If you wanted to hire a mercenary, Ash was the place to be. Hundreds of schools and training programs, teaching everything from piloting to unarmed combat to nuclear bomb defusal scattered across a barren, dead world and thousands of space stations, domes, and inhabited chunks of rock.

  Every friday, a class graduated. Tons of new mercenary companies were formed among groups of students who made friends, and then needed to branch out to people who had taken different courses. All the big companies… including his uncle’s… had recruitment classes here.

  There were two ways to go about it. List the job and the pay-scale, and interview applicants… or look through the personnel listings to find the kind of people you wanted.

  He’d been a bit of a loner through his classes. Aside from being younger than most of them, he was on an accelerated program; he’d been working on starships since he could walk, and the overwhelming majority of the courses he could just test right out of.

  As a result… he knew of nobody he should look for. Just vague memories of faces and names.

  He slapped the listing for the job up. Kept the details perfectly clear; temp position. Shakedown cruise of a corvette. Gunship-level threat assessment. 115% of market rate for one captain and six crew positions.

  It was only ten seconds later that he got two incoming messages. One from a ‘Yumi’, including a resume and offering to sign on, including a willingness to drop down below market rate if she had to in order to get the job… as well as one from one of his class-mates.

  One of those names and faces he barely remembered; Billy Talbot. If he recalled correctly, he’d helped the man with an engineering group project.

  He opened Yumi’s resume on one screen to review, while opening up Billy’s signal. “Hey there. You still prefer Billy, or you want to go with ‘William’ now that its professional?”

  He chuckled. Billy was a fire-augment; not a very pretty one, either, covered with thousands of tiny black hairs that seemed more like a coating of fur. He always wore tank-tops and shorts unless he absolutely had to, and no matter how cold the room, he was always sweating… and shedding.

  “Billy’s fine, boss-man. If you’re looking for a temp crew, I’ve got a captain and a few friends who can sign on, we want to get enough cash to put a down payment on a corvette of our own. Could use the cash… and three of us have only done training, no actual ship experience.”

  More resume submissions were stacking up. “How many we talking? I’ve got space for a dozen or so, but the whole thing is so automated it doesn’t actually need anybody. Just a safety precaution not to go it alone.”

  “Zeke’s my cousin; he’s the one with a Captain’s license, and this’d be his first run in charge. Jenny has been with him since he left, while Clarice and Tom were in our class.”

  He blinked. Five out of six. Just like that. He glanced at Yumi’s resume… and slapped an ‘Accepted’ message out, at the 115% rate, before turning back to Billy. “Done. Have them meet me at Salvage Six-oh-niner… in twelve hours, if they can manage it. Need to get food and bedding delivered before that.”

  “...Do you want me to tell them why you wear the frame before we start?”

  “I’d prefer that stay private. Hopefully I won’t need it for much longer. Also… no mentioning my uncle.”

  A quick nod. “Will do. I’d avoid using the last name, then.”

  Kyle thought for a moment. “Just a second. I’ll be stocking up on generic bar rations. This should take less than three months, but…” He typed for a few seconds… and nodded. “There. I just made a food account. Hundred credits each for food to be delivered to the ship. They buy bulk they can get their preferred food for the whole trip, or just a few nice meals and go with standard for the rest.”

  Billy laughed as he checked the account number. “Sounds great. I’ll pass it along… and we’ll meet you there.”

  He nodded… and disconnected, before sending Yumi a message about the food allowance…. And closing the job offer.

  Hopefully everything about the job would be that easy and he could drop them all off back at home in a few weeks, and let them keep the excess food as a bonus.

  ***

  Billy’s cousin looked at him a bit disapprovingly as he received the message; and not just for his cousin’s lack of a proper skinsuit this time.

  Ezekiel Rush looked at the datasheet of the mission; and of the ship; slowly shaking his head, looking at his cousin. “...You sure about this? The specs on that ship look crazy. No primary guns? Fabricators? This looks more like an explorer, or a colony ship, than a warship.”

  Billy shrugged. “He’s paying 15% over market for a trivial job to hunt down some pirate gunship out in the middle of nowhere, and on a perfectly decent ship. I saw it a few times while he worked on it. Its got missiles, combat drones, mines…. Its not a warship, but when it comes to defending some pissant colony from a pirate, its probably better than a warship.”

  Zeke sighed. “So we’re gonna spend months struggling to hold together some piece-of-shit junker.”

  “...I doubt it. He was only in my class for the group project and like two weeks after, then he tested out. He knows his shit. He’s got cash, and was planning to make a wholly automated ship, go exploring. I dunno why he’s bothering with any of us. Maybe just needs a bit more piloting time for his captain’s license?”

  Zeke slowly shook his head… but hit the accept button on his tablet. “If this ship is garbage, I’m getting the fuck out. You can find someone else with a license to babysit him.”

  ***

  From the outside, it looked like a dull green cylinder; a bit mismatched in the middle. Not that different from a few cargo ships on the market. Billy had never seen the inside; only the schematics that Kyle had pulled up while pretending to listen to lectures. But he knew that the cylinder opened to reveal all sorts of nonsense.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The airlock gave a soft hiss as it pulled open; and the whole crew, aside from Billy, paused a moment as they saw Kyle standing there. Everybody knew what an augment suit was; and plenty of people wore that sort of metal frame while doing hard labor, to take some of the stress off of organic muscle and bone.

  People who just wore one out and about, though? Extremely rare. Usually just people with medical conditions. Most of which could be fixed… if you were willing to go for a bit of a gene tweaking.

  Zeke studied him for a moment. Half expecting the man to be a genetic supremacist; why wouldn’t you get that sort of thing cleared up unless you were?

  “Ezekiel Rush. I understand you’re the owner.”

  Kyle stepped forward; confident, ignoring the constant sound of whirring, extending a hand… giving him a firm shake. “And I’d be Kyle. You got it. I need someone to be the official captain for this trip, since I don’t have the license yet. I’ve already passed all the certifications and flown enough hours, but one of the folks with the records is holding me up. After this trip, I’ll be good to go.”

  Zeke gave a slow nod, before releasing the hand. If he were one of those Alliance nutjobs, he didn’t show it. Most of them would barely be able to look at the black fur without cringing. “That’s fine. But for this specific mission, if you want me to be the captain, I’m the captain. Your ship, my command. No room for second-guessing in the void.”

  Kyle chuckled. “Agreed, with one exception. If I call it off? We head back to base. Period. If there’s something bigger than a gunship out there, and we can’t lure it into a minefield or something, no sticking around to give it a shot…. And if it takes six months, we’re just heading back either way, we’re not wasting a whole year out there.”

  “Better than I expected. Works for me. I saw the basics of the ship. Anything else I should know?”

  The inner airlock opened. His cousin, the ladies, and an asian-looking woman he didn’t know followed them inside as they entered a short corridor that was…. Odd. He frowned, staring at a junction on the wall.

  “..Like why is the wall like that?”

  “This corridor lengthens. Its normally a bit less than thirty meters long, cascades out to forty-five. The whole quasi-cylinder thing pops open to reveal an inner space where the drones and stuff come out.”

  As the group headed down the inner corridor, they stopped at another airlock… only this time both doors opened, to reveal… a far more familiar space.

  Zeke blinked as he studied the chamber in front of them. There was a ladder leading up and down, a corridor heading forward… and while the welds were seamless enough to be almost invisible, this was clearly the kitchen of an Obelisk-class freighter.

  “The work is smooth, yes… but...You realize that welding different ship compartments together like this ruins the structural integrity of the ship, right? One solid hit and she shatters. There’s supposed to be a whole set of supports..”

  Kyle smacked the wall. “Other side of this wall is a support strut from a Viking-class frigate. She’s tougher than any Corvette you can buy from a shipyard. Better supports, thicker armor around the crew compartment, powerful engines… Give her a chance and you’ll see.”

  Zeke glanced at his cousin for a moment… who gave a nod. “...Fine. Should be a milk run regardless.”

  The woman beside him; the silver-haired girl the only one among Zeke and Billy’s little team who wasn’t covered in black fur; leaned forward. “I saw the cargo bay carries combat drones, and a launcher for them. I’ve got a Valkyrie-class fighter that I own and prefer using. Willing to let me bring her, or do I need to leave her stowed?”

  He blinked. “...I’m putting a name on her as we speak. I’d planned to launch in an hour. What kind of ordinance does she take?”

  “Dub-issue 80mm warheads. She’s loaded down with Interceptor Flak’s right now for anti fighter and gunship work.”

  “File the flight plan and move on. I’ve already got some 80s and 120s on-board. If you use your missiles on the job I’ll replace them from stock, if you get damaged I’ll fix you… though…”

  He faced Zeke. “I need at least a few piloting hours on the trip so I can get licensed at the end, so we can’t let her fly the whole time. That’s the whole reason I’m paying you.”

  “Well then. Show me the bridge. Once Jenny’s loaded up, we can get moving. What are you calling this… ship, anyway?”

  “The Sapper.”

  “...Lovely.”

  ***

  When Mike woke up, he was surprised to even wake up. He’d thought he was dead.

  Still… all he could feel was pain. Terrible, awful, burning sensation across most of his body…. But not his legs.

  As he gave a groan and looked around at his surroundings, a few things immediately sprung up as concerns.

  First off…. His legs were partially melted into a pile of slag that seemed to be composed of dozens of different types of metals, on one wall of an enormous cavern of some sort. Either they were embedded in molten metal, or they were gone.

  Second…. There was a monster. No better way to put it…. What looked like an enormous, serpentine, beast, inside some sort of massive cave, currently very gently brushing its spiked snout against… a glowing ball not more than a few meters across.

  The faint gleam off of its obsidian skin reminded him vaguely of news stories of Empire ships from the second galactic war. But this was no ship. A living, moving creature, somehow.

  It was slowly pushing the ball towards him… and as Mike looked, he could see more of the tiny balls; albeit not glowing; up against another wall of the cave, held in place by some sort of web.

  His HUD on the suit showed he still had integrity. But the CO2 reading was…. Damn near at the end already.

  He closed his eyes.

  He’d heard of spaceborne life before. Everybody knew about those damned barnacles that liked to hook on and hide in crevices, and had gone from just one or two systems to scattered across half the galaxy. But this… a living, moving, monster that could actually keep pace with a starship, and spit plasma like a goddamned energy weapon?

  It was impossible. And it was going to kill more people, and feed them… or their ships… to its young.

  He looked at his assets. He still had the mining laser, for what good it would do him against that behemoth, hooked to his side. He had his comm, built into his helmet. Another in his wrist… which wasn’t working anymore. Joy.

  Pretty soon, though? They were both going to be eaten, broken or not.

  The backup comm was built into the neck of his suit; the idea being that you weren’t going to be stranded without one, because anything that took it out was gonna kill you. So. If he wanted them to find this place….

  He reached up to his neck, activating the survival beacon with three quick squeezes, as he watched cracks starting to form on the glowing orange orb.

  He would wait for it to hatch. Shoot it in the face. Then cut his comm off with the laser and toss it at the rest of the eggs with his last breath. Hope for the best.

  He raised the laser up, pulling the device as far from his flesh as possible, leveling it on the egg….

  The monster focused on him. Dozens of tiny eyes in clusters surrounding an enormous obsidian maw, filled with jagged teeth each at least half a dozen meters long.

  A soft puff. He pulled the trigger of the weapon as he saw a mass of glowing white-hot gas being expelled from the creature’s mouth…. But the laser simply… shorted. He looked at the weapon, whose casing had clearly been badly damaged….

  And yanked as hard as he could, trying to pull the comm away.

  He didn’t get to see the results as the heat washed over him….. And a severed arm, holding a comm-unit, started drifting through the cavern… sending out a signal the monster couldn’t understand in the slightest, and seemed to ignore.