Male

You are Alex. You're a human merc, wandering the endless universe to make a living by doing jobs for clients.

You stare idly out the window of your quarters at the vibrant lights that fill hyperspace as the starship flings itself across the vast nothingness of space. You gaze down at the weapon you cradle in your arms - a gift left to you by your forefathers. It was one of the few things you still cherished in this universe after you decided to leave Earth for greener pastures.

Turns out, that greener pasture was contract killing, bounty hunting, bodyguarding, fighting wars, overthrowing governments, putting down rebellions, et cetera. You have done nearly every job under the sun, and you'd do basically anything if the payment was good enough. By doing so, you've built a reputation for yourself.

What sets you and every other human apart is that, oddly enough, humans are one of the most naturally violent species in the known universe. For some reason, most other sentient species had much easier times getting along with each other and the environment, and thus did not evolve to be genetically predisposed to strength, ****, and aggression. It comes so naturally to humans, while to most others it does not.

This unfortunately led to many issues during early human interactions with the wider universe. The human population of 15 billion already saw humanity be an insignificant fraction of 1% of all life in the universe, and the short lifespan of the average human compared to that of the universal average did not help matters. Now, in the wider universe, you'd be extremely lucky to see another human once a year, Earth being the only inhabited planet in the universe that is completely inhabited by a single sentient species.

Earth, compared to most other habitable worlds, was a hellhole. Entities outside the Sol system knew Earth existed for much longer than they knew humans existed, but had zero desire to visit because they figured that no sentient life would ever be able to survive on such a horrific planet, but somehow, humans made it work. For the rest of the universe, it was a shock to learn that humans actually ate the flesh of other creatures by killing them and cutting them up. It was incredibly uncommon. Carnivorous or omnivorous sentient creatures were unheard of, and it was also infinitesimally rare in even non-sentient fauna.

Weapons used by many in the universe were never made to combat humans, and no weapons manufacturer has been able to figure out how to make a weapon that could effectively combat them. Aliens do not share humanity's natural ability to figure out how to kill humans. The best way to kill a human is to get another human to do it, and good luck finding any human who would willingly kill another human nowadays.

To kill a naked human is a massive undertaking, let alone an experienced, armed, and armoured human like yourself. Your mere presence in any given galaxy can see all conflict instantly be put on hold and crime rates plummet out of fear of somebody hiring you to deal with the other side. If you are hired by a side in a war, and the other side catches wind of your allegiance, the other side will sometimes surrender on the spot to prevent the slaughter you'd bring upon them. This can be bad for business though, so you often hide your identity by concealing your head and skin underneath cloaks, wraps, or gloves and masks. You have many methods to erase your trail, and make yourself untraceable, so nobody knows where you're going, or where you currently are. Not even the crew of this ship know you're human, let alone the infamous Alex Of Earth.

You were hired on for a job not too long ago, a seemingly routine one. Will it turn out to actually be so routine?