Under Pressure.
30 Dec 2021Vodan
Vodan shifted his grip on the bounty hunters' hair and smashed the guys' face into the pavement again. Sound on this planet was muted and didn’t carry, so Vodan couldn’t tell how hard he was mashing the hunters' head. This time he didn’t resist, but Vodan made the effort to crush his skull a little more. Exhausted, Vodan rolled off the hunter and sat on the floor, trying not to take a deep breath. The atmosphere here forced air into his lungs, the hard part was breathing out. He pushed on his stomach to help him exhale and just sat by the dead man, trying to get his energy back. Even the dingy back alleys in this part of the city were clean and well maintained; normally Vodan would be feeling exposed, but the heavy atmosphere and gravity here had wrung the carful out of him. It didn’t take long for Vodans’ sense of self-preservation to force him to get away from the corps. First, he took the hunters’ wallet and slate, turned it off and forced himself to his feet. He would have taken the mans’ weapons too, but his own pistol was making his gun belt cut painfully into his hips.
On the main street, the locals were walking around unaffected by the literal weight of this world, making Vodan feel like a sweaty bridge dwelling troll in comparison to all the pretty people enjoying the afternoon sun. Coping with the dense atmosphere and high gravity hadn’t been much of a problem until Vodan jumped the bounty hunter. The exertion of a fight had sapped all his strength, but fortunately the bounty hunter was likewise handicapped.
A bench overlooking an ornamental pond was far too tempting to pass up and Vodan sat down. Irresistible momentum carried his head and shoulders to the seat as well, but he didn’t have the power to lift his boots off the floor. He was twisted, being inflated like a balloon, and his vision was becoming hazy when two teenagers, a guy and a girl, hopped out of a bubble backed van and hustled over to him pulling a gurney between them.
Rolling Vodan back to their van, they talked to him in a variation of Japanese. He couldn’t hear them very well, but he did understand enough to pick up the jist of the questions the girl asked him. Vodan tried to answer her, but couldn’t push enough air out of his lungs to form words. After they put him in the back of the van, the guy went of the driver’s seat while the girl took Vodans coat off, tossed his pistol and knives in to a container, close it, and started strapping a vest around his torso. Once she’d put the vest on him, the girl flipped up her pressure-suits’ helmet, and a hissing sound accompanied an air pressure change.
The vest squeezed Vodans’ torso along with his efforts to exhale, and the air pressure change let Vodans’ eardrums work again.
“Oh my god. That feels great. Thank you” Groaned Vodan enjoying the power-assisted exhalation.
“<You a Floater? You live in space? You didn’t pay attention to the safety-holo when docking right? What is up with that?>” asked the girl in her native language.
Vodan looked at her trying to work out what she had said. The dialect was different to the Japanese he knew. He also recalled a cartoon that he had to watch before he was granted docking clearance. He selected the first language option that came up and ignored it while he tracked the guy that was following Creamy. He answered her in the closest language he knew.
“<You are correct. I ignored it. I’m silly. Thank you for your help>”
The girl was scanning him with something Vodan had seen doctors using. Looking around the van, Vodan noticed it had a medical feel about it. The bubble-back had confused him at first, but now he could tell it was a gimmick. These people assisted visitors that were overwhelmed by the gravity and air pressure. It was a sort of atmospheric ambulance.
“<Oh, your tough guy pirate Hooder huh? Don’t worry tough guy, no warrant in this system. Anyway, you not so tough under four gees huh?>
She said with a sweet smile.
“<Ok listen, we’re privet business, no government subsidy for helping you. What is up with that? You have to pay or we’re putting you back on the bench. Can you pay?>”
Right now, Vodan would give this girl every credit he had just so he could keep the breathing assistance vest. Anyway, the strength she displayed moving him about meant this young adult girl could probably pull his fingers off if he caused her any trouble.
“<Hey girl, I will pay whatever you need if you will let me lay here in this clothing for a while>” he answered sincerely holding his eyes.
<This is an ambulance, not a hostel..>”
The girl pulled Vodans’ hands off his face and pushed an eye mask over his eyes; it had a plunger like effect around the seal, forcing air out. She turned it on and Vodan let out a shocked cry as the thing sucked on his eyeballs as if it was going to pull them out of his skull. He felt the little women hold him down, and then he settled. He didn’t realise until the thing had done whatever it did, but now he couldn’t feel his eyeballs at all. Before, they had been adding to the headache Vodan had since landing.
The girl turned on the masks’ camera so Vodan could see, and continued giving him the options.
<..You come to our clinic, very reasonable. Or we take you back to your ship, very cheap. Are you a very cheap tough guy pirate mister Hooder?>
He smiled, it was a good pitch and Vodan wanted to stay, but if the girls' scanner had identified him, that meant his name was racing around computers now. It wouldn’t take long for someone to connect Vodan Hooder to the corps of a bounty hunter.
“<I will go to my ship please. I am not tough guy enough for your home>”
The girl banged on the side of the van.
“<Another cheap guy bro, take us to the spaceport. What is up with that?”> shouted the girl overacting her disappointment.
While they drove back to his ships' berthing, Vodan asked the girl to get his slate from his coat so he could pay her. He showed her an image of the building the hunter was staking out and asked her what she knew about it.
“<That’s a martial arts centre and gym. Very prestigious, and very expensive. Your tough guy in space, not tough down here. That’s place isn’t for you”>
He had to agree. If this was the sort of world Creamys’ family was from, it was no wonder it felt like being hit with a sledgehammer each time Creamy had kicked him. The Imperial must have been holding back when they came to blows, or he could have easily killed Vodan.
Along with the bill, Vodan tipped the girl and her brother generously out of honest gratitude, and to encourage them to forget where they had dropped him off. As he couldn't stay on the surface watching the gym for Creamy to appear, he would just have to watch the dock from orbit where he could breathe, for Creamys’ ship to make a move.