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[center][b]An Hour Before Planetfall[/b][/center]

Even though he couldn't fire it, the bounty hunter was with weapon in hand. Eject the round in the chamber, catch it between two of his fingers, let the magazine clank to the ground. Toss the bullet into the air and catch it on the return. Spin the bullet around in his fingers, slot it back into the magazine. It was a relaxing thing to do, just him and the gun, making a series of muffled noises as he worked it. He took good care of his guns- if he ever had a chance, he wanted to make sure that they would fire when that trigger was pulled. Finally, he set the marksman rifle down, and looked at his other gun, examining it. The flechette pistol was an interesting breed. It was acually pressure, rather than gunpowder based, which meant that it could fire underwater, but not in the vacuum of space. It was fairly chunky, and loaded as it was, it weighed a fair amount. Enough to bash somebody's head in.

[hr]

[i]He had been on a desert. A sandstorm had kicked up, but he was so close. The trail in the air was so powerful that even the howling wind and whipping sand couldn't effect him. He knew his quarry was out there. He had continued walking, visor lowered as he tracked his prey.
Nobody else with him. It was only him and his own abilities. This was the early days. No rifle, assault or otherwise. Just his pistol and a local weapon- a slightly curved blade, a cross between a sword and a hatchet. It was mostly used to clear the dense and resistant desert brush that grew up, but he had found it worked brutally well against opponents as well.

He had seen a figure vaguely shifting in the distance. He had broken out into a sprint. The figure had materialised fully, the solid outline now having heart him in pursuit. Adjusting the helmet, he placed a hand on his target's shoulder and whirled them around. He knew it was his target as soon as he saw their face. Eyes had widened, and he had pulled the trigger on his gun, only for nothing to happen. Later on, he would find out that the sand had clogged up the mechanism. That never happened again.

With his gun an undersized club, that was what he had used it as. The butt of it had smashed down, splintering the nose of his target. There had been a fight. The 'pop' of his shoulder dislocating, and the fury and pain. The blade coming out, planted deep in the gut. Yanking it out and hacking, hacking, hacking. Until his target's torso and limbs were different entities, and the former was a bloodied chunk. The thrill of a finished hunt, even as he popped his shoulder back into position.[/i]

[hr]

The flechette rounds themselves. Serene. They looked so innocuous- just a small plastic casing, like an elongated shotgun shell. Within were fifteen ripper shrapnel shards. Muscle and bone didn't like them one bit. Skin didn't neither. He loaded the gun to the brim, before picking them all up, and placing them at the foot of his bed. Lying back down, he let out a long, slow, deep breath. 

[center][b]Planetfall[/b][/center]

He awoke to the ship lurching to one side. It didn't take a genius to realise what was happening. They had gotten caught in a gravity well. This was it, his chance. He suited up quickly, making sure everything was settled. The flechette gun went where it went, as did his other two weapons. Wasps fitted neatly into the hard case that they were designed to fit in, and he placed the case up against the cell wall towards where they were falling. Then, he braced for impact.

Impact took a while.

Fifteen minutes of waiting, the ship twisting and plummeting faster. The side slowly became the floor as the entire ship turned, before the cellblock was ejected. His stomach lurched as the much smaller 'craft' started falling faster and faster, the windows showing only flashing greens and blacks as land and space twisted in and out of visibility. Then, there was a split second of weightlessness, before a roaring sound started. Reentry. He really hoped the ship was powerful enough to withstand the gravitational reentry, the windows becoming redder and redder as flames licked around it.

The flames halted, and they continued to fall, slower this time. They had hit the atmosphere- quite literally. Now black turned to blue, and he was subject to the odd sensation of his ears popping. Still they span, the bounty hunter hitting the walls over and over. He didn't even want to [i]think[/i] about the brusies- this was almost as painful as getting his scar had been.

He blacked out before they landed though. Perhaps that was a mercy.

He awoke to a loud thunking noise. Some fucker had locked the cells. Unfortuately for said fucker, he hadn't realised that the doors on his cell were busted. The hard case was nowhere in sight- he had lost his wasps, but that was of secondary concern. He was alive. Many others were likely dead. Standing up, groaning as he felt the full pain of his injuries, he heaved the door open, a scream coming from the jungle outside.

That wasn't his issue.