“Might I enquire as to how you know my name?” Hollow responded, clutching his weapon.

“A fair question. Very well, I’ll explain,” the creature stepped closer to Hollow, only about a k’ned away, “Remember the Rezaiv? The prison you escaped from and destroyed, one that cost many billions of te’vrei, might I add.”

Hollow stood, trying to understand the point of what this creature was attempting to convey, but remained silent.

“Well, Hollow, my father was the captain of the ship. And you murdered him. Don’t think I don’t know, you see, he sent me a message while he was in the escape pod. Short and sweet, because truthfully, he recognized you, Hollow.”

The air was painfully still.

“He knew he wasn’t going to come out alive, and I swore that I’d get my revenge. The universe works in beautiful ways, does it not, my homosapien friend?” the creature spun around, facing away from Hollow, seemingly for dramatic effect, “After all this time, you’ve come to me.”

“I appreciate your explanation,” Hollow replied, which caught the creature off guard, “But after careful consideration, I’m afraid you’re not getting your revenge.”

Hollow kicked, as the smoke bombs he had planted on his feet earlier dropped off. He knew they would come in handy. For the entirety of the time the guards had their guns focused on his head, they forgot to account for his lower half.

While the creature completed its cliché-filled dramatic monologue, thinking, quite foolishly, that it had won, Hollow had shuffled around until the smoke bombs were unfastened, and kicked them away just before he would be killed.

With a deafening boom, dark clouds of smoke flooded the bridge, obscuring the vision of the guards, making it impossible for them to so much as touch Hollow. Hollow, on the other hand, had memorized each one’s previous position, and, crouching down so as to not be shot himself, fired in quick succession at where he estimated them to be, using the sound of their bodies dropping to the floor as an indicator of their deaths.

With the falling bodies wafting away some of the smoke, it began to clear, and Hollow stood back up again, his rifle lowered, its barrel pointed directly at the captain. A very cinematic entrance, one to compete with the creature’s monologue from earlier, and one that reduced every emotion the captain may have been feeling to nothing more than pure, unadulterated horror.

“I’ll make this easy for you,” Hollow’s fake smile, barely visible through the helmet of his exosuit, could make even death itself shudder in fear.

“Tell me what I need to know, and I might just let you live,” he lied.

The creature looked up at him, he looked so tall, so menacing, from the creature’s perspective on the ground. Perhaps this was what its father saw before meeting its end?

“What do you want?” the creature said, its voice trembling.

“Slave number three-nine-twelve. Where is it?”

The creature collapsed backwards, as if it were in shock.

“How do you know about-”

“Answer my question. That’s an order, if you want to live, that is.”

The creature struggled to continue looking Hollow in the eye.

“It’s not on board.”

“A lie? Now, of all times?” Hollow questioned accusingly, with a gaze that could freeze over even the most brilliant star.

“It’s the truth! Slave th-three is in-”

“Well? Time is precious, you know.”

Hollow moved his rifle closer to the creature’s head, and tilted his own head, aiming.

“Slave three-nine-twelve is in the royal palace of Ei’ray!”

“And how exactly do I know you’re not lying?”

“Take the data!” the creature squealed, quickly transferring something to Hollow’s MNID.

Hollow pulled out his MNID with one arm, not lowering the gun even for a moment. If he did, the creature might have the nerve to run. 

He quickly looked it over, and confirmed from images and official documents transferred to him that the creature wasn’t lying.

“Thank you so much for your cooperation.”

Hollow faked his signature smile once more, before the creature’s brains miraculously transformed from an internal organ into an external one. Liquefied remains of what was once its head conjoined with pieces of the guards, forming a lovely red soup. Delicious.

Hollow finally holstered his weapon, allowing the smoke and heat from the pulse rifle to dissipate. Pulse rifles were fantastic guns, requiring no ammunition to run, as they used high-charge plasma bolts instead of traditional bullets. These were as devastating as they were efficient. The downside, of course, was that this produced enormous amounts of heat. When under stress, it was even possible for the rifle to overheat, which rendered it useless, of course. Hollow was glad he hadn’t ran into this issue yet, though he did consider changing his general-use weapon quite often.

“The palace of Ei’ray itself, huh?” Hollow commented, “Maybe this job really is worth the money.”

Ei’ray, a large Earth-like world, orbiting an M-class red dwarf star, was many r’xere behind the rest of the galaxy from a political and social standpoint, but relatively equal technologically.

Ei’ray’s governmental system was a monarchy, similar to the old monarchies that used to exist on Hollow’s home planet. A majority of the population lost itself in a perpetual state of crippling poverty, crime running rampant. On the other side of the spectrum, riddled with corruption, selfish aristocrats possessed nearly all of the money on the planet, richer than many could ever dream of. Many kept slaves for a multitude of unsavory purposes, which only further reinforced their unequivocally broken system of gaining money for doing nothing, and gaining nothing for doing something.

Among this aristocracy, of course, was the royal family. With more money between them than some entire planets, and in extremely high standing and of high importance to the Galactic Community and Zyxxeen Federation. And as luck would have it, Hollow needed to steal from them.

Trespassing onto royal grounds, stealing from some of the most powerful beings (socially, anyway) in the galaxy. Now, this was a job much better suited to Hollow’s skillset.