The monorail tram ride back to our ship was quiet and uneventful. Nobody had come chasing after us after Noah and I dispatched our attacker, so I assumed all was well. Noah was doing fine, too. He didn’t even flinch when I finished off that Aeon. Time in the military had hardened him, I guess. Noah did have dozens of confirmed kills, so he was probably desensitized to death. And I was a mercenary for quite a while. It wasn’t the first time someone had the tables turned and begged for their life. Especially when it was somebody who was trying to kill me moments earlier. I wouldn’t hesitate if I had to kill an attacker. They were trying to do the same to me, after all.
Noah’s maturity would be important for our new life. We were mercenaries. During Noah’s first job, he expressed a lot of concern and hesitation. However, things have changed. People were after us and we didn’t have time to hesitate. If I had to drag along the same Noah from before, I would’ve had a lot of trouble.
Noah and I arrived at our new ship, which was now all set. The maintenance crew had gone home, and the ship was fully stocked on fuel, supplies, and ammunition. We let the autopilot launch the ship while we enjoyed our takeout dinner from the stall. It had gone slightly lukewarm because it took a while to get to our ship, but it was still good. Better than what I was having on the Spear of Kain, by a long shot.
“Noah, how’s the food?” I asked, between bites. My sharp teeth tore through the chewy meat of the farm bug.
Noah shrugged. “It beats the nutrient paste I was eating most of the time. The freshness of it is a huge factor, but I don’t really like the texture.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s fair. It’s a good start, though. Let’s go somewhere better to eat next time.”
I glanced back out of the cockpit. The autopilot had undocked us safely, and led us through the mailbox slit exit of the gyroscopic space station. An infinite void of glittering stars waited outside. I punched in the coordinates for the next station we were hopping to, and the Komori jolted into lightspeed. After several minutes passed, we entered a tunnel and were well on our way to our next destination, far away from here.
An hour into our journey, I made the discovery that the Komori had a sound system built in! I immediately connected it to my tablet and blasted music throughout the ship. I mentally slapped my own forehead for not thinking of doing it to my old ship, the Leviathan. It made travel a little more bearable. I appreciated the music now because I didn’t have a TV on this ship yet. Back when I was a solo mercenary, I would just watch movies in my lounge or catch up to my favorite shows during long travel times.
I had Noah pick out songs that he liked from my playlist as I shuffled through my songs. I planned to make a playlist for him and get him introduced to music out here, I guess. Noah was going to have to do the same for me when we got to Earth. I was curious to hear what human music was like.
We were traveling as far as we possibly can with the amount of fuel that we had, so our ship would be flying in this tunnel for a few days. Noah and I kept ourselves occupied with music and checking the feeds on our tablets. After the first day or two, the videos from the Spear of Kain were pretty much widespread on the net and even appeared on major news channels. Which was not ideal. Our chances of being recognized had gone up, and even if most people weren’t going to do anything about Noah, it meant that the people who were involved with human trafficking totally knew. The original people who had kidnapped Noah in the first place probably knew as well. The poachers had been wiped out, so whoever was paying them to nab a human likely assumed that their new pet was dead, too. But now that Noah was all over the news, that individual would probably come to the conclusion that Noah was the same human.
Also, Noah finally had a bounty on the underground bounty boards. It was more than what I made as a mercenary in a year. Bounty hunters were definitely coming after us now. Whoever put the bounty on Noah must’ve been the same person who ordered his kidnapping in the first place. Or it was some other rich bastard who decided they wanted a human. Either way, the bounty had information on Noah’s last known location, his relative height and weight, and his Togumo companion. Which meant that bounty hunters had a lot more leads on where we were. I probably needed to get Noah a new suit.
There was good news too, though. Yori was close to finishing my new suit, and they were sending it to me soon. They said it was one of the first of its kind, and was really excited to give it to me. Yori didn’t tell me what it looked like or what new features it had, though. They wanted it to be a surprise. I couldn’t imagine what this new suit would look like. Yori was calling it their best work yet. And the best part was, they didn’t expect me to pay for it! It was a gift. But Yori did ask me to pay them when I asked them to make Noah a new suit. Friendships have their limits, apparently.
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Our arrival at the space station a few days later was uneventful. The autopilot docked the ship for me, and the security didn’t flag us down or anything. I knew it wouldn’t but it was still nerve wracking. The bounty was unofficial, Noah and I weren’t actual fugitives.
This station would also be where we would be getting our first job back. I still had the mercenary contact on my tablet, meaning employers can ask me to take on a nearby job, much like the one that I got to hunt down poachers. All I had to do was set my status as available, and anyone seeking a mercenary would be able to hire me remotely. I wasn’t planning on getting jobs in person. The last time it happened, it went bad, and I also didn’t want anyone to recognize me as the Togumo with the human.
After a little over an hour of sitting and waiting in our ship, my tablet dinged. We were receiving a job.
“Hey, Noah, look at this!” I called.
Noah walked over and peered over my shoulder.
“They want us to move something? A courier job?”
I nodded. “Looks like the object in question is… a regular sized briefcase. Hmm, that’s really cliche.”
“What are the details?” Noah asked.
I ran my eyes over the job order. “It looks like they just want this briefcase delivered from point A to point B. They can’t do it themselves because they don’t trust whoever they’re sending it to, and the people receiving it wanted an unrelated third party to deliver it. It doesn’t say what’s inside of it, but my guess is money or information.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Noah sighed. “Well, we need creds, right? Might as well take it. It doesn’t look like a trap, at first glance. Nobody should know that we’re here. I smell a catch, though.”
“Yeah, it looks suspicious, but it looks like it pays well enough. It’s enough to be well on our way to the next station with some credits to spare. Our savings are getting low, but this should get it back up.” I agreed.
I accepted the job offer and waited. A few minutes later, the contractor sent us the pickup location of the briefcase and the drop off zone. Both of them were within the station, but they were on opposite sides. We’d have to cross the entire station while keeping the briefcase safe. The contractor also said that there may be people trying to intercept the cargo, so we needed to keep it secure.
“So, that’s the catch.” Noah sighed. “I knew it wasn’t going to be as simple as moving it from A to B.”
I shrugged. “Courier jobs just end up this way. They hire mercenaries because we can fight.”
“I guess that makes sense. Come on, let’s get this over with.”
Noah and I geared up and left the ship. I threw my jacket and a pair of pants over my suit to make myself harder to recognize, and Noah had his new rifle slung over his back. I had my hand cannon and my shotgun, of course.
Before we started the job, however, we made a detour to get some transportation. I rented out an electric motorcycle that would be useful to navigate the wide passageways of this station. There were a lot of places it could fit that cars couldn’t and I didn’t think it was a good idea to carry valuable cargo and use public transportation.
It took us thirty minutes to get to the pickup location. Once I confirmed I was nearby, the contractor sent us an exact location to pick it up. Once we got there, I was ordered to pick up the briefcase hidden behind a random stack of barrels. Our contractor wanted to do this with no contact, apparently. It worked out perfectly for us, though, so I wasn’t going to complain.
I quickly grabbed the briefcase with one of my back arms. I slung my leg over the seat of the motorcycle and mounted it. Noah followed. He sat behind me, and wrapped his hands around my waist. I positioned the briefcase so it was sitting behind my back and in front of Noah’s stomach, so it wouldn’t fall out. Once I confirmed that both the cargo and Noah were secure, I took off, mechanically whirring emanating from the zippy electric motorcycle.
We wove in and out of traffic, avoiding the barely moving cars stuck in a traffic jam. Yep, renting an electric motorcycle was definitely the right move. Imagine a courier getting stuck in traffic. Embarrassing.
As we got closer and closer to the drop off zone, the station became more and more raggedy. The traffic jam also disappeared. It looked like we were entering the slums, or at least a bad neighborhood. Noah and I were probably delivering money to a gang, or something. But it wasn’t something to get morally hung up on. We were getting paid for this. I didn’t need to know what the briefcase was for, all I needed was to get it to point B.
“Saka!” Noah shouted over the wind whistling past us. “I think there’s some people following us!”
I glanced backwards. There were two cars and a motorcycle behind us and slowly closing the gap between us.
“Are you sure they’re not just random people?” I shouted back.
“I’m pretty sure! Those guys have guns, and they’re looking at us a lot.”
I glanced backwards again. Noah was right. Hooligans were starting to lean out of the car windows and were brandishing weapons.
“Shit!” I swore. “Let’s get somewhere more narrow.”
We were on the streets now, so there were plenty of random alleyways we could ride into. Noah and I leaned into a tight turn as I shot straight into a dark alleyway. Hopefully that would lose them.
“Saka, we lost the cars, but the motorcycle is still following. There’s someone on the back, I think he has a gun!” Noah said.
“Okay, you have one too, right? Shoot him!” I replied.
One of Noah’s arms released my waist, so I grabbed him with my free back arm to make sure he didn’t go flying off. As Noah fumbled with his handgun, a beam whizzed past us. Then another.
“Noah, hurry!” I shouted. “He’s missing now, but he’ll get lucky soon.”
The end of the alleyway was fast approaching, too. It wouldn’t be long until we were forced to deal with the cars again.
“I got it.” Noah grunted. He twisted his body backwards to point his gun back towards the attackers. Noticing this, I straightened out the motorcycle as much as possible so Noah could get a stable shot.
Noah’s handgun went off a few times. I glanced backwards. Noah had aimed not for the passengers of the motorcycle, but at its front wheel. Both of the people on the bike went tumbling down as the motorcycle veered out of control. The motorcycle slammed into the narrow walls of the alleyway, while the people flew onto the ground.
“Nice shot, Noah!” I called.
I focused my attention on driving again. We burst out of the alleyway a few moments later, startling a couple pedestrians that happened to be walking by. One of them had to dive out of the way to avoid getting run over.
“Go! Go!” Noah shouted. “The cars are back!”
He was right. The two cars that had lost us earlier had gone around to try and cut us off. They knew where the alleyway had lead, apparently. We’d gained distance from them, since they had to turn a corner to regain line of sight, but they were slowly approaching. Once they got close enough, they’d be laying down a barrage of fire.
I sweeped my eyes ahead to look for any alleyways. Unfortunately, there weren’t any wide enough to fit the motorcycle safely. There were also a few other vehicles on the street with us, so it would be difficult to shoot at our pursuers without risking accidentally hitting someone else. For now, I used the random vehicles as cover to try and break line of sight from our attackers.
“Any ideas, Noah?” I asked
“Just keep heading towards the drop off point. If we get close enough, we can ditch the bike and force them to get out of their car.” Noah replied.
“I don’t know if we can get that far, but I’ll try.”
I revved the motorcycle, but since it was electric it only made slightly louder whirring sounds. We shot forward, gaining ground from the cars chasing us. Since the motorcycle was smaller and more nimble, we had an easier time navigating around the cars around us.
There were a considerable number of cars between us to the point where I didn’t think our pursuers would try to shoot at us. They probably didn’t care about stray gunfire killing innocents, but the cars served as cover. It would honestly be a waste to shoot.
The distance between us dwindled until Noah lost sight of them completely. It appeared like we were good to go. I still gunned it straight to the drop off zone just in case they were still following, though.
Eventually, we arrived at point B. It appeared to be a run down warehouse. Several people were out front and waiting for us, brandishing weapons. Noah and I came to a stop in front of them, and we both disembarked the electric motorcycle. I grabbed the briefcase and gave it a cursory look. It hadn’t been damaged in our little scramble through the neighborhood.
“Intact, I hope.” One of the gangsters said. “Or else we’ll have a problem.”
I stared at him directly in the eyes. “Perfectly fine. Although we had some guys chase us for a while.”
The gangster raised an eyebrow, if he had one. He was a Sabi, so he was completely hairless.
“Must’ve been the Reds, then. They always want to get their hands on what we’ve got.”
I assumed the Reds were a rival gang, or something. They probably wanted to keep whatever the briefcase held away from their enemy, or have it for themselves, or whatever gangs did.
“Speaking of the Reds,” Noah piped up, “It looks like they’re coming this way right now.”
Noah pointed down the street where we came from. The same two cars that were chasing us had finally caught up, and had followed us to this gang’s hideout, apparently.
I tossed the briefcase into the surprised gangster’s arms. He caught it awkwardly and the other gangsters began aiming their weapons at the quickly approaching car.
“Briefcase delivered. Good luck with that!” I called, and hopped back onto the motorcycle.
Noah quickly followed, jumping on to sit behind me. As soon as Noah wrapped his arms around my waist, I took off, full throttle. What happened with the briefcase after it was delivered wasn’t part of the job, and it wasn’t my problem. I was getting paid anyway.
As we rocketed away from the gang’s hideout, I heard guns go off and tires screeching. I didn’t look back. It didn’t have anything to do with me.