The Feud

[t0l]

Independant District of Al-Kharid
Planet Nauru
Omicron Delta System
14:35 Local Time

Tal Ravis slowly made his way down one of the main arteries of Al-Kharid; a narrow, winding paved path that their large, lightly-armored vehicles couldn’t squeeze through. Not that he’d particularly want to be riding in a thinly-shielded transport if things went south out here, since tall adobe-based structures flanked two sides of the path and would effectively box their convoy into a long kill zone. Instead, he and another mercenary had disembarked from their convoy, which had parked up in a sizable town square, in order to explore the settlement, eyes peeled for any trace of marauding Corsairs.

All of this came about as a result of Nodtviet’s exceutive order, which had the intent of gathering information about settlements on Planet Nauru. However, a translation error must have occured as the order disseminated down to the grunts from Hawken, as they were now looking through random sand huts in the middle of nowhere with intent to find Corsairs.

Al-Kharid, meanwhile, seemed to be completely devoid of life, at least in this sector. Certainly not something one wanted to notice, especially while they were incredibly exposed to enemy gunfire with nowhere to run or hide, and as such Tal breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a somewhat aged-looking, darkskinned man in white robes behind what seemed to be a stall filled with cheap consumer goods from the Freeport in Delta. Initially, Tal gave him a quick wave, taking his right hand off the pistol grip of his weapon momentarily to do so, but he was suckered in when the man gave a verbal response.

“Good day, and welcome to Al-Kharid!” he had exclaimed, spreading his arms out wide and above his head. Not wanting to be rude, Tal paused his little trek through the sand and decided to stay and chat for a while. Hell, maybe he’d even find out where the Corsairs ended up.

“Hello to you too,” he replied, resting both hands on the collapsable buttstock of his carbine as it dangled from a three-point harness.

“My name is Ali Morrisane,” he proudly pronounced, although no one had asked for his name, “and I am the greatest merchant in the Sirius Sector.”

Tal turned around slightly to cock an eyebrow at his squadmate, who simply shrugged back at him. Perhaps this was going somewhere after all.

“If you are the greatest merchant in the Sirius Sector,” Tal inquired, shifting the weight of all of his equipment onto his right leg and leaning over ever so slightly, “then why are you still selling goods from a stall?”

“Well,” began Ali, “One can only do and sell so much. If I had more staff, I would be able to sell more. Rather than waste my time on menial things, I could get on with selling sand to the Bebadin and useless tourist trinkets to everyone else.”

Tal adjusted his sunglasses slightly, quickly scanning the terrace above him out of paranoia. “I’d love to help you, but I’m too busy searching for Corsairs,” he proceeded to say, wanting to stop wasting time on this shop owner so he could get on home faster.

“Yes, I know, I know. The life of a shopkeeper isn’t always slaying dragons and wooing damsels, but it has it’s charms. Although, you may be able to help me in another way.”

“And what would that be?”

“A nephew of mine lives not too far from here in a little town called Pollnivneach. If you could fetch him here, I’ll give you some information about these Corsairs!”

Tal turned once more to his partner, who once more gave him a slight shrug. Being extorted for help wasn’t really something he was interested in, especially when he could just make the shopkeeper stare down the muzzle of his 5.56x45 millimeter carbine and force the information out of him right then and there. But hey, who cared? He was feeling nice this afternoon anyways.

“Fine, I’ll help you. But you had better tell me about those damn Corsairs once I succeed.”

“Ah, many thanks, my friend! My nephew’s name is Ali and he lives to the south in a town called ‘Pollnivneach’. Tell him uncle Ali M needs his help up in Al-Kharid.”

They exchanged nods.

“Now, have a look at my wares!” Ali continued to insist.

“No, I’m really too busy,” Tal replied, turning away to return back to the town square.

---

“A man by the name of ‘Ali Morrisone’ approached us today. Said he was willing to exchange information about the Corsairs here on Nauru if we went down to a small town called ‘Pollnivneach’ to fetch his son, Ali.”

Tal stood amongst a group of mercenaries and Hawken, each one of them huddled around a small crate that had a map and some water bottles on it, and partook in the day’s debriefing. No one else had any leads or confrontations of interest to speak about, and as such the interests of his colleagues had been thouroughly piqued.

“Sounds reasonable,” said Hawken, a stern look on her dumb face as usual, “We set out tomorrow for ‘Pollnivneach’, then. Mount up, and we’ll return to base.”

Tal turned around and walked towards his vehicle, while Hawken swiped up the map and left the rest of the cleanup job up to two unlucky men. As he tried to climb into the driver’s seat, he got snagged on something, and was sufficiently stuck in place. One hard tug didn’t seem to pull whatever was trapped loose, and a second didn’t seem to help either. He then proceeded to look down and around to find a pair of shears that had been clipped onto the rear of his kevlar vest, which had somehow gotten caught on his seatbelt, and promptly removed them, stuffing them into his empty pocket for storage. Wait, empty?

He had a 100-credit chip in there. Where could it have go--

That goddamn merchant, he thought, resting back in his seat in anger.

---