Molly's Fate

Prologue: Molly: A Bad Enemy

The hangar was cold, as chilled as the ice sliding down Molly's spine, and as frosty as the blood running through the lizard's veins. Unarmed, with not even a trusty dagger in her boot, she faced the Vargosh captain. Behind him stood his ship, looking more like a junkpile of useless parts than a large transporter. Inside, she expected it to be organic, slime dripping off the walls with the floor... spongy. Her stomach twisted, churned, and wrenched until she had to calmly swallow bile.

"You have the cargo?" Krak hissed, rubbing his shiny chest with a tongue-flicking chuckle. His almost human pants clung to his narrow waist and disappeared into chunky boots wrapping around his four-toed feet.

"No." She tossed him the paystick, returning his crypto. It glided along the metal tiles to bump into his boot. "Ran into a complication." Forcing a shrug, she watched him, praying he took the crypto and left.

Pissing off a Vargosh, captain or not, was never wise. If he accepted her excuse, this might not end in bloodshed. If he did not, the idiot would either see the inside of a penial colony or the back of his double eyelids. Though, after what he had put her and her partner Amy through, she hoped it was the latter.

"We paid you to deal with complications. Isn't our crypto enough for you?" His skin mottled like a kaleidoscope of colors, tilting toward purple. Orange would have been preferable, and perhaps a shot of Toler whisky might have been the best way to start this discussion, but purple didn't bode well for her.

She met his slanted gaze, not shuffling her feet or twitching her fingers to reveal her nervousness. Pasting on a pained smile, she rested her hands on her hips.

"You could have told me it was protected cargo, Krak." She narrowed her eyes at him while folding her arms across her chest. "I nearly died finding that out."

Krak flicked a dismissive elongated hand sporting four-taloned fingers. "Your reputation implied you were capable of handling any issue."

"My reputation also states that I don't deal in contraband."

He ignored her. "We do not tolerate failure, Molly Lambert. We and you are not so good." He indicated their business relationship between them by tapping his sharp nail on his bare chest and pointing at her.

"Like I said, Krak, if you will use your lizard ears and listen, you lied to me. You sent me in without all the information. I lost a ton of crypto on this, and now I'm out of pocket. I and you are not so good." She spun on her boot heel, then paused. "Don't comm me for other jobs. Lie to some other courier."

"Wait! Human!" Krak hissed, taking a step closer and kicking the paystick to the side. "We and you have not settled this."

"I. Do. Not. Have. Your. Cargo." She gritted each word past her clenched jaw.

He threw his longs arms into the air. "Then where is it?"

"Try station security." She smirked and saluted him with two fingers to her temple.

Krak clicked his fury. "Molly Lambert, you have made a bad enemy of us." He drew his airgun, and she stiffened, preparing to dive for cover. At her silly plan, she snorted. Dodging a blast from an airgun was an impossible feat.

"Drop your weapon, Vargosh." A helmeted man in full uniform entered the fray as the hangar's lights brightened. Surrounding the Vargosh ship and their little party was the Galactic Force soldiers with their weapons raised. Black armor, weapons, and helmets faded them into the shadows. The Galactic Force hologram badges flickered on their chests in a soul-sucking black.

Krak arched his back and ululated, the shrill sound echoing off the vast hangar. The low rumble of the engines powering up merged with the mechanical whine of the clamps locking onto the ship.