***OOC***
This is another phantom only story. If your not a phantom ask me via PM before posting.
***IC***
Honshu system, near the chugoku jumphole
A BHG hammerhead suddenly appeared as it jumped into the system, closely followed by a wyrm LF that immediately fired upon the bigger ship. A fierce fight started and was heading towards the destruction of the BHG fighter when a Kusari navy patrol, sweeping through the cloud hunting for Blood Dragons, arrived and attacked the LF.
"This is patrol gold 7, we've found a phantom operative and are requesting reinforcements." the patrol leader sent the brief message before diving at the twisting and dodging LF.
"Gold 7 we're on our way to you now, our escorts will be with you shortly." the replied was quick and broadcast in plain to the whole system.
'Great, that means it's a destroyer patrol.' Reaper thought bitterly 'Which means chimaeras.' a burst of neutron fire shot past his wing stub and vaporised a small rock.
The chimaeras appeared on the scanners and started closing rapidly. 'Time to nail this BH and run.' He curved around, tapped the thruster and started pounding the shields of the hammerhead with chaingun fire. The shields were draining, but not quickly enough. Reaper hit the reverse thrust and bought some more time, however this had kept him on a fairly level course for too long.
The navy dragons had line up on his tail and were now in range, their first salvo hammered the shield, as did the second. The third ripped through the shield and hit the mine dropper melting it and detonating the mines stored inside.
The blast thrust the wyrm forward and it ramned into the Hammerhead, which had been trying to turn to get a good shot off, so the LF hit the just below the port wing and buried the cockpit in the bigger ship's cargo hold.
"Good work Gold 7." the Chimaera wing leader said "We'll deal with it now."
"Thank you sir, we'll return to base now." Gold 7 leader replied.
The chimaeras used their thrusters to get closer to the drifting wrecks. "BHG pilot you are in violation of our space and will surrender yourself, your ship and all cargo to us now."
"I was coming to warn you guys!" the bounty hunter protested. "The phantoms ha.."
"Failure to comply will result in your destruction." the chimaera commander cut her off. "You have five seconds to start jettisoning your cargo,...5......4.......3..."
" !" the bounty hunter swore and opened fire on the closest chimaera. The shots hardly dented it's shield and the entire wing swung up and away, builting up speed for their attack run.
Reaper did the only thing he could think of...
He hit the auto-dock switch.
The damaged hulls of both ships creaked and rattled as they were flung through the jumphole, and they both broke up just before the jumphole collapsed. Scrap metal, hull plating, a snapped off wing, CM flares, H-fuel, weapons and two lifepods were the only thing that actually made it to the chugoku system.
A battered and scared drone freighter approached the jumphole to honshu slowly. When it spotted the wreckage it actived it's tractor beam and swept up all the loot before turning and running back to kyoto base.
Once at the blood dragons home the drone's pilot called for some help before opening the cargo bay. About a dozen blood dragons, with weapons drawn, ran up and waited for the door to open.
"That looks like the phantom empire crest." one of the older blood dragon's said pointing at the closer pod "I heard their using ryuku base as home now."
"Open it up then Taki." the drone pilot said "Cos I'm not, their all murdering nutters."
"fine." Taki sighed and hit the open switch. "You feeling ok?"
"Yup, bit bruised but otherwise I'm fine." Reaper answered after giving all the insignias he could see a brief look "Thanks for picking me up."
"That was him." the blood dragon pointed at the drone pilot who tried hiding behind another blood dragon "He's harmless, supplies us with alot of our goods, we know him as Frank."
"Thanks, call me anytime you need any help or an escort Frank." Reaper stood up and stretched "My call-sign is TDK Reaper. Er... is there a ship I could buy?"
"Sure, we sell a ship." one of the other blood dragons said "Do you know who's in the other pod? Theres no marking on it."
"Not who, but I know who they work for." Reaper decided that it'd be best not to mention it was a bounty hunter. "Leave it shut I'll take it with me when I go. I don't suppose you found any chainguns in the wreckage Frank?"
"Nope, but I did find some other weapons, some equipment too." Frank replied "You can have them for free, I can't use them."
"Ok, thanks. Right, lets go see this ship then." Reaper smiled.
"The ship dealer is to the left of the equipment dealer." Taki said "What about the rest of the stuff?"
"Keep it, it's useless to me." Reaper shrugged "There might be some food rations in there." He started walking towards the ship dealer as the blood dragons and Frank started digging through the junk that had been tractored into the hold.
"You lost your ship and need a new one right?" the dealer asked without even looking up. "I sell one ship, but only to people trusted by the blood dragons."
"Here's my rep card." Reaper said handing it over.
The dealer took it and plugged it into his terminal, he blinked and looked up.
"What the hell did you do to get hated this much?" he asked, then took a long look at the phantom insignia "Never mind, your rep is good with the blood dragons so thats enough for me. It's this way."
They walked through a short corridor to a maintaince bay where there sat a gleaming, beautiful VHF.
"There it is, the blood dragon." the dealer said watching Reapers face as he walked up to it and started examining it. "Looks like a dragon HF, flys like a dragon HF. But it's got a better powerplant, more armour and can mount a better shield too."
"It comes without weapons?" Reaper asked as he walked around it "What shield does it come with?"
"Yup, no weapons and a class 7 graviton shield." the dealer answered. "The price is .."
"Fine, I'll take it. I'll get it moved to another bay and out of your way within the hour." Reaper walked past the dealer and into the corridor.
____________________________________________________________________
"Hi Frank, so where'd you stash those weapons?" Reaper asked, the pilot had just finished selling the scrap metal and hull plates.
"In the hold still." Frank grinned "I've got them in a cargo pod, along with a CM dropper and that BHG lifepod."
"How do you know it's a BHG pod?" Reaper replied as they walked back to the drone.
"The weapons are a pair of BHG particle cannons, class 9 too, so it's either a BH who's lasted awhile or another pirate who looted them." Frank answered with a grin. "I'm not about to tell the blood dragons, they don't pay enough for BHG pilots."
"True, very true. Besides this pilot saw something that she wasn't supposed to." Reaper sighed "I guess the best thing to do would be to kill her."
"Could do, it'd definately make sure she don't tell no-one, or you could keep her alive for now." Frank said neutrally "Somewhere out of the way would be a good idea."
"Your a phantom operative aren't you?" Reaper laughed "You guys get everywhere."
"Yup, I'm wondering why you, a phantom pilot with a rep for killing everyone, doesn't want to kill a lone BHG pilot." Frank stopped to shut the hold door "Don't worry I won't tell anyone unless they ask me about it."
"Most BHG pilots fall over themselves when the navy tell them to do something, She didn't. I want to know why." Reaper leaned on the wall
Frank shrugged. "I'll help you mount the stuff on your ship so you can get back to ryuku."
Ryuku base, Tohoku system
"Permission granted Reaper, welcome back." The docking control robot said
"Thank you." Reaper was always polite to robots, it doesn't make alot of sense to swear and curse at someone who can easily twist your arms off.
He guided the VHF towards the docking bay and then let the tractor beam pull him inside and place him into a docking cradle.
"Good hunting?" a tech asked as Reaper climbed out and removed his helmet.
"The hunting was excellant. Don't bother opening the cargo bay." Reaper ordered.
"Ok people lets get this ship re-armed now!" the tech ordered his group.
Reaper left them to it and headed to the bar, his flight-armour clanking and jingling as he walked.
"Get me the news." he ordered the lobotomised slave tending bar.
'So, a big fight seems to be shaping up in honshu. It seems quite a few factions are joining in, leaving several other areas weakened...' he thought after quickly scanning the news items, then he started through them again making notes.
____________________________________________________________________
Nomad lair, Unknown system
Transmit to: Phantom HQ
Comm ID: Reaper
Message:
I'm heading to omicron alpha to test out a new fighter. Will be hunting BHG fighters for the outcasts until further notice.
Reaper out.
Message ends...
Message sent.
'Time to chat to my prisoner...' Reaper checked the scan logs again before reactiving the lifesupport and unbuckling his harness, he then pulled himself through the cramped access hatch into the cargo bay.
He hit the open switch on the lifepod and then drew his sidearm as he backed away.
"What took you so bloody long?" the pilot spat angrily.
"I needed to find somewhere safer. Hand over your rep marker, slowly." Reaper stretched his free hand out.
"Take me to the nearest station, I'll pay you to let me go."
"Not gonna happen, you can't pay me enough to do that."
The woman stared hard at Reaper before flinging her rep marker at him. "Take it then."
"Why were you poking around tohuku in a BHG ship, freelancer Kara Estades?" Reaper handed the rep marker back.
"Because I was paid too."
"You'll find food, water and anything else you might need in those containers." Reaper gestured towards the rear of the hold, after holstering his weapon.
Corfu base, Omicron theta system
"Where are you heading?" Kara asked.
"To a zoner base, I'm picking up a new fighter to test it out. Plus I need to hand you over to my support crew." Reaper replied as he waited for the docking robot to tractor him in.
"Why hand me over to your support crew?" she asked wearily.
"So you can be kept safely out of the way."
"I see." mary answered sceptically. "So whoever your protecting me from would kill me?"
"No. Theres worse things then dying." Reaper glanced at her and could see she didn't believe him. "Trust me, dying is easy and nothing to be scared of."
"Docking complete. Welcome to corfu base, please enjoy your stay." the automated greeting interrupted the tense silence that had filled the cockpit since Reapers last sentence.
"Come on, I'll introduce you to your new boss." Reaper unfastened his harness and stood up, his flight-armour clicking and clanking.
"Frank, this is Kara Estades. She's your new pilot." Reaper said to a heavily built giant as he entered the corridor linking all the docking bays.
"Hello." Franks glanced at her once and then turned back to Reaper. "The ship dealer is this way." he nodded off to the left.
"Okay, while I go get the new ship strip my old one." Reaper strode off, leaving Kara with Frank.
"So what happened to the last pilot?" she asked as they re-entered the dokcing bay.
"He couldn't keep his mouth shut." Frank said shortly as he moved an equipment tolley over to the fighter. "He was put into a vac-suit and left on an asteroid in the middle of an empty system. I hear it's a favorite punishment of the corsairs."
"Just for talking too much?" she asked sceptically as she helped him unlock the weapons and put them onto the trolley.
"Not for talking too much, but for talking about who we work for and stuff like that." Frank uncoupled the shield generator and put it onto the trolley.
"I've also heard that Reaper's sponsor is a right psycho. Apparently he had the entire crew of a BHG destroyer chained to the hull of his dreadnought, then he went through a jumphole."
Frank dropped the thruster onto the trolley next to a nomad cannon. "Which is another trick the corsairs like to use."
Kara was speechless for a moment, she knew that a heavily armoured fight got bounced around alot going through a jumphole, but to deliberately take someone in a vac-suit though too...
"Come on, we're done here. I'll show you the ship you'll be flying now." Frank started to push the trolley towards the door.
Ok, I'm done with this one, it didn't go exactly how I wanted it too... but never mind.
I'll do a Bio for reaper and his support crew, might be now, might be later on.
Feel free to post any comments you may have, but the flaming gets left on the fireproof mat outside and the hi-jacks are left for aircraft.