Lt. Dan'l (Grumpy) Voxic was living up to his nickname today.  He had started the day off with news that a new shipment of explosives had been rerouted to a new destination and indeed to another entity due to insufficient funds being available for the purchase.  If that hadn't been enough he reached into the fridge looking for an ice cold ale only to find a hald empty bottle of something purple and fizzy.  Who the hell had brought that into the shop? Whoever it was needed to get fired, immedietly.  There was no room in the workplace for purple fizz of any kind.  On his wrist his com vibrated softly.  Dan'l looked down at the display and starting cursing.  He accepted the call with a verbal command and continued cursing nonstop for the next ten minutes.  Stopping long enough to catch his breath he was greeted with a cheerful female voice thanking him for his business but without payment in full his next delivery would fail to ship.  Rather than continue swearing he terminated the call, closed his eyes and began thinking.

It was one thing to be a mercenary when your gear was provided for you.  It was something entirely different when you were a mercenary who liked using his own gear.  Not just small arms but entire weapon systems that you knew for a fact worked because you had built them yourself from the ground up.  The only problem with the latter was you had to be able to afford the research and development costs.  It seemed those were starting to pile up.  Or had been over the last month and he had been ignoring them.  Dan'l rubbed his temple absentmindedly as he began trying to formulate a plan of action.  He desperately needed funds so it meant taking on a slew of new missions or it meant getting together some of his weaponry and trying to sell it to the public, or both.  Another verbal command and his com brought up a list of missions that his various contacts had yet to fill.  It looked like there were a few possibilities.  Maybe he could even sell a few weapons in his spare time.  The problem was he didn't want to end up facing anything that he had designed.

The com vibrated once more and this time Dan'l answered in a genuinely hospitable fashion.  His foaming agent was being used more and more often by althletes typically rock climbers.  The strange use was begining to show potential in the civilian market and more and more manufacturers had started showing their interest.  He wasn't interested in showing them how the substance was made but he was more than happy to supply the foam and if they were interested he could concoct a dispersal method for it as well.  Of course his eagerness to help hinged on the number of credits offerred.  In this case the number was higher than the last two but not significantly so.  Still it was a new contract and part of the funds were to be paid in advance.  That would help the bottom line significantly.

The mission listings had shown a small grouping on a planet unfamilar to Dan'l he spent the next few hours doing research on lifeforms, government, and weather patterns.  Additional time was spent searching through what was known about the local law enforcement and military capabilities.  Satisfied with his research Dan'l began gearing up his ship Grumpy.  It would take about a week to get to his destination and in that time he hoped to have finished reading the stack of dosiers interwoven with the various missions.  In addition he was going to have to do a small amount of research on other weapon manufactures in the region.  You had to know how to exploit holes in your opposition's sales strategy.  With a wry grin Dan'l admitted to himself that capitalism was quite a bit like warfare with slightly different rules.

Voxic took his time loading Grumpy with all of the essentials an incredible amount of non-lethal ordanance as well as a handfull of weaponry to put down even the most obstinate opponent.  He eyed his latest missile warily it was yet to be battle tested and he hated bringing along anything that wasn't up to his exacting standards.  The missions that he might be accepting were minor skirmishes really so if the EMP didn't perform as well as he hoped it wouldn't hurt his feelings too horribly bad.  With two of the new missiles uploaded he resumed his other preparations.

The small moon base he was to visit was home to a menagarie of races and cultures.  Primary among the cultures though was a deisire to be left to their own devices.  Home to drug runners, gun runners, and a variety of other miscreants the inhabitants were no strangers to violence.  That would add another enement of danger to the missions of course.  Dan'l grinned at the thought just because you were used to violence didn't mean you were trained in the art of inflicting it. 

The first mission on his list was to target a local drug lord alive or dead it didn't matter as long as there was proof that the mission was successfull.  The drug lord, Tag Vas'ka, wasn't a complete idiot like some of the others.  As Dan'l surveyed his compound he whistled his approval of the defenses on display.  Roving patrols with no discernable pattern to their routes was a huge pain to overcome.  In addition there were video feeds streaming data into the compound from a plethora of different cameras.  In addition to the patrols and cameras Dan'l counted six sentries on the rooftops. 

Undeterred by the defenses the dwarf began attempting to lay out a plan of action.  He had found that a sand table was an effective tool in planning a siege and this was going to be a siege.  The sand table resembled the compound in detail.  Next to it Dan'l had begun reconstructing a minature model of the main house from blue prints he had obtained.  The minature would not have furnishings in it like the real house did but it would give him a pretty good idea of the layout inside.  The last room finished being built he began slowly studying the building and surrounding grounds.

Surprise was going to be the key element to survival here.  Surprise and knocking out the communications that were unquestionably present.  The question was going to be just how sophisticated the communications were.  Dan'l had been unable to see just what model of coms the men had on their possession.  The cameras though were not going to be much of a threat.  He recognized the manufacture's logo on one of them and knew them for what they were.  A good camera able to pick up movement and able to detect changes in temperature down to as low as three degrees.  However, with all of the electronics needed to make them state of the art the manufacture hadn't anticipated a need for propper shielding.  Dan'l planned to exploit that.
 
From his perch eight hundred yards away Dan'l pressed a button starting a countdown.  He'd have five minutes to get the party going from this point.  Taking a deep breath he pulled his LDV-7 snug into his shoulder and began scanning the rooftop.  Inhale, hold it, fire, exhale the first bullet hit its mark and the body fell down dead.  Inhale, hold,  fire, exhale Dan'l repeated the mantra watching as the next body fell lifeless as well.  Four more on the roof he glanced at his com the timer said 4:45.  Plenty of time left.  In order to hit the other guards on the roof he'd have to change position though.  No, he'd go ahead and take out a few on the ground.  The same mantra repeated itself four more times as men and dogs fell to the ground dead.  Dan'l could hear warning bells begining to sound and grinned it would just add to the confusion.  His com said 3:00 remaining he reached down to turn it off and flicked his shades off as well.  It would do him no good to have them fried in a few minutes time.
 
He gathered his gear and began a slow walk towards the compound.  There was no need to worry about police or military in this area.  Here the drug lords were the law, until today.  Deciding he had gone far enough he slid into a ramshackle shack motioning for the inhabitants to be quiet.  He wasn't sure why he did they both looked far too stoned to care about anything.  The back of the building gave him the view he wanted he could see a group of men spread out over the lawn infront of the compound with weapons drawn scanning the perimeter.  It was too perfect to pass up.  He raised the barrel of the LDV-7 a few degrees higher than normal utilizing the aiming mechanism for the 20mm grenade launcher a dull thunk and a HE round went flying through the air.  The fuse on this particular round set to detonate overhead for maximum carnage.  The grenade performed epically shrapnel flying out slaying those in the area indiscriminately.  Knowing the men would try to react to the grenade Dan'l didn't give them a choice.  He quickly began knocking them down with .308 bullets.

Men kept pouring out almost as if there was an underground barrack that the blueprints hadn't shown.  Wouldn't that be his luck? As big as the compound was Dan'l knew there were a variety of exits and that meant the possibility of men coming to flank him.  It was time to get moving once again.  The internal clock told him he was down to 2:30 with another few hundred yards to go and an arm of men coming for him, perfect.

He moved to his right inserting a white phosperous grenade into the chamber of is rifle as he did.  The round was just as much pychological as it was deadly.  A glint off of a scope gave Dan'l the target he needed and it was just a moment to aim the grenade through the open door of the shack.  Less than a second later screams could be heard as the structure began burning wildly.  It was a horrific way to go for sure but it was kill or be killed.  The man had had a weapon.  Gunfire halted his advance and he swore he didn't have time to be pinned down, not here.   His analytical mind tried finding the best places for the gunfire to be coming from and the best way to remove their threat.  The first shooter made the mistake of showing himself temporarily as he moved.  Dan'l tracked the movement anticipating where he would stop.  A trio of trigger pulls later and the man collapsed.  The other shooter required a HE grenade to deal with propperly.  As he fired the grenade Dan'l cringed he was going through grenades far faster than anticipated.

1:15 to go and Dan'l was in the position he wanted.  He'd taken out an additional two men from the rooftop and a handful of others who had continued pouring out of the home.  He watched in horror as a helicopter became visible in the distance.  THAT wasn't part of the plan. He tried anticipating the timing of the helicopter with his own countdown and gave up it was going to be close.  The helicopter hovered above the rooftop for what seemed an eternity as Dan'l counted down 3..2..1 He wasn't sure where the drone was that fired the missile only that it had from a set distance away and at a set time.  The bunker buster sailed through the air before aiming nose down.  Dan'l couldn't have been more pleased as the missile slammed through the helicopter before continuing through the roof before exploding violently.

Anybody near the concussion wave would have their internal organs turned to jelly.  Better than that though was the immense structural damage that would have just occurred.  Gleefully Dan'l raced forward knowing in his heart the mission was just about over.  How could it not be?

Inside was just what Dan'l expected a mess.  Furniture, lights, and everything else lay strewn about as if a tornado had touched down inside.  Bodies still twitching in the throes of death with lacerations caused by massive debris added to the apocolyptic aura.  Voxic went from one corpse to the next to verify he had his man but in each case it appeared he had missed.  From room to room along the bottom floor without encountering his targtet.  Searching the rooms above was going to be a bit precarious as the walls holding the entire building upright had been compromised by the blast.  Still if he was going to get paid he needed to verify his target.

The stairs were where the blueprints had shown them to be Dan'l approached them cautiously stairs were kill zones, or could be.  Moving quietly with weapon drawn he was four steps up when he heard the sound of a revolver being cocked.

"Congratulations you've created one hell of a mess here.  One that is going to take years to clean up if it ever does.  All of those lives taken and for what? To get to me? I'm bettter than that.  Slowly drop the rifle and throw it behind you."

Dan'l began going through scenarios in his mind most of which ended with his corpse landing on the stairs.  Others with his body being discovered in a multitude of locations with various bits and pieces removed.  Trying to give his mind time to come up with a scenario that did not involve his death he calmly addressed the man behind him.

"How did you make it through the blast? That should have killed everyone downstairs.  Possibly everyone upstairs as well.  A basement? Is that where all of the troops came from? An underground bunker it had to be."

"Yes, the men were housed in the basement.  I have, or had, a safe room right under the stairs.  Now enough talk throw the weapon behind you."

The short conversation had been enough time for his mind to cycle through yet another dozen possible plans and land on one that seemed plausible however unlikely.  Dan'l swung the LDV-7 backwards towards the man with the gun attempting to judge the correct angle and then press the trigger on the grenade launcher.  The bean bags came out so quickly, with such force, and so unexpectantly the man had no idea they had been fired until he found himself blown off of the stairs lying flat on his back.  Not wanting to risk being shot Dan'l but a single bullet through the man's gun hand before descending the stairs.

"Now then you're coming with me."

It was a simple matter securing the man and then taking him to a rendevous point.  There man and credit stick were exchanged but not before promises of death and bloodshed were thrown about.  The dwarf nodded his head and smiled having his life threatened wasn't exactly a new thing for him.  Looking about at those assembled for the exchange he mentally calculated the bounties on their heads.  It appeared he had become involved in a power struggle in the drug market.  He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that other than it was time to take his credits and leave.