C.O.M.B.A.T., Incorporated: Warfare for Hire
an excerpt

“Halt!” Captain Dayx Marshall leapt over fallen pedestrians in pursuit of his quarry, “Argus Corporate Security!”
What the hell am I doing? Twenty-three years of special-forces training and I’m chasing down purse snatchers…“Stop!”
He’d been chasing the bastard for 20 minutes, and his legs ached. Though their senior by many years, he’d left his comrades in the dust 10 minutes ago. Even his arms were tired from the steady pumping of the chase. The wiry frame that eluded him was deceptively quick, and Dayx was unable to gain much ground, despite the long, loping strides of a body tuned by years of rigorous military service. Still, his aging limbs weren’t as energetic as they had been.
Why couldn’t I have lost a leg, instead of an eye? Infrared vision is not really helping me right now.
Dayx zig-zagged between flustered civilians; dodging them as he passed. They always seemed to get in the way when he was in a rush. You’d think they’d get the hint…Move!
I wish I had a gun. A good shot to the back of the knee would take this son of a bitch down real quick. Bionic eye would come in handy then…get a nice line, squeeze and keep the zoom in tight when that sucker rips through the ligaments.
Onlookers screamed as the crack of a single shot pierced the air and Dayx felt the searing heat of a bullet rush past his bicep. The burn persisted long after the round was buried deep in the man he was chasing; a direct hit to back of the knee. Dayx approached the thief, taser draw, still trying to gather himself after the close call. The thief writhed in pain as the officer examined the wound. What was once a knee was now little more than a pool of blood and shattered bone. He marveled at the accuracy of the shot. The shooter had severed all of the critical connective tissue, rendering the joint useless, but managed to miss any major arteries, keeping blood loss to a relative minimum. Such a feat could only be achieved by an experienced, professional sniper, and even then, it would be impossible to execute without some sort of ocular assistance. Seeing the joint completely destroyed by the shot, and hearing his reinforcements on the approach, Dayx refocused on locating the source of the blast, knowing the perpetrator wasn’t going anywhere.
After a brief scan of the murmuring crowd, the shooter was easy to identify, and would still have been even if she didn’t hold a pistol, still smoking, in her hand. The red hair was impossible to miss as well, but still wasn’t exactly what made her stand out. She was short, yet powerful; svelte, yet full figured. Everything about her look seemed to contrast. She was oppositely gorgeous. The most glaring contrast was her mix of beauty and danger. She was kind of woman any man would want to take to bed, but they’d be afraid of what she might do to him once they got there. Perhaps it was the four firearms strapped to various parts of her divine body; Dayx wondered how many more were concealed. It was hard to imagine where she would hide any additional heat, given her skin tight attire. Dayx had trouble keeping his own backup sidearm unnoticed, even though his uniform was fairly loose fitting. Or maybe her aura of danger was exuded by the fact that she calmly stood in the crowd as the head of Argus Corporate Security, Clayton Argus’ private army, approached her, knowing she had just violated six sections of the Safety and Security code, not including blowing a man’s knee clean off. It would have made Dayx feel better is she had at least acknowledged him as he made his way towards her, through the throng. He didn’t need a look of fear; just a defiant, steely glare would do. But, the gunner simply stood there, ignoring his advance as if nothing was the matter. One thing he was glad for, though, was that she didn’t run. His pulse had just returned to almost normal after his vigorous chase, and he wasn’t looking forward to another any time soon. But there she stood, oblivious; a wild woman waiting for someone, anyone, to corral and break her. She was just Dayx’s type.
As Marshall pushed through the last of the rubberneckers, she finally looked at him. Slightly taken aback by the intensity of her gaze, he quickly gathered himself, and spoke.
“Do you realize how long I could lock you up for what you just did?”
There came no response, just the peering of crystal blue eyes through wisps of fiery hair.
“Do you want me to go through the list of offenses?”
Nothing….
“Ok. At least four counts of carrying an unauthorized firearm, firing of a projectile weapon within the confines of the New Terra station, endangering the public, assault wi…”
“What are you gonna do, arrest me?” came a response, finally. “You gonna frisk me? Strip search? You wanna take me into a private room and do a cavity search? I’m packing a lot of heat in this little outfit, you may have to search awhile,” she chided, hooking a thumb in the shoulder strap of her tank top.
Dayx grabbed her arm firmly, yet reluctantly. He was tempted by the opportunity of a better look at her ample bosom, but this was not the time or place. Perhaps a strip search was in order. This woman had obvious disregard for the law; who knows what he might find.
“What the hell are you doing?” he hissed, trying to appear authoritative despite his reservations about stopping this fire-maned beauty from disrobing.
“Aw, what’s the matter?” she teased with a coy grin, “Shy? A big, strong man like you should have no problems with a little girl like me,” playfully twisting her arm to test his grip.
Quickly catching on to the game that she was playing, Dayx decided to play along, just a little. “What’s your name, miss?”
“Clementine, but my friends would call me Lemmon, if I had any.”
“Well, Clementine, I’m going to have to escort you to headquarters, and perform a vigorous inspection for your person for concealed weapons….”
Captain!
“….contraband, and other illegal items…”
Captain!
“…you have the right to remain silent…”
Dayx!
The squawk of the ship’s intercom jolted Dayx out of his slumber. Yet another potentially good dream ruined by the chain of command. It was hard enough to fall asleep in the cold of space; much less get relaxed enough to have a real, lucid dream.
As he reached for the ship’s intercom, the captain mulled the pros and cons of being the man in charge. Was the relatively spacious ten-foot by eight foot captain’s cabin and a private toilet really worth the responsibility? At least in the ACS, he could rely on a decent night’s sleep every now and then, while the watch commanders took care of any problems. But now, as the skipper of the Château D’if, not only were the concrete slabs that passed as mattresses bad enough, the slightest bump sent the crew into a panic, rousing him from what little rest he could manage. But, then again, his aging lumbar couldn’t stand the poor padding for long anyway. A concrete slab would probably be softer. Besides, he couldn’t leave the asses he called his crew to their own devices. They’d manage to kill themselves somehow, and most likely take him with them.
“Captain!” Blaine Carter’s booming words came from the intercom. Even over the tinny sound of the cheap speaker, the bass is his voice could be heard, distorting the sound.
Dayx pressed a button on the box, “Goddamnit, Blaine! I’m awake! What the hell is the problem?”
“You’d better come up here,” was the grainy response. “I think we may have found our mark.”
Rubbing the last of the sleep from his eye, Dayx swung his feet over the edge of the bunk. If there was one other thing that kept him from his beloved sleep, it was the nature of his work. You never know when they guy you’re looking for is going to finally show his face. It was a highly inconsiderate trait of marked men that annoyed Dayx quite a bit. His finger found the intercom again, “Alright, don’t get your balls twisted. I’ll be right there.”
Dayx’s good eye focused in the cold gray of his luxurious Captain’s quarters; ten by eight of cold steel, lushly illuminated by the mind-numbing glow-buzz of fluorescent lighting. Aside from the dresser that held his modest wardrobe, and the mirror above it, there were no furnishings or decorations, except the bed. In his many years of military service, he had gotten used to packing light, forsaking any extraneous trinkets and clutter. What good were those things anyway? It’s nothing but useless junk that collects dust and reminds him of things that he wanted to forget. The way Dayx saw it, if something was worth remembering, he wouldn’t need a piece of garbage to jog his memory.
His bad eye had powered up now, taking the usual few seconds after waking. The military vet had been lucky that he was in the employ of ArgoTech, Inc. when his left eye was lost. No one said that being high in the corporate hierarchy didn’t have its perks. The company, in the usual custom of corporate lawsuit dodging, supplied him with what was, at the time, a state-of-the art bionic eye. Functional ocular replacements had been on the market for years. Any lout that lost eye, or might have been unlucky enough to be born short one, could practically go down to the local gadget shop and get a bionic replacement. The industry must have kept track of the congenital defect rate to project sales, because manufacturers like Bionitron and CyberMed, always seemed to be in the black. But, ArgoTech was the head-and-shoulders leader in bionic implants, not to mention military weaponry and aviation. Even if the average civilian could afford an ArgoTech implant, they would have little use for the equipment’s finer features. Dayx’s own, although more than a little out of date, not only had one-hundred fold magnification capability in addition to normal sight, but infrared and ultraviolet pickup as well. Newer models could detect x-rays and other radioactive trails. Some also had Virtual Image Projection. By some trick combination of optics, electronics and biology, a single, flat image on the implant’s artificial retina could be virtually projected in full panorama, visible even to the natural eye. Battle maps, plans, objectives and any other manner of information were available in an instant. It could be streamed in real time, or stored for later use in the device’s memory, some of the best models carrying up to a thousand terabytes. It was amazing what could be accomplished when combining the most powerful electronic computers of man with the most complex biological computer made by God. Military men, of course, soon figured more entertaining uses for a virtual panorama. Even the most hardened of them we still, at their core, men. Dayx, however, enjoyed no such diversion with his own implant. The only entertainment he might derive was the psychedelic patterns made nearby stars when seen through his ultraviolet detection.
Finding his boots, Dayx slipped them onto his aching feet, and laced them up. He noticed the eyelets coming loose as he tightened the strings. Not even his footwear would stay intact, reminding him of his own declining vigor. Cursing under his breath, he stood, stretched his weary muscles and headed for the door. A heavy clank resounded through the steel hallways of the ship as Dayx shut and locked his quarters. With a sigh, he headed towards the bridge.