[IC] There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

[POOHEAD189]

A small, vicious lizard known as a shriketongue darted under the nearest rock as it sensed the approaching object. Dozens upon hundreds of miles in all directions, there was nothing but cracked earth and sunbaked desert, married by the ubiquitous rock formation erupting out of the ground. On the horizon one could see mountains and even they had little in the way of green. The only life that seemed unaffected were the beasts wrought of radiation or those with millions of years of evolution in surviving climes like this. The repulsorcraft gave only a hint of passing as it sped across the landscape, rocketing at half mach 1. Craters made from bombs of wars past were strewn along the landscape, so large they were easily avoided by the operator of the vehicle, unaffected by the w-force encased in his armor.

The pilot sat far aft over the repulsorlift engine of the VEC and controlled the diminutive vehicle with a set of handlebars and rear-set foot pegs with foot-controlled yaw and pitch controls. The array sensor before him had a HUD showcasing two miles of geographical sonar in all directions around him, with indicators for heat, boost, coolant, and turbine pressure beside it. Twin lascannons were mounted at its front, and the stern had a small payload of pressure-detonators that could dismember a light combat tank. It helped him get to where he was going, but it lacked the style of his last piece of hardware. The VEC lifted a meter in the air and closed on a large rock in two hundred feet, flying over it harmlessly and leaving it in a shower of dust that perpetually followed his path of trajectory.

Dirk Crimson caught a reading on the array, announcing the concentration of constructs followed by relatively cool bodies in the unrelenting sun. Immediately he began to slow the VEC, traveling a mile in about fifteen seconds clean and now moving at 1/3rd of his original speed to make the last mile until he arrived center street of a sand covered settlement. The buildings were made of sandstone or grafted steel from fallen crafts, and humans in cloaks hurried into the hovels they called homes. Various vehicles were grounded or parked beside a large cantina, or down the street at what was probably a repair shop, or maybe an inn. Many places in the past sold themselves as a 'melting pot' to welcome all new comers and bring in trade and talent, but Crimson had seen enough of them to know variety tended to mean lack of order, drawing the worst dregs from every location to a single place to find a fortune. With his arrival, they had finally brought the worst to the table.

He dismounted his VEC, grounding it beside one of the boxy Parsec Land Cruisers. He took out the signature key and slid it back onto his necklace he kept behind his cuirass. Only his fingerprint would be able to use the key to unlock the VEC unless someone took the time to get inside of it and manually override his signature, which would take far longer than it would for him to finish his job. A Grogyn with its three buck-teeth tentacles sputtered a sonorous warbling, threw its three fingered hands into the air at the sight of the Bounty Hunter, loping away with its coat flapping in the wind. Crimson paid the humanoid no mind, not expecting it to tell anyone or any sort of law enforcement of his arrival. That sort of force didn't exist in the Euron-Wastes.

The conical entrance of the Cantina slid open, Crimson stepping in to the relatively low-lit establishment. Shapely human women danced on a stage far right of his position as a seedy looking man with an admittedly authentic voice sang a hard but melodic litany with the backdrop consisting of unsyncopated rhythms and a steady drum beat. The cantina itself seemed lively, with species of all kinds mingling and chortling in their native tongues whilst a death knell rang out, Crimson turning to see a business deal turned wrong as a man was taken by the arms by two thugs, begging for a second chance before he was stabbed by a xenos overboss. No one lifted a finger or aided him. An android servant popped up from behind the bar counter, lanking its way out of the counter and gesticulated to the xenos, giving off various beeps of binary. The xenos waved him away and the Android did what it had been told to do, dragging the corpse out of the booth and past Dirk Crimson, into the desert sands to be picked at by the buzzards.

The Bounty Hunter didn't care. He wasn't here for that Xenos, nor the man. Hands calmly resting atop the holsters of his twin DX-15's, he stepped down into the cantina's pit, calmly striding past the crowd who either wisely parted or didn't notice his advance. Small booths littered the walls while four stairs led into what looked like a VIP area in another chamber of the establishment. The thought was compartmentalized in his head before he made it to the counter. An eight armed Bargonian filled out orders and cleaned a plate, its bulbous nose hung loosely and its four black eyes sparkled in the light of the hydro-lanterns.

"ARK number 6. Who is that?" Dirk Crimson asked him pointedly.

The Bargonian stopped its five tasks, all four eyes now focused on the newcomer. "Who's asking?" It croaked, throat inflating to accommodate the human tongue.

[Penny]

"Where is Chalnarc," Jocasta asked. Her voice held no hint of demand or even interest, it sounded almost alien in its careful lack of affect. The prisoner cringed as though he had been meanaced with the blade of a knife. The outlaw was secured to a work bench, his wrists were secured with high density cargo tape to welding clamps which would have held sections of starship hull in place. That didn't stop the unwashed outlaw from hauling at them as though he might, by some herculean act, exert the thousands of pounds of pressure needed to weaken their grip.

"Where is Chalnarc," she repeated in the same empty tone, circling to the head of the table. Jocasta was not a threating woman, by design she had a soft somewhat lush look, a genetic aesthetic designed to encourage people to underestimate her. At the moment, standing over a prisoner in the cargo bay of a starship it was a particularly incongruous look, like a longue singer in a holodrama that had wandered onto the wrong set. The chamber was floored with metal grilles that covered conduits and wiring junctions and the walls were lined with tool benches and parts bins. Tool hung from magnetic attachment points and several holo projectors shimmered slightly in power down configurations above consoles which hummed with their own inner life. Jocasta was dressed in a black jumpsuit with a matte finish that made her chestnut hair almost shimmer. Her bright green eyes stood out in her pale heart shaped face, all but glowing with intensity, and the state of the art nano lenses which she habitually wore.

"You going to torture it out of me bitch?!" the outlaw demanded, fear giving a bite to his bluster. He was a scraggly fellow with dirty blonde hair and a feeble attempt at a beard. He was dressed in durable clothes of natural leathers and wore a faded jacket of now indeterminate color. His face had been burned and scared at some point in the past in what he claimed had been a gunfight but Jocasta suspected was probably the explosion of some sort of gas powered cooking unit. He didn't smell very pleasant either, having lost control of his bowels and bladder when Jocasta had shot him in the chest with a stun blast.

"Why do people always go straight to torture," Jocasta sighed, reaching out and putting a finger to each temple of her captives head.

"You know what the problem with torture is?" she asked conversationally. The outlaw probably thought he knew a thing or two about the subject having run with Chalnarc and his gang, but Jocasta had seen the real pros go to work, people who would haunt the nightmares of small time scum like her guest.

"People Haaaaate it," she explained, drawing out the word hate to emphasize her point.

"They tell you anything they can think of to make it stop, and then what do we have to do? Go out and verify it, if we even can, and it takes forever just to find out that they were probably just lying to you in the first place," she expanded, looking up to the bank of medical holograms that hung at the foot of her work table, observing brain patterns and stress reading from a half dozen sensors trained on her prisoner.

"So what do you do? Keep torturing till your information is verified? I've seen it work, but half the time the prisoner dies or goes insane by the time you can verify any information. It is all really a lot of hassle." The outlaw seemed more put out by her clinical description of the effects of torture than he would have been by the actual process.

"Usually, its easier just to ask." Jocasta closed her eyes, the augmetics blinking out.

"WHERE IS CHALNARC," she commanded, her voice burning with intensity as her psycic lance burned into the mind of her prisoner. The outlaw spasmed and would have soiled himself again if he hadn't already done such a complete job of evacuating his bowels in the cheap hotel room she had lured him to preparatory for this interview. His back arched as his body contracted, pulling hard enough at his restraitins that his hands went pale from lack of blood. She slid into his mind, the bland primer questions and the drugs she had given him lowering his natural defenses to the point that she could push through. A welter of images and unfamiliar thoughts crashed against her like a tidal wave but she clung to her purpose, refusing to be bound by what her host found important and focusing on her own need, sifting and sorting the images in blinks of an eye that seemed to last hours. With a gasp the contact broke and she sagged backward exhausted by the effort. There was a taste of blood in the back of her mouth and spots danced before her eyes.

"Great..." Jocasta muttered to herself as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, the images of a dilapidated mining settlement and miles of radioactive desert throbbing in her mind.

"Just for once I wish you people would set up shop on a nice beach..."

_____________________________________

Jocasta slid around the pole gyrating and cocking a hip enticingly as she did so. Gone was the woman in the black jumpsuit, now she was naked save for ludicorusly small lingerie made from some sort of metalized plastic and her hair had been dyed a vibrant blond with nano applique. A few of the cantina's denizens looked on approvingly but the majority of them seemed to be busy not paying attention to the murder of one of their stupid, or merely unlikely, companions. It wasn't the first killing she had seen in the three days she had been working as a dancer here, the easiest and most secure cover she could find while she waited for Chalnarc to stick his neck out of whatever hole he had climbed into, and she suspected it wouldn't be the last. What was more interesting was the stranger who had entered the bar moments before and now seemed to be interrogating the bartender about something. Beyond the fact that he was a stranger in a place that saw few strangers, he had a look about him that Jocasta had learned too well in the years since she had left Hegemony service to make her way as a bounty hunter. Violence wasn't really her strong suit, she preferred the hunt itself to the conclusion, but this one had the look of a fighter. It was possible he was some affiliate of Chalnarc, but even if he had no connection to her target, she didn't like new elements in her carefully constructed plan. She continued to dance, dipping down to give a long tongued Karagan a good look at her generous cleavage before straightening. Watch and Wait, in Hegemony Intelligence those were the golden words. Whatever game the stranger was playing, she would figure it out soon enough...

[POOHEAD189]

"His name would be Chalnarc," Crimson declared, his face unreadable behind his Modified XE combat helm. He hadn't reached for his weapons, but he carried himself like a man who had survived because he could draw them faster than his adversaries. The Bargonian paused, black eyes boring into the Bounty Hunter until it set down the drinks and plates it had been holding, disarmingly. It muttered an acquiescence. As it lowered its arms below the counter it began to speak, before Dirk placed a hand over the harnass at his shoulder, unlatching apart of his breastplate to reveal an armored compartment. When it opened, a timer was set on a diminutive, square device. Wires stretched from it into his Fenoplate cuirass.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Crimson said, causing the Xenos to freeze. "Put your limbs on the counter, mutant. All of them."

By the look on the Bargonian's face, he had caught him just in time before the thing had alerted whatever counted out here as a security force via a button behind the counter. Dirk continued, his voice low and threatening.

"I don't need to explain to you that this is a uranium detonator. If I don't get what I want, or if say, my heart stops beating, half of this shithole you call home will be lost in a flash of hellfire. The other half won't be so safe, either." He warned, his voice as steady as bedrock. Of course, he was lying. The device was a uranium detonator but he had disabled it, rewiring it to make the timer only appear set at 5 seconds. "You're going to get Chalnarc out here, alone. If I see anyone with him. I don't give a fuck if it's a waiter or one of those dancing girls. I will kill everyone here and myself... Do you understand or do I need to speak slower? I hear you Bargonians speak fluent moron."

He spoke with such soft menace that no one without modified hearing or psychic abilities could hear him over the din of the festivities. The many-limbed bartender croaked both angrily and anxiously, but it nodded. One of its hands slowly reached over to a small Voxphone behind him, picking it up and dialing a number. Mere seconds later, the thing warbled in its own tongue. Dirk knew by the tone in its voice it wasn't betraying him. Now he need only wait for Chalnarc to walk in here. He was likely in the VIP section with his fellow cronies and his boss.

The intel he had received told him there were ten ARKs in this town, though they could hardly be called ARKs, as most were prized top rated security-for-hire, praised for their loyalty and precision in tactical firefights. Everything he had heard about Chalnarc and the crew he ran with was they were up-jumped thugs. Ex-military, yes. But they were lazy, and merely lauded over the poor townsfolk and other, lower thugs that did their dirty work. Whoeever their boss was ruled over this town like a warlord. If Dirk was lucky, he'd bag Chalnarc during the mosh of the music and take him out too quick for anyone to follow.

[Penny]

The conversation by the bar was either going very well or going terribly depending on ones point of view Jocasta thought as she twirled once more around the pole. She lifted a leg high, placing her ankle by her ear as she pirouetted in an impressive display of flexibility. The feat was greeted with a clatter of credit chips and wolf whistles from the denizens of the bar. It looked as though the mercenary, whoever he was, had the bartender really sweating, the nervous twitching of the lower two sets of arms a dead give away among Bargonians. The song was beginning to wind down now and her set was ending, which was a shame because it would cost her the vantage point of the stage. An icon blinked in the bottom corner of her optical enhancement, a red urgent alert from one of the optical bugs she had placed during her three days of employment as 'Sarisa' the dancing girl. A subconscious twitch enlarged the image to take up a quarter of her view. A large feroucious looking man in body armor was shoving his way out of the VIP section. His body was covered in armor but his scarred head was bare. A nasty looking shot gun was slung from his armor and a knife that would count as a sword by any reasonable definition hung from his belt. The AI projected a 92 percent match for Chalnarc based on previous images it had seen.

The set ended and Jocasta sashayed of stage as quickly as she could, this might be her one chance to get a shot at Chalnarc away from his gang of bully boys. Hastily she exited to the dressing room and threw on a coat over what little she was wearing. She touched her pocket to make sure her equipment was still in place and then slipped out into the bar itself. Chalnarc was stalking towards the stranger now, his face set in a scowl and his spurs clinking on the plastcrete floor.

[POOHEAD189]

Dirk wasn't a small man, but Chalnarc was slightly taller and far burlier in frame. The Bounty Hunter turned to regard him, his visor's system singing his signature out amongst the crowd, having scanned an old picture of the thug to make identifying him with his tactical equipment easier. Dirk Crimson closed his cuirass plate so as not to alarm anyone else, and simply waited for Chalnarc to make his way over.

"What do you want?" The ARKer asked churlishly. The impatience of the man oozed out of his tone, and it only made Dirk smile inside of his helmet. A smile that would have chilled ice if it had been openly seen. "Who the hell are you, and how do you know me?"

"Oh, I've got a shipment of Cyclopean Edge for the boss." He explained, referring to the hardcore drugs that were mostly created in Vat labs of the megacities. Small wars had been fought over growing rights for the stuff, but Dirk had never partaken. If you wanted to remain crisp, you stayed away from the ganger shit, even if it was supposed to be like injecting yourself with a savage form of liquid rapture. "An old friend owed you a favor. Thought he might give you bragging rights on scoring this for your boss. Come on, I'll show you outside where I got it stashed."

Chalnarc looked like a confused mutant bulldog, anger warring with curiosity. "Hey you-" He started, but Crimson was already heading out of the cantina, waving for him to follow. Had this been a less inconspicuous town, Chalnarc might have been wary of Bounty Hunters. But he already looked like he was hopped up on something and so lumbered out, elbowing the crowd out of his way and stepping into the blaring sun. He placed a large guantleted hand over his eyes to adjust his bloodshot orbs to the intense lighting. Maybe if people like him hadn't destroyed the ozone of the planet, there would have been little need, Dirk thought sardonically.

"Answer my fucking questions" Chalnarc demanded, trying to focus on the figure on the sand that was Dirk Crimson, standing with the sun at his back. "Who's this old friend you're talking about?"

"Mephisto Sabre." The Bounty Hunter said, letting the name sink into the large tough. Dirk expected the man to question him, or even to run away. To his credit, he moved like an animal. The thug grabbed his large shotgun and brought it to bear just as Dirk unholstered his DX-15s, firing two laser slugs just before Chalnarc could take a wild shot. The first slug melted half of the shotgun's barrel whilst the other hit Chalnarc in the leg. Apparently he wasn't entirely homegrown human and it only made the thug grunt, dropping the shotgun to take out his Valk-blade, doing his best to steady himself once again.

"Nice sword." Crimson remarked. "Tell you what. I'll let you live and take you back if you give it to me. Keep it, and Mephisto won't mind a corpse."

[Penny]

Jocasta cursed as the occupants of the tavern surged to the windows, eager to get a look at the impending show down. There were shouts of alarm from inside the VIP area and alerts began to appear in her optics. Red dots flagging Chalnarc's gunmen as they shook of their booze and drug induces stupor to come to their bosses aid. For a moment she hesitated, this was nothing like her original plan but this would be her one and only chance to take a shot at Chalnarc. Win or lose he would either be dead, captive, or on the move and she didnt want to spend months hunting him down and prepping another extraction. She toggled one of her contingences active. The pianist, having stopped playing to watch the battle outside jumped as the vase of flowers atop his instrument seemed to stand up on metal legs like some kind of insect. It rotated a few hands breath and then made a humming sound. The concealed claymore, planted by Jocasta the previous day went off. Unlike the conventional type of the warhead this variant was anything but indiscriminant. Six chambers went off, spitting six spikes of burning copper, hammered by the backing explosives into a lethal dart. Each was targeted on one of the henchmen and they went down in a windrow, flailing arms and spraying shattered chest plates. One of the six was taken down by a head shot. That wasn't showing off, if the computer could have safely plotted a center of mass shot it would have taken it, but a civilian had blocked the line of sight at a critical moment. Internal titanium partitions funneled the back blast down, shattering the piano in a spray of splinters and flying keys. Several of the crowd screamed as they were pepperd with the secondary shrapnel but those were the breaks. Jocasta took care not to kill unnecessarily, but she didn't waste sleep on minor injuries to people who, in all likelyhood, deserved worse.

Jocasta slipped from the bar as the blast and shrieks thinned the crowd by the door momentarily. The hot sun scorched her skin immediately and she wished she had the time to don better clothing for the task, though if she were getting wishes she probably wouldn't start there. Chalnarc and the mysterious stranger were circling each other now, Chalnarc holding his blade in a low guard. Her AI, patched to her implant and linked to the database in her ship flashed up a half dozen identifications for the mysterious combatant, but none of them had more than a twenty percent likelyhood, making them the electronic equivalent of guesses. Clutching her stunner insider her coat, she prepared to wait out the combat. If Chalnarc won he would be weak and off guard when she struck, if the newcomer... well she would cross that bridge when she got to it.

[POOHEAD189]

Chalnarc was close enough to be a problem, but dumb and slow enough to where Dirk had multiple solutions. But for all of his bluster, he couldn't kill Chalnarc in any gruesome fashion. The contract said his face needed to be whole, and he needed to bring back the body as well. This led Dirk to prefer the quarry cooperate and come alive, but if he was going to be trouble, then he would simply kill him and end it.

Chalnarc saw the briefest of hesitation in the Bounty Hunter, and so he leaped forward like a Zykron Leech and chopped downward with his blade before Dirk could get a shot off. Jacosta would see the blade slam into Dirk's position and hit the blasted soil beneath him. Behind Chalnarc's bulk, it was hard to tell what had happened. She would realize a moment later that Dirk had subtly sidestepped the attack and used Chalnarc's brav ado to his advantage. Dirk Crimson had calmly placed the barrel of one of his DX-15s under Chalnarc's chin and pulled the trigger, the big man haven't having fallen simply because Dirk kept him up with his free hand.

Stepping out of the bounty's space, Chalnarc hit the dirt as dead as old earth.

It was as easy as he had imagined. The hard part now was taking this slag of meat across the wastes to Neo-Mecca. The tough was burly, but his mechanical enhancements added unnecessary weight that will slow him down a bit. Dirk was just about to kneel down to grab at the corpse when his visor went off, a humanoid signature. Female. Armed. Her heartbeat came up on his sensors. Instead of kneeling or holstering his gun, he aimed it at the corner she hid. He thought he had heard a raucous noise inside. Was it from her?

"Identify yourself."

[Penny]

Jocasta realized a moment too late that the crowd had melted back into the saloon the moment it was clear that Chalnarc had ordered his last drink. Partly that was because they were afraid of his killer, but mostly, she suspected, it was because people had their chance steal what they could, be it loot, influence, or position in whatever pecking order established itself after the outlawas corpse had cooled. Judging from the shouts of alarm and dismay, they had discovered her handy work with the directional mines. Accusatory shouts rang out inside, and her HUD flashed amber with several imminent gunshots, reports that flashed red as the owners pulled the trigger. From the snippets of conversation she was receiving as a text crawl, two factions were already squaring up, both blaming the other for this additional carnage.

Sighing she stood up and stepped out onto the dusty street. The clear high heels she was wearing sank a half inch into the dust and she was conscious of how out of place she must look, legs bare to the hem of the long jacket she had grabbed from the changing room. The heavy gauge plasma lance gripped in her left hand was horribly incongruous with the rest of her ensemble, the short boxy body and the long tapered probe that served as a barrel making it look more like a piece of dental equipment than a weapon. Plasma lances combined elements of traditional plasma weapons with the greater punch of cartridge based propellant weapons, taking the best of both worlds to cram as much punch as possible into a small package. The downside was that the capacity was low and the cost per shot was very high.

"I'm Jocasta Rayne," she called across the street to the stranger. Targeting solutions flashed into her HUD speculating on the best possible shots, measuring chances of a hit, vs probable penetration of armor, vs chance of death or incapacity. The best case, a 44 percent chance of death or incapacitation that would end the conflict, was a shot to the armor joint below the right shoulder, but those weren't odds that Jocasta was willing to play whilst talking remained an option.

"I'm here for the bounty on Chalnarc, though I guess the live capture bonus is off the table."

[POOHEAD189]

"I don't share bounties."

The wind picked up, dust flagrantly roiling about the air before it dissipated as if it had never been. Dirk placed his hand on the holsters of his guns, but he never drew them out. He was calculating something that might actually make it so he wasn't ending another life, though that never tended to bother him. His visor pinpointed her physical attributes, evidently honed for combat, and his practiced eye told him she knew how to carry herself at least. After one last moment of deliberation, he continued.

"...Usually. But I can make an exception this once. That means you'll have to be my gunner." He told her, gesturing his head toward the VEC transport. There was only one seat, for the pilot. But behind it was a small, liquid cooled lasturret one could operate by standing within what had the appearance of leg braces, with platforms to rest your feet on. It wasn't anything one could use to seriously harm an armored vehicle, but it could punch through another VEC's armor fairly well. Or kill a humanoid.

The bounty hunter knelt down and grabbed Chalnarc's fat fingered hands, slowly dragging him for a second and stopping. The world was so silent save for the music inside the saloon, his bulk scraped audibly along the hard desert ground. Dirk Crimson wouldn't wait for her to think, so she had to decide now. "Of course, you can stay here and get blamed for this one's death. Either that, or help me pick this sack of shit up so we can turn him in."

There was a small compartment below the VEC that one could slid a large pack in for travel. Or a moderate sized body.

[Penny]

Jocasta smiled a practiced professional smile and was about to open her mouth when an alarm began to blink in the optics being projected into her eyes. She twitched her right eye, remoting in the view from the alarms source, one of three small drones she had deployed to provide aerial cover of the settlement and its environs.

"Six skimmers are approaching at high speed from the south east," Jocasta supplied a few moments before the whine of overheating engines whined up out of the hot desert air.

"Its the rest of Chalnarc's gang, probably coming to help... rather too late for him I suppose, but I doubt it will stop them from killing us," she reported as she picked up Chalnarc's legs and shoved them into the back of the transport with practiced efficiency.

"I have a Valkyrie attack boat hidden in one of the arroyos three clicks south, which means reaching it probably means fancy flying, or shooting, or both."

[POOHEAD189]

The two of them managed to get Chalnarc in the compartment with only a moderate amount of grunting and effort. Dirk had moved more complicated cargo before, but the bastard certainly didn't make it easy for them. They wasted no time in mounting up, Dirk letting the VEC stay grounded until she was in the turret and firmly strapped in. The second she was, he set the engine on and the machine 'lifted' as if the planet was a magnet to the VEC's own magnet.

"I don't know about fancy, but I can do efficient." He said. That girl had been one of the dancers in the club, he realized. He guessed she had been on this target for awhile. It surprised him she was happy enough to share the bounty, but he supposed it was one of the rare times when both bounty hunters did their part in taking the target down. All they had to do now was survive. Dirk didn't look back when their pursuers appeared on his radar.

Instead he revved the transport, and within two seconds they had launched themselves into the desert at three hundred kilometers per hour and rising. His plan was to skirt the boulders to the northwest and come around to make it to this woman's Valkyrie. He hoped it was big enough to carry his VEC. He'd grown quite fond of it, even if he won it in a card game.

"We need these skimmers dead or gone." He said as the first lasbolts erupted around their position.

[Penny]

The wind howled past Jocasta, whipping her hair out behind her like the pennon of a lance as the VEC tore through the hot slightly irradiated air. The six skimmers were bearing down on them out of the sunset, brilliant white bolts of energy lancing down to blast the landscape into long streaks of fused glass and shattered rock. They weren't millitary models but they were armed, and had obviously been souped up to the characteristic efficiency of those who had a lot of time on their hands and a belief in the talismanic machismo of fast speeders. Each of the six speeders raised a long rooster tail of dust, stretching back to the horizon like the back blast of a surface to surface missle. Dirk wrenched the controls hard enough that Jocasta was flung bruising against the doorframe. Years of training in zero-g prevented her from being thrown overboard as she looped one of the restraint harnesses around her arm. More las fire streaked past, close enough that she could taste the ionization in the air as a sharp ozone tang.

Ahead of them a vast outcropping of boulders rose like a half finished mesa. Dirk was angling the VEC toward it, using the angle of intersection to screen them from enemy fire for a few seconds. After that though they would be in the open for long lethal seconds. Jocasta blinked through the menus of her implants, routing instructions through her network.

"If you are going to do something, now is the time," Dirk said in a stony voice. He probably expected her to leap up and open fire. A tactic which, while cinematic, was unlikely to bring down six skimmers without a hell of a lot more ordinance than she currently possessed.

"I am doing something," Jocasta replied without amplifying the statement with an explanation that would take her attention away from the task she was performing. The VEC howled into the shadow of the boulders, banking hard and throwing up a tornado of grit as the grav plates thrust hard against the sand and rock, bouncing them away like a bowling ball caroming off a bumper. The stream of laser fire died away for a few moments as they were obscured from view and then the first three skimmers howled around behind them. The lead skimmer exploded as though struck by an invisible cannon ball. Its front engine cowling deformed like a slow motion image of a bullet striking armor plating, compressing the powercells until they ruptured in a shower of blue white electrical flame. The nose dipped as it lost power, tapping a rock and shredding the whole front section of the craft in a shower of debris. It cartwheeled across the desert at several hundred miles an hour, alternatingly striking the ground with nose and tail and spraying pieces, both mechanical and biological in all direction. One of the other skimmers veered sideways into a boulder and detonated in a sooty red fireball that blossomed around the rocky outcrop like a breaking wave. The other, catching a piece of fender across its starboard engine, dropped, tapped the ground and then shattered away in a cartwheel that ended in a terminal but unspectacular wreck amid the dunes to their left, little more than smoking metal and shimmering heat haze.

"Halfway there," Jocasta remarked, as her optics changed the status of one of her recon drones to 'non-responsive'. Rather an economical description for having been kamizazied into the front of an enemy skimmer. The drone had only weighed a hand full of kilos but a combined impact of over four hundred kilometers an hour, it had been as effective as a rocket might have been.

"This still leaves us with three to worry about," Jocasta remarked, as though that basic math might have escaped her new taciturn bussiness partner. She pulled her little snub pistol from her purse and checked the load, eyes twitching furiously as she fed commands into her net.

"Which might be a little trickier..."

[POOHEAD189]

The kaleidoscope of flame and steel from the hurtling vehicles was audible even at the speed they traveled, the torrential wind like a scythe. Dirk banked left, causing Jocasta to lurch to the side even strapped as she was. Like pins the radar showed their pursuers dropped one by one from her quick thinking. Mildly impressed, Dirk didn't respond. He would celebrate after they made it to her transport, if it was still running. Instead he turned the VEC once he eyeballed a rise in the dirt half a kilometer ahead. Over the comm, his voice rang in her ear.

"Hang on," as if she had a way to fasten herself any more effectively. Behind them the three skimmers slid into view past the boulders. Superheated beams of bright red shot past Dirk's female gunner, singing her hair from missing by a mere dozen feet. The lasers cut into the air, and soon the two of them were launched as Dirk increased the anti-grav thrust on the VEC at the cusp of the incline. The force upwards was monumental, lasers now flying dozens of feet below them as they cleared the next area of crags like it was gravel. Dirk remembered the first time he had done this, he felt his heart leap into his throat. Now he handled it like an old friend would, angling the thrusters forward to keep them from splattering along the ground as they hit the wasteland once more.

"Nice flying, but they're still on our tail."

"Gives us some time to make a move." He replied, suddenly slowing and kicking up dust before shutting the VEC off, now idly lowering behind a vast boulder. No machine worked at 100% capacity, but the minimal heat from the VEC was masked by the boiling temperatures of the blazing sun and the shelter of the rock as a minute passed. The defeaning silence only heightened the boom as the three skimmers past their position, none the wiser. Dirk would wait another thirty seconds before he lifted off again, now at a straight shot toward the woman's transport not three kilometers away.

"Time to make a move." He confirmed, ready to get out of the heat.

[Penny]

To Jocasta's considerable surprise the remaining skimmers raced off into the desert. She was so used to superior sensors and so careful to prepare the ground ahead of her it took a moment for her to realise that they had fooled the pursuing gangmembers. It was also more than likely that the firey and apparently magical destruction of their comrades had discouraged them from asking questions. Her stomach had almost settled when Dirk lifted the skimmer and powered off towards the coordinates she had provided. It occured to her that there wasn't a great deal she could do about it if he decided she had served her purpose. Well if his plan was hijack her ship he was in for a surprise. A very brief surpise.

"Where is it?" Dirk demanded, as they approached a shallow arroyo sided with crumbling stone. It might have occured to him that she was trying to pull something. Her little hold out wasn't much threat to his armor, but for all he knew she had a sniper laying in wait to take him out. Jocasta's mind flitted away into how she might go about designing an automated sniper drone for just such an occasion when she realized her continued silence wasn't helping her position.

"Relax," she told him and clicked a few menus in her optical interface. At the end of the shallow canyon the air began to shimmer and the gray armorplas shape of a Valkyrie attack boat seemed to materialize out of the air. Static discharges sparked and snaped on the expensive mirrorcrys which had been painstakingly applied to the ship. The mirrorcrys was almost as expensive as the attack boat itself, but Jocasta didn't begrudge the expense. The Valkyrie was forty meters from bow to stern and nearly half that in width, though the profile was shifted backwards to suggest an arrow head. Vectored thrusters hung in pods along both sides and weapon emplacements jutted aggressively from the wing tips and dorsal and ventral mountings. The Valkyrie series had been the work horse of Union fleets during the war, a versatile gunship design which had served as torpedo bombers in space and as area support within atmospheres. It's high thrust to weight ratio and the impressive amount of ordinance it could carry made it invaluable, particularly in outlying areas where capital ships had been few. A second command from Jocasta caused the rear facing assault hatch to begin to lower, pistons hissing as several hundred kilos of armored hull dropped away to reveal a hold into which a trio of armored vehicles might have been packed. It filled the canyon like a plug, squatting there like some powerful malevolent predator.

"Welcome to the Dragonfly," she said with a note of pride in her voice.

[POOHEAD189]

"Nice rig."

He hadn't known if he was required to leave his VEC on the baking dirt, but his new partner had thought ahead and opened up the cargo hold to her Dragonfly. He had seen a few ships like it before. It was an A-Class Ebon Variant Corvette, the swiss army knife of any fleet worth its salt in any interplanetary conflict. This one looked custom-made. If he had to guess it had two backup engines, likely fission. He'd look at the specs more closely once they were inside, so he kicked the acceleration down and let the VEC slide the last two kilometers until they reached the ship properly. Impressively, Dirk didn't fully stop before the ship, gliding up the opened ramp at a speed that felt like it was going to slam into the back wall, until he bumped the breaks and the vehicle leaped a few feet into the air before powering down, sinking onto the steel floor of the ship.

He flipped the switch that opened up the turret pod, giving Jocasta room to hop off the platform. He stepped off as well, hands on the hilts of his heavy blasters just in case she thought to take this bounty herself now that they were in her ship. Like as not she likely had the suspicion in her mind that he was planning on taking the ship himself. But the seconds passed and neither made a move on the other. She wouldn't be able to see, but Dirk smiled ironically inside his helmet.

"We better get off the ground before those skiffs find us." He told her, turning his back on her as an evident sign of trust. "Not sure how fast this thing flies, but Neo-Mecca isn't far."

"I'll get us there. Make yourself comfortable." She said, having noticed he was still encased in his helmet and armored plate.

"I'll be comfortable when I...we get the bounty."

[Penny]

Jocasta smiled, taking a leather jacket from a hook and looping it around her shoulders. The interior of the ship was climate controlled and it was a little too cool for the exotic dancer outfit she was wearing. Her optical implants reported that all of her drones had been recovered or would be within the next two minutes, the little units flitting back to the Dragonfly like bees returning to a hive. Even at half the bounty she should make a reasonable profit on this run. The cargo bay narrowed as they moved forward, metal bulkheads off specialized manufacturing spaces and a sterile white medical bay. The prisoner she had interrogated lay unconscious on one of the tables, an IV drip keeping him sedated.

"Do me a favor an throw him out of the ramp, will you? I already have one extra set of lungs breathing my air."

At the end of the corridor between the specialized spaces was a medium sized power lift flanked by two ladders incased in roll cages. She sprang up one of the ladders and onto the A deck corridor which lead past the living spaces, three staterooms, the head and a small galley. The staterooms would have been officer country if the ship were carrying the normal crew of twenty, but the crew quaters had been canibalized for work spaces, the gym and other areas she had needed. Sophisticated autonomous systems, some of the shelf and others custom built made up for the lack of crew, though primarily the crew were necessary in action rather than in normal flight. The cockpit was a broad wedge shaped room similar to a serpents head. There were several stations available but the main area was a circular diaz surrounded by waist high holographic projectors across 270 degrees of arc. As Jocasta stepped onto the cirle of raised metal a curtain of coherent light sprang up around her like a halo, projecting control surfaces and data read outs in dizzying detail. Her hands began to move rapidly as she worked through the start up sequences, bringing the secondary reactor online and then firing up the ion pulse engines. A soft hum filled the ship as she did so. Internal holocams showed that Dirk had completed his task and sealed the hatch, so she touched both hands to the holo screen, spheres of light that represented her controls congealing around her hands, dozens of 'buttons' within finger flex. Raising both hands palm up she lifted the ship feeling the quiver of the engines through her feet, then she dropped one hand and pressed it back, pitching the nose towards the sky and lighting the main drive. There was a quiver as artifical gravity balanced the thrust and on her visual pick ups she saw a vast rooster tail of dust blast up as the ship boosted towards orbit. That probably wasn't comfortable for a prisoner they had just dumped outside, but he would probably live. Not that she was too concerned with that.

The Dragonfly shuddered up through the atmosphere and into the sudden smoothness of true space, the ion engines dying away to be relieve by the fission burn of the main drives. A holographic woman appeared at the navigational station, completely realistic save for a slight shimmer when she moved.

"Course plotted for jump point Alpha three six Jo," the hologram reported.

"Thank you Cygi," Jocasta responded, glancing at the count down till they reached a safe jump distance.

"Who is this?" Cygi asked turning in her chair to glance to the back of the bridge. Jocasta turned to see Dirk entering, still in his armor.

"This is Dirk," she told the hologram, "he is... lets say a bussiness partner for the next little while."

[POOHEAD189]

One never got used to the sight.

As the boiling sun lowered in the horizon, casting a reddening light across the expanse of wasteland ground, the city loomed ahead. The light just reaching the cliffs that blocked the gangers and road warriors from entering the Chorapolis that was Neo-Mecca, the Dragonfly passed over easily, plunging into sudden darkness before the city's neon lights burst into view. Refugees called it the 'City of the Full Moon' from how bright it always remained, scholars theorizing it also hearkened back to the Crescent Moon of its Islamic roots centuries ago. From their vantage point, it was hard to tell what was where, many of the buildings reaching the lower atmosphere and some of the fueling spires even cresting the stratosphere. There wasn't a structure in the city that did not reach five hundred meters, many of the shorter buildings filled with the poor and destitute, known as 'skyslums' and made of shoddy and outdated building materials. Those that lived in the taller buildings weren't much better off. The Dragonfly entered a speedway seven hundred and eighty seven meters above the ground, passing huge towerblocks of apartments and shopping complexes where one could purchase anything from imported food to plasma weapons to pleasurable company.

"There," Dirk said, pointing a gloved finger at the floating display. Jocasta subtly moved her hands on the spot and spread them out to zoom in, showcasing one of the spires with towers accompanying it like smaller versions of itself, the tops of the building swirling in curved architecture, reminiscent of ancient palaces on Old Earth, thousands of years ago. "Sector C-34. Passcode is 3968173KIL. Park on the northern end. We'll take the Loftivators up with our baggage into the presidium. Volkavax's Chambers will be up there."

"Anything I should know about him?" She asked as he went to prep the 'cargo.' Luckily they would have skiffs to carry whatever baggage they needed at the landing zone. The northwing was for employees and contractors, with all the proper equipment available. Business associates parked on the east wing, close friends with their yachts and floating villas on the west, and the south was off limits. If Dirk had to guess, it was where the slaves were shipped. But he had never deigned to find out. At her question, Dirk stopped and glanced over his shoulder.

"Yeah, let me do the talking unless he addresses you. And unless you want to be recruited into his troupe of dancing girls, I'd put on some pants."

[Penny]

"Always good to have a back up career in case this one dosen't work out," she quipped but she was already stepping out of her pilots diaz. Cygi took over the controls now that the flight path was simple and there were enough navigational beacons for the AI to handshake with. Jocasta stepped though the rear door and into her cabin. Even a captains cabin on a warship was small, merely a bed a refersher unit and a small desk. She had artifically enhanced the view with high definition holos that showed a panoramic seascape of colorful coral and brightly patterned fish. The bones of an ancient shipwreck were visible in the distance, teeming with exotic life. Reaching under her bed she withdrew a storage tote and pulled on a tight pair of black faux leather pants and then buttoned on a severely cut jacket which looked a little like a naval officers tunic, with red piping on the seams. She pulled on a set of black gloves and then slung a bandolier of capacitor cells over her right shoulder. Going unarmed anywhere in Neo-Mecca, though the better levels were festooned with scanners which would alert the occupants. She gathered her hair back into a pony tail. Finally she selected a large bore laser pistol, a triton arms AP 3, and a wrist mounted launcher unit which wrapped around her arm from just below her elbow. The unit was stocked with a variety of drones rather than grenades, though that might not be obvious to the casual observer.

"Alright," she said, stepping out of her cabin.

"Cygi keep an eye on the ship while we are gone."

[POOHEAD189]

The two bounty hunters weren't met with any resistance, probably thanks to the exclusive codes Dirk had provided. Even allowed on a palace such as this, it was rare not to be questioned or scammed by anyone with a lack of money or authority. Likely both. Dirk grabbed a grav-carrier, and before long the two shoved the body atop it. Dirk grabbed its homing disk and placed it on his wrist so it would follow him wherever he walked. The two only had to walk a short distance past the servi-bots, mechanics, and guests before they made it to the grav lift gate. Tendrils of power embedded into the moon-iron glowed blue as the two approached, the gate swiftly sliding open quietly and politely for them. Dirk didn't wait, stepping onto the grav-lift and waiting for Jocasta to step on board with him.

"Central Primoris" He stated. The gates swiftly closed, slowing down just inches from slamming to silently slide shut. The lights dimmed and relit in a different fashion, accommodating for the lack of city light one would see on the hanger bay. Once they began to glide upwards, it was hard to tell how fast they were going until a keen eye would see the numbers of the floors moving rapidly by, flying past at least a dozen a second. It was all impressive, state of the art technology. Even the most high end lifts had a bit of jank to them, but this was likely built by re-engineered tech from the Golden Age of Star Exploration.

Whatever the reason, it was clearly for show. Likely the cheapest 'most expensive' equipment one could get for a decadent stronghold like this one. Once the doors opened again, it looked far more mundane, though clearly the building still cost more than anything Dirk and Jocasta to pay for in a million lifetimes.

When the door opened, it looked like they were stepping off into a city street it was so wide. Biologically engineered plants set to bloom year-round were set in pots every few meters, the greenly light 'corridor' filled with mingling crowds of party goers and Volkavax gangers. The walls had indentions along where one could place a table, and many had. A green alien woman with indigo hair and three breasts sat in a business suit, drinking what Dirk expected to be an expensive vintage as she spoke to three men who seemed in dire straits. One particularly bulbous one was sweating more than either of the bounty hunters had in the wastes.

The two of them walked under a lit causeway that overlooked the 'street', the people passing above them seemed on business. Some were well armed and others were resplendent in the uniforms of bureaucratic and administrative officials, though whether for the cartel or for new mecca itself, it was hard to say. Dirk didn't seem to notice or care about anyone around him. Some in the crowd saw his signature armor and backed away, and while others didn't appear to recognize him, they all gave both bounty hunters a wide berth. Anyone working directly for Volkavax was not to be hindered.

Dirk turned to the left, striding toward a lounge that served cappuccinos to esteemed guests. Next to it was a steel door with seemingly no knob or handle. There was only a small rectangular impression upon the left. Dirk reached behind his facehelm and pulled out a small chip with the push of a button, sliding it into the impression. Pressurized air escaped the hinges as it opened before them. Inside was a small room that looked meant for security, with huge monitors that on second look showed gladiatorial bouts. Various sentries watched, eating popcorn and howling when a xenos combatant caved in the head of a human opponent.

"Good way to make money," The crimson armored bounty hunter said to Jo as an afterthought. He did not specify if he meant betting or competing.

Opening the opposite door led to another hallway, and then another. Soon it was becoming tedious, even when the corridors changed styles, useages, and even material. One even looked like it was used only by maintenance crews, but inevitably the last door opened, and they were within the sanctum of Volkavax.

It was a great, lit dome with pillars of Sarlaskian Behemoth Bone framing a walkway that looked fit for royalty, carpeted in red and gold. The bones were made of the great beast's forearms, but they still stood in a handsome, sinuous fashion eight meters tall. Hanging in upsidedown pillars connected to the ceiling were dancing girls lit by strobe lights just beside each bone pillar. Jocasta had likely never seen so many gangers and enforcers in one place without gutting one another for their pocket change. Many of them laughed and played cards while some arm wrestled, and a few even fucked both men and women in the corners under the shadows. As the music blared, hulking humans intermingling with Xenos and Hunter Androids stopped to watch Dirk and Jocasta make their way towards the throne or Volkavax.

"So Crimson, you're back." A blonde man grumbled, turning from the card table to reveal half of his face was made of steel, his artificial eye as wide and unblinking as a golfball.

"H-e b-r-o-u-g-h-t t-h-e b-o-u-n-t-y," A stammering, autonomous voice remarked. It began whispering binary code just as another man whistled appreciatively from the crowd. "You brought a little something extra for ol' Vax I see!"

They walked until they halted just where the carpet stopped, and a circle of bare ground surrounded a platform where they found their paymaster. Upon the platform itself was a flock of courtesans, lounging and reaching for the scaled limbs of the boss himself. To the left was a robed xenos in a turban, with an appendage that reached out from its chin like a beard of flesh that wiggled. To the right, a servitor android sat waiting patiently. At its center was Volkavax, Suzerain of the Spire.

Fully ten meters long and armored in blue scales, the head of the thing looked crocidilian and skeletal all at once, with a great, thick horn that protruded from the crown of its head. It gave a growl that batted at the ears like a tank engine as it lifted its head, a slim woman sliding off of its massive snout, giving a squeal of surprise. Volkovax opened its eyes, its pupil's those of a cat's, and it spoke the common tongue in a great voice that shook everyone within earshot in fear.

"You have arrived, Dirk." It reasoned, raising a massive claw in an almost professional poise. "Have you brought the mark I so desire?"

[Penny]

Jocasta obediently pushed the grav pallet that carried the body of the dead outlaw into the center of the room. In its travel mode the polymer case was opaque, a bland gray, but with the press of a stud the walls turned translucent revealing the preserved corpse for all to see. Nitrogen gas, cheap and inert had been pumped in at pressure to retard the natural process of decomposition. Combined with a biocide spray and a near 100 percent humidity scrub that would keep the body in good condition for a long while. Eventually the anaerobes in the mans gut would devour him, oxygen or no, but that was a much slower prospect than natural aerobic decay.

Volkavax turned his vast eye upon her in surmise and grinned a toothy grin, six inch long fangs interlocked in a net of bone. A dark purplish tongue slithered out from between his jaws and then sucked back with an audible hiss.

"And who is this?" the xenos all but leered. Jocasta glanced around the harem girls that surrounded them, noticing the irritation on the skin of the girl who had been disturbed by her entrance. Perhaps the tongue was very rough, or perhaps the creatures saliva was slightly acidic.

"I am no one to be trifled with," Jocasta replied projecting her voice so that it filled the room. The xenos reared back slightly and then chuckled.

"Spirited too I see," the thing hissed.

"If we can return to business?" Jocasta suggested, tapping the transparent case that contained the body.