Isolation-#Wattys2015

Excerpt 1-Arrival

My ship creaked and rattled as it made the jump out of Hyperspace. Laying in front of me was the forest world of Ios. From my Recaro pilot seat I could see clouds swirling over the dark green surface. It's aquatic moon peacefully orbited the planet and their blue star burned gracefully many millions of miles away, it was an image that would stay with me for the rest of my life. The sound of my A-Classes high compression engines and warp cores winding down could be heard faintly in the back of the ship.

"Target reached", my ship's AI said, "disengaging warp core."

"Magellan", I said leaning forward and stuffing a few puffy Cheetos into my mouth, "track and lock onto Confederate Research Facility 36's GPS beacon, search Biosphere Labs, give me anything you can find on it."

"Tracking" Magellan said, "GPS beacon found, imputing orbital components, establishing orbit, beginning descent."

I set my bag of Cheetos on the control panel, leaned back in my seat and looked at the data that was popping up in front of me. It had been a few hours since I'd received a call from the Biosphere complex on the surface. From what I was gathering in the data, it was a Level 3 biological research lab. They dealt mostly with genetic mutation and cloning. They also had the best security force in the Bogon Galaxy. I had read when I was younger that they had an out brake of a gene splicing agent known only as "Breeder" and their security team had crushed everything infected in under three hours, losing only one of their own. It made me wonder why they were calling in a Bounty Hunter when they had their own private army ready to fly at a seconds notice. The message that they sent me wasn't much more than picking up the phone and talking to an answering machine, but with what I heard I assumed that it was bad, so I gathered my gear and came out.

"Why do ya think they called us out here Magellan?", I asked putting my feet up on the console.

"I wouldn't know", Magellan answered, "what did they say on the call?"

"Hello, Skyline. We here a Biosphere Research have an offer to extend to you", I said mimicking the voice, "we have encountered a creature in our laboratories that requires extermination. Should you accept this contract, you will be paid 4.5 Billion Units upon the death of this creature."

"Don't you find it weird that they mentioned you by name? Or that they didn't tell you anything but, a creature needs to die?", Magellan asked.

"You over think everything", I said, "typical AI. Why don't you just relax and have some? Loosen your circus a little?"

"My idea of fun would be having that robot body you promised you were gonna build me", Magellan said.

I laughed a little, "I'll get to it! And no, I don't find it weird that they mentioned me by name. It's probably just like all our other hunts, some giant bug that ate someone or some shit. It's not like I have my face all over every poster in the Galaxy or something. Oh..wait a minute I do!"

"Typical cocky 24 year old", Magellan snickered.

"To Che", I answered, "how long before we make the surface?"

"Not long at all", Magellan answered, "get your gear ready, I'll notify you once we hit the atmosphere."

I nodded and got up from my warm, comfortable seat and left the cockpit. The hallways in my ship were always dark, but I liked it that way. The bright light always pierced right through my visor and fried my eyes. I started down the long hallway. The floors were made of grated metal panels that allowed me easy access to the wires, pipes and systems underneath them. The walls were no different. They were bare metal and wires with the struts showing, I would probably get an interior in this thing after this job, was getting annoyed as hell with the bare minimum ship set up. I walked down to a four way hall and took a right turn and walked down another small hallway before passing through a hatch which opened with a whooshing sound and walking down another short hallway. I opened the door to my room and walked inside.