A Bounty Hunt with Helen's Hornets' Nest -By Space_Daemons / Ladam Content Warning: blood, gore. Stars passed by the chrome framed windowpanes, a couple of them in a stage of supernova. An iron clad finger slid to the right on the glowing interface of a button filled panel. He sat in the dimly lit cockpit of his ship. A few red and orange lights lined some of the controls and crevices between them. Small interior side lamps revealed some of the surrounding grey lower walls and flooring. Medieval era styled armor was fixed around his body. A star, and eventually a slightly visible body of planets in its orbit came closer into view. A long weapon was slung on the man's back; beyond the weapon's handle was a somewhat easily maneuverable shaft, with a chain lined with cutting teeth looping around it. A blue planet orbited by two moons caught the center of the man's gaze. Its movement slowed, and its blue tinge reduced as the ship neared the other end of the wormhole it was riding in. The snare of suffering is universal. Whether a planet gave home to a slave civilization or utopian society, there was always some form of suffering to be found on it. He sought to vanquish it, all of it. Erase the suffering. He'd do it through the deletion of all life itself. He's heard about this one. He's heard about the possibility of this planet holding developed life on it, and he's come to find out for himself. If he found a means to take out a world, he would, and he always had a reason to. He would eventually come across a view of clear skies, and streets surrounded by picket fences within a couple hours of reaching the planet's surface. As above, so below. As below, so above. Steph's thumb rubbed over the photo in his hand as he laid in the bed of his twilight lit room. The soothing faint blue glow was coming from a fluorescent sun lamp set at the other end of the room. He'd been staring at the photo for awhile. It was of the entire crew gathered together in a group shot. There was a photo of a similar shot on the shelf by the bed, but it was more recent and missing a member. He stepped out into the junction between two short opposing hallways and an open room to his right connecting the center, eyes scanning along the way. It was a kitchen / dining room, and some of the crew stood chatting at a far side of it. "Can I borrow your screwdriver to fix my microwave? I left mine at the other end of the ship," Maxwell inquired. Maxwell's head and some other bodily characteristics made him very closely resemble that of an upright standing jackal, fur and all, but with a mostly humanoid body. Theodore, similar enough in appearance to Max to tell they're of the same species, replied quick: "Oh yeah. Hey, are you confident about our current target? This one's an outlier," to which Max would answer, "I am. It's not paying like a suicide mission; plus, we'll have the merit of freeing up the trade route." Steph sat at the nearest table with a darkened screen laptop situated on it, before letting his ear focus on Jason and Chase's conversation. "Someone once drove off three SF-11 fighters while in that ship." Jason stated with some enthusiasm. "Yeah fucking right!" Chase chuckled heartily with curious sarcasm. Chase was human, with a very muscular build. Jason had what seemed like a tattoo on his forehead, and he looked human at first glance, but not very at a second. Jason's real name was in a different language, but much of that language was spoken in tonal ranges too high to be audible to humans, and the crew mostly spoke in an Earth language anyway. Steph's eyes perused the kitchen counter lined with foodstuff, but it only strengthened his wish that he had enough time to eat something. The crew had very loosely assigned roles: Captain, Co-Pilot, Head Chef, and the two people comprising the Engineering team. The laptop's screen lit up fully and interrupted Steph's thoughts. A woman, Jessie, side-stepped into view of the video feed and spoke. "I've promised the entity a nonexistent child and dog as food, and given it a few pass-codes to convince it that I'm bargaining, and to buy us more time. Now would be a great time to get over here; I don't want to have to deal with those things by myself." The other four gathered around Steph's table, and Jessie's video shrank to fit half the screen as another person joined the call. A male feline figure dressed in a light grey flight suit appeared and spoke. "This is agent O-83. Come in, squad?" "Yes, this is Stephen of the H.H.N." Steph replied. "Your captain has already introduced me. My current Agent code is O-83, but you may also call me 'Tod.' I'm located inside one of the ejected escape pods. The decoy is set, and it seems that the targets are convinced that they're dealing with a populated cruise ship rather than Jess on her own. "As we know, Revenant Dragons, including these outlaws, can't die by normal means because they reincarnate with their memories intact. They must be captured, or—as your plan seems to suggest, 'place them into a vegetative state with a really well aimed shot.' We only need to effectively neutralize their team's lead, and we get extra mileage if we can find clues as to where their backup bodies are generated and stored. The view to your side of entry on the ship is blocked by shutters, and we'll need the captain to help us spot for you throughout the interior. Do be careful out there." The sand dunes rolled by as the hover-van traversed the surface of the hot desert planet. Most of the team had departed their ship, now in work attire as they headed for the objective. Most passengers were outfitted with tac vests, a headset that included small sound amplifying earmuffs, an unintrusive small glass eyepiece that provided a HUD display attached to said headset, and either an energy based pulse rifle or a traditional ammunition assault rifle. "I heard that two mooned planet nearby might really have sentient life on it." Theodore perked up with a soft, bright half-smile as he stated. He gazed onto the fleeting scenery full of blindingly illuminated golden coloured dunes, eventually averting his eyes when it became too much on them. "Oh yeah. There'll be more observations underway on Eirene-183c soon for sure," Maxwell, at the wheel, responded in kind. Stephen and Chase were the other two men in the van, and the large and partially buried cruise ship off in the distance was getting nearer. Theo's gaze turned to them. "Oh, since we're swapping paths, you might want to keep in mind that they could've set up a robot in on the entry point you're headed in," he informed. Once dropped off, Chase and Steph headed toward the cavity where one of the launched escape pods was once held in the side of the hull. "So what do you think is the deal with these pirates?" Chase started up. "Maybe a lame sob story about getting exiled from their tribe?" he scoffed. As they stepped inside, it became more apparent that various sections of the interior wall paneling near their entrance were depressed irregularly or falling off. "I wouldn't know. Maybe it's not that simple... but I wish the Rev Dragons would clean up their own crooks more often, rather than leave us to deal with the stragglers. They're the ones who are effectively immortal, not us." replied Stephen in a plainer, quieter tone as they began their advance down the hall that faced the pod entrance lengthwise. Chase was missing about half of the standard loadout, leaving him with just the headgear, a tee shirt and tactical pants rather than body armor, and two holstered sidearms rather than a rifle. One of the sidearms also had something extra fixed to it. "You gotta try some souffle I'm whipping up as soon as we finish up here," Chase said at an almost whispering volume as they gained a few more yards down the hall. "If their sleeves run out of tricks before mine does, these guys better be able to put up a good fight," he continued with a light smirk and some confidence as they neared the end of the hall at their slow pace, which adjoined the side of another. Standing before it, Chase knelt down and signalled for Steph to step to his right. Chase pulled out a small mirror with his left hand and one of the revolvers holstered to his hips with his right. He carefully moved the mirror in front before quickly jutting it out and flashing it at angles that reflected both sides of the next hall back to him. Then noticing something to the right, he flipped the mirror to view directly behind himself while simultaneously aiming his revolver, the one with the 30mm underslung grenade launcher attachment and forward secondary trigger. He lined up the shot, seeing a gray figure with a bar hanging in front of it peering out of a hidden door revealed via individually sliding panels in the wall near their bright point of entry that contrasted with the dark hall they treaded down. Just as Chase pulled the first trigger, he realized he was aiming at an automated turret on wheels, which prompted him to pull the secondary one. A metallic clang from the first shot's landing could be heard in the distance as he popped off the next. The sentry's barrel began to turn towards the two man team just before its body exploded, sending its barrel spinning off, as well as shooting some of the ammo left in its body into the nearby wall it was facing. All of this happened within a second of Chase's first sighting of it. The moment passed and the smoke fled the barrel of his revolver before he eventually lowered it. "There should be enough sound-proofing between us and them," he stated, before getting back on his feet and rounding the right corner of the nearby hall they stationed at. He looked past and down at a small motion sensor by the wall on the ground, nodded at it, then continued off with Stephen. They'd make a long trek through the ship's lower structure until they found a room set up for Steph to surveil Chase's surroundings. They split from there, Steph now serving as a better set of eyes as Chase headed for a section near the bridge where Jessie approximately was. There were three targets to find, two male and one female. Chase, spotted by Steph, would head for the main target, while Theo and Max, guided by Tod, would go elsewhere to find its two subordinates. The teams would gather acetylene tanks and other supplies along the way. "Of all star clusters, our souls are most dazzling; and of all sunrises, our memories most lasting. Who are the stars to chart our courses? If bound together, we'll brave the weather. Gracing our scars, we'll pave the forces... Just a poem of mine translated in another tongue." The woman had a kind of peculiar figure, and her appearance was also characterized by a lot of red colour. There appeared to be no one else in the room; she seemed to be speaking to herself, though she was actually talking to someone on the other end of her headset's voice comms. "That's just something I had to stop getting upset about..." Her head tilted slightly as a small screw at the other side of the room fell from a table, the elements piling atop said table slowly shifting with gravity. "I checked that too..." A small ball-like object also rolled to her, which she stopped with a digitigrade foot of hers. It was a fruit that looked like an apple or a peach. She eyed it for a short moment. The woman's skin and fat layers were mostly transparent, muscles and ligaments clearly visible underneath. She had a robust, very athletic build, and a head similar to that of a raptor or Tyrannosaurus rex. She had a mostly humanoid, partially reptilian musculature and bone structure, large sweeping tail included. "I know if the risk is too much, we'll have to abandon it... The brig is abandoned, most of its control was somehow rerouted, and I've noticed the security system's been tampered with... I found one of them; she acted strange... We still need to do something about this ship, and all the people stranded on it... I care..." She stood there wearing nothing—save for some tactical gear, her hand within reach of a small control panel on a stand as she stared at a slightly lifted platform in front of her. "Don't worry... We'll find a new home. Maybe a new family... Keep your head up. We'll make it." She pressed a button in front of her, and the lift made a soft whirring sound as it began to operate. She inhaled slowly, eyes peeled on the crates that lined the top of the rising platform as she calmed. She began to reflect on her life more than she had in awhile; those she knew, familiar homes and places, and the nomadic space travels those places would go on. She remembered the good and the bad, everyone she had and hadn't trust for, her artistic and military contributions. She remembered her days spent watching a spectacular flower bloom in zero gravity with her then love interest. She began to worry a bit for her two other squad-mates, them being her current friends, and hoped for their futures to fair well alongside hers. The memories kept flooding in, the laughs, the games. One of the crates hit a ceiling as she held onto that last thought. There were marks along the floor present from crates having been moved from the left to the right side of the room. She raised her foot from atop the apple-like fruit and jammed her first two toes into it, revealing a mushy center. She loved the games. She was too enthralled with the thought of them to notice that only the front row boxes on the large half-room-sized hydraulic press were filled to the top with rations. She dug her claws deeper into the fruit, thrusting and twisting them in as its juice squished out. "Tell me more..." The sounds of boxes being crushed would start to mesh with those of the fruit's juice squeezing out, making it sound more like an animal than a plant part to her, structure-wise. She'd linger on that activity for seconds before removing her foot from it, only to begin kicking it in that same exact spot, spewing small bits of fruit across the floor. She then half-stomped it into the floor before sinking her toes back into the compressed remains, worming them around and repeating a previous process. "Petty mortals sure are fun to play with, aren't they," she chuckled with an aroused and malignant inflection. Now those wargames are for real, and this ship has some valuable components to be sought after. That was all that she hungered for. A steel grated floor ran under the long, darkened corridor, revealing some electrical panels and wiring. A row of metal arches fixed with hand-rails lined the path. Dim, red emergency power outage lights lined the walls up top. Max and Theo moved along the path, walking and speaking in low volume. Maxwell went on, "—I don't know, I think I prefer the model with the canard—and better atmospheric turning," before Theodore interrupted. "I don't mean to sound biased, but the things we're after freak me out when in fight-or-flight. It's like they're on meth, adrenaline, or 21st century humans on sugar highs." Someone then radioed in; it was Tod. "Up ahead, across the flanks at the end of the hall." There was a long pause as the two snapped their aim down the corridor upon hearing that, fingers on trigger. "They seem cautious of the hall you're in. It's like they're debating over it," he paused, "I'll tell you if they move closer or farther." The two began to slightly relax before Theo then replied in whisper, "We're moving in. It's the quickest way." There was another long pause before they began their advance with even more care in their step, Max on the left and Theo on the right. It would be awhile before they could reach the bright red light at the end of the hall. Nearby, there were some nooks in the walls, and obstacles hard enough to serve as cover, but they were far between. There were paths to the sides, but the one they were on was the quickest way to get the drop on their targets. The question remained, of who would take the more forward position when they reached the end of the hall. Max waited for Theo's hand signal, but this wasn't coming until he decided to flash one himself. Just as Max was about to, Theo took his hand off his rifle's foregrip for a split second to click his thumb in as if pushing a button, settling the plan. About two thirds there, the end was more clear. A minute had now passed. The bright red glow of ceiling lights in the room ahead illuminated the stacks of large metal storage boxes in the center and enveloped the rest of it. The room combined with the path they were on formed a T, with the room being a very wide top over a thin stand. Two radar blips appeared on the small HUD pieces that extended from the side to the front of their right eyes. They indicated both targets being in the spots described earlier, huddled to the near walls by both ends of the next room / hall coming up, for concealment. The duo were almost there. Thirty seconds had now passed. They were just a few meters before the opening. Max and Theo's pace had slowed to a crawl. The blips had only budged slightly, as if restless. Theo's hand carefully unwrapped its grip again to do a slow countdown from five. Four... Three... Two... One... Theo made a far leap into the room, doing a 90 degree turn to his right at the same time as Max slinked into a crouching position, stopping to fire the moment they got in, and hitting their marks. The only return fire to come soared over Maxwell's head. Chase attempted to slide the metal covering off, but failed. He sat crouched in the inactive large ventillation duct, partially caked in dust and considering using his cutting torch. He was at the right spot, but only three of the four screws were taken out. Just then, Jessie radioed in. "She's below you." His eyes widened, and his body stiffened. Soon enough after some wait time, his radar picked that up too. He even saw it eventually, all red and treading the bright sunlit hallway by the windows just below him. It had an almost catwalk-like gait, and held a decorated, falchion-like curved weapon. The creature stopped in her tracks, backing up for a moment to peer closely into a wall to find a hidden camera she hadn't noticed before. Chase lifted his hand up and slowly began to crawl away from the line of sight the grille between them permitted. No sound came from him, save for the barely audible movement of his clothes' fabric. The target's head snapped and stared towards the grate, eyes fixed on him. Chase froze for a second, then opted for his next best thought. He drew his guns and shot the last screw out, the creature jumping back as the bullet smacked the floor beneath. Chase slid off the cover and rolled out to meet the target from a safe distance, quickly getting to his feet as the dust poured over him. He raised his revolvers and let out two shots with his left arm extended for better aim and his right arm tucked closer to his side. The first shot came from the left gun and missed, as the gracefully moving creature had leaped diagonally towards his near right with its left foot in front of itself before his aim even aligned. Chase's reaction speed then instinctually rose high enough to move his aim again and catch it with a second shot with his right hand gun in a nonvital place at the side of its torso, but not in time for the pain inflicted to stop the creature from slashing his left arm. The sequence of moves and shots could be missed within the blink of an eye. Chase's left arm was cut clean through. Eventually muscle and sinew would reveal as his forearm began to fall to the ground. 0.2 seconds after the second bullet was fired, the end of the creature's downward diagonal cut would twist and transition to a side-sweep as its eyes locked onto Chase, its right foot advancing ahead of its left and its tail swaying to the other side as it engaged with the finesse of an expert swordfighter, with much added aggression. Chase, having the smallest moment to realize just how close the creature had gotten, slid back and successfully dodged the swipe while unloading another round into it. Flesh and blood spewed from the creature's second exit wound. It wasn't over. The creature was barely phased, only stiffening for another split-moment to track Chase's movement before going for a lunge. Chase jumped to his far left to avoid taking any more chances, and gave it his all with two more shots. One grazed the creature's arm while the other pierced through an outer portion of its skull. By the time the second shot hit its mark, the creature's aggressive and graceful movements turned to convulsion as she collapsed to the ground. Chase let out a long and blaring high pitched screech as he clutched above his left arm stump. Tod still sat within the confines of the escape pod when Maxwell's audio transmission came in: "We have a man down. Come collect your prize. We have to hospitalize someone." Tod sat up in surprise and began to check on the rest of the surveillance team. Various other voices from comms outside the H.H.N. squad had also been flooding in, one of them asking why there were growing dots of light on Eirene-183c. "We weren't paid enough for this," Maxwell said as he exhaled through his surgical mask. Theodore lay nestled up beside Max with his head tucked under Max's chin. The entire H.H.N. crew, save for the captain, were huddled together in one exhausted pile in the medical bay back at their own ship. Over an hour had now passed since the operation on Chase had concluded. It had been uncertain whether his arm could be reattached or he'd need a prosthetic, but the answer was revealed eventually. Steph looked over everyone as he lay with his head propped up on a couple of pillows against a lower cabinet. They were all there. Chase was lying half asleep and partially immobilized on the operating table above. They were all still there. End. Ideas for descriptions of human characters: Stephen: Curly or wavy black hair. Light skinned. Chase: Blond, brown or black hair of a regular, short, or medium length. Light skinned. Jessie: Wavy or straight black hair of short or medium length. Dark skinned.