SFFS: "Downtrodden" Continues

Well, Aston was still stuck in the middle of a crowded market during last week's snippet for Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday. We continue on this week with "Downtrodden" which I'm fairly certain will go into my next three-story Triple-Shot. If you like this snippet (hopefully you've read the previous two weeks' snippets), be sure to check out my current released Triple-Shots, shown below. Three short stories in each edition, all featuring space pirate Aston West in his various adventures.

And now, for the snippet (and a disclaimer that this is mostly first-draft material):

The sooner I was done with this assignment, the better. Tabor had been tight-lipped on what the cargo was, and normally that was enough for me. He was smarmy and disgusting, especially when it came to his personal tastes, but the lines he wouldn’t cross usually matched up well with my own.

I moved into a more residential area, and getting my bearings from the directions Tabor had given me, I stared up at numbered markings on the wooden shacks, when I was caught off-guard by a young child bumping into me. His hands pushed clumsily into my jacket pocket, and I snatched his wrists before he got himself into serious trouble.

“You don’t want to try that, little man.”

He looked up at me with the same empty eyes I’d seen on the sick family before and I wasn’t completely sure whether he understood the words coming out of my mouth, but he struggled against my hold. I pulled my jacket flap aside to reveal my blaster holster, to hopefully give him a little pause before he continued his attempt at picking my pockets clean of cash. His eyes went wide at the sight, but another voice made a smile stretch across his face.

“Get your hands off him!”

While you're waiting for next week's snippet, be sure to go check out the rest of the Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday snippets and don't forget to buy some books. You'll be glad you did.