The pat down the guards administered was prefuntary. Both men, slack jawed and sweating in the heat of a tropical afternoon, looked bored and a little disappointed that the visitor's body armor  deprived them of the opportunity for a more intimate examination. The guards, it would have been a mistake to call them soldiers, wore jungle pattern fatigue pants and light shirts of some local cotton. The camouflage was much too dark to be effective in Hodierna’s bilious green foliage and had clearly been manufactured off world. That hardly mattered of course, as the point of the uniforms was not to conceal the gun men, but to draw attention to the fact that they were gunmen.

“She’s clean,” the taller of the two men muttered as though the notion offended him. He had a short greasy goatee that he probably imagined made him dashing. The other soldier, a slimmer blonde man nodded and made a show of keying his radio.

“Guest coming in to see the boss,” he said with a surly glower.

“Thank you gentlemen,” Sayeeda ‘Junebug’ Cyckali responded magnanimously and stepped through the improvised checkpoint in the coiled barbed wire fence. She was a medium sized woman with vaguely middle eastern features, although such things mattered little outside the few original Terran colonies which still maintained notions of genetic purity. Her hair was dark and cropped short like a man’s and her skin, darkened by more suns than she could remember was the dark brown of strong coffee. A tan ceramic breastplate was buckled across her chest, its once smooth finish scuffed and burned in places. Her dark arms were bare save for fingerless shooters gloves on her hand and for where an owl tattoo slipped beneath the ceramic surface at her shoulder.

The compound that Sier Gorlan had directed her too was not a prepossessing place. It consisted of a dozen or so ugly building, mostly prefab concrete warehouses of a very generic type. A berm of earth had been erected around the complex with bulldozers and then sprayed with a plasticizer to harden the loose packed soil. Whatever they had used gave the soil an unpleasant purplish opalescence. Although the berm was topped with razorwire Junebug guessed that it was more of an attempt to contain a crashing starship crash than a serious attempt to defend the place from more than thieves and local racketeers. Not that those weren't real enough threats on a world like Hodierna of course.

One of the gumen trotted along beside her long legged stride, a look of irritation on his face.

“Slow down their missy,” he whine in a suprisingly nasal voice.

“Listen pongo, if you want to explain to your boss why I am late for me meeting thats your look out right but I doubt he is going to take it to kindly,” she said in her clipped Bahasa. Many worlds, including Hodierna, used Bahasa as their primary trade language. Junebug had heard that it had its roots in ancient Indonesian but who the fuck knew. For her it was one of a score of languages she had learned via sleep induction in jump space. Mercenaries could be expected to do business all over the human galaxy and had to be able to converse with the locals to at least a basic level. Few mercs ever learned anything more than the standard knowledge cubes though because once you could order booze and buy companionship how much else did you really need?

They reached the warehouse without further incident and to her surprise she saw  that her host, or more accurately his guards, were holding a young men down while *BLANK* finished speaking to him. He spun at the sound of her boots ringing on the concrete and smiled an oily self satisfied smile.

Sayeeda’s eyes scanned the warehouse and the occupants. The guards were a step above the trash at the gates but they weren’t up to the standard of professionals. Ex millitary or perhaps ex gendarmerie judging by their stances. The plasma rifles got her attention. Plasma rifles were a first rate weapon, not to dissimilar from the models she had used during nearly a decades service with the Andor’s Armored. Colnel Andor, President for Life Andor as he now styled himself, had been an asshole, but he made sure his troops never wanted for good equipment. Plasma rifles fired bolts of electron stripped ions, usually copper but occasional strontium. The weight was very low but even a micrograms packed a hell of a punch when accelerated to lightspeed down the mirror polished barrels of a plasma weapon. The drawback, especially on less developed worlds was the ammunition. Unlike simpler chemical or electrochemical weapons, manufacturing the poker chip like  rounds was a high technology endavour and that made them expensive to run. Plus you hadn’t lived until you had an automatic weapon jam and several megajoules of plasma cook off and gangfire a few meters away. Junebug had lived, in both senses of the term.

“Ah Captain Cyckali Gorlan,” said in his oily, salesmans voice, “we were just talking about you.” From his gesture as well as from context she assumed he meant the man his guards were currently keeping pinned. He was a nondescript man, she guessed in his mid twenties and he had an air of competence about him even being held at gunpoint. What he had to do with her she had no idea.

“Ok,” she said noncommittally, folding her arms across her chest. Whatever reaction Gorlan had expected this was clearly not it because his face soured at the lack of reaction. He glanced at her in annoyance. Junebug’s dark intense eyes met Gorlan’s and the broker turned away first.

“I’m here for my ship,” she said bluntly, lifting her chin in the direction of the captive.

“Your other bussiness is none of mine.” Did Gorlanreally think she cared if he executed the man? She had seen, and done, much worse and more besides. The oily grin seeped back on to the brokers face like petroleum spreading over a puddle.

“Ah but this is your business Captain Cyckali, indeed it concerns you intimately.” Junebug kept her arms folded and said nothing, forcing Gorlan to go on awkwardly. She had been a Captain in the Armored but the job of leading others into battle was probably not something this snide bussiness man could really understand.

“You see this is the new part owner of your ship,” the broker said with a grin. Again Junebug didn’t react giving the news a few seconds to sink in before responding.

“I’m not looking for a partner,” she said because the sitaution clearly dictated some sort of a response. Mentally she was gauging distances to the guards, wondering if disarming them would be practical. If they hesitated for more than a heartbeat it might be possible, use Gorlanas a shield and take the weapon from the closest man. It wasn’t a good move though, not without more motivation than she currently had to risk it.

“Ships are expensive things, Captain and as you said yourself you need a crew. I believe your credits will be sufficient to obtain a thirty five percent share in the Highlander. This good gentleman,” he paused to kick the younger man although his shoes didn’t really lend themselves to the job, “can contribute fifteen percent. Giving the two of you a joint fifty percent share.”

“With you remaining a fifty percent partner?” she asked, arching a dark eyebrow.

“A senior partner yes,” Gorlan said with a simpering smile. He held up his hands as if placating her. Junebug began to wonder if he had practiced these lines before hand. He certainly seemed happier to be back on script.

“Of course I will give you a chance to buy out my interest in the venture. Fair is fair of course.”

Junebug considered it, the last thing she wanted was to be tethered to a slimy bastard like Gorlan, on the other hand, once she was in space, possession could be ten tenths of the law.

“I should point out before you make any hasty decisions Captain that this… excellent fellow, is a qualified pilot, and quite a good one I have heard.”

“And if I decided to take my credits and go?” she asked, her voice level and emotionless. Gorlan spread his hands wide, his teeth gleaming like a Caldovian Shark.

“Why you are of course free to do so Captain, but let me assure you that you wont find a ship on Hodierna or anywhere else in the sector cheaper than this, I’ve uh made enquires on your behalf you see.” He meant, of course, that he had made it known that he would be professionally displeased if any other ship dealer sold them a ship and he had enough clout to make the treat a credible one. Even if she found someone willing to risk his wrath, it would drive the price up well beyond her meager means. She was silent for a long moment, five seconds, ten, then she turned her attention to the young man.

“Well, how about it kid?” 

[@POOHEAD189]