Jardun’s Embrace

Shortly after entering what I considered to be one of the worst excuses for a bar I’d ever seen, I surveyed the interior. The five-year war, a result of a sibling’s attempt to overthrow his brother’s rule, had left its devastating mark on the planet, this place included. Now that it was over, the survivors, human and ketaurran alike, were doing their best to rebuild their lives out of what was left. Apparently, the owner of the establishment didn’t fall into that category.

If I thought the outside of the building was bad, with its thin cracks, randomly scorched walls, and numerous chunks missing from the reddish-brown adobe-like exterior, the inside wasn’t much better. The place had been stripped of everything except the barest amount of furniture. It reeked of stale ale, body odor, and urine. I’d bet the handful of cradasson coins I had stuffed in my pocket that the place hadn’t been cleaned in days, possibly weeks.

Out-of-the-way locations like this one had become the preferred meeting place when dealing with lowlife, cutthroat mercs, bounty chasers, or thieves. I was certain, from their arrogant demeanor and hardened expressions, that these particular males qualified as all three.

Life wasn’t exactly easy, and there were those who spent their time using alcoholic liquids to temporarily dull their horrible memories, to make their existence easier to deal with. I was a little surprised to find the place lacking in patrons. Other than the luzardees, a balding middle-aged human male with hairy arms and a paunchy midsection was the only other person in the room. He stood behind a long serving counter attentively paying attention, yet seemed uninterested in my presence. No one in the room had been served a drink, nor did they act as if they were expecting one.

“Are you lost, female?” the luzardee seated at the table closest to me asked. He’d been staring at me as if I were a delectable feast from the moment I’d entered the room.

No, I wasn’t lost, but I was definitely reconsidering my decision to come inside alone. Beneath his animal hide vest and pants, his body was covered in one endless sheet of hairless tan scales. He glared at me with beady black eyes that lacked pupils, and flared the nostrils on his flat face. Of the three, he was the tallest and the biggest, which wasn’t saying much since his lanky frame wasn’t much wider than mine.

Tiny white flecks clung to portions of his scaly skin, a sign he’d been spending too much time in the sun, or he was getting ready to go through his yearly shedding. Whichever it was made my skin itch, and I fought the urge not to scratch my arm.

Now that I was here, leaving wasn’t an option. “I’m looking for someone named Kowhl.”

A slight squint was all the indication I needed to know I’d found the person I’d been sent here to meet.

“I am Kowhl. What is the nature of your businesss?” He leered even more.

I’d learned from my past interactions with the luzardees that they spoke with a slight lisp, which only became more prominent when they were anxious or excited. The way his gaze kept dropping to my cleavage told me it was the latter.

I gave the door an inconspicuous glance, questioning for the third time in the last ten minutes what had happened to my backup. And by backup, I meant Celeste and Sloane. They were my traveling companions, my closest friends, and the only two women on the entire planet who were closer to me than sisters. But no matter how much we discussed our plans ahead of time, they were always, always, always…late.

I straightened my shoulders and pushed aside my disgust. “Burke sent me.”

The luzardee’s pause was brief, his disappointed gaze replaced by a greedy gleam. “Sit.” He angled his head toward the seat across the table from him.

I preferred to keep my distance, but sitting would make reaching the knife in my boot easier if things headed in a bad direction. I silently cursed my friends for being late one more time to make myself feel better, then cautiously pulled out the chair. I was hesitant to take a seat, not because the furniture lacked cleanliness, but because the chair appeared unstable. The loud creak I heard when I sat only reinforced my observation.

Kowhl glanced at the man behind the counter. “Leave us.”

With a nod, the barkeep headed for a doorway leading to the back of the building. Chances were he’d been compensated in advance for the use of his bar.

I thought about Burke’s parting words again and wondered what he’d gotten my friends and me into. “Burke said I was supposed to retrieve a package.”

I accepted all the intricacies that came along with my association with Burke because they kept me fed and prevented me from living out of a trash recycler. Something I’d had to do more than once and preferred never to do again.

Burke was military to his core. He’d led one of the security details assigned to the Starward Bounty. The exploration spaceship from Earth had carried nearly three hundred people: scientists, agriculturists, and their families. It had been my home for over a year before it was forced way off course by a bizarre meteor storm, then crash-landed on Ketaurrios.

Several years after we’d settled on the planet, the war had started and changed our lives forever. During and after those dreadful times, Burke led a group of rebels who did their best to protect the surviving humans. The man could be devious, ruthless when necessary, and sometimes showed a disregard for decent morals. All qualities I’d witnessed on numerous occasions and, in current times, understood why they were necessary.

I trusted him, at least with my life. And in that regard, I owed him a debt. A debt I’d never be able to repay, so here I was, ready to collect whatever he wanted, no questions asked. Correction: I had questions, a few of them, and would make sure to ask them later. If I’d been in the same room with Burke and not discussing the retrieval via my vehicle’s less than adequate sometimes-staticky communication unit, I would’ve taken the time to gather more information.

I’d done quite a few jobs for him over the years, some dangerous and some I’d been aware stretched or jumped way over the fine line defining some of the planet’s laws. This was one of those rare times when I wanted to kick myself for not getting more details.

I’d been tagged with the role of acquisition specialist, a glamorous way of saying I acquired things or performed tasks most people wouldn’t risk doing, so others could stay alive. When Burke used the term “package,” I’d expected something the size of a small box at most, a large crate containing food, supplies, or maybe some stolen blades.

Even if I’d used my imagination, I never would have expected the package to be a man. Or rather male, since all the species, other than humans of that specific gender, insisted they be referred to by the latter.

Not that any of that mattered. At the moment, my objective was getting my package and myself out of here without either of us getting injured.