Episode: Green Part 1
Proto-author: KefkaFloyd
Primary author: Insomniac By Choice
Secondary author: KefkaFloyd



Space isn't actually cold, you know. Of course, it's not exactly hot, either. Maybe God spat it out of His mouth and that's why it's here. It isn't anything, really. It simply is. More than anything else in the universe, it is. Space… there's a place in it for everyone, even if it takes a long while to find that place. It may very well be that in the end, it isn't so much about the finding as it is the looking. In the end, everyone will find themselves at the same destination, but no one will come to it from the same path. Because that's what space provides: room for freedom. For opportunities. Room to blaze a trail. Room to fulfill a destiny and room to ignore it. Space is open, infinite. A harsh mistress and doting mother rolled up into one. And no matter how remote or alien a land it might appear, for a stranger, there's always something in it that feels quite familiar.


Interstellar Space
En Route to Grestch Platform of the Inner Lespe-IV Star System
0520 Galactic Federation Standard Time
21-09-07 Galactic Federation Standard Date

A small ship traveled through space with hasty tranquility, surrounded in every direction by emptiness, darkness, and perfect silence. Inside the vessel, things were much the same.

The ship's Human passenger breathed in and out peacefully while she slept, dreamlessly. Though she didn't realize it, she was blest to have such a peaceful rest, for when she woke, life would quickly become quite hectic, merely the first step in a journey of perpetual chaos. To say it was the last peaceful moment of her life would be an exaggeration but not a great one.

In that context, morning came all too soon. The darkness lifted as the primary lights hummed to life and before long there was nary a shadow to be found. The Human girl groaned in her bed and attempted to resist the compulsion to roll over, wrap herself in her sheets, and go back to sleep. She started rubbing her eyes and face to rouse herself, then—when she was sufficiently lucid—sat up, threw her sheets off of her legs and got out of bed.

The act revealed her body in its full form, a shape that was feminine and appealing but not quite breath-taking for her womanhood had yet to fully blossom. Instead, her figure could best be described as youthful. Healthy. The ash gray shorts and top she wore framed muscles in perfect proportion, toned and powerful like that of a gymnast, but with a grace that seemed to imply classical sculpting, a description more apt than immediately apparent. Her skin was light and smooth but there was something hard to it, almost as if she truly was carved out of stone. Likewise, her dispassionate face might have been fixed by a sculptor centuries ago, for she rarely smiled or frowned. The only means to differentiate between one of her moods and the next was whether she cursed, but even that she did with a bizarre evenness. Her eyes were blue and hair blonde, though one could only guess at the latter as it was just beginning to grow out again. She had been shaving her head for almost as long as she could remember and only grew it out now as an act of defiance against the norms of her previous people and a symbolic acceptance of her new society.

She was a girl in that middle state of existence, independent and self-reliant but youthful and in many ways naïve. Her beliefs were absolute, immutable, and infallible. What else would you call such a person but a child?

Space may be neither hot nor cold, but the steel paneling of a ship's floor can be quite chilly, an unwelcome sensation for the bare feet that have the arduous task of traversing it. As soon as the girl's feet touched the floor, all the grogginess evaporated, and she was completely awake. Her toes skipped gingerly across the surface, and she quickly reached the adjoining room.

It was a large multi-purpose area, and at the moment its purpose was to provide her with breakfast. As the small kitchenette rose out of the floor in front of her, she sat down at its counter and began to select her meal from the icons presented to her. She groaned again. Everything was out of stock by now except Yemen Insta-Noodles. She had bought them in bulk several weeks back because of the price, but she'd never tasted any. After she did try her first one, it became readily apparent why they were so affordable. The girl gagged reflexively at the memory and reluctantly tapped the noodle icon to bring up another menu. She had only bought two flavors, so she decided to try the kind she hadn't tasted yet. She didn't expect it to be much better, but she couldn't imagine how it could be any worse.

She made her selection, and the menu disappeared.

A moment later a cup of noodles rose from a hole in the countertop, and she forced herself to grab it and set it on the cooker, a flat circular device also on the countertop. It began to hum and shine, and a green ring of light traced up the length of the cup then back down, preparing it. The device dinged cheerily to announce that it was ready for consumption, and the girl took it off the cooker and opened it.

With her nutritious breakfast safely in hand, the kitchenette descended back into the bowels of the ship, and she anxiously glanced upward as the flat, rectangular viewscreen lowered itself from the ceiling, taking up much of the same space the kitchenette had just moments before.

The daily news feeds her ship received began to pour in and her screen automatically started scrolling through the headlines of the Integrated Media Network. Her eyes scanned them briefly to see if anything important was flying across the sub-spacewaves, and she promptly decided that the relationship status of celebrities she had never heard of and ad nauseam analysis of the same news that had been on yesterday did not meet such criteria. By the time it reached her, most information was several days or weeks old, anyway.

She gave a hand gesture and the galactic headlines disappeared, replaced by news from the local platforms and occupied planets, though as far out in the Rim as she was, hardly anything noteworthy ever came out of the planets. Again, nothing important caught her eye so she gave a hand gesture to switch over to the channel owned by the Concerned Citizens for Galactic Stability.

The feed and design of the channel was excellent quality, as would be expected of a bounty hunter guild as successful and important as the CCGS. News on the ticker scrolled across bottom, but the girl was uninterested in what she already knew was mostly self-promoting guild propaganda. Unfortunately, the center of the screen was little better. From what she could guess, it was a former white-level guildsman recounting stories of his glory days interspersed with actual and generated footage synced to his narration so as to be more appealing to potential viewers. Probably a special to try to get people to order CCGS Classic.

The girl could only guess at all of this because she had muted the viewscreen the first day she had used it and never felt the need to undo that action. So all that left was the sides of the screen. On the left there was a listing of the going rates of top bounty pullers in galaxy with CCGS members highlighted in bold. On the right it was the same but listed only CCGS members instead. In both cases each hunter was as interestingly named as any racehorse.

Space Ranger Omega.

"Big Time" Brannigan.

Rogue Gemini.

Big Bad Beowulf.

Ridiculous, the lot of them. The monetary values next to the names were equally ridiculous, but those were the good kind of ridiculous. The cheapest hunter listed on front screen had a going rate of fifty million Yire, fine money by any measure, but especially impressive considering that the median rate for all guild members was closer to one million Yire a job, which in turn was far higher than the average rate for independent hunters like her—about two hundred thousand.

After purchasing all of the necessary equipment and paying the registry costs, there was the overhead of powered suit and weapon maintenance, as well as ship upkeep and fuel, not to mention actual living expenses. For independents, just breaking even was considered good and so long as regular work could be had, that was fine, but as soon as it stopped, the bounty hunter was an instant pauper. Only guild members could make long term profit; all the others struggled and starved until they could no longer resist the temptations to cut their losses, sell back their equipment, and start over with a less exotic, more sensible job.

Such was the fate of the girl if she could not get a job in the near future. Though her former people had given her a powered suit and vessel free, she still had to pay for the fixed costs of operating in her occupation and without any new funds coming in, her once large supply Yire was steadily declining. It would have helped if she had been part of a guild but such a thing would be almost impossible considering she hadn't even been on her first mission yet. Besides, she wouldn't owe anyone anything for her success. She would become the best without any help and without making any compromises.

The girl had had enough of the CCGS channel and went to the listing of the Independent Channel to check her account for any offers. All she needed was one job and after that, she would be on her way to the top. Just one job…

Ah.

Subject: We would like to make you an offer…
Contractor: Universal United Systec-Zaibac Corp.

She had expected her first job to come soon but a corporation? That usually promised very heavy payment. The girl restrained her rising excitement, selected the message, and opened it. She began to read.

Are you in need of some credits? Does it seem like there's a Yire-vampire out there sucking you dry no matter what you try? Never fear. Universal United Systec-Zaibac Corp. is here to help. For the low, low price of 20,000 Yire, we can give you an instant line of credit of up to 2,000,000 Yire, no questions asked!

She stopped reading and angrily deleted the message. Argh. The channel had promised to filter absolutely all spam out of her account but obviously that was not the case. The company had probably offered to help cover the costs of operating the channel for a while so that they could advertise to the personal accounts of bounty hunters. Of course the channel had accepted. It was always losing money, and if not for the Federal subsidies it would have gone under a long time ago.

Despite her crushed hopes, the girl decided to browse the general listing and her viewscreen located her position among them, an irrelevant grain of sand on the vast entrepreneurial beach. With a record of 0-0-0, she was ranked 51,871,632 among independent registered bounty hunters. That put her in the upper third. And since she was only asking for 300,000 Yire at default, that made her quite desirable, 9,456,334th in the listing. If she narrowed her parameters to those hunters within a week's travel, her qualifications were better yet: 766,287th. Ranked nearly seventy hundred sixty-six thousand, surely she jumped out at all contractors when they looked for someone to offer a job. Surely.

She sighed. Yes, it wasn't a surprise that she hadn't been contracted yet but none of the open bounties had piqued her interest, either. The good thing about accepting open bounties was that failure did not count against one's record, but that was the only advantage about them. Any bounty hunter who took it was most likely competing against ten or twenty or even a hundred others, depending on the reward, and since all bounties were pay on delivery, anyone who didn't bring in the bounty was out of luck. No, only desperate hunters took those jobs and the girl would never be that desperate. She might bid on a job, sure. Only the most successful of hunters could afford not to. But she would never sink so low as to chase after a bounty head with an open contract on him.

She looked down at the still untouched cup of noodles in her hand and growing cooler by the moment. If she was going to eat it, she should definitely eat it while it was hot. Yes, she should eat it right away. Just swallow her fear and swallow some food.

She decided, just for curiosity's sake, to look over some of the nearby bounties put out, of both the open and bid varieties. Nearly thirty thousand within a week's travel. But what about the platform she was currently traveling to? The girl had intended to just refuel there but might not this platform have a number of qualified jobs, as well?

The viewscreen showed her five thousand bounties based out of this platform. She filtered out the open bounties and was left with nine hundred current bid contracts. The girl watched as they were filled, disappeared, and new ones popped up to replace them. She moved to access one and get a closer look but as she did, the viewscreen told her that her selection was no longer available. Odd. She accessed another and was told the same thing. As she spotted a new contract appear, she accessed it and this time was able to read the description and offered price but was then informed for a third time that her abilities in selecting were wanting terribly. Hmph.

This continued for several frustrating minutes more. Had I realized this was the hatchery for despondent bounty hunters, she thought to herself, I would have happily gone to another platform.

Several times she had actually been able to place a bid but that hadn't mattered. It seemed her default price of 300,000 Yire was a king's ransom compared to what some of these bounty hunters were asking. Anyone with a default bid of under a hundred thousand Yire was almost guaranteed a job and the opposite was also true. But she wouldn't underbid someone if it meant losing money on the operation; that was just ridiculous.

No wonder so many independent bounty hunters went belly up. They didn't even know how to conduct business. Well, she could set her default price a bit lower in order to bid more competitively but she knew there had to be a better way.

The pattern was clear: as soon as a bounty appeared, the starving hunters attacked it and started a bidding war that only benefited the contractor. Still, they couldn't catch every bounty offered and if they spent all of their time going after the new ones, that had to mean any older bounties that had slipped by were less competitive. Her viewscreen filtered out all bounties less than a day old. Okay, now she was working with seventy. The only reason most of these were still active was because they were set on a time limit instead of a minimum bid limit, meaning their current bids were absurdly low. Twenty thousand Yire? Did these people have no shame?

Suddenly the girl spotted an active contract with a starting offer of 450,000 Yire and no bids. She quickly selected it to find out why.

Contractor: Dorl-Haitian Corp.
Contract Type: Bid
Bounty Type: Fugitive
Details: Hidden. To be revealed upon approval.
Minimum Bid: Hidden
Qualifications:

Now this was where it became interesting. Under qualifications most bounties simply listed "none" and a few listed such things as "ten missions on career" or ".300 success rate," but this one was different. Its parameters for application were "N/A success rate" and "preference given to greens." No wonder it was still available. Still, there had something peculiar about this offer if the contractor had such specific requirements.

While the girl mulled over this, she saw someone bid on the contract at the given price. Frantically, she moved to place her own bid. She bid 400,000 and was immediately underbid at 300,000. The girl took a deep breath. 250,000 Yire was still fine payment for a green. Yes, 250,000 was perfectly acceptable. She placed her bid and was again immediately underbid, this time for 200,000. She cursed. 200,000 was barely better than breaking even. She couldn't go any lower without incurring a net loss. But then, neither could the other person.

The girl bid 150,000 in such a way that a cackle would not have been out of place, but waited calmly to be underbid once again. Instead, she was informed that she had made the minimum preset bid and been approved. She was supposed to meet with her contractor outside the entrance of the Fortuna Cafe in six hours to receive the details of the contract. Tardiness would be interpreted to mean she had changed her mind and they were to look elsewhere.

She cursed.


Grestch Platform of the Inner Lespe-IV Star System
Docking Bay 17-B
1035 GFST
21-09-07 GFSD

The girl sat in her ship thinking while the platform processed her vessel and automatically deducted a modest sum for the service of its existence. Had she been transporting any goods, the platform would also have checked the equilibrium price of her intended market and deducted a percentage of the expected revenue. It wasn't a tariff, of course, because those didn't exist these days and would have been reviled in the modern free market system, anyway. It was simply the price for ensuring that one's goods made it safely to their destination. If that destination was the platform itself, all the better. If that destination was another platform or colony, one was free to choose another route. There may not have been another place to dock or refuel within a couple of days travel, but one always had choices.

Besides making sure passengers arrived safely, the platform ensured its own safety by accessing ships' logs to find out where the vessels had come from, who they were registered to, and what their purpose at the platform was, as well as scanning for any malicious code that might be hidden within the other information.

The girl knew the platform's security would be in for a surprise when it checked her ship. There was no virus, of course, but the ship was owned by a person who existed only as a name, and the purpose given for docking was the vaguest possible in a galaxy obsessed with money: "business matters". The platform's security would surely be inquisitive about what that business was and probably also who she was, also. When she tried to enter the platform, she would have to provide them with an answer or push her way through, probably not the best way to be entered into their database, especially since she had other concerns.

She would have to meet with her employer face-to-face, and (having learned of this society's perception of Human females) it was likely they would regard her poorly because of her sex, despite her abilities and training. Possibly worse, they would regard her as a curious novelty, exceptional because of her gender, and still ignore these things.

Ah, but if her employer did not see a woman, or even a man, just a shell of cold metal, none of this would even be an issue. She had not had a reason to use the suit yet because she hadn't been on any official business yet; she hadn't needed to kill anything. Nevertheless, perhaps it had other, more important uses than killing. After all, when making a first impression, one should always put one's best foot forward.

She kept the suit near the bridge, freestanding. Unlike her it had authority.

The girl went to the suit and reappraised her people's parting gift. Really, it was the only thing of any worth she owned, so well crafted it was beyond price, one of those rare items whose aesthetic beauty was surpassed only by its effectiveness.

She lifted the vermilion helmet from its stand and set it aside.

The gleaming gold panels and red trim reflected even the minutest ambient light in the ship; the interlocking panels cast out rays of tinted light in myriad directions.

She said, "Open," in the language of her former people and the suit started unfolding. The back panels slid apart, retracting in to each other with a loud grinding whirr. The shoulder guards and red breastplate tilted forward, creating a passage for her to slide in to the suit. The arm and leg covers split in half, readying for her entry.

Taking a deep breath, the girl put her right foot forward and stepped into the boot. Feeling the leathery interior rub against her skin was always a bit disconcerting at first, but the sensation disappeared shortly, replaced by pleasant comfort. She slid her left foot in next, along with the rest of her body. Her right hand disappeared into the cannon that took up the suit's right forearm while the left fit into a perfectly crafted hand. Both, however, fit equally snug. The tank and shorts, on the other hand, never fit very flush with the suit reminding her for the umpteenth time she would need to obtain some clothing more suitable for internal contact. Finally, she poked her head up through the hole in the breastplate and the rubber gasket material came to rest on her neck.

She lifted her arms, pressing the breastplate into place. The electric latches caught each other, and a loud hiss erupted as the suit began the sealing process. Shiny yellow panels started interlocking with metallic clicks, the wing-like broad yellow shoulders clasping upon the backs of the arm plating. The suit tightened its grip around her body, becoming her metallic second skin rather than a mere shell. She flexed the fingers of her left hand, remaining ever appreciative of how the suit didn't get in the way of her instincts or natural motion, even if the wonderment about it was no longer there. Reaching to where she'd set it down previously, the girl picked up the helmet and firmly planted it upon the rubber gasket in the breastplate. As if it was gluing itself together, the seal quietly gripped the helmet with the incoming rush of pressurization. The helmet's electrical connectors quietly buzzed to life and the heads-up display flickered to life.

There was a feeling of god-like superiority inside the armor. Enveloped so, she was all-powerful — could punch through a solid wall, leap a dozen meters straight into the air, or fire a blast of destructive energy from her cannon. She was nearly omniscient, too. Between her HUD, visor's assorted amplifiers and filters, and internal processing unit, she knew everything. For example, right now she could look through the hull of her ship, focus on a pair of the people talking outside and know the details of their conversation. As she ran through a systems check, she did just that.

The girl located a couple of what her IPU identified as Oushans discussing whether or not it would be considered acceptable to go to their meeting dressed in traditional Oushanian attire. Then, if it wasn't, what style of Human attire should they adopt? Should they shake hands to show that they were intent on beginning a congenial relationship or give the customary salutatory cough to avoid looking like assimilationists?

For this she could just listen in, but even if something sound proof had been between her and the people, she could have known the same easily enough. She deactivated the auditory sensors and switched her focus to another set of people conversing, these Human. Using a combination of her HUD's light filters, she tracked the couple's lip movement and vocal cord stimulation, then had her IPU determine the words most likely formed with what inflection and intended meaning. For the time being, she also had it translate the words for her, although her Federation Standard was passable.

According to the translation, the male had returned from a business trip of some kind, and the female, noticing several bite marks on his neck, angrily questioned exactly what kind of business it was. He, of course, vehemently denied this implication. The girl in the suit used her IPU to check his response against other scopes that tracked micro-expressions, pulse, body heat, and brain activity, all of which told her that he was most likely lying. The female in the conversation seemed to reach the same conclusion independently.

Her suit had one more important property, perhaps the most important of all. Inside her armor she was protected from all attacks, physically by the shock-absorbing energy shield that surrounded her, but in intangible ways as well. The added height and bulk made her an armored titan, giving her an imposing projection but an even more imposing attitude. She was inherently a dangerous creature, had been trained to be so for most of her life, but inside her suit she was absolutely lethal, and snugly so.

It felt normal to be covered only in fabric most of the time, but once she stepped into the powered suit, she realized she was little better than a snail left out of its shell, crawling around helplessly. But this feeling was home. This feeling was good and right and natural.

And this would be how she would meet her employer.


The hatch of the ship, but one of several thousand vessels in the docks, opened and a short ramp extended until it touched the floor of the bay beneath. A girl dressed in a red and gold powered suit walked down the ramp and began to make her way toward the nearest gate that would give her access to the platform proper. As this was a particularly diverse platform located at the intersection of several major trading routes, it was rare to see more than two or three of the same species in one's vision. The platform was full of people, some coming, some going, some just standing around, but each oblivious to the person beside him.

The armored girl, over two meters in height, was something no one noticed, either, but somehow everyone drifted away from her path before she could bump into them. She moved forward deliberately and did not bother to slow down or step aside for anyone, confident to leave this responsibility to others.

The girl inside the armor felt a profound sense of satisfaction at this. No one had given her any respect for a very long time and that made this even sweeter. Her satisfaction was dimmed somewhat as she gained view of the access gate, and she realized what trouble she was going to be in. A small number of lightly-armed security guards and large number of scanning equipment trained themselves on each person in the single-file line as they stood before the gate, giving a series of low beeps to signal that scanning was still in process, then a single high-pitched beep to signal that scanning was complete and approval had been given for entry.

The line in front of her moved through quickly, efficiently, and it was not long before every scanner was pointed at her, attempting to determine her identity and estimate her threat level. Her suit had been well designed to protect against this, obscuring her identity and forcing the scanning A.I. to postulate what types of weapons she had, how many there were, and where they were located. The last issue was quite obvious due to her oversized cannon-forearm, but the rest would be almost impossible to properly classify. As more and more time went by, the line behind her became congested and grew much quieter until the rhythmic low beeping of the scanning could be heard over the muffled sounds of the crowd.

Bmm.

Bmm.

Bmm.

Bmm.

She noticed the security personnel were growing agitated now. They looked up at her to see what the problem was. The girl in the suit just stood where she was, awaiting the outcome. As nearly a minute crawled by, she saw the guards gingerly remove their weapons from their holsters and take the safeties off. So focused was she on this, she almost missed a small group of shock troopers in powered suits trot from inside the platform and stand on the other side of the gate.

One of the lightly armed guards, a Vadene, approached the girl in the suit. Her IPU scanned him and told her he was the highest-ranking officer present at moment. He spoke Standard, and her IPU detected no strong dialect.

"Excuse me sir, but we seem to be having some problems determining your identity due to that suit you're wearing. Normally powered exoskeletons aren't a problem, but it looks like we've got a few bugs. Very sorry for the wait you've had to go through. All the same, if you'd be so kind as to remove your helmet, we'll scan you directly so we can identify you. Then you and your suit can be entered into the database. After that we'll let you go on through and you won't have this problem again."

He tilted his head to one side as if listening to something.

"Also, we're going to need to take a look inside that ship of yours. We seem to be having some problems gathering some information from that, as well, so it looks like we'll have to do a physical search. Please give us a minute, and I'm sure we'll get all of this stuff taken care of, okay?"

The girl found her throat suddenly dry, and she had to swallow once before she could answer.

"No," she said, her voice faltering slightly throughout the single syllable. She silently cursed herself for this weakness, but the guards did not hear that voice. They heard the titan respond coldly, mechanically, defiant and resolute in tone.

The ranking guard frowned.

"There's no reason to turn into trouble, sir. Give us a few minutes of your time, and we can all go back to more pleasant things. Keep in mind that here at Grestch we take security very seriously, so maybe you should… reconsider your answer."

"My answer is the same. I can't afford to waste any more time dealing with your nonsense. I have business to attend to inside."

"And what kind of business are you on, decked out in that—or do I need to guess?"

"I'm a bounty hunter and thereby granted the Federal right to go wherever necessary to capture my bounty."

"Is that right?" the Vadene guard said. "I'm no expert on Federal law, but since you seem to know so much, maybe you can explain to me why it's in our best interests to let an unidentified walking arsenal into our platform? If you think we enjoy the possibility of getting a couple of platform blocks blown to hell, you're sadly mistaken."

"My bounty isn't on Grestch. At least, I don't think he is," she faltered. "I have an appointment with my employer in a few minutes to find out the details."

"So you're not actually on a mission yet?"

She grimaced as she discovered she was being backed into a corner.

"Technically, no. Not yet."

"Then I'm still going to have to ask you to remove your helmet and allow us inside your ship. If you'll check the wording of that particular Federal law you referenced previously, I think you'll find that if you haven't been granted the full contract, technically we aren't required to let you in. So if you've got business to attend to, I'd suggest you do your part to help us get through all this as quickly and painlessly as possible, or else you're not getting in, period. You get what I'm saying?"

"Yes."

"So you going to take off your helmet?"

"No."

"Then thank you for visiting Grestch Platform, and I hope you have a wonderful trip to wherever you plan to go next."

There was a moment of tense silence as everyone in the docks waited to see what the bounty hunter's reaction would be. A crowd had gathered around the scene, spectators as well as those who actually needed inside, and every guard had his finger on his weapon's release. The low beeping still had not ceased, but now it was the only sound that could be heard.

Bmm.

Bmm.

Bmm.

Bmm.

But the girl in the suit turned around and walked back toward her ship.

The crowd gave a collective sigh of relief and went back to their own business. The embarrassment of the scene would be remembered in passing by most as an interesting story to tell friends or family, but the girl was almost shaking with anger at her own incompetence. She had expected this, she should have made arrangements earlier, contacted her employer hours ago and asked them to meet her outside the platform so she wouldn't look like the unprepared green she obviously was. Instead, she appeared a fool and she would appear more a fool when she told her contractors she would be late and they'd have to come to her. This was not going to make for a good impression. Her only consolation was that she had preserved the separation between her two identities, feminine and occupational, as was her primary concern. This was still salvageable.

She went inside her ship and made a call to the Fortuna Café. One of the workers answered and she told him to relay a message to her employer waiting outside of the café. It took a bit of goading, but her artificial voice seemed effective at making threats even when she didn't intend them. She just hoped the worker would remember what gate she'd told him she was at.

The girl went back outside and stood rigidly, watching an endless stream of people go by as she waited impatiently for her employer to arrive. She just wanted to get all of this over with so she could get into doing what she did best: hunt. She was a hunter, a killer, even if she'd never actually killed anyone yet. Negotiations and social subtleties weren't her specialty. If she could just get this over and done with, her legend could begin to spread in earnest.

"Samus Aran!" She looked up. "Samus Aran the bounty hunter! Where are you?"

Her IPU filtered the noise and located the source of voice amidst the crowd. It was a well-dressed Human, surrounded by a half dozen bodyguards in powered suits. The Human looked very angry, no doubt accustomed to employees obeying his every whim. Those failing in this regard would surely incur unimaginable wrath. She groaned, but the IPU proved its intelligence once again and did not translate the sound.

"I am Samus Aran," the girl announced in a calm but booming voice. She wasn't sure her suit had projected it loud enough, but soon the well-dressed man and his entourage turned and headed her way. The guards parted and the Human walked up to her, glowering threateningly as he started to yell, even though the size disparity between them was laughable.

"What kind of a bounty hunter do you think you are? You don't just change the location of the meeting at the last minute."

"I apologize."

"You what?"

"I apologize. I had some trouble getting into the platform, so I asked if you would meet me out here instead so that I could take your bounty. I understand that this is not good form to start out our relationship. What would you like me to do?

"I'd like you to start acting like a professional, but since you're obviously not, I don't see any reason to pretend to treat you like one. We already agreed on the payment so there is nothing I can do about that. You'll get twenty-five percent now, the rest upon delivery."

"I believe it would significantly help my ability to do my job if I had the standard fifty percent so that I can cover any unexpected costs."

"I don't believe it's going to matter because I believe you're an incompetent green, and you've done nothing up to this point to give me faith in the contrary."

Samus gritted her teeth but said nothing. He handed her a disc, and she placed it in one of her suit's storage pockets.

"All of this is on there but I just want to go over the main points to make sure you understand, or at least understand as well as you can.

"The bounty is Wade Andrews. He was part of a research team owned by the corporation I represent. A few days ago, he made a copy of some of our data and fled. He was off of our platform before we realized anything was stolen and went to Gantil Orbital Platform, part of a league we're associated with, but unfortunately not exclusively. Doubtlessly he has moved on since then, but we have no idea where to. We questioned Andrews's wife but apparently he had left her in the dark about the whole thing, too. While we don't know exactly what he plans to do with the information, it's a safe bet he's going to sell it to one of our rivals. At the present time we have reason to believe we're in the lead, but if someone gets our data and completes theirs first, we'll have to swallow a loss of hundreds of billions in research and lobbying."

"If it's so important to you, why hire a green? You could have hired a top white class bounty hunter for reasonable Yire and been assured success. Or even used one of your own people."

"We could have done that? Really? I guess you're more astute than I gave you credit for. Well, thanks for the advice; there's no reason to involve you now." He rolled his eyes. "First of all, Andrews is a civilian with no military training and no criminal record. He's not a professional fugitive, so any bounty hunter with half a brain should have no problem tracking him down. Second, we would obviously like to handle this in-house and use our own people but things happen to even the best, and we do not want it getting back to us. Someone on our regular payroll isn't an option. Third, you don't need to know what our research involved, but in the event that this all turns out badly and you do find out, we would rather our potential witnesses have questionable credibility."

"I see."

"I wonder if you do. In any case, please show us you're a smart boy from here on, eh?" The Human representative started walking away into the middle of his bodyguards when he looked over his shoulder and noticed she was standing there with her hand out. "What?" he asked, "Do you need something else?"

"I need my money."

"Here," he said and tapped one of the guards. The guard handed her a worn out Fisk displaying 35,000 Yire in the corners. "Don't disappoint," the Human said, "While we may not be able to get our hands dirty with a researcher, a bounty hunter is a different story. Fuck this up and you may not get a chance to redeem yourself."

"Don't threaten me," Samus said.

"Or what?"

She shoved two of the guards out of the way like they were wads of paper and pressed her cannon into the Human's forehead. His armored protectors had been caught off guard, but quickly recovered and each pointed his own weapon at her head. Secretly, she was cursing herself for doing something so impulsive but her armored shell gave the appearance of being resolute.

The Human was unfazed.

"So you've got a pair, do you? Good. I like that in a hunter." He addressed his bodyguards, "Disarm your weapons, and I'm sure this fine gentleman will do the same."

They did, and after another tense moment she did as well.

"Perhaps I was out of line there. Threatening someone you're paying isn't good form for the beginning of a relationship either, and you readily pointed that out to me. But the threat won't be an issue because you're going to catch Andrews, recover the disc, and get paid the rest, right? Who knows? If this works out for you, you may even have a regular job with us."

Samus didn't respond, and instead she turned around and walked into her ship. The Human representative and armed guards stood where they were a moment longer, perhaps a matter of saving face. The girl kept her IPU trained on them, attempting to eavesdrop on whatever conversation they might have among themselves. But they said nothing and merely retreated back into the platform, beyond the gates and eventually, beyond her ability to track them.

Well, that could have gone better, but at least she'd gotten some money and respect out of it.

She checked her ship and saw that it had finished refueling. Good. Gantil Platform was not that far away. She could reach it in a couple of hours, which, luckily, would give her ample time to study the bounty information.

It was all going according to plan.


~See You Next Mission~


You greet the world with arms wide open, but all it takes is one shot to the gut to make you double over and cover up for good. Keep a look out, over the shoulder and on each side, 'cause the blind side is where you're blind, and everybody knows it. But sometimes trouble can come at you from the front, and you gotta face it head on or turn tail and run. And no matter what happens, you gotta keep your head up high and keep plodding forward, 'cause once you stop, it's all over. Dig?

Next Episode: Green, part two


Authors' Notes:

Insomniac By Choice: Yes, that is punctuated properly. It's a plural possessive. See You Next Mission is a work co-authored by myself and the esteemed KefkaFloyd (compare his user id and earliest story published to your own, I dare you). As co-authors, we'll alternate between primary and secondary author duties, and hopefully each bring our own strengths to the table, while balancing out the others' weaknesses.

KefkaFloyd: SYNM was envisioned as a different way (for a fanfic, at least) of bridging a gap. We decided that we wanted to do an episodic format, of many short stories linked together to form a cohesive whole. This is probably familiar to anyone reading it – serial television or movies or novels work in the same way. These episodes wouldn't always be from Samus's point of view, but they would always involve her in some way. It's a way to help create a world, something Metroid is severely lacking (mostly due to the nature of the games, though Prime expanded on this significantly).

IBC: What we're trying to do here is basically write stories about Samus. I mean, I don't know if you can say it anymore simply than that. We're trying to write stories that show an unbiased portrait of who Samus is, and that means we can't just follow her to do it. In the first two episodes and several later on, it's necessary to see it from Samus's point of view, but overall what we're going to do is show Samus's place in the universe, and what that universe is. We're used to the idea of Samus catching bounties or destroying property, and we think nothing of it. But someone has to hire her, someone has to be caught, someone has to be left footing the bill for the building she demolished, someone has to watch her do it. A lot of people have told stories of what these events mean to Samus and we're going to tell our own, but everyone has a story to tell and we're trying to give a voice to the voiceless so that in the process we'll get a better understanding of Samus Aran.

KF: This series probably isn't for everyone. To streamline the stories a bit (and minimize the repetition of the world building) we decided to utilize an appendix. The appendix is meant to enhance your understanding of the story. It's meant as reference material for how the world we've structured works, both as for ourselves and for you. If there's something you don't understand, odds are the appendix explains it. Everything is done on purpose or for a reason. We aren't leaving things to chance.

IBC: I know I'm speaking for Kefka when I say this, but he has the humility and forethought not to, so I'll be the one to do it. We promise you that no matter what, we will not settle for popular mediocrity with this thing. We like reviews and readership, but ultimately that's not an excuse to give the people what they want at the expense of the series' integrity. It may be delusional, but we are doing our best to create the best fanfiction of all time, something that will be able to stand up on its own as a work of literary greatness and not just another piece of mindless, popular entertainment. Failing that, we're at least going to give you a bunch of damn good Metroid stories, written well.

KF: I hope you enjoy this story as much as we have writing it. Though there is definitely a beginning, middle, and end to this work, each episode can be consumed and enjoyed on its own merits. We're going to enjoy the ride, come along with us and do the same.