Ten thousand credits for fuel. Fourteen thousand credits to replace lateral fuel unit number two. Six thousand credits for nav updates. Five thousand credits assorted bribes. Nineteen credits for lunch. That last purchase at least seemed to be paying off Jocasta thought as she munched on some kind of crispy fried tuba. The server claimed they were potatoes from earth, but then you couldn't swing a dead Venusian lizard in Prime Sol without people crying that it was genuine earth whatever. The cost of the meal did underscore her immediate problem however. Money. She had come to Sol chasing Gorban Fleck, only to find that he had managed to get himself run over by a ground car. There was something funny about an interstellar serial killer getting himself pancaked on the strip in front of a casino on Titan. It was less funny that the bounty on him was for live capture, and now nearly two million in credits was gone into a food reprocessor.

Jocasta was broke, and Prime Sol was a bad place to be broke, everything this close to the old homeworld was expensive and it was a long way out to more profitable sectors like the Neo-caliphate or the Hanseatic quadrant.  She had sunk her last few credits into repairs to her ship and if she left now she was going to arrive wherever she went without a cred to her name. Sighing she tossed the paper packet which had held the allegedly earth grown tubers into the trash and sipped the last of her caffeinated pollen. It prickled and stung at the back of her throat and she smiled with the simple pleasure in spite of the straits she was in. She was about to stand up when one of her little dragonfly drones flitted down to her, curving around the disreputable looking patrons of the Soak Stack. It attempted to land on the table, underestimated how greasy the compressed plastic table top was, and skittered and slid across the table to crash into Jocasta's arm. She arched her eyebrow as the little drone picked itself up with wounded dignity, scrubbing at itself with its rear set of manipulators.

"What is it?" Jocasta asked in a quiet voice. The little drone was worth a lot of money and she didn't want to draw attention to it. The drone stood up on four legs and pointed towards a man leaving a table. It pointed its nose like a hunting hound and made several jabs to indicate him. Jocasta peered at the man, he was tall and handsome in a rakish kind of way, or might have been if he wasn't covered in engine oil.

"Are you trying to find me a date?" Jocasta asked with an arched eyebrow. The drone pointed its projector into Jocasta's eye and a woman in hunters attire, complete with a racoon hat, appeared in her eye, a holographic image only she could see. A speech bubble appeared above the huntress as she gesticulated wildly.

"Neil Edwards. 4.5 Million. Wanted alive on Chronos."

Jocasta opened her eyes wide. Cygi, the artificial intelligence on her ship, was monitoring system wide traffic. She must have just caught the announcement of the bounty as it was beamed across the system. Cygi put her hands on her hips and made an imperious gesture in the direction this Edwards had gone. 

"Ok, ok!" Jocasta agreed, standing up and heading out after Edwards. Her drone zipped ahead flying up and over the gangways above the concrete and steel canyon that made up this section of the station. It flashed for a moment before she lost it in the sea of neon signs advertising food, sex, cheap loans, and various other vices. A part of her mind followed its progress through a link to its visual feed, tucking it away until it flagged something interesting. 


Jocasta sachet into the repair shop. She was dressed in a long coat with green and white check around the bust and a silvered metallic undersuit which she completed with glossy black combat boots. Her hair was currently a vibrant green, a result of an injection of molecular copper which she could use to alter the natural pigment of her hair, albiet at the cost of not being able to eat shellfish or asteroid mollusks for a few days.   

"Hey there," she said conversationally, leaning forward to give Edwards the full effect of her outfit.

"I'm looking for something fast, care to take me for a test drive?" she asked.