Monster

[Trenton Vinh]

"Damn it. This thing is not going to be flying anywhere anytime soon...if ever. The fracking Hyperdrive took a hit, it leaked coolants into the reactor and the capacitor. It would need to be taken completely apart and have all the coolant sponged out."
Jonathan Rohaeus spat onto the deck and hopped off the back of his battered X-wing.
He looked around the deserted hangar bay he had landed in. The interior of the hangar was dimly lit, with several of the lights that illuminated the room hanging from the roof lifelessly.
Aeolan Kicka, wiping his blackened hands with a rag replied gloomily,
"I guess we're stuck here until we can get a transport. Which worries me a bit since this place is obviously inhabited by a murderous psychopath."

Jon nodded, and double-checked to ensure his blaster was secured firmly in his hip holster.
Aeolan stated,
"Well, now that we know there's no chance of getting off this thing soon, we may as well go look around. Who knows, maybe we can make friends with the murderer and swap stories."

Jon muttered in response, "Yeah. That would be good. At least that way we won't have to worry about getting stabbed in the neck by a sharpened spoon before getting back to Corellia."

Aeolan smirked, "Cause that's a big danger on Corellia."

Jon frowned, "Maybe it is."

The pair strode towards the hangar bay entrance, one of the durasteel automatic doors hanging off its track.

Aeolan said, "Either this place has been in disrepair for a few years..."
Jon finished his thought for him, "Or someone has damaged it a lot recently."

The pair nodded in unison, and as one, drew their blasters. They held their weapons loosely in their hands as they entered the dim hallway of the space station resort.
Jon eyed a sign on the wall, with arrows pointing to the various casinos, restaurants, and attractions.
"Want to go play some Rodia Roulette?"
Aeolan shrugged, "I could use a drink...and casinos have lots of those. Let's do it."
The pair headed down the empty hallways, stepping around a pool of dried blood stained onto the carpet.
Aeolan asked, "Do you think this place has one murderer, or a bunch of them?"
Jon shook his head, "No idea. But we're going to find out, whether we want to or not."
Aeolan sighed, "Yeah. I wonder if there's any survivors hiding around here. I know I'd hide if there was the guy we heard on the comms after me."
Jon agreed, "I'm sure we'll fi-"
He was cut off by a high-pitched scream, coming from the casino doors up ahead.
Jon and Aeolan looked at each other, swallowed the fear threatening to overtake them, and sprinted towards the casino doors, towards the source of the scream, and towards the murderer that plagued the station...

[Roth Fenix]

Aeolan and Jon burst through the doors and entered the room where they had heard the horrible, terrifying scream.

The room they had entered was very dim, lit only by the maintenance glow rods on the wall. Tables, used for card games such as sabaac and pazaak, were strewn around the room, their tabletops ripped from their legs. The slot machines in the middle of the casino floor were in similar shape, credits lay strewn all over the floor and the machines themselves lay in pieces.

Aeolan tightened his grip on his blaster and muttered, “I don’t think they were rearranging their furniture when this happened.”

Jon nodded, his face all serious, “stay together, we don’t want to get separated, not when we don’t know what were up against.”

Aeolan bent down to pick up a stack of credits on the floor, “good idea, let’s go.”

Aeolan and Jon stealthily crept across the casino floor, keeping s sharp lookout for anything that could be dangerous. Out of the corner of Aeolan’s eye he thought he saw a flicker of movement, but when he turned to look there was nothing there, but a small potted tree from Drall.

Aeolan and Jon had reached the back of the room when they saw him. A normal-sized human male sat at an untouched casino table. He was shaking violently and Aeolan could here him muttering rapidly under his breath. Aeolan motioned for Jon to follow him and they approached the frightened man.

The area around the table was dark; Aeolan could only make out the shape of the man’s body through the darkness. He approached him slowly, keeping watch for anything that could ambush him in the darkness. When he reached him Aeolan asked, “are you all right? Can you tell us what happened here?”

He didn’t answer. Aeolan turned to face the man and shook him, “hey, are you allright?” No answer. “Aeolan grabbed his shoulder and twisted the man to face Aeolan, “is…” Aeolan cut off, the man wore a gruesome mask, shaped into the guise one of the galaxies many circus performers.

Aeolan brought his blaster to bear as the clown lurched, but was attacked from behind by another wearing one of the clown masks. Aeolan’s blaster was ripped from his hands and tossed to the side. He turned and punched one of the men wearing the masks and turned to attack the other when he was hit by a stun bolt from behind.

As he fell to the ground he heard a voice quietly mutter, “sweet dreams,” the same voice that had produced the maniacal laughter.

*****
Aeolan slowly opened his eyes, his head felt like he had been hit in the head by a cargo hauler at full speed. He looked up and saw four of the men wearing clown masks around him, he looked over and saw Jon, who had been revived from his unconscious state before Aeolan.

Aeolan was kneed in the back when he opened his mouth to speak to Jon. He turned to glare at the clown who had kneed him when he heard the unstable, maniacal voice, “well well well, what do we have here?”

Aeolan looked up, but could only make out a small, human frame in the darkness, “ooo, new guests, how exciting.”

Aeolan asked, “who are you?”

“Me? No one important, I’m just here to have a bit of fun with the rest of the guests and as you can see it’s been going quite well.”

Jon scoffed, “you’re garbage who probably kills for money.”

The man laughed his high-pitched, maniacal laugh then spoke, “it’s not about the money, it’s all about sending a message.”

Aeolan spoke right after the man had answered, “we don’t need to be afraid of small-time thugs like you.”

The man stepped into the light and grabbed Aeolan’s jaw. His face was covered in scars and he had face-paint on, in the guise similar to his henchmen’s clown masks, “but you do Aeolan Kicka,” his voice grew rough and angry, “you REALLY do!”

Aeolan tore his face away from the man’s grasp, “you know who we are?”

He laughed, “of course I do, who doesn’t know who you both are? Our faces are all over the holonet, you can’t buy publicity like that.”

The man walked to the back of the room and picked up a vibrosword and a vibroaxe and weighed them both in his hands, then walked back with the sword, “that doesn’t matter right now. What does matter though is that, my little operation here is small, but we’re always looking for new members. Oh, and there’s only one spot open so we’re going to have a fun little contest to see who wins.” He threw the sword between Jon and Aeolan and muttered to his thugs, “release them.”

Aeolan and Jon dropped to the ground, each eyed the vibrosword. They both lunged for the sword, Aeolan punched Jon square in the jaw, not breaking it, but sending him stumbling back. Aeolan grabbed the sword and brought it up in a offensive position, daring Jon to attack.

The man with the scars clapped in the background, “now this is what I call entertainment.”

Aeolan looked Jon in the eye and nodded, he lunged.

And stabbed one of the clown’s henchmen directly through the heart. The other henchmen brought a blaster, Aeolan’s blaster, to bear, but Aeolan sliced upward with the sword, removing the henchman’s arm and freeing his pistol. Aeolan grabbed his blaster pistol and turned to see Jon wrestling with one of the henchmen, while the other was aiming at Jon with a small hold-out pistol.

Aeolan fired, killing the one with the plaster pistol, but could only watch as Jon and the other henchman struggled in their fight.

Jon head butted his attacker, then twisted his neck. Aeolan heard a wicked snap as he fell to the ground dead. The leader, smiling despite the chaos, walked over to Jon and began kicking him with a vibroblade hidden in his shoe. Jon charged at him, knocking him on his back.

He laughed as he quickly got up, “a little fight in you, I like that.”

Aeolan aimed his blaster at the leader’s head, “then you’re gonna love me.” He fired.

The leader ducked just in time and began laughing as he turned to run away from the Aeolan and Jon. When he retreated through a doorway leading to the heart of the station, two more masked henchmen joined the fray and began firing at both Aeolan and Jon.

Aeolan dove behind a fallen pazaak table while Jon went prone behind one of the slot machines Aeolan blind-fired over the top of the table creating scorch marks on the walls of the casino. He then rolled out to the left of the table and fired two quick, successive shots, killing both of the masked henchmen.

Jon got up and sighed, “that was one of the things I wasn’t expecting.”

Aeolan sat down on the edge of the overturned table, “I don’t think anyon expected that monster to come here,” he said his voice had a trace of sorrow.

Jon walked back over to where they had been restrained to pick up his blaster pistol when the leader’s voice came over the station’s intercom.

“Is this thing on? Oh good. Attention everyone, we have some new visitors to our lovely station that are here to have a little fun. So we’re going to play a little game to make our new guests feel welcome. I want everyone to look for these two men and bring them back to me, you’ll know who they are, after all they are….outsiders.” His laugh penetrated through the speakers. “If you want the fun to stop, bring them back to me alive. Oh, one more thing, every hour I don’t have them people will die.” There was a short pause and then he spoke again, his voice deep and threatening, “I’m a man of my word.” His laughter filled the air and the intercom fell silent.

Aeolan turned to Jon, this just keeps getting better and better.”

Jon nodded, “come on, let’s hurry up, we need to find a way to repair my X-Wing so we can get out of this deathtrap.”

Aeolan nodded and together the walked further into the darkness.