Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Fealty

He was beginning to regret his decision. Sure, shooting himself out of a railgun had been a cool idea at the time, but now he was beginning to wonder if, perhaps, he had made a rash decision. That did seem like the understatement of the year, didn't it? Was there a way that his decision could have been rasher?

But, perhaps it was just the claustrophobia talking.

Strangely enough the forward railgun loaded rounds that were about as big as a man curled into a tight ball, so loading him into the chamber had not actually been that difficult, and as far as things went he was actually almost comfortable. The inside of the SE2 suit was built for extended periods of wear and tear.

The inside was lined in a sort of spongy memory foam sort of material that was sweat wicking and temperature regulating . From the way it had been described, the suit was capable of absorbing waste material from the skin and disposing of it. he didn't like to think about some of the specifics, but basically the suit was designed in such a way one could live inside it almost indefinitely.

There were a few drawbacks to the suit, of course.

Number one being that they were unbelievably expensive.

Like if his mother ever found out how much he hand spent on the suit she would certainly have an immediate aneurysm and die. To be fair, it had taken them almost a month to save up the money, and that was participating in the most lucrative black market work they could find, some of it questionably moral.

Like there was that one time they had been tasked with loading and taking care of a cargo shipment of human skin.

Not natural human skin of course, but lab grown humans skin, that they kept alive for the duration of the trip and handed over to a black market tanner who would turn the strange commodity into leather, which would then be sold to extreme eccentrics in the way of designer leather jackets , shoes and handbags.

The thought of that particular job made his stomach churn.

He was still struggling with the more efficacy of that one.

But no one had gotten hurt, it was just lab grown and it didn't have feelings, but still there was soemthing about that which was just wrong.

Weirdly enough he had felt better about the black market organs that Krill had taken care of in the medical bay for another run. He had made sure the trade was as ethical as possible before he had agreed to participate, again, the organs were lab grown, and he had watched them be disconnected to their support systems as they were loaded into his cargo.

Seemed odd that the most morally reprehensible jobs were also the most lucrative,

He would not participate in drug, weapons, or biological agents, but apparently black-market organs were not out of the question.

Either way those two jobs had been unbelievably lucrative.

He was sure that if normal people knew just how much could be made by participating in illegal activity, there would be a lot more people trying to get into the trade. Then again, most people didn't have a ship like he did, so there was that.

Either way the payout was big enough for him to buy the SE upgrade and armor.

The other major drawback to the SE armor was just how personalized it had to be to work properly. SE armor was designed to fit the wearer perfectly, which meant they had to be commissioned for a custom build and they could only ever hold on person.

For that reason, its creator had named the armor category.

Fealty

The armor was a solemn promise to one man or woman alone.