บท 35: To The Gene Clinic

My ship pulled into the station's hangar and landed in one of the docking bays.

On my right, I could see Amber's ship also completing her docking procedures at the same time as I did.

It was a little unfortunate but I had to give up on trying to sell Voidshade's ship since I couldn't tow it back with me. If I had a bigger ship, I might have been able to do it but not with my Heavy Fighter alone.

Oh well, I doubt it would sell for much anyway since it was basically scrap at that point.

I tapped on the control screens to finish up my own docking process and lock up my ship before heading to the ramp, a little surprised to see Amber already waiting outside with a grin on her face.

"Welcome back~ Hehehe~ I always wanted to try saying that."

I raised an eyebrow at her, "Did you really rush over here just to say that?"

"Ahahaha! Maybe I did~ So you got your things ready to go?"

I nodded, showing her the Codex on my wrist.

We had already received the rewards for completing the job while we were on the way back and Amber had transferred my share for the job as well. Now, it was time to go shopping!

She beckoned, "Alright then, let's go! Do you want to look for your equipment first, upgrade your ship first, or maybe the Gene Splice clinic first?"

"If you don't mind, I'd like to check out the clinic first."

"Oh~ Can't wait?"

"More so I would know how much money I'll be left with afterwards."

I don't really know the standard prices for these kinds of things here after all… For all I know, these gene mods might cost a million Credits or more.

As much as I want a dick for myself, I don't really want to blow all the money I have on just obtaining that.

Amber raised an eyebrow at me, "Looking for something fancy are we? Hehe~ That's alright, let's go then."

I stepped off my ship's ramp and followed behind her, walking through the customs checkpoint without any problems.

This time, she led me to another part of the city that we've never been to before and even I could tell that this part of the station didn't look very civilised.

I suppose the fact that there's several groups of thugs gathered around various street corners and even a group of them currently beating up some guy in an alley pretty much showed that fact.

I really wanted to ask if a Gene Splice clinic located in such a place was any good but I figured that she would know better than I do so I kept my mouth shut.

As we walked past one particular group of three thugs, one of them suddenly grabbed me by the wrist and stopped me.

"Hey, where do you think you're going? Did you think you could just walk around our turf without at least a greeting?"

My other hand immediately went to my holster, preparing to draw my blaster on him but someone else moved faster than I did.

Amber's foot went straight in between his legs with a resounding crack before grabbing him by the head and smashing her knee into his face.

While the guy was stumbling back, she swept her leg to kick him down before stomping on his foot, breaking it with a snap.

I was just staring at the sight in a mixture of shock and awe. Shock at how merciless she was and awed by how effective and quick her response was.

The friends of the guy who grabbed me took another second to react, all of them seemingly reaching for something but stopped when Amber pulled out her pistol first.

"Try it and I blow your fucking brains out," She threatened.

The two remaining guys slowly brought their hands into the air grudgingly.

One of them widened his eyes suddenly, "Fucking hell dude… It's Golden Amber…"

Amber turned to the guy that spoke, "I see there's at least one who's not completely stupid. Touch my lover again and I'll wipe your entire fucking crew, you got that?"

The two guys nodded quickly, ignoring their friend who was rolling around on the ground in pain.

Amber then grabbed my hand, intentionally entwining her fingers with mine before strutting off.

I waited until we were out of earshot before whispering, "Golden Amber?"

She hid her face with her hand, "Ugh… One of my monikers back then when I was still a land-bound Merc… It's honestly quite embarrassing."

I giggled and looked at her hair, "I like it though~ I can see how that came to be at least."

She brushed her blonde hair aside, "Mmm… Well I don't mind you saying it~ Anyway, come on. It's just a little more--"

Two digital 'ping' sounds interrupted her, one from my Codex and the other seemingly from Amber's personal terminal.

Both of us reflexively reached for our own terminals to display the message we just received.

'Ongoing Robbery at Mara's Gene Clinic. Open Hustle.'

Err… What's this? Some kind of news report or something? Why did I even receive this?

Amber grabbed my hand again, this time with more force and urgency than the previous one, "We need to go! That's where we are heading to!"

She started to run and I had to sprint to keep up with her.

"What was that message?" I asked.

"Shit… I guess I didn't tell you about this… I'll explain later but we need to get there. The owner… I know the owner."

Well, that's all I needed to know.

Both of us sprinted through the streets, ignoring the gazes of everyone around us as we ran past them.

I was already doing my best to keep up with her and yet Amber didn't seem to be that winded at all. In fact, she seemed to be intentionally holding herself back from running as fast as she could so that she didn't leave me behind.

I wanted to tell her to go ahead but the sound of gunshots rang through the air before I could.

Amber then went on a full sprint towards the direction of the gunshots, even leaping over several people when they got in the way.

I did my best to catch up to her, using the sound of the gunshots as my guide.

Incidentally, the people around didn't even seem that concerned by the gunshots. Sure, there were some people who were obviously moving away from the location but quite a number were just going about their day like nothing weird was happening.

Things like this happen often enough for people to ignore it huh?

I reached the location after another minute of running, only to be greeted by a literal battlefield.

The clinic seemed to be a rather modest two storey building in an alleyway and there were several dead bodies littered at the front of said clinic. The doors of the clinic had been shut with a metal graille and those guys seemed to be in the midst of trying to break open the graille before they were shot dead.

Amber was literally jumping and flipping around the alley, shooting at the remaining thugs that were still there.

I didn't get to see how she fought those gang members back on the freighter but now I was at a loss of words at the scene in front of me.

I quickly returned to my senses when one of the thugs fired a shot that almost hit me, though that wouldn't really have mattered since I had a personal shield anyway.

I pulled out my blaster and went to flank the thugs that were shooting at Amber, lining up my gun to aim at the one closest to me.

Squeezing the trigger, I saw the plasma ball fly true and hit my target in the back of the head, the thug falling to the ground like a puppet that had its strings cut.

That was when I realised something…

It wasn't even that long ago that I felt nauseous when I first fought against those pirates when they came on my ship, yet now I'm fine with not only shooting and killing people but also looting them afterwards…

Am I going back to treating this like a game instead of real life?

Unfortunately, that line of thought will have to wait because I had to concentrate on the firefight since that shot made my presence known, prompting several of the thugs to turn their weapons at me.

I leapt behind a stack of crates and fired at one of them, hitting the man twice in the chest even before he could fully turn around.

The other thug let out a roar and fired his pistol at my cover, emptying his entire mag on me uselessly.

Once I heard the audible click of a spent magazine, I peeked out and shot him in the head with my blaster.

I was going to look for more enemies until I realised everyone else had been killed by Amber, the blonde Merc standing in the middle of an alley with her dual pistols raised in her hands.

… Did I ever say that she was hot?