Thea

“Shit,” I cursed under my breath as I split my attention between the trio of pirates and the twins. Aurora was gritting her teeth and obviously pissed, but Leila was the one I was really worried about. She was just standing there in silence, trying to control her breathing.

“It’s Grun, right?” Bryce asked as she took a step towards the armed pirate. “The four standing behind me are extremely powerful devils, not demons. Trust me when I say there’s a difference, and you’ve just insulted them in a way that, under other circumstances, would justify killing you. As it stands, they’re showing tremendous restraint. I ask that you apologize before things escalate.”

“Why’d he do the apologizing?” Shan asked. “None of you seems too powerful to me. Maybe just kill you and sell the ship to pay for more bullets.”

Leila switched her glare from the orc to the half-elf as she took two steps forward, and I readied myself for a fight. But before she could charge, Bryce dropped her concealment spell. All three of the pirates cursed as they took a step back in unison, and the two who weren’t already pointing their rifles at us decided that now was probably the time to start doing it.

Bryce spoke in a deathly calm tone as she continued to stare at the pirates. “We aren’t here to start a fight, but we won't stand by and be insulted. Apologize for your mistake and we can go back to negotiating. You have the opportunity to make a lot of money here. Don’t throw that away for a bruised ego.”

There was a very tense few moments before Grun released his rifle, allowing the shoulder strap to catch it. He then pushed his right fist into his open palm and bowed at the waist towards us. “You have my deepest apologies. I am ignorant as to the ways of the lower planes, and meant no offense. I swear to you that I will not make this mistake again.”

“Daaamn, I like this guy.” I smiled as I turned to check on my siblings. Leila and Aurora were still glaring, while Suriel was frowning. But Suriel’s frown was the ‘I’m upset and uncomfortable’ type, so he probably didn’t want to kill anybody, and the glares from the twins were only about half as murdery as before. Which was definitely a good sign.

“Leila, it’s your call,” Bryce said without looking back towards her.

“Fine. Orc, you are forgiven, but for your own sake, I suggest you educate yourself. I won’t forgive you a second time.”

Some of the tension left the air, and the other two lowered their rifles as Grun exited his bow.

“Now that we’re back on the right foot, I think we can make negotiations brief,” the human said with a frown. “The cost for an outsider is ten-thousand credits per rotation, which is about thirty hours here on Paradise. That doesn’t include security, and we aren’t vouching for you. If you make trouble while you’re here, or overstay your welcome, then we take the shuttle. Understood?”

“I understand.” Bryce nodded, but then added with a smirk. “However, would you be willing to accept twenty-five thousand credits for two cycles?”

Shan looked confused as she turned towards the human, then back to Bryce. “That’s more than we said, innit? What’s your trick?”

“It’s simple, really.” Bryce crossed her arms as she shifted her weight. “I’ll pay you five thousand now, and you can collect the other twenty from Galen down in sorting.”

The human chuckled. “If you’re tight on cash, then how about you lot join up with us? You hardly have to follow any orders, and you can keep your own ship. Plus, we wouldn’t charge you to land, and there’s plenty of money to be made.”

I thought the human’s offer sounded pretty fun, but Bryce shook her head. “Sorry, I’m not interested in hijacking corporate freighters just to sell raw materials for a fraction of their actual cost. If I was hurting for money, then I could think of a dozen other ways to make a lot more.”

The human’s smile didn’t even waver as he shrugged off Bryce’s rejection. “Alright, Virra, you’ll get your two cycles, and we’ll even collect your entire fee from Galen, under the condition that you come and find me personally before you leave. You have my word that you won’t have to commit to anything other than a brief conversation.”

“You have yourself a deal.” Bryce took a few steps forward to hold out her hand to the human. He matched her and they shook. “Where should I meet you, and who do I ask for?”

“Just swing by the cantina and ask for Jax. You might have to wait for a bit, but I doubt it’ll be too long.”

“Not called the cantina,” Shan interrupted with a frown. “Get lost without the name.”

“I’m sure she’s perfectly capable of finding it,” Jax frowned at Shan before turning back towards Bryce. “Just ask around for the cantina in our territory. Everybody will know what you mean.”

“You should tell her the name.” Grun gave Jax a look that definitely piqued my interest.

“We’re terrible with directions. If you don’t tell us, then there’s no way we’ll find it,” I chimed in and Bryce just raised an eyebrow at the human while keeping her mouth shut.

Jax let out an annoyed sigh. “The cantina is a bar called Penn’s Pretty Prick, and despite every last reasonable person in the fleet objecting to the name, they still refuse to change it.”

Aurora snorted behind me, and I just gave into a fit of full belly laughter. “Oh, that’s great. I’ll definitely buy whoever came up with that a drink.”

Jax shook his head with a half-grin. “The one who came up with the name is long dead, but you can buy something for Yvette. She’s the current owner and still gets a kick out of it.”

“We’ll do that then. Was there anything else you needed from us?” Bryce asked.

“No, nothing,” Jax answered before quickly turning serious. “But just because we’ve taken a liking to you doesn’t mean the rules have changed. Nobody is vouching for you, security isn’t included, and if you start trouble or overstay, then you lose the shuttle.”

Bryce nodded in agreement. “Understood.”

The three of them seemed like they were about to leave when I interjected. “Actually, one last thing, if you don’t mind. We’re meeting our friends at a bar called the Last Loss, or something like that, and I wasn’t joking about us being bad with directions. Is there any chance you could tell us the best way to get to them?”

~~~~~

There was no bar called the Last Loss on Paradise, but there was a brothel called the Lost Lass. Bryce didn’t even need to send Sora a message to figure out that’s where they went.

It was really far from where we had landed, but Paradise had a surprisingly reliable transit network that could get you to just about anywhere on the station in only a few hours. The whole place was pretty neat. It felt kind of like we were walking through a fancy mall. There were high ceilings, open spaces, and even the occasional deadly brawl.

The shortish walk to the transit station, and then the longer walk to the Lost Lass, was exactly what we needed after spending nearly a week stuck on a shuttle. Plus, it only took about fifteen minutes of us getting uneasy looks before Bryce remembered to recast her concealment spell.

Then there was the brothel itself. Most of the ‘buildings’ on Paradise were old ships permanently patch-worked onto larger ones that had been gutted to make the whole place feel open, but the Lost Lass took a slightly different approach. It was a fully functional starship that was docked with the station. Which meant we had to go through an airlock in order to get aboard, and once the airlock door opened, we were immediately hit with a smoky wave of perfume scented air.

From where we were standing, we could see a few dozen mostly empty booths with comfortable looking tables surrounding an empty stage. Every surface was covered in silk, or satin, or velvet, or something equally fancy, and all the people were covered in, well, very little.

While I was taking in the sights, our group was greeted by a smiling satyr. She had adorable little horns peeking out of her curly brown hair, and halfway down her legs got really hairy before switching to goat hooves. Then the coolest part by far was her eyes. She had square pupils.

“Hello! I’m Sanya! Welcome to the Lost Lass! I don’t recognize you. Have you been here before? Is there a specific person, or persons, you’re looking for? Or maybe you want to peruse a little?” Sanya bounced her eyebrows a few times, and it seemed like she was waiting for an answer, but just as Bryce went to speak, she continued. “We also have food and drink at the bar--all imported, so you don’t have to worry--a smoking room, a gaming room, and if you’re willing to pay extra, you can rent a special room where you can do all of the above for free so long as you have the credits to keep it reserved.”

“Wait, it’s free so long as we keep paying for it?” Aurora asked with a smile.

“Yep!” Sanya leaned in towards Aurora conspiratorially. “I can arrange a special discount for you if you promise to order me.”

Bryce shook her head as red started to creep in on the tips of her ears. “That’s alright. We were actually looking for a pair of kitsune siblings. Could you let them know we’re here?”

“Kitsune?” Sanya frowned as she took a step back to think. “I don’t know of any kitsune. They’re kind of exotic, but we rotate our staff pretty often so I can ask around. Just so you know, we charge extra for siblings.”

“Wait, that’s not…” Bryce tried to object, but Sanya was already bounding off into the sea of silk. “Dammit. Alright, well, I don’t see either of them. Let’s grab a booth and I’ll send a message to let them know we’re here.”

“Sounds good, but we should order some food while we wait. I’m starving.” I pushed forward to lead the way to the booth near the stage. “Besides, we probably need to plan what we’re going to do next, and that’s always way more fun with food.”

“Does that mean you’re offering to pay?” Leila asked as she slid into the booth first. I let Aurora and Suriel join her before sitting next to Bryce and responding.

“Sure, I don’t mind paying for the food, but Aurora is covering drinks. Gods know she won enough playing cards on the way here.”

“Which means I’m the one actually paying,” Suriel complained, which just led to Aurora wrapping an arm around his shoulder and pulling him into a hug.

“Don’t look so down. You’re also funding the alone time I spend with Sanya later.”

Suriel gently pushed the laughing Aurora away. “I could have gone my entire life without knowing that I helped pay for my sister to sleep with a satyr.”

“I warned you she cheats,” Leila said as she picked a menu off the table and started reading through it. “If you had listened to me from the beginning, then you wouldn’t have lost all of your iron. Speaking of which, either everything here is extremely expensive, or I don’t remember the conversion rate nearly as well as I thought I did.”

“In their defense, most people don’t really come here for the food.” Bryce picked up her own menu and started scanning through it. “And your memory is fine. The prices here are ridiculous.”

“They have to import everything, which makes it expensive. It's like that everywhere we've been on the station,” Sami said as she approached the table with a wide grin. “Hey, captain. Hey, Thea. I’m glad you’re both safe.”