[Stephen]

I’m rich! If only the Morning Stars could see me now. Four days touring the sports bars, stadiums, and pie shops of New Canning Town. Pukka!

We weren’t all so lucky though. Bit of a choker for a couple of us.

The Bookies sent us to retrieve Varpu Murdock, a pit fighter who rigged a match and fled with the winnings. I hate a bent player, so I was well up for it. We checked in on some of her girlfriends who didn’t know nothing. It all sounded a bit sus, but half a mil is half a mil.

The Bookies’ pilot flew us to the jump ship that Murdock was using to do a flit. Some mush on board, with a well-hard moustache, wouldn’t let us on tooled-up, so we had to check in our irons. Never got them back.

Anyway, I played the old ‘biggest fan’ card and managed to get moustache mush to tell us where Murdock was. One of my crew started a fire, crafty beggar, and we managed to get Murdock to open her cabin door. Me and another mate pushed our way in for an ‘autograph’, and I tried to split her head open with a vase while she weren’t looking. Not exactly sporting but she’s a pit-killer and we only had a couple of hours until we jumped.

Anyway, she’s no mug. She saw me coming, ducked and pulled her own vibechete, the one she used to kill Golden Boy in the pit. Luckily, I’m no mug either, she missed and left her pig- sticker in the wall. It was all looking to get a bit tasty when she pulled out a cred stick and offered us half the cash to let her go. I took a butcher’s and she had well over 3 million credits!

Well. I’m a working man and like to stick to a contract, but everyone’s got a price. We all know Bookies are crooks and parasites anyway, so sod ‘em. Murdock slipped the creds onto my stick, 1,865,000 creds if you’d Adam and Eve it, and once I’d half-inched her vibechete we said our goodbyes.

What the rest of our bunch got up to while we were in Murdock’s cabin is any bugger’s guess, but when we stepped out, they were in a shooting match with a spotty teenager and mush-tache.

That’s when my mukka Mac took a bullet, right between the eyes. Saw him drop right in front of me. I dunno what team he followed but he was a sound bloke.

There was this brainy looking bird hanging around with a minder. Stephen he was called, which is a ponce’s name, but he looked like he might be a bit useful. One of our lot said something to them, no idea what, and that’s when everything really went tits-up.

Stephen’s boss screamed at him to kill us all, and he sprouted mantis blades and a shoulder cannon. Bloody androids.

Well, like any sensible man in that position, I had it away on my toes. Luckily the rest of my lot felt similarly and we charged mush-tache. We took a couple of bullets for our trouble but got on to the shuttle. We tried to shut the hatch, but Stephen was as quick as I-don’t-know-
what and managed to get on board as we pushed off.

So, there we were, trapped in a tin can with a man-sized Beyblade. Everything after that is a bit of a blur. I had Murdock’s vibechete, a couple of others had guns, but in the confusion I somehow sliced LeClerc’s hand off. Clever bloke, no good at dodging though. I tried to apologise, but then he got killed so it seemed a bit of a waste of breath. Someone else lost a foot and Stephen chopped the fingers off my left hand. I can’t dodge either.

It was all looking bleak to be frank, and I ain’t too proud to admit that I lost it. I’ve been in some punch-ups in my time, but this was brutal. I heard someone shout, “Get to the front,” so I dived forward like someone had tapped my ankles in the penalty box.

There was a bang, a whoosh, and everything went silent. Breathing wasn’t an option let alone screaming, and then the air came back and I fell down. Someone was doing something with a paracord, but I was too busy trying to pick up my fingers, until someone sealed my stumps with a hot-glue gun. That hurt I can tell you.

Anyway, it seems Stephen was flushed out into space like the big turd he was, so we were safe and heading back to Prosper. Everyone was a bit down in the dumps, until I told them about the 1.865 million credits in my pocket. Those of us still alive perked up at that. We
agreed that if we were to dodge the Bookies, we’d have to cut the pilot in on the deal. Luckily, he seems a good sort and he delivered, getting us past the welcoming committee and we got lost in the station.

So, all’s well that ends well. Though not for Mac and Le Clerc of course.

We spilt the creds up, and I now have shiny new fingers to gesture at Tempest pigs with. I made a few purchases and am tooled-up again, plus I had a little Psychosurgery just to set the old noggin straight. Now here I am at New Canning Town living it large.

Now if only Masefield can start winning, then everything’ll be cushty.

• This topic was modified 1 week, 4 days ago by Stephen.
• This topic was modified 1 week, 4 days ago by Stephen.
• This topic was modified 1 week, 4 days ago by Stephen.

[Stephen]

I think I’m getting the hang of this bounty hunting lark.

There’s a bunch of us that keep an eye on the boards, pick a bounty and form a crew. There was seven of us this time. Martin and Mags I’d never worked with before, but there’s a lot of churn in the talent pool so new faces are par for the course. We decided to go after ‘The Bomb Maker’, on behalf of Tempest.

I can imagine what my old dad would say. “What the F___ Davey-boy? You’re working for the fuzz? What’ll the neighbours fink? You’re a f_______ disgrace! Let me finish this fag and I’ll take my belt off to ya!” Daft old sod. Sometimes I wish mum had just knifed him in the spine instead of the head, but families, what you gonna do?

Tempest has a bounty on a few of us for the Samisdat bombing, and the Bomb Maker is one of them Hung Lungs who claimed credit for it. If we turned them in, I figured Tempest might clear our bounty. I didn’t blow up nothing. I was there, but Miss Chief chucked the grenade. She’s pissed off that the Hung Lungs took credit for her work. She’s hard-core.

Martin, Mags and Marley, the 3Ms, went to Tempest HQ to get the full SP. Me, Miss Chief, COLE and Garn stayed in the pub. We were all fingered for the Samisdat bombing so thought it best not to go. The 3Ms must have played a blinder because they came back with the contract and a cash advance. They also brought three Tempest probationers with them. John, James and Jacob, or the three little pigs as I called them.

The info was that Hung Lung bombs were made using sewage and shit from the Sink, so that was where we’d have to look. You can’t go down there without oxygen and a suit, so the advance was spent kitting us out. Now the Sink is a big space and not easy to get to, so this was gonna be like looking for a needle in the proverbial. Luckily I’d heard on the grapevine that the High Gardener of the Solarian Church was friendly with the Hung Lungers. We took a punt and went for a word.

The Solarian church is something else I can tell you. They had the Arnevelka there, which was a sight and no mistake. As you’d expect the High Gardener was on shift, so we managed to get a handshake. I introduced myself and dropped the Samisdat name, and he went white. Seems he’s heard of Little Dave Dickens. That warmed the cockles. Have that dad, your boy’s famous!

He spouted some poetic guff about leaves and seeds, and our Marley showed she could talk bollocks too before we got down to business. He thought we wanted to join the Hung Lungs so gave us a pointer on how to get to them. Mug. We tried to get rid of the three little pigs but they were a leery bunch and wouldn’t take a hint, until I told them we were going to yomp through the territory of the Prospero Beast. That shook ’em, and they stayed in the Stellar Burn. Kids today, no bottle.

Thanks to the God-botherer’s info, we found the vent we needed and went down into the guts of Prospero’s Dream. Not nice, not nice at all. Dark, smelly and cramped, worse than some of the pubs back home. We were doing okay, following signs left by the Hung Lungs, until I think I made a mistake and took a wrong turn. I’ve heard of Prospero’s Beast and not thought much about it, but when you hear something big and throaty following you down a tunnel, it focuses your attention. Then Mags dropped a real pearler, saying that she knew the beast and its name was Anira. Naturally my first thought was ‘Bollocks,’ but Mags looked like she was telling the God’s Honest, and wasn’t keen to be reunited with her mate. We had a tactical discussion and decided to run like buggery. We did get out of its tunnels, and burned through a lot of oxygen in doing so, but glimpsed it as we scarpered…Anyway, best not to remember that.

If we were in Prospero’s guts, then we finally found its Jam Roll. A giant lake of piss and shit and what-not. COLE was in their element. They scooped up a bottle of the stuff and stared at it like it was off page 3. They’re an odd sort COLE, even for an Android. I don’t know what gears whirr in their head, but I do know they charged a Tempest squad to let the rest of us get away at Samisdat. I owe them, and trust them as much as I do anyone on this station.

We found a mapboard on the shore, with one place marked in paint as Tempest Outpost. Because we must be thick, we figured this was a double-bluff and where the Hung Lungs must be. Miss Chief and Marley built a couple of rafts out of rubbish and we paddled out to go see. My raft was sound as a round pound, but the other one leaked, leaving Mags looking a bit Tom and Dick. They held together long enough to get us to the outpost, a ruined old building with a light inside, and we had a crafty butchers. The place was empty, but with guns and oxygen lying around. We were wondering where everyone was when the roof fell in on Mags and Marley.

It was a Tempest outpost, and the Tempest squad was still there. But for some reason they’d melted together into one giant mass, that had just fell through the ceiling. A heaving, slobbering, freaky horror show of limbs, heads and bodies. Looking at this thing I knew that I was dead, that I was doomed, today or tomorrow, dead.

But two members of my crew were in bother, so time to ruck. I twatted the thing with my stun baton and Marley and Mags were pulled out from under it. Bullets didn’t seem to hurt the bugger, but then Garn shot the oxy tanks stacked against the back wall. He’s a quiet one Garn, used to run an antique shop. He’s always watching and listening, not saying much, then he blows the room up. I think I took more damage from that than from the Tempest-thing. Don’t blame him though, sometimes you’ve just got to roll the dice.

Marley was upright if hurt, but blood was pouring out of Mag’s belly like it had a train to catch. I thought she’d had it, but then she stimpacks herself and, get this, used her nailgun to staple her belly together. These Prospero birds, I would not mess with any of them. The Tempest-thing was still stunned so once more we bravely ran like bitches. One of the rafts had sunk so some of us, including me, had to wade through the filth. My hazard suit had got wrecked so it leaked, and I tried not to think about infection.

This time we headed for the metro station shown on the map. Going down the stairs we found a tripwire, and Miss Chief disarmed it, half-inching the connected frag grenades. When she’s handling explosives she gets this sparkle in her eye. It really freaks me out. After this neat bit of work, some mush shouts “Who goes there?”

“Miss Chief,” says Miss Chief…Hang on.

Miss Chief…like Mischief! Ha! I wonder if she’s noticed. I’ll ask her.

Anyway, it seems Miss Chief is more famous amongst the Hung Lungers than I am in the Solarian Church. These mugs let us in once she signed their grenades. They even introduced us to the Bomb Maker. Some people are so stupid they deserve to get done over. We gave it a bit of chat, walked about, took pictures of their secret maps etc. It was almost embarrassing. The Bomb Maker thought we’d come to join the cause, which is about freeing the poor by blowing up the not-so-poor. He even told us about Hullbreacher, a bomb hidden upstairs that would void the station if he didn’t send it a signal every hour on the hour.

I didn’t like the sound of that, but the rest of my crew thought he was all mouth and no trousers. We kept asking questions about the Hullbreacher, and the Hung Lungers finally start getting suspicious. Seeing it was all about to go Pete Tong, I caused a distraction and COLE tranqed the Bomb Maker. Everyone reached for their guns but Martin stopped them with a well-made threat.

We woke the Bomb Maker, and he wants to use a transmitter to stop the Hullbreacher going off, but my lot won’t let him touch it unless we watch what he’s doing. He says no way and it’s a stand off. We’re all stood there, watching the clock tick down. At this point I admit I was bricking it, and you couldn’t have slid a fag paper between my arse cheeks.

5…4…3…2…1…No boom.

I felt like a total plum but as a crew, we’d demonstrated testicular fortitude, and that the Bomb Maker was full of shit.

Finally we do a deal. We take the Bomb Maker, we keep quiet about what we’ve seen, and the Hung Lungers put a tracking virus in COLE so they know where we are if we grass. COLE’s not happy but they agreed. That’s two I owe them.

The rest was easy. We used the ‘veins’, the Lunger’s secret routes, to get back to the upper levels. The 3Ms took the Bomb Maker to Tempest HQ, turned him over and came back with the bounty, including a 2 million bonus for delivering him alive. I was disappointed they didn’t get our bounties lifted, but they said they ran through that scenario in their heads and it didn’t end well. They’re probably right.

So none of us died this time, I have more credits than I can shake a stick at, and Masefield just won 5:1. I also have two bounties on my head and can’t shake this sense of doom. I might have to visit the Cognitive Defraggers.

Maybe they can get rid of these dreams about the smiling bald man. In the last one he’s inviting me onto a burning bus. What really bothers me though, is that Garn and Miss Chief had the same dream at the same time.

What the hell is up with that? 

[Author]

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