Space Cops and Bounties

I brought the acceleration lever down as i costed through space near 0.2c (1c is the speed of light), taking in the star background maybe 1 AU (distance of earth to the sun for those who don't know) before I brought the ship to a stop, checking all the systems on board.

Everything was well within parameters, no warning lights or anything, the ship was working perfectly.

I looked at my star map and began plotting course for Jupiter's orbit. it was inter system travel so i would be able to just fly there normally, no need for my warp drive, the station there would be a great place to pick up bounties as it was essentially the sol systems trade hub, given the gas refineries floating above the atmosphere sticking down enough to pull the gas up and in, before separating them and transforming them into fuel and other useful byproducts, the nitrogen being siphoned off for black market sales as laughing gas to get high off of.

While there wasnt much that was illegal, laughing gas was very much frowned upon, so people needed to be careful not to get caught with it. Or at least not with it in a consumable state, if it was simply in a bottle to be used for enhanced fuel efficiency, similar to nitrous for old earth cars on your ship it was fine.

As i was about to engage my engines to turn and fly towards my destination, i saw an incoming hail.

"Rogue 6 this is SPO 217548, turn off your thrusters you are being detained for acceleration exceeding system wide limits, maximum speed of mach 4 within system amd we clocked you going quadrupole that."

"My bad officer, this is my first flight, i didnt know it was that fast, even at quarter throttle i still do mach 6…"

"Either way, those are felony speeds, prepare for tug to earth for processing."

"How about we just forget this happened…?"

"Negative Rogue 6. Wait, why are your thrusters coming back online? Shut down now!"

"I don't know! Its doing it on its own!" I replied as i slowly pushed the lever up, beginning to fly away, before i sent it to full throttle zooming away from the cop.

The one benifit of jupiter having a black market was that cops left the local space alone given the nefarious people who gathered there. By the time i slowed down and came to a coast at mach 2, beginning to hail the station i was well within the no go zone for space cops.

"Rogue 6 to jupiter station, requesting docking permission"

"Good copy Rogue 6, head to docking bay 1787, pad 15."

"Roger that, Rogue 6 out."

I linked to the station and engaged autopilot to dock easily and poped out of the pilot seat as the ship guided itself into its designated landing spot. I gathered some of my things from the cubby behind the seat and looked at the semi cozy interior of the rest of my ship. From the cockpit at the nose, to the locker and 3 cubby holes on the left and right side respectively, then the bed across from the kitchennet. Then behind those, there was a shower on the left, toilet on the right. Finally at the back of the small space maybe 15 feet in length was the airlock leading to an exit ladder. The whole ship was 24.5 feet long by 16.5 feet wide, the width of the ship having the wings designed to assist with lift in atmosphere flight, as well as housing the rocket launchers on either side, as well as the rail system for the chain guns mounted under the nose of the ship, the system able to house 2,500 rounds for each gun normally, though i added an extra storage space on either side to bump it up to 4,000 rounds each chain gun. As for rockets i could house 15 each side and there was a missile mount just outside of that, but i would only be able to house two missiles unless i futher retrofit the ship, but even then i might only be aboe to squeeze it into 3 each side given a lack of space. There were fuel tanks on the top and bottom of the ship, both housing a nice 60 gallons of fuel each. Given my ship's engine and tune, that would get me from sol system to proxima centauri on maybe 10% of fuel used, so plenty of juice to run multiple bounties back to back.

I began to put on my unique space suit, it was a base model Viper Pilot suit, though instead of it being green and black, it was black and red, a small emblem of a vipers head on the left breastplate. I would change that to a dagger eventually.

Once the ship touched down on the pad I disembarked from the airlock and slid down the ladder. The intense gravity of the gas giant below giving a solid 0.75G on the station allowing for people to walk around without issue.

Now you would think the station would be pulled into the atmosphere given how close it was to the gas giant, but it had more than enough thrust capacity to easily maintain its orbit, even though jt consumed some of what it siphoned to stay afloat, it was maybe 3% of total siphoning… and it needed a lot of fuel to stay afloat, hence why this was a trade hub as well as large home to the black market.

One of the dock workers greeted me guiding me to the airlock to enter the stations presurized interior, and once he took off his helmet, he looking impatiently at me waiting for me to take mine off.

"I can hear you and speak through my helmet." I said. All my life i had been a tinkerer, and a modified helmet to allow external sound to be heard and my voice to be protected outwards to others was a cake walk compared to modifying my entire ship and making it what it is from what it used to be.

He nodded, then said, "welcome aboard Jupiter Gas Refinery, what's your interest here today?"

"Bounties." I replied simply.

"Ahhh, head to level 184, there you can look over all available bounties, as well as register as a hunter if you haven't already, though good luck. With an old ship like that i don't see you succeeding in claiming any good bounties except from those who fly old decrepit ships…"

"Noted." I went through the other side of the airlock once the cycle finished.

"Oh, and do you need fuel or ammo? If so where do you fuel or rearm this relic from?"

"Ammo only, I've got plenty of fuel. Back of the wings either side, full load, 8,000 rounds total, rockets are middle of the wings, 30 total." I needed to arm up as mars didnt let just anyone arm a ship with live ammo, you needed a weapons license to do that there, same as with earth. Until i became a well known bounty hunter i would need to come back to back water places or black markets to rearm my ship.

The dock worker nodded and put his helmet back on and cycled the air lock to begin the arming process. I would pay for the ammo when I returned, as was standard.

I knew i still had 137,654 credits left and the chain gun ammo would eat 32,000 of it, being 4 credits per round, and the rockets were 100 each so that was another 3000 credits. Not bad but not great either, while the rockets had some guidance capabilities, they were still able to be outmaneuvered or simply defended against via chaff.

I made my way to to the bounty floor, navigating the station was easy, docking bay 1787 meant i was on floor 178, the last part meant bay 7, so if cardinal direction was to be assigned, there were 8 bays in total, one to the main directions, North, East, South, and West, North being the direction of travel for the station, then one for each of the in betweens, the station having an octagonal structure, and the center shaft being an elevator. It started from north being one and went clockwise, north east being 2, and so on. I was at the West most part of the floor. The only docking floors here were 151-180, below that was the refineries and harvesting floors, all the infrastructure of the station that kept the giant beast going. From floors 181-250 was all the commercial and housing and all the amenities a station would be expected to have such as food courts, rental rooms, housing for the workers, bars and the like. 184 was the bounty floor, the entire floor was designated as a small end bar for bounty hunters to get a quick drink between bounties or just for them to kick back and relax for a bit.

Upon entering the floor I noticed the lighting changed, previously the standard yellow-white lights of common areas turned into a soft blue purple shade, similar to what i would expect at a night club. The entire floor was wide open, aside from 4 main gathering throngs and tables and chairs, as well as support beams scattered around for structural stability. There was not a single wall here, except for the external wall that seperated the inside of the station and the empty void outside.

3 of the main gathering spots, were all bars, the Northern one being the main bounty spot, where one would register as a bounty hunter, take on a contract, or claim their bounty. This was where i set off too, and began looking at the board.

There were a lot of them all scattered across the holo screen. They did have some level of organization though, lower end bounties having a green border , generally lower threat level and lower payouts for them ranging from 5,000-10,000 creds. Moderate risk bounties having yellow, ranging from 10,000-30,000, advance contracts being orange, and going from 30,000-100,000. Extreme was where it got really juicy, but the ammount available started to dwindle at 100,000-500,000 and the priority universe menaces being black and while they were all classified as above 500k creds, none of them were actually less than 1million. Wanted for being the worst of the worst, some of them had no issues boming civilians or killing children. These were the worst of the worst people. Hemce why their bounties were high, but they all had goons with them assisting them in their endeavors.

Unsure of where i was really ready to fall in line with and start hunting at, given i had a much better ship than most other hunters had when that started let alone even some of those who had high end ships would still strugle to match the agility of my ship… but i also knew i lacked the experience of piloting… what contract to pick… my hand hovered over some of the yellow contracts before i finally selected an orange grade contract for 67k creds. This would cover my upfront cost of ammo, and i knew if i was smart with my shots i wouldnt need more than 1,000 rounds to take this guy down. He didnt even have a good ship…