REZQ-themed commission for http://weasyl.com/~daxtered

"Private Military Contractor" has always been such a twee euphemism for "mercenary". Nevertheless, it’s still the preferred nomenclature for people like Nate, who are still in high demand. Consider, for instance, the need for specialist crops—drugs, perhaps, or strange, alien plants that are chemically necessary for the manufacture of products that are used every day. Often, to grow successfully, they require very specific conditions. A certain level and duration of cosmic radiation peculiar to a particular system. Or to be raised in a certain kind of atmosphere. In any case, what it comes down to is this: some things can only be cultivated on certain planets, at certain points in those planets’ orbits.

That means that temporary installations and facilities like this one spring up all over the place, for a couple of weeks or months, and then pack up and disappear again. They’re not there long enough to justify the expense, long build and wait times for anything more than temporary structural defences, but they do nevertheless require protection: from rival companies, from light-fingered employees, from ideologically-opposed nutjobs who want to blow themselves up and halt production. Enter the PMCs, like Nate, to help keep things ticking over. You’ll probably note that big, strange gun he has: he’s only been allowed to operate on the premises if he uses an experimental suppression rifle designed by the company that is employing him. Bizarre brand loyalty? Internal anxiety over the possibility of rigged weapons from outside? Or a free opportunity to test a new weapon somewhere that is both in-the-field and carefully controlled? Whatever the reason, it’s not something Nate has time to worry himself with.