The S/D - The Search/Destroy Agency (Strontium Dogs) - Bounty Hunters

[Koolmo]

Incoming Transmission
To: Stronium Dog Recruitment
From: Jon Kirk
Subject: S/D Recruitment
Priority: Standard

Starting Video, please wait:

Video Playing.


A man of approximately six feet sits in a simple chair in a simpler room. Brown hair, grey eye, and a distinctive scar running down the left side of his face, crossing under the plain black patch over the left eye socket. He wears a battered leather spacer's jacket, and in the background, a tune known as 'Shipping up to Boston' booms softly. A battered sidearm rides low on his right hip, and a cigarillo smokes in his left hand, between yellowed fingers.

As he speaks, a voice made gravely by years of smoking and drinking hard liquor invokes images of dingy barrooms and brawls too numerous to count.

"My name is Jon Kirk. I had heard, from a friend of an associate, that the Stronium Dogs were looking for skilled pilots, and since I have been forced out of early retirement, here I am. I'm thirty eight years old, and I've been flying fighters, bombers, and one or two gunboats since I was fourteen. I figured I might as well run through the whole story, so get yourself a drink, god knows I need one."

As you settle back into the chair, the man takes another drag of his cigarillo, and sips from a glass of reddish liquid, apparently under the camera's field of view. With an exhalation of smoke, he continues his tale.

"I first began flying as an escort for a small Rheinland shipping firm. I had an old Startracker class fighter, and I winged a few pirates, nothing serious, until the day when the convoy got hit by a Hessian raiding party. Bombers went through the transports like a hot knife through butter, and the escorts got carved up completely by a Hessain cruiser. At the time, it was the biggest ship I'd ever seen.

So, after the missle tore off my engines and vented the cockpit, I'd been left for dead. Although I didn't realize it, there was just enough power left to fire the guns, just once. As I lay there, waiting to die, I saw a ship move into my targeting reticule. Although apparently suffering from blood loss, lack of oxygen, and extreme hypothermia, I still managed to squeeze the trigger. The bust splashed off the shields, but it got his attention, all right. Just before I passed out, I remember seeing a funny logo on the side of the freighter: London Drugs Inc"

When I came to, I thought I'd been captured. There were criminal types all around me, but there was something different about this lot. They didn't look like they were planning on slitting my throat, one of them even came over to the gurney and gave me a smoke. There was no malice in their eyes, and they seemed to think of me as more of a victim than an adversary. Then, a man came over, and talked with me. His name was 'Kingpin', and he led the raggedy bunch I was ensconced with. He said hed see what had happened to me, and knew it was more the fault of the people I worked for and the ship I was flying than anything else. He offered me a job, and my first taste of the grey side of life."

He paused, and lit another cigarillo. Downing his drink, he walked to a small table set beside the chair, and poured another out of an ornate, dark bottle. He begins to pace, scorning the chair, and as the camera pans to follow him, he begins the next chapter of his tale.

"So, Kingpin gave me a job, and I flew as part of the 'Acquisitions and Enforcement' Squadron, for a good long time. It was then that I first began to hear news of my brother. He'd always been a bit more of a rebel, and being a couple of years older than me, had left when I was eight. He had been on the run for 'Political Crimes' back in Rheinland, and although I've never been one for that kind of thing, he was, and still is, although I've not spoken to him in a few months. Ty is, in fact, the reason I'm talking to you now, but that'll come later

Kingpin, and London Drugs Inc, was a good gig. Steady pay, good ships, and the best bar this side of Roppongi. Flew with LD Inc for a good long time, and never regretted a second of it. Sure, we dabbled a little in piracy, blackmail, and extortion, but that was no problem to us. Things were simpler then, the sector was a smaller place. We might be shooting at the mollies one day, over a load of cardi someone had decided was worth the risk, and be drinking with them to celebrate another BMM cargo stolen the next.

LD Inc kept me happy, and I would have stayed there except for one thing: the Nomad Wars. I got a message from an old buddy telling me the Rheinland military was all infested, the police were no better, and the people needed help. I talked to Jake Koolmo, the man in charge of the little gang of shippers I flew to protect, and he didn't just give to leave to go, he came with me. About a dozen of us went back to Hamburg, and I landed and talked to me Dad.

Now, not only was I there, but so was my brother, Tyler. Him and a few rough-looking chaps who called themselves 'Revolutionaries'. I wasn't sure at the time how much Ty was into it, and how much was for fun, but he's good and committed now, by all accounts. So, me and Ty and a few of the other blokes who'd brought men went in to Kirkton Hall and talked to Dad and the rest of the old fellers. The skinny was, there was a moon out in the Wild spaces on the edge of the map that had a sizeable contingent of Kirks on it, running some kind of research or mining thing, it's been a few years. Anyways, Dad wanted anyone who could to go and try and bring the boys back. Ty said he would lead it, and since he had a small cruiser and about a dozen pilots, no-one else wanted to argue with him. Even then, those 'Coalition' lads had a bit of a reputation to them, and weren't scared of capping someone because they looked at them the wrong way.

All in all, the Kirkton Volunteers had about two dozen fighters, a couple of freighter/gunboats on loan from kingpin, Ty's Cruiser, (called the M'zav'koh, no idea why) and about two or three hundred infantrymen, a bunch of them Kingpin's boys, and a bunch more just farmers from the Ville, wanting to go up north and play hero. I had a bad feeling about it from the beginning, but I usually do about harebrained schemes.

So, north we go. Back then, the System we ended up in was just called 'Unknown', although I'm sure it's got a real name now. We arrived at the planet, and spotted the outpost immediately. We also spotted the pair of Rheinland cruisers in orbit, with support ships. We could tell as soon as we got in scanner range they were all infested to hell, from the blue glow coming outa the engines to the fact that there were 'Sharks' swarming about like bacteria in a Mollie's socks. We went in full bore, Ty figured that because they were still firing at the planet, there must've still been a chance to save someone. Well, as soon as we hit them, one of the rheinland ships just plain exploded, it still had it's shields up, so something the jellies were doing to it wasn't appreciated by the ship's systems. Good old Rheinlander engineering, anyways..."

Jon, pacing apparently complete, returned to his seat, and lit yet another cigarillo. It has been suggested that a certain type of person can live off nicotine, and Jon appears to be straight out of that mold.

"Most of the fighters bought it, keeping the jellies off the transports, and I was one of them. Thruster, Cruise engines, and every weapon gone, I had no other option than to follow the transports down. Now, until then, I didn't have much experience of fighting on the ground, other than bar fights, and the occasional 'Enforcement' job with Kingpin and Koolmo. So, I crash next to Koolmo's heap, and out boil Kingpin's boys. Next to us was a score or so of the Kirks, beside them a transport full of some of Ty's boys, and behind them was a load more Kirkmen, nearly two hundred of them, in some kind of massive, gunless transport called a 'Whale'. So, we all scramble to the ground, and as we're sorting ourselves out, Dad steps out of the big one.

Dad wasn't supposed to be there, but that wasn't really an issue at that moment. I'll not bother you with the entire story, but suffice to say that while about three hundred of us made it to the plant, eighteen left, along with three Kirks from the station there. Dad didn't make it, although he made quite the hero out of himself in the end, and Koolmo as well. Koolmo said, and probably still says, that I was there real hero of that, but I was just doing my job, and I did. When Ty and his little relief force of mercs and other guns for hire showed up, all I wanted to do was get back into space.

We all, stuck in Nomad space with no signs of the war ending, were just about to find a hole to hide in when some blokes known as 'The Order' showed up. I signed on with them for the duration, and a little after. You know, of course, how the war played out, and by 805, I had left the Order again, and was on my way back to Kirkton, hopefully to live out the rest of my time in something like safety, when we got hit by pirates. Seriously, pirates, nailing a ship full of mercs, criminals, and their ships? That was silly, in the extreme. Koolmo was skipper, and as soon as he got wind of the ambush, he launched every ship he had, some of them armed only with laser rifles held out the shattered cockpits, over the remains of the last pilot.

Suffice to say, we won. We won so bluntly that Koolmo and some of the boys went straight out of retirement, and wandered back over to Kingpin, and the LD Inc. I think he's working the legitimate side now, but god knows what he'll do. He was old before the Nomad Wars, although I suspect he's still kicking. I, personally, signed on with a few mercs, and fought for anyone who would hire us. It was easy and lucrative, but hardly satisfying work. The money was good, but we didn't do anything. Sitting beside a liberty guardship pulling over transports and searching them is tedious, at best.

I did that for four years, hating every second, and saving up everything I could. Got out back in '09, and settled down for the first time since I first got into that cockpit, all those years ago. Got a farm, got a wife, and lived slow. It took some time to get used to, but that's how it always is, and I loved it. I hung up my guns, put my ship in storage, and slowed right down. Everything was peachy."

Kirk gives a small smile at the memory, but then his face turns hard, grim, and he slams back the remainder of his drink.

"Eight weeks ago, the LWB dropped a shell onto my farm. They were trying for the SynthFoods plant a few kilometres down the road, but if those damn criminals can't even make a smart bomb hit a target, they deserve what they get. I was in town, updating the payments on my old fighter, when the bomb hit. I flew back, but there's nothing left. I think, in retrospect, that it never could have lasted, but I was glad while it did. I went up into orbit, and never looked back yet. Currently, I'm sitting on Sheffield, with the keys to a Manta in hand. All my savings went into that farm, and it never made enough to get me ahead."

Kirk stands and moves closed to the screen, lighting another smoke as he does so.

"I know a few boys here still, and I'll be alright until I get word back. I dislike this Manta though, if you're going to make a ship this heavy, make it a bomber. The old Crow was a fine ship, for it's day. Used to sell them here, come to think of it... Anyways, you know where I'm to. Give me a call, and I'll be there.

Kirk out."





Transmission ends

OOC:
Are you willing to comply with the server rules and S/D expectations?

Yeep

Are you willing to RP according to S/D policy, alignment and goals?

Yep

What would your membership bring to S/D?

Charname currently is Jon.Kirk, would change to S/D-Jon.Kirk on acceptance

Well, my membership would bring an expecienced fighter, bomber, and capital ship pilot, I have a special affinity with light fighters (As anyone who'se seen my scimmy can attest to), and I've got a lot of RP experience, in both the online and pen and paper genres. Been playing FL for over two years now, mostly in disco.

Unfortunatly, I also work a lot, and will be on workup and overseas next year, so I will be unavaliable for long periods at a time. You might as well know now.

I have characters in the SCRA, BAF, MR, IND, and TAZ. I obviously lead the SCRA, but I enjoy some time off, and I've been meaning to revive this character since I got back.

Hope to work with you soon.

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<span style="color:#FFFF00">&quot;General Solo, is your strike team assembled?&quot;
&quot;Barely, they're pretty drunk.&quot; </span>
SCRA Recruiting--SCRA Feedback--SCRA Message Dump--SCRA Faction Status

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.