Crisis Memes - Hashnak the Taur - 10 years earlier....

Hashnak covered his glass. The impact of one of the Royal Space Marines hitting the wall had brought down a fine shower of dust from the ceiling.

Nice work, he thought, looking up. Genuine plaster. Twentieth century maybe. Detail blurred by couple of hundred years of paint, but still quite attractive. The Grill really was the best pub in Aberdeen!

Shugan and Marfu were holding their own against the soldier boys. But then Shugan’s dad had been a genuine Taur-fighter. Officially he’d killed three other Taurs in the ring, plus any amount of bears, bulls and even one of the reptilian bipeds from Epsilon Tauri C. Unofficially he was supposed to have killed a few Saps too – or so Shugan said.

The fight had lasted for about eight minutes. The landlord had hit the alarm after two. “You’d better be moving soon Hashnak,” he said. “Police won’t be busy on a Tuesday – they’ll be here in another three minutes maximum.”

Hashnak nodded and another young marine landed on the floor beside him. He wasn’t sure who he was most annoyed with – the wind-up merchant soldiers or his own two companions for rising to the bait.

“Stick another malt in here first eh, Graham?”

“Ardbeg?”

“That’ll do nicely.”

A taser? Yes definitely a taser. Fifty thousand volts.

“Damn it! You’ve made me spill my drink!”

Hashnak turned. Military police. They looked pretty hard, and there were at least six of them pushing in through the door. Still, no match against three Taurs. He pulled hard on the wires connecting the gun to the needles in his back and flicked it against the wall.

But there were no longer three Taurs in room.

Only one.

“Oh, shit!”

***

He woke up on a hard bed in a small cell with a sharp pain in his balls. The snip. Well, who needed kids anyway? Rolling over he saw Shugan and Marfu sitting on the opposite bench.

“There was another fifty of them outside the back entrance,” explained Marfu. “Anyway we’ve both taken the deal – you should too. It’s either that or Peterhead.”

“Aye, alright. I’ll take it too. Bugger! My mother always said I’d end up as a Terraformer.”