He couldn't believe he'd been conned into doing this.
Hargreaves sat with a long rife in his lap, fingering the flechette-loader within the shoulder-cannon's interior, glaring balefully at the present object of his scorn. The Oberst of the Vereinigte Widerstandsarmee sat upon a battered Daumannsteel bench as the sounds of the internal MOX reactor of their Behemoth-class radiated within the cavernous inner cargo hold.
Klugmann was loading individual silvery and reflective projectile rounds into a sidearm that stretched the very limits of the term "revolver". The barrel that the six sliver-like rounds were entering protruded about an inch and a half out to the chamber's left, leaving the weapon irregular. It was heavily modified and likely at least ten to twenty-five years in a Sirian penitentiary for possession.
He looked up at the Freelancer as he loaded the last heavy round. "They're made of Osmium."
"Why the hell are we doing this? It's one woman, and she's about to get the two of us killed." Hargreaves accosted him. Erich didn't actually believe Hargreaves was mortal, and several others among the Party agreed. He was the sole survivor of two separate airspeeder accidents in his youth that each killed more than twenty both aboard and at point of landing; This, of course, was before the lucrative, illegal, and all-but-fatal mercenary work on Leeds' surface and dozens of sublevels.
He took longer than he thought to reply. In approximately thirty minutes the two of them would be straight in the middle of Harburg City - where smoke and flame still plumed - and where his credible intel suggested that a subordinate nominally reporting directly to him lingered. With so many eyewitnesses and a swarming police presence on-site, "Jane" was profoundly unlikely to have been able to escape. If she had followed the militant sect's training instructions, she'd likely have fled to the slums and subterranean labyrinths typical of the nigh-inhospitable Rheinlandic planets.
But from there? She could be at the mercy of Unioner-aligned slummers, which the entire planet was a breeding ground for, - To say nothing of the "purge" of the entire slum that the Bundespolizei might order as a retaliatory measure. Erich had seen footage of desperate, uninvolved people being roughly thrown into police airspeeders with the kind of care usually reserved for bio-membranes of human waste.
He finally spoke up. "Because she'd do the same for us".
"For you, maybe. If we survive this, you can consider my debts to you paid off."
Erich frowned, mumbling a curse of agitation under his breath. The ship approached the very limits that the docking ring could possibly handle, and being turned away or boarded for inspection would have complicated matters immensely. As the comms crackled to life around them, the two men and their sole other bridge-compatriot drew in a heated breath.
"Docking Ring, this is the Edelweiss, privately contracted by Republican Shipping and the Bundespolizei. We're taking two fighters to the Evidence Yard at Harburg for disassembly."
The hair on the back of Klugmann's neck stood on end; whether it was due to nervousness or the defense grid's scanner-drones sweeping the exterior of the transport, he wasn't certain. The man on the bridge spoke aloud again after an awkward silence in comms.
"We're here on priority invitation with a 'Herr Schweitzer' ". So far, so good. Schweitzer, of course, was the alias of a Bundschuh plant artificially registered with an infiltrated history within the Neural Net; such a task was not easy - Or cheap. But the entire history was legitimate and assuming the work was performed correctly, untraceable. Erich's eyes panned to his left to see Hargreaves loading a single armor-piercing round into the massive rifle strewn across his lap, scowling and making direct eye contact.
A young female voice rang out through the bridge's comm, broadcast over the rest of the nigh-depopulated transport - Crisp, professional. "Acknowledged, Edelweiss. Declare the purpose of the onboard weapons found during our cursory scan." Erich's hand protectively reached out for his sidearm, and Hargreaves pinched his brow with a heavy sigh. The transport's point-man replied immediately with a handily-spun lie.
"We're also on contract with the Harburg Bundespolizei for bounty-hunting and contracted deputization." Klugmann blinked twice and glanced up at the nervous, late-middle-aged man standing up at the helm, a sedated variant of a spit-take. What could he have been thinking? It was practically an invitation to be boarded.
The Oberst glanced at Hargreaves seated across from him, familiar, antsy posture taking place. It was the posture immediately prefacing someone being shot through the side of the head. Erich may have pointed his own weapon at their liason himself had the crisp, clear reply from the woman not been so unexpected. "Acknowledged. You'll hook up with our men and woman on the ground wearing Harburg Precinct-One shoulder patches. We remind you to keep your weapons holstered and to follow their directions precisely, in order to remain within the established bounds of your contract." There was a brief "click" as the transmission was terminated on her end - Hargreaves was already on his feet, slinging the rifle over his shoulder.
"I don't know whether to thank you or kill you", he said, jaw setting suspiciously. Their liason wiped a dollop of sweat from his balding forehead. "Technically you fit the part of the forged contract - Schweitzer really did his homework. Also, I hope this is the last time I have to see either of you ever again. I just want to live out my retirement with my grandchildren." He swallowed heavily, gesturing to the end of the cargo bay. "The moor's completed; take Skyrail 7B down to the surface. Schweitzer's men should be at that section, and as long as you don't announce who you are... Well..." He trailed off.
"Understood." Erich reached onto a nearby crate for an unlabelled satchel, shouldering it. "The offer for a Party Pension is still on the table, mein herr. You deserve that much at least." They left the man sorting through a datapad as the mooring tube swayed slightly with their uncertain steps planetside.
Neither man spoke much as the skyrail's turbolift hurtled towards Hamburg's crust at a velocity softened only by Ageiran technology and G-Stabilizers. Beneath them spread a durocrete and Daumann-steel jungle where smoke still poured from a massive skyscraper's canopy.
