Industrial Complex - Outside - Few moments after the last group of bandits escaped the building.
As soon as the two of them cleared out of the building, the first thing they noticed was the AFV in front of the entrance. The next thing were the three or so bodies from the bandits that had died in their mad run to get off the building. The final, and most important thing they saw was that the armored vehicle was completely trashed; the wheels were shot off and it sported even more bullet craters along its hull than when they last had seen it. Desmond moved with a slight hobble to his gait as his boots crunched the rubble underfoot. The bounty hunter looked around the open area, trying to spot any of the fleeing defenders.
At one point, it was possible for Danny to see the damage he had taken in that last fight. Blood pooled around the small cuts on his face, and a small trail of it could be seen on the back of his head, running down the back of his neck. The chest plate from his armor was cracked from the multiple impacts and had several small crates in it where the bullets had hit, while the jacket and sweater he wore under them were ripped in several places, the former being just rags covering his right arm. Still, the bounty hunter moved on.
"Shit," Desmond muttered, approaching the AFV.
Danny meanwhile coughed, and reached under the neck of his mask, pulling it up and revealing the lower half of his face. He spat a bloody loogie into the ground beside him and took some unimpeded breaths of fresh(?) air. "What, how many runners?" he asked as he wiped his nose and flicked some of the snot and blood away. All of the bruising was developing into a lovely blanket of purples and reds across his body beneath the suit.
"Looking," Desmond muttered, moving around the vehicle until he was besides the open rear ramp. He slowly rounded around it, inching step after step with his pistol drawn and pointed at the open troop compartment and making sure it was clear. "Shit," he said a second time, lowering the weapon and kicking several empty brass casings as he moved in. "Danny!" He called out from inside.
He pulled his mask back down and moved up, gun raised and cautious as he watched the areas around the AFV for any signs of an ambush, flicking Thermal on for any sign of aggressors. "What is it?"
It didn't take long for him to notice that Desmond was crouching next to the prone form of the gunner, who was clutching at his neck. The inside of the vehicle smelled too much like engine oil, sweat and the tangy smell of blood. The bounty hunter turned his head around to regard Danny. "You got any first aid?" He asked, his voice surprisingly level.
Danny reached around to the butt pack strapped to him and produced a pocket sized Lorath first aid kit, probably a surplus purchase. He inspected the downed gunner and examined their injuries. He then took the nanite spray and put it aside for when he had to finish off the procedure. "I can translate the instructions if you want to do the honours."
"No time, just give the pack to him," Desmond said, then turned around to Helric. "How many?" He asked, grabbing one of the overhead hand-rails to support himself.
It took a while for the injured bounty hunter to reply, as he tried to sit straight. "Six or so left. I managed to take three before they hit me with explosives," he said, the strain in his voice clearly audible. "They took one of the cars," he added.
"Shit," Danny said as he looked at Helric's neck, "You just dodged a bullet here, you have a piece of shrapnel very close to the artery," he comment as he put sterile gloves on and started to inspect his torso, "various other wounds here..." he sprayed his neck with antiseptic and numbing sprays and let them do their work while he sprayed the hits in his belly down, then produced some tweezers. "Bite down on something, please," Danny asked, soft spoken.
"Danny, we will lose those bandits.Stabilize him and let the mercs take care of it when they handle the stuff inside," Desmond said.
He grabbed the bottle of nanite spray and sprayed it down over the wounds, then left the adhesive bandages to Helric. "Give them a minute then bandage yourself down, you'll be better." Danny rose up and took what was left of the pocket-sized medic tools with him.
"Think of Nepleslia or something..." he suggested as he turned around and looked for any sign of the other bounty hunters or mercenaries. By then, Desmond had already gotten out of the wrecked AFV.
"In the outrider. I'm not letting those assholes make me pay for the vehicle getting stolen," Came his voice through the comms.
Danny made his way over to the running outrider and hopped in through the back entrance. He searched for a weapons mount he could take. Unfortunately, the Outrider that had a turret got stolen. He looked for a heavier piece of weaponry that could've been left behind inside the Outrider, something bigger than his Ripshot...
Meanwhile, noises could be heard coming from inside the armored four-wheeler as Desmond moved to and fro inside, despite half of his body still hanging out from the open driver's door. It was prossible to see how the vehicle had taken a beating during the fight inside the complex, several bullet and scorch marks could be seen on the armored surface, and the bullet resistance glass was cracked on several places from where the bullets had hit. Eventually, the bounty hunter slammed the heavy door closed, and started to start the vehicle.
The Outrider shook and protested as it tried to start, shaking all the spent brass casings that were covering its floor completely while it sounded like some very inhuman thing laughing. From behind on the passenger's compartment, Danny could hear Desmond cursing as the vehicle simply decided not to ignite for a while; "You find anything?" The bounty hunter asked from the driver's seat.
Danny could be heard moving towards the front of the vehicle, and each of his steps sounded so much heavier than usual as he struggled to carry a light machine gun in his hands and on a shoulder strap. He was carrying it by the front bipod as an improvised foregrip while the large calibre ammunition rested, coiled inside a box hanging under the action. "I-Its so big..." he sighed, making Desmond turn around from his seat next to the steering wheel and glare at the other bounty hunter.
It was obvious he wasn't trained or physically capable of using such heavy weaponry, but it didn't stop him from carrying it and planting the bipod down on the dashboard while Danny sat down in the passenger's seat, looking through the iron sights and realising the front sight wasn't folded up. He reached over to flick it up and lined things up. He heaved a sigh when he was able to put the stock to his shoulder. That was when the car decided to start.
The Outrider rumbled forward, engines protesting for a while until Desmond shifted the gears. The bounty hunter bobbed and weaved the large vehicle to dodge the biggest obstacles, while simply going through the smaller ones or running over them in the car. Inside, the car jarred and shook as it went over the small piles of wrecked robots.
"Jacob, where are the runners?" Desmond spoke on the comms, inclining slightly to the side to watch the Gunship hovering a few hundred yards away from the complex. The reply didn't make him much happy.
When they went over bumps, be they a downed robot or a dead soldier, the sound of all of the ammunition jangling inside the box and belt magazine could be heard, bouncing up and down with a clatter. It was already tenderising Danny's shoulder and it hadn't even been fired yet.
The vehicle took a sharp turn to the left, around a group of containers, forcefuly shoving everyone in the opposite direction thanks to the inertia. Thankfully, though, ahead of them was just the busted out gates of the complex, signaling that they were free of the nightmare of debris that made the mercenaries and their vehicles have such a nightmare navigating inside the place.
The engine roared and protested as the strain on it increased. Desmond changed gears again to catch up speed as he raced through the seemingly empty streets.
"I am pulling out, the spaceport control is already flagging me and it's not gonna be long before the cops show up," Came Jacob's voice through the radio in the main frequency, so that everyone could hear it. "You're going in the right way, Desmond," he added quickly.
Danny reserved comment as he heard Jacob's words on the intercom. They'd lost air superiority, and now the fight was equalised. One outrider versus another. He clicked his tongue as he did a brass check on his LMG. Nothing chambered. He pulled the bolt back and a clatch-clack could be heard in the cabin. Seven out of ten home intruders in Nepleslia would rather run than face that sound. The other three died quick.
Besides him, Desmond grimaced in clear discomfort, baring his teeth. Instead the usually white-color, his teeth were pinkish from the blood.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Outrider turned sharply on an intersection. The good thing about the abandoned industrial district in Maharombi was that no good, law abiding citizen visited it anymore; the bad thing was that neither did the law enforcement without a decently-sized escort, it might not have been Funky City, where the police used tanks, but it was still a Nepleslian planet. There was no mistake that as soon as they stepped into the district they were in the Red Zone.
Danny saw the signs and sights around him in the Red Zone. He'd seen this place from afar in his first meeting with Desmond, a neon red coloured splotch that always remained lit no matter the time on the red planet. Red with blood, green with money and pink with lust.
"There!" Desmond yelled, pressing the gas pedal harder. Danny looked up over the sights of the rifle and confirmed the target. A Runaway Outrider full of scum - and it belonged to the Bounty Hunters there, just a few hundred yards in front of them.
"Spotted!" Danny yelled as he straightened his back and put his hand on the forward grip, lining up the front and rear sights. The Outrider's engine roared again as the vehicle picked up speed, and soon, the other vehicle started to ''grow'' as they came closer.
Approaching them seemed to do something, as the electrical turret on the other Outrider turned to face them.
"Sorry in advance for damages-" Danny sighed before he grit his teeth and pulled the trigger. The force of the large calibre bullets were clearly meant for either a big bore hunting rifle or an ID-SOL to carry the weapon - someone of average strength could only hope to put it on the ground or against cover and open fire.
Layers of dust plumed up on the dashboard as every shot rung out, the brass and metal flying into the cabin and bouncing off of the walls, falling on the floor and around Danny's chair. One hot cartridge casing fell on his lap, and he spread his legs open and sat up with a gasp.
As if on a cue, the HMG on top of the outrider also opened up. At first, the high-caliber shells flew off course, making small fountains of debri erupt from the asphalt where they landed. On the next burst, they came closer, and on the third a few bullets actually impacted against the armored front hood, ricocheting against the glass.
"Ah, shit!" Desmond complained, wincing as the glass cracked more from the hits. That prompted him to draw his pistol with his left hand and fire it against the other vehicle, for whatever good that would do.
The insane firefight went for a few seconds, although to the two ocuppants it felt like hours. The only sign that it stopped was when the electrical turret on top of the other vehicle stopped firing. "They're out of ammo!" Desmond yelled, watching as smoke poured out from the holes in the armored front hood of their Outrider.
"Does it reload?" Danny yelled as he weighed his LMG experimentally. He only had a quarter of ammo left.
"Not from inside!" The other bounty hunter replied. "Brace! I'm gonna rear-end those assholes!" He added, pressing pedal to the metal as the other vehicle drew dangerously close. It was a crazy idea, but even the LMG wouldn't dent the armored vehicle, while in turn the latter's HMG had clearly damaged the engine. he just wanted to get as much as he could from the Outrider before the damage started to be felt.
Danny's adrenaline was getting the better of him and he felt his heart pound through his chest and his judgement for caution go into the gale. He threw the LMG aside in the cabin and climbed out of the side window and tiptoed onto the bonnet. "Hit it!" he yelled, keeping low, but aerodynamic, ready to climb aboard the aggresor vehicle.
The Outrider bumped its turreted counterpart from behind with a loud 'clank', jarring Desmond again and threatening to throw Danny off balance, the former was howling at this point, too wounded and pissed to care as he yelled insults at the occupants of the other vehicles. That close, it was possible to see them from where he was, standing inside and staring at the two of them.
The insides of the Outrider smelled like burning plastic, something was not right. On the other vehicle, however, its occupants seemed to break from the trance, and one of them leaned out, trying to get a bead on Danny with his pistol as both vehicles sped past the wide road, the buildings on the side becoming almost a blur as the two cars reached crazy speed, which seemed very unlikely for something of their bulk.
The bounty hunter leapt off of the vehicle after regaining his balance and grabbed the back of the other Outrider, by the outboard handles intended for the poor saps who were too late to the party - or probably put on by the designers just for situations like this - it was difficult to tell now. Danny looked for the first available window on the side away from the thug trying to shoot him and pointed a pistol inside, hitting the man inside and firing into a barrel of fish until the magazine was dry. The windows and close surfaces were soon splattered with the bandit's blood.
Reacting to that, the turreted outrider swerved to the sides, coming dangerously close to throw him off balance. The suit clad bounty hunter was thrown around like a puppet, hanging from his simple handhold on the back of the vehicle. Desmond took at cue to maneuver his car to the right of the Outrider, slowly and surely drawing parallel to the other vehicle.
He tried to put his pistol back, but he missed the holster and it instead fell onto the ground, shattering into its individual pieces and quickly vanishing out of view from the speeding vehicles. With a hand free, he was able to get a second hand onto the handrail and with core strength, he started climbing onto the roof to go after the driver, crawling on and slinking past the turret.
It seemed that he and Desmond had the same idea, as the bounty hunter driving the other vehicle drew his pistol again and fired out at the passenger's window, but doing nothing more than to scratch the bullet resistant glass. The turreted vehicle suddenly turned bruskly to its right, side ramming the bounty hunter's vehicle and throwing it off course. Danny was also thrown about as his legs came out from under him and he thumped against the top of the runaway vehicle.
Once things had stabilised for the moment, he put a hand against his blade. "Again, apologies for damage -" he said over radio to Desmond, still keeping a furious but tranquil mindset as a different set of gears started turning.
He drew the blade, at the same time another one of the bandits leaned out from the right rear window, aiming a submachinegun at Danny, and plunged it into the cabin of the vehicle, and started sawing the roof open in a circle. A grin came across his face when he wondered just how many bricks the driver and occupants would shit
"Down, get down!" Desmond yelled on the radio a few moments before the automatic weapon opened up.
The warning got just in time, and as the bullets whistled overhead and he got down, suffering a few scratches on his back as the bullets ripped the suit's material, grazing him. He plunged all three feet of the blade deep inside the roof of the outrider - he wasn't thinking straight as he slithered into the hole he'd created and fired his SMG from inside, the windows flashing and getting painted red. He got down, but too far down for comfort.
His bullets seemed to have effect, as the car visibly veered off course out of control, slowly moving away from the street and into the nearest building, while Desmond struggled to draw the other Outrider near. By then, the latter was already smoking as the damaged engine lost performance, and it clearly showed as more white smoke billowed out from the holes and the radiator.
Danny approached the driver and grabbed him by the shoulder, putting the barrel of the Ripshot to his head. "May I... make a suggestion," Danny growled through ragged breaths under his mask, unusual accent foreign and steely to inbred Nepleslian ears as blood became palatable in his mouth. "Park the vehicle calmly and we can avoid a scene."
The driver seemed to ignore the Danny, or simply not hear him. It took a while for the bounty hunter to notice the neat hole that had punched through the man's balaclava, while the passenger besides him only groaned and shifted, barely concious from his own wounds; since the shots had come from up, they had completely evaded the durandium plates of their armor.
"Son of a- Desmond, I have a slight complication. No body," he spelt those exact words out out, "is driving..." he let that trail off as he tried to shift the dead weight from the driver's seat and put their foot of of the pedals and their hands away from the steering wheel while Danny kept one of his hands there, trying not to guide the gun bus into a building or a street pole or a pram full of bullets. "Fatass," he complained.
"Ditch the fucking car and jump back!" The other bounty hunter yelled, despite his Outrider slowly and surely beginning to lose distance from the other.
Danny let the vehicle veer and sway, rocking him about inside before his wits gathered and he realised he had to get the fuck outta there. "Coming!" he yelled as he ran to the back, stepping over bodies and opening the doors. One of the thug's bodies spilled out and fell on the ashpalt, tumbling away and colliding with a rubbish bin on the side of the road.
Two metres, soon becoming three metres - Desmond was getting further and further away with the moments. Danny had to jump. He crouched down and like a cricket, he uncoiled and leapt towards the smouldering hood of Desmond's outrider, screaming as he went as his hands grasped for him, managing to catch onto the depression between the hood and the windshield.
He scrambled up like a deranged hood ornament and slithered back into the window, landing face first onto the floor with the grace of a startled swan falling down a flight of stairs, face down in the pile of bullet casings as he mumbled in pain.
His legs were sticking out of the side of the outrider, and Desmond could see his backside. The latter pressed hard on the brakes, burning rubber against the asphalt as he watched the other Outrider keep on going. After a few moments, both vehicles had come to a stop, but for very different reasons.
While Desmond's shot up outrider had left two black streaks behind it from the sudden stop when he pressed down on the brakes; the other left a neat hole on the wall of an abandoned apartment building when it had just kept on going. He could see from inside of his vehicle the wrecked counterpart, as well as a fire that slowly started to spread as the other Outrider leaked fuel. 'totalled,' he thought, forcing a chuckle out of him as he wondered how much Bob Burdo would rip him off for a new vehicle.
With a groan, he opened the driver's door and stumbled out of the vehicle, grabbing onto the vehicle for support when he almost lost his balance upon stepping out. With the crazy chase done, it was possible for him to pay more attention to his surroundings than before, noticing the few faces staring at the two of them from other buildings or street corners. Despite being 'abandoned,' that district was far from empty.
Noticing that, Desmond held his rifle level, staring at the bystanders, but it was clear that he was doing a conscious effort not to threaten those people. A jolt of attention remembered what him what he was after. The bounty hunter turned to face the building that other outrider had driven into, and slowly started to move that way.
Danny extricated himself from the window of the stopped outrider and tried to look like he was businesslike as he strode down the street, jogging to catch up with Desmond. He looked over to the bounty hunter and asked, "Think we've caused a scene?"
"Nah," The other bounty hunter grunted back, using his left hand to wipe his forehead of the mix of dust, sweat and blood. The more he walked closer, the more he could feel the heat coming from inside the building as the fire started to catch, feeling it on his unprotected face like someone had just poured a bucked of it right at him.
Being closer, both of them could also clearly see hoe the windows of the outrider were splattered with the occupant's blood. It looked like none of them would be walking out of there, and it was clearly impossible that anyone would-
No. 'Confirm the kill; gather evidence of it,' The bounty hunder thought, willing the previous chain of thought away.
Danny looked through the open back doors of the fiery outrider, and he was the first to step in and start taking inventory of all the dead. "There was one who fell out when I made my jump back to you," Danny said, "So that's one..." he then started counting the others on his fingers.
While Danny inspected the vehicle, Desmond moved around the room. The outrider had picked what looked like the lobby of a residencial building to crash into, coming in from the left corner of the entrance and bulldozing all the furniture away with it until it stopped on the front desk. Its fuel tank was undoubtedly breached, and it didn't take a forensics expert to figure that out when the fire was spreading from below the outrider and slowly crawling up the walls.
Not wanting to waste any time, Desmond pulled out his datajockey and moved inside the vehicle as well, letting the rifle hang from its strap in front of him. The damage to the inside of the outrider was shown in vivid details whenever the datapad flashed, taking a picture of one of the occupants and illuminating the bloodstains and other small things that would completely go unnoticed otherwise.
Danny meanwhile was inspecting the faces of each of the dead and taking snapshots of his own, mostly looking back over his trail of destruction and feeling his stomach lurch and turn when he saw his handiwork up close. Maybe these men deserved to die, maybe they'd done horrible things, but Danny ultimately couldn't know now.
Though, the police database, when it did have records on someone, didn't forget. Some of the misdeeds listed bought him a little peace of mind that in the end he was doing the right thing - but it didn't stop the little bit of vomit rising in his mouth when the smell of blood, cordite and burning went up his nose.
"We should get out," Desmond suggested after he had finished taking the grim pictures. It certainly wasn't something he'd put on an album to show his family. From his expression, it was hard to determine whether he was frowning because he looked like hammered shit, or if it was from the blood, or even it was because that was his usual facial expression.
With another groan, the Muur-clad bounty hunter maneuvered out of the totalled Outrider and waited in the lobby, noticing how the fire had gotten much bigger as the flames licked at the wooden ceiling.
The other hunter's suit was giving him warnings that it was starting to get too hot to stay around, and that there was a potential choking hazard owing to the lowering amount of oxygen in the room as fire started to eat it to keep sustaining itself.
They turned around and exited the vehicle, standing beside Desmond in the lobby. He rolled on the balls of his feet and toes as he waited for further instruction. Without a word, he and the other bounty hunter started moving out of the building.
It didn't take them a long amount of time to confirm the kills inside the building, but that was already enough for the good people of Maharombi, Delsauria to already start turning the more intact outrider to salvage. As soon as they cleared out of the building and their eyes adjusted to the migraine-white glow of the sun, they could see a few civilians piling up on the vehicle, most of them clearly Nepleslian but a few who were actually Delsaurian.
The act didn't last long, though, because as soon as they noticed that the two bounty hunters were coming back, they scattered on their own merry ways, carrying bits from the vehicle, and even an entire wheel.
"Saves me the trouble of shooting up in the air," Desmond commented, fishing for something in his pockets. Perhaps it was all down to image - no shots had to be fired. The two men looked like burnt hell. Chestplates shattered, fabrics ripped and torn, blood and bruising from bullet in calibres not large enough to put them down for the count. Just a moment ago they were kicking more ass in a day than most could cope with in a month.
Danny peeled his mask off of his face and let it slither back into his neck, face stony as those blue eyes looked at their ride. He let out a simple hum of agreement with Desmond, and held up a fist towards him to bump.
He was told it was the Nepleslian gesture of affirming masculinity and prowess.
Besides him, Desmond rested his back against the oven-hot metal of the Outrider, bringing a hand to shield his mouth as he lit the cigarette plucked between his lips. He took a deep drag of the deathstick once it was lit, tilting his head up as he exhaled the white smoke towards the dry desert air.
In the distance, the sound of police sirens was increasing as the authorities came closer.
Danny put his hand away and instead reached for a stick of chewing gum from one of his belt pouches as he watched where the red and blue lights were coming from. He heaved a sigh of relief when he realised that he could finally take some respite.
The flashing blue and red lights soons revealed themselves to be a trio of Outriders from the National Police Force of Nepleslia, and as they stopped and turned to the side, shielding its passengers from both of the bounty hunters, Desmond could see that the precinct number besides the vehicle matched the same as the Outrider he was using. The bounty hunter let a small sigh of relief at that.
He wouldn't have to explain what was going on. The game that was about to play out would be one with marked cards.
The police officers slowly stepped out of their vehicles, using the open doors as cover as they watched one among them slowly walk towards the duo of bounty hunters. That particular man was too 'round' to be a field officer, and the fact that he wore no armor only seemed to further that theory. That was the man that had facilitated everything for the bounty hunters to strike at that gang's headquarters, supplying them with the vehicles and making the authorities look the other way as they turned the industrial complex into a small warzone, all for a cut of the profit.
Bob Burdo approached the two of them with both hands resting on his belt. He looked very much like the day Desmond had first seen him, and it wouldn't surprise the bounty hunter if the man hadn't shaven nor taken a shower since then, still wearing the same office uniform for the NPF. If the smell of blood and soot wasn't already impregnating his nostrils, then the smell of scotch that emanated around Burdo would.
"Well what have yer come and done now?" The gruffy police officer asked the two of them. Danny raised an eyebrow as he appraised the man for the first time, sizing him up and placing him in a mental box that was about as rotund as he was. He decided to let Desmond do the talking though, and continued chewing gum quietly.
"Just your job," Desmond replied matter-of-factly, letting go of the vehicle and turning to face the cop. The tip of cigarette in his lip glew in a cherry red as he inhaled again. Bob laughed at that, his otherwise stern expression breaking into a grin.
"Ha! I like it!" He said, turning back to the officers behind him. "I can only keep the heat away from yer lot for one or two hours before my bosses actually want me to check what's going on here. Too many people calling, ye see?" He added, turning back to the duo. He seemed not to be going to add anything more, until he noticed Danny.
"An' who in the bloody hell is this gimp?" The police officer asked, tilting his head towards Danny.
The 'gimp' responded by blowing a bubble of gum out and popping it, then resumed chewing like he wasn't even seen or mentioned. He seemed to be watching the other Policemen running around to bring things under control.
"He's with me," Desmond answered, exhaling the smoke through his nose. "Just keep your people off the factory while we finish mopping up, we will be out of there before the two hours."
The fat policeman nodded at that. "Alright then. Just don' forget the other friends that helped ye make yer dream possible," Bob said, turning back around and walking towards the Outriders.
Like that, just as quick as they had arrived, the cops were out of the scene.
Something about Bob's parting words reminded Danny that all of this was a team effort, even from a team he hadn't seen until now - the Cops. They sanctioned all of this, condoned of all of this, and he figured they'd take a cut - just as the briefing had outlined.
"How many were there in that gang anyway?" Danny asked, shrugging his shoulders at Desmond to try and strike up a conversation, "Rough number."
"Twenty, thirty," Desmond guessed. He wasn't too worried about the individual bounties that each gangmember and their hired goons would surely have on their heads; what was more important was the stuff inside the factory that they would be 'procuring'.
"And robots?"
"Too many," Desmond answered again, looking around as if he remembered something. As things were, he didn't look like he had any right of staying up. "Shit," he muttered.
"Shit?" Danny echoed.
"I forgot to ask for a ride."
Danny looked around and looked at the Outrider he was leaning against and realised the gravity of this.
"Sheeiiiiiit." He concluded in Lorath, rolling his eyes.
As soon as the two of them cleared out of the building, the first thing they noticed was the AFV in front of the entrance. The next thing were the three or so bodies from the bandits that had died in their mad run to get off the building. The final, and most important thing they saw was that the armored vehicle was completely trashed; the wheels were shot off and it sported even more bullet craters along its hull than when they last had seen it. Desmond moved with a slight hobble to his gait as his boots crunched the rubble underfoot. The bounty hunter looked around the open area, trying to spot any of the fleeing defenders.
At one point, it was possible for Danny to see the damage he had taken in that last fight. Blood pooled around the small cuts on his face, and a small trail of it could be seen on the back of his head, running down the back of his neck. The chest plate from his armor was cracked from the multiple impacts and had several small crates in it where the bullets had hit, while the jacket and sweater he wore under them were ripped in several places, the former being just rags covering his right arm. Still, the bounty hunter moved on.
"Shit," Desmond muttered, approaching the AFV.
Danny meanwhile coughed, and reached under the neck of his mask, pulling it up and revealing the lower half of his face. He spat a bloody loogie into the ground beside him and took some unimpeded breaths of fresh(?) air. "What, how many runners?" he asked as he wiped his nose and flicked some of the snot and blood away. All of the bruising was developing into a lovely blanket of purples and reds across his body beneath the suit.
"Looking," Desmond muttered, moving around the vehicle until he was besides the open rear ramp. He slowly rounded around it, inching step after step with his pistol drawn and pointed at the open troop compartment and making sure it was clear. "Shit," he said a second time, lowering the weapon and kicking several empty brass casings as he moved in. "Danny!" He called out from inside.
He pulled his mask back down and moved up, gun raised and cautious as he watched the areas around the AFV for any signs of an ambush, flicking Thermal on for any sign of aggressors. "What is it?"
It didn't take long for him to notice that Desmond was crouching next to the prone form of the gunner, who was clutching at his neck. The inside of the vehicle smelled too much like engine oil, sweat and the tangy smell of blood. The bounty hunter turned his head around to regard Danny. "You got any first aid?" He asked, his voice surprisingly level.
Danny reached around to the butt pack strapped to him and produced a pocket sized Lorath first aid kit, probably a surplus purchase. He inspected the downed gunner and examined their injuries. He then took the nanite spray and put it aside for when he had to finish off the procedure. "I can translate the instructions if you want to do the honours."
"No time, just give the pack to him," Desmond said, then turned around to Helric. "How many?" He asked, grabbing one of the overhead hand-rails to support himself.
It took a while for the injured bounty hunter to reply, as he tried to sit straight. "Six or so left. I managed to take three before they hit me with explosives," he said, the strain in his voice clearly audible. "They took one of the cars," he added.
"Shit," Danny said as he looked at Helric's neck, "You just dodged a bullet here, you have a piece of shrapnel very close to the artery," he comment as he put sterile gloves on and started to inspect his torso, "various other wounds here..." he sprayed his neck with antiseptic and numbing sprays and let them do their work while he sprayed the hits in his belly down, then produced some tweezers. "Bite down on something, please," Danny asked, soft spoken.
"Danny, we will lose those bandits.Stabilize him and let the mercs take care of it when they handle the stuff inside," Desmond said.
He grabbed the bottle of nanite spray and sprayed it down over the wounds, then left the adhesive bandages to Helric. "Give them a minute then bandage yourself down, you'll be better." Danny rose up and took what was left of the pocket-sized medic tools with him.
"Think of Nepleslia or something..." he suggested as he turned around and looked for any sign of the other bounty hunters or mercenaries. By then, Desmond had already gotten out of the wrecked AFV.
"In the outrider. I'm not letting those assholes make me pay for the vehicle getting stolen," Came his voice through the comms.
Danny made his way over to the running outrider and hopped in through the back entrance. He searched for a weapons mount he could take. Unfortunately, the Outrider that had a turret got stolen. He looked for a heavier piece of weaponry that could've been left behind inside the Outrider, something bigger than his Ripshot...
Meanwhile, noises could be heard coming from inside the armored four-wheeler as Desmond moved to and fro inside, despite half of his body still hanging out from the open driver's door. It was prossible to see how the vehicle had taken a beating during the fight inside the complex, several bullet and scorch marks could be seen on the armored surface, and the bullet resistance glass was cracked on several places from where the bullets had hit. Eventually, the bounty hunter slammed the heavy door closed, and started to start the vehicle.
The Outrider shook and protested as it tried to start, shaking all the spent brass casings that were covering its floor completely while it sounded like some very inhuman thing laughing. From behind on the passenger's compartment, Danny could hear Desmond cursing as the vehicle simply decided not to ignite for a while; "You find anything?" The bounty hunter asked from the driver's seat.
Danny could be heard moving towards the front of the vehicle, and each of his steps sounded so much heavier than usual as he struggled to carry a light machine gun in his hands and on a shoulder strap. He was carrying it by the front bipod as an improvised foregrip while the large calibre ammunition rested, coiled inside a box hanging under the action. "I-Its so big..." he sighed, making Desmond turn around from his seat next to the steering wheel and glare at the other bounty hunter.
It was obvious he wasn't trained or physically capable of using such heavy weaponry, but it didn't stop him from carrying it and planting the bipod down on the dashboard while Danny sat down in the passenger's seat, looking through the iron sights and realising the front sight wasn't folded up. He reached over to flick it up and lined things up. He heaved a sigh when he was able to put the stock to his shoulder. That was when the car decided to start.
The Outrider rumbled forward, engines protesting for a while until Desmond shifted the gears. The bounty hunter bobbed and weaved the large vehicle to dodge the biggest obstacles, while simply going through the smaller ones or running over them in the car. Inside, the car jarred and shook as it went over the small piles of wrecked robots.
"Jacob, where are the runners?" Desmond spoke on the comms, inclining slightly to the side to watch the Gunship hovering a few hundred yards away from the complex. The reply didn't make him much happy.
When they went over bumps, be they a downed robot or a dead soldier, the sound of all of the ammunition jangling inside the box and belt magazine could be heard, bouncing up and down with a clatter. It was already tenderising Danny's shoulder and it hadn't even been fired yet.
The vehicle took a sharp turn to the left, around a group of containers, forcefuly shoving everyone in the opposite direction thanks to the inertia. Thankfully, though, ahead of them was just the busted out gates of the complex, signaling that they were free of the nightmare of debris that made the mercenaries and their vehicles have such a nightmare navigating inside the place.
The engine roared and protested as the strain on it increased. Desmond changed gears again to catch up speed as he raced through the seemingly empty streets.
"I am pulling out, the spaceport control is already flagging me and it's not gonna be long before the cops show up," Came Jacob's voice through the radio in the main frequency, so that everyone could hear it. "You're going in the right way, Desmond," he added quickly.
Danny reserved comment as he heard Jacob's words on the intercom. They'd lost air superiority, and now the fight was equalised. One outrider versus another. He clicked his tongue as he did a brass check on his LMG. Nothing chambered. He pulled the bolt back and a clatch-clack could be heard in the cabin. Seven out of ten home intruders in Nepleslia would rather run than face that sound. The other three died quick.
Besides him, Desmond grimaced in clear discomfort, baring his teeth. Instead the usually white-color, his teeth were pinkish from the blood.
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The Outrider turned sharply on an intersection. The good thing about the abandoned industrial district in Maharombi was that no good, law abiding citizen visited it anymore; the bad thing was that neither did the law enforcement without a decently-sized escort, it might not have been Funky City, where the police used tanks, but it was still a Nepleslian planet. There was no mistake that as soon as they stepped into the district they were in the Red Zone.
Danny saw the signs and sights around him in the Red Zone. He'd seen this place from afar in his first meeting with Desmond, a neon red coloured splotch that always remained lit no matter the time on the red planet. Red with blood, green with money and pink with lust.
"There!" Desmond yelled, pressing the gas pedal harder. Danny looked up over the sights of the rifle and confirmed the target. A Runaway Outrider full of scum - and it belonged to the Bounty Hunters there, just a few hundred yards in front of them.
"Spotted!" Danny yelled as he straightened his back and put his hand on the forward grip, lining up the front and rear sights. The Outrider's engine roared again as the vehicle picked up speed, and soon, the other vehicle started to ''grow'' as they came closer.
Approaching them seemed to do something, as the electrical turret on the other Outrider turned to face them.
"Sorry in advance for damages-" Danny sighed before he grit his teeth and pulled the trigger. The force of the large calibre bullets were clearly meant for either a big bore hunting rifle or an ID-SOL to carry the weapon - someone of average strength could only hope to put it on the ground or against cover and open fire.
Layers of dust plumed up on the dashboard as every shot rung out, the brass and metal flying into the cabin and bouncing off of the walls, falling on the floor and around Danny's chair. One hot cartridge casing fell on his lap, and he spread his legs open and sat up with a gasp.
As if on a cue, the HMG on top of the outrider also opened up. At first, the high-caliber shells flew off course, making small fountains of debri erupt from the asphalt where they landed. On the next burst, they came closer, and on the third a few bullets actually impacted against the armored front hood, ricocheting against the glass.
"Ah, shit!" Desmond complained, wincing as the glass cracked more from the hits. That prompted him to draw his pistol with his left hand and fire it against the other vehicle, for whatever good that would do.
The insane firefight went for a few seconds, although to the two ocuppants it felt like hours. The only sign that it stopped was when the electrical turret on top of the other vehicle stopped firing. "They're out of ammo!" Desmond yelled, watching as smoke poured out from the holes in the armored front hood of their Outrider.
"Does it reload?" Danny yelled as he weighed his LMG experimentally. He only had a quarter of ammo left.
"Not from inside!" The other bounty hunter replied. "Brace! I'm gonna rear-end those assholes!" He added, pressing pedal to the metal as the other vehicle drew dangerously close. It was a crazy idea, but even the LMG wouldn't dent the armored vehicle, while in turn the latter's HMG had clearly damaged the engine. he just wanted to get as much as he could from the Outrider before the damage started to be felt.
Danny's adrenaline was getting the better of him and he felt his heart pound through his chest and his judgement for caution go into the gale. He threw the LMG aside in the cabin and climbed out of the side window and tiptoed onto the bonnet. "Hit it!" he yelled, keeping low, but aerodynamic, ready to climb aboard the aggresor vehicle.
The Outrider bumped its turreted counterpart from behind with a loud 'clank', jarring Desmond again and threatening to throw Danny off balance, the former was howling at this point, too wounded and pissed to care as he yelled insults at the occupants of the other vehicles. That close, it was possible to see them from where he was, standing inside and staring at the two of them.
The insides of the Outrider smelled like burning plastic, something was not right. On the other vehicle, however, its occupants seemed to break from the trance, and one of them leaned out, trying to get a bead on Danny with his pistol as both vehicles sped past the wide road, the buildings on the side becoming almost a blur as the two cars reached crazy speed, which seemed very unlikely for something of their bulk.
The bounty hunter leapt off of the vehicle after regaining his balance and grabbed the back of the other Outrider, by the outboard handles intended for the poor saps who were too late to the party - or probably put on by the designers just for situations like this - it was difficult to tell now. Danny looked for the first available window on the side away from the thug trying to shoot him and pointed a pistol inside, hitting the man inside and firing into a barrel of fish until the magazine was dry. The windows and close surfaces were soon splattered with the bandit's blood.
Reacting to that, the turreted outrider swerved to the sides, coming dangerously close to throw him off balance. The suit clad bounty hunter was thrown around like a puppet, hanging from his simple handhold on the back of the vehicle. Desmond took at cue to maneuver his car to the right of the Outrider, slowly and surely drawing parallel to the other vehicle.
He tried to put his pistol back, but he missed the holster and it instead fell onto the ground, shattering into its individual pieces and quickly vanishing out of view from the speeding vehicles. With a hand free, he was able to get a second hand onto the handrail and with core strength, he started climbing onto the roof to go after the driver, crawling on and slinking past the turret.
It seemed that he and Desmond had the same idea, as the bounty hunter driving the other vehicle drew his pistol again and fired out at the passenger's window, but doing nothing more than to scratch the bullet resistant glass. The turreted vehicle suddenly turned bruskly to its right, side ramming the bounty hunter's vehicle and throwing it off course. Danny was also thrown about as his legs came out from under him and he thumped against the top of the runaway vehicle.
Once things had stabilised for the moment, he put a hand against his blade. "Again, apologies for damage -" he said over radio to Desmond, still keeping a furious but tranquil mindset as a different set of gears started turning.
He drew the blade, at the same time another one of the bandits leaned out from the right rear window, aiming a submachinegun at Danny, and plunged it into the cabin of the vehicle, and started sawing the roof open in a circle. A grin came across his face when he wondered just how many bricks the driver and occupants would shit
"Down, get down!" Desmond yelled on the radio a few moments before the automatic weapon opened up.
The warning got just in time, and as the bullets whistled overhead and he got down, suffering a few scratches on his back as the bullets ripped the suit's material, grazing him. He plunged all three feet of the blade deep inside the roof of the outrider - he wasn't thinking straight as he slithered into the hole he'd created and fired his SMG from inside, the windows flashing and getting painted red. He got down, but too far down for comfort.
His bullets seemed to have effect, as the car visibly veered off course out of control, slowly moving away from the street and into the nearest building, while Desmond struggled to draw the other Outrider near. By then, the latter was already smoking as the damaged engine lost performance, and it clearly showed as more white smoke billowed out from the holes and the radiator.
Danny approached the driver and grabbed him by the shoulder, putting the barrel of the Ripshot to his head. "May I... make a suggestion," Danny growled through ragged breaths under his mask, unusual accent foreign and steely to inbred Nepleslian ears as blood became palatable in his mouth. "Park the vehicle calmly and we can avoid a scene."
The driver seemed to ignore the Danny, or simply not hear him. It took a while for the bounty hunter to notice the neat hole that had punched through the man's balaclava, while the passenger besides him only groaned and shifted, barely concious from his own wounds; since the shots had come from up, they had completely evaded the durandium plates of their armor.
"Son of a- Desmond, I have a slight complication. No body," he spelt those exact words out out, "is driving..." he let that trail off as he tried to shift the dead weight from the driver's seat and put their foot of of the pedals and their hands away from the steering wheel while Danny kept one of his hands there, trying not to guide the gun bus into a building or a street pole or a pram full of bullets. "Fatass," he complained.
"Ditch the fucking car and jump back!" The other bounty hunter yelled, despite his Outrider slowly and surely beginning to lose distance from the other.
Danny let the vehicle veer and sway, rocking him about inside before his wits gathered and he realised he had to get the fuck outta there. "Coming!" he yelled as he ran to the back, stepping over bodies and opening the doors. One of the thug's bodies spilled out and fell on the ashpalt, tumbling away and colliding with a rubbish bin on the side of the road.
Two metres, soon becoming three metres - Desmond was getting further and further away with the moments. Danny had to jump. He crouched down and like a cricket, he uncoiled and leapt towards the smouldering hood of Desmond's outrider, screaming as he went as his hands grasped for him, managing to catch onto the depression between the hood and the windshield.
He scrambled up like a deranged hood ornament and slithered back into the window, landing face first onto the floor with the grace of a startled swan falling down a flight of stairs, face down in the pile of bullet casings as he mumbled in pain.
His legs were sticking out of the side of the outrider, and Desmond could see his backside. The latter pressed hard on the brakes, burning rubber against the asphalt as he watched the other Outrider keep on going. After a few moments, both vehicles had come to a stop, but for very different reasons.
While Desmond's shot up outrider had left two black streaks behind it from the sudden stop when he pressed down on the brakes; the other left a neat hole on the wall of an abandoned apartment building when it had just kept on going. He could see from inside of his vehicle the wrecked counterpart, as well as a fire that slowly started to spread as the other Outrider leaked fuel. 'totalled,' he thought, forcing a chuckle out of him as he wondered how much Bob Burdo would rip him off for a new vehicle.
With a groan, he opened the driver's door and stumbled out of the vehicle, grabbing onto the vehicle for support when he almost lost his balance upon stepping out. With the crazy chase done, it was possible for him to pay more attention to his surroundings than before, noticing the few faces staring at the two of them from other buildings or street corners. Despite being 'abandoned,' that district was far from empty.
Noticing that, Desmond held his rifle level, staring at the bystanders, but it was clear that he was doing a conscious effort not to threaten those people. A jolt of attention remembered what him what he was after. The bounty hunter turned to face the building that other outrider had driven into, and slowly started to move that way.
Danny extricated himself from the window of the stopped outrider and tried to look like he was businesslike as he strode down the street, jogging to catch up with Desmond. He looked over to the bounty hunter and asked, "Think we've caused a scene?"
"Nah," The other bounty hunter grunted back, using his left hand to wipe his forehead of the mix of dust, sweat and blood. The more he walked closer, the more he could feel the heat coming from inside the building as the fire started to catch, feeling it on his unprotected face like someone had just poured a bucked of it right at him.
Being closer, both of them could also clearly see hoe the windows of the outrider were splattered with the occupant's blood. It looked like none of them would be walking out of there, and it was clearly impossible that anyone would-
No. 'Confirm the kill; gather evidence of it,' The bounty hunder thought, willing the previous chain of thought away.
Danny looked through the open back doors of the fiery outrider, and he was the first to step in and start taking inventory of all the dead. "There was one who fell out when I made my jump back to you," Danny said, "So that's one..." he then started counting the others on his fingers.
While Danny inspected the vehicle, Desmond moved around the room. The outrider had picked what looked like the lobby of a residencial building to crash into, coming in from the left corner of the entrance and bulldozing all the furniture away with it until it stopped on the front desk. Its fuel tank was undoubtedly breached, and it didn't take a forensics expert to figure that out when the fire was spreading from below the outrider and slowly crawling up the walls.
Not wanting to waste any time, Desmond pulled out his datajockey and moved inside the vehicle as well, letting the rifle hang from its strap in front of him. The damage to the inside of the outrider was shown in vivid details whenever the datapad flashed, taking a picture of one of the occupants and illuminating the bloodstains and other small things that would completely go unnoticed otherwise.
Danny meanwhile was inspecting the faces of each of the dead and taking snapshots of his own, mostly looking back over his trail of destruction and feeling his stomach lurch and turn when he saw his handiwork up close. Maybe these men deserved to die, maybe they'd done horrible things, but Danny ultimately couldn't know now.
Though, the police database, when it did have records on someone, didn't forget. Some of the misdeeds listed bought him a little peace of mind that in the end he was doing the right thing - but it didn't stop the little bit of vomit rising in his mouth when the smell of blood, cordite and burning went up his nose.
"We should get out," Desmond suggested after he had finished taking the grim pictures. It certainly wasn't something he'd put on an album to show his family. From his expression, it was hard to determine whether he was frowning because he looked like hammered shit, or if it was from the blood, or even it was because that was his usual facial expression.
With another groan, the Muur-clad bounty hunter maneuvered out of the totalled Outrider and waited in the lobby, noticing how the fire had gotten much bigger as the flames licked at the wooden ceiling.
The other hunter's suit was giving him warnings that it was starting to get too hot to stay around, and that there was a potential choking hazard owing to the lowering amount of oxygen in the room as fire started to eat it to keep sustaining itself.
They turned around and exited the vehicle, standing beside Desmond in the lobby. He rolled on the balls of his feet and toes as he waited for further instruction. Without a word, he and the other bounty hunter started moving out of the building.
It didn't take them a long amount of time to confirm the kills inside the building, but that was already enough for the good people of Maharombi, Delsauria to already start turning the more intact outrider to salvage. As soon as they cleared out of the building and their eyes adjusted to the migraine-white glow of the sun, they could see a few civilians piling up on the vehicle, most of them clearly Nepleslian but a few who were actually Delsaurian.
The act didn't last long, though, because as soon as they noticed that the two bounty hunters were coming back, they scattered on their own merry ways, carrying bits from the vehicle, and even an entire wheel.
"Saves me the trouble of shooting up in the air," Desmond commented, fishing for something in his pockets. Perhaps it was all down to image - no shots had to be fired. The two men looked like burnt hell. Chestplates shattered, fabrics ripped and torn, blood and bruising from bullet in calibres not large enough to put them down for the count. Just a moment ago they were kicking more ass in a day than most could cope with in a month.
Danny peeled his mask off of his face and let it slither back into his neck, face stony as those blue eyes looked at their ride. He let out a simple hum of agreement with Desmond, and held up a fist towards him to bump.
He was told it was the Nepleslian gesture of affirming masculinity and prowess.
Besides him, Desmond rested his back against the oven-hot metal of the Outrider, bringing a hand to shield his mouth as he lit the cigarette plucked between his lips. He took a deep drag of the deathstick once it was lit, tilting his head up as he exhaled the white smoke towards the dry desert air.
In the distance, the sound of police sirens was increasing as the authorities came closer.
Danny put his hand away and instead reached for a stick of chewing gum from one of his belt pouches as he watched where the red and blue lights were coming from. He heaved a sigh of relief when he realised that he could finally take some respite.
The flashing blue and red lights soons revealed themselves to be a trio of Outriders from the National Police Force of Nepleslia, and as they stopped and turned to the side, shielding its passengers from both of the bounty hunters, Desmond could see that the precinct number besides the vehicle matched the same as the Outrider he was using. The bounty hunter let a small sigh of relief at that.
He wouldn't have to explain what was going on. The game that was about to play out would be one with marked cards.
The police officers slowly stepped out of their vehicles, using the open doors as cover as they watched one among them slowly walk towards the duo of bounty hunters. That particular man was too 'round' to be a field officer, and the fact that he wore no armor only seemed to further that theory. That was the man that had facilitated everything for the bounty hunters to strike at that gang's headquarters, supplying them with the vehicles and making the authorities look the other way as they turned the industrial complex into a small warzone, all for a cut of the profit.
Bob Burdo approached the two of them with both hands resting on his belt. He looked very much like the day Desmond had first seen him, and it wouldn't surprise the bounty hunter if the man hadn't shaven nor taken a shower since then, still wearing the same office uniform for the NPF. If the smell of blood and soot wasn't already impregnating his nostrils, then the smell of scotch that emanated around Burdo would.
"Well what have yer come and done now?" The gruffy police officer asked the two of them. Danny raised an eyebrow as he appraised the man for the first time, sizing him up and placing him in a mental box that was about as rotund as he was. He decided to let Desmond do the talking though, and continued chewing gum quietly.
"Just your job," Desmond replied matter-of-factly, letting go of the vehicle and turning to face the cop. The tip of cigarette in his lip glew in a cherry red as he inhaled again. Bob laughed at that, his otherwise stern expression breaking into a grin.
"Ha! I like it!" He said, turning back to the officers behind him. "I can only keep the heat away from yer lot for one or two hours before my bosses actually want me to check what's going on here. Too many people calling, ye see?" He added, turning back to the duo. He seemed not to be going to add anything more, until he noticed Danny.
"An' who in the bloody hell is this gimp?" The police officer asked, tilting his head towards Danny.
The 'gimp' responded by blowing a bubble of gum out and popping it, then resumed chewing like he wasn't even seen or mentioned. He seemed to be watching the other Policemen running around to bring things under control.
"He's with me," Desmond answered, exhaling the smoke through his nose. "Just keep your people off the factory while we finish mopping up, we will be out of there before the two hours."
The fat policeman nodded at that. "Alright then. Just don' forget the other friends that helped ye make yer dream possible," Bob said, turning back around and walking towards the Outriders.
Like that, just as quick as they had arrived, the cops were out of the scene.
Something about Bob's parting words reminded Danny that all of this was a team effort, even from a team he hadn't seen until now - the Cops. They sanctioned all of this, condoned of all of this, and he figured they'd take a cut - just as the briefing had outlined.
"How many were there in that gang anyway?" Danny asked, shrugging his shoulders at Desmond to try and strike up a conversation, "Rough number."
"Twenty, thirty," Desmond guessed. He wasn't too worried about the individual bounties that each gangmember and their hired goons would surely have on their heads; what was more important was the stuff inside the factory that they would be 'procuring'.
"And robots?"
"Too many," Desmond answered again, looking around as if he remembered something. As things were, he didn't look like he had any right of staying up. "Shit," he muttered.
"Shit?" Danny echoed.
"I forgot to ask for a ride."
Danny looked around and looked at the Outrider he was leaning against and realised the gravity of this.
"Sheeiiiiiit." He concluded in Lorath, rolling his eyes.
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