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The room hadn't been this crowded a moment ago. The bar had had a handful of occupants, most of them drunk, or possibly high, considering who he and Tristan were here to see.

Tristan was dressed in more than his usual gray pants this time, he had a white shirt and black jacket. Everything was worn, making him look like he belonged in one of the lower class neighborhoods.

He'd headed directly for the man's table, sitting opposite him before the two at the counter who were supposed to be the man's protection had time to react. Tristan immediately launched into what he wanted to acquire, mentioning the amount he was willing to pay.

This was the eighth such dealer they had talked with over the week. The previous ones had all gone similarly. Tristan found them, acted much too interested, much too willing an eager to get way more drugs than that one supplier could produce, so they balked. Tristan roughed them up, but not as badly as needed to get them to give up what they knew. He wasn't looking to extract information, he was looking to cause a specific reaction.

By the way the Samalian relaxed as the dozen men and women came out of the backroom to surround them, this was what he was looking for.

"Did you really think you can go around town making demands like this and not pay for it?"

Tristan looked at the people around them. "I didn't demand anything. I stated what I was looking for and what I was willing to pay."

"You're a Law stoogy. You're here to get one of us honest workers to admit to some sort of crime so you can arrest us." He gestured to the woman closest to Alex and she moved to him.

Tristan didn't make any motions of his own, so Alex let her pat him down, taking away the two knives at his hip, the one at his lower back, the one in his boot and the two in his sleeves.

She missed the one at the nape of his neck and the one under his arm. Neither of those were what Alex considered hidden. The one in the sole of his boot was hidden, as well as the small laser blade in his belt buckle.

The seated man looked at the knives she placed on the table. "No gun?"

"He's deadlier with knives."

The dealer looked like he was going to scoff, but Alex folded his arms, which placed his hand close to the knife under his arm. Tristan also didn't react, so the man instead studied them more intently.

Before he could say anything Tristan put the small Azeru he'd carried to these meetings on the table. The man motioned for his biggest guard to search Tristan.

The Samalian slowly stood, keeping his hands in sight, to make it easier on the guard. He didn't have any other weapons on him, but he didn't need them. Alex had seen him disembowel someone using only his claws, and he was strong enough to break human bones with little effort. Alex had been the recipient of that a few times.

The guard moved away and Tristan sat down. "Seeing as you went to the effort of disarming us, and making sure we're not broadcasting this conversation. Can I take it that unlike the others before you, you're interested in making a deal?"

"You can take it any way you like, it doesn't mean I'm going to follow your plan."

Tristan gave an exaggerated sigh. "Look. I'm getting tired of beating up people. I didn't think what I wanted was this unreasonable. I came because there's been a lot of it selling and the price's cheap. Come on, help me here. I only want three thou k--"

"What are you going to do with all that?"

Tristan smiled. "Maybe I'm planning a big party with lots of guests."

The man wasn't amused at the answer.

"What I want to do with it is my own business, don't you think? You should just be happy with the money you'll make. What I'm offering is a quarter above the current price for it."

"And you think I have that kind of volume on hand?"

"If you don't, you know someone who does. Put me in contact, and I'll pay you a finder's fee."

The man smiled. "So that's you're game. You're trying to make your way up our organization, just like a good little stoogy does."

Tristan shrugged. "I'm just looking to buy drugs. If you can't get it, I need to go to someone else. Like you said, someone on your level can't get that much, so I'm just aiming to get in contact with someone who does."

"I don't believe you. I should just kill the two of you and be done with it."

"Come on, you don't want to do that."

Alex closed his hand around the pommel of the knife.

"Why wouldn't I want to? You go around talking volume and amounts no one person has access to. Convince me you aren't a stoogy."

"Fine." Tristan sounded annoyed. Slowly he pulled his jacket open and reached in a pocket, pausing when the closest guards reached for their weapons. The man opposite him motioned for him to continue and Tristan took out his datapad. He brought up something and slid the pad to the man.

"What's that?"

"It should be self-evident."

"So you're wanted." The man glanced at the information. "Where's Deleron Four?"

"Very far from here. The Law there is looking too closely at me, so I can't procure any supplies locally anymore."

"At the volume you want, you're not a dealer. Not even a supplier."

Tristan smiled.

The man continued reading and jerked his head up to look at Alex. "This can't be right."

"It is."

"This says he's wanted for killing twenty-three Law agents."

"He killed a lot more of them than that, but those are only who were in the precinct when he broke me out."

They hadn't been Law agents, and he hadn't been rescuing Tristan. Alex couldn't conceive of a situation where the alien would need rescue. And as far as he recalled, the body count had been closer to thirty, but there wouldn't be any way for any of that to be verified. Law agencies guarded their failure closely, and no one would associate the decimation of a criminal cartel to Alex.

The man looked at everyone in the room. The drinkers had left as soon as the guards had entered. It was only them plus the barman, who looked too relaxed not to belong to this group. He was also the only one of them not glancing at each other and Alex, so he wasn't listening in on the conversation.

He typed a few things on the pad and handed it over. Tristan made sure to turn it in such a way Alex caught sight of the screen before shutting it off and putting it away. The man had sent a copy of the bounties to someone higher up the organization.

That had been stupid. If Tristan wanted to be his usual ruthless self, he didn't need them anymore. Sure, the node he'd sent the bounties too wouldn't be connected to their organization, but as soon as someone accessed it Alex would be able to track them right back. That would put them inside their system, and with that Alex could get anything he wanted.

But that wasn't the plan. They needed to reach someone high enough who would know who had the fabricator. It wasn't this group, they didn't deal in the drugs that were flooding the market, which was why Tristan had targeted them. He wanted to come at this sideways to avoid attracting too much attention.

The man was thoughtful. Drumming his fingers on the table. He was looking at Tristan, but he couldn't stop glancing at Alex. The bounties had made him falsely assume that Alex was the more dangerous of the two.

"What are you doing so far from your planet? If you're trying to establish yourself here, we're going to have a problem."

Tristan shook his head. "I'm not interested in this place. It's nice, but not really my style. Too much government oversight. I'm going to rebuild my empire back on Deleron Four. I just need to get a starting supply to bring in the funds I'm going to need. You have no idea how much people are willing to pay for this stuff back home. If you can get me what I want, in a few days I'll have recouped my expenses to fly here and have enough money to bribe the Law off me for a good long while."

The man wasn't buying it. Alex could see at least that on his face, but he couldn't read his intentions. Tristan probably already knew every other decision the man would make all the way to the end of this encounter, be it with him agreeing or dying. With this number of people this would end with dead people. Alex was looking forward to it. He hadn't had a good fight in a while now.

Something buzzed and the man pulled a datapad from a pocket. It was a smaller version from theirs; an Arcan maybe? The overall shape reminded him of those.

He looked at it and didn't like what it said.

"Looks like you're being taken off my hands."

"Is that good or bad?"

The man smiled. Alex didn't like that smile.

"It's what's happening. Good or bad doesn't matter anymore."

"It should matter to you. If it's good, you'll get a cut. If it's bad, you'll get cut."

"Either way, I won't be seeing you again."

Tristan smiled. "Believe me when I say this. If this turns bad, you'll be seeing us again. Well, you'll be seeing him. I'll just watch."

The man's face hardened. "You might have been someone big on the mud ball you come from, but here, you're nobody. The bosses are going to turn you into a little pile of ash if you so much as look at them wrong."

Bosses, plural, interesting.

"I'm big where ever I decide to settle. I've had corporations in my pocket so your little rodents here don't scare me. They look at me wrong, and they will end up as bloody ribbon on the floor, and not long after that, you'll be dead too."

The man rolled his eyes. "You don't scare me."

"Then I guess you're not as smart as you seem."

The man was saved from having to reply by the front door opening. Three men entered in armored green and white uniform and holding powerful looking rifles. The weapons were slim enough Alex didn't think they were for show, but were as powerful as they looked.

The cut of their armor was military, but the colors were gang. Looking around Alex noticed that everyone had green and white accents on their clothing. He'd been too focused on Tristan and his adversary to pay attention.

"Your transport is here. I suggest you enjoy the flight, it's going to be the last time you enjoy anything."

Tristan stood. "So you're expecting this to go badly for me. You better hope you're wrong, you'd hate to see me again."

He turned and headed toward the new arrivals. Alex fell in step behind him. The three armored guard formed around them and escorted the two of them to a hover van without any windows. Inside were four other armored guards.

They carried the same rifles, and now that he had the time to study them he could see a holster on each for a handgun, three military issued knives and bulges that looked suspiciously like explosives.

A fight against them, in such close quarters would hurt, but he and Tristan would be the survivors. If there had been double them, Alex would have been worried, but then everyone would have gotten in each others way, and that would have worked to Alex's advantage. Whoever they were going to see didn't know much about them.

The hover began moving and since he couldn't see outside, Alex activated his implant to keep track of their movement. It was simple to do by contacting any computer along their path then mapping their corresponding net address on a map of the city. He couldn't see it, but he had the route stored for later.

What he could do was have the net tell him the streets they were traveling on, it didn't help, but it passed the time.

They traveled for an hour, using a circuitous route that took them to the other side of the city, an industrial park, disused based on the information Alex was able to get with only a few grunted words. The looks he got kept him from getting any details.

When they stopped Alex got the net to give him the details. They were in front the Robiton Tower, a six-story building that had been shut down fifty years before. So this would be the headquarter of whoever was in charge.

The guards led them out of the van into a bright day and then inside. The ground floor had been gutted and then rebuilt into a large room, with columns in strategic places to hold the rest of the building up.

There were close to four dozen heavily armed people before them. Men and women, all wearing green and white. Alex also saw one serpentine being among them, as well as a tall and thin one with skin like bark. He had no idea which species either of them were. It annoyed him, there was a time when he thought he knew the names of every species out there.

Alex looked at the group, no the mob, of people, all looking ready and eager to use their guns. These odds were bad. Even if not all of them looked trained, they had space to move. They could stay out of each other's way as they shot.

He did his best not to let his worry show, but he couldn't stop himself from glancing at Tristan. He looked as calm as always. Alex wished that this time he could believe it wasn't an act. Tristan was good, together they were deadly, but there was no way he could look at all these people and not be concerned.

"You know," a man said, somewhere behind the mob, "You've really been causing us problems."

"You go around hurting our people," a woman continued. By the sound she was with the man. So those would be the bosses. Probably a couple. "You spread around word that you're willing to spend a lot of money for something we don't sell directly. Talking quantity that means you either became a big shot, or a Law stooge."

"The bounties were a nice touch," The man said. "If I didn't know what I know about you, I would have believed them. Cuddos on whoever fabricated them."

"We have to say," the woman said, "we never expected you to come back here, not after what you did. "

Alex looked to Tristan, and tried to remember what he'd said he'd done. He hadn't given much details, but clearly he'd left his mark on someone. He was surprised that anyone had survived his stay here.

There was movement behind the mob, and they parted to show a man and woman walking forward. She was dressed in white, he in green. They each raised a gun held in a metal hand and aimed at Alex.

They didn't shoot him while he got over the surprise at being the target so he took the time to look at them. It was the metal hands that gave them away.

No wonder the spaceport had seemed familiar.

"Hello Crimson," the woman said.