Jason's head was resting against his left paw, which itself was resting on the side of the table on which the holocomp displayed various contracts available for mercs.
He pressed a key with his right paw, and yawned. "Boring... Cheap... Easy... Usual... Cheap... Cheap..." he sighed. "Why are all the contracts paying so little lately?!" he said to himself.
The whole room was filled with darkness, the only light being the holoscreen of the computer. Himself was hard to see, thanks to the color of his perfect-black coat. His tail dangled from one side to the other, very boringly.
"And one would think that the Rygal sector would be more... entertaining..." he said out loud, as if he was talking to some higher power.
And that higher power must have heard him.
A window appeared on the holoscreen, and flashed. "Incoming message, for me? Encrypted? Gee, that must be something good..." he thought as he was brought to life.
Jason was already on the blacklist of all but a few of the corporate states of the sector. They had been fighting for... Bah, like he cared, and over what, he didn't knew either. But the contracts, the major good ones, where here.
He performed "asset retreivals", or kidnappings for the normal average citizen, "asset removal", or sabotage, industrial espionnage, recon for a "hostile take-over" military force, you name it. Everytime, he came back with hardly ever more than a bruise.
And the pays were good, especially the front-line contracts. They were also the most exciting, and the most deadly.One couldn't go without the other, it seemed.
He opened the message. It was from the biggest of all the corporate states: Unicron Alpha Technologies. They made, officially, computers, chips and everything related to all of the computer gears. But more than half their revenue was made by researching weapons and neural interfaces. The last one especially.
The message was quite straightforward.
Dear asset,
Please note our interest in your abilities. We would have a contract for you. It is for a asset retreival job. Be warned that the target is deep within borders of our main rival, Amano corp. We need you to retreive Midori Hajime, daughter of the CEO of the business.
A ship is scheduled to leave their home planet in the Shigana cluster, Niji-ji, and vector toward Repine, in the Darvin cluster. In order to reach that destination, they will have to come close this system with a connecting Space Way. This is where you intervene.
We need you to hijack the ship, and bring it here, on planet Cortaike. You will be granted clearance to the space dock in order to minimize your signature.
Be aware that we do NOT provide insertion, only coordinates and approximate time of travel and ETA at the space way's junction.
Your fee is of 35,000,000 Unicron credits. As you know, this sum is quite extensive, and should be a proof of how much we require this asset. Per your rules, half of the amount will be deposited in your usual account, the other half will be given on delivery of the asset.
Best of luck and deepest regards,
Mr Johnson
Well, it was another Mr Johnson. A very familiar name, since that's how all the contractors call themselves.
35 million credits. That wasn't a hefty sum, that was a FORTUNE. Jason, with THAT kind of money, could even buy himself a small space cruiser!
He pondered for a moment though. What if this was just a plan to capture him? Unicron would have loved to get their paws on a "chipped". But they never could. This could be a trap.
But that kind of money could be real. He made a quick spot check on the Niji-ji planet's main spaceport departure list, and saw that the ship in question was indeed supposed to leave... 3 minutes ago.
This could be a coincidence, still. "Ah, what the heck..." he told himself, as he pressed the accept button. The nanosecond the button was pressed, 17.5 million UCreds were transered into one of his many accounts. "It's show time..." he thought, as he went to get his "space raft", as he called his piece of junk of a vessel. After all, keeping his armor in top-condition was the main priority.
Next to the entrance to the ship, the armor suit was locked in. He pressed a code, submitted DNA sample, did an eye test, voice recognition and finally, entered a password known only to him. The casket opened and the armor was set free.
He quickly put it on. Quickly being strong a word for taking 20 minutes to place everything and connect all the parts, but it was worth it. When he finally placed the helmet on, the HUD appeared, and did an automatic system check. Batteries were full, air was full, no breach detected, cloacking device shows green and weapon interface active. Well, that was it.
He sat in the pilot's seat of his small vessel, and punched in the coordinates where he would try to board the other vessel.
The computer calculated everything, since he wasn't a magic user, and entered the space way. Once there, the vessel headed for a part where logically, his prey would HAVE to see him.
He tore apart something in the engine, which would be easy to repair if required, but still made enough of a problem on any scanner to register, and require help. Now, all he had to do was to wait for his prey to come by, detect him as stranded, and let him dock his one-man craft to make repairs and then, just then, let all hell break loose...
That would prove to be... entertaining...