บท 17: Clean up
Ura reached the buzzer and answered, "Who is it?" She snapped her voice tart.
"This is the Port Authorities, We have had reports of gunfire here, and we see parts of dead bodies on your ship along with signs of battle," A woman yelled into the buzzer.
"Open the ramp," I told Ura, and she nodded.
Lowering the ramp, a group of armed soldiers stood there and looked at me, who was wounded with blood dripping from my leather leg and bodies all over the compartment. "What the Hell happened here!" The Hextar shouted with a woman's voice.
"We were attacked," I told her, "We were looking to do business with a Hextay businessman, and since Ura is here," I said, pointing out Ura, "Was recently captured and almost sold as a Slave, she hired a bounty hunter to act as muscle. I thought I could use a vacation, and so I have started to work for her. When they were negotiating through, the Hextars brought over a dozen men and started to storm the ramp. When I told them to back off, they attacked. I sent Ura here back into the crew quarters and fought them. I employed traps that my boss asked in her paranoia about being captured recently and put triggers on traps throughout the ship shortly after arriving. While on the planet, they remain active. While in transit, I take out the pins. When they invaded the ship, they found themselves in more trouble than they thought, and I fought them off till just before you arrived." I said to the woman, my face serious, and my tone sounded as if I was telling the whole truth. "I got hit by a ricochet or two and maybe a bullet. I would like to start at least cleaning the wound." I said, and the Hextar looked me up and down.
"Let us board the ship and inspect," The woman said, and I stepped out of the way," Please be careful not to point your guns at my boss. She is still skittish after being captured by pirates only days ago," I told them.
Ura did her part and looked afraid but tried to be brave. That woman could act, and the Hextar looked around at the bodies, the traps that were torn off walls, and the shitty welding I did. "This is all amateur-wielding," The woman said, turning to me.
"Well," I said while my mind was spinning. The Rish'an Locktar were a species that loved machinery, and my shit welds might lose me the story, so I shrugged. "Rush job, and honestly, I was quite poor until recently when I took a bounty at the last planet where Ura hired me. Only recently got my hands on new tools and have been practicing with them."
The woman Hextar nodded and looked down the hall at the blood mark I left. "I see what happened. Clearly, they were gunning for you as you retreated. They seem to be the aggressors, and you defended yourselves. They brought twice the numbers as well. The gangs are getting out of hand. The Planetary Governor has been cracking down on them, so they have targeted spaceships recently to get off the planet. Good Riddance, in my opinion, and the Air lorry running away refused to stop and was shot down. They are looking for survivors."
The woman stared me down, and I heard a loud ping on me, and I froze. It came from my workshop, and I stepped over a couple of traps and found it was the Bounty tablet saying I was a Federation Bounty hunter now, and I grinned. "If it helps, I am a Bounty hunter," I said, coming out and stepping over the traps, and the woman's expression darkened seeing that.
"Low rank, but these were just thugs. The only thing this changes is that you get the bounty if there happens to be a bounty on any of their heads. Please give me your registration number." The Hextar replied, and I nodded as I looked at the tablet and eventually found it. The woman nodded, "Perfect; we will take blood samples from you and record the scene. Please standby," She said, and all the soldiers stepped in, looking around thoroughly.
I groaned, and I moved to my workshop, where Ura followed. The soldier that had been talking followed us in, and I pulled up my pant leg and sighed in relief. The bullet was through and through, leaving a gash, and the soldier handed me a kit.
Quickly I started to fix myself up, and I turned to say to Ura, "Should have used the medical bay."
Ura shook her head while the soldier watched. I had more than enough time with the soldier watching to bandage myself up, and the soldier turned to us. "Okay, We are done here. We have taken your statements. If there are further follow-ups, you may record them in any part of the Federation space. Please don't leave federation space in the meantime."
"No plans to leave the federation at this time," I said, looking at Ura.
"Too expensive to leave," Ura said, nodding.
The Soldier didn't look impressed. "Well, We will be taking the bodies and doing one last scan of the place. After that, you can clean up and do what you need to do." The Female soldier finished, and I sighed and double-checked my bandages.
I noticed the notifications, but I decided to wait till the soldiers were gone till I looked at them. Ura still seemed a little shaken but less inclined to talk. I continued to check my bandages while the soldiers took the corpses of the Hextars, being careful of the traps. It didn't take them long, and I left the Workshop with Ura seeing them off as a soldier searched the cargo bay. It seemed that they had a device in hand as we walked in and were scanning around as we walked in. They didn't stop because we showed up and we watched till they were done.
Nothing was said to us as they cleaned up the bodies. The soldier came up to me one last time, "As a bounty hunter, we must figure out if any of them had a bounty on their head. If they did, your gear is your claim. Would you like to have that gear paid out in Credits along with the bounty, or would you like the gear itself, although that comes with shipping fees?"
"Just the credits," I replied, knowing that I would make less from them than pawning them myself, "We will make more shipping than selling the guns," I told her, and the soldier woman nodded.
"Thank you for your cooperation. We will be sending you a message with the inventory when we get things back and cataloged. Please let us know if you think anything was missed or if you are missing something from your ship."
"I most definitely will," Ura said with a smile, "We will look and report it to you if they did. My hired muscle," Ura continued while placing a hand on my shoulder, "Thoroughly pushed them back. I will let you know if we missed something."
"Good to hear," The soldier replied, "My badge number is 663399 name is Yawa. Just call asking for that; it will also be in the report sent to you and your muscle."
With that, she walked down the ramp, all the soldiers following, leaving the ship a mess of blood and traps. We raised the ramp, and I turned to Ura. "Call the other buyers. Make a deal and make sure only one comes. We have the Federation credits already from the last dumbasses. Give them a bit of a discount but make it to a Gang that can rival the ones we just pissed off and killed. It will make one side more pissed off while giving you a more powerful contact, maybe if we ever need to come back," I told Ura, and she nodded.
"Plus, if they get a deal, they probably won't try to rob us," Ura added in, and I nodded.
"I need to clean up and rearm the traps just in case. Please get started; I want to leave this planet sooner rather than later. I think we will be in trouble if we stay the night. Don't pick up any deliveries either. We made enough to take a small loss." I told her, and Ura blushed.
"Cant already took a contract. They should be here in an hour to drop off containers full of a specialty product called Hydra sand that can only be made here. It is being sent to a Core world with a nice delivery fee. Completely above board, and the Insurance company loves our speed. Your potential to kill hijackers might make insurance companies love us more if things pan out. I am not going to have a problem finding delivery jobs, it seems," Ura told me with a smile.
"Good, then," I turned her physically towards the bridge, "Go get a buyer for the black products and get them out of our hold. I think the authorities might be onto us, and I am thinking of dumping it into space over keeping it on the ship."
Ura's expression turned dark as she heard how serious it was. I quickly learned something about Ura at this moment. Credits and Deliveries were very serious business for her. She wasn't nearly as Nonchalant about it as she tried to show me. I liked that fact, though, and I saw her head off as I limped over traps and grabbed cleaning supplies.
Quickly I got to work cleaning up the blood with something that said it should clean it up. It didn't take too long for me to complete it, and I grabbed my tools, limping as my leg hurt like hell when Ura came out of the bridge. "I got a buyer, I had to delay him for another two hours, and I will be paid four hundred thousand Federation Credits for it. I lowered the price and told him that because of the other gang, I would like him to put additional pressure on them in exchange. Keep them off our backs while we are still here and any time we are here in the future for at least five visits, along with owing me one. He wasn't happy but agreed on the name of two hundred thousand lass Credits in cost. So he is going to make a lot of credits for helping us." Ura reported, and I nodded.
"Good, Good!" I replied happily, "We can use that later, but I am going to rearm the traps just in case. I cannot be too careful with these things," I continue, "Hopefully, I can rig something that we can just turn off and on if we need them. That time isn't now, though." I finished, and Ura smiled.
"I love how Paranoid you are," She said, and I froze to look at her.
Did I get a paranoid trait?
I was too busy to be distracted, so I got to work. Resetting the triggers didn't take much time, and I reloaded the handgun and I checked my current supplies when I realized I had those Hextar assault rifles from Pervona. I could have made a trap with those to kill more. I frowned and realized I had fallen in love with my own ideas at the time. I promised to look over what I had first next time before making traps again.
It wasn't long before I was standing behind Ura as she accepted an order of Hydra Sand. It was three large cargo containers of them, and another shipment came in with Ura blushing and me looking at her. "I forgot I ordered supplies and more parts for the ship for us." Ura said, "We have a two-day run to the next planet, and I am tired at the moment and forgot to tell you."
I shook my head a little, and I watched as they loaded up an additional container. I was on edge and injured, with pain shooting up my leg as I stood on it. I would have to do something about that once this was over. For now, I gritted my teeth and watched.
Not long later, the next set of thugs showed up without guns visible. They lowered an air lorry and looked at Ura. "We are here for the goods," A male Hextar said, and Ura motioned for him to pay.
Without complaint, he did. I pointed at the cargo lift point, and he nodded as the ramp closed. It went so smoothly as Ura opened up the hidden compartment and brought it out for them. The Hextar thugs didn't check the goods; they just took them to the Air Lorry and secured the goods. The male Hextar came back and said, "Our boss wants to thank you, Ura. He said that our rivals took a hit financially, and some muscle died in the attack on your ship. It seems that some land may change hands here soon," He said, and Ura nodded.
"As long as he remembers the favor and does business like this," Ura motioned around us at the exchange of the goods, "Then our business will always be profitable."
The Hextar did something like a smile, "May we do business in the future," He said, walking away, and we brought the lift back up while the Air lorry lifted off the ground.
I turned to Ura as the Cargo bay locked up and said, "Get us off this planet quickly. Something tells me things are going to light up in their world, and we don't want to be here when it happens."
Ura nodded and made her way to the bridge, carefully stepping over traps as I limped behind her. "What makes you think that?" Ura asked as we moved and reached the bridge.
"We just dumped the spy gear from Pervona here, and the syndicate that I just killed a bunch of members of is probably thinking of revenge. Then we sell the product they paid twice the amount for to their rivals for half the price." I looked at Ura, "You burned someone, and I killed a bunch," I said, looking straight into her eyes. "I would be even more scared if they weren't pissed."
Ura looked at me and nodded, "Noted. They burned me as a smuggler when they attacked anyways. Let us get this shipment up in the air. While we are in the air, Disable the traps?" Ura asked.
"Plan on it," I told her truthfully.
With both of us in agreement, we were soon in the air both to our relief and back into space. I quickly set myself to work and made plans to log off and see if I could find some tutorials for wielding. The soldier was right; they were shit and barely holding things together.
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Madjic
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