When I came to, I opened my eyes to see a slightly tinted vac suit face plate in front of my eyes. Funny thing that this didn’t make me panic. But you know, taking my wins where I get them.

I got up from the bed where I had laid down, threw on my jacket and pulled up my character sheet to remind myself where I stood.

Name

Malcolm Solo

Callsign

n/a

Faction Allegiance

Free Worlds Alliance

Current Scenarios

Quirt Starting Scenario

Current Wealth

280,515 ICU

Current Credit

51000 ICU, 20% interest, 1 year duration

Personal Statistics

Strength

3

Raw physical strength

Constitution

3

Endurance, Resistance to damage

Intelligence

5

Complex problem solving skill, Logic, Comprehension

Charisma

5

Attractiveness to others

Perception

5

Awareness through senses

Willpower

4

Ability to make decisions and override impulses

Memory

5

Ability to recall information and experiences

Implants and Enhancements

Neural Link

Gen 7

Allows direct neural interaction and learning

Skills

Small Arms

4 / 100

Piloting

5 / 100

Coordination

3 / 100

Team work

4 / 100

Basic Space Mining

32 / 100

Survey

9 / 100

Asteroid Mining

15 / 100

CLON Contract

0 Skill points

Standings

Solarwind Trading Consortium: 1%

Okay, looked good. Nothing had changed. Nice. Then I noticed a blinky thing in my hud. A message notification.

Belt Trade Services would like to thank you for using our services.

As specified during negotiations, you have received partial payment as a member of the mining co-operation in the amount of 152.664 ICU.

For further details see the attachment.

What? I pulled up the attached file and saw a table that listed ore types, amount and monetary values. I guess the guys had sold another load to the broker and that was my part of it. Neat.

Yeah, fair enough, there was a moment where I felt bad for taking money for something I hadn’t worked for. I mean they had been sitting on the asteroid mining away and I had done nothing. At least when you considered getting poked and prodded as nothing. In a way me taking that cut didn’t feel fair but then again, there was plenty I hoped to accomplish and having more money did not strike me as a bad thing.

Having come to the conclusion that I would keep the cash I made my way to the CLON station to upgrade my contract. I was in a good mood, having just logged in and coming to in a decent hotel room instead of a tiny ship in an asteroid belt being an indentured worker.

I blame it on that good mood that I didn’t pay enough attention to my surroundings. When I rounded a corner something hit me in the back of my head. The soft’ish material of the vac suit doing very little to cushion the blow and I sprawled on the ground. While my ears were ringing and I saw lights flashing I had gotten a decent training in my past life. The moment that I hit the deck, I forced myself to roll to my left. Which was just in time as something heavy crashed into the floor where my head had just been.

I tried getting a bead on the situation and saw two Sorren bearing down on me. At least I think they were Sorren from their stature as they were both wearing black vac suits and their face plates were equally black. One was armed with what looked like a metal pipe, the other had a big wrench that he was just aiming to bring down on me.

I did a backflip, pushing off the floor with one hand, drawing the flechette gun with the other. While I was still in the air, I targeted my assailants without problem and with four quick bursts off the flechette, I nailed their extremities to the wall where they could not further harm me…

Yeah, maybe not. Anyway, that is what I would have liked to happen. However, four points in small arms made me anything but a crack shot and the rest of my skills made me a miner and shitty taxi driver, not a fighter.

Instead of what I would have liked to tell you about the encounter, I fumbled for my flechette but instead of pulling it and aiming, I just scrambled back and pulled my leg closer, so my upper thigh pointed roughly into the direction of Monkey Wrench. Then I pulled the trigger. The gun made burp-pfft sounds and I managed, probably by chance, to stitch a line of flechette darts from the right hip to the left shoulder of him. Which made him grunt and hesitate for a moment but not much else.

I scrambled farther back, my ass dragging over the station floor. Then Pipe Guy swung for the fences and there was no way I could evade that hit. He caught me in my right upper arm and I lost hold of the pistol.

My health bar had started showing after the hit to the head but now it flashed and went down to 70%. My arm numb, there was nothing I could do but trying to keep scrambling away and protecting my vitals.

I switched my com to local which basically meant loudspeaker. “Help!” I yelled as loud as I could. “Attack! Police! Security!” Then I took another hit to the head and everything started spinning. I curled up and kept crying for help. Nobody came and I kept getting pummeled. It fucking hurt. A lot.

At some point I was sure I would die. But the flashing health bar reminded me that I was in a game. Sent to respawn then. After a particularly hard hit to my hip I actually considered dying the preferable alternative.

My health bar was flashing hard and showing 10% when the hits stopped. I rolled on my back, groaning in pain. Then I saw a face pop into view over my face plate. I had seen that face before but could not place it.

“Oh no, what happened.”

“Attack.” I ground out.

“Oh my, no no no, that is not good.” the face commented. Somehow the tone sounded less concerned than the words seemed. “I just wish you would have taken the advice and contracted our services.”

What? My mind was still fuzzy and I had a hard time wrapping my brain around what happened. I did manage to grind out that question between clenched teeth.

“Oh, you know. We offered you our assurance services but not only did you decide not to contract us, instead you displayed an increasing amount of hostility against our well meaning organisation. I just wish we could have been here to make sure nothing happened to you.”

Right, fucking Red Moon assholes. I should have expected that. I wanted to… I don’t know… do something exceedingly violent to the guy standing over me and grinning smugly. But in my state there was nothing I could do.

“As a sign of our concern for your wellbeing, we have notified station services and medical aid should arrive shortly. You should really think about contracting our services. Or at least not walk around in places like you owned them when hostility could loom just around the corner.”

“...” I ground my teeth in frustration, anger and pain.

“I am taking my leave now. We are looking forward to hearing from you Mr. Solo.”

With that he disappeared from my sight. My health bar ticked up to 11% while I tried breathing through the pain. By the time a station drone showed up, I was sitting to the side of the corridor, leaning against the wall.

The drone must have called for reinforcement as very quickly a Fell showed up on a hovering cart. He jumped off, grabbed something from the cart that looked like a stick which he began to wave over me while having a slightly vacant look. When he was satisfied with his magic man routine, he grabbed something from the cart, pushed it against my chest and clicked a button. I felt the pressure of the object against my vac suited chest then a sharp pinch. My health bar instantly filled to half and as I kept observing it, it kept ticking up.

“Mind telling me what happened?” the Fell asked me.

With my increasing health bar, my head had cleared. I contemplated for a moment. Apparently authorities were interested in keeping the station running without problems. But bureaucracies in the ass-end of nowhere always had the same problem. Not enough money was allocated and then some local ‘entrepreneurs’ stepped in to fill the empty coffers one way or another. Considering that station services had shown up after Smug Face and the two Sorren had already left, gave me an idea who was doing some contributing to the bureaucracy. So trying to report anything would just get thrown out since there were no witnesses and even if there were, I had a feeling I would get another visit if I said anything. So instead I opted for a time proven strategy.

“I walked around the corner, slipped and fell.” I declared with my most sincere voice.

“Hm.” the first responder grunted. “Must have been some fall.”

“Very hard floors here.”

“Well smart ass, if you don’t want to report anything then you better pay up. Price for the hypo I used is 9800 ice. If there would have been a fight, this would be charged to the perpetrator. But since you fell, you are the perpetrator and have to pay up for it.”

His whole tone had changed and the way he pronounced ‘fell’ made it clear he was pissed at me for some reason and done with me in general.

He held a pad out to me, I waved my left forearm over it and then mentally confirmed that I wanted to transfer the requested 9800 ICU. Easy come, easy go. Annoying but nothing I could do about it. By the time my health had finally filled up, the Fell and the drone had disappeared and I felt good enough to continue to the CLON services office.