Mark felt the spaceship shift out of its supercruise, with the telltale shift in inertia on his body that came with returning to "Normal" laws of space and time he let out a sigh before he spoke to no one in particular as he stood in the cockpit with the 3 crew members he had shared the limited space inside the ship with for the past 4 days
"Alright, you might think there's no need to say this out loud, but I'll say it anyway to avoid personal tragedy. I have redacted all image, video and sensor data from the ship of my existence, speak of me at your own peril"
Bob let out a short chuckle before he commented
"There's no need to worry about, no way anyone would believe us even if we shouted it over the Local Net"
Mark laid his hand on the shoulder of Bob before he grasped it a little too tightly and spoke
"Yeah, you could do that. However if anyone likely to believe you ever hears you or even catches a whiff of my trail they are likely to peel off all of your skin, reskin you and peel it again just to make sure you are telling the truth"
Bob's earlier humour evaporated, and Mark looked at Ellen before he looked at Victoria to make sure to his message got through to them before he removed his hand from Bob's shoulder that rubbed it for a moment before he spoke into his headset
"Towo station, this is AlphaL004, requesting permission to land"
A few moments passed before one of Towo station's flight controller responded, from what Mark heard from the headset Bob was wearing the greeting followed protocol, however it wasn't pleasant or of flowery welcoming language to say the least
'...It really does look pretty… Bad'
Mark looked out at the approaching station, from an initial glance he saw 2 sections that were decompressed and more than a dozen that had no power
'Shit have really gone to… Well, to shit… I don't believe these guys have the spine or spite to screw me over either'
While Mark had asked for transport to a mid-to-low security-rated station, according to his previous preconception of the whole security rating, this was clearly a low security-rated station, as for why Mark figured that wasn't important at the moment, he was busy mentally reorganizing his course of action
After docking Mark didn't really brother with the others as he offered a simple "Bye bye, have a nice life" before he opened the hatch and pushed himself out and touched down on the walkway, having materialised himself a vacuum suit he walked down the pier walkway as his face morphed into a disguise before he entered the Towo station airlock
'...I guess a disguise was a good idea'
The first thing that greeted him upon entering the station was the barrel of a rifle, while it wasn't stuffed right into his face the guy holding it still seemed like bad news. Furthermore, he had friends
"Hey guys, fresh meat"
The 14 or so guys were meaning a makeshift toll station right at the entrance to the station, while they weren't all carrying rifles, they were all armed and wore similar collared blue armbands on their right arm
'A militia? No, a gang'
The 14 gangsters encircled Mark quickly before the guy with the rifle called out to him again
"Alright, fresh meat, here's the deal, your stay on Towo station requires payment for the air you're breathing"
Mark shrugged before he simple stated
"And what if you don't have any credits?"
The gangsters shared a look of amusements before the rifle guy took 2 steps closer to Mark with the rifle pointed straight at his face, then he gestured to one of the other gangsters that walked over and quickly patted Mark down before he spoke
"This guy doesn't even have a console"
Mark flashed a smile
"Yeah, so sorry about that… So what happens next?"
The rifle gangster looked amused at Mark's easygoing manner and slightly lowered his rifle before he made a backwards nod to the gangster that had patted Mark down and spoke with clearly fake reassurance
"Don't you worry about that… There's a lot of other ways to pay off your tap"
Looking into the face of the gangster that was filled with pure disdain and greed something snapped inside Mark and before he was consciously aware of it he had closed the distance and grabbed him by the throat which he crushed with practiced efficiency before he swung the entire lifeless body around like a rag and hurled it at the gangster with the rifle
'...'
With his mind blank Mark assaulted the next gangster that was holding a machete, as he closed the distance to him, the young man didn't take any defensive stance, instead he covered his face with both his arms
'Immature brat'
Keeping his disdain to himself Mark stretched the fingers of his right hand out before he stabbed his entire hand through the chest of the gangster before he liberated his now literally heartless form of the machete along 3 fingers which failed to escape Mark's iron grip
"WHAT THE F—"
Before the 3rd gangster managed to curse Mark had sliced off most of his lower jaw along his neck with a single brutal hack of his newly acquired machete, but by now the remaining 9 gangsters had pulled themselves together enough to fight back, the 2 armed with firearms raised their rifles towards Mark while 3 of the ones armed with various cold weapons charged towards Mark weapons raised
'Poor formation'
Mark slowed his charge a beat before he juked the first salvo, the gangster that was blindly following Mark's form through the sights carelessly traced them over one of the gangsters that were charging Mark mid-salvo, leading 3 bullets to find the back of his comrade instead of Mark
"Immature!"
Letting out a yell Mark moved the lifeless corpse he was dragging along to use as a shield from the gunfire while he dodged a careless swing of a stun baton, which he liberated from its wielder by hacking straight through his wrist with his machete
'Poor form'
As the gangster screamed Mark flung his lifeless shield at one of the gun-wielding gangsters before he leaped up and crushed the skull of the wristless gangster with a knee strike
"IMMATURE!"
Yelling again Mark grabbed the shoulder of the poor sod whose face he had just caved in as his body unnaturally changed its momentum, sending him back down to the ground where he pivoted on his heels and spun the before he flung the lifeless body at the last shooter, who was too busy trying to seat a magazine in his rifle to even see the lifeless body that stuck him straight in the face
At this rapid decimation, the last 4 gangsters panicked and turned to flee, the first got a stun baton in the back of his head that caved in his skull from the force Mark had flung it with, the 2nd felt a sharp pain as the machete Mark had wielded sailed across the air before burring itself in his back
'Amateurs!'
The 3rd was too close to Mark to ever escape him or the chair he got hurled after him that snapped his spine along with most of his ribs, as for the 4th and final gangster? He tripped over his own feet before he managed to get far, and before he managed to get off the ground again Mark's foot stomped down on his elbow making him scream out in pain
'... Well, there goes the simple infiltration plan'
Standing over the last breathing of the 12 man strong checkpoint Mark let out a sigh as he kicked the poor sod over and stepped on his throat. As he slowly applied pressure, savouring the slow kill Mark looked around at the very much not empty streets, as his eyes passed an open bar he found the first set of eyes that weren't filled entirely with fear and finished off the final gangster with a stomp before he walked over and sat down before he asked the resolute set of eyes a question
"Do you have anything strong?"
The middle aged woman blinked once before she took a rag off the counter and threw it to Mark that caught it and wiped the blood off his face, after he finished she placed a glass of water on the bar in front of him before she spoke
"I don't take credit, drink that and get out of here before the Iron Snakes enforcers show up"
Mark continued staring into the gray eyes of the middle aged woman for a few moments before he picked up the glass and downed it in one go, then he set it down and spoke with a smile
"Anger scars over to despair before it becomes complacency and cold acceptance. Is killing with a borrowed knife enough for you?"
"Fuck off"
"Yes ma'am"
Mark rose to his feet again and left the bar behind, the middle aged woman followed Mark with his eyes until he turned the corner outside her bar, at that the strength of her knees left her and she sat down on the floor behind the bar breathing heavily to try and calm down as she whispered
"You have finally been avenged Marie, I am sorry for being such a useless mom…"