The ship wasn’t here to disrupt the general’s movements, it was sent for me, and whatever creature of evil lay its hands on the mighty vessels controls would mark my fate, with that I increased speed to maximum, I didn’t care about the effect on the aircraft I piloted, I needed to escape and with an Epsilon on my tail, I would need a mixture of speed and luck with would merit legend.

The vacant void of space floated by Baquil’s window, a solemn mood cascading around the chamber. The task force had failed, and now the human had somehow escaped, she stood with the Major and his underlings, barking orders furiously as they surveyed diminishing plans of attack.

“What do you mean you can't tell me what happened in that settlement? I have the authority!... it’s classified?” she roared at a Sargent that had just walked into the room.

"What is going on?" she cried.

"Cadet, any progress on headquarters?"

"No Colonel, no response" they replied frantically.

"What the hell is this"

She pounded her fist on a desk and ran her hand through her sleek hair before turning to her counterpart.

“I want a full satellite scan of the entire area, eight hundred kilometer radius, I want a positive I.D on that freighter they are carrying and please will someone tell me why I can’t have the records for what happened in that mud-flat??” she screamed.

They were in the secondary main control deck of the Orbiter, a massive room that had a magnificent glass view of the surface below, about twenty to thirty soldiers were circled at various stations around the chamber, trying to make sense of what had happened.

Suddenly the door parted forward.

A heavily armed trooper then entered the deck, her armor bore the medals of many battles and her presence shocked many. An assault rifle was clutched in her grip, safety off.

“Colonel, the bounty hunters have arrived” she spoke.

"Good, bring them in," Baquil replied.

Out from behind the steel blast doors walked a violent array of scum.

Three humanoids in suits, four battle-hardened armor-plated soldiers and a scruffy-looking cloaked man shuffled inside.

"Sargent, you deal with the situation right now, I want a progress report and immediate notification of any developments"

"Also message headquarters again, have someone requisition for ten million Quand"

"Yes, Colonel" he replied quickly.

Straightening her tie, she stalked forward, eyes burning with hatred.

Baquil engaged in conversation with them at once, leaving no time.

“Welcome gentlemen, it seems once again The Collective has an aspiring task for you all" she laughed cooly.

"What is it?" one asked

"the contract is simple, bring back this human male, John Taylor, alive, no questions asked and we will pay you the sum of 83.8 million credits”

She waved her hand signifying a pale-faced cadet to bring up a holographic image of John, his vitals and information were located on the side, however, no other information was present, it seemed the very idea that he was part of the immortallis project had been erased, the words political terrorist, shining bright in red lettering around his head. The Director still feared what would happen if the Orbiter's droid caught sight of this information, perhaps thousands dead as the creature quite literally employed the motto that the lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few.

A suited embassy from the legion corporation then spoke up his voice ringing with a smoothed-over charisma that came from closing hundreds of these kinds of deals.

“That's quite the price for one man, I assume you will send us all the required legal documentation once we have cleared the deal,”

“Yes, I will upload his signature to your trackers” she replied.

“The armor-plated mercenaries adjacent to the corporation nodded and then spoke.

“I assume this is an open contract?” she asked.

“Yes, the deal is simple, bring back this man alive, and you will be paid in full 83.8 million credits, bring him back dead, and you will be paid 13.4 million."

"Anything we should know about?" one questioned.

"He is extremely dangerous, heavily armed, to be treated with extreme caution, the first one of you to capture and bring him back to an outpost in the Northern Hemisphere alive will be paid in full,

"naturally, we will give you his last known whereabouts, three t-52 squads were of course deployed from the Northern Hemisphere two days ago to systematically search the area,”

“I'm guessing from this reading here, he is in a cloaked vessel, quite possibly if I am sure, the ship of Ellis Tobago,” the scruffy-looking one pointed to the vessel in a photo taken three days ago.

“Ellis Tobago?, the Kestle general?” another asked.

“Why, if he is travelling with Ellis, no wonder there is such a high price, if I am correct one of our former employees already has a bounty on him of around thirty million” one replied.

“Why yes, you may even have to rank up the price” a suited executive murmured.

They seemed to agree upon this before Baquil shouted.

“We are aware of who he is taking company with however a squadron has been stationed at every known location where Ellis has been said to hide, the only thing we can assume is that they eventually will be caught,” Baquil replied.

“Then why need us? Surely this can be dealt with?” the scruffy one questioned.

“Because the mission cannot be successfully executed without ground forces, our troops at the moment are mostly robotic, and have only satellite and textbook knowledge of the land, you, however, know almost every inch of this ground and we have little plan to keep up a world-wide search for a man of semi-value.

It is more feasible to employ a bounty and wait, if you do happen to find him, a team will be sent to your location to help you reach the northern hemisphere for immediate extraction as soon as possible.”

"I'm confused he's that dangerous you will send an exfiltration team?" the scruffy one inquired.

"Yes, they have the full program" Baquil stated.

"Full program?" a mercenary asked.

"More than a collective specialist" Baquil replied.

"Hell," a legion officer breathed.

They all sat in silence for a moment, unsure of what to say or do next.

Baquil tapped her finger sharply on the table, snapping them out of the trance.

“Alright then, Colonel, it seems we have a deal, I will dispatch two legionary teams to the planet, roughly twenty people should do the job,” the suited executives said.

“We will send notice to our settlements and make sure if he enters he will be captured,” the armored soldiers said.

The scruffy cloaked man did not reply he simply stared before saying one word.

“Alive?”

“Yes,” Baquil stated.

“It is done” he then spoke.

“The mission is not time-sensitive of course, however, we would like to intercept him before he reaches Kilomino where of course due to politics we will have to stop our prosecution, open contract and high transparency please, now if you don't mind I will issue a full announcement to the planet’s surface in three hours detailing an open contract.”

“You mean this really is an open contract?”

“Yes, now if you gentlemen will now enter the office here, I will explain in further detail our arrangement,” she spoke waving them inside a separate hallway.

As they were about to enter a marble chamber the Major spoke up, his voice echoing across the hall.

“Colonel, we have had a positive match"

She stopped in her tracks, posture straightening at these words.

"Where?" she breathed.

"he is currently located at Zin’s compound number 312,.”

“Zin?” she questioned.

The bounty hunters she had been talking to heard this aswell, and they sprang into action.

“I can have someone there within ten minutes!” the scruffy one responded

“I will set up blockades in the surrounding area” the armored bandits shouted

“Zin used to be one of ours, we know how he thinks, how a person like him would set up a prison, so naturally it's best you leave this to us,” the executive said smoothly.

They spurred into a flurry of orders each one pulling out devices to contact their own ground forces.

“Silence!” Baquil roared.

The soldiers all turned to look at her, startled by this reaction.

“I need to think, did you say Zin had a bounty on Ellis?” she questioned.

The head Legion corporate straightened his black tie and cleared his through.

“As far as I am concerned yes, our informants have told us it has something to do with the unfortunate death of his brother”

She turned and furiously typed on a command screen.

“Does this mean it is possible that my asset is in danger?” she whispered coldly.

“Maybe Colonel, however, it is likely Zin would submit him to some kind of torture, he was an uncanny hatred towards Ellis if I am correct.” he smiled.

“Cadet, when was this information received?”

The cadet at the console looked up nervously before spouting out the information.

“The computer algorithm analyzed Tobago’s ship at these coordinates"

"Why the sudden appearance?" she asked.

"It's quite possible some sort of bandit attack disrupted their shields allowing for us to identify, there were notable insurgents in the area, small groups inconsistent to any real threat" they muttered.

The cadet pointed to the screen slowly inching downward with the controls.

"Over here you can see the ship crashed, and we have live footage of the incident, it seems the vessel, and its crew were taken hostage, the quality of the pictures is bad sadly, mainly due to the fact our main satellites are currently occupied, from further viewings you can see they were taken into Zin’s custody, his own ships enabled cloaking, from which an hour later an Ellis Tobago was reported from an informant to be in Zin’s prison with three others, one of them perfectly matching the description.”

“Finally some good news, now is he still in the cell?” she asked.

“Yes, according to our source he is still in the cell,” the cadet replied.

Baquil beamed with excitement, commands flurrying from her lips.

“Fantastic, Major, how is the status of our T-52 squadrons? How far are they?” she bellowed.

“One is located nearby, however, the six others are about a few hours travel,” he replied after courteously examining the screen.

“I want a T-52 squadron on location to hover outside of Zin’s compound and I want four more to join him, pull in a Battlehind from the northern hemisphere as well, Zin has always had a reputation for keeping an iron fist, but money has always been a prime motivator, I want a temporary command center and three more squadrons down on the ground as well, we have to box in the compound and we don't have enough time, Legion, how fast can your troops get there? We will pay for support, as for you and Xan, I want as many people as you get on the ground”

“Very well” they responded.

“We will try to barter with Zin for the hostage and if not, mercenaries I will have you retrieve him from the cell, things could get messy and too much blood is not permitted to be on our hands”

She then turned to her troops and barked out more orders preparing for a siege on Zin’s command.

“Your forgetting Zin controls that area, it is highly unlikely our squadrons would even be able to penetrate his forces without getting resistance?”

“I am not a colonel for no reason” she snidely remarked.

There was a great commotion around the room as they tried to assemble some form of strike team.

“Good news is he shouldn’t be going anywhere soon, Cadet, what does our insider say? Any news?

"Nothing so far, I'm in direct contact right now" they replied.

"Ask them to get a positive identification on the humans location and condition, we may have to blow our way in and leave with haste before insurgent re-enforcements arrive.” the major said.

They all turned to look at a cadet with headphones on, he was carefully operating a code scrambler, turning the dial to get a clear signal.

“Something’s wrong… he was reporting normally, giving me a clear sound, about to check on the status of the asset when suddenly it all went blank, I don't understand, some sort of siren, a lot of commotion, blaster fire, it sounded like a fight,” he reported.

Tension spread across the room, enveloping all those who were inside.

A sharp cry pierced the silence.

“Commander, I think you might want to take a look at this.”