2-25 Interlude/Epilogue

Solar Guardian Wannaniki floated down from the atmosphere into the planet he had been tasked with guarding. It was a slow thing but he was coming to like this planet. The people were weird to him but he was growing to enjoy them. He landed slightly on the street and walked into the little food hut that he had found to enjoy. Owl the Thinker hand given him a list of places he would like tailored to his biology and this was one of the places.

The people in the food hut had given him little looks because of his diverse form but he paid it no mind. The looks were from curiosity not from any form of malice. He took a seat at the table that was a little over half his height and smiled at the people behind the counter. They moved around and came over to him with a menu, placing it in front of him. He flipped through it and pointed to the things he wanted, “This, this and some of this.”

The female of the species took notes and nodded along. She started to slow down and was looking worried. He knew exactly what to do. He reached into his suit compartment on his waist and pulled out the little black magnetic card Owl the Thinker had given him. He set it on the table and pushed it over to the female. She snatched it up and kept taking the notes.

When he finished she collected the little plastic menu and ran into the back. This was his favorite part of being stationed on this planet. The other Solar Guardians had talked about it and now he understood, trying new food from planets was the one of the best perks of his job. He would never be able to eat all the new food at his fingertips no matter how long his species lived.

The female brought back dish after dish of food. Most of it was a type of fish with little shards of starch and some type of green leaf plant. He reached down with his fingers and scooped it up, bringing it to his mouth. Places like this were the best, he could get his daily meal in with one order and then go about doing Solar Guardian business.

He had to finish scanning the local solar system. The fact that his local scans were out of date was not something he was willing to put up with. It needed to get fixed as soon as possible, it was not just a danger to him but to every person in this system. He wouldn't be able to stop any pirates or the like if his belt didn't have a background to read from the sky.

The female came back with the little black card and he stuffed it into his belt compartment. He quickly finished eating what he had ordered and stood up. Was a wave he headed to the door and quickly took flight. Time to get back to work! Solar Guardian Wannaniki shot into the sky!

Saluyah sat on the pilot chair of the ship she had traded. That puzzle from Owl had been devious but Saluyah had come out ahead. She had done some pretty good trades and ended up with her own ship. She was doing so much better than when her parents had sold her to somewhere offworld as a slave. She had learned quite a bit during that time and even more from her time flying in the luxury craft.

One of her new attendants came up to her and offered her a plate of berries. Grown on a farm from her home planet. A luxury and the only farm of its species to exist. The others had been wiped out, what better than a monopoly on taste. She grabbed a berry and brought it to her mouth, a small crunch and the number in her left tentacle dropped down. The price of the berry.

She looked to the plate and knew she wanted more, as was the natural state of things. She was going to have to set up an auction soon. The box of Owl had three plates and she had only traded two. That small trip had been very profitable for her and it would be even more so. A twitch and her center tentacle gave her a number, the same number that Owl had rattled off to the Solar Guardian when he had pulled them over.

A fresh planet to the galactic market. Covered in primitives that would make excellent slaves, Guardian Wannaniki would lower the price some but anyone trying to collect slaves would know the price of doing business. She could sell the coordinates for quite the price and climb to higher and better markets.

Finding a buyer for something like this would be as simple as letting people know she had found a fresh planet, one suitable for life to grow. Empires would come, pirates would raid and Saluyah would profit. She waved the attendant away and turned her pilot chair around. When she heard the bridge doors closed she pushed a button and pulled up all her deals and investments. She made a few changes she knew would be profitable in the future and then closed down her trades and started setting up the auction. She sent out a whole lot of invites then closed that down and moved onto the next thing.

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She started looking for a place to start selling the planet coordinates, it would take her some time before she had the perfect buyer. Her right tentacle twitched and reminded her of something. One of the aliens had fought at the Death From Above Fighting Pit and had gone in under a fake name. A fake name that someone would pay quite a bit to test, she started digging through the galactic net. It was an easy search and she came upon the person's account that would gladly pay insane prices for punishing some who approached their territory. The Immortal GrandMaster.

Ornocanin had owned the Death From Above Fighting Pit for more than four decades. A record if he read the history papers right. His job had been to keep the fights going and keep a champion in the rankings. Selling seats and the death of losses had kept him in his office for his whole placement. He had it down to a science and the last champion had been a surprise but someone simple to guide around. People in his position normally got killed by a champion and their position usurped.

He loved waking up in the morning and setting up brackets of new fighters. That was until a few weeks ago. Some new alien had shown up and climbed the brackets faster than he could arrange. Bets were made and he was out of so many credits, even his retirement space craft he had hidden away. He was going to be feeling that one for quite some time.

Omocanin stepped out onto the balcony above the fight pit. It let him look down at the fighting pit and make announcements. He raised his tentacles to start monologuing when the sky above darkened making him look up. A massive purple ship blotted out the sky. It was a giant circle and he could see from its shape that it was just a massive flying arena. It clicked for him and he understood what he was looking at. He instantly knew what it meant.

The GrandMaster had arrived. Someone must have spoken about the name that alien went by and The GrandMaster was on a hunt. Omocanin turned and started running, he no longer had his luxury ship but that didn't mean he was without one. He was dead if he got caught by the warriors that trained under The GrandMaster.

He could hear the alarm going out and people starting to run with him. Being anywhere near the fighting pit would be a death sentence when the warriors landed in their search for him. He ran through the hallways surrounding the crater of the pit and soon he was at the hanger with his small one person escape craft. He didn't stop in his sprint and approached the back of his ship, the ramp already lowered down. He scurried up the ramp and hit the button to close the ramp behind him. He turned to the cockpit when someone grabbed him.

He had a split second to see the uniforms they were wearing before they threw a bag over his head. He knew he was screwed, they were wearing the uniforms of warriors that trained under The GrandMaster. They tied him up and he felt the ship start up. He thought about it for a few seconds then realized they hadn't killed him so they were taking him straight to The GrandMaster. He felt a small bit of hope that he might be able to talk his way out of this.

He felt the ship lift and his mind started to race for excuses and the like to get out of this trap. He listened to the two warriors chat between each other and tried to get all the info he could for his future planning. He heard the words ‘we have the coordinates’ over some communications device.

The two warriors stopped talking and Onocanin heard the ramp of the ship open, the wind started screaming through the ship. One of the warriors picked him up and then he felt weightless… and he felt weightless.. And he felt weightless.. And he realized they had thrown him out of the ship.

Lahrya played with the food on her plate and looked at the tablet Owl had given her. The food was some kind of sludge mixed in with little berries. Lahrya thinks its some kind of grain ground down into a mush. It tasted fine to her. The genetic engineering her people went through when they achieved that level of technology wouldn't let her put on too much weight so she was enjoying the food that was served at thai facility.

She flicked her finger across the tablet and it scrolled through a few books she was working on reading. Owl had given her quite the reading list before she would let her out of her sight. Lahrya wasn't worried, she could get through the required reading in a few months time. She would eventually leave the facility and travel the planet, her physical appearance might get some looks but she had seen digital captures of people that looked weirder.

She took a spoonful of her food and rolled the berry in her mouth as she ate it. This wasn't the best food she had tasted here. Some of the stuff that had already been served to her tasted better. She scraped up the last of her food and picked up the bowl. She stood up and walked over to the water spout and set her bowl next to it. One of the bots Owl had designed would come around and clean it up.

Carrying the tablet, Lehrya walked through the halls of the facility to her favorite place. She didn't understand why it was called a lab, this place was way too big for a lab. Doors in front of her opened and she stepped through them. There was a little chair she moved over and sat down in. Crossing her legs she looked out of the facility, across the balcony and into the wild that surrounded the place. She was in some kind of stone recess tucked away and out there was just miles of sand. There were trees with giant leaves on top scattered about. She wanted to step out of the facility and walk across the sand with her bare feet, she knew she would some day. It wouldn't be tomorrow, it wouldn't be next week but she would eventually. She had a whole lot of time afterall.