The Protagonist Speaks

Dear readers, tonight with us is a female mercenary taking on the odd, risky jobs across the galaxy. She is here to tell us about a planet wide labyrinth of mining tunnels, metal processing, acid waste levels, where abandoned cities are thriving with a genetically engineered ecosystem of predators, prey, and mutant humans.

Tell us a little about where you grew up. What was it like there?

Geez, I haven’t thought about that hellhole since I left. I grew up in an orphanage on a slum planet. There’s a lot of bad places to live in the universe, and I was lucky enough to born on one of the worst. Mind you, they are good recruiting grounds for the Academy. I was fast and homicidal as a young girl, and it was my ticket off planet before I ended up in a whorehouse. Woulda made more money there than the military, I reckon. But I’m kinda choosy.

Did you have any favourite toys as a child? Any cherished memories?

The cook at the orphanage – Ella – she taught me to cook and knocked off a few of the rough edges. Most kids there couldn’t read, so I got lucky with Ella. She was a bit tight lipped about her past, but I learned to read from old weapons manuals, so some sort of past she was probably hiding from. She gave me my first weapon  – a knife that I could hide in my sleeve. Saved me more times than I can count.

What do you do now?

I left the Academy to look after Johanna. She needed me, poor little thing. Abandoned on a planet and trying to feed other kids on scraps from bins and avoid the slaver gangs. She’s done me proud – we run a tight ship as a small mercenary team with Daisy and Jasmine and Jock. We’ve made some money and had some fun raiding the military. Can’t ask for more than that.

What can you tell us about your latest adventure?

Well, it was no picnic, that’s for sure. Our last job was for Chagar, a mutant human. He’s a good bloke, even if things on his planet tried to eat me! We helped him look for some old treasure, and lordy, we had the richest man in the universe – McAllister – and his team of thugs on our tails the whole way.

And the planet! A maze of critters that want to eat you, acid levels, shark filled lakes, and don’t get me started on rockfalls. Or mention ladders. Nice people, but seriously, I don’t know how they survive, or how Chagar expected us to survive and protect him. It was a hell of an adventure.