brown weathered aviator jacket as Syia was now the one sizing him up.
He ran his fingers through his dark brown hair and cracked an even more arrogant grin before he again called into the cockpit, “Augur, she’s all right. She’s kind of feisty… I think I’m in love!”
“<Who are you?>” Syia growled. “<Why did you save me? I did nothing for you.>”
“<I set course for Conqulious, we should be able to hide out there with no one specifically looking for us - Ergo, no one looking for the woman,>” the other man, Augur, said as he came walking out from the cockpit.
His head whipped to Syia, and she quickly looked at him, as his eyes specifically caught her attention. They were something she’d never seen before - the irises were light blue, but they lit up with an intense bright glow as the two locked eyes.
Syia shook her head and then yelled, “<WHY? Why did you two save me? Huh? Who are you?>”
“Calm down, toots - Name’s Sacks,” he introduced himself and then pointed to Augur and smiled. “This here, he’s Augur. We’re smugglers, that’s all… and well, uh, we saved your fine ass because it looked like you could use a helping hand.”
“<Don’t thank me,>” Augur quipped and rolled his eyes. “<He saved you. I voted to let you eat the street…We’ve already got enough heat on us and don’t need the type of heat that YOU’RE bringing along with you.>”
Syia slowly and carefully moved her left hand back underneath her trench coat. She returned the grenade and then forced a smile.
Augur could see right through it, though. He could feel that something wasn’t right and his left eye squinted as Sacks extended his right hand out to her.
They shook hands while Sacks asked, “So, toots, what’s the name? You know, now that you know ours.”
“<Uh…>”
“Uh? Is that your name, toots?” Sacks sarcastically snickered. “Uh?”
“<Nah-no… no, my name,” she stuttered, “it’s… um, it’s Daisy! My name… is Daisy.>”
“<Why was that ripper chasing you… Daisy?>” Augur snapped, “<He wasn’t a normal ripper, that much is certain. Looked like he was packing a Primer.>”
“<What-what’s a ripper… A Primer?>”
“<You don’t know what a ripper is? How don’t you know what a rip—”
Sacks pushed Augur onto the bench, sliding him to the corner behind the table that hung off the wall, softly explaining to Daisy as he sat down and motioned for her to do the same, “Rippers, uhm, best way I can explain them to you toots is that it’s smuggler slang - what we call bounty hunters. A Primer, slang too, for a Prime Blade, the most dangerous weapons in the universe… Unless you believe the hocus about them Hae’Lektaes.”
Syia’s eyes lit up. “Hae’Lektaes?”
“<You’re aware of the Hae’Lektaes?>” Augur smirked like he knew he was right about something being off about Syia.
“<Heh, who isn’t?>” she giggled as she sat down. “<Archaic weapons, crystals, but they’re nothing more than just myth.>”
“<How do you know of them, but not what a ripper is?>”
“<Sacks, he said it, that’s slang - How was I supposed to know your slang?>”
“What is with the third degree, Augur?” Sacks said as he nudged him hard. “Huh?”
Augur’s eyes got pinpoint small and his brow furrowed. He then aggressively pointed at Syia as he snarled, “<You’re going to tell me that you don’t get a single bad feeling off of this… this, uh, Daisy girl? Not one? Even when she’s well aware of the Hae’Lektaes but not what a ripper is, or who that blatant Ripper is that was after her?>”
“What is wrong with you,” Sacks snapped as his eyes now squinted and his head clocked back, but Syia cut in as she tried to calm the situation down.
“<Look, I’m, I’m just a girl from Daz - I swear, nothing more and nothing less!>”
“<Would hate to find out that she isn’t who she’s saying she is,” Augur stared her down as he chuckled, “and that there’s a bounty on her head worth more than a bar of silver… Would really hate to lose out on it.>”
Sacks immediately waved Augur off. He shook his head, stood up from the bench, and then motioned for Syia to follow him. She hesitantly got up, but her eye contact hadn’t broken with Augur as he continued to stare her down, though she turned as Sacks placed his arm around her shoulders and they headed back through the cruiser.
“Hey,” he whispered to her, “don’t sweat him. He’s harsh on everyone in the beginning.”
“<Harsh?>”
“Yeah, well, he’s more like a Bacookosh but I was trying to be nice.”
Syia laughed just as they came to a stop, where she found herself back where she started, the ramp door of the cruiser. She looked at Sacks, who walked toward the ramp and turned to her with his arms out to his sides, saying, “Welcome! Welcome to Phantom-2-7 - Your home for the foreseeable future!”