The moment I came out of the hyper-jump bright yellow energy bolts came hurdling towards my warship. I had just recently bought her for her combat purposes. I needed something heavy that could hold a lot of turrets and shields, seeing what kind of business I was in: bounty-hunting.
I double checked my target scanner: ----------ship type: Azdgari warship, ship name: Arrowhead, record: renegade----------
Yep, this was definitely the guy I was looking for----Chris Heverna. The UE had recently opened bounty-hunting missions on my account for doing some work for them. And boy do they want this guy bad. They put a 2.5 million cred price (dead or alive) on his head for killing 8 UE fighter pilots in combat.
There had been a disturbance in UE space recently, naval patrols kept finding disabled craft floating aimlessly through space. When they went aboard the crew was gone and the cargo and credits were taken. This kept going on for about a month or two when finally a UE carrier caught him in the act. It dispensed 8 fighters---the same that were shot down. Heverna's shields were disabled after the battle, and having a little bit of armor left, fled from the approaching carrier. Rumor had it a little bit after that he had been sighted in the western part of the Crescent. Before I began my hunt I hired six UE heavy-class fighter escorts, along with my original three crescent fighters in my docking bay. Because I knew that Heverna's Azdgari class warship had stronger shields, and could hold twice as many escorts as my Crescent-class warship. I had just jumped in to an uninhabited system right inside the border of Igadzra space. This is where my story begins.
The energy bolts from the Arrowhead kept speeding over. "MS turret alpha, bravo, and charlie, fire at will!" I called to my gunners. "Lower deck open the bay doors," I commanded. I called my substitute captain, G. Antson, to man the ship while I jumped in my own onboard fighter. I sprinted to the docking bay and climbed in the cockpit of a crescent fighter. "Blackdog 1 departing from mother ship," I radioed to the bridge. "Copy that Blackdog."
I thrusted the throttle forward and blasted out of the warship, my two wing men on either side. I radioed to my UE escorts: "Blue team to red team, be on alert." I looked forward again and saw that the Arrowhead had dispersed seven opposing fighters from it's bay. They come closer. "Blue team and red team fire at will" I said.
These smaller Azdgari fighters had less shields and armor, but were almost three times as fast of my escort UE fighters. I looked straight ahead into the face of the enemy and squeezed the trigger. But they were too maneuverable---not one of my bolts hit it. Before I knew it there were two on my tail, and I found myself turning the joystick every which way trying to avoid any enemy damage.
But it was worse than that, each of my wing men also had at least one Azdgari following them. But by attacking us they left the UE escorts totally open. The enemy was so oblivious to that threat that I'm guessing they didn't notice them.
"Blue leader to red leader, we're in trouble, wonderin' if you could you back us up," I said to the UE squad leader.
"Yeah, we're coming, we'll see what we can do," he replied. But before the escort team could arrive my wingman got hit in his right engine---and his craft exploded. I got worried because I didn't see his eject seat anywhere. I was taking a lot of damage to my fighter too, I didn't know how much longer I could hold. Just then on my radar I saw one of the bogeys behind me disappear---then the other. They were both smitten by heavy rockets. "Thanks red leader." I yanked the joystick up and whipped around behind the one on my wingman. I began firing and I made several hits, but not enough to bring it down. I saw that I damaged it's two left engines and that was severely affecting it's speed. I figured it was going slow enough, so I launched an SAD module to finish it off. I broke away to avoid any splash damage. This worked, at the corner of my eye there was a bright explosion.
"Thanks Blackdog, but I still got one more on me," my wingman said.
"Copy that, Greydog," I replied. I pulled back and targeted the other Azdgari, being careful too stay out of range of the Arrowhead's deadly fire. "Blackdog to Greydog, see if you can turn around, lure the bogey towards me."
"Roger, Blackdog."
I knew that an SAD mod could not go as fast as a fully-functional Azdgari fighter, but perhaps if the two were going at each other it might work. I had to fire it late so not to give any time to maneuver away. I targeted the enemy on my scanner and waited. It was falling right into the trap--- "....3....2....1" ---- I slammed my fist on the button and the module whirled out BOOM!!! My plan worked perfectly---but at a price. I hit the two right Xed-wings and it went spinning towards my warship. The gunners didn't have time to target it for it was too fast, and it rammed into the left hull of my ship, probably taking a good 40% off of my shields. At that moment I began getting pelted by bolts, two Azdgari were behind me. Before even blink the siren was ringing in my fighter--I was going down.
I reached up and pulled the rope at the top of the cockpit and felt myself being jettisoned out in an escape pod. Luckily when I ejected I was facing my warship. Antson hit the tractor beam and pulled me into the fighter bay. I felt the pod gently land inside my ship. The hatch flew open and my medics were pulling me out. "I'm alright," I said, and dismissed them. Before I could even walk out of the fighter bay my wingman flew his fighter in and put her down on the landing rail. He rushed out to meet me.
"Are you ok, Weedman?" he asked me.
"Yeah I'm fine, but what's our status?"
"Well..." he said and looked down gravely "We lost three in our escort team."
"Was their leader with the three?" I asked.
"I'm afraid so," he said sadly.
"And any word if Jaxon (referring to my other wingman) escaped in time."
"Nope, the bridge says they're not picking up any distress signals."
"And what of the enemy fighters?" I asked him.
"The escort team shot down two, and the one left jumped to another system, I guess because he was outnumbered 4-1."
"Good," I said and rushed to the bridge.
"Antson!" I yelled, "what's our shield status?"
"Currently 76% sir," he replied. "Okay good, you're dismissed, I'll take it from here."
The three remaining UE escorts, being lead by Commander Warner (my other wingman) began attacking the Arrowhead along with my crescent warship, the SS Athene. The phase cannons on my ship combined with the heavy rockets from the UE, the Arrowhead was virtually helpless. But while it was being attacked a massive Igadzra Warship, 3x the size of my craft, jumped into the system. I received a transmission on my computer that read: "Renegade! cease your fire at the azdgari ship or we will be forced to attack."
I knew they only said this because, being enemies of the azdgari, wanted to raid the ship for themselves.
I transmitted back to them: "I am not a renegade and the Arrowhead is not an Azdgari ship. I am a bounty hunter for the United Earth Government. The captain of the Arrowhead is a human renegade and wanted in 3 different star systems for serious crimes against the UE Navy."
The great Igadzra craft did not answer, but sent a shower of phase bolts and a cluster of SAD mods toward us. Right then the Arrowhead jumped out of the system. I hurried and activated the hyperjump engines and blasted away after the renegade, just avoiding the Search-And-Destroy modules, that would have destroyed me. "That was a little too close for comfort" I said to Antson.
Two days passed and I came out of hyper-mode above a lifeless, uninhabited planet. I orbited it until my sensors read a large craft parked on the surface. I broke the atmosphere along with the 3 escort fighters. When we got close enough to see the Planet's texture a hail of phase bolts shot from the ground, evidently Heverna's turrets were still operational. But it was no challenge disabling the ship completely. I activated the SAD launcher and fired 2---that did it. I landed the craft, but the UE escorts stayed in the air in case we needed further back-up.
I walked down to the boarding deck and radioed to the bridge. "Command, assemble our assault force." I waited till my team of twenty fully armored "soldiers" came over. I pulled out my trusty automatic. "Locked and loaded?" I asked the team.
"Yes sir!" they said.
"Good" I said, and opened the blast-doors.
My team and I ran down the deck and a mass of cross-fire exploded along the planet's surface. It was no wonder this place was uninhabited. It was just one hot, bright, barren desert.
The Arrowhead's defense team were carrying some old 20th century M-16 rifles. They were old, but still very deadly. 5 of the team and I ran behind a nearby rock for cover. I popped up and threw a grenade (these were supplied by the UE for dangerous missions) and ducked back down. I heard an explosion where the enemy force was, but couldn't be sure how many it brought down. I looked and then saw three men in my assault force wiped out in the fire fight. "Sky team, back us up down here!" I yelled in my radio.
"Yeah, we're coming," replied the UE escorts.
We kept on gun fighting until a minute or two passed. The fighters swooped down from the sky letting loose a hail bolts from their fatal cannons. This helped us immensely. With five or six enemies remaining compared to our fourteen remaining we took their weapons and put them in my cargo hold. The fighter craft landed and the pilots climbed out. "Good work up there" I said. "Bridge, was Captain Heverna in that defense group?" I asked on the radio.
"Negative sir, we didn't see him. We believe he is still residing in his craft," they answered.
"Copy that," I replied. "Okay, 6 of you come with me to the Arrowhead, the rest go back to the Athene to be treated by medics," I told my team. So me and six members walked to the massive Azdgari warship, while the rest returned as I said. I walked up the boarding deck, the blast doors were already open. We went into the Arrowhead. It was dark and gloomy, all of it's power systems were disabled. At the entrance there were four different ways: two long outer halls to the left and right that had the windows, one center hall, and behind the boarding deck was the bridge. I knew where everything was in this craft, because it's layout it virtually identical to the Crescent Warship. I ordered the team to split into two groups: me and two others, and then the remaining four men. I figured my best guess was the bridge, so I headed there first.
When we got to the cockpit no one was there. "Team 2, have you found anything?" I whispered through the radio.
"Negative, sir," they answered.
The three of us walked back to the main entrance. "Let's take the right outer-hall" I said. We walked a little ways up when a body came into my view. I ran up to find that was Captain Heverna, not dead, but out-cold. Right next to him on the outer hall were two great indents. He must have got knocked out by the two SAD modules that hit there. I bent over to pick up his lifeless body. "This was too easy" I thought to myself.
"Sir! This is team 2!" I heard on my radio. "We thought that all the power was disabled, but apparently the self-destruct mechanism is still fully operational.....we've got two minutes!"
I hesitated for a moment thinking, then I hurried and picked up the body and ran as fast as I could to the boarding deck. I met the other four teammates there, we ran through the blast doors and down the ramp. Then I stopped for minute to catch my breath, it was tiring carrying Heverna that whole way. "We have no time for that, sir!" a team member shouted. I got back up and sprinted to the Athene still dragging the renegade. I ran up the deck, and got inside, throwing Heverna on the ground. I closed the blast doors and lifted the ramp. A the very same moment I heard a loud explosion, and huge pieces of the Arrowhead pelted the hull of my ship. I realized if I had been a second later I would have been dead. The debris was everywhere on the ground, and a piece definitely would have hit me.
I looked back down at Heverna, and an idea came over me. I kneeled down and reached in his pocket and pulled out his cred stick. I walked to my computer and inserted it in. The screen read 616,000 credits on it! This would more than enough pay the UE escorts for their services, and I could keep the 2.5 million for myself and my crew.
I went to a cargo sell and threw the renegade in. Then I walked up to the bridge. "Another hard-earned bounty," I said to Antson as we made our way back to Earth.
Written by baw629@aol.com
(This message has been edited by moderator (edited 03-17-2003).)
