Challenge #04288-K270: Respected Priorities

Pax Humanis makes a deal with the deadly Lucker. They will not monitor them as they monitor others, and the Lucker only has to wear "the colors" when in Alliance areas. Their life, and travels, are their own.

https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-04188-k170-kill-list -- Anon Guest

What I don't like about Pax Humanis is their insistence on control. The other killers in there tolerate it. They know they're dangerous and they actually care about the health and wellbeing of the innocent. They know they're monsters, and accept a cage and leash of their choosing.

In return, they are sent out to eliminate worse monsters.

The ones who don't care about the lives they ruin or the misery they create. The self-centred, self-serving narcissists who only care about their gains, and the praises that their lickspittles shower upon them. The ones who have power, but never should have been granted it. The megalomaniac, mega-ultra-quadrillionaires who are malevolent growths on the face of civilised society. Some people just deserve to die.

[Person #2]: Reasonable certainty.

[Person #1]: Reasonable certainty?

[Person #2]: Mild confidence.

[Person #1]: Mild confidence?

[Person #2]: We are drawing lots from a bowl of angry scorpions while ice skating downhill.

[Person #3]: YEAH! WHO’S WITH ME BABY? – @recklessprudence

Many a life-threatening adventure has both started and ended with the words, “The human has a plan.” Many more have had, “I think I have an idea,” as their epitaph. But for the most part, adventures that contain these words of doom can be survivable. Those who survive them often never want to adventure for the rest of their lives[1], but they survive and make a healthy living off their memoirs.

After a time, those species willing to have a human as part of their crew have evolved algorithms for ascertaining the survivability quotient of their human. Phrases like, “I’ve seen this in a vid,” are definite indicators that the human in question may not be as reliable as one who uses, “I’ve done this before.”

But in the case of the Grebnak Incident, the hare-brained scheme actually came from the Grebnaki Second-technician Dalyst'r, who formulated a plan that involved explosives, a counterweight, three long poles, a lot of ductape, and a rubber duck.

Challenge #04034-K016: Balanced Beloved

I've a powerful case of good luck, my poor spouse has a severe case of bad luck. Together, we balance each other out and have a good, if not always peaceful, life. -- The New Guy

Do you know what a Lucker is? I bet a lot of people think it's the people who have insanely good luck. The people who have the cheat codes to the universe, if you will. It's not always that way. There are those who have good luck, like me, but you have to understand that there is a kind of balance to the cosmos. For all the good luck, there is bad luck to match it.

What is fortunate for one can be unfortunate for another.

There's some Luckers who have to live in padded houses on a planet of their own because of everything that happens to them. Thank the Powers That Be that my beloved and I are not that extreme. Little slices of serendipity without much in the way of corollary damage. Think... winning a little bit more than you spend on a lottery ticket kind of good luck. And... serendipity plays its jokes from time to time.

Challenge #03783-J130: We Lucky Crew

I'm a Lucker. I had the fantastic idea of only hiring other Luckers to crew my ship, so we could hunt pirates and collect the bounties on them. We're all Luckers, bad news for Pirates. But man, this is getting boring! -- DaniAndShali

Testing your luck isn't fun when you know it's certain. It's even less fun when there's like fifty people exactly like you manning a ship.

It's just... too easy.

No challenge. We're the luckiest bunch of bounty hunters in known space. No pirate shot fired can hit us. No tech installed on board can break down at the worst possible moment. Flakk, it never breaks down or has glitches on us at all.

Challenge #03674-J021: If You Can Hear This...

"I will be honest with you. Pax Humanis is coming to haul you to court, your chances of escape are slim. What, they're sending a Humanis member that's a lucker? Turn yourself in, now, and spare yourself the pain. Your chances just became none." -- Fighting Fit

Humans are, possibly, the strangest Deathworlders known to intelligent life. Those weird little apes had a rough evolutionary path. They almost went extinct several times, and for at least one of those, it was self-induced.

As a species, they're completely bonkers. When confronted with a hazard, there are some who will be sensible an approach with caution. Some will run away from it and build increasingly ludicrous preventative measures to keep it away. Others, and this is the part that lead to the diagnosis - figure out how to use it for fun or profit. These are also the monkeys that used lead as an artificial sweetner even when they knew it was toxic. That's why the rest of the universe thinks they're crazy.

There's also a small pack of them hunting me down.

Challenge #02972-H049: Don't Tell Them the Odds

The dereggers had managed to get a licence to run casinos in space that was, technically, Alliance space, but was so far from the beaten path that the CRC had trouble keeping an eye on things. There's where Lucky as people called him, came in. He was a lucker with only a single real talent. He never lost a bet. Didn't matter if it was cards, dice, board games, slot machines, whatever, he never lost. So, when it became clear just how crooked and underhanded these places in, a whisper or two in his ear, and he was off to have some fun. -- DaniAndShali

Deregulation Far South East had done everything by the book, which raised a lot of red flags. Dereggers hated obeying the laws and ordinances of Alliance space and them playing by the rules was a sure sign that they were up to something. Not that Deregger CEO's and Executive Quadrillionaires are ever not up to something.

The trick was in the area they were building the casino station. A little out-of-the-way station and planetoid in an area that the CRC had immense difficulty policing. Close enough to lure the well-to-do, but far enough away that the already-stretched agents would be hard pressed to monitor any shenanigans the Dereggers were up to.

So they put the word out in certain corners of the infonets. It only took a week, but Galactic citizens who visited noted the signs of stressed employees and one got "creatively lost" to take secret snaps of the employee accommodations. That was when "Lucky" Ambrose Luci stepped in.

“Although I don’t use many of my fighting skills anymore I do use some,” the human chuckled. “Some?” My questions was almost immediately answered as the human disappeared right in front of me and appeared behind me. -- Anon Guest

[AN: I have been reminded of Human Twii but this could be quite a number of Humans in my pet universe. I might think up a new one. Let's see]

Legends of Humans reach the places that Humans have not yet reached. Unlikely, improbable, unbelievable, and yet, inevitably proven with undoctored footage. The most concerning were the legends of immortal Humans who set out to master every single combat technique that those Deathworlders had ever made reality.

There were older, more worrying legends of Humans who could become invisible, appear in impossible locations, run across deep liquid water, and otherwise work the impossible. Some even seem to have powers that defy gravity, according to the tales. Watching some in motion, it is easy to believe.

The art always depicts them as tall, super-muscular, and unbelievably buff. Therefore, it's more than a little of a surprise to meet a real one. They're inevitably smaller than expected. Wiry rather than bulky. Most often, they're also softly-spoken. Such a one working the Edge was Human Jak.