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//This is the story of Officer Max Cayne. I'll try to base it on in-game events, like fights etcetera, but I'll only be using that as something to start off. So if you see Max Crayne flying around Liberty, delivering justice to the unjust, that encounter will highly likely be included here Wink

//

Max climbed on his Liberator, and sat at the helm.
His helmet connected to the ship, and the ship's HUD appeared before his eyes.
He was pondering about how advanced humanity has managed to become as he was slowly making his way out of the atmosphere, towards dark space.

"Safe flying!" that tasty girl handling traffic said, as he was coming out of the docking ring.
"Thank you, dear." he replied, making a conscious effort to be kind. The early hours that have been requested of him ever since he was changed to the morning shift have been none too kind to his psyche.

He spent too many years on the graveyard shift with John, patrolling New York, to be able to switch to waking up at 6'o'clock instead of falling asleep at that exact time. After his partner's passing away, he requested a transfer to a quieter precinct, out at Precinct 601, based on Toronto.

His days comprised mostly of scolding reckless drivers with broken taillights flying one of them transports that rush to and fro Alberta, with Ore. With the few attacks on these shipments not occuring in the juristiction of his precinct, his closest encounter to action was actually planetside, when he helped put down some bank robbers fleeing the scene.

That day he was actually on Manhattan for a regular medical checkup. He always thought that checkup was absolutely unnecessary for cops under 40, but when he saw how absoultely round and fat some Upstate cops are he changed his mind.

So, as he was coming out of that docking ring, you could suppose the last thing he was expecting was to be shot at. And, bearing in mind his shields weren't online yet, that was one painful shot.

"What the heck?" he shouted before instictively activating shields and guns. As he turnt to look in the direction the shot came from, he saw a Bactrian, along with another salvo of plasma coming straight at him. He engaged the afterburners and skillfuly escaped that flurry of tachyons. At that moment he finally noticed what was being said on the CB:

"Got another Cardamine smuggler here, looks like he's running away!", a voice shouted. Indeed, he saw the Bactrian had engage his cruise engines and was hightailing it out of the planet's orbit, into the proximal scrap field that made the night sky on the Planet so apalling. Thankfully, his light fighter was made exactly for these kinds of situations.

He gave chase. Behind him, he noticed a Navy bomber, whose pilot probably had shouted at the intercoms previously, trying to catch up, but he knew that now it was all up to himself. His first attempt at a Cruise Disruptor Missile (CDM) didn't quite find its target, who launched Countermeasures (CM).
"How pathetic an attempt, you sucky cop!" the smuggler said over the intercom.
"About as pathetic as your attempt to smuggle Cardi to 'hattan." Max replied.

His second attempt was successful though. The Bactrian came to a stop, and the bomber soon caught up. "Lay down your guns, switch off your engines and drop the drugs." the seasoned Navy officer said immediately. "I'd rather take my chances than lose the Cardi!" the smuggler said. Max didn't even get a chance to reply when the Bactrian unleashed a rain of laser bursts towards the two lawful ships.

The fight was tough, as the huge Bactrian was impressively equipped, but as soon as its shields came down, a well placed torpedo shot by the bomber sealed the smuggler's fate. "You may be able to find out the identity of the suppliers if its black box is intact and untampered." he said calmly, before the space dust settled down. "Wait, they'll want you to make a report as well. Who are you, exactly? Nice shot by the way." Max replied, having done the paperwork one too many times. "I was never here." the mysterious official replied. "Who's gonna believe a lone Liberator took down a Bactrian armed to its teeth? With a Nova torpedo nonetheless?"

"You didn't quite understand me kiddo. This never happened. This little 'arrest' will not be reported. Now shut up, and don't think about it too much." the Navyman said, and silently engaged his cruise engines. Max didn't really enjoy the paperwork, but this felt wrong. The way he was being bossed around felt even worse. Still, he had a gut feeling he should not argue with that fella, or a second ship would have gone missing in this field that day.

And, just like that, the lawful party disbanded, and not on a friendly note either. Cayne decided a visit to Sunbucks would calm his nerves a bit. On the way to the Sunbucks' shop at Newark, where he had spotted a hot waitress, he decided upon two things:

First, he'd return to the wreck later to find out who supplied that Bactrian with that insane amount of Cardamine that rushed out of the ship's cargo hold as it was torn to pieces.
Second, he'd find the identity of that elusive bomber with the designation [LN]-Gunslinger.01|ESRD no matter what. He was sure something stank with that high and mighty bomber pilot that takes proper protocol and wipes his behind with it.
Third, he'd have a Caramel Frappuchino, please.

Although there were a lot of friendly faces at the coffee shop, he'd rather drink his coffee alone. He knew he'd get asked a lot about his transfer to Toronto, so solitude was his preferrable option here. In fact, to avoid any interactions with the round-assed cops from Manhattan he decided to finish his Frappuchino on the road back home.

He was about to finish that huge cup of coffee passing by West Point when an unusual blip came up on his radar.
Carnelian.Reaver.

If one thing can be said about Max Cayne, he often valued his honor more than his life. And that was the case that day. He had heard about them Reavers from cops working at more crime-infested areas. Cop killers by profession, it was sickening. They ruthless efficiency was even more sickening. They had never been seen around Toronto, most likely because Precinct 601 can be likened to a God-forsaken hellhole most days of the year. Max couldn't remember seeing them around when he was stationed at New York either, probably because their assaults on LPI personnel started occuring after his transfer.

The Reaver had just taken a Trade Lane towards Norfolk. And whilst Max could, like any other human being that values its life, just go along his way and fly towards California, never looking back, he decided to follow. They were criminals after all.

Carnelian, or whatever his designation is, noticed the attention he received and disrupted the trade lane about halfway, so that what seemed like perfect prey had nowhere to run.
"A Reaper. Never went toe to toe with one of your kind before." Max said, staring down the guns of his opponent's Sabre.
"The LPI. Right where I want them too. Don't sweat it, cops like you who take me on don't live to speak about it.", a rather young voice with a Bretonian accent replied.
"Spare me the small talk. You want a showdown, son? You got it." he said.

He was never one to fire first. It was not only a matter of personal honour but also an LPI protocol. His opponent obviously adhered to neither, as a burst of tachyons scratched his Liberator's shield.

The fight was hard, harder than Max expected. It was obvious he, the rusty star cop that has been handling broken tallights and drunk freight pilots for the past 10 years, had no chance against a killer of men, forged in combat. He knew he couldn't win, but his pride and sense of honour kept him from running.

The agility and finesse of his Liberator had saved him from one too many tachyon bursts and Nuclear Mines when a Liberty Dreadnought patrol happened to come upon them.

"This is the LNS-Retribution. Oah my, is this a Reaver? Hold on officer, we're coming in hot." came a sound from the intercom.
"Don't engage Retribution, don't you see this is a showdown?" Max said.
"Negative officer, we can't risk it. Activating weapons systems."

It is all too common for a saviour to be vilified initially, but this specific situation was far too paradoxical, as Max was furious at that capship, for interrupting an honorable fight, although it was a blatant Deus Ex Machina.

He was getting distracted. And in a ship with a paper-thin armour, that can be devastating. A Nuclear mine that shouldn't have been there hit him with his shields down, but thankfully his Libbie was at the far reach of its radius.

"Thankfully" is just a matter of one's point of view. Being at the edge of its radius, instead of magnificently blowing into a thousand bits and pieces, half of his ship was torn apart. The one with the engine part.

"Hull breach detected. Emergency life support systems activated" the automated voice said as a force field was brought up where the door to the cockpit used to be. Cayne had seen the New York star all too many times from his front view, but catching its rays coming from his back, was a different, scarier experience altogether. From what he understood, it seemed like the cockpit had been completely detached from the rest of the ship.

The Reaver was under heavy fire when he saw that fireball, so he didn't really have time to double-check Cayne was dead, and thus quickly fled muttering insults at the reinforcements that had arrived.

At that time, Cayne was just drifting into space. His communication relay was at the posterior part of the ship, which was now in a different place altogether, so all he could do was wait for that Navy ship to dispatch search and rescue crews.

"Who knows, judging by the extent of the destruction, they might skip that part and send the Junkers out here." he pondered as he was floating near the trade lane. "I gotta find who did this to me." he thought.

And that, to him at least, seemed like the perfect time to finish off that sweet Caramel Frappuchino.

Calmodulin

Calmodulin