Gunship Rubber Duck

[argyle]

Argyle stared out the transpariflex viewports with a bored expression on his face. Outside, planet Manhattan was lazily rolling by the same landscape it had for several days now. He sighed deeply, frustrated and sad. With nothing better to do, he started to run a diagnostic on the ship. All the computers and computer displays had the DSE logo on them, but the shape of the ship the diagnostic ran on was distinctly that of a bounty hunter Bottlenose gunship. The diagnostic came back with the same result as last time: all green, except a flight fluctuation in the power conduits - a harmless effect of running energy through DSE conduits powered by a Kichiro reactor. They had not been designed to work in conjunction with each other.

Bored, Argyle started scanning the other ships sharing the orbit. Nothing much unusual: a cop, two naval vessels, a capital navy cruiser, a few Universal transport and the usual assortment of freelancers. He watched the ships on the tactical readout, pricise locations fed into the computers by the state-of-the-art GMG sensor suite. Two large transports were travelling alone, without escort; intra-system traders probably, or brave but foolish freelancers hoping for a bigger payday. His hand hovered over the controls to the com system for a moment before retreating, and dropping back down on the arm rest of the captain's chair with a sigh.

He wanted to call those traders, offer escort services. With 50% higher weapon damage to the rear than the front, the Bottelnose was as built for close escort - stay close to the trader, and teach any bogey brave enough to persue a lesson they wouldn't soon forget. He wanted to, but he didn't. The Rubber Duck continued to drift silently in orbit.

He didn't want to admit it, he barely admitted it to himself, but he was deeply worried. The ship was his, rebuilt from the burned out wreckage he had bought from the junkers. The law supported him on this, at least Liberty law. The spirit of the age old international maritime law had survived hundreds of years, even surviving through the exodus to Sirius all those generations ago. The laws were pretty simple and straight forward, and the one that mostly concerned Argyle was the one that could be summed up with "finders keepers": the right to salvage, and legitimate claim to what you salvage.

Unfortunately the bounty hunter's guild wasn't so understanding, thus his worry and orbit around Manhattan. Even the guild wouldn't dare touch him here, even though they had been bold enough to threaten to destroy him here, over an open channel, right in front of a liberty navy battlecruiser even. Maybe they wouldn't destroy him here, but what if they caught him in Kepler? Argyle frowned and started out at the planet. They would, he thought to himself, the respectless bastards would shoot me in a heartbeat. Another deep sigh.

He didn't even understand what the argument was all about. When he bought the wreckage from the junkers, it was in a sad state: the main wing was blown clean off, the cockpit little more than a crater, power conduits were fried and the engines fried, both results of overload when the reactor had gone critical. The reactor itself had ruptured, turning the ship into a radioactive tomb.

The DSE had started by decontaminating the wreck, then proceeded to rebuild the structure as best they could, based on their own research and old scans of other Bottlenose ships. Even then they hadn't got it quite right - the ship was unbalanced, and would pitch down every time the engines would throttle up. In the end, they had solved the problem by rebuilding the engine housing, and moving the engines around to balance the thrust distribution.

There was precious little that could in any way be traced to the bounty hunters left in the ship. Everything that hadn't been fried by the power overload, had been eaten away by the small emp and years of radiation from the ruptured reactor core. Nearly everything had been researched and replaced by technology from various contractors. Ageira, DSE, Kishiro, GMG... the ship was truly a one of a kind item - custom made. None like it had ever flown before and most likely none like it would ever fly again. And the guild had stomach to demand their ship back. "Their ship" - what an insult! Argyle kicked the synth steel bulkhead twice in anger and frustration, sending a soft thud ringing through the entire ship.

Melinda Argyle, Jim's mother, had once told him in his teens: "You have to go through life like a rubber duck. On the surface you must appear to bob along carefree without a worry in the world, but under the surface, you paddle like hell to stay afloat." Well, he was paddling now. Straight up ****'s creek.

He gently ran his hand over the controls. "I don't want to loose you Duckie. I never should have given the guild the option to buy you. We should have gone to court." He sighed. "Damn those guild pirates!"