Tales From Cassiopeia/The Delivery

## The Delivery

"**The Delivery**" is the second chapter and short story of Book One of the *Tales From Cassiopeia* anthology series. This second chapter was released privately on June 11, 2021 and publicly published to the site on May 23, 2022.

The story follows a 20-year-old Rhodo Lax as a delivery boy for a diner on the upper city levels of Cassiopeia Prime, and his first brushes with his future friends.

## Plot

Making yourself known on Cassiopeia Prime wasn't easy. Being the galactic capital of the United Cassiopeian Republic meant having a population of over several hundred billions. With so many people living in the city that encompassed the entire world, impacting the bigger world outside of the planet was a difficult feat if you weren't a politician, an entrepreneur, or someone else with power in their hands.

Luckily for Rhodo Lax, he wasn't looking for any of that.

His daily tasks were simple: check into work, check if any food was ordered for delivery, deliver said food, rinse and repeat. This was 20-year-old Rhodo's job working at some average diner in the upper levels of the city planet. The young man was born and raised in the lower, less wealthier levels, and so a job on the surface gave him a taste of the literal high life. While Rhodo would've liked to have been in the kitchen himself, preparing all sorts of meals for happy customers just as he did with his family in his younger years, he had to settle on being a delivery boy.

Sometimes, however, his daily tasks *weren't* so simple. This was one of those special occasions. A customer ordered a good amount of food for delivery, despite living just down the *block* from the diner. Rhodo was tasked with carrying around five to six boxes worth of a feast down the block. Whatever was inside those boxes at least smelled good, that much Rhodo was certain of.

“Just a quick walk down the street,” the pink-haired boy told himself. “Shouldn't even take a few minutes.”

With a tower of giant boxes held in his arms, as well as some words of encouragement for himself, Rhodo walked out the doors of his diner workplace, beginning his trip down the sidewalk of the busy city streets. There was much to see on Cassiopeia Prime's upper levels—people with money, people of all sorts of alien backgrounds, trying to get from point A to point B, just as Rhodo was. From the people, the buildings, and the overall urban atmosphere, this was pretty much the extent of what Rhodo was familiar with in his life. While the upper levels of the planet entranced him at first, he grew used to the view after the first week of working.

Rhodo whistled a song he heard on the radio as he made his way down the street. With the boxes he carried being directly in front of him, Rhodo's line of sight was heavily obscured.

"Nothing to worry about though,” he thought to himself, moving along. “When people see me, they'll get out of the way for me.”

It wasn't long before he was proven wrong. Within the same minute he stepped out of the diner doors, Rhodo was met with a sudden crash right into him and all the boxes he held in his arms. Rhodo was knocked down while his boxes flew in the air, with their contents releasing themselves from containment.

The thing—no—the *person* that crashed into him fell down with him. With such an unexpected moment of force, Rhodo was both heavily confused and disoriented. He slowly got up, hand holding his head, trying to get a good look at who crashed into him. This proved to be rather difficult, as all of the carefully cooked food that *wa*s contained in the boxes was now entirely coating the man that ran into Rhodo.

“Hey, watch where you're…” Rhodo started, but never finished. The man covered in greasy food didn't seem particularly happy. Rhodo assumed this, judging by the blast pistol being pointed at his face.

“Not how I expected today would go…” he thought to himself, with a gulp.

Luckily for Rhodo Lax, once again, the angered man was never able to pull the trigger. Before the man was able to shoot, his blast pistol was kicked out of his hand, before that same leg promptly slammed down on the man's chest to keep him down on the sidewalk. There were shocked, worried onlookers from all sides of the street. What Rhodo himself saw was a pink girl with glittering, red pigtails in a velvet dress pointing a crystal sword down at the once aggravated man's neck. In Rhodo's eyes, he was saved.

Someone ran to Rhodo's aid, hovering over him with their hand reached out. This girl was blue, with bob cut hair colored like shimmering seas. Her eyes were pink and orange like sunrise.

“Are you okay?” she asked, with a calm yet concerned-sounding tone.

“Yeah… Yeah I'm fine,” Rhodo replied, taking her hand and getting back on his own two legs. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” The blue girl nodded with a smile, before turning around to her friend, the pink girl with the twin tails. Her smile dropped as the pink girl pulled back her arm, preparing to strike her crystal sword right into the subdued man's neck. The man on the floor winced, preparing for his final moments.

“That's enough, Sirius,” the blue girl commanded. The pink girl stopped, hesitantly pulling her sword away from where she was going to strike down.

“I was getting to the *fun* part, Ann!” Sirius sighed, shaking her head with her arms crossed, pouting. The man that crashed into Rhodo lived to see another day—much to Sirius' disappointment.

Two other young women came from down the street, joining Ann and Sirius. One of the girls was Dremirian like Ann and Sirius, with lavender skin and iridescent hair that glittered like diamond dust. The other was completely different; an Ordovician woman with cyan skin, her head tentacles reaching as far down as her waist.

“You managed to apprehend him,” the lavender Dremirian observed, sighing with relief. “That's good.”

“We had some... *Unexpected* help from a civilian,” Ann explained. She turned to Rhodo. “What's your name?”

“Call me Rhodo,” he answered with a charismatic smile. “Thanks for not letting him shoot my head off.”

“You're welcome!” the pink girl answered, with a cheery tone and a grin on her face—all while her foot was still pressed down against the man's chest to keep him floored. Rhodo wasn't going to lie to himself. He was a little uneased by the sight of this. “I'm Sirius. These are my teammates Annesidora, Moon, and Lilian.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Rhodo,” the lavender Dremirian, Moon, greeted. “Apologies about your boxes…”

Moon looked down at the man, coated in the greasy food and sauces that Rhodo was meant to deliver to a hungry customer. Moon winced, with a disgusted look in her eyes, trying not to step in any of it.

“We can pay you back for all of this,” Ann offered.

“Ah, appreciate it.” Rhodo stretched his arms out, still recovering from the initial tackle. He laughed. “But I just gotta explain this all to my boss and hope he doesn't freak out on me.”

“I'm sure we can help explain it to him,” Ann reassured, amused herself. Ann turned to the Ordovician woman, who had some ornately carved bow in her hands. “Lily, can you let Tiger know that we got the criminal?”

Lilian nodded, pulling out her responder. Rhodo seemed curious.

“What'd this guy do?”

“Well he was going to kill a senator or something like that.” Ann said this rather nonchalantly, with a sigh. “These kinds of things happen.”

Rhodo blinked a few times, dumbfounded. “I… *Wow.* Guess so.”

“It'll be okay though.” Sirius kept her smile, slowly leaning over the now intimidated criminal. “For a crime like that? He'll probably be executed for it.”

If the man didn't look defeated before, he did now. Sirius seemed happy to point this out to him specifically, as if she thrived off the man's misery. On the contrary, her teammates Ann and Moon didn't seem to appreciate Sirius' behavior, but not a word was said in response or retaliation.

“Here, how about we talk to your boss now?” Ann asked Rhodo. “Moon and the others can keep watch on the assassin.”

“Sounds good to me,” Rhodo replied. Inside, he still couldn't help but feel energized, having played some role in… Whatever this was.

The onlookers eventually looked away, diverting their attention to what they were doing before: going from point A to point B, as always. Rhodo was used to that. All sorts of things happened in the city, but never directly to him. Never like this. Rhodo found it to be a nice change of pace.

Ann helped clear things up to Rhodo's boss back at the diner, and as Ann explained the situation, Rhodo still couldn't quite believe what happened... *Happened.* Afterwards, Ann left the scene with the rest of her team, probably off to turn in the man who crashed into Rhodo. The man who was reportedly planning to kill a senator. *Wow!* Rhodo knew this was a story he would go on and tell the rest of his friends and family.

A story he wouldn't forget for a long time. Something he'd remember the next time he'd see those young women again in the future.

## Appearances

### Dramatis Personae

* **Rhodo Lax** - Human. Delivery boy met with an uncommon situation.
* **Annesidora** - Dremirian. A leader-like member of the Dawns.
* **Moon** - Dremirian. An eloquent Dawn.
* **Sirius** - Dremirian. An unsettling Dawn.
* **Lilian Larimarias** - Ordovician. A reserved Dawn.
* **Perin Zistah** - Unlucky assassin.

### Other Characters

* Panthigeros (Mentioned only)
* Republic senator (Mentioned only)
* Rhodo's boss (Mentioned only)

### Locations

* Cassiopeia Galaxy
	+ Inner Core
		- Metropolis Sector
			* Prime Cassiopeian System
				+ Cassiopeia Prime

### Organizations and Titles

* The Dawns
* Cassiopeian Senate

### Sentient Species

* Dremirian
* Human
* Ordovician