Date: 2954.93.45 Solar Standard, 5340.12.32 Galactic Standard
Planet: Frk’Tarlvr
Star System: Vendala
City: Platform F459VX
He didn’t want this job. He really, really didn’t. He needed money, sure, but he didn’t need money this badly. The terms of his current life were clear, though: pay his bills, or stay stuck planet side, and get his organs farmed by that lizard freak Trekvar. And knowing a gecko, he’d eat half of them. But it might have been a better fate than playing guard duty for a princess.

Mark looked around his apartment. Fifteen feet long, five feet wide, eight feet tall. A metal box. A small, metal box. Once he got off the bed, it folded up against the wall, the disposable sheets automatically removed and replaced within the mysterious wall confines of the Tekra Max apartment building. Two hundred floors, each with a thousand apartments, sound proof so you couldn’t hear the shit going on in your neighbor’s equally depressing metal box. The metal foldout sink, toilet, bed, it was all colored dirty, stained steel, and the delightful smell of sterilizing chemicals managed to sneak in through the faucet and his new bed sheets, despite them still being locked behind the metal wall since he folded the bed away.

He looked in the mirror, and sighed. Beige skin, a little pale since Fuck’Tarl’s sun didn’t do much for human skin — couldn’t get past the clouds, or the canopy of buildings and towers — plus some dark gruff and a shaved head. He could shave his face with the press of a button, but a shaved bald head and a few days worth of gruff was important for the whole imposing bodyguard motif. One eye was normal, dark blue, the other was cybernetic, and looked mostly the same until you got in close and saw the green lines that filled the iris. A big scar cut across that eye, eyebrow to cheek, legitimizing the need for the cybernetic eye, and painting a very obvious ‘I’m a badass’ sign on his head.

He didn’t tell people he got the scar and lost the eye from a hover car accident. That wouldn’t help get clients.

So he had the grizzly look, and he had the muscles to go with. Strong, big shoulders that bulged against his black bulletproof vest, biceps with a hint of vein fighting against the tight confines of the white t-shirt he wore underneath it. He wasn’t tall, though. Actually, he was a bit short compared to most human males, but he made up for it with shoulder width and solid beef. Cause he had to make up for it, to get a god damn fucking client.

He looked down at his pants. Armor plating, sections of morasteel covering the front and back of each leg, silver against the black pants. Black boots with the same morasteel sections, just like his vest.

“You survive this fucking job, and you’re out of this shithole.” He reached out for his reflection, and rested his palm against it. Hard hands, calloused. Another way to add to the image of the badass bodyguard. They were calloused from all the weights he lifted, that he had to lift, so he could look dangerous, so he could do this job, so he could pay his fucking bills.

But not anymore. Back to the dream, just get back to the dream. Some day, he’d be back to the dream.

He looked at the slip in his hand.

Client: Valamakala Vatalalarama. Species: Pracalavala

Position: Bodyguard, eight required.

Danger Rating: Extreme.

Bodyguards like Mark weren’t paid by the client, they were paid by the Vargenth company that outsourced them. They were paid based upon three things: whether the job was a success, the amount of time they’d been employed with the company, and the danger rating of the job.

Danger Rating Extreme was a suicide mission. Survival rates were typically half; sometimes more, sometimes less, but always a low enough number to come with a giant commission. He’d been with the company long enough and had earned a high enough rank, that this mission would make him a small fortune, enough to buy a runner ship, and get back to the dream. That’s all that matters, think of the dream.

Why the fuck was he working as a bodyguard then? Dream didn’t mean anything if he died before reaching it. He frowned at the mirror, and rubbed some water on his face, beads of it catching on his gruff. Because you’re an idiot, Mark. Idiots take this sort of mission grade. Idiots and desperate people.

Was he desperate? Yes. Yes he was fucking desperate to get the fuck out of this shithole before it killed him, before some gecko ate his kidney, before some praca drained his bank account, before a million other things brought him to a screaming end.

With a groan, he grabbed his rifle, and stepped out of the apartment box. The stained metal didn’t end with his home, but continued through the halls of the massive apartment complex. People sat around, talking, chatting, drinking, injecting heroin and poora into their veins. A few of them glanced his way, but when they noticed the body armor and rifle, they backed off. If he’d been anyone else, they’d have looked for a cheap mugging. Sometimes they tried anyway.

How many of these punks had he killed in self defense in the past ten years? Seven? Eight? Not like anyone on Fuck’Tarl cared. No one on this damn planet cared about anything, except for credits.

What a wonderful life.

“I hear this praca is a pretty attractive stickwoman,” one of the grunts said.

Mark rolled his eyes, and waited.

Him and six other grunts, all standing around on the street, near an escort stinger-class transport vehicle, parked. High tech, heavily armored, with two praca inside in the front seats. They wore fancy armor, silver colored, with sleek lines combining everything into flowing shapes. Nine feet tall and skinny as fuck. Stickmen. And, like the cannon fodder bodyguards they’d hired, they were wearing helmets with masks.

Mark analyzed his colleagues. Mostly humans, one gecko, and one dermite — a walking talking beetle — were the sad group of them. They didn’t look sad; hell, they looked professional. But the truth of the matter was that Vargenth wasn’t military. Bodyguards ranked up based on how many missions they completed, and the client’s evaluation. And Vargenth accepted anyone who could carry a gun. You got paid based on how high your rank was, which was a borderline useless metric; lots of people failed upwards. The ones who managed to get a lot of missions done with high evaluations quickly moved onto private sector work for mega corporations, or were taken in by government branches, like military or special ops.

No one with any real skill stayed a bodyguard, not on this planet, which meant his partners in this stupidity were unreliable at best. Hell, he was unreliable. He was good at the job, but not special ops grade, not suicide mission grade. He was one of the people that failed upwards, failed upwards enough times that he’d managed to stumble onto what things would keep him from getting killed; not enough skill to justify this desperate attempt at a good paycheck, though.

He didn’t know the ranks of the other guards, and they didn’t know his. If they found out he was GR Alpha, they’d probably start asking him questions, hoping he could get them through this alive. Fuck them, just survive the mission. Survive this one mission and keep the fucking stickwoman alive. Then you’ll have enough money to move on, get out of this hell hole, and live a life of moderate peace, moderate quiet, and get to see the stars again.

God, he missed the stars.

“You said she will be attractive?” the dermite said, voice gravely to the point Mark doubted dermites had vocal cords at all, but rock grinders.

One of the human bodyguards looked at him, only mouth and jaw exposed from under his helmet, but it was enough to see the disgust.

“You into soft skins, dermite?” the man said.

“Accurate.” No one could see the dermite’s features with how his armor of metal plates covered him, head to toe, but everyone knew what a beetle looked like.

One of the other guards came over, rifle across her chest in each hand. “Got a friend who says she’s fucked a dermite. Says it’s like fucking a couple of really huge, hard dildos, like solid plastic sorta hard.”

The dermite chuckled, a deep, clicking sound. “Yes. Accurate.”

“ ... wait, couple?” the other guy said.

“Yes. Accurate.”

Everyone broke into laughter. Mark knew that laughter, nervous laughter, the sort of laughter soldiers did before a drop or raid. He didn’t like that laughter. But it was better than quiet nervousness, where everyone would eventually snap and become a liability. Ideally, everyone would be quiet and relaxed, saving mental energy for the mission. Rookies.

Fuck, he was going to die on this mission, protecting some fucking stickwoman princess. If the bullets started flying, the others were going to panic, and the two praca escorts weren’t going to do a damn to keep him or them alive. But, if he didn’t stick his head out, he might come out of this still breathing; not that hiding behind the corpses of his colleagues was his idea of doing his job well, but it was better than dying.

It didn’t used to be like that. He used to try and work with his colleagues, keep them alive. It never worked. Fucking Fuck’Tarl had turned him into a bitter fucking asshole.

The two praca stepped out of the vehicle. So damn tall, and skinny. Their torsos were more or less human shaped, but smaller, thinner, and their legs and arms were much longer. The details of their features were hidden in the armor, but he knew they had similar hands and feet to their arms and legs: long and thin. They had long, thin tails too, prehensile, but hidden inside the armor; made sense, with how delicate those tails were.

The strangest thing though, was their bone masks that hid their eyes and mouths; hidden inside their helmets on the two escorts, but everyone knew what praca looked like. They ran the damn planet. Their helmets had to be unique shaped to fit the bone layer, a Y shape visor to match the Y shape bone mask that they sensed through.

It was hard to trust someone if you could never look them in the eye. He knew they had two eyes and a mouth, supposedly not all that different from human eyes and mouths, by alien standards at least, forever hidden behind the irremovable bone mask. It didn’t make trusting them any easier.

One of the passenger doors opened, and out-stepped the princess herself. Unlike her companions, she wasn’t wearing body armor, instead wearing long black boots that reached up to her skinny thighs. Like all praca boots, they fit their feet like gloves, showing how the stick people walked around on feet not too dissimilar to their hands. She wore a reflective, partly see-through dress, showing off her cleavage and small breasts, her thin waist, and her curvy hips. On her shoulders she wore a black jacket, similar to the boots, reaching her elbows before exposing how the dress became sleeves that reached her wrists. Black gloves, too, as if she was afraid to get any of the planet’s grime on her fingers.

It’s your planet, you stupid stick. If it’s too dirty to touch, try fixing it. She even walked like she was royalty. For fuck’s sake.

A slender neck rose to a smooth head, all very human shaped. The praca never had hair, but the bone mask did have antennae-like protrusions at the forehead, kinda filling in for that role. Her skin was tinted light blue, almost gray, like most pracas, and the bone layer of her face covered her eyes and mouth completely with its large Y shape.

Probably the most noticeable feature of the praca, was how their eyes, hidden behind the bone mask, glowed. Whatever kind of light it was that their eyes emitted, it went through the mask enough for other people to see them. And right now they were glowing maroon. No idea what that meant.

“Vargenth bodyguards,” she said. “I am Valamakala Vatalalarama, but you may call me Vala.” Her voice was soft and lovely, and there was a subtle whistle behind her words and after them, as if someone was playing a flute in her throat. “I will do everything in my power to insure these negotiations go smoothly, but, as you know, Merka R56 Industries engages in predatory business tactics. This has included direct assaults, and there have been fatalities.”

The PR speak almost had Mark gagging. Merka killed people by the droves, if it got them a better business position. Everyone who signed onto the mission knew the risks, too, so the PR speak was wasted. Maybe she was trying to paint herself in a better light, so they’d feel compelled to die to save her life. Yeah right.

“I’m Cody,” one of the guards said.

“Erica.”

“Mark,” he said. Might as well get it over with.

“Danver.”

“Clarance.”

“Tallia.”

“Mitch.”

“Drvrtertvrt.”

The group of them looked at the dermite, and laughed. More of that same, nervous laughter.

He laughed too.

Merka was going to kill them all.

Why’d he leave Earth? Should have stayed on Earth, stayed where the government made the laws, and enforced them. On Fuck’Tarl, there were no laws, and the corporations had free run of the planet. They had ‘police’, in the sense that they had security staff that patrolled all of their buildings, enforcing guidelines and keeping peace, because it meant they kept making profits off saps like him. It also meant any corporation with enough weight could kill this praca princess he was supposed to protect if they decided to send her employers a message.

It was like animals, ravenous, endlessly ravenous, trying to come to a truce over territory. One mistake, one false step, one moment of exposing the neck, and one animal was going to take a chomp out of the other, go for the kill.

De-fucking-lightful.

The front door, nothing but black-tinted morasteel sliding apart. Mark gulped, and stepped in ahead of the group, with the beetle beside him, and the three pracas behind him. The building was typical company HQ material, with lots of high tech gadgetry and clean walls of dark metal, shining with the TFR lighting. Hallways, lots of hallways. No secretaries or anything like that, no civilians sitting around desks with AR or holo setups, just hallways with scanning tech, cameras and whatnot. If there was any weaponry waiting to pop out of holes in the walls, his scanners didn’t pick it up, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there, just that it was well hidden.

“Calm your stance,” the princess said, to him apparently, when he looked back. Hard to tell where her glowing eyes were looking, with the bone mask hiding pupils and whatnot, but her head was pointed at him. Fucking bone mask.

“I’m sorry?”

“Calm your stance. Your human body language is blatant and loud. They will know you are anxious.”

“Good for them.” He shrugged off her bullshit, and kept walking. His posture was irrelevant. What was relevant was the body armor, the weapons; good posture and a calming stance didn’t mean shit when the bullets started flying.

But, a hand on his shoulder stopped him, and he turned to look up at the damn stickwoman. Nine feet tall wasn’t that intimidating when he was sure she’d crack in half from a stiff breeze. And from so close, he couldn’t help but look her up and down a little more closely. He couldn’t ignore the fancy black jacket and reflective dress that exposed a lot of her chest, or ignore the shape of her body, thin waist and flat stomach. Pretty, for a praca. Which of course made it easier to hate her guts.

“Calm yourself or I will report your ineptitude to your employers.”

And she loved to add to that growing mountain of reasons to hate her worthless innards.

“Fine.” He shrugged hard enough to dislodge her long-fingered grip, and got back to walking. Calm down, stop being anxious, don’t worry about Merka R56 putting a bullet through your torso. Yeah, ok, he’d get right on that.

And of course, the princess grumbled. A praca grumble sounded like a purr from a quiet, but dying high-pitched motor. Off putting, to say the least.

The hallway eventually came to a living entity, a delightful change from the unending walls of lifelessness. A gecko sat behind what was probably quartglass, wearing heavy layers of fabric that fell over each other like rain on shingles. Couldn’t see what their hands were doing, behind a display monitor that reached end to end of its desk. But, knowing gecko, they probably had a gun or two or three behind it, waiting to draw. Not that they’d be able to shoot him through the quartglass, but he fully expected some sort of ambush possibility to exist.

Vala walked up to the glass, beside Mark, and made a small bow of the head. “Greetings. I am Valamakala Vatalalarama, from Taralavra Industries. I’ve come to speak with Kalara Vatalrmlara.”

The gecko nodded, and looked down at their monitor, one hand tapping away at the digital interface, the other reaching up to pick at their teeth with a claw.

“Yes, Taralavra Industries.” The lizard-face fucker chuckled. Guy or girl, Mark couldn’t tell, no one could at face value, so they always just referred to geckos as ‘they’. Or ‘it’, depending on how mean they felt like being. “Go right ahead. The CEO is expecting you.”

Vala nodded again, and as they started walking, smacked Mark upside the back of the head with her hand. Subtle, quick, and from an angle the gecko didn’t notice. The rest of the group did though, and they chuckled. Guess he wasn’t being relaxed enough.

Getting a smack in the back of his helmet wasn’t going to make him any more relaxed. It did put him deep into the hate spectrum for this fucking praca princess though. Christ he hated her. Every word she said got under his skin. The way she walked beside him, standing tall, strutting, when she should be behind him and being protected, was like metal scraping vacalk siding. He had to protect her, but ten minutes into this mission and he wanted to make sure she died in it.

Remember the stars, Mark. Remember the stars.

They continued along, thud thud of heavy, armored boots against the hard metal of the floor. No music. They passed some doors, each locked down, and showing off some imposing barriers, solid walls of morasteel. Knowing Merka R56, they were performing research on chemicals, or testing new weaponry. Not like any of that shit was illegal on Frk’Tarlvr. Illegal on other planets, sure, but all was fair game here, including killing a negotiator and her bodyguards.

The door to the CEO’s office was blatant. The hallway opened up into a room, with ten geckos, six humans, and two beetles standing around, many behind work platforms with monitors in front of them. Fingers tapping, almost silent against the digital interfaces, they glanced up at the entering troupe, before they returned to their work, whatever that was. Every one of them was in armor though, with rifles on their backs, and helmets disengaged to hide inside their armors’ necks and backs. Ready to go at a moment’s notice then, lovely.

Vala kept walking, as if they didn’t exist. Ballsy, confident, or just really full of herself. Latter, probably the latter.

Ahead of them was a dual glass door. Quartglass probably, lined with black metal he didn’t recognize. Something fancy, imposing, made to look cool while providing structural integrity. The sort of room where you could look into the next room, see the target, and wave. Beyond the glass was an enormous desk, some sort of wood, probably from an extinct plant from a different planet. Behind the desk sat another praca, wearing an elegant reflective suite, small spots of shining purple mixed with greens. Fucking pracas loved to dress shiny.

Bastard was sitting behind another wall of quartglass, one that ran from the ceiling to the floor around his desk, probably with some windows he could walk through on the sides. Paranoid, or justly prepared. Mark had never been in a Merka building, let alone their HQ, but he knew they had a habit of killing people who disagreed with them. Hence, the danger rating on the job. Hence, the pay.

Relax, fucking relax Mark. Princess wanted you to relax, and it was important you stay focused when this all went to shit. Think of the stars, instead. Remember the stars, endless, beautiful stars, against the inviting obsidian of the gentle void.

“Taralavra Industries to see you, Kalar,” the gecko beside them said.

The praca on the other side of the glass prison waved them in, and the gecko pressed something behind his console, opening the doors into the deadliest place on Fuck’Tarl.

“Greetings, Valamakala Vatalalarama,” the praca said. Now that he was this close, Mark could see the subtle curves of the hip and waist highlighted by the reflective suit. A woman. Funny, he’d figured man, considering the reputation of pracas, but apparently that was a stupid guess. Her bone mask hid her emotions, her face, but her bone antennae were rising and falling slowly, and her eyes were blue. Cold, calm, and calculating mood, far as he knew according to praca physiology.

“Kalara Vatalrmlara.” The princess made a small bow as she came up to the quartglass-protected desk, while her ensemble of bodyguards stood in various places around the room, facing different directions. “Well protected, I see.”

“You can never be too careful.” The praca gestured to the bodyguards surrounding the princess. “Expecting violence?”

“Merely a deterrent.”

“Come now, we’re not humans. No need for such peacocking.”

Now where did a royal fuck like this Kalara praca learn what a peacock even fucking was.

“I am here to discuss your unjustly acquisition of the Taralavra Industries West Bay 5.”

“Unjust? Do tell.”

Vala stepped closer to the glass, and her fellow praca bodyguards came up beside her. “Your troops marched into the building, and, at gunpoint, removed our workers. Sent them home, on threat of death if they did not comply.”

“Of course. You did not keep your precious Bay 5 defended.”

“We had a truce.”

“Did we? I remember no such contract.”

“It was a verbal contract between you and the great Travkala.”

“Ah yes, Travkala, may he rest peacefully above the clouds.”

“ ... he would have wanted peace between our companies, Kalara.” The princess started to pace, slowly, hands folded across her chest, one arm up at the elbow so she could gesture with her hand as she talked. Very ambassadorial, in a way. This girl knew the body language for negotiation; it was similar enough to humans, considering how similar they were to humans, relatively speaking.

And he could see that she was calling out that she knew Kalara was responsible for Travkala’s death. Shit. Shit shit. He did his best to not reach for the safety on his weapon.

“Perhaps, but he is gone. Your company’s juvenile antics will not go unexploited. It was an opportunity, a business opportunity, and we took it.” The bitch waved a hand, dismissing her argument. “This is Frk’Tarlvr, Vala. Money makes the rules here. Understand that we had every reason to kill all that worked at Bay 5, and yet we did not, to avoid this very confrontation you are instigating.”

“You disregard the lives of the people you affect in your pursuit of profit and patents.”

“Is Taralavra Industries any different? People die due to resources devoured. The fact they die indirectly, rather than directly, does not change that you caused them.” Kalar shrugged, folded her arms across her chest, same as Vala, and stared at her. The bone mask of her face didn’t hide the glowing of her eyes shining through it, and the hardening color, hints of red coming through what were blue before. “Do not judge us.”

Vala walked up to the glass, and slammed a palm against it. Long fingers, thin hands, three fingers and a thumb, wrapped in black gloves. She shouldn’t have done that.

A loud siren went off, invisible source but loud enough to pierce helmets. It lasted only a moment, but it was enough to have every member of Merka R56 Industries drawing their rifles or pistols. Same for Vala’s troupe, who all pulled their weapons out. Panic mode.

Vala slowly stepped back from the glass, and looked around. There were twice as many Merka mercs in the room as there were her bodyguards, her praca included. In a gunfight, it probably meant she’d die, and all her bodyguards would die, but not before taking down a lot of the enemy with her. Except, they wouldn’t be able to take down Kalar, not with that fucking quartglass in the way.

“You have a temper, Vala,” Kalar said.

“And you are a ruthless murderer.”

“Come now. I’ve spared your Bay 5, no one died.”

“That was Bay 5. What of Dock Gamma 4?”

“That was an unfortunate accident.”

Vala’s fingers twitched at her side. “Seventy-five praca, five dermites, twenty-two humans, and four trekvar died, because of your itchy trigger finger, Kalara.”

“Seventy-five? I am sure it was seventy-six.”

“Partakava survived.”

“I do not know who that is,” Kalar said. Mark didn’t believe it though. Fucker’s glowing eyes, shining through the bone mask, squinted. Slits.

“Of course you do not.” Tweeting a strange, shrill sound, typical angry praca noise, Vala looked back at her bodyguards. Her red eyes brightened into amber, like fire.

He didn’t like that.

“He sends his regards.” Vala raised her hand, and slammed it against the glass again. When she lowered her hand, a small black disc was stuck to the wall. There was a single second where Vala turned around, putting her back to Kalar, before the world disappeared.

The shockwave rippled the glass like a stone dropping into water. Mark had enough time to realize something was wrong, before the glass shattered, and the force of the explosion sent debris and smoke in all directions. Whatever it was Vala had planted against the quartglass, it caused the explosive force to shoot in a specific direction, Kalara’s direction. A hurricane in a room maybe fifty by fifty feet, all thrown Kalara’s way. Air, bits of glass, torn metal and ripped up, probably extinct-plant-species desk, all churned into the air, and sent everywhere.

Everything went to hell. Vision, gone. Hearing, almost gone. Reflexes, stunned.

“What the fuck!?” Mark grabbed Vala’s arm, and threw her to the ground. Smoke, noise, hollers and screams and chaos. A contained war, with all the misery and death and ear-splitting mayhem to go with it, confined to a single room.

Whatever bomb she used, it let off spectral smoke filled with tiny bits of morasteel, destroying censors, and making AR worthless, including his. It also wrecked the lungs of anyone unlucky enough to breathe it. Everyone’s helmets were equipped with auto breathers, a tube that came down to fit snug along the teeth between the lips, complete with a faceguard. Keep the mouth closed, lips sealed, and breathe through that and you’re fine. Vala didn’t have shit.

He reached down, and threw Vala a second time, toward the door of the room. Praca were light, and he had little trouble getting her some air time, out of the center of the cloud of death dust, and out of the direct line of fire. Much as the smoke blocked much of the light, it didn’t block it all, and the muzzle fire of lasers or slugs dotted the smoke, like mini explosions in rapid succession. But hopefully she’d be safe for a few seconds while he tried to save his own fucking life.

When no one can see anything, the first thing they do is start firing blindly at anything moving. Trained soldiers didn’t, trained assassins didn’t, but bodyguards and security? Poor sods didn’t have the training. They hesitated, fired blindly, and made no attempts to move their own bodies to better positions.

Hesitation is defeat.

He threw himself to the floor, and bullets and lasers and everything under the stars flew overhead, tearing through armor, flesh, walls, everything. But not him. On the floor, he had a moment to recognize the different muzzle flashes, and take aim. Ignore the screams of pain and death cries of your fellow idiots-at-arms, and take a second to line up the shots. The geckos and others working for Merka were using weaponry issued by Merka. Seemed Merka had a thing for morasteel chambers and trintilium fuel; made their weapons have a blue tint to the muzzle flash or vent discharge, depending on bullet or laser.

He looked over at Vala beside him. This fucking bitch. She knew this was going to happen. She knew this would turn into a shit show. She knew this was a suicide mission. No wonder she could afford eight fucking D.R.Es ... Fucking damn it.

The door to the room burst open, and four more Merka stormed in, before they were swallowed up by the bomb’s spectral smoke. That shit was practically alive with how pervasive it was, and it flooded out into the hall with speed, lured by the metal beyond. As it buried them, the four soldiers opened fire.

None of them noticed the two people on the floor, too busy shooting at the other cuts of color in the spreading smoke.

Lucky him.

“Can you breathe?” he said. The shadow of colossal buildings buried them in darkness. That was what Platform F459VX was known for, its dark alleys, deep down near the gutter where the poor struggled to survive. It did make it easier to hide from shit, though.