The Ballad of Bessie Bishop

[Big Bison Bessie]

Episode 02: Knights. Alice Rutherford.

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The desert of Planet Pittsburgh sucked. Any desert did, Bessie figured, but this one sucked more than any other she’d been on. The coarse sand covering the world was mixed with a fine dust that clung to the inside of your nose and smelled sour. A byproduct of all the strip mining on the planet. The air practically sucked all the moisture out of you long before the sun even settled on you. Not like you’d see it much here, though. Layers of smog and dark clouds often littered the skies, and the heat of the world was kept in through copious amounts of greenhouse gasses. When the rainstorms came, they came with howling dark winds and torrents of acid rain. It was a bleak place. Pittsburgh was the armpit of Liberty, without a doubt.

In a nation normally known for their tech development industries, prison factories, and the thriving megacorps like Synth Foods Inc and Cryer, Pittsburgh stood out as the one tried and true mining colony left in Liberty. Planets like Erie had their refinery areas, but it was Pittsburgh that was entirely dedicated to it. Thankfully there was not much of an ecosystem on the planet for the massive strip mining operations to effect, otherwise some bleeding hearts may get in a fuss about it. Bessie was willing to bet money on that. The planet itself was a single, vast desert, littered with rocky outcroppings and now, small cities and Deep Space Engineering company towns. Foreign companies dominated the Liberty market for raw materials outside of the boron that was dug up on Pittsburgh. Not everyone liked that.

It was that foreign domination that partially fueled the Xenos movement. The Xenos were, for lack of a better term, domestic terrorists. They claimed to fight for the ‘working man’ of Liberty, and vehemently sought out and attacked foreign ships and native pirates. Back when Bessie was in the Rogues, the Xenos were as much of a problem as the cops, if not more so with how they constantly chased away cargo ships and made the LPI tighten security throughout the lanes. The Xenos were unrelenting enemies of the Rogues and their allies, shooting down Junkers and Lane Hackers everywhere they encountered them. Frankly, with how many enemies the Xenos had built up over the years, Bessie was amazed that their ranks hadn’t been ground down to nothing. Part of the blame there though was on the LPI and their brutal crackdowns. In an effort to desperately control the problem, their knee-jerk reactions helped fuel it as more and more petty bastards wanted to stick it to the man and the foreigners backing him. And worst of it all, the LPI was looking to look the other way half the time with the Xenos doing their dirty work. It was a messy contradiction, but it was the truth.

For whatever reason, Pittsburgh seemed to be one of their preferred hideouts. Maybe they liked the sand and rocks. Maybe it was some kinda nostalgia that churned in their minds, those almost romantic notions of the mines on the world and the hard work that built up Liberty hundreds of years ago. Bessie quietly mused to herself as she lay there in the dirt, adjusting her dust mask under the warm morning sky. Distant wayward bits of light from the sun barely made it to the surface some days. You could travel through the rocky deserts for miles without seeing a single sign of civilization. And as Bessie lay prone on the ground near a rocky outcropping, she found herself really wishing this Xeno she was tracking had picked a more hospitable place to visit. She grunted through her dust mask, pulling her goggles up as she rolled onto her side. Lying down and waiting this all out while in her combat rig was especially uncomfortable, but if it turned into a shootout at least she’d have some protection. Clumsily she pulled the tablet out of her satchel and brought up the feed for the little spy cameras she had placed around the area in the middle of the night a couple days back. Grainy little feeds from her repurposed trail cameras gave her some insight into the surrounding environment. They’d tell her if any people got close, or any dangerous animals. She’d set them up all over the rocky basin where the Xeno Alice Rutherford had regularly set up her camp.

There were few animals of note on Pittsburgh, but a common one that was often hunted for game and meat was the local rock boar. Bessie had done some digging around, paying off some of her old contacts for information on Alice. She was a well respected member of Cobra’s inner circle, the de facto leader of the Xenos Alliance. That was enough trouble on its own, but she may have finally overstepped her bounds. The gal had gotten a heck of a bounty placed on her head, eighty thousand credits after she shot down an LPI prison transport that was bound for Sugarland. Of the twenty two crew and fifty prisoners, eight people survived. Bessie wasn’t about to shed a tear for the LPI boys, it sucked for them for sure, but her mind dwelled on those guys and gals who were tried and convinced, sent off to serve their time but never getting there. It was a lot of money on her head… but it wasn’t enough money to make up for the lives of the folks that died there. Probably enough to just cover the transport and cops. That bit, that bit there soured her mood a little. She wondered if this one had overstepped the line with this attack, or if these particular cops did something to cross the line themselves. So when she learned from an old dock worker that Alice often came out to the western bluffs to go boar hunting, Bessie figured a hunting trip of her own may be a good little excursion.

Bessie had taken the Coyote II out and parked it between a pair of large rocks, hiding it with a camouflage tarp that mimicked the surrounding environments and partially cloaked it under an obscuring EM field. That coupled with a cold stop of everything onboard would make the ship appear to be nothing more than a metallic bit of rock on long range scanners. That was parked miles and miles away from where she was now in the basin, and where she’d been lingering around for days camped out hidden in the dirt. There was a clearing in the middle of said basin, big enough for a ship to land, and judging from the way the dirt was compacted, it was a regular landing site as well. From what her scanner told her, the soil here was lightly contaminated with fuel isotopes from what could very well be a jerry rigged power plant, and they seemed to be deposited regularly into the rocks every two weeks or so. Bessie figured someone liked to park here, ship nice and low in the ground and out of sight, and make regular hunting trips out into the nearby mountains for those previously mentioned rock boar.

Worst thing a criminal could do is get into a habit really. So Bessie hoped that Alice was a woman of habit. And Bessie camped out in her little hiding spot and waited for three days. It was a venture she was willing to spend a week on, that was all she had in terms of supplies that she’d squirreled away on the back of her hoverbike at least. Though, she’d lost her patience after the first day. At this rate, she may have to pack up sooner than later. A dark storm had been looming on the horizon all morning, the clouds stained with pollutant and rancid dust and threatening acid rain. It’d be here before the day was out. She didn’t want that kind of rain, even with how dry it was. Even under her little camouflaged thermal tarp, the heat and dry air sucked. She’d been caked with sweat, and then dust, and she didn’t dare waste her water reserves on cleaning herself up when she could need every drop in case of an emergency. But after days of dry discomfort, shitting in holes, and subsisting off the most bland ass rations this side of Liberty, her waiting had paid off.

An old F-337 descended from the sky that dusty afternoon. An old Liberty fightercraft, something phased out of Navy use years and years ago. The cockpit and harsh lines on the wings were unmistakable Liberty design elements, along with the engine array with its over-under set up for the main thrusters. These old mothballed ships were once valuable collectors items and museum pieces when in fine shape, but were more often delegated to rotting in old junk yards these days as they were continuously phased out of service. The Xenos apparently had a program in place to refurbish them with new CTE parts, because Bessie had seen these century old fighters out in the black competing with more contemporary birds, using modern shields and guns. They were old, but they were tried and true designs with dangerous upgrades. Nothing to underestimate.

She watched from under the cover of her little EM shielded tarp from a kilometer away, careful not to make any sudden movements. Anyone who’s even half experienced with working in the wild like this would be sure to conduct a scan of the area prior to getting out of their ship. They’d look for motion, thermal signatures, weird radiation, power sources, life signs, and signs of optics looking at them. Well, Bessie wasn’t about to move, leave her shielded tarp, use any weird kit, or take out her scope before that ship had obviously powered down. She lay there in the dirt like one of the native pigs, quietly squinting at the Xeno ship in the distance until its running lights finally shut off a few minutes later. This would be it, she figured. Reaching into the shadow behind her, she dragged a hard case up alongside her and popped it open.

While watching the ship in the distance, she pulled out her Detroit Munitions S-112 Mk 3 DMR. The polymer furniture long gun could take a variety of ammunition, and Detroit manufactured a modest selection of less than lethal rounds. An adhesive neural shock sabot round should do the trick. Fishing through the rifle’s box, she finally found the magazine with its powder blue markings along the side and clicked it into place with a hearty clack.

The digital scope lit up and painted a clear picture of the distant fighter that sat there quietly on its landing skids. With the press of a button she turned on the rifle’s laser microphone and raked it over the hull with her crosshair. No noise from the engines, and the reactor was spinning down. Perfect. She was getting ready to step out. With the sound of the wind and rustling of the sand around her, Bessie quietly lay there, waiting.
As the ship’s gangway ramp lowered she inhaled sharply and adjusted her fingers along the fore grip. A woman stepped out, guiding a hoverbike down the ramp by hand. Bessie fiddled with the magnification level, quietly ticking in on higher and higher levels of detail until she could clearly make out the woman. Long blonde hair, pointy features, high cheekbones, slight build. A tap on the NN implant behind her ear snagged the image of the woman and checked her uplink to the LPI database. Positive facial recognition.

Perfect.

Bessie watched as Alice stepped back up the gangway ramp, and returned a moment later with a long rifle and a large backpack. Bessie quietly tracked her movements with the scope, and she moved towards the bike, unaware. Bessie exhaled. As Alice straddled the bike, a shot rang out through the desert basin, and her body seized up before falling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Bessie smiled, peeking up over her scope with a grim bit of satisfaction. A glance at her hand scanner confirmed that there were no other lifesigns nearby. Perfect.

Quick as she could, she packed up her rifle and supplies, rolling up the tarp and throwing her pack on, attaching what few hard cases she had to the side of her bike before hopping on herself. The bike rumbled to life with a high pitched whine before she took it zipping down into the distant basin. The dry air actually felt good this time around, blowing her dirty hair back and blowing dry the bits of her that had been caked with sweat. As she dipped into the shadow cast by the ship she motored to a halt near the twitching body of Alice who stared back up at her vehemently like a pig in a trap. Bessie jumped off her bike and squatted down next to her. She gave her a gentle poke in the temple with the barrel of her gun as she spoke.

“Yo. Bishop, BHG. Nothing personal, Alice. Just business. Shut up and don’t do anything stupid and this will go just peachy.”

“Wh-ff-... oh you fat bitch… ” She strained to talk, unable to move or bring herself to do much more than cuss through her nearly locked jaw. “Y-you’ll regret this…”

“Uh hunh. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Bessie stepped up and cuffed her bounty, binding her hands and feet so when the less than lethal round wore off she wouldn’t be able to escape. With a huff, she lifted her up and threw her across the back of the bike where she lay, unmoving. A fairly effortless feat for a woman of Bessie Bishop’s strength. An overtly hard slap across her ass punctuated the affair. Finally, a small bit of catharsis, Bessie thought to herself.
The bounty hunter was quick to start going through Alice’s belt and pockets, snatching away her side arm, knife, comms, datapad, and a few items she couldn’t identify. All were tossed to the desert sand and dust where they’d lay abandoned forever, save for her credit chips. Though something much more valuable sat nearby. Bessie turned her attention to the ship as she stuffed Alice’s money into her pack. It loomed there, dark and quiet amidst the desert basin, its yawning ramp beckoning her. Worth a look, she figured. Cautiously, she stepped up the ramp with her hand cannon raised.

Inside it was stark and tidy, though well worn and practically held together with duct tape. A peek into the engineering crawlspace revealed a mish mash of parts and improvised repairs that would scare even a Junker. Bessie was no mechanic, but even she recognized the jerry rigged cooling unit was likely on its last legs. This ship ran hot, and ran dirty. With a frown she stepped back and turned towards the daylight filtering in from down the small corridor. The tight passageway had little more than some cargo crates of supplies, a gun rack, and a door leading to the cockpit with a bunk in an alcove beside it. Her hand slowly moved across rows of compartments with tiny doors filled with who knows what kinds of trinkets. The Rogue part of Bessie came to the surface as she started snatching valuables up. She grabbed up some of the ration packs, broke her lock box open and stole the few remaining credit chips her target had, and snatched a few of her long guns and stowed them on her bike. She had half a mind to maybe sell the location of this thing to a Junker, but, may not be worth it with how the other Xenos were bound to come looking before long. Actually, she had to do something about that.

Bessie snatched a thermite bomb from her bike.

The big brick was heavy and awkward, and effectively it boiled down to a shit load of thermite charges attached to a magnet. She yanked a key from her belt and stuck it in the bomb, slowly pacing her way backwards as she hefted the thing in her hand idly. Finally, she turned the key, and with a mighty grunt she heaved it skyward. It arched up towards the ship before dramatically changing direction and slamming into the hull with a mighty force and stuck firmly onto the reactor cowling below the engine.

“Alright, lady.” Bessie straddled her bike, causing it to dip under the added weight. “Now to g- oh shit!” She cussed and ducked, a frown tugging the corners of her mouth down in wide eyed surprise as a bright flash painted the area white momentarily. The thermite flared to life prematurely, causing a crackling hiss and a flurry of sparks to scare Bishop as they rained down and scorched the sand around her. She kicked against the ground, forcing her hoverbike back and away from the scorching hot slag. She hit the gas and got out of there, leaving the bomb to burn through the reactor’s casing.

Halfway through the long ride back to Coyote II a sudden flash in the distance made Bessie stop and turn. It came from behind. She saw a small mushroom cloud of black rising up from the basin behind her as flaming shards of metal came down like hail. The boom came a moment later and echoed off the nearby rocks. She watched the ship slowly collapse, snapping in half at the middle now that her back had broken. She gave herself an affirmative nod of satisfaction before resuming her journey.

Bessie came into where she parked her own ship and pulled up and under the tarp that hid it. Eagerly she looked down at the gray armored hull below. The blade shaped Hammerhead fighter sat there quietly and eagerly awaiting her return, a thin layer of dust smearing her battered and well worn hull. A smug sigh of relief left her as she keyed her access codes into her commpad on her wrist. Home sweet home.
The cargo bay opened up at her command, groaning aside with a mechanical whir as she descended down into the dark of her ship. Her bike fit neatly in between the scant few storage pods and crates in her cargo bay. Up above her, the light of the desert that bled past the tarp vanished with a clunk of the doors. That darkness faded away with a flash of artificial light as the doors closed behind her, locking both her and her prey inside the ship. Bessie leaned back in her seat, sighing in the hot air that had baked to an uncomfortable temperature over the last couple days. She was just glad to just be out of that desert.
The terrorist was unceremoniously dropped to the floor with a thud before Bessie secured her bike to the gantry rack in the cargo bay. Dust and bits of grime flaked off as the hunter turned to her priority here. Amidst the artificial light and supply crates, Bessie dragged the Xeno across the small cargo bay to the cell she had installed, her limp body unmoving under the effects of Bessie’s stun weapon. Mechanical and electronic locks unlatched, and Bessie hurled her prisoner inside with a thud where she lay flopped over unceremoniously. There wasn’t much to see in there. A chair, a bed, a toilet. Just a basic box to keep someone locked in until jail did a better job. Alice lay there, groaning, drooling. The bounty hunter stomped over and strapped her down to a secure chair so she wouldn’t go rolling around mid flight, she’d at least leave her there until they got into space. With a swing of her generous hips she slammed the cell door shut.
With that, Alice was sealed in her own self contained holding cell to gripe and complain in until the LPI got her. She was safe enough; individual backup batteries and life support would keep her alive even if there was a problem elsewhere on the ship. Forcefields, mechanical locks, and magnetic locks would also stop any unwanted access. Plus if she did anything goofy, Bessie could vent the cargo hold into space and leave a nice vacuum gap between her prisoner’s cell and any ideas of escape. Crossing a few feet of vacuum became a lot less appetizing when you had to do it in your hiking clothes after all. And if push came to shove, there was a paragravity trap in the floor plates in the cargo hold that’d pin anyone to the floor with half a dozen Gs.

Bessie didn’t bother waiting around to see her quarry properly come to, instead just locked her up and headed to the cockpit. She ducked under the bulkhead and closed the compartment door behind her, making her way down the short ladder. She ruffled her own hair as she went, knocking dust and dirt loose and realizing just how bad she smelt from sweating in the desert for so many days straight. She was gonna need a long shower, and probably spend the better part of a day cleaning her gear. The sterile lights in the cabin flickered on as she moved inside, illuminating her small sleeping space and equally small mess. Slack jawed, she stared at the mess a moment. Her tired eyes raked over her limited selection of rations before her hand finally grabbed a “Plant-based Cheesy Beefburger” tube of Synthfoods Synthpaste that was plastered with obnoxious yellow packaging. Truly, the joy of a pre-chewed hamburger in a tube, she sarcastically mused to herself. She started sucking the thick paste down as she stepped on up to the cockpit with its myriad of dark instrumentation.

“Cheesy.” She muttered.

With a mighty sigh she lowered her hefty frame into the seat. One switch after another was clicked on by Bessie as she started the boot cycle for Coyote II. New lights slowly appeared around her in the cockpit, flickering red screens and small indicators began to glow all around her, adding color to the pale light filtering in from behind her. Auxiliary power, power plant, main computers, power distributors, shields, engines, sensors, comms, click click click went every switch. She rolled the tube tighter and sucked down more paste as she watched. Slowly screens flickered to life and displayed their start up logos before loading bars appeared and her computers began chugging away as they began to think again. A quiet rumble began to fill the ship around her as various machines shuddered awake all around her. The high pitch whine of capacitors charging filtered in along the walls, and a deeper groan and whir of the engines soon joined it. That stale air in her ship began to freshen up and cool down as life support came online properly, sucking down the hot air that had built up and replacing it with refreshing coolness.

As she leaned in against the back of her seat, sucking down her cheeseburger flavored paste, letting out a sigh of relief as she could finally enjoy the air conditioning after all that time in the desert. An okay-ish meal, no sun, cool air, and a comfy seat. Bishop practically melted. And as the tension drained from her body she let out a long sigh, and she let herself just lean back in her seat for a moment. But it was a reprieve cut short. An alarm started quietly beeping. The sensors had pinged something on constant bearing, decreasing range, five kilometers out and closing fast.

Immediately Bessie snapped out of her stupor, quickly she leaned in and tossed the empty tube over her shoulder down the hall. The little scanner display indicated some kind of hovering vehicle, small, likely an aerocar flying low. Coming in from the northwest, she could see that from the cockpit she realized. Back in her cabin she grabbed her binoculars out of one of the lockers and clumsily clambered over her seat. There was a plume of dust in the distance, heading towards her like an arrow across the rocks and sand. Her binoculars whirred quietly as she zoomed in, the auto focus finally settling on a large aerotruck brandishing the white winged half-star of the Xenos. As she lowered her binoculars she realized they’d get here before her ship had finished its boot cycle. A frustrating fact that had her biting the inside of her lip.

She wouldn’t be ready to take off for at least another two or three minutes.

Pausing, her brain quickly began chewing on plans and contingencies.

Bessie turned to the security console and quickly entered her codes to lock down the ship, mag locking every door and access hatch with a loud series of THUMPs. As much as she wanted to believe there was some off chance it was coincidence and they hadn’t seen her, she knew better. They must have seen her work at Alice’s ship, or she failed to check in, or it was just dumb luck they stumbled across Bessie and Alice, but whatever, it didn’t matter now. Bessie started working fast, bringing up the exterior cameras and arming the anti personnel guns down below on the ventral fin. The sentry guns booted up in a snap, and quickly their details appeared on the security terminal as they readied themselves. She wasn’t about to let them get to her ship without a fight.

As her ship continued to rumble to life around her the aerotruck finally crested the hill near the rocky outcroppings he had set up shop under. The camouflage tarp only covered the top, that meant the front of the ship was still in clear view, and the Xenos spotted it immediately. Shouting went on unheard outside, and Bessie switched off the safeties for the auto guns. The click quietly echoed through the cockpit, and she expressionlessly turned to face her security terminal’s view of the outside. Outside, the auto guns popped out of their armored hatches and spun around to aim at the gap between the rocks, twitching like snakes ready to strike for a moment before unleashing a torrent of laser fire. The edges of the cockpit flashed red, and Bessie watched the grainy camera feeds as a man crumpled. He fell, his leg blown clean off by her auto guns amidst the flashes that overloaded the cameras and filled them with bursts of static. The Detroit Munitions manufactured autoguns performed just like the company advertised, definitely worth the investment she thought to herself. She was glad Dalton had pushed her to make the purchase, turns out these things were paying for themselves.

The other Xenos scattered as fist sized chunks of metal on the side of the truck were vaporized in showers of sparks and slag that went skittering across the rocky ground like ice on a frying pan. A kind of morbid smile crossed her face for a moment. Hate was an expensive human luxury, and Bessie was keen on keeping her work strictly professional and wanted to make a point not to get too pissy with anyone she hunted. But the Xenos were an old enemy of hers, and she wasn’t exactly about to shed a tear at the sight before her. The Xenos were quick to dive into the nearby rocks as the auto guns raked across the area, turning chunks of sand into glowing glass under the barrage of fire. The scene around her ship quickly began filling with smoke, clouding the scene ever so slightly as lasers and sparks danced through her view.

From the rocks they began taking pot shots at her, bullets and lasers plinking ineffectively against the Coyote II’s armor. She smirked, standing up to gaze out past the edge of the transparent metal canopy. She could barely make out their heads and arms peeking out from cover now and again. Someone must have seen her though, and taken aim right at her. Instinctively she ducked as a laser sparked off the barrier a few feet away, not penetrating or posing any danger. As the initial shock passed, she couldn’t help but let out a dry chuckle. She scooped up the microphone from where it was latched to the side of the console and brought it to her mouth. She gleefully turned on the loudspeakers mounted on her ship’s hull and they crackled and squealed to life before her voice boomed out over the din.

“You’re gonna need something a lot bigger than that to get in here, boys.”

Another pair of shots plinked harmlessly off the side of one of her wings, leaving the smallest of scorch marks upon the armor. Bishop smiled, and as she turned away, she caught something on the cameras out of the corner of her eye that made her whip back around. A Xenos in cover, aiming an RPG. A glance to the side showed that her shield system hadn’t fully powered up.

“...son of a bitch.”

There was a puff of smoke on the camera. Her ship rocked on its paragravity cushion amidst a thundering, distant boom that reverberated through the hull as alarms started sounding. Bessie had to steady herself by holding onto her chair as if a wave had just rocked a boat she’d been in. Nervously she sat there, gripping the seat, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Her eyes snapped to the red screen on the security terminal a moment later. One of the auto guns was registering a massive malfunction and had likely been blown off. On the cameras, she saw the Xenos immediately take advantage of the lack of turret coverage and quickly made a run for her ship’s starboard side. The sounds of her ship continued to grow in life and power as she stood unable to escape yet. She watched those five men loop around to where the access panel was to lower the boarding ladder.

“Oh no you don’t.”
With the flip of a covered switch, the turn of a dial, and press of a button Bessie energized the intrusion countermeasures and a new whir of their capacitors sang through the air as the charge bar filled up on the terminal. It filled and sounded a positive tone. Instantly the man who touched the panel seized and fell back as the electrified hull zapped him senseless and left him laying unmoving on the ground with smoke rising from his arm. The other Xenos dragged him away, and soon one ran back towards the truck. Bessie turned back to her displays. Engine and shield restart procedures would finish in thirty-two seconds.

“Come on, come on come on…”

The man came back dragging a hard case half his size through the dirt. He threw it to the ground and two of the men cracked it open and dragged out large metal clamps with big cables coming off the back of them. She couldn’t help but stare as she tried to figure out what the hell they had with them. It didn’t look like a fusion cutter, it looked more like a pair of big metal disks. A glance back at her security terminal, almost charged again. The whine of the capacitors reached a screeching pitch then stopped, ready to electrocute again. She just watched as the two men seemingly counted down then slammed the clamps onto her lower fin where they stuck like magnets. The bounty hunter leaned in towards her screen to get a better look at the device, but had barely moved when suddenly there was a bang that made her jump. In an instant a loud electrical pop echoed through her ship as the intrusion countermeasure system overloaded back into itself. It blasted out capacitors and filled the air with the smell of burning plastic and metal amidst new warning messages. Quickly their charge readouts on the security panel dropped like a rock before a big error message appeared.

“Oh you little bastards…!”

She slammed her fist down on the side of the console with a loud grunt that punctuated her sentence. Now that was going to be expensive… but she didn’t have time to worry about that now. They were already breaking open the locks on the access terminal down on the ventral fin. She glanced back, nervously, at the sealed door leading to the cockpit, her hand instinctively going to the gun on her hip. But as repeated invalid entry codes alarmed on her terminal the engine and shields finished their reboot cycles, and the systems were ready.

“Okay, finally.”

With a huff she let herself fall back into her chair, buckled up, and scooched it into position at the controls at the front of the cockpit. With the flick of a switch, a barrier of energy shimmered to life around her ship. Instantly it knocked the two men back and severed the cables attached to their gadgets, loosing a shower of sparks in the process. The drone of her shield generators was quickly overwhelmed by the rumble of the engines. In a storm of dust and wind that knocked all the terrorists on their asses, Coyote II ascended, tearing her fancy camouflage tarp out of the ground and sending it fluttering down below where it buried the men beneath it.

She had no reason to stay.

The ship gently rumbled beneath her, and the floaty feeling of G-forces leaking through the inertial dampeners made her smile. She did it. A bit of a close one though, she thought to herself as she keyed in a gentle route up and out of the atmosphere. In a moment a series of waypoints appeared on her holodisplay, flickering to life with a distinct purple amidst all of the red and gold instrumentation and holograms. She already had some plans on how to spend that eighty thousand. Some of it was going to go to ship repair, unfortunately. She could tuck away a few thousand for herself, but she really had to set aside at least fifty thousand to pay off some guys in Kusari she’d gotten into some gambling debt with. Actually if she wanted to ever go to Kusari again, she better get that taken care of sooner than later. The Hogosha Syndicates weren’t exactly the most forgiving group in the business. Bessie would prefer to return to the Golden Dragon Casino in a dress and not a body bag.

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☆The Ballad of Bessie Bishop☆ | ☆Elizabeth Bishop LPI Records☆ | ☆Feedback☆