Hero at Large_Second Edition

by Timothy Ellis

  My profile had an addition. 'Total one on one combats: 1', followed by 'Total wins: 1'.

  Seventeen

  I'd gone to sleep with Amanda, and woke up with Aleesha.

  Let me rephrase that. I'd gone to bed alone, and been joined by Amanda soon after. I'd been lying on my good side, and she pressed up behind me. I didn't need to see her to know who it was. I slept soundly all night. When I woke, I was on my back, and Aleesha was lying next to me.

  She pecked me on the cheek, and vanished into the bathroom. I lay there, trying to figure out if I hurt any less this morning, than I had last night. The jury was still out, when "Oi" sounded dramatically from the bathroom. I got up, and padded in. There was a naked back pointing at me, so I stripped off my sleepers, went in, and started soaping. Once her back, and general environs, was done, she rinsed off, toweled off, and was gone.

  I stood there under the water flow, cranked up the heat a little, and let hot water flow over my bruises. Definitely more yellow than any other colour now, but I continued to ache all the way down.

  I was still standing there, when Amanda came in behind me, and started soaping my back, and environs. When done, we swapped, I did hers, we both finished up, toweled off, and got dressed. Amanda headed into the kitchen, I headed for my easy chair. She followed to hers shortly after, with a plate of food.

  She took a big mouthful, and I smiled at her.

  "Are we actually sleeping together? Or are you afraid of sleeping alone?"

  She choked.

  "I'm not afraid of anything," she responded forcefully.

  I raised my eyebrows to signify the need of a better answer. I must admit, I was starting to become confused.

  "You're confused," she said. I nodded. "It's about tomorrow."

  "Oh. Understood."

  And I did. They could all be dead tomorrow. So they were getting as much comfort as possible while they could, without going the full distance of a constant orgy. I guess it was the same with Alison. It had been a case of 'take love where you find it, for tomorrow might not come'. And it was a thought which now had me worried about why I still hadn't heard from her.

  "Heard from Alison or George yet?" I asked.

  She shook her head.

  I stuck my nose into my pad, and busied myself with the HUD overlay. Time passed. A pulse came in containing the suit programs. But no message of any kind.

  "Got a pulse from George," I said, "but no message of any kind".

  "That means they're ok, but still under operational security. Good sign. Knowing him, he did the pulse under cover of someone else's message activity."

  We went back to what we were doing. I'd manipulated the overlay to do pretty much what I wanted, and set up a series of definitions for ship status, each with its own colours. So instead of a blue or red designation, the display should now show a variety of colour representing real information about each ship. As well, key conditions, like ships with a bounty on them, and Bounty Hunters on the hunt, not only displayed as orange, but a small summary as well. This included the number of bounties outstanding and total worth, and the kill total of the pilot. If I was going to take on a Bounty Hunter, I wanted some idea of how good he or she was, before committing. The information was subjective of course, but everything helped.

  Until I was out in space again near a traffic flow, this was about all I could do. I'd coded it to use whatever information was available. So if I decided to release the overlay for sale, anyone who had access to one of the guild's information, and/or official government information, could use the overlay, and it would give them whatever information was available. Obviously the most information came from all sources, which is what I'd be using.

  I turned next to the suit program, and started in on clothing modifications. I copied the slinky black number. The suit, not the dress. First I changed the overall colour to a dull red. I tweaked the colour until I came to a dull red which was not too dull. Down the arms I put a single white stripe. I added two more.

  I went into the bathroom to look in the mirror, and activated the suit. Yes, definitely better. I tweaked the boots, aiming for a less than military look, while retaining strength. I considered the result. A little less slink I thought. I bulked up the shoulders, and made my behind a bit less obvious.

  Next I added epaulettes. I scanned the badges, and added them to look as I had them now. I liked it. I saved the design as my own uniform. It had a good padded leather look and feel. I set the suit back to a belt, and went into the bedroom.

  I took a pair of jeans, shirt, jacket, and shoes out of the robe, and scanned each of them. I started a new design, and built up a series of layers to make a full outfit. I went back to the other design, copied the epaulettes, saved them as a separate design, and added them to replace the blank ones on the jacket.

  I stripped down to my briefs, activated the design, and went back to the mirror. It looked just like I was wearing my real clothes. Even the pockets were useable. I turned it back into a belt, and got dressed again. I had an offhand thought pop in, and created another new design from my sleep wear.

  Next, I started on the uniforms. Create from the images I'd been sent, extrapolate pockets, add epaulettes. That stopped me. I removed the epaulettes from the uniform I was working on, and overlaid the epaulette design. Better. I went back through all the designs, and did the same. This way, if my badges changed, I only had to make one change, and the rest would adapt automatically.

  I then modified the slinky black, to make the same 'bulking' changes. The change was subtle, but I felt a little more comfortable with it. I didn't know if I'd need it again, but if I did, it was there. I also remembered to overlay the epaulettes.

  All done, I activated my custom red, and went back to my chair.

  Amanda looked up idly as I walked back in, looked away again, and did a double take.

  "Nice. That suits you," she said.

  "Thanks," I said. "It looks a bit bulky if activated over my jacket, but…"

  "Some girls like that," she finished with a smile.

  I grinned back.

  "Food?" I asked.

  She nodded, and we raided the kitchen.

  After eating, I started into the military manual. Boring stuff, but I needed to have read this at least once. Forgetting something was a better excuse than not having read it at all.

  "Gym!"

  I jumped. Again! I think I needed to adjust my sensors to notify about approaching bodyguards. Actually, it was a good idea, and I upped the sensitivity on any approaching object, to trigger awareness of the approach, but without actually doing a pop up. I tossed the pad gently onto the desk.

  Amanda was suddenly wearing grey gym clothes, her gun strapped over the top. I went into the bedroom, stripped off my outer clothes, hunted the suit clothes menu for the gym outfit, and selected it. I looked down at it for a moment, frowned, and tweaked the colour to the same as my uniform, and saved the new design. I walked out. She smiled, indicated my guns, and pointed deliberately to the bolts which changed the guns from stunner to laser. I put them on, and followed her out the door.

  A short time later, we arrived at the station gym. We had to check our guns at the door. I assumed Aleesha was prowling close by in case of trouble. Amanda led me over to an empty area of mats. She pulsed me some files.

  "Those are martial arts programs. We'll be going through what each can do, and you can choose which to keep loaded all the time, so when you respond to a threat nearby, you do it without thinking, using the minimum force needed. A lot of it is automatic. The programs use your PC overrides to move you. All you need is an awareness."

  The following time was bizarre. She took me through many different ways of fighting, judging how well each suited my body, and the way I moved. I had no real idea what I was doing, but in spite of it, I was soon sweating, and my left side was throbbing again. In the end, she settled on the best of them, and I set them to activate if threatened. The others I filed in case of later need.<
br />
  "What this does is give you decent response to any physical threat imposed by a person or group of people. You grasped enough of the basics to take on probably three, and get away with it, but don't push your luck any further, until you've survived some real situations. The most important thing to remember is to incapacitate as fast as possible, and get the hell out of there. Don't wait around to finish someone off, put them down, and run."

  I nodded. The same thing applied in space when you were outnumbered. Don't stay still, don't allow yourself to be distracted into fighting just one at a time. Always be mindful of where everyone else around you is, and which is the immediate threat. If you're outnumbered and can run, run. False bravado can be fatal.

  "I need to rest," I said, looking around for somewhere soft to sink into.

  "Sorry, can't stop now. Go wash up, and we head straight out again."

  I groaned, and went into the men's room, washed my face and neck, and limped heavily back. We collected our guns, and left.

  Not far away, we stopped at the Mercenary Guild gun range. She had me visit the men's room there, and change into my suit version of normal clothes. When I came out, she'd changed back into her black, and led me to a firing range.

  First off was target shooting, first with the right hand, then the left. It didn't take me long to get the right hand putting each burst of shots on target. The left took longer, wasn't quite as accurate, but was sufficient to take someone down. I needed practice. My left arm was throbbing badly by now, but she wouldn't let me stop.

  From the firing range, we went to the assault courses. She put me through a series of courses with different types of environments. I took all the bad guys down, but found not taking down civilians in the process, was much harder. She worked me through them relentlessly.

  We used the stunners for all but the last range, where we changed the guns over to lasers, and I had the chance on a specially built range to see the difference, and get used to the subtly different handling. By the time she was satisfied, I was scoring around seventy five percent. She made a special point of reminding me to remove the bolts, so the guns were stunners again, before she took me back to the firing range, and put me through an evaluation firing. Here I scored eighty five percent, in spite of barely being able to hold my left arm up by then.

  Finally she sat me down, and I slumped into the chair, exhausted, and hurting badly.

  "You'll do," she said. "You need practice, but you have what it takes. Do you know why I pushed you so hard, injured as you are?"

  I had an inkling, but wanted to hear her say it. I shook my head, and winced.

  "The time you need these skills the most, is when you're badly wounded, and the pain is bad enough even a medical package won't dampen it. You need to be able to move, and shoot, when you can barely walk, and if necessary, achieve perfect aim when you have difficulty even holding the gun up. I know I hurt you, but you needed to experience it, and understand it. Most people don't get the chance to experience it, until they're out in the field, and there a mistake, or lack of endurance, will kill them."

  "I understand, thanks. Can we go home now?"

  She nodded, helped me up, and I leaned on her heavily as I limped back to the hotel.

  Along the way she added more.

  "You need to practice everything until you obtain consistent ninety five percent scores, or repeated attempts don't yield any higher, which will mean you found your level. The higher the better, and the more likely you'll survive any situation. I'd also recommend you borrow some long guns, and work with them. They're a useful skill to have as well. While you may be a pilot, a Mercenary Pilot who can also shoot, means he can drop into the middle of a firefight, and cover a party while they escape. When the pilot and crew can't shoot, casualties tend to be higher pulling out, and the main reason for pulling out is because casualties are already too high."

  I nodded to all of it.

  We arrived back at the hotel, I sank into my easy chair, and just sat there. I didn't have the energy to move, and moving hurt. Amanda went into the kitchen, and came out with a glass.

  "Drink this," she commanded.

  I did as I was told. I handed the glass back, and raised an eyebrow.

  "High energy drink. You needed it. You want the left-over Chinese?"

  I nodded. She moved over to the desk, and passed me my pad. I took my guns off, and placed them on the floor by the chair.

  More emails. A new update from the Mercenary Guild. I was now rated as proficient with small arms. I also noticed the bounties on me had gone up to a million. Amanda returned with a plate for me, and I set it on the arm of the chair, and ate between messages.

  Bob had sent me a detailed email about what he thought was possible for modifying a Centurion. I replied saying 'more speed'. The rest were what I wanted. The hull seemed basically the same, although it looked like all the dimensions had expanded a bit. A few minutes later, he pinged me saying if I wanted more speed, he had to go up another level of power plant, and it would reduce the cargo bay down from twelve pallets to only four. I pinged back I could live with the trade-off. At best, if I tried to trade with this ship, I'd be limited to small amounts, or courier work. I couldn't see it being a problem. If I really decided to trade, I'd get a decent trade ship. I went back to the basics manual. And dozed off.

  The ping woke me up. I jerked in the chair, and groaned. It was Bob again, stating an email was on the way, and asking did this meet my requirements. I pulled up the email, and threw the ship design onto the main room hollo screen. Amanda perked up, and came over to look.

  At first glance there was no real difference between this ship, and a Centurion. To compare, I threw up the standard Centurion as well, and differences became apparent immediately. The new ship was longer, wider, higher, and considerably more heavily gunned. Its speed was a good third higher, and it had almost double the shield strength. A notation stated a gun capacitor had been added, to allow a buffer between energy reserves and gun usage, so even if other systems drew more heavily on the energy system, the guns could still keep firing longer than they normally would. All in all, a nice lethal looking ship.

  I grinned at Amanda. She grinned back, but I could tell she didn't really know what I was grinning at, and just reacting to me. She went back to whatever she was doing.

  I dropped the display, and returned to the pad. Next I looked at the pricing. The modifications doubled the price of the standard new ship, and the fittings, with full launchers and reloads, added another fifty percent. The standard Centurion was listed as forty percent dearer than the standard Gladiator. So roughly speaking, the new ship was worth about the same as five standard Gladiators. But the five Gladiators were all damaged. They also had much of their fittings still intact. So overall, they should be worth about a straight swap. I continued down the figures, and found Bob had arrived at the same answer, and suggested it.

  The math was doing my head in.

  I pinged him "Do it." He pinged me back a store to visit the following morning where I could select a bed. Bed. Yes, I needed bed. But what I really needed more, was a hot spa. The hotel menu popped up with its amenities list. There was a private spa on this floor, currently vacant. Did I wish to book it? I did.

  "Fancy a spa bath?" I said to Amanda.

  She grinned.

  "When?"

  "Now?"

  "Let's go."

  I fixed the location of the spa in my mind, moved the guns back to their chargers, and we headed directly there. Aleesha met us there with a grin on her face. I led them in, shut the door, and code locked it so we wouldn't be interrupted.

  In a moment, the three of us stood in our underwear and belts, another moment, and we were just in belts, and then all that was visible was three heads, and a lot of bubbles. I relaxed in the heat, and just sat back, letting the warmth flow through me. I should have thought of this days ago.

  Eighteen

  I'd gone to bed with Aleesha, and woke up with A
manda. No, I'm not clarifying it again. Think what you want.

  After showers, breakfast, and emails, or in my case, two of the three, Amanda and I headed out to the bed store.

  "Why do we need to go to a bed store?"

  "I need a bed."

  "You're just up from a bed."

  "Yes, well I need to lie down again on different beds."

  "You don't need a reputation for bed hopping."

  I laughed.

  We arrived at the store, and I explained I needed to get a bed to be supplied to the shipyard for fitting to a new ship. They asked what kind. I said the kind which someone with bruising down the left side would find comfortable. I also said credits were not a concern. I thought Bob had assumed I'd go for the most supportive bed I could find, and it would likely be on the high end of prices. If he hadn't, I'd pay the difference. I spent the next hour bouncing around from one bed to the next. Amanda followed me around, also trying them out. I think it amused us both the salesperson seemed to think we were a couple. Amanda even went to the stage of replying "Yes dear" a few times to my comments, and spoiling the effect by grinning.

  At last, I settled on a bed type. Size? I consulted the specs for the new ship. Surprisingly, the living area was bigger, although with the extra dimensions of the ship, I shouldn't have been surprised. It allowed a Queen sized bed, where I thought I'd be restricted to a long single. I ordered a Queen, and had them ping the invoice over to Bob. Before we'd even left the store, he pinged back an okay for me, and instructions for the store.

  I decided while we were out and about, it was high time I had some shopping therapy. I said as much to Amanda, and she laughed. Over the next few hours we did the rounds of the shopping levels of the station, stopping at odd shops, and checking things out. I found a few useful items which I had delivered to the hotel, found a travel sled which would hold all my finery and other personal stuff when I needed to move out of the hotel, also delivered, and we had an early lunch.