Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Everyone Has to Eat

Noctus stared down the tip of Sunny's spear, cold steel glinting not a few inches away from his face. Adam could hear the little coward's thoughts as they ran circles inside his head. Could he escape, could he trick them, could he lie? Is there someone he could call for help. He didn't know what Adam had meant about sending his maker friend to deal with the guards but the bastard was sure to get a nasty surprise once he learned...

Adam keyed his mic, "Celex, how are you holding up."

The mic went to static for a moment, and for a second he worried something had happened to his old friend until, "Right peachy, you don't happen to be calling me to tell me that these bastards got void creatures inside of them?'

Adam paused, "Uh, yeah."

"Don't bother."

"You okay."

"Like you have to ask."

Adam shrugged to himself, he supposed he shouldn't have been worried about the universe's most bloodthirsty warlord, now with opposable thumbs and a pair of legs, coming to a theater near you in ultra 4k.

Noctus didn't seem pleased about the side of the conversation he had heard, and had probably managed to guess what was going on.

Adam shook him by the scruff of his neck, "Go on, we are all dying to hear what you have to say."

"Fine!." The tesraki snapped, "W-"

"And make it entertaining." Adamsaid, I want to hear everything. Paint me a picture with words.

The Tesraki barred his teeth again, but this time he slumped downwards with defeat written in the lines of his body.

Adam held up the vial, "Is that where." he motioned generally in Noctus's direction, "Where all that came from."

Noctus pulled his ears back flat against his skull, but a stern look from Adam kept him from causing much more trouble. Instead he dangled helplessly by the scruff of his neck from Adam's hand, legs curled up to his chest like a kitten in his mother's mouth.

Start from the beginning, "How did you start working with Kazna."

The Tesraki was unwilling to speak, but Sunny gave him all the encouragement she could, through the open threat of violence. No one in the room seemed eager to stop her either. Even Adam knew that, when it came to Sunny's mother, there was no argument to be made.

"We were in prison together as you recall. I escaped and she didn't, well at least not at the same time. I've been working to keep a low profile these past few years, got myself involved in the metal refinery industry, all very low profile, mostly metal sheeting for space ships and that sort of thing. Pays pretty well." he said, motioning to the room around him for emphasis, and all of its lavish decorations.

"Still did some smuggling on the side of course, nothing big, mostly cheap knockoffs going against copyright laws, all the easy kind of stuff places don't really care about. Human knock off brand items sell for really well on the Tesraki homeworld, and with so many of them, the bastards can't get enough. Throw Noctopolis into the mix, and its good pickings."

"Is this the part where I start to give a shit?" Red asked finally having recovered from his fall, and the subsequent attack, now leaning against one of the black glass pillars as he listened.

The Tesraki glowered at him, "Wasn't talking to you." he spat on the floor, as much as a tesraki can spit, which isn't particularly well.

"Anyway there I was, living my life and doing things the way I do. Then you got the GA come in, make Noctopolis a part of their system, take all the border planets, begin their patrols, they are eddeling more than they ever have. My business starts to struggle, parts of my business anyway. More policing more checkpoints more more more, We weren't doing them any real harm, just the cooperations, it shouldn't have mattered, but they had to come in and ruin everything for those of us who weren't smart enough to be stable in the first place." he patted his chest in congratulations, "Couple of us got together and formed a little group of.... Entrepreneurs so you might say. We work to get the goods where they need to go while only the people who need to see the have to be involved. He glowered at Adam again, "No one gets hurt, no one has any problems."