Chapter Thirteen - Bounty Hunter ID 9445210

For us both to go bounty hunting together, I've needed to add Annie into my hunter squadron. But before adding her to it, I've needed to create it first by registering her as a bounty hunter. For these things, there was this big station, hidden deeply within a dangerous nebula, which was the Black Market.

We were on our way to that station, just entering said nebula aboard our fighter.

It took us around three Ris, to reach this system, as we weren't flying in Alyss. If we were, we would be here in around twenty Mis, because the differences between fighter's warp drive and annihilator-class warp drive were huge.

It took some time to navigate through the nebula, as I've needed to be careful as we clearly didn't want us to get hit by some space lightning. After around thirty Mis, we successfully navigated through the nebula to be able to see the huge battle station.

It was repurposed to be a trade hub for some lightly illegal goods and also it was the headquarters of the Hunter Company. There were rumors going around this place that the Demon Queen resided here. But I was never able to confirm them.

We've landed onto the station a few Mis later and left our fighter. We took our weapons with us, just in case. You never know what awaits you in the darker alleys of the station. You can get robbed easily, if you're not careful. Not to speak about abductions, rape, and murder. It was completely an anarchic place.

We went through a long corridor, heading towards the giant mag-doors in front of us. They were left open, as there were people of all different races flowing in and out of it. "So, where are we going, Dorian?" Annie looked at me, asking me that question.

"We're headed for the Hunter Company HQ. To register you as a bounty hunter and my colleague."

We passed around hundreds of different trade posts, each selling various items ranging from weapons to slaves. As we went towards our destination, I tried to explain how bounty hunting works and Annie was listening carefully.

There were even stolen techs from the Alliance, so I wondered where these things came from. In the distance, around two Kems by straight line, was a tall modern building with a logo of credits, crossed with two blades from each of the top corners. That was the Hunter Company HQ.

We stopped in front of the building, looking at each other. We've kissed again and took each other's hands. Then, we started going up the stairs to the entrance to the HQ. "Annie, this is the Hunter Company HQ. You must make sure, that you're not afraid of killing for money. Sometimes the task is about bringing your mark alive, but that happens fairly rarely." I finished my explanation of how this works to her.

In front of the entrance, there stood four heavily armed guards with mounted pulse cannons in front of each group with two guards on each side of the gate. They looked at us, wondering about who we were.

I've reached for one of many hidden pockets inside of my armor, and took out my hunter ID.

The guards checked it out, then one of them hit the gate twice with his fist, making the small visor inside of it to open. There was another guard, who looked at my ID, then at the guard showing it to him and nodded.

The gate started to open with loud mechanical sound of gears spinning and clicking.

"That was easy. To enter, you just show them your hunter ID, and they'll let you in?" Annie looked at me as we walked closer to the gate.

"Yes, it works like this. These guys will not stand a chance against us, though. If there was any need to fight them, that is." I returned my answer quickly.

We waited for the gate to open, and entered the big hall that was inside. There were cash desks on both sides, from the gate, to a central elevated point, where was an insertion point for acquiring rewards for the 'kill tasks'. After a hunter presented a severed head of their kill target, they were rewarded with credits based on the bounty on the target and the time it took to complete. The faster a hunter was, the better the rewards.

I walked with Annie holding my hand to one of the cash desks. There was a human woman, sitting on her chair and reading some news. "Ehm, hello. Here is hunter ID 9445210. I want to register a squadmate." I've placed my hunter ID card onto the cash desk and moved it towards the woman. She picked it up, reading it quickly. "It will be 100.000 credits. After that, she will have same hunter ID as you being in the same party."

I've picked up an empty credit chip from my armor pocket and loaded it with the requested sum. Then I handed it over to the woman's palm, which she stuck out of her window, waiting for me to pay up.

"Now you are Hunter Squadron ID 9445210. You can now complete tasks as one." The woman said to us. She then turned back to reading her news from her tablet. "Now, dear. Let's accept some bounties. And enjoy some side missions."

We've headed towards the last three cash desks on the right side from the entrance gate, which were covered by a huge holographic display. That was the bounty list. Offering different missions varying from some headhunts, escort missions or item retrievals to stealth assassinations. Overall very mercenary-like.

Annie started to look for some missions, which were probably easier to complete, but were not very rewarding. My eye was catched by a bounty with a payout of 100 million credits, for finding and killing some kind of elven woman mage.

That bounty stated that this girl was very dangerous, attacking military convoys, and stealing their cargo on her own. She was described as a girl of an approximate age of 25, with long blonde hair and dark green eyes. Her race was listed as Elf. It's been some time since I've encountered someone from that race, however, as the elves were very secretive and adept at hiding themselves fairly well from the eyes of other cosmic inhabitants. Also their mages were on the stronger side of all races i know of, if I'm considering their tech and all things around.

"Hey, Annie. Look at this one. It has very high payout. That would pay us all the necessary upgrades for all of us, Alyss included." She turned to me, then turned to the bounty, I was pointing at. "Wow. Some elven girl causing trouble for the Alliance. And she seems to be strong. It might prove to be a challenge to do this, but why not?"

Annie's eyes bulged as she saw the payout. "Holy shit. That is some serious money in there. We're taking it." She then touched the display, where the bounty was, and it opened up. Then she touched the accept button on it, and it made a ringing sound: "Bounty accepted. Good hunting, bounty hunters."

Both me and Annie then left the HQ and headed back to the hangar after we took that bounty. "Dear, I'll need to look at something nearby. Can you wait inside of our fighter?" I asked Annie. She looked at me, with a bit of sadness in her face: "Well. What am I supposed to do alone? But if it's something important, then go. Just make sure you're going to compensate me for my waiting." She entered our fighter with a wide grin on her face after that.

I've left to head back towards the station to see if I can get any Intel on the new enemy. Alas, I didn't know yet what was waiting for me there.