Present time, Station Meridian, Avalon Empire space

Mobek Kaan was having a bad week. It started when he discovered that he lost his favorite laser-pistol in his ship’s quarters. He will most likely will find it somewhere on his ship, but not having it with him made him uneasy. He then got a call from client, a High Councilor of the Avalon Empire, that contacted him directly to ask for his services. He did business with whoever paid better, so when he got the information on the pay, he was astonished. His advance payment was in the eight digits, a sum he never saw in his life, but he knew that big pay meant big troubles, so he refused… at the beginning.

The man was shrewd and threaten him that he could warn some organizations of his whereabouts and that he ‘owed’ a favor to the empire. So, he ‘accepted’ the deal, but without the advance payment seeing that he was repaying a favor. He was still assured the payment but losing the advance payment in the first offer hurt. Then he was on the imperial station Meridian for two days waiting for a meeting to happen, so to past the time he played so pacienza in the mess-made-bar area of the station. He lost two thousand imperial credits at that card game and even started to wonder if the guys at the table were cheating him.

He had a bad feeling about this contract.

‘This isn’t going to be a fun ride, I can feel it’ he thought. He was now walking towards the imperial statesman meeting room. This room was were the big shots of the empire would meet about various subjects. Going through the highly secure and luxurious hallway, he had pass three security checkpoints already and ‘all’ his weapons were confiscated.

He was wearing a heavy but mobile green combat armor with brown and gray camouflage patterns on it with a simple menacing T-shape visor helmet. He was still equipped with a concealed retractable blade on each of his forearms and boot tips. He wasn’t proficient with them, but it was always a good plan to have them in case he was in a tight spot. He had also installed a mini concealed rocket launcher that would deploy from the back of his left shoulder. He could keep them since he would have to undress if he was asked to take it off, but he was obligated to turn off his suit offensive systems.

Someone could have created an armory with all the weapons he had been confiscated. This frustrated him since if he was human or a renown race, this process would have been skipped, but he was a Ratadwan, a race of the Democratic Republic Alliance. This race were white-purplish skin humanoids born with body wide birthmarks that resembled tattoos. Each mark was similar for member of the same family, but where all distinct from one another in a subtle way which help them differentiate one another. They had the peculiar trait as a race to be completely hairless. They have a shamanic base culture with great focus on tradition. They were mostly known as peaceful, so seeing one of them be a bounty hunter was very rare, even considered odd.

That’s what Mobek was, an oddity of his race, some even went to say that he was a shame to his race. Working for money as a bounty hunter, living a life of violence and participating in gambling was a taboo to his people.

Mobek didn’t care, he had his reasons and he wasn’t going to have that affect his decision. He was renown and respected in his trade and that was enough for him.

He worked for both sides in this conflict and didn’t particularly like either side. They were his clients and ideologies didn’t bring the food on the table. He got employed more often on the Avalon Empire’s side since they were open to use bounty hunters in their war, but he didn’t mind collecting some bounties for the Democratic Republic Alliance’s side too.

This time it was the empire turn to take him in and that’s all. Sure, he didn’t like how the mission was a secret, that his weapons were taken from him and the fact that he felt manipulated into accepting, but if everything went well, he knew the empire pays up. He had more difficulties getting payed by alliance clients, but in the end, they always pay up, willingly or not.

He was now in front of two elegant doors and was led in by one of the guards. Once he opens the door, he faced two people arguing with each other. To be more precise, one shouting while the other was, or seemed, indifferent.

“YOU DARE SAY IT WAS A TRIFFLING MATTER?! Killing a High Guardian because of a WHIME isn’t ACCEPTABLE!!!” shouted a red skin Sygon. The man was wearing a High Guardian armor uniform, but it was slightly different in the way that it had the added golden stripes and his cap was more elegantly decorated. He had unsheathed a Kinesis broadsword which looked thick and heavy but was strangely held easily in his hands. “You may be a minister, but TREASON STAYS TREASON!!!”

Were a very proud race that boasted great strength compared to most other races. Compared to Mobek’s race, the Sygon were respected and well accepted in the Avalon Empire. Geirosh, one of the five High Councilors of the empire was a Sygon was extremely great strength and was coupled with great biomentalist powers. Half of the High Guardians of the empire were sygonians, which was a testament of their power since being a High Guardian required high physical and biomentalist capabilities since they had to go through grueling training to be accepted in their ranks.

The sygonian was facing a robed man with a hood and golden mask. The human looking mask without a mouth had an eerie feeling to it, like it was trying to hide the true nature of something monstrous. This was not the first time he saw it and the last time he had was for business. The job was difficult and weird, and he completed it quickly since he wanted to get the hell away from him. He remembers that once he had finished unloading the package he captured, the facility holding it exploded a few hours later. He even saw the explosion while departing from the spaceport. He was happy to have rejected his offer to stay for another job.

‘Sh*t sticks… I am working with him again?! Please no…’ prayed Mobek. While thinking that, he noticed a woman, she was sitting at the furthest place from the conflict at the meeting table.

“I see nothing wrong with cullying the weak link in our ranks… Besides, he offended me, that is just cause to kill such an idiotic being…” said Vickrein with indifference.

“But you desecrated the corpse by playing puppeteer with his corpse! THAT is going too far!” The man started to literally burn up. Dark flames were emitted from him which had the temperature of the room increase significantly. Mobek eyes widen at this moment, this fire was the signature talent of one of the greatest biomentalist hero of the empire, Chief High Guardian Rav Talok.

He didn’t know what to think anymore. Was he at the right place?

“Yeah… I think I’m in the wrong room…” he whispered to himself and as he was turning around a door on the other side of the room open.

“Aaaah! I see all the players have arrived! Thank you for joining us Mobek Kaan! It is an honor!”

High Councilor Ziban entered undisturbed of the conflict of Rav and Vickrein. Smiling joyously and walking directly to the end of the table to have a seat.

However, Rav was not letting this go. “High Councilor Ziban! This piece of filthy trash of a traitorous snake that is this thing has offended the core of the High Guardians! I wish to execute him for his crimes!”

“Insulting me will only get yourself killed faster little toy soldier…” Vickrein’s voice was monotonous, but disdain could be felt. His body started to emit lightening here and there on his body.

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Tense was an understatement to describe the atmosphere of the room.

“Now, now let’s all calm down! We are all friends and we will be working together for a longtime… Well I hope not since I wish to cull this problem quick, but hey! We can’t do anything about it, bahahah!” indicated Ziban playfully. “So Chief High Guardian Talok, please let go of this… situation. For now, forgive my apprentice. He may have killed a High Guardian, but since ‘trash’ killed one of your man, then you should thank him for clearing away the weak link.”

His tone became more serious in the room, leaving a cold chill being everyone’s back. High Councilor Ziban was a man of very high importance in the Avalon Empire and a simple word from him could mean doom to anyone opposing him.

“Now let us dispense of pleasantries. Like you might have guessed it. You have all been brought together for a special assignment. All of you are great specialists in your own field in addition to being great combat assets.” He then paused. “However, this operation will be very different and is considered so important that we have to ask for outside help… Help from the Democratic Republic Alliance.”

Silence fell in the meeting room. The two faces of Rav and the woman were shocked. Mobek himself was surprised that such an eventuality could happen.

“Impossible!” declared Rav. “The Avalon Empire can deal with whatever threat comes our way! We would not need help from the disease filled cockroach that is the Alliance!”

“I must admit he is right… At most, the Democratic Republic would mostly slow us down. It would take them many ‘deliberations’ of theirs just to accept such an alliance between us.” Remarked Vickrein.

“That is not the case this time.” Countered the woman.

“I’ve been wondering when you would speak up. You have arrived before me and sat still since before not moving… You seem familiar… Have we met before?” inquired Vickrein.

“Maybe, I have been traveling a lot these few years.” Said the woman.

She was a human woman with brown hair in a French bob haircut. She had some sort of dark grey high-tech recon armor suit with green luminescent lights in different shapes on it. It seemed to be made specifically for her seeing that her body was well defined in it. You can see that on her cross-shoulder belt connected to her waist belt had many high-tech gadgets and expensive hardware. Mobek suspected that she was either well endowed with money or… She worked for the empire in intelligence or other kind of similar agencies.

He saw some folks from the Imperial Intelligence Agency. Weird people who could give you a smile and stab you in the back the next moment. Versatile and unpredictable. He didn’t have to wait long for confirmation that she was part of the IIA.

“This is Decoder Five of Imperial Intelligence. She is also known as ‘ghost’, title given to her graciously by our enemies.” Councilor had a smile spanning his face.

“Please, call me ‘V’, I would embarrass me being called by such a weird name as ghost.” the others around her nodded except for Vickrein who seemed to have lost interest in her.

“Bahaha! Don’t be ashamed of it. It is a well-earned title.” He praised, the councilor then addressed the group, “Like you see, you all have your specific talents and will need to help each other on this mission and like mentioned by miss ‘V’, the alliance has accepted to join hands in this operation. Four additional members will be part of this team. Now then, you will all be boarding a freighter arranged for you and we will all be going to a secret location to meet with our colleagues of the Alliance! YEA! Don’t you all love field trips!” Gesture exaggeratedly the councilor.

“Wait a second, I wish to know more of this ‘teaming up plan’. As far as I know, we might be going into a trap.” Interjected Mobek.

“This rat is right. He himself could backstab us knowing he has ties with them.” Said viciously Talok.

“Say what now?” Mobek was vexed by that comment. Sure, he worked for both sides, but he respected his contracts to a fault.

“You heard me scum! Having a bounty hunter of all things representing the empire is degrading saying the least!” disdainfully said Rav.

Mobek was frustrated being called such, but it was just that, frustrating. It came with the trade and he was able to deal with it since long ago. He was simply acting frustrated, so he could take this chance to leave this team seeing he had a huge disastrous foreboding about this operation.

‘A chance! Thank you, your kingly ship!’ he thought “Since you don’t like me being here and all, I’ll just leave! I got more contracts waiting for me! Many more appreciate my skills and think I am worth the price.” He turned around and started his escape… but was cut short.

“Please! Mister Kaan, stay! I insist! Your skills are incredible and most needed for this operation! Don’t listen to this block-head.” insisted Ziban

He stopped in his tracts, not because of his words, but because his body was launching alarms from everywhere. Even though the councilor had a friendly tone, something was off. He felt he was being carefully watch since the beginning, but now those hidden gazes seemed hostile. He turned around and faced the man.

“I-I would like to stay, but the Chief High Guardian doesn’t seem too keen on it…”

“It doesn’t matter what he feels. Actually, I will present you to him now.” Ziban then turned to Talok “This man was selected by me because of his pass achievements. He has worked closely with my apprentice in the past. He even captured the famous Balkarian monster for him! Captured alive and with minimal injuries to himself of all things! You must know by now who Mobek Kaan is, right? Oh! High Guardian Rav Talok.”

The sygonian seemed uneasy for a moment towards Ziban “He is a bounty hunter known to have capture or killed many high level biomentalist without being one himself. One of the best trackers in the galaxy, or so I have heard…” grumble Talok.

Being the Chief High Guardian, he had the heavy duty of being the model soldier representing loyalty and bravery, thus showing his compliance to serve the Avalon Empire and its leaders. Even though he had his reservations on High Councilor Ziban, he had to bend to his decisions, no matter how displeasing it was.

“Exactly! So knowledgeable our Chief High Guardian is!” happy said Ziban.

“Can we stop with the horseplay ‘master’? I would like to get this over with.” Said monotonously Vickrein.

“Always so unruly my apprentice! Well you are right… But a word of warning! Anyone trying to back out at this time in this operation will be killed on the spot! Replacement are never difficult to find.” Finally warned the councilor.

‘Now I understand… we are surrounded. Shit!’ Mobek was frustrated. If he still had his weapons, he would have been able to be more assertive, maybe even be able to flee. Having the empire as his enemy would not been a wise choice either, especially now since even the DRA would join in the fun to capture him.

“Is this caused by the anomalies in different quadrants of the Basani sector?” asked V.

“…Yes.” Ziban seemed surprised and seem to grow wary.

“Anomalies? There are no anomalies on the front!” declare Talok

The Basani sector was a large sector on the left flank of the Avalon empire galactic frontlines. The sector had seen some fighting, but it was not as important for both parties to occupy that sector since did not have a lot of habitable planets. Those that were, are resourced deprived or had nothing of value to both factions. Some faction bases were situated there, but they were mostly there to impede the other from flanking their armies.

In the past, the Democratic Republic Alliance had succeeded advances there with that in mind but discovered maintaining that sector was more difficult then expected. The scarcity of planets with the great distances between them in that sector had the disadvantages of costing a lot of resources to maintain a foothold there.

That is when the Alliance figured out that the empire had done that hope in mind and had kept a pressure on them to make them spend more, hitting directly their pockets with minimal resources spent on the empire’s side. After a while, the DRA decided, or rather didn’t have the choice, to pullback from their position letting the empire install some bases on some planets to hold them from advancing and keeping a minimal pressure to force the DRA to allocate some military resource there. It was now more of cold-war in that sector. Some small fights have happened, but nothing major.

However, these past months, the Avalon empire have had some losses where one of the planets harboring their forces had blown up. Experts were brought in to investigate and they concluded that the planets core was more unstable then they thought and imploded. The affaire seemed rushed and since the lost of a minor military outpost didn’t matter that much on the balance of the war in that sector, it was easily forgotten. Blame was simply put on some unknown scientist and that was it… Which didn’t seem to be the case anymore.

“There actually is Chief High Guardian.” Confirmed Ziban. “During the investigation, we were able to discover that the cause of the planets destruction was man-made. We were able to find fragments of an immense extractor machine of sorts with an unknown insignia. We do not know what was extracted of what the individuals in question were looking for, but we managed to ascertain that an unknown error happened during the extraction and caused a planetary implosion. One of your objectives will be to find out more on this.” The serious tone of Ziban expressed the dire situation.

Silence filled the room, and most were thinking about this event. The bounty hunter did not think much of it for now since he figured that he wasn’t chosen for this message for his ‘science’ expertise. So he asked plainly about the next step “So… Where are we going for this meeting?”

“Anywhere!” said the councilor. Doubt and confusion written on everyone’s face.