On the other side of the planet, a lone mercenary was roaming the countryside in his Neural Combatant, on the run after a mission gone bad. Jan thought about how things had gone so wrong after his contract with New Anchorage had been voided.

Paragon contacted him about some contract or another he could take if he needed the money, which considering, he did. It was apparently something about Volkov raiding an important aerial shipping lane that Paragon used, but that was just a cover-up for a damn ambush. That was a few days ago, and he was still damaged and being slowly hunted.

It had been a while since the last contact with enemy units. Now seemed like a good time to slow down for a moment and consider his options. He couldn’t keep running forever, either he’d run out of fuel or some lucky punk would come mop him up. He mentally ran through a list of his contacts… Who did he know that he could at least somewhat count on to come pull his ass out of the fire. Obviously not the megacorps. He was just a small fry and probably not worth the effort. It seemed he would have to count on a more minor faction. He considered what would motivate them, people didn’t usually organize an evac operation out of charity. He opened his long-range comms console and input a channel code he knew all too well. It was the code he made a point of always sneaking into his past employers databases in case he ever needed to contact them covertly. The writeup he made was quick and concise but got the point across.

“Emergency evac needed out of paragon territory, offering 200K for the first person to call back with a reasonable outfit. Current location not included due to security risk.” He considered the contract offer, it didn’t bear any fancy seals or watermarks, so it was safe to assume quite a few would just throw it out as if it was junkmail. Still, out of all the people he had worked with over the years at least one or two might just be bored or desperate enough to respond. His long-range sensors suddenly sprang to life. It appeared two bogeys had entered his sensor range. The merc sent the message out without overthinking it any further and throttled Goldenspur’s mighty thrusters. He wasn’t privy to stick around to see who was sweeping the area.

 While leaving the sector, a third, and then even a fourth contact quickly came into the edge of his sensor range. He could just pick up that a radio conversation began to occur and that it was effectively unencrypted. He could silently join in to see who was talking and about what.

A ‘tough guy’ was the first to talk on the line, obviously angered, yet apparently intrigued. “So, you want him too, huh? Well he’s mine, piss off. I’m not going to simply let you take him. What exactly makes you think you can just waltz here and catch him instead of me?”

A girl replied, “Ohh.. I don’t want any trouble.. I’m just, erm, y’know. Interested in Jan. Can you please go? I have corporate backing, sort of.”. She sounded like she barely had any idea what she was doing.

“Pfft..hahahahah! Who the hell is this? I can’t even believe you’re an NC pilot! What, did you just fall in the cockpit or something?”

She got a little angry. “Well.. Uhh… … I don’t have time for this. Goodbye?”. The fourth NC raised altitude while heading towards where she last detected the Goldenspur, before getting a bead apparently and heading right for him.

“Stupid… Eh, whatever. Alright boys, take them both out!”. The three other contacts continued the pursuit of their original quarry.