Nova Cassidy's Chronicles: Back in the Saddle, pt 4
02 Aug 2016Nova Cassidy
“The Gold Hand Brothers. Everything you know. Spill.”The jowel-faced station sheriff looked up, surprised. His deputy was next to us, face half-buried in his own neck fat, eyes closed and sleeping soundly. From the glazed-over look in the lawman’s eyes, he hadn’t been too far behind his subordinate.
“Come again, miss?”
I rolled my eyes in annoyance and cocked my hip to the side, causing the duster to sway. “You heard me. The Gold Hand Brothers. They’ve tried to both rob and kill me in the past three days. I don’t take kindly to that.”
Fumbling to take his legs off his desk and sit upright, the pot-bellied man opened and closed his mouth, moving some papers around and generally struggling to compose himself. Finally, he leaned over and roughly tapped his still-sleeping deputy on the shoulder, rousing him from sleep.
“Wake up, Roy! I told you she’d be back!”
Despite myself, my eyebrows raised. Been talking about me, huh?
The sleepy deputy smacked his mouth a few times as he shook off the slumber. He looked lazily up at me and nodded.
“Howdy, ma’am. What can we do for you?”
The sheriff gestured to the file cabinet and motioned for his subordinate to get up. “The files on the Gold Hand. Where’d you lose ‘em? The little lady’s askin’. Sounds personal.”
Grumbling, the deputy slowly rose from his nap, both him and his chair creaking from years of abuse. With heavy steps, he walked over to the old metal filing cabinet and started to sort through files, eventually pulling one out. He walked back up to me, hesitating and looking at his boss.
“Go ahead and give it to her, Roy. She’s as bounty hunter as they come.”
You’re goddamn right I am.
“Thanks,” I said, accepting the package.
The pot bellied sheriff stood up and nodded towards the file. “Lots to go over in there. Lots of bounties, too. You cash ‘em all, you’ll be the richest woman in the system. Not sure what you’re planning, but good luck.”
I slipped the file into my duster’s large inner pocket gave it a pat. “Y’all keep up the good work, okay?”
Both the sheriff and deputy nodded dumbly, not entirely certain if the blue-haired young reaper was being sarcastic or not. I got the impression they thought I was going to die, and that I had a death wish taking on an entire gang for seemingly no reason. I guess they had no idea what it was like in the middle of the bubble when it came to criminals. I turned and walked out, my boot heels clicking on the deck plating of the grungy outpost. Once I rounded the corridor and mixed in with the other station inhabitants, I exhaled loudly and shook my head.
Did you seriously just say “y’all”? Better do this job quick before you get too local to fly a damn ship.
Back in the safety of my ship’s quarters, I sipped a fruit-flavored liquor and browsed the contents of the file. It was late, and I was sprawled out on my belly, in a pair of boy shorts and a Pilot’s Federation tank top. Surrounding me were various papers and holo-disks from the borrowed file. The police work had been competent enough, but it didn’t give me much to go off of apart from providing names and last-known locations of a few dozen men and woman.
The sheriff had been both right and wrong about the endless riches involved in cashing every bounty out on the Gold Hand brothers gang. He hadn’t been fibbing when he mentioned that the combined value of all the bounties was a princely sum by Old Col standards. That was also the problem. As far as wanted miscreants went, they were nothing compared to the scum who lurked around extraction sites deep inside the bubble. Those guys were hardened criminals, preying on miners and traders alike. They routinely had serious ships and bounties that reached into the five or six-digit figures, and it usually took a veteran reaper to bring them down.
These guys, on the other hand…
The entire gang didn’t number more than a few dozen, and didn’t fly anything more impressive than the Cobra that I wasted in the asteroid field, assuming any of this information was accurate. According to the police file, their typical approach was to lash a low-powered pulse laser onto a Hauler or a Sidewinder and shake down anyone on their way to Paradiso. If you were flying a T-6 or an Adder, an armed Hauler flanked by a couple Sidewinders could be a nuisance, so it was usually easier to just drop a few canisters and be on your way.
I shook my head, still adjusting to what passed for a reign of terror in Old Col. The Kumo Crew these guys are not.
Still. I’m one woman, and it’s two dozen of them that're on file. A lot can still go wrong.
Back in the bubble, a healthy bounty was in the forty thousand credit range. That would cover your ammo, your gas, any regular wear-and-tear that your ship suffered along the way, and usually left you with enough credits for a steak dinner and a bottle of booze. A criminal who had been leaving a trail of mayhem could get all the way into the seventy and eighty thousand range, and you usually had to make more than one stop to collect every bounty that was on them. It was tedious, but worth it.
Then, there was that whole next-level tier of criminal. These tended to be not only pirates and thieves, but outright murderers. They typically flew large, well-armed ships and even had their own crews. The prices on their heads could get well into the six-figure range. Sometimes they even fetched a bounty worth a million credits or more. You could hunt them, but you had to be armed to the teeth, alert, and willing to go places where even Authority feared to tread. Usually it was better to wing up with an experienced hunter or two. A fat bounty is pretty useless if your prey turns around and blasts you into space gibs, and criminals aren’t exactly known for fighting fairly.
I didn’t have to worry about that with the Gold Hand Brothers. As I flipped through the dossiers, my heart plummeted. I hadn’t reaped for so little since my gradual transition from incompetent trader to more-than-competent bounty hunter. Even when I popped one of the newer disks into my holo-tablet, the bounties were pitiful. Few of them even broke the ten-thousand credit range.
Well, you’re not doing this for the money. You’re doing this because you owe it to the people of Harris Station. They didn’t ask to get involved in your bullshit, but armed men are paying visits on your account. It’s time to clean house and move on.
I tossed the holo-tablet onto my pillow and got up, walking around the Snowbird to make sure that everything was secure. By the time I retired to the bridge to watch the sunset, my drink was nearly gone. As it happened in moments of reflection, my mind wandered into the past. Was I taking on more than I could chew? Was I really ready to take on an entire criminal gang by myself? Was I letting arrogance take hold of me, looking down on their ships and their meagre bounties and letting myself feel invincible?
Going at it alone wasn’t even something I needed to do. I had a few leftover contacts in the bubble. I could call in a few favors, have them show up in a wing, and clear out the Gold Hand in time for dinner.
I made a face as I swirled the thin, melted ice cube into my drink. Favors or no, they’re not going to just drop everything and fly halfway across and out of the bubble to help out that one chick who used to fly with them. You and them weren’t that tight.
Taking another sip, I thought of my more recent company: the bounty hunter, Matt. He had hired me at a sushi place for what turned out to be the salvage job from hell, and I came away from the experience convinced that I had a bona fide friend.
Until that turned out to be a pile of bullshit, too.
I hate liars, even well-intentioned ones. Turned out that he was a sometime agent of the Imperial Inquisition, and him and I got mixed up into doing some of its dirty work. He found out about it from his boss Gideon, and lied to my face about us killing innocents to accomplish the Inquisition’s mission. Yeah, it was to protect me. But it was still lying, as I found out a year later.
And then I had to do the crazy thing and shoot Gideon in his own office.
I had pulled it off, shooting the Inquisitor once in the neck and once in the chest. He should have died. That should have been the end of it. Life should have gone on like normal.
But it didn’t, and that’s why you’re here. Suck it up.
I had expected a reaction from the Inquisition, but I hadn’t expected them to send the same man who’d suffered and adventured with me before: Matt. He tracked me down and cornered me in the Bluebird before realizing who I was. Thankfully, his sense of honor was greater than his sense of duty, and he helped me evade the Inquisition, destroying my ship and helping me get to safety. Though we hadn’t exactly kept in touch, I had the feeling that if I told him that I asked, he would show up without a second thought.
I looked down and frowned. No. You’ve asked enough of him. First he got banged up that entire salvage job, and then he betrayed his own employer. Whistling him up to nab some bounties that won’t even cover his fuel expenses is just a waste of his time. Besides, I don't like playing the damsel in distress. You're a big girl now Nova, you can handle a few punks in haulers.
Sighing, I turned and walked back the my quarters. Like it or not, this was a solo job.
Laying back on my bed, I stared at the dull grey ceiling of the stateroom. Not much of a point in disappearing if you’re just going to get in contact with all your old friends anyway. Just do what you always do, Nova: think of a plan and take it one step at a time.
Admittedly, the plans you do make aren't often good ones.
I glanced to my side, the unwashed glass sitting out in the open triggering a slight feeling of annoyance. Things like that had been a pet peeve of mine when I was bartending. Smiling at the old memories, I traced the outline of the glass in my fingers.
If I can get out of that shit life and into a ship the size of a city block, I can damn well take on a gang of third-rate goons.
Before I drifted off to sleep, I caught a glimpse of the duster I’d been given, hanging in the closet and contrasting with the rest of my wardrobe.
Remember who you are. Remember who you’ve become. People depend on you to do the right thing.
Dangling from the hangar was the leather holster and old-fashioned pistol, barely visible in the duster’s opening.
And right now, the right thing is to get a good night’s sleep, take off, and kill every one of those bastards one by one.