Uradon Pim -The moon of Tansental- remote security station 7

The Charoke nervously licked its eyes, as it stared, mouth agape and slightly dripping at its security screens. The alert had gone off for one of the contracted sites. He waved a blubbery hand towards the greenish holo controls, focusing the cameras onto the site in question, Loradin's scrapyard. An alert was not an abnormal occurrence. But an alert followed by a legally verified override was exceedingly rare. It meant either someone had offended the planetary conglomerates enough to authorize a raid. Or the bounty guild had called in some favors.

He turned an even paler shade of green as he opened the files attached to the override command – Bounty Loradin Pim confirmed on location , Hunter asset Slev Torrent confirmed on location, any activation of alarms, or independent calls from this station to the Loradin scrapyard constitute an obstruction of Tansental Judiciary proceeding, and will be prosecuted-

This was bad, The whole reason Uradon Pim was managing this particular contract was because his uncle Loradin, had promised the contract to Remote 7. On the explicit condition that Uradon was the observer, “a Charoke I can trust is a must!” were Loradin's exact words. Uradon took a few deep, slow wheezing breaths through his side gills, turning a more healthy shade of green, he wouldn't let his uncle down. He started loading the specifics of the hunter. Quickly, he pulled out a spare, disposable Comm relay he kept for occasions just like this.

He had the Comm relay half way to his head when he froze as two things happened, first, the hunter practically materialized from the shadows of a scavenged ship fuselage, almost oozing from the darkness of its shadows. Then the Personnel file for the hunter chimed as it opened. They had sent a Voids Damned human after his uncle! He didn't even know that any of those horrors were lurking on the planet.

Uradon began wheezing in panic as the figure on screen stepped into the light cast off by an unattended hull welding torch. It was far worse than anything he had even imagined. Cold metallic black armor clung to its predatory figure. Both form fitting and bulky nothing but angles and malice and, by the gods, its head! Where there should have been a visor or at least a view port on its helmeted head, he only saw the grimacing skull of some...thing...etched in cold black metal. Then the creature dominating his screens crouched suddenly into the cover of a mangled escape pod, and began some savage ritual, repeatedly slamming its closed grasper against the side of that grim death mask.

Slev Torrent -Tansental- planet side

“Shut the fuck up!” Slev punched the side of his helm one more time for good measure.

Reaper practically cackled in its synthetically cheerful voice “New contact detected sir!”.

“For the last fucking time. Heat slugs are not goddamn contacts! Deactivate all sensor alerts for the remainder of this godforsaken mission!"

With an almost dejected tone, the suit AI relented, “As you wish, sir all alerts are off, if you expire, I will notify the guild.”

Slev grumbled. Now reaper was just being purposely petty. "Alright, gear check." Slev touched the two very expensive micro grenades at his belt and took a quick glance at the ammo readout on his Terran rail rifle. He adored this monstrous rifle. But he needed to avoid using it if possible. Shooting through a supposedly reinforced wall and out into an automated shuttle craft, was why he was forced to do this fucking frog hunt in the first place.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He had quite Literally knocked one of Loradin's ex wife's shuttles out of the sky. She however was more than happy to ignore the damages, if one of the famed humans would take on her ex husbands bounty contract. Apparently, the greedy frog had been avoiding the intergalactic equivalent of alimony payments for months. None of the non human guild members had wanted the risk of taking on a known gang member, for what was a rather measly reward.

Slev sighed deeply and looked out across the greasy scrapyard. A greenish Grey haze of pollution and questionable atmosphere permeated this place. Half a dozen unevenly placed, jagged scrap piles and a few dozen rows of neatly crushed shuttles, gave him ample cover to make it to the main building. The visibility was crap in this polluted fog, and there was at least one Charoke guard waddling around out there. “Reaper thermal on.”

The world blossomed into dull reds and oranges as he launched himself into motion, closing the gap to the first large scrap pile sliding in under a partly crumpled wing. Easing slowly around the corner of the wing, his sidearm out, he scanned the stacks ahead of him, Slev's pulse suddenly pounding a drumbeat in his ears, as he saw the telltale glow of crimson on his thermals. He paused for a moment, scanning the rows ahead for more contacts. Nothing else was moving, so he stalked forward into the head high stacks. Stopping just a meter or so shy behind the glowing figure. He whispered “Thermal off.”

Slev paused a moment behind the rather oblong creature, and quietly chuckled. They really do look like an overgrown space toad was stuffed into overalls. Then, with a flash of motion, he brought the chitinous elbow of his armor, crashing into the base of what passed for this creature's skull. The blow slammed it through the window of a scavenged shuttle door. The Charoke's bulbus frame hung halfway through the pane, utterly still and oozing a blueish green substance.

“Oh shit!“ Hopefully it wasn't dead, or that was going to be a lot of paperwork. With barely any effort he picked up the limp space frog, and unceremoniously stuffed it into one of the nearby waste bins. As he turned around from the bin, he found himself staring at a severely hyperventilating Charoke with a fucking Rippergun in its trembling hands.

“Free...freeeze” was all it managed to stutter out in galactic. After a moment staring down the three decidedly deadly barrels of the ripper, Slev slowly and placatingly raised his hands. "Yeah, how about no? Godamn I'm lucky these guys are so stupid” Slev purposefully muttered, just loud enough for the panicked alien to hear.

While the Charoke was still pondering what the awful creature had growled at it in Terran. Slev exploded into motion, diving to his left while drawing his sidearm. He hit the ground hard and took a solid second to line up his front and rear sights on the massive pistol, knowing the Charoke's reaction time would be laughably lacking. It turned towards him just in time to see the massive flash of light and the thundering retort before its entire top half more or less liquified under the kinetic impact.

“Holy shit...that was.. wow.” Slev said dumbfounded.

He knew that would be overkill on an unarmored target. But he didn’t know that Charokes would literally just pop like a damn water balloon.

"Reaper, you fucking asshole, why didn’t you tell me there was someone behind me.”

"Sir, do you wish for me to reactivate notifications?” Reaper chimed smugly.

Stifling the chuckle at the admittedly rather clever comment from the murderous AI. Slev began a mad dash down the columns of scrap, slamming into cover at the last row before the main building. The whole tower of scrap careened precariously at his armored bulks impact. “Fucking low gravity” he mumbled, steadying the stack with his free hand. Ahead, he saw the front of a large tan building. One ostentatious display window with a bright red hover craft of questionable quality beyond it. To the right of the display window was a set of double doors, with a gaudy pink neon sign sizzling in the haze directly above them.

“Alright reaper, do your magic, sensor contacts on, no slugs.”

“Wonderful sir, three lifeforms in the building. Based on rapid moment and several spiking energy signatures, I believe they know we are here.”

Slev looked down at the still slightly orange barrel of his sidearm. “yeah..that's fair.”