A Smuggler's Salvation
It wasn't much of a fight, even if, fortified by a few stiff drinks and the attention of a beautiful woman for an audience, l usually describe it quite colorfully. After all, there is really only one way a fistfight between a Rattanai and a human can play out. I threw the first (and only) punch, and then four hundred pounds of heavy-world predator threw me across the room, just about pulverizing my ribcage in the process. It makes a good story because it seems insane that I would have started a fight like that, and more insane that I survived it.
I usually try to leave the impression that I was extremely drunk at the time, or trying to impress someone, even though that wasn't the case. No alcohol or synthetic intoxicant dulled the pain when I struck the painted metal of that bulkhead, and only dumb luck - with a little bit of help and absolutely no technique - saved me from a broken neck and a month in a geltank.
The story usually does not go too far beyond my staggering to my feet to continue the fight just in time to be plastered by a spread of web rounds from the establishment's security system, and if it does, it skips ahead to my waking up the next morning in the high security brig, right across from the Rattanai I'd provoked, and ends there. Usually that is enough of an ending for a social occasion - a nice, clean wrap-up for a party tall-tale which perhaps few believe wholly.
Perhaps by now you have guessed that my purpose is to explain what was really going on. The story is true of course, but the way I usually tell it hides far more truth than it imparts.
As usual for my career, the story really starts with a job, and also as usual, that job had already gone very wrong. By the time I was sitting in the worst bar on the station sipping a truly foul excuse for synthesized beer and wondering if the drink in front of a Rattanai at the next table would do less damage to my liver, it was fairly clear that my situation was, to put it lightly, problematic. The shipment I had just handed over to a local branch of the Syndicate had, along with its minder, gore missing. Shortly thereafter the minder, sans shipment, had found his way into the station morgue in several scorched pieces. The Syndicate was in a panic, with several lieutenants convinced I'd double-crossed them, and the rest certain that the station authority was making a move on their "business."
I'd have bugged out, but the only person that the Authority could actually confirm had seen the victim that day was me, so they'd locked the docking clamps to keep my ship from departing. My continued presence was required, but my safety apparently wasn't - I suspect someone there had realized how much easier it would be to wrap this incident up if the syndicate killed me in retaliation. It was either that, or they were hoping that my death would lead them up the cartel's food chain to someone more significant. Either way, I knew I was being hunted long before three syndicate thugs ambled into the bar, a poorly concealed arsenal bristling at every seam of their shabby attire in flagrant violation of the weapon-denial scanners in front of the doors. There was no point hiding - they knew I was in there before they had arrived. Their plan, I suspect, was to get me as I tried to leave, drag me into an empty compartment, and then splatter me across as many square meters as bulkhead as their weapons' batteries would allow.
Admittedly, I was thinking fast, and fast thinking is rarely the most sound thinking available. The goons would concoct some excuse to have the proprietor eject me if I didn't conveniently flee without prodding. I needed to make a stir, scare them off, and get put somewhere the cartel's goons wouldn't be able to get to me for a while - without being put there permanently.
The only idea I had, I put into motion. Faking a drunk stagger, I headed over to the Rattanai's table and, slurring every word, insulted the patriarch of his clan in what I hoped was creative and unrealistic detail.
To my surprise, the Rattanai didn't take the bait. Perhaps it was a renegade and had opinions of its clan leadership which I was only echoing, or was remarkably level-headed for its kind. The gorilla-sized predator merely blinked at me and rumbled something I didn't understand - probably that I had consumed one too many and should sit down.
The thugs, afraid perhaps that I was hiring a bodyguard, hurried across the room, shortening the time I had to think of a new plan considerably. I knew it was a bad idea, but being out of options, I hauled off and punched a nine foot tall, predatory, iron-boned sapient in the snout, which it had so kindly lowered almost to human eye level when I approached.
Though it makes for a good story, I don't recommend this course of action. Connecting with the Rattanai's jaw broke several bones in my hand. It was like punching a hull girder. Even if that were not the case, most Rattanai would tear your arms off and beat you to death with them for taking an unprovoked swing, fruitless or not.
This particular Rattanai did nothing. It glared at me almost quizzically as I cradled my broken hand, while the thugs, expecting the same response I had, backed off a few steps. Silence spread across the crowded tar, as patrons realized what had just transpired. The Rattanai's blank, unreadable eyes flicked between my self-inflicted agony and the trio of Syndicate cleaners, who it had presumably guessed were involved. I have never been good at reading nonhuman sapients' faces (or lack thereof), but I hoped it understood my desperation. If it thought I was a distraction for three better-armed assailants, I knew I was dead.
I am happy to report that it did seem to understand, or at last it reacted as if it did. Rising from its seat, the Rattanai growled and grabbed me in its massive, double-thumbed hands, spurring the crowd to back away and the proprietor to duck behind the bar. My ribs protested mightily, but I could tell the Rattanai was using but a careful fraction of its strength. With a snarl of what I would assume was fake rage, the predator-sapient hurled me across the room, in the opposite direction from the alarmed syndicate henchmen.
Station gravity was one-third earth standard, so I was probably as light as a toy to it, but still the big alien was impressively careful in its throw. I bounced off the bulkhead and collapsed to the floor, but my shoulder had taken the worst of the landing. I still managed to land on my broken hand, of course. That I didn't black out with the pain is something of a miracle.
I did get back on my feet, but not nearly as immediately as I tend to imply when telling the story. The only reason I didn't scream in agony was that the impact knocked the breath out of me. The security system, a chandelier-hung affair studded with sensors and stubby barrels, chugged to life with a grinding of poorly maintained bearings and a wail of one tinny klaxon. The time it took for me to get to my feet was about the same amount of time the beat-up machine took to come online and acquire targets. Just as I tell it, I had just gotten to my feet when the emplacement knocked me down and kept me there. Th Rattanai just stood still - it had plenty of time to get behind cover and plenty of warning from the noisy device mounted to the ceiling, but it didn't. It could have also charged through the crowd and finished me off, but that didn't happen either.
Meshweb rounds won't knock you out, not usually - they don't even hurt through thick clothing. Most of the time, they just knock you down and restrain you. The security emplacement was aiming for my center of mass, but I took one to the face anyway. I was doubled over cradling my hand, and this put my head into the path of one rather badly-aimed shot from the poorly-maintained machine. The impact happened so fast I didn't see it coming - I was out cold even before I heard the shot. I only know the details of what happened next from the security tapes, which I had a friend copy for me a month or so afterwards.
The Rattanai, still standing in a spontaneous hole in the crowd, was hit by a few web rounds at the same time I was. It stayed upright long enough to send the seedy bar's patrons scurrying for the corners to avoid its flailing against the polymer webbing which began to bury it, volley after volley. Perhaps those three thugs could have finished me off before the Authority arrived, but they didn't risk slinking past the flailing limbs of my unexpected ally. On the tapes, they can be clearly seen slinking for the exit, not interested in being present when law enforcement showed up to sort things out.
The Rattanai went down only seconds before the Authority's armor-suited peacekeepers stomped into the now half-empty compartment. I suspect they were waiting outside for it to finally be overwhelmed - were I in that position, I would have done the same. Even armored and armed with more meshweb-throwing weapons, the peacekeepers balked out the idea of hauling off a still-conscious, restrained Rattanai, so my unconscious, web encrusted form was dragged away first. When the Authority finally got around to moving the Rattanai, it took four of them to do it, even aided by powered armor joints and low gravity. It did not struggle, which seemed to unsettle the peacekeepers.
Just as I usually tell it, I woke up in the brig a few hours later. My head throbbed, my shattered hand screamed in pain at every motion, and I had obviously received no medical attention whatsoever from the Authority personnel who had placed me in custody.
I might have been amused to find myself in the high security section usually reserved for particularly dangerous inmates, if not been for my sorry state. The cell across the narrow corridor held the Rattanai I'd "brawled" with, standing impassively behind the single block of corundum armor-glass which served as a cell door. It watched as I stirred, but made no move or sound.
I felt like I owed the huge alien an explanation, but I couldn't give one without incriminating myself (for smuggling, not murder, but even that was bad enough to make my stay rather permanent) on the surveillance recordings in the brig. Struggling into a seated position, I offered an exaggerated shrug, hoping the gesture would be understood to mean that I was sorry for the trouble I'd gotten us both into.
They released the Rattanai a few hours later, hours spent in mutual silence. My battered fingers remained untreated until, perhaps mid-morning the next day (by local reckoning) the Authority found someone else to cleanly pin the murder on. I rather a doubt it was the actual culprit - more likely, it was one of the goons the syndicate sent after me, or another of similar station who just happened to wind up dead in the interning hours and who had a plausible connection to the cartel.
The moment I was no longer a candidate scapegoat to clean up a messy situation, the Authority treated me quite reasonably. A comely woman with a peacekeeper uniform even escorted me to the infirmary to have my hand seen to after they released me. Sadly, despite my best efforts to talk her into it, she stopped short of paying for the medics to put all the pieces of my carpals back where they belonged.
As soon as my hand was more a less put right (but still immobilized so the bones would knit) I got out of there as fast as I could get departure clearance. There were not ships in the hangar with Rattanai livery when I lifted off, so I can only assume that my unlikely savior had already departed. After paying for fuel and medical expenses, my profits from that stop were somewhat less than stellar - but I suppose if I factor in all the social mileage I've gotten out of telling the story since, I didn't do all that badly.
I have always wondered whether the Rattanai, when fortified by a few intoxicating drinks or the attention at a comely female of its species, tells the story of the pathetic human which punched it in the face in a dingy a station bar, for no apparent reason. I suppose it would make quite the humorous story. After all, when the human is unarmed, there is really only one way such a fight could play out…
This is a short story I wrote several years ago, and have updated on at least two occasions. It is, to my knowledge, not posted to any other site. Its original title was "The Story Behind."