“So... are you up to this job, sir?” Replied a young, well-dressed human in a slightly nervous tone. He was one of many workers of the Bounty Station that handed bounties to bounty hunters of all types and from many sources, be it from normal people, wealthy companies or in a few cases the Confederal Senate.

As for his concern...

Who wouldn't be nervous when a walking mass of pure muscle and wide shoulders is sitting directly in front of you looking down a hologram with frowning, calculating eyes (well, eye in this case)? The fact that this “mountain” wasn't even looking at him didn't make him feel better; if anything it made him feel worse, even though they had already told him that the therawyrm would be “intimidating”.

(He was new at the job and this was the first time meeting the xeno-hunter his predecessor spoke so much about).

Apparently, this particular therawyrm had been in several dozen jobs involving monsters (and a few times sapient criminals) of all kinds, and was a certified purple psionic, the hightest psionic not part of the military. He knew this because two minutes before the therawyrm had incinerated the beard of a foul-mouthed head-hunter several minutes before; red psionics could do that too, but they required some effort to do it, whereas he didn't even look at the annoying bounty hunter. There was also the issue that the man himself was basically layers of muscle upon muscle covered by black scaly skin, big even for a therawyrm (seven feet tall and probably weighing five hundred pounds at least, not counting the heavy-looking set of black armor he was wearing at the moment); in fact, the young man was pretty sure this guy had to be the biggest therawyrm ever!

“Mmm... what's the catch new boy?” Spoke the giant suddenly, startling the government official.

“What?” Said the official.

“I said what's the catch. It says here that the bounty is fifty million credits plus a special reward. That's quite a lot of money for a simple extermination job.” Replied the therawyrm in a interrogative tone. “What freak do you want me to kill? A Leviathan, an Ether Drake maybe? I can't kill those without explicit permission from the higher ups you know.”

“Well, it is a petition from the higher ups themselves, but it's not a leviathan; the object of the bounty it's on a planet deep on the Dwarf Galaxy, a few light years away from the Wormhole. You have been there before, right?”

The therawyrm grunted in displeasure, and who wouldn't? The Dwarf Galaxy was not exactly a safe place, at least compared to the Milky Way, and for several good reasons.

“There's also this for you.” The young one handed him a data pad. “It contains more information for the job, but you cannot watch in in public-”

“Or else it'll blow up.”

“Actually it would simply short circuit and destroy the files inside. Well, that's what I've been told.”

The therawyrm huffed and got up from the chair, rising to his full height of more than seven feet and looking straight on the man's eyes.

“Well, I better go back to my ship and leave for whenever I have to go before whoever posted the bounty changes their mind, boy.” He turned to the door and was about to walk when the recepcionist spoke.

“Wait!” He said while stretching his hand “It's been a pleasure meeting you sir. I hope we meet again. And my name is Andrew, not boy. What's yours?”

The therawyrm, after several moments watching the hand with doubt, clasped it with his large, left one and gave a strong shake, but not enough to rip the young man's arm off from its socket.

“Praeratus, Praeratus Haeleb. Wish me luck... boy” With that he walked out of the building smirking, with an huffing Andrew watching his retreating back... alongside several other people.

'What a weird surname for a therawyrm', thought Andrew before addressing the next in line. "Next please."

Praeratus already knew he was being watched the moment he stepped off the building (it was psionic proof), but he was not surprised. After all, not many therawyrm were bounty hunters like him. And none of them WERE him.

Bounty hunters (sometimes called hired guns for several reasons, most of them being unflattering comparisons to their more common and less scrupulous rivals, the mercenaries), the 'clawed arm of the law': where the police and other keepers of the law would warn you first and then stun your ass, bounty hunters would beat the crap out of you and then bring you in, and half of the time to the morgue. Of course, bounty hunter was simply the common name for all those who worked for the government unofficially and used violence to achieve their means, with many 'subclasses' within: there were Head-Hunters (who always killed and beheaded their quarry), Hunter-Warriors (most of their bounties were individuals that troubled the government like terrorist officers or cult leaders), Delvers (who basically crawled in derelict ships and other ruins to retrieve objects for their clients)... and of course, xeno-hunters, who as the name said hunted and killed creatures who were dangerous enough to threaten a planet but not enough to be a problem for the military stationed on the same system, like berserking Titanic Beasts or invasive species.

While on route to the main ward of the Acropolis (the largest space habitat ever made by the Confederation, a star-shaped space station housing a permanent population of more than fifty million sophonts) to retrieve his friend from the “Dog Park”, as it was called even though it was in fact a warehouse, Praeratus was met by the stares of many who already knew of him for at least a hundred years but stared anyway. Of course, it was a normal thing when you were a therawyrm with an always closed left eye in a time where most people would simply go to the hospital to get a new one, and black scale-like skin and eye, an uncommon coloration for therawyrms.

Therawyrm, even the name of his species sounded tough. And they looked tough, being an species of long-lived (to the point they were the only organic species with a natural lifespan of up to fifteen hundred years) dragon-like synapsids with the aforementioned scaly skin, sharp teeth (although they were omnivorous, their diet was mostly carnivorous since they evolved from predators) and breasts (the women obviously), just like the other inhabitants of Kharan (some animals had fur covering their bodies though, and some of them were pure reptiles)

The therawyrms, alongside the animals from their homeworld, possessed a great physical strength thanks to the high gravity of their planet and their rough evolution. That strength, added to their unnatural size that was the rule in their homeworld (a bit above two meters tall and 330 pounds on average; it was unnatural because other planets with similar gravity had much shorter and stockier inhabitants, although the therawyrm were still very robust) and warrior culture (developed from prehistoric times, where all members of a tribe had to fight off predators several times larger than them and territorial herbivores the size of small hills) made them both the ideal heavy troopers and engineers of the Confederation, with one therawyrm with a machine gun equaling an entire support team, shrug off flesh wounds thanks to their heavy constitution and their thick skin; and adapt well enough to their surroundings. Of course, the entire species had several setbacks that didn't make them the perfect soldiers (nor species) overall.

For starters, most other therawyrms were quite quarrelsome, with many of them loving to discuss trivial things for the hell of it (Praeratus was an exception, but for a reason); their reproduction rates were also rather slow (due to their long lifespan), with most couples never having more than two children, a third considered very lucky; and they were amongst the those species who didn't discover Faster-Than-Light travel by themselves, having been uplifted from their Early Space Age (they had settled the other three planets of their system, but if not for the Zaurak Principate
they would have taken years to make a warp drive, much less a hypedrive), so aside from their military capacity they didn't have a lot of political power in the Confederation. They were also usually slow on their feet due to their dense bones and muscles, but extensive training could solve this issue.

And then there was the fact that they simply hated the Hegemony with a passion. Granted, most if not all other members of the Confederation hated the Hegemony too, but the therawyrms received the brunt of their invasions in the Hegemony War.

Who and what was the Hegemony? Just a damn empire based in a caste system that also practiced slavery and was led by an oligarchy that nearly destroyed the Confederation in the longest interstellar conflict ever (although the inverse was true), and had a comparatively small yet well defended portion of the galaxy under their yoke, plus some outposts on the Dwarf Galaxy. If not for the Confederation forcing them to the negotiating table two hundred years ago, they would have succeeded in ther goal of dominating the galaxy, and even then the scars (both physical and psycological) of the war could be seen in many people, Praeratus included.

Of course, Praeratus was one of the reasons the war was won. Well, him and nearly a thousand of his kin.

A bit more than a eleven hundred years ago, several zones of the Confederation (which at the moment was a bit over five hundred years old) were rife with crime and conflict, with terrorist attacks, invasion of smaller empires, spaceborne monsters that attacked ships and civil unrest on some of its members threatening to break out, forcing the Confederate Senate to take extreme measures against the collective threat.

Praeratus wasn't just a therawyrm, he was a former Centurion.

Centurions where the result of genetic enhancement, years of training, state-of-the-art weaponry and armor, and a few (like Praeratus) even had the capability to use psionics. However, unlike the average super soldier or psionic warrior that already existed, the therawyrms that formed the regiment hadn't been chosen as adults, but rather, they had been grown in vats, their genetic material selected from from the best therawyrm troopers at the time to be stronger, faster, smarter and overall much better soldiers (current Gene Warriors were basically watered down Centurions), which in turn was increased with a tough training and various genetical enhancements that made them even better soldiers, especially in squads and with support from other troops.

Therawyrms had not been chosen just for their bodies either (there were several species that outmatched them in other fields like strength and dexterity), but also for their longevity: a single, thousand years old soldier with the experience of a dozen campaigns was much, much better than a thousand troops barely on their thirties (and the Centurions had slightly lengthened lifespans to boot). These 'Hyper Soldiers' had been trained and prepared for a plethora of covert operations (infiltration, sabotage, mind control and interrogation, assassination, boarding and hijacking...), but with only a thousand men and women on the program, High Command decided that the main goal of the Centurions would be raising morale (and decreasing it in the case of enemies) in battle, both with their mere presence and psionics if they had the.. After all, there was nothing more spirit-raising than a seven feet tall walking tank shrugging enemy fire thanks to their powered armor and energy shielding, wielding machine guns and plasma cannons like toys and throwing enemy vehicles with either their bare hands or, with a bit of luck, their minds, while raining death on insurgents, marauders, privateers and many other enemies. Sure, Psionic Warriors could do the same thing, and in the end they were more succesful since there were more of them, but to use their powers they had to wear open, lightly armored suits that left them more vulnerable, and most of them were trained in melee combat and light weapons, not heavy ones like HMGs or plasma cannons.

For eight hundred years, the Centurions fought small wars and and brougpht pain and suffering to their foes, and even though the thousand dwindled to nine hundred (they were the best soldiers, but not invincible nor unkillable), the soldiers had always won their battles and safeguarded the peace.

And then the Hegemony came three hundred years ago and dragged the Confederation into the bloodiest, most catastrophic war since the War of Orion's Arm, with at least a trillion dead and thousands of planets destroyed (and in some cases even small stars were destroyed). Out of nine hundred only Praeratus and a couple of dozens of Centurions survived until the end of the war (which was still impressive considering that their collective kill count approached the quarter of a billion between vehicles, troops, ships, stations and even planets), another reason the therawyrms hated the Hegemony (and the war ended only two hundred years ago, which for a species like them was not long enough to forget, nor forgive).

After peace with the Hegemony was signed with a treaty (which amongst other things limited the fleets of both sides to never exceed more than ten thousand warships, including twenty titans), and banned the further training of Centurions and hyper soldiers for the Confederation; common gene warriors were extempt of this), the Confederation didn't know what to do with their surviving heroes, and even the Centurions themselves didn't know what to do. Half of them wanted to go down fighting, even if they had to go rogue to do it. Reality ensued for them and those who kept fighting died (since they less than twelve against an entire empire), but brought a couple thousand Hegemony troops to Hell with them, so in practice they had accomplished what they wanted. The rest of the Centurions, Praeratus included, decided to leave the service by order of High Command and get non-military jobs. They still wanted to fight the Hegemony, but without support of either the military or the people then anything they'd do would be in vain. Of course, that didn't mean that they couldn't still serve the Confederation, thus all of them went their separate ways and turned to bounty hunting, police work and any job that required lethal force but also was legal. Since they didn't really had any parents they didn't have surnames either to help them in the civilian world, so their trainers (who had been either other therawyrms or other long-lived species 'adopted' them andlet them use their surnames.

Years later, Praeratus 'Haeleb' was the last living Centurion.

After several years of having a normal job (and an incident), he decided to be a xeno-hunter to protect people from literal monsters (although given the overall scarcity of this he also killed figurative ones). That was after...

The therawyrm grimaced, not wanting to remember the pain of that day. He lost his eye... and the only thing he had loved besides his friends and brothers and sisters.

As he was forcing himself to not think about that awful day, Praeratus was getting close to the 'Dog Park' ( a large warehouse that had been refurbished as a place for people to leave their pets to play while they did their own things) where he had left his 'dog' in. So occupied with thinking back of better days that he didn't pay attention to the approaching sound of a large quadruped rushing on his direction (and the sounds of bodies thrown to the floor, complains and exclamations) until it was too late.

Praeratus was pushed to the ground with an 'Oof!', something that startled him because, well, he was a former Centurion. Of course, that was before he felt a warm tongue licking his face with haste, which made him groan.

It was his 'dog', Cyranus. Who was not a dog at all, but a brown gorgonops, a native of large predators from Kharan (the average gorgonops weighed some 1200 pounds; Cyranus himself was big for one, with an approximate weigh of 1600 LBS, although they kind of looked like dogs with their long muzzles, their walking and running gait, and the fact that just like dogs, their ancestors had been apex predators in the past (although their protruding canines, large size and solitary lifestyles made them closer to cats than dogs in personality, and they had scale-like skin just like therawyrms, though theirs was covered in fur), plus the fact that they were commonly used as attack and guard animals by both the law and the criminal elements just made the similarities closer.

“Not again.” muttered the xeno-hunter while pushing the gorgonops off him with care. “Cyranus, I always tell you to wait for me, and you always come rushing the moment you know I'm near. People get hurt when you force your way through them you know”, scolded Praeratus while petting Cyranus' head. The first times he escaped Cyranus whined in shame, but nowadays he didn't even bother to look sad about that.

Despite all of this Praeratus still loved him. Cyranus had been with him since his retirement, and when THAT happened he was the only thing that stopped him from doing something he'd would have regretted.

“Cyranus, there you are! Like always with your master!” said a female voice from behind them coming from a pointy-eared woman with black hair and a dress. She was an älf, a species of long lived humanoids with long ears and natural psionics (although not all of them developed their power to do more than basic telekinesis). This one in particular was one of the caretakers in the Dog Park. “Sorry again sir. For the twelfth time.” she sighed, making Praeratus chuckle, which in turn made the poor girl blush in embarrasment.

“It's okay girl, I'm already accustomed to it.”

“It's just... we cant' hold him in, he simply knocks the doors down and forces his way out the moment he knows you're here!”

“Don't be sorry girl, I don't think you can stop a 1600 pounds cuddling machine from getting out of a fenced compound. Or is it an actual park inside the warehouse?”

“A bit of both. You can't imagine the complains we get from the rest of the district when we take too much time to clean the place of animal crap.”

“Still.” continued Praeratus. “Did he do anything else, bit another animal like last time?”

“Fortunately no, although he did hump another gorgonops we had at the moment. Like that other time.” she said. This made Praeratus glare at his friend and sigh.

“Cyranus, if one of these days someone approaches me with a box full of brown gorgonops pups, I won't even bother to take you to the vet, I'll castrate you myself with the knife.” And with knife he meant a 20'' long energy blade that he could project from his wrist.

The älf moved in to defuse the situation (and because the talking was attracting a crowd, a crowd who covered their crotches when they heard the therawyrm threaten his pet).

“Other than that he was a little angel.”

Praeratus sighed again. At least he didn't bite the ear off a dog this time. Not that he didn't like him doing that (it was unavoidable, Cyranus was an apex predator who had to remind his position to others from time to time), but he was getting tired of him getting complains and threats because of it (not that it affected him at all).

“Well, we'll be going. Until next time I have business here.” he said before turning and walking away with Cyranys at his side and waging his tail.

“Bye Mister Haeleb, be a good boy Cyranus!” said the woman to the retreating forms of the therawyrm and his gorgonops.

Half an hour later, the pair had arrived to the Main Hangar of the Acropolis, an entire district that harbored thousands of ships that arranged from size, from house sized rustbuckets and common vehicles to destroyer-sized behemoths (the biggest ships civilians could own and arm legally), and many more in between. The place was mostly used to dock ships full of passengers, cargo and the rest, but a few platforms were used by those who lived on their ships like Praeratus.

Praeratus starship was parked at the back of the third platform, a 160 feet long, stocky and winged vehicle that didn't look too threatening apart from its black hull, which was covered with carvings of the many animals he killed.

Only those stupid enough to attack him (either in space or inside atmosphere) or beasts that had the misfortune of causing a ruckus and gaining a bounty would end up discovering too late that the ship had retractable dual autocannons on front, a missile launcher in each wing, a gamma laser in the belly and an quite-stronger-than-average shield generator, plus the fact that the hull of the ship was entirely made of durasteel, the same metal used in the construction of warships, plush powerful plasma engines that gave it superb sub-light speed. That combination of firepower, defensive capacity and speed allowed the xeno-hunter to fight against ships of size ranging up to corvettes and win most of the time.

It was also Praeratus and Cyranus home for all intents and purposes, with living room, kitchen, bedroom, study, two bathrooms and many other commodities (among them a personal gym and an expensive but rarely used Med-Pod) that a xeno hunter would need for long periods of time alone with his pet in the dangerous parts of the galaxy, plus an hangar bay with a wheeled ATV (an modified armored car with a kinetic machine gun) for planetary movement and a snub fighter for dogfighting in case the ship couldn't fight. Many people that knew him wondered why the xeno-hunter had a ship that big though, since it only housed a man and his pet.

To Praeratus' shock and suspicion, there was a large metallic box, nearly as tall as him, right in front of the frontal landing gear, which had stairs on it to double as the main way to getting in and out of the ship (and that also had carved beasts on the underside). The size was not the shocking part, though; it was the aquilae (two headed eagle) on top what shocked him.

The aquila was the flag and sign of the Confederation, with one head looking to the left (peace) and the other to the right (might). Only things linked with the Confederal Senate had the sign, as to remark their importance (everything else had more mundane symbols and stamps). Only two times something like this happened, and he nearly died in those.

'Hrm, at least they didn't leave it in front of everyone', thought Praeratus with irritation. Sometimes, the Confederation called him for 'special' bounties, which in this case meant really dangerous freaks causing a lot more damage than the average escaped zoo animal. Most were animals that evolved on dangerous planets and somehow ended up in worlds were they had no natural predators and the local peacekeepers had difficulty dealing with them, but some were biological weapons that could be a real problem for the planet they were in, or Hegemonic monsters that they forgot to exterminate. Obviously a common xeno-hunter would have it difficult to kill the things... but a former Centurion wouldn't have much of a problem (although as said before he was not unkillable, so he still had to take care on those missions).

Opening the door to give Cyranus entry, Praeratus looked around the platform to see if anyone was looking his way. After making sure nobody was looking his way, Praeratus approached the container and lifted the top... and quickly closed it when he saw what was inside, alarm clear on his face.

'Did they really send me a...!?', he thought before lifting the lid again to see 'it'. 'Yes, yes they did!'

Making sure again that nobody was looking his way, the therawyrm lifted the box with his psionics and walked to the ship. While climbing the stairs, Praeratus couldn't help but think about what monster could be tough enough to warrant the use of a thing like that.

When he reached the inside of the ship, Praeratus walked through its rather narrow corridors while still lifting the box towards the living room, and after reaching the room (a rather simple place near the cockpit with a holovisor, a couch with a side table on the left, a table with chairs, an armor stand with his Centurion powered suit on it, a wooden piano at the end of the room, and several pictures on the walls. Cyranus had his bed and water and food bowls there, and right now the gorgonops was eating his favourite kibble, happily oblivious to his friend's state) he lowered the crate with care. Making sure that 'it' was safe and sound, he dropped himself in the couch and sighed.

'If they have sent me one of those again, it has to be a really big freak, or a lot of them, or maybe it's not an animal', thought Praeratus while pulling out the data pad the young human had given him earlier that day. Giving it a close look, the therawyrm saw a smaller two headed eagle in the button of the thing, hoping that this one. However, before activating it, he gazed at the side table, or more accurately, his armour.

Slowly, he pressed the datapad and saw the hologram come out.

Instead of the usual recording or video from the Confederate representative, the datapad contained an archive about a planet on the Dwarf Galaxy, which made him grimace and remember that the boy from the Bounty Station. While reading the message, Praeratus recalled what he knew of it.

The Dwarf Galaxy was exactly that, a smaller than average galaxy that was nearer to the Milky Way than the rest, so near that starships could go there using their warp drives (hyperdrives were faster, able to travel thousands of light years per day, but needed hyperlanes to function; none led to the Dwarf Galaxy, and the galaxy itself had none, requiring the use of Warp to travel through it), but even ships without any FTL could go there thanks to the Wormhole that floated a few light years away from the Acropolis. It was nothing out of the contrary.

What WAS out of the contrary was the things that were, lived and happened. And 'things' meant space storms, a higher quantity spaceborne monsters (like ether drakes, tiyanki, space amoebas and stellarite devourers, all of them capable to fight battleships one-on-one and win with relative ease) than in the Milky Way and, from time to time, extradimensional horrors that could drive people insane with their mere presence and psionics powerful enough to annihilate entire fleets and planets. That was not counting the fact that most of the known parts had Hegemony outposts on them, and even two hundred years after the signing of the peace treaty they were waiting for the moment the Confederation broke their part of the agreements, or their power waned, to invade the two-ways wormhole that lead nearly directly to their capital.

Still, everything he already knew of the Dwarf Galaxy was nothing compared to the facts he was reading.

-The system presents a variant of geocentrism, with the satellite and the sun orbiting the planet through unknown means, possibly external influence from the planet itself. The sun shares exact proportions with the satellite, with an approximate diameter of less than a thousand kilometers (making the star the first stellar body discovered smaller than a planet), yet it appears to undergo a similar process to hydrogen fusion despite its lack of volume. Both objects are also closer to the planet than previously thought, several times closer than the average elipsis. Its suspected that the energy that mades them orbit the world it's also what anchors them to its orbit, since the planet's possesses an weaker than average gravity well.

'Uh, so I'll be even stronger inside atmosphere. I like that. Ok, moving on.'

-The unknown planet presents the common features of a world with animal and plant life: liquid water, landmasses separated by oceans and such. However, what makes it special is that one region has the weather controled by a local native species via the previously mentioned psionic-like energy.

-Continuing from above, the planet is inhabitated by at least a hundred sentient species, and most if not all of them resemble anthropomorphic animals like equines, bovids, felines... along creatures from fiction and hybrids.

There were several photos under the paragraph showing a member of each species, which indeed resembled either common animals, monsters from myth or a mix of both: ponies (multicolored equines with brand-like marks on the back of their hands), bovids (minotaurs), arthropods (which for some reason resembled the ponies a lot)... Furthermore, apparently the horses were divided in three subspecies, two of them with interesting characteristics: normal ponies (physically noninteresting besides their coloration, shared with the others), winged ponies (who obviously were able to fly thanks to their wings but somehow could also walk on clouds, as a large town in a cloud showed; maybe they were much lighter than they looked?) and horned ponies; all of them had some some kind of latent psionics, but only the unicorns could actually use it through their horns. He kept reading the report. The other fantastical species were half avians half felines (griffins), dragons (not giant therawyrms or animals that looked like dragons, actual flying, firebreathing lizards) and a plethora of others.

Praeratus kept reading, not interested on the locals themselves, but wanting to know if they could do anything to threaten the yet unmentioned objective.

-The technological tier of each species is varied, from medieval tools and hot air airships to skyscrapers and railroads. However, the complete lack of nuclear plants (probably because of the latent energy used by the locals renders it irrelevant) and artificial satellites puts the planet in the Machine Age.

Admitedly, the first part wasn't so shocking because, to be fair, half of the Confederal species resembled animals to a point too (therawyrms included), but few of them had tails (and therawyrm women had tits, making clear they weren't exactly reptiles). But a hundred sentient species living in the same planet... No species in the Milky Way had evolved to sapience alongside several others, not even uplifted ones; even different species evolving on the same star system was very rare.

And that was counting only the sentients. The fauna included definitely fantastical creatures: lion-bat-scorpion hybrids (manticores), multiheaded reptiles (hydrae), giant cliff dwelling morays (cliff moray), gigantic translucid bears nearly as big as titanic beasts (which he loathed due to the Hegemony use of them)... the list went on.

Unfortunately for the entire planet, none of those things were comparable to the freaks with the bounty. He had hunted many creatures throughout his hunting career, and even more soldiers and pirates on his military days.

But these things were different. Dangerous looking enough to give him a bad feeling.

The image of one the things in questions showed a 10 foot, vaguely reptilian creature with wickedly long claws on all its four limbs, a maw full of sharp teeth, spiked tail, white eyes full of something that could only be called rage and, given that it was surrounded by several floating corpses of loc-hanae lifted by a red glow, psionics (weak as they may be).

Praeratus read the information below the image:

-The creatures in question are biologically engineer living weapons designed to cause terror in enemy civilian zones and disrupt enemy logistics thanks to a combination of a healing factor, strength, natural armor and weapons, intelligence, permanent state of anger and red-tier psionics, and unless killed inmediately they'll grow stronger. The creatures were cryogenyzed and sent to a random planet of the Dwarf Galaxy after the War due to the inestability of the creatures. It was hoped that the container would be destroyed in route, but unfortunately recent investigations show that it not only landed in a planet with sapient life, but one of the weapons thawed and escaped cointainment, procceeding to effectively wipe out the largest military of the region before dying to its wounds and exhaustion. The goal of the objective should be obvious: eliminate the container before the surviving creatures can thaw and destroy all life in the planet. However, there might be a problem that could require the use of the supplied object.

The next image showed some kind of horned hybrid of an ape and a goat with hooves instead of feet, protuding tusks, blue skin and eyes, white fur and a long tail.

-The pod had been seen in proximity of the person shown. The unknown is some kind of warlord, possessing an army and in the middle of conquering one of the regions of the planet. What's worse is that this man may have an idea of the pod's use as a weapon, since the last recordings showed several beings of the same species hacking the container. The hull was made to resist reentry and impact, but repeated attacks from medieval weapons will breach the weakened hull.

Praeratus knew what the report was implying: kill the guy and his lackeys before they did something they would regret.

The last paragraph stated the reward for completing the mission: the previously known five million credits... and the opportunity to reenlist on the Confederal Military. The Confederation might not be able to enlist him without any reason, but as a reward? That didn't count.

On the other hand, it was the Confederal Command that made clear they wouldn't enlist him again, but that had been a long time ago, and this was a desperate.

And he also promised that he wouldn't risk his life. But she died.

He deactivated the datapad and looked at the armor stand that held his Centurion armor. Unlike the suit he was currently wearing it had a blue coloration and non-glowing, reflective visors, especifically made to mimick the armor worn by the warriors of ancient Kharan. Possessing an advanced energy shield and in-built weaponry, and enhancing a Centurion's physical capacities by a tenfold, the Centurion armor set was what made a Centurion a Centurion.

And he had made a promise to never wear it again, both to his commanders... and her. But if the creatures were indeed that dangerous he may need to put it on again.

The xeno-hunter looked down at Cyranus, who had finished eating and was staring back at him. Praeratus extended his hand and petted the gorgonops, who grunted happily at the gesture of affection.

“Cyranus, would you like to save a planet of primitives?”

Here it is, the first chapter of the story.

Edited a bit to rewrite the grammar and add the surname.

Edited again with the help of Cage_