As I flew off, the station blinked out of existence and I decided to call in a favor with an old friend. He had multiple business interests inside the Nebula and could maybe give me some advice on where assholes gathered when they were in the area.

‘Call Jase den Ammet.’ I rolled my eyes deeply as the muzak played. My ship was second hand and I had never wanted to spend the credits to get it gussied up. When I bought it, the guy who sold it to me said that he had gotten it from an ancient Pog who had only driven it to visit her brood. It stank but got me where I needed to go.

‘Aia?’ A familiar voice answered and I turned on the screen. ‘MMtoprawoerisrdflsdkfhsdf!!!’

‘Ammet! Good to see you.’ It never ceased to amaze me how many of the alien species I ran into looked like humans, or we looked like them. Thinking about it too much made my head hurt, so I adjusted the translator and got to the point. ‘Yeah, hi Ammet? I’m looking for someone.’

‘Go fuck yourself Aia.’ He abruptly turned off the monitor and I slammed my fist into the dashboard, causing a bunch of lights to start flashing.

‘Ugh!’ I screamed and pulled out the bag of Choco-no-nos™ I had picked up from the store on the station. After a few minutes of furiously snacking, I decided to try again.

‘Ammet- please, I’m begging you. Don’t hang up! I’m sorry, I apologize. I was wrong. Please help me this one last time and I’ll do whatever you want.’ I gave him my saddest look and sent him the holo of Daden.

‘You’re hunting Daden?’ Ammet rolled his eyes and moved over to another monitor. ‘Fine, you’re doing me a favor by ridding the system of this trash.’ A few minutes later, some numbers popped up on my screen.

‘Thank you Ammet.’ My body filled with relief as I typed the coordinates into the guidance system. ‘I promise I’ll make it up to you.’

‘My son..’ I snapped off the monitor and headed towards the system on the map. Not having any sort of moral compass had served me well over the years; I did what I wanted, shot without a second thought and generally lived without regrets. It was my way of telling the universe to fuck off, but it wasn’t what I was meant to be. I realized from my interactions with other humans that there was a whole side of myself that I was missing. I wanted to know what genuine happiness was. The only way to accomplish that was by reuniting with Faye, and that meant tracking down this loser.

The ship sped off and I was grateful that a jump wasn’t necessary. Not only did they eat up fuel units, but my body felt like it had been beaten by an army of Cezalians afterwards. I needed to be ready to deal with this job, not nursing my aching muscles.

I arrived at an ancient looking spacedock a while later and flew in for a closer look. There were no lights and because most of the older models like this had been built without windows, it was almost impossible to tell if there was anyone inside. I pulled next to what looked like an entrance and deployed the docking clamps. My helmet was somewhere in the back along with the life support pack I carried for this type of situation.

Stolen story; please report.

I struggled to get everything in place and cursed this fucker for not making my job easier; imagining shooting a hole between his tentacles made me feel slightly better and when the green light flashed, I opened the door and stepped onto the platform. While mag boots made life less stressful, having them on the highest setting meant slowly making your way to your destination, but too low and you could find yourself flying off into space. I adjusted the magnets for shitty old space station material, made my way towards the door and pushed the button to its left.

‘That was easy.’ I wasn’t sure if finding a simple way in was a good thing but would take any bonus I could get. Once inside, I loosened up a little. Knowing that you’re not going to float away into the expanse of space always made me relax and now I could just focus on killing Daden. Above me were grunts and I adjusted my translator while I hid behind a pylon.

‘Glug glurp glug shriek glug…. told you not to deal with Colleen.’ They obviously still thought they were alone.

‘She promised me a cut of the profits. You would’ve done it too.’

‘Never, this thing is going to get us killed and it’s your fault.’ There was at least one other Noller there. I pulled out my rifle and slowly made my way towards the stairs.

When I first got started in this line of work a salty old assassin gave me some excellent advice:

Never feel bad about what you do

Always shoot first

The first one didn’t apply to me, but the second had served me well. As I got closer to the room, I double checked that it was on the highest setting- rule number 3 should have been: firing twice is fine, just make sure each shot does the job. One of the cousins was closer to the door, I would take it out first and then get my Noller. Who knew- maybe there was a bounty on the other one I didn't know about.

‘Two for one would be my lucky day.’ I chuckled to myself as I got the first one in my sight and braced for the shot. It looked at me right before I took it out, then screamed in agony. As I aimed my sights at the second one, it began pleading.

‘No, no!’ It motioned towards the crate on the floor. ‘I’ll split the profits with you.’ My interest was piqued, but I knew that waiting too long could create an opportunity for escape.

‘Why would I do that when I can have it all for myself?’ It paused for a second.

‘Good point.’ It was a clean shot and Daden died instantly. Good riddance, I thought to myself. When they died under extreme stress, Nollers would evaporate into a fine mist that poisoned their assailants. I had learned this the hard way and spent a week in an unlicensed medical center the last time I took one out. My helmet could filter out toxins but would only be effective for a few minutes. I needed to figure out what was in that crate.

Quickly, I began to pry at the lid and when it finally opened, I gasped. Inside was a haul of Oranium- probably the most valuable substance in the universe. My helmet began flashing red and I knew I only had a few seconds to escape before the toxins started to affect me. Whoever they had stolen this from would be looking for it and I knew I had to get out of there fast. I was a low rent bounty hunter, not a commodities trader, but this was too good to pass up. The crate weighed a ton so I grabbed a few of the bricks and dashed out, repeating the route until I managed to get about fifty bars into my ship. Suddenly, proximity lights began flashing- indicating an incoming vessel.

‘Shit, shit, shit.’ I jumped in and punched some random coordinates, flashing away just before a much larger and more powerful ship that I instantly recognized became fully visible.

My life just got like a millions times more complicated.