Into the Black

(Jom Gabbar Tavern, Keen-arra City, kisArra)

Aquaria IV was, to put it bluntly, perhaps the most hostile terrestrial planet to any and all life that wasn’t covered in ever-molten lava (that would be the ironically named Dante, in the Inferno System). Called kisArra by the natives, travelers commonly referred to it as the Sandpit. Of course, there were no true natives of kisArra, since sentient life never developed on the desert planet.

Which is not to say that there were no people who were born, lived, and died without ever leaving the surface of kisArra, or that there weren’t living creatures native to the world. The nomadic Freemen were a tribe of outcasts from the Terran Empire who had come here centuries ago, fleeing through the Gateway before its uses were completely understood. They had risked everything to escape the Empire’s growing persecution, and had found a desert world awaiting them. They managed to create a life for themselves, living in the desert, practicing their strange religion, a combination of Sunni and Zen beliefs.

When a group of six walked into the bar, wearing Freemen-style desert suits, most just assumed that they were Freemen. Which meant that most of the people in Keen-arra were not pleased to see them. To the city-dwellers, Freemen were little more than bandits, wholly uncivilized since they chose willingly to live in the deserts. Some of the local toughs, drunk off the cheap liquor (pure water was the most expensive drink on the planet), decided that they would show these native scum who was boss.

That plan got changed quickly when the newcomers shifted their cloaks, and the crowd could see that all but one of them were female. Of course, their plan still involved showing the natives who was boss, but only involved beating the shit out of the guy, while taking the women someplace more ‘comfortable’.

The toughs got up, and started heading for the group, when they saw the man placing his hand on the hilt of a weapon. Looked like they were going to get some fun before they played with the girls! Grinning to eachother, the two humans, four gauz, and three ihm males got ready to play. Which is when everyone heard the distinct sound of the bolt slamming home on a long gun.