Chapter 1

A Night's Work

Location: Classified

Job: Retrieval of vial

Client: Maverick Hunter HQ

The night was cold, with the wind howling through the street. It was so late that there weren't really a lot of people out, except for the few people leaving the bars after last call. As the few remaining people quickly hurried for their homes one man started heading for a large building at the end of the street. The black coat that he wore flapped in the wind as he stood across the street from the building, 30 stories high and, from the looks of the security, very well guarded.

"Looks like I'll be earning my keep tonight." Said the young man to himself as he made his way across the street. "Going in through the front doesn't seem likely so I think I'll see what the roof looks like." He thought walking past the security droids. As he got to the side of the building he looked around to see if anyone else was in the alley.

Sure that he was alone the young man began to change, the clothes he once wore were gone instead what replaced them was a black and red armor. His red hair was covered by a black helmet with a red D on each side. Once he was sure his armor was on he began to climb the building making his way to the roof.

As he reached the roof the reploid lowered a small transmitter from his helmet. "Night can you hear me?" he whispered. "Yeah I can hear you, where are you?" came a reply through the receiver.

"I'm on the roof, which floor is the vial on?"

"It's on the 25th floor; you can get there from the roof through the air ducts."

"Thanks oniichan." The reploid returned the transmitter to its original position and made his way toward the air duct. "Ok just drop down a couple of floors and hope no one hears me, piece of cake." He thought to him self as he eased his way into the duct. Once he was in he let himself drop down slowly by clinging to the side of the duct. As he continued down he counted the floors until he reached the 25th floor.

Again he lowered his transmitter to call Night. "Ok I'm in and on the floor; did the client send the interior map?"

"Yeah, turn on your visor and I'll transmit the floor plan for you."

The reploid lowered his visor and saw the floor plan flash on with a cursor indicating his and the vial's position.

"Ok from the look of the plan the vial appears to be only on the other side of the hall. I'll access the room from the air ducts then make my way out through one of the windows. How does that sound?"

"Sounds fine, but the vial room doesn't have any windows."

"That's true but the room next to it does."

"Fine it's your life not mine, just be careful, ok."

"Ah I didn't know you cared oniichan." He said in a sarcastic voice, to which Night hung up leaving the young reploid alone again.

Climbing through the duct system he was soon above the vial's room. Noticing that there was no direct access he retrieved one of the beam sabers from his hip. Switching it on he cut a hole big enough to lower him self through. Moving the piece he cut out of the way he popped his head through the freshly made hole and he looked around to get a lay of the room.

He first noticed the vial on a pedestal in the center of the room; he also noticed that the entire floor was pressure sensitive. "Well it had to be a bit difficult to be fun." He thought to himself as he noticed where the door was. "Ok time to go to work." He began to lower him self down. So as not to set off the floor sensors he hung onto the edge of the hole, from his hanging position he began to swing him self back and forth. After a minute of swinging he let go of the edge flying toward the pedestal. As he passed over it he snatched the vial turning in the air. When he was now past the pedestal he switched on his boot thrusters and began to hover in the air. He quickly moved to the door to leave, but before he could the floor sensors deactivated and the door opened.

In walked two security droids, who immediately drew their weapons at the floating reploid in front of them. "Don't move!" Yelled one of the droids, as the black reploid lowered himself to the floor.

"I'm impressed; you guys must work hard because the guard schedule said this place wasn't going to be checked for another hour. I really didn't want to hurt anyone so why don't you guys just put those down and let me go, how about it?" The black reploid said knowing that security droids don't work that way, yet still hoping for a miracle.

"I'll say again don't move!"

:Sigh: "Fine we'll do this the hard way then. Here catch!" The black reploid threw the vial at the security droids, who moved to catch the vial. But before it even began to fall the reploid drew his sabers and quickly dispatched the droids.

"May you rest in peace." He said as he caught the vial and moved toward the door.

In the security office a signal was received that two of the security droids had been destroyed. The officer at the monitoring station checked the readings. He picked up his radio after he confirmed the readings, "Sir we have a problem, two of the security droids have just been terminated on the 25th floor."

"I'll be there in a second dispatch some more droids as my back up."

"Yes sir."

Out in the hall the young reploid moved toward the next room. As he was about to enter the room he heard the ping of the elevator. He turned toward the elevator to see what was coming, yet he was blown back as the elevator door exploded from what he thought was a buster blast.

"Only an idiot would think of stealing something from a Maverick Hunter R&D lab. So what's your name maverick?" Said a figure through the smoke.

"First," the black reploid said as he was getting up "I'm not an idiot. Second I'm a mercenary not a maverick and third the name's Dusk."