Living in the Fray

Chapter Two

Early morning on New Edo seemed alright for all of about ten minutes before all the hustle and bustle started. It was definitely a planet where even though most of its residents worked hard and played even harder; they were nearly all the type to wake up as late as possible, pour a coffee down their necks if just to wash away the taste of the previous night's binge drinking away then drag themselves to work to count down the time to the next binge drinking session.

Michael Nakamura was not one of those people. He worked as many hours as he could get and could barely afford to go out and enjoy himself. Start a new life in the new galaxy! The adverts said on earth attempting to encourage people to ship out with their families. It ended up being a same shit, different planet kind of deal for most people though. He wasn't well off enough to ensure his life in the new galaxy would be easy; but he needed the change.

'This job better be good, I mean I'm behind again on rent and I haven't had a day off in weeks.'

'Is this the one we found on Hideki's notice board? The ad that didn't say who posted it?'

Michael was walking through the south side toward the port with his friend Alex who was on his way to work that morning. The night before, Alex dragged his friend out to Hideki's for a drink after his shift had finished at the rather grim eatery he worked at. Michael wanted nothing more than to go to bed and sleep off a long, hard shift but Alex had other ideas; namely picking up women but Alex barely got a look in when Michael was stood beside him. The ladies tended to flock to him and his somewhat stoic, tall, well built and jet black haired form instead of the loudmouth wiseguy with a hint of a gut and terrible pick-up lines he was with.

'It didn't say what company it was for, but Hideki and Sho told me I'd be better off meeting the guys who run it face to face anyway, they got me the interview.'

'What was the job?'

'Ships Cook.'

'Dude you'll get it no problem.' Alex slapped his friend on the shoulder. 'We're not far now. I can't believe you haven't been this far down the Port yet.'

Michael sighed. It's true. Normally the furthest place he got to was Hideki's and he daren't go any farther in to the Port than that. He was warned by the medical technicians in the New Edo Clinic he woke up in that the deeper you went in to the Port, the more dangerous it got. He could see why as he watched the people in the streets. New Edo was an Armed Planet. Residents of an Armed Planet could apply for licenses to carry and this meant that on their home planet and on other worlds, they were allowed by a Galaxy wide law to open carry weapons to protect themselves. It surprisingly stopped a lot of violence on some planets, almost working like a deterrent as if to say 'If you attack me, I have the means to attack you also.' It didn't stop most of the people on New Edo; whose main weapons were handguns and katanas from shooting others or going a bit stab happy. Nobody really cared much anyway and the police weren't all that bothered either most of the time or they were paid off, that's just how it went. Some didn't even bother getting an open carry license but it meant they'd be arrested on another planet without it. It was actually pretty easy to figure out where somebody came from just by looking at what kind of weapon they carried as they were pretty specific to whatever planet they resided on.

Michael did have a licence to carry, but could never afford a decent weapon so he never bothered. He figured he could carry one of his chef's knives around with him if he really wanted to just in case, but if that just in case ever happened he didn't want a gross contaminated knife at the end of it, or get detained for that fact. Kitchen knives weren't permitted for open carry.

The young men continued to watch the people surrounding the port going about their business. The frequency of weapons had increased as he noticed many were armed with a variety of pistols or swords or even both. He and Alex continued down the street which ran adjacent to the docking area and soon saw the dock where dozens of ships of varying sizes were moored in the sparkling and surprisingly clean and clear water.