Into the Black

“STOP!” I threw my arm out to catch Shearah as she was about to run past me, and right into a hail of blaster fire. I sighed. “Well, they definitely know who we’ve got with us, and where we’ve parked. We need to get off this station, fast!”

It had been only fifteen minutes since we’d first run into the Red Orchid guys. Basically, they were a Yakuza clan that worked all across Sol system. They ran all the usual rackets, including drugs, vice, and extortion. Now, they were looking to make a big score by delivering the Princess to someone, probably her brother. That was a problem for me, because I had taken a job to deliver her to someone else, and I didn’t want to give up those credits. Oh, and the fact that having a beautiful princess depending on me appealed to that part of every guy that watches Conan the Barbarian, and wants to be just like that.

What? You thought women were the only ones who had unrealistic gender stereotypes shoved down their throats since birth? Get real. Have you seen He-Man? The man’s muscles have muscles on their muscles!

*ahem*

Anyways, now we were engaged in what was basically a running battle, trying to break through the reinforcements that were coming to try and kill us. They had been having people come out of side passages and hiding behind cover taking potshots at us the whole way, and we were nowhere near as uninjured as we had been before now. But we could still move. For bonus points, guess what Station Security is doing during all of this? If you guessed ‘trying to capture the crew that sprayed down a marketplace with bullets in a stupidly wanton display of destruction’, then you are 100% correct!

I didn’t have the PP to do the whole constantly hosing bullets thing, so I switched to my energy blade in my main hand, and the psyber pistol in my off hand. Using my grav-belt, I was able to do some pretty cool things, including a wall run that ended up on the ceiling, surprising the Yak in front of us until I put my sword in his eye.

I know we didn’t kill everyone in our way, but we didn’t bother to stop, not even to do more than the bare minimum of looting, taking bracers and obvious weapons if we had the chance. Now, we were just outside the hatch looking into the hangar bay, and I saw a problem. More like thirty problems. A whole bunch of pissed off Asian syndicate goons between me and my ship, behind hastily made defensive positions. And we didn’t have too long to deal with them before their buddies or Security caught up to us from behind.

A straight charge would be suicide, and we didn’t have time to get bogged down. I needed to pull a trick out of my hat that I’d seen in an old movie once. Tapping my bracer, I said, “Raven! You got the ship ready to rock yet?”

“Yes, Captain! The cargo has been loaded, including that last-minute item, and I’ve finished with the upgrades we could accomplish on this short time frame.”

“Good. I know you were hoping for more, but we’ll do that when we’ve got a chance for some yard time. You’ve been following our progress, right?”

“Yes, sir. What would you like me to do about the interlopers in the hangar bay?”

“Use the lower turret, if you please, and blast those defensive positions. I don’t care if you kill them or not, I just want a bit of shock and awe.”

“Understood, Captain! Firing in ten seconds.”

----------------------------------------

Amaya Hideo was nervous. This was only his second week on the station, having been sent up from Neo-Chiba on Earth because the local Group needed someone with his technical expertise. Unfortunately, the job they were supposed to do fell through because of the fallout of the Emperor’s assassination and some Nomad buying the slave that was central to the plan. It was only after the auction that someone considered that the Nomad may have used Mental Psy Powers to convince the Red Orchid’s leader to bid on a combat slave instead.

Such a dishonor could not be simply passed over! But then, as they were checking the recordings of their own spy cameras in Section 16, they caught the face of the woman who had come with him. Hideo himself had done the facial recognition queries, and was shocked to find that this was the missing Third Princess that the would-be Emperor was desperately trying to find.

So the oyabun had sent Kano-sama and his team to ‘persuade’ the Nomad to give up the Princess. Of course, they were going to kill him anyways, but they didn’t need to know that. No one was allowed to cross the Red Orchid and live.

But the unthinkable happened. This brazen gaijin Nomad and the girls with him opened fire, without regard to civilians or anyone around, and the gods-forsaken Nomad used what must be a considerable amount of PP to keep reloading his SMG each time it ran out, allowing him to literally blanket the corridor in shots. None of Kano’s team survived. Members who were out on ‘business’ quickly took up actions to delay the man, and this group was hastily assembled with everyone in headquarters that could hold a gun to ambush him in his hangar bay.

Oyabun Imari Shunsho was leading this group personally, he and his elite guards waiting behind the hastily moved cargo boxes that the group had arranged to offer them cover in the ambush. The man wouldn’t risk simply spraying bullets at his own ship, so there was no need to worry about that kind of insane tactic again.

Unfortunately for the gaijin, the Red Orchid members’ only concern was to make sure that the Princess and the slavegirl the Oyabun wanted were still alive at the end of this. So their guns were loaded with stunshots, including the (very illegal on a station) assault rifles Imari’s guards were leveling at the door. The idiot wouldn’t have a chance!

A whirring sound behind him caught Hideo’s attention, causing him to turn just in time to see the ship’s underside turret turn to face him. He started to scream, but was cut off when a flash of light ended his concerns most permanently.

----------------------------------------

Smiling at Raven’s last communication, I turned, and pulled Shearah into an embrace, before kissing her deeply on the lips. When I broke the kiss, I winked at her starstruck face, and said, “For luck.” The Knelfi girl just nodded dumbly, as the first blasts echoed through the hallway, and the screaming began.

Jaynie looked at me, squinting slightly. “Not doubting your style, Cap’n, but if your kisses cause things to go boom, I’m going to ask you to keep over there.” That got us all laughing.

As the blasts stopped, I put my head around the corner. The remaining Yaks were all in disarray, most of them dead or wounded. On my signal, we charged through the doorway, firing on anyone between us and the ship that wasn’t kissing the deck. We didn’t have time to properly strip the bodies, since station security would DEFINITELY be after us by this point. But as we ran by a group of mostly dead Yaks who had better armor than the rest, I made sure to scoop up their weapons and bracers. After shooting them in the head, to make sure they were all dead, instead of mostly dead. We’d sort out the loot when we were out of the system.

For defeating forty-one enemies of similar or higher levels than you, you gain 46000 XP.

+4000 XP for fighting alongside your Crew in battle against higher-leveled enemies.

+4000 XP for fighting alongside your Corporation members in battle against higher-leveled enemies.

+2000 XP for fighting alongside your Slaves in battle against higher-leveled enemies.

You are now Level 14.

You have 18 points to distribute.

Your actions have crippled the Red Orchid Clan’s activities on Choson Ring. Their Oyabun is dead at your hands!

You gain +1000 Fame.

Your status with the Red Orchid Clan is now Hatred (At War!).

You have killed individuals with active bounties on their heads. Total bounty: 230450 Credits. Bounty will be distributed according to your corporate settings.

You have a new active bounty on your head!

Current Bounties:

Red Orchid Clan – 350000 Alive, 100000 Dead

Automatics has improved to 6/100.

+3 DEX

Blades has improved to 5/100.

+2 DEX, +1 STR

Pistols has improved to 5/100.

+4 DEX

Due to your in character actions, you have gained the following:

+3 WIS, +2 CHA, +2 DEX

Now that we were out of combat, the screen popped up showing our rewards. Not even counting the stuff we took. Of course, having a crime syndicate place a bounty like that on my head was going to be even more trouble.

As I ran onto the ship, I sighed, “So much for keeping a low profile, huh, Raven?”

The air shimmered next to me, and a hologram of a woman with pale skin and raven-colored hair appeared, dressed in a long, flowing black dress. Two black-feathered wings sprang from her back, like those of a raven. So this is what Raven had decided on for her avatar?

“Nice look, Raven. What made you pick this?”

“Well, I’m called Raven, and my settings are female, so an image search brought up a picture of the old Celtic goddess, the Morrigan. It seemed fitting that I based my image off that.”

“Not a bad idea, Raven. I’m glad you picked something you liked. For now, is the ship ready to go?” By this point, I was sitting in the pilot’s chair on the bridge. I turned, to see everyone behind me. “Shearah, engine room. Cali, Jaynie, man the guns. Carissa, warm up the navcomputer, and start making calculations for the jump to Alpha Centauri. Princess, find someplace to sit and strap in. This could get bumpy.” As everyone turned to their tasks, I said, “Sorry, Raven. We ready to go?”

“Yes, Captain. But there is a problem with the hangar bay doors. The station has put them on lockdown due to the fighting.”

“Can you subvert control of the doors?”

“I am sorry, Captain, but I am not programmed for ‘hacking’.”

“Put that on the list of upgrades, then.” I would have to exit the ship to access the manual controls, which would be a bad thing if the station security came in while we were getting ready to leave. Fuck it, they shouldn’t have locked us in. “Raven, will our weapons take out those doors?”

----------------------------------------

Sgt. Miguel Madrid led his group of station security officers down the trail of destruction that had started less than half an hour ago here in Section 16. According to the eyewitness reports, the Red Orchids had decided to accost the captain of one of the freighters docked here. The Captain and crew opened fire, mowing down the Orchids with surprising brutality, and a definite disregard for bystanders. That was what pissed Miguel off most. Killing Yakuza? Give the man a medal. But such disregard for civilians needed to be stopped!

Following where the group went after that was easy, as there had been apparently a running gun battle all the way to the docks, with plenty of damage being done to both the surroundings and the civilians. Oh, and a few of the Red Orchids, too.

Finally, they made it to the hangar the crew was heading towards. Miguel checked around the side of the open hatch, and was floored by what he saw. Bodies were everywhere, over thirty of the Red Orchids were dead or dying. Miguel was about to order his men forward to search the ship, when he heard a high-pitched whine. The sound of a particle cannon being warmed up.

“Get back!” Even as he yelled the command, the ship unleashed its twin particle cannons, blasting the hangar doors. There was a moment of wind whipping past his face before the hatch in front of him sealed itself shut, the decompression alarms going off throughout the Section.

For the first time, Sgt. Madrid hoped that those Orchids were already dead. Being sucked out into space is no way to go.

“Who the hell were those people?”