"I see the bastard, try to keep resetting your cruise engines. This won't take long." I replied with a sneer. I opened fire on the Navy Ace trying to pot shot our cargo. Weeks we'd been running these lanes with our treasure trove of begotten goods...not once had we been found, until now.
Jas knew we were wanted. Hell, so did I. Our last name made us somewhat of a liability to everyone around us. The children of the wayward Jacob Keller, leader of the Children of Conviction, the would be competitor to the other mercenary gangs in Sirius. With my father's death, our little dysfunctional family parted ways.
Petrov was rumored to have suffered a violent death at the hands of a force that even to this day we couldn't find any information on. Veronica "Violet" Quinn went crazy after my father's death, she couldn't handle it and went totally bugf***. Picked up a Slave liner and set to destroying lives. Schneider vanished completely. I hadn't picked up a trace of him in what seemed like years. All that was left of the once mighty Children of Conviction was myself and my sister, Jasmine. We settled with running smut and other forms of contraband through house space, daring the law to chase us...we'd avoided the bounties on our heads for weeks until now. A mercenary had decided to collect the price on our heads only to be ran off by a Navy Ace, then the Ace scanned our cargo, now we were further in over our heads.
"Gods damnit, Jason! Get that fraker off me!"
"I'm tryin' you big crybaby! Get off my back!"
My sister and I picked up a fighter and small freighter with what money we were able to scrape together from Barrier Gate and ducked out before anyone knew what happened. We took all the merchandise the Children had managed to acquire in our short span on the face of Sirius, to include the powered suits. We stashed them somewhere safe distant from house space and completely away from the prying eyes or sticky fingers of people who knew better.
The Ace's ship exploded in a flurry of violence, his pod remained intact. I tractored it to my hold.
"Jesus, Jason, think you're getting a little rusty or something?" came the mocking transmission of my would be twin sister.
"Hey, can it Jas. He knew how to handle himself."
"Hah! So did that girl back at--"
"I told you not to bring that up!"
Laughter on the comms. My sister, the comedian.
"Ugh, I need a drink. Let's set down at Mactan. I really need to rest my feet for a while."
Buffalo. God I hated this place. The smell alone could send you head over heels if you weren't prepared for it...smelled like a mixture of blood, vomit, and death every time you opened your hatch onto the bay floor. The walls weren't in much better shape, falling this way and that, re-bar supporting the many cracks in the walls from the constant hit and run attacks by the Navy.
The Rogue's skills in engineering weren't the best in Sirius, that was for damn sure.
"Jas." I said as my twin sister climbed out of the cockpit. "Find us some grub, I'm going to see what I can get for this moronic Navy b*tch. Might be enough to square us away for a few months."
She nodded and walked off towards the bar, attracting the eye of every man within eye shot as she did so. My sister had a knack for crushing the hearts of men just with her looks. She was roughly 5' 7" with hair so dark it shone purple in the right light, with ice colored eyes that would melt your soul if you looked into them long enough and she had a temper to match those eyes if you got in her way.
The Navy man in the pod was screaming loudly, trying to get out of the escape pod. I kicked the side.
"Shaddup, Navy boy, even if you did get out of there you wouldn't get far." I said loudly for everyone within earshot to hear. He stopped struggling inside the pod and quieted down. He was still trying to get out though, I could hear faint scratching coming from the inside of the pod.
"Jason yah son of a b*tch, how tha hell are yah?" said a familar voice. I turned to see an old friend that had been with the company in it's oldest incarnations: Captain Pete Barsley.
"Good to see you Pete. I've brought you something you might find worthwhile." I replied with a smile and handshake.
"Ah, yah did, did ye? Let's be takin' a look at dis here den." Pete leaned towards the window of the pod and was met with a wad of spit on the inside of the glass. Apparently the Navy boy wasn't in a very talkative mood all of a sudden. "Firey one eh?" said Pete with a laugh.
I looked to the pod.
"Indeed." I replied with a stern stare through the window.
"Bring em to mah shop, I'll give yah a good price for tha pod. Ye can keep the snivelin' Navy douche. Ah ain't be havin' much need for a sissy." he said limping away towards his shop.
"Hear that? Navy brat? Guess we're takin' you up stairs to see what I can get for you. You'll be feeding me for at least a few weeks." I said with a smile when I pressed the release button and placed a gun to the young man's head. "How about we start walking that direction now...wouldn't want any of that pretty information you have stored up there going anywhere, would we?"