The words that came out of the radio caused my brain to skip a beat. My brain ran the words through a few times, trying to pick up the joke because it had to be a joke.
It was only when he didn’t follow it up with ‘Just kidding Bandit’ and the fact that MC was uncharacteristically silent that made me start to truly consider it.
“Bandit? Come in Bandit, listen I know it has a bad reputation bu-”
“Are you fucking kidding MC? There is no way I’m going to the fucking throne, zero, zip, nada, no. That place is a haunted fucking hellscape,” I yelled over the radio.
“I know you’re not a superstitious person Bandit, and it’s not a part of your contract, it would be up to you to take it…”
I wasn’t listening to him, not really.
The Sundered Throne was the third closest planet to the sun, and it and its inhabitants were the things that parents used to scare their kids.
It was the homeworld of Humanity, or at least, all that was left of it. Every person that had ever gone to the planet and come back was a person of legend that you could count on your fingers, that or totally forgotten.
The sole ruler of Raphael, the most populous and habitable planet in the galaxy, was said to have gone there once, and the weapon he had brought back was so dangerous the golem Raphael, the golem the planet is named for, bent the knee to him so long as it never left the planet. And yet those were a tiny, insignificant fraction of the story’s that came from the planet.
The Mechanicites were said to have found something there, there had been stations that have gone dark in the nearby Trojans that supposedly had some kind of virus that came from there. Ghost ships, unnatural cosmic storms, transmissions.
Oh lord the transmissions.
Ten years ago, I had overheard one, it was comprised of two distinct sounds, the joyous laughing of children, and the horrifying screams of people in agony. Apparently, that was three days after a pirate expedition passed into the swirling vortex of clouds that blanket the planet.
The twenty seconds of sound had made me re-categorize nightmares between normal scary dreams and the ones where I was there listening to them scream.
Every time I thought about them, I was there listening to it, unable to turn the radio off.
“Bandit.”
I was there in the room a few months after I had left my parents’ house, panting and sweating at the feeling the voices carried over the radio.
“Bandit!”
I was there after trying to reconcile a way of going to sleep so I could make it to work the next day, looking for any form of protection, holding my sword and crying on a shitty bed, unable to-
“BANDIT! SNAP OUT OF IT DAMN YOU!” MC shouted, snapping me back to the panic.
It was the loudest I had ever heard him, and it made me reflexively cringe from the volume of it passing straight into my ears.
“I’m good,” I said quietly.
“You’re hyperventilating.” He told me.
I was hyperventilating, I controlled my breathing, slowing my heart rate. It took me a minute.
“I… I don’t think I want to do it, it would have to be incredibly lucrative in order for me to go for that.” I told him.
“I made sure to let him understand that he would have to haggle with you on the final price,” MC told me, “But I was able to get a lot as a starting baseline for you to consider it, 20 million, half up front.”
My brain, the poor bundle of fat, heard the word and didn’t understand it for a moment.
“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to say that again. I think you've misspoken. There’s no way that…” I started but stopped. MC didn’t joke, and he wouldn’t lie, not like this.
The idea of going wrestled with the idea of that much money in my head.
No, not 20 million credits, more than 20 million credits.
“MC, who the hell is willing to pay that much?” I asked him.
“A very eccentric Gabrielite collector, he runs some consortium on Philia and a manufacturing plant on Desmos. My suggestion, tack on a few more million, give yourself a few days off, and try and pull some strings.” He told me.
“I… I’m going to need the frequency to haggle, assuming I take the job.” I told him.
“I’ll get you a private frequency, come on in when your top side.”
I nodded again before giving him a pleasant, non-committal talk, and we signed off.
I laid back in the chair and thought about it. In all likelihood, the prior job would give me a few thousand less from the cost of used materials, fuel, electricity and ammunition and what not. It would still be a good paycheck, and I could probably rest on it for a few months if I wanted to.
Assuming I got what I wanted, which was a bunch of money from the collector that wanted the artifact, I could live off of that for years,’ a lifetime really if I was frugal. And that was the basis. I could probably try and find out if I could get paid for consumables. I would also need a method of transport, the throne was on the other side of the sun right now, if I just hoped off the station and made a break for it, it would take too long to reach it, and I couldn’t take the inter-system catapults that’s how a voidboat died.
If I was going down onto the throne, I would also need weapons and ammunition, along with a method to track the artifact down somehow, I couldn’t just waltz on down to the surface and turn on the radio.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
As I thought, I turned on the channel for the hook and asked, “A5, how long until I can I depart for the station?”
I got the time I would need to ditch. I had time to think.
I needed to re-arm, but I also needed a different weapon.
My hand cannons were great. I had modified them to work exactly how I wanted, but they had one problem.
They were chemical propellant, loud, and had a maximum and minimum effective range.
They used piezoelectric primers that triggered explosive putty, which was consistent but required preparation. They were loud, and I could be in a confined space, which would damage my hearing or require me to wear protection and limit my situational awareness. And I had two major rounds I used, plasma, and armour piercing.
Plasma was hot and exploded, not so great at close range, and armour piercing had a cover that was discarded after exiting the barrel. I couldn’t fire a full charge in a fifty calibre weapon consistently in one hand, I had broken my wrist when I tried, I had instead used less charge and made the slug go faster by using the maximum charge I could, with a decent 30 calibre shot.
If I wanted a quiet weapon with a better range in outside conditions and no minimum distance, I could go a few ways. Railguns were a theoretical option, they were still loud but were excellent with range. A higher tech weapon like a laser or plasma thrower, but those were pricy and were a rarity, and plasma was bad for your health.
A coil gun, however, would be perfect. No loud sounds, just the crack of the projectile and low cost for ammunition, Gabriel would have some, considering it was the crossroad of the solar system, longer range and able to be fired in close range.
I started planning out what I would lead with until it was time to leave.
I could face a little fear, do a job on a ghost planet, and be set for life.
I turned my thrusters back on and talked with the hook to make sure I was clear to leave.
I reversed out of the cube once I had raised my metal landing gear, rolling out and then forward onto the starting position. I upped my velocity enough that I could lift off the floor and pull up my gear, and then I was out and into the great void.
I turned on the radio and contacted the station, identifying myself and getting permission to approach so I could land on the Gull.
The dark all around me was only countered by the stars, luminous and, while countable, so numerous that it was probably considered torture somewhere. I loved the stars and the dark. If I could, I would love nothing more than to sit out in a workshop under the stars up here. But, while in theory I could, it would not get me what I wanted in life.
Adventure, a place for myself, experiences… loads of credits. These things are the things that satisfied me. If I got them, then I would probably retire to a place like that, but otherwise, I was going to stick to mercenary work.
It had a nice ring to it, mercenary, it conjured old fiction about dashing rouges and adventures.
Even if most of the jobs I did were just going to places get thing, or go to place and destroy stuff.
Go to the place and apply force was my job description.
I was getting lost in the vast dark of the void. I snapped back to it, increasing my thrust and moving around the spinning station the hook was connected to.
The hook itself was a way to lift and lower ships in a rather clever way.
Letting people hop into the hook going down gave the station additional spin and kept the station up and the gravity on.
People who came back up with loads of stuff likely rode the elevator back up, too burdened to fly high enough to reach the hook, which meant that fewer people would ride it back up and slow the station down.
It paid for itself over time and helped if the country that ran the hook if they needed to go up or down with ships.
The rotating station was covered in ports for larger voidships. I could see the three sizes of vessels that could make use of the larger slings, each capable of launching a ship outward and inward and each tied to the two moons, Philia and Desmos.
The Philian Gull, as the bird’s name suggested, was a frigate-sized voidship made on Philia, and it was even more of a brick than the Junker. Painted white to reflect radiation and adorned with the crest of the company above the country of origin, loud and proud.
It was a big rectangle with chamfers, engines on the edges and back, and places with notable mounts for rockets and guns. And on the top, nestled between guns and everything else, were docking plates for me to land on.
I moved towards the Gull, which, despite my line of sight, turned into a short thirty-minute flight until I came close enough to land on the plate labelled 8, called myself in, turned off my ship and was pulled down and into a chamber that flooded with gas.
A few minutes later, I was home free. I got out of my harness, or rather, floated out of it. I needed to get my magnetic shoes on otherwise, I would have to pull my way through the boat, then out and through the Gull.
After shutting everything down, still in the skin suit, I got back into my clothes, the shirt and pants easily went under my much baggier clothing, even if I needed to take the jacket off first to slide into them. The hold had tiny holds for me to slip a hand or foot into. I made my way to the hangar in metallic shoes and turned on the transceiver, with its one channel tuned in to pick up the Gull and, thus, MC and plugged in my headset to talk with him.
“MC, I need that frequency. I’m back on the Gull, and I would enjoy a nap in a few hours.” I told him, the sound of my voice echoing around in the hold.
“Welcome back. If you want the frequency, you can come on up to the bridge, I have everything set up, otherwise, you know where you’re going.” He told me.
“On the bridge? Is that necessary?” I asked, my feet stopping as I made my way over to the hatch.
He hummed over the radio before replying, “The signal is encrypted, collectors are rather paranoid. I don’t think you have the systems to unencrypt the signal unless you’re suddenly packing more advanced systems on the boat. I’ll keep out of your deal; don’t you worry your head.” He told me.
As strange as that was, it certainly wasn’t hard to understand. Collectors were often just very secretive and rich people. If it was possible there might be interference, an encrypted transmission could be useful, even if it was entirely imagined.
And that would increase the amount of money I could squeeze out of him.
MC keeping out of my deal was to be expected, this would technically be outside of my contract. In truth, it would technically require me to leave my contract because I would be taking a non-contracted job and I was under a non-competitive contract backed by a whole host of firms that would crush me in dept.
“So, MC, are you going to drop my contract for this? Because first and foremost, I’m not going to go if I’m going to have to get through the red tape.” I told him as I reached the door control and released the lock, turning on the powered hydraulics I had to use in zero g.
The door was even more silent without the drag of the door, the sound of the pistons almost silent.
“Yes, that is another thing I need to see you on the bridge for. When I heard about his job, I had to refuse, the others are out on a job right now, it would be the better part of a month before their jobs are done. Instead, the client suggested I put you on it personally because you already have the artifact. The company is getting paid, and I, as its leader, am getting special privileges, in effect, to relieve you from your contract.” He told me, somewhat frankly, “However, I’m not going to deny you of the upsides, considering your job is going to help us in turn, if you remember your time between contracts, you might remember that there is an additional clause where I can temporarily relieve you. You would still be a contractor, still be covered by things like insurance and whatnot, but you would no longer be under my command. It’s a military clause for a temporary relief of duty made to contracts that’s used to lease soldiers to an ally, we can renew the contract if you so choose after the period of the lease.”
“OH, that makes sense, we are mercenaries, joining in as an irregular stuff, I’m guessing?” I asked.
“Exactly, only in this case it’s not to a nation’s armed forces, but a big wig.” He said enthusiastically.
“Then let’s get the ball rolling, can I assume meals in the canteen are still on once I’m gone, old man?”
He sighed at that.
“Yes, yes, the canteen is still open, it’s closing in… 4 hours. Better hurry up here, the faster, the better.”
“Old man, first you sell me off to some rich old guy, and now you’re ordering me around like a slave? how heartless are you.” I said mock outrage so thick even Doc would pick it up.
He just sighed even louder, “Sometimes I hate you guys.”