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Description
The world outside the little medical facility that greeted Amelia was just as wretched as she had remembered. Fifthlanding, the unimaginatively named fifth inhabited planet usually referred to as Filthland, was aptly nicknamed. The planet had been mostly an experiment in terraforming, until the massive mineral deposits had been discovered. Then humanity did what it does best; exploit the world and those eager enough to scrape a living together while others got wealthy on their sweat and blood and lives. Amelia’s family had arrived three generations ago for just that purpose, and she had three generations of relatives to look at to remind her that this world ruined more than it helped. She had thought volunteering to be in the planet’s defense force would be a way out of the slums that the mine workers lived in, though she found herself buried in a different kind of filth; the political kind.
After ascending through the enlisted ranks to Company Sergeant, the Governor of Fifthlanding, a seemingly reasonable and kindly man, had assigned her as the leader of his security detail. She had thought it strange that he would need such security measures as armored combat vehicles, a full company of PDF Shocktroopers, and armed gunship escorts. But after several years of having to deal with and clean up messes caused by the Governor or his buddies and slimy business partners, she had come to realize that he wasn’t the idealist leader she had originally thought. She shook her head in dismay, her rough-cut dirty blonde hair now dripping with foul smelling rain that perpetually fell from the bruise colored skies above.
“To think I took a bomb for that guy.” She muttered, gathering her trench coat around her and shuffling amongst the rabble that milled about the capital city of District Hub; no one apparently had any creativity when it came to naming things here. Her cybernetic eye and ears drew distrusting stares and murmurs from those around her, and while she hated it she understood why they acted this way. Cybernetics offered inhuman advantages that could be easily hidden from the common human, and anyone with fancy prosthetics and biotic implants was usually a government stooge. If they knew about the plasma caster that doubled as her right arm, or the information scrolling through her vision on everyone she looked at, every crime and relationship and unpaid bill was filtering through her optical implant, they would probably try to “accidentally” toss her in a garbage compactor.
All her enhancements were dubious gifts of the Governor for what he must have took to be supreme devotion rather than instinctual training when she threw herself in front of the suicide bomber. That act should have killed her, but she had awoken in a gel tank, missing all her limbs and half her torso. And screaming. She must have screamed for days as most of her body was replaced, repaired, or stuffed with extra augmentations. The Governor rebuilt her to what she was now, a cybernetic hitman that could easily handle most of the revolutionaries, troublemakers, and terrorists that would otherwise interrupt the valuable industries that made him and his buddies richer than they knew what to do with. She fished the bottle of bootleg whiskey out of her pocket and took a long swig; her battery readout told her that it was still running at full charge and that further fuel was not needed, the excess being burned off and turned into a harmless vapor, but she drank for the taste and to have something to remind herself of what little humanity remained more than the recharge.
Without a stomach or liver, it was impossible to get drunk anyway. The alcohol battery system, along with the extra chips and programing in her brain, were the Governor’s insurance policies to prevent her from running rampant. If her battery ran out of fuel and she couldn’t get a hold of a substance with a high enough alcohol, it was lights out for her, literally. If she tried to use her skills and enhancements against someone like the Governor or one of his buddies, her systems would lock her down. The bottle oddly seemed to almost calm the crowd around her, as if a cyborg with a drinking problem couldn’t possibly mean ill towards them. Of course, any one of them could be put on her list at any moment, and she would be forced to eliminate them.

Description
The world outside the little medical facility that greeted Amelia was just as wretched as she had remembered. Fifthlanding, the unimaginatively named fifth inhabited planet usually referred to as Filthland, was aptly nicknamed. The planet had been mostly an experiment in terraforming, until the massive mineral deposits had been discovered. Then humanity did what it does best; exploit the world and those eager enough to scrape a living together while others got wealthy on their sweat and blood and lives. Amelia’s family had arrived three generations ago for just that purpose, and she had three generations of relatives to look at to remind her that this world ruined more than it helped. She had thought volunteering to be in the planet’s defense force would be a way out of the slums that the mine workers lived in, though she found herself buried in a different kind of filth; the political kind.
After ascending through the enlisted ranks to Company Sergeant, the Governor of Fifthlanding, a seemingly reasonable and kindly man, had assigned her as the leader of his security detail. She had thought it strange that he would need such security measures as armored combat vehicles, a full company of PDF Shocktroopers, and armed gunship escorts. But after several years of having to deal with and clean up messes caused by the Governor or his buddies and slimy business partners, she had come to realize that he wasn’t the idealist leader she had originally thought. She shook her head in dismay, her rough-cut dirty blonde hair now dripping with foul smelling rain that perpetually fell from the bruise colored skies above.
“To think I took a bomb for that guy.” She muttered, gathering her trench coat around her and shuffling amongst the rabble that milled about the capital city of District Hub; no one apparently had any creativity when it came to naming things here. Her cybernetic eye and ears drew distrusting stares and murmurs from those around her, and while she hated it she understood why they acted this way. Cybernetics offered inhuman advantages that could be easily hidden from the common human, and anyone with fancy prosthetics and biotic implants was usually a government stooge. If they knew about the plasma caster that doubled as her right arm, or the information scrolling through her vision on everyone she looked at, every crime and relationship and unpaid bill was filtering through her optical implant, they would probably try to “accidentally” toss her in a garbage compactor.
All her enhancements were dubious gifts of the Governor for what he must have took to be supreme devotion rather than instinctual training when she threw herself in front of the suicide bomber. That act should have killed her, but she had awoken in a gel tank, missing all her limbs and half her torso. And screaming. She must have screamed for days as most of her body was replaced, repaired, or stuffed with extra augmentations. The Governor rebuilt her to what she was now, a cybernetic hitman that could easily handle most of the revolutionaries, troublemakers, and terrorists that would otherwise interrupt the valuable industries that made him and his buddies richer than they knew what to do with. She fished the bottle of bootleg whiskey out of her pocket and took a long swig; her battery readout told her that it was still running at full charge and that further fuel was not needed, the excess being burned off and turned into a harmless vapor, but she drank for the taste and to have something to remind herself of what little humanity remained more than the recharge.
Without a stomach or liver, it was impossible to get drunk anyway. The alcohol battery system, along with the extra chips and programing in her brain, were the Governor’s insurance policies to prevent her from running rampant. If her battery ran out of fuel and she couldn’t get a hold of a substance with a high enough alcohol, it was lights out for her, literally. If she tried to use her skills and enhancements against someone like the Governor or one of his buddies, her systems would lock her down. The bottle oddly seemed to almost calm the crowd around her, as if a cyborg with a drinking problem couldn’t possibly mean ill towards them. Of course, any one of them could be put on her list at any moment, and she would be forced to eliminate them.