Protect Ms. Velvet And Her Crew.

"Shit..." you mutter under your breath.

You'd hoped to simply follow Velvet's people back to their hole. The last thing you wanted was to get into a firefight with a gang you've never even heard of before.

It's a long way down the steep hill but with their focus on the enemies before them, none of the firing gangsters, or whatever they are, are paying attention to their rear. So you sprint down the hill as quickly as you dare without tripping over yourself. All you have is your pistol and no protective clothing whatsoever so you'll need to get in close to do any sort of damage. The sounds of gunfire, old school projectiles from the sound of it, blasts your eardrums and makes it hard to think. You still have bio-mods from your private army days to help with that sort of thing, keep you from going deaf at least. But the only thing keeping you from grabbing at your otherwise unprotected ears and falling to the ground is your familiarity with the roar of battle.

You make it down the hill without issue and without being spotted. The gangsters seem to have an almost limitless supply of ammo and their strategy seems to be to use it all. The blasting never ceases, only shifting focus whenever one of Velvet's people pokes their head out to get off a few rounds of their own. Two of them move out from behind a rock and take aim at one of the larger attackers. He goes down, but his buddies shower the pair with a rain of metal that turns them into piles of shredded meat in an instant. The gunmen howl and laugh, not caring one wit about their fallen comrade bleeding out in the dirt.

As you'd feared, the gunmen are wearing makeshift armor. Mostly it's metal tied into regular, if thick, clothing. But it also looks like they have extra padding within their clothing. The only things not protected to some degree are their heads. Your nano pistol won't pierce any of that armor and headshots aren't as easy as the movies make them seem. So you go for a more reliable method first and start to creep up on one of the gunmen furthest in the back from his friends. Being a head taller than him, you quickly grab him from behind and wrap your arms around his neck, stifling his cries to inaudible levels over the hail of bullets. He struggles, his gun going off wildly before smashing into a rock where you hear something crack inside of it and it falls silent. With your grip secured you twist and snap his neck, a quick and painless ****. You inspect his weapon and find it broken and useless. You toss it aside and start working towards your next target.

He spots you an instant before you pounce and gets off a yell. The two of you tumble around in the dirt. He's stronger than you anticipated. You keep rolling, hoping his friends won't shoot without a clear target. You keep rolling, keeping him off balance, as the sounds of gunfire once again fill your mind. You fight through the haze as the two of you collide against something hard, an old piece of machinery from the looks of it. He ends up an top of you and has a wild look on his face as he rears back a fist. You quickly point your pistol up at him and fire a round into his cheek, the small nanite bullet appearing for a moment as a blue dot penetrating fully into his flesh, leaving now entry wound. He immediately starts to convulse then falls on top of you, dead asleep. You push him off with great effort and survey the area.

The gunfire is only now dying down as a few stragglers are put down. Ms. Velvet and her team took advantage of your surprise attack and turned the tides. A pair of wounded guards sit against their vehicle and are being patched up but you've seen people look far worse after a fight and still pull through. The woman you assume to be Ms. Velvet herself is dusting off her dress and handing a rather large pistol off to an attendant as she approaches you.

"A good samaritan on Osiris. I've officially seen everything. Now really, who are you and why were you spying on us?"

This lady's sharp. She knows there's no way a random scrapper or traveler stumbled upon her meeting and decided to help. So you throw out the lie you'd been preparing and go for the truth instead.

"I'm a bounty hunter. You took a data drive from my client and I'm trying to retrieve it. I came here to scope you out, get a feel for your operations and what the best way forward would be. I helped because it's a hell of a lot easier to negotiate with a living person than a corpse."

"And easier to steal from an organization not in uproar from the head being cut off, yes?"

Sharp indeed.

"Look, I just wanna finish this job and be on my way. I have no reason to fuck with your business."

Ms. Velvet considers for a moment. You notice her people all standing around, their weapons still in their hands. They keep glancing at their boss, looking for orders. She breaks eye contact with you and nods her chin towards the vehicle the other group had arrived in. Her people head to the back and **** it open. With gentle voices they coax several people, mostly young women, from the box shaped pile of junk. About a dozen frightened looking people in basic skintight jumpsuits covered in tears and stains are assembled in front of Ms. Velvet.

"I was supposed to be purchasing all of you," she proclaims in a loud voice. "But seeing as your former owners tried to capture me and my people and now lie dead at our feet, I believe it's safe to say the price has dropped considerably."

The people just stare at her with blank expressions. You've seen this before. They're so brow beaten that they no longer care who's holding their shackles. Slaves, possibly bred into it.

"But my intensions remain the same. You will work for me in whatever capacity you decide to pay off your purchasing price. After that you're free to continue working for me or to do whatever else you want. The fastest way to freedom will be as a sex worker but I won't **** that on any of you. We'll find something for you to do."

The slaves look confused and cautiously hopeful. They're led into Velvet's vehicle by her people. A few are taken aside to be checked out by what you assume is the team medic. She hands out a few pills and rations to some of them but most are, apparently, in good health.

"So now you see my business," says Ms. Velvet, turning back to you. "In recent months I've been unable to keep up with demands for workers so I've been **** to find new sources of employees. I meant everything I said, if that means anything to you. Tai!"

At her call a blond haired man double times it over to her.

"Connect me to our servers."

He produces a thin strip of metal that produces a holographic image, a pad, and hands it to her. She holds out her hand and he places a small data drive into her palm.

"So, Bran wants his property back, does he?" You say nothing but she continues. "Honestly. He could just come see me. I rather like the man and what he does for the community. I highly doubt I'd find a reason to kill him."

She plugs the drive into the pad and brings up several files on the display. As the files begin to transfer you see the thumbnails. Expecting to see old photos and videos of precious family moments, you're shocked to find every form of pornographic image you can think of. Women and men in silent, frozen images of groups of two or more pleasure themselves and others, their ecstacy plain even in the singular images. Velvet sees your look and laughs.

"He didn't tell you what was on here, did he?"

She offers you the drive and you snatch it with a sigh of frustration. As you start your hike back into town she calls out to you.

"I was impressed with your moves. Feel free to see me should you ever need more work. I promise not to send you after dirty videos."

You give her a non-committal nod and head back to town.