Chapter 3.

  That fraking alien prick, Fregly.

  “look at that ugly smug face.” Matt said.

  They sat next to each other on the couch sipping on the steamy, bitter brain juice as consciousness slowly seeped through the fog of their hangovers.

  “He looks like a toad that has leprosy and some sort of deadly venereal disease.” Dan said

  “Yea.” Matt agreed. “Wish he was dying from it.”

  “We aren’t that lucky.” Dan said.

  The holo vid on the wall of the galley was silent. They sat watching the frog alien go through all kinds of emotions from happy, singing bullslag, to throwing slag, to standing on his desk, covered in a comically tiny business suit, gold chain, tiny gold jeweled rings on tiny long green fingers, green frog like feet, bare and stamping angrily on the desk as he pointed at the recorder and screamed, spittle flying from between his slimy teeth and large pink lips.

  Dan sighed and leaned forward to swipe his hand above the Idac disk that was sitting on the round steel table, the holographic controls appearing, hovering above the scratched metal surface. Dan looked at Matt who nodded.

  “wait.” Matt said reaching forward to grab Dan’s shoulder. “Volume” he said before leaning back into the cushions. Dan nodded and adjusted the controls.

  Even on low volume the gravely, croaky voice was loud, too loud.

  “What the frak??!!” it shouted angrily through the vid feed, but as the toad man saw the two bounty hunters, appearing for the first time, his anger instantly disappeared and smiling he settled back into his small expense leather chair.

  “You two look like some slag I ran over on my swamp speeder.” He croaked in what the two bounty hunters had come to know as laughter.

  “Been celebrating knowing all the sots your going to have? Am I Right?” The slimey teeth and black gums of the toad man became clearly visible, one gold tooth was the main feature, looking too large in the miniature mouth. Dan felt his queasy stomach roll.

  “Hardly”. Dan said as he looked down at the dark liquid in his mug before taking a large swig, washing down the bile.

  “Yea” Matt agreed, “We didn’t accept the contract Fregley.”

  “Come on now, u guys are the best hunters the guild has,.” The toad lied as he reached over to grab a cigar from the ashtray putting it to his pink lips he lit it with a small blue flame concealed between his long, wart covered fingers.”

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  “Plus”. He croaked, before blowing a large volume of white smoke into the air, “you’re the only two who have experience with this kinda thing.”

  “That’s bullslag And you know it Fregley! That old fracker was so drunk he forget to cast the spell before he jumped off the balcony.” Matt said shaking his head.

  “Still you are the only ones to have got one of them.”

  “We didn’t get him, Fregley he got himself. We were just scoping him out in the bar. The old pervert was flirting with the waitress bragging about being a wizard and being able to fly and slag but the fool didn’t cast no spell before jumping off the balcony, splat. Knocked himself out cold, broke his leg and four ribs. All we did was scoop him up, drag him to the cops to claim the freaking bounty.”

  “Yea. You and I know that but the syndicate bosses don’t, everyone else thinks you are godsdamned wizard snatching heros. Only ones who ever did it! Got your names on the galactic news feeds and everything.”

  “that was your idea. We told you the truth about what happened. You told us to go along with the bullslag story you concocted then paid off all the people in the bar. You made us bullslagin heroes Fregley.”

  The toad man took another long draw of his cigar before removing it to blow another large puff of smoke. The two partners could clearly see slimy drool slide down and over the brown tobacco leaf. Fregly placed the cigar in the corner of his mouth before flicking the spittle off his fingers and onto the floor beside him.

  “And look at all the contracts you picked up. Hell you been flowing in sots. Not like a few years ago when u was with that girl, what was her name?, begging me for a loan to keep your ship in fuel. Now you’re the biggest space hunters, of the biggest space guild in the galaxy probably the universe.” the toad continued croaking the words around the cigar.

  “We are just not doing it Fregley so forget it.” Matt said.

  “Its suicide Fregley and you know it. Everyone else that went after one is dead or disappeared. That’s why no one will take the gigs .” Dan agrees

  “ Yea it is and You knew that before you suckered us into going after the last one.”Matt said

  Fregley leaned back in his chair putting his green webbed feet up on the desk in front of him. He crossed his fingers on his chest and continued to puff on the cigar before speaking again

  “Let me tell you two what suicide is. It’s getting black listed from every single guild in the galaxy. Then losing your ship and everything you own cause of the huge debt you still owe me. You want the bosses to know the truth? Yea, I can do that. I will just tell them you lied to me, covered up everything, and invented the whole story. Let’s see how far the truth gets ya when your grounded on some wasteoid mining colony in the outer rim.”

  “What the frakn frak Fregley!!” Matts face was red as he sat up in his chair to protest.

  “or.. or.. “ Fregley sat up too, holding up his hand to calm Matt down, he put his cigar in the large silver ashtray on his desk .

  “Or…” He looked at screen, yellow eyes staring, waiting to make sure he wouldn’t be interrupted.

  “I forgive the debt on your ship. All of it as if it never was and…”, he paused again for effect.

  “you get to keep the 60k bounty upon completion.”

  “And my dependents get the ship when I’m declared dead.” Dan said looking up at the screen , still a little in shock at the outrageous offer.

  “Now Dan. What good would it do to send you two to die on a hopeless mission? Why wouldn’t I want to protect my friends and since when do u have dependents?”

  “Friends??” Matt scoffed, loudly.

  “Well if not friends, investments then. You two owe me a lot of sots and your flying around in a ship I paid for. Sooo.”

  “Okay, Okay. Damnit to hell Fregley just tell us what you have in mind already.” Dan said sighing in surrender.