A Sleeping Lion and the Bleeding Crow

“WOOHOO!” the clearly intoxicated man yelled as he let the lift pull him upwards towards his room. Leo shook his head. Sometimes, living in a freeport was the worst, he thought to himself. He slowly walked down the corridors, trying his damnedest to avoid any of the major bars and drifter hangs as he made his way back to his small, cramped apartment complex. Unfortunately, on Portus Madidorum there was no route from the dock to the apartments that didn’t pass through some bars. On some days, Leo loved living in the place known throughout the galaxy as Sin City. He could drink, gamble, do anything he could imagine every day of the week. And, even better, he got to do it with new people every single time he went out partying. On days like today, when he’d just finished working a double shift at the docks, he really hated this place.

Using only alleys and side corridors, Leo hoped no one would bother him. Unfortunately, the Bleeding Crow’s crew was on shore leave today. They’d arrived during Leo’s first shift. Those idiots were terrible for the port. Not because they were pirates. Half the people who came through here regularly were pirates. It was the heart of the freeport economy. Not even because they were Marauders. Madidorum, unlike other freeports, had a strict apathetic policy towards the factionalized screening of everyone coming in. They welcomed employees of every corporation, as well as free crews of every ilk and affiliation. Sometimes this was great. For instance, working customs Leo had met all but one of the monsters currently wandering the universe, and many important management figures for the big corps. On the other hand, there were crews like the Crow, or like Hadrian’s Fifth Squad, who were just the worst, coming through and tearing up the locals. That was the kind who were terrible for the port. The people who didn’t care about it. Lot’s of marauders do, because the port gave them opportunity to meet with non-Marauders, learn schedules, get contacts, et cetera. But there were crews of various affiliations who just came to port to blow off steam and didn’t care who got hurt in the process. The Bleeding Crow was one such crew.

Walking down Dice Alley, Leo didn’t notice them at first. Walked right past the hidden sentries. He didn’t care. In his mind, he was just making his way back to his place. No one would bother a local who didn’t look like they wanted to be bothered. Stepping out of the shadows and into his path, the First Mate of the Crow stopped Leo in his tracks. Leo looked around and saw other crew members stepping out from the shadows. Surrounding him. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said, keeping his head down and his voice quiet but unwavering.

Mate Inez Richards looked at the skinny bearded man in front of her. “Well,” she said, beginning to smirk, “That’s just too bad.” The rest of the crew began to get closer to Leo, who kept his head down. Not out of fear. His eyes were darting about looking around the area, and he didn’t want the First Mate to see that. She continued, “See, we were all lined up for a big score, but someone tipped them off, so instead of getting a nice juicy freight, the FUCKING Lone Wolf was there. We lost friends, and we’re still broke. Cap told us to blow off some steam while he’s gathering the info.”

It was clear to Leo how she and the crew intended to blow off steam. He noticed the body of a woman they were torturing in a noise-cancelling sphere on one side. He didn’t recognize her, meaning she wasn’t a local. From the uniform, she looked Luxanian. Taking a deep breath, Leo looked up for the first time during the interaction, directly into the first mate’s eyes. “Trust me,” he whispered confidently, not breaking his gaze, “You don’t want to do this. Let me go on my way, I’ll forget you were here.” He knew she wasn’t going to do that, but Madidorum law obligated him, as a citizen interacting with guests, to at least make an attempt at a peaceable solution. She couldn’t take him up on it, though. After all, she’d just stood up to him, if she backed down now, that could cause problems for controlling the Marauder crew.

Slowly, she drew a knife from her sleeve. Customs screened for projectile and advanced weaponry as well as metals and vibrational alloys. Unfortunately, that just increased the use of ceramic and plastic shivs and knives. This one looked like a graphene blade with a single-atom edge. Expensive, but a useful weapon when dealing with secured ports like this one or most Marauder ports. Could cut through just about anything, especially if superheated. Fortunately for Leo, she seemed relatively unused to it, meaning she’d probably only bought it the last time she’d visited the Grey Market. “But I really, really do,” she said, her smirk turning into a sinister grin. She flipped the blade a couple of times in her hand, showboating. Her crew laughed. She needed the showboating to keep them in line. That was why Marauders were a bunch of idiots, Leo thought.

“Very well,” Leo said, and looked back to the ground. Slowly he counted in his head. One. Two. She tossed the blade up once more as her crew began to chant for her to kill him. Smoothly and swiftly, Leo slid up to her and caught the knife in mid air, then spun his leg around to knock the first mate to the ground. He could hear one of the others begin to run at him. Continuing the rotation of the leg, he whipped his arm around, released his grip, and the first mate’s knife found purchase in the crewmember’s neck. Keeping his head down, he walked up to the crewman and, with everyone else watching in shock, slid the knife out through the side of his neck. The head drooped to the opposite side as the body collapsed downwards. It was only a beat before everyone was charging, together this time. Unfortunately for them, Marauders aren’t really trained combat vets. Leo didn’t even attack. Keeping his head down, he dodged and deflected their attacks, and given that they were surrounding him, those attacks found their marks in other crewmembers.

By the time Inez Richards had gotten up again and taken a couple of focusing deep breaths, there were only two members of her crew left standing. “Stop,” she said. The pair didn’t hear, didn’t listen, or didn’t care. They kept their assault going. Hard. With them so close and attacking pretty in sync, Leo was struggling. Not to block, but to effectively take them out. He couldn’t attack one or risk opening himself up to the other. He heard the first mate behind him. That wasn’t good, Leo thought. No time for pretty. He dropped the knife, opening himself up. They both saw the opening and attacked simultaneously. Just like he wanted. Grabbing their wrists, he pulled their arms across each other’s and twisted, jamming their knives into their friends’ hearts. Then, kicking the graphene knife back to the First Mate, Leo said coldly, “I told you that you didn’t want this.”

Inez looked at the bodies strewn around Leo. Then, looking up at the wiry, bearded, bald man, she asked, “Who the hell are you?”

“Me?” Leo said, “Just a local.” Inez picked up her knife and stood still a moment, thinking about her next move. Leo figured he’d spell it out for her. “You could come at me with your knife, might kill me, might die. Or, you could leave, tell your boss you’ll be needing a new crew, and definitely live. Chance, or certainty. The choice is yours.” Her choice had been made for her ages ago. She couldn’t’ go back. Not without any of the men she’d been told to keep in line. She’d be demoted certainly; probably even flogged or whatever Marauders did to punish their people. With a primal shout, she leapt at Leo. Leo grabbed her hands, gripping the knife, and fell backwards. As he hit the ground, the momentum shift jerked the knife ever so slightly. Inez fell on top of Leo. The knife’s blade slipped through her flesh cutting her ribcage. The pain loosened Inez’s grip just slightly, enough to allow Leo to twist the blade further up her chest, cutting into her organs as well. With a disgusting gurgle, she slowly died. As she was dying, her face pained, continually coughing up blood onto his face, Leo remembered exactly why he’d moved here. To avoid this sort of thing.

It took several uncomfortable minutes, but eventually the life drained from the first mate’s eyes. Leo pushed the body off of him and withdrew her knife. “Fuck,” he said quietly to himself. He walked over to the woman, curled up on the ground and clearly terrified. Kicking off the noise-cancelling sphere, he popped a squat next to the woman. “Sorry about the mess and what happened to you,” he said, trying to seem as friendly and nice as a man covered in someone else’s blood could be. The woman didn’t speak. She was visibly trembling in fear, and each tremble clearly was causing her pain. Leo smiled, though he doubted it would help. Pulling out his wallet, he handed her two hundred cash sticks. “Here,” he added, “Go. Drink, gamble, to whatever it takes to forget about this.” He gestured around him. “May your stay at Madidorum improve drastically.”

She took the money and looked confused at him. “Who the hell are you?” she blurted out as she scrambled back a bit. He stood up and gave her some space. She clearly wasn’t super comfortable with him. He didn’t answer her question, though. That answer was more complex than he liked talking about. Standing up, she pressed the issue. “I said, who the hell are you?”

He sighed and shook his head. “I’m nobody, just a dock worker.” Then, he pulled out his tablet. She wasn’t moving. “Shoo,” he said, “Go enjoy yourself. In a not-this-alley place.”

Shaking her head, she walked back the way he’d come into the alley, towards the red-light district. Leo smiled to himself. So that’s how she was going to enjoy herself, he thought. Then, pressing a couple of buttons on the tablet, he dialed in security. The screen came alive. “What’s wrong, Leo,” his old friend Yu said the moment he answered.

“Crow,” Leo replied.

“Fuck,” Yu sighed. “How many did you end up killing?” he asked.

Leo looked around. “Me? Four. Themselves? Like,” he counted the bodies, ignoring the four he’d directly killed, “Another seven.”

“Shit, Leo, that’s half their damned crew.”

“Hey, you can check the tapes, I gave the multiple opportunities to stand down and let me pass peacefully,” Leo defended himself.

“I’m sure,” his friend in the security office replied. Then, with a sigh, the man added, “Alright, I’ll send a team down to Dice Alley to clean it up and give Captain an extra thousand to pay for damages. Coming out of your check.”

“Thanks, Yu,” Leo said, “Now I need some sleep.”

Yu laughed. “What?” he asked, “Murdering eleven people didn’t refresh you enough?”

“Hey,” Leo shot back as he started once again to walk to his apartment, “It wasn’t murder. And I only not-murdered four of them. The others not-murdered themselves.”

Yu laughed as he hung up the call. He had to organize the cleanup. Leo made his way back to his apartment, still covered in blood. As he walked through the door, he stripped off his clothes and made his way directly to the shower unit. He turned it on, not caring about the temperature. He just needed to get the gore off of him. Letting the lukewarm water cascade down his body, he cursed to himself. He cursed his old mentor for ever teaching him this stuff. He cursed the Marauders for allowing such chaos to thrive in his peaceful home. He cursed Portus Madidorum for letting marauders in in the first place. He cursed the universe for not cracking down on that sort of people at all. But most of all, he cursed himself for giving into that colder, methodical part of himself. Sighing as he got out of the shower and didn’t even bother turning on the dehydrator unit. Being dry and comfortable could wait, he mused to himself as he walked nude across his apartment to the kitchen. He needed a damn drink.