Space Shift Stories: McGuffin 46

Wild Goose Chase

"Well mister, since you told me you're a good pilot. I entrust my ship to you" Siltoin said to Strife as he rotated the seat and patted the headrest inviting Strife.

Strife gave Siltoin the same look he gives all his clients. The looks that shows intimidation. "You're willing to trust your ship to a complete stranger. You have never done this before have you?" Strife asked.

"No. But this is my ship and I do hope you'll give me a positive experience"

After a short while Dhurnuth stepped inside the ship. Celestine gave her a stare, he stared back. Celestine wanted to make a move but she trusts Strife will get them out of this pinch. Dhurnuth changed his sights to Strife. Both have a lingering distrust with each other.

"Now now. Let us not kill each other" Siltoin intervened. We both stopped looking at each simply replied with a soft growl.

As Siltoin's ship lifted higher, Celestine was beginning to get her guard higher. "So how much do you you'll get in selling the codex?" She looked at Siltoin.

"Now? about a million probably. But in the next two decades? Maybe double the million" He replied as if he was also imagining something else.

"Next two decades?"

"I have no plans to sell the codex. Intent to use it." Siltoin opened his holowatch. Then he popped a giant images of different species, Strife and Celestine felt a little anxious. "I am not scavenger. I am a man with a vision." He popped another image. This time his intentions were shown. It was a picture of a proposed theme park. "A vision to bring joy and entertainment to the entire galaxy" He said as he threw his arms out in joy.

"You're not planning on making genetic abominations?"

"I am a showman my dear. But Dhurnuth here, he is a scavenger that I hired for a pretty hefty price" He said as he pointed at Dhurnuth. "It's true that the codex is rumored to be the base for modern cloning and healing pods. But I only want to resurrect old extinct creatures for people to see." He gave a smile. "Pay to see."

Siltoin's ship exited the Planet's atmosphere. Dhurnuth looked at his boss. "We out of the planet. We need the tablet"

"Right. Please?" Siltoin replied and reached out his hands to Strife. Strife pulled out the tablet from his bag. "Now what do we do with this?" Siltoin passed the tablet to Dhurnuth.

"The first thing we do is to cross check this to every and all charts available. Once we have a hit we go there."

"And?"

"We hit the next thing. Solve the next puzzle probably." Celestine told Siltoin. Her eyes still showed no trust, but if she wanted to survive she might as well play along.

She walked toward Dhurnuth. She took the tablet from his hands and went into the center console. The controls looked different but it was no problem for her, she started to use the computer to scan the tablet for matching charts. It took a little while but the machine found a match.

"There!" Strife exclaimed. "We go there and we hope we find the codex."

Without moment wasted. The entire pseudo-crew moved. Strife sat on the pilot's chair, Dhurnuth sat beside him. Both Celestine and Siltoin behind them. Strife stroke the keys, he looked at Dhurnuth. Dhurnuth nodded. They used the ship to search for a warp point. They were lucky to find one close to them. Strife, although not comfortable with a lot of warps kept a brave face.

"Jumping in 3... 2... 1..." Dhurnuth shouted as he moved a lever on the ship that moved to warp jump.

Somewhere at the other end of the galaxy. On the void of space. Lighting began to form. Then suddenly a wormhole opened. It was Siltoin's ship that emerged from warp. They are on a system that they know so little about. They scanned the planet to see if there's a need for verification. So far there were none. They concluded that it was an abandoned or primitive world. Usually there are protocols to follow but Dhurnuth ignored them by landing the ship to surface. As they turned off the ship, Celestine and Siltoin prepared their weapons.

"There's a protocol to this. And you just violated them all" Strife remarked at Dhurnuth.

"We're pressed for time." Dhurnuth gave a flat reply.

As they got out. Siltoin asked Celestine a question. "So now that we're here. What next?"

"Next is to ask the locals. Or in this case look for any place of worship that'll give us clues"

As they got out of the ship, Strife's sense of smell picked up something. Soon the entire crew saw what Strife smelled. It was a handful of humanoid looking lizard aliens.

They were tall. About an inch taller than Strife. Some were standing upright while others are little bit hunched. A few of them have arms that are muscular and rounded while others have slender arms than Celestine. Their color varies from a shade of primary colors. Faces that either looked heavily based on a snake or crocodile, with mouths or rather snouts of varying lengths.

With all descriptors above you could mix and match them and you'll probably see a man resembling that. All of them wore what seemed to be a mixture of ragged cloth and over abused armors.

Strife looked at all of them. His eye squinting. Not in anger or intimidation, but of the foul stench. Strife might describe it as a mixture of eggs mixed in with a little piss. His words not mine.

The aliens pointed their primitive weapons at all of them. Siltoin saw those and began to feel a little anxious, he moved his hand a little. The aliens then began to shout a language they did not recognize. The sudden barrier in language made the situation tense as neither parties understand each other.

"What do we do?" Celestine whispered to Strife.

"I have no idea. You?" Strife replied. His voice hint at a little stress.

"Working on it."

As the reptilians increased their noise, everyone began to feel a little bit concerned for their safety. And it also is, at this point that Strife and Celestine really have an unlucky day.