Chapter 1 The Client

Chapter 1
The Client






My name is Michael Todd though nowadays I'm probably better known as…Obsidian Mask. I'm an adventurer for hire, a mercenary, and a bit of a private detective. I solve problems, retrieve things, fight bad guys, and find people who others can't.
Today I'm on an alien planet meeting with a client. The initial consult was supposed to be a simple matter: I arrive at the planet "Lunari Prime", I meet the client at the given coordinates and time, and I take the retainer fee, or turn the contract down. However, the client is a no-show.  
Unfortunately, the police are punctual as hell. The one screaming at me right now is human, allot of humans live on Lunari Prime.

The dog planet is a huge attraction since the end of the War, what with dog's being "Man's best friend" and all it would seem like a perfect fit.  The Lunari themselves are essentially evolved dogs, canines about the same height as a man with an odd culture.  In order to rise in station or status, you don't just have to be qualified; you also have to physically defeat the guy who might already have that job in single combat. Sometimes one gets lucky and there's just a new job opening. Otherwise all potential candidates fight for it, winner take all. Essentially you know for a fact, whether or not you can kick your bosses' ass.  Makes life a bit simpler I guess. However, it's the Lycanthos who really run things, just as Lunari are evolved dogs, the Lycanthos are evolved wolves. Tougher, bigger, and meaner than Lunari, they hold almost every position of importance with few exceptions. They also don't care for Solarans who now make up 5 % of their population. There were allot of accidental deaths during the war from Solarans who believed the Lycanthos they encountered to be Werewolves (they look just like them) so they bear some animosity and consider us to be a bit stupid.

The policeman keeps yelling at me as if I'm deaf (probably because I'm not answering him) and of course he's got one of those brand spanking' new "Variable ammo pistols" pointed at me, which can fire everything from lasers & lead to rail fletchets and ions. But I'm wearing a very special suit of armor that reduces his threats to a mere nuisance. Absorbium 80 is a wonder metal, a single gram of this stuff goes for a cool 10,000 credits on the open market, and I'm wearing about 50 pounds. That's nearly the most ever gathered in one place. What makes it so wonderful?  It absorbs energy, ALL forms of energy: Electrical, Radiant, Kinetic, Magical, and even Psionic. Put simply...if I decided I really wanted to put up a fight, this cop would be screwed.  However, I'm not one of the bad guys, so I'm gonna have to calm the situation down before things get out of hand.

"Get down on the ground now!!!"  

He's still yelling, and he looks terrified. Poor kid.

"I said, drop the gun and get down now!!!"

He's a rookie; I can tell by the way his hand is shaking and the look of terror in his eyes. This guy knows he's out of his league but he's brave. He's just doing his job, despite what he's seen on news vids.  He thinks I'm some sort of super-villain, and he's fairly certain I'm gonna hurt him.  He's pointing a gun at my head, and he'll shoot me if I so much as flinch. All he wants is my gun; only problem is, I NEVER give my gun up to anyone...EVER.  Has this policy caused me some problems in the past?   A few, yes.

"On the ground NOW!!!"

I turn slowly, lowering my weapon to look at him face to face.  I press a small button on my helmet and set my voice amp up to high. Then in a very calm voice I say...

"Relax officer; I have a galactic Merc license and an intergalactic carry permit!!!

I sling my rifle and give him the documents. He looks them over, checks me out, and then takes off (presumably to go vomit from relief). Now back to my dilemma: Where the hell is my client? After a couple minutes of searching the scene I find an abandoned car and signs of a struggle. There's a blast mark on a nearby wall, sloppy, I scan it with a PS (power signature) scanner and run it through the IGDB (Intergalactic Database) and tada I come up with...
"Awww damn it...Bypass?!?"

I realize now that this is probably gonna be one of those freebie jobs I keep getting sucked into. I call the "Runt", that's the name of my ship, and have them EMT (Energy Matter Transmitter) my now very unhappy ass aboard. Today sucks.

On board the runt, I hop off the transit pad and stomp off pissed, to my office.  Nobody stops me to ask "what's the matter?" Mostly because androids just don't care unless they're programmed to. As Captain, I have my own Chair on the bridge, and a private office.  I also have Vodka, and I'm gonna need some.  My crew consists of my 2 best friends Harley, and Ray and about 3 hundred androids with various programs I installed myself.  A while back, I hired a mage to summon Harley and Ray from my time. I made them an offer to come here to this time, and have some adventures, or remain where they were. They decided to come along, since then we have become one of the most renowned mercenary outfits in the five galaxies. Yeah I said five galaxies, with each one populated by thousands of alien species. Oddly enough, it seems "Humans" can be found in abundance, in nearly every corner of the universe. Most are not like Solarans and tend to be rather primitive by the standards of this time. Usually they're what one might expect of humans from my time, or worse, occasionally better.
I sit in my office staring out of the window, into the depths of space and at the planet Lunari below. Swirling the ice in my glass I dwell on this dilemma the evidence I've gathered so far, and rack my brains trying to figure out how I'm going to prepare us for dealing with this particular adversary. I keep asking myself- "Why me?"

"I don't torture people, and I never killed anyone who didn't try to kill me first. So why, of all the people in the universe that could be involved in my client's disappearance, why did it have to be Bypass?"

The android standing behind me doesn't answer, it's got an AI (artificial Intelligence) advanced enough to know a rhetorical question when it hears one.  As for Bypass, I've never run into the guy personally but I know him from news footage and reputation. The guy is a Gen-Ab, (Genetic Aberration) with some serious power.  No one knows how he does it, but with his abilities, he can turn any attack on its source. He once made a Galactic Sentinel, blow his own head off and Sentinels are really tough badass space cops too. They're also good at what they do, so good in fact that they have "Above the law" status on all IGFW worlds.  Hell, Bypass would make a top notch assassin if he weren't such a good thief, he's never been caught. Now that I really think about it, kidnapping isn't his M.O.  He's always been a high end professional thief. This seems a bit well, beneath him, almost a step backwards, even petty when compared to his usual crimes. In any case we'll have to use non-lethal tactics with him just to save our own butts.

The intercom chirps loudly, and I wince, the sound goes right down my spine and back up, it feels like a thousand needles.  Its Harley, he probably wants to know what's going on with the current contract. Oh there's gonna be jokes and tons of ribbing. You see, this sort of thing only seems to happen when I go to meet our clients. Just once I would love to see the shoe on the other foot, and have something like this happen to one of them for a change. I should be so lucky.  I can hear it in his voice, he knows, I don't know how but he knows. His voice has an air of condescendence about it.  I wince again and down another shot of Vodka.

"Dude, what's taking so long? Shouldn't you be briefing us on our latest contract already? You were supposed to be done over an hour ago.  Is something…wrong?"

Another shot of Vodka goes down.

"Sorry Harley, it's just that...things didn't go well. I'll be with you in a minute and explain everything"

Before he logs off the intercom I hear him say,

"Ray, he did it again, you owe me ten bucks!"

Another shot of Vodka, like I said… "Today sucks."