Branches Book

BRANCHES

hovercraft. The cargo bay was stacked wall to wall and floor to ceiling with bricks of what Kurt identified as Drothamin, a rare, addictive, and thrillingly expensive hallucinogenic drug from the Drotharian system. Drothamin rarely made it as far in the countryside as where Kurt lived. It had to be shipped in from Drotharia-6 or Drotharia-7, but these shipments were rare, and when they did come in, they came in through the spaceports, which were all in the cities. By the time people in the cities have had their fix and the dealers wanted to go out to the country, there was usually none left. Kurt had no interest in Drothamin (though he occasionally partook in Shwayze Slaps, but more on that later), but he was a man who had seen enough to know what a drug deal gone wrong looks like. He scaled a nearby rock and used his digital binoculars to scan the surrounding area. He detected another downed hovercraft about a kilometer away, and was speeding towards it on his hovercycle faster than you could say “Keptarian Summer.” He knew immediately this other hovercraft was the other side of the incident he had discovered. The smaller, sleeker hovercraft had its own set of wagworf egg sized holes in the side, and a similarly bloody interior. This one featured a man short an arm and half a face, who must have bled out trying to flee the scene. What Kurt found in the passenger seat was something he enjoyed far more than the headless man he found the other hovercrafts’ seat. A metal briefcase, still mostly containing (spare a few bills strewn across the car) a fortune in IGC (Intergalactic Currency). This, Kurt Vambis happily took with a smile. He closed the briefcase, mounted his hovercycle, and sped off, with dreams of a faster hovercycle. Part 2: Keptarians are mostly blue, and though they no longer inhabited the sea, they still sported the gills of their ocean dwelling ancestors. The tentacle like extensions hanging off of their heads could be mistaken for blue, fleshy dreadlocks, and their eyes still had the doubled layer of a water faring species. Kluub was not a Keptarian, however, which is why his skin had more of a maroon shade to it, and why instead of a mop of tentacles atop his head, he sported a pair of devilish horns. He approached the headless man half submerged in a pool of what was mostly his own blood. The Drothamin shipment had already been raided from the back of the hovercraft. Kluub didn’t care about the Drothamin, his only job was to get the money back. He stepped over the headless man and next to the cockpit of the hovercraft. He had already examined the other, smaller hovercraft. The money was gone, as he figured it would be, though he was hoping he would get lucky and save some time. Now, he had to find a clue, anything that could get him started on

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