Jinx went berserk when Luke walked into his apartment at 3AM. She meowed nonstop as she threaded through his legs. He tried to get her to stop since everyone else was asleep. He gave her treats and filled her bowl with food, but she didn’t eat. She climbed on his shoulders and continued to meow in his ears. She gave him a few headbutts too.

  Luke realized she was probably scared. The petsitter was new and then her human was gone at dinnertime. It must have been tough for her. He did his best to reassure her as he ate his own dinner/breakfast. They fell asleep in bed with her laying on his arm.

  The next morning came at noon. To Luke’s surprise, Jinx had let him sleep through the 6AM feeding time. He gave her extra pats and whispered his thanks. He was feeling surprisingly well rested. A check of his stat screen revealed why.

  His health was back up to full. Now that he had a magic class, he was getting magic healing too. The bruises all over his body should have put him out of commission for days, and in pain for a week. Now he was energized and excited to start the day.

  The only question was, what should he do with his day? He couldn’t head over to Kalibutan and repair mechs, it was night time there. Designing changes to his mech sounded like fun, but he had more pressing matters.

  In order to fulfill his promise to Cormac, he needed to replace the decimated squad and fill at least two new squads so he could cover the territories north of the estate village. That’s roughly a dozen new employees he needed to hire with his entirely unknown budget.

  His first step would be to talk to the agency that hired the rest of the monster hunters. Sandwich had said it was Elwood Services. He looked them up and saw that they were only a few blocks away on Vine Drive. Since it was a nice day outside, he decided to walk.

  Jinx decided Luke wasn’t going alone. She raced outside as soon as he opened the door and stayed nearby. He tried to coax her back inside with treats, but she wasn’t having it. Eventually he gave up and accepted that she was coming with today. He reached down to pick her up, but she avoided his hands and jumped onto his shoulders. Luke chuckled and stood back up. Even when she was worried about him, she had to do things her way, not his.

  ???

  “But do keep us in mind for your other needs, Mr. Moore,” the secretary said sweetly.

  Luke scowled and turned away. That had been a waste of time. Elwood Services was getting out of the monster killing business. This last incident had been too much for them. Their life insurance premiums would be too high otherwise.

  The only good thing to come out of the visit was a promise to let Shepard and the others know that Luke was willing to hire them. Everyone who still wanted to kill monsters was to meet him at the portal tomorrow at 10AM.

  Luke had the rest of the day to figure out how to create a monster killing business on his own. He had no budget, no HR, and almost no experience leading people. He needed help.

  His first thought was to contact a private military contractor. That’s what he needed really, a ready group of people willing to fight for a living. Mercenaries. He knew there were plenty of them that worked in Iran and Afghanistan. If he called up Blackwater with a good offer, he could probably have his pick of battle hardened veterans.

  On the other hand, there was a reason Blackwater had a terrible reputation. They killed all those civilians in Iraq. He didn’t want to hire bloodthirsty men that might kill people that pissed them off. There were other mercenary groups he could try, but Luke decided to make contacting them plan B.

  Plan A was to put together a team himself, full of people he knew were actually good people. He pulled out his phone and started scrolling through his contacts list. He was still in a DnD group that started in the service. Some of them would jump at the chance to fight monsters in real life. He would need more than that though.

  There were some cool dudes from his veteran support group, a few more from his CLiMB group. His former NCO was still in the National Guard, but he might know some more good eggs that just left the service and were looking for work.

  He decided not to text any of them just yet. He needed to get his shit together before he started offering people jobs. Shepard could probably give him the details he needed when they met up tomorrow. Luke was sure that his crew of monster killers would jump at the opportunity to keep working in Kalibutan.

  Jinx stayed on his shoulder on the trip home too. As soon as they walked into the apartment, she jumped away though. She disappeared into the back room right away. Apparently she only thought he needed watching when he left the apartment.

  Luke spent the next few hours on his laptop, doing random google searches in the hope that there would be the perfect guide for his situation. Sadly there were no youtube videos titled “How to start a business on an alien planet where you kill monsters.” Not that he found, anyway.

  He did find a few helpful articles and videos, mostly things that helped him know what he was looking for. He needed someone else to handle the paperwork and finances. If he tried to do it all himself, he would mess it up somehow. His first hire needed to be someone who was better suited for that kind of work. Luke needed to stick to his strengths, crafting mechs and killing monsters.

  He didn’t quite have a lot of experience killing monsters, but he had a feeling he was going to be good at it. You didn’t get a class called War Machine and spend the rest of your days behind a desk. Every new skill he got would increase his monster killing abilities.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The next morning, Luke packed a larger than normal bag, bringing along more food and some tech manuals. As soon as he walked towards the door, Jinx pounced in front of him and started meowing over and over again. Luke knelt down.

  “Look, Jinx. It’s dangerous. I can’t bring you to a monster infested planet. If something happened to you, I would never forgive myself.”

  Jinx answered with several angry yowls.

  “Seriously. How can I trust that you won’t run away and get eaten?”

  She gave him a dismissive look and hopped up onto his backpack. Luke sighed. She was acting weird these days, smarter and more opinionated than she ever had been before. He went back to the bedroom and got out the cat backpack. It was a hard sided backpack with a clear plastic dome for the cat to look out of.

  “Look. If you want to come with, it has to be in this,” Luke said and opened up the bag.

  He knew that she hated it and planned on using it to scare her away from the door so he could head off to work. To his surprise, she padded towards the bag. She sniffed it a few times and hopped in. Maybe she understood better than he realized. Cats weren’t that smart, were they? He had never had a cat before Jinx so he had nothing to compare her to.

  Regardless, she clearly wanted to come with, so Luke closed the bag and carried her to his car. She didn’t complain like she usually did as they drove through Fort Collins.

  The security guard at the front gate thought she was cute. The guard in the front of the portal building wasn’t as taken with her.

  “We haven’t made a no pets allowed rule yet, because no one has been stupid enough to bring their pet!” he said while gesturing wildly. “If the monster’s don’t kill them, the orcs will. They don’t have pets there, didja know? It’s beasts and monsters, they don’t have a word for pets.”

  “Really? No word for pets in Thubanian, Galaxian, or Grunka? I have all of them loaded on my phone, I can check if you would like.” Luke raised an eyebrow.

  It seemed like the guy just didn’t like pets and was making up rules. Somebody’s dog probably bit him when he was a kid. Now that the officious man was so against it, it was now Luke’s mission in life to get Jinx through the portal.

  “Well, I don’t know about all of those languages. It’s true though, they don’t have pets,” he grumped.

  “You have officially warned me. Can I just take my cat anyway?” Luke asked.

  The guard looked over to Jinx, who was looking out the plastic dome in the backpack. The cat thought the conversation was boring and was watching the power loaders walk deeper into the complex. He sighed and said, “It’s on your head. When she dies, just know it was all your fault.”

  Luke shook his head and walked into the complex. The winding hallways to get to the gate room gave him time to think. He had a tendency to do the opposite of whatever the authorities wanted him to do. It had gotten him in trouble countless times when he was serving in the National Guard and was the main reason he was relieved to get a medical discharge.

  After a minute of thought, he decided to keep going. Jinx wanted to be here, and he didn’t want to traumatize her by leaving her alone all day. It would be irresponsible to bring her out monster hunting, but he was probably going to be putting together power armor all day. Luke would just make sure the workshop door stayed shut.

  Getting through the portal required another conversation with the human guards. The orc guards on Kalibutan didn’t give Jinx a second look though. He walked down off the stone plateau but didn’t head over to the meeting spot yet.

  Cormac’s grandson would escort them today, but he would need to come up with a solution for the future. The most logical thing would be to wear his power armor all the way back to the portal. But that would mean he would need a spot nearby to store them when not in use. To that end, Luke started asking around.

  There were more than a dozen people around the base of the plateau, orcs, dwarves and even an elf. The sun had just risen and they were all working on moving things about, either unloading their baskets of product or loading up the crates from Earth. In addition to the hand carts he was used to, a hover cart floated behind the elf. It wasn’t as nice as the one he had seen Lord Edobar driving around, it must be someone of lower status.

  Still too high of a status for Luke to approach though. He looked around the group of people, trying to see who would be willing to talk to him. He settled on a dwarf setting up his booth for the day. He was wearing a too tight graphic t-shirt and selling the same.

  Luke switched his translator language and walked up to the shopkeeper dwarf. “Excuse me, sir? I was hoping to store something nearby. What are the rules around here?”

  The dwarf looked up and shook his head. He started to say something, but then Luke’s translator spat out something in Grunka, the dwarvish language. It was a harsh language, like German and Russian had a baby and then kicked it down the stairs. The shopkeeper’s eyes lit up when he heard his own language.

  “Ah, Earth technology. It’s always so surprising to hear the mother tongue from someone that does not know it,” he said with a smile. “Your friends in the purple coats used to use the talking boxes, but we convinced them to learn Grunka the hard way. With lots of spitting and cursing!” He laughed at his own joke and slapped his knee.

  Luke gave him a fake laugh when the joke translated. “I’ll have to do the same when I have time. But for today, do you know where I can store some machinery?”

  “Probably a bad idea to leave it here.” He gestured to the portal plateau. “The guards are here to protect Heaven’s Gate. They don’t give a shit if your stuff gets stolen. The only security you get is the one you provide yourself.”

  Luke grimaced. “I bet hiring security isn’t cheap either. Well, I guess I’ll have to come up with a different solution. Thanks for your time.”

  The shopkeeper stopped him before he stepped away. “Hey, is that beast for sale? I’ve never seen a night stalker so small. I bet some beast tamers on the Fekundaj Kampoj estate would be interested in buying it for work in the tunnels.”

  “No, she’s not for sale. She’s my companion, my pet.” He listened carefully as his cell translated. There was a Grunka word for pet.

  “A pet, huh? I thought only rich snobs kept those. I guess that means she’s not a hunter? Well, my contacts wouldn’t be interested then.” He waved and said, “Goodbye, may you find shade.”

  “You too.” Luke said distractedly and walked off.

  He hoped that one of the monster hunters he was meeting this morning would have a better idea. He sat down with Jinx and let her wander around while they waited. He made sure not to let her near the shrines. The fear sacrifice was what got everyone killed the last time they were here.

  Luke couldn’t help but worry as he waited. He wasn’t sure what he would do if no one came. He kept looking towards the tall stone stairs as the time drew closer.

  Today’s chapter title comes from Public Enemies (2009)