The hovercraft glided deftly over the desert, leaving a sand-colored cloud in its wake.  Perched on top of the seat was a young man with long black hair tied in a ponytail.  He wore goggles and a face mask to shield his eyes and mouth from flying debris.  His ragged brown cloak flapped in the wind.  Behind his seat was a pile of metal pieces and random gears, tied down with worn-out twine.

His name was Leiyu - part-time bounty hunter, scrap collector, and freelance worker of odd jobs.

The desert was full of mirages, but he knew that the dark spot on the horizon was the way station that he had been searching for.  He twisted the handlebars of his hovercraft forward to accelerate.

The way station was a dusty oblong building that resembled the carapace of a giant beetle and was lined with circular eye-like windows.  Leiyu pulled the hovercraft in and braked.  He let the vehicle descend and pushed a button to shut it off.  He dismounted and let his boots sink into the sand.  

Raising his goggles to his head and lowering his face mask, he shouted, “Hello?”

The door of the giant beetle building swung open with a creak and a middle-aged attendant with a wrinkled face and bushy beard stepped out.  He wore dusty overalls and rubber boots.  On his eye was a monocle with a circular frame that rotated when he focused on what was in front of him.

“Ah, you must be the scrap collector!” the attendant called back.

Leiyu began to untie the metal parts from his hovercraft.  The attendant went back inside and returned with a rickety wagon.  Together, they piled up the metal parts on the wagon and wheeled it back to the building.

“Quite a haul you got today,” the attendant remarked.

“I found an abandoned spaceship,” Leiyu said.  “Must have crashed there during the wars.  The other scavengers got most of the material, but there’s still some stuff left.  I only picked up what I could fit on the hovercraft.”

The attendant’s monocle made a soft whirring sound as he took a closer look at the metal parts. “This’ll probably fetch a good price on the market.”

After the parts were put away in the storage room and they returned to the front of the building, the attendant took out his kom, a handheld device, from the large pouch of his overalls.  Leiyu pulled out a similar device from his pocket.  

“Your payment,” the attendant said as he typed a few numbers and clicked.  Leiyu received a notification on his kom that the money had been transferred.

“Any place to get a drink and a bite around here?” Leiyu asked.

“Local tavern’s down that way,” the attendant replied, pointing into the distance.

“Thanks!” Leiyu said as he started walking back to his hovercraft.

“Don’t drink away all your earnings!” the attendant called out.

Leiyu flashed him a grin as the hovercraft began to levitate.  He sped off into the distance.

***

Leiyu swung open the double doors of the tavern and scanned the room.  There were humanoids like himself and other aliens of various shapes and sizes, all seated at circular tables with pints of brownish grog.  He sauntered over to the bar.

“What can I get for ya?” the bartender with the jellyfish-esque head asked.

“Surprise me,” Leiyu replied.  “But not too much, I still have to drive the hovercraft later.”

Jellyfish Head poured a purplish liquid into a tin cup and slid it across the counter.  Leiyu took a sip.  It was bitter but had some hints of fruit.  He took out his kom and began to scroll through the daily feeds, only looking up when the bartender placed a bowl of seeds next to his cup.  He grabbed a handful and began to munch on them.  They were salty and the small pieces kept getting stuck between his teeth.

The nice thing about watering holes like this was that other bounty hunters frequented them, and if he kept his ears open long enough, he could gather a lot of information.  As he pretended to read the news on his kom, his ears focused on the conversation drifting from the tables behind him.

“I heard that the Imperiat took over planet Tokamanen because the queen refused to surrender.”

“Tokamanen?  Where’s that?  Do they have any significant resources?”

“Dunno.  I heard their princess escaped though and the Imperiat’s looking for her.”

Princess? Leiyu thought, almost turning his head.  He continued listening to their conversation.

“Aish, poor girl.  Wonder what they want with her.”

“Dunno, but every bounty hunter in the system’s going to be looking for her since the price on her head is so high.  The Imperiat wants her returned alive and unharmed though.”

Leiyu swiped the screen on his kom and opened the bounty hunter portal app.  After entering a few keywords, he found what he was looking for.  He clicked on the search result and a new window opened up.  There was a small grainy image of a humanoid and a caption.

Princess Amara of Tokamanen

There was not much other information about her other than the bounty price and instructions to leave her unharmed after capture since the bounty would be forfeited otherwise.  A number for an Imperiat contact was included at the very bottom of the window.

Princess Amara? Leiyu thought.  Kinda hard to see what she looks like with this image.  He took another sip of his mystery drink and frowned.  The Imperiat…I don’t want anything to do with them…

***

Fifteen years ago…

“Run!”

Seven-year-old Leiyu ran alongside his parents and the rest of the villagers as they frantically made their way to the spaceport.  The Imperiat soldiers loomed in the distance behind them, shooting their lasers indiscriminately.  

Leiyu and his family had lived on a small moon orbiting the planet Anenderra.  There were few natural resources there, other than the fertile moon soil.  The promise of cheap land had lured his grandparents and the other village elders to immigrate there decades ago to start a community, and they lived in relative peace for years as subsistence farmers.  The only link to the outside was the tiny spaceport that was used to shuttle supplies to and from the home planet.  Leiyu often looked at Anenderra in the sky and wondered what life beyond the moon was like.

He would find out very soon.  The few dilapidated spaceships began to take off from the port one by one when they reached capacity.  There was only one ship left by the time Leiyu and his parents set foot on the pier.  The doors on the underside of the ship were open and people climbed over each other to get in.

“There’s no more room!” someone from the ship shouted as he tried to wave the crowd away.  The ship was going to take off soon and the doors began to close.

Leiyu’s father picked him up and held him up high .  “Take my son with you!  He’s just a small child!  He won’t take up too much space!”

The person on the ship hesitated but reached out and grabbed Leiyu.

“Mama!  Papa!” Leiyu cried as he flailed his arms and legs.  He caught a glimpse of his parents’ tearful faces before the doors closed.  The ship took off.

***

Leiyu closed his eyes and furrowed his brows.  He took the tin cup and downed the rest of the drink.  That was the last memory he had of his family and he often replayed it in his mind.

If I ever meet this princess, I’d help her instead…he thought.

He reached for another seed from the bowl and chewed it while opening the freelance job posting app that he often used.  After scrolling through a few posts, his eyes landed on one that piqued his curiosity and he clicked on it.

“Sandworm removal?  This planet’s not too far away.  I’ll check this job out.”