The Young Mercenary

Attached Note::  An interesting new feature I figured out, this device can record audio and visual information to be checked out later.  This recording used the simple options so it only recorded speech and any text I read.

::Recording Start::

Jake: You have to be quicker when fighting, Billy.

Billy: I’m already quick enough.  I would have been fine if you hadn’t spiked the difficulty!  We’re not going up against terminators or death squads in our work.

Jake: I figured if you could handle those we could handle anything.

Billy: Messiah in the Sky, Jake, not even the best mercenaries can handle those; that difficulty is meant to test your ability to run away not fight them in open combat.

Kyle: We’re all pretty tired w—

Lawrence: Stop bitching about it.  We’ll avoid going into the max difficulty from now on and next time—god damn it cut it out!

**Sounds of a scuffle, some very angry yelling from Jake and Billy**

Lawrence: Boys, knock it off!

**More sounds of fighting**

::Recorder’s Note:: I forgot Lawrence was bigger than me, he pulled me and Jake apart with little effort.

Lawrence: I’ll kick both your asses if you continue wasting my time and Credits by getting into real fights while we’re still in here.

**Silent pause**

Kyle: Maybe we should get some food.  I hear Waterline is still open.

Lawrence: Good idea, let’s go, these two can sulk on the ride over.

::Recording skips ahead 10 minutes::

::Filtering out idle chatter::

Jake: …Look I’m sorry, man.  I saw the way you fought and though you could handle something harder.

Billy: Look it’s fine.  I’m just dealing with some stupid shit right now.

Jake: I know.  I got my hands on this and thought you should see it.

Billy: Wait… how… why didn’t you give me this earlier?

Jake: I didn’t want it to interfere with your performance; you’d be distracted.

::Visual Recording::

NAME:  Billy Rikedal

AGE:  18

RACE:  Core Worlds, Arcadia

HAIR:  Blonde

EYES:  Blue

RATING:  +3

NOTES:  An aggressive fighter who relies on stealth and agility, very good at taking out entrenched enemies, no previous record before arriving in Convergence.  More intelligent then he lets on but still a bit of an idiot.  May be black listed by Royals Faction despite earning many high praises from them.

::Audio Recording::

Jake: So are you really from Arcadia?

Billy: Yeah… [pause] …Yeah, back on the Core Worlds.  But really, how’d you get this?  I thought mercenaries couldn’t get their hands on this stuff.

Jake: I had a guy who owned me a serious favor pull it for me.  So I noticed you got on the winning side’s shit list.

Billy: Yeah, but they’ve stated they’ll leave me alone if I leave them alone.  I got off easy I guess.  [Pause] Okay, God, I can see it on your face.  Yes, I’m from Arcadia.

Jake: Why’d you come out here then?

Billy: Because I couldn’t stay home.

Jake: I thought Arcadians didn’t do exiles.

Billy: That’s not what I said, and we don’t.  I just couldn’t stay home so I came out here where no one I knew would find me.

Jake: Yeah but why?

Billy: I don’t want to tell you right now.  Just leave it at that.

::Recording Stop::

The recordings I’ve tried are still coming out kind of wonky.  The simulation thing they showed me is pretty sweet.  My roommate, Lawrence, paid for out time there.  On another note I’ve been getting some minor work playing bodyguard.  I actually got into a fist fight with a guy too while on the job, kicked his ass.

Credits: 28

Unexpected

Where do I start?  Last month I worked with the Royals again.  I helped them fight to take cities and factories in the area called the Core.  More densely populated than the rest of the region so all the factions that have risen to power the last few months have all tried to grab it.  It was good work until the last mission with them.

It became obvious that the Royals could win if they played their cards right a month or two ago so I’ve been more or less exclusive with them during that time.  I figured even if I got caught by the other factions I’d get busted out of prison when the Royals won (I’ve been hearing that happens a lot, getting freed by your employer if they capture the prison you’re in).  But… something wasn’t right.  The other factions fought with a desperation, they knew that the Royals with their pets the Snakes and Thorns were a serious threat and they did not want to be wiped out.  But they rarely went on the offense.  I’d heard that for weeks the Royals would strike from the Core and try to grab more territory and the other factions would hold their ground then attack when it seemed the Royals had used up all their manpower.

I got firsthand experience with that.  In a raid with the Royals me and I don’t know… 30 other guys attacked a Tops owned valley and well we weren’t given support or help or any kind of aide.  We were just being thrown at the enemy in the hopes that our numbers would wear them down.  I learned later that the same thing had happened all over the region.  Hundreds of 30-40 groups of idiots like me just rushing the lines of the enemy in an attempt to wear them out.

Well my group, like most others, lost that fight.  I ran and tried desperately to find a place to hide.  A small house or a mill or an unused depot, anything.  I heard them coming for me, rounding up the defeated, and I panicked.  I used my blaster to burn a hole through some cheap iron grates and hid in a water drainage pipe.  I heard them pass over me and I would have thought they’d have heard my heart beating it was so loud.

After two hours it had become obvious they were no longer looking for stragglers in the area so I crawled out of the pipe and worked my way to a city, any city really, and kept away from the roads.  When I found a town and got my bearings I had heard about how we got our asses handed to us because we had no backup form the Royals.  I was pissed.  I mean it was an everything turning red kind of anger.  So when I heard one of the other factions, the Bears, was hiring I knew this would be my chance for payback.

I don’t want to go into the details but we won that fight and I got a fat stack of credits for my time too.  But it wasn’t enough, next week the Royals reclaimed any land I helped the Bears secure.  It looked hopeless.

Jobs not from the Royals started to dry up in Mars Iron.  Then I got a job offer from an employer I’d worked with before.  I remember this guy as hiring me for a Tops job so I signed up with his offer.  I went over to the usual place for transport but they’d all left already.  I thought I’d missed them all.  The hub was empty and there weren’t even attendants in the area.  As I had a worried feeling growing in my gut I felt what was probably someone’s boot hit me on my back very suddenly.

There was my employer now with some purple tattoos where there were none before and with four armed men, two of which also had similar tattoos.  After they beat me for what felt like forever he very calmly told me that working against them was the stupidest mistake I’d made in my life.  But they were going to spare my life instead of beating me to death because of their previous job offer.  Suffice to say that had expired now.  And they told me that if I worked against them again they weren’t going to kill me; just arrange for me to spend a year or two in one of their prison mines.  I was told in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t like how they treated their mercenaries in recent events then I should stay out of the war and avoid this kind of work until everything boils over.

I just nodded to whatever he said.  I was in no condition to argue or disagree with anything he said, even the choice words he made about my heritage.  After they left I limped my way back home.  At least no one broke or stole any of my equipment.  My roommate helped patch me up when I got home as I explained what happened.  I can’t even remember what else we talked about… it seems like a distant memory even now.  Though he was giving me a weird look when he thought I couldn’t see his face.  I don’t know, was he checking me out?

I spent the next week sitting on my thumbs with nothing to do.  Can’t piss off the Royals and I won’t risk working for them either.  But I didn’t have to wait long.  I guess they were stronger than what anyone else thought because I hear the last week was a curb stomp battle.  The Royals won and they get to put their king on the country’s throne.  What am I going to do now?

Credits:  128