I Am Owed
Weapons: Vibroknife | Vibrosword | Blaster
Equipment: Modified Uniform | Hidden Choker | Wristwear | Personal Shield
Tags:
Aiden Porte
The air inside Docking Bay Nine was thick with fuel vapor and the low thrum of cargo lifters. Dockhands moved between freight pallets, voices muffled under respirators. Beyond the open bay doors, Druckenwell’s scarred sky stretched pale and gray, lit by smog-filtered sunlight.
The Hound's Mercy rested on her landing struts, hull streaked from recent re-entry, her engines still venting heat. Veyra Saelis stood at the foot of the boarding ramp, silver-gray eyes scanning the marketplace stalls that ringed the port’s interior. Her left arm flexed once as she adjusted her belt.
Some of her crew was already scattered; two handling cargo requisition, one bartering for engine coolant, and another trying to convince the local quartermaster to look the other way about her ship’s weapon signatures.
Veyra moved quietly through the crowds, attention drifting to a nearby stall stacked with ration crates and coolant packs. The vendor’s eyes flicked past her shoulder before darting away. It was enough of a tell. Someone was behind her.
A shadow fell over the crates.
“Didn’t think you’d have the nerve to come back to Druckenwell, Saelis.”
The voice was rough, slurred by drink but sharp underneath. She turned her head just enough to see him; a broad-shouldered Weequay with burn-scars across his neck and a longcoat that barely concealed the heavy blaster at his hip. Four others loitered behind him with the same emblem branded on their jackets. The jagged crescent of the Dross Cartel.
Her jaw tensed slightly.
“Captain Brak,” she said evenly, as though greeting an accountant. “You’re still breathing. I must’ve been sloppy the last time.”
Brak’s grin widened, showing broken teeth. “You cost me half my take at Irot Station, and three of my crew besides. I figure Druckenwell’s just about done tolerating your kind. Thought I’d speed up the eviction.”
She turned to face him fully in a slow, deliberate turn and kept her hands at her sides. Around them, the dockhands and hawkers had started to drift away, sensing tension in the air.
“I’m here for supplies,” she said simply. “You’re here for attention. Let’s make this quick.”
Brak chuckled, stepping closer. “You always talk like you’ve already won. You think that arm of yours scares anyone? You’re just another scavenger who got lucky once.”
Her eyes didn’t move. “Luck’s what people call skill when they can’t explain it.”
Brak’s amusement faltered. One of his men shifted uneasily. The air between them went deathly still as if the decision of what to do hadn't been made already. The kind of silence that comes before violence.
Then, the slightest change as Brak’s right hand twitched toward his holster.
Veyra’s left arm moved with fluid grace despite the speed. A dull metallic crack filled the air as she caught his wrist mid-draw, her cybernetic grip locking around the joint with a sound like stone grinding steel. Brak grunted, tried to pull back, but her arm didn’t yield.
“Draw slower next time,” she murmured, voice low enough only he could hear. “I like a fair fight.”
He made to spit in her face and instead found himself moving. She turned his arm as he moved, twisting the joint until he dropped the blaster. It hit the durasteel floor with a clatter as his crew froze.
Her right hand drew her own sidearm and fired once. A clean, controlled shot that vaporized the handle of the fallen weapon. The sound echoed through the dockyard, turning every nearby conversation that had dared to remain into chained silence.
Veyra released him. Brak staggered back as if she had pushed, clutching his ruined wrist, teeth bared in pain.
She stepped closer, lowering her blaster but not holstering it. “You come after me again, Brak, and I’ll stop aiming for metal. Druckenwell doesn’t need another corpse cluttering the air vents.”
He glared, breathing hard, but said nothing. His men finally moved, half-dragging him toward the bay exit.
When they were gone, Veyra holstered her blaster and looked back at the vendor, who hadn’t moved from behind his stall.
“Add the coolant to my tab,” she said, her tone even. “And the rations. I’ll pay double if you forget this happened.”
The vendor swallowed. “Of—of course, Captain.”
