You were also nervous because your first mark was an Issyphian named Typhus. Issyphian’s were a large, agile, intelligent race of near-humanoids. They were referred to as “near-humanoid” because they moved on two large snake-like legs. In addition to their other characteristics, the inhabitant of Issyp possessed natural camouflage not unlike that of a Terran chameleon.
Typhus was both completely ordinary in that his rap sheet included usual items, murder, assault, armed robbery, rape, extortion, and extraordinary, in that he had been at it for almost 10 years before being caught once. Further, he had managed to escape from a maximum security prison planet after a half a year. If you failed, the CJC would likely have to request assistance from a military unit.
To make matters worse, according to the brief you received from the CJC, Typhus was in hiding on a richly inhabited, but unnamed jungle planet. According to the report, little was known about the planet, including the presence of any sentient life, because early pioneers had sent reports that the planet was extremely hostile.
Truthfully, when the request had come, you initially considered dodging it. However, you had been out of commission for two galactic standard cycles, and felt that you needed to demonstrate that you were capable of stepping in to your father’s shoes.
It is with this in mind, that you look down from the Holliday’s cockpit on to the jungle planet. The beeping on your control panel indicated that Typhus’ tracking chip was definitely on the planet. It was only accurate to within a fraction of a light year though, and wouldn’t tell you exactly where Typhus was.
You plugged in the landing directions for the Nav computer and stood up from your chair to go get ready. You would be on planet in about five minutes. You had to get out of your relatively comfortable flying clothes, and in to your anti-ballistic jumpsuit and utility gear. You stepped in to your room, quickly disrobed, and took a look at yourself in the mirror.
Looking back at you was a rare beauty. One of the reasons you and your father had been so effective in the past is that your father looked like a mean S.O.B. and scared the crap out of people, and you looked like an angel and played good cop to his bad cop.
You were quite tall, at about 54 GSH units (71 inches for those of you not familiar with galactic standards). Your hair is extremely blond, almost yellow, and cut extremely short for utility. Your skin has an almost perfectly healthy color, being given just the right amount of simulated sunlight by the ships computer. You weren’t tanned at all, but you also weren’t at all pale. You have a body that has been chiseled by years of chasing bounties around the universe. A flat stomach, a toned butt and legs, and cantaloupe sized breasts topped by small-ish pink nipples. Your pelvis was completely shaved so as not to be uncomfortable in your skin tight jumpsuit. In fact, you were basically entirely hairless from the neck down to accommodate the jumpsuit. Finally, you had a couple of scars from your various adventures. A burn scar over your right shoulder blade, a six in scar from a gash across the right side of your abdomen, a bullet scar on the front of your right shoulder, and a very slight scar running from the right side of your nose, over your mouth, and down to your chin.
You started the slow process of pulling on your gray-green jumpsuit. Sliding one foot in and pulling it until your foot was all the way in, then the other leg. Pulling the suit over your legs, hips and but was the worst. The jumpsuit “zipped” up the front from the waist, so the top wasn’t as bad, but getting it up to your waist was awful. Eventually, you succeeded though, and then pushed your hands down the sleeves in to the gloves, and finally you used the “zipper” tool which was actually electromagnetic, to close the jumpsuit up to the top of your rather long elegant neck. Once the jumpsuit was on, you actually looked quite different than you do naked. Your body compressed nearly to the point of being uncomfortable, you don’t at all look like the amazon you are. Your limbs hips, and torso look much slighter, your breasts are flattened out, but definitely still noticeable.
You have a massive quantity of utility equipment to put on, including a vest, belt, and wristband, but just as you’re about to put them on, you here the siren ring out. You run to the cockpit, and you realize you’re under fire. You barely have time to wonder what how there can be artillery of sufficient power to concern your ships defense system, when you feel a shudder throughout the hull, and the defense computer calmly advises you to enter the ship’s ejection pod.
|