M5.213
Hyperion 3, Orbiting Titan
Business Quadrant

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Oil leaked out in a heavy gush of blackness, coating Neil's shirt and spattering on his cheek. He vainly tried to halt the flow of the spill, but the bolt was stubborn and the dribble on the floor grew larger. He let out a frustrated cry, overly dramatizing the minor annoyance for his own amusement and sanity. He spat out the inky liquid that had managed to fleck his lips and readjust the piping, muttering 'come on you fucker, be nice' as he muscled the thing shut. He would need to replace the oil along with replacing the calibrator for the sublight drive. Maybe they could find the part of the station, but it probably cost his left nut to buy. Which, of course, meant they would have to charge this nice old lady a full set, and Neil wouldn't do that without speaking to her first. Unless...

Footsteps approached, and Neil wheeled himself out from under the VT-1890 light transport, lifting off his stained goggles. "Hey George, we got any sublight capacitors? Fifth gen, preferably."

George was a short, older man. He had mottled, somewhat dark skin and a shaved head. He wore baggy pants and a stained shirt, moving a cart of ion power couplings. He was a little, wiry man, but he was strong as an ox. If you were as strong as George, that was worth boasting about. Neil liked the old man. George always ribbed him and he did it back.

"Mmm sublight? Nah, I don't think we got any sublight capacitors here. Maybe third gen." George theorized. "Got some oil on ya, Neil."

"Yeah, yeah. Third gen?"

"Mmhmm, third gen. Ask Griffon down the ramp. He outta know." George said, lifting the dense couplings out and setting them in the dispensers for later. Once he was half empty, he started wheeling them elsewhere to finish off the load. "Yeah, ask Griff." He repeated. Neil wasn't going to ask Griffon. Griffon was an asshole who wouldn't admit he had anything, even if it served his own purposes. Neil was going to go looking himself.

"Bout time for lunch, innit?" Neil called back as George rounded out of sight.

"Whatever you say, Neil, whatever you say." He said back, his voice carrying around. Neil grinned and hopped up, deciding he would take his break now rather than later so he could deal with the customers on a full stomach. He punched out on the dataclock and left the Colonial Mechanic, heading into the wide atrium of the Hyperium 3 Station to eat at Soak Stack, a dirty, albeit popular dive for spacers and locals alike. The logo was a busty woman balancing three frothing mugs on each hand, holding two and smiling even as the top two spilled onto her cleavage.

50 minutes later...

With a stomach of bratwurst, booze, and bread, Neil felt full to burst walking back. He had a few extra credits in his pocket from the excursion. Not many people could say they went out to eat and came back with more money than they spent, but what could he say? He was a winner. He hadn't yet wiped the oil off his face, however, other than a small rubbing with a napkin. The look suited him, he fancied. Matched his hair and eyes and reminded him of his days in the Valc, back during the war. Old memories began to creep back, but he shoved them away. Not today. He would not be scrounging up old wounds just to get depressed today. Nope.

"Mrs. Riggard is here," He heard from the office as he passed. David Alten had his eyes peeled to the cogitator, but when Neil stopped, he glanced his way. He tried to freak his employees out, as if he knew where they were with some sort of psychic powers, but Neil knew he had a camera outside of his office on a mini-window at the bottom left corner of his screen. He knew that because he had broken in before to get the keys to the warehouse for parts before. Sometimes you had to stretch the rules here if you wanted to meet the quota.

But he guessed that was every job.

"I'm bout to see her boss-man. Keep ya briches on." Neil remarked casually, striding down the corridor after only hesitating a moment.

"Next time you're late I'll write you up." He heard behind him. "Might hire one of the spacers out there, instead."

"Yessir boss!" Neil said, saluting even out of eyesight. His voice went down in volume when he spoke next. "You can space deez nuts, bitch." And facetiously groped his crotch with his back turned to the increasingly distant camera. Neil saw his friend Paul smiling, having evidently heard. They highfived and Neil turned the corner and stepped up to the front desk to see the elderly Mrs. Riggard. White haired and lined face, she wore a jumpsuit and stood alone, evidently a system traveler on a holiday, if Neil remembered correctly. The lobby was moderately sized, with multiple chairs and a telescreen at the corner for people waiting. There was a huge sign of 'no weapons allowed' at the door.

"Hi, I'm here to pick up my VT-1890," she said with a hopeful smile.

"Hi Mrs. Riggard, yeah I took a look at it yesterday and found there was a bit more work we needed to do with it. So I spent all morning with it, and it's getting oil replaced as we speak. But there's some bad news. You need a new capacitor for your sublight engine. The cost will really depend on how long you're willing to wait."

There was a small gleam in her eye, as if Neil was a challenge to be overcome. He admired the tenacity, but unfortunately no matter what she did, capitalism was going to win. "And what is a capacitor exactly?" She inquired, hoping to stump Neil. Neil smiled with amusement, though he tried to hide it.

"A capacitor is in your engine is needed for torque, ma'am. It connects the wires and is used to giving your sublight engines a bit more oomph."

She shook her head in little movements, as if she was trying to get Neil to speak in even more layman terms. Neil's opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. He placed his hands together like he was performing shadow puppets and moved them from left to right. "So, you want your ship to go zoom zoom? Then a capacitor is needed. You can wait a day and pay a lot, or wait two weeks and pay kind of a lot. And before you ask, I am the manager." He lied, placing a hand to his chest.

Mrs. Riggard blustered, and then walked away, pulling out her communicator and calling whoever in order to vent or wire money, he didn't know. Neil placed his elbows on the counter and watched her walk away with a blasé expression writ across his face. "Ah, the wonders of retail." He said aloud, before the next in line walked up to speak to him. He realized he should have escaped to the back before, so he pushed himself up off the desk.

"Sorry, I'mma need to-" He started, lifting his thumb back to point at the door, about to say he was getting back to it. But the latest customer was probably the hottest woman he had seen in months. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed her before. Neil dropped his hand and felt his mouth go dry. "Uh, something you need?"

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.

Neil raised an eyebrow with a debonair flair and leaned in closer, but despite his body language, something made him hesitate.

What?

No. No, this kind of thing only happens in a dream or a commercial on the holovids. Bad ones too. The commercials, not the dreams. The dreams are usually good. But this was not something that just happened. Neil knew he was cute, handsome even, at least on good days. But just some... some spacer babe showing up and flirting with him? I mean, he wouldn't say no, and he had to ignore the alarm bells. But they were really loud. So loud he wouldn't be surprised if they were audible to others. But he looked at her, and his anatomy took over, the blood seeping from his brain to his lower half. And her outfit was so tight, and her body was so full, and her face was so fucking cute.

He put his hand on his mouth and squinted at her, a knowing smile growing on his face. "You seem like a Callisto girl," he said, referring to the relatively popular, sleek interplanetary transport brand of starship that were renowned for their maneuverability and style. The front of the transport was designed to increase downforce and includes intakes for rapid air cooling, as well as ducts to increase underbody air flow when flying. The aero efficiancy was spectacular value for money, and it was just below being a luxury transport.

"Tell you what-" He said, and without warning, he vaulted over the counter, sliding his feet onto the floor just next to her so they were very close. He rested his elbows on the desk and said. "I got nothing to do the rest of the day, anyway. I can maybe show you some of the ships the station has? I know the guy that owns the place. Might get you a discount. Of course-" He patted himself as if he were a car. "I'm not quite as fast as a Callisto, but I don't think you'd want a one and done guy..." He reached into his pants pocket and produced some shades, donning them, before reduntantly sliding them down so he could see eye to eye with her. "Would ya?"

Neil played it both angles. He knew she was flirting with him, but he wanted to present himself as someone who wanted to help rather than just some sucker. But he did also add in some heavy flirting in case that was not a bluff from her.

"Edwards! Are you done out there!?" David yelled from the office.

"No sir! I'm with a customer!" He called over his shoulder, before giving her a subtle wink and placing a finger to his lips. "Ready to get out of here? By the way, my name's Neil."

Jocasta smiled, charmed in spite of herself by Neil’s brash enthusiasm. She wondered just what he might have done that someone was willing to throw down several million credits to ruin his day. She resisted the urge to think of him as a harmless local, such things had gotten her into trouble before.

“Sure,” she giggled, “a Callisto might suit, let’s see what you have.” They left out the front door pursued by inarticulate cries from the shop owner. Neil took her hand and lead her through a hanger past a series of ships in various stages of disrepair. Some of them looked like junkers, others looked like they were worth a small fortune. Clearly the shop didn’t discriminate when it came to clientele. None of the ships was large enough to be jump capable and Jocasta smiled, wondering what Neil would make of the Dragonfly. She scolded herself for the thought, he was going to get a look at the Dragonfly very soon, though spending a week in her little brig probably wasn’t going to endear him to the ship.

“What do you think, Callisto Mark III,” Neil said, pulling away a greasy cover cloth with a dramatic flourish. The ship beneath was sleek and shaped like a fluted arrowhead with a long projecting bow and short stubby wings. It was painted with green and gold racing stripes of which Jocasta heartily approved.

“Whoa,” she said. Neil nodded and grinned.

“We don’t only deal in clapped out junkers,” he agreed, slapping the canopy release to make the cab retract with a smooth hiss. Jocasta climbed in and turned on the power. It really was a nice model.

“You know how to fly one I take it?” Neil asked.

“Sure do,” she replied, patting the passenger seat, “hop on in, need to make sure I dont steal it.”

Technically Neil did not have the authority to let someone drive one of these. It took someone his boss's level or higher to do that, but if he went and got his boss, he had the distinct feeling the overweight and over-aged man would make this girl uncomfortable with his advances. Granted, Neil wasn't going to shy away from trying to charm her either, but she had come onto him first! With only the briefest hesitation, he hopped into vehicle with her.

"I need to make sure you won't get into more trouble than you're worth," He said jokingly. "Or I'm worth, for that matter."

"You're worth quite a bit," She replied with a wink, closing the cockpit with the press of a button. A carbo-glass screen slid out of a sheath and encapsulated them. Behind the two was a small bulkhead door, leading to a small dwelling where one could place their belongings and shack up for the night on a long trip between planets. Neil cut his glance and regarded her when she asked: "Can we take this out of the station?"

"Not unless you want to get me fired, or you feel lucky enough to make it past the security turrets." He warned, though he wasn't happy about it. Taking a Callisto out into space and sharing a night with this girl was definitely his idea of a good night. Unless she was a brain eating Xenos in disguise or taking him to a gang hit, which could potentially still be on the table, but he was a leap first and ask questions later sort of guy, usually. "You can fly above the business section of the business terminal. They let smaller transports switch docks from there. You could see the whole station from there. I can show you the best dives here."

The Callisto lifted off and sped forward smooth as a whistle. The reactor was compact and purred with a satisfying growl, the lift seamless and the controls turning on a dime. Neil fancied himself a good, even great pilot on most vehicles, but this girl wasn't bad. She learned quickly, zipping the Callisto in a clockwise spin upwards that was entirely not regulation but fun as hell. Neil heard her laughing and he found he was laughing too.

"Damn, you did want to go fast," He said, looking at her with clear interest in his eyes. They leveled off five hundred meters into the terminal, where the structures and cables were few and far between and there was a clear, open space save for a few lazy transports meandering to their destinations. Above them, stars filled the sky, hidden behind a screen of clear carbo-glass half a foot thick. You would have to shoot your way out of the station to get through it, and this vehicle did not have las cannon attached. Below, the business terminal swayed slowly counter clockwise, the various cantinas, tax offices, repairshops, landing bays, and everything else a station needed mapped out below.

Hyperion 3 had used to serve as a naval base, back when earth and humanity's future was bright and filled with endless possibilities. Before the collapse, xenos invasions, and the civil wars that followed. Now it was a pit stop for spacers and transports hauling cargo. Neil wondered what it had been like, back during those days. He knew it was nothing like the old stories, but he had never been to earth. He wanted to visit one day, he found. Spinning just below, barely visibly behind the bulk of the fifteen kilometer business terminal, was the smaller living terminal where the apartments and scant homes of the upper echelons were located. One only need dive down the central lift to go between.

"See that?" Neil said, leaning closer to point past her shoulder, indicating a small boxy shape far below. His voice was hot in her ear. "That's Logan's Gun, the best spot in Hyperion to go out to eat. Want to head there after we take this baby a few laps? I'll buy."

Jocasta grinned as she worked the controls, slaloming gracefully between towering antennae and the stream of other speeders. Normally in interstellar space there were light seconds between objects, but here there was an immediacey of maneuver that got her heart pounding. She feathered the throttle and slid between two skyhooks, large expensive habitats for the rich and powerful that hung from the supports of the outer dome. Access was purely through spacecraft which added to the exclusivity.

"I could eat," Jocasta agreed as she pitched the flyer into a steep dive. It was at that moment she noticed two speeders behind her doing the same. Frowning she made a series of turns and was chagrined to discover that both speeders continued to follow her. Tails. There was always an outside chance these were Haegemony headhunters here for her, but the odds were very good that other hunters were after Neil.

"Something wrong?" Neil asked.

"Someone is following us," Jocasta replied.

"Any chance you boosted a few speeders or something and a few locals are here to settle a score?"

"No, I've been good! I mean, mostly." Neil professed. He had maybe ruffled a few feathers once or twice, but not in awhile and not from anyone with the smarts or temperament to take their revenge cold like this.

"Well, they're on us and I haven't been here more than a few days." She reasoned, pulling the Callisto up to keep the pursuers on their toes. Neil looked at the rear-view screen and saw them gaining on the air-car. The mechanic saw visors lifting and men standing up, lifting small arms. Neil grimaced. He didn't want the hot girl to get hurt, nor for the Callisto to get damaged, and as an afterthought he felt like getting shot would hurt.

"Lemme take the helm," Neil said quickly.

"Gonna show a girl how it's done?" She asked, fluttering her lashes. A plasma bolt shrieked past them, and bullets began to ping across the back of the Callisto. The hot woman gave a squawk and tried to scoot over as Neil slid into the seat, but all that ended up occurring was a tangle of limbs until her shapely butt hit the seat just beside Neil.

"Go go go!" She said, but Neil did the last thing anyone would expect. He put the Callisto in neutral mode, took a deep breath, and then shut its engine off. There was a sudden feeling of weightlessness and silence as the thrumming of the power halted, and then the vehicle plummeted towards the station. Bullets and lasers whizzed by just above them as Neil put his glasses on and his seat belt, in that order.

"Might wanna strap in, babe." He advised, and the hot girl hurriedly did so as they began to pick up speed. Neil counted to eight aloud, and just before it seemed like they would shatter onto the tallest spire, Neil flipped the switch, the engine roaring to life like a terran lion. As an afterthought, he flipped on the radio, music blaring to life as he took control of the fall. He spun the air-car, nose diving under a maintenance zip, one of the many bridges where self propelled storage units were shipped across the terminal, before skimming just ten meters above the main drag of the terminal in a swoop that sent wind scattering clothing and loose papers on the street below.

"Where are they?" Neil asked, switching gears.

"Ten o'clock." The girl called. "Two hundred meters back, maybe."

"Good eye," Neil remarked, impressed. Neil nearly hit the Soaked Stack, lurching the Callisto sideways until the aft and bow switched places, the back boosters igniting in flames as Neil reversed directions over an alleyway just as one of their pursuers rocketed towards them.

"Should I start panicking?" The girl asked.

"I got this," Neil remarked, switching power to the lift thrusters, knowing this pursuer was going too fast to stop. The Callisto burst upwards, leaping over the air-car. The two saw a brief flash of Xenos and human faces before the vehicle slammed into an office building at 172 kilometers per hour. Neil switched thrusters again and turned the Callisto in an arc, launching the air-car into a gaping, industrial hole in the wall of the terminal as the other three cars came into view. Curiously, Neil saw they looked to be fighting themselves too just as blackness overtook them, the lights flaring to life on the front of the vehicle. Neil saw the shaft immediately squeeze into a smaller tunnel, and the lights touched a dead end suddenly. The fact it was an end that transformed into a forked path was little comfort

"Start panicking!" Neil blurted, hauling the vehicle back with all power before turning it, testing the Callisto's craftsmanship to its limits as the air-car skidded through the air like a stone tossed above a lake, the wall leaping to meet them until the last moment, Neil chasing the Callisto to a left trajectory as its back end pinged on the steel of the wall. Before they flew down the turn, in the distance they saw flames from other engines flashing in their vision.

"These fuckers are relentless!" Neil amazed, rocketing the vehicle forward another three hundred meters before they reached an opening, leading into a small pocket where the recycled water met in an four sided aqueduct where eight tunnels met. Neil didn't take any tunnels, instead dropping the Callisto down just below the opening to land on a rusted alcove, shutting the engines and the radio off and freezing. Twenty seconds passed, and no pursuit was evident. Either they went the wrong way, they gave up, or they did not see where exactly Neil and the woman went. The former and the latter were more likely than the second thought.

Neil took his glasses off and whistled appreciatively. "I haven't done a chase like that in...well not for awhile. Are you good?" He asked. hoping she was ok. She seemed pumped up after it. That was endearing. A fellow adrenaline junkie. "Sexy right? Also I'm pretty sure you haven't told me your name yet."

“Very sexy,” Jocasta agreed, stretching languidly as her body burned off the adrenaline from the chase. She smiled and extended a hand for Neil to shake.

“My name is Jocasta ap’Gwyn,” she said with a smile as they shook hands. Her face took on a slightly guilty look for a moment.

“Pleased to meet you Neil and you are locked and served,” she told him as her other hand came out of her jacket and thrust a stun tube into Neil’s chest, the injector cracking with a hiss of compressed air as it drove home its payload of narcotics and nerve inhibitors. The mechanic was still smiling as the sedative plunged him into blackness.

________

Neil awoke to the hum of subspace drives, the warm embrace of narcotic sleep still clinging to his extremities. He was in a cell which had probably begun life as military brig, but had been improved by the application of a thick coat of synthetic rubber to prevent prisoners from hurting themselves. A lattice of woven crystal mono-mesh had been installed across the door to prevent egress. A sonic shower and refresher unit were installed in one corner, though there was no provision for privacy. Outside a woman marched back and forth with precision that would have made a Galavite Drill Instructor proud. She was dressed in what appeared to be ancient Terran garments from the French Revolution, complete with a heavy musket slung over one shoulder. She was attractive, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the white powder she wore on her face and the fact that instead of hair she had a series of small snakes projecting from her skull. The snakes were tied up in a bun, and appeared to be gasping for breath which was restricted by the scrunchie the woman was wearing.

“Hey, you’re finally awake,” the woman remarked without pausing in her ceaseless and, now that Neil had time to contemplate it, silent, march. The snakes wheezed and hisses irritable as she spoke.

“You’ll have to forgive Cygi,” Jocasta said as she slid down an access ladder from an upper deck. She was dressed in a white flight suit with a green stripe down the seam. It was no affectation as one often saw in stationside bars, but a working suit, rated for vacuum with the addition of a helmet.

“She can be a bit eccentric,” Jocasta explained. All of the snakes ceased their gasping and tilted their head in exactly the same attitude as Cygi continued to march back and forth, switching her musket from one shoulder to the other with admirable precision. Several mechanical dragonflies floated down on soundless wings and the snakes began doing their best to strike at the little drones, though the hair tie prevented them from doing more than snapping a few inches short.

Jocasta took a selection of ration bars from a crate and fed them through a chute which emerged a few seconds later into the interior of the cell. She glanced up at her prisoner.

“Are you thirsty? We got some beer before we left Titan,” she explained nonchalantly.

Neil rubbed his eyes, sitting up. His head was killing him, and his chest felt constricted. The movement of merely sitting up caused his arm to twitch, which brought back the memory of the mystery girl electrocuting him mid-introduction. Well, maybe it wasn't the worst thing to happen to him when he was flirting, but it wasn't the average. Now he was in some prison cell, likely military, he realized. He groggily got to his feet, before he saw the AI marching back and forth, and lo and behold the hot girl sliding down in a porcelain uniform to greet him.

Jocasta was her name, right. He rubbed his head, thinking he might have hit it. No, no bumps, not that it was easy to tell. Even cut short, his dark hair was thick. His mouth was dry too, now that he thought about it. At least she was cool enough to offer some snacks and a beer. He had a feeling she was cool.

"Yeah...yeah I'm a little thir- wait a second!" Neil barked, leaping back with a sudden clarity. He looked left and right, and then at the girl with an accusatory glance, which was quickly replaced by confusion. His heart began to race a beat quicker as he began to ask his questions. "We're not on Hyperion 3 anymore? What the hell did you do? Wait wait wait..."

The Callisto, the chase, the stun tube sending him to the ground. Oh fuck, he was probably fired now! There would be cameras that saw him take the girl out and everything, and then he disappears like that! Fuuuuck, he thought. What about his apartment? His goldfish? How long had he been out? He felt anger flare up in him for a moment, but Neil was good at keeping that part of him under control. He cleared his head for a second, thinking aloud. "Ok so, you're either a cop, a bounty hunter, or you got some kind of clingy thing going on." He supposed none of those options were ideal, but it really depended on how he would handle the situation.

Cygi, the little AI, whirred and transformed into a severe looking blouse and pencil skirt, hair tied in a bun with a switch in her hands, taking the form of a sexy school instructor. A traffic light popped into existed beside her with A, B, and C on the three vertical lights. B flared brightly and she indicated it with her switch, adjusting her glasses. Ok so, Bounty Hunter. He must have gotten lazy, he hadn't expected there to be a bounty on him so far into the core worlds. That also explained the chase.

Well, Neil was nothing if not resilient. He could take even the worst circumstances in stride. He gave a salute to the little AI, not surprised such a funny and sexy girl would have an AI that was extremely similar in those regards. Now that he had the situation figured out a bit, he switched gears. He smoothed his hair to make sure no cowlicks were strewn around, and then languidly leaned against the bars of the cell with a sly grin, looking for all the world like she was the prisoner and not him.

"So uh, is there a mister bounty hunter?"

Jocasta slid a can of beer into the chute. It rattled and bumped its way into the cell. Neil picked up the can and opened it, foam bubbled up out of the shaken can and he hastily slurped it down. She opened her own beer, which owing to not being bounced around, behaved itself. She sat down and took a bite of green chewy candy.

"It isn't really a gig that does alot for dating. You know how it is, you meet someone fun, then you have to eletrocute them and drag them into the hold of a jump ship," she said philisophically before taking another sip of beer. Cygi transformed from her sexy school teacher into a hulking mass of metal armor and a jump pack. The jump pack lit silently and blasted her into the ceiling, into which she vanished before reappearing from a closet, blowing smoke out from beneath a dented visor.

"Interesting that you were equally worried about cops and clinging women, but not to worry, I gave your notice to your boss and found a home for your goldfish," she assured him.

"I also bought the Callisto. It was a pretty fun ride."

"Well I wasn't worried about the clingy thing," Neil clarified, cracking open the beer and sipping it. He did add the concession of, "though I think even I would consider electrocution and abduction a red flag."

It wasn't the best beer, but it wet the throat and at least he might get a light buzz. Her little partner was still up to her antics, but he found they were up his alley. He took in her words, and he felt something pique his curiosity. Something that was incessantly nagging at his thoughts.

Truthfully, Neil had no idea what to think. He had met Bounty Hunters before. Even a few female ones. They were all tough as iron, and would sooner hit him than look at him, and he did not blame them for it. It's just what one expected. An image of a cyborg hunter he once knew flitted through his mind, with a cybernetic eye and half of his face peeled off to showcase the steel skeleton beneath. He had been partnered with a hulking, multi-limbed Xenos. The pair had nearly thrown Neil into space. But this girl was an enigma. She hadn't told him sorry, which would honestly have been nice. But she had bothered to look into his affairs enough to keep his goldfish alive. If she was telling the truth, but he couldn't really figure why she would lie to him here.

No, this didn't make sense to Neil. He shook his head and stepped away from the bars, turning on her. "No, hold on... clear something up for me. You and a bunch of other hunters wouldn't be after me unless I was worth something big. Something big enough that you felt like buying a Callisto was fine. Apparently worth more alive..." That fact made him almost lose his train of thought. There was a brief glimpse of something else in his eyes, but it passed quickly. "I get the whole, buttering me up and then stunning me. As much as it might hurt my pride, you had a job to do. But why do you give a fuck about my job or my things?" He asked, sounding earnestly confused, even distraught.

"I can handle some asshole grabbing me. That I can fuck with, and even have some fun with. But I don't get you, girly. You wouldn't be in this job if you had the heart to do this with all your targets, so why are you sharing a beer with me and making sure my stuff is taken care of before I get executed? And I know I'm getting executed." The last statement was added with a light chuckle, and it was clear he was speaking more to himself. He had come to terms with it two years ago, if he ever got caught. Neil had spent the last two years running and fighting for every scrap of what he had to his name, finally ending up at Hyperion 3 with an alright job coupled with shit benefits and no respect. And the years before that had been spent fighting a war and losing friends and a lover. The scoundrel was far more used to hostility than kindness. It had gotten almost comfortable.

"I just got to know." He said, and raised his brows, open to her clarification. Neil considered for a moment if this was all an act of some kind. He and the girl were around the same age. He guessed there was a possibility she did find him cute or endearing and wasn't enjoying this, but unless she specified he would be in limbo the whole trip, or at least a little suspicious.

Jocasta pondered the question. Bounty hunting wasn't a trade for those that were particularly squeamish, the types of people who could afford to have their enemies hunted down were rarely pleasant. There were various ways of justifying the work, few of them satisifying in the long term.

"To be honest," Jocasta admitted, "you aren't normally the kind of target I go after. It just so happened that I stumbled across you in the Soak Stack."

"I just happened to be in town when my actual target got hit by a ground car, just bad luck I stumbled across you. I have no idea what you might have done to get such a huge bounty put on you, but I have a ship to run, Cygi to keep in computing power, all that."

"Also you don't know you are going to be executed. No one pays 5.4 millions to have someone brought in alive if they are just going to kill them. It'd be way cheaper to have me shoot you and take a gene sample."

Neil laughed. "Hey, don't worry about it," He said, waving his hand to showcase he did not hold a grudge. "I mean, yeah I would rather you be an asshole so I didn't feel bad about escaping, but I know it's not personal either. Though you got to admit, we would have had fun on the date. Maybe if I escape the Terrans and you're like, not on the clock..."

He had a grin on his face until she wiped it away with how much he was worth. His eyes bugged out for a moment, and he whistled appreciatively. "5.4 million, goddamn. That is insane. I guess that is what treason gets you these days." He thought aloud. She was also right, they weren't going to just kill him. They were probably going to parade him around a bit first, do some good old fashioned interrogation on where the remainder of his friends were. The fact he had no idea where anyone from Ferrus was these days wouldn't have mattered. The federals loved torturing rebels. "Hey, how long have I been out?"

"Over a standard day!" Cygi replied, her voice echoing through the junkyard iron helmet she wore.

Neil pondered the revelation for a second. If they were going out of system, they had another day before they were FTL safe. If they were traveling in-system, they had another day or two with the sub-light engines. As Neil began to think, suddenly Cygi popped her head out of the armor, and there was a rapid beeping emitting from the hall. "Whoa, warning!" She cried. The lights began to flash, and the beeping became a small siren.

Neil looked up. "Toilet busted?"

"Heat signatures!" Cygi cried. "Cruise missiles on our tail! 78% likelihood they're aiming for our engines!"

"Oh for Stars sake!" Jocasta snapped, jumping to her feet and pitching the remainder of her beer into the recycler. She gave Neil a sour look.

"If these are friends of yours and they break my ship, I shall be very put out!" She declared jumping into a nearby grav chute. The area of localized gravity made her 'fall' upwards and so she gracefully landed on the command deck. Cygi was already in position, for once she appeared as she was programmed, a featureless female figure of silvery light standing in front of the signals console. Jocasta dived into the pilots chair, grabbing the controls as dragonfly drones zipped around her, fastening her crash webbing. There were six incoming swarm missiles, a full salvo from a converted torpedo boat that was several hundred thousand kilometers behind them. It had been lurking in a line of regular traffic which had caused the sensors to disregard it. A second ship, a converted bulk freighter was pulling out to join it, though it seemed to be armed only with beam weapons.

Jocasta wrenched the controls sideways, putting the Dragonfly into a long corkscrew that slewed it around its central axis. Reaching the edge of PDS range the swarm missiles burst, deploying a payload of a hundred small seeker heads. Six missiles became six hundred. Jocasta fired her PDS. Three rear mounted 20mm beams lit, pulsing gogolwatts of brilliant blue green beams of energized particles backwards like laser lights at a rave. She waggled the Dragonfly's ample nacelles in an attempt to sweeps as many warhead from the void as she could. Each time a beam touched a seeker head it burst into a brilliant brief star far to the rear of the Dragonfly. A counter appeared next to her holographic piloting rig. 823, 761, 503, 255, 190... The surviving warheads hit. Jocasta was slammed forward against her restraint harness as her status boards went red, system after system reporting overload. They had been firing EMP rounds or half the rear engines would have been blown away, but there was still a certain amount of explosive splash from the warheads rocket drivers.

"Mother fuckers!" Jocasta yelled, ripping open an emergency panel on her control chair. She pulled a pneumatic lever on a telescoping optic fiber. An old fashioned artillery gun unfolded from the hull and rotated around, providing a low tech gunsight view through the optics. Both the enemy vessels were coming on fast, intent on boarding. Jocasta centered the gunsight on the the freighter and pulled the firing lanyard. She felt the gun crash through the hull and saw an explosion blossom on the bow of the overconfident freighter. Its forward section blew out in a spray of escaping air which torqued it sideways and away from the Grasshopper. A low powered beam from the missile boat swatted the old fashioned gun a moment before it's boarding claws clanged against the hull.

Neil gave a look that seemed both offended and distraught, before he called after her. "Hey! I don't have any friends!"

That was the last time he saw her. At least, before whirring lights and a sense of vertigo, followed by a sudden shuddering of the ship that nearly knocked him off his feet. Neil caught himself, looking around for Jocasta to arrive at any second. But she never did. A great rending of steel could be heard, no, felt, by Neil. It was followed by a grinding sound that Neil could only describe as a can opener mixed with an industrial welder. He downed the last bit of beer and tossed the can, setting his butt down on the only chair in the cage, resting his arms on his knees and waiting.

Minutes passed as lights flickered and ubiquitous bumping and further grinding could be heard. Briefly Neil wondered if Jocasta was ok, but he pushed the thought aside. He didn't owe her anything. Even with everything she did, if he got out of this without being executed he would have to find another home again, far away. Maybe in the cerulean cluster. He had always wanted to go there, actually. Gerumi IV was supposed to have amazing beaches.

As he thought of it, footsteps echoed from the corridor to the right. Neil couldn't see past the wall, but in a few moments three hulking figures strode into view, their eyes scanning the room until they inevitably fell on Neil. The scoundrel grinned and looked up.

"Hey there fellas." He said. Now this was a situation he was comfortable in. Living on the edge, with people he knew hated him. Jocasta had been cool, but then he almost felt like she pitied him, after he was caught. It had almost been awkward, though granted she probably didn't enjoy throwing him to the wolves. Maybe at another point they would have their third, first start.

If she wasn't dead.

For the men in front of him, one was undoubtedly a mutant, his jaw oversized with small tusks jutting up over his top lip, wearing a type of flak armor. One eye was larger than the other, and he had a horn atop his head. The other two were mere humans in varied scraps of armor, though they were scarred and about as large as the mutant. One was slimmer than the other, carrying a Vapodon blaster rifle, one of the new models with the low-yield plasma cartridges. The bigger one placed a rectangular scanning device before Neil, a red light running over Neil's form as the bounty hunter grumbled.

"Neil Edwards. War Criminal. Treason. A dozen minor infractions. 5.4 million credits. Confirmed." The device barked.

"That's him," the hunter remarked, redundantly. His eyes met Neil's and he scowled, taking out a laspistol and stepping back, aiming at the locking mechanism. "Now don't do anything stupid, scum. You're coming with us."

"Well let's be fair." Neil said mockingly. "If I didn't do anything stupid, I wouldn't be here in the first place and you wouldn't have a meal ticket."

Las-shots and cries were head down the narrow build of the Dragonfly. Neil wondered what was happening. At least it seemed like Jocasta was still alive.

Jocasta felt distressingly alone. The backup generators didn't juice enough to run Cygi's processor and being without her the ship seemed very empty. It wasn't vast and empty of course, because as she sat morosely those bastards were cutting a hole in it! The drones hastily undid her crash harness and she pulled her pistol from her holster. She hurried over to the main reactor cut off and through the emergency switch, starting the spool up on what power she had left in the capacitor banks. There wasn't enough for the weapons but maybe she could get some other stuff running.

The buzz in the corner of her eye whipped he head around a moment before a las bolt blasted out of a hallway, striking her chair and blowing a chunk of plastic to greasy smoke. Jocasta fired back with her beamer, spinning the appature wide so it blasted out in a sheet. It wasn't potent enough to kill that way, but the scream from her attacker informed her that he had just recieved the worst sunburn of his life. One of her drones darted forward and triggered a hydraulic override and the pressure door slammed down sealing the bridge. That was only a temporary reprieve of course. As soon as they got Neil off the ship they would blow the Dragonfly to atoms. She needed to change the game. Pulling open an emergency locker she pulled out a vacumn helmet and pulled it on, powering it up as she vented the bridge air, blowing out a storm of candy wrappers and bottle caps. She disengaged the artifical grav and floated out with it, catching the lip of the cockpit glass and swinging herself out onto the hull. With a leap she launched herself down the ventral spine of the grasshopper to where the attacking missleboat lay clamped like a lion on its meat. She reached the airlock and pulled a small cutting tool from her belt. Carefully she slit the rubber umbilicus open and slid through with minimal spillage of air. The guard at the hard lock gave her a shocked look. She shot him in the chest, this time with her beamer dialed up needle fine, dropping him where he stood. A few moments later and she was inside the enemy ship. She pulled a data chip from a hair pin and plugged it into the enemy mainframe. It only took a minute for military grade counter encryption programs to break in.

"Yuck, where did this mother learn to board?!" Cygi declared as she appeared beside Jocasta. The AI was dressed in a ghillisuit of bright pink fabric. Jocasta grinned.

"I have a plan."

Neil held his hands up to show he had no weapon as the cell opened. The big merc up front aimed his gun at Neil, but didn't fire. He seemed to think the journey to their ship was so close, stunning Neil wouldn't be needed. He grabbed Neil's shoulder and yanked the scoundrel out of the cell.

"Alright, alright!" Neil said, but only halfheartedly. He wasn't too disturbed by switching custody from one bounty hunter to another. Granted, Jocasta was a lot easier on the eyes, and nicer, but hey it happens. The mutant regarded him with open contempt, but Neil just gave a little wave before he was pushed again. All guns now trained on him, he stepped forward.

"So, you guys been a team long?" He said as he followed the slim one, the other two just behind. "Or was it me that brought that happy family together?"

"Shut it, you little shit," one of the big ones behind him spat.

It was at that moment the gravity shut off. Neil felt a small tug at his center, and then his whole body was weightless. He blinked as he began to float, now fully a meter off the ground. The bounty hunters grunted in surprise and started floating too, cursing and confused.

"Ok, that wasn't me," Neil said, having kept completely still, though his eyes snapped left and right.

"If this was Borlaine's doin', I'll wring his neck," the mutant growled, flapping his hands to try and get somewhere he could push off for momentum. Neil decided now was the perfect time to try his luck. He wasn't an expert at no-grav combat scenarios, but he had fought plenty of times in his mech in upper orbit and it was not dissimilar in principal. He suddenly tucked his legs under him and using his arms as weights, spun in mid air to get horizontal, his chest parallel to the floor. His legs snapped back, crunching into the face of the bigger human, breaking his nose. Blood slowly floated in the air as his laspistol went off, the projectile burning a mark in the wall and ricocheting into another room before dissipating. Neil's body shot forward, and he grabbed the skinny hunter's neck in a chokehold. His bicept against the man's neck, he grabbed for Neil's arm, the hunter's firearm now floating without a wielder.

Neil thought he had the situation well in hand, but these guys weren't bounty hunters for nothing. The slim one tucked and rolled almost as Neil had, sending the scoundrel end over end, bumping his head into the wall. Neil saw the other two hunters, using one another to push their bodies in opposite directions so they could grab sections of wall to better pull themselves toward Neil. Before he knew it, the skinny hunter had reversed positions with him, grappling Neil now as the other two big ones flew in to help. Neil tugged at the arm around his arm and neck, but it was no use. On instinct he kicked out, his foot shoving the Vapodon blaster rifle down the hall as he reached behind him, grabbing for the hunter's belt. His fingers found what they were looking for just before his vision started to fade and the man's rancid breath the last thing he might remember. Quickly, he pulled the man's combat knife out, redirected the blade, and stabbed into the hunter's arm.

His screech echoed down the hall and he hastily let Neil go, crying out in pain as even more blood meandered through the air. Neil kicked off the wall and shot into the next room, apparently finding himself in the kitchen. He passed by a decal plastered above the sink with the script "Certified Baddie" on it. Just under it and above the sink was a space in the wall that one could use to speak or watch whoever was eating in the mess hall. Neil passed by the fridge and food compartments before he hit the electrowave cooker, pulling himself down by the handle as he started to rifle through the drawers. Can openers, utensils, and spices flew this way and that. Neil couldn't find anything he could work with, but then his devious mind started working and he glanced at the oven.

"Oi, where'd he go!?"

"Down there you shit!"

The three rounded the corner to see Neil floating there, his ass out and his front half buried in the electrowave oven. Just as they realized he wasn't knocked out or stuck, Neil pulled himself out and shut the door of the oven, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. He glanced to his left and saw the bounty hunters aiming their weapons at him.

"Shit!" He cursed, having expected to give a quip or maybe explain what was about to happen, but instead he shoved himself off the wall and pressed his limbs tightly together so he slipped just out of the kitchen under the wall-space as their lasblasts hit the oven.

The ensuing explosion from the wires Neil had cut and readied to ignite when at a certain temperature were instead 'detonated' in a sense, immediately. Neil spun to look, feeling the heat from the flames, the light mesmerizing. One did not get to appreciate fire in no-grav scenarious often. It was like water, running over everything it touched. It didn't keep long on the laminate tops and appliances, but it caressed the men in a deceptively enchanting fashion. They couldn't appreciate it as much as Neil, though.

They just started screaming.

Jocasta charged up the gangway towards the bridge. The two crewmen guarding the hatch opened fire blasting her with flechettes and las beams. She staggered and fell, hitting the deck and rolling to a stop. One of the guards, a broken nosed man with a shotgun, stepped forward and kicked her in the chest. Or tried to. The boot passed clean through her with a shimmer.

"What..." he demanded as the woman sat up. Despite dozens of hits she bore no wounds, not even damage to her clothing.

"Charge!" Jocasta cried and a dozen Jocasta's came charging out of a side passageway, brandishing pikes and swords. One of them even had a silken standard depicting a emerald dragon fly.

"What the fuck!" one of the guards screamed, and then opened fire, filling the corridor with the flash of gunfire. This time it only took a moment for them to realize that the guns had no effect. The army of Jocasta's crashed over them passing through them harmlessly.

"They are all holograms?" one of the guards asked.

"Not quite all of us," Jocasta admitted, as she stepped out of the crowd and stunned both crewmen.

____

"Where is my gravity?" Jocasta demanded as she came back aboard. Cygi was back in her transfer chip to be uploaded to the main database. She wrinkled her nose. "And why is something on fire?"

Jocasta rotated herself around and disengaged the airlock controls. There was a soft hiss of venting air as the clamps disengaged and the two ships began to drift appart. Jocasta only had her inner airlock left owing to the way the enemy had cut their way in. There was a snap and the lights came up. Cygi appeared beside her, wearing a sleeping robe complete with a cucumber face mask.

"We are back, I do not detect Edwards aboard," she admitted.

"No time to worry about it," Jocasta said, kicking off down towards the bridge. She slipped into her chair and kicked her engines live. Behind her the missile boat was also beginning to maneuver. It sluggishly turned its bow towards the second bounty hunter ship, the converted freighter, that was now only a hundred thousand miles distant. The whole bow of the missile boat lit up as the preprogrammed attack Jocasta had planned on its bridge computer began to launch, hurling dozens of swarm missiles at it would be partner.

"Thirty seconds to jump," Jocasta told Cygi, although the computer knew to the microsecond. She slid more power to her engines, taking ever watt the reactors could squeeze as they spun up.

"Subroutines intact, power still up, motherboard still impressive as hell...Ok..." Neil murmured, sliding out of the paneling and reapplying the flat back just under the monitor. The mainframe of the ship was located in the cockpit, but Neil could pull off a few wonders from the lesser directive tables on the ship. He placed his back against the wall and sat there, realizing he now had to think...

What to do next?

The grav had come back on and the two ships had detatched. That much he could gather from the sound and the...well, the gravity. But now that he was undetectable and he had three guns to choose from, he needed to figure out on what his plan was. Yeah, he could get the drop on Jocasta, put a gun on her. But was that the best thing to do? Even he managed to shove her in the cell and took over the ship, it would take a lot of doing to make Cygi loyal to him, and if he was completely honest, he didn't want to fuck over Jocasta or her little bot. He groaned.

He really needed to let go of this attraction he had, but he had to admit her first impressions are just amazing.

His thought process was interrupted by the jump engine. He knew that whirring anywhere. Judging by the speed of its acceleration, Neil could tell it was a good engine. This little bird was a nimble little starship. If Jocasta hadn't been blindsided he doubted those amateurs could have caught up.

As the ship slipped into the jump, Neil decided to just do what he did best.

Improvise.

---

"Light damage to the ship. Mostly aesthetics, but the hull could regain some integrity!" Cygi said, her outfit now essentially a Mary-Poppins costume, her left leg out behind her and her head forward like the human version of a pointer hound, umbrella just above her. The meter on the jumpspace display giving small possible variations to their destination. It was exceedingly difficult to change a route once jumped, but small dimensional abnormalities could be manipulated in rare circumstances. "Closest system is the Alpha Centauri!"

"Ugh, I need a bath...and a drink...and a job. Mom was right." Jocasta sighed, leaning back in her chair and blowing away a fringe of her hair.

"Yeah, I've been there." Neil said. Cygi turned and her eyes quite literally popped out of her head in a cartoonish fashion while Jocasta blinked, looking at Neil like a deer caught in the headlights. He stood in the doorway to the cockpit, Vapodon blaster rifle aimed at her. Easy to load, clean, and operate, it had bipod attachment folded and its curved magazine jutted out from the top like a horn.

"Ok, I know this is awkward." He said. Damn, now he was nervous. "But I really like living, and I don't like that cage at all. And I know I can't really talk my way out of that bounty, but I also seriously don't want to shoot you either. So can we negotiate on something or...?"

"A little," Jocasta agreed, her own weapon was out of reach. Several of the dragonfly drones who had been playing at the edges of the cockpit vanished into ventilation vents and crawl spaces looking for all the world like startled birds. In truth they were making their way through the air vents trying to find some kind of advantage. Cygi shifted in a tall biomechanical figure with a dark suit and a red laser sword. Jocasta shook her had imperceptibly. Cygi had used that gambit once before, gassing both Jocasta and her opponent and then dealing with the unconscious bodies, but Neil wouldn't pass out fast enough to stop him from shooting her.

"He is responsible for the smell in the galley," Cygi reported, shifting into a facsimile of Jocasta and wrinkling her nose. There was a slight blur to the side of her face that Jocasta could see. Jocasta shook her head again, that wouldn't work either unfortunately. Cygi flickered back to her own form this time wearing a bulky old flack vest with the runes F B I emblazoned on them and a bull horn in her hand. Jocasta didn't get the reference but now wasn't the time to discuss it.

It was time to be sensible about this. Negotiate now or get a bullet in the stomach later.

"You owe me 5.4 million..." she cast an eye at Cygi who mouthed additional numbers. "Two hundred and twelve thousand six hundred and ninety one credits." Cygi cleared her throat. Jocasta rolled her eyes.

"Fine. Two hundred and six thousand six hundred and ninety one credits," she corrected. Neil blinked in surprise.

"What is the discount for?" Neil asked inspite of himself. Jocasta sighed.

"Cygi apparently feels I should refund your commission on the car," she explained.

"I'm soft hearted," Cygi explained opening up her chest as though it were a cabinet and retriving a heart. She peered at it skeptically for a moment and then hurriedly stuffed it back inside when it began beating.