Adam Cain had an alien to kill.

Yet before he set out on the mission, his professional training dictated that he take inventory of his equipment and check his weapons…

Adam was in a pressurized hotel room in the Hildorian city of Jaxas, and spread out on the bed before him was a full array of energy weapons and other tactical gear. Although the tactics and strategies from his formal U.S. Navy SEAL training had very little carryover to his present occupation, the habits developed during his military years were hard to break. So with methodical precision, Adam went down the mental checklist and triple-checked his weapons.

His formidable weapons cache ranged from the standard MK-17 and XF Flash Rifle, all the way up to and including his prized MK-47 High Energy Bolt Launcher. The ’47 had cost him nearly an entire contract fee, but it was well worth it. Being the top-of-the-line for handguns, the weapon boasted a standard level-one charge of twenty bolts, and its targeting computer carried the fastest rating in its class. Personally, Adam never used the targeting assist, but just carrying the weapon often gave many who sought to challenge him second thoughts.

Honestly, Adam didn’t really care if they made good with their challenges or not. He would kill anything that walked, slithered or crawled in this god-forsaken galaxy. In fact, Adam often referred to himself as The Exterminator, and every time he performed a hit, he felt about as much remorse as The Orkin Man did when he wiped out a colony of termites back on Earth.

Adam lifted the ’47, feeling its weight and the comfort of the grip. All his pistol grips were customized, as was the stock on his Xan-Fi Flash Rifle. With over 8,000 species in the Juirean Expansion, weapons manufacturers had to provide an extensive selection of grips and stocks to fit the variety of hands, tentacles and even robotic nerve attachments of their various customers. Luckily for Adam, human-style hands were quite common. Even still, each of his weapons had custom-formed grips, molded to fit his hands exactly, and providing even more control and confidence than he probably needed. But Adam was a professional, and nothing but the best would satisfy him.