What Have I Done?
21 Jun 2023Doc Scalawag
Be advised, the following entry depicts violence and contains some harsh language.It wasn't strictly a legal op. Frankly, it was illegal as hell. I knew I was coming out with a heafty bounty. It wasn't the first time I found myself an outlaw. I've smuggled contraband (never slaves, my one rule), collected illegal salvage, run push, hush and Lazarus, sold items that weren't technically mine, hell, I've even spent some time in the Pillar for blocking a mail slot. I'm comfortable operating on either side of the law. The job was dirty, but no one was supposed to get hurt. Just knock down a couple of sentry skiffs. Dirty, but not rough.
I've killed before, most of us have. If the galaxy was a safe place, we wouldn't need hardpoints. Even before I became a Commander, I fought in several wars on behalf of the Federation. Killing isn't new to me. Sometimes it was self defense, sometimes it was the mission, and sometimes shit just happens (collateral damage, they called it), but never was it murder.
The sky was full of drones. One after another, they fell to the almost comical pew pew pew of the dual repeaters of my scarab. I was alone, maneuvering the ten wheeled vehicle over the rocky terrain, contending with almost no gravity as I depressed the trigger on the stick over and over again. Without a proper gunner, I could do little more than point the vehicle toward the swarm and trust the targeting computer to handle the aiming for me. It was working. Five, six, seven drones dropped before the white flashes of the turrets twin cannons. Beams of energy poured from the turret atop the SRV, while projectile munitions screamed towards it from all directions. I whooped with elation as more of the automated vehicles fell to the ground at an absurdly slow speed. The air was full of metal falling so slow it appeared to be floating. All of these things served to distract me as the computer selected another target.
"Target shields, offline" Celeste chimed.
Shields? I thought in a moment. That's different. I glanced down at the targeting computer. There was a name there. A person's name. "Glenda" was all I saw before the screen went blank again.
"Target destroyed." Celeste stated, matter-of-factly, as though mentioning the weather. Another drone had already appeared on the targeting readout, and the turret was rotating to acquire it. I looked up in horror, an icy chill creeping through me before I even saw what I had done. There, not a hundred meters in front of the Scarab, floating too slowly through the air, was a woman, clad in a charred gray flightsuit, globules of blood floating around her. An alert appeared on the comm panel: BOUNTY ACCRUED: MURDER, 1000cr.
I blinked at the panel, staring at it even after the message had disappeared, even as the landscape before me was disrupted by blue ripples from bullets splashing harmlessly against the vehicle's shield, I just stared. 1000 credits? For murder? Is that all a Citizen's life was worth? I would make several hundred times that for this mission alone, and several thousand times that when I turned in the week's bounty vouchers, combat bonds and completed jobs at Casper Ring.
"Shields Offline." Celeste chirped, still no hint of urgency in her heavily accented voice, snapping me back to the moment.
"Okay!" I exclaimed back to her, as though she could hear me. "We're going!" I executed an aggressive three-point turn. Despite being more stable in low-G than a U turn, I still nearly lost control of the rover as I snapped it around and threw the throttle forward. Every bump sent the vehicle several feet off the ground before lazily drifting back to the surface. The opposition gave no chase, and a few minutes later, I was back aboard Second Heartbeat, slamming coords into the nav computer while simultaneously driving the Adder skyward. A yellow circle appeared on the heads-up, highlighting a distant star: Korovii, home. My gloved hand hesitated above the FSD toggle. For a brief moment, I considered turning myself in. The moment passed, and I was watching the brilliant colors of hyperspace flashing before the cabin. It isn't like I will ever need to go back to that system, and I've never heard of a hunter that would even get out of bed for a thousand creds. I'll probably lose a little sleep over Glenda, whoever she was, but not enough to keep me from cashing out the mission first thing in the morning.