First Hustle Complete

Amber insisted we sleep in the same room that night and we did, so I took one of the other beds in the infirmary for myself.

Morning came and I found Amber looking at me from her bed, the blonde haired Merc smiling at me when she saw I was awake.

"Morning Tera~ Did you sleep well?"

I smiled back at her, "Good enough I guess. Were you up for long?"

"Hmm~ I kind of lost track of time since I was too distracted~" She giggled before stretching herself lazily. "I don't mind if you want to sleep for a while more though."

I see she's back to her normal self at least. I was a little concerned that she might have changed completely after what happened yesterday and I wouldn't know how I should interact with her.

She swung her legs out of bed and stood up, "I got a message earlier by the way. They told me they already sent some guys to pick up the ship so we can expect them to be here in a few more hours."

I got out of bed myself, "Mmm… How is your wound?"

She poked her side with a finger, "There's still pain if I stretch a little too much but better than yesterday at least."

I'm actually surprised that she would recover that much in just one night, maybe people in this universe just healed faster or something?

I decided not to question it and got dressed myself, ignoring Amber who was unashamedly staring at me.

I have a habit of sleeping topless and that habit still stayed with me even now so she was enjoying the sight of my bare tits as I pulled my shirt over my head after clipping on my bra.

I decided to take a page out of her own book and smirked at her, "Liked what you see?"

"Of course~ You could do it slowly if you want next time~"

I giggled before putting on my boots, "So, what do you want for--"

I did not finish my words before I got interrupted by a distinct 'ping' sound.

It took me a moment to realise it came from Amber's personal terminal as the Merc picked it up with an annoyed expression to check it.

Her eyes scanned through the contents of the screen before letting out a sigh, "It seems like they are reaching here soon."

'They'?

Oh, she must be talking about the client's people. But didn't she say that they would take a few more hours?

Maybe they misjudged the timing?

Oh who cares, I'd be glad to be getting off this ship and return to the station soon.

And no, it's not just because of the Gene mod thing, but I got a notification on my Codex yesterday that the pirate ship I had put up for sale actually sold for two point eight million Credits.

Lower than what I hoped but that still meant I got two point seven million Credits which is still quite a lot of money.

And you know what happens when you get that much money?

You spend it irresponsibly of course!!

…

Kidding, kidding.

But there are quite a number of things I would like to buy for sure.

The first things are better equipment for myself and also see what upgrades could be done for my ship.

I'm holding off on buying a new ship right now since Amber already told me that the better ship models would be found elsewhere instead of here and I wouldn't be able to get a good ship with this amount of Credits anyway.

I actually thought about the possibility of getting myself some power armour or something because of that run in with Voidshade but I realised that I would have nowhere to store that power armour even if I got one.

I guess I'll just look for equipment that would help me take out power armour instead.

Amber closed her personal terminal and put on her own jacket with another sigh, "I guess we should prepare to leave then. I would rather just meet them outside in our ships instead of on the freighter."

"That reminds me… What are we going to do with the dead bodies and the cargo that got ejected?"

She shrugged, "None of our business. The job this time was to locate and secure the freighter. Nothing in the hustle mentioned anything about cleaning up the ship or keeping the integrity of the ship's cargo."

So they can be that specific huh… I guess it's something like extra services that Mercs like us could charge them for this or just something they would need to get others to deal with.

Both of us finished dressing ourselves and walked back to the docking bay.

I kept glancing at Amber because I was afraid that her wound might act up but she really seemed to be fine aside from a few instances where she would wince slightly when moving down or up steps.

She smirked at me, "What is it? Can't keep your eyes off of me?"

I chuckled, "Maybe~ I can't help it when there's a beautiful girl near me, can I?"

She made a face at me, "Please don't say something cheesy like that… Oh my god… I felt my hair stand up from that."

"Seriously though, are you sure you're well enough to be walking around? Last I remembered, your face was so pale and you were so weak you struggled to get to the corridor."

"Really, I'm ok, Tera. It just hurts a little now. Give me another day and you'll see that I'll be back to normal soon enough."

I really doubt a wound that deep could be healed in just two days… I was already expecting her to be bedridden for at least a week or two before she could walk on her own, but here she was walking along like all she had was a light sprain in her leg.

Is this really something normal in this universe?

Seeing that she's the one with the most experience being a Merc between the two of us, I figured that she would know this the best anyway and kept my mouth shut.

Though that did not stop me from monitoring her in case she was actually putting up a front this entire time.

We managed to board our own ships without any issue and we detached ourselves from the freighter, hovering nearby while waiting for the retrieval team to arrive.

Since there weren't any more threats, I connected to her comms and we chatted while we waited.

"So what actually happened to the freighter anyway? Why was it just stuck here?"

Amber let out a bark of laughter, "Ahahaha! If you can believe it, those Underdog guys actually don't even know how to fly a ship in the first place! Pretty obvious if you think about it, since they were just a small group of crooks that survived on the station and never really owned a ship before. Voidshade probably gave them a crash course on how to control it but someone must have fucked up somewhere and flew the freighter straight into an asteroid and blew out its engines."

I grimaced, "And they were trying to fix it or something?"

"Yeah, but you can imagine how well that was going considering none of them knew how to maintain and repair a ship either. I'm just surprised that Voidshade even stuck around instead of just abandoning them since it's obvious they were fucked. Unless they didn't know about the tracker of course."

"Pretty bad luck for him huh?"

"No kidding. Idiot thought he would have a better life by living without any rules as a pirate and fucked up his very first heist. He could have just retired and lived modestly but apparently he thought that wasn't enough. Too bad for him."

"Does this happen often? Like Mercs turning to pirates I mean?" I asked.

She made a face at me through the video call, "More often than anyone would like. Frankly, being a Merc doesn't exactly guarantee you a good life. There are some who feel that they are too restricted by rules, some who find the pay inadequate because of their lack of skill, and others who end up having no choice because of a single bad decision."

"What do you mean by a bad decision?"

She pointed at me, "Like for example, your ship gets blown up but you manage to escape with your life and a gun but not enough money to buy a new ship. What are you going to do? Work in a shop somewhere in a desolate station?"

"Ugh… I get it… They would rather just go and resort to piracy to try and regain their lost wealth."

"Bingo~ Pretty stupid choice if you ask me since there's always the alternative of joining another Mercenary group and working your way back up. But some are just too proud for that. Oh, they're here."

At the same time as she said that, my computer started giving me the notification of a ship moving closer and sure enough, it was the retrieval team.

Since Amber was the leader for this job, I let her talk to them and things went about as we expected and we were given the clearance to fly back to the station and our job was complete.

I'd say that was a pretty interesting first job for me.