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Master Kaerith
Richard Abfalter

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Datalogs Lazer

Rogue Stars
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Datalogs Lazer

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My codename is Lazer and this is one of my funnier work stories. Please excuse the crude writing I am new to the Forum and writing as a whole. Hope you enjoy it. You can skip the boring infodump id you want. Don't think it's that important.

 

Some developed rock in the Rogue Stars is our stage.

 

The Team is as follows:

Boss-ley the boss of the crew (who would have guessed); female; starborn

Razor the melee expert; female; starborn

Syringe the medical expert, biological male; never got a straight answer

Mammoth the heavy gunner, male; heavy worlder

Lazer ranged expert, male; Starborn

“I hate you Boss-ley. Do you have any idea how humiliating this is?”

Razor’s hate pouring into every syllable. She was dressed in a tight leather outfit with her complete midsection exposed and nanobot enhanced cleavage. A tribal design was being holographed on her skin to look like a tattoo and at least 3 uselessly over styled swords were also dangling on her hips. Her “cosplay” however ridiculous we might find it seemed to attract more than anticipated. Something about it being a classic or something.

 

“Think of the paycheck dear, the client wanted the target gone in a theatrical fashion and was willing to pay 4 times our rate.”

“That was before I knew that every virgin in 5 clicks is gonna start drooling when encountering me!”

 

A bunch of young Terrans actually really seemed to drool from the balcony above her. Better not to mention it.

I muted the conversation and continued to sweep the hall with my scope. The convention centre seemed overpacked with all manners of lifeforms big and small. I even spotted an amphibious being rolled around in a translucent tank… 

 

“Syringe, status report on the Trix.” 

“Still impossible to work with. All of this civilian tech runs better interference than a Steranko from Starcops. We really should look into getting ourselves a new member who really understands this crap.”

Replied Syringe annoyed.

 

“So technology once again failed to help us with our job. What else is new?”

came the chuckled commentary of Mammoth, our resident old-timer. I think sometimes he even leaves the house without his AR goggles, the crazy old man.

 

This nagging of different team members also continued for several minutes before finally, I got our target into my view.

 

Nasty looking fella, definitely a heavy worlder and apparently also in costume. Another half-naked one at that. He was wearing a fake moustache of uncomfortable size, had a belt buckle the size of a manhole cover and apart from his arm wrap things completely free above his waist. Some blue tattoo presumably holographed kept pulsing on his chest. Oh, and he was carrying around a ridiculously oversized shield with an I kid you not Terran goat or ram sculpted on it. It looked like it would weigh a ton.

 

He was surrounded by drooling teenagers as well, go figure. Some of them also in cosplay not unlike Razor´s slut suit. People really need to get better hobbies.

 

I let my A.I. verify the target and tell the team.

 

Boss-ley appeared suddenly in the thirst crowd around the target and mockingly said:

“Finally, what took you so long Lazer? Looked more at the other Terrans costumes?”

“Negative.” And obviously I couldn't keep the perplexed break in my voice in.

 

“Lazer if I find out that you have been recording me or made this torture session longer because you couldn’t keep your eyes away from some Terran whore I will personally rip you another hole!”

 

“Yeah yeah, how bout we get this over with? Radio silence till a minute after splash” came Boss-leys order.

 

And that was that. Silence in the voice channel. Every single one of us focused on the job.

 

Razor moved closer and closer ignoring thirsty fans and photographers alike till she stood in front of the huge man.

“Hey, Braum! What do you think of my Ult?”

The face of the target became completely white. Apparently he knew what was coming.

 

I took the shot.

Blood splattered the wall, floor and many civilians behind the target. Not a single sound came from my position up in the rafters of the building.

 

And even before people fully realized what had happened were we gone.

Good starlight my friends. Lazer here again with another work-related story to be told. Once again I am grateful for all the constructive criticism I got from this fellow audience, except you “Voidsnot24blaze”. You can die in a space wreck for all I care.

Once again I shall put a small Infodump in front of my post for those inclined to read them.

 

The Team is as follows:

Boss-ley the boss of the crew (who would have guessed); female; starborn; BADASS

Razor the melee expert; female; starborn; Once killed someone with a synthetic spork

Syringe the medical expert, biological male; never got a straight answer; slightly insane

Mammoth the heavy gunner, male; heavy worlder; a heavy smoker

Lazer ranged expert, male; Starborn; kinda new to MERC Life

 

An older shipwreck near a Starcop base. There was data to be obtained and no witnesses to be left behind.

 

This freaking piece of junk had breathable air. Mammoth kept his helmet on as usual while the rest of the team and I removed them and magnetized them to our prefered space. Sometimes I get this weird feeling in my stomach knowing that if somethings wrong with the thin layer of tech above my head my life would be over.

 

Then Razor shot the gate-panel right in front of us. I jumped to cover, my nerves betraying me.

 

“Ha! You owe me 5 credz old men.” 

“Goddamn goblin of a man; when will you be old enough to not scare as easily as infants?” Mammoth tossed a 5er stick to Razor and everyone got into position to actually breach.

Inside was no light except for when a breached hull gave way to open space and the faintest of glimmers from a nearby star shined through.

“Why can we breathe in here?” I was kinda confused & scared by the whole thing.

 

Syringes voicebox offered the following:

“Psionic Life Biome. Someone or Something psionically awakened has deemed this his living quarters. Since we experience no ill behaviour and our suits also did not alert for any dangerous substances my guess is a Terran cousin of at most 3rd magnitude. If my assumption is correct expect heavy resistance.” 

“Why?”

“Because Cthulloids hate visitors” and I swear they (see I do read your comments) smiled a sinister smile while reaching for their pistol.

 

Gulp

Cthulloids meant something bad. Psionicists as a whole are still a big debate in the star systems. And don't get me wrong but lifeforms being able to move things or change fundamental laws understood by many ancestries just by thinking? Yeah, I would also debate letting them into society. But then you have the crazed and dare we say evil boys and girls still sacrificing young lifeforms to space snails or grotesque freaks of the universe.

I drew my baton and assumed a house breaching stand just to be safe.

 

We went on, down dark corridors and rooms, ignoring a few of the sightseeing spots. Just to name two outrages ones there was a sleek plasma rifle prototype of some Insectoid race behind a Type-III force dome onto which Mammoth spit without him removing his helmet. I really need an upgrade to mine. 

The other was a room looking like a disturbing remake of olden Terran times where cattle still was slaughtered and hooked up to the ceiling. Only here it was done to a wide array of lifeforms. All skinned and cut in half. Insectoids, Terrans, even a Crystal being all hooked up on primitive chains and slightly moving, making the most subtle of disturbing sounds. After Razor and Syringe inspected the poor creatures at least Razor got excited. How did I know? Her breathing intensified and her suit started their Berserk light setting.  After that room, we came into a small firefight with reprogrammed Security Bots that gave us valuable Infos like a map once disposed of. Then through maintenance shafts, we crawled, Mammoths constant bickering keeping us company while doing so. Finally, we were inside the C.A.I. (constructed artificial Intelligence for those without space ed; basically the tech mainframe). And we immediately regretted it.

 

We were surrounded by at least three dozen cultists, their skin-cowls primitively sewed together by hand.

We initiated a manoeuvre Boss-ley liked to call the Persian Carpet. 

Each and every one of us chugged or shot a self-propelled grenade into the crowd starting off with incinerating the whole room. Our suits gave us enough protection to only suffer severe burns if we would stay in the flames long enough for it to not withstand which wasn't our plan usually. The howls of agony from the Cthulloids vibrated into my skull and made me drop to one knee. The burning flesh or at least flesh adjacent matter dripped off of bones, sensory organs popping from the intense heat of chemicals reacting while other limbs kept on trying to wipe them off. I cannot describe in detail the horrors I have seen in that room, from tentacled Terrans to a giant Insectoid seemingly made out of teeth. I still have nightmares sometimes...

 

In the ensuing chaos, we resealed our suits for protection with our helmets and guarded Syringe against a stray knife or similar primitive weapons from the survivors of the chemical onslaught while he extracted the ordered data from a nearby uplink station. Before we left with our priced data Boss-ley ordered us to take the perimeter. Which was odd to all but without question we followed our order stepping over crispy corpses and avoiding puddles of goo or chemical.

 

Stars bless that fine woman's intuition in particular.

 

Not a millisecond after everyone reported their status something made the room shake. And I mean the full room. 

Needless to say, we were a little shaken by that. (pun intended) But then the slight hint of a sound from the southernmost gate. And we all looked like something big and angry opened the heavy gate frame. Yes, the freaking frame as well as the door with a massive claw-like appendage. And with opened I do not mean crushed or cut or other normal words. I mean sharper than Monofilament or Vibroblades open. Mammoth didn't lose a beat and started shooting the thing. To no avail. Every single bullet dropped uselessly onto the floor after hitting its chitinous front. 

 

Razor charged the thing and tried to cut at its massive joints to look for weaknesses as well. Same result. Even her Monofilament blades did nothing to it. The only saving grace was that the creature only possessed the slightest hint of a mind. It kept on charging towards the direction of its last assailant. Making this a weird game of massive overly scary beast and puny Terran adjacents.

 

I hooked myself upwards basically jumping over the beast not only once but at least a dozen times over before noticing the obvious. There was a small glowing sack of some kind nestled inside one of the beast's many muscled neck rolls.

 

“Boss-ley, I need you guys to take the heat for roughly 30 seconds, okay!?”

“You heard Lazer, give that thing a show!” as she shot at the hind legs to get it to move towards her first.

 

25 Sec:

I climbed and hooked myself into one of the corners of the ceiling. Razor took initiative and cut at its sensory organs trying for its attention.

15 Sec:

Taking deep breaths. Razor got tackled by Syringe because she couldn't see the sharp claw coming for her, cutting one leg of Syringe clearly off. It was a piece of cyber gear. The bastard had a prosthetic leg and I never knew or guessed it.

05 Sec:

Mammoth lures it away from my corner exactly as I needed it. “Better make it count boy!” screamed Mammoth as the beast closed in freakishly fast.

02 Sec:

I take the first shot. Beast stops for the first time and turns its head towards my corner of the room. A scream of unnatural origin escaping from different orifices strewn across its body.

01 Sec:

It starts to turn further.

0,05 Sec:

I take my second shot, grazing the sack and in doing so rupture it.

0,05 Sec AFTER:

Thing jumps towards my corner dozen of mouths foaming with rage.

0,06 Sec AFTER: 

Razor forcibly pulls me down after receiving a leg-up from Bossley.

 

CRASH

 

Things embedded in the top northeast corner of the room, me and the ladies in a heap directly below it.

We scramble to our feet and run exactly fast enough before it falls onto the floor behind us. 

 

But instead of the meaty bang, we hear a fleshy flop. Like when an empty sportsball hits the floor. Followed by muffled screams of agony, growing more and more short-breathed. As we aim towards the corner we only encounter flabby skin. Glowing green acidic liquid slowly dripping from all the orifices. Steam rising as it eats away on the thing. Syringe carried by Mammoth joins us as we look at the sizzling flesh.

 

“Let's move people!”

 

We left for the maintenance shaft as gradually the gravity and air seemed to grow weaker. One last look at the melting flesh heap revealed a skeleton not bigger than a Terran child of around the age of 12. At least that's what my A.I. later told me after going through the footage.

May the starlight guide you, my friends. I return to this here forum with another entry of work-related content that I personally have experienced. I am quite aware that my writing is still not on par with most of the elusive crowd here in the vastness of the Trix but I will continue to bring my missions to paper so to speak. 

This Mission brought us directly into contact with a shall we say recurring menace called Sergeant Dhule. The crazy bastard is a Starcop bred true from the academy and has an affinity for property damage and shotguns. Two things that go extremely well together if you start thinking about it. 

 

We were on a civilised Spacering, meaning out here in the Rogue Stars that Starcops had an actual presence for once and that most folks believed in justice and the good of society.

So it was only natural that we were hired by such an individual to make a Smash & Grab.

 

The Team is as follows:

Boss-ley our boss; female; starborn; BADASS; knows way more things than she tells us, which probably says something about trust and stuff

Razor our Blade Monster as we like to call her (when she's not listening); female; starborn; Once killed someone with a synthetic spork (I will get to that story one day)

Syringe our resident doctor, biological male? never got a straight answer; slightly insane/weird; owns a few older scary-looking medical instruments as a sort of collection of human pain or something IDK

Mammoth the guy with the big gun, male; heavy worlder; heavy smoker; heavy drinker; heavy everything

Lazer trained marksman, male; Starborn; the newest member of the crew, already missing a Tech inclined person



Boss-ley sends us the map and Infos while we ride the magnet-rail towards our targets. And yes even hard earning mercs sometimes ride the MR if the money is tight. And before this one, the money was extremely tight thanks to a few very needed repairs of our Skooner vessel. One often forgets that a broken star vessel can really burn a hole in once finances.

So there we were sitting and standing among the common folk, our gear somewhat concealed in bags or fragmented to be cobbled together when needed and Boss-ley tells us we need to hit six spots.

Nothing weird there so we proceeded to get scans of the scores and the specific entries Boss-ley recommends. The same thing again, nothing weird yet but we all kinda hear something in Boss-leys voice change a bit when we come to the next point, security. And we all selectively look up at her in shock. Like honest to goodness shock. 

 

SHE WANTED US TO HIT SIX STARCOP ARMORIES.

 

You know the part where officers refuel their vessels, guns get reloaded or even Bots exchanged. I mean we were tight money wise but attacking Starcops quite that openly sounded like suicide to me.

Until I realised something with the buildings. They all were really old models, and a quick check with my A.I. gave me the relevant information as needed. Those things were nothing more than the place where you send officers to die. The places are like the career killers since the real stuff would be way better and easier to protect at different spots on the ring. Meaning that only old or really bad personnel only should await us there, probably even some that don’t care anymore and cling more to their life than honour or greatness.

 

And it went downhill from the start as we should have expected.

 

Syringe and I were to hold back and only engage if need be. Me once again up top on a higher building, them across the street trying some weird food creation from a Reptiloid.

Razor enters the building, 15 seconds later she exits thanks to the blasts of several shotgun blasts. Syringe drops his weird creature on a stick rushing towards her while we can hear Mammoths gun starting to rip the building a new one. 

 

Switching to different visual channels to see what's going on inside, while Syringe and Razor are trying to hide behind the food stall. Suddenly bullets start raining towards them from a Security Bot wielding a submachine gun and a big fucking alpha crudely spraypainted in Starcop orange on its chest.

Boss-ley screaming for a situation report is not helping me aim exactly as I pin down the squad inside. Mammoth bursts through a shot side window: “We have a Royal on our hands, children!”

 

[Royals for those not in the know is an in the Rogue Stars established slang for trust fund kids using their parents' corrupt money to make the life of everyone else miserable.]

 

The cover gives Syringe enough time to make Razor at least fit enough so she can function without the help and both started firing back at “Alpha”.

 

“Razor with me! Lazer & Mammoth pin down as many as you can! Sy you move towards the last score! Veto´s are not an option!” 

A simultaneous “ ROGER” from the crew tells our boss that we heard her.

 

Pinning down Bots is never easy, depending on their program they might not even care that you shot their chassis so often it looks like a cheese grater. But a good hit on the sensory unit normally gets them good enough which was the case. Mammoth continued spraying the street and building with even more bullets while from my position I saw two figures leave through a backdoor potentially pincering him. A quick enemy ping stopped that from happening while I now had to deal with three fucking Bots shooting at me each starting after the previous one-shot the last burst. Meaning it wasn't a hail of bullets, it was a barrage of hails. And the nerve-wracking thing about it was that the other two Bots had freaking “Beta” & “Gamma” spray-painted on them. How cliché can you be.

As I jump to another rooftop they clip me a few times in my non-dominant arm rendering it useless. Great, now I have to shoot one-handed. Between me and the Bots, no love was growing and Mammoth had his hands full with the shotgun guy and someone wielding two pistols. 

 

We were dimly aware of Razor and Boss-ley succeeding at the other scores but to be completely honest I only waited for the order to leave after the 4th time my head got missed by a mere inch by the Bots. I was so happy they didn't have Assault Rifles. The range difference was literally the only thing keeping me alive.

A downed Gamma and pistolero Starcop later, by the convenience of Syringe,  we finally got the order to retreat. And by retreat, I mean Razor hotwired a garbage collector and we jumped in while she drove like the devil.

 

We later found out that the Royal was having a screaming match with Mammoth about honour and they apparently exchanged phone numbers or something similarly cheesy happened because he wouldn't shut up about the guy for weeks.

 

Our wounds were shallow enough that a week in nano-soup was enough to get everything functional again. Razor´s face bore a new scar which annoyed the shit out of her for not being able to repay on this occasion. Which I found interesting because she didn't care about the 39 bits of shrapnel in her chest, no the one scar from the window was the problem. Women am I right?

 

Boss-ley tried to give us a portion from her share for not foreseeing this but we all refused. It wasn't her fault. But as a crew we know had at least one Starcop on the to-do list in one way or another. And his name was Corporal Dhule, of the Dhule mining Corporation. Apparently he had some family issues and didn't want to work in daddies trillion credit company and started a career as Starcop and nearly ruining our job seemed to have given him a promotion to Sergeant. Meaning he now was allowed to leave the spacering. And what did the bastard do? Exactly followed us to our next destination.

The audacity of the guy I swear.

By the starlight, I welcome you to the fourth entry of my new hobby. I will just presume that you read everything before this entry so as to not bore you with unnecessary/same information yet again. What I am gonna talk about is our beautiful piece of garbage commonly referred to as a Starvessel. It is in our case Terran made RSS Abhorash. No, I had nothing to do with naming it. Boss-ley received it as a gift or something from a friend and since then kept nearly everything together with original parts. Yes, you heard correct, our dear leader boss bitch only gets OG stuff for it. Meaning she mostly blows her share on said parts and feeds herself but nothing more. An odd choice maybe but I would never question another mercs conviction for why they do the job they do and by extension their naming sense..

 

So yeah the RSS Abhorash is our home. What does the RSS stand for, you might ask? Rogue Stars Skooner.

 

Skooner is the type of ship basically meaning we can mostly get from one space rock thing to about 3 other space metal things before we need to refuel. So not the biggest mileage out of the baby but we also don't need to since most of the time the next job is already in planning before we start the one before that.

 

And the Rogue Stars parts means we are not allowed to fly it inside the galactic empire. Could we though? Sure, but having the threat of a diverse array of dreadnought sized cannons targeting you once you breach the “wall” is most often enough to sway people the other way around. Is he armed? Yes, we have two 360° bolters one on top and one undermounted. Bare minimum on shield technology but a shit ton of conventional armour platings. The rest is either standard to a Skooner, a Rogue Vessel or illegal and so I won't tell you void about it. It fits 12 people comfortably and with rotation up to 16-18 till it feels really crowded and not everyone arrives at the next stop in a safe and sound manner. Seen it happen too. Vessels autopiloting into a bay and dead because they tried to cram one more passenger in to maximise profit. Two holochambers for entertainment or as we the professionals would call training cells. A gym, kitchenette, sanitary unit and apart from the bridge with all her glorious buttons we have the common area. Oh, I kinda forgot the workshop and the engine room but since those are mandatory on vessels didn't think much of it. The outside is painted in a low reflective and deep red colour.  And as to fill my word count a little bit since this forum has strict rules to abide by I will give away a bit about the “decorations” each and every one of our crew likes.

 

Starting with Boss-ley:

Very Terran Asian esthetic, holosilks (a few real ones), real incense burner in there as well. Everything is clean all the time.

 

Mammoth:

Old cigar-butts everywhere, old pictures projected onto the wall from an earlier lifetime and the smell of a wide range of ammunition and oils mixed with the smoke is the worst. Once saw him sleep with his minigun as the little spoon.

 

Syringe:

Medical -charts, -instruments and jars of stuff in different solutions give this more of a horror vibe than anything else in my opinion and the constant smell of disinfectant is not helping it either.

 

Razor:

Faded posters of some space-punk band in a black uniform, mountain of leftover cake bits or other sweets that other species would kill in sugar count alone. And an altar for some weird ritual she goes through before touching any of her impressive amount of melee weapons. Although I have to say, she never leaves without at least one very old primitive-looking Terran bayonet kinda thing. Probably something of personal history attached to this one. Not that I care or something.

 

Mine:

Apart from a few knick-knacks on my worktable where I calibrate my equipment or go over mission logs from before me or shortly before we embark on a mission, I don't really own anything… does that make me weird?

Tell me in the comments!

 

And there you have it. The much-requested vessel entry. Hope you did enjoy it.

May your vessels stay on course my friends. Having already arrived at the fifth instalment of our little “conversation” here I am grateful that not all of you try to rip me a new hole constantly. Once again shaming Voidsnot24blaze for their enthusiastic word usage.

This time I will talk about a job so easily executed nothing should have gone wrong. But so often in life, it went downhill like a Voidpiss reunion concert. 



A recently terraformed planet, ripe in minerals and already oozing with mining corporations. One of them hired us as escorts for one of their trust-funded VIP babies. This one was inbred enough to think himself the hottest shit in the universe (it's impressive how many of those are out there, in the vastness of space and all). Wasn't complying with any of our demands for safety like wearing a harness, or learning to wield either his own or a patrol baton. The guy was only interested in drinking, smoking and if Razor or even Boss-ley would let him into their pants… Oh boy, could he be glad that they needed the money. 

I don't know what it is with guys like him and other men with money, but nearly all of them treat women as if we had medieval times and honestly? How come we as a society haven't genocided the shit out of them as we did with the homophobes a near millennia ago? Probably money…

 

Well back on track.

We drove a rather new and fancy speeder with unneeded extras like Surround Sound 6.0 and real Terran leather seats towards one of the newly built mining facilities. Named after another boring rock or similar such and attached with the serial number 5.

Boring Rock 5 looked like the other four before them except for their dominant colour which in this case was turquoise green. Once we arrived there was the obligatory perimeter check, everyone who spoke with the inbred got searched for weapons or other dangerous utensils. Not a single soul seemed to plan any aggressive action against the guy. So the crew was hoping for a misjudging/overprotective parent in the corporation's security department. Then it came to the evening and our VIP had the brilliant idea of wanting to stay at BR-5 as to get a and I quote:

“Get a feel of the land.”

Translation: “I wanna fuck someone here before we leave.”

 

So we set up shop in a vacant part of the complex and hoped for quick success on his part. NOPE

Guy tried for a full week without having any luck and getting more and more frustrated by the hour.

 

Long story short he “misunderstood” a young girl, barely of age and made advances under influence till she said yes and had a fling with him.

 

Parents wouldn't have it that way understandably.

 

Next thing that happened was a freaking duo of EXO Suits showed up and ripped the place to shreds.

But more on that next time my friends.

 

Good starlight

Yours truly Lazer

Welcome back to Boring Rock number 5, the turquoise green shitshow of a mining habitat turned to shreds by its own people.

To reiterate,

douchebag VIP coerced local beauty into sex while she was under influence. Parents didn't like that and made demands. VIP did not comply. An hour later the building gets torn to shreds thanks to parents hijacking two EXO Suits meant for the mining operation.

 

Parents left the office extremely enraged and the local board of directors just tried their best to crawl up our VIP´s behind as fast and deep as they could during the process.

 

Outside the building, a small group has gathered to meet up with the parents. Boss-ley had me take up a position, the night before, outside on a larger rock formation roughly a few hundred feet away as to easily overlook 2 sides of the habitat. One side crossed into the entertainment section aka open field and so easily defendable if something would be brewing. Another side was mostly the transport fleet, a few fancy speeders like the one we drove hereby and a set of six or eight EXO Suits equipped for mining. Drill, short-range laser and floodlights basically.

 

A crowd outside got scanned by my A.I. while I chowed down on my ration bars. Nothing really unusual except for a blade or two which honestly we expected more of. But they left in conspiratory peace. Razor tailed them to the bar. 

After a few minutes came Boss-leys order to regroup inside and so it came that Razor and I walked side by side having a small discussion about the lunch menu.

 

“Fuck them and their fake pizza! I need some sort of meat on there for texture.” raged Razor.

“You won't find that much meat on this type of planet but maybe douchebag has some in a freezer somewhere. I am sure if you ask him nicely he will have you take a bite of his meat.”

“He could be the last lifeform in the universe and still I wouldn't touch him or ...”

 

For a split second, she looked confused and then tackled me to the ground before we went down a corner gesturing for silence.

 

 

And then I heard them too. A bunch of people in boots ascending stairs whispering about something that was supposed to happen any sec-

 

The wall in front of us burst into pieces as a drill red hot thanks to drilling, not stone but metal came directly at us.

Razor tossed me behind her while she dodged to the side drawing one of her blades in the process. Me still dumbfounded and trying to stand up gets shot by the short-range laser in the process.

A dozen bodies storm in our direction wielding whatever they managed to draft together from scrap and refuse. Razor screams into her commlink only to be met by Syringe screaming also about an ambush.

 

Razor dispatches two young men in their twenties while I draw my assault from behind me and start spraying to scare them away. It worked for long enough so that Razor and I went for cover when the lady in the EXO started spraying with her laser.

We feel an explosion happening from the direction where Boss-ley and the others should be. The screaming of the mob and the EXO´s laser stop, not used to explosive triggered shockwaves.

Simultaneously we jumped over our cover and laid waste to the enemies. Me shooting for the EXO pilots head spraying hot blood onto the floor and ceiling while Razor dismembers three others. Scared by our onslaught the rest start to flee, dropping their weapons in the process. We didn't care at that point. Together we finished every single one of them quickly.

I gave a status report while Razor cleaned her blade on the trousers of her last victim.

The others were beaten badly and Boss-ley and Mammoth took serious damage that Syringe was treating right now but two of the EXO´s took the VIP with them apparently trying to escape via hover truck.

 

“You owe me the recording of this!” came Razors words as she sprinted towards the end of the hallway.

 

After that, I saw one of the scariest things in my life. Razor jumped out the third story window while the hover truck was beneath it. All the while grinning like the Cheshire cat. She landed with a roll and stabbed a female insectoid rendering her wings useless.

 

I took position on the window still slightly stunned and shot the engine of the truck repeatedly until it finally started to crash and nosedive.

Hard.

 

Five people got strewn about the stony planet's floor.

 

Razor expected it and was on her feet first after taking another and definitely unpleasant looking landing but she stood.

The VIP breathed in short agonized intervals, one leg bent the wrong end from the knee downward.

And the Insectoid laid sprawled oozing green liquid from Razors work a few seconds earlier.

The two EXO pilots were identified as the parents by my A.I. but fell behind the hover truck obstructing me from taking a shot at them.

 

Razor cut communication as she started speaking to the parents.

 

I couldn't clearly see what those two were doing in response. What I did see was VIP crawling towards the Insectoid. Hailing him not that big of a deal I reported towards Syringe who told me he will be on his way to treat the VIP any minute now. Razor threw her blade into the ground and started non-aggressive gestures with her hands. The EXO´s lifted theirs in response in a similar fashion and came around the bend.

 

Razor reconnected her communication unit and said: “They mean no further harm Lazer, stand down.”

“I will not leave this post till Syringe is close enough to start treating you or the douche.”

“Fine have it your way” as she together with the parents walked towards space more easily watched from my position and literally sat down on the floor.

 

A minute or two later Syringe came running with an oversized trauma kit.

The next few seconds happened in classic movie slow motion.

 

A gunshot.

Douchebag held a slug pistol in hand, barrel smoking leaning against the truck.

Father's head rocks back and a spray of blood hits Razor.

Razor and Mother scream in rage.

Syringe drops behind cover by instinct.

Barrel swings towards mother.

Douche aims.

Gunshot.

Douche's hand explodes in a spray of blood and gore falling down.

Boss-ley leans against a rock formation not too far away from Syringe.

Her barrel extruding smoke now.

Mother starting for scared VIP.

Razor interposes and gets drilled in the chest falling unconscious.

Mother only a few feet away from VIP.

Gunshot.

This time it was Syringes gun. Hitting the mom in the knee bending her in a way so she falls on the still turning drill herself.

Her agonized screams the last thing that echoed for a while.

 

A few weeks later we were already planning our next operation. Having lost a third of the money to the army of lawyers the company sent after us didn't face us. Neither did the few badly outmatched Bounty Hunters they tried to send after us. But the word was going around what really happened and he didn't get any other bodyguards really worth their money.

 

Especially after we sent him a contractor of our own with another third of the contract. We saw it as delayed suicide.

Good starlight my friends.

Good starlight my dear readers. Today I shall deliver to you Information on one of our many and numerous enemies in the form of the Primary Pirate Crews. For those not from the fringes or better known as the Rogue Stars there are three or if you believe in fairytales four pirate crews, charters, bands whatever you wanna call them.

 

We have the RED´s, crazy motherfuckers travelling with overcharged generators and improvised jump cores just to be the slightest of midges faster than everyone else. You might call them speed freaks or adrenaline junkies but they are so far worse than only that. Most we have encountered are melee-based which would be easy enough to handle if they wouldn't allow every mad scientist out there to try out their new toys like sniper rifles built out of coffee bots. You can often hear them scream things like “Red is faster!” or “Witness me!” while they charge or shoot at you.

 

YELLOW´s are just crazy enough to survive most of the things they try to accomplish. Those are the guys not caring to run into a direct line of fire and still survive somehow. People call them lucky, psionically active or just plain old mad. I personally think it's probably a mixture of all three. But I have to give them their credit; once you see a half-naked lady using her probably self-built quantum harness to appear (or to use older vocabulary teleported) directly behind and above you only to start shooting you with a stolen high-tech shotgun of unsure origin definitely puts a certain sense of fear in your bones (please excuse the mostly Terran language). 

 

Ahhh the ice-cold BLUE´s. The ones who shoot or maim you without even blinking. These bastards don't seem to feel anything for their bad behaviour. Which is also one of the reasons you can survive encounters with them. Since they don't care if witnesses are still alive sometimes they let people leave and sometimes they don't. People talk less about this not so flashy crew and often even underestimate them. Sorry, stupid people do that. Everyone with a few brain cells (or their equivalent) realises quite quickly that the ones you hear the least about are the most dangerous ones. The last time we encountered a bunch of blues they started throwing self-propelled radiation grenades after us in a freaking megacity. They probably doomed thousand upon thousands to radiation sickness just because.

 

Ah, and since I talked about the Primaries I also need to mention the WHITE´s.

First of all, I have never seen them. But I know sane and trustworthy folk who swear by whatever you want them to that the stories about them are mostly true.

White Pirates are supposedly led by a guy calling himself Long John Silver, yeah that one. They are good pirates, you know the Robin Hoods of the stars. Stealing from the rich corporations and giving back to the small colonies on the fringes and making the Rogue Stars safer by fighting against Cthulhu and his ilk. 

 

Oh, and they are supposedly immortal.

 

Something about them stealing an ancient artefact of a civilisation long forgotten gives them mystical powers and lets them move around the universe however they want without any regards to power usage or you know common sense. Logic is lost on most folk who blindly believe these stories.

But what if they actually found like dark matter powered technology?

Cybertech with actual identity transfers?

Are any nanobots able to reproduce indefinitely or may I even still suggest time travel?

I mean their leader is named after one of the still mostly known pirate names, or do you remember a guy called Blackbeard? No me neither. Also, who names themself after body hair?

 

So there you have it, folks. The primary pirate crews of the Rogue Stars, a bunch of crazy quantum leaping alcohol chugging scoundrels. Be careful with people mostly dressed in those colours.

Lazer Out.

Welcome back, this time I shall tell of our coldest mission yet.

 

We landed on the surface of Cryke ID7, a promising icecube of a moon. Everyone looking grim within their winter suits we discussed the last time how we would deal with each target separately. This was a sabotage mission with a nice looking check thanks to our hazard pay rates. I mean everyone should get paid more if you can die to exposure, native lifeforms or hostile opposition. And since Cryke has big ass worms eating almost everything while being close to -70C° and nobody will let us shoot their fancy generators just for fun we hit everything needed for the pay raise.

 

Six generators are used to power one of the most advanced systems at the time. Our employer wanted it shut down to give them a little bit more time to launch their own while the scandal is still blasted through the Trix. The complex has mechanised security to lower maintenance cost down. But to dissuade anyone from trying they were the newest models with shiny chrome bits and electronic gizmos of extraordinary capacity. Or something.

 

We hit the surface and skated along the opposite side of the ridge. Using a snowstorm to give us natural camouflage against their scanner arrays was Boss-ley´s idea. Worked better than we expected actually and brought us quite close to the first generator. Razor sneaked past the SDF´s (Self-Determined Frames) perimeter and placed a few charges before returning by painstakingly climbing the ridge back up. Sometimes while waiting for an SDF unit to change location which could take up to an hour. So yeah she wasn’t happy when she got back up.

 

Since the storm was getting weaker than predicted (damn weather apps) we changed to plan B and split up to hit at least three more targets.

 

Razor and I betted on who would be faster with their respective acts of vandalism while Boss-ley divided us into teams. 

 

So we traversed the subzero mountainside a bit more with the storm clearing more and more. Nobody said anything, but we all got more nervous. The storm was our only protection against many of their scanners so it was only a question of time till they started hailing at us with lasers. But often in life, such things turn wrong way sooner than expected. After splitting up and getting ready to descent once more Razor tripped and started a small avalanche burying Syringe partially with it.

 

Red laser beams started perforating the entire mountain after that. Everyone except Syringe got hit by the first onslaught of light. Needless to say, we ditched the stealthy approach and started using everything in our various arsenals to either destroy another generator or kill one of the SDF´s. While this was happening the universe decided to shit on us by the way and revealed that Razor not only let loose an avalanche, no. She opened up a brood chamber for one of Cryke´s worms. A brood chamber being shot to steamy bits by the barrage of lasers earlier. And mommy and daddy worm were not happy over this fact. 

 

Most of the firefight after that took place between the frames and the muscle snakes. With obvious unlucky situations for everyone here and there. The resulting horror of needing to not only run into a laser barrage of a frame and not even succeeding in escaping, instead still being crushed by the massive forms of ugly space worms was an experience everyone including me could have lived without.

 

But credit where credit is due, the worms made a nice ruin out of the facility as a byproduct to their rage and our nightmares.

I am still unsure how we survived everything without anyone losing a limb, again, but was glad nonetheless.

 

So there you have the story of how my crew turned a horrible mistake of a member into a somewhat successful mission.

 

Good starlight my friends.

 

PS:

I clearly won the bet, but Razor to this day does not pay me what we agreed upon. But the last time I brought it up she bolt-locked me in a training chamber for a whole day while upping the difficulty settings.

Well, well, well. You all came back to read about our fabulous life as hired guns I see. Today will be a bit different. I wanted to talk a little bit how hard shopping can be if you travel through the Rogue Stars. Because for all you Sector living folk out there in the universe it is easy. You order on the Trix or even go to one of the shops on your planet or Spacering or wherever you live and pay in advance and 99% of the time it gets to you safe and sound and close to immediately. Except of course things like weapons or illegal contraband and depending on Sector law those things might be very different or eerily similar. 

I mean there are somewhere you cannot buy those sweet chocolate eggs with toys in them because food with foreign objects in them is forbidden. Yes, that means no skewers. I just can’t wrap my head around Nutrijunk vendors being without skewered lifeforms or substances getting you by overloading your sense of smell with something new. I mean isn’t Ramen all the time tiring over there as well? 

But yeah back to the actual topic I guess.

 

Merchants are most often very shady seeming people out here. From experience, I can tell you that Viven Roo and her Fans are still out there selling uncensored versions of concerts and music videos trying to give off a Robin Hood kinda vibe while doing it.

 

We were once graced by the Guildmistress of the Union of Free Commercial Trades Lear Melivia shortly after she had a rejuvenation treatment done. I mean the lady looked no older than like forty, and then I found out that with enough money you can really live forever. She is supposedly over 600 years old. Can’t argue against it from a scientific point but she did use slang not used in the Rogue Stars for easily 400 years. Can you get those words from the Trix? Probably. Would you use it in the exact right pronunciation and usage? Probably not.

 

But out here outside regulated Sectors in the lawless zone if you will merchants are the lifeblood. Without merchants, there is nearly no trade here. No trade sometimes can mean no food, water or other important things depending on planet, species, weather or whatever you can think of basically. 

So you better get in touch and keep good relationships with them even if you hate their guts because you don’t know if the guy selling you shitty Skooner parts in a few years is the only one selling you the new Skooner you need to not get shot out of space within the first few engagements you find yourself in.

 

So my tips for you younglings that think about getting out there and wanting to play hero or whatever.

 

  1. Always try to be nice to every merchant you meet, be it Nutrijunk vendor, Ramen shop owner or Spacevessel Trader. You don’t know when they will be the next big merchant.
  2. Get the most rated Starmap as quickly as possible. Knowing where pirates attack most often, or where debris might punch a hole in your vessel’s hull because it got accelerated by a moon or similar get really handy.
  3. Find out quickly what currency or trade goods are most needed in your current Starmap to potentially get big fat Credz.
  4. When you piss off a merchant be ready to either finish it or run away and hide.

 

Good Starlight my friends.

Starlight´s blessing upon you my friends. How have the stars been treating you? So this entry will be about one of the fiercest marksman enemies I have ever faced but since you guys probably won't find it interesting to read about our constant repositioning and taking one shot at each other before we start running for another cover or taking potshots in between for the other members of the respective faction, we shall experience it more or less from the perspectives of my team members. 

 

For this job everyone had indulged in some new gear for themselves. Razor had bought herself an amaranthine Forcespear for anticipation of this exact mission. Mammoth had given Sasha (his minigun) a new paint job and deep cleanse using real sage. Boss-ley simply annihilated with her new glasses. Syringe was packing an upgraded Medkit with a small scanner Bot attached for better biometrics control during firefights. For myself it was a new scope scavenged off from a Hyperion Sentinel that just so happened to have been attached to a recently deceased gangbanger who didn't know how to take advantage of his actually quite rare hardware. 

 

We were hired to hold off a bunch of hooligans while a team of engineers were to arrive for maintenance work on a SpacePorts security system. Well the local Cyborgs decided that for whatever reason a stupid Trix post was trustworthy enough to risk their lives for.

And I quote “new experimental driver for cyber enhancement technology hidden away as a mere security system at SpacePort X gets a new update”.

How the hell did that sound truthful? Well we arrived and already trouble was brewing with enormous amounts of pollen roaming the immediate area giving shithead bandits a reason for trouble making hoping the “fog” would help them make an easy escape.

 

Even after shooting at least three gangbangers did the riot not subside so we decided to not waste further resources and just keep in cover. That's exactly what the Cybers have been waiting on as they crawled out of their cable filled cubicles to strike at us with ferocious fervor. 

Razor was being assaulted by a beefcake with paired Power Gauntlets, punching holes in walls like they were those weird paper things from ancient Japan. She kept on pushing him away till she was forced to actually attack him and managed to not only throw him out the window, no she also slipped him her Trix ID. How exactly or when she was able to I couldn't figure out even after reviewing her camera feed. That woman has scary skills I tell you.

Mammoth nearly emptied Sasha after continuously firing for I think two full minutes, pinning down a scary looking pair of melee oriented Dryads (the first plant based lifeform encountered by mankind). We later found out that technically he didn't pin them down as much as his bullets made their pollen induced hallucinations probably pretty awesome. I mean when do you get a life threatening fireworks show while doing hard drugs?

Boss-ley used her new goggles to spot a small reptiloid sneaking up on her and in the last second she sprayed the poor thing with a hail of bullets which neatly ripped it into two evenly matched bloody bits.

Syringe got the opportunity to use his medkit on himself after he was nearly put out by a well aimed grenade or three. (I shot down the other 2 while they were still in the air for I was the only one even remotely equipped to do it.

Myself was a little careless and got both legs shot useless but then I thought I got a lucky headshot in and the Cybers disappeared into the pollen fog. Footage later showed us that one of the local gangbangers hit him instead.

 

So yeah, If you ever are in a gangwar watch your six.

Please like this post and subscribe for more!

 

Yours truly

Lazer

Bright Starlight my wellread friends. Today I shall try to give you a little more exposition into why and how the Rogue Stars came to be.

Okay for that we need to backtrack a little and look at how the Starsystems were established. It all began when after centuries of expansion and war for resources the Terran Republic came to be. Meaning a voidload of earth adjacent lifeforms bound themselves to each other and kept on growing and conquering much faster than any of the Amphibious, Insectoid, Plant, Psionic,  Mineral, Reptiloid or even Artificial races could have imagined. I mean here you have those spacebumpkins let them build this Republic of theirs and suddenly they are the biggest fish in the pond. 

 

Then there came the great Space Wars, we all know about those of course. Being schooled in them to the point of torture if you ask me. So after the big strife of the biggest and most severe conflicts across all of the known universe the Terran Republic stood as the winners and instead of enslaving all the non-Terrans they offered them peace. A few refused and got themselves either killed, restrained or exiled. And with that exact course of action the Terran Republic doomed itself. 

 

Once all their enemies were exiled and forgotten, which honestly just might happen to anyone if you don't see them for a few centuries, they themself built a Coalition. After such a long time the Void Coalition as they named themself asked for peace, trade, all the sensible things basically. They also had the most developed Starvessel technology; courtesy of not having any regards to lifeforms wellbeing during test phases. So the two powers intermingled and bred new friendships. All the while the Coalition  trained the best undercover agents the universe has ever seen. They infiltrated everything there was to infiltrate and took their sweet time with it. Then after every nook and cranny of the universe was positively crawling with spies and other well trained folk of all sizes and shapes they got sent a date and time for the next step.

 

On the 66th day of the common space calendar on the 6th hour of the “day” all forces of the Void Coalition took up arms and destroyed every single political asset of the Terran Republic…. at once. 

 

Just imagine this for a second, you have your machinery and there are immeasurable numbers of moving cogs and bits creating what this machine was all about. Suddenly out of the blue every single piece of the machinery breaks. Not one but all the pieces.

 

This time came to be called the Voidstate Timespan. The darkest time of the universe as we knew it. Whole planets suffocating in their own smog, or drowning in filth, starving to death all because the systems were not built to be self sufficient.

 

Once the Terran Republic fell so did the Void Coalition, but all those politicians and spies suddenly without job and purpose wouldn't stop their work now would they? Nonono these fine people started to build an Empire out of their own created pile of ash. The Empire of Stars was born, the rotten piece of bureaucracy we know today. 

And they “expanded” once more but left a significant wave of “refugees & war criminals” before them trying to run from the new established rules that now made them obsolete or worse punished them with things far worse than death.

 

And learning from the mistakes of the Republic and Coalition alike the expansion was slower and deliberate and stopped with the protected Sectors most of you probably now live in. And on the edges of all those Sectors and behind heavily armed Starvessels you get the not anymore fully established but still survivable Rogue Stars.

 

So yeah you are surrounded by the so-called “trash” of the earlier age, which gives you a new insight as to why we steer discontinued Starvessels, build gear out of scraps, or trade life for coin.

 

Till next time & bright Starlight out there in the vast Void.

Good Starlight my dear readers, here is another of our escapades.

Shipwrecks void really hard when your ass sits in one, especially when they are really fresh and bloody. This one looked like a minigun aimed at an old, nearly rusted away, sheet metal built barn. And then someone reloaded the minigun's magazine like 5 times. I searched the Trix once and apparently Terran's called such a thing it looks like swiss cheese. And the picture provided was about some weird cow milk food. Terran's are weird little freaks truly.

So imagine this very destroyed star vessel out of metal. And some hardy space fungi made it its b*tch. To the point of nearly all holes being grown shut? Imagine a hole so grossly overgrown by shrooms it is nearly closed....

Well Boss-ley informed us of an apparent science project of some Corporation that needs retrieval from there. But their own forces met resistance. So we were hired as the expendable mercs we are.

So we went in there expecting everything, from mad shroomed scientists to security bots in need of a few updates, so they stop shooting at us.

What was it in the end you ask? 

ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Fucking nightmare of a situation. Poor visibility to spore clouds and no light from the vessel itself.

Poor reception for our equipment with either the fungi or the metal or maybe even the "psychic residue" of the former crew to blame.

And the last screw in our coffins were the automated rifles that were only breaking away from their nicely built mushroom houses once they detected unwanted lifeforms. 

Methodically and very slowly did we as a whole team enter each room, clear every cranny only to fight basically nonstop for about 15 minutes straight.

And trust me, after 15min of actual gunfight or better battle, my dear reader you would lie in an exhausted heap on the floor crying for your respective progenitor.

Well I am not saying I did anything else really, except maybe the progenitor part. That one I skipped.

After the intense battle the whole hunk of metal and its inhabitants got the idea that we are here for business and as long as they don't threaten us we do not murder them. Perfectly fine for us of course, except maybe Razor. Some sort of security dog unit got to her left leg, after which we had to toss her into the void. Not knowing if we even succeed in the mission. That one she kinda took personally and nearly cut Boss-ley into pieces after she suggested such actions. A nerve agent from Syringe helped calm her down instantly.....

You might think this harsh or even cruel. But out here in the Rogue Stars... we care for family, in our own way. 

If we let her stay behind that mushroom infested vessel for a short duration thanks to her suit being breached who knows what she inhales. Who knows if the locals decide they could take on one of us to make us weaker in the long run? Who is to say she wouldn't commit seppuku in a sudden fit of PTSD?

For you guys at home on your Corporation controlled utopias things like this might seem insane. For us that was a regular cycle. A shitty paid cycle, as always.

We found the damn project after another grueling two hours of search. I cannot really tell you what it does since it was explained in high-nerd to me, but it looked like a fucking toy. A cube with six different colors intersected on each side to have nine squares on each side. Depending on what pattern was chosen it apparently was either dangerous or informative to nerds who know things about quantum stances or whatever.

Well we left the "space hull" behind us, retrieved a little popcicle called Razor and went for the exchange. That one went south pretty quickly but thats for another log.

Great Starlight my friends.

 I crawled on all fours towards the ledge of the old space link building. Some sort of age-old energy facility with orange containers hanging from the top of it made it look a little like a mixture of a sleeping pod hotel and a handgun. I will attach a sketch of it so don't worry.

It was high enough to prevent the nearby fauna from detecting me and giving away my position, while also not being too high up to mess with my rifle's optimal range. The others went ahead and charged further down the old and broken roadway. Some rudimentary roadblocks tell of the old civil war on this planet. Graffiti still showing the anguish of its people.

Razor told me over radio she heard something ahead, and I double-checked with my scope. False alarm, some tattered cloth was slapping around and about inside a building where the glass was long broken. The faded sign above it says it was once called "Cold Subject" and by the remaining rags inside it seemed to be some sort of alternative clothing stores, so basically everything is black.

"If a few dark shirts scare you, might have stayed behind little girl." Mammoths booming voice making an ass of himself again."This little girl could mess with your sad excuse of a compensation for your tiny sized equipment asshole!" "Radio silence children." this was Boss-ley, our efficiency obsessed leader.Movement ahead of my team made me double-check. "Fuck."The team heard me clear as day once I disturbed the so wanted silence. And since they know I normally don't like to cuss that much, they all immediately jumped for cover.

And then half the strip melted under an oppressive light show of laser gun fire.

My HUD told me that everyone else was experiencing a sudden temperature increase of 15° Celsius that keeps on a steep rise. My hands gave me the honour of reacting in a trained manner instead of frantic fuzzing around as I trained the barrel on the huge crab robot of death trying to cook my friends. WOW. I just thought of them as friends, need to talk with Syringe, he probably is messing with my meds again."Distraction needed 15 m directly south of Razor!"Instead of an answer I just see Syringe throw a mannequin exactly as needed with a kick to its chest like in that old film about the red greeks.Our big crab friend complied and turned ever so slightly for me. I exhale and take the shot. The laser barrage suddenly stops leaving behind a clean cut through pretty much everything in sight for the team as it glows in a lava like fashion. Stone and metal dripping down on the in and outside."How exactly did you not see the giant crab murder bot from your stupid sniper nest?" "Bogeys inbound from northeast." I don't need to mention that I might have checked the faded texts of the inventory instead of looking for trouble, my bad.Syringe positions himself on a rack while cloaking. Boss-ley and Mammoth flanked the entrance while Razor does her spider above the doorway impression, her form clearly visible through the wall thanks to our shared HUD's.

Three  "pirates" or whatever you call space robbers nowadays forced themselves through the door only to be annihilated by the combined cutlery skills of the others.I took out another one staying behind trying to hide behind a dumpster as the crab Bot started moving towards the building. Oh I hate where this is going."Crab crashing through wall in 3!""For fuc-" Yeah when even our Asian beauty starts cussing you know things are going badly.They rush out towards the street as four additional freebooter jump into existence on the surrounding roofs starting to harass my team with even more lasers.And after I shoot the jumble of space parts this particular asshole carried on his back I hear a jump sound below me and at that moment I knew, that this is going to suck big.I hear an old laser carabiner unload beneath and then orange lightning springing forth on the whole roof. Unfortunately knowing this tech better is not helping tremendously in this situation. I started running towards the edge of the building leading to my team.

And when I say running I mean hauling ass, big time. Another jump sound behind me promised issues."You bastard shot my brother!" some red cloaked youth with face tattoos screamed and tried to perforate my backside the exact moment he finished his jump up the roof.I got hit 3 times, both legs and my hip started flooding my brain with the sensation of all to familiar burns making me stumble. Then the grenade I dropped before moving detonated. The shockwave ripping the poor kids organs and everything else important into a red pulp exploding his skin suit right before my eyes as I am pushed off the building. Shortly after I break at least one of my legs while landing on the asphalt I see the perforated energy cells above me gaining in heat. My suit finally started drugging my nerves against the pain. I manage to throw down a temporary barrier grenade before the implosion cooks me alive. Now it only gives me a severe sunburn and a few spots of third degree burns where the suit got compromised by the laser and open break.Before I fall unconscious I activate my AI controlled rocket propelled grenade for a sick joke of a safety measure.And for the first time since these Logs I will let someone else talk about the same encounter.

Razor here, normally I don't do these stupid publicity things, but the boss lady says I need to connect with you little freaks out there claiming to be friends of me or my fellow monsters here. So what does it say here.... Ahhh the Spacelink job. Yeah that one sucked bad.So we got intel on an old refinery that suddenly activated again and started sending resources to a ghost town on the planet we desperately needed since our ship requires specific materials sometimes. She is a beauty for still running by the way. Haven't seen to many bug type ships out in the Rouge Stars these days any more. That one time I hooked up with that clown wearing this stupid orange hat he apparently got from his mom.

Next thing I know some dark skinned beauty drags his drunk ass away telling me he has all type of STD's right into this rusty Firefly, buts that neither here nor there.Okay so we come up on this ghost town Info from the local news and authorities tell us some raiders calling themselves the Crimson Beetles control the area, but they only were supposed to have like slug throwers like the rest of em on the rock they called home. NAH, UH. We go in and our sniper Lazer fucks up looking god knows whereas the whole area disappears into a freaking rainbow of deadly lasers. Melting the buildings and the few left behind vehicles outside as well as everything else not laser proofed. We were so lucky they had to eat through so much shit before they hit our suits. We would have been steaks if not for that fact.Next thing I know, Syringe our teams butcher Sparta kicks the shit out of a mannequin still dressed in a Cold Subject shirt proclaiming it to be of Team Squidward whatever that meant and the laser show stops. Sniperboi tells us some mofos going to enter through the door so we position ourselves as best as we can me getting great use out of my new gravity boots. Great starlight, I love them so much, they cost me the collected sum of 3 previous jobs, but they are so worth it. If you ever think of investing into any combat gear used for utility I highly recommend them.

And hey, if any Gravboot manufacturer ever wants to sponsor our escapades go ham, I would kill for a red Stiletto set. Hah as IF. So yeah I literally hang out above the door as three babies step into the room still illuminated by the glowing cut through the fucking building. It wasn't my fault those acne riddled kids went against us, but I sure ended them without letting them suffer too much. Don't need that on my karma, I fucking fill the bad side with enough shit. Then we get told that the fucking anti tank crab bot is still up and running like literally towards us. So sensible as we are we turn and run outside the building only to get shot at by 4 other kids with cobbled together jump packs. I could murder the guy who put the plans on the Trix. Like only a third of the kids even succeed without exploding their matter into the surrounding neighbourhood anyway, but that third instantly thinks they are hot stuff and bring trouble with em. Oh, and to put another drop in the bucket of shit water we were in they didn't use slugthrowers. Nah, why would they! Somehow they managed to get their hands on old war tech. Laser Carabiners to be exact. Not the deadliest of things in the stars but definitely a bigger issue than those historic pieces they were supposed to have.Lazer shoots one of the roof guys in his jump pack causing him to explode into a bunch of chunks before my HUD tells me he got shot and then breaks his left one first and twists his right one right after.

Mammoth suppressed the shit out of them long enough for Syringe to toss me his medkit and tells me to rush.I tell my AI to give me the fastest route towards Lazer as I see and feel a big fucking orange ball of lightning shoot towards the ground where the dork should have been. My body moved on its own before I knew it. They later showed me the tapes, and apparently I was shedding tears while running. Can you believe that? ME? TEARS? I later found out Syringe had somehow managed to sneak in a few low dosages of drugs into the adrenaline boosters in my suit. I kindly reminded him that I also knew enough about anatomy to not only kill him quickly but also to letting him stay alive for a very long ass time. Since then, we didn't have any issues in that matter.Oh yeah, and when I finally got there to save his burned ass am I greeted by a malfunctioning Dronade. That reminds me, he still owes me a back massage for that one.LAZER!!!

Transmission ended.


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