Find your Ship

BOUNTY CANCELLED — 0 XENS AWARDED.

Great. My first act as a professional bounty hunter and I traded away 18,000 Xens for five minutes with the first hot girl I encountered. I opened my menu and checked the map, mostly because I had no idea what else I was supposed to do. A new waypoint immediately appeared over the Vaqueros spaceport.

VESSEL LOCATION

I stared at it.

“Vessel?”

I had already forgotten the Rogue option screen had mentioned that it came with a Ship. I quickly followed the waypoint to the Spaceport.

The Vaqueros spaceport was even busier than the streets had been. Ships crowded the landing field beyond the hangars, everything from battered mining freighters to sleek courier vessels, while fuel trucks and teams of mechanics crawled between them, all beneath the beating heat of the twin white suns. The waypoint led me toward one of the older hangars at the far end.

I checked my balance for the third time.

23 XENS.

“Please be fueled.” Twenty-three Xens wouldn’t fill a lawn mower, much less a starship. The waypoint disappeared as I stepped into the hangar.

Then I saw her, My ship. For several seconds I just stood there in awe. My ship sat low in the hangar like an enormous black arrowhead aimed directly at the stars. Her hull was broad and flattened, roughly forty meters from nose to tail, with a sharply pointed cockpit forming the tip and two long wings sweeping backward from the central fuselage. From above, the entire ship formed an unmistakable arrow shape.

Most of the hull was matte black, broken only by dark gray armor panels, faded markings and the occasional strip of exposed machinery. Even sitting still, she looked fast.

The rear third was practically all engine. Four oversized thrusters were packed between the swept wings, I’d modified her to be far more power than a ship her size had any reasonable need for. Magnetic cannons were recessed into the leading edges, with another hidden turret tucked beneath the belly.

It was the same ship I’d flown in the original Infinite Space Frontier Online, I’d named her the Obsidian Arrow. Sure I was using the same account but I never imagined that by selecting the Rogue path again my Ship from the previous game would carry over.

I started toward her, grinning like an idiot, before noticing two people standing beneath the port wing. I stopped again, no fucking way.

The first was impossible to miss. A mountain of an old man leaned against the landing gear with his arms folded. Swept-back white hair, matching beard, eyepatch. Mercenary fatigues were covered by mismatched remnants of faded Colonial Marine armor. One arm was still encased from shoulder to fist in Colonial manufactured powered plated armor.

Mikhail, Retired Colonial Marine. Mercenary. Heavy-weapons specialist. A man who had supposedly retired from warfare only to take up a job as a Merc out of boredom. He was the first crew member I recruited in the original game.

My second companion stood beside him, Rei. I had spent a lot of nights beating off to her over the years. She looked different now. Not older exactly—we were still roughly the same age—but more mature. The girl I remembered had hardened around the edges. Her dark hair fell into two low tails hanging beneath dark feline ears. A white cropped top sat beneath a black combat harness, paired with a dark pleated skirt, thigh-high stockings crossed by tactical straps, combat boots and fingerless gloves. A knife rode against her thigh.

Very different from when I’d first met her in the original game. Back then Rei looked like somebody had dropped a cute pop idol into a space opera. Pink, plaid, ribbons,a more modest top. She became a permanent member of my party the second I had recruited her.

I had unlocked her while completing a side quest in Imperial Space during my original campaign. Rei came from one of the most heavily populated Imperial worlds, home to a species of Humans with cat like features that were often sold into slavery. Men disappeared into forced labor. Women were sold for more intimate purposes.

Rei had escaped slavery, joined the rebellion and worked to free others like her. By the time I recruited her, she had become one of the rebellion’s nastiest close-quarters fighters.

Rei’s ears suddenly perked. She saw me. Her entire face lit up. “Captain!” She ran. I barely had time to brace before she hit me. I laughed and wrapped my arms around her. Holy shit, she was real, not rendered, not animated, I could feel her very real very warm body pressing against mine.

“Rei.” I actually felt tears well up in my eyes. I’d spent thousands of hours with these two and now they were more real than they had ever been.

She squeezed tighter. “You idiot. You were supposed to be back hours ago.”

I couldn’t stop smiling. “I missed you too.”

“You saw me this morning.”

Right, I loosened my grip. That was going to take some getting used to. To me, I hadn’t seen Rei in years. To Rei, apparently we’d had breakfast.

Mikhail finally pushed himself away from the landing gear. “Captain.”

“Mikhail!” The old mercenary’s visible eye widened slightly when I tried to hug him too. He forced me to settle for a firm handshake.

“Good,” he muttered. “Yes. Very touching to see you again.” I pulled away, still grinning. My crew, we were so fucking back.

Rei stepped beside me, then stopped. Her nose twitched. Once. Twice. Oh no. She leaned toward my shoulder and sniffed. I instinctively leaned away.

“What are you doing?”

Rei sniffed again, this time near my neck. Her ears flattened. “You had sex.”

Mikhail barked out a laugh. I said nothing.

“Who?”

“What?”

“Who was she?”

“There was no she, I was working—”

“I can smell her on you.” Goddamn cat nose.

Mikhail stroked his beard. “Had some fun with the wife didn’t you?”

Rei’s eyes narrowed. “Mateo Vega’s wife?”

“I think we’re getting distracted from the important thing here.”

“Which is?”

I pointed at the ship. “Do we have fuel?”

Rei stared at me for another second.

Mikhail answered instead. “Yes but not much else. We really needed that Vega bounty We, have enough to reach another system but then we’re grounded.”

Rei folded her arms. “You were supposed to be out there procuring some funds.” she continued. “Eighteen thousand Xens.” Rei looked mad. She glanced toward the lipstick stain I had apparently failed to remove from my neck. Her ears flattened even further.

“You abandoned an eighteen-thousand-Xen bounty to sleep with the target’s wife.”

“When you phrase it like that, it sounds irresponsible.”

“It was irresponsible!”

Mikhail laughed so hard he had to brace his armored hand against the landing gear.

“Captain,” he wheezed, “I have missed working with you.”

“You saw him this morning!” Rei groaned and rubbed her temples. “Twenty-three Xens, almost no fuel, and our captain has apparently decided to use bounty hunting as an escort service.” Rei’s hand moved toward her knife.

I immediately started toward the boarding ramp.

“Anyway, enough dwelling on the past, we should probably discuss solutions to our financial situation.”

“Yes,” Mikhail said, following eagerly. “I have solution.”

Something about his tone worried me.

“What kind of solution?”

Mikhail’s grin appeared beneath his white beard.

“The dangerous kind.”

Of course it was.

Rei sighed and followed us. “We found two possible jobs that’ll get us some real spending money.”

“How much?”

“Enough to keep us in business,” Mikhail said.