“STOP!” I threw my arm out to catch Shearah as she was about
to run past me, and right into a hail of blaster fire. I sighed. “Well, they
definitely know who we’ve got with us, and where we’ve parked. We need to get
off this station, fast!”
It had been only fifteen minutes since we’d first run into
the Red Orchid guys. Basically, they were a Yakuza clan that worked all across
Sol system. They ran all the usual rackets, including drugs, vice, and
extortion. Now, they were looking to make a big score by delivering the
Princess to someone, probably her brother. That was a problem for me, because I
had taken a job to deliver her to someone else, and I didn’t want to give up
those credits. Oh, and the fact that having a beautiful princess depending on
me appealed to that part of every guy that watches Conan the Barbarian, and
wants to be just like that.
What? You thought women were the only ones who had
unrealistic gender stereotypes shoved down their throats since birth? Get real.
Have you seen He-Man? The man’s muscles have muscles on their muscles!
*ahem*
Anyways, now we were engaged in what was basically a running
battle, trying to break through the reinforcements that were coming to try and
kill us. They had been having people come out of side passages and hiding
behind cover taking potshots at us the whole way, and we were nowhere near as
uninjured as we had been before now. But we could still move. For bonus points,
guess what Station Security is doing during all of this? If you guessed ‘trying
to capture the crew that sprayed down a marketplace with bullets in a stupidly
wanton display of destruction’, then you are 100% correct!
I didn’t have the PP to do the whole constantly hosing
bullets thing, so I switched to my energy blade in my main hand, and the psyber
pistol in my off hand. Using my grav-belt, I was able to do some pretty cool
things, including a wall run that ended up on the ceiling, surprising the Yak
in front of us until I put my sword in his eye.
I know we didn’t kill everyone in our way, but we didn’t
bother to stop, not even to do more than the bare minimum of looting, taking
bracers and obvious weapons if we had the chance. Now, we were just outside the
hatch looking into the hangar bay, and I saw a problem. More like thirty
problems. A whole bunch of pissed off Asian syndicate goons between me and my
ship, behind hastily made defensive positions. And we didn’t have too long to
deal with them before their buddies or Security caught up to us from behind.
A straight charge would be suicide, and we didn’t have time
to get bogged down. I needed to pull a trick out of my hat that I’d seen in an
old movie once. Tapping my bracer, I said, “Raven! You got the ship ready to
rock yet?”
“Yes, Captain! The
cargo has been loaded, including that last-minute item, and I’ve finished with
the upgrades we could accomplish on this short time frame.”
“Good. I know you were hoping for more, but we’ll do that
when we’ve got a chance for some yard time. You’ve been following our progress,
right?”
“Yes, sir. What would
you like me to do about the interlopers in the hangar bay?”
“Use the lower turret, if you please, and blast those defensive
positions. I don’t care if you kill them or not, I just want a bit of shock and
awe.”
“Understood, Captain!
Firing in ten seconds.”
----------------------------------------
Amaya Hideo was nervous. This was only his second week on
the station, having been sent up from Neo-Chiba on Earth because the local
Group needed someone with his technical expertise. Unfortunately, the job they
were supposed to do fell through because of the fallout of the Emperor’s
assassination and some Nomad buying the slave that was central to the plan. It
was only after the auction that someone considered that the Nomad may have used
Mental Psy Powers to convince the Red Orchid’s leader to bid on a combat slave
instead.
Such a dishonor could not be simply passed over! But then,
as they were checking the recordings of their own spy cameras in Section 16,
they caught the face of the woman who had come with him. Hideo himself had done
the facial recognition queries, and was shocked to find that this was the
missing Third Princess that the would-be Emperor was desperately trying to
find.
So the oyabun had
sent Kano-sama and his team to ‘persuade’ the Nomad to give up the Princess. Of
course, they were going to kill him anyways, but they didn’t need to know that.
No one was allowed to cross the Red Orchid and live.
But the unthinkable happened. This brazen gaijin Nomad and the girls with him
opened fire, without regard to civilians or anyone around, and the
gods-forsaken Nomad used what must be a considerable amount of PP to keep
reloading his SMG each time it ran out, allowing him to literally blanket the
corridor in shots. None of Kano’s team survived. Members who were out on
‘business’ quickly took up actions to delay the man, and this group was hastily
assembled with everyone in headquarters that could hold a gun to ambush him in
his hangar bay.
Oyabun Imari
Shunsho was leading this group personally, he and his elite guards waiting
behind the hastily moved cargo boxes that the group had arranged to offer them
cover in the ambush. The man wouldn’t risk simply spraying bullets at his own
ship, so there was no need to worry about that kind of insane tactic again.
Unfortunately for the gaijin,
the Red Orchid members’ only concern was to make sure that the Princess and the
slavegirl the Oyabun wanted were
still alive at the end of this. So their guns were loaded with stunshots,
including the (very illegal on a station) assault rifles Imari’s guards were
leveling at the door. The idiot wouldn’t have a chance!
A whirring sound behind him caught Hideo’s attention,
causing him to turn just in time to see the ship’s underside turret turn to
face him. He started to scream, but was cut off when a flash of light ended his
concerns most permanently.
----------------------------------------
Smiling at Raven’s last communication, I turned, and pulled
Shearah into an embrace, before kissing her deeply on the lips. When I broke
the kiss, I winked at her starstruck face, and said, “For luck.” The Knelfi
girl just nodded dumbly, as the first blasts echoed through the hallway, and
the screaming began.
Jaynie looked at me, squinting slightly. “Not doubting your
style, Cap’n, but if your kisses cause things to go boom, I’m going to ask you
to keep over there.” That got us all laughing.
As the blasts stopped, I put my head around the corner. The
remaining Yaks were all in disarray, most of them dead or wounded. On my
signal, we charged through the doorway, firing on anyone between us and the
ship that wasn’t kissing the deck. We didn’t have time to properly strip the
bodies, since station security would DEFINITELY be after us by this point. But
as we ran by a group of mostly dead Yaks who had better armor than the rest, I
made sure to scoop up their weapons and bracers. After shooting them in the head,
to make sure they were all dead, instead of mostly dead. We’d sort out the loot
when we were out of the system.
For defeating forty-one enemies of
similar or higher levels than you, you gain 46000 XP.
+4000 XP for fighting alongside your
Crew in battle against higher-leveled enemies.
+4000 XP for fighting alongside your
Corporation members in battle against higher-leveled enemies.
+2000 XP for fighting alongside your
Slaves in battle against higher-leveled enemies.
You are now Level 14.
You have 18 points to distribute.
Your actions have crippled the Red
Orchid Clan’s activities on Choson Ring. Their Oyabun is dead at your hands!
You gain +1000 Fame.
Your status with the Red Orchid Clan is
now Hatred (At War!).
You have killed individuals with active
bounties on their heads. Total bounty: 230450 Credits. Bounty will be
distributed according to your corporate settings.
You have a new active bounty on your
head!
Current Bounties:
Red Orchid Clan – 350000 Alive, 100000
Dead
Automatics has improved to 6/100.
+3 DEX
Blades has improved to 5/100.
+2 DEX, +1 STR
Pistols has improved to 5/100.
+4 DEX
Due to your in character actions, you
have gained the following:
+3 WIS, +2 CHA, +2 DEX
|
Now that we were out of combat, the screen popped up showing
our rewards. Not even counting the stuff we took. Of course, having a crime
syndicate place a bounty like that on my head was going to be even more
trouble.
As I ran onto the ship, I sighed, “So much for keeping a low
profile, huh, Raven?”
The air shimmered next to me, and a hologram of a woman with
pale skin and raven-colored hair appeared, dressed in a long, flowing black
dress. Two black-feathered wings sprang from her back, like those of a raven.
So this is what Raven had decided on for her avatar?
“Nice look, Raven. What made you pick this?”
“Well, I’m called Raven, and my settings are female, so an
image search brought up a picture of the old Celtic goddess, the Morrigan. It
seemed fitting that I based my image off that.”
“Not a bad idea, Raven. I’m glad you picked something you
liked. For now, is the ship ready to go?” By this point, I was sitting in the
pilot’s chair on the bridge. I turned, to see everyone behind me. “Shearah,
engine room. Cali, Jaynie, man the guns. Carissa, warm up the navcomputer, and
start making calculations for the jump to Alpha Centauri. Princess, find
someplace to sit and strap in. This could get bumpy.” As everyone turned to
their tasks, I said, “Sorry, Raven. We ready to go?”
“Yes, Captain. But there is a problem with the hangar bay
doors. The station has put them on lockdown due to the fighting.”
“Can you subvert control of the doors?”
“I am sorry, Captain, but I am not programmed for
‘hacking’.”
“Put that on the list of upgrades, then.” I would have to
exit the ship to access the manual controls, which would be a bad thing if the
station security came in while we were getting ready to leave. Fuck it, they
shouldn’t have locked us in. “Raven, will our weapons take out those doors?”
----------------------------------------
Sgt. Miguel Madrid led his group of station security
officers down the trail of destruction that had started less than half an hour
ago here in Section 16. According to the eyewitness reports, the Red Orchids
had decided to accost the captain of one of the freighters docked here. The
Captain and crew opened fire, mowing down the Orchids with surprising
brutality, and a definite disregard for bystanders. That was what pissed Miguel
off most. Killing Yakuza? Give the man a medal. But such disregard for civilians
needed to be stopped!
Following where the group went after that was easy, as there
had been apparently a running gun battle all the way to the docks, with plenty
of damage being done to both the surroundings and the civilians. Oh, and a few
of the Red Orchids, too.
Finally, they made it to the hangar the crew was heading
towards. Miguel checked around the side of the open hatch, and was floored by
what he saw. Bodies were everywhere, over thirty of the Red Orchids were dead
or dying. Miguel was about to order his men forward to search the ship, when he
heard a high-pitched whine. The sound of a particle cannon being warmed up.
“Get back!” Even as he yelled the command, the ship
unleashed its twin particle cannons, blasting the hangar doors. There was a
moment of wind whipping past his face before the hatch in front of him sealed
itself shut, the decompression alarms going off throughout the Section.
For the first time, Sgt. Madrid hoped that those Orchids
were already dead. Being sucked out into space is no way to go.
“Who the hell were those people?”
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