As much as he would’ve preferred not to, he couldn’t help but look up and watch the receding ship ascend into the varicolored skies. He did, after that brief moment, manage to turn his concentration back to the voice coming from his wristcom.

"…be holding geosync station above the planet for the next 12 Terran hours, as agreed to in the contract. We’ll be back to pick you up at this insertion point at that time, or, in the event that you manage to.." (he heard, or perhaps imagined he heard, a distinct snicker behind the pilot's recitation) "...bag one of these critters, activate the homing beacon, and we’ll key in on you and make pickup there."

"Copy that", he replied. It'd been unnecessary to say, since they’d all gone over that several times on the trip here. Pause; then, "Aren’t you boys going to wish me luck?"

This time he didn’t have to imagine it; behind the pilot’s completely perfunctory "Good luck, and good hunting", he distinctly heard MacGregor’s snicker. It was pretty amazing how quickly he and MacGregor had fallen into that archetypal rich-bastard-vs.-working-class-hero vibe; he could imagine it was SOP for MacGregor, copping that attitude with all the wealthy types he dealt with, to keep working at this job without becoming a total self-loathing asshole. Although he’s not far from that anyway, he thought.

Shifting his attention from the now-distant gleam of the Daedalus Wing, he began to focus on the surrounding terrain.
As he'd been told, it didn't much look like Earth; normally the simple strangeness of alien topography was enough to make it worth examining. However, that wasn't the case here.

As he scanned the terrain and his general surroundings, he remembered some of the meteorologic and geographic info contained in the datadisc they'd given him to study (which of course, he merely glossed over). The violent reds, purples and occasional flashes of white ("lightning-like plasma discharges" the lit had called it) that lurked behind the almost-solid cloud cover were caused by the high percentage of trace elements present in the upper atmosphere. Thanks to the dual-dwarf-suns of this system and the planet's relative distance from them, it never varied temperature here more than 30 degrees one way or another; never heard of a planet with no seasons, he thought, although he subconsciously gave himself a mental pat on the head for being able to recall this stuff.

He'd been dropped on a barren hillock that looked like the kind of waste slag produced after an ore-refining process, a muted melange of colors too well blended together to make it even interesting, much less notable. The hillock tapered off several dozen yards below, flattening out into a broken plain of much the same appearance, relieved here and there but upthrust extrusions of boulders and craggy stalagmites, with narrow crevasses here and there throughout the landscape.. In the distance, maybe about 2 hours' walk, he saw what could loosely be called a sparse forest, or at least a decent congregation of whatever passed for higher vegetation here.

He decided that he'd go through one more equipment check (thanks to the endless harping of the StarSafari Ltd.instructors he almost felt like he had no choice), before determining which direction would be the most likely one to score a kill. No need to examine the osmuim-steel chain-mesh shirt and chaps he wore, or the Kevlar ballistic cloth that rode underneath it; it certainly weighed more that your average getup, and he'd no choice but to be aware of its disquieting presence ever since he'd donned it.

Reaching down to his waist, he grasped the pommel and slid the katana from its insulated scabbard, examined its black metal blade, and then thumbed the switch behind the guard. A quiet sizzle, and faint white-golden corona that flashed up the blade's length told him the ion sword was fully charged, and in proper working order. Satisfied, he powered it off and returned it to its scabbard.

He then examined the cobalt-steel half-gauntlets on each hand, balling both hands into fists. Pressing the electrode switch imbedded in the palm of each half-glove, he experienced a savage thrill as the 18-inch claw blades zinged into place, and locked with a solid SNIKT! One instructor, who apparently helped with the design, told him they'd gotten the idea from some 20th-century comic superhero, although they couldn't remember the character's name. He'd have to be careful using these; triggering them with your hands in the wrong position and...

Lastly, he reached up and pulled down the goggles from where they'd been riding high on his forehead. The single visor-style viewlens enhanced and augmented his vision, allowing him to see in ultraviolet, infrared, sonic and magnetic resonance, as well as heatsig tracking. As he'd been told, he'd only need them until he actually came across any of the creature's spore; then his own DNA-tailored chemically-enhanced senses should take over, and turn his sensory capabilities up about 300%. They'd assured him he'd have all he needed to operate as a top-of-the-galactic-food-chain predator; what he really would've liked was a simple friggin' firearm...