The Mercenary - A NextColony-Fragment

Hi Steemians and SF-Fans,
inspired by this awesome contest from @art-universe contest I wrote this:

Chapter 1 - Muffin City

Captain Higgins gazed outside of his tiny window at the incredible view on Prometheus III - or „P“ like everybody called it - which all of a sudden emerged when they returned back from the colorless swirls of the interspace. The planet, one of the most remote outposts of humanity, was cut in half by its sun, almost achingly bright on one side, completely black on the other. But most fascinating were the clouds. They were much more prominent and high above the ground than on any other planet he had seen over the last 150 years. 150 years in Milky Way time, but biologically he was just 40 years old, due to the many periods of cryo sleep he had gone through in the old days. His thoughts drifted away when he remembered the terrible coldness, the horrible dreams (they always dealt about freezing to death on dreadful ice deserts) and the period of disorientation that followed each time. He never got used to it, nobody did. And now? People just line up a little, pass a portal and are in a jiffy light years away. If they can afford it. No adventures anymore, no farewells, no risk of never waking up again. The jumps never fail, in contrast to the cryo chambers. Modern times.
The voice of Eve, the ship´s AI interrupted his thoughts. Of his ship - the „White Ninja“, a light, but fast and fairly well armed cruiser. He had bought it after his retirement from the Joint Space Army. It was a wreck then and it took years of restoration until he got the license for public space transportation.
„Sorry to disturb you“ she said in her soft, erotic voice, „we are approaching Prometheus III. All systems green. Uranium at 24%. Landing In 10 minutes at Muffin City.“
„She“ was his best friend when he was travelling. Never chaperoning him, but most importantly not talking too much. Space travel can get veery boring and he hated AIs which try to play psychotherapists for their human crew. It took him quite a while to tweak the AI´s paramenters until he was satisfied.
He alerted his only passanger about the soon arrival. His mood worsened significantly when he thought about this creature. He just wanted to get rid of him as fast as possible and then maximize the distance to him. Such a passanger usually creates problems, but he couldn´t resist the generous offer. „Show me the cabin“, he requested harshly. Eve opened a display in front of him showing the live feed of a hidden camera. His passanger was still standing completely motionless in the middle of the luxurious cabin, in full body armor – an intimidating appearance. God knows what kind of concealed weapons this merc is carrying and on what kind of mission he was, Higgins thought. He was not even sure, if the soldier was human. Actually he more and more believed that he was a Venusian. They like to hide among humans. Or a merc robot, but they usually don´t have a human shape. Eve´s analysis also pointed to this possibility (the guy was breathing, but that could be easily faked). Well, soon it would be no longer his problem.
Silently the ship entered the huge terminal and was directed to one of the platforms. Eve managed this with the terminal´s AI autonomously. No point in any interventions by bio-brains. There was quite some traffic. He saw dozens of ships of all kinds arriving and starting. Most of them were from humans, but he also noticed a few alien spacecrafts. He was especially attracted by a living Deltoid one as it passed by elegantly with its bizarre tentacles, the skin covered with blue fur and glowing smoothly in warm colors from inside. As mysterious the Deltoids were, as renowned they were for building legendary space ships. But they were tough-minded merchants too.

As soon as the White Ninja touched down, Eve opened the passangers cabin. The soldier started moving. Higgins had posted himself with mixed feelings next to the main air lock. When the creature walked by without noticing him or saying a word, he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. He raised his arm to manually close the inner airlock behind the huge stature, when all of a sudden the soldier stopped and turned his behelmeted head to him.
"You stay here and wait for my return", he spoke with a deep, metallic voice.
Higgins was too perplex to immediately react and just blinked for some moments.
"Well, I don´t think this is a good idea" he could finally answer.
"YOU AGREE" the creature replied with a much louder voice and moved towards the Captain, uncomfortably close. His eyes or whatever it was behind the shield of the helmet were shining in an acute red and seemed to spike him.
HIggins realized that he - once again - got into troubles.

to be continued...

src

I am not a native speaker, so there might be some grammer or idiomatic errors.
Let me know, if worthwhile to continue.

src