Date: April 24th, 2519 A.D.
Sector: Tertius Decimus
System: Eurymaces
Location: The Orbital Station The God's Eye near Mazda, orbiting the moon Ahura.

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Death.

Death was a funny thing, someone once told him. It was the last real frontier of human experience, and yet it's still the closest thing to home someone will ever feel. Without death, life wasn't worth living. The absence of it only brought fatigue and pain, and kept the particles that made up man from returning to the stars.

It was funny what hired killers and soldiers of fortune would say to justify what they did for a living. Markus wasn't cold-blooded by his own estimation, but at least he was honest. He killed for three things: money, survival, and revenge. He could get all three from the life of a mercenary, and the last seven years he had lived that life, traveling from place to place, signing contract after contract. There was no shortage of battles, skirmishes, or odd jobs in the once-vibrant interstellar conglomerate humanity once called a civilization. Luckily, the corpse was still fresh. There was still warmth in there, the various moving parts were only now starting to realize the failure of the heart. If the galaxy did not provide a shock to its system soon, there would be no turning back.

Markus had seen the Eye of Gods through the shuttle window. It gingerly spun in orbit like the rings of old saturn, lights drifting to and from it akin to worker bees and their hive. Some were likely commercial vessels, but Markus was certain the brunt of them were representatives and administrative agents, with no small amount of private security as well. The space station was a relic of the golden age, clearly made of Titanium-B, one of the most durable sets of military grade plating ever conceived. The tethers beneath it were thin at this vantage point, looking like naught but filigree in the light of the system's star. He glanced behind him, the other two men in the passenger seats uninterested in the sights. One was a bald headed man from Maladan, with a stout physique from the high gravity and a cauliflower nose from bad decisions. The other was a horn falgor, a strain of mutant that looked like a man crossed with a wildebeest, communicating solely through grunts and howls. Markus's falgor was a bit rusty, but he did not seem too rude from the mutterings he heard.

The shuttle docked without incident, the hatch depressurizing with a hiss before the light blinked on, allowing them to stand and make their exits. It was hard to question whether these two toughs were here for the same reason as he. There would be no point in two armed thugs without any sign of identification going to The Gods Eye, unless they were going for the same reason Markus was.

He stepped out into the wide atrium, and noticed with small relief he didn't stick out like a sore thumb as much as he thought. Markus was lean and fierce, with strong shoulders and long legs. The soldier-of-fortune sported military fatigue bottoms, with a multi-tool belt. At his hip was a long blade; a Secare Saber, made specifically for Terran military officers. Slung across his shoulder was a strap that looped through a Daiedron-C87, a versatile assault rifle of bullpup design. Across his chest was a composite plate of vibron-fiber, and on his head was a wide brimmed hat that shielded his eyes. He had a mane of dark hair and the beginnings of a stubble on his chin. He had a way about him that made every movement look like the prelude to something dangerous.

But in the crowd was a handful of men that looked even less welcoming than him. Entrepreneurial men and women, and even a few mutants stepped off shuttles or entered from freighter bays into the spacious lobby, filling the packed area more, but the mercs pockmarked in the flows of travelers were easy to spot. There was a central commons office to the left where a sizeable group congregated before an overworked clerk, but the rest of the area was sectioned off into two. The center lead to a bridge, made for walking and waiting, and the right and past the office on the left were numerable vendors and businesses. Food and drink and souvenirs were sold next to chip-loaders, holo-dreams, and even a droid's shop. Markus took only a moment to take stock of his surroundings, and then walked forward without even looking at the hawkers trying to grab his attention for a quick buck.

As the Red God would have it, he did not have to walk far. Once in the station proper, the polytile floors of the vast corridor were easily navigable, though fraught with business. Clerk assistants, administrative agents, and a myriad of other personnel marched past one another with barely a moment to glance up or apologize if they bumped into someone. Yet they all gave Markus and the two hunters that had shuttled with him a wide berth, along with a few other parties of equally surly looking pedestrians that walked in the same direction, like schools of fish parting for stalking sharks, ready to swim away in case any tried to take a bite. Despite the cosmopolitan nature of the station, The Gods Eye had no shortage of seedy people loitering. High-ranked gang leaders and corrupt executive assistants smoking syn-sticks with low-life courtiers and mercs around every alcove, either protecting the lanes of the station or waiting to meet the man himself to legitimize themselves into a position that might make real money.

Within a minute, Markus found himself in a more vacant area of the station. He had just been following the signs flashing on the holo-displays above, indicating all independent contractors looking to apply for job 34-2170 merely needed to make their way to room 'Delta 17' on the main floor of the station. The archway before him flashed with D17 in big red letters, and he stepped through. To his surprise, what had appeared to be an empty room had merely been a camoflauge; a portal that simulated an image whilst hiding the truth just inside. Markus nearly bumped into an Orgos, a heavily built mutant that towered over normal men. It didn't notice Markus, too wide to see him skirt around behind him and making it to the chamber proper.

The room was large, the metallic walls sand colored and made to look fiery by the warm lights. Small marks and old dents betrayed the fact this chamber had been used to greet mercs before, in less agreeable circumstances. Bawdy music played from a small band mostly consisting of scantily clad women on the left, a small stage separated from the crowd by a small, transparent energy shield. On the main floor, there were four tables that sat four each, and small ethanol-electric droids on treads bringing drinks back and forth from a bar, a blue haired bar woman working frantically to fulfill every order given to her by the automated waiters. At the back of the room, there was a platform, flanked by guards armed with gauss-rifles. In fact even past the crowd, Markus saw there were similarly armed men stationed every five meters around the room, perfectly at attention. Fourteen in all, if he had to guess. Despite the size of the chamber, due to how heavily armed everyone was, it made the conglomerate of two dozen mercs, bounty hunters, thugs, and mutants seem packed.

Markus found a space of the wall near the bar, having just settled himself when a diminutive droid of boxy design rolled up to him. A monochromatic screen lit up at its center, displaying a selection of drinks.

"Null's Choice," He said. Voice activated, the drink lit up on the screen before it backed up gingerly and spun around to fulfill its algorithmic task.

@POOHEAD189

The volume increased as the night cycle wore on. Mercenaries shared tales of dire adventures, boasted of places they had been, women they had known, and rich contracts they had completed. They compared hardware with equal enthusiasm with weaponry from half the arm, displayed, debated, and dissected as each man or woman tried to justify their own personal preference. The serving bots and serving women plied the company with alcohol and stimulants. This close to Brayden, tobacco was favored in the form of cigarettes or cigars but other drugs, kesh, synth-2, and kobal added to the flavor of narcotic haze. Despite the heady mix of drugs, alcohol, and firearms, there were no accidents. Accidentally firing a weapon was a good way to get yourself killed in a place like this and this crowd were the survivors of culture which quickly weeded out the careless or unlucky.

The music changed as a voluptuous lounge singer took the place of the original band. She began taking up the tune to a sultry synth-jazz number, much to the appreciation of the assembled mercenaries. As though timed to this momentary distraction, a woman slipped through the holographic camouflage and into the bar. Her face was concealed by a slim fitting full face visor that glowed with the soft green phosphor of an integrated HUD. She scanned the room, literally given the nest of sensors built into her expensive body armor, and settled on her target. Quietly, unobtrusively, she drifted across the room towards the lone merc at his table. She moved neither quickly, nor directly, seeming to move in and out of conversation naturally so as not to draw any attention to herself. Her path took her to the mercenary’s, Markus according to the various pheromone sniffers and aspect readers in her helmet, unguarded back. Here she lingered for long minutes, watching him drink, studying his body language, waiting for her moment. A minute after he started his third drink it was time. A neural impulse extended a tiny hypodermic needle from her glove. The tip, tiny by any standard, was invisible as a wisp of hair in the dim light. It contained enough neuroblock to put down a raging Cythonian bull. Grinning beneath her helmet she leaned back to strike.

The synth-jazz ballad cut off in mid stanza as the singer ceased her gyrations leaped from the stage, mic stand in hand. A collective gasp of disbelief went up from the crowd as the airborne singer, rotated the metal rod and extended it like a spear. She crashed down atop the visored woman knocking her sprawling with the full force of her body behind the microphone stand. The acoustics screeched with the force of the blow before the automated cut off kicked in, sounding for all the world like the cry of a striking hawk. The visored woman was knocked sprawling, the hypoderm snapping off against a table as she scrambled for purchase. With a digital snarl and a hiss of parting air she extended a las knife from her gauntlet and rounded on the unexpected attacker. The singer whipped the microphone stand around like a bo-staff, thrust one end at the visor in a feint, and then knocked the visored woman’s feet from under her, sending her clattering to the ground. With a keening cry the singer drove the mic stand into her opponents chest, once, twice, and then drove the butt of it into the visored woman’s face, bouncing her head against the floor with enough force to crack the plasteel. The woman slumped and went limp.

Jocasta Ap’Glynn pulled the microphone from the stand and lifted it to her lips. Her formerly blonde hair and red lipstick both began to flush a bright synthetic green. Excitement and sweat sheened her beautiful face as she blew a stray lock of hair out of the way and tugged her sheer sating gown back into place.

“and ever moooooooore,” she sang, completing the stanza she had interrupted when she leaped from the stage to intercept the assassin. The bar was silent for a long moment and then erupted in cheers and applause as the unconscious bounty hunter was dragged away by the bouncers.

Markus often felt like a pariah, unable to relate even to other mercs. Hunted by the Terran government, the people he once fought and nearly died for, estranged from his family, and unable to keep a partner because they either died, betrayed him, or were fed up with his ways. Yet miraculously, he felt a kinship with his fellow hunters in room D17 in The Gods Eye this night. Because like them, he was not averse to hot women, and uniquely, especially not hot women actively saving his life.

When the woman had come up on stage, sauntering forward in her voluminous dress, Markus had noticed her eyes darting around the room, even landing on him for a brief moment. He had initially assumed she was scanning the room to gauge if the crowd was rowdy enough to be a danger to her, but now he realized he had misread her. She had a good voice, but Markus was too on edge to really appreciate her singing, or even her beauty after a long glance, too preoccupied with his usual suspicions of keeping an eye on the room. Once he had been invited for a job with a dive gang named the Hearkeners only to realize they had been locked in with gas set on them. Markus had escaped with a few of them, only realizing later the job had been a lure to kill the entire gang by a group of enforcers acting under a loose interpretation of the law.

But he still couldn't see all angles, and the singer whom he had delegated to the background, had leaped over the crowd of mutants and toughs and had beaten a would-be assassin with a practiced skill. He might have done it a bit differently, but then again he had never taken down an assassin with a mic-stand in a dress, so he reminded himself he shouldn't judge.

The crowd had gathered around, watching her give the crowd a bow, and then shaking her head as she lifted herself up to get any potential debris from the shattered armor out of her thick locks. Markus noticed a small pistol, carefully concealed, strapped to the small of her back. The tension in the room was palpable, more than a few eyes turning to Markus when he stood up right behind her, and with a sudden movement, took his jacket off, revealing his Secare Saber, a blade that could cut through the plate of an armored transport when activate.

Instead, he gently placed his jacket on her (deceptively) slender shoulders, causing her to meet his eyes.

"Thanks," He said simply. "I'd offer to buy you a drink, but they're free here. Maybe after?"

"I might be free," She replied.

Markus took that for what it was, a subtle (albeit coy) acceptance of partnering up. If they were about to become adversaries, there would be no drinks, would there? He pulled a chair out for her to sit in.

The crowd murmured, there were even growls from some of the more bestial mutants. Markus was certain if they caught the nuance of the statement, there would be a riot. The towering Ogros stepped through the crowd, and leaned down to poke the prone body of the fallen bounty hunter. Its body was enormous, covered in thick skin like leather and a wide face that spoke of limited intelligence. "Can I has?" it asked Jocasta slowly, apparently believing her kill meant she owned the corpse now.

"Knock yourself out." She said, turning to take the seat offered to her.

"Huergh?" It grumbled, clearly confused by the turn of phrase.

"It means yes, ya moron." A hardened mercenary remarked, his 6-gauge combat shotgun ready in case the Ogros took offense to his insult.

Markus returned to his seat, glancing at a diminutive morlock that had almost snagged it for himself while the merc was away. The short mutant blanched and lopped back into the crowd, unwilling to remain under his gaze for too long. He took his seat again and grabbed his drink. Right now, any of the hunters that were still watching likely thought the two of them were about to flirt, both being relatively good looking (especially for this crowd) but that was the furthest thing from his mind. Whoever she was, she wasn't a singer. Well, not one hired for here, anyway. Which meant she was skilled in infiltration and subterfuge. She handled herself relatively well in close combat, and she was well informed. All good traits to have in a partner for a job as lucrative as this was likely to be. There were a few bounty hunters here that might be able to replicate those skills, but most were blunt instruments through and through, and the fact she had saved his life meant he trusted her more than the bounty hunters that were likely to shoot him in the back.

Plus, he had to admit, he was intrigued on how she knew what to look for and why she saved him. Was the bounty hunter a plant? Was this woman secretly working for the UNSG? Probably not, but even if she was an agent for the latter, he preferred to have his enemy in his sights than somewhere in the shadows. And if she was just a beautiful woman and a hunter like him, then he really did owe her for saving his skin.

The lights dimmed, and an amalgamation of illumination coalesced onto the platform the four faceless guards were protecting, their heavy plasma-guns now pointed toward the crowd who's eyes were now inexorably drawn toward them. A few of the mercs growled, but most seemed content to stay silent, either unintimidated or unwilling to appear so. Out of the back stepped a well dressed man, looking as if he were in the upper echelons of middle age, in a neo-doubtlet; a leaner more stylized version of an old piece of fashion. Now that the UNSG's influence was fading, the independent systems were making their own fashion statements, particularly the very rich. A few that fancied themselves as marchions of old wore psuedo-medieval garb. Markus noticed he did not bother with the hose.

He stepped upon the raised platform, in clear line of fire from anyone in the crowd, which meant the noble was likely enveloped an in extremely expensive, transparent energy shield.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen." Adan Gallanis declared, his voice carrying from some minute device at his collar. "I hope you enjoyed the free drinks. I apologize for the inconvenience earlier, but it seems I need better security in more than one fashion." At that, a dozen eyes turned back to the woman, still dressed as a lounge singer. Markus gave a smirk, saying nothing. The Baron continued: "Now, as to why you are all here..."

Suddenly, a three dimensional holographic image in blue appeared right above the baron. Anyone familiar with the system could tell it was planet Mazda, the world located in the Goldilocks Zone that the moon Ahura, and consequently themselves, was currently orbiting. A rectangle was placed on the south eastern continent of the planet, labeled 'Yasna' by the text, zooming in to display a coastal area on its western edge, designated as sector 43.

"My son..." He said, clicking a button on the stand to triangulate the view on a city called Uralic. "...has been taken from me. He is being hailed as a double for the heir of Leto Caiba. Currently he is being held by a paramilitary group called the White Sharks, and is about to be transported south across sector 43 to a spaceport, and in 26 hours, he will he transported to an Orbital known as Wisdom's Paradise, and three hours after that, he will be gone for good. They meant to extort me for all I am worth, and instead I am turning to you. However, that means that if you do not hurry, your payday is relinquished in 29 hours."

A low thrum of conversation and trepidation rose up. A few notable individuals loudly complained, those mercs that lived the life because they had too big of an ego or too little social skills for anything else. Markus had already started taking into account the three hour journey it would take to make it to the planet, and the cost of buying a shuttle.

"The payment is 500,000 dablunz. Now, I know for a single hunter that's a big payday, but for a team of twelve it's barely worth the cost of ammo. You know the drill," He said, and at that the men and mutants began glancing at one another. Markus' eye flicked to the woman, rethinking his subtle offer, but deciding his logic was sound. Baron Gallanis's words became grave, suddenly: "But know this. That is my son down there. If you harm him in any way during this extraction, the next group of mercs I gather will be here so I can place a bounty on you, and the payday will be far more lucrative. I take vengeance very seriously... Now go, and bring my son back here. You will be informed of the comm channel you are to contact if you manage to apprehend him."

At that, the room began bustling with activity. Old rivals glared and friends began allying immediately. A few hardened gunfighters approached the Ogros even as the huge mutant peeled off strips of the dead bounty hunter's armor as scavenging scrap. A long haired spacer with a heavy lancer assault rifle, a belt comprised of huge rounds wrapped around his chest, began to negotiate with two hunters, one of them one of the few female mercs in the whole place, except for a female gunfighter, a four armed mutant, and the mysterious woman sitting beside Markus.

Behind Markus, he heard someone clear his throat. Markus recognized that voice.

"You're the Wolf of Sartorius, right? Markus Sartorius?" The gruff, gravely voice of Vargo Sunder asked. He was a broad mercenary with a beard that had turned prematurely grey. Vargo was known for living through what should have killed any other man. It was a well deserved reputation. Markus had seen him get shot in the chest before and live to tell the tale. "I recognize that sword and that hat. How's about you and me team up and cut apart any of these fools who step in our way?"

"No, join me," a sibilant hiss offered. A serpent-headed mutant with red eyes had lowered its head by the extension of its long neck, nearly flicking its tongue into Markus' cheek. "I've heard of you, Markussss. I can sssslip in unnoticed and knock the boy out with a bite. He won't die..."

As a few more offers festooned Markus's ears, he had to quieten them down. "Sorry fellas, got here too late." He said behind his glass, taking another sip.

"Be smart, lad. I might not have her tits, but you'll get paid with me." Vargo rumbled, knowing what Markus implied. "Don't let this girl fool you. You think singin's gonna help you cut down twenty White Sharks?"

For the woman's part, even more were coming after her, but it was clear most were doing so for the same reason Vargo theorized Markus was barking up her tree. A few openly oggled, and a few tried to smooth talk her, while others just leered and gestured suggestively, not even bothering to ask her to partner up. Markus waited to see if she would change her mind, or if she was going to walk out of there with him.

"The Wolf of Sartorius," Jocasta said, the first words she had uttered since the barrage of invitations, propositions, and proposals.

"Sounds like someone who is really into fashion," she commented with a glib smile, then looked him up and down. "Maybe not so much."

"Well sartorial style aside shall we?" Jocasta asked. Markus nodded and walked out, some of the bounty hunters jeered and cursed him, but most were quickly forming their own alliances. In truth she hadn't been motivated by anything so tactical as securing an alliance when she jumped off the stage to intercept the snatcher, it had just seemed the thing to do. She was new to the mercenary life and the in built sense of cynicism that it engendered had not yet had time to take root.

"Hey, wait up, these aren't my running heels!" she called scurrying after him.

Jocasta's gear was stored in a locker in a side room of the bar. In theory the lockers were secure storage, in practice few mercenaries trusted such guarantees. Jocasta was revealed to be a cynic when she slid a small probe into the locker and disabled a rather powerful neural mine from the inside of the door with a practiced twist of the wrist. Inside was a modified fusion rifle, a change of clothes and a pack full of tools and various odds and ends. It was all she had in the world, having sold the rest of her possessions for passage here.

"No peeking," she admonished, and stripped off her dress. Markus heard the ripping sound of contact adhesive and then a small but powerful pistol with a cut away holster was draped over his shoulder. A moment later the sound of a zip closure informed him that she was done. The transformation was impressive. The cocktail dress had been replaced by a white skin tight jumpsuit with cheerful green piping at the seams. It managed to leave almost as little to the imagination as the dress had done. A belt clung to her waist draped with extra fusion cores for the rifle that had now been slung over her shoulder.

"Thanks," she said, plucking the pistol from his hand and strapping it to her belt.

"Now what was your plan to deal with these White Sharks. I'm not so sure that tits wouldn't have done the job, but im hardly the expert."

"As impressive as they might find them, your instincts are right. It'll take more than that to get these guys." Markus remarked, unscrewing the barrel from his Daiedron-C87 and quickly field stripping it, removing the upper and lower receivers and replacing the gas-chamber with a small squared compartment that housed the ion-chamber, quickly refitting the weapon back into its previous state. "Luckily, we have a few advantages. But first thing's first, how many jobs have you done before?"

"None," She said with only a hint of embarrassment. If Markus was a different man, he would have cursed. But she had already proven she was audacious if nothing else, and she had some skill no matter what experience she had. He merely gave a nod, his eyes clearly display the thoughts rushing through his mind. He took his hat off and wiped his forehead. Markus had the look of a louche, but he clearly moved like someone born into a world of risk, where violence could pop up just around the corner.

"Ok, let me tell you the three cardinal rules of being a merc. First, don't be a hero. Survival is more important than success, even with a partner. Second, pillage then burn. Money is more important than glory or vengeance. Here" He said, tossing her a comm link. She blinked and grabbed it, before it slipped out of her hands, but impressively she was still quick enough to nab it before it hit the ground.

"And third?" She asked, fastening it to her ear.

Markus gingerly tossed his head, his fringe slipping out of his eyes. "That which doesn't kill you has made a tactical error." He said with a muted grin.

"That's all?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Gods no, but that's the basics. As for our advantages, we have two dozen blunt instruments heading straight for the White Sharks. They'll shoot us as soon as they'll shoot the sharks, but at least we know about them."

"And the other advantage?" She asked as Markus flung his sack over his shoulder, ready to leave the lockers.

"We're going to win." He declared, as simple as that. "Come on, let's go."

Fifteen minutes later, they were in one of the smaller hangers in The God's Eye. Markus had a toothpick in his mouth, scanning the assembled interplanetary vehicles. None of them were commercial vessels of official shuttles, in fact most looked haphazardly built, with bare circuits and pneumatic systems unplated on various parts of their builds. A few lifted up with their repulsors and zipped out of the hanger, but most were being worked on by the local engineers or pilots stood around, heckling one another or arguing with droids about price values of varying parts. One of the pilots looked over at Markus and Jocasta, raising an eyebrow. Markus gestured for him to approach, and after a moment of deliberation, he did.

The man wore an orange jumpsuit, his close cropped blonde hair barely hid the bald pate of his head like loosely situated grass over a well trodden field. He looked to be in his mid-40s, though with medical science and knowing the right people, he could have been twice that. He gave Markus a leveled look, glancing at Jocasta for a few moments, no doubt thinking them lovers. Markus could read the words 'lucky dog' going through his mind. It gave the merc a small smile that no doubt looked a tad dangerous to the man.

"Need something?" He asked, his accent clipped and rough.

"Can you get us to sector 43 of Mazda in two hours?" Markus asked. "I'll pay."

"You mercs?" He asked, and when no answer came forth, he shook his head as if to convince himself, as if 'never again' was stamped on his forehead. "No, sorry, can't help you."

"We're not asking you to fly into danger. Just to touch down in Uralic city and leave." He clarified. Behind him, Jocasta fluttered her lashes at the man. He looked at her, and then back at Markus, and breathed out of his nose.

"Fine." He said, then pointed at Markus with the hand clutching the towel. "But I expect payment up front."

It was a small vessel, barely able to support Markus and Jocasta with all their gear, the two seats cordoned off behind a bulkhead of crimson steel, with a small grater between the cockpit and their seats being the only way to communicate. On the lefthand side of the bulkhead, a small screen that had lain black popped up, and a map of sector 43 of Mazda appeared on the screen. Markus placed a finger on the southern-most location, indicating the port where they needed to land.

"The plan?" Jocasta prompted in a soft voice.

"Even with two dozen mercs, the white sharks are well equipped. They have to be if they grabbed Gallanis' kid. Probably have UNSG military grade equipment. Even two dozen mercs wont take them out, so we need to be close to their rendezvous, and instead we need to go after who they're going to contact and take them out without raising an alarm. But that also means we might be hitting some targets that aren't apart of that group. Private security and maybe a few local enforcer police. Are you comfortable with that, and if you are, when the rest of the sharks arrive, can you convince them you're one of the contacts?"

They would have to kill whatever Sharks remain with the kid, but at that point they would have the element of surprise.

"These are our guys," Jocasta declared, making an off hand gesture at the hologram she had projected from a unit on her wristband. Markus strained to see but it was unlikely he could make anything out from his angle. The flyer was buffeting down into the atmosphere and presently changed it course based on the parameters Jocasta was feeding to the computer.

"How are you doing that?" the pilot asked somewhat plaintively.

"Oh relax, when I'm done it will be better than new," Jocasta replied airly. That was true, but the ancient computer systems on this thing probably would have been improved by a constructive fire, much less an expert repurposing its traffic control system to run at 160 percent capacity.

"How do you know?" Markus asked as they dove through a cloud bank and moved from the glow of dayside to the gloom of nightside.

"I've patched into orbital traffic control," she explained.

"Which shouldn't be possible," the pilot objected.

"Possible? With the encryption they are running its a miracle it hasn't been hacked by random electrical noise," Jocasta returned.

"Anyway, there are thirty inbound transports, all routine flyers or originating from our staging area. There are three vessels on the ground. One is a freighter the other is a military cutter, probably a hired gunship but hey ho, and this one. Its heavy shuttle but that is all I can tell you about it. Every other bit of data has been electronically sealed. Nothing on this world has encryption that good, ergo it has to be our guys."

"Pretty good," Markus admitted.

"Plus there is a bunch of encrypted traffic between them and the location we were given for the Sharks, I cant read it, but its consistent with voice and data transfer," she concluded.

"Good enough, now lets take them out and steal their clothes before the transfer takes place," Markus replied. The ground below them burst into view as they broached the clouds. Off to the east, near the Shark's position, maser fire was already crackling skyward at incoming ships that had decided to risk the direct approach.

Air flung outwards as the interplanetary transport slowly settled down onto the landing pad. The system's star was still in the sky, which complicated things. Markus would rather go in at night, but he reminded himself Mazda was unlike most places, particularly Uralic. The planet was relatively hot compared to earth, either tropical or subtropical temperatures year-round, save for the poles. It was a planet where tourism was huge, for the oceans and the relatively safe but beautiful wildlife. However, varying cities, particularly on the southern continent, were hubs of crime and rampant corruption.

The vehicle had landed ontop of a vast structure of brutalist design, easily twenty stories tall, but still dwarfed by the vast sky scrapers. Above them, air traffic from the city's higher tier employees and the rich buzzed and swerved. The middle class congregated on the streets below, wearing the latest fashion of flashy, colorful jackets and streamline pants, walking over pedestrian walkways as sleek cars zipped by just below. Gangers lounged under bridges or near intersections, but the two mercs had found themselves in the nicer part of the city, which was one other reason the kidnapper's would not see their tactic coming. No one expected an attack at the heart of civilization.

Markus spied the rendezvous across the busy street, a stylish white building with windows that looked like a black streak running up its side. At its base was a large paved square with a statue of the planetary governor's ancestor, standing like Washington on the Delaware. At the top of the building was a collection of sky tethers connected to make an orbital elevator that led to the orbital ten miles above their position.

"Parking deck on the left," Jocasta pointed out, and Markus nodded, having seen it too. The transport behind them lifted off, the man not even giving them a goodbye, clearly wanting to vacate the area as quickly as possible.

As they descended, Markus replied: "We'll need to keep out of the camera's eyes until we get in. Then we'll go to floor 3, lock the doors behind us, take them out and wait."

"I'll handle the cameras." She assured him with a smile. Markus grinned, giving a look that said and I'll take care of the rest.

"If we live, you have to tell me why you chose to be a merc."

"Seeing as you promised me a drink and haven't paid up yet, we'll see."

For a low rent outfit on a low rent planet, security was surprisingly good. It took Jocasta nearly sixty seconds to find an entry point in the network and another twenty to install her subroutine. This she did with the aid of sophisticated haptic implants which let her interface with the data nets directly. The process produced a faint luminescence in her eyes for a few moments which faded as she seemed to come back to herself.

“Done? Did you loop the tape or something?” Markus asked.

“Or something,” Jocasta replied. Looping a feed was a very old trick and most modern security systems were too smart to allow it to happen. Integral time stamps, ambient light sampling and other safeguards would flag it and alert even the most dim witted operator. Modern security systems were too smart for their own good. Literally. Instead of blanking the feeds, Jocasta simply used their excellent recognition algorithms to make sure the cameras did notice her and her new partner, and then simply fed a negative version of that perfectly preserved pattern into the image synthesizer. The camera saw everything, but to anyone viewing the feed, they were completely invisible.

“Ready?” Markus asked, unlimbering his weapon and pointing it at the door in preparation to breach.

“Ready,” Jocasta replied, and stepped past the other mercenary and knocked loudly on the door. Markus swore softly but to his surprise the door swung open. A neat looking man in a flight suit and a optical monovisor stared at her through the portal.

“Can I come in?” Jocasta asked, pushing her way into the building without waiting for a response. The interior had something of the appearance of a train station. A half dozen men sat around drinking energy drinks and eating noodles. They all paused as though caught in tractor beams as Jocasta stepped through the door.

“What is she doing here, we aren’t supposed to order out for company till the job is done,” a gruff looking man with a long braided beard complained. The man at the door look chagrined then his eyes cut sideways to Markus, still partially concealed by the door frame, and widened in shock. Jocasta gave a shrug then drove a beaked fist into the man’s kidney. He staggered into the door jam but Jocasta was already diving for cover, rolling behind a large computer console and popping up with her pistol in hand. She sprayed the group with a rapid crack, crack, crack of high intensity las fire from her little pistol. Ceramic capacitor casing clattered to the ground and shattered as they emptied their entire payloads through the diamond cored barrel. The air shimmered with waste heat and the bite of ozone. One man went down screaming with a shot to his chest, another dropped his rifle with a scream as she took of three fingers of his right hand. Everyone was diving for weapons safe for one man who seemed frozen in shock.

Markus thumbed the weapon to three round burst fire, shouldering the Daiedron-C87 and sending at least one of the first three rounds into the exposed neck of a fumbling guard. Arterial blood sprayed across the wall, dark and glistening in the light. My next burst struck his partner in the chest, but the body armor stopped it short. The last bullet cracked his helm, but it seemed to have only staggered the man. Then the indicator on the weapon blinked, acknowledging the gas-powered operation was done, and the ion power was now ignited, the chamber now filling with APR's. His next burst of bullets went straight through the staggered man's armor like nails through soft wood, ending his life, hot brass hitting the floor.

The next second went by in what felt like a half minute. The doorman, whom Jocasta had punched with the heel of her hand, was recovering a mere meter from Markus' position. His hand was reaching for his sidearm, a scowl on his face, fresh spittle on his chin. Markus dropped his weapon, fully letting go of the compact assault rifle, using the time it fell to grab his secare saber, clearing it of its sheathe in record time. Even as the blade cleared, Markus was already taking one step to the right, realigning the blade to parallel the floor. Movement was waste, he had been taught. Instead of slashing widely, giving the man time to draw and fire his weapon, Markus merely stepped and moved his blade with the slightest bit of pressure, and then stepped back, the heel of his hand against the end of the hilt as he thrust.

The thick blade penetrated the man's armor, sliding out of his back with crimson dripping from the wound. A low thrum of energy reverberated the length of the sword blade, and in one motion he withdrew the blade. The man's weakening hand pulled the trigger on his hastily drawn pistol, the 9mm firing a single shot into the wall before he collapsed. On camera it happened impressively quick, but to Markus, the information processed at a pace he found adequate enough to get the job done.

Jocasta fired two rounds into the man on the wings, closest to Markus. He had just turned to aim down his sights at the unkempt merc, only for his arm to get hit by one of the rounds. Blood splotched onto the floor, but it was the least of the guard's concerns. The same arm was removed a single moment later from a quick slice of the sword. The arm fell to the floor, still clutching the submachine gun with its nerveless fingers. Markus saw the last man hesitating, and Markus decided not to leave it to chance. Instead of finishing the man he had made into an amputee, he kicked him in the chest to send him hitting the wall, and with Markus' last breath, he left the point of his sword a mere half a foot from the last remaining man's neck.

Suddenly there was silence, save for the coughing and moaning of bleeding men. Markus did not look away from the last remaining guard, who quickly realized he was being given a chance to live. He shakily got to his knees, placing his hands behind his head. Markus nodded at his good sense, and then unceremoniously kicked him across the face. He gasped and fell to the floor, out cold.

After a collection of lingering moments, Markus tore his eyes from the fallen men, watching Jocasta step out of the cover she had shanghaied. "Not bad," he told her, the blade's shimmer ionizing the blood within seconds. He shut the saber off and sheathed it. "Shut the door," he told her. As she went to do that, Markus knelt down next to the man who's arm he had removed, patting the man down for medi-gel. When he couldn't find any, Markus shook his head, sighing. These men were not following standard security regulations. The two of them didn't have time to upend the entire place to find any packs either, and he spent a moment regarding the dying man, who even now was slipping into shock.

"Red God bless you," He breathed, walking over to retrieve his gun, switching it to single shot and ending the man's life with a bullet to the forehead.

"Now what, swordmaster?" His new partner asked, checking the doorman for anything to pawn. Markus reached into his satchel, retrieving a synthetic cleaning solution and a small, albeit thick, towel.

"I'll clean the place up. You get into his suit." He said, indicating the unconscious form of the last guard.

Jocasta began fixing her hair up, a smile on her full lips. "You just love getting me undressed," she joked.

Markus sniffed a laugh. "Maybe after we're done." He replied without looking back, placing the items down on the bench and dragging the bodies into the closet. The convoy would be there in less than an hour, likely reduced in number and bewildered.

“The sacrifices I make to be fashionable,” Jocasta observed dryly. As directed she had changed into the livery of the foe. Predictably the garments, a pearl tunic of gray white and fatigue pants, were too large, she solved the first problem by tying the tails of tunic behind her to snug the garment up. The trousers she simply melted the excess behind her and tucked the excess into her boots. She slung a cape of camocloth over her shoulders to cover the worst of it. The over all effect was a little comic opera, the way a holo-comic might depict a female mercenary, but it would probably serve.

“Well at least you don’t have to swab blood off the floor,” Markus replied, spraying the mess down with a flocculating sealant which congealed blood and dirt into a mess with the consistency of fruit leather, which could then be pealed up and thrown away. Jocasta contributed by gathering up weapons and ammunition into a duffel bag.

“Well he who lives by the sword, dies by the mop,” Jocasta added philosophically. Markus opened his mouth to offer a rejoinder but they were interrupted by a squawk on a boxy communication terminal that had luckily avoided gunfire. Jocasta sat down and quickly entered a few commands.

“It is a hard line to the Sharks,” Jocasta said, “they are on their way.” She tapped a few keys and a grainy hologram appeared of a heavily fortified building. Gunfire licked at the surface of it from the streets beyond as the more direct and violent mercenaries tried to force entry. A spurt of smoke leaded from an alley as a shoulder mounted rocket leaped across on a tail of fire, detonating on the front of the building in cloud of fire shot smoke. Mercenaries surged forward toward the breach, one or two of them toppling to the rubble as they were hit. A second later, the side of the building erupted outwards in a spray of masonry that scythed down half a dozen of the over eager attackers. A bull dog assault transport exploded out of the dust cloud, gun pods blazing. Streams of brilliantly white light cut down any survivor who wasn't in cover in a matter of seconds. The thing had three tracks and a paired set of six wheels which propelled its sharp angular shape across the rubble in a series of staggering hops. It hit clear ground and smoothed out as the wheels alone made contact, and raised away still firing.

Jocasta's hands were flying across the keyboard as she input code as quickly as she could conjure it. First she had to access the internal log of the previous speaker, then use an algorithm to morph her own voice in real time to match the speaker. Even so it wouldn't pass close scrutiny, not without time to correct the idiosyncrasies but it would probably pass in all the confusion.

"Roger," she replied to the last transmission, "ready for delivery and extraction." Markus was looking over her shoulder and she put in a few more commands to bring up security feeds from the city. The bulldog was racing along, having ceased firing. Every now and then it swiped a ground car or obliterated a street sign in a spray of sparks. She pulled up a map of the streets and overlaid the transports progress. It would be here in less than a minute. In fact, she could already hear the roar of the twin jet turbines that drove the thing screaming as the driver pushed them to the limit.

"They should be here in thirty...." there was a screaming sound as light flashed down from above. A series explosions lit one side of the bulldog and it flipped over and careened down the pavement on its roof, turning in a slow turtle of screaming, tortured metal. The concussion shook Jocasta and Markus where they stood, even through the wall. A gunship dove in above the upended transport, flaring nose up to counter its speed. The moment it reached stasis men were jumping from the back of it, they plunged towards the earth for a second before rocket assists on their belts lit, breaking their falls enough for them to land on their feet. Stun beams began to lick across at the crew as they crawled from the shattered bull dog.

"They aren't going to make it," Jocasta observed. Markus threw open the door and the noise and smoke hammered in with stunning force. He took aim and fired, dropping one of the jump pack mercs as the surviving members of the Shark's extraction team crawled clear. A whir like gods own dental drill ripped the chaos as a chin mounted pod on the gunship opened up. The whole building shook as hyper velocity rounds shattered its facade in a spray of smoke and gravel. Markus ducked back into cover a moment before fire spurted through the doorway. Jocasta ducked under the table as ricochet spattered the interior walls. She grabbed her fusion beamer and forced herself to the door then leaned out and took aim. The fusion beamer fired. Unlike a traditional las weapon it produced not a bolt, but a continual stream plasma. The weapon was capable of producing a three second continual beam before the magnetic focusing array melted and was ejected by a jet of liquid nitrogen for replacement. Jocasta let out the entire burst in a single long trigger pull. The beam struck the gunship's left air intake and it seemed to snuffle the nuclear fire and then sneeze, the particulate of the sneeze was pieces of engine, bearings, and flight controls. The gunship staggered sideways and down clipping the side of one of the high rises before detonating in a massive fireball. Thousands of pounds of glass were ripped from the walls of the buildings to either side of the street and rained down like silvery confetti. Jocasta saw at least one of the jump pack men literally cut to pieces by the avalanche of jagged glass fragments that poured from the skies. Even over the roar of explosions and the boom of weapons the sound was like someone had dropped a bell foundry from orbit.

"Coming though!" One of the surviving Sharks roared through a face concealing helmet with a built in vocalizer. Three of them had broken away from the main group, two supporting a third man between them. He was making some effort to help them but was clearly dazed by the violence of the last few seconds. The trio raced through the door, and Markus slammed the door shut behind them, cutting of the sound beyond. Everyone's ears rang in the sudden relative silence.

"Going up!" Jocasta said, slinging her fusion beamer and half leading, half shoving the stunned mercs to the orbital elevator. The exhausted and shell shocked men didn't argue with their apparent allies, merely piled in beside them as Jocasta slapped the controller that started accelerating them upwards towards the orbital and away form the wreckage below.

The electromagnetic systems hummed, but other than a brimming background noise, the car had become eerily silent in stark contrast to the gunfire and concussive blasts outside on the street not a half a minute before. Markus and Jocasta could hear the men breathing audibly, and the target coughed, placing a hand to his forehead. Both the mercs in disguise watched behind their visors, weapons on their laps. The white sharks had yet to notice they did not carry the standard-issue submachine gun the paramility group was known for, but they likely counted that as a blessing.

"Rough day?" Jocasta asked them. Markus could feel her sardonic smile.

"Bastards came out of nowhere," the left shark said, his grating voice carried by a modular device that was picked up on the comms of all suits they collectively wore. Markus tightened his grip on his weapon, ever so lightly. "No warning. But we hit 'em back. I got two of them, myself before the colonel told us to move forward. Guess he thought the brunt of them had come at us on the road, but splintering off our convoy just made us easier targets for the scavengers that waited."

"Well don't worry, boys. You're safe and sound now." She remarked.

"Oh, a lady? When did we start recruiting women? That's a sexy voice." The right one said. Clearly he was not entirely professional in his thoughts on that front, but Jo took it in stride considering what was about to happen.

"I sing on occasion," Jocasta confessed. "A big hit, actually."

"She's alright." Markus said with a shrug. He was interested in something else, and spoke to the one on the left. "Which two did you kill? What'd they look like?" Markus asked with a smidge of curiosity. As they spoke, the right hand shark gave a flask of water to the target, a curious gesture for men assigned to guard a political prisoner, but he was not entirely focused on them.

"Tall one in red, eye scar, and a woman with blue hair and a screeching laugh." He responded. "I was glad to shut her up."

Markus chuckled, which sounded very much like a reasonable response from a comrade. In truth, he was pleased in another fashion. The shark had taken out Lorkan and Moxie. Markus had never liked either. In fact, it put him in a good mood. He glanced at Jocasta, and to the woman's credit, she noticed the slight shifting of his head. Markus replied: "You guys got medi-gel on you?"

"Yeah, why?"

Markus raised his weapon and hit both men in the chest with two shots of concussive rounds. The sound was deafening in such close quarters, and the white sharks slumped over in their chairs, limp. The target, Gallanis' son, went wide eyed. He tried to back away from the two figures, but he was against the wall. Markus watched as he began to wail and beg, but before he could try to calm the man, Jocasta hit him across the face with the butt of her rifle. He went limp as well, just as the curvature of the planet was visible through the window behind him.

"I didn't think you were the merciful type." Jocasta said.

"I'm not, but he did me a solid." Markus replied. "Now when we get to the top, you need to find us whatever starship they were going to put this guy in. And I'll fly us to The God's Eye."

A minute later, the door opened with a small whisper. Jocasta boldly strode forward, Markus hauling the unconscious target, draped across his shoulder. The merc was lean rather than broad, but he had a sizeable portion of muscle, though he still felt a bit laden from the weight of the target atop the relatively heavy armor. Not to mention his gun and supplies. "Remind me again why you knocked him out?" Markus asked with a small grunt.

"Because I did not know if he was a good actor or not. We can't have him compromise us." She explained.

"Then you carry him." He shot back.

"Relaaaax," She said. "In two hours we'll be five hundred thousand dablunz richer."

Rather fortunately for the mercenaries, the High Port wasn’t the kind of place where a heavily armed thug carrying an unconscious man across his shoulders gained more than a few speculative looks. Jocasta kept her fusion beamer unslung to dissuade any more serious curiosity, though the Black Lady knew what would happen if she fired it inside a pressurized tin can like this. Something that rhymed with sexplosive recompression she thought with a whimsical grin.

The hangar bay wasn’t far from the main elevator trunk. An expensive birth for a trader but hardly bank breaking for an outfit the size of the White Sharks. Or the size the White Sharks had been before a number of their members took retirement with extreme prejudice at any rate. She didn’t doubt that Markus was right that military grade weaponry would see off the hoard of bounty hunters who had been loosed on them, but they were likely to have taken so many casualties that the White Sharks as a group might never recover.

“Here we are,” Jocasta announced entering the code she had swiped from the computer terminal at the rendezvous. The hanger door opened to reveal the cavernous bay beyond. A Suytnet 22 armored transport squatted in the middle of the hanger like an angry toad, it’s body boxy with protruding sensor packages and weapon hard points. Fuel hoses and data lines had already been unhooked and lay in coiled heaps beside the big ship.

“Crew must already be aboard,” Markus observed. Jocasta nodded and they hurried across the deck to the ship. The temperature declined rapidly as they got closer, an artifact of the leakage all such bays had to the deep space beyond. They hurried up the ramp and Markus gratefully dumped the groaning form of their prisoner into one of the jump seats and knotted him in place with the restraint harness. Jocasta moved forward to look into the cockpit.

“There is no one here,” she called back.

“Oh I wouldn’t say that,” a voice hissed from the darkness. Something heavy fell on her from above. Jocasta managed to get her arms up to deflect a blow at her head. Pain tore at her but she rotated away from the blow, aiming a snap kick at the ribs of her assailant that drove them into the wall. She swung her fusion beamer up but the attacker kicked it up, then caught her wrist and twisted, the weapon clattered to the deck, mercifully not firing and cutting her in half. She charged at her attacker, deflected a blow at her midsection and then cracked him across the jaw with her elbow. Her arms burned and she could taste blood. Markus was shouting behind her but she couldn’t make anything out over the ringing in her ears.

“You!” she gasped, recognizing the snake mutant from the bar.

“You should have taken my advice,” the snake said, drawing back fangs from a bloodied mouth.

“Maybe next time,” Jocasta allowed and pulled her pistol from its holster. The movement seemed slow and suddenly the weapon seemed very heavy. She frowned and looked down at her arm. Two neat puncture wounds had appeared just above her wrist.

“Son of a…” Jocasta managed and then collapsed to the ground. The snake thing leaned down and picked her up. Jocasta vision was tunneling rapidly but as the snake came close she bit down hard on its hand causing it to recoil in outrage.

“Bitch,” she concluded as the darkness rushed up to swallow her.

The Suytnet 22's air was filtered through a standard SIPA system, which removed much of the stench from what wafted off of most humans and mutant's bodies. Sweat and the like would permeate the cabin without such measures, but because of it, for brief periods of time the clean air gives one the stark, pungent smells of various stronger things. In this case, blood.

Markus had been accosted like Jocasta was, a burly merc had hidden in the corridor storage hatch. Luckily, the serpent-like mutant had a taste for the dramatic and had announced itself when it launched at Jocasta. Like as not it was to indicate to his ally that he was attacking.

When the mutant had landed on Jocasta, the other mercenary had burst out of the door, nearly breaking its sliding mechanism, and rammed into Markus and the opposite wall of the corridor. Markus hit it hard, and found his face shoved into the wall by a big hand, the other grabbing Markus's sword arm. The two struggled for a brief moment before Markus was punched in the Kidney, and instinctively he knew his attacker's next move was to grab whatever bladed weapon or handgun he had to finish him with. Markus changed strategies, and stomped down on the merc's foot hard, giving him enough room to elbow the man in the side. Markus spun, taking a fist to the face but kicking his foot out, stamping onto the merc's chest. Both stumbled back, the merc shoved back into the hatch, and both were dazed for a moment.

In unison, they recovered themselves and realized the predicament they were in. Both reached for weapons. Markus' gun was larger than the handgun the merc had, and instead of trying to fire before him, he sidestepped, and the first lasbolt of the handblaster scorched the wall where Markus had stood not a moment before. The merc's failure to hit was the last thing he realized, because by the time he moved to continue firing, a three round burst had torn through his neck and lower jaw. Blood and flesh spattered into the hatch, and just as the merc's body began to slump, Markus turned his weapon to the mutant that loomed over Jocasta's prone form. A swift glance showed blood seeping out of the woman's arm, and the mutant's fangs were crimson.

Markus fired another burst, but the serpent-man moved with an otherworldly grace, only getting clipped by one of the rounds in the side. Markus went to fire again, having the thing dead to rights, but the gun 'clicked.' He realized he hadn't the time to reload it earlier. Rookie mistake on his part, he knew. Markus cursed, and the serpent mutant leaped at him. It's sinuous neck reared its head back to strike as it barreled toward him, but Markus growled and shot his hand out to grip its slim neck, keeping its snapping maw at bay. Instead of using it for its primary purpose, Markus instead used the bullpup as a ram, shoving it perpendicular into the torso of the mutant. Luckily, Markus was heavier than his opponent's vaguely humanoid, serpentine form. It hissed in frustration as Markus charged and all but lifted it, the mutant back-pedaling and vainly trying to wriggle free as Markus shoved it across the inner deck of the transport. Reeling, it tried clawing at the mercenary until Markus threw the thing into another hatch, this one reinforced and far larger.

The mutant writhed and tried to catch itself, but it fell headlong into the bay, and Markus immediately shut the door with a 'clang,' grabbing the lever outside of it and pulling it down to lock the mutant behind the doorway.

Immediately, a snake head snapped at the reinforced window at the top half of the bulkhead. Markus did not flinch. He simply stared at it. Hands and fangs began to scrabble at the window, but Markus merely glared.

"Releasssse me!" It cried in anger, its voice echoing within the small chamber.

"Is your bite poisonous?" Markus asked it, grim. "Answer me, or you will be dead."

It was then the mutant realized its situation. Markus had not merely locked it within a cargo hatch. Behind it was a hatch the exact same size as the one it clawed it, except it led into nothing but air. And once Markus began flying the ship, he could eject the mutant into the cold expanse of space whenever he wished. It's eyes, iris's sharp like daggers, widened in sudden fear. It hissed with a subjugated sibilance, and then nodded.

"Yessss, b-but my partner hasss the antidote! Jussssst let me live pleassse," it whined.

Markus ignored it, sprinting his aching form across the ship, passed Jocasta who looked to be lightly convulsing. Swiftly he began searching the mercenary he had killed, his hands jerking back and forth out of urgency and adrenaline from the fight. The next five seconds seemed hours, but he found a small vial on the dead man's belt, and then stumbled out of the corridor, kneeling down next to the prone woman. She shook, her body growing clammy. Markus gently cradled her head and parted her lips, before uncorking the glass vial and gingerly pouring it down her throat. She coughed, but he did his best to help it go down by massaging her throat, and once the vial was drained, he dropped the it to clatter onto the vyroplex floor and waited.

"Come on..." He breathed after a moment, and checked her pulse.

At first it was erratic, but soon it was steady, and moments later, color returned to her cheeks. Jocasta would find consciousness just as Markus was tying a bandage around the bite wound in her wrist, as blood had pooled beneath it. He cut the bandage with a bite, and finished wrapping it. He saw her eyes flutter open slightly, but instead of saying they were now even, he shook his head.

"Not bad, but a little secret from a professional: If you're going to make it in this business, dying on your first job is not strategically sound. Lucky for you, you got me here."

"I was having the most wonderful dream," Jocasta groaned as she sat up. Her hair slowly moved through a progression of colors as the cocktail of venom and anti-venom worked it's way through her system. She awkwardly sat up, steadying herself with an arm on the deck. Her eyes focused as she beheld the mutant, the snake man hissed as she staggered over to the controls before the pod.

"Just businesses, nothing personal!" the mutant cried. Jocasta reached up and took hold of the evacuation lever.

"Nooooo!!!" the snake man shrieked. Jocasta sighed and let go of the handle stepping away.

"Well," she sighed, "I suppose it is hard to be in a bad mood when you are about to become a quarter of a million dabluntz richer."

The snake man sagged back against the interior of the pod in relief. Jocasta took a seat in one of the console seats, paging idly through the shuttles internal systems.

"Speaking of which, we better get airborne before any surviving Mercs or Sharks catch up with us."

"Agreed," Markus said, taking his seat in the cockpit and preparing the ship for launch. He set the three SCA beacons active and activated the power systems, before charging the short propulsion lift. Soon the transport thrummed with life, and Markus received clearance from control, happy to see no one expected anything amiss from the station. Jocasta finished inputting a system's analysis before giving the thumbs up the ship was acceptable for travel.

The transport lifted up steadily, and with an ease of many flight hours, Markus took her out through the hanger shields and into the void. Life support systems activated and rumbled, clean air filtered through the vents. For a moment, Markus had the idea to eject the mutant anyway, but he had given his word it was her decision and let it go. They'd let him out after the job was done.

"So, what's with your hair?" Markus asked, without so much as glancing at his partner.

"I'll tell you once we we finish this up," She said.

"Fair enough."

---

2 Hours Later...

The back rooms of Adan Gallanis's suit were lavishly furnished, cushioned chairs and pristine tables bedecked with velvet banners. The carpets were clean and soft, and yet the busts and iconography were particularly spartan, bespeaking the long martial past of the moon, Ahura. Markus had not believed the station was this large, but both he, Jocasta, and two guards continued down long halls and banquet rooms into they reached a purpose-made meeting room.

On the back wall was a huge mural of The Ride of the Valkyries by Johan Gustaf Sandberg, and the wall to its left held two 'windows' that were merely holograms of a peaceful lakeside view, both framed by elaborate purple drapes a medieval king might have. There were two dining tables, but the guards bade Markus and Jocasta sit on the long couch under the mural as they waited. Their weapons had been left behind on the transport, and Gallanis's son's prone form had been taken from them as soon as they had arrived and alerted the baron of their success.

As for the man himself, it took only a few moments of waiting for Adan Gallanis himself to make his entrance, stepping out of another door, likely to more private chambers. Behind him accompanied a servant with glasses and a bottle of what Markus guessed was some vintage of wine.

"Ah, to the victors go the spoils!" Gallanis said, gently clapping his hands together, a smile on his face. He wore a comfortable and resplendent indigo coat. He pulled up a chair and sat himself before both Markus and Jocasta as the servant placed the bucket of ice down, removing the wine and pouring a glass with a fine deftness. "Would you care for a drink?"

Markus opened his mouth to speak, but Jocasta shook her head and pointed at Markus with a thumb. "This one promised the next drinks would be on his tab. Can't let him weasel out of that." She said, but Markus surmised she was simply being careful. That and anything that postponed the payment was an obstacle. Baron Gallanis inclined his head, and merely took his own glass in his hand.

"Very well. Now, first allow me to congratulate you on your resourcefulness. Not many mercenaries or bounty hunters could have done what you two did. In fact I am so impressed, I wish I could employ you for future jobs. I know I'll be needed good guns for hire." As he spoke, the servant filled his cup and then stepped back without a word. The baron placed it to his lips and sipped, savoring the taste. He gave a satisfied 'ahh' and placed the cup down on the table. "Unfortunately, you two won't be in the market after this job."

"Even with a sizeable payday, I don't know if I'll hang my sword up just yet." Markus remarked.

"Your sword, yes! A Secare Sabre, if I am not mistaken? I wonder, are you a veteran of the Caraxes Campaign, or did you kill a man who was and took his sword? Either way, you're a dangerous man. And you, my dear, such intelligence with such beauty, and with a taste of showmanship! Your infiltration of my meeting was well done." He stated with good humor, but within moments, the mirth faded from his eyes. "But... I was not entirely honest with you. Truth be told, I had thought the White Sharks would not be defeated, and that a large group of mercenaries attacking would be seen as a breach of security and faith on Mazda's part, but you two actually succeeded. My gratitude notwithstanding, I do have to confess that the man you captured was not my son. He is the heir to the Lerouxe household that rules over Mazda, and now thanks to you, I have him as a bargaining chip. And alas, while I consolidate my position, I'll need to feed Mazda with the two responsible for the heir's disappearance, which is, unfortunately, the two of you."

As he spoke the final words, the two guards that had escorted them aimed their plasma rifles at Jocasta and Markus, the lights on their barrels brightening as their safeties were taken off.

---

The Gods Eye held a small, private prison for malcontents and political prisoners, and Markus was unsure which he would consider himself at the moment. The walls were a meter thick of pherocrete, each cell being large enough to house a maximum of two individuals. Across from their cell, through the bars that were rigged to shock anyone who touched them, there was a cell with a bed and a toilet, and even a sink. Markus was unsure if they had been placed across from it to taunt them, as both Markus and Jocasta were not only in a space that was every inch bare, hard, and cold, but their arms were shackled above their heads with manacles of titanium-C, the same material the entire space station was made of.

As they had been taken away, Gallanis had told them they would be retrieved by Mazda officials tomorrow, in approximately 1800 hours. Their food, water, and any other basic needs could be seen to by the jailers that arrived to collect them. As it was, the baron took no chances with them.

Markus's dark, unkempt mane of hair cascaded down before his face and shoulders. He looked very much the part of a dangerous, albeit somewhat comely, marauder that had been caught by the rightful authorities.

“I notice,” Jocasta observed, “that you are a lot less talkative when you are in chains.” Markus turned to eye her, his pose making him look particularly hang dog. There were two guards outside, face plates polarized to anonymity. They stood well beyond arms reach and their shotguns were loaded and unslung.

“Being chained up usually has that effect on people,” Markus growled.

“Not if you do it right,” Jocasta countered, earning a grunt of laughter from her partner. One of the goons shook slightly as though chuckling before stilling at a stern glance from his partner.

“Any non bondage related plans for getting us out of here?” he muttered under his breath.

“Not until they move us,” she responded.


By the time the authorities arrived to collect them, a six man team in riot gear, both mercenaries were pretty miserable. These men were bare headed and clearly surprised to find one of the ‘extremely dangerous’ prisoners they had been task to transport was a woman who looked like she should be making holos rather than running around the tag end of a nowhere sector. Nevertheless, they took no chances. First Markus was herded across the hall to use the bathroom, a collar slipped around his neck and attached to two guide poles held by the guards. He was then given a liter of water and a handful of hard protein ration. The process was repeated with Jocasta. One man took position in front and one at the rear with two on either side of their prisoners as they began to transport from the holding facility to the shuttle.

The Mazda transport craft wasn’t far. It was an ancient workhorse of a cargo shuttle, long used to transport prisoners and indentured labor, or slaves depending, and was well set up to contain prisoners. Markus and Jocasta were ushered aboard and moments later they were void borne and on their way.

“Hey!” Jocasta shouted as the engine thrust died away, “hey!”

“Shut up!” one of the guards called back in an irritated tone.

“Hey! I’m Terran, that means I can’t be tried by Colonial courts, you have to extradite me back to the sector capital!” she called. One of the guards laughed.

“Bull shit, even being from Earth dosen’t make you a Terran, you have to be a fucking fancy pants to get citizenship, or be born with a silver spoon or billion shoved up your ass!”

“Check it! I’ve got an ident, it will clear the local database even in this shithole,” she challenged. The guards looked at each other. This was clearly well beyond their experience and while someone claiming to be Terran was a mainstay of holo entertainment few people had ever met one in the flesh.

“Might be worth something in ransom if its true,” one of the guards cautiously observed.

“Worth getting your throat cut if the boss finds out you mean,” another one snapped.

“Hey who is to know if both of them are killed ‘trying to escape’ but we only recover one body?” the first guard replied.

“Alright honey, give us your ident and we will check it out.” Jocasta ignored the hard look from Markus and rattled off a long string of letters and numbers which the guard dutifully punched into his computer.

“Check is running now,” the guard replied, “Going to be pretty upset if this turns out to be a waste of our time girl.”

“It is legit, you’ll see,” Jocasta replied, her voice sounding far away. Markus gave her another look and reached out a hand to steady her. Minutes dragged by as the message was beamed to the systems beacon and then routed through the QEF. A few minutes later there was a beep and the guards gathered around the console.

“Holy shit she was telling the truth,” the lead guard gasped. There was another beep, then another.

“That isn’t the comms…”

“It’s a proximity alarm!”

There was a mad scramble for the controls but the mournful dirge of the proximity alarm grew louder and more instant.

“I’d hold onto something,” Jocasta advised and wrapped herself around the bars a moment before the whole world lurched sideways in a colossal scream of rending ceramsteel and screaming decompression. Escaping atmosphere blasted in all directions, carrying with it a storm of dust, trash, and detritus. Blue white sparks crackled down the bulkheads as electrical systems shorted and suppressant cylinders dumped their payloads. Jocasta managed to hold on as they were flung violent backwards. Two of the guards crashed into the bars, one went head first his neck snapping audibly and his head twisting off at a wrong angle. The other hit back first and bounced, Jocasta let go of the bars and grabbed him by the webbing belt, dragging him back against the bars. He kicked and struggled against her until Markus hand grabbed the shock rod from the mans belt and jabbed it into his kidney with an arching discharge that sent the man into spastic twitches. There was a second enormous crash and the man flew loose of Jocasta’s grip. She snatched key from his belt as he went and thrust it against the door plate. Internal partitions were snapping down, sealing sections of the ship to stop the atmospheric leakage. One of the unfortunate guards was sprawled across the divider between two sections. Two thousand pounds of piston pressure cut him in half diagonally from hip to shoulder with a sound like breaking into a lobster. Artificial gravity failed and blood, dirt, and bone fragments all lifted off like a suspended rainstorm. Jocasta kicked her way out of the cell to retrieve the guards side army. The others were alive, mostly, but on the other side of a hull partion. One of them was screaming and waving his own weapon in front of the plexisteel view port though his shouts didn’t carry through an inch of steel and the ongoing scream of the crippled ship and wailing alarm claxons.

“What in the name of the Red God was that?” Markus demanded, jamming the shockrod against the partition and pulling the trigger. The guard on the other side flew backwards from the suddenly electrified surface. Non lethal, but certainly painful.

“I crashed the Shark’s shuttle into us,” Jocasta explained, peering through a port out into space. Red heat shimmer was already beginning to limb the aperture.

“You… how?” Markus demanded. Jocata floated like a drowned thing, her hair out of control in zero-g.

“Not important, what is important is that we going through atmospheric re-entry now. We are going to crash somewhere down there. With a little luck, we might even survive the impact,” she added cheerily.

Markus groaned, grabbing the door panels and pulling himself into the cockpit, easing down into the command chair. He tried to tell himself he had been in rougher situations before, but even the campaign on Caraxes or the Battle of Gersemi might not live up to this farce. Behind him, even over the ever higher volume of the atmosphere's roar outside of the transport, he heard Jocasta rummaging around, before she slide up into the co-pilot's chair whilst pocketing a few extra dablunz and some gum she had found. Her seatbelt clicked audibly, but before she could help Markus shot her a look, and she placed her hands in her lap and fluttered her lashes in faux innocence.

"Don't touch anything." He told her, flipping up three panels. The hatches along the side of the transport opened, and the drag-flaps were released. Ideally they were meant to slow down the vessel in orbit, but they began to hear a shudder as the entire transport bucked and wriggled, scorching red now ensconsing the entire transport. There was a great, dry crack, and Jocasta looked back and dropped her jaw when she noticed the back half of the transport had broken off. The lost souls of the remaining crew now taken into the aether.

"I think we lost something." Markus said, and though it sounded like a quip, he wasn't smiling. The transport's control panel was foreign to him in many ways. He could not begin to guess why the authorities had picked up two apparently highly valued fugitives with a piece of shit rig from a bygone era, but he needed to work with what they had. Markus pointed at the panel next to Jocasta's left. "Pull that," he ordered. She did so, and Markus flipped a switch before grabbing the throttle. Suddenly, what sounded like wind blown through a hose gushed around them. Markus had switched all power to the emergency repulsors, having been unable to angle the vehicle into a position that gave them less friction in reentry. Luckily for them, the shuttle was blunt and wide, which reduced their speed, but it wouldn't help them much if they still hit the planet at mach 3.

Moments turned to a minute, and through careful maneuvering, Markus was able to turn the shuttle facing Mazda. The steeper the angle relative to the planet's center of mass the less friction there is, but while friction would burn them apart, it helped slow their speed.

"How fast are we going?" Markus asked. Jocasta flipped open panels and scrambled to find it, only for Markus to point to the top left of the panel and she looked up.

"Uhm, mach 2!"

Her heart almost leaped into her throat when Markus abruptly yanked on the throttle, and the shuttle, or what was left of it, lurched. They had entered the troposphere, and within moments the flames had been doused and replaced by steam. It was not readily apparently, but Markus had abruptly changed course to better glide, and they had pierced into a collection of tall rain clouds. He had switched the repulsors off, but a minute later, once they broke through and all was sunshine and endless land, he restarted them.

What followed was a long, rocky fall that saw them flying past picturesque lakes, cities, roads, woods, until finally Markus yelled for Jocasta to hold on, and the ship barreled into a copse of vast trees, shattering them and sending the shuttle careening end over end to crash onto a large grassy field. Dirt and grass and scattered kindling burst into the air, and it felt like hours before the spinning had stopped.

The sun's rays could be seen above, or below, Markus realized, when he found he was hanging from his seat three meters above the ground. All around him, walls of ceramsteel and endless wires of electronics were scattered like they were pulled apart and placed into an abstract painting of old earth. Markus felt bruised, and there was a gash on his forehead and a long cut on his arm that dripped blood, but otherwise he was fine. Before he could wonder about Jocasta, he heard her coughing from below him. He swallowed, trying to wet his dry throat before unbuckling his seatbelt and toppling to the ground. He hit the grass with a thud, and then dragged himself to his feet to stumble out of the wreckage just as Jocasta did.

"That was rougher than I was expecting, but the best romps always are." Jocasta quipped, breathing heavily. Her hair was now a vibrant earthy brown. Markus didn't say anything to her. He caught his breath, and then plunged back into the wreckage, pulling broken plates and chairs out of his way, scavenging like a jackal. Jocasta heard him curse, and called in. "What are you doing!?"

Markus stepped out a moment later, dragging one of the guard's corpses out with a medikit under his arm. She had to repeat the question before he answered, and when he did he gave her a curst: "I'm going back."

"W-..." She started, getting to her feet. She glanced into the sky as if she could see The God's Eye from their position, then looked back at her companion. "Going back? Why?"

"To get my blade..." He said, wrapping a bandage around his arm, the adhesive making a loud zrrrrrrrrriiip as he did so, before he bit if off. "To get my money..." The mercenary wiped the blood from his forehead with a swab, placing some gel on it to keep it from bleeding, and then dropped all the rest back into the kid. He coughed, blinking. "And to get some payback..."

Jocasta blew her fringe out of her eyes, crossing her arms under her chest. "Well, I did see a starship hub a few miles away."

"I'm going back alone." He told her, turning back to the corpse. He slung the rifle the corpse had across his torso, and then picked up the shock baton. He pushed it in with a 'click.' Jocasta was right, there was a hub not too far, if he wasn't mistaken. He could pawn or more likely steal a transport there and get back into the air before anyone even knew something had gone amiss with the transport.

Jo approached him sweeping her hands out. How she hadn't got more than a scratch, or how he had only gotten two, was a mystery to him. "Whoa, you cannot get rid of me that easily! You owe me."

He slid the baton into his pocket. "You saved my life. I saved yours. We're squared."

"No, you owe me a beer." She reminded him. "And you owe me my half of the money. I didn't survive all of this just to lose everything." It was a point he sympathized with, but Markus was stubborn. He still was not sure why she wanted to help. He was a war veteran, and a fugitive, an extrasolar fugitive. As far as he was concerned, she could do whatever she wanted with her life as long as she got the hell out of the Eurymaces system. "Besides, it's suicide to go alone. Hell, it's probably suicide to go at all."

"I'm not going back to live. I'm going back to give Gallanis a massive headache." He said, tiring of the talk.

"And who is more of a headache than me?" She asked, and when her words sunk in, he put in a valiant effort, but in the end he did snort and flash a small smile. She smiled too, and continued. "Look, I know you're going for the aloof bad boy vibe. Don't get me wrong, it works. But maybe there's a better way. I think I got a plan."

"Better than the atmospheric reentry one?" He asked, and then bent down to the other items he had collected.

"Much better." She said triumphantly. She was so satisfied with Markus evidently agreeing, she didn't expect the rifle and shock baton he tossed her way, Deftly she caught both, but the baton was slick with blood, and she curled her lip in distaste. "Eugh!"

Jocasta wiped the blood from the baton on some nearby foliage, then her face screwed up with consternation.

"What?" Markus demanded, bringing his weapon up in case it was needed.

"I just realized I missed a perfectly good 'is that a baton in your pocket' line," she lamented.

"I'm regretting this already.."

__________________________

It took two hours to reach the starport they had overflown during the crash. They briefly took cover as a pair of orbital landers flew overhead, angling towards the crash site. Jocasta doubted they would do more than verify the crash. Two dead scapegoats were as effective as two live ones for Gallanis's purposes. Maybe better because they couldn't contradict his story. So long as they didn't make themselves obvious, they might hope to escape detection for some time.

The starport was a private one, attached to a series of agricultural properties which stretched around it like spokes on a great wheel. Every few hours a light transport would touch down and carts of wheat and barely would be loaded on for transshipment to jump capable craft in orbit.

"Well, it isn't going to be a Nevian Luxury Line," Jocasta observed as she watched the loading from the top of a small hill a half kilometer from the port.

"When is it ever?" Markus asked under his breath.

They approached under the cover of the brush, creeping forward until they could hear the engines of the transports breathing as their engines were starting up or idling from some maintenance check. Huge, spacious hangers with open gateways stood unguarded and inviting, but both of them knew it wouldn't be quite that easy.

"You know, a lot of places let you walk in as long as you act like you're supposed to be there," Jocasta remarked.

"I'm aware, but right now I look like a mercenary who just survived a starship crash." He reminded her, gesturing at his armor and weapons. She wrinkled her nose but shrugged as if to say he made a good point. Looking back at the strip, the closest hanger was around forty meters away, and two men leaned against the huge plasteel walls, taking a smoke break it looked like. They were grey fatigues and hats that shielded them from the sun. Around their necks were large goggles.

"Here," She said, shoving her gun into Markus' lap. "I'll go take care of those two. Just be ready to come back me up if need be, ok?"

"What are you going to do?"

"I got into Adan Gallanis's secret meeting as a singer, didn't I? Just trust me." She said.

Despite their banter and this being her first job, Markus respected her skills. He nodded and sat back, but pulled out his Daiedron-C87 and leveled the weapon just in case. "Just watch your ass."

"I'll watch my front, you watch my ass." She said with a wink, and then sauntered out of the treeline with the surety of a performer on their twelfth set. He had to admit, looking now, it was a nice ass.