It wasn’t a change in the light that woke Mehk. You’d have to wait more than a month to notice even the smallest change in Skjol and Shija’s position as they inched through a day the equivalent of six Earth years.

Lacking a regular day and night cycle, the sensible natives of Lequin slept when they became tired and woke when their bodies told them to.

Mehk, meanwhile, pawed ineffectually at the mute option on his personal com as it blared a wake up tone. By the time he’d succeeded in silencing the alarm his pleasant sleep buzz was long gone, so with only a little grumbling he stretched and slid over the side of his hoverbike into soft sand.

Scratching himself idly, Mehk checked the area for changes since he’d gone to sleep a few hours earlier. Skjol and Shija sat balanced on the horizon of the Tihrah desert blazing orange and gold in a drawn out sunset, sand as far as the eye could see in every direction. The impression of absolute isolation was misleading, however. Over the soft hiss of wind and sand there were the clicks and trills and chirps and hisses of countless desert creatures either preparing for the three years of darkness and cold ahead or scurrying ahead of the terminator line to stay on the edge of twilight. Out of sight beyond the close horizon mobile cities made their way across the planet, always ahead of the encroaching dark.

Mehk did his morning rituals, ending with a rushed prayer directed towards the binary stars on the horizon. “Peace to all the directions, please don’t let me fuck this up, and I’ll be a better Sihda, okay?”
The proper prayer was a bit more involved with a greater emphasis on self reflection and less on asking for miracles, but he assumed the gods understood he had a time limit here.

He hopped back into his one-man hover bike. It was a deceptively old and beat up machine with a supped up mag-drive, back-up nuclear battery, and all the hardware to make a living as a mechanic and scrapper near the terminator… Not to mention the closest thing he had to a home. Two storage tanks welded to the sides held water and canned goods, while dried food, cooking implements, and his tools sat in the sheltered recess behind the seat. His clothes were in a pack strapped to the tail, and he had a folded up blanket and rain tarp for extreme conditions on the seat. He simply sat on them to save space, and also to give him a bit of extra height. To sleep he leaned the seat back and stuck his long legs on the dash.

Not for the first time, Mehk wondered how in hell his species had managed to survive before being introduced to superconductors and the resultant hovercraft that floated and zoomed across the mostly arid planet. The horizon may not have been as distant as it appeared due to the planets‘ small size, but the idea of walking all that way under the twin suns was still daunting.

Granted, Mehk had lost the genetic lottery and had reason to think this way. One-quarter Medessian, he had managed to somehow inherit the worst possible combination of traits from his arctic-dwelling mother and desert-walking father. His fur was a softly reflective grayish tan that was too short for the south arctic cold and too thick for comfort in the central longitudes. It also clashed with his blue eyes and their fixed pinprick pupils that made working in low light conditions impossible. A short face coupled with long ears and a rangy body gave him a youthful appearance that meant he was still being carded in his late twenties. The black tipping on his mane and ears was attractive, but the accidentally docked tail got most of the attention of new acquaintances. Luckily, Mehk had long since worked past his insecurities about his looks by this point.

Kicking the bike into drive, he flitted a couple feet above the sand at around ninety miles per hour. The mobile town of Kraylic was a little less than an hour away, but he needed to hurry in order to meet an arms dealer interested in a plastic gun he’d salvaged from the wreck of a hover bike in the desert.

Technically, this was illegal.

Well, extremely illegal, no technicalities about it. A functional plastic gun may not be good for more than two or three shots, but it’s a lot easier to smuggle than any other projectile weapon. In the wrong hands it could lead to a horrifying terrorist attack.

On the other hand, most plastic guns just got bought up by paranoid independent types who thought the government was a giant communist conspiracy. Although not the most stable of individuals, they weren’t a threat to anyone but themselves. More importantly, they’d pay well to indulge their paranoia.

And Mehk desperately needed to upgrade the mag-line towing system on his hover bike if he wanted to keep being able to make a living with the way hovercraft just kept getting built bigger and heavier.
People came to Kraylic to see the sunset of their world, never thinking about what they’d do if their vehicle broke down with three cold frozen years of night and winter bearing down on them. There was nothing but miles of desert in every direction, and while Mehk more than most could understand the appeal of that solitude, most of the tourists didn’t even know that you had to dig to get water in an oasis.

So the tourists trickled in, and Mehk spent his waking hours riding along the edge of the sunset with his radio and metal detector in case anyone needed aid. Or, if they were beyond aid, then he helped himself to anything of value.

He’d had to turn away a job just two sleep cycles ago because he didn’t have enough power to drag some stupid kids’ ridiculously oversized hovercar out of the night-side. The little shit didn’t think to wonder how his solar-powered mag was supposed to function when there was no sunlight. Idiot.

But he couldn’t in good conscience let nature take its course, so he called one of his competitors who had a stronger towing vehicle. And the asshole laughed at him. That was going to sting for awhile…

He pulled himself back to the present. Anyway, a contact who’d told Mehk about this weapons dealer had assured him the guy wouldn’t sell to terrorists, so everything was good, right? End justified the means.

Just as long as he got to the contact point without meeting any cops everything would work out fine and he’d be back in legal territory before the next sleep cycle.


As flashing red lights signaled him to pull over just as he reached the outskirts of civilization, Mehk reflected that he probably shouldn’t have rushed through the morning prayer.
When a familiar black and red-clad sheriff hopped off his bike and strolled over far too casually, Mehk wondered if he had actively pissed off the powers that be.
When sheriff Darkei smiled at him with just a bit too much tooth showing for the expression to be completely friendly, Mehk realized he was in for a very long cycle.

--

They stopped for a morning drink together, their bikes mag-ed to the extended dock of the modified home platform-turned-cafe and the plastic gun stashed in sheriff Darkei’s bike. The building floated along with the same magnetic engines that powered nearly all vehicles these days, drifting at a leisurely half-mile per hour to keep a steady and unchanging distance from the creeping sunset. Occasionally the integrated navigator on the cafe detoured sideways or did a slow, gravity-defying hop over obstacles like rocks and tall desert plants that threatened to scrape the four-feet of clearance it hovered at.

It was an intentionally old-fashioned model, built out of realistic faux wood that looked incongruous sitting on the space-age super-conductor technology, but Kraylic sold itself to tourists by pretending to be from the ‘good old days’, so this sort of kitschy-ness was to be expected.

Inside, Mehk squirmed in his seat and Darkei pretended not to notice. “The egg special is good, have you had it?” The cop tapped the menu speculatively, but Mehk didn’t answer aside from a jerky head shake. “Well, that is a simple crime to rectify.” He yelled for two egg specials and the owner behind the front counter waved an affirmative and disappeared into the kitchen. Only two other customers filled the café, and they seemed more interested in each other than in the cop and scruffy vegabond in the corner table.

“I’m disappointed, Mehk. This is some deep shit you’ve gotten yourself into.” Darkei shook his head sorrowfully. “We’ve known each other for a long time, but I don’t think I can overlook this.” The malicious glimmer in his eyes belied his tone, and Mehk wondered if he was better off just taking the prison sentence rather than being owned by the cop.

“Fifteen years, minimum. Maybe twenty-five. That’s a big chunk of your life to throw away for a better towing system, Mehk.” Either the sheriff was a mind-reader or Mehks’ emotions had shown on his face. Maybe both; Darkei had survived a long time as a cop on the nearly lawless terminator.

Either way, Mehk swallowed his pride along with a sip of his tea and asked the question he knew, knew he wasn‘t going to like the answer to. “What do you want from me, Darkei?”

The cop raised his hands and fixed Mehk with an innocent look. “I don’t want a thing from you, my friend. I want to help you, but you make it very difficult. Did you really think it’d be that easy to pawn something like that? This section of the terminator may be the ass-end of nowhere, but even we keep an eye on this sort of thing.”
Mehk noted his careful avoidance of the subject matter.

“This could have ended very badly for you if anyone else had shown up, someone who didn’t know you so well. How could you have picked up such a thing? Very realistic, it definitely could have given a less experienced officer the wrong idea…” So that was the story, Mehk realized. He’d walked into a sting, but Darkei would claim the plastic gun was a toy some idiot thought he could shift for the price of a real weapon. The real thing would disappear, never to be seen again. The only remaining question was the price for this story. Mehk looked Darkei in the eyes and started to open his mouth, but the owner came up to their table with their plates so he turned to smile at her instead.

“You two need anything else? Refills?” Without waiting for an answer she poured them more tea and hovered for a moment near Darkei, who nodded gravely at her. “Thank you ma’am.” She glanced at Mehk, then back at Darkei, who blinked once slowly. She nodded at them politely and went to check on the other couple, leaving Mehk to wonder at the odd exchange. Darkei was looking at him again but it was hard to read his expression, a trait that made him great at cards as long as he could stay patient.

“Lets drop the bullshit for now. There’s a new guy in management, doesn’t know shit about how things work on the terminator, breathing down my neck and yelling about taking a hard line on crime, but only letting me chase targets he sets. Usually minnows.” Darkei snorted derisively. It was a well know saying that there were no hard lines on the terminator. Good and bad, law and corruption, all of it bled together under the twilit sky where life clung to the edge by its fingernails. It wasn’t the kind of place where you wasted time chasing small game. In the time it took to catch a smuggler, dealer, or hacker, there were murderers getting through the cracks and not nearly enough cops to make a difference. Mehk understood this, and he understood Darkei’s frustration with the system. There was something big going on if the cop had felt he needed to collect blackmail material for this favor.

With a sigh, Mehk met Darkei’s eyes and nodded. They’d known each other long enough that the cop knew this was an unspoken response to his request rather than commiserating about bureaucracy.

“So, I want you to stay clean, alright? No schemes, no making more work for me.” Offhandedly, almost, he added “Oh, I’ve heard there was some noise down by the Valarka caravan a cycle or so ago. Haven’t had time to check it out, but it could be a good opportunity for you to get some scrap metal. Bring your gun though, the lyra have been bold lately” He finished his eggs and drink then put the money for the bill on the table. “Have to get back to work, but you take your time and talk to Sierra a bit. See you later.”

Mehk nodded. “Thanks, Darkei. I’ll do that.” The cop sauntered out the door with a lazy backwards wave and Mehk finally paid attention to his dish of eggs, scrambled and fried with herbs and bits of something spicy. He could run, of course. If he took off right now he could pawn the bike and be off planet in a few hours before Darkei could file a report on the plastic gun and get him on the no-flight list.

For a few minutes he entertained himself with fantasies of going on the run, seeing strange worlds and living off his wits.

Then he set aside the fantasies and decided what he’d need for this job.

He couldn’t really leave Lequin; harsh as the planet was it was home. The terminator was home too, for all that it well and truly was the ass-end of nowhere like Darkei said and what did that say about the people that lived there? But he didn’t know anything else…

He reviewed what he knew about the Valarka caravan. They stayed a few hours east from Kraylic, closer to the night. They kept to themselves, and only one guy ever came to the city for supplies. Rumours abounded, but people that got too curious and went to investigate often came back with extra breathing holes, if they came back at all.

Cops rarely came back.

Since they didn’t cause trouble aside from that neurotic need for privacy, people just let them be. They’d been around for at least 3 years and the number of bombs and explosions in Kraylic hadn‘t increased since then, so people were willing to accept their odd solitude along with their money and goods... But that didn’t stop the perpetual gossip. Particularly since the goods they brought to sell were usually from off-world.

Bar gossip around here usually devolved into speculation about Valarka whenever nothing else was going on. His favorite rumour was the one that involved them being a branch of the galactic mafia stationed here to turn Lequin into a puppet government.

Somewhat more likely, they were just a bunch of religious nutcases hiding on the terminator so they could practice some belief that got them weird looks in more populated areas.

Mehk finished his meal and, thinking on Darkei‘s words, caught the eye of the café owner who then wandered over. She had soft gold fur and exaggerated eye marks on an overly long and narrow face. Not beautiful by any means, but striking. He wondered about her and Darkei, but decided to mind his own business on the subject for now.

“Did you enjoy your spiced eggs? Want anything else?” She collected the plates and cups.
Mehk shook his head. “Nah, I was just wondering if you’d heard the new rumor about that Valarka caravan over near night-side.”

She huffed, clearly annoyed as she shifted the tray of plates onto one hip. “Who hasn’t? That poor girl. Someone ought to do something about those kind of people… Maybe something involving an incendiary bomb.” Mehk had no idea what the latest rumour was, but he did know you could always get it from a café or bar worker without much effort. Just show a bit of interest in the subject... “I agree, there are probably a couple people working on that right now.”

As he’d hoped, the café owner, Sierra, provided the details. “Can you believe they never let anyone leave the caravan? I mean, they were always a bit weird, but who would have guessed they were some kind of Lellian-supremist anti-technology cult?”

Huh. Well, once you spelled it out it made a lot of sense, actually. Still, it wasn’t good to base too much off one source. Sierra waited for a response from him. “I always thought they were a bit off,” he said. It seemed like a safe statement.

Sierra nodded, and looked pensive for a moment and seemed to change the subject. “You’ve known Darkei for a long time?”

Mehk nodded ”More than two days.” Two long days, a bit more than a third of his life, of playing cat and mouse and exchanging favors. Mehk did more good than harm, so Darkei looked out for him. When something came up that needed to be taken care without a lot of red tape Mehk offered his services. Sometimes even willingly.

Sierra nodded, seemingly to herself. “Well, I have to get back to work. Say, do you do deliveries?”

“Yes ma’am, only local though,” he said, curiosity getting the better of him. Darkei had clearly brought him here for more than breakfast.

“Come in back then.” She led him through the kitchen and disappeared into a tiny office for a moment, returning with an unmarked package. “I’ve been saving this for a special occasion, and I think this is it. Give this to the Valarka caravan, would you?”

He took it, it was heavier than it looked and he caught a faint whiff of a distinctive scent. “Yes ma’am.” Mehk walked back to his bike wondering how he’d started out trying to get rid of a plastic gun and ended up with several pounds of plastic explosive.

---

Decided to put the first chapter like this...

This story is complete and just needs to be uploaded... Please feel free to critique anything that seems weird or off, I promise not to bite!


Chapter two https://www.furaffinity.net/view/8728387/