The Darker the Weather...

 Bettik looked through the window from the bed chamber on his ship into a starless night, listening to a foreign prelude procured by instruments he was sure he had never laid actual eyes on from a world he didn't know. A storm was brewing to the north and thunderous claps followed behind violent ripples that lit the skyline white. The light left blurry patches in the mercenaries vision as he watched, barely heeding the complex melody.

Towering gymnosperms growing from the alien soil cast shadows into the cabin with each intermittent flash and as the storm winds began buffeting his ship he commanded the console to cease it's aria so that he could listen to nature's fury in dreary reverence. The man was just about to drift off into a dreamless slumber when the coms receiver beeped, barely piquing his ears over the trumpeting thunder as the storm settled in around him. With a sigh he remained motionless, weighing how much he really needed another job against the solace that the solitude on a barren planet promised when it beeped again - finally rousing the disgruntled man from his stupor with a sour "Fuck!" In response. 

 Bettik stumbled through the doorway leading out of his cabin and towards the console in nothing but a pair of grey boxers, having strewn his gear about the room earlier in a drunken haze as he stripped and crawled into the comfort of the only bed he could call his own. The hunter fat fingered the appropriate button on the screen above his console and was surprised when a ring clattered down the interface, sliding haphazardly across the plated floor. Bettik grimaced as his fingers found the tender imprint from where the jewelry had been gripped into his palm. He didn't know how long he had been clutching it. He didn't remember sifting through his wife's things in his haze of the night. 

Bettik did his best to wipe the sleep and drunkenness from his eyes to little avail and proceeded to drop into the nearest chair with haphazard tact to wait on the transmission to come into view. After a few long, tedious moments of downloading the message the holoreceiver finally sprang to life.

"Greetings Hunter!"

The audio played, but the image spurted madly still gathering itself from an array of blurred pixels and Bettik manifested his dissatisfaction as a grumble out into the dark room. He really needed to replace that holoprojector.

"You have been selected for a righteous mission of the utmost importance!" Finally the video snapped into place and the black pit of a man's hood stared back at him, offering no finer points than placid lips and a nodular, pasty chin nestled amongst red robes. "We believe you are among the best these systems have to offer and in securing the apprehension of this man you would be subsidiary to God Himself as we know it!" 

Bettik rolled his eyes, dismissing the notion of religious antics with a wave of his hand as he rose from the chair and staggered over to liquor cabinet to pour himself another glass of scotch, accidentally catching the ring with his toe and sending it skidding again. The man in the projector continued rambling on about one zealous thing or another as Bettik topped off his glass before finally coming to spit out the payout and the mercenary choked on his shot! Gagging from the sting of the alcohol he spun to look at the console incredulously as the transmission confirmed the absurd amount in gold text to the right of the projector amongst other details.

"THAT'S MORE THAN I MAKE IN A GOD DAMN YEAR!" Bettik SCREAMED at the empty cabin, his disbelief bouncing off the interior walls for no one to hear. Outside a clap of thunder reverberated against his ship as if replying and he sauntered closer to the console to continue listening to the transmission. Pulling up the transcribed Intel they had sent, the mercenaries hungry eyes lapped the information within.

"Reid, Charles..." He sounded the name out deliberately as he read over the sparse bits of information they had provided, rubbing the sleep from his eyes again in renewed vigor. 

"27. Ship dock worker. Kleport, Darius..." Bettik almost laughed out loud at the simplicity of the proposed task at hand, finding it odd to say the least. It almost seemed too good to be true - in fact, it stank of duplicity.

"What did you do to piss these guys off..?" He briefly lingered on the unusual commission and the unreal payout at hand. The young man's face stared back at him, warbling occasionally from the rock of thunder against the ship. Bettik had learned to never take looks for granted but it was hard imagining what someone so young in the face and gentle in the eyes could commit to accrue such an insane bounty. The boy obviously had Sophrean lineage - albeit diluted - his gold-specked eyes being the only telltale feature left in his generation. The flecks gleamed back at him like dozens of gold flakes littered in the mud of his otherwise brown eyes.  The hunter began drifting back into the haze again, this time to a place long gone and unreachable...

 Bettik thumbed a prompt on his screen. 

 "Your automated reply is being sent," Sprawled across in white text. He didn't care, in the end. Whatever reasons they had for wanting this man be damned, he wanted that money. After some more zealous ramblings spewed forth from the hooded figure in the projector it finally clicked off with him reiterating the urgency of the mission and a parting, "God speed." Leaving Bettik to the soft glow of the screen before him, the quietude intermittently being encroached upon by the furious lightshow from the planet outside. He sat there for some time, gazing into the backlit screen in unwavering silence.

One particularly devastating clap nearly made him jump as he set the autopilot on his ship to direct itself to the nearest station, traipsing back over to his cabinet chock full of spirits to pour himself one more tumbler of an exceptionally more expensive cognac. Replacing the glass on the shelf Bettik stooped, finally fishing the ring from the ground. Blowing it clean he tried peering into the clear, sparkling gem but his eyes just wouldn't focus. Smirking softly the mercenary traded the ring for his liquor and knocked it back, grimacing at the horrid concoction as it slid down his throat to the warm pit in his belly. Washing it down with the remnants of a glass of water from earlier, he resorted to planting one foot in front of the other to make it back to his bed Chambers, ring securely in hand. He had sleep to catch up on and water to drink before he rendezvoused with the Atlas terminal and a larger ship capable of going quantum to transport him light-years away to the profeti system. He would be gone by morning.

The night and storm passed and racing ahead of mornings first light, the mercenaries obsidian spaceship rose on a tail of purple and blue to punch through the overcast atmosphere above, off of the desolate planet he had found respite in and towards his next commission. One that would change his life as he knew it but perhaps not in the way of glory and riches that he romanticized of as he ascended beyond the planets gravity.