The Crusader Industries Starlifter A2 Hercules knifed through the upper atmosphere like a murderous gray porpoise of death, the aquiline features reminding me of a cross between a dolphin and a ray. A very, very angry dolphin.

      Below us lay the objective- Ghost Hollow, one of the most infamously dangerous locations in the solar system, avoided by any and all that valued their lives more than their wallets, and one thought kept pounding a cadence through my head- it was too late to back out now. Undisciplined radio chatter filled my ears, a mark of the amateur crew, both excited and trepidatious. The deeper I got into this job the more I regretted it.

      The frame of the ship shuddered and rocked as loud, repetitive blasts blossomed off our port side. Whooping and hollering filled the air.

      “God damnit call your targets!” I growled, surprising myself at my tone. I guess I was more nervous than I had cared to admit to myself. The headache probably didn’t help. What I really meant was, “Shut the hell up and show a little discipline, communicate effectively, and maybe we’ll survive this.”

      “Oh blow it out your ass…” someone snapped back, making me ever so glad I’d signed on with this crew in particular to go risk my life alongside.

      “Lining up for the approach…” Captain Saved’s voice came over the comms, ignoring us.

      I tuned out the radio noise and focused on the screen in front of me, a clear view off our chin as the A2 pitched down at Ghost Hollow. The planet spread out before me, a wintery wonderland of frozen peace and stillness from this altitude, deceptively dead. Well… deceptively for the moment.

      A red chevron flared to life on my screen as the computer read out, “Contact!” and I swiveled my turret to face it. Unlike some of my fellow crew I had no desire to needlessly waste energy and/or ammunition by firing when we were hopelessly out of range or not around any targets in the first place. I guess that made me the odd one out.

      “Cutlass Black, ten and a half klicks off our bow, rising fast,” I advised over the radio, hoping my voice would cut over the chatter.

      Immediately the ship shook violently as even more of the guns opened up. I sighed and rolled my eyes. The range of our longest laser cannon was about 3 kilometers. I kept the Cutlass firmly in my sites and watched as we closed, but he was leaving a vertical trail of vapor behind him as he punched up through the atmosphere just about parallel (but facing the opposite direction of course) to our own diving path, and it looked to me as though we wouldn’t come close enough to touch him. I considered him to have already escaped unless he turned to engage us.

      “Closing…” Saved’s soft voice somehow was still legible over everyone else, “steady…”

      I very consciously moved my right index finger off the firing stud on my joystick. Every cannon on the A2 made it shake when it fired, but nothing disrupted a bomber’s sites like the chin turret opening up. If we were threatened and it would make a difference I’d absolutely defend us without hesitation, but if I could avoid screwing up the only clean bomb run we were likely to get, I wanted to do so. From the incessant comms and continual thundering booms it appeared that I was the only crewmember this occurred to either.

      Suddenly we crossed some magic line and our sensors began to pick up contacts on the ground at Ghost Hollow- ships- many of them- at least 8 at first glance. We continued our headlong plunge through the atmosphere, heedless of the odds, our entire strategy based on a single devastating hit and run strike.

      I knew it was unlikely to do much good but I had to try to help us survive. “Stop firing so he can line up the run and recharge the capacitors for when we’re about to need them.” I snapped in an attempt at confidence. To my eternal surprise the overwhelming majority of the firing stopped and no one told me to go fornicate myself. I guess they’d recognized the soon-to-be-pressing need for ammunition as I had.

      “On target…” Saved updated us, but it was clear he was mostly talking to himself, “just a little more…”

      One of the contacts on the ground shifted as it took off, then another. It was too soon for them to be reacting to us, right? Unless they either reacted immediately or were already in motion when we appeared it was surely coincidence… right? Then another ship moved as well.

      “And… Bombs away!” Saved yelled into comms, immediately pulling back on the control yolk to begin easing us out of our attack dive. The gargantuan craft laboriously powered its nose back up toward the horizon, back away from the snow covered mountains kilometers below. I pivoted my turret to keep Ghost Hollow centered the whole time, watching a dark mass take over the view for just a second, then resolve itself into the shape of a massive bomb, then slowly dwindle into a black spec as it plummeted toward the criminal hive and battleground below. The mighty ship groaned in protest as its wings warped within their well engineered tolerances, straining to keep us from dashing ourselves to pieces right behind that bomb.

      There was no mistaking the intentions of the ships as they took off below us as with the Cutlass Black we spotted on approach- while the Black was leaving in an awful hurry, these ships charged straight at us at full speed, intent to meet us in the air.

      “Alright Gentlemen,” I said over comms as I cycled through the targets, “looks like we get to earn our paycheck after all. I’m going to open up on that Drake Buccaneer as soon as it’s in range, then move on to the Anvil Hornet behind it.”

      “Roger that,” came a crisp reply (perhaps I wasn’t the only one?) “focusing on Buccaneer first, then Hornet.”

      Laughter filtered through, “I’m just gonna shoot whatever I can.”

      A small chorus of laughter and agreement followed. So much for communication and picking our targets.

      The Drake Buccaneer continued to grow larger, then, for just a split second, everything turned blindingly white as the bomb detonated at Ghost Hollow, wiping it off the map for… well I’d say for good, but we know damn well there’s still a battle going on over the ruins.

      The fireball rolled a solid kilometer into the sky and half that in every direction, the blast wave obliterating anything that hadn’t already taken off and hit escape velocity. From my altitude it was a massive ball of devastation turning a sizable chunk of microTech into a crater, throwing snow, dirt, trees, and rock into the air like a 3 year old that had JUST been put in their nicest clothes.

      At least 5 of the ships at Ghost Hollow made it out, racing upward toward us, now with a great deal more motivation to kill us than they’d had moments before. The Starlifter series of craft are far, far more nimble than they have any right to be considering their mammoth proportions but any one of those ships coming at us could fly literal circles around us- we had little choice but to attempt to face them, running away wasn’t much of an option.

      The small swarm of ships split as they rose to meet us, moving into a pincer maneuver with three going to one side and two to the other, still well out of range of our cannons. I nervously slid my finger over the activation stud as I tracked the Buccaneer with my sites, running over the order of operations in my head again and again. The bomb was delivered, all that was left was to survive this…

________________________________________________________________________

Several hours ago

________________________________________________________________________

      I had experience being troubled in this bar. It was a good spacer’s bar- low, thumping music, dimly lit, grimy, and with several booths that could see both the front and back at the same time- if you went for that sort of thing. Right off the docks, generally peaceful enough, with both a local clientele that worked the docks and a constantly turning over crowd that was just passing through the system. Beer was cheap, which was a good thing, because I had about enough cash to cover it and not remotely enough to cover much else.

      Freelance work comes and goes, feast or famine, and lately it had been famine. I didn’t even have my apartment any more, living out of my Cutlass in its hangar. Technically that was breaking the lease agreement, but I’d managed to get away with it easily enough under the guise of enthusiastic maintenance. I knew I wasn’t the only one, and I knew the guys that would have to tell me to stop at some point too. I made it a point to be on a first name basis with the security personnel for the hangar I leased. We’d share some whiskey on a quiet night or take a couple hits where the cameras weren’t, and I knew they knew I wasn’t just working on my ship. But… so long as I didn’t make a pain of myself and didn’t cause any problems, didn’t become visible about breaking the rules… well… we didn’t have to be in a hurry to do anything about it now did we? Regardless, I knew this couldn’t last.

      Problem was, I didn’t have much of an alternative aside from begging from a friend, which I was still too proud to do. Having a rich friend is one thing. Hitting them up for cash is quite another.

      So, I was blowing the last of it looking for inspiration about the only place I knew to look- at the bottom of a hazy glass, each one a little further from my problems than the last.

      The front door kicked open and a man walked in alone, confident without swagger, wearing what looked like old uniform pants and an undershirt with black boots. “One million credits.” He announced loudly and clearly.

      The bar went silent except for the music. Roughly half of the bar looked bored, having seen something like this before. The other half looked amused, also having seen something like this before, but eager to see it play out anyway.

      “One million credits,” he repeated, “for one job.”

      “Yeah, yeah, what’s the job? You knocking over a security outpost?” a man near the entrance giggled over his drink.

      The man in the undershirt ignored him. “One hour of turret work. That’s it. No questions, no details, just one million credits for some crew. First come, first serve.”

      The bar erupted into laughter. “Easier ways to commit suicide mate!” the man near the entrance said, summing up the general attitude of the bar as he turned back to his drink.

      “Offer stands until we’re crewed, we launch as soon as we’re ready.” the man continued, unperturbed. “Hangar 08.” With that he turned on his heel and marched back out the still-swinging door, ignoring the laughter that echoed out after him.

      I absent-mindedly rocked my mostly-empty glass back and forth on the bar-top in front of me, tongue firmly planted in one cheek as I fought my way through a bit of a haze to consider considering the offer. Any other day of the week I’d have laughed him off with the rest of the bar but today… on my last few credits… nearing the end of the glass as it was…

      “I know that look.” a relatively gruff female voice barked from behind the bar at me, loud and sharp to be heard over the music, honed by years (decades?) of practice but not unkind stirred me. “Know what comes next?”

      I looked up over my glass expectantly. She met my gaze without hesitation, fiery brown eyes framed by equally brunette curls over a sturdy, no-nonsense frame that could toss your ass out if you crossed her. I’d seen her do it.

      “Nothin’. They don’t come back.” she leaned back against the counter behind the bar, folding her arms. “It’s called too-good-to-be-true for a reason Rana.”

      I nodded slowly, contemplating. Digesting. “You want me to keep buying your drinks?”

      She rolled her eyes. “Shit, and here I thought you were smart enough to listen.”

      I shrugged. “Broke enough to be hard of hearing.”

      “Drunk and desperate’s no time to be making business decisions.” she tried once more.

      I nodded. “Tried sober and desperate. Didn’t work out too well either.”

      She sighed. “You want another?”

      I carefully checked my balance, just in case anything had magically changed in the last several minutes. “Looks like my answer will have to be no.”

      She looked sour for a second, then nodded and moved to close me out. I guess I’d made more of an impression here than I’d thought- I didn’t even think she knew my name, much less cared enough to try to stop me.

      As I made my way toward Hanger 08 I had to make a conscious effort to walk straight and true. The familiar ArcCorp crowds pressed around me, a constant clamor of busy night life filled my ears, and the exotic scents of everything from grilling sausage to questionably old pizza to open air BBQ to grab-and-go noodle joints blended together into a swirling curry of food and exhaust fumes, and for a time I forgot to be worried- I was simply at home. The noodles sounded like a wise decision, so I made a detour and hoped I wouldn’t be too late.

      I needn’t have feared. As I came to learn, the Captain, a patient man named Saved, was still out recruiting by the time I got to the hangar. I was among the first to arrive.

      The great ship, the Chained, dominated the hangar utterly, with barely a meter to spare on either side of the folded wings. Ground crew scurried about underneath the hulking mass, rolling a black, fat torpedo shape that looked only a little smaller than my Cutlass Black up the loading ramp. Security seemed… non existent, which was about as scary as the Captain’s recruiting standards.

      I wandered in and remained by looking like I belonged, purposefully striding forward with a mind toward my destination, planning on getting a rough inspection of the ship under my belt before I made the final decision on staying or leaving.

      The lower cargo deck was largely empty, just being taken up by the activity of crew such as the loading of the massive bombs. To my surprise it gave the impression of a well cleaned and maintained space, in contrast to the seeming disarray in the hangar and haphazard recruitment, but I didn’t get too much of a look before I needed to move into the elevator and punch in “Top Deck.”

      The elevator doors parted to a white, complex interior of exposed plumbing and relatively integrated catwalks giving way to polished interior paneling and airlocks. I nodded to a harried looking man as he walked past carrying a clipboard and made my way toward “Habitation,” which proved to be equally as clean and tidy as the Lower Deck had been. This Captain ran a ship of contradictions.

      For a small time I dallied in Habitation, checking for any signs of long term occupancy, but only one bunk showed any sign of use in the first place. As soon as I confirmed that someone actually resided there I knew I wouldn’t long be welcome, so I made my way back out and headed up toward the Bridge.

      A few airlocks later and I stood behind three well apportioned chairs, two which would face forward and one which would face the port gunner’s station, manning the powerful chin turret- my station of choice, if I was given one or could take it. I marveled at the ease with which I’d just accessed the Bridge of one of the most powerful bombers available and fought back the fleeting urge to see exactly how far I could get with it. I didn’t know how far I’d make it but I had a pretty good idea of how I’d end.

      I swung myself into the maroon and white chair and relaxed as it spun me into position in front of my terminal. Before me sat two joysticks, an array of knobs and toggle switches, and a large monitor who’s black reflected the cockpit lights back into my eyes. I knew better than to power up the terminal to test out and familiarize myself with the weapons- that would power up the whole ship, including the engines, and I couldn’t guarantee that was safe to do at the moment. Or even that the parking brake was set.

      A sharp hissing intake caught my attention and I looked to my left as the airlock slid open. The Captain was talking over his shoulder to someone else, a worried looking man in grease stained overalls that appeared to be tracking half the hangar’s worth of grime into the ship.

      “...and we’ll be fully crewed on this run, no more incidents like the old Gundo Station thing, we’re through with that shit, and…oh hello,” he caught sight of me in the gunner’s chair, “who are you and why are you on my Bridge?” His words were straight to the point but his tone and mannerisms were calm and pleasant, not the reaction of a man about to pull a gun on me.

      Well… confidence had gotten me onto the Bridge in the first place and I was undoubtedly still fueled by more than a couple drinks so… I decided to stick with it. “Good evening!” I said, triggering the chair exit button and spinning back to the left, “I’m Rana, your Chin Gunner.”

      He paused for a beat with a raised eyebrow. “Is that so? And can you hit anything?”

      “I’d damn well better be able to after spending that many hours at it!” I responded. It was mostly true. I’d manned a chin turret for an A2 before, even fired one. But I’d only ever been in simulated combat with one, never the real thing.

      “Fine, fine. Well, you’ll soon get to prove it.” he waved his hand at me, motioning me to get back into the chair I was still in the process of rising from. “Relax, as you were, all that, I don’t stand on formality- we’re about to get out of here anyway.”

      I nodded and remained where I was.

      “Waiting on three more here, they should be by any minute, then we’ll be off to our destination. Going to make a couple stops along the way to fill out the crew the rest of the way, but it shouldn’t take long at all.” The Captain slipped by me and into his chair, deftly spinning around and sliding forward into the command position.

      “Now that I’m aboard can I know what that destination is?” I asked.

      The Captain hesitated, not looking over his shoulder at me. “I really wanted to share it with the whole crew at once, but… screw it, you are on board. We’re on a delivery run through Ghost Hollow.” His voice was overly casual, overly measured.

      My gut seized. I’d expected we were in for something risky but Ghost Hollow?

      “...just a delivery run?” I asked, trying to spy the light through the storm-clouds. “No loitering? No retrieval?”

      “Just the delivery run.” He confirmed.

      A million credits for surviving a delivery run through Ghost Hollow. Seemed… fair. If it was less than that I might have gotten out of the seat and walked then and there.

      The Captain’s hands flew over the control surfaces with practiced familiarity, hardly sparing a glance except to check a readout or to dial in an exact adjustment. A low rumbling thrum filled the ship as the engines came online and the lights flared from the low always-on cabin lights to the powered on operating lights as the ship’s automated voice happily announced, “Crusader Industries! A Journey Worth Taking!”

      “Permission to power up the turret?” I asked, now that the chance of prematurely powering on the ship had passed.

      “What? Oh… yeah, just don’t shoot anything.” The Captain waved his hand over his shoulder at me dismissively, clearly deep in his startup and navigation process.

      I grinned and flipped on the “Power On” toggle. Immediately my view was filled with hangar walls and floor, flanked with two massive barrels. This made me grin harder.

      Within half an hour the ground crew was well clear of the ship and the other three air crew were all aboard, seated and swiveling about in their turrets, filling the comms with boasts and speculation. After initial greetings I remained mostly quiet, having little to contribute to a conversation that mostly revolved around how we were going to come in and slaughter all. In my mind Ghost Hollow wasn’t to be taken lightly, but I was clearly outvoted.

      Captain Saved cleared us with ATC and the massive hangar doors ponderously ground open above us revealing the permanently cloudy, smoggy daylight that filtered down to ArcCorp’s surface. With a lurch we were off, carefully rising up out of the hangar in VTOL mode before transitioning into normal flight mode and blasting forward to punch a hole through the atmosphere toward Baijini Point.

      The space station was a massive ring with a tail, half brilliantly lit and half blanketed in inky black, pinned in place against a sea of stars. We thundered toward it at top speed, rolling to orient ourselves to the station. We barely touched down on Pad 04 before the elevator was descending and I spotted a small figure walking forward from the energy shield that kept the atmosphere inside the station, padding across the tarmac to us. Once he was aboard and settled we were off again for the next leg of the journey- a bit over 23 million kilometers to Hurston to pick up another 2 crew members at Everus Harbor.

      Everus Harbor was locked in geosynchronous orbit over Lorville just as Baijini Point was locked over Area 18, making it an ideal meeting point for us if we just wanted to pass through without having to descend through Hurston’s atmosphere and fight back up through it again to make our jump to our next destination. The station was based around a large ring like Baijni Point was, but while Baijini Point was just that ring with most of its infrastructure mounted off to one side like a large tail, Everus Harbor was more centralized, building a great spire through the middle of the ring as well as multiple great arms branching off of the ring for docking and cargo purposes.

      As before we landed on a pad as opposed to getting a hangar and picked up another crew member, putting us one shy of a full crew by my count. Then it was off to the next nearly 32 million kilometer leg of our journey toward microTech, jumping away from the star at the center of our system.

      Port Tressler was a shining beacon of technology locked over the even higher tech capital of New Babbage on microTech, and it was here that we ran into difficulty. Landing on the pad was easy enough, as was picking up our last crew member (who began impatiently hailing us as we entered the planetary system), but actually getting refueled and ready at that point proved to be a challenge. For all their technological advancement it just doesn’t seem to work at a basic level on a frequent basis. Captain Saved ended up arguing with some Maintenance crew for an extended period of time off the ship while we all waited around until they fixed whatever the holdup was that particular day and we managed to actually get refueled.

      I wasn’t sure if the delay was appreciated or not. On one hand I desperately wanted to get this over with. On the other, any delay in going to Ghost Hollow seemed like a good thing too. I tried to focus myself and to remain calm. The more ready I was the better a chance at coming through this I had. The rest of the crew passed the time either complaining about the delay or in silence as I was.

      Finally Captain Saved was back aboard the Chained and flying through the takeoff procedure once again, then inverting us over Tressler and slipping past the station toward the great snowball of a planet itself.

      “Alright boys, I’m lining us up on Ghost Hollow,” he announced over comms, cutting off the conversation abruptly. “If you have any final adjustments to make, now’s the time. Test fire once we’re out of the Armistice Zone.”

      I quickly scanned my station once more, swiveling my turret back and forth to make sure it moved independently of the ship, making sure the sensitivity was dialed into my liking, then went back and forth in an arc to my extremes, making sure I knew exactly how close to the nose and tail I could get.

      We rumbled our way out of Tressler’s Armistice Zone and immediately the ship shuddered as a variety of turrets opened up, blasting away into the void of space in wild abandon.

      I grinned and shook my head, pointed more or less at the planet, and squeezed my firing stud, then released it. The cockpit shook hard twice as two thunderous reports bellowed from underneath it. Two large red-orange laser bolts dwindled into the distance before me, sizzling into nothingness long before they would reach the atmosphere, much less the ground or anything on it.

      “Chin turret is good to go.” I reported succinctly.

      “Thank you,” Replied the Captain, “Everybody else good?”

      “Oh hell yeah!” Came the general response as the turrets mostly continued to “test fire.”

      “Alright, I haven’t heard any “no’s.” said the Captain, “so here we go. Hold on.”

      I swallowed nervously as I scanned the planet through my monitor. I didn’t know precisely where Ghost Hollow was, but hoped I was at least generally oriented in the right direction.

      In a moment the stars blurred around us as a nebula seemed to envelop our ship, swirling about us and wrapping us in all the colors of the rainbow as we inverted and plowed through reality at a significant fraction of the speed of light for just a few moments. The planet rushed at us, then slowed, growing massively in my viewscreen before halting suddenly.

      “Ok, 32 klicks out, keep your eyes peeled!” Captain Saved warned with the most enthusiasm I’d heard from him yet. The great craft spun as we flipped back to the correct orientation with the planet below us, then raised up the nose to get some altitude for a bombing run.

____________________________________________________________________________

Back to the present

____________________________________________________________________________

      True to my word, as soon as the Buccaneer was in range my chin turret thundered to life, every laser bolt rocking the cockpit and shaking my teeth in my skull. The Buccaneer dove down and away, spinning to avoid my fire but I was leading him well, anticipating his movements and staying on target. The majority of my shots were near misses, but it doesn’t take many shots with a size 4 laser cannon to do some serious damage. A barrage of complimentary laser cannon and laser repeater fire began stabbing forward out of the A2, about half of it focused on the Buccaneer, and I’m honestly not sure if my last shot hit him or not- but I had him in my sites, I fired the weapon, it looked like it connected, and he exploded in a spectacular blue and white ball of plasma before even getting a shot off at us.

      I immediately began searching for my next target, the Anvil Hornet, spinning up and above us, cutting out of range of my line of fire.

      “Hornet to our top side,” I reported, swiveling my turret back down and clearing my targeting to acquire anyone else I could.

      Four other red chevrons remained unaccounted for besides the Hornet- I must have missed one earlier- I rapidly toggled through them- two Sabres, a Vanguard Warden and a Valkyrie. The Sabres and Vanguard Warden posed somewhat of a threat to us being fast, maneuverable fighters with some serious firepower, but the Valkyrie was first and foremost a well armed dropship. It could more than hold its own and shouldn’t be underestimated but wasn’t remotely as agile. It could soak up much more punishment and would definitely dish out some pain of its own if it could stay on target for any extended period of time, but wasn’t going to be my primary concern as long as a Hornet and two Sabres threatened us.

      Angry thuds punctuated my strategizing as someone’s ballistics (I’m not sure who’s) tore through our shields and ripped a jagged line down our fuselage.

      Profanity filled the comms for a second, then a hollow explosion rocked the ship as something massive detonated off our port side, just to our rear.

      “Hell yeah, got that asshole!” someone yelled as one of my red chevrons blinked out of existence from my radar screen.

      “Nice work, keep it up!” I replied automatically, trying to get a lead on the next pass the nearest Sabre was going to make. I had a clear view of basically everything below us so as long as they didn’t pass above us like that Hornet had I figured I’d be able to remain on target.

      Red/orange laser bolts drew patterns around us as our tracers followed our enemies in complex ellipses as our ship continued to fight for altitude, blasting toward space with the mission technically complete, our only goal at this point survival and escape.

      The three remaining fighters swarmed around us like angry humming birds, pecking away at our shields in diving and rising passes, evading our fire better than the Buccaneer, the Valkyrie still out of range but closing quickly.

      I switched targets rapidly as they passed into and out of my field of fire, conscious of trying to keep a constant pressure on them and the roughly five seconds it takes an energy shield to begin to recharge after it stops absorbing incoming laser fire. If we could keep hitting them every five seconds or more frequently their shields would melt away…

      I got a spectacular arc of fire on one of the Sabres as it passed beneath us and landed several successive shots, shredding through its shields and then the hull like it was nothing, turning it into a brilliant ball of plasma before my eyes.

      “Splash one Sabre!” I announced proudly.

      Seconds later another detonation announced the demise of the Hornet somewhere off our starboard tail, above us, leaving just one last Sabre and the Valkyrie which was just coming into range.

      With our fire more concentrated the last Sabre didn’t last long at all, disintegrating under a withering barrage of crossed streams of red/orange tracers, components shedding off into the atmosphere before it too exploded violently, this time off our nose, barely to our port side.

      The Valkyrie wisely turned to disengage, having seen all five of its companions be decimated by a fully armed A2 in a matter of minutes and not wishing to take us on solo, but he was already in range. All cannons that could opened up on the Valkyrie as it dove back for the planet, splashing first against the shield and then against the hull, but by then the Valkyrie was already back at the extremities of our range and even the best efforts of our targeting computers weren’t enough to aid us in actually landing a hit. The Valkyrie plummeted back toward the ground trailing black smoke, wounded and limping but alive.

      “Let him go,” Captain Saved’s voice cut over the comms, “No A2 is going to catch a Valkyrie with a mind to run.” Two cannons defiantly fired several more times, but the rest fell quiet as we continued to soar into the stratosphere, leaving Ghost Hollow dwindling well behind us already. “Now I don’t want to speak too soon…” he continued, “but… that looked damn good to me.”

____________________________________________________________________________

Later, richer

______________________________________________________________________________

      If there was one place to go to drown my sorrows and seek inspiration to solve my problems it seemed only fair that I go to the same place to buy a drink to celebrate my victories. Mr. Fields was indisposed at the moment and a million credits was chump change for him anyway, so I made my way back down to the bar on my own to congratulate myself on my good fortune and survival.

      I pushed open the rough door and gave myself a second to adjust to the dim interior.

      “Well holy shit. He returns.” the bartender’s voice cut across the low music without apparent effort.

      I grinned and made my way toward the bar, nodding. “I return, victorious.”

      “Well now kid, we all heard the deal.” She leaned forward and put her elbows on the bar. “You make your million?”

      I grinned wider, the ever subtle smooth operator that I am.

      She rolled her eyes and pushed off the bar, then reached over her shoulder for a large bell that hung in front of the mirror. She gave the rope two firm, practiced tugs and shouted, “Drinks on Rana!”

      I shook my head, laughing. “Yeah yeah. Drinks on me.”

      Why not enjoy the good times while they lasted?

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.