I closed my MobiGlass and swallowed nervously.

Bree, “Bell” St. Croix, wanted by Crusader Industries for multiple and repeated violations of their local laws, was to be my evaluation for the Bounty Hunter’s Guild. My wallet was 500 credits lighter just for the privilege of taking her on, but if I won I’d have all the work I could ever ask for. If I lost… well.. work wouldn’t be a problem for me anymore, now would it?

I couldn’t help myself, I sat in my cockpit for a long moment and just thought about what I’d just accepted. Either “Bell” or I would be flying away from this. The other would disappear into an azure and searing white ball of plasma as their ship detonated from the impacts. Ideally it would be her.

Rumors abounded of rookie pilots fixating on their targets and slamming into them, or not realizing when their target had grown so desperate that they’d decided the best course of action was to take their killer down with them and turned to ram them in one final suicidal act of defiance.

I shook my head to clear such thoughts and checked my loadout once more. 16 missiles, 2 laser repeaters, 2 gatling guns with nearly 300 rounds each, and a heavy duty turret that remained sadly unmanned. With any luck my plan would pan out. I’d detect “Bell” from a long way out, close to within missile range, give her a salvo of missiles, watch her explode, turn around, and go home.

I began to think back on the flight lessons I’d learned, about basic tactics, about twisting so that you only ever had to pull up to bring your enemy into your sites, about my missile ranges, and realized I was stalling. I’d been in plenty of fights in the simulator but this was different. This was life and death against a real human being that would be shooting real laser bolts, bullets, and missiles back at me.

My heart pounded as I numbly flipped through my flight-ready checklist. Engines (left then right, to listen for any oddities after the incident on Hurston). Shields. Weapons. Avionics. One thing at a time. I could have just flipped the master switch but I liked doing the process manually, it made me feel connected to my craft, and let me know how she was doing in a way that the diagnostics display panel never could.

Then, with no further excuses I could muster, I hailed Air Traffic Control and requested clearance for takeoff. The massive hangard doors in front of me unlatched and groaned as they parted like great sideways jaws, revealing the gorgeous floating city of Orison just beyond. From my angle the floating platforms looked like mechanical ganglia spread across Crusader’s orange atmosphere, but I knew that up close they became lush gardens, hab units, shopping centers, and the like- all the amenities of home, thousands of meters above the core of the gas giant.

I gently eased into the throttle and was rewarded with the heavy thrum of Drake engines as my Cutlass gracefully lifted off from the hangar deck, nose slightly down. With practiced ease at this point I navigated out through the hangar doors and past the entrance to the open sky waiting for me. Once free of the structures I powered up a little further and gently accelerated out of Orison and up, slowly tipping back and gaining speed until I was nearly vertical, racing against the gravity well of Crusader and heading for the limits of its upper atmosphere. As I broke through the atmosphere I cut the throttle and flipped on my quantum drive, then slowly spun to face Yela, where my MobiGlass said “Bell” had last been spotted, near an abandoned outpost.

The jump to Yela was mercifully short. Or, according to my racing heart, a long jump might have been more merciful. I had to remind myself to take deep breaths, consciously trying to slow my heartbeat. My hands were already sweaty on the grips and I had only just sighted the moon my target was on.

Yela hung before me like a great white and blue dusty orb, dirty and speckled, all pockmarked and cratered with eons of impacts. The haze of a thin atmosphere barely clung to the surface, the light gravity struggling to hold onto it.

I jumped again to the nearest point to where “Bell” had been last seen and my HUD told me I was a little over 50 km away. Not too far at all. I settled in for a small trip and switched off my quantum drive for my Hydrogen engine. Full throttle closed the distance to 30 km in an awful hurry, then I started slowing down to more maneuverable speeds, and by the time I passed 20 km away from my target I was down to SCM (Space Combat Maneuver) speeds for maximum maneuverability. For my Cutlass that’s 164 meters per second. Not bad for a medium freighter, but far from competitive with fighters that push 200 meters per second and can run circles around me.

Speaking of which… my Cutlass was great at a lot of things. It was technically classified as both a medium freighter and a medium fighter but it was a jack of all trades and a master of none. A dedicated freighter could haul a lot more and a dedicated fighter could fly circles around it. The Cutlass was bulbous where others were sleek, a great fuselage perched between two oversized engines to the rear and two large horizontal control surfaces to the front, each capped with vertical stabilizers. It could move, and it could move well, but it was no fighter. The chances that “Bell” was in anything but a nimble fighter were quite low, so I was really counting on my missiles to take care of her from a long distance. If we got into a turning fight, I was in a LOT of trouble, and I knew it.

At about 18 km my “Last known location” HUD indicator blinked out, leaving me flying blind for a few nerve wracking moments, but it was swiftly replaced with a “Neutralize” indicator 17 km out that was near to it. Finally, I had an actual idea of where my target was in real time.

I began to gain a little altitude, wanting to have every advantage in the fight to come, even if I was confident that I’d settle it with missiles before it even really started, and switched my ship over to missile mode. I queued up 3 more missiles than the default single shot and continued my approach cautiously, waiting for radar to pick her up.

At 12 km I began to get an intermittent blaring, “Contact!” warning as she barely began to register, and by 11 km she was solidly on my radar. I locked the red chevron on my HUD as my target and continued forward, waiting to see my missile lock indicator start filling in- it’ll start as a red circle that’s empty that will rapidly fill, then will turn into an empty green circle which will rapidly fill. When you have a solid, filled green circle you have a solid lock and should fire your missiles. You can fire before that, you are just significantly less likely to actually hit your target without a solid lock. I wasn’t shocked that my missiles weren’t yet locked, the longest ranges I have start at 10.5 km.

“Radar lock!” my console blurted at me, blinking red. I wondered for a second if I’d made a tactical error in locking her up before I got within missile range but dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. I didn’t have time for doubts at the moment and she would have gotten the same, “Contact!” warning as I did, at about the same time- possibly sooner, as my radar cross section was almost certainly larger than hers.

I passed 10 km and the red circle stubbornly refused to appear. I glanced at our closing speed- 164 meters per second. At least she was standing still at the moment. That made things a lot easier.

I continued forward, hoping that as my range narrowed my missiles would lock on. At about 9 km the red circle flickered to life for a second and even began to fill, then faded out. That process repeated itself a couple of times as I slowed, trying to allow them time to acquire their target.

Then, abruptly, our distance began to shrink rapidly. That 164 meters per second began to scream upwards as we shot past 8 km, then 7. At 6 km I still couldn’t get a lock and blindly fired the missiles, hoping that they would go pitbull on her on their own and that the seekers would be smart enough to find her.

Immediately my batteries began to reload and as soon as one was in the tube my targeting system began to try to lock her again.

5 km… still no missile lock, though the red circle flickered in and out, then 4 km, (the missiles were nearly entirely reloaded), then 3 km, closing extremely quickly!

I accelerated back to SCM speeds and fired my missiles as we approached 2 km from each other, again hoping that they would blindly find her or at least make her dodge.

“Missile warning.” my system said dispassionately. An amber indicator blinked furiously from the console in front of me.

“Shit!” I swore, rolling to my right and pulling hard on the stick, dumping countermeasures like they were candy at Christmas.

I rolled back to my left and pulled up again just in time to get her into my sites and dump as many rounds as I could directly into her forward shields as she screamed past, far closer than was comfortable. I caught a flash of a silhouette- an arrowhead front end narrowing to a thin waist, then widening to a flared rear- a Gladius! I had to finish this fast, this was everything I feared, she was in a vastly superior fighter when it came to maneuverability!

Because I was already pulling up to get her into my sites as she came past I was already making the turn to face her while she was still traveling away from me. I lost sight of her for a second out of the top of my vision but caught her again as she started to come around. Before she could make half her turn I was back on her, peppering her with everything I had, my laser repeaters blasting away at her shields while my gatlings hammered into her hull through the gaps my laser repeaters opened up.

A little voice in the back of my head said, “and that’s the only time a Cutlass is going to outturn a Gladius… make it worth it pal.”

I intended to, pressing my advantage, charging forward as she finished her turn and lined up on me. Both of us fired on the other with every weapon at our disposal as we raced at each other and too late I realized the situation I was in- a split second from impact I realized that there was nothing I could do, that we were traveling far too fast, that we WOULD slam into each other.

“Oh shi…” I yelled, and then was blinded by a brilliant white and blue light as she exploded directly in front of me. My Cutlass soared through the ball of flame and wreckage without a scratch, bursting out of it on the other side, soaring away to safety.

“Contract Complete” appeared on the top of my HUD, followed by, “Awarded 4,500 Credits”

“Well…” I thought as my heart slowed, “splash one.”

This is a work of fan fiction. All characters, places, events, ships, and ship designs, and other content originating from Star Citizen, Squadron 42, or other content produced or created by its publishers or developers, are the property of Cloud Imperium Rights LLC and Cloud Imperium Rights Limited.