Chapter 1 - A Bounty Fit For A King
It all started back in the Drakoon system, I was posted there as part of the high king's new “security initiative”. I was with the 44th squadron holding position in orbit around the systems 3rd and most remote planet, on paper it was called Drakoon 3, but we called it “Red-Light-Roody” due to its Prominent Red-light district. My old Tiger-class Skirmisher, called the Dubber Rucky, was parked on the dark side of a large asteroid within the planet's rings, My crew was on edge, there was a rumor running around about a large drug train which makes its way through this sector once every 168 hours. We were staying dark, so that meant no heat, no lights, only enough power running to stop us from suffocating. And so we just sat there, no leaving our stations, ready to go at a moment's notice. I checked the low scanner, its infrequent pings showing no differences, the timer clicked on, showing that we still had 3 hours to go before the drug train is said to arrive. I put my feet on the console, and tipped my hat over my eyes, enjoying the relative calm of the situation. I don't know whether I fell asleep or it was just bad timing, but before I knew it the sensors were screaming at me as a space train flew right past us. I slid my feet off the console and into the yaw controls, punched a few buttons, and the ship roared back into life. Gripping the controls I pulled the ship away from the asteroid and after the train. We had all been briefed on what to do so my communications officer attempted to hail the train, but to no avail. And so by galaxy law, anyone who refuses a hail from a security member, will be subjected to instant capital punishment. After pulling into a tailing formation, I set off the scanner on the ship, which read out who was on board, what cargo they had and the conditions of their systems. For this ship, it displayed that they had five crew, 24 tonnes of shielded containers, and all systems operational, which meant that they chose to not respond. I said to my crew
“All right, it’s action time!”
they all responded with the traditional “Hooyah!”
I powered up the boosters and deployed the weapons, the twin 500mm cannons slid out from either side of the cockpit. The targeting system lit up showing a clear shot on the target, so I squeezed the trigger and sent two, one tonne shells into the back of the train, effectively disabling the main thrusters, and a bit more beyond that. The cannons sent vibrations all over my ship and slowed us slightly with the opposing force of firing the cannons. After me firing, my crew knew that was the signal to open fire and the train became riddled with the fire from our four turrets, which each had two 40mm machine guns, only because anything bigger would start to sacrifice speed. The cocktail of armour piercing, explosive and magnetic rounds made mincemeat with the outer plating of the ship, quickly finding ways to open up the ship. The escaping oxygen mixed with leaking fuel and the drug train ignited, causing it to split in two, the rear end spiralling into an asteroid, while the front half just kept on going, its momentum keeping it on its course. Now the main cannons were ready, the force of the shells knocked what was left of the drug train sideways, followed by a glorious explosion as the shells detonated. The bounty calculations started appearing on the monitor. It was much more than I had expected. The total bounty was 781,950 credits, half of which went straight to the force, but the remaining 390,975 was divided amongst the crew, which ended up in being 55,853 each. Not bad for a day's work! Since we were in the area, we decided to go and cash in our bounty voucher at Red Light Roody. Boy, were we in for a good time, or so we thought.
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