Continued From Part 5

Balinski nodded and waved as the two left the room with the medical cart. Shrugging his shoulders, he started to lean down to pick up his vest and coat off the floor and stopped as his ribs shifted slightly. He groaned and looked over to Siyel.

"Uh, a little help here?" He asked with a pained expression.

She rolled her eyes and asked "What the Hel were you thinking running in here with no backup…" she held up a hand as he tried to protest "Caesar doesn't count, and you know what I meant." She added sternly.

He just looked down at his ballistic vest and frowned to himself.

As he remained silent she threw her arms in the air and then spoke into her assistant "Command one to delta squad, is the prisoner secured?" She nodded to herself as an indistinguishable voice replied through her ear comm. Looking up at him she asked "I know you like to do things your way, and I always appreciate your honesty Balinski. But does my opinion really mean so little to you?"

He shuffled a bit before he turned around and said "No, it's just, well I was right here and I had the shot. I didn't want to wait around for backup to show up and potentially lose them." He said honestly.

She frowned and replied "And that was only a problem because you didn't share the lead you had in the first place." He nodded sheepishly and she growled in frustration. "You are aware that you operate under my jurisdiction right? You aren't above the law, nobody is."

"I'm only giving them what they deserve." He retorted immediately.

"Ah yes, your permanent justice. I respect it, I wish we could be more proactive at times. But this is the real world Balinski. You need to be more cautious." She told him as she walked to his vest. Leaning down, she gathered up the clothing and placed it on the nearby desk.

"Thanks." He grumbled. "You know I wasn't trying to cause problems. I just wanted to get it done as fast as possible." He added.

She let out a chuckle and gestured to him. "And look at the state that it left you in. Quick and dirty is all fine and dandy in the right situation. But you do that when your life's on the line and you are liable to get hurt, worse than this. Maybe even dead. I don't want to see you dead Balinski, I don't." She said as she leaned against the desk next to him.

He opened his mouth to speak then thought better of it. His mother had raised him not to speak if he had nothing to say, and it was time he listened to her advice. With a slight groan he pulled his shirt on and got his arms through, he then gingerly put on his heavy trench coat. He left the ballistic vest on the table top, if he tried to put it on he might not be able to get it off himself.

As he finished and turned back towards Siyel he said "I'm sorry. Okay? It was my hubris that led me to think I could do it on my own, I should have asked for your help. I see that now, I should have seen it before." He told her.

She watched as he grabbed his vest and motioned for Caesar to follow him. He walked towards the door but stopped and looked at her as he was about to leave. "I'm heading home, I'll take the next couple of days easy, I promise. Then we should be ready to move on Slake? Right?" He said to her as she stood with her arms crossed.

She nodded her head, har tail lashed angrily for a moment before she seemed to calm a bit and told him "Okay, but you need to remember what you said. No more of this Ranxshit. You will end up dead if you do this all the time. Let me help you, I promise it's not all bad." She said as she walked out the door by him.

She gave him a smile as she left, the tuft of her tail brushing across his chest and then she was gone. He raised his eyebrows to himself and nodded, yeah she was something.

He led Caesar out of the building, walking slowly to avoid aggravating his injuries any more than they already were. He waved tiredly to several officers who were standing next to the bottom of the stairway, they gave him respectful nods back. It seemed like his actions here had made an impression on them. Maybe they were just happy not to be the ones getting shot at for once.

As he thought about it, he realised he had been stupid. Sure he had gotten the job done, but he could have died, or worse, Caesar could have gotten hurt. He exited the building and was surprised to see that the majority of the medical and law enforcement personnel had already moved on. One of the benefits of only having a single prisoner and no friendly casualties to deal with he supposed.

He walked down the road and made his way to his truck. Opening the door he slowly climbed inside, the painkillers he had taken were helping, but he still winced as he settled down in his seat. He felt exhausted, tired in both body and mind. He knew his truck had a self driving function, but he never trusted it to do what needed to be done on the job. Now, beaten and numb as he was, he switched the auto drive function on and uploaded the destination from his assistant.

He leaned his head back as the trucks autosenses came online and it began to drive down the road. Cheenha had an integrated smart cruise system built into the roadways themselves, a series of sensors, powered cables, and magnetic triggers allowed many vehicles to be auto driving at once and not be in any danger of collisions. Many criminals would disengage the auto drive functions and sensors on their vehicles, this was fine because the system was smart, smart enough to detect vehicles even when they were not integrated themselves.

This was a necessary precaution because many tourists and off world dignitaries would have non integrated vehicles and a rigid system would be prone to accidents. It was better to allow for the possibility of misuse than for the certainty of failure, at least that's what the governor said anytime he was questioned on the matter.

The lights of passing vehicles and buildings blurred in his vision as he drifted in and out of sleep, it wasn't a long drive to his ship, but the hum of the tires was a relaxant that made him feel sleepy.

He awoke to pale blue eyes a centimeter from his own. "Whaahh?" He jolted awake.

Caesar grinned at him and headbutted his shoulder with a slight growl. He sighed and said "I'm tired too, okay here." He opened the door for her and she bolted out. He was about to ask if she smelled trouble when she squatted and began to relieve herself on the nearest patch of weeds.

He chuckled and unbuckled his safety restraints. Standing out of the truck was a struggle but after a few grimacing tries he managed to get to his feet. He considered taking another painkiller but decided against it, he would take it just before he went to sleep.

Closing up his truck, he trudged over to The Vengeance. It was a decent sized ship for a single person and his home. Inside were all the amenities one could ask for. Living space, lounge room, and kitchen. Everything he could need.

Entering the ship and walking to his small living quarters he sat on the edge of his bed and sighed heavily. Tomorrow was going to suck if he knew anything about fractured bones. Luckily the quickheal would take care of the bruises and torn muscles, he just needed to be careful for a few days and he should be better. The chest wraps were loose enough to not cause him discomfort but tight enough to keep him from getting hurt more. He reached into his pocket and extracted another pink tablet from the medical bottle Frank had given him, taking the pill he swallowed and replaced the bottle in the pocket of his trench coat.

Taking off his coat and boots he layed back in bed and groaned softly as he tried to get comfortable. He hated down time, as a kid he had always been moving, working. He had too, it was a necessity of life on Dreyvan II. But now that he was an adult and could afford to take it easy, he had a hard time doing so.

He closed his eyes and tried to think calming thoughts, this did nothing but make him feel less tired however and he opened his eyes. His room was dark, it hadn't been a moment ago had it? He checked the time on his assistant and was surprised to see it was early morning. He had dozed off for a few hours at least. Reaching into the pocket of his coat, he pulled out the small bottle of painkillers and put it in the pocket of his pants.

He stood and made his way to the edge of his room, the lights kicked on automatically and he entered the hall outside his room. He shuffled down the hall to the small kitchen and opened the refrigeration unit and pulled out a small carton of frubble juice. The stuff was his favorite but had become vanishingly scarce after the destruction of Stemmins in the Goldbard System. The damn Hegemony couldn't even leave his breakfast routine alone.

He made a pickled Jarfig and Ranxsteak sandwich and poured himself a cup of juice before walking from the kitchen to his lounge room. He set his breakfast on the small coffee table bolted down in front of his couch and turned on the news. It was early morning coverage, so mostly low budget stories and reruns of the previous night's big news. Along with the major drug bust that had happened two days before, there had also been a shootout reported in the industrial zone late last night. He smiled, that one was his fault.

He leaned forwards, curious, as the news woman did not go into detail on the warehouse shootout. She chocked it up to rival gangs and then moved on to more interesting topics. He frowned, it seemed Siyel or her boss Dreenth were keeping a lid on this one. Probably in an attempt to leave Slake in the dark as to the fact they were on to his shit.

After a while he switched off the holo screen and leaned forwards to open the drawer on the side of the small table. He wheezed as his ribs complained and he popped another pink tablet from the bottle in his pocket. It wouldn't do to rely on the painkillers, but they certainly helped him now. After waiting a few minutes for them to kick in he tried again.

This time he was able to successfully extract the headset and gloves inside. It was a third generation Infiniscope, not as nice as the newer fifth generation models, but still perfectly serviceable. It was a type of VR headset that specifically allowed access to the Infinishpere, a huge virtual world full of everything from games to business transactions. One could spend a lifetime inside and not get bored.

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The Infinishpere was the dream of a Human man named Haggard O'brien who spent the majority of his life creating and then perfecting the programming. He then released the program as free shareware to the public and watched as his dream built itself using the public's own interest. It piggybacks off any system it is installed upon, using a small amount of that system's computational power to not only portray the user but also their surroundings, the more power a user has at their disposal, the larger an area they can simulate. When multiple users come together their simulation power becomes bigger than the sum of their parts allowing groups of people working together to create true marvels.

He had been busy recently and didn't spend much time online anyways, but he was looking forward to a few days of relaxing in simulated jungle environments, visiting exotic locations and maybe even some sports.

The Infinisphere had existed since the late 670s, but had not become truly widespread till the mid 730s. Now, almost fifty years later, it was truly its own entity. The program was still free to use but with thousands of independent users altering the code to best fit their needs it was an ever evolving world, a cyber space if you will.

He dived into this cyberspace with the confidence of a veteran. Quickly locating the program files he was searching for, he immersed himself in the calming voice of Druth Felman and followed him through the many wonders of the Universe.

Much later he was in the middle of the world ocean of Abyss on an exploratory sea platform listening to Druth extol the beauties and remarkable features of the giant Grooum when his self set timer rang. He paused the immersive program and then disengaged his Infiniscope.

His stomach rumbled in response to his movement and he sighed as he realized he had spent the vast majority of the day immersed in the work of Druth Felman, but he smiled. He felt more relaxed than he had in weeks. Checking his assistant he frowned as he saw three missed messages and he checked them one by one.

The first was from the medical bureau telling him his medical bills for being patched up, along with a hefty reduction due to his near death at the hands of the medic treating him. He just chuckled and paid the bill electronically, it wasn't too exorbitant and he was in a good mood. The second message was some sort of message from a heavily accented man about his car's extended warranty. He frowned as he read it, he didn't have a warranty on his truck, he had paid for it in cash with osmiridium coins and it was titled to him alone now. He deleted the message as it was likely some sort of scam and checked the final message.

He read the message twice to be sure it was right and then leaned back onto the couch. It had been a message from Siyel asking him when he was feeling up for that drink. He thought about lying and telling her he was good to go anytime, but she would likely see straight through his ruse and bust him. He messaged her back saying he would play it by ear.

Caesar had been unusually quiet while he was relaxing and he checked her location on his assistant. She had a small tracking chip implanted in her and it told him she was currently outside the ship in the landing zone to the rear of The Vengeance. What she was doing there he could only guess at, but judging by the fact she was near the rear of the ship he surmised she was likely just lounging.

The duracrete pad The Vengeance was parked on was old, and the cracks that ran throughout it sprouted grasses and small weeds of many types. But near the rear of the ship there was an area with more heavy damage, an area about ten feet across had come up entirely and was now a tiny lush garden in the middle of the lot, the shade from The Vengeance kept the patch from dying out and it was one of her favorite spots to chill out on a hot day.

She was fine and would come back in when she got hungry, she had already eaten her breakfast while he was still asleep. He put her out of his mind for the moment and concentrated on what he was going to make for an early dinner. He was hungry, quickheal was a wonder of modern medicine, a miracle really. But it had the downside of burning through calories and making the user hungry as a pack of Grinskals.

He shuddered at the thought of those ravenous carnivorous lizard fiends from his home planet, Cheenha had nothing similar, and Drawsherks were docile unless provoked. Of the many creatures known across the width and breadth of the SCU, few were as tenacious and wily as Earthly animals, though in terms of sheer ferocity Grinskals came close.

He decided to make some thick cut Ranx steaks for dinner, and he would cook up one for Caesar as well. She liked them bleeding rare with just a bit of sear, he had always liked his meat on the well side of rare, not quite rare but not cooked through. For a side he pulled out a box of instamash potatoes, nothing quite compared to the Earth tuber when it came to simplicity, that he had tried so far at least.

Balinski cooked up dinner quickly and sent a message to Caesar that the food was almost ready. She had a neural interface that allowed him to project messages to her silently but she wasnt a fan of the sensation and so he rarely used it. It was good to know he had fallback if he ever needed though. Caesar looked almost entirely unmodified when she wasn't grinning, when she did her titansteel jaws and teeth could be seen.

He smiled as he smelled the fruit of his labors, the steak smelled great and the instamash and gravy looked truly epic. He set the steak for Caesar at the other side of the table, cut into generous sized pieces and drizzled with a bit of the gravy. Just as he was sitting he heard the sound of running feet and Caesar flew into the room like a bat out of hell.

She skidded on the fake tile flooring and almost fell but gained her footing at the last moment. "Someone's hungry huh?" He teased her as she righted herself and pranced over to her seat as if she hadn't almost just made a new door to the lower cabinets. He had set a small table on her side so she could reach her plate without standing. She usually ate from her automatic food preparer on the corner of the kitchen, it was filled with a mix of fresh and dried ingredients that it would mix together for her into a rough cut slop that she seemed to enjoy. It had everything her body needed from proteins to some light fiber. While she obviously enjoyed the stuff, it couldn't hold a candle to a slab of roasted meat, hot off the iron.

As she hopped onto her seat and looked at her steak he said “Thanks again for being there for me Caesar. I would be dead a dozen times over without you.” she just gave him a look that said she knew and to start eating already. He chuckled as she started to chow down on her dinner and he speared a portion of his own meal. Chewing it down slowly, he smiled, there was nothing quite like a good Ranx steak. He had tried beef once when he was a lad, and while it was incredible in its own way, it just wasn't the same.

After a satisfying meal, and a messy one for Caesar, Balinski made his way from the main dining area to the main bedroom. He sat on the edge of his bed and sighed. ‘I should take a shower before bed.’ he thought to himself as he flopped back onto the sheets. His mind began to slow as the day seeped out of his muscles. He decided to take care of it in the morning and settled himself into the covers before closing his eyes. Sleep came quickly as the rigors of the last few days finally caught up to him.

The next few days passed quickly as he fell into a comfortable routine, he would wake and prepare breakfast before heading outside to play with Caesar for an hour or so before returning to the ship for some VR or games. Then onto lunch and another walk with Caesar before he checked the ship for general maintenance issues. Once determined clear, he would return to his holo screen till dinner.

As nice as the respite was, he began to itch for something to do. It didn't sit right with him to be idle for so long, he wasn’t exactly a workaholic as some might say, but he thrived when given purpose and the constant lack of activity grated on his nerves.

Balinski was sitting at his dining table eating a breakfast of hens eggs over easy on toast with a glass of frubble juice when his wrist assistant alerted him to an incoming transmission. He opened it and smiled as he saw Syiel’s face looking back at him. The Nerivith woman was dressed in a severe looking suit and tie that fit her somewhat devilish demeanor perfectly.

“Ah, finally. Please give me good news.” He practically begged her.

She smirked and said “What, all that taking it easy too much for you to handle?”

He nodded and replied “Yes, I'm dying here, and not from my injuries. I'm bored out of my skull. What do you have for me? Bandits? Thugs? I'll take anything…”

She shook her head and chuckled at his obvious discomfort. “Nothing that mundane, Balinski. Just got out of a meeting with the Director, we got him, Slake is as good as ours. We just need to gather a team and pick him up, nice and easy like.” She finished with a snap of her long fingers.

Balinski nodded and smiled, finally he was going to be doing something useful. He flexed his cybernetic joints as he stood and told her “I’ll get ready and head to the precinct right away.”

She nodded seriously and warned him “That's fine, you know I wouldn't deny you this one. But be careful, you aren’t one hundred percent yet and could still get hurt if you rush headlong in like normal.”

He stopped and gave her a meaningful look over the link. “I promise I will stick to your guys like glue. I won't go galavanting off by myself into a fortified enemy position.”

She nodded and severed the link with a last look of caution and he sighed heavily. He would stick like glue all right, budget one credit glue that was. The shitty sticks of dry stuff that kids used to make paper projects in preschool. He chuckled and wolfed down the rest of his breakfast, new energy flowed through him as he thought about the job to come.

Slake was a real piece of shit and responsible for large scale violence, it would be a real treat to put the son of a bitch away for good. Maybe even to face life in a fedmax prison on some luckforsaken airless moon in the ass end of nowhere.

Balinski rushed to his room and started pulling on his bounty gear, heavy pants and bullet proof vest over the top of undershirt. Boots and trench coat on the top of that. Finally he grabbed his wide brimmed hat, it completed the look as he saw it.

As he stepped into the hall, fully geared and ready for war, Caesar pranced up to him and gave a curious woof. He leaned down and scruffed her ears before standing and saying “We have a job. Grab your vest.”

Caesar hopped excitedly and rushed off like a furry bullet towards the hanger of the ship. A few moments later she returned, as happy as a grinskal in a pudgiglow pit. He laughed as her infectious enthusiasm rubbed off on him and he grabbed the doggie sized ballistic vest. Putting it on her was a practiced affair and she tolerated the garment as she knew it meant it was time to go to work.

Caesar’s cranial implants made her much more intelligent than a regular dog, combined with her other cybernetic enhancements she was about as good a partner as he could ever expect to have. She was loyal and followed directions, she was fast as lightning and her cybernetic jaws could crush bone and steel with ease. But part of him still longed for the companionship that only another person could provide. The banter, the witty quips and stinging barbs of two long time friends that knew each other far too well to offend. Friends like the brothers he had lost.

He felt his heart rate spike and leaned a hand against the nearby bulkhead. Caesar immediately knew something was wrong and whined concernedly as she pressed her body against his legs. The cold steel had haptic feedback sensors and he knelt to the ground, wrapping both arms around Caesar, he laid his head along her back and took a few deep calming breaths.

She stood still, patiently waiting for him to calm down. As his heart rate returned to normal and his breathing calmed, she butted her head into his side gently and let out a few encouraging woofs to let him know she was thinking about him.

Balinski straightened, still on his knees he looked into her pale blue eyes and said “Oh Caesar. I would be lost without you girl… Come on, enough feeling sorry for ourselves, let's go hit up Mikey’s Diner for some breakfast rolls. I'll get you a sausage stuffed one okay?”

He chuckled as she bounced a foot into the air at the mention of such treats. “Yeah yeah. I know you are still hungry ya big ol glutton. Let's go.”

Continued in Part 7