'So what exactly are we doing here?'

The pub was packed, drinks sloshing over trays being carried by waitresses whose hair showed the tousled signs of a stressful day at work. The racket was such that Crysis considered looking for another bar to head to, one a little quieter and easier to have a conversation inside. Then he noted the little stone stairway leading up to a second floor, and he decided to stick to the original plan.

'Waiting,' Crysis said, spotting a small gap in the bar. 'Doone, grab us three Hayl Maries. We'll be up the top.'

'Wait,' Doone started, still disoriented by the sudden charge that Crysis was leading from nowhere. 'What are we even doing, here?'

Rhama didn't give him a chance to answer, giving him a firm shove into the gap, the bartender immediately swivelling in his direction. Doone quickly regained his composure and ordered the drinks as Crysis and Rhama slipped past the bodies towards the stairway. Ducking under the low roof they climbed up into a small upstairs seating area with six or seven small tables, one in the far corner now the home of a young couple trying to eat one another's faces.

'Here,' Crysis said, ducking into a small nook behind the stairway wall. 'This'll do.'

Rhama squeezed herself against the back wall, cold even in the heat of the tavern. Crysis sat facing the mouth of the stairs, where a few moments later Doone came up through with three mugs of yellow, frothing beer.

'Here,' he said, putting the tankards down and dribbling onto the table. 'It'll probably taste like crap as it wasn't tapped, but it'll do.'

'Thank you,' Rhama said, smiling and taking a large swig. 'Tastes fine to me.'

'You've got no taste buds though,' Doone commented. 'You think everything tastes good.'

'I just have a positive outlook on life,' she commented.

Doone threw her an inquisitive glance, and then pulled his tankard near to him. The couple in the corner were getting more and more involved with one another, now legs entangled together, knocking against the underside of the table. Downstairs a shout was raised and another round called for. The three of them waited for the beginning of the brawl that was surely to start.

'Are you going to tell us what this is about, now?' Doone asked Crysis, who had taken out his Halo-Core and checking a map of the area. 'We've only got about 10 minutes before we're to head back to meet up with the others.'

Crysis frowned at something on his various screens, before closing a few of them down. 'We're waiting,' he said finally, a sly grin on his face.

'On the others? Nice of them to drop you a line and not us,' Doone said, looking to Rhama for affirmation. Rhama didn't give him the backing he was looking for.

'No,' Crysis replied, raising his voice as the music below got turned up a notch. 'We're waiting for my friend who wasn't there to answer his door.'

Doone put his tankard down with a loud thud, wiping the foam moustache off his lips. All of his eyes blinked in surprise. 'What?'

'You really thought the house was empty?' Crysis asked, leaning back in his chair with two legs coming off the floor in the manner of a kid bored in class. 'Of course not. He'll be along any moment now, I'd wager.'

'You'd wager?' Rhama asked with an eyebrow raised. 'That sounds like the kind of thing Doone would do.'

'Hey, I just don't like people that much, ok?'

'What has that to do with anything?'

'Not a clue,' Doone said, taking another large swig of Hayl Maries, 'but I'm sure it will work out, somehow.'

A few moments later a shadow wandered up the stairs. Immediately after it a large Androssian man with wild, shaggy hair and a frown on his face stumbled into the room.

'Ah, Hourla,' Crysis said, a smile on his face. 'Come grab a seat.'

The man looked at Crysis, the lines on his forehead digging deeper trenches as the seconds ticked on. 'You stole my bra,' he said, moving around the table and pulling out a chair.

'You deserved it,' Crysis retorted, shifting his drink over to allow the hulking man to lay his great lump-of-meat hands onto the table. 'You tried to sell me off to that Torkaxion freighter, for nearly nothing as well. If there's something I resent, it's someone attempting to sell me for far less than I'm worth.'

'Nothing is worth someone stealing your bra for,' the scarlet demon replied, two stumpy tusks jutting forward out of the sides of his mouth. The two of them held a deep stare of resentment for a few moments, before a grin began to break out of Crysis' face, quivering as it shook off the ropes that held it back. Hourla's tusks began to shake against his thick lips, and within seconds the table was being pounded by fists slamming against it, their owners bawling out belly-laughs.

'I've missed you, my good man,' Crysis chuckled as he wiped away rivers of tears from his cheeks. Hourla replied by snorting with laughter, setting the two of them off again. The sight of the two of them doubled over, chests heaving like asthmatics, was too contagious, and before long Rhama found herself having to put the tankard down to stop herself spilling her drink. Even Doone found his upturned cheeks batting against his five eyes.

'What brings you here, then, to this wretched part of The Empire?' Hourla asked, his deep bass coming out in such a volume that for a moment the kissing couple looked up and over in disgust at having their intimate moment disturbed, but resumed their attempts at bodily conquest shortly after.

'It wasn't by choice, I can tell you that.'

'That's obvious. Nobody would come here if they had the chance. You didn't have anything to do with a ship crashing into BAY-7 yesterday, by any chance, did you?'

'Was that where we ditched it?' Crysis asked, looking over at Doone.

The Merkiosen shrugged. 'Don't ask me, Rhama ditched us there.'

'Actually,' Rhama said, poking Doone in the ribs, 'I think you'll find that Rokoara had taken over by then. I was too busy patching up The Butcher after beam slashed his leg.'

The two of them looked at the new fourth member to the group. 'Yeah,' Doone said, 'we might have had a little to do with that.'

'The thought did cross my mind that this son-of-a-bitch might have had a hand in throwing a ship into a port in such a fashion, but I never actually imagined it was him. What have you been up to this time?'

Crysis looked around him, the room still empty save for the couple in the corner, and the music still loud downstairs. 'We need to get to Celestria. We've got an, important package to deliver.'

'And you need my help to get there?' Hourla asked.

'How did you know that?'

'You wouldn't have been snooping around outside my house if you didn't need help getting there. I assume you have money of some kind.'

'Ah,' Crysis said, his face turning down a little. 'You want money. Now there's where there might be an issue, you see. The thing is, Hourla, the thing you don't understand, is that we don't actually use money. It might be more accurate, in fact, to say that we don't have money. So we might have to cover our way in, other ways. Perhaps we can...'

'Crysis,' the Androssian sighed. 'You're as foolhardy as ever. You know my rules. Transport equals 500Zale per person.'

Rhama about spat out her drink. '500? What, are you serious?'

'I'm a guy that makes money any way he can, and not always through the easiest of means. As it happens, however, I might be able to help you out.'

'Really?' Crysis asked.

'A friend of mine has had a bit of a setback in Region 26. Some assholes went and gunned up his place, so he needs some help refurbishing it all. I owed him a few favours so I said I'd send him a thing or two across that he can sell off, help him get back on his feet. Trouble is, there are some other assholes that I've heard are looking for it, the kind that wouldn't care if their lackeys took a blast or two for them in order to get it.'

'And you're wanting transportation for it?' Doone asked, bending over the table and invested thoroughly in the conversation now.

'I want it got there without anyone blasting a ship out of the sky trying to get it. Now considering your recent track record of ships and crashing them, it probably wouldn't be in my best interest to entrust something of this nature to you. However, sometimes I'm nice enough to give you a break.'

'And you tried to sell him off,' Rhama said, smiling.

Hourla looked over at her, examining her with a lewd eye. 'You know, if you weren't so damn pretty, I might just hit you for that.'

'You hit her,' Doone said, his demeanour shifting instantly like the flip of a coin, 'and you'd hit the floor.'

Crysis didn't need to look to know that the disturbance he had felt underneath the table had been Doone pulling out one of the only weapons they still had, an XF-52 Alpha, and he didn't need to look in the reptilian man's direction to know that he would carry through with his threat without a second thought, even at the risk of getting off the bloody rock of a planet.

'Calm down, my man,' Hourla said, hands up in defence, 'I was joking.'

'You'd better have been,' Doone said. Crysis noted that the barrel of the gun was still trained on Hourla. He wondered if the big man had noticed the gun being drawn on him, then decided that it wouldn't have bothered him if it had been pointed at his head. Hourla had a way of talking himself out of trouble that even Skreem would have been envious of.

Crysis gave a small motion for Doone to calm down, that it was ok; there was no threat here, more for Hourla's benefit than Doone's. 'Give us the package and get us on the ship out of here and we'll take it. There's a few more of us though, seven of us in total.'

Hourla eyed him up, the corner of his mouth twitching a little. 'You're not still hanging around with that Kakr lass, are you? What was her name now... Rokoara?'

'That's right... ooooooh, yes, I'd forgotten you two had met.'

'Met? We've more than met...' he looked off into the sky in a wistful dream. 'Ah, that girl could MOVE...'

'Yes,' Rhama said, 'ummm, if we could get back to the bit about us getting the hell out of here? Like, me, getting out of here?'

'Thanks for the consideration there,' Doone commented.

'Welcome.'

'If Rokoara's one of your gang, then I'd get you off here anyway. As it happens, I still want this package delivered.'

'Done,' Crysis said, holding out his hand. The Androssian put his great paw of a hand around Crysis' own and the two shook.

'We've turned into intergalactic postmen,' Doone said. 'I once dated a postman.'

'How was she in bed?' Rhama asked.

'He was good,' Doone replied. 'Very good.'

Crysis shifted his seat back. 'Time for us to get going then.'

'By the way,' said Rhama. 'You don't happen to know who was after this item you want us to take, do you?'

'No,' Hourla said as he stood up, 'not a clue.'

'Shame, we could have punched them first, for you.'

'Guys, we've got a message from Heratrix. They might have got us transport. If we can pay for it somehow.' Doone looked up from his Halo-Core. 'Should I tell her not to bother?'

'Did she say when it was leaving?' Crysis asked.

'No, they're still ironing out the wrinkles. Small freighter bound for Region 26.'

Crysis stood there and, for a second, his eyelids fluttered. It would have looked to anyone else like some kind of spasm, but Doone knew that what Crysis was really doing was checking his intuition for something. He was weighing up ideas in a split second; something that Heratrix couldn't even do, and forming almost a spiritual communication with his instincts, asking his gut what to do.

'If it leaves in the next two hours, tell them to take it, and we'll meet them in 26. If not, tell them to meet us at the rendezvous. We're taking Hourla's offer at the very least.'

'I'll do that... hang on. Got one from Skreem.'

Doone opened up the message, and his eyes rolled. 'The bastards have found them. Skreem decided to play with this freighter's guns whilst still in the port.'

Crysis shot a glance at Hourla. 'At your place in two hours. If we make it there, it's a done deal. If not, consider us dead.'

Crysis went for the stairs, taking them three at a time.