A Mercenary with an Attitude

[Treewyrm]

A Mercenary with an Attitude
[font=Lucida Console]This text rated NC-17 by RPAD, RolePlay Association of Discovery

Rayznor, for most just Ray, a low life they say, a scum. But damn proud to be so! What *beep* manners you'd expect?

What about myself? Who f*beep*ing cares anyway?

Like many bounty ass hunters I came to do the job as a criminal. Past is past and there is nothing to hide nowadays. A murder it was, so they said. Wouldn't get far from Manhattan to get caught. Sentenced for the rest of this worthless life, liberty laws my *beep*. But I was approached by the guild to do dirty job for them. This or rot in prison cell forever. Not much choice there, huh? Of course they're lying b*beep*s, I knew it, but for that time had to play along for it was my chance there.

So you want a story, boy? Alright there, hand over that bottle of wine and I'll tell you one. A f*beep*ing real one.

Now when you live in some deepest s*beep*t hole like California Minor you learn to surivive, to clinge for life. Get little you can hoping to get away from that dump for a btter place. Moving from planet to planet, but each time it's worse than previous. Each time you see same ugly mugs, same pigfaces, f*beep*rs, even same piss they call it "liberty ale".

*the sound of bottle cap popping out and flying all across the bar hitting volumetric projector and together with it falling down to floor*

Truth to be told it's the same s*beep* everywhere. You can fly to Bretonia and see the same, Rheinland, anywhere, it's only scenery and decorations are different, but all the f*beep*heads are the same no matter where you go.

*holding up the bottle and staring through it*

The story, right... There you go then.

When you are born in such desolate and dead place like California Minor there aren't any opportunities at all, most just want to get out as fast as they can. I was a bit luckier than the rest, made some influential friends in some organizations.

Do you know ol' a*beep*ole Marty? Martin Skogg. Yes, that's him, at first a successfull lawyer, laws my *beep*, a high profile businessman, now one of the bigwigs in the so-called World Economic Consortium, the biggest money laundry. However his true success came from eslewhere. You see, old scoundrel Marty was an addict. Cardi. He had ties in Liberty government and struck deals right there at a blank sunny day with everyone closing their eyes. Clever Marty has pulled public stunts and made himself known to everyone by actually funding so-called programs to cure Cardamine addiction, making him one of the top charitable persons in Liberty. Money from dirty deals, Cardamine included, to fund research programs to cure it, I think you can catch my drift there, right? Bribing media he made himself a positive image, a f*beep*ing holiness, literally immune to accusations. He even had his that private bull*beep* making pee-aar company amongst the others to make sure all his s*beep* doesn't get out, and if it happens to then the media boys would work their asses for the millions of credits Marty was paying them.

Days of smuggling the stuff between Magellan and California passed by. Done under Interspace Commerce umbrella. In those years I made ties with other fellows, cardi junkies, namely Lane Hackers and occasional Outcasts that came down there to Liberty for their own reasons. Rare police raids made fun but not a trouble, there was always a looming hand of a powerful and influential person that kept the officials off our paths.

Once a month we sent the stuff from Minor to Manhattan. Because of his influence Martin made police to look in other direction while the stuff has been brought.

All went fine but one day you get *beep*storm and all you knew thrown away. Bang, a hammer and some puppet master decides your fate. There was a rat among, someone informing officials.

Eventually I got caught there. It was a big set up all from the start. Little I remember what happened in there. A short trial, no word said just stated I was proven guilty and sentenced to prison for the rest of my f*beep*ing life.

Two years in LPI prison passed, but one day a man comes to visits me and comes with a proposal, a chance I wouldn't be given next time. Bounty hunters guild hired me to do their dirty job. Down in that rotten station you get that choice only for once and I'd be a f*beep*ing fool if I didn't take it. A small group of ex-convicts like myself were put together to do suicide missions. "Disposable assets", asset my *beep*. Each time it was crazier than the previous and so far we held on, got to know each other. There was trio of us. Others were talktative sweet Kari, brilliant Lane Hacker she was, and Sammy whos past nobody bothered. None of us liked the job, we started looking for an opportunity to get away from the clutches of the guild, lay low far and get our lives back.

Happens to be for the last time we were sent far outside, Omicron Theta to be precisely. Search and destroy mission, the target was a Corsair warlord, supposedly escorted, someone put high bet on him and we were called in. Had no pity for the suckers. The Guild said there would be reinforcements as the Corsair activities increased in the area, and that's even better, I thought.

Passing Freeport 9 we got a lock on our target, a corsair cruiser drifting at the edge of the nebula. It was severely damaged already, shield was blown off completely. Kari and Sammy got their Supernovas ready, I transferred energy from sheilds to guns, and we rushed into. A corsair captain shouted typical "who are you" and some other garbage. Who the *beep* am I?!

"A face in the cloud, f*beep*r..."

A massive explosion right before my eyes. Cruiser went down quicker than I'd thought. Piece of cake, eh?

"...and nothing to worry about."

But I was wrong. Two wings of corsair fighters with bombers jumped straight out from the nebula swarming us. No doubt they were waiting for us. We held on as the guild reinforcements came into play. A relief quickly turned into worry as I noticed they were on attack vector aiming at my gunboat.

What the *beep*?! My detectors picked up transmission between the Guild ships and Corsairs on a wrong frequency, a channel that was reserved for the military, Liberty navy. Navy? Corsairs? What the f*beep*ing hell, I thought. Whoever played the dirty card here also struck the deal with the Corsairs we were sent after. And there was only one person I knew who could pull that kind of stunt.

There was no way we could hold up the fight. We ran, for *beep* sake!

So now that we were there, betrayed by all sides. Sammy barely held his heap of drunken flying junk together with his bare teeth. That or the miracles of the duct *beep* tape no less I swear. Before we entered the asteroid field those *beep*heads turned around!

Arriving at Kurile I didn't know what to expect. Far outpost on remote planet, away from civilization. It seems the control tower was sleeping for ages as it took several tries to request for landing before they woke up to reply. Seems like barely anyone visits this desolate place, apart from corporate transport vessels. Seems like it was the biggest shock for the kusari monkey-faced inhabitants to see Sammy's "ship": a cockpit with an engine, for that is all that was left of it. Although we all got tired there was no time to waste, no doubt the Guild was scavenging the area already looking for us. Little Kari, smart she was, she got the cracked navs from fellow Lane Hackers much earlier and made sure our ships wouldn't be easily tracked. There we decided our ways must part: Kari said she'd try her fate with zoners, as far as she can get away from Liberty space, Sammy picked on corporate transport since we all got drunk that day sank the remnants of his junk into the ocean. Didn't know where he set his mind to, but my path was leading to the Omicron Alpha, stronghold of the Outcasts. Where else to? Who f*beep*ing knew, perhaps old ties could finally prove to be useful. There were a few folks I knew from the early days.

So what does a man do when the world fall apart around? What the f*beep*k do you do?

You make a choice, one that you hold up with your teeth: take it to their s*beep*ty face and beat the crap out of 'em. Rinse and repeat until the f*beep*ers lay dead.

Time to find out what the *beeping* hell was going on.

So I passed the barrier and jumped into Alpha. An outcast nearby gnarled into comms: "aaay-deee yourself!".

"A mercenary with an attitude" - I said, for that is what an *beep* I am and f*beep*ing proud of it!

[font=Georgia]...a free wind...