9 - Lu biomedical conglomerate

"That should be all of them…"

Looking at his sensor, Mike didn't pick up any additional contacts after wiping out the 4th pirate vessel. It was only after he zeroed the throttle that Mike noticed how hard he had been clenching the controls, his knuckles had long since turned ash white from the lack of blood circulation and he felt lightheaded as exhaustion replaced the adrenalin which had been pumping throughout his body up until then.

"Do you see anything on your scopes River?"

Looking to his side when he got no response, Mike finally noticed that River was too busy gasping for air to respond. Quickly setting the cockpits to repressurize, Miked checked River's vitals.

"You… Fly… Like… A fucking… Madman."

"Ah, yeah. Sorry About that."

Near the end of the engagement River had passed out from excessive G forces pulling blood away from her brain, it was only after Mike stopped racing around like a madman that she had woken up again with a raging headache.

Checking the sensors for a final time to make sure he was clear, Mike collapsed his seat, removed his helmet and entered the crawlway which snaked around the railgun which separated the two cockpits. Grabbing a ration pack the size of a soda can made out of clear plastic and sticking a straw through it, Mike emptied the pack which tasted like a mix between decarbonated coke and nondescript artificial fruits in a few seconds before grabbing another as he made his way to River's cockpit.

"Here, rehydrate."

"... Thanks."

Accepting Mike's worry without any bickering, River removed her helmet and emptied the ration just as fast as Mike had.

"For the next engagement we need to cut your life support with some more O2, which might impact your reasoning a bit so I suggest trying to breathe pure O2 for a bit and noticing how it affects you."

"Sure…"

With River acting uncharacteristically meek for a chance, Mike decided to retreat back to his cockpit before he did anything to change that, but before he could leave River grabbed his arm and refused to let go.

"And you also need to teach me that breathing technique of yours."

"... Sure, we can start on that already on the way back."

With both the determination visible in River's eyes and the strength with which she crushed his arm, saying no wasn't an option for Mike as he valued his Ulna and Radius, not wanting them shattered.

After making sure River was okay, Mike returned to his cockpit and strapped back in with another ration pack.

"Okay, let's see if there's any loot to grab from the pirate base before the security forces get here."

"You really have no limiters in that brain of yours, do you?"

"Nope. Time to pick the corpse clean before the cops arrive… Or not, contacts on the scanner, let's dip instead."

Forgoing not to spend a few hours getting interrogated, Mike quickly cleared the belt and jumped to supercruise before setting the course for the station.

"Mission complete I guess, what does the bounties look like?"

"Let's see… We destroyed a pirate base, 3 medium fighters and disabled one medium transport, the standard rate for that would be about 500K, with the mission to wipe out this pirate group giving about the same… D-did we really just earn a million credits?"

Realizing just how quick they had just earned the same amount of credits that would normally have taken her a year, River did a double-check only to find her calculations hadn't changed in the slightest.

"Yeah, a mill seems reasonable before we add the costs of resupplying railgun ammo, fuel and supplies plus docking fees… All in all our profits should be about 900K, given that the information we need to purchase hasn't changed in price from what I'm used to. All in all, we have a comfortable cushion of 200K to spend finding new work."

"That amount really doesn't phase you, does it?"

"Of course it doesn't, the wrecked fighter you found me inside were valued at 72 mil before I was wrecked, possibly more than that with all the modifications I had poured into it. Come to think of it, I wonder what happened to my other ships?..."

(If I remember correctly I had 2 trade ships, 2 exploration/surface action ships and 3 combat ships in addition to the one I lost… But given that all my credits that I earned in Interstellar online disappeared there's probably not much hope for them.)

Thinking back to the ships he had poured hundreds of hours of gameplay into, Mike got slightly sentimental thinking they were all gone now, feeling his vision was getting blurred he wiped the tears from his face.

(Goodbye Phatphuck III, although I promised I'll never be able to fully outfit you.)

"... I know I'm not supposed to ask, but who exactly are you Mike?"

Although River had gotten the impression from Mike that he didn't want to talk about his past, she still found herself compelled to ask.

"... I don't think you'll believe me even if I tell you, but I can guarantee it isn't what you're thinking right now."

"Sure, that makes sense."

Rolling her eyes at Mike's predictable response, River figured he was either an heir to some megacorp or a disinherited noble

"I promise I'll take the time to explain if we get out of this shit alive. When we're sure we're safe and if you still care you can hear my life story then."

"In that case, I'm looking forward to getting away from whatever we're running from."

"Agreed, In that case, I'll start the progress immediately, the moment we hit normal space and get in range of the station I'm contracting the cartographers guild through the local net, that way we'll only need to visit the pilots guild before getting out of this system."

-

"Tower, this is the operator of GCV-43 requesting landing permission for touch and go with about an hour's stay."

[Welcome back GCV-43, landing request approved for touch and go, proceed to pad 77A via taxiway 1.]

Having returned to the station, River had gotten over the fact that Mike was flying and working a tablet at the same time, but when he peaked up at the voice of the tower controller she had to ask.

"What?"

"Pad 77A is a large pad, they have no reason to land us there… Something is wrong."

(Now he's just being paranoid…)

Rolling her eyes at Mike, it took a few seconds for River to realize that the traffic controller had welcomed them back, not something they would do just after visiting once.

"Traffic control, any reason you're directing us to a large pad, this is GCV-43, a medium-class fighter."

[GCV-43, we're experiencing heavy traffic at the moment and no other pad is currently open, you won't be subject to any additional docking fees.]

While Mike had been right about the fact that it was a large docking pad (Which was arguably more creepy than anything else) River didn't see any reason to be paranoid. While River had done all she needed as an operator, Mike continued playing around with a tablet to request the required data from the cartographers guild as he watched the surrounding traffic by keeping an eye on the sensor and alternating his free hand from the throttle to the stick after need.

(I'm so glad I eventually learned to play gacha on my phone while doing trade in Interstellar online, glad to see all that time, effort and that cracked screen was worth it in the end…)

Continuing to play with his tablet as he entered the station barrel, Mike happened to glance out ahead causing Mike to almost crash into the ship ahead of him as he dropped his tablet, but due to the low gravity, the tablet did little more than just float around as Miked pushed it out the way.

"What the fuck are those things doing here!?"

"Would you please stop playing around while docking!?"

"No, I fucking won't, more importantly, look to the left!"

Looking out of the cockpit to where Mike was pointing, River saw nothing other than a series of relatively fancy transports parked on landing pads in a cluster.

"Not only are those some top of the line transports, but the identifications are sequential and that second one from the left has some heavy communications equipment so that would be the information warfare centre / AEW&C. That isn't a trade convoy, it is a hunting party."

"Th-"

"One fancy ship is just that, two fancy ships are a convoy and a bit strange, but 6 of them? That's not a coincidence. I know you think I'm paranoid, and I probably am, but the only reason I've survived this far is being paranoid."

Again Mike had the look in his eyes River had only seen a few times before, but this time it disappeared just as quickly as it arrived and was replaced with a mix of frustration and disappointment which somehow affected River.

"Okay, I am insane, fine, I get it."

"Yeah, I could have told you that a long time ago, but let's be safe anyway. I would rather be safe than sorry."

Doing a double-take as River agreed with him without a fuss, it was now Mike's turn to look at River like she was insane.

"I do think you're insane, and not in the hot kind of way, but the hobo with a shiv way… But your calls, no matter how irrational they've been, they've been right so far and I get that, so let's go with it."

The pirates River had grown up around were a hopelessly superstitious bunch, 'remember River, don't attack the 2nd or 5th target that looks inviting', 'remember River, if they have black patches they're not worth shaking down' etcetera, etcetera. Growing up with about a million of those irrational sayings River hardly believed in any of them as her reasoning learned more in the rational direction, but the more she 'worked' with the crew of pirates who had practically raised her as a single gigantic family it became increasingly clearer to River that some of those sayings actually had some reasoning behind them. In an uncaring universe that seems to actively hate them (for good reasons) pirates didn't tend to live long lives, every single easy mark could just as easily be the next payday which would put food on the table for months as it could be a lure, so the pirates who lived long tended to be the lucky and superstitious types, but River saw them for what they were. Perhaps they were a bit irrational, but the pirates who lived long enough tended to develop a type of sixth sense, a sense for danger and battle which they seemed to confuse with some higher power. In that sense, Mike was both different and similar to those pirates River grew up with, like them it seemed he had been hardened in battles of all sorts to the level that his 'sixth sense' was on a hair-trigger.

(No, it's more than that… It's gone past that level and become an instinct it seems he just can't ignore.)

but unlike those old fools, he didn't confuse that sense of danger with something as illogical as luck of a higher power, instead, it just remained as an animal-like instinct that snapped at the slightest disturbance.

"What's our plan then?"

As the docking clamps locked their fighter in place on the way too large docking pad, River glanced over to Mike who had just loaded his pistol with a fresh magazine, racking the slide and holstering it before turning his attention to her question.

"As it was an informal mission from the guild leader, we can't cash in the mission on another station, and we need the cash… I'll go in alone and if I don't come back in-"

"No, you're not."

Being interrupted mid-sentence Mike was about to snap back at River, but as he looked over at her he realized she had that 'ignore me at your peril' look in her eyes his own mom had sometimes when he was about to do something stupid, experience told Mike that ignoring that look would get him killed and refusing would get him maimed and left for dead.

Thus the only solution available to Mike was surrender, it was quick and painless, nor did it hurt his pride as he had long since abandoned such notions.

"Fine, but keep your helmet on, keep your eyes open, do just as I say and stay close."

"Sure, but next chance we get you're buying me a gun."

Entering the station proper and arriving at the residential/commercial district in the outer layer of the station where gravity was a comfortable 0.7 G Mike finished up his transaction with the cartographers guild over his wrist-mounted display as the pair made a beeline towards the pilots guild.

"... Shit."

With Mike stopping in the middle of a busy street, it didn't take River long to figure out why. Instead of getting immediately gunned down as Mike placed a hand on his holster, a man wearing a black suit and sunglasses walked up to him like some sort of pickup artist.

"Hello lad, is it okay to call you lad? You know why we're here, yeah?"

"Yeah, how's your week been?"

Although he couldn't see the suit's eyes behind his sunglasses, Mike was certain they looked dead and purged of emotions as his own, fake smile or not.

"Oh it's been great, I got to make a huge, like a huge and way too buff man cry like a bitch as I pulled out his teeth with some pliers I found in a trashcan. That's always been on my bucket list so I'm in quite a good mood… Anyway, so while talking with that bunch of cheap steroids shaped like a human being I hear this absolute batshit crazy story like it was so crazy I pulled out a few more teeth to make sure he was telling the truth and my analyst wasn't even sure if he was delirious or what so we hooked him up to the hydration system and cracked the station's security system while he was getting the fluids back he had pissed all over himself."

While the sunglass-wearing suit continued chatting like his mouth needed to move for his heart to beat, the rest of his goons who also made no effort to hide tightened their perimeter.

"So after hacking the security system we trace the big guy's movement on the surveillance but there's this persistent blur moving around with him sometimes and talking with him-"

"Yeah that's me, my legs are tired after flying a lot today so can we get this shit over with so I can go take a nap?"

Finally getting tired of listening to the suit blabber on and on forever, Mike took a step closer to him as the visor on his helmet switched from transparent to pure black.

"Woah Woah, easy there lad, what I'm saying is I'm a big fan, the way you used a fucking heavy MG to absolutely tearing that place apart was like a tactical wet dream of mine come through and I had a hard-on for hours after that. It is because I respect you so much that we're talking like this in the first place, if you give up your girly there without any fuss I'll even let you join my little family, the corporate bonuses the suits throw at us is just the best."

Suddenly faced with an option to not only replace his guide with a more competent one but earn a shitton of credits very fast, Mike took a second to think the offer over before glancing back at River.

"How about fuck no, buddy. I'ma take a hard pass on joining your little boyband, and if you call her River here girly again I'm pretty sure she's going to snap your neck."

"I was going to shatter his spine actually, I think it would be nice to watch him crawl around a little before I turned his insides into outsides."

While River was quick to follow up on Mike's quip, a part of her was relieved and actually a bit surprised that Mike hadn't given her up as it seemed like him and the suit seemed to get along fine.

"Woah she is hot alright, I would let you step on me if I didn't have my orders… But seeing that you guys just did me a massive favour by destroying something I cannot confirm or deny might have belonged to my employer before it was stolen by pirates I'll refrain from something like that. I'm not here to fight today, hot as it would be to get girly here to squish my face between her thighs, but give out my card and try to mingle."

Reaching into his suit while ignoring that Mike had put a finger on the trigger of his pistol, the sunglass-wearing suit pulled out a business card from behind his lapel before extending it out to Mike. As Mike grabbed the card, the suit tightened his grip and refused to let go, using his free hand to pull down his shades the tone of the suit's voice changed from the happy go lucky to entirely serious.

"I'll happily have you on my team Mike, heck with the skills I've already seen I figure you can make my right-hand man in 3 months and your own team in half a year, but this is a one time chance. If you leave now, I'll skin you alive and pour boiling water over your mutilated, skinless corpse."

The suit spoke with a conviction that made Mike sure he was already thinking of how exactly he would take apart Mike over the course of a few weeks, but there was no way Mike would ever let an NPC scare or intimidate him.

"I do really appreciate the job offer, but that frat boy act you pull over your twisted little mind so you don't go insane is more sad and outright pathetic than anything else."

"... That's a shame, Mike, I honestly respect you but next time you won't see me coming."

Putting back on his shades and letting go of his business card the suit seemed to fade into the surrounding busy crowd without a trace. The upward-pointing part of the card was black and entirely blank, but once Mike turned it he felt a headache rapidly mounting as he turned to face River.

"What the fuck did you and your pirate buddies steal to piss off Lu biomedical conglomerate this badly?"