The Reaper Diaries: Low-Down Dirty Cheater, Part 1
18 Feb 2016Michael Wolfe
I’m a low-down, two-timing, snake-in-the-grass cheater.From the observation deck, I watched the Hand of Blue being lowered into storage, her no-nonsense lines resembling an angry glare. A glare normally meant for whatever bounty meat was in my sights- but now? It was straight at me.
She knows, I thought. She knows that I’m cheating on her.
I had been seduced. I had succumbed in a moment of weakness. Fallen for a set of sleek curves, a gorgeous view, and an ass that just didn't quit. But now that I had reached the point of no return, all I could think about was what I'd done. I had turned my back on my companion, my protector, and my closest friend. Already, the pangs of guilt were tearing into my chest as the hanger door slid shut, sealing away my baby for- days? Weeks? Months?
Years?
It all depended on me. On how long I could go on living with myself. On how long it would be before I came to my senses and begged The Hand of Blue to forgive me.
“They grow on you, don’t they?”
I had almost forgotten about the Zorgon-Peterson rep standing beside me, so deep had I been languishing in guilt. I briefly glanced over to him, immaculate in his pressed two-tone suit, graying hair clipped precisely. Him and I had been sharing a bottle of the complimentary bottle of old-Earth varietal wine that came with my newest purchase. He walked up to me, his gaze joining mine on the now- vacant landing pad. I could almost still see my Vulture, a familiar symbol of deadly success in my chosen field.
Turning to the man, I nodded slightly. “They do. That Vulture is what got me into the big time. Her and I have been through a lot together.”
The rep smiled tightly, an understanding look in his eye. Normally, I goddamn hated ship salesmen, but this man- Anton, his name was- was a ship enthusiast first, a pilot second, and a salesman a distant third. He was a former freelancer who had retired from the game after meeting his wife and settling down, and judging from his expertise and stories, I could tell that there was a lot he probably wasn’t telling me about his past.
Still- I had genuinely liked the man, in that he was the real deal and didn’t seem like he cared in the slightest as to whether or not he made a sale. Now, he was standing next to me on the observation deck, watching the ships of Shajin Market come and go. Like me, he found the sights and sounds of station traffic oddly relaxing. It was one of many things him and I had had in common, even if I was just a commission to him.
“I could tell. There’s a reason I didn’t even try to get you to trade her in.” He took a sip of his wine. “Not that Zorgon would like me saying so- but Core makes a damn good ship to begin with, and the Vulture took things to the next level even for them.”
He glanced at me and smiled. “Of course, there’s always room to move up.”
So he’s a salesman after all, I thought. Validating my sentimental feelings about my old ship, while diverting my attention to the one he’s selling me. Pretty slick, really.
Well, you can’t fault a man for doing his job.
Anton gestured towards the opening hangar door, raising his wine in a pre-emptive salute to my purchase. “And there she is.”
The sleek lines of my new love rose from below for the entire docking bay to see. As much as knew I was going to miss the Hand of Blue, I still felt a surge of almost lustful anticipation at the seeing the work of art before me.
I had wanted a Fer-de-Lance since I first laid eyes on one in Pilot’s Fed academy- and years of successful bounty hunting had allowed me to accumulate the pile of cash needed to finally purchase one. It had been a long, arduous process of back-and-forth internal debate, but the brand-new upgrades for the year 3302 had tipped the scales for me. I had always heard that the Fer-de-Lance was terribly underpowered, with a tendency to heat up too quickly.
Now, things were different. Not only had Zorgon-Peterson’s engineers managed to increase the size fo the reactor bay to accommodate a larger powerplant, but the entire heat-dissipation array had been redesigned from scratch, resulting in a ship that didn’t damn near cook itself when fuel scooping or holding down the fire button. In addition, its thruster network had been enhanced for more nimble turning. It was the exact news I had needed to take the plunge.
It took awhile, but I managed to make it onto the waiting list of the limited-edition Zorgon-Peterson/Saud-Kruger joint-assembly projects. I knew that the process would be neither instantaneous nor cheap- but if I was going to go broke on a new toy, I was resolved to go broke in style.
Between the bounty hunting and the jobs I was able to line up, I had almost forgotten that I was on the waiting list for one of the brand-new luxury variants. Then, one day, I had been lazily sipping a beer in the systems operator seat of the Hand of Blue, browsing the jobs list, when a notification appeared on the screen:
<Incoming transmission>
<Source: Zeitzev, A.>
<Message is as follows:>
<Congratulations, Commander!
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Anton Zeitzev, and I’m contacting you because you had expressed interest in reserving a brand new, limited-edition Fer-de-Lance. I am pleased to inform you that one has become available, and is ready to be customized according to your specifications.
Your placeholder deposit of one million credits will be applied to the final cost of your ship. Your window of opportunity to accept this offer is one week after the date of this message. Please understand that if you decline to purchase your vessel, the placeholder deposit will not be refundable.
I look forward to meeting you at the earliest possible convenience.
Best regards,
Anton Zeitzev, Zorgon-Peterson>
<End of transmission>
Holy shit, I had thought. Time to make a decision.
My credit balance had been nice and fat from a year of cashing bounty vouchers with not a lot to spend them on. Even the massive amount of cash I had blown on outfitting the Hand of Blue had been recouped in a short amount of time; I could take on anything in her, and the high-end bounties gradually accumulated into an amount of cash bordering on the obscene.
So yeah. I could afford to buy her. I could afford to customize her in ways that I couldn’t the Hand of Blue. And the last of my qualms about purchasing a Fer-de-Lance had been vanquished in the redesign.
Naturally, I set up the appointment. A tour and a test flight later, I was sold.
Now, a month after finalizing my order, here it was- and she was even sexier than I imagined. I had gone for a black-on-black paintjob so as to better blend in with dark asteroid belts. Now, with the vessel sitting before me, I felt like my decision had been validated.
“Want to take the tour?”
Anton had been patiently waiting as I part admired the ship, and part daydreamed the events leading to this moment. I turned to him and grinned.
“I’ve been wanting to take the tour.”
Inside was as lovely as you’d imagine. Immaculate, mood-lit hallways, leather-appointed materials, and Saud-Kruger's classic, flowing interior design made the ship unlike anything else I had ever flown. It was luxurious, but in good taste. Eye-catching, but not ostentatious. And of course the new-ship-smell. Every pilot in the ‘verse loves new-ship-smell.
Yeah, I thought. I could get used to this.
Plus, she was big. She had more cargo, more elbow room, more weapons ports, and more internal space than the Hand of Blue- and was a little more versatile than being a straight-up murdership. She had a tiny kitchen, a brushed aluminum table for eating, and a privy that was actually separated from the stone-tiled shower. This was adjacent to the bedroom- my God, the bedroom. I swear to God that I was flying a tiny planetside hotel room. It had real hardwood floors, a walk-in closet, and elegantly lit everything. Gone also was the dingy, narrow bunk on which I had slept for years- the Fer-de-Lance had a proper, king-size gel bed, certainly large enough for my 6’4” frame.
Hey- in a ship, that’s a big deal.
Then, there were the custom modifications I had ordered. Naturally, I had A-spec’d everything- the reactor, the power distributor, the sensors, the thrusters, the shields, and the various tools and scanners I needed to do the work of a bounty hunter. Moreover, I had packed on three A-rated shield boosters- nothing was getting through to scratch my hull in any but the most hairy of firefights.
Then, there was the weapons loadout. I had packed on two medium-sized pulse lasers, and one class-three for the centerline weapon. Anton had shrugged when I specified that, since the weapon bay itself could actually hold bigger than that. The other two weapon slots closest to the bridge I had kept empty. I had big plans for those that Zorgon couldn’t help me with.
I had added one last touch, a personal first: I partitioned off some of the cargo bay and installed a vehicle garage, complete with a hydraulic elevator. I had always wanted one of those little scarab rovers, and now I had a ship that could haul both it and a decent amount of cargo.
All in all, I was happy to sign the dotted line on her. I was less happy to see my credit account shrink back down to new-jack levels. I shook Anton’s hand, watched him disappear down the entry ramp (another nice touch that the Hand of Blue had lacked), and spent the rest of the day going back and forth from my Vulture, carrying clothing and personal effects. It was more work than I had thought, moving into another ship, but I had ample closet room- in fact, all my clothes together barely took up half the available space. Moving my weapons was a little trickier- after all, both my bolter and plasma rifles weren’t exactly legal. But once they in, they were mounted in sliding, tactfully integrated cubbies- not a nasty old steel cage that had been bolted to the wall like before.
By the end of the day, I and most of my belongings were inside my new home. I looked around. All around me, there was leather and mood lighting, and Zorgon-Peterson had a wrist-computer app that allowed me to control almost every detail of the ship from my wrist computer.
Neat, I thought.
Testing out that app, I activated the holovision. It instantly accessed Shajin’s in-station network and downloaded over a thousand different channels. I raised my eyebrows, bewildered at the choices. Comedy, drama, sports, action- hell, even a dozen or so retro channels showing about 1300 years of moving pictures. I shook my head and looked around me, still amazed at the opulent environment around me, and even more amazed that it was mine.
How the hell am I supposed to get any work done in this damn thing?
I half-watched a game of holoball for about half an hour, and then turned it off. I didn’t even like sports, but watching anything in the new ship was exhilarating. I shook my head and put on some old-fashioned public-domain music as I settled in, stripping my clothes off and laying down on my gel bed. Even the damn bed had a set of controls for it. The gel could be warmed, cooled, or kept on “natural”- which was a fancy way of saying "off". I had even had to journey to the civilian section of Shajin to buy some cotton sheets for the thing. Now that was a purchase you typically don't make for a ship. Still- I was resolved to not go cheap on one of the most important parts of my day, so I bought some dark red, high thread count, heavy sheets for the bed. I also bought some heavy comforters- a simple, dark grey one, and a black one with the Pilot's Federation logo on it. Yeah, it was hardly the gear that a veteran bounty hunter was supposed to be seen purchasing, and it made my bed look like it belonged to some rich guy who wished he was a pilot.
But my God was it comfy. I lay on by back, feeling like I was on a cloud. I shook my head and took in the surroundings.
Not bad, Matt. Not bad at all.
I woke up the next morning, stretched out and still not quite believing that this amazing ship was mine. I threw my dirty clothes in the laundry unit- I was in the habit of putting them there instead of a hamper- and changed into a T-shirt and jeans. As pumped as I was about my new purchase, memories of what my credit balance had been reduced to still haunted me. I was going to have to clock some serious hours to re-establish my nest egg, but there was something I had to do first.
I had intentionally ordered the Fer-de-Lance with the two upper weapons bays empty. I wanted to try something… different. Something unique. Something only a fellow working for Arissa’s organization could mount.
The Imperial Hammer was the result of an experimental project undertaken by His (at the time) Majesty’s weapon labs. The idea was to take an already-deadly weapon- the class-2 railgun- and basically up the mayhem factor into something worthy of the Empire’s elite. The end result was certainly a success- the Imperial Hammer spit out three hypervelocity rail slugs instead the standard one- but certain compromises had been made.
For starters, it was only available as a class-2 weapon. That didn’t bother me, since my Fer-de-Lance had those to spare. It was also an absolute power hog. Again, this seemed both reasonable and damn near inevitable, since it was pushing out three rails instead of one. It was never implemented on a wide scale in Her Majesty’s navy due to its high cost in terms of credits and power consumption- but if you were a private contractor in good enough standing with her organization, you could whistle some up for your rig no problem.
It took all morning, but the Hammers were eventually installed, tested, and certified. I signed the documents, depleted my credit reserves even more, and looked down at my ship.
It was ready.
I changed into my flight suit and settled into the flight seat. Like the Vulture, it was upholstered with richly crafted leather. Unlike the Vulture, however, so was the rest of the bridge. Instead of the blood-red displays I was used to in the Hand of Blue, the Fer-de-Lance surrounded me with icy-blue readouts. I could barely see the front of the ship in the cockpit canopy, giving the bridge a very penthouse feel to it.
No wonder the commanders who drive these things tend to be pricks, I thought. Whereas the Hand of Blue had the pilot in front with a giant canopy around them, the Fer-de-Lance set its owner high and centered, giving a commanding- if not total- view of the action. You felt like the king of your own little castle. If the Vulture was a murdership, the Fer-de-Lance was a goddamn death yacht. Between the view and the appointments, it would be pretty easy to fall into the idea that you were hot shit for flying one of these.
Of course, she was big- bigger than the Vulture, and needed a gentle touch flying out of the mail slot. Then, I was out- and there was nothing but vacuum ahead of me.
Screw it.
I moved the throttle all the way forward, and felt the acceleration press me back in the commander’s seat. As much as I was trying to get an objective feel for the ship, I couldn’t help but to grin like an idiot at the sheer power that the Fer-de-Lance possessed. The Hand of Blue had always treated me well, but her speed was- well, she was designed to win fights, not run away from them.
Gingerly, I test-deployed the weapons- and though I had been saddling the ship with a pretty heavy power demand by strapping on the Imperial Hammers on top of the boosted shield array, she deployed everything just fine. Of course, the frame-shift drive, cargo scanner, wake scanner, and cargo hatch were all de-activated, but it didn’t matter. I had full shields, full weapons, and the best warrant scanner that money could buy ready to go all at once- something that had been impossible in the Hand of Blue. Then, I had an absolutely irresponsible idea:
I know that I promised myself to take things one at a time with the new ship, but I’ve got to see how she does on the reap.
It was rare for hostile agents to penetrate this deep into Imperial space, but it still happened. You were more likely to encounter the odd pirate or criminal passing through the system or trying to hijack a juicy T-7 laden with rare goods. Not that I liked seeing scum like that prey on the innocent, but in this case, I was hoping to stumble across at least a Cobra. Preferably with a nice, juicy bounty.
I flew back and forth across the Kamadhenu system, scanning the incoming ships arriving. There were plenty of cargo haulers, plenty of military, and plenty of private civilian ships going about their business, but nothing that called for the attention of a bounty hunter.
Then, I saw it. An Asp Scout, the new kind that was Lakon’s (failed, in my view) attempt to build a long-range fighter. You didn’t see too many of those in Imperial space, so I turned my ship towards it. I took a deep breath as the long range scanners did their work.
<Kumo Crew Watch>
<Dangerous>
<Wanted>
I grinned an evil smile. A Kumo enforcer, all alone and ready for reaping.
Wherever he was heading, he was in a hurry. He sped by me, on his way to one of the populated planets in the system. Was this guy a smuggler? Assassin? Hoping to catch up to some fat, helpless transport?
Well, it didn’t matter, because this was the last trip to Kamadhenu he was ever going to make.
It was slow going, but I was able to catch up to him. My interdictor flashed that the pirate was in range. I braced myself, pressed the button on the joystick, and-
WHAM!
The ship jolted as the familiar pull of the ship-to-ship tether was established. The Kumo ship lurched violently around, trying its best to get away, but I was just a little better at nailing down an interdictor trap than he was at escaping them. The tether tripped his safety features, locked onto his position, and spat us both out right next to each other.
As expected, the Fer-de-Lance spun around a few times as the flight control tried to regain control of the ship. I took the moment to deploy my hardpoints and bring up the Asp in the targeting computer, ignoring the roller-coaster ride.
I thought about immediately engaging, but selected the warrant scanner instead of my pulse lasers. I don’t know if it was me, but the scanner seemed to work faster than the one I had aboard the Hand of Blue. The pirate was just starting to come around when it finished. I glanced to the display on my left.
Over seventy thousand? I whistled and shook my head. Someone’s been a busy little bee.
The comm crackled. A gruff man’s voice came through. “I didn’t come all this way just to be pulled over by some pretender with a silver spoon up his ass. Do you have any idea who I work for?”
Under my helmet, I raised my eyebrows. My first engagement and people are already assuming that I’m some rich asshole. Maybe there’s more of a stigma to flying one of these things than I thought.
I keyed back. “Sure do. Y’all Kumos are my favorite type of roaches to scrape off my boot!”
The man didn’t reply, instead roaring over the comm as he opened up with beam lasers and autocannons. I hit the boost to get behind him, again feeling myself pressed against my seat harder than the Hand of Blue had ever done. Though his initial attack had impacted against my shields, they were still holding strong. I jerked the lever all the way over to get my weapons facing him- the trio of pulse lasers ought to make short work of his shields, and I can finally see if all the hype about the Imperial Hammers was true.
The Fer-de-Lance turned a little slower than the Vulture I was used to, but I was able to get the Asp centered without too much hassle. I let the gimbals center on the pirate, squeezed the trigger, and-
Dear God in heaven.
The trio of pulse lasers- two class twos and the class three along the lower centerline- spat out fire noticeably more rapidly than the Hand of Blue had been able to. Probably the difference in powerplant and distributor, I thought.
Though I had to pitch the nose of the Fer-de-Lance slightly upward to allow the center gimball to track it, the Asp’s shields were down in no time. I hadn’t put any pips to the weapons, so I switched over to the Hammers and closed the distance between myself and the pirate, who had abandoned any sort of offensive stance and was now clearly rabbitting.
I hit the boost and bore down on the fleeing pirate. Unlike the pulse lasers, the Hammers were fixed weapons- for them to be effective, good old-fashioned stick-aiming was needed. I rose slightly above the Asp, pointing down at the wide, disk-like hull. The computer warned me that my prey was warming up its frame shift drive.
I squeezed the trigger, waited a split second for the capacitors to charge, and-
Three quick, brilliant flashes of green light filled the cockpit, the rails slicing through the Asp’s hull and causing it to spiral. Even in the darkness of space, I could see bits of atmosphere and internal components flying out of the punctured ship. The frame shift warning on the HUD disappeared. Clearly, the pirate had either cancelled the process, or the six superheated vanadium spikes that had torn through his ship had cancelled it for him.
I laughed maniacally under my breath and shook my head. These Imperial Hammers and I are gonna get along just fine.
Aiming carefully, I put another salvo of rails through his hull, causing his ship’s integrity to start to fail. I switched to lasers- which by now had recharged a good deal- and drained the capacitor, finishing what the railguns had started. The pirate tried his best to jink and duck as his frame shift charged up, but it there was really no escape.
As the Asp Scout erupted into the final, consuming ball of flame, I retracted the weapon hardpoints and waited for the frame shift drive to come back online. To get everything to work, I had had to walk the same fine line with my power management as I did with my Vulture- but there was no denying that the Fer de Lance was capable of more interesting mayhem than simply blasting away with a pair of pulse lasers.
I looked at my navigation display, scrolling through the list of potential destinations. After that initial test, I wasn't in the mood to head home. I wanted more.
Hmm… Callanero is always needing a hand with the pirates in that system. Plus, they’ve got that nice, juicy extraction site that even local authority won’t touch.
I checked my ship’s displays. The hull was unscathed, the shields had barely been rippled, and each railgun still had 84 spikes just waiting to be loosed.
And I still needed to replenish my credit reserves. Calennero it is, then.
So, I jumped over to the neighboring system of Calennero and headed straight for the hazardous extraction site. None but the most skilled or desperate of miners worked those rocks, since Authority had made it clear that they couldn’t spare the patrols to police the area. As far as crime problems go, hazardous sites like those occupied something of a grey area in terms of priority. Not many poorer systems possessed the law enforcement muscle necessary to drive them out in a conventional crime sweep, but they weren’t quite enough of a nuisance to warrant the attention of a sector naval squadron, either.
So, local governments simply warned the locals to not mine or journey to certain areas and focused on protecting the established trade lanes, and all but begged bounty hunters like myself to do the dirty work that they lacked the resources to attempt themselves.
What is there to say about my next five hours after arriving? Wait like a sliver of death in the shadow of an asteroid, scan everything until a ship passes by with a bounty, and descend on them with pips to weapons. The lasers took even the stoutest shields down in a hurry, and the Hammers- well, six vanadium slugs burrowing through a reactor bay at sub-light speeds makes for a bad day no matter what you're flying.
It was rinse, wash, and repeat- until I used up the last of my railgun slugs on a Vulture with a six-figure bounty. The irony of the final victim of my day’s reaping being the same type of ship as the Hand of Blue wasn’t lost on me. Between the symbolism and the expenditure of ammunition, I decided that it was time to call it a day.
I didn’t go to the bar like usual to celebrate- instead, I bought a bottle of champagne, put it in the fridge, took a shower, and changed into something a little more relaxed. I was just beginning to turn the corkscrew into the bottle when my wrist computer chimed.
<What’s got two thumbs, a hold full of Onionhead, and just docked at Shajin?>
A few seconds passed, and then another message showed up:
<This chick right here
>Even while chuckling to myself, I could scarcely believe it. First, the amazing new ship. Then, the spectacular time wasting pirates. And now, Kyndi was in-system and in an apparently good mood?
Something was up with the universe. Good days like the one I was having simply didn’t happen. I shook my head and set down the bottle, my head swimming.
<Bay 32. Come see my new toy!>
I only waited a moment before she replied.
<Be there in ten>
I glanced at the bottle and decided that it was better saved for two. Seeing Kyndi was an unexpected pleasure- we hadn’t been together since the mini-vacation to my parents’ house for Christmas- an occasion that had ended surprisingly, bizarrely, amazingly well for everyone. My wrist computer chimed again.
<Want me to bring anything?>
Time to turn on the charm. <Only a smile>
I walked to the pilot’s cabin and gave myself a look in the bathroom. Not bad, I thought. Thank God you took a shower. Thinking quickly, I threw on the jacket that Kyndi had given to me long ago and lowered the entry ramp, the soft blue mood lighting illuminating beautifully against the dimly-lit hangar.
This is going to be goddamn perfect, I thought. I was already anticipating the perfect end to a perfect day- the new ship, the pile of bounty vouchers, and now a visit from a dear friend.
A visit that’ll probably end in drunkenness and debauchery, I thought. Hell yeah.
I walked up to the hangar entrance and killed the lights, letting the illumination from the entry ramp and the light within be the only source of light in the hangar. Then, I opened the door and waited outside, watching people walk by the hallway. I leaned against the wall, trying not to grin to myself like an idiot in front of all the foot traffic. After a few minutes, I heard a familiar, feminine voice:
“Matty!”
I turned my head to the side, and there she was.
I strode up to her- and instead of replying, gave her my most dashing, roguish grin as we embraced and kissed right in the middle of the hallway, not caring who saw. Kyndi was still, well- Kyndi. She smelled amazing, felt amazing to hold, and kissing her still got my blood pumping. After a few moments of smooching, we broke the kiss and looked at each other.
“Howdy, darlin’.”
She looking at at me with an amused expression, a coy smile on her face. “Catch you at a good time?”
I tried my most charming smile. “Any time you’re around is a good time- but yes. Today is an especially good day to be me.”
She laughed and took my arm, walking with me to the hangar entrance. “And would that have anything to do with this mysterious new toy you’ve acquired?”
I shrugged and smirked at her. “It might. Or maybe I’m just extra happy to see you.”
Kyndi looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. “I don't know. You're being extra charming today”
I opened the entrance to the hangar, the light from the hallway illuminating a short path. We walked in, and I shut the door behind us. The only thing that we could see was the mood lighting of the ship’s entry ramp, making a soft blue beacon for us to follow. By unspoken agreement, we paused and turned to each other, kissing in the darkness with a little more urgency, me pinning Kyndi to the steel wall of the hangar. I felt her wrap her arms around my neck, and I let my hands trace the outline of her perfect backside, my fingers lingering over one of the fashionable tears in her jeans. Just as our tongues were starting to touch, she pulled away.
“So, are you going to show me this new toy of yours, or are you going to paw at me like a teenager?”
“Can I do both?”
Tugging the opening of my jacket, I felt Kyndi pull me closer to her. “Only if I get to paw back.”
I leaned in and kissed her, lifting up her shirt and caressing her soft belly, letting my fingers brush the underside of her breast. “Well, maybe we should take our time. It ain’t going anywhere.”
Kyndi grinned even as I we were kissing. She poked me in the side and tenderly bit my lip. “Stop teasing and let me see it!”
In an exaggerated manner, I reached beside me and threw on the hangar lights, illuminating my new Fer-de-Lance in all its sleek glory. Its entry hatch was lowered, just waiting for us to give it the christening it deserved.
“Well, what do you think?”
The gleeful look on Kyndi’s face melted into a look of first astonishment, and then mild disgust. She turned to me, hands on her hips. She opened and closed her mouth a few times like she was trying to find worlds. Finally, she gestured to the ship and shook her head, giving me a cockeyed look.
“Matty- when did you become an asshole?”