Earth, 2100

Asajj Vunari did not, as a rule, make a habit of visiting the Jupitris Space Colonies in person. And yet, that was where the bounty hunter found herself--in the military headquarters of the Jupitris Alliance, negotiating her pay with some corporate bigwig in the Alliance. Every six months or so, the mercenaries the Alliance had hired were contacted in order to renew the contract for another period of time. Asajj didn't see the point; what mercenary in their right mind would turn this job down? With the credits the Alliance was offering, and the ease of the job--it was essentially just scheduled patrolling--this was easy money, a lot easier and a lot more lucrative than anything Asajj had encountered as a bounty hunter--and being one of the best in the business, Asajj had seen some damn hefty paychecks rolling her way. It was as simple as piloting the Hecate around the colony for a bit, listening to music and keeping to a cruising speed while the credits poured in. Wasn't as though she had anything better to do that paid better money.

Asajj strode down the hall of the academy wing of the facility--it was on the way to the hanger where her ship and mobile suit awaited her. All the way there, she was receiving stares from passersby, whether ROTC trainees or fully trained pilots, or otherwise--some were stares of curiosity at her appearance, which did attract a measure of attention. Not her attire of her tight, sleeveless black shirt, leather pants, and boots--that was typical fare for a bounty hunter. It was probably her shaved, tattooed head, or the amalgamation of scars and tattoos that ran up her well-muscled, lean arms that was attracting attention. Others were glares of distrust and dislike. Bounty hunters were not well liked throughout the solar system--in point of fact, they were considered amoral, emotionless killers, loyal to nothing but the highest paying paycheck, willing to turn their deadly talents of hunting on their own employer if offered enough money to do so. Well, Asajj could and would not argue against that. This was a rough world, one where you had to do what you had to do to survive and keep yourself going. Bounty hunters had chosen their lot in life: they put their often fearsome skills of piloting to doing the dirty, bloody things their employers couldn't do, or didn't have the balls to do themselves. And the pay could be astonishingly high if you made a reputation of being good at it. So most bounty hunters and mercenaries didn't give a damn if people feared, admired, or abhorred them. When you went into that business, you were essentially giving up any chance of permanent friends, family, or associates. Bounty hunters operated solo: partnerships were very brief and, just as often, ended in betrayal.

Asajj removed the cigarette that had rested between her thin, dark lips, blowing out a steady stream of smoke that dissipated into the artificial atmosphere of the colony. Headphones buried in her ears blared music--ancient music by this time. Some hundred years ago, metal and punk had been...well, not popular, but people listened to them. Nowadays, such music was seen as 'barbaric' and 'noise', reminders of a primitive, bleak past--or at least, today's governments played it out that way. But in 2060s Georgia, back on Earth, where Asajj had spent a childhood she refused to consciously remember now, music like rock and metal remained popular amongst the gangs and crime syndicates she had grown up with, and therefore even when she had left Earth she took that music with her. Encountering the contemporary music that, in the more prosperous areas of the world, people enjoyed, Asajj found it too soft and weak. Metal's vicious, abrasive vocals, distorted guitars, and high-speed blast beats appealed to her on a different level.

A metalhead in space, what a kick, she mused sardonically to herself as she proceeded towards the hangar, absent-mindedly observing the ROTC trainees in action. The Jupitris Alliance had some of the best technology and mobile suits, and they were hiring the best mercenaries and bounty hunters in the system as a buffer force, but the key was in their pilots. Both the WUFN and the NPA had pilots who had been fighting for nearly all their lives--pilots who lived and breathed war. Not to mention the NPA could probably field an army twice as large as the Alliance's entire military in a few hours, and the WUFN's vast combat network system meant it could make constant precision strikes at critical Jupitris defences--Asajj knew this first hand. Could Jupitris's technology hold up if its pilots went up against either the WUFN or the NPA?

Pointless speculation. Neither the WUFN nor the NPA was making a move--not for twenty five years had they acted against the Jupitris Alliance, though tensions were high. There was no reason to think that they would actually wait for the Jupitris Alliance to amass their mobile suits and trainees into an effective fighting force before making an invasion. If they hadn't attacked when the opportunity was right...why would they do so now?