The Red Giant Cafe was crowded, patrons jostling for any surface to sit on or to set down their drinks. The manager was pleased with the business, but the crowd was beginning to make him anxious. This many brave and foolish souls, armed with blades and cybernetics, in a confined space always, without fail, led to a brawl. It was a rule of the trade that he knew all too well, and this crowd had reached critical mass some time ago.
He motioned towards some of the bouncers, and sent off a prayer to the gods above, before retreating into his office to avoid the inevitable bloodbath. The hired muscle quickly, though reluctantly, prepared to charge the unruly crowd with weapons of their own, but few actually considered getting close enough to the swordsman.
It was then, moments before things took a turn for the worst, that the door to the tavern swung open, and a large, burly cyborg stepped in, a scowl stricken across his face. He stood in the door frame, beads of sweat rolling down his brow, and began to bark orders at the crowd.
"Settle down and shut up!" Gira started, snarling. "God damn it, you're supposed to be professionals, so why the fuck am I getting calls from the owner of this dump about my future employees getting ready to tear up the place?!"
"Unwind a bit, will you?" Nerin started, following closely behind his boss. "It's your fault for not reserving a docking space. If we weren't late, we could've avoided this whole mess."
"Hiener's the pilot, blame him."
"Yeah, whatever, it's still your ship."
Nerin chuckled to himself, then turned to face the crowd. He was more than impressed with the diversity that his soon to be coworkers offered the company, although he felt that the swarm of bounty hunters failed to meet Gira's standards of professionalism and poise. Nevertheless, he was ultimately satisfied with the turnout, even if the unit was a bit rough.
"Alright, everyone, listen up!" Nerin exclaimed, his hands clapping together in an attempt to garner some attention. "The boss has something important to say, so all eyes on him."
"I'm not going to repeat myself," Gira started, a deep, guttural sigh escaping his mechanical lungs, "so if you miss something, you're not getting a second chance until I'm done with this lecture."
"Chances are if you're here, it's due to one of three things, either you're suicidal, broke or dumb. Whatever it is, I don't give a shit, you're all good to the team in one way or another, even if the role you happen to be filling is just another meat shield, but the good majority of you look fairly competent, if a bit slow, so I doubt you're going to be six feet under any time soon. But, considering we're hunting down some high profile criminals, I wouldn't count on you making it out alive without any visible damages, if at all."
"Anyway, if you want to come, we've got a few rules to follow. Number one, if we catch you stealing from our supplies, we're tossing you out the airlock without a suit. Number two, insubordination will be treated in a similar fashion. Finally, do not kill the people we're going after unless ordered to, we can't make any money if we hand in a dead crook, more likely than not that'll put a bounty on your head, and believe me when I say I won't have any second thoughts about handing you over to the police and using that money on myself."
Gira paused, took a long, deep breath, then continued. "That's all there is to it, if you didn't like what you just heard, I advise getting the hell out. Any questions? If not, excellent, the quicker we rap this up the quicker we can get moving."
