“Quite.” Mal’s mark said, gathering the most probable meaning behind the Karrel’s single word expletive. “A little rude, but I understand.” He said. “It’s never nice to find ones self in the position of being killed by five colleagues… especially just before bed.” He sighed and moved around his desk. “I assume that you have been hired by my father.”
Mal stayed silent, he looked around with his eyes while his body remained unmoving. From the outside it looked as if he was staring at the roof, perhaps at Feng, but he was much busier than that. Mal’s eyes studied the layout of the room. He took in every alcove, every pillar and every exit, ready for his escape.
“You don’t want to say?” Mal looked back at the man. Apparently he had been talking. “Well I guess that’s admirable, customer-hunter privilege and all… but it wont last.” The mark looked at one of the hunters that were staring at him, guns still raised. Mal turned to look at them. None of them wore masks, helmets, or hoods. Their faces were completely exposed… and etched with fear. Malten Shemai’s reputation preceded him.
“I’ll be at the Darka Hotel… knock first, I may not be alone.” He said. The man turned to Malten and smiled. “It’s a shame… You should have spoken to me. Now you’ll have to deal with my friends.”
“Friends…” Mal said, laughing a little.
“So he does speak.” The mark said, eye brows raised.
“These men would turn on you in a heart beat. In fact… I offer you all one hundred credits to take care of him for me...”
“Karrel…” one of the hunters sneered. Signing his own death sentence with a tone of voice. “You think it’s all about money.” The bounty hunter growled, pushing the barrel of the gun into Mal’s head. “Some things are more important… Honour, Loyalty, Pride…”
Mal ducked down a little, under the gun and took a short step backwards. He stood up sharply and knocked the bounty hunter in the chin with the top of his head. A fist flew from another hunter across Mal’s face. He swayed to the side and landed on a knee.
“Doesn’t matter anyway…” Mal spat, allowing a little blood to fly to the floor. “I hadn’t expected you to actually do it. Would have made this whole hunt extremely boring… and I would have lost one and a quarter million.” Mal said.
“Well…” The Mark turned up his nose at the small fight. “I assume that you can deal with this… You know where I will be.” The bounty hunters nodded and Feng left.

“For the record, and so that we’re all clear, you guys do know that I could leave whenever I want, right?” Mal said from the seat he sat tied to in the middle of the bedroom. Mal had been stripped of his helmet, chest plates and weapons, all of which rested upon Feng’s desk. The millionaire probably thought he would get a nice new ornament at the end of this interrogation… but he was wrong.
“Of course you can.” the largest bounty hunter, who Mal had come to call ‘three’, said, slamming his fist into the Karrel’s jaw, spraying black blood across the floor.
“Good, so long as we’re clear on that. So long as we’re clear that I’m superior to you I think I can answer a couple of your questions.” Mal looked around at the hunters. There were five, as he already knew. He had numbered them in the order he planned to kill them. Number one was the man who insulted the Karrel name, he seemed to be human, brown hair, tanned skin, a basic mercenary who would do anything for anyone. Probably a hydro junkie... Do anything to get a fix. Number two was taller than the others. He had green hair, vibrant blue eyes and pupils, and green and blue spots and scars across his face. He seemed smarter, he wore armour, a sword and, now that the mark was gone, a helmet. Mal liked him, he was quiet, all business… he could be Karrel if he had a little more vision… and the biology. The reason he was going second wasn’t anything he had done to offend Mal it was because he felt that the young bounty hunter, a Wex by the look of him, would be the hardest fight. Number three was an oaf. A simple kill. If it wasn’t for the other two he would have been first dead, intelligence says to take out the easiest first but pride says to kill the man who insulted your home world. Number three was a Bervan, a particularly brutal species of people who either perform manual labour or manual death. This Bervan was short, grey skinned, with large muscles and, like all Bervan, three fingers on each hand. Number four held a gun in each of it’s four arms, all aimed at Mal. He was a Deff, or at least one of the sub species, Mal’s helmet could tell him. The scrawny four armed creature had a long neck and a large domed head. It was only because of a metal brace attached to it that its head did not cause its neck to slump over or break. Number five, the last hunter stood at the exit. Something about him was familiar. He had completely black hair, dark skin, but there was something… he appeared human.
“You’re Malten Shemai, right?” The second asked, holding his blaster subtly in the direction of Mal’s face. “Slayer of thousands… the hunter of hunters… the Black Wolf.”
Malten turned his head to the Wex. “Starting with an easy one then?” Mal asked. He sighed. “Yes. I am Malten Shemai, Karrel bounty hunter. Slayer of hundreds, not thousands, I only hunt hunters if their who have a bounty on them, and as for ‘The Black Wolf’… My armour is blue and red…”
“There were stories about you. Passage after passage devoted to the Black Wolf, at the academy.” The Wex said, gaze seemingly unmoved.
“You went to the Bounty Hunters Academy then?” Malten asked.
“Yes.” The Wex nodded. He pressed a button on the left of his chin and the black steel glass visor slid away to show his features.
“I only went there once.” Malten sighed, reminiscently.
“I know. A terrifying tale… some of the teachers are still terrified by the mere mention of the black wolf.” The Wex eyes narrowed at Malten before turning to the others. “He waltzed in, took the grand master, at the time the most feared hunter in that section of the galaxy, captive in his own room with his own weapons, and then… after seven hours of torturing the Sengot for information he…” the Wex paused, looking around at the horrified faces of the other bounty hunters. A Sengot was a breed of alien whose primary defence mechanism was that it could not feel pain, to torture one and succeed… Malten was fearsome.