Chapter 80 The CEO who doesn't know his limits

He got out in Hawaii, yawned, stretched, wasn't surprised that the Ford was gone. Saskia was predictable. The sun was burning into his face, he smoked first. He wondered why his cell phone was silent. He took a service car to take him to his house.

Luke paid and got out, even less surprised that it was still messy. He made himself a coffee where he was forced to clean up around the machine, grumbling because it stank. He tidied up, put the overflowing bin bags outside and went in to drink his coffee. Now it was clean and aired and he could enjoy his coffee. As he stood there, it looked like an apartment from a catalog, with only pictures of Saksia on the walls. 

He had long since put the pictures away. He turned on the dishwasher, closed the patio door and went down to the cellar. There he put the box on the table. He put on some comfortable clothes, took the magazine and sat down on the old couch, actually the first one that had been bought in the house, but Saskia wanted to be IN. So the couch moved down here and she had the IN couch upstairs, where you got a pain in your butt after only 5 minutes. Laid down and fell asleep.

Was woken up by aggressive banging on the basement door. Luke looked irritated at the clock. He had slept until the next day. He yawned and sat up.

"Luke, open up!" came from Sarge. 

" As far as I'm free... " He got up, shuffled to the door, opened it and looked into Sarge's annoyed face.

" Hey George, what's going on? " he glanced around the house, still looking clean. 

" So it can't be garbage and it can't smell ..." 

"Do you know what you've done?" 

He pondered and grinned.

" I've just been shopping? " 

Sarge held up the tablet, which had a photo of Luke with the models on it. With the caption. 

"Rabbit strikes!" 

Luke scratched his head.

" What did Carla drag me to that photo ..." 

" Boy, they say you've been picking up women in there!" 

Luke put his head to one side.

" I ate pizza and that's it George, ever since you guys put that spy shit on me I haven't gotten a shot."

" I thought Saskia wouldn't let you do what you wanted. " 

" She has weaknesses , a bit of massage and she's willing." 

Luke mused.

" You can ask the hydra who drove me around." 

" She said you did it with the models ..." 

Luke grabbed his face.

" And then the board raged about your shopping." 

Luke grinned.

"Luke, that's not funny! John blamed you and said you didn't listen to him. " 

" Typical John ... "

" That's why " Sarge put a hand on his shoulder. 

" Yes?" came the reply.

" You're doing a big money mission for the aliens on the moon. "

" Why me? Let John shovel shit..." 

" It's done and approved and the old lady from the moon picked your name."

Luke groaned. 

"At least let me take the shoes and the box." 

"You may..." 

Luke shuffled back into the cellar, slipped into his running shoes, packed his things from yesterday, shoes and other things into the box, only the table and sofa were still in the cellar, went upstairs, locked the cellar. He was driven to the place where the lunar module was waiting for him. 

The flight took an hour and he was met on the moon by the representative of the Trade Alliance. She looked like a human, light green skin with spots, golden eyes, instead of hair she had tentacles on her head that looked like hair. She wore a loose yellow robe. She smiled as Luke stepped out of the shuttle.

Earl stood next to her.

"Hey Luke, what have you been up to?" 

" Been shopping Earl." 

" Sure... So the boss said when you're ready, you can go."

" What am I supposed to do anyway?" 

She croaked a little, Earl looked at her irritated.

"Uh, she said since it's a mission with a lot of money, chasing bugs..." 

Luke raised an eyebrow questioningly.

2 weeks later, Luke breathed heavily exhausted, leaning against a concrete wall.

"Fuck bug hunts, they're fucking alien monsters like in the movies." 

He looked at the grotesque creatures, which were a mixture of xenomorph, roach and centipede. 

He loaded a new magazine and jammed the stimulant into his leg. Supposedly only a few hundred left. So on he went, when he had killed them all, he was taken to the next planet, where it started all over again. There were 4 planets in total. They looked more like a cheap version of Mars. He had to go into a capsule that was picked up by a spaceship. 

When they genetically engineered him in the army and the aliens came in and said they were going to do it. He wondered what had really been screwed with him. He knew from a technician of Earl's race that they had enhanced the data Earl had done with his grandfather and fixed bugs. When he asked Earl what he had changed about his grandfather, he said only too much and made a few mistakes. 

But thanks to the changes, the aliens let him do missions like this because his organism could keep up with galactic standards. He asked what they meant and in response they told him that Earth is so far up everyone's ass that humans were created by the organism just for their own planet. They sent him back to the moon. Where Luke climbed staggeringly out of the capsule and was led to decontamination. 

Which was worse than what he always had to do down in the military. At least he had some peace and quiet in his quarters, even if it was more like a storage room. 

He lay down in his bed, looking at his hand as he opened and closed it. He reached for his cell phone and checked the messages.

"Oh well, they've really exploited the news. " 

Clicked on a link to a commercial where he was described as the enemy of all women and all his appearances at the time were shown. 

"I'm telling you, I shouldn't have done that shit back then ..." 

Luke yawned, put his cell phone aside and fell asleep. Was woken up by his cell phone. He picked it up tiredly and answered it.

"What's up?" 

"We need to talk," came from Saskia. 

" Okay, what about?" 

" You're asking that? You fuck off after banging model cunts like that!" 

He rubbed his nose.

"Has it ever occurred to you that Carla uses that for her stuff?" 

" My Hydra confirmed that! " 

" Then Carla put her up to it Kia."

" No way Kia! Do you know what kind of shit I had to listen to and do to myself because of your shit?" 

"Nah, because I had to clean up other people's shit. Well, because Carla posted something like that, some idiots jumped on it and were happy about it. Did you have to what?" 

"To appear on a TV show!" 

"So what? Do you like being in front of the camera?" 

He heard a growl. 

"Oh come on, I'll come down. Let's sit down ..." 

" No ... Fuck you!!!"

She hung up and Luke sighed. He didn't understand what was going on in the woman's brain. He sat up, reached for the tablet and checked which tasks were still open. 

"Let's see what the board has to offer ..."

He found a lot, so he clicked on the first thing to clear his head.

Which didn't really happen. He did one operator assignment after another. Slept in transport planes. The moon boss got wind that Luke was on the move and called him into her office. Luke came back from a kill mission and stood in front of her in dirty BDU. She crossed her hands and looked at him. 

"You know I can't understand you?" 

She pressed something against his collar.

"I know, so." 

She leaned back and smiled.

" You're always out, never home. "

"Oh, I don't know, the wife is stressed and doesn't answer her cell phone ..."

She continued to look at him.

" So you're doing all this to avoid thinking about her, are you?" 

" Sort of, yeah... " 

She ran her finger across the table.

" I can offer you jobs from the Alliance, they're more dangerous of course..."

" You know, I don't understand anything they say out there..."

" I can get you a translator, for a few missions and something in return." 

" Okay..." he replied. Later he regretted it. 

Not because of the operation, that was the most luxurious operation he had ever experienced. No, the missions, she sent him on the same shit he had done on Earth, only instead of humans, it was aliens in every form imaginable and the quid pro quo she wanted. Their species collected the dirt in mucus sacs in their throats, which were normally removed regularly. But since the moon boss was on the moon and not on her home planet, she couldn't do that. And so the opposite came into play.

 So he had to reach into a maw full of razor-sharp teeth and pull out the bursa. If he didn't, she almost strangled him every time with her eternally long tongue, twitching and acting like she was having an orgasm. If he hadn't thought it was so bad, but he felt dirty every time afterwards. 

They gave him manuals to learn the languages of the dominant species so he could read them when he had nothing to do or was training, which was his horror. They gave him a battle suit that he had to maintain. But had a higher chance of survival. But he still did jobs for operators. Met with the other operators. 

One day, when he came back from a mission, he heard static, the Hydras were under attack. He rushed to the moon's communications center, the satellite images showed a battlefield where Luke saw all the Hydras were surrounded. His eyes narrowed to slits when he saw Saskia's body lying there. 

He reached for Earl.

"Can you teleport me down there? " 

" No Luke, only places I know, I've never been there, the only place I can teleport to is the moon..." 

" Good. I want to do an orbital jump." 

Earl looked at him with his mouth open.

" A what?" 

" You teleport me into orbit so I can jump in there."

" I don't even know if the suit can take it..." 

"Anyway, I can't just stand here idle." 

Earl sighed.

"Get ready." 

Luke flipped his helmet closed. 

They teleported him and he did his orbital jump, he'd already done some stupid things. He'd done a few orbital jumps before, only each time he'd used exo-suits that had been built for it. 

No matter how much he had argued with Saksa, she was still his property. He activated the system and jet drive and landed with a crash, his suit shaking. He struggled to get up, saw that he had made a huge mess and hastily made his way to the Hydras.

They stared at him in fear. He reached for a Hydra's radio.

"Evacuate now!" 

Getting shot in the back, Luke dropped the radio, grabbed ownerless weapons and fired at the attacking soldiers. Lost in the fight, saw the Hydras being taken away, pursued the soldiers to their base. 

Wreaked carnage there, trudging through the corridors in search of survivors. Who hid, whimpering. After finding out which group they were from, he went to their headquarters and repeated the game. Until he was teleported back to the moon. 

The moon chief looked at him reproachfully and worriedly, Earl ran around Luke.

"Boy! This thing is junk, it can't just be from the impact. "

Luke nodded and took off his helmet.

"There were still bullets and rockets and grenades in there."

They took him to the infirmary. According to the medical technician, they had to remove several hundred bullets and then shrapnel from him. He could thank his modification that he was still alive. 

Luke found out which hospital Saskia was in, the moon chief gave him a teleport bracelet. So he teleported to her. According to the bracelet, she had taken a few blows but was still alive. On his second visit, as he stood by her bed, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"What do you want? Laugh at me? " 

"No, I'm just worried about you, Kia." 

 She wanted to laugh, her face contorted in pain.

"What do you really want Luke?" 

He had to think, he didn't know himself.

"I don't know, Kia."

"Tttzz!"

Luke sighed. 

"Go, I don't want to see you, Luke."

She turned away from him. 

Again he sighed. 

"Okay."

He moved closer, kissed her on the back of the head and felt her wince. 

" Rest well and take care of yourself. " 

He pressed the recall button and stood on the moon. 

Looked around his quarters.

" Good thing I already cleaned out, but ..." 

He zapped into his house, looked again. The only thing he found was a note saying that the Ford had been totaled. Luke called the department, asked them to store the wreck for him until he could pick it up. He zapped back and bracelet showed him that he had reached the daily limit. 

Luke sighed. He got an email that they were expecting reports from him. 

"Yeah right, I'm doing the dirty work and you just want to know what's been done." 

He took the laptop out of his things, sat down at the small table and typed in the mission reports they wanted him to submit.

 He listed everything in detail, how many he had killed, which weapons he had used, how much ammunition he had used from the group. He started a program that showed him the total fuel consumption and costs. He added that.

 He listed every MRE he had gotten, every shit he had done during the missions.

Smiling, he sent off the pad of reports. 

"They don't care anyway, as long as something was sent. " 

He went to bed and was only woken by his cell phone. He sat up and saw Sarge on the display. 

" Yes?" 

" Where are you? " 

" I'm asleep in bed, George." 

" You're not at home Luke. " 

Luke grinned.

" And you know that because?" 

" I drove Saskia home from the hospital and you're not in it. "

Luke lit a cigarette.

" And then you wanted something from me? "

"To ask you what those mission reports are ..." 

Luke blew out a cloud.

" Yes. The board wanted me to write everything down as accurately as possible, George. So that's what I did."

"And that's where you write down how much you've shat?" 

"Yes of course, I used water from the group and I got a memo from the board. That they want to know all my costs. " 

"Luke, they overreacted to your shopping trip, Alex has..." 

" George so far no memo has come that they don't want to know more. "

" Luke, you're exaggerating..." 

" I'm exaggerating? I'll show you what it means when I exaggerate! And say hello to Liz and your little one from me," hung up. Put the cell phone on the bed, grabbed the laptop.

"Exaggerating ... my ass... I haven't even started yet ... Luke blah blah ... " 

He wrote an email to the board that he would give up his job for John, ergo all the counterintelligence stuff and only take on missions as an operator, as the current situation required it. He referred to the conflict reports of the corporations. 

He then reported for missions that were nothing more than war missions, taking only the absolute minimum of weapons required. He procured the rest on site. He took photos and attached everything to a report at the end of the mission, which he always wrote when he flew to the next mission. 

This went well until the board restricted his missions until nothing was reported to him. But Luke wouldn't be Luke if he didn't find a way, so he annoyed the other operators and attached himself to them. Until the board found out and banned him from there too. 

Luke paced back and forth in his quarters, pausing. 

"Wait ... I can do the alien mission."

He ran up to the Moon Chief, who looked at him questioningly. 

"I need missions!" 

She bubbled.

" They're not giving me anything! " He hung his head.

She croaked and Luke grinned. 

" I put up pictures of the bodies so you can see the results. " 

She rubbed her nose, gurgling.

"So, do you have any assignments for me now?" 

She nodded. 

Luke began his third career as a mercenary and quickly found that time passed differently outside the solar system. Time passed much slower on Earth, when he asked why, they explained the principle to him. 

An ancient alien race invented colony anchors to better manage their empire. These are rammed into the planet and adapt to the main system. Otherwise there would be chaos with time shifts. Later civilizations adopted this technology and continued to use it. 

He had to experiment a little to really understand it, but he quickly used it to his advantage. 195 years passed doing the aliens' dirty work, only 15 years passed on Earth, more than once he encountered intruders targeting Earth.

Rushed to the operators' calls for help.

Got drunk in alien bars, ate their food and learned the written and spoken language. He called or sent voice messages 1 time a week after Earth time to Kia, eventually she picked up said nothing. He just talked, sent her flowers for her birthday, sent gifts to his family for their birthdays. He watched Kia thanks to Ai when he had time and was in contact with Ai. Saw her getting better and living again, but only in snippets. Kept Moon+Earth away from his life in core systems. However, he stopped sending her anything after the last 7 years as nothing came from her.

>>> End season 4 <<