Now, presently crashing to harsh, uncompromising with sparse civilization.
"No, no, no, no, NOOOOOOOO!" He knew that no one could hear him, but screaming at the top of his lungs brought a sort of comfort. When one's ship was set upon by angry bar patrons and shot out of orbit, one expressed themselves in whatever way was comfortable. Sylus, once-human-turned-escaped-alien-experimentee (and dashing, lovable space smuggler), expressed himself through interpretive screaming. And swearing (but this is a family-friendly attempted shuffle off the mortal coil, so he's kindly restrained himself). The hunk of metal shrieking through the sky came to an abrupt stop when it slammed into the dirt. Its passenger was thrown out of the seat to land against the door, incurring a nasty bruise.
Upon regaining his composure, Sylus stumbled out of his vessel, unclothed and very much not unharmed. As the cold desert wind blew across parts of him best left unknown, he stared back at the scorched remains of an escape pod and came to a conclusion. “That went well.”
Then, seedy gambling den above aforementioned harsh, uncompromising planet.
It had all started when he was on a space station outside the Milky Way. Built by shifty-looking reptilian merchants, it attracted all kinds of seedy clientele. Pirates, slavers, space lawyers, smugglers, and Sylus. The handsome would-be space captain came there often to gamble, drink, and debauch. And off-load various goods that were illegal in at least two solar systems, but that was very hush-hush.
Business as usual had set the tone for the night. He'd already gone through two bottles of Sunracer, a cheap drink mixed with enough spices to make you forget the taste of metal. It was common fare among the regulars who wanted something inexpensive, but far from a drink for the regular boozer. Many a would-be grizzled spacer had passed out in a pool of their own vomit after drinking it. Sylus liked it because he was, for lack of a more eloquent phrase, a cheap bastard. And like most cheap bastards, he cheated at card games.
The current game on the table was Knuckle-Deal. Invented by some morbid spacefarer, it involved actual knuckles. Mostly from Zelkoids, an insectoid race whose multi-jointed finger bones provided for good dice. To win the game, you rolled the knuckles, counted up what came face up (grooves were one point, bumps were two), and multiplied the total value of your card hand by it. Since it was a simple game, it was simpler to cheat at. All that needed to be done was a quick replacement of the knuckles with manufactured ones. Sylus favored a bump-to-groove ratio of 4:2, since it (usually) lessened the odds of getting caught. Of course, this had been the one night he got caught. Some furry alien from across the table had grabbed one of his fake knuckles when it got knocked off the table... and inspected it. Sylus, dashing though he may be, was no craftsman. The realness of the knuckle fell apart on close inspection, and he had bolted when the light finally dawned in his mark’s eyes.
Which led to the chase, warranting energy bolts, bullets, and profanities in languages even he wasn’t familiar with. A sentient tree shouted “I told ya he was a cheat!” as Sylus ran by. Stopping by a Mudhulk to buy time, he pointed in the direction of his pursuers. “Hey! Big guy! They called your motherclump a dry dirt clod!” The lumbering, muddy brute roared and chased after his pursuers. They didn’t know it, but Mudhulks were very protective of their motherclumps. Without them, they’d just be another patch of dirt in the great Mudfields of Muddaros. Thankfully, it bought Sylus just enough time to make it to the docking bays.
As he was running, though, a patron came barreling down his path. Normally, he’d just sidestep and move on, but the purple-skinned being held some kind of fiery drink in his hands. Not a Molotov, like they had back on earth, but an actual beverage on fire. Even worse, the fates decided that avoiding this was just not going to happen. The drunk tripped, and before he knew it the drink flew out of his hands and set Sylus’s clothes aflame. Now, he’d been set on fire multiple times, and if he wasn’t being pursued he might’ve done things properly. Instead, he repaid the drunk by stripping off his now-burning clothes, and forcing his jacket onto the alien. If nothing else they might shoot the alien in their drunken rage, letting Sylus get away scot-free.
Shoving the patron aside, he bolted for the docking bays in nothing but worn brown pants. As he forced open the hatch to his ship, he said a silent apology to the poor patron that was about to get shot to death in his stead. As he stepped aboard, though, he felt completely free of guilt because he was alive. He didn't have long to contemplate his potential moral bankruptcy, though. The sad sacks he’d cheated came rushing towards him. When their various undoubtedly deadly projectiles met the thick metal hull of his now-escaping ship, they scrambled for their own vessels.
Onboard the ship, Sylus tried to hit the jump to hyperspace. It was his first mistake. His ship, a smuggler’s junker he’d “won” off a completely legal card game, was built for speed. It’s hyperdrive interface was a slow, rusted-out model that initiated the jump one out of every four times. If he’d just flown away, he’d be gone by now. Hindsight was a plasma bolt to aft, though. Deciding that this plan was bad and his ship was even worse, he shot for the escape pods. His pants caught on a piece of scrap he’d left out and just about tore in half. “Frag.” He mumbled under his breath, cursing the fates for making his day go so horrifically wrong. “One Knuckle-Deal game! ONE! That’s all I ask, universe!” Throwing up his hands, he forced open the hatch to the pod and jumped in, missing one pants leg. It wasn’t even a second later that his ship was rendered inoperable by enemy fire, and he was rocketing toward the planet.
Now. Still stranded.
This wasn’t his first escape pod experience by a long-shot. He was prepared for the pod heating up around him, and the violent shaking throwing him back and forth. The pod bouncing along the surface and incurring injury wasn’t new, either. What was new, though, was his other pants leg getting trapped in the pod door when he tried to exit. Mumbling more swears, he tore it off and scrambled out of the pod.
As he climbed out of the pod, nude and probably more injured than he wanted to think about; he had one thing to say.
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