"Sir! I had my men dig up as much as we could on the fugitives, just like you asked." Lyanus' chief officer of operations approached the general as he sat in the captain's chair on the bridge of the Blitznought, the Galaxy's mightiest warship.
"What did you find?" He spoke from the side of his mouth whilst he was busy setting routes and rendezvous on the console in front of him.
"Robert Cornealius Junior, that's the name of the bounty hunter. You might know of his father Robert Cornealius senior, or as he's most commonly known, Big Bobby C."
"The pirate Commodore!" Gladius exclaimed.
"Precisely, Bobby junior used to run small skirmishes for his old man, but after a falling out he got thrown in the imperial prison and was left to rot.
Bobby Senior obviously wasn't much of a family man.
Anyway after serving five of his ten years he got let out on the promise of helping the conglomerate take down some of his old pirate buddies.
He helped take down his own father and his own family's renegade pirate kingdom.
Obviously no love lost there.
He's been one of the galaxy's finest hunters since."
The general switched his full attention to his operations officer.
"Hmmm he was pretty smooth with the glider… and he knows his way around a las gun. What about the other two? The psychotic and the monkey?" Lyanus asked.
"From a furr sample we've, found that the monkey is the only living specimen from a long extinct species, the Hynx of Verdan I. Presumably born in a lab, how it found its way to the other two, we have no idea."
He hesitated for a moment before chuckling.
"But sir, this Hans Dangerfield… he is a completely different story altogether…"
The general became impatient.
"Get to the fucking point." He barked.
"Well sir there was nothing on him in the peacekeeper records, he was a ghost, blank slate. I thought he was just a lowlife from the outer realms, where no census takes place, but I dug deeper and…"
"And what officer! You are beginning to try my patience." Gladius' stare sliced through the man.
"Well sir, what do you know of the Talos projects? Or the Trallofer incident?"
Gladius raised his eyebrows.
The operations officer chuckled in excitement.
"Well sir prepare yourself, this is quite the tale."
"Doctor Dangerfield, your family has arrived." A pretty young blonde woman with perky features to match her bright personality wearing a lab coat said.
Doctor Hans Dangerfield, distinguished scientist and bio-engineer, was hard at work in his lab on the Conglomerate science station, Trallofer.
A file labelled, 'Talos 3.1' was open on the desk in front of him as he looked down into a microscope.
Spread on the lab table adjacent to him was the still live and twitching, de skinned body of an outerworlds savage war prisoner.
He was conscious but everything was set up so only his eyes could move as his body was frozen on the table by a mixture of drugs and electrical signals being transmitted into his motor cortex.
"Ah thank you Lareen, I will be there in just a moment." He replied while still looking down the microscope.
"How is Talos coming? Have you found a stable formula?" Lareen asked, leaning in closer to him on the lab table.
"Not quite… I mean the cyber rna and dna are being accepted by various hosts and I'm getting the physical results I want… but I cannot seem to find a solution to a stable psyche… all of the subjects seem to degrade mentally, beginning with the hypothalamus and spreading…" he stood to face Lareen, who wore a bright red lipstick and dark eyeliner over her expression of confusion.
"Basically I have the cure for everything with the only downside being that you turn into a ridiculously strong but violent toddler."
Lareen giggled.
"That sounds amazing." She said excitedly.
"Oh its nothing… nothing in comparison to what you did to me last night… what do you say 8 o clock sharp, my quarters? I'll make dinner." Hans said with a grin as he walked up close to the woman.
She blushed.
"Oh Hans… I don't know if I should… you being married and all… and my job!" She said, allowing Hans to hold her in his arms.
"Oh don't worry, strictly bussiness… I love the work you've been doing and I can't see why you ought not be recognised properly… how does assistant director Lareen Hansler sound to you?" He said.
Her eyes popped open in excitement.
"Really Hans?" She exclaimed.
"Come by tonight and we'll talk it over."
He said as he took off his bloody apron and gloves before walking out of the room.
"Daddy!" A teenage girl broke away from the side of her mother and ran to embrace Hans who walked into the entrance of the research facility.
"Haha! Iris! Grow anymore and we'll have to raise the ceilings!" Hans said as the teenager giggled.
"Yeah whatever." She had the same blue eyes as her father but her mothers raven black hair and fair complexion.
He loved his daughter, it pained him not to be able to see her more often.
But duty called, and the conglomerate never skips a beat and so neither should their top scientist.
"Darling, so nice to see you!" Phoebe Dangerfield walked over and kissed Hans on the cheek.
She was still a beautiful woman but age had taken its toll with crows feet and laugh lines appearing on her once so pristine face.
"Honey, I'm so glad you two could visit! It’s been naught but work here. Busy non stop." He replied as he held his family close.
He could not look his wife in the eyes with a clear conscious though.
"You girls must be famished, come lets get to the cafeteria, now I don't mean to speak out of hand but I swear the best custard tarts in the galaxy are served here." He said jovially as he gestured his family down the hall.
After a while of catching up Hans showed Phoebe to his living quarters and took Iris down to his lab to show her his work.
"Daddy! What's wrong with that man!" Iris yelled in alarm when they entered the lab.
"Don't worry dear, he's just an outer realm scum. He's done much worse to others than we're doing to him. Besides with those electrodes in his brain he can't feel a thing unless I want him to." Hans explained clinically.
He then went to his console, proudly showing his beloved daughter his work.
Embellishing in the details.
Iris was a curious young lady and seemed intrigued.
She asked many questions, which of course Hans answered in full detail as he continued his work.
He told her of his project and how it would revolutionise not only technology and medicine, but it would change what it meant to be alive in this universe.
He told her of how close he was to a breakthrough, to changing history.
She naturally felt proud of her father, the benevolent kind man who was helping the galaxy to a better future in her eyes.
"Haha!" Hans exclaimed after a while of silent work on the microscope and computer.
"What! What?" Iris excitedly asked.
"What is it daddy?"
"Well, I'm not sure, we'll just have to see…" He took out three syringes and filled them with the newly formulated talos formula.
Then he injected it into the thyroid of the test subject.
The two of them waited in apprehension for a moment.
Suddenly the console began to beep rapidly and his vitals started to change.
"What's happening daddy?"
Hans rushed to the computer as the subject began to shake violently in his bonds, even through all of the sedation.
"His body's deciding whether or not to allow the synthetic genetic material… this version is more flexible to the mind but less stable in the body…."
After a moment the beeping stopped and the subject stopped moving.
"Seems he is stable… Now it's time for the real test."
Hans grabbed a syringe of hemotoxin extracted from the sabre snakes of Ligo three.
He then injected it straight into the test subject's brain.
"Now come watch the magic darling!" He said excitedly as he huddled over the computer screen.
The screen showed a rapidly growing blood clot in the man's brain.
"Is he dying daddy!" Iris queried with worry.
"Just watch…. And hope…" he responded with.
The clot kept growing and growing until out of nowhere, bio-enhanced immune cells materialised all over the clot and even from within it to destroy it and all the others that began to form in the body until the toxin was then processed in the man's liver.
His vitals re-stabilised.
"Haha! I did it! Its stable!" Hans began to dance euphorically around the lab with his daughter.
"Do you know what this means Iris! I've created a biologically engineered guardian angel! Disease! Age! Injury! All of those are behind us now! Hahaha."
Iris giggled, not truly comprehending the gravity of the situation.
"So what now dad?" She asked, she seemed proud yet tired from being in the lab all day.
Hans clasped her by the shoulders and smiled.
"Go to your mother, you've earned a rest." He said with a grin as he gestured her to the door.
She smiled and hurried out.
As soon as she left Lareen walked up beside Hans and grabbed him by the crotch.
"Nice work doctor… but I know somewhere you can do better work…" she said seductively.
Hans turned to her and smiled but just as he was about to kiss her a small tremor shook them where they stood.
"What was that?" He said in a hushed alarm.
Suddenly a much bigger tremor shook the room and threw the two akimbo.
The alarms began to blare and the dull thuds of blast cannons could be heard assaulting the forcefield around the building.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"Iris, Phoebe!" He quickly threw Lareen off of him and rushed to his family.
He was knocked about by more tremors and debris falling all around him. He flailed about screaming the names of his family.
"Iris! Iris! Phoebe! Where are you?"
He made it to his living quarters where the women were bracing and cowering under a table.
"Oh thank god! Here come on, we have to get out of here, I think the building is under attack!" He said as he gestured them out from under the table and led them down a hallway.
The building was located across a field from the shipyards, that's where Hans was headed… if he could get him and his family out of the building in one piece.
Running through tremors and dodging debris they made their way through the building.
"Aaaaghhhh! Help!" Lareen's bloodcurdling scream could be heard up ahead.
The family of three made it near the entrance and hid behind a wall.
"Hehehe what have we here…" a deep, rough voice emanated from around the corner.
The family peeked around the corner.
"Ooh she's pretty boss." A weasley higher pitched voice added in before the bigger man slapped him down whilst holding Lareen up in his other hand.
"My eyes work fine Vince." He said with a predatory grin as the cyber enhanced Juggernaut twirled the woman around in his other hand.
"And she is just a treat…" he said, reaching his other hand up to Lareen's squirming face.
"Stop it! Let go of me!" She began kicking and crying but to no avail other than the laughter of the outer world marauders.
Savages from outside the Conglomerate.
Primal people who rejected the notions of unity within the galaxy.
He began to grip her lab coat with his other hand, smiling devilishly whilst doing so.
"Stop it! Somebody help!"
Hans was frozen by fear and he squeezed his daughter and wife close to him as he sheltered in cowardice behind the wall.
What will they do if they find us! Oh no, I can't let them see us, I don't want to die! Oh my poor sweet Iris! And Phoebe, my dear Phoebe, the guilt is killing me more than anything right now…
"Let her go!" Iris ripped herself from her parents embrace and threw a small piece of concrete debris at the assaulter.
"Well what do we have here?" The tank holding Lareen mused as he threw her to the cackling crowd behind him.
"Don't you dare!" Phoebe rushed out to her daughter's side with a fierce look on her face.
Hans was frozen.
What the hell are they doing!
He was about to reluctantly jump to their side when a laser shot was fired from the side entrance.
Suddenly, Phoebe dropped to the floor, a bleeding hole now present in her head.
"Mom!" Iris screamed.
As she held her dead mothers corpse on her knees.
Hans was shocked.
I feel… empty as if I have lost something so very important, yet also my guilt has been seemingly relieved… I feel… nothing… I must think fast…
Mustering the minute modicum of bravery he had as person, he grasped a syringe from his pocket, jumped out at his daughter and plunged the syringe into her neck.
She spasmed for a moment and fell limp in his arms.
His heart was racing and he knew he would probably die, but at least he had saved his daughter.
"You're okay… You're okay… shhhhhh" he consoled her as she flailed out of consciousness for a moment.
"Well… what have we here…" Phoebe's murderer stepped out of the shadows and into the centre of the broken room.
He was a wide framed, slender looking man.
He was draped in old leathers and wore a black feathered hat that shadowed his face.
Hans could see his eyes glowing green with shotty back alley cyber enhancements.
He was obviously the captain, all others went quiet when he entered and gave him a wide berth of space.
"Who… are you?" He asked in a voice as smooth as silk, addressing Hans.
Hans did not answer for a moment, merely just stared back, stupefied by fear.
"D-d-doctor Hans Dangerfield…" he finally responded.
"Huh, Doctor Hans Dangerfield huh, a man of worth perhaps? nah… I don't think so… because… to me, you look like a coward. Who let a woman take a bullet for a girl before lifting a finger… and then coming out here to give the girl an easy way out before she could decide."
"No…" Hans stammered out.
"I see a weasel, a worm a no good gutless fuck stain. Just like the rest of these oppressive Conglomerate types." He mocked Hans as he slid in closer.
"No…" Hans whimpered again, lowering his head as the captain got closer and closer.
The Captain closed Iris' eyes after studying them for a moment, thinking the girl was dead.
He then gently placed his black gloved hand on Hans' chin and guided his head up, making Hans' eyes meet his own.
The glowing green pierced deep into Hans' psyche and riddled his mind with despair. His face was rather angelic in nature, fine sharp features and long curly black hair.
Hans found his presence somewhat comforting in a way that made him more terrified.
"She was your daughter wasn't she?" He asked calmly.
Hans began to sob.
"Y-y-yes…"
"Shhh, shhh don't you worry, I will do her the justice she deserves." He said as he stroked Hans' face and stood slowly.
"Break his legs and tear his arms off, make sure he lives long enough to starve to death whilst looking at this poor young woman's face. Do what you will with the blonde but do not lay a finger on either of these corpses, understand?" He ordered his crew.
"Noo!" Hans screamed as he started sobbing, fear gripping his mind completely, sending him hysterically delirious.
Suddenly out of nowhere, Iris sprung back up and attacked the captain.
He was a wiley fellow and dodged, he then moved to the other side of the room with his crew.
Iris stood, her eyes bloodshot and her veins popping.
She was huffing and puffing but seemingly ready to move, and at blinding speed.
"Well well what have we here? Well played sir. Is this your latest experiment? A super powered teenage girl?" The captain mused and the rest of the crew
"I-Iris?" Hans' trembling voice came from behind the girl.
The girl whipped her head back violently.
A look of fear seemed to be at the corner of her eyes but what was most apparent was rage, raw unyielding rage.
"YOU KILLED MY MOM!" She jumped at the gang of marauders who opened fire on her.
They were stunned at how she kept advancing, her wounds healing nearly as quickly as they were made.
She made it to the brute who had tormented Lareen earlier.
He threw a punch but she caught it in her mouth and chewed the monstrous mans fingers off.
He bellowed in agony but she did not stop there.
She jumped upon him and seemed to take pleasure in mauling the man's face until he was a bloody twitching mess underneath her.
The rest of the crew was stunned motionless for a moment.
The captain quickly acted and shot her in the tailbone and base of the skull, paralysing her for a moment before he put an electrostasis charge on her back. Keeping her captive by continuously shocking her nervous system with thousands of watts of electricity.
An effective detainment strategy.
Everybody stood still and silent for a moment other than Iris gurgling and drooling in pain on the floor.
"Hmmmm… we take her with us, break his legs, take his right arm but leave his left arm unharmed. He protected his daughter and deserves one slim chance at either ending his wretched life or somehow surviving to be just as disgusting outside as he is inside. Sack the building though, grab everything of value and be careful with all biohazards." The captain ordered before walking over to Hans.
"You're not as bad as I had thought, but you are still a coward and I would not be satisfied with myself if you were not properly punished." He kneed Hans in the face, breaking his nose and jaw.
Also depriving Hans of a fair portion of his teeth.
As the captain walked away another skinny fellow who was all sharp angles and jagged edges came to him and went to work.
He thoroughly crushed all of the bones in Hans' legs with a sledgehammer before taking out a serrated saw and began to embellish in slowly taking Hans' right arm from him.
He screamed in agony until he couldn't hear himself over the pain.
He sobbed until there were no more tears left and his tear ducts ran raw.
After it was all done the wound was cauterised to make sure he did not bleed out.
"And I leave you with this Dr Dangerfield." The captain left a las pistol with enough charge for one shot on the other side of the room.
"If you can withstand the pain from crawling over here, you've earned your death. Now good bye sir, may you never crawl under my boot again." He said before leaving the building, his crew followed quickly behind before the whole place was left in silence.
His first few moments on the ground were spent writhing in agony with thoughts accompanying.
Pain! Pain! Pain!
After a while of this, it switched to self petty and grovelling in the rubble.
My wife… my career… my Lareen..
They took my daughter…
His thoughts grew desperate after a while.
The conglomerate will come, the conglomerate will come, have faith… they always come… be patient… They took my daughter! The conglomerate will come… where are they?
A few more hours passed and the pain was all he could think of.
It would not stop.
Pure prolonged agony.
Where are they! Why have they not come! They took my daughter! Maybe they saved her? Where are they…
A day later and nobody had come, his thoughts now became hysterical.
Where are they! It's too much, I have to end it! I have to end it! Where are they? Why have you forsaken me?! They have my daughter…
He began to painfully drag himself by his one arm across the debris and toward the gun.
Each movement casting his entire being into a maelstrom of pain and suffering.
A few hours later he had made it to the gun but his thoughts had begun to converge.
They took my daughter… They took my daughter. They took my daughter. THEY TOOK MY DAUGHTER!
"THEY TOOK MY DAUGHTER!" he yelled out.
The pain was monstrous but he found it somewhat manageable now.
He looked down the hall and could just see the door to his lab at least a hundred yards down.
Inch by inch, scrape by scrape Hans made his way down the dark, debris filled hallway.
"THEY TOOK MY DAUGHTER! THEY TOOK MY DAUGHTER!" He yelled over and over again as the hours went by.
He made it to his lab within the next half a day.
He dragged himself onto his bench top and took the last syringe of the talos serum.
And with a devilish, unhinged, tear filled, blood soaked grin, he injected himself with it.
The next few years was a bloodthirsty rampage through the outskirts of the galaxy.
Hans tore his way through towns, stations, villages and entire cities.
Burning, destroying and killing all who were in his way as he searched for his daughter.
He eventually met the captain that had dealt him his fate.
"Remember me slick!" He yelled as he held the captain's broken body aloft as he stood on the bridge of the captain's burning ship.
"Hmmm… if it isn't Doctor Dangerfield hahaha. Say you look much better these days" He said with his usual swagger.
"Ha-ha that's fucking right! Now where the fuck is my daughter! Where is Iris!" He demanded.
The captain smiled.
"I had you completely wrong doctor, it seems you do have a little constitution to you." The captain said calmly.
"If you don't tell me where she is! I will rip your fucking head off!" The beast that Hans had become yelled at the top of his breath.
"Well it seems I am toast either way so… we left her in a tavern on Judek II. Turns out a super powered regenerating teenage girl is rather… difficult to deal with so I sold her for a casket of rum and three wenches for the night… You know what they say, hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn."
Hans' desperation and ire took over his psyche and he squeezed the captain's skull until it popped.
Hans, thinking all hope was lost, went to Judek II and when he found Iris was not there he began to drink his woes away.
Although he had healed physically, he still carried all of that pain with him.
"Holy hell…" General Lyanus was astounded by the file.
He sat in silence for a moment.
"We have to find him, and take him out. He was a Conglomerate scientist so he's our responsibility. I won’t have him terrorise Conglomerate space any longer." He said as he sat back in his captain's chair thoughtfully.
"Do we have a heading sir?" The operations officer asked.
"Look for recent invasions, that's our first priority, try get a lock on that hunter's glider though… see if we can kill two birds with one stone… that will be all officer." He said as he let his thoughts drift, dismissing the officer with a wave of his hand.