Hello there... I'd like to apologize--Gomen! I've received complaints about not updating regularly. Yes, yes, I know. Three months is a damn long time to wait for a new chapter. (Covers head and begs for forgiveness) But try and understand I am but a poor student with LOTS of homework. Anyhow, to make up for it, I'm going to post another chapter on Sunday, and hopefully yet another a few days afterwards. Bear with me, people. This story might not be going in the direction you think it is....
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"Hey!" Aisha yelled out. The receptionist looked up surprised from behind the counter as a Ctarl-ctarl woman came bursting through the door of the station, looking excited and therefore slightly feral. The male receptionist beside her backed up a few steps.
Aisha strode up to the counter. "Any new bounties? I want the one with the highest price!"
"Um--uh," the man stammered. "We've uh, we've got a few--?" He'd never seen a Ctarl up close before, and was desperately hoping they couldn't smell fear.
"Well, come on!" Aisha was fairly bouncing in excitement. "Tell me already!"
The woman, whose nametag read Lola, looked over at her colleague with a raised eyebrow. It was obvious she was going to have to take over before he embarrassed them both and soiled the reputation of the Space Forces. "Give me a second, let me check the database." She noticed Aisha fidgeting in front of her. "First bounty, hon?"
"Not really," Aisha put her hand behind her head sheepishly. "Well, kinda. I mean, first one by myself."
Lola smiled to herself. "Well, here's one." She turned the screen around and showed Aisha an image of a smarmy-looking man. "Aldor Neese, a convicted thief. He escaped about a week ago. Wanted alive."
Aisha didn't care about any of that. She leaned in to look at the price. "Only ten thousand wong? That's not enough!"
"Not enough? Hon, for a first bounty that's really good."
"No, no, you don't understand," Aisha pouted as she felt her stomach trying to eat itself. "I need a bigger price than that. I gotta eat!"
Lola ran her hands over the keyboard. "If you insist, but-- oh, here's another. Charna Moriya, arsonist, thirty thousand wong."
"Anything higher?" asked Aisha hopefully. Lola shook her head incredulously but brought up more records. She sped past them quickly, one by one.
"Wait! go back! What was that one?"
The receptionist read from the screen, "Che Danvers. Crimes unknown. Bounty is two million wong."
"Now that's more like it!" Aisha scanned the rest of the information quickly. "Last seen in the Tesla area, crimes unknown, wanted alive, considered armed and dangerous, blah blah blah."
Lola peered around at the screen and looked up with worry. "Wait a minute, now. I remember hearing about this guy. He's one of the big boys. You can't just go after him alone! He's eluded capture for more than three years!"
"So that's why his bounty's so high," Aisha commented. "I was wondering about that. The guy looks like a real wuss."
"That's because that's not a recent picture. He doesn't look anything like that anymore. I should warn you he's gotten all sorts of implants and cybernetic additions since this was taken. I heard he's over six feet tall and weighs 300 pounds of pure muscle!"
Aisha grinned and flippantly waved her off. "Aw, I can handle it. I'm the strongest woman in the universe!" She flexed an arm muscle, causing the material of her elbow-length shirt to strain almost to breaking point. Lola raised an eyebrow.
Aisha ignored the expression and squinted to memorize the fuzzy face of her new prey. Lank brown-green hair, dark grey eyes, a wide mouth and a short, almost cute face. He didn't look like a two million wong bounty head at all-- to tell the truth he just looked really nervous and itchy. "This'll be a piece of cake!" She whirled around to leave. "I'll be back soon! Thanks!"
"You be careful," Lola called as the Ctarl ran for the door. "You watch yourself!" Lola shook her head as she watched the girl run across the busy street without even looking. Kids these days-- where were their heads at? They thought they were all invincible...
"Jeez," the man beside her said, finally regaining the power of coherent speech. "Do you think we'll be seeing her again?"
Lola shrugged. "Maybe so, maybe not. But the hospital might be seeing her real soon."
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After four hours of walking about, Aisha decided that bounty hunting wasn't as easy as she'd first imagined. After all, most bounty heads were in hiding. She'd forgotten that she would actually have to find him before she could do the fun stuff. Now that, she'd planned for. After leaving the station, she'd rushed back to her apartment and changed into her regular clothes. Then she'd armed herself with her Ctarl-whip and a small but powerful handgun. (You didn't spend over a year on the Outlaw Star and not learn how to handle a piece.) And then, as a final precaution, she re-sharpened her already naturally pointy nails.
But now it seemed as though she'd wasted her time. Trudging past a spaceship parking garage, she sighed. Guess I couldn't really expect Che Danvers to just show up at my apartment and ask to borrow a cup of sugar, could I? Looks like I'll never find him.
Aisha was so busy thinking that she didn't notice the man walking towards her until she slammed into him. She promptly bounced right off of the man's considerable bulk and landed on her ass in the middle of the sidewalk. "Ow! Hey!" she yelled.
"Sorry," he grunted, and walked on.
Damn rude people, she grumbled to herself as she pulled herself to her feet and brushed herself off. If I wasn't such a pleasant person I'd-- wait a minute. Aisha rifled through her memory. Make the hair shorter, de-sink the cheeks, and add about 200 pounds... it was him! Aisha couldn't believe her good luck. The Ctarl gods are smiling on me today! she thought gleefully. She scrambled after him, careful not to be seen.
Che Danvers, worth two million wong though he had never committed a serious crime in his life, walked briskly into bay of the indoor ship hangar. His plan was to stow away on someone's ship and get the hell off of Tesla. Word had it that there was already a bounty on him here too. So he was going to do exactly what he always did-- Run.
Che was a intimidating sight and he knew it. He also knew that it was all show. The height was his naturally, but the bulk and muscles had been added on with surgery. Che didn't really use them for anything physical. The fact that he had been able to avoid capture for three whole years wasn't due to them, and he knew that quite well too. It was pure luck, that's all. Pure luck and an uncanny ability to know when to run.
Danvers walked as nonchalantly as he could past a trio of mechanics arguing over what to do with a strange-looking replacement part. The ground level of the garage was completely open so that supply and transport trucks could roll over the concrete floor without impediment. As it was still morning, the place wasn't exactly busy yet. There were only a few mechanics and techies running about, doing whatever mechanics and techies do. Che didn't pay them any mind. Instead he looked up and was quite pleased with what he saw.
Each of the four walls were lined with docking spaces for spacecraft. The middle of the hangar was open all the way to the uncovered roof, except for a complex criss-crossing pattern of metal walkways that connected the docks to each other. They also linked the levels together through means of stairs and mechanical ladders that could carry the rider either up or down. Danvers sucked in a relieved breath. The hangar wasn't full, but at least half of the spaces had ships in them. Surely he could find one to sneak on. He wandered up the metal stairs to the second level in the hangar, searching for a cargo ship large enough to hold him in its storage space.
Danvers heard the clomping sound of feet behind him. Nobody with a brain walked that loudly unless they wanted to be heard. He turned around with dismay, hoping it was just a friendly mechanic. It wasn't. A small Ctarl-ctarl woman stood there, staring at him hungrily. He did not like the gleam in her eye.
"You're Che Danvers," she said. It was not a question-- actually it sounded like an accusation. He didn't answer and didn't move. She nodded triumphantly. "Well, now you're mine." The Ctarl placed one hand on her hip and pointed at him with the other. "In the name of the Ctarl-ctarl empire, I'm placing you under arrest!"
He stared her up and down for a second. And then he turned and ran.
"Grrr-AAUGH!" Aisha roared. Human males were such cowards! But at least this time she knew that already, so she didn't waste much time being surprised. "Why do you outlaws always run? Get back here!!" She tore after him.
Danvers was surprisingly fast for such a large man. He shot up a set of stairs and disappeared from sight for a second, but he wasn't hard to follow at all. The sound of his footfalls echoing on the metal walkway were as loud as gunshots to the Ctarl's sensitive ears. With her long, thick braid lashing behind her, Aisha reached for her Ctarl-whip.
Then those aforementioned ears picked up something else. It was hard to discern with all the echoes bouncing off of the smooth steel walls, but it was there all the same. An echo of footsteps, almost in synchronization with that of her prey.
Shit! Aisha thought, perking her ears almost straight up. Does he have a partner? She strained to hear, slowing down slightly. Is it an ambush?
It was hard to tell, but she was pretty sure that the sounds were coming from her left side. Think, Aisha, think! If you don't get this bounty, you don't eat!
After a moment's deliberation, the Ctarl swerved suddenly to her left and clamored onto the railing, tucking her whip away. With a small grunt, she leaped up and caught the bottom edge of the next balcony. At times like this, being the strongest woman in the universe came in handy. She hauled herself up quickly, with almost no effort. She turned and crouched to peer over the edge.
There was Danvers, still running along the same pathway. He was moving considerably slower than he had been a few minutes ago. She could catch him easily. But there was indeed someone else there, though they were taking great caution to hide it. If her ears were right, and they usually were, the second runner would be underneath her in a matter of seconds, streaking in along a diagonal causeway.
As the footfalls grew louder, Aisha raised up a little bit and began to slink forward, moving quickly but keeping her body low. Danvers was lumbering toward an intersection now, and she bet that the second runner would meet him there. But if she got there first, she could kill to birds with one stone. Two bounties for the price of one! Aisha forced herself not to think of lobster.
50 yards away now, 35, 20... She raised herself up a little bit and caught sight of a shadow almost directly underneath her. The echo runner was a little behind Danvers, and it didn't appear as though the bounty head had noticed him. Aisha frowned. Could it be that this person, whoever they were, was after him too? "Not if I have anything to say about it!" she growled. She grabbed the rail with her right hand and vaulted over.
Danvers must have been awfully surprised when he looked up to see a pair of boots heading almost straight for his head. To his credit, he did have the presence of mind to get the hell out of the way.
Aisha landed on all fours with a boom that set the whole walkway to vibrating. The sound of her hard-soled Ctarl-boots hitting metal sent a teeth-jarring clang reverberating back and forth through the hangar, almost drowning out Aisha's triumphant "Ha!" as she whipped out her gun and sprang up.
At the same moment, the second figure put on a sudden burst of speed and rushed up behind Danvers with his gun raised. He stopped dead in his tracks when Aisha dropped out the sky, however.
Danvers stared with terror at the Ctarl-ctarl in front of him, then gaped over his shoulder at the tall man behind him. He was trapped between the gaping blackness of two gun barrels, each trained on his head. Che glanced back and forth between the two of them, hoping that he was worth more alive than dead. Slowly, he raised his hands. But neither of his hunters were looking at Danvers now. They were looking straight at each other.
"YOU?!!" Aisha screeched.
"Damn!" Ron McDougal swore.
Aisha automatically swept her gun to aim at McDougal, rethought it, and trained it back on her bounty, who was-- gone?!
In that one moment of hesitation, Danvers acted. The large outlaw flung himself over the railing, down onto the back of a moving cargo truck below. He landed on the hard metal roof and rolled, but managed to hang on.
"Hey!" Aisha yelled. "You can't do that!" Without thinking, she leaped over the railing too. McDougal looked on incredulously as she shrieked, "You're food for the next two weeks!"
Not being exactly knowledgeable about Ctarl-ctarl dietary habits, Che Danvers took that last statement entirely wrong. He couldn't really be faulted for that though; the wild look in Aisha's eyes would have been enough to convince anyone that she'd gladly rip an arm off and gnaw it like a drumstick.
Fortunately for him, even a Ctarl wasn't quite fast enough to catch up with a moving vehicle on foot, though Aisha was trying valiantly. Danvers grinned. He'd never been pursued by a Ctarl-ctarl before, but hey, they weren't so tough...
Meanwhile, Ron McDougal pounded furiously to the end of the walkway, surprising a couple of mechanics as he rushed past and hurtled towards a mechanical anti-gravity ladder. Devious and daring though he was, Ron was not about to hazard that drop. He was not, after all, a Ctarl-ctarl or a cyborg, and he liked being able to use his legs. He grabbed onto a rung with one hand and let the ladder carry him down.
"Get back here!" Aisha screeched at Che. Still running, she pulled her gun from under her cloak and squeezed off a few shots at the top of the transport truck in pure frustration. Danvers pressed himself flat against the roof of the truck, and Aisha's shots flew harmlessly overhead. She didn't see Ron leap to the ground far ahead and run straight at the vehicle. He sped out right in front of it and aimed his gun at the driver, who simultaneously swerved and pissed his pants.
The truck cut sharply to the side just as Aisha took a flying leap at it with the hopes of maybe wrapping her hands around Che's neck. The vehicle rose up precariously on its two left wheels, then tipped and slammed onto its side. It skidded back towards the Ctarl, the friction of the metal body on the metal floor creating a shower of sparks that followed in the truck's path.
"Yeeek!!" Aisha shrieked, but luckily her momentum carried her straight over the wreckage. She landed and tucked into a roll to reduce the force of the impact.
The sparks had caused flames to spring up on the debris. Aisha looked carefully through them and saw an arm. She recognized the awful plaid pattern as Danver's shirt. Rushing forward with glee, she grabbed it by the elbow and tugged him to his feet. "In the name of the Ctarl-ctarl Empire, I hereby place you under arrest!" she repeated triumphantly. The truck driver unearthed himself from the cab, took one look at her, and ran.
Danvers wheezed out, "Truck-- gonna-- explode--"
"And now to collect-- huh?" The Ctarl girl stared at her bounty.
A red flash sped in from nowhere and grabbed Danvers other arm. Che was jerked to the side, and because Aisha still had a firm grip on his arm, she was dragged away too.
"McDougal! What do you think you're doing?!" she howled as she ran/was hauled along by Danvers, who was running/being pulled by Ron. "He's my bounty! Hands off!"
Ron ignored her of course, which of course made her angrier. But before she could yell anything else, the truck behind them went up in a ball of flames.
The shockwave sent the trio into the air. Aisha squinted her eyes shut against the sudden blast of heated wind that whipped past them, but didn't let go of Danvers. They landed hard in a heap of arms, legs, and hair.
"Oooww," Aisha groaned, blinking slowly. She suddenly became aware of the horribly uncomfortable position she'd landed in. Danvers bare foot was almost directly in her face, his boots blown off from the explosion. Her left leg was pinned underneath his armpit, and her right was flung up into the air. Not only that, but a heavy arm was resting on her chest. Aisha glanced over to find McDougal's head down by her hip. Ron made the mistake of stirring, which caused his arm to drag across the Ctarl's rather large chest in a very friendly way.
"Aauugh! Hentai! Pervert!" She started kicking and punching, without caring in particular who she hit. Ron managed to scramble up and out of the way, but Danvers got a boot directly in the face. He let out a strangled "Gahh!" as the cartilage in his already crooked nose crunched.
McDougal ducked, narrowly dodging a brown fist. He rolled out of the way, stood, and snapped out, "Stop it!"
"Don't tell me what to do!" Aisha ranted, and she snatched up one of Danvers's boots and flung it at Ron's head. "Dirty hentai!"
The outlaw moved coolly out of the way and the shoe whizzed past his ear. He stepped towards Aisha and the cowering Danvers and towered over them both. "Get over yourself, little girl," he said scornfully. "You're not even worth my time." Ron's arm sped down like lightening and he grabbed Danvers by his forearm. The dazed bounty head allowed himself to be pulled up without resistance, legs and arms wobbling like he was a marionette on strings.
Little girl?! Aisha's face, meanwhile, had gone from its usual chocolate through a whole progression of increasingly red shades. Her mouth stretched back into a wordless snarl and she scrambled up, seizing Danvers's other arm in a grip of iron.
"Back off, Ctarl. You don't wanna mess with me." He yanked on Che's arm.
"Let go of my bounty," Aisha growled deep in her throat. She pulled on his other arm. Poor Danvers was in serious danger of being ripped in half. Neither bounty hunter seemed at all inclined to give up and let go. Past the pain of his squished nose, Danvers could feel the tendons in his armpits and shoulders being stretched to the breaking point. He let out a little whimper.
Ron's amber eyes sparked, then narrowed. "Fine. If that's the way you want it." Contemptuously he threw Danvers's arm down and backed up a few steps.
Aisha blinked, surprised. Was that it? He was just giving up?
McDougal reached into his coat and pulled out his oversized Castor. He held the long blaster casually in one hand and lifted it to aim directly at Aisha's stomach. The two huge gold rings at the barrel of the odd-looking weapon spun against one another as the gun powered up, making cheerful jangling noises.
Aisha's eyes went wide and she had just enough time to think, Oh shit before the blast came at her in a flash of blinding blue.
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And there you have it... so tell me what you think! Just a note-- if you do me the courtesy of reviewing my story, there's a good chance I'll return that favor and go review yours. Give and take, right? And thanks to those who have already!
