We were just talking for a bit when the supposed king we were to protect walked in.

He was the same species as the idiot host and said "Welcome mercenaries. All of you passed my little test. So all of you are hired."

He continued "I must now know what your abilities are so I may come up with your formations."

Everyone looked around before Kenny spoke up.

"With all due respect, what is your intelligence and leadership levels?"

"Why how dare you ask me such humiliating numbers! Is it not that I am royalty speak enough?"

I spoke up "Leaders can be of low IQ and still lead. We won't think less of you."

He grumbled, but said "According to that horribly inaccurate system.... I am a one point five in intelligence and a two in leadership."

All of us just starred at him with what I believe were dumbfounded expressions. (It was hard to tell on the others.)

And I thought I had low scores.....

We all looked at each other before Kenny said "With all due respect sir, our lowest intelligence rating among us is a one point eight and our lowest leadership score is a two point five."

The king seemed dumbstruck for a second before regaining his composure and asked "If those numbers are so impressive can you prove it?"

I spoke up again "In the eight hours it took me to fly here I brushed up on intergalactic protocol. That 'test' you pulled broke three laws. One for endangering galactic citizens with deadly force, another for falsely detailing the requirements of a public job, and a final law by administering a test of rank without approval of a level five intelligence or a level five leader. All together if we were cops you'd be looking at thirty years in galactic jail with no option for parole.

I know all of this and my intelligence level is Two."

He stood there sputtering indignantly before I smiled and asked "Will that be proof enough that our scores are accurate sir?"

He nodded in hopes of saving some dignity.

He cleared his throat and said "I will leave the formations to yourselves, but I expect that I will be properly protected at all times."

Kenny told him "As long as we get payed. Plus a bonus to keep our mouths shut."

He was about to reply when I said "Thirty years in a dingy cell with some depraved psycho."

He shut up and nodded.

After he left Kenny chuckled and said "Good job Will. What is your range for sensing?"

"About twenty meters."

"And a meter is?"

I told him "The tiles in this room are about one and a half meters in length."

He looked at the tiles and said "Alright.... so you can cover a whole room."

"Essentially. Although you were able to move faster than I could detect. The same would happen for any rail gun shots."

"I see.... so if we made sure the king wears armor you could protect him from most other direct threats?" He asked me.

"Maybe, but my kind needs four ticks for rest for every twelve ticks."

"I see. And you said you could teleport as well?"

I nodded.

"Can you teleport others safely?"

"Yeah. But my limit would only be the king and one of us at a time. If he wasn't so big I could do more.... but anything more than that and we risk complications......" I told him.

He nodded and turned to the others and said "Here's the schedule. We'll split into two shifts each guarding him for six ticks at a time.

The two teams are me, Bertha, and Trace followed by Will, Wade, and Drake in that order. Me and Will will do the final line of defense and protect from direct assault. Bertha and Wade you both are on patrols; occasionally you'll give Will and I a break to eat. Finally Trace and Drake will spend their time checking things and people that go to the king. Search for poisons in his food, bombs, assassins, and the like.

Everyone understand their roles?"

We all nodded.

He finished with "Alright my team takes first shift. You three go get some rest."

We all nodded before my shift all went back outside. We split up and went into our own individual ships.

"Scales open."

My ship opened up. I got in and said "Does this ship have a bed?"

"Converting pilot seat to bed now."

My seat went completely flat all along the floor and I told the Scales "Notify me if anyone gets too close to the ship. Wake me up if I don't wake up in five and half ticks."

"Yes sir, goodnight."

I was woken up by Scales. I got up, refreshed myself, and met the others in the same room.

I unfortunately had to stick next to the king like glue. He made sure to make it as uncomfortable as possible. Because he hired me, he expected me to behave like a servant to him. So he ordered me around in front of his subjects.

"Use your powers to make me fly servant!" He told me.

I warned him "If I do that my focus would go onto you and I wouldn't be able to sense incoming threats like that guy." I said as I smashed one of his people who was discretely aiming a gun at the king.

He gulped and nodded before saying "Guards! Arrest the assailant!"

After he left "Now will you...."

"Do you want to live?" I quietly seethed at him.

He gulped and nodded.

"Then you do your duties and stop bugging me. It takes concentration to do this." I scolded him coldly.

He thankfully got the message and attended to his subjects that didn't want to kill him.

Unfortunately for me, this idiotic species couldn't think of a better plan than "Try to shoot the king in the face, duuurrrrrrrr."

So by the time my shift was over I had helped take down fifty three would be assailants. (I started a count after the tenth.)

It didn't help that the king constantly bugged me and was stupid enough to go for casual strolls around the kingdom.

And I was supposed to do this for two weeks until he signed a peace treaty.

At least I knew what to spend my cash on. Some rest and heavy dri...... I mean relaxation.

The days dragged on and on for a week. I'm pretty sure most of us wanted to kill the king ourselves by that point. The king was asleep and I was standing by his side when he started talking in his sleep.

"Those stupid mercenaries...... they think I'll pay them for humiliation? Hope their deaths are painful after the treaty is signed......

...... probably gonna eat the psychic..... he looks tasty......."

I used the communicator Kenny gave me and asked the others "Does this species speak truthfully when they sleep talk?"

Drake answered and said "Yeah? Most that do that speak on a subconscious level so they can't lie. Why?"

I played back what the king said in his sleep.

I was met with hissing and gurgles that I assume was Drake and Wade cursing in their own languages.

"What do we do? Abandon the job or what?" I asked quietly as to not wake the king.

Wade said "I'll wake up Kenny and see what he thinks about it."

"Okay, I'll stay sharp..... and record any further sleep talk for evidence." I told him.

"Good idea. Hold tight Will." Drake assured me.

The king mumbled "Maybe slow roast him with some mashed Jansen........ mmmmmm."

I wish I could just burn a hole through his head right now, but I'd get in wayyyyy too much trouble for that to be worth it.....

As the last week went by we came up with a solid plan. Just be ready for the ambush when it happens. There may only be six of us, but Kenny is legendary status, and the rest of us are at minimum three and a half. We learned after some slight research that combat ranks are what this species is best at, but only a handful are even above three.

We even ran a simulation.

So unless they were smart enough to hire some extra muscle (spoilers they're not!) It would take hundreds of them at a time to overwhelm us.

The day had finally come. We all escorted the king to the meeting room..... which was filled to the brim with his subjects. Weirdly armed subjects. Some of them were already pointing their guns at us.

I was about to take care of it when Kenny said "Wait for it."

I nodded as we went over to the meeting table. The dignitary from the other species, a small dog person that reminded me of a black furred shitzu, seemed to be shaking in fear. We gave him a discrete signal that we'd protect him.

He nodded and seemed very relieved.

After three hours of delegations (most of which was explaining terms and words to the King.) we all heard countless rifles and guns clicking.

The king smiled and said "You walked right into my brilliant trap you stupid mercenaries! How dare you humiliate me! Now all of you will die!"

Kenny ignored him and asked "Everyone get that?"

"Yep"

"Affirmative"

*grunt*

"Same."

"Does he want to make it worse for himself?" I asked.

I teleported to the Dignitary and made sure he was in a safe spot on top of the light fixtures with me.

Then all hell broke loose.

Blasters fired, people died, and the closest thing I could describe the fight to was a massacre.

In the end all that was left was the Dignitary, Kenny, Drake, Wade, Bertha, Trace, me..... and the King.

I walked up to him and said "So.... you wanted to eat me huh?"

He stammered "H-how?!"

We all said at once "You don't mess with the Raiders."

I punched him in the face and knocked him out.

After restraining him and sending him to jail, Kenny filed out a report to the Galactic Union.

After we got paid by the other faction we all flew off to our own destinations.

I don't know where the others went, but I went strait to a spa.

Thanks to that well paying mission I could live there for a few months. If it wasn't for the galactic news messing with it.

Apparently the Raiders were a big deal considering almost all of them where level five in some way or another. In fact, Kenny was five in all three. Considering what I saw, he deserved it.

I noticed it while I was studying.

The Sky Viper contacted my new communicator with the video interview over his latest job.

Curious I tapped the video.

"Welcome to our stream across the galaxy! My name is Brque Alun and I'll be your host! With me today is Kenny! The leader of the Raiders! So what was your last job?" An alien that looked like a red totem pole with five smiling faces asked.

"We defended a king that was making a peace treaty with the neighboring planet." Kenny replied smoothly.

Alun asked "So how did it go? Flawlessly I assume."

"We did our job without any problems. Although that didn't stop many would be assassins from trying.

Our newest member actually started counting them the attacks were so frequent."

The crowd gasped.

Kenny held up his hand and said "Yes, yes. We took on a new member. If you're watching Will give me a call, we could patch you in."

I decided against it.

He understood and said "I can't say much personally about him yet.

But I can reaffirm any public knowledge about him if you wish."

"That would be useful. What are his ranks?" Alun inquired.

"He said his intelligence was two, his leadership was three, and his combat was four." He told them.

The host blinked in confusion and asked "Why take someone with such.... low scores for a raider?"

"A combination of things. Wade met up with him in a diner a couple ticks away from the job and found he was a level four approved to go on the same mission as us. That was enough to get me to look into him.

He comes from a primitive planet named Earth.

According to planetary records, until recently most of his species only got selected for their creativity. Recently his kind underwent quite the mutation. He was the most powerful of his kind.

At that point I was considering it, but then I took a closer look at his test scores.

He had gone through the combat test with only the weapons he could scavenge, no armor, and didn't skip any stages."

The crowd buzzed at this information and he asked "How did.... Will.... make it through that far with soo little?!"

"The mutation gave him two powers. Teleportation and Telekinesis. How he can use them is brilliant as well.

He seemed to be disappointed in his intelligence score since he studied enough to know the basics of galactic law by the time he flew to the job.

I imagine he's been studying different subjects ever since.

He even used his powers to save the rest of us getting blown up by a terrorist. I knew then that he was one of us. I imagine if he retook his tests he'd score much higher. Especially since he fought a four point five with signs of severe exhaustion."

The crowd started murmuring incessantly and I shut off the video.

"Great. Now I need to check my public information. Thanks a lot Kenny....."

I got a refund and flew off to a random direction as I read my public information.

I concluded one thing..... either I had access to a lot more than the normal citizen, or everything was public.

So I asked Scales "Do I have full access to my personal file, or is all of this really open to the public?"

She said "Would you like to see what is open to the public?"

"Yes."

The screen thankfully blurred out most of my information. Well.... except my powers, a description of them and other bits of information necessary to hire me.

Unfortunately this included my contact information.

Just as I noticed it Scales said "Video transmission incoming. Would you like to answer?"

I had my helmet on so I said "Answer it."

When the screen opened there was a group of three creatures on the screen. All of them were changing colors excitedly as they saw me. All of them were avian in origin and seemed to bob in a sort of dance.

The middle one asked "Is this Will the newest Raider?!"

"Yes. What's the job?"

They all turned red and looked away.

"This line is for hiring me. If you don't want to do that then I kindly ask that you hang up." I told them seriously.

One reached towards the screen and the call ended.

"Scales, can you filter out calls? I only want to have calls about work." I told her.

"I can do that..... five incoming calls about hiring."

I sighed and said "Bring them on screen."

The screen broke into five equal parts and I heard a garble of voices come out at me. I raised my hand like Kenny did and they quieted down.

"As there is only one of me and five separate jobs from all of you, I need more information to pick a job.

First off..... how time sensitive is each job? You may start first." I said pointing to the grey skinned blob. Thankfully I had translated every standard measurement of time and distance in my communicator to earth time.

"My mission needs to be accomplished before the end of the next two months."

I nodded and pointed to what I recognized as a less..... beefy member of Bertha's species.

He said "We can wait about a week."

One was like a toad and an ogre had a baby and that baby grew up to be raped by a spider. The baby that came out of that grew up ridiculed so it got jacked as hell and got armed to the teeth to go on a rampage. That was essentially what I saw starring at me through the screen. (Thank whatever god was listening that my helmet was only one way.)

He said "My mission doesn't start for 2.37 years. I'm hiring you in advance."

"Unfortunately my mission can only be put off for a week as well." Said the cloud of gas.

"Mine must be complete in the next few days." A male of Mira's species told me.

I said "Alright..... now I'd like some kind of summary of what you need me to do and how long it will take to do so."

After a bit of deliberation I found that
I wouldn't be able to do the gas cloud's job, Bertha's species job was too short of a timeframe for such a long mission, and the rest I could feasibly do if I hurried over to Mira's people, the slime's would be difficult (but the pay was good enough to try.), and the monstrous guy's job was easy to book.

"I apologize for not being able to accept more missions. I may be a raider, but I have limits."

The gas cloud said "I thank you for even listening. I shall find another." He then hung up.

"What he said." The squirrel man said before hanging up angrily.

I sighed and said "I will arrive within..... how long scales?"

"Two hours."

"....a click. Goodbye for now."

The rest nodded and hung up.

"Let's get to the first job scales. They need their escort as soon as possible."

"Yes sir."

Then we blasted off in a new direction with my playlist being my only distraction from my annoyance.