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

[POOHEAD189]

"I see you did not explain to her that respect goes a very long way in my presence," Volkavax warned, his words for Dirk but his eyes narrowing to cat-like slits as he glared at Jocasta. Interestingly, Jocasta would feel a psychic presence coming from the boss, showcasing he too could dominate wills or read minds, potentially. Depending on how strong of mind the victim was. Dirk's face was unreadable behind his mask, and when he said nothing, Volkavax snorted like a bull.

"Yes, business... you have brought the body of Chalnarc?" Even as he spoke, inspectors with bionic eyes attached to visors welded their heads approached, checking the encasement to make certain the individual inside was who they had intended to find. A moment passed, and their visors blinked green, giving off binary codes to confirm the bounty. The purple tongue snaked out of Volkavax's great maw and slithered about its snout to showcase just how pleased he was. "Mephisto Sabre will be overjoyed we have brought his old business partner to justice. Very good, Crimson, as usual. However, I will not grant any more funds to give both you and your...partner, a full share."

The old Dirk Crimson would have turned and shot Jocasta without pause, solving the problem right then and there. But he was getting soft, he supposed. The talks of 'honor' he had received as a child had begun to creep back into his head as of late, and he had given her his word they would split it. "Just wire the funds to me, and I'll give her half." He said in no uncertain terms. "Tell Mephisto if he has anything else for us, just say the word. Always ready to do someone else's dirty work for them."

"Looking for more work already?" The xenos snickered; a terrible sound to human ears. His underlings laughed with him, else they might find disfavor. Even the girls giggled. "There will be a bounty board set up by the planet's next cycle. Relax and take a load off, my friend. Go and enjoy some drinks on me, for a job well done. You have earned your place here at my side, and if she is worthy of your company, then she may walk freely as well."

Dirk gave a nod, though whether of acknowledgement or thanks it was hard to tell. Gesturing for Jocasta to follow, he turned and walked out, checking his cryptopad to find he had another 20,000 galactic units in his account. As soon as the two of them found a table, he would wire the money over.

[Penny]

Jocasta relaxed as the credits appeared into her account. The heavy revolver she had selected had been no accident. There wasn't much short of anti-material rifles that would punch through dirks armors, or Volkavax's scales, but the capacitor fed heavy laser might have had a shot. She was just as glad she didn't have to find out for sure. It wouldn't make sense for Dirk to kill her now, the encryptions on a credit account were terrabytes in complexity, something that even quantum computers would need hundreds of years to crack.

"Well that went well," Jocasta commented, waving at a bar tending robot. The droid turned a sensor towards her and a drink menu flashed up in her augments. She ordered three shots of pepper whiskey and a sandwich with shaved protein. A hovering delivery drone arrived a minute later with three shot glasses still smoking with the vapor of the liquer. She tossed off one shot right away, then took a sip from the second before setting it down on the bar.

"So do you always work alone?" she asked, downing the second shot before picking up the smoking sandwhich and taking a bite.

"Not big on guns myself," she said around a mouthful of meat and bread.

"Too chancy," she explained.

[POOHEAD189]

Dirk's face hidden behind his helm, it was clear his thoughts on Jocasta drinking two of the three shots as soon as the glasses hit the table. Slowly he turned to look at her, and then equally slow he reached for the other shot glass and picked it up. Reaching to his neck, he unlatched his face helm and opened it just far enough to take the shot, closing it back up again as he put the glass down. He placed the shot glass down with a 'clink' and decided he wasn't too hungry just yet.

"Last time I did a job with a partner, things went south and kept plummeting." He explained vaguely. A few residents, both human and xeno, that passed by their table gave nods or made hand signs in respect to Dirk. 'Whaado Maso Crimson' a purple skinned alien said, its mouth made up of various membrane folds. Dirk paid none of them any real attention, evidently expecting such treatment. "Almost wasn't worth the money, and I don't take jobs that aren't worth the money."

Raising a gloved hand, he had the shot glasses refilled. This time, he downed two of them in quick succession. He even took a bite of his sandwich, finding he might as well put some food in him while he could. "The Chalnarc job went smooth as Xevakrach Silk in comparison." He said, referring to the legendary spider beasts found on one of planet Ylnir's moons. "A little bumpy, but most jobs are. Plus you have a nice ass, which helps your case."

Even without seeing his expression, it was clear he was just being honest, even if a bit cheeky.

"I just need one more job, and then I get to reclaim a piece of equipment that was taken from me. Call it a sentimental token." Even right now, it was rough admitting Volkavax had 'commandeered' his most prized possession as collateral to keep him working, mostly to help pay for the damages in the botched mission of Vogal 9. The one upside was that he killed his 'partner' Grin after it as his own personal 'thank you.' He only wished he could kill him a second time.

[Penny]

"Well, a nice ass and smile will get you further than just a nice ass, but really not that much further," Jocasta philosophized around a mouthful of sandwich. The meat was chewy which actually meant it was of better quality that the vat grown alternative that didn't bother with the striations of actual muscle.

"I'm sorry your partner was mean to you," she said, her tone a touch mocking. She was about to continue in this vein when she noticed four men enter through the door. They were chatting with one and other about something, but the threads of their conversations didn't quite mesh with the slight psychic undertone her gifts usually provided her. Nonchalantly she raised her hand to stroke her ear, the dragonfly curled around her wrist providing her with a view behind her where another trio of men, dressed as chefs but far too clean to have been doing the job were emerging from the kitchen pushing a cart. A white cloth was drapped over what might have been an expensive meal, but which Jocasta's expensive enhancements gave a better than 80 percent chance of being a shot gun and a pair of short barreled riot carbines.

"Shit," she said under her breath and reached down and tossed off the final shot.

"I get the feeling someone dosen't want you to get your sentimental attachment back," she told him.

[POOHEAD189]

Dirk's face was unreadable behind his helm, but it was plain to see even without her powers that he was giving her a look that was a curious mix of vexxed yet appreciative. He was about to speak when she pointed out a threat from behind him. He glanced behind him subtly, noticing the gang of men but noticing just how well they hid their motives. Had he not actively been suspicious due to her warning, he might not have noticed even with his experienced eye. Either she had a great eye, or there was something more about her than he had initially thought.

The killer then saw the white sheet and recognized one of the curvatures from his time smuggling on the West Cliosthenes. There was a slight indention 60 degrees down the left. Riot carbines.

Did he remember their faces? He didn't. Wait, he knew the second one. The stubby forehead, oft broken nose... he remembered breaking it. Dirk turned back to Jocasta and gave a nod, the female hunter seeing his hand already on the hilt of his gun, as if he had the same premonition. His gloved fingers closing around the grip slowly. There was a strict no-shooting policy, lest one get kicked out of the tower for 5 standard years. These men like as not were paid by someone to kill him and take the blame, and getting banned was likely not a worry for them. They also knew he wouldn't dare shoot first, and so they approached another few feet before they were in range of Dirk...

And then one of them clutched their head, a grunt turning into a strange gurgle. Dirk turned around and looked at him, and then he glanced at Jocasta, who seemed to be watching the tortured man intently. Once Dirk returned to watching them, the other three were confused and halted, hesitating. Dirk swiftly got up, walking to the writhing man clutching his head. The bounty hunter slipped his arm under his and helped him stay on his feet, casually pushing him into the arms of the third man.

"You better get him out of here, mate. He seems under the weather," Dirk said quietly, and the point of his DMX Heavy blaster was pressed to the third man's kidney. His face went white, nodding and motioning the others to start moving backwards. The other two didn't at first, watching him cautiously. Dirk simply shoved his gun barrel further into the man's side, and took hold of the cart with his free hand. "In fact, it would be in everyone's good health to leave now. And I mean now."

The menace in his voice was dripping, and they began to back up. Slowly, calmly, Dirk took control of the cart and pulled the stockpile of weapons away from the men, disarming them and bringing his new load of munitions back to the table. He kept himself standing until they left, watching them intently and then taking his seat at their table. He lifted his helmet a bit to take a sip of his drink.

"That headache of his was lucky for us," he commented neutrally.

[Penny]

"Shit," Jocasta observed as she reached up to touch her nose. Blood was running out of her right nostril and she tried to brush it away, succeeding only to the extent of smearing it across her face. Psychic Techniques or P-tech, worked best in controlled environments where preparations could be made and abilities honed by the use of various drugs and amplification techniques. Direct mental assault, a dream of spooks and assassins everywhere, was an extremely dangerous business which was as likely to injure the attacker as the victim. Even a child possessed resivours of mental strength generated by their neural networks which powerfully resisted disruption, even though Jocasta's mind was disciplined and skilled, she still had to project herself into the mind of her victim and the difficulty increased logarithmically with distance.

"That looks ridiculous you know," Jocasta commented as Dirk once again sipped beneath his helmet. She underscored the point by sticking a napkin up her nostril to staunch the bleeding before slipping the heavy bore capacitor pistol back into its sheath. She was relieved it hadn't come down to a fire fight. Her pistol might stop a light armored vehicle, but three rounds, no matter how powerful, wouldn't have ended this fight. She clicked her wrist twice and two thumb sized drones whirred off following their almost attackers at a discrete distance using preloaded recce sub routines. It wasn't as good as the constellation she normally would have deployed, but she suspected that their hosts might not take it kindly if she appeared to be spying on them.

"Some of those guys looked familiar," she commented after a moment, arching an eyebrow at Dirk.

"Friends of yours?"

[POOHEAD189]

"Then I'll fit right in," Dirk replied with a look that, even through his helmet, anyone could tell meant 'cut the bullshit.' It was also hard to ascertain whether he was insulting her, everyone present, or bounty hunters in general. He slowly looked away, gauging their surroundings to make sure no one was coming from their six. "I've done a few hard ops in my time. One of those men was a thug of someone associated with a target I once had. A target I killed cleanly, but not too quietly. I think it's best if we get off this rock after getting an idea of some more employment."

Jocasta gave him her own unspoken look, which led him to realize she wasn't one for patience or long silences. "Right." He told her, getting out of his seat. He grabbed the blanket covering the Riot Carbines and kept them close in his arms. Good arms were hard to come by. "Follow me."

The strobelights and the music was muffled when they stepped into one of the side doors, the jeers from the racaous crowd washed away to dull hums and thumping as they walked through a level II acess hallway lit from phosphorus lighting on the ceiling. A security officer passed them hurriedly, likely called in by some rich asteroid tycoon needing assistance with scratching his ass. Speaking of asses, he recognized the next shapely thing to walk down the hallway.

It was an Onorin. A humanoid xenos, standing slightly shorter than Dirk at her full height. Onorin were four armed, powerful but lithely built. The females sported indigo skin, whilst the males were crimson as blood. Her black hair tied into a ponytail, she walked past the two of them in military trousers and a plate of body armor, with twin pistols at her hips and a slug thrower lazily held with her hands located just above her waist. With one of her free hands, she gave a flirtatious wave at Dirk and winked one of her red-iris eyes. "Hey Dirk."

"Rixa," he said, not slowly as they passed her. Out of the corridor, they found themselves in a large, long-gallery type room, with scoundrels, loiterers, and some people who looked like they had climbed in through the air vents. A few toughs stood around, holding tactical shotguns and keeping a watchful eye. Dirk turned to Jocasta. "Stay here. I'd bring you with me, but my contact likes solo meetings. I'll get us some work off world in ten minutes."

With that he turned and left her at the foot of what looked to be a strange rogue's gallery of ne'er-do-wells, mercenaries, and would-be thieves.

[Penny]

map
It was impossible to be bored if you had access to information. Jocasta’s mother had always maintained that. As a girl Jocasta had spent many hours in her mothers electronic repair workshop cobbling together devices from the recycled tech she found there. It was amazing what you could accomplish with a little curiosity and access to a data link. Military training had made being bored an offense, intelligence recruits were often left in semi-secure areas and always scolded for probing too much, or reprimanded for not probing enough. Being interested was a habit by this point in her career. She didn’t much like Dirk running off to a meeting without her, but she figured she had already been paid and if he fucked aroudn too much she could just ditch him and be on her way. The guards, or whatever they were with the shotguns gave her appraising looks as she longued against the hallway wall. She returned them a look of lazy consideration, calculated to keep them interested enough not to move her along, but not to encourage them to bother her, an impression she reinforced with the slightest hint of psi.

Jocasta split her mind. One part of it was assigned to keep watch on her immediate environs, another part followed the camera feed of her drones, watching there would be assailants tramping down corridors. Judging from the audio she sampled they were bitching at each other for botching the job and discussing getting better hardware and going back to finish the job before their targets got off world. Data searches from the cities integral link ran in mental sidebar, comparing their route with maps of the city and various underworld players, running computations on who they might be working for. Another fragment of her mind was placing orders for the ship from one of the more reputable chandleries. Laying in extra food and electronic components in bulk. Ordinarily she liked to do her shopping in person, but it didn’t seem likely she would get that chance here. On a whim she placed an order for some automotive parts also, pondering repairs and updates for the speeder they had recently acquired. Still another fragment of her mind was running comparative searches on the various pieces of Dirk’s armor, comparing manufacturing marks and silhouette with various military databases for which she had forgotten to turn over her access passes. Another part of her mind was bored.

Nearly eight minutes had passed when their attackers emerged from a low rent hab block which records suggested was owned by one of the major organized crime families in the spire. The drones immediately tagged weapons, a mixture of slug throwers and laser carbines of Commonwealth surplus patterns. There was a loud debate about where ‘that bastard’ might be found and some discussion of heading to the hangar decks to head him off. A chronometer display suggested a possible transit time of twenty minutes to reach the hanger, perhaps half that if they headed this way. Jocasta was not unduly worried about the hanger. Better quality muscle than this had tried to force their way onto the Dragonfly. She rather hoped they would try, that certainly wouldn’t be boring. Abruptly the men changed direction. A pulsing symbol showed that one had just received a message alert of some kind. The probabilities suggested that they were on the way here, which meant someone had tipped them off. Her visual field didn’t have a correlating sender but that didn’t mean much, other than the informant had taken a minute to get out of sight.

She was thirsty. She wanted a bath. She needed to replace number three lateral stabilizer within the next two hundred operational hours. She hoped that Dirk would hurry.
@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

Dirk emerged from out of the crowd, his DMX heavy blaster sliding back into his holster, having waited long enough to let the heat from its barrel dissipate. He shouldered past a Terudian slaver, the indicator on his helm singling out and scanning every weapon, schematics listing across his visor to the left of his vision. The AI in his helm actively differentiating what weapons in its sight could or could not penetrate his armor, compartmentalizing them from minimal, moderate, to major threats. Insignias of gangs and cults were integrated and accumulated into his feed, and he took the information without changing his stride. Dirk was so used to the scanner that he could read a novel and still hold his own in a firefight if he had to.

On the display, Jocasta's face was cropped and enlarged so he could see her annoyed and impatient expression in full view. He could tell she was wary, but it seemed all the information he had just gained along with the feed on his helm took up just enough of his attention not to warrant worry for the moment.

"Sorry, took longer than I thought." He said, his tone neutral as ever. There was no hint in his voice on his secret desires or motivations when he spoke other than when truly pressed or threatening someone, leaving every decision entirely up to Jocasta unless specified. He did notice her looking over her shoulder when she approached, but even if there was a problem, he was going to appear casual. "We've got a job, if you still want to work together."

"That's great, but if we go we need to go now." She said in a whisper, brushing away a thick wave of her hair. He didn't reply immediately, just looked at her. It was enough to keep her talking. "I think your friends are still after you."

"And you still want the job?"

"They already saw me with you. Not much choice," she reasoned with a shrug. He took that as a yes, and grabbed her by the arm, guiding her away from their current position, back towards where he had the meeting. Her arm was stiff, obviously unaccustomed to being led in such a way. "You don't need to grab me," She said dangerously, pulling away. He let go, giving her and their surroundings a glance. The toughs around them were too busy with their own conversations to really notice their talk, smoking and swapping rumors or trading weapons to dealers. He looked down the corridor, not seeing any pursuit yet. The men after him must have been paid an enormous sum to try and take his head in Volkavax's tower.

"I'm leading us out of here. Stay close then."

"As long as we're going somewhere I can get a bath." She said as Dirk placed a hand on the wall, a small rectangular section lighting up briefly at the spot his hand had pressed, opening a small door the two stepped within, drawing the attention of a few vagabonds with dumb expressions on their faces. They grew even more confused when the door closed and the wall appeared unmarred, as if a door had never been. Once they were in the Dragonfly, there were countless hotels on the planet to find, or even on an adjacent planet, but they couldn't stay here.

[Penny]

Jocasta plopped happily into the pilot seat, the old familiar synthleather conforming to her perfectly. Cygi blinked on in hologram. The AI appeared to be naked, though her modesty was preserved by an artful splash of bubbles at key locations, the outlandish look completed by a shower cap marked with a pink flower print. Jocasta recoiled slightly.

“Cygi, what the fuck?” she asked as her ships AI lowered a long handled wooden scrubbing brush. Cygi was highly idiosyncratic, possibly as a result of running a learning algorithm that most frequently sampled Jocasta herself, as well as a variety of media in the ships rec system.



“I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” the computer responded as though that explained everything, she turned her holographic eyes to Dirk. “Or you back at all.” The illusion was somewhat spoiled by the fact that the bubbled didn’t pop or dissipate. Jocasta stared for a minute and then returned to the controls.

“Moving on…” she said, “can you put some clothes on and plot me a course to anywhere other than here?” The AI shimmered and was suddenly wearing a version of Dirk’s armor designed by animators more concerned for the titillation of viewers than with practical concerns with a ridiculous swell of breast and unrealistic pinch at the waist. The AI’s dark hair cascaded down her back in a set of braids that, were they unwound, would have dropped her hair to her knees.

“If you are quite…” Jocasta began in exasperation, but three separate courses had appeared in her nav computer as had authorization for departure. Holographic screens flashed up all around her, including a duplicate of her optical feed which showed the last of her drones fluttering down the air ducts and into the Grasshopper’s recovery chutes. The intake ports sealed with a clac and Jocasta held out her hands. Holographic control spheres winked into view around them, centered on the implants in her palms. The repulsor drives lit with a gentle whine and the Grasshopper lifted from the pad. The ships operating budget ticked down a hundred credits as the docking fees were assessed before the hanger doors opened and the blast shield rose behind them. Once it was fully extended Jocasta lit the main drives and the ship leaped out and upwards towards space. Although the sensor board was busy with incoming shipping, there was nothing of particular concern in the orbital lanes. That wasn’t surprising, she doubted a Union warship had been seen here in a generation, and if one did show up the locals would probably wet their collective trousers.

“Ok, lets see,” she said scanning the courses Cygi had prepared. There is habitation on one of the moons of the gas giant. “Some tourism, probably safe enough from your friends.” She keyed in the course and the drive keened, kicking them upwards and looping around the moon in order to blind anyone watching their departure.

“You will have to tell me about the job.”

[POOHEAD189]

"Once we make it to where we're going, I'll give you the full info. But as it stands, it's a big one." He said vaguely, taking a moment to consider what he should really tell her. So far their partnership had been from happenstance and then convenience, and he was still iffy with traveling with someone, even if he deemed her reliable. Maybe it wouldn't be a poor decision to have a limited partnership, and she was admittedly competent at what she did. "There's a small-time, large world named Catarxes in the Sigma Draconis system. We need to get a man named Decartes Maggred. Alive is not preferred. It's a head hunt."

Those were the honest, basic facts. If Jocasta knew the world or even the system, she could guess the gist of it. The Terran "Empire" if one could call the loose collection of human controlled worlds, was spread the farthest it had ever been, which in the grand scheme of things, wasn't very far. The furthest inhabited outpost was thirty light years from earth, and Sigma Draconis was known as a 'frontier' system, around nineteen light years away. Out there, one could get away with most anything, and it was where a lot of people went to get lost. The planetary rulers tended to be oligarchs and petty kings or suzerins, lording it over varying dukes and provincial barons of what habitable planets there were in a techno-fuedal, decentralized monarchy.

"We'll need to play it smart. There are a lot of guns on that world, and little love for hunters." He said.

What he didn't tell her was Decartes Maggred was the wildcard son of a powerful baron, and a contract had gone out for his head because of a scandal Medartes (the father) was apart of that led to the death of a prominent tradesman's son. An eye for an eye, it seemed. Not that Decartes was an innocent by any stretch of the imagination. His itinerary had shown he had done things for free that Dirk would need to be paid handsomely to even consider. That was what he kept out until they got to whatever hotel Jocasta found fitting. What he wasn't going to tell her was he didn't get the information from the source. He had taken care of a loose end and killed Manikard, someone he used to consider an old friend before he betrayed him and led him to the bounty with little information and a competitor there to hinder him. The fact it was Jocasta who was now helping him wasn't the issue. Manikard had sworn he would get Dirk a good one with no complications, and Dirk had found he had been working with the men after him. But now only Jocasta and he had this contract, and no one else in the galaxy did except the patron and Volkavax technically. And if they pulled this off, they would be privvy to more bounties from higher bidders. Maybe teaming up with Jocasta wasn't such a bad idea, after all.

On the display, the moon 'Balyan' was growing more visible. Sub-light engines had grown quite sophisticated, but the Dragonfly still moved quick for even a regular starship. Once they twisted around the moon, the gravity helped slingshot the engines, and it was thanks to the light and sparse, but spacious design of the craft that helped them move. It had only been a couple of hours.

"Sweet ride," He complimented idly, clearly speaking to Jocasta, but it drew the attention of the AI who's name he hadn't bothered to catch. She popped back up on as a hologram, wearing Jocasta's kit, blurring for a second as the design was muddled, switching from Dirk's sexualized version again for a short moment before solidifying in Jocasta's attire, albeit with an exposed midriff and no pants.

"Thanks, sailor." She crooned, but when she noticed he wasn't even looking her way, she gave a groan of annoyance. Jocasta rolled her eyes and redirected her back to her regular activities so they could prep for a landing.

[Penny]

“Don’t worry baby, I still love ya,” Jocasta said patting the console fondly and accidentally inducing a slight wobble in their approach vector from which she quickly recovered. Cygi stuck out her tongue, flickered into a metallic outfit with a glowing red eye, saluted and disappeared. To many people in the galaxy AI was a dirty word. It conjured up phrases like ‘the Zin Zhou disaster’,’ the Silicon War’ and ‘Nebula Nine’. Although basic computer assistants were ubiquitous, AI which approached self-awareness were feared, shunned, and illegal anywhere that had enough government to have laws. That was an increasingly small section of the galaxy these days. Certainly plenty of people would be willing to blast the Grasshopper out of space if they knew about her second officers silicon heart. Perhaps Dirk shared this prejudice, or perhaps he just found Cygi annoying.



“A word of advice with Cygi, just make sure whatever you do you don’t…”

“Vessel Grasshopper you are cleared for approach,” a voice said through the comms. Obidently a glowing golden flight path projected onto the view screen. Jocasta made several small adjustments and the ship settled into the designated trajectory.



“Whoa,” Jocasta breathed as they came up over the horizon on Baylan’s only city, also creatively named Baylan. Subconsciously she had expected the kind of run down squalor that passed for civilization on most of the outworlds, but for once she was presently surprised. A geodesic dome spanned a crater a dozen kilometers in width. It was made of bright, transparent, armorcrys that stretched out above a cerulean sea dotted with purplish islands. Here and there sail craft could be seen skipping across the surface of the water. It stood out against the stark lunar surface like a jewel among dingy pebbles.



“I didn’t expect it to be so…”



“Expensive?” Dirk asked, peering down at the dome.

“I was going to go with nice,” Jocasta admitted. The Grasshopper curved down towards landing area, a smaller, shallower crater that intersected the first like a weighted ven diagram. Lights flared on its rim, guiding the little corvette over the lip. Rather than another dome, hangars had been fared into the rock of the crater wall with blast doors which had been styled to look like timber, though the sensors reported them as solid steel.



“One of the Uranium Shieks built this place as a private harem,” Dirk said. Jocasta wasn’t entirely sure if he was reading a data feed from someplace inside that helmet of his. Why hadn’t she thought to hack that? She must be getting soft. Maybe Cygi would be interested in taking a shot seeing she seemed to be in a bit of a mood.



“Supposedly he had a different harem girl for every island,” Dirk continued. Jocasta snorted in amusement.



“That is a lot of disappointed women in one place,” she remarked as she fluffed the forward thrusters and set the ship down on the pad with a gentle thump. The doors began to cycle closed and air began to fill the chamber with a pressurized hiss.

“That’s what the Orion Pirates thought after the Uranium Sheiks lost control of Cabah and Sil,” Dirk continued. Jocasta cocked an eyebrow interested inspite of herself. Such shifts in power were common and usually portended violence and misery for everyone involved.



“So they snatched up all the girls?” Jocasta prompted, Dirk shook his head, his helmet swiveling back and forth.



“Apparently the harem had been so disappointed with the Sheik’s lack of attention that they had decided to start stockpiling guns. When the pirates broke down the doors they all acted like it was party time until the pirates dropped their britches, then they shot the lot of them.” Dirk concluded. Jocasta swiveled in her chair and looked at him askance, wondering if he were joking, but of course his armored face gave away nothing.



It took perhaps half an hour to disembark and find their way along a magnificent concourse to the main docks. Literal water docks rather than space docks. There were apparently no prohibitions on weaponry, thought he place seemed peaceful enough. The dome had been treated so that it was invisible from the underside affording a view out at the fantastic brown purple mass of the gas giant. Reflected light from the great gas ball provided all the light and radiation the place needed apparently. There was a large map made of semi-precious stones laid into the stonework before the docks showing each of the islands. Although nothing was visible to the naked eye, subtle public information software provided information on each to any standard scanner. Jocasta glanced at Dirk.

“Well I guess you won’t meet the dress code for the nude beach,” she teased.

[POOHEAD189]

"I hear girls like a little mystery," He teased back snidely, but didn't expand on it.

They stepped onto the dock, the water lapping against the dock supports was as azure as it was clear. Multi-colored, very likely harmless fish floated beneath them and nipped at algae and seaweed that flowed languidly with the soft tide. The docks around them were sparsely populated, a few people milling besides water-crafts next to the space-faring ships that came and went. What Dirk had said was true, the place wasn't cheap. But it wasn't an exclusive dive for nobles or rich traders. More than a few spacers were enjoying their bonuses here. The harem women had proven to be quite the entrepreneurs and business women, turning the planet from a pleasure spot to a hotel with similar 'services' marketed for the traveling businessman. From what Dirk had heard, the previous harem girls had taken up as the the administration of the island and heads of security, but a few of them had 'taught' their previous profession to down on their luck girls that needed a place to lay their head and make a living. After hiring contractors to refurbish the place and make it accessible to the average spacer, its popularity had exploded. Even after the downturn following the collapse of the Terran government, business was still good, albeit slightly stagnate due to inflation and lack of funds from the average populace.

Luckily for Jocasta and Dirk, they were gig workers. Politics didn't matter much to bounty hunters.

They made their way into the cooled, purified air of the hotel. Across the bottom floor, the walls and doors touching fresh air were all made of glass to see the vast ocean and the great 'Arch-Reefs,' tall bio-organic spires that looked like the rib cages of massive beasts that spiked out of the water a few hundred meters from shore. Tourists loved to swim over to them and leap off the top protrusions.

Dirk made his way over to one of the front desks, Jocasta following his lead. They waited for a few moments for the brunette lady at the desk to finish a task she was occupied with before turning from her console and adjusted her glasses. She cleared her throat, shaking her head to move a fringe of her hair before starting with: "Welcome to the Venustus Prospectus, one of our lauded and luxurious-..." She blinked twice when she laid eyes on Dirk, her voice trailing off. The woman's mouth opened as if in a question, and then it turned into a smile.

"Dirk! Hello, been a long time. You're looking good," She greeted him happily. Her hands, courteously clasped together to politely introduce herself to new people, were pulled back behind the desk as she cleared her throat once again. Her bewilderment was mixed with something hard to gauge. "I didn't think we would ever see you again. How did you...?"

"Amber, always a pleasure." Dirk replied, placing his hands on the desk. "Tell Sal I said hi."

"I will, but-"

"The usual suite please." He asked, and when she nodded her consent, he lifted a hand from the desk and pulled a chip out from a port in the chest of his armor, presenting it to her to take. She did so, swallowing what she was going to inquire and typing furiously away in the computer, inserting the chip into it. Small 'dings' rose as she coordinated the information. "I didn't come with the usual ship. Jocasta is my plus one and partner. We'll only be a couple of days."

"Partner?" She asked, raising an eyebrow and handing the chip back to him. He took it, even the other guests talking and walking through the large room were deafeningly quiet. The chip inserting back into the port was actually audible to the three of them, the 'ffft' of air escaping.

"Yeah, long story."

[Penny]

“Yeah you know how it is, you meet someone, you see your own reflection and sparks fly,” Jocasta put in, fluttering her eyelashes in melodramatic suggestion.

“Okay, lets go,” Dirk said taking her by the arm and steering her towards a rear access way. She didn’t quite resist but she glanced back over her shoulder.

“Wait, how can you tell. You know, you said he looked good, do you just mean his armor looks good? Because it seems like you can’t really t…” Conversation was made impossible as the thin environmental door snapped open and then snapped shut behind them. Jocasta wasn’t quite certain but she thought she heard the air cycler on the helmet pick up in what might have been a sigh.



The room itself was more than adequate. A large suite with soft carpets and two loosely demarcated sections. There was an impressive hot tub and bathing area done up in a white gold marble veneer that probably covered more conventional fittings. This hotel had clearly been constructed to serve the increased trade rather than one of the original palaces or chalets. Warm planet light streamed in from a pair of French doors which opened onto a patio with a view down to the beach and the waving pink purple foliage of the palmlike trees. Whatever air reprocessor they were using it was clearly of a very high order. Possibly they had some kind of harmless protists or algae in the water that facilitated an actual exchange. More likely they had large environmental tanks buried into the crate wall.



“Shotgun!” she called and leaped onto the bed, her spacers coveralls flapping awkwardly as a trio of thumb sized drones flittered out of the sleeves and hemlines to avoid being crushed as she flopped onto the bed. They buzzed around for a moment before scattering to settle in unobtrusive spots where they could provide data feeds. The bed was harder than she imagined but not uncomfortable. She rolled onto her back and spread her arms, staring up at the diamond pattern molded in shallow bas-relief on the ceiling.



“Sure beats singing and wiggling my rump in that radiation soup from the last job,” she admitted, rolling onto her stomach and wriggling to a refresher unit by the side of the bed. She popped it open and looked inside.

“Hey, your little love nest has no minibar?”

[POOHEAD189]

"No drinks?" Dirk asked curiously. He sighed a foreign, likely xenos curse and turned, stepping to the door, pressing his fist into a call button. Two lights glowed for a moment between the speaker for a second. "Drinks," was all he said.

"Yes, right away," a woman's voice replied moments later.

Pulling his fist away, he was satisfied and went to the cupboard, pressing a finger against a switch, letting glasses slide out on a display shelf, carefully placed in tight, shaped indentions in the wood that snugly held the cups and silverware. He grabbed two robust mugs, with stout handles and a sweeping design as if the outside of the glass was carved into waves. He placed Jocasta's mug on the counter, and brought his over to the hot tub. Out of sight for a moment, Jocasta would hear the revving of a machine and the tub begin bubbling, likely increasing in heat by every second.

"I'm going to take a dip. You won't have to wiggle your rump to join. Though drink all my booze and no promises." He replied, and there was a knock on the door that drew his attention. Opening it, a woman in a smart suit and blonde hair tied in a bun strode in with a cart of alcohol from varying different makes and planets. Dirk collected the selection, not saying a word as the woman looked around the room and then at Jocasta, clearly interested in her surroundings but quite clearly trying not to appear so. She saw Dirk give her a nod, which was obvious permission to leave. She did so with just a "very good," and Dirk closed the door behind her.

All the bottles were displayed beside Jocasta's mug, spirits, whiskey, rum, beer, vodka, etc. Dirk left the room for a moment, walking into a closet and closing the door. Within, he stripped himself of his armor and underclothes, taking a solid two minutes to undo the layers of plate and weapons he had stored. After he finished, he stepped out in a crimson bathing suit with black patterns along its fabric. He still wore his helm, but his chest and lower legs were bare. It was safe to say, taking a look at him, that he was ripped. A lean frame with very little fat, he had the build of someone who spent their time eating just enough to live and killing men for money. Despite his armor, he had an impressive amount of scars, not to mention the mystery of how he had a slight tan. On his neck, she saw the end of a sharp edged, black tattoo that slid up into his helm.

He poured himself a drink from a bottle of Darellian Whiskey and stepped into the tub, letting his arms rest against the edges.

"So, before me, what was the last job you did?"

"Tub should be ready," he said casually.

[Penny]

“What? Does it have a built in tanning bed?” Jocasta asked as she appraised Dirk, noting with amusement and some curiosity that he kept his helmet on. She rolled like a log across the bed and kicked out a leg to hook over the frame pulling herself up by the drink cart. There was a wide selection, little of which was familiar to her, so she took the fanciest bottle, circular vessel of yellow glass that curled up into a pouring spout and splashed some into her mug. One of the drones flitted down and landed on the rim, extending a needle like proboscis into the fluid.



“Hey, get your own,” Jocasta admonished brushing at the insectile machine with the back of her hand. The drone took flight but not before a green response flashed across her optical implants indicating that there beverage was potable. She took a mouthful before reading that it was nearly seventy percent ethanol however.

“Whaaaa…” she gasped in a suddenly parched wheezy voice, narrowly avoiding spraying the burning fluid out her nostrils, eyes watering. Nova Tears, sixty seven percent ethanol, floral flavoring and Terran lime sugar the expanded report read. Jocasta took another, much more cautious sip. If there were flowers and limes in there they were obliterated by the alcohol burn.



Setting the mug of fiery liquor down she turned her back on the bathing area and unzipped her shipsuit, kicking off the soft boots as she did so. With a gymnasts efficiency she pulled the garment down around her hips and kicked it into a corner. Beneath the one piece suit she was nude and even from the back it was clear she wasn’t heavily muscled. Union intelligence was of the opinion that if a spy needed brawn they were a pretty poor spy. The same dictum kept her unmarked by permanent tattoos, though she had experimented with various temporary body art may times. Jocasta’s enhancements were more in the nature of protective coloration, a soft, svelt figure with a slightly pinched waist and broad hips which tapered down to long legs. That very enhancement had allowed her to blend in as a burlesque dancer back in the rad wastes and was surprisingly useful in a variety of settings. It wasn’t always an advantage, but it was usually possible to disguise to some degree with loose clothing when that was the case. Biohackers had a variety of glandular drugs that one could use to provide a sudden burst of strength and power, but all of them had significant side effects and Jocasta was of the mindset that, just this once, Union Intelligence might have been onto something. There was another buzz of wings and when she turned to face the tub a pair of drones were gripping each end of a towel so it draped artfully before her breasts, another a smaller wash cloth spread to preserve the rest of her modesty. The effect was curiously reminiscent of the way certain holodramas used contrived photography to avoid full frontal nudity. She padded casually across the suite and climbed up into the bath, the drones keeping station as she did so. As her hips sank below the water line the dragonfly that had been holding the smaller wash cloth let it fall and worked itself into a bottle of soap with the tenacity of a carpenter bee. It emerged a moment later, covered in a slick layer of detergent. It flicked its wings and dived into the tub, whirring furiously as it whipped up a froth of bubbles a moment before Jocasta’s breasts sank into the water. With the bubbles taking the place of their concealment, the other two hauled away the towel and zipped across the room to retrieve her mug while the third device preened and clicked, shaking off the last of the soap before spreading its wings and soaring back to its concealment on the ceiling.

“Ahhhammm,” Jocasta sighed happily, stretching out her arms to either side of her to grip the side of the tub and luxuriating in the foam of bubbles. Spacecraft were built with efficiency in mind, particularly small ones like the Grasshopper. The goal of any naval architect was to cram as much avionics, sensors, drives and comms system into a metal box as she could, and things like wet showers, much less baths were anathema. Jocasta had opened up a lot of space by replacing the crew with a combination of automation and Cygi, but had faced similar constraints when repurposing the space to suit her needs. The simple sonic shower technically kept you clean, but it never quite gave you the feeling of clean the way water did.

“My last job,” she mused, taking her cup from the two dragonfly drones that carried it across to her without looking in their direction.

“There was this guy on Bartle’ Star, you know Bartle?” she asked. Dirk, who had not moved during her admittedly theatrical entrance, shook his armored head. He was… beyond fit looking, either the result of a punishing exercise regime or as a side effect of living in however many pounds of armor most of the time. Probably both. She felt suddenly hungry but ignored the sensation.

“Well they grow big genetically engineered bison out there, continent wide grazing runs,” she explained. Bartle’s Star had been terraformed in the first few centuries of human expansion and seeded with a monocrop, self sowing grain. The company operating the place had dotted it with huge automated harvesters the size of super tankers that crawled across the surface on treads. Over the years the crop had become so polyploid that its DNA had warped to incorporate nonstandard nucleotides, making it inedible to humans. Worse still the mutant strain had been so aggressive that it had not only wiped out the edible kinds within a century, but it out competed ever attempt to reseed it, all the way up to orbital sterilization. Their profitable breadbasket and expensive tech destroyed, the big agricombine had pulled out and abandoned the place, leaving nothing but flowing fields of mutant wheat and rusting superharvesters. It had mostly been ignored after that, save as the occasional haven for pirates and scavengers, until colonists from the Salines had come along with their bison, bison which could digest the grain without issue. Within two generations the protein rush had made Bartle a rich world, though due religious nature of its founders, a close and repressive one. The Four Churches, essentially the big families, had closed it off to outside immigration and ruthlessly controlled its wealth. Decadence begin decadence however, they found the need to bring in foreign laborers to do some of the actual work, particularly the slaughtering of animals, which was looked down on as an impure task.



“One of the ranch hands, a slaughterman actually, got several of the local nob’s daughters in the family way,” Jocasta explained, gesturing to her own flat stomach with her free hand to emphasize the point.



“The randy bastard managed to impregnate three girls who he shouldn’t have even been permitted to look at,” she continued. Women on Bartle’s Star were normally veiled in gauzy white fabric when in public, though there was a degree of freedom in the family unit.

“When he realized his impending paternity he skipped the planet on the first freighter dumb enough to take him.” In fact he had lied to the captain to get aboard, no commercial captain would risk jeopardizing his relationship with the beef barons by harboring a fugitive.



“The Four Churches clubbed together to hire me to bring him back. It seemed like good money for an easy job…” Jocasta continued. By now the bubbles around her chest were beginning to thin, and one of the dragonfly drones dived into the water with a plop and a whir to replenish it.

“But?” Dirk prompted. Jocasta sighed and took another sip of her drink. To her surprise it seemed to be improving with time and she could taste the slight hint of lime at the back of her mouth. Maybe there was something to Nova Tears afterall. She swished the liquor around a little experimentally and then swallowed.



“The stupid bastard had gotten himself thrown in an asteroid prison on Camden,” she sighed.

“I had to bust him out before I took him back. He was really grateful until he figured out that I was taking him back to Bartle’s Sun, at which point he begged me to take him back to prison. Yap yap yap yap yap.”



“What did they do to him?” Dirk asked, though it was clear from his tone if the answer was ‘they threw him into a black hole’ he wouldn’t have much cared. Bounty Hunting wasn’t a business that engendered a lot of sympathy on the part of marks. Most people that got a bounty put out on them had done something to deserve it and if not, well it wasn’t really up to the plumber to have a moral position on running water.

"They made an honest man outt'nim," she drawled in her best Bartles' accent.


“They gave him the choice of marrying the girls or having his fun bits removed with a slaughter knife. Seems like an easy choice, but one never knows when it comes to men,” she snickered.

[POOHEAD189]

"Poor kids," He commented dryly, lifting his helm up just enough to take a generous sip from his frothing mug of Darellian. It was a good story. He suspected she would have done something on the streets of Grinemak, maybe take out a lone boss ostracized from the cartels from a high position. Not out of his lack of faith in her, but any bounty hunter would want the easiest job for the most money. Just good business. Chasing someone across the galaxy was a lot of leg work, after all. When Jocasta looked at him as if to elaborate, he continued. "Imagine growing up and realizing your dad was forced to be there, and your three half siblings have different moms he knocked up."

"Somehow I don't think it's too strange for that family," she sniggered, imbibing in some more Nova Tears with delight. She was treating it like a beer, but unless there was some heavy modifications done to her body, she was going to get perilously drunk sooner rather than later. Normally that wouldn't be a problem with a girl who was as shapely as she was, if he had invited her in to sleep with him. But she was a work partner. He wasn't going to make a move unless she did it first, so it was fair to warn her.

"Careful with that shit, you won't hear the details of the next job." He said, holding his mug aloft and pointing at her with an extended index finger.

"I'm handling it," she said, patting her chest so as not to burp in front of him. "You look like you could use some more. Does your suit burn calories or are you just big into crossfit?" She giggled. One could practically see the image of Dirk in sweat pants, a tight shirt, and his helm on whilst throwing weighted balls in a thought bubble above her head.

"When you've been doing what I've been doing for long enough, you don't get a lot of time for sweets. Or drinks for that matter," He said, taking another swig, letting the liquid gold glide down his throat for a concerning amount of time before letting out a pleased grunt. Placing the mug down, he turned her way. "Our target is Decartes Maggred. He's one of those guys who does what he wants because his dad lets him. Little in the way of inhibitions and he's got a mean streak. He'll likely be armed and have men that share his love of killing people who can't fight back. You know, your regular asshole."

Another cadre of drones flew over with a glass and a towel draped around it. He didn't exactly know how those things worked or what led them to act in a way he didn't think programming allowed. Idly, he ran a wet hand over a scar on his upper arm, the helm hiding the small wince he made. It was good to soak his old wounds in the hot tub. He didn't let the tenderness show in his voice.

"The reward is 4 mil, and a seat at a higher table. If you want to part ways after that, up to you."

[Penny]

“Four million is good money,” was what Jocasta tried to say. The actual words that came out of her mouth were closer to. “Formsgum.” Ok, so they weren’t actual words. She picked up her cup, glared at it and set it down on the side of the tub. It had been a while since lunch, or whatever meal it had been when you adjusted it for the time zones of two different planets. The bioelectric implants sucked down a considerable amount of calories, and it wasn’t like she had been taking it easy for the last several days. Maybe there was room service, or barring that a restaurant nearby.

“Of course it means someone can’t or won’t come up with a way to do it cheaper. Local talent varies, particularly with amateurs,” the word had a certain edge of contempt in her mouth. The galaxy was awash with amateur would be thugs, most of them not worth spit, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t get lucky. Jocasta had been in battles before, but she personally found shooting to be a clumsy way to resolve a situation. With a little planning there was almost always a better way.



“People don’t hire me to get kittens down from trees,” Dirk responded. Jocasta blinked, unfamiliar with the metaphor, but Dirk didn’t expand. Jocasta lay back and closed her eyes, letting herself relax. Her hair, a rusty brown, seemed to fade into a silvery blonde.

“Everything alright?” Dirk asked levelly. Jocasta cracked an interrogative eye open.

“Oh… yeah sure, nano enhancement,” she explained and narrowed her eyes slightly. Her hair turned a bright Celtic red and then flowed into a straw blonde before diving into a deep jet before returning to the silvery shade. It had the aspect of a chameleon shifting with its mood, or an octopus giving a warning.



“I can do some other colors too, but I need to prep myself,” she explained. The enhancement could only express pigments that a human could naturally produce, but if you knew what you were doing and you had a decent chemistry kit you could whip up some injectable analogues that could do almost any color. Jocasta had on occasion turned her hair a brilliant green and an electric blue, but artificial pigment only lasted a couple of days and tended to fade out unevenly.



“A useful skill.” Again so deadpan she didn’t know if he was being serious.

“Not as much as you would think, the difference between ‘help! A hundred twenty pound blonde is beating my ass, and ‘help! A hundred twenty pound brunette is beating my ass’ turns out to be largely academic.” She replied.



“Mostly it’s fun, you know that thing that you don’t have time to do because you are too busy not eating sweets and drinking?” she teased. A pair of the dragonflies dived into the water flicking and splashing with their wings in simulated playfulness, renewing the bubbles while they were at it.

[POOHEAD189]

"I know a few guys who would love to meet you." Dirk snorted as her hair shimmered from one shade to another. He had meant what he said, when he mentioned how useful the changing colors were. Disguises were a great boon for certain bounty hunters. He was going to speak more about it, but then Jocasta asked him a question. Dirk answered promptly.

"My job is fun," He said levelly, and though it was impossible to tell with the helm, it was somehow clear he was looking directly into her face. Dirk wasn't being entirely transparent, but he did feel like he was being honest in a sense. He always liked to say he kept himself out of the job, but that generally meant he did not grow attached to marks. No one ever warned him about the double edge to that sword. That he truly liked bounty hunting beyond a paycheck. When Dirk was young, he had read a quote from a man who lived in the latter part of the Second Millennium, before the cataclysm and rise of human expansion.

"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."

He didn't put much thought on it as a boy, but it had stuck with him all through his years. How true it had turned out to be.

"Well if that's your idea of fun, why not tell me about your last job?" Jocasta asked wryly, lounging across the hot tub and twirling a finger in the water as the bubbles increased.

---

Planet Rhylonn 7
2 Months Previously...

Ambrose Talerman smirked, the wind rippling through the streets, his suede jacket undulating. Across the rooftops illuminated by the noonday sun, shooters looked down the scopes of their long guns, prepped and ready to fire when Ambrose or Herdilane himself gave the word. The day was hot, causing every man to perspire heavily even after a mere ten minutes under the blazing rays. Every man except Dirk Crimson, his phenoplate armor coming with a small, albeit outdated coolant system that regulated the temperature within. Biosignatures played along his feed, indicating the locations of every shooter in his field of vision. Their long guns were even older than some of the modifications of his signature red armor, but they a punch to their shots. He could only take a few of them before he was pierced, and there was always the possibility of making it through some of the thinner gaps.

"How 'bout it?" Ambrose called theatrically, making a spectacle out of the ordeal. "First hit wins?"

Dirk didn't answer for a long, drawn out moment. He glanced over his shoulder instead, secretly finding two more enemies at his 4 o'clock. The gun on the left room, above the awning, was plasma based. Customized in a way even his helm couldn't decipher. That could be a problem, he thought. Turning back to Amborse, he gave a nod that elicited a laugh of satisfaction from the underboss of the Black Novas.

"When do we start?" Dirk asked, cooly.

"When do we start? Good question, when do weee-" Ambrose's voice lowered as if it were to trail off, but he pulled on Dirk. His hand had taken the hilt of the gun even when he said 'Now!' Dirk had been a Helldropper in another life, honing his skills to the edge. Even so, it was a close thing. He had to guess there was only a fraction of a second different, which was enough when gun-fighting. Dirk pulled his DMX-15 Heavy Blaster a split moment after Ambrose, but he fired and aimed twice as fast. The super-heated ball of energy tore through the smiling show-off's stomach, knocking his body with the sheer force of the bolt's punch. His own gun shot was off, discharging to fire slightly to the left before the pistol spiraled to the ground out of his limp hand.

He fell to his knees, disbelief on his face as blood began to trickle with ever increasing frequency out of his torn abdomen. The silence of the settlement lasted another breath, and then shots rang out as Dirk rolled, dust roiling into the whipping wind as laser fire, slugs, and plasma shots struck where he had been just a moment prior. He took aim and fired, knocking a man off the roof with a well placed shot even as a lasbolt hit his breastplate. He gave a grunt and shot to his left twice, one shot hitting its mark, boiling the man's hand instantly and ruining his gun.

Crouched, blue flame erupted from the jump-pack he had on his back. Intake vents on the top of the pack greedily sucked in air to feed the jets, and the turbine blades expelled a long plume of vapor as Dirk was lifted from the ground with impressive speed. It was just quick enough to keep him from breaking a bone on landing, but that was only if there was a flat surface to land on. It looked like he was heading down the street for the manor of Herdilane. Red streaks and glowing green shots fly by him, but Dirk kept his focus on the target. He wouldn't and couldn't maneuver, and it costed him the pack. A lucky shot hit center mass between the jets, and Dirk felt his throat tighten and balance falter from the sudden lack of power. He unhooked the pack and let the momentum send him careening, not to the roof he aimed at, but the window he felt he could hit. Positioning his body aerodynamically to assist his descent, he crashed through the wide expanse of glass Herdilane had been, just moments before, looking out and enjoying his drink.

Dirk rolled, ungracefully to break through the Black Nova boss's desk and hit the wall, splintering the wood. Heraldine, a man who looked to be in his early 60's but was likely far older than that due to body augmentation, looked as if he had pissed himself. He dropped his glass and ran for the door, but Dirk was up and on him, slamming the boss into the wall. Outside, men cried out and orders were being given, but he didn't care. Now on his knees, Herdilane eyed Dirk with a mixture of nervousness and fear.

Dirk produced a small, smooth sphere with a grinded out middle and red glass where a light might blink were it activated, the center looked to be where the two sides of the ball detached.

"Swallow this," Dirk told him.

"Sw- What?" Herdaline asked incredulously. He seemed to be gathering his impudence, looking at the sphere suspiciously. "If you think I'm going to swallow anything, you can fuck right off." The barrel to one of Dirk's DMX-15 blasters pressed under the boss's chin firmly, the heat from the freshly used barrel still scalding. It made Herdaline yelp in an undignified manner and shudder. He now looked a bit more cornered, having lost his will as quickly as it had come.

"Listen here, bitch." Dirk stated. "Either you swallow this, or I'm making it a suppository. Your move."

---

"The old bastard didn't know it wasn't a real bomb until he was in shackles and I had another 2 million." Dirk said, Jocasta and anyone else who listened practically seeing his smile behind the helm's visor.

[Penny]

Jocasta snickered at the ruse and took another very careful sip of the Nova Tears, resisting the urge to drain the cup. She wondered how she had missed the lime and salt with the first swig, maybe it had to burn your taste buds out with the alcohol before you could detect the complexities.



“So you are like one of those rich tourists who hunts dangerous creatures?” she jibbed. It wasn’t her way to examine exactly why she did things. Bounty Hunting was a common enough calling among those to whom the short and violent life a hired gun appealed. With her skills she supposed she could have made credits in other lines of work. There was something about tracking down and capturing marks though. At some deep level she felt like she was smarter than other people, and the chance to use guile to prove it held an instinctive appeal. Perhaps she could apply the same logic to industrial espionage or organized crime, but the compartmental nature of hunting avoided the drawn out tedium of planning too far into the future.



“I mean do you need the money? If you are going after these multi-million credit bounties, what are you spending all that on? Fast women?” she asked, waggling her eyebrows.