The Bounty
25 Dec 2023MdN
The blood red viper dropped from super cruise on the outskirts of the security zone for Ponce de Leon Vision. At the controls, Brian Storm froze in surprise at the carnage laid out before him. There should have been a massive coriolis star port floating in space just 10km away, it might still have been there, but he couldn't see it through the debris, the flames, the skeletal wrecks of large ships, and the battle that still raged on.It was hell.
Sheer hell.
His attention was jolted by screaming over comms: "I'm hit, I'm hit, oh God noooo..." only static followed. Similar screams were repeated by others before Brian Storm managed to take stock of the unexpected battlescape ahead of him.
The Enki Corporation provided security for the system, they also owned Ponce de Leon Vision, but its system authority ships were being massacred by a determined but rag-tag invasion fleet. Who they were, Brian Storm could not determine. The screaming voices had been just as clueless.
More Corporation ships were dropping in, but it made no difference. Even by the standards Brian Storm had witnessed, this was a blood bath.
"Leave," his instincts insisted. "Leave now!"
Sirens began to shriek. Too late.
"Proximity alert, proximity alert, ..."
Metal screeched against his hull, thumping the viper in the guts and knocking him off the course he hadn't had chance to set yet. Hull plates, he realised, a glance at his scanner confirmed. It was covered in white blobs, broken ships, everywhere.
A golden triangle shot across the scanner, he looked up to find a smoking eagle miss his canopy by metres, spinning away to his starboard. An Asp chased it, beam lasers waving this way and that, slicing molten valleys across its wings as the tiny fighter continued to spin uncontrollably.
A sudden cloud of smoke, flames, and a silent explosion - the Eagle was no more. Another stream of white blobs were added to his scanner's collection.
More hull plates continued to smash into the Blood Red. Brian Storm ducked instinctively, and hit the throttle. Where would he move to? He had no idea. The scanner was too saturated to be useful.
"Leave, dammit!" those instincts again.
Clang, clang, thud - such a gut wrenching sound. Armour plates were great for keeping a ship in one piece, but cut free a sheet could slice through his hull as deadly as a missile. He fired up the thrusters to dodge away from this latest seam of debris.
There were tens of ships, a hundred maybe; how many more had been blown apart before his arrival. He sat and watched in awe for precious seconds as the Viper drifted towards the melee, seemingly as shocked as he was.
He'd experienced conflict zones, too many times, but this was another level. The density, the intensity, he watched another ship go pop after bouncing off an Anaconda. Another eagle, perhaps, judging by its size. Might even have been a viper, just like his. Too many ships - chaos.
It was happening right outside the coriolis, he realised. That was unusual. Within range of its defences, maybe? There were no big defensive beams firing from the station, that was odd, wasn't it?
Around him were other ships taking in the scene, confused, just like him. Traders mostly, Brian Storm recognised the ship types, bulk haulers full to the brim with valuable cargo. They didn't stick around for long, the flash of a hyperspace wake quickly replaced each of them. This wasn't their fight, no amount of profit was worth braving a blockade as violent as this. It wasn't his fight either,
"Follow their lead," his instincts tried again.
Not happening. He was here to make good on a contract, and where better to kill a mark than a war zone.
His thoughts were interrupted, abruptly, as a multi-coloured salvo of laser fire hit the shields above his canopy.
"Under Attack," announced his battle computer.
He slammed boost and his brain engaged combat mode somewhat belatedly. One of the triangles on the scanner was flashing red - threat. He spun the Viper to intercept the fleeing, what was it, a fleeing Asp. The Asp was chasing someone else though, its beams smashing into the victim's hull, it didn't care about Brian Storm chasing him, his viper had just been caught in the cross fire.
"Let it go, he's not the mark."
"Enki is where you'll find him," his contact had told him on Rominger Dock. He'd described the sidewinder and the pilot. There was no doubt it was him. "A courier job to Ponce de Leon, some business documents is what I was told."
So here he was, looking for a needle among this bloody haystack of broken ships. A sidewinder wouldn't survive long in this, he's likely dead already. He slowed the viper alongside a burnt out python. Its missing hull plates giving it a transparent quality like the ghost it had become. The Python wasn't going anywhere and offered a bit of cover from the fight waged around him.
"Where are you?" he asked the silence and flicked on the local contacts list. Somewhere in this chaos he would find a little Sidewinder, he hoped. It was a big long list of ships to wade through though.
Anacondas a plenty, Cobras, Vipers, more Asps. Who in their right mind would enter this mess in a tiny Sidewinder, he wondered. He found a Vulture, one of those new heavy fighters that Core Dynamics had recently launched. Still no Sidewinder though.
His contact at Rominger Dock had been very sure of his information. This is where the ship was heading. Perhaps he'd turned back when seeing the sight which greeted him.
"I would," thought Brian Storm. "No way would I risk this blockade in a Sidewinder."
"Yet here you are in a Viper," his instincts disapproved.
The computer pinged, and Storm was almost surprised to find his mark. He couldn't see it through the noise, but his targeting computer highlighted the ship in front of him. Gently he eased the Blood Red from its hiding place. The hunt resumed.
He was getting a handle on this conflict now. System authority was getting thoroughly pounced by, well, pretty much everyone. There was no clear allegiance among the invading force, but they clearly had a beef with Enki Corporation. He'd look into that later, from a safe distance. For now he had a job to do, he continued moving the Blood Red closer to the station, nervously watching the ships fighting around him.
There it was, spinning slowly out of control by the station. Something was wrong. He triggered a detailed scan as he approached. It was in a bad way for sure. The trip through the conflict zone had taken its toll on the little ship.
Life support was still intact, just. The power plant was shot to pieces though. As he approached, he could see lights flickering as though someone was attempting to reboot the ship's systems.
"Cannibalising other modules to rescue the power plant, are you now?" That was a last ditch effort, for sure.
"So close to safety," he thought, "almost a shame for you to die here."
It had been months of work to get to this point. So many missed opportunities to end this mark and claim his fee. This ending was too easy, the kid deserved better than this. Such romantic notions rarely happened, Brian Storm knew. Death was so often disappointing.
A pair of ships drifted into the space between them, duelling laser fire. Once again, the authority ship was coming off worst. "Why might that be?" his instincts nagging at him again. An odd battle for sure. He dodged around them.
Was he close enough now? Almost.
There would be no careless warning shot. He manoeuvred the Blood Red closer to his prey. An authority viper shot across the front of his path, beams of death trailing in its wake. A cobra giving chase.
"Get out of my way," he screamed into the blackness. He need not have worried, the little sidewinder was still there. Awaiting its fate.
His scan completed, and the federation warrant on the sidewinder was still valid. This would be a legal kill. His jobs usually were these days, but occasionally his patron would send him hunting something more questionable. This wasn't a Federation system of course, but Federal warrants were accepted in most places and an independent system wouldn't dare to challenge it. Besides, system authority appeared to be a little distracted today.
Closer he sneaked, the prey still struggling to reboot essential systems. Dead in space with no way to rescue himself. An easy kill, for once.
He squeezed the trigger on his stick and two medium pulse lasers sliced through space at the smaller ship. Again and again and again. This time there were no mistakes. No fancy moves. Brian Storm watched his beams cut through the hull like a knife through butter. There had been no shields activated; the generator fried long ago it seemed.
The Sidewinder didn't flinch, it couldn't. Hull plates melted before his eyes, others detached from bulkheads and swirled away into the blackness of space, adding themselves to his scanner's background noise.
"Target destroyed," the computer reported a few seconds later.
"Hmpf," mumbled Brian Storm. It wasn't the satisfied euphoria of a job well done that usually accompanied an exploding mark. This was more like relief.
"You did well, kid," he nodded towards the burning wreckage. It had been a tough job, the mark had challenged him. Was this respect he felt for the dead pilot's flying skills? Maybe it was, certainly more than he felt for his patron.
But not to worry, he shrugged off the unwelcome empathy, a contract was a contract, and this one was now complete.
A shadow startled him. It covered his cockpit as a huge anaconda boosted past him to escape the battle. Proximity alarms shrieked once again. The Blood Red's shields fizzled blue as he was unceremoniously rammed aside by the monstrous ship. They were so close that Brian Storm could read the name plate on its hull as it scraped by.
"Better hope I don't see you again, Retribution's Promise!" he yelled out as he watched it escape in to the distance.
Then he pointed the Viper away from the carnage of Ponce de Leon Vision, and boosted far enough away to avoid further collisions during egress.
A minute or two later the viper was gone, nothing but a high wake cloud in its wake.