The Legends of Twisted Felix Katt (Book 3)

(11) Hakuna My Tauntaun

The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls – Edgar Allen Poe

The problem about being a Woman of rules, is that there is almost inevitably a time when Murphy backs you into a corner, makes you grab your ankles and then does crude and sadistic things to you with those rules. I’m not terribly proud of the fact that I ran with those kind of colours, but it’s a part of my history so I deal with it, but I was REALLY hoping to never have to call in the favor from my Merc past. They were glorified bounty hunters at best and ruthless assassins at very best, so you can imagine the kind of short but wild ride it’d been for me.

I wasn’t any better at planning things out when I was twelve that I seem to be now (to be fair, at that time I hadn’t realized that Murphy has a hate on for me). The schemes I orchestrate tend to fall flat somewhere between the start and pretty much whatever step is supposed to come next, mine never make it that far really. So you can figure out my wild successful lifestyle after I bolted from my family a twelve.

It was almost half a year since Felix Katt was born and I was finally used to going by that name. I wasn’t starving anymore either, thankfully I’d learned the art of not getting caught pick pocketing after the Hound had picked me up and mothered at me for a bit. Since then I’d sort of learned how to spot those that’ll have money worth the risk and those that are just better to let walk on past. Oh, I’d also learned to leave the natives alone and target the outsiders on the space station colony I’d relocated to. Don’t rob the locals had been my first lesson learned with a violent hand taken to me, and a broken wrist later it was not one I needed a refresher course on.

I saw a space Captain wearing a lot of layers smelling of gun powder and expensive tobacco, and I knew she’d have a fat purse. But a little wiggling in my gut had me wait and watch her instead of my usual pilfer and run tactic. She had sharp eyes, the kind that look bored when someone is talking to her but she’s seeing everything in the room. I’d seen women like that before, my aunt had been like that so so the urge to turn it into a game overtook me. I wanted to see if she’d see me, just another space station urchin milling about or if I could get close enough to rob her without anyone ever noticing. There was a pattern to where and who she looked at; count the bodies in a room, position self at most defensible point, watch most dangerous opponent, underestimate no one. Oh my, it was exhilarating to think like that and mimic her mannerisms.

There was a team with her, a pair of women who stood at her back like gargoyles standing sentinel over my old Family Sisterhouse, and a male who was in the awkward boy becoming a man stage. His face had more bumps on it than a crater ridden moon. He was bound in rope and the lead woman in layers (Ragdoll in my mind) was taking him to the higher class food concourse. As the curious little almost thirteen year old, I crept along and blended in as best I could, figuring that a business discussion is a wonderful distraction and I might just get a chance to rob a whole party blind. Already that sense of fernweh hit me, the need to travel to a home I’ve never been to yet, I was sick of staying in this station colony and a good size haul would go a long way towards me making tracks to the stars.

“The job fee was set before we left, pay up.” Ragdoll commanded on overly neat looking woman. I’d seen Tidyface around the colony before, she was some kind of Mayor like bureaucrat that I generally avoid.

“You took a lot less time hunting him down than I expected. Suspiciously less time. What’s to make think you didn’t already have him when you took the job and are just trying to pull a fast one…” Tidyface started to monologue and I tuned her out.

Instead of listening to her, I was looking around the concord we were in. I might be fairly recent here myself, but I knew these people well enough to realize that something was really rather off about the whole thing. Every single person in the space who wasn’t me or these outsiders were Tidyface’s family or owed her a big ass debt. And even at twelve I couldn’t help but realize that this was a bad set up for the outsiders to walk into.