Fiction Friday - Interlude - Darth Skorpius Fiction

This piece of fiction is written for Darth Skorpius' 'Write My Bio' contest as presented by The Phoenix Diaries.

* * * * *

He sauntered into the dilapidated establishment and over to the bar. The barkeep had kept the surface of the bar clean (if you could call it that) with a cloth that once was white but patrons avoided touching anywhere but the top surface out of habit.

“Beer,” Darth Skorpius commanded. The barkeep grabbed a glass and went to fill it from the tap but Skorpius warned with “Uh uh,” and the barkeep scowled but moved over to a smaller obscured tap and filled the glass with undiluted lager. He turned put the filled glass on the counter and Skorpius dropped a credit chit in exchange.

Grabbing the beer, he moved away from the bar to a table far from the unused dance floor. The lights were only partially working in this part of the bar so it was gloomy and the people sitting around there were half-seen shadows hulking over their drinks, and in one case, sleeping a drink (or five) off.

He sat down alone at a table and took the scene in. It was midday on the station, so only a handful of unemployed sad-sacks were around. Some mournful music meant for dancing bleated out of a decade-old player on the other side of the bar and he was grateful it could not muster the volume to bother him. He sat back and waited.

About ten minutes later a man walked in, obviously Amarrian by his shaved pate and black and grey robes that marked him as a noble from the Khanid region. Darth Skorpius raised a hand and the skinny man bobbed his head and rushed over as fast as a noble deemed proper. He offered a hand to shake as he sat down but Skorpius took a sip of his drink instead.

“Er, yes, good to meet you,” he stammered as he sat down. “Do you prefer ‘Darth’ or ‘Skorpius’?”

“I’d prefer it if we didn’t use names in here,” Skorpius answered coolly. “Do you have it?”

“Oh, the datacore? Yes, yes, right here,” the Amarrian said as he opened a pouch at his side and took out a silver rectangular box. The other man snaked his hand out and grabbed it, hissing, “Not so obvious!”

“Oh! Sorry, so sorry, you see, I never have done this type of thing before, I am really a good person, if I wasn’t desperate for money I would never dream of doing this...”

“Fine fine, just shut up,” Skorpius said to stem the panicked blabbering.

“Sorry, I’m just so nervous!” The Amarrian wrung his hands, but then a gleam entered his eyes and the flustered nobleman act dropped for a second. “Do you have my money?” he asked in an unfamiliar voice.

“Yeah, right here-”

“THERE HE IS! GET HIM!” A woman in a security uniform and a drawn pistol stood in the door of the Establishment pointing at Darth Skorpius’ table, and two huge burly Civire weilding shock staves barreled towards them. Skorpius and the Amarrian bolted out of their chairs at the same time and as Skorpius bolted to the rear of the bar toward the kitchen and the service door the Amarrian grabbed him. Despite being skin and bones the man’s grip was fierce and filled with desperation. “I NEED THAT MONEY!” he yelled.

Skorpius straight armed him with all his might backwards and the nobleman tripped over his own knocked over chair right into the closest of the two guards. Skorpius ran and grabbed a large mug from a startled patron’s table as he passed, whipping it with perfect aim at the other large guard as he rounded a table, striking him in the head. That gave Skorpius enough space to get around the end of the bar and make it to the door well ahead of the bigger and slower man. As he passed through the door a shot rang out and splintered plastic from the bullet hitting the wall showered his jacket but he was otherwise unharmed.

As he ran through the kitchen he could hear the Amarrian begin to wail.