Chapter 1: Loot

Chapter 1

Loot

Lithor awoke to the sounds of a transport ship being docked. He had waited for five hocos in a smelly hangar for the UV-809 to arrive, and it finally had. The hangar he was sitting in could hold about twenty different transport ships at the same time, but the spacecrafts were cleared to make room for the huge UV-809. More than fifty doors lined the left hallway where workers were constantly milling in and out of.

Now was Lithor’s only chance. It took approximately ten minkets for transport ships to go through security and twenty minkets for their thrusters to power down and the radioactivity to be canceled out by the gases the workers release into them. That was just enough time for Lithor to sneak in and sneak out with his loot.

Lithor hid his purple leathered wings and shimmering aqua scales under his pure white hoodie, which he rigged with an invisibility clip to make him look less like a human-dragon hybrid and more like a worker for Galixy Trans. Co. Lithor flipped his hood up, zipped the silver zipper, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes before walking up to the five-hundred by two-hundred meter long cargo ship. He couldn’t tell what he was looking for yet, he never could, but he knew that anything from the Kappa Quadrant must be good.

After everyone had cleared away and the hazmat squad filled their places for decontamination, Lithor snuck to the back of the ship where the boosters were located. He could still feel their otherworldly heat radiating off of them, like he was on the summit of an active volcano. As he climbed into the 3rd booster from the center, he prayed that today wouldn’t be the day that his hoodie’s heat resistance fizzled out. Being part magma dragon, he could withstand extreme temperatures, but that didn’t mean his hoodie could.

Lithor shuffled down the tunnel until he hit the gamma exhaust pipe, which was located in the center of the booster. The pipe was about one meter in diameter and five meters long. What was coming up next would be the life-threatening part of the mission. Gamma rays vaporize anything that isn’t nova-proof on contact, and even after a whole day of cooling, traces of its searing emissions can still burn through six layers of granite-dragon scales.

Lithor unfurled his wings and stepped back several meters. Then, with a running start, Lithor jumped through the pipe with his limbs tucked as tight as he could to his body. He spun his body to create a torpedo effect that allowed him to cut through the air like his ancestors did. Then, without touching the floor, Lithor spread his wings and hovered in the room that had opened up at the end of the pipe. According to the blueprints of the UV-809 Lithor had examined before, this was the room where atoms were split to create an explosion that could trigger a hyper boost. Thankfully, the chamber wasn’t very warm, meaning the transport didn’t need a hyper boost to get away from space pirates that patrolled the galaxy. Therefore, no valuable items could have been stolen. Lithor flapped his wings several more times before shooting up a duct directly above the compartment he was lingering in. This pipe led up to the fuel compartment which led to the main deck. From there he could casually walk unseen to the cargo bay.

But, Lithor didn’t have as much of a cake-walk this time as previous experiences. Apparently Lithor wasn’t the only being who figured out how to avoid suffocating from the toxins that were released into the ship. The chemicals the hazmat team used on the ship were supposed to clean it of any space waste that was left behind, as well as any intruders. Lithor had gills on his neck that could filter out any unwanted substance. Of course, he had to train himself to get used to filtering out these poisons, and so did the little creature he found patrolling the lower hallways of the ship.

She was a nasty little alien with gray, bone-tight skin, and two arm sized mandibles oozing green fluid. Her legs took up half of her body making her torso seem miniscule. Her feet were huge, just like a kangaroo’s, but they had the bulk and the toes of a rhino. The alien had four sharp fingers on each hand, but no thumbs. The head of the creature was the most bizarre. The top was the shape of a mushroom cap and its mouth was foaming over all four of its cat-like eyes. Its vertebrae bones were sticking out of its back and down its tail ending in a spike ball of death. Lithor had read about these in biology class. He thought they were called Greku, a species of intelligent lizard-men from their neighboring quadrant that were a constant harm to the economy due to their recent pirating schemes. This one appeared to be an adolescent female, the deadliest stage of life in a Greku’s lifetime.

Lithor found her hunched over the black energy furnace, salvaging all she could. She turned around, hissed at him, coughed from all the toxins in the air, and then sprinted down the passage way. Thankfully she hadn’t fought him, otherwise he may not have made it home for dinner. Lithor wanted to pursue her before she got any of the good stuff, but he tripped over the deactivated supply box she had hidden in. It was inventive, but Lithor found it unnecessary and childish to hide for five-hundred minkets or more in a crate, like a game of life-or-death-hide-and-seek. He shoved the case aside and ran down the hallway after her.

Lithor ran for what felt like half a hoco down the less than elegant hallway before he saw traces of where the Greku had been. He had been on several transport ships, but none like this one. The UV-809 was not designed for luxury, it was made purely for delivering items to and from the galaxy which meant that it did not get proper maintenance. The hallways were slimy, and filled with grime and unknown stains. The walls were a yellowy-green and the smells made Lithor want to puke.

He eventually found the doorway to the ice containment unit open, frosting everything around it. Lithor ran in only to find the room empty of all things except meteor ore, three meter icicles, and a broken air duct. Lithor knew these ships inside and out, so he expected the Greku to be headed for the cargo bay, as that was the only way the freezer air duct went besides outside. He decided to hightail it to the cargo bay and block her way in from the inside. By the time he had flown to the compartment and decoded the security, he had plenty of time to melt the air duct grate shut before the Greku arrived.

The cargo bay wasn’t very much to look at. It had several pipes and valves streaming through it, flowing with gasses you could hear from the outside. The room was mostly littered with giant capsules filled with valuable goods, but some small treasures were scattered about the floor, such as various gems and crystals and humming mechanical parts. This room was slightly bigger than the other rooms, but it still didn’t look any nicer.

Lithor already had his loot-sack half full before he heard angry Greku noises coming from the opposite side of the room.

“Sorry, but you’ve got to be quicker than that to get first dibs!” yelled Lithor from across the room.

Silence followed his remark, but then a deafening howl, much like that of a wolf came from the air duct, followed by a series of clangs like metal hitting metal. After a minket of bashing, the Greku girl had smashed her way out of the air duct and landed on the gold covered floor.

“Now that just isn’t fair,” complained Lithor with a mocking tone in his voice.

The Greku dropped down with a hollow thud and got in a fighting stance before Lithor. He had never been in a fight with an alien before, but it couldn’t be any harder than the practice dummies or killing a hekfig for dinner, could it? Suddenly, the Greku lashed out, breaking a few of Lithor’s simmering scales under his coat, but his clothing was unharmed as usual. Lithor yelped with pain and surprise, and then crumpled to the ground. He should have expected that! Lithor, in return, kicked at the Greku’s legs forcing the boney body to plummet down on top of him. The poisonous air must have had a drugging effect on him. He also noticed that it had a drugging effect on the Greku, for she was reluctant to get up.

On they fought. Lithor and the Greku girl sluggishly climbed back up and returned to their fighting stances. She began to snarl, but it was hard to see due to the fact that her mandibles were half the size of her head and covering her mouth. Lithor usually didn’t bring himself to snarling because it made him look like a wild animal, but he still did for presentation. The Greku lunged at him, but he quickly side-stepped her and prepared to land his attack. Lithor jumped a meter into the air, ready to land a nasty pile-driver on the Greku, but she recovered too quickly and rolled out of the way. Lithor tried to slow himself from hitting the ground, but he was charging too fast. At the last second he let loose an explosive breath of fire and melted the floor right below him. He fell through the gooey, paper-thin metallic floor into the boiler room, but he couldn’t understand why a transport ship would need one, though. Gold and gems gushed through the hole in the ceiling, covering the ice-cold floor. In addition to the falling rocks came the Greku and she was angry. Lithor opened his wings and pushed himself off the ground, leveling himself with the disgusting female that drooled in front of him. They continued to throw claws and bite at each other until the Greku accidentally, or maybe it was on purpose, clawed a valve on the wall that seemed pretty important. Not long after it started shooting white steam that brightened the air, did a blaring alarm go off, blocking out any other sound.

Lithor couldn’t panic now, he still had a mission to steal some treasure. Lithor picked up his bag only to get it slashed by the Greku, as pay-back most likely.

“Aww, what?! What was that for? I never slashed a whole in your sack!” exclaimed Lithor. Before the Greku could respond, she passed out from the gas leak. “Wow, I never thought my words could have this much effect on a girl before,” said Lithor as a joke to himself, “Time to be a hero again.” Lithor picked the sleepy Greku up and made a break for the hallway, but, before leaving, he salvaged the shiniest and most portable thing he could find, a small glowing box.

Instead of going out the exhaust pipe, which he knew was a terrible idea with all the extra weight, he made his way to the captain’s deck where the captain piloted the ship. The deck was huge! The ground was cluttered with monitors and chairs of all kinds and giant T.V. screens hung from the ceiling in front of the enormous hundred meter tall windshield that made up the entire north wall. Lithor couldn’t fly out of the glass, he knew that from his first experience with looting. Or was it possible? He had a pretty bad concussion after his first attempt to fly through starship glass, so it was hard to remember. Either way, Lithor found the escape-pod, located in the rear of the room and ejected it.

The Greku girl’s eyes fluttered open.

“Wha… where…?” started the Greku girl in a low gurgling voice.

“Sorry, girl,” said Lithor, “this is where we gotta’ split.” Lithor dropped her through the hatch into the arms of the Galixy Trans. Co. workers. “Perhaps we’ll meet again!” he said in a mocking tone. But now was not the time for jokes. Thankfully, no one had seen him when he dropped the Greku out of the ship, but the workers would storm the ship, looking for any other intruders like Lithor. Lithor flew down the pathways that were surprisingly empty of guards. “Where were they?” he thought, but then the alarm he had grown immune to came to realization in his head. The alarm signaled two minkets left to self-destruction. “Uh-oh” he thought. How could he get out? Then he remembered. The air-duct! If only he could get to the ice-containment-unit in time and wriggle up the exhaust tube would he be safe.

He ran down the passageway. One minket remaining. He flew down the hallway to where it was becoming colder.

Ninety yej remaining. He threw the slippery door open.

Seventy yej remaining. He leaped up to the tube and crawled in.

Forty yej remaining. Lithor took a right and began clawing his way up.

Twenty yej remaining. Lithor got stuck for no more than a yej, but still nearly vomited from fear.

Ten yej. Getting smaller.

Nine yej. Smaller.

Eight yej. Smaller.

Seven yej. He began thrashing for space.

Six yej. Lithor groaned, for he couldn’t get any farther.

Five yej. Lithor nearly called for help.

Four yej. Lithor did call for help but nobody heard him.

Three yej. Lithor remembered something.

Two yej. Lithor clicked his heels together twice.

One yej. Lithor braced for impact and prayed that his hoodie didn't get vaporized. Goodbye.

Boom!