A Debt Repaid

Posted on Thu Jan 28th, 2021 @ 4:13pm by Colonel Sehan t'Varis

1,151 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Chapter III: The Hunt is On
Location: Zeotis IV
Timeline: 238701.31

Once they had finished speaking to the Matriarch, Raven and Daisy shared a meal, together with little Azalea, before Raven returned to her shuttle for the night. The following morning, the mercenary commander had some other business to take care of, while Daisy got everything ready for her and Azalea to leave the monastery and head back to the Ourainavassa with Raven. After a quick breakfast from the replicator, Raven made her way to the small colony's market.

Again, not much had changed in the years since she had left, Raven mused, as she wandered across the town. The prefabs looked a bit more worn, a few new ones had been put up, and there were a few new faces in the crowd, but, all in all, it was still the same backwater outpost that it had always been. It didn't take her long to make her way to the assortment of shacks and stalls that the colonists called their market.

"If it isn't little Sehan!" Raven turned to the voice that had called out her name, and immediately spotted its source. A huge Klingon with one arm and one eye, long grey beard and even longer grey hair, was beaming at her from his stand, where he was selling assorted salvage and farming equipment that had definitely seen better days. "What brings you back to this worthless old rock?"

Raven smirked and walked over. "Been a while, Two-Fists," she called out, using the Klingon's rather ironic nickname. "Just came here to have a chat with old Arwenna up at the nunnery. Surprised she's still going!"

The Klingon barked with laughter. "Hope she's not giving you extra chores for going AWOL for, what, twelve years?"

"Thirteen, near enough. Not that much has changed here while I was gone."

Two-Fists shrugged. "Eh, not really, that's true. Well. Old Hagar's finally kicked the bucket last year, he was, what, 120?" Hagar, another old, crippled Klingon, who had served on the same crew as Two-Fists, had run a butcher's stall not far away. "Oh, and Gears has decided to go and seek her fortune in the stars," he added, chuckling.

"Really? Never thought she'd be the type," Raven replied, in disbelief. Gears - or Sarah, as her real name was - had also grown up in the monastery, and shown a knack for all things mechanical. Rehana would have liked her, the colonel mused. "Well, best of luck to her."

"She'll do just fine. Or got herself killed within a week. I hear you're a big name merc now yourself? What's it they call you, Raven? Nice name."

"Yeah, long story where that came from. Privateer, actually, working with the Rommies. Turns out my dad was a Talshy general, got me a commission and all before he croaked. And the command codes to one hell of a bird. The Ourainavassa. All sorts of advanced tech on that one."

The Klingon's eyes grew wide in disbelief. "Tal Shiar? Nice one, bet that's good latinum. So, what brings you to the market then? Can't imagine you'd be after any of my junk here."

Raven shook her head. "I was actually looking for Hagar. Not much of a point now, if he's in Sto-vo-kor. Or, knowing that son-of-a-targ, more likely to be Grethor."

"Ha, definitely Grethor!" Two-Fists laughed again. "What, wanting to cash in on that favour he owed you after so many years? Yeah, that'll be tough." Suddenly, he held up his hand, as if he'd made a realisation. "Oh! Now I know what this is about."

To Raven's puzzled looks, he reached under his counter, and pulled out a bundle, wrapped in tatty, red leather. "He told me, just before he died, to give you this. If you ever showed your face again."

He unwrapped the bundle, revealing what appeared to be a heavy scattergun, in a brown leather holster. Carefully, Raven grabbed the weapon's handle, and pulled it out. It was indeed a kind of shotgun, from its appearance, made from what looked like tempered, darkened steel, with all sorts of swirly adornments. However, there seemed to be a strange folding mechanism embedded in the weapon as well.

She looked at the Klingon. "Is this what I think it is? How the hell did he get hold of that?"

Two-Fists shrugged. "He never said a word about it to me. I've never even seen anything like it."

After a moment's examination, Raven held the gun up, pointing out to her side, and pressed a latch on the handle. Rapidly, the folding mechanism expanded, and what was moments ago a gun had transformed into a mechanical-looking sword. She swung the weapon a few times, evaluating its balance, before activating the mechanism again, and just as quickly, the weapon folded back together.

"This," she explained, as she carefully slid it back into the holster. "Is the Blazefire Sabre. It's a weapon that was developed on a remote colony world, to be wielded by their security forces. They don't have any warp ships, and any outsiders that turn up are immediately put to death, apparently. Only about half a dozen of them are known to exist away from that world." She picked up the brown leather sheath, designed to be attached to the back of a belt. "You sure you have no idea where the old man got this thing?"

Again, the old Klingon shook his head. "No clue. Wonder how much this thing is worth, if it's this rare." Raven chuckled. "More than this entire colony put together, would be my guess." She reached behind her back and clasped the holster onto her belt, with the weapon's handle in easy reach of her right hand. Quickly, she grabbed it, drew the weapon, unfolded it, and held the blade out in a combat-ready position, before swiftly folding it up, levelling it on a flower pot on a nearby roof, and pulling the trigger. The pot immediately shattered, as the gun was pressed back into Raven's shoulder.

"Recoil?" The Klingon's eye grew even wider. "So that thing fires actual, physical projectiles? Not energy?"

Raven nodded. "Yup. Apparently, it holds a small block of highly dense metal, and a tiny fabricator shaves off little splinters, that are then propelled out by a railgun-type system. Nobody has figured out how the hell it actually works, but then, it's all rumours. Seems that it's true, though!"

She holstered the weapon once more, and pulled a handful of latinum out of her pocket. "Here. For all the trouble I got you into back in the day. And a delivery fee." She slapped it down on the counter, and put another slip next to it. "And that's damages for that ugly pot."

Two-Fists smiled. "Good to see you haven't changed one bit. Put that thing to good use, will you?"

"You bet. I'd say old Hagar repaid his debt well."

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