Boletela The Ancient- Tansental Moon- Remote Security Station 7

He watched as the submissive worker pulled up a very detailed recording of the scrapyard from the day of the battle. Dozens of angles were available. Immediately, his eyes locked onto a familiar, sleek, deadly form on the top leftmost screen. There she was, his ship. The efforts of a dozen of the galaxy's finest craftsmen Designed with his very life song etched painstakingly into the walls themselves. He had spent years tenderly going over every single detail during its design. Wood from his home world, silver from his village, metal from his first conquest. This would be the ship he explored the fringes of space in. Until time finally took him, he had long ago given up on a worthy death in battle.

The armored, black form of something crept into view on the edges of the recordings. Ahh...there is the one who waded through those weaklings. Boletela watched in rising anticipation as the armored figure swept through the salvage yard like a hurricane of blood and bone. His breath quickened as the warrior breached into the building, defiling those who stood in its way with contempt. And finally, after all these years of boredom, he felt all three of his hearts' thrum powerfully. As the black-armored warrior laid a hand on his ship. His finger jabbed out at the armored figure on the screen so powerfully that the display cracked.

“What is that!?” His head snapped towards Uradon, a manic snarl on his lips.

Uradon was shivering, licking one eye after the other, transfixed on the screens ahead of him. “So much blood....” Uradon composed himself enough to look towards Boletela. “That...that's the human, his name is Slev... I can tell you whatever you want, please, just ...spare me.”

The rasping crackle of death itself whispered out to Uradon, “Yes..tell me...everything of my prey..” Boletela paused, “Do..not fear little tadpole..I have no reason to slay you,I do have need of a guide on this hive of scum. You..have spent your time observing I could use that knowledge of the locals and customs. As you can imagine, few speak to me freely.”

Uradons mind reeled in sheer utter soul crushing panic. Trying to think of any way to get out of this alive, he didn't have any ideas. He choked out, “O...of course sir...” and then utterly without thinking, "What's my pay scale? Do I have medical?”

The room grew uncomfortably still as Uradon and Boletela both absorbed what the little frog had brazenly blurted out.

Boletela was incredibly amused. This pathetic little creature either had vast bravery stuffed deep down inside its slimy body somewhere. Or was the most laughably greedy underling he had met in a very long time. He could make good use of either.

Slev Torrent – Tansental – Central Spire East Star-dock

Slev took a deep breath and focused on the multicolored visual targeting alerts reaper was showing him. Since gunfire was raining down on his cover from the offices above him and pinging off the lip of the roof all around him, He was going to consider everyone still in the vicinity as very,fucking,hostile. He pulled his rail rifle off its magnetic mount across his back.

"Reaper, unless the sounds you are picking up are from a fucking puppy, just mark everything as a hostile!” As if to punctuate that statement, a smattering of energy shots slagged the corner of his cover and singed the back of his hand with a wicked sizzling sound.

“Ow. Fuck! I am over this shit! Come check out the smuggler it will be fun! Get ambushed by who the fuck knows, can't I just get a normal goddamn job? In and out, one guy, a single job where I don’t get shot!” Slev angrily ranted as he lined up the rail rifle at a target highlighted through the floor.

“I think you might need a psychological evaluation. Your emotional response to danger appears to be too much talking and not enough killing,” reaper loudly informed Slev over the snapping crack of a rail round puncturing through the floor.

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"Oh, really, not enough killing?! Fuck you fine!” Slev angrily reached out with his magnetic gauntlet and yanked an armored Charoke on a distant rooftop out of cover. Then he mercilessly drilled two quick rail rifle shots into the Charoke, all that was left was a leg and a very large, gushing green puddle.

“Better? you bitter, bitter piece of code?”

“Inefficient use of ammunition, but better than the endless whining” reaper conceded.

Slev stood out of cover. Taking a skidding shot across his forehead. Shaking his head to clear the ringing, he targeted the offender behind the rooftop cargo crane it was using as cover. The first crack punched through but missed, the second shot annihilated the bottom strut of the crane assembly. Dropping it onto the shooter, taking cover under it, and then sending it crashing through two more buildings lower in the stack. A surprising number of contacts winked out of existence as the crane rocked to a halt at ground level.

“Much more efficient use of ammunition” Reaper praised before highlighting the last active contacts that were not fleeing the actively collapsing offices.

There was a cluster of four contacts inside the bottom leftmost converted storage container. It looked like it had been put to use as a garage, and the ambushers were putting the small shuttle cars to good use as hard cover. Slev lined up his sights on the nearest car, planning to just shoot at the target reaper had painted through its cover. That plan fell apart the moment an enterprising Charoke came careening out of the shuttle doors, madly driving an open-topped vehicle. The driver began swerving in strafing lines between the abandoned stacks of cargo as his passengers laid down an endless torrent of ruby laser fire from a heavy weapon that had been quickly slapped into its open bed.

That's actually kind of awesome,” Slev begrudgingly admitted after he dived back to the safety of the far side of the roof. The entire dock-facing wall of his metal office was starting to melt under the mounted weapon fire.

Slev heard a faint cackling sound down below, followed by the demonic screeching of what was essentially a golf cart's wheels sliding. The fire had not subsided at all.

"Reaper, can you just highlight the cargo mule engine? I'll pop it through the floor." Slev did not want to peek over the edge into that waterfall of laserfire.

He lined up another careful shot and was halfway to pulling the trigger when the entire container he stood on rocketed sideways, brutally at the force of an explosion. The entire container tottered precariously, and Slev started sliding, unable to grab onto the smooth metal. He launched himself clumsily down onto a rooftop below moments before Conrad's office tipped over backwards and began a slow, crushing descent to the floor. He looked in astonishment at one of the cackling Charokes, who had produced a missile launcher of some kind and appeared to be trying to wave, or maybe he was just reloading slev couldn’t quite tell.

“Who are those three maniacs?” Slev wondered aloud, looking at the frogs as they weaved precariously around another stack of crates. Slev dropped down onto a walkway and threaded his way into the narrow space between the offices, stuffing himself out of view.

“I will attempt to identify them, do you have a plan other than waiting for death?"

Slev squeezed a bit farther into the gap. Stealth is a valid plan... Those guys do not fuck around....give em a bit..they will fall for the old. He's dead we did it, we slayed the monster”

Reaper let out a grating sigh, then, then in an ever so condescending tone, “Do you...have the the time to hide or did you...happen to need to possibly go save Conrad's daughter before she is brutally executed for his 'betrayal'. Also, Conrad is fine. Good of you to notice sensors show he had climbed to an adjacent building before the rocket strike...” there was a poignant pause “ I have also identified the three Charoke currently beating you senseless they are independent mercenaries hired by the dockyard itself."

Slev paused. He hated to admit it, but Reaper was right. They needed to get moving. "I have an idea.”

"Oh, joyous day, every time you say that I am closer to finally receiving a new wielder” reaper shot back.

Slev stepped out of cover, waving a white flag, his rifle held, pointing down nonthreateningly. One of the charoke gunners immediately noticed and slapped at the other two until they looked where he was pointing. The strobes of probing fire stopped, and the cargo mule came to a rest a few dozen meters away, all weapons pointed at him. Slev gestured at his wrist console emphatically.

Slev used his helmet to magnify his volume. “So. How about we call it quits? You guys win this round, I dont get blown up? And you ignore the commotion about to happen in dock 70?”

The Charokes looked down in surprise as all three of their communications devices chimed. The driver checked his message and then excitedly waved at Slev, giving him a hand gesture he assumed was a thumbs up.

The one hoisting up an anti shuttle missile launcher looked up from his Comm “Dock 70 is a private dock we aren't contracted over there. I wouldn’t show up anyway, pleasure doing business with you. Molock, drive us over to engineering we need to get these 'mysterious' fires put out.” With that apparently settled, they simply drove away.

Slev let out a huge sigh of relief. He had just wired them a temporary mercenary contract. It was very simple 12,000 credits each, with a big STOP SHOOTING YES/NO condition on it. That wasn’t ideal, but he was running out of 'sane' ideas to deal with the weirdly proficient security team. He ambled his way down to a walkway and saw Conrad bruised and battered on an adjacent grate. Slev figured it was fine to leave him here for now and started jogging his way down the stairs. He suddenly stopped, and an obvious thought stuck him like a thunderbolt.

“Hey Conrad! Can you show me how the hell to get to Dock 70?"