The din of Helios Station’s docking bay was the sound of a thousand radios tuned to static. A keen ear could pick up a phrase or two here and there in alien tongues, but nothing real, nothing tangible. Kotze hardly contributed to the static as he strode quickly on light feet through the crowd, never even so much as brushing a shoulder. [color=yellow]“-out, not sucked into...”[/color] Kotze overheard. [i]Fucking spacers.[/i] He’d dealt with them for most of his life, which is why he was so tired of them. No matter where you went in the universe, spacers all had the same tired jokes, the same old stories. Like sailors.

The agent didn't need to look behind him to know there were two spooks mirroring his every move. He'd picked them up just when he finished his last assignment, just barely having been debriefed by his handler. Even then, he knew something was up. [i]"Return to Center immediately."[/i] Agents worked for months, if not years, in the field, and recalling an operative from the Deadzone after only a month was unheard of. So he ran. 

The time came for almost every agent. They all knew it. Burn a little too slow or a little too fast, you're gone. Kotze was almost surprised he'd made it as long as he had, burning the candle at both ends for so long. For two years, the spook worked with cold intensity, a terminal overdrive that made it painfully obvious to other agents his time was almost up. In a way, Kotze almost revelled in the self-destructive arc. It made him feel invincible, running the loosest and most dangerous ops no fresh-faced agent would dream of. Not the two punks trailing him, anyway. The seasoned operative was almost insulted they sent these amateurs after him, who were burned probably just hours after starting their tail. He thumbed the .45's grip in his coat pocket aggressively, the anger boiling in his chest with the desire to use it.

The crowd reeked of cheap liquor and unwashed bodies, out in space too long. Deadzone, dead end. Helios Station's shipyard was a haze of exhaust smoke that almost made it difficult to breathe, old-school local cruisers mixed in with the modern FTL-equipped behemoths. Kotze wasn't sure what his endgame was. Only a matter of time before the Agency brought him in, dead or alive, though didn't make much of a difference. Still, the agent wanted one last challenge. One last hunt. As the ships grew larger, Kotze's gaze fell onto an old man in a threadbare jumpsuit leaning against the railing with an outdated prosthetic arm, one of the ancient pneumatic ones. Old salt, probably in the first wave of human FTL. What caught his attention more than anything was the man's skin; patchy, scarred, and rough, it looked like the he'd been simultaneously burned, frozen, and stretched out in a vat of bourbon and left to dry. Spaced. Not for long, but long enough. Kotze wondered what his body would look like after 85 years of life. As the walkway ran out, he doubted he'd find out.

A third agent closed in. Then a fourth. Guess the Agency sent more after all, a nice little parting gesture. Kotze kicked himself mentally for not making them sooner, and now, his back against the cool metallic railing with a 25 foot drop behind him, he had a feeling he was losing his edge, but then again, he'd been on the run for over a week now with scarce few hours of sleep. Still, maybe they were right to can him. Two of the spooks were human, the others Jakmoz. They were all dressed like him, inconspicuously, a little clean cut for the location, but otherwise almost invisible. A human stepped forward, and Kotze recognized him as Nolan. 

[color=coral]"Been a long time Kotze. How ya been?"[/color] He had an easy smile, a smile that didn't betray the gun in his coat pocket trained on Kotze's chest. It was almost a professional courtesy for intelligence operatives.

[color=silver]"Not too bad, Nolan,"[/color] he replied, flashing a tired grin, tendons in every muscle tight as piano wire. Kotze knew if he drew now, he could knock out two of them, maybe three on a good day, but there was no winning here. 

[color=coral]"Hey, we miss you back at Center. Why don'tcha come back with us, share a ride?"[/color]

Kotze shrugged. [color=silver]"Maybe, maybe. Hey, how's Colby doing? He's what, about five now?"[/color] Crawling skin was just an expression, but Kotze was sure he saw ants wriggling beneath Nolan’s flesh as the smirk faded. He saw a fist tighten in the coat around the gun. Leaked personnel file, a little parting gift. Nolan would soon be on the opposite end of where he stood now. Before he had a chance to fire, a primed Smart Mine detonated just as it left Kotze's hand. Flash. The massive bay went white for the five as the sensory pigments in the retinas fired on all cylinders. Kotze heard a shot ring out as he fell over the whining in his ears, and he wondered if his chest would sting once the adrenaline wore off, or if the round missed its mark. 

The spook relaxed his body for the impact when he jumped off the ledge, and the duffel bag softened the fall, but the landing was still a bitch. The .45 jabbed into his ribs, and his meat arm took most of the damage, maybe a dislocated shoulder. [i]Fucking mechanics should have just replaced everything, at the rate they worked,[/i] he bemoaned. His vision partially returned, Kotze jumped to his feet and scrambled to the lower decks of the docking bay, where maintenance on the ship's underbelly took place. He didn't have much time, his hearing coming back enough to hear four pairs of boots stomping down the stairwell. The underbelly was a disorientating swirl of red lights and hissing steam, low pipes and shuffling repairmen. Cargo shifted between hands, some legitimate deals, others under the table. The keel of an older frigate caught Kotze's eye. Pirate ship, judging from the lack of markings and age, perfect for him. Pirates might be rough, but they wouldn't be turning him in anytime soon. The Agency didn't put out bounties, instead preforming all their wetwork in house. No, he could deal with the pirates, as he had before. Kotze quickly retrieved his deck from the duffel bag and set to work on penetrating the ship's security system to learn more about the vessel. The intrusion countermeasures were surprisingly robust, military grade, way beyond anything a ship of this age would come equipped with. [i]Tech-savvy pirates, who knew.[/i] A bead of sweat ran down his cheek as he punched away on the pad with his prosthetic arm at a mile a minute, crouched behind an empty box, but still not even a crack in the defenses. No name, no registry, nothing. If Kotze didn't know any better, he'd assume it belonged to the four agents now sprinting down the hallway after him. The adrenaline kicked back in, fight or flight. The hunted man darted up the cargo bay ramp, soft leather boots dead silent against the steel. 

Kotze didn't have time to take in the ship's interior ambiance or check for occupants, opting to slip directly into the dimly-lit cargo bay and cram himself into a relatively-spacious metal crate. If he weren't so gassed, the image would be laughable; Kotze'd been in tight spaces before, but nothing like this. The thought occurred to him to check if the security system had an intruder detection program, but hell, he couldn't even penetrate the second layer of defenses. No, he'd just roll the dice, like he always did. Kotze's eyelids felt like lead, and fell like it too despite the ringing in his ears.