Kayden’s eye flashed open at the sound of his alarm clock as he woke up in a sweat and was thoroughly shaken up. It had only been a dream. He trembled as he combed his hand through his hair nervously. Kayden walked to his closet, reached up to his normal statured rack, pulled out a similarly styled black leather jacket, and put it on. He went to his chair and rested his feet on the steering console as he lounged and put his hand on his face covering his eye.

“Not that dream again…” he remarked somberly. An alert sounded throughout the ship. A red light flashed to signify it was near a docking port just as he went to the controls. He set it to auto dock his ship at the Quarter Six trading post and successfully connected to the docking station, and it shifted and jerked as it locked in. He waited for a loud clang as he successfully lined up to his door. He went over to it, pulled the release switch to open the door, and was greeted by the Cyril he had talked to before.

“Where is Ezekial?” he asked.

“He’s in the back. Follow me. Did you bring a dolly?” Kayden asked.

“Yes,” the Cyril said as he motioned for the two other Cyrils that were lesser built than Kayden to follow the other Cyril, and one had a dolly. Kayden unfastened the cryogenic freezing pod from its master unit and helped lift the whole thing onto the dolly.

“Your payment, 2,500 ruplets as per agreed,” the Cyril said as he handed a stack of opalescent paper that was the shape of money but wider and not as long with various iridescent colors on it, making it shimmer in the light.

“I’m sticking around to recharge my ship and resupply. If you need me, leave a message on my comms, and I’ll get in touch. And don’t forget to replace my cryo-pod,” Kayden said. The Cyril nodded as the three of them left with the frozen Ezekial. Kayden sighed as he closed the room to the cryogenic chamber and walked to his console pressing a few buttons to power it down. He walked through the connecting corridor to his ship, went out of the exit, and appeared in a large hangar.

“I need a supercharge, and any repairs that it needs now. I don’t care about maintenance unless it’s in dire need,” Kayden said to a maintenance worker, and he nodded.

“Yes, Mr. Kayden,” he said before running to look after his ship. Kayden made it to the elevator and went in, sharing it with a couple of authorized Guardians who suddenly saw him. They stared at him as soon as they saw his black metal left hand. He groaned as they looked over their shoulders and started whispering back and forth.

“You ask him,” one Cyril said.

“No, you do it!” the other Cyril argued.

“Just get it the hell over with. We’re almost to my floor,” Kayden said in annoyance.

“Can we take a picture of you, Sir Kayden?” one Cyril asked, and Kayden sighed.

“…Make it quick,” he said as they both stood around him and took out a paper-thin device with a screen and pressed a button. A blue light emitted from it and scanned their bodies within two seconds. The Cyril that had the object inspected a 3D rendering of the three of them, and he looked at his height compared to theirs.

“You’re so tall, Kayden, you were born the real deal!” one Cyril commented. Kayden forced a smile before he felt relieved that he made it to his floor. He left as the other two saluted. For a Cyril, his stature was substantially bigger and more intimidating than most of his kind. He was born quite differently than the others and looked daunting as he wore a serious expression most of the time. But then again, he wasn’t actually just a Cyril—he was a Cyril hybrid with something else no medical doctor could pinpoint or understand. He had lived his whole life not knowing what the other part of him was, because his parents died when he was a child when they went off to war.

Kayden made it to the lower levels of the colony, where there were streets and vehicles everywhere, and people lined the metal grated sidewalks. Since it was a cheaper grade colony, hovering vehicles could only lift up to five feet off the ground. Airborne vehicles were not allowed since the buildings were connected with towering bridges crisscrossing each other overhead with a gray metal roof above them. There were bright lights everywhere illuminating the colony, but there was no sense of day or night. Kayden detested the cheap glaring lights used on lesser colonies—they were unlike the vibrant hue of the well-lit Guardianship Citadel, which he once called home. Even if he wasn’t a Guardian anymore, he certainly did miss the cushy living sometimes from the Guardianship after sleeping several months on his bottom bunk.

He walked quickly up the street in an area of vendors and merchants and passed through the crowds of countless aliens from fairly humanoid kinds to ones on all fours. Others with tentacles, horns, spines down their backs, and even gelatinous blobs that left slimy trails that slowly drained through the grated sidewalk. He made his way to a small shop with red lights and various aliens interacting with each other while smoking pipes and other paraphernalia. He made it all the way to the back of the shop to a counter where a woman with a lizard’s face with big orange eyes, green skin with orange splotches, and had pink hair tied in a bun was. She was an alien called a Tersar. She was wearing a burgundy robe with an orange sash across her chest to her opposing hip. She turned to face him.

“Kayden! It’s been ages! What brings you back here?” she asked, and he sat at one of the stools. He towered over her.

“I need some more of those sleeping pills, I’m having nightmares again,” he said in a disturbed voice as he rubbed his eye. The woman nodded and reached behind the counter and shuffled around. She placed a bottle of blue glowing capsules on the counter; there were about two hundred pills inside.

“That’ll be 200 ruplets,” she said.

“That’s a rip-off, you know they’re only worth 50,” he said. She smirked.

“It’s been a while since you’ve come in, and the popularity of the ingredient just rose in the last month alone,” she argued, and he sighed after putting 200 ruplets on the counter and grabbed the pills.

“Make sure it doesn’t go up again,” he groaned before he left the establishment. He went to a diner, found the nearest booth in the back, and looked at the table. There was a screen projected. He put his hand through it, and it suddenly projected a keyboard on the tabletop. He scrolled through the menu and looked at the neon-colored food with disdain, and kept scrolling. He let out a sigh and started ordering. He added several dozen items to his cart before ordering a drink. He moved his wristband over and showcased a small white keycard with a photo ID of him and a barcode with his name. He put it through the screen slowly, and it beeped before processing his order. The screen and projected keyboard vanished, and he put his elbows on the table. He rubbed his hands together and let out another sigh as he waited for his meal.

His stomach growled loudly as he slumped forward and groaned.

“I should have eaten a ration…” he mumbled as he rubbed his aching belly. Within ten minutes, a female Dimitress waitress came with a cart with several plates. She had shiny dark blue skin, pink eyes, and small features on her face. She started stacking one plate after another of eclectic and colorful alien food: noodles, mash, pods, shrubs, roots, and a fillet. The portions were large, and it almost looked absurd as his entire table was filled with eighteen plates. She let out a sigh as she left, and he picked up his fork. He started shoving food into his mouth quickly and without a single bit of manners—as if he were in a mess hall eating as fast as he possibly could. He guzzled down half his drink, one quarter through his plates but continued stuffing his face. He made short work of his food, and by the end of his meal, he had a melon-sized gut. He put his organic hand on his stomach and let out a sigh as he sat back. Five minutes barely passed before his belly shrank completely, and his toned abs returned as if he’d never had otherwise in the first place. He rubbed his abs and got to his feet before leaving the diner. Cyril ate a substantial amount of food to meet their minimum diet required to maintain their purely muscular physique. He made it back to his ship and met the maintenance crew member.

“That’ll be one 1,000 ruplets,” he said, and Kayden just about lost it.

“What the shit! I said just look for immediate things!” Kayden snapped.

“Your core capacitor was on the fritz, and your dive engine was arcing black matter…it was quite serious,” he said, and Kayden rubbed his face distraughtly.

“I’ll need you to sign these release documents making the repair official,” he said, and Kayden griped as he took the tablet and signed it. Then the maintenance worker lifted a photo of Kayden up.

“Can you sign that one too? Please?” he asked, and Kayden looked about ready to lose his cool. He groaned and looked at the photo—it was one of many propaganda pictures of him the Guardianship used during his early years as a Guardian, and It brought back sour memories for a moment as he paused. He remembered how in his early years as he took on harder missions, the Guardianship spotlighted his career and downright made him the poster boy for enlistment purposes only, not as any kind of reward or acknowledgment of his services. He felt used.

“Sir Kayden? Are you alright?” the maintenance member asked, and Kayden snapped out of it as he signed the photo and shoved it back into the worker’s hands before heading back to his ship.

“That leaves me with 1,300 ruplets…great…” he remarked as he got inside his ship and went to a secret compartment under his console. It had a stash of other ruplets and stashed what he’d made there. He got to his console and scrolled through his database. Suddenly a projection of a Cyril appeared on the screen and startled him as he sat back in his chair.

“Kayden Royal, I’ve uploaded your new list of wanted criminals based on priority of threat level. Yellow is the mild ones, dangerous are in orange, and severe are in red. It’s routine, just like the Guardianship,” the Cyril said—a different Cyril from before. He had black hair to his eye, which was blue, but like the other one he’d spoken with, he was also quite old in appearance. Kayden groaned.

“But I’m not a Guardian, not anymore, Lieutenant General Briggs,” he said, a little flustered.

“You’re wasting your talent, Kayden—you should come back to us,” Briggs said.

“But I can’t. I broke the codex,” Kayden said with a smirk. The other Cyril lowered his gaze.

“That incident was unpleasant…but times have changed, Kayden. The top brass is more forgiving over smaller matters,” the Cyril said. Kayden was silent for a moment as he gazed down on his console before looking up at the other Cyril. He didn’t actually want to go back to being a Guardian, it stood for everything he didn’t stand for anymore. He felt he wasn’t in a place where he could protect others, not after losing his lover. Then he realized he paused too long and tried to think up an answer without outright refusing his superior to lose out on getting the scraps of bounties to keep his ship afloat.

“I’ll keep it in mind, how’s that?” Kayden asked.

“That’s all I ask for,” the Cyril Captain remarked before turning off his projection. Kayden brought up the list and saw seven names on it, four in orange, one in yellow, and two in red.

“Well, this will be interesting,” he said as he leaned back in his chair. He set a course away from the station and headed to bed, taking a sleeping pill in the process. He slept like a rock.