In the steps of the Guild
The trip to HIP 11IFOR-GET+theREst was uneventful, too much so. In every system, at every stop, at every moment, I expected the computer to announce an interdiction, a system failure, anything… But it stayed silent, well, except that one time I tried to test out my still-rusty flying skills at low altitude over a high-G planet without shields. Could’ve been worse, still had 6% hull left… Point is, it was too easy. No bounty hunters, mercenaries, assassins, not even a common pirate. There must be a reason, but I’m glad I wasn’t forced to fight. I’m not sure I could have. I was still trembling like a Federal bureaucrat in New Siberia when I landed at the station though.
Docking Control gave a pad in the Back Row, where all the seedy and not-perfectly-legal shops were, as if they already knew I was a disreputable nobody. Not that the rest of the place was legal. The whole system was run by a gang of thieves, assassins and other miscreants, calling themselves “The Guild”. That’s one thing I noticed about this odd little system: the names. They all sound like they come out of some fantasy novel. Even the station, Pratchett’s Disc, just sounds weird. I guess that’s what happen if you leave a few million people 350 LY away from the bubble.
After hiring some of the more trustworthy engineers to fix up my ship, I decided to explore the station a bit. This place truly was the greatest hive of scum and villainy I had ever seen. I had landed in an area with relatively few lights. The first alley I walked down, I tripped over something soft that I knew instinctively was a body. I came to an intersection with a bigger street.
A crowd filled the middle of the street. In the center, several young men wearing a uniform, probably that of The Guild, were attacking an old and defenseless man. They kicked and beat the man with a sort of poised savagery, as though it was some kind of competitive dance of pain, and they would be evaluated on artistic impression as well as raw torment.
Without noticing it, I pushed through to the front of the crowd, as if drawn by the meaningless violence to which I had been used to. One of the men in uniforms caught my eye. I wondered what would happen now. We stared at each other, in a silent competition. We looked away. It was not clear who had won. One by one, the ruffians marched out, all purposely crushing the old man’s head, leaving behind a pool of blood and teeth.
Cripples were everywhere. Some were blind, some had no arms, some had no legs… all were miserable. I passed garish shops full of rubbish, drug dealers, stalls selling some unidentified vaguely purple liquid substance. I decided I needed to get out of these horrors. I chose a building at random, a bar called the Orange Librarian. It couldn’t be any worse than what was out here.
