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As Chief of Security Officer aboard the Geryon, Galgo Helder had thought himself a fairly brave man. Sure, he was selfish and self-serving, but if push came to shove he always came out a hero. In his words – but hey, the history is written by the victors right? So what if he did a little embellishment here and there to better come off as the roguish space-cowboy he was.
The fact that he would blast his mentor and long-time partner out of the airlock just to save his own skin he chose to write off as human nature. After all, what fellow human in his situation wouldn’t throw a single person under the bus for the greater good? Just so happened that to Galgo, he was his own greater good. Rather come out alive than not come out at all.
Had that not been the case, he would not have left the others to die in that hell hole that was LV-223. But then again, that was done in the name of a bit more than just saving his own skin. If he survived, he’d like to do it without a court-martial, thanks very much.
Galgo shook that thought from his mind physically, ruffling his short brown hair as he frowned at the control console of his Perses. His leg jostled as he stared blankly out into space – the flight back to the aforementioned Hell Hole would take a while, and he kind of hated having so much time to spare, especially since he was currently cooped up with Mr tall, dark, and very fucking creepy.
Leaning his head back, Galgo rubbed his face lightly, feeling the rough scrape of his beard and the fresh scar that ran across half his goddamned face. Although it had healed past the point of just randomly bleeding on him, it still itched like a bastard. He could only thank his lucky stars that he still had both eyes.
“Fuckin’ aliens. Fuckin’ stupid space bastards and their stupid dick-measurin’ contests.” He muttered to himself, glaring balefully at the ceiling of the cockpit. If it hadn’t been for Mr tall-dark-and-creepy, him and his crew would have been home free. Smooth sailing, all the way back to an inhabited planet that was not populated by murderous god-monsters and various other freaks of nature. Not to mention, that weird alien gun would have been his ticket to wealth. But no. Some strange, clicky ‘Hunter’ bastard just had to hijack his ship and force him on some suicide hunt, chasing one of those bloody god-monsters.
Galgo scrubbed a hand over his face again. While he tried to muster up his best bravado when facing that alien thing, somewhere in the pit of his stomach – or maybe the back of his wisdom teeth, Galgo didn’t really care – he was sure that he was going to die.
No way that he would get off as easily as ‘dropping the Hunter off’ and leaving. Galgo Helder may have been a selfish, self-serving sunuvabitch, but his instincts were not any less keen than his tall tales stated. That was at least one exaggeration that he did not have to make.
He knew that going back to LV-223 spelled nothing but trouble. Likely death. Definitely death.
But what could he do? Precious fucking little, that’s what! Without his freaky alien gun, he was pretty damn powerless in his own damn ship! Hell, even with the gun he had lost mano-a-mano, what shot would he have trying his luck with his bare hands?
Instead, Galgo could only sit behind the controls of his spaceship and glare at the stars. Think about his approaching doom. Feel the anger burning beneath his skin at the thought of the alien stowaway that was skulking around his ship like he owned it.
The human bared his teeth at nothing, scratching the rough stubble that decorated his cheeks. His wrists still smarted a bit from where the alien’s ropes had dug into them, restraining them above his head as the hunter laid out his demands.
As if Galgo could understand a single gurgled word that came out of that monster.
For all that the alien was unfamiliar to Galgo – although the human was rapidly becoming more familiar with more nonhuman extra-terrestrials than he ever wanted to be – he had met his fair share of glory-hunting assholes. He liked to count himself among them in his stories, but truth was, Galgo preferred his handsome mug on his face, and not smeared across a wall in some shithole down planet side. Rather live to tell the tale than die and be talked about.
Plenty of idiots like his glory-seeking ‘friend’ ran head first to their deaths, always hunting for something greater. Oh, they were talked about, but what good did that do the dead? All they ever sought was some unattainable greatness. The next best battle, to prove themselves greater. The next advancement, opponent, the next undiscovered frontier – all things that were searched for by people like the Hunter. Every idiot chasing a white whale, every idiot meeting an inevitable fall back to the ground for flying too close to their personal sun. It was a very familiar concept to Galgo.
And he fucking hated it.
Rather live a coward than die an idiot. Those you left behind could hardly curse your name after all. Dead folks told no tales, and that was that.
Galgo’s self-soothing thoughts of how idiotic the alien’s hunt for the Space Jockey was were cut short by a soft clicking, accompanied by a low rumble.
Glancing just over his shoulder revealed the massive figure of his stowaway, stepping up behind his pilot seat as the stealth setting on its suit disengaged. Eyeing the larger humanoid as surreptitiously as possible, Galgo frowned to himself in wonder. The alien’s entire form shimmered when the stealth mode had disengaged, yet most of the Hunter’s torso was bare. How did its entire body turn invisible then?
The human offered his stowaway an empty smile and a two fingered salute. Leaning back in his pilot chair and affecting an air of nonchalance, Galgo turned his eyes back to the stars.
“We’re coming up on your big boy’s planet. When we get there, you’ll let me go right?” He ventured to ask, going for casual and ending up on borderline nervous.
Silence.
Galgo sighed, aggrieved. “You’ve gotta give me something to work with here pal. You got two of my closest buddies killed, and if I’m about to die too, then they died for nothing.” The human said, giving the alien a put-upon look.
For its part – his part, Galgo thought, taking closer stock of the rock solid, overly masculine build of his pseudo captor – the alien did not seem to give two shits about whether Galgo died or not, but it did cross its arms with an aggrieved growl.
The fuck-ugly face of his unwanted partner in crime was once again hidden behind the smooth mask with dead eyes and scratches running over the right lens. And yet, for some reason, Galgo could just imagine a disapproving glare behind it, unyielding indifference oozing out of the larger man’s posture.
Galgo turned back around with a supressed huff, damn near spitting a few swears across his ship’s control board. The fucking beast was judging him. Judging him! When it had taken just as much part in the deaths aboard this ship as Galgo. The human had only done what was necessary for survival, what god was gonna spite a man for wanting to live?
Clearly whatever god was personally in charge of overseeing Galgo’s shit-show of a life, since it had so swiftly sent his own personal karmic retribution in the form of the muscle-bound and barely dressed Hunter that was practically breathing down his neck as the seconds ticked by.
Galgo sighed – a rough, pissed off sound – as his glare returned, the fresh scar on his face still itching like a motherfucker.
The sooner they got to LV-223, the sooner he could try and fuck off without his alien burden. The sooner that particular cargo was unloaded, the sooner Galgo could get back to what he did best: surviving.
But until such a point that he could wipe his hands of the large-and-in-charge bastard of a predator, he knew for a fact that he was going to hate the fucker. Hells, he already did.
The human swore to himself then, as he sent furtive glares at his hijacker without actually turning his head, that he would get the bastard out of his hair, even if he had to kill him.
The low rumbling that filled the cabin – courtesy of the massive alien, who stood by silently with his arms crossed over his chest as he stared impassively at the back of the human’s head – merged together with the ambient hum of the ship, making for a surprisingly calm atmosphere that thrummed with the underlying tension that Galgo could feel along the back of his spine, like a metal wire just waiting to snap.
Mouth set in a pissed off line, Galgo solidified one single thought in his mind; not to be xenophobic, but he really, really fucking hated aliens.