Welcome to Gaia! ::

Karlim surveyed the room as the struggling lights spluttered into life. Despite their presence, the gloom of the garage seemed to persist in the corners, beneath the workbenches and around the tall, cloth-covered machine in the centre of the far wall. Above the workbenches on his side of the garage, were ancient wooden panels where a variety of design specs had been nailed or pinned, meetings and dinner engagements. Girls' phone numbers.

On the tops themselves, were tools. Giant wrenches for plate-sized nuts. Pinprick screwdrivers. Wrenched-out wires trailing copper. A half dozen old coffee mugs in varying states of mould. Empty fast food packaging piled at one end and spilling across the floor. Toolboxes. More papers, specifications, mechanical recipes for a veritable feast of war.

Michael Saladin was known throughout the sector for his skills as a soldier. Not just any soldier mind. He served two years in the conventional line regiments before being selected for Special Operations with TECTU (Technical and Experimental Combat Test Unit). Four years later, he resigned a decorated war hero, a champion Battlesuit pilot, and a pioneer of next-generation warfare. Of course they had tried to keep him right where they wanted him - in the fighting - but he had stuck to his guns and now here he was, enjoying his retirement with this misleadingly shabby workshop, servicing electrical and mechanical devices of all sizes. Except he wasn't here at the moment.

Karlim remembered the details from the file in the satchel he was carrying, then a photograph caught his eye. Saladin's family. It was old, maybe five years or more. They looked happy, the three of them. It must have been when he was still in TECTU, as he was wearing a uniform with their insignia. His then wife (Karlim wasn't sure of his marital status recently, so he assumed that was still the case) was younger than him by a couple of years, brown haired with a bright smile. Brightness was a sought-after commodity among a certain kind of soldier.

The click of an automatic's safety being flicked off made the scales on Karlim's neck ripple. He raised his hands gently either side of his head

"I don't know how you got in here, you mutie pr***, but this place is still being used. Go find some other place to shack up for the night."

"I got in through the skylight, Mr Saladin. I was hoping you would come back here."

"Turn around. No smart moves. I'll kill you."

"I believe you, Captain Saladin. I'm turning around now." Karlim kept his hands where they were and slowly turned to face Saladin. He had aged. Although it was not by more than six or seven years, and he was only in his late thirties, he looked more like mid-forties or early fifties. Weathered, stressed. Haunted. The heavy calibre automatic in his hands didn't shudder one milimetre.

Michael Saladin wore the old bomber jacket of his unit - the TECTU Mobile Division. Its markings had been stripped except for the division's emblem. Even devoid of rank of squadron markings, it still had a military, or quasi-military essence. Beneath the jacket, the centrepiece of his portrayed identity, he wore a simple white shirt and some grubby jeans. His eyes were hard, unyielding. The eyes of a poker player who didn't blink when people called him a cheater.

"You know me. Start talking, mutant."

"My name is Karlim Angleright. I have a simple proposition for you, if you want to cut the small talk. There is a place I want to erase from history and I have more than enough cash to make it worth dusting off that monster in the corner over there. If you're interested."

"I'm not a mercenary. You came to the wrong place."

"What if I told you the target was Haile's Meadow?"

Saladin's eyes widened, just a minute gesture, for a fraction of a second. Then his demeanour returned. "I'd say, you're a stupid b******. Now get out."

"As you wish. But if you think you've beaten them, you're wrong. As long as you let them keep her, they'll always have you in the palm of their hand. You don't know how desperate they can get sometimes. When they want you back, they can do anything to get their hands on the right man for the job. Keeping their wives working in top secret development centres is one way of making sure they have a trump card for those occassions."

Saladin's face twisted in a brief shudder of rage. Then he looked as if he was about to cry for a moment. Finally, he exhaled deeply and lowered the automatic. "Keep talking."

"My plan is simple. Along with a few other associates, who's services have already been secured, I will raid Haile's Meadow research facility and level it from inside. Top secret projects will be compromised and erased. Prototypes stolen and destroyed. Leading members of certain projects will be held accountable for their actions. Your wife, along with several other personel, will be released from active duty. This will be accomplished in twenty minutes total time - ten minutes before any sizeable response arrives from Bay's Edge, and forty minutes before a planetwide dragnet can be organised. By the time any of our faces appear on the news - which they shouldn't - those of us who wish to will be on a spaceplane to a ship waiting just on the other side of Calliope. Reward is two hundred thousand, Imperial Sovereigns. You, and your battlesuit, for twenty minutes' high risk work, and you get to be with your wife as a bonus."

Saladin paced to a bureau at his end of the garage and opened a draw. He pulled a bottle of something awful out and removed the cap. He paused, and sniggered scathingly. "Just like that, huh? You've got it all planned out?"

"Of course. I'm not an idiot, Mr Saladin, I am fully aware of what this job entails and its implications. I wouldn't have thought of approaching you otherwise. I wouldn't have known that you have a personal stake in the matter."

"So what makes you so sure everyone on your team is reliable? Who are they?"

"Individuals such as yourself. Veterans from across the Empire. Disillusioned soldiers abandoned by the authorities and societies they once protected. Betrayed warriors and sacrificed pawns. Scorned servants and vengeful vassals, burned by life, wounded by humanity. A ramshackle elite, used goods. Second hand expertise. Predators, with very long teeth, and even longer memories. Somewhere between angels and demons, Mr Saladin, are mercenaries. Some of them just don't like the mantle."

Saladin swigged from the bottle bitterly. "I'm not for hire, kid."

"I'm almost one hundred years old, mr Saladin. Appearances can be deceiving. Everyone is for hire in this world. Everyone has a price, a condition, that must be met before they consider taking a job. For some, no amount of money will convince them to take a life. For others, money isn't even a prerequisite for the acceptance of such a task. Some do it for pleasure, for gratification. For revenge. Others do it because they are coerced. If you refuse an order in the service, you're shot or court martialled and treated like a criminal for the rest of your life. There's a way to hire everyone, mr Saladin. But, as I say, appearances can be deceiving."

"You sure talk a lot of crap, kid. And you're not doing a very good job of making me trust you."

"Try not to look at this as a 'hire'. Try and see it more as an extended invitation. I have come here seeking your services, which you have every right to deny me if you so wish. Knowing it would be unfair to ask something of you, I have approached you with financial resources that I feel are adequate support and reward for such services. Thats complimentary, mr Saladin. The reason I'm not hiring you, is because I'm inviting you. Your wife, mr Saladin. You wouldn't need to hold onto a bottle if you could hold onto her again, am I right?"

"You sure take things personal, kid. And I've had just about enough of this bulls***. You're insane. Haile is locked up tight as a clam and its garrison has more firepower than a lot of frontline units. Its guards are all cybers, probably genomes too. The security systems alone could take apart a regiment in less than five minutes. There is *no* way you can 'level it from the inside'."

"If thats your stance, then we will have approximately one minute and twenty five seconds longer to accomplish our objectives - because we won't be obligated to extract your wife."

Saladin glared at the mutant, who did not meet his gaze, but instead gazed passively at the photograph above the workbench.

"Two hundred thousand, and my lover." Saladin reiterated the perks of the job, considering.

"More than enough to finance your rehabilitation from alchoholism. More than enough to start a new, bright life. The ship is headed for Icarus' Reach. No one will bother chasing it." Icarus' Reach was a holiday resort at the very edge of Imperial space. It served as a waypoint for all manner of colourful alien traders and diplomats. As a diplomatic hub, it was protected by its own elite garrison who were ruled by the planet, not the Empire. It was almost a republic.

"A bright life..."

Karlim turned to the covered object against the wall. "Is this the legendary machine?"

Before Saladin could object, Karlim tore the cloth away from the hidden object, revealing a sleek, muscular-looking battlesuit. A cutting-edge artifact. A one in a kind design.

"Yeah, thats my baby. TECTU XO...."

"...147/B2" Karlim continued, remembering the logistics in his stolen reports "Codename: Balthazar. A tonne and a half of diamond-edge technology. The only one of its kind, if I'm not mistaken."

"You're very well informed. Which begs the question, how so? In fact, there's a lot I haven't asked you, kid."

"Please, settle your doubts. It wont help to tell you, but I stole the technical readouts from this unit's field tests about a month ago. The same contacts who got them for me are also informing me about the defences of our target."

Saladin frowned. "Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Karlim Angleright, and I too am a one of a kind creation. I too represent a certain cutting edge of science. I too am something of a mercenary."

"So you're being paid to arrange all of this?"

"In a way. Yes, in fact. It was necessary to supply a solution to other people's agendas in order to secure the finances required to supply a solution to my own."

"And exactly what is your agenda, Mr Angleright?" Saladin used the title sarcastically. Karlim ignored the hostility.

"My agenda is the same as yours, mr Saladin. I want to put all the pieces of my life back in their rightful place. I want to live, and not survive. I want to reveal, not conceal. I want peace."

Saladin nodded grimly, seeing truth in the mutant. "I'll drink to that..." he muttered finally, taking another swig from the bottle.

* * * * * * * * * *

I really, really hope this is starting to make some kind of sense!

DJW

Boring? *blinks* There you go again with that word that is the complete opposite of what you write. Is there anymore after this? I want to see how this turns out...

*laughs* I completely understand waiting for someone to comment on your work...and no one does. There's a couple of mine in the regular story section no one's commented on *sigh* I hear your pain. And when I see something you write, I'll read it, you're an awsome writer. tell me when you've gotten a book published will ya? wink

Hey, I noticed you like Firefly and Serenity... check out the fan fiction section, you might see something interesting wink ...