The Wanted
25 Sep 2017Velswraith
Sept 08, 3303 - LHS 1920 - ContinuedThe guttural groan of my ship indicated I was being interdicted. My ships shields were still recovering after having taken a barrage of missile attacks during my escape from the planet.
Years of smuggling had trained me well in the art of interdiction evasion. I weaved my ship towards the calculated escape vector, but it wasn't enough. Whoever was interdicting me knew what they were doing. Probably some pirate thinking I'd have some juicy cargo in my hold.
That's when I noticed the bright red "WANTED" status over my ships heat signature monitor. Yeah, it's nice to be wanted. Sucks to be WANTED.
"Damn!" I thought to myself. The authorities.
My trespassing and hostile actions taking out that Goliath had inadvertently made me a fugitive. I stayed on my escape vector, weaving my ship as needed, hoping to break the interdiction and escape.
tick-tick-tick Time passed like a hard stool sample, slowly and painfully.
My ship let out a final groan of agony as I failed her. The sudden pop of exiting super-cruise. The frantic shifting of all thrusters in an attempt halt the uncontrolled spin of a ship in space.
I targeted my opponent, hardpoints deployed.
It wasn't a pirate nor was it the authorities. It was worse. Much, much worse.
An egocentric bounty hunter. Bounty hunters are the worst. The wanted status may state "Dead or Alive" but your average
I know, silly, right? Not really. It was easier to just vaporize your target than to have to haul them to the local authorities. Time is money and the kill will move you on quicker to your next target.
She hailed me over the comm's "Looks like you'll be my meal tick...."
Yeah, bite me. I thought to myself as I switched the comms channel off.
FSD - not ready yet
Shields - still charging
The Fer de Lance appeared in front of me. I pulled the trigger to fire - "weapons malfunction" the ships computer happily stated.
Smoke, alarms, electrical popping sounds and my spacesuit triggering life support were the last things I remember before everything went black ...