Depth Perception

"If we had another pilot, I wouldn't have to dye this fur black."

Leon just looks at me. The glint in his eye is as close as he'll get to a smile. "You complain a lot, Wolf." I look back to stare at myself in the mirror. My paws are stained black from the dye, meant for masking up graying fur, but now is masking up the signature white tuft on my head and muzzle.

I push on the sink and mutter under my breath. "I'm just saying, this is ridiculous."

"This?" Leon folds his arms, and his tail curls back in a position that's awfully condescending. "This dye was your idea."

"No, not this," I say, clutching the fur on my head. "Me having to mop up other people's shit is ridiculous. I shouldn't have to be doing this. Some kid here says something dumb, and now the Katinian mafia apparently wants to murder us all."

Leon shrugs. "Well, you don't have a choice. Unless you want to be murdered."

I don't have to be reminded. Operating a space colony's like playing king of the hill as a kid on the playground, except all the children are armed with illegal military grade weapons and get pissed if you even look at their side of the swingset. Since, like most people, I like being alive, I have to make sure I'm on good terms with other gangs and crime organizations in the area so Sargasso doesn't get bombed. But this proves impossible when the over one hundred ruffians who take refuge here are all dumbasses and piss everybody in the system off.

This isn't the first time I've had to go knocking on some other gang's doorstep and nearly apologize. I recognize that dying my fur doesn't do much, especially considering most recognize me by my eyepatch, but I'm not keen on being more prone to infection by removing that, and every second I can buy being anonymous counts. There are quite a lot of hits on me, the biggest of all being the Cornerian backed military forces' hit on me to the tune of thirty million credits. Obviously, I'm a bit irritated that I have to put my life on the line because some people can't keep their mouths shut.

Which is why we need a third member on the team. Not because we need more power in dogfights or some otherwise legitimate sounding reason, but because if someone fucks up again, it's not always me managing the conflicts. Of course, when I try relaying this to Leon, his answer is always:

"No. It wouldn't work."

He's always so stone cold and matter-of-factly when he talks. Intimidating to most, but just annoying to me. "What do you mean, it wouldn't work? It can't get any worse than this," I say, grabbing at the now black fur on my head again.

"Sure it could." He walks up and leans against the sink counter, still looking at me through the mirror. "Imagine another Pigma."

I wince. After the Lylat Wars, I kicked Pigma off the team. When I scouted this place, we went back to our hideout in Venom, tarnished his ship, and stranded him on the hostile planet. I don't give a damn where he is now. "All of the shit in the entire system packed into one being wouldn't come close to that swine."

Leon shrugged. "Another Andrew?"

"Andrew was competent enough."

"Until he left."

Yeah, some months ago, I woke up and couldn't find Andrew anywhere. He just deserted us, and while he wasn't the most amiable character, three people managing Sargasso was at least bearable. "Still, a new guy leaving isn't the worst that could happen."

"My question is, do you want to settle for another Andrew?" Leon ran his fingers across the tip of the knife blade. "First, good luck finding another pilot who doesn't want to kill us or turn us in. Second, good luck finding another pilot of our caliber. Third, good luck finding another pilot who gets us. You know how important team chemistry is."

I sigh. "Yes, I would gladly settle for another Andrew. It doesn't matter how skilled our team is, if some random thug keeps pissing off mafia everywhere, we're both going to be dead. I just want more people managing this station."

"Why do they even have to be on the team then if they're just managing Sargasso?"

"Well, what does team Star Wolf do anymore? When was the last time we've been in a dogfight?" It's rhetorical, but even though I asked it, I honestly couldn't answer that question. That was our thing during the Lylat Wars, being Venom's ace pilots, and it's probably been over a year since we've last flown in aerial combat.

Leon pushes himself from the counter and walks to the doorway. "I'm fine with how it is now." The chameleon's so hard to read with his dry voice and disinterested stares. I don't know how the stress isn't eating him alive. I'm exhausted.

"You're impossible," I finally say, turning off the sink and looking at the masterpiece of myself I've created. The person looking back at me in the mirror looks like a confused teenager trying too hard to be fashionable. I turn back at Leon, and he's pulled a knife out of somewhere and is grazing the tip of his finger over the blade. "And you're messed up. Where'd you even get that from?"

"You know me," he mumbles. "I have my own problems to deal with."

Leon disappears into the hallway, and I sit and take some deep breaths before I prepare to go to my Wolfen. This would be hell to manage for a full team, but it's only two of us—really, it's just me. I wouldn't dare let Leon handle problems concerning people because his conflict management solutions default to, "Kill both of them." So I'm the de facto human resources rep of this space station, and it sucks.

As I walk through the halls to my Wolfen, I try some of the breathing relaxation techniques I remember reading about in a pamphlet in Eastern Corneria. Of course, in cliché'd fashion, a wire hooked through the wall—I have no clue in hell what it goes to—sparks and falls out of its socket, and by this point I'm fuming. Isn't this just grand? A twenty-three year long rollercoaster of a life, and this looks to be my final product until I die—a prime piece of real-estate in the middle of an asteroid belt. It has all the things you could ever ask for on your property: faulty equipment, birdbrained criminals, neighbors that want you dead, and I have to manage it all.

It's rather anticlimactic. Out of all the directions my life has been in, I'm probably going to die in a really stupid way. I cheated death a million times through the war, and I always imagined myself going out in some big skirmish. Hell, now I'd even be fine with being assassinated. But it'll probably be more stupid than that. A big hunk of metal from this station is going to fall and crush me, and that'll be the end of the great Wolf O'Donnell.

Normally, today is one of the days where I take a break from doing menial work and go do something "normal". Leon calls it playing civilian. And nothing really seems more civilian than drinking in some hole-in-the-wall bar in a small town on Katina.

Given the context however, I'm much more concerned, because underneath the civilian masks of everyone sitting in this dingy, underlit bar, it seems that everyone wants me dead. Over the past few days, The Majors, a crime group in Katina, have been contacting the main communications on Sargasso because someone on our base has been interrupting their drug deals.

But there've also been more cryptic messages, possibly from the same source, and they seem to be wanting to just pull me, Wolf, down to Katina alone. They've attacked our communications networks, and, as if to show off their technical skills, given us silly messages in channels that even we don't have full access to. Whatever the case, I'm a bit wary. A few years ago, a more brash me would have simply told The Majors off, but I value my life and want to figure out what exactly they want, so I've had to throw on this attempt at disguise and stake out this bar, right in The Majors' territory, for any suspicious people.

So far, two people really stand out to me. Number one is some sort of slimy-looky reptile who fits the look of a stereotypical Majors member to a T. He's sitting at a table close to the wall alone and is quite obviously concealing something in his oversized peacoat. Number two is a black panther near the entrance with a fitted dress shirt and vest. He stands out because he seems out of place, too high-class for this dump, yet as he walks, there's something peculiar and suspicious about his gait that I can't place.

He leans over the bar counter and makes idle chat with the vixen bartender. I look back to my empty table. One of my hands is holding a half empty glass of water, and the other is tapping impatiently. I peek back up to the other table. The reptile in the other corner isn't doing much and isn't scoping out the rest of the room, only checking his watch frequently. It's a drug deal at worst. Probably not anyone of interest to me.

So, I go back to suspect number two, and as soon as I look up his yellow, feline eyes glance over at my table. For a split second we make eye contact before he props up a smile and leans back over to the vixen. I have a strange feeling that he's figured me out. In covert operations, you're supposed to be subtle. Talk to people. Act normal. That's all a bit difficult when your unhappy muzzle and eyepatch are infamous around the system. Too much conversation with any person leads them to the very obvious realization that they're talking to Wolf O'Donnell.

So I'm reduced to sitting at a table alone, gazing at the other bar patrons. Suspicious enough without the fact that The Majors are here.

The cat and bartender exchange napkins, and the cat scoots back from his stool and walks to the door. He lingers in the doorway for a few seconds before he disappears in the arid Katinian streets. I can't tell if he's an idiot, or he's inviting me to follow him, but given that the vixen just threw the napkin she got with presumably his number on it in the trash, I'm leaning towards the former.

A few seconds later, I get up from my chair and make my way towards the exit. With how cliché this ghost town looks, I feel like a tumbleweed should blow across the street. It's amusing, yet slightly unnerving. The panther's farther down the street, walking hastily, as if it could get any more obvious that he was hiding something.

I'm walking a good distance behind him. Instincts tell me to chase after him, but if The Majors has a bone to pick with Sargasso, then I'd rather not call attention to myself. Still, at this rate, he's going to disappear, and I'll be back at square one at resolving this issue. Walking's only buying me time though; at some point, he's going to look back over his shoulder and see me following him, and there's nothing to hide behind on these barren streets.

He breaks into a full out sprint, and I have no choice but to do the same. My boots are loud as hell, and he's not running very quickly, but he has yet to turn back to see how close I am. As he stumbles across a corner into an alleyway, I reach for my blaster. I get to the alley and am greeted to apartment doors on both sides, and a garbage dump at the end. No panther. Wherever he's hiding, it'd be best for me—

"Hands up." I feel something cold and metallic prod my back. Dammit.

My hands go up above my head, and he prods my back again. "Start walking," he says. For a second, I wonder how he got behind me in the first place, until I glance up and see a fire escape on the left apartment wall. I would have preferred to die in a grand space skirmish or a personal dogfight with the best pilots in the system. Not because of my own stupidity.

"Awfully silent, aren't you?" The voice has an irritating air of hubris in it. Yes, I'm silent. The man can't see my face from behind me, and without my talking, he can't read any of my emotions. Plus, I might make a pissy sarcastic comment and only land myself into more trouble. It's better to keep my muzzle shut.

I keep walking down this alley past motionless apartments. It's no mystery why The Majors operate here. It's the only place empty and apathetic enough where someone can have a gun out in plain sight, and no one bats an eye. "Here," he says, nudging me towards a door on the right wall. "Open it."

It's unlocked and opens with a creak, revealing an impressively normal apartment room. I take a few steps in and wait. As soon as I hear the click of a door locking, I pivot, pushing the man's arm from my back, and whip out my blaster. We're standing five feet apart, guns pointed at each other's chests. Seriously, it's been years since I've been in a predicament like this.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," the panther says, smiling. "Feisty Wolf O'Donnell, huh?"

"You're a dumbass," I say before frowning. Sure, my disguise wasn't the best, but I wasn't expecting to be found out when he'd only looked at my face for a few seconds.

"Amusing." Despite the gun pointed at his face, the panther hasn't lost a bit of pride in his voice. "You thought dying your fur would hide you from people contracted to kill you?"

"Not exactly. The eyepatch is recognizable enough. The black fur just gives me some time."

The man fakes a loud laugh. "Ha. It's not the eyepatch. It's your build, color, weight, height. You don't look like many other people."

Creepy. "You seem to know a lot about me," I say, blaster still pointed square at the cat's chest. "And I don't know anything about you."

The panther clears his throat. "If you're asking who I am, I am a lot of things. Investment banker, expert technician, expert pilot, and a sort of freelance mercenary. My name is Panther Caroso."

"Panther?" I laugh. "You have shit parents."

"Apparently, so do you."

He grins, and I just ignore it. "You said you were contracted to kill me?"

"I never said that I wanted to kill you," he says, raising his empty hand to his chest. "No. Rather, a lot of others want you dead. There's a certain well-known criminal organization that is a bit annoyed with your space station in Meteo and would prefer to see you dead."

"If you don't want to kill me, mind explaining why you pointed a gun to my back?"

Panther keeps his gaze on me, his face not changing, but I notice his tail quiver for a split second. Then he says, "Let's drop our weapons."

Any other day I would have scoffed at the rather obvious attempt at my life, but it seemed that Panther wouldn't have taken the chance to kill me. Maybe it was something in his voice. Maybe it was the fact that he could have shot me in the bar rather than invited me to chase him. Maybe I was being dumb. Regardless, I lower my blaster, and he drops his to the ground with a clank.

I place my blaster in my holster, enjoying this moment of dominance over the now weaponless Panther. "Explain yourself," I say.

"Frankly, I couldn't think of any other way to contact the great Lord O'Donnell," he says, lacing his last words with sarcasm. "And I needed some way of proving my worth."

"Proving your worth?"

"I want to join Star Wolf."

I almost laughed, but the man's lips were pursed and his arms crossed, as if he was demanding the position. It wasn't the first time I've heard the proposition, except it's usually the thugs in Sargasso who ask to join the upper ranks with Leon and me, and I usually send them off, tail between their legs. Panther didn't look as if he'd accept no for an answer, and to be fair, I do need another pilot on the team to manage things.

Still, like hell I'll just agree. "No," I say, reaching for my blaster again. "You didn't seriously expect to come on board that easily?"

Panther cracks his knuckles. "I have a lot of skills to offer. I'm personable. I have friendly connections with The Majors and other crime groups on other planets. And I'm invisible. My criminal record doesn't exist, and I can travel where you and Leon can't. I can connect you with food, gas, repairs, medical services—"

"You're asking to be our bitch?"

"I wouldn't phrase it like that."

"What's in it for you, anyway?" I ask.

Panther smiles. "Freedom. It seems fun, no?" He walks from the doorway to a counter in the middle of the room, exposing his back towards me. I could strike or shoot him if I wanted to—another ploy by him to show his trust that I wouldn't hurt him. "I'm sick of living a life so regimented and controlled by others, whether it's in a job or the mafia. And Star Wolf, you've been on the run the past years, right?"

He wasn't so much asking the question as he was egging me on to say something. "It's not all that it's cracked up to be."

"A life of just surviving sounds like bliss. The simplicity is what I need." Panther leans against the counter. "And it could only help you. What do you say to my offer again?"

For how much research he's done on me, he should know that leading a space station is anything but simple. Still, anything's better than investment banking, and he probably needs to get out of the mafia trap before he gets hits placed on him. "No," I repeat. "I will not let you join Star Wolf."

Panther pushes himself up from the table and furrows his brows. "Why not?" he asks, his tail rising a bit. Of course he wouldn't take no for an answer. He probably didn't think this situation through that far. "You will lose nothing from this. Do you not trust what I can bring you?"

I scoff. "I've talked to you for five minutes. Do you expect me to trust any of your skills?"

Panther reaches through his pocket. "I can get my wallet and show you my pilot's license. I can show you the marks I graduated Cornerian Flight Academy with. You can look the contacts on my phone and see who all I know." He raised his arms. "And if I were you, I wouldn't doubt my combat skills. I did hold you hostage after all."

His voice is rising slightly, and the desperation's getting more obvious. Panther's still trying hard to be the calm, collected feline he knows he's supposed to be, but it's almost pathetic how much he wants to join the team. I really don't understand his motives.. "You held me hostage for two minutes," I say, "until you were dumb enough to lock the door behind you."

"Hmph." Panther steps closer to me, body tensing up. I was expecting more complaining and whining, but certainly not a smile and then a jab to my side. A little wind's knocked out of me, but as he tries to throw a second punch, I pivot back, grab his arm, and use his momentum to throw him over my shoulder. He slams against the ground, but quickly kicks himself back up, facing me in a wide stance.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask. Panther looks at me and a strange, sadistic grin forms on his face.

"Still proving my worth. You evidently don't trust my combat skills." He starts to inch towards me, then his arms and tail drop and start moving erratically, as if he's drunk. "I've learned a lot of different fighting styles over many different planets. It would be wise for you to be wary."

"Shut up, you're too talkative."

Panther takes this as a sign to lunge at me, his right arm wound back. I sidestep, but he takes the momentum from his punch and sweeps at my legs. I stumble back. He tries to uppercut me and I clutch his arm, but he uses his feline momentum to shift back, attempting to throw me to the ground. Our bodies crash into something in the kitchen, and chairs and tables fall to the ground like dominoes.

He manages to get up a second before I do, but he steps back into his wide stance and smiles. This fight is like a game to him, but I'm more confused than anything else. "This is childish," I say. "You are not—"

He does a high roundhouse kick to the left side of my face, but it's slow, and all I have to do is step back—at least I thought, until a second kick strikes my face and sends me stumbling back. "How can you even fly with one eye?" he says, half laughing. "Your depth perception's all off. But that's another thing I can fix. I have connections. I know doctors who are willing to temporarily forget a bounty on your head."

Panther must have been formally trained in some sort of martial arts. He's no pushover at least, as irritating as his talking is. I prepare to strike back, but a loud thud reverberates in the room. A second one, accompanied by shouting, and rapid footsteps of combat boots. The door busted down, and when I turn around, I see six tall, greasy looking reptiles, all adorned in regal combat suits. One of them was the one I noticed in the bar earlier.

The Majors are notorious for their intimidation factor. The combat suits aren't for utility, but for an air of false professionalism. Breaking the door also wasn't for utility—it would have been much more effective for them to sneak in and off me, but they try too hard to look like badasses. To most, it's effective and intimidating, but I'm not in the mood for putting up with any shit right now.

One of them, and I recognize him from the bar earlier, walks forward. "Seems like Caroso's already got him," he says, gesturing to the blaster on the ground. Before I can make a retort, Panther grabs me from behind with a knife held at my throat. So much for joining Star Wolf.

"You really need to watch your left side," Panther says. Even if I kept him from grabbing me, it's still seven-on-one. Odds aren't exactly in my favor.

"And you really need to watch where your boundaries are," one of the reptiles adds on. "If you value that piece of scrap metal you call Sargasso, you'd better stay on that piece of scrap metal you call Sargasso."

The reptile walks up to me, points his finger right at my nose, and breathes some awful, overpowering stench right in my face. "Like hell you're threatening me," I say. "You wouldn't dare try anything."

"Or what?" he says, breaking into a disgusting sounding laugh. "You're under our control, O'Donnell. You're rather ballsy to be saying anything now."

Pride pisses me off. This man's acting like he single handedly captured me, and I can't tolerate his smugness anymore. So, I do what any other rational person captured in my position would do. I spit in the reptile's face.

He stares at me for a second before wiping it off, and he takes a step back to reach for his blaster. Panther's relaxed his grip on me, and timed right, I can easily throw him into the line of fire and manage to create enough chaos to escape. The lizard pulls out a gun, but before I can do anything, Panther reaches for the holster on my belt and points my blaster at the reptiles face.

Someone shoots, and I wince. Panther throws me back towards the kitchen counter, and I hide behind it for a second. Now powerless without a weapon, all I can do is wait for this gunfight to be over. Shots crack loudly in this small room, and my ears feel like splitting open, but after a few seconds, all of the shots have died down. I prepare to jump out and tackle whoever's standing, but when I look back up, there's just one black panther remaining.

He looks at me and gestures back to the six dead lizards on the ground. Blood has splattered everywhere and stained the carpet red. "So," Panther starts, "I think I've proved my worth enough. How about that offer? Keep in mind, I saved your life."

"You got me into this mess, and I've escaped worse situations." He clearly doesn't like my answer, as he tries to lunge at me again, but this time I knee him in the stomach and tackle him to the ground. Now I have a knee digging into his chest, one of my hands is clutching his neck, and another is hovered over his face, ready to slam down. I'm in the position of power, not him.

"I don't owe you anything," I say.

"You don't. But just think about it," he says, and then he just chuckles. It's annoying, but after a few seconds of thought I start to understand why he's so confident. Cold-blooded murder isn't exactly my thing, and he knows it, so my other option is letting him live. A lot of things could happen from there, and I could easily escape and forget this day ever happened, but it would be somewhat inane of me to not want to use his obvious talent. Killing six members of The Majors in a gunfight is no task to scoff at.

Plus, having another personality to temper myself and Leon wouldn't be terrible, and it'd be nice having someone already experienced in managing people clean up Sargasso's messes.

"That thing you said about my eye," I start, relaxing my grip a little, "you weren't kidding, were you?"

Panther tries to shake his head as much as he can under my grip. "No. Get your hands off from my throat and let me get my phone. I have one of Katina's best surgeons on speed dial. Mr. Mausfelter, he's done—"

I've made my decision. "You can stay here," I say, getting off of Panther and heading towards his blaster on the ground. "Or you can follow me." He stays on the ground for a while, mouth slightly agape, before he scrambles on his feet and follows me out of the doorway.

I'm walking back to my quarters on the Sargasso Space Station. As I step over defunct wires and trash, Panther follows me shortly behind. The only things he's said have been small remarks to himself about how impressed he is, like he's a kid in a candy store. If this impresses him, then boring isn't an adequate word to describe what his life was like beforehand.

Before I reach the control room, I run into Leon walking the opposite way down the hallway. He looks at me, then at Panther, then back at me with a questioned gaze on his face. "I thought we agreed that we were fine as is, Wolf," he says, pouting.

"I'm the boss, Leon. I'll make the decisions."

"Well, mind telling me who our third member is?"

I waited for Panther to introduce himself, but he didn't want to talk. "His name's Panther Caroso," I say. "And I wouldn't yet call him the third member. More like an intern."

Leon shrugs, and looks back at Panther for a few seconds before he disappears down a separate hallway. I start walking again until I reach the door of the control room. "So, I'm an intern?" Panther asks. I shrug, and he continues. "Meaning, I'm almost a member of Star Wolf."

I nod. "And, as almost member of Star Wolf, your first task is to manage this."

"What is this?"

I unlock the room and swing the door open. Lights flick on and reveal a large network of electronics, wires, and computer towers. In the center of the room is an office chair sitting behind a desk with three monitors on it. I turn back at Panther, and I'm somewhat enjoying his confused face right now. "These are just our communications servers. Other people are managing the electronics for the whole station, but if you couldn't already tell, the quality isn't exactly the best."

"What makes you think I know enough about electronics to handle this?"

I ignore him. "We've set up a tracking system, because aside from you, me, and Leon, everyone who lives on Sargasso is too dumb for me to trust. Everyone's essentially on house arrest here until further notice so that way no one pisses any other gangs off. When you're done cleaning up the communications channels, I want you to take a look at the trackers and manage those."

"Again," Panther says, "what makes you think I know enough about electronics to handle this?"

"Weren't you the one that sent all the weird messages to our communications servers earlier? Then you ought to be able to make them more secure."

"Yeah, but . . ." Caught in his lie, Panther trailed off for a second and crossed his arms. "I didn't imagine being on Star Wolf meant doing the same work I did earlier and not getting paid for it."

Finally. I think Panther's finally realizing that living in an illegal space colony isn't all that it's cracked up to be. "Should've done more research, then. Don't just stand there," I say, pushing him forward. "Get started." As I turn back to the hallway, I wonder how disappointed he is. Still, he can't screw this job up any worse than Leon did when we first got here.

Even though I needed a third member for managing the station, maybe the real reason I wanted one, as childish as it is, was to have someone new to mess with. I respect Leon, and would call him a friend, but he's not much fun to be around. At least now, my life on this scrap station might be a little less boring.