Authors notes: Brought to you by boredom... That is all.

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In the year 2676, the human race has expanded far and beyond its home planet of Earth. Contact with alien life and colonisation of other worlds had been a regular occurrence since the early 2200s. For some, it was a shock to learn that they were not only not alone in the universe, but that there were civilisations far larger, and in some cases more advanced then the human race.

Though distrust was inevitable between some parties, the human race eventually found themselves apart of a Galactic Dominion in the year 2345. It was a galaxy wide organisation that had nearly 400 different intelligent species all working together for the betterment of life and security. However, prejudices are easy to develop and some humans began to speak out against the Dominion as they refused to work with, or even associate with any form of non-human life. Why this was? Who can tell with some people?

Anyway, a mere 10 years after the human race had joined with the Dominion, large portions of humans rebelled and soon began to work together to form a separate organisation, called Goliath. Though it was nowhere near as large as the Dominion, it was small and organised enough that it could evade the massive force of the Dominions soldiers and utilised old school guerrilla tactics in order to attack with the element of surprise. Soon enough, it had become a force that was an actual threat to the Dominions stability and power. And now, in the year 2676, the terror cell Goliath is still going strong and has at least tripled in size compared to its original numbers when it was founded over 300 years ago.

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In the Milky Ways equivalent of the middle of nowhere, a lone star ship flew through the void. It wasn’t anything special, just a small long range ship with single accommodations for an occupant. Kind of like a futuristic combi van. The pilot of the star ship was none other then the bounty hunter Shaw. While she wasn’t the most renowned hunter in the galaxy, she got her jobs done. However, her appearance would sometimes put off some customers as she looked, a little unsettling. Her hair was a dark black, and while that isn’t very unnatural, her grey skin and horn like antennae sticking out the top of her head were. That, combined with her four red eyes and razor sharp teeth, made her look pretty freaky.

Though, at the moment she was not engaging in any kind of freaky activity that one would associate with that kind of appearance. Instead, she was playing an online shooter with a bunch of randoms and mowing them down like no ones business.

“Come on you little shit… poke that head round that wall. You got no chance….” She whispered menacingly as her team surrounded the last surviving enemy cowering behind cover. Just as she was about to shoot the sucker in the face with a rifle she lost connection to the server.

“What the fuck? Computer what just happened!?” she yelled to the ships inbuilt AI. She hopped out of her games area just next to the ships control panel and tried to find out why she lost connection.

“Some form of large interference has knocked out all forms of communication with outside sources. I am unable to determine its magnitude but I hypothesise that it is a solar storm” a robotic voice answered. An image of the predicted course of the storm showed that it was only about an hour away form hitting the ship.

“That’s what knocked me off the match? Mother fucker” Shaw cursed as she once again tried to reconnect with the galactic web. While doing so, a warning siren began beeping loud and continuously.

“The solar storm appears to be a level 8 force. Since such storms are extremely rare, this ship was not designed to withstand such a powerful occurrence and will likely be destroyed. The ships destruction is irrelevant however as you will be killed by the radiation from the storm long before it hits in an estimated 30 minutes” the ships computer warned its sole occupant emotionlessly.

“Are you serious!? W-well how do I get away from this thing? Can we out run it? Is there somewhere we can hide?” she asked frantically as she opened up the holographic map of the current star system she was in.

“This ship is unable to out run a solar storm” the computer replied, “However, the local scanners show that there is a ship within time range that is designed to withstand solar forces of up to level 11. You will be safe there.”

“Okay… okay great. We’ll stop there and wait for the storm to pass. I’ll set the coordinates now. How long do you think that the storm will last?” the alien woman said as she directed the navigation computer to fly the ship towards the safe zone, whatever it was.

“Impossible to calculate. Estimation will suffice. Based on the power and size of the storm it will most likely pass in one earth week. Or possibly not. Solar storms are unpredictable” the computer told Shaw as she sat down in her command deck chair.

“A week….?” She sighed, “Well, whatever. It’s better then dying I guess. Let’s hope that whatever this safe place happens to be is comfortable. And not a derelict…” As she spoke her ship was already speeding off towards the only little speck of safety from the oncoming storm.

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The safe area, as it turned out, was not a derelict. It was, in fact, some kind of hotel for space farers off the beaten track. The ship had managed to outrun the solar storm and was now safely parked in the parking/loading bay for the place. Shaw, having gotten out of her ship to check the place out, noticed that there was a fair number of other ships parked in the dark grey coloured steel area. Most were small and fast looking ships like hers, most likely belonging to other bounty hunters or fellows of a questionable disposition. There were a couple of odd looking ships in the area though, most notably what appeared to be a tour ship.

“What the fuck is something like that doing out here?” she wondered out loud, “Don’t often find people without bounties this far away from decent civilisation… Oh yeah, which reminds me….”

Shaw turned to the entrance of the station and looked above the large metal sliding doors. ‘The Trans-Galactic Hotel: for all adventurers braving the outer rim’ the neon sign above the doors read. She sighed and approached the door and surely enough, it was a motion sensing automatic door. Not really relevant but a nice detail.

As it turned out, the door opened to an elevator. As it descended our ‘hero’ felt a bit of apprehension of what might be waiting in the station. Probably not the nicest people if she was honest. Her thoughts were interrupted when th elevator doors opened to behold what was honestly a pretty damn nice looking place.

For starters, it was air conditioned which is always a plus. The entire area seemed to be quite large, unsurprising considering it was apparently a hotel. The floor was covered in a very comfortable looking red velvet carpet, and just a few meters away from the elevator was what appeared to be a common area/bar. And in the surrounding area around the common area/bar was filled with slot machines, poker tables and other life destroying fun for the average drunken outlaw to waste all their shit on.

“Dude who runs this place must really like red….” Shaw mumbled as she stared at the lobbies décor that looked as if it had been purchased from a Vegas casino after some asshole had bled all over it.

‘Looks nice and fancy though. Hope the couches are comfy…’ she thought to herself as she approached what she assumed was the main counter, which apparently also acted as the common areas bar judging by all the alcohol stored on the shelves behind it.

She hadn’t paid too much notice to all the eyes that had been following her, but as she dinged the little counter bell and waited for the bartender or hotel manager to talk to her, she had time to take a look at the kind of company she was with.

The first thing that got her attention was a small group of three at one of the couches with a pile of cards on the table between them. Honestly, what really got her attention was the fact that they were playing fucking Uno in a casino hotel, but they were also an odd looking bunch for this part of space. There was an odd, octopus looking alien wearing a Hawaiian shirt and casual slacks. Sitting next to the octopus was what looked almost like an Earth Ant in similar attire to the octopus. And finally, the third on the other side of the table was a Human who appeared to be in his twenties and also wearing typical tourist clothes with unkempt, shaggy brown hair and stubble which gave him an air of laziness.

Shaw continued to stare at the strange party and came to the conclusion that they were probably the ones who came with that tour ship parked on the upper deck.

‘Odd for people like that to be out here. Must all be really stupid. Really hope I don’t have to talk to them.’ She thought as she turned back to the counter as the tender had decided to finally show up.

The bar tender in question was some strange looking alien with a head that made it look kind of like one of those Sontarans from that old sci-fi series, Doctor Who. Except that this thing was green. And had five bulbous yellow eyes. And a black, slightly curled moustache for some ungodly reason.

“Well, hello there darlin’. What brings such a lovely young lady to my fine little establishment?” The bartender asked, leaning on the counter.

‘Why the fuck does he sound like someone from a wild west movie? Jesus, he's even wearing the kind of clothes an old western bartender would wear’ Shaw thought as she cleared her throat.

“Uh, yeah. I had to stop off here because of the solar storm that’s… probably almost here already now that I think about it” she replied, “My ship wouldn’t have been able to take it so I had to stop somewhere safe. Didn’t see too many ships parked up on the platform so I assume you have some space for me to stay until it passes?”

“Heh, yeap. I figured as much. You ain’t the only one who’s here cause of that. They ain’t actually too uncommon out here. Had this place built to survive that kinda storm. You’d be surprised at how good business is, even this far away from civil society. Pretty quiet right now though… I’d wager this place is usually full up when one of them storms hit” the Bartender explained as he started fiddling around with his desk terminal.

“Right…. Well, I don’t actually care. But good for you. Can I just get registered already?” Shaw huffed as she wasn’t particularly in the mood to chat with an overly talkative receptionist. She gave him her details as quickly as she could and made her way over to one of the poker tables with a bit of a game going on. About time for a bit of R&R as far as she was concerned. Or at least, a sociable kind of R&R.

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There were three people sitting at the table that Shaw decided to join. Well, three people and an alien. The first man wore what could only be described as a mechanics jumpsuit that had been redesigned for combat purposes. The man himself seemed to be Caucasian and had shoulder length black hair with a surprisingly well done executive beard cut. He was also wearing black aviators indoors for some douche baggy reason.

The second man appeared to be from African decent and was also wearing shades indoors, though they were blue and kind of thin so he got away with it. He was wearing a black leather coat over a simple white t-shirt with some simple jeans. He seemed to have a similar overall hair cut to the other man, though his head hair was shorter with tight curls.

Then there was the alien creature that they were playing what appeared to be poker with. He (assumingly) wore some kind of thin, but supposedly effective metallic body armour and not much else in the way of fashion. He was also carrying a very visible gun. The alien bore a bit of a resemblance to the typical ‘grays’ look that’s associated with aliens, though with a thinner head and straight black eyes. Not to mention a hell of a scowl.

Shaw stopped right at the edge of the table, pulled out a roll of cash and dropped it unceremoniously on the table and crossed her arms. The three pairs of eyes looked at the cash and then at here questioningly.

“Mind if I join?” She asked with a smirk.

The three simultaneously answered with;

“Fuck off.”

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Well, there’s the first chapter of this story. Sort of just popped into my head, but I surprisingly have a plan for where this is going to go. Should be fun. Or not, I really have no clue.

Anyway, leave a review or I’ll kill you.