The Caveat Emptor

[Rudo]

Months had gone by under Bishop's command. Much had changed in the political landscape, and thus much had changed in his directive. Gone were the aspirations of privateerdom in the face of newer, much more pertinent threats in the face of this new reality.

They had been good months. What first started out as a solitary assignment for precision strikes against debtors was now the tip of the spear. Caveat Emptor was the vanguard of the growing fleet of an organization that had before relied on its political maneuvering to remain safe, and was now seeing the need for a small but effective home guard.

Stationed around the Junkers' frontier outpost in Sigma-13, in the forefront of all threats, Hannibal had found new purpose. He was the failed prototype of an experiment gone wrong, one of Liberty's first attempts to combine man with technology to better combat the resurging Nomad threat. Little more than a vat-grown head and shoulders atop an impressive cybernetic sarcophagus containing synthetic organs, he'd had to grasp that despite being designed by humans, to protect humanity, and to even look and act vaguely human; he was not human.

Humans didn't need constant mechanical maintenance and system checks, or to steal their own blueprints so they could machine and engineer their own replacement parts. Humans had hands made of flesh, rather than mechanical powered gauntlets with a torque rating designed to tear an infected human to pieces in hand-to-hand combat. Humans enjoyed a soft warm bed, rather than a dark sarcophagus which doubled as an automated maintenance hub. When humans saw a loved one being taken over by the Nomads, they could choose to run away rather than have imbedded neurlogical and cybernetic subroutines immediately take over and execute the individual. Humans could know love and all the mortal pleasures that accompanied it. Bishop was a walking suit of armor with just enough human bits to give himself and other people the outward appearance as a member of the species, and to keep those human bits functioning. His designers hadn't afforded him much luxuries aside from an abridged circulatory and digestive system.

Until he found sanctuary with the Junkers, he'd had only too much time to contemplate his misfortune in life. But the enterprising salvage workers rapidly catalogued his talents and put him to work. First they took notice of his raw physical strength and cold-blooded demeanor, and made him Chief Interrogator at Rochester.

Then, once situations heated up, he was given command of the preliminary Junker 'Negotiator' Vessel, dubbed the Caveat Emptor.

His new purpose suited him well, and for a time he'd had enough to do to escape the knowledge that he was a walking grey golem, in constant need of replacement parts and the subject of nightmares wherever he went.

--

He hung in a rough sphere in the centre of the bridge, suspended from wires pulled taut in every direction to keep him stable. Various cables slaving vital ship systems such as gunnery and navigation to his complete control ran into input/output jacks placed in his armor. They would be routed through the monofilament superconductor that passed for his spinal cord, to a processor linked to his cerebellum that would translate thought into direct input to ship systems. When hooked to the system, the craft itself became an extension of Bishop's body -- a process that was often unwieldly, overengineered, and yet immensely effective. Not unlike Bishop's actual body.

If not for the reality of ship systems needing engineers, and Bishop himself needing extra hands to keep both the craft and his biomechanical systems operational, he could fly the craft himself.

His watch-stander operated as his second pair of eyes. He himself was bombarded with a constant and immense influx of information from the ship's internal and external sensors -- so someone devoted to filtering and relaying important details to him was necessary.

"Captain Bishop, we're getting a transmission. It's garbled. Source appears to be the Abschnitt."

Bishop's response was both muffled from the mask that encased his head and acted as his heads-up display, and loudly beamed through the bridge on ship's speakers. "Patch it to me."

It spoke without speaking, using some form of telepathy that came in images and emotions. Bishop felt waves of mocking hate wash over him. His face twisted into a grin.

"Hello, my lovely..."

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