Episode 8: Everybody wants a piece of Oz…

Ed was surfing the internet as usual, causing trouble here and there just for the fun of it. It was part of her everyday routine, along with sleeping and eating. She would search through networks and files of different corporations and businesses. Sometimes she found out some interesting and illegal things, in which case she would send a virus or 15 to those people, which was Ed's sense of justice. She saw it as fair punishment to destroy millions of dollars worth of networks that belonged to people who believed in embezzling and other types of corporate corruption. She also liked messing around with things simply for the sake of stirring up trouble. She never got caught, that's why she was called "Radical Edward" and that's also why people still didn't know what she really looked like. She loved reading the rumors about her, a lot of people thought she was a boy, with a name like Edward it couldn't be avoided. Although anyone who saw her would know right away that she was definitely a girl. At 17, she had grown up to be a cutie by the standards of most people. She had left her hair to grow out a little so now it was down to her shoulders. She was wearing her usual outfit of tan short-shorts and an oversized white half t-shirt with a black sports bra that was slightly exposed because of one shoulder being exposed. As she was on her computer she decided to check if there were any new bounty posts, she hadn't done that in the last few days. When she did she found some very troubling news about one of the newest posts:

Oz Cortez

Age: 21

Height: 5'10"

Weight: 210

Bounty: $90 million

Wanted: Dead or Alive

"HMMM!" Ed took off her goggles to make sure she wasn't seeing things and read the test on the monitor once again; it did indeed have Oz's name. She yelled, " Oz! Oz! Bad mojo!"

Oz had been watching a movie with Ryoko when he heard Ed yell something about mojo and Oz turned around to see what the commotion was about. "Ed what the hell are you talking about?" Oz was confused and a little bit irritated, the movies was getting good and Ed interrupted it.

Ryoko was also confused about the whole thing, she sat in a meditative style, levitating above the couch when she heard Ed begin her ranting.

Ed was walking over see what all the commotion was about when he looked at the screen and found his answer. He had a bounty on his head, in fact, he had one of the biggest bounties that he had ever seen, and there was no way he could collect. "So I'm only worth $50 million huh?" Oz casually replied.

Ed slowly turned her head and gave Oz a bit of a glare, "$50 million buko bucks Oz." Ed saw no reason to be so calm about it.

"Well if I'm worth that much someone must really want me taken care of, not to mention the fact that they added 'dead or alive' to that bounty." Oz had a good idea of who it might be, and made a grim smile at the thought of it. The Wild Cards had to be behind this, It was an easy way to have an enemy taken care of if you make him worth something to other people, and also get rid of the inconvenience of keeping him alive. It was something that he used to be a part of, and more often that not they gang, especially Oz himself, would try and catch the guy, just for kicks. But if someone beat them to it no hard feelings, the job would get done one way or another. But Oz didn't remember having such a big bounty put on people, they must really be getting irritated with him, once you're in the gang you don't leave. Oz had done just that, and was still alive to enjoy it, and that was unacceptable in the eyes of the Wild Cards.

Ryoko looked over at Ed, "Ed how long has that bounty been posted?"

With a few punches of the keys she had the answer, "Two days."

Ryoko looked over to Oz, "Looks like we should be getting ready for some action real soon huh?"

Oz was already walking off to get ready for just that, "Yeah you're right."

"Oz this could prove to be a very big dilemma for us, just about every moron who wants to make a quick buck will be after you." Ryoko added.

"Those guys will be easy to handle." Oz responded.

"That's true, but I'm sure there will be the more professional bounty hunters out there, not to mention assassins, mercenaries, and maybe even the security forces." Ryoko said this in an almost lecturing type of way.

"Well it's just something I'll have to take care of." Oz shrugged off Ryoko's very true comments.

Just then Jim walked in, he had been spending a lot of time repairing and maintaining the jets today and had come up from the repair deck for a break. He was in his mechanics jumpsuit and was very greasy and oily from working. Jim was holding a wrench and had a bandana wrapped around his head that was all sweaty and grimy as well. He looked over at Ryoko as he was making himself a sandwich, "Hey Ryoko I finished giving your engines tune up and recalibrating the thrust vectors."

"Thanks Jim, I Have a feeling that I'll be needing it soon."

Jim took a big bite out of his sandwich, "Another bounty head?"

"Oz is worth $50 million!" Ed yelled out before Ryoko could respond, Ryoko simple shrugged and nodded.

"What!" Jim exclaimed with a large mouthful of sandwich.

"Yeah that's right someone wants me dead but I'm gonna make sure that they earn that $50 million or die tryin'" Oz holstered his casters after making sure that they were loaded.

As he was doing this the ship received a direct transmission from someone. "Oz Cortez, nothing personal but I'm here to kill you."

Oz walked over to the transceiver to respond, "You mean you're here to try and kill me." Oz grinned, "Okay well gimme a second to freshen up and I'll be right out." Oz turned and ran down to the hangar deck. He jumped into the cockpit of the

x-71 and fired up the engines. As the engines roared to life the cockpit sealed shut and pressurized itself in preparation for the vacuum of space. Oz pushed the button on the control panel that elevated that part of the deck floor upwards towards the launch deck. Each lever cleared a path for the rising jet by opening up a portion of the deck and then closed again to seal the decks so that they did not lose pressure when the final deck became exposed to the airless space. The final deck before the launch deck was separated by walls as well surrounding that portion of the deck completely and insuring that activity could proceed as usual without the need of a space suit. The rising platform that the x-71 was elevated upon did so via four motors that were each on their own track, much like a railroad track. As the floor rose up the small gap in the floors made by the tracks were sealed by closing walls. The x-71 finally reached the launch deck and was ready to take off on the short runway. Oz flipped the switch on the control panel that released the wheel clamps and pressed down on the throttle, shooting him forward and out of the runway hangar.

The other ship was a grappler craft and looked similar to an A-10 Thunderbolt modified and with mechanical arms. The arms began to extend forward and the fingers clamped down and opened up repeatedly. Suddenly the thrusters boomed and shot the craft forward. "Time to die Oz," said the pilot.

"Right." Oz quickly worked the pedals and thrust the maneuvering controls in different directions maneuvering just out of the grasp of the claws. A barrage of missiles swarmed towards him and Oz quickly shot head-ward(since up doesn't exist in zero-gravity, direction is relative to a person) and spun several times. Dozens of bursts of compressed gas shot out from various areas on the jet.

"Arrrgghhh, you stupid outlaw!" yelled the bounty hunter.

"I'm not an outlaw," Oz corrected, "I'm a bandido."

"Whatever," the bounty hunter replied. He thrust one of the arms out and managed to clamp part of the x-71'a fuselage. "Gotcha!" he exclaimed.

Oz felt the clamp and for a brief second was worried, then he simply smiled, "Sorry," he jammed down the thrust pedal and pushed the maneuvering controls straight up, shooting him head-ward at full thrust, "No such luck." Oz quickly slowed down and with a few spurts of gas he rotated the jet and the nose of the x-71 was pointing straight at the roof of the bounty hunter's cockpit. Oz pulled the triggers and fired a hail storm of bullets into the cockpit and the thrusters, causing an explosion. The x-71 jetted away to avoid impact from debris. He maneuvered the x-71 back towards the Viajero Bandido "This is Oz, I'm coming back to the ship, open up the hangar doors."

Ryoko's face popped up on screen, "Roger that," she pushed the buttons to open the hangar door then added, "You know there's plenty more where he came from."

Oz touched down on the short runway and wheeled onto the lowering platform before he replied, "I'm aware, thanks Ryoko."
Ryoko shrugged at the sarcasm, "As long as you know."

Oz sat in the cockpit waiting to reach the bottom hangar deck and sighed.

Nope, not done yet…

To be continued…