Earth was Dying and a new life had to be found somewhere. A small group of people from all paths of life formed a small town ,but troubles arose. Was this town filled with more crazy people? A mining town a place with unknown riches on a foreign planet. I guess you would expect the greedy to find their way here.
Prologue
"As their hovercraft came to a halt, Llewelyn stuck his head out of the window. They had been traveling for so long and he couldn’t wait to stretch his legs. As his eyes adjusted to the radiant sunlight, he felt a blanket of warm air touching his face. Dear god, such a humidity, he thought to himself and quickly pulled his head back into the hovercraft. He set back down and looked over to his cousin James, who had his arm around his sleeping wife and stared through the window on the other side. Such a lucky man to catch himself such a lovely wife. During their long trip together he had gotten to know Evelyn pretty well and he had to say he envied his cousin for hitching himself to such a beautiful and intelligent woman.
He stood up and gathered his belongings from the overhead bin. He had only taken the absolute necessary with him. Since they left Earth the feeling crept over him that he may have forgotten something and it had kept scratching at him for the four months it took them to get there. But there was no more need tot hink of it now. They had arrived and anything he needed, he could probably buy here at the general store. He looked at James and James nodded at him. It was time to go out and see where they had arrived.
“Welcome, welcome!” a friendly looking man approached them the moment they stepped out of the hovercraft. “I hope you have had a good trip.”
Llewelyn looked at him and scratched his head. It was a small, balding man with a weathered brown suit on. The remainder of his grey hair was combed behind his ears in an attempt to make it look thicker on the side. His thick, bushy eyebrows were raised up and his dried up, bloodshot eyes looked at them with anticipation. Probably some kind of vender, Llewelyn thought.
“It wasn’t awful.” James replied as he pushed Llewelyn out the way to give the man a hand. “We had to take a detour because of an asteroid, but the cargo ship we came in on was pretty luxurious for a cargo ship. We even had a bath.”
James put on his hat and looked around with one of his eyebrows raised up.
“So, this is New Sanguine, is it? Mister…?”
The man let go of his hand and raised his arms to the sky as if he’d been struck by lightning. The dust that had accumulated on his suit for what Llewelyn assumed were months was released into the air. Evelyn held her hand in front of her mouth and coughed loudly to inform the man of his misbehaviour.
“Where are my manners?!” He said, blatantly ignoring Evelyn’s cough. “I’m the major of this town, and my name is Jack Bartington. But you can all call me Jack, as all my dear friends do.”
He quickly stretched out one hand to Evelyn and another to Llewelyn and looked at them enthusiastically. They both shook one hand and looked at each other with some confusion in their eyes.
“Well, I’m James McGarty and this here is my wife, Evelyn.” He then pointed at Llewelyn. “And that’s my cousin, goes by the name of Llewelyn Lennon. Very glad to meet you, Jack.”
James grabbed the major, who was slightly smaller than him, by the shoulders.
“Now, where can one discuss business in this town? And where can we get a room and, more importantly, a bath?”
Jack looked at him with a big smile on his face and pointed to James’ right over there. James looked where he was pointing at and chuckled. Right in the middle of the small town there was a big building with the words “Hotel New Sanguine” on it.
“Well, I’ll be darned.” James sighed and looked at Evelyn, who raised her shoulders at him.
“Come with me, new friends.” Jack said and he started walking towards the hotel. “You’re in luck, I happen to be the owner of that hotel.”
They gathered their belongings from the ground and James looked at Llewelyn, who was trying to get the dust of his bag, and pointed at the person sitting on top of the hovercraft they came in on.
“Can you pay the man, Llewelyn?”
Llewelyn looked at him, tilted his head back and sighed. Why did he have to pay?
“Alright, then.” He muttered under his breath and he turned around to face the driver.
He pulled his wallet out of his jacket and looked into it. Not much left, great…
They had better make some money real soon, he thought, or they’d be broke before they even started their new lives.
After he had paid the driver and he saw the hovercraft jetting off into the distance, he took some time to take a good look at where they had arrived. It was just a very small town in the middle of a large desert. There were some mountains to left and then some more to the right. Everything in between was just red sand. It all looked pretty barren to him. He looked down the ground. Nothing special. He crouched down and pick some of the sand up. Slowly, he let it slide through his hands and back on the ground. He got back up and clapped off any remaining sand. It all looked like regular old sand to him. A brighter red, but nothing better than they had on Earth. They had traveled all this way to XSF-6378 to get into the mining business, because James was convinced they could make a fortune here. He looked up and saw that his two companions and their newly made friend had just entered the hotel. He sighed again and started walking towards the hotel. James had better be right about this…