Slev glanced at the doorway impatiently. What the fuck was going on he had been waiting for the Airmis corporate rep for three hours now. That was way to long to just be casually late to a meeting with a new client. He was getting more and more apprehensive about the meeting. Three hours is much more time than they would need to setup a kill box on the street outside. A few snipers in the windows. A combat drone or two if they wanted to be sure they got him. Of course there would be more of those elite dickheads with the high tech guns and teleporters. Slev was starting to spiral into worst case scenarios in his own head. Thankfully a very out of place figure walked through the dimly lit entry way.

A slight bipedal frame silently slipped into the room. It was adorned in greys and blacks. Thin Full body combat armor With sweeping angles and dozens of points of lime green lights dotting its arms and chest. A small square backpack set into the armor itself with tendrils of green wire's creeping from it across the entire surface of the armor. All of this was highlighted by the gently pulsing shield emitter built into his left vambrace and the cold, black ballistic glass dome, that made up it's helm.

“Oh, shit it's this fucking guy” Slev's concern just skyrocketed seeing his rather recent foe was his contact.

“It's your friend from Vorimir!” reaper chimed unhelpfully from the helmet set on the bar

The bar volume noticeably decreased as eyes started greedily following the deadly figure. Practically dripping in Priceless technology. He scanned the room his helm locked onto the large armored human nursing his fifth beer. He approached cautiously subconsciously rubbing the arm that was so recently mangled. All the eyes on him were to be expected. But it was very telling how they automatically stopped sizing him up for his gear when he made for the human. Obviously the brute had a reputation here as well. The figure paused mid step, focusing in on a small skittering alien that popped out from the helmet next to Slev. No it couldn’t be..why?.

The agent stopped several feet from Slev and just pointed at Chitters accusingly.

“Oh don't worry he's not like the other one” Slev roughly scooped up his helmet and deposited Chitters into it. Then gestured for the Corpo to sit.

Hesitantly he sat next to Slev. Obviously dumbfounded as the human began feeding the swirling mass of blades pieces of meat. With a subtle hand wave his helmet melted in on itself. Revealing three eyes set in a triangle above a mottled blue skin face. With no visible mouth. He gestured for a bar keep and pointed at a blue swirling bottle set on the top shelf.

“Mtenti neat please sir” he said in a smooth voice that emanated from his neck

“My name is Syntax” The figure offered a hand in a well practiced human greeting eyes nervously locked onto Chitters.

Slev firmly took the offered hand careful not to squeeze to hard. “Pleasure, Slev” he paused awkwardly “So about last time we met”

Syntax interrupted whatever he was about to say “There are no hard feelings the arm has been healed and we met as professionals on the field of war.”

“That's mighty gracious of you” Slev said doubtfully.

“Oh don’t misunderstand, I am not nearly that altruistic” Syntax poured a sip of the thick substance down somewhere inside his armors cowl. “I requested two full squads to return and kill you with, I was rather displeased with being forced to retreat by an unknown mercenary, but I was overruled by cooler heads.”

Slev nodded agreeably at that “Yeah I can respect that”

“But when the after action reports were examined. I was the sole survivor who had fought a trained and armed human, of all things successfully. Extracted with a not insubstantial amount of intel. A large promotion does much to assuage the rage I may have felt a week or so ago I actually volunteered to be the contact on this mission.”

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“If not for good old fashioned revenge then why?” Slev asked bluntly. He took a sip of his beer , he kinda liked this guy got a real honest vibe from him.

“Simply, clout and hazard pay, also I wanted to meet the person who, arguably bested me. How's your leg by the way.” He said with a smug tone

“HA HA HAA” Slev let out a bellowing laugh that made the bartender recoil. Shoulders still heaving he wiped an errant tear from his eye.

“Oh it smarts like a motherfucker still. I think we will get on just fine. Enough with the meet and greet what's the job, benefits, you know all the important bits.” He tapped a credit chip on the counter to impress what he really considered important.

Syntax gestured towards the privacy of the corner booths. On his way to a more inauspicious location he had to step over an unconscious octopod gently snoring directly next to the bar. He considered it odd that no one had removed the drunk invertebrate yet. Syntax settled in and pulled out a compact holographic display device setting it to privacy mode a bubble of silence enveloped the table. A few more taps on its screen sent information packets directly to Slev's wrist terminal. Slev grabbed one more frosty beer and settled in across from the agent.

“We need someone who is wholly unassociated with Airmis to assemble a team and completely remove a research station, and its contents on Uro 6, they....” He paused for a moment before continuing.

“Cerberus arms, the company you just worked for. Successfully acquired production level schematics and a prototype for teleportation technology” he said gravely, in a hushed voice “we believe they are close to reverse engineering it.”

Slevs mind absolutely reeled at the implications Teleportation technology was a brand new scientific achievement and solely owned by and manufactured by Airmis. Governments the galaxy over were paying a kings ransom to get their grubby hands on them. Teleporters were successfully ruining defenses and tactics that had reigned for centuries. He had just read about a coup that happened after a rebel group snuck a teleport anchor into a throne room. One anchor smuggled in on a food tray had defeated the defenses of an entire royal family that had held power for near a millennium, The amount of money at play here was horrific. This wasn’t just, get killed for getting involved money. This was burn an atmosphere and damn the consequences money.

“No“ Slev said simply “I don’t have an absolute death wish” this was far too deep into the bowels of the galaxies biggest money for his tastes. He wasn’t about to die for a couple hundred thousand credits.

Syntax sighed “Smarter than you look just hear me out” he waited for Slev to say anything but settled for him not immediately leaving.

Slev held up a hand “First why the hell me?”

“That bits simple, Cerberus is currently spending every single dime they have on neutralizing, distracting and preventing Airmis Counter intelligence from any progress. We have assembled three teams total so far none of them have even made it off the planet they started on.”

Syntax paused, hesitantly “I went to rather...extreme means to make sure I wasn’t followed here. The reason I am late would be the two separate ambushes I had to deal with since landing planet side. After this meeting, weather you say yes, or not, I will go hire some poor bastard. In a location we know is being watched, to cover for this meeting. I guarantee he will be dead before the day is over” Syntax practically hissed out the last bit, about signing some poor gangsters death warrant.

“Yeah why the FUCK would I want any part of that!?” Slev shouted realizing this meeting alone had put him in mortal danger.

Syntax pulled out a paper and slid it towards him “On job completion three million Credits, a working teleporter rig for your armor permanent free services and updates. Most important if you do this for us we will tell you who's ship you stole. Trust me you are in far greater peril because of that, than some petty corporate squabble” Syntax was animated and surprisingly desperate.

Slev stared at the paper, the offer they had just made him was insane. Three million was enough to get out of debt and have an entire retirement left over. A working teleporter he didn’t even know how much that was worth, but probably almost as much as the cash they offered. But what the fuck was that about who's ship he stole? He felt the greed rising in him and he didn't even try and stifle it. This, this was the best chance he would ever get. The big break folks like him dreamed about.

Slev sat in silence for a good ten minutes reading through the files on his tablet it would be near suicidal but not impossible. State of the art defenses were the minimum expected at the outpost. The entire planet was owned by Cerberus arms. Thankfully he had an in with them right now reliable contractor and all that. Hopefully it would be enough to get him planet side. But from there... christ hundreds of kilometer long tram networks dotted the surface of the planet. Offhand he couldn’t even see a way to reach the research station without hijacking a train or a military patrol ship.

“Im in, its going to take a while to put this together” Slev suddenly blurted out his heart hammering in disbelief as he said it.

Syntax sat in stunned silence for a moment “Good I'm wiring you your operating funds if you can prove you used them on the mission, it wont come out of your pay, Also the I will forward you three additional contracts at a rate of one million credits, and an advance of one quarter million each for the operatives you select...” Syntax tapped a few more buttons and the finished contracts were digitally handed to Slev as well as operating funds. "I don't want to know any details of the who, or how you plan to do this .We will not see each other or have any form of contact again until this is done."

Slev watched as the agent stood up and smoothly made his way out the back exit. His heart hammering he opened his account. The Current balance read 1,288,073 credits, sitting heavy in his account.

“Well this is literally do or die” He nervously chuckled and chugged the rest of his beer.

He walked back over to the bar and sat down with a heavy thud next to his unconscious friend. Scooping Chitters out of his helmet he slammed it into place. Then put the troublesome mantis into his side pouch It seemed to like the snug fit in there against his side.

“Reaper go ahead and pull up that do not fuck with list we have been working on for the last few years, I think we are about to go hire a few of them.”