“Jones,” he introduced himself as. “I understand you need ‘kitting out’?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but immediately pulled out a black belt which he passed to me. “Put this on.”
I did as I was told. It was too big, and sagged down my front, threatening to slide off completely. Before I could say anything, a pop-up requested access to install an operating system. I cast an eye toward Amanda, and she nodded at me. I authorized the download and install. Immediately after, the belt tightened comfortably around my waist. A new menu went active, and Mr. Jones talked me through the settings. Then we went through the standard structures supported by the ‘belt’. The first was a complete skin-tight covering from head to foot, and I had to raise each foot so it could seal underneath. Seeing was only possible via the PC. Breathing was only possible for a short time using an air supply stored within the composition of the suit, designed to keep you alive in an emergency, long enough to reach an alternative air supply in quick reach. Mr. Jones pointed out that this was an emergency coverage to protect in the event of explosive decompression. After a few moments, an air hose extended from the back looking for an air supply point. Before it could find one, I shut it down and it went back to being a belt. No point in finding out what happened if I ran out of air. I hoped I never would.
Amanda pulsed me over an add-on, and I loaded it and selected it, and suddenly I was wearing the exact same slinky black outfit she was. I looked down, and yes it had adapted to me being male and not female. I grinned at her. She grinned back.
Next was a more conventional space suit arrangement, with a full clear bubble around the head. It supplied a longer air supply on its own, and did not obscure the vision in any direction. Not keeping it on for long, I set it back to being a belt.
Under a sub menu, was a series of conventional clothes that it could emulate. In the female list, I found the yellow dress that Amanda had worn the previous evening. In the male menu, I found a grey business suit, selected a red shirt and emerald green bow tie and activated it. Instantly I was wearing the suit. A wolf whistle came from Amanda’s side of the room. I took that as sign of it looked well on me. Back to a belt.
After the suit, my jeans and t-shirt looked very inadequate. I looked towards Mr. Jones. “What’s next?” He pulled out a gun holster and strapped it onto my right thigh. Then a second one which went on my left thigh. As I watched, he pulled out six different guns and laid them out for inspection. Up against the far wall, he attached a target.
“Each is a different make of laser pistol. Each is selected because it has swappable modules so they can be turned from a stunner into a full laser or a dual function stunner-laser. This is important because most stations will not allow a full laser of any kind to be carried, but if you are boarded in space, or you find yourself in combat dirt-side or on some other ship or renegade station, a stunner will not be enough. Module change can be done in seconds, as can recharges. Let me see you pick up each gun and use it.”
As bidden, I picked up the first gun. Immediately a program went primary I hadn’t seen before. It startled me for a second, before I recognized I now had a target sight from the PC, showing exactly what the gun was pointed at. I looked at Amanda. “The General,” she said. I nodded. Obviously one of the military programs the General had given me but I had not yet gotten around to looking at. I felt the weight of the gun in my hand, held it up to eye level and sighted along it. It felt good. I aimed it at the target and pulled the trigger a few times. White spots lit up around the edges of the target to show where the shots had gone.
I replaced it, and did the same with each in turn. Each time I let go of a gun, the targeting program turned off. As soon as I touched the next gun, targeting came on again. Each gun felt different, but they all felt good to hold and shoot. However, I'd not had any shots hit the actual target yet.
Mr. Jones watched me closely. He sighed, obviously not happy.
“No,” he said, “they won’t do, not you.”
He put them away, and pulled out something larger. He handed it to me and watched me as I brought it up to eye line. It was slightly heavier, but perfectly balanced in my hand. Unlike the previous guns, instead of one exit aperture, it had six. I looked at him with raised eyebrows. He pulsed me an upgrade routine. The targeting changed slightly, became brighter and somehow more intense. I slipped it into the right holster, then drew it and traversed around the room. Targeting smoothly found all four people in the room and as I thought it, the gun settled on the large man by the door. He flinched. My finger twitched and the gun fired blanks. There was a series of rapid discharges before I could get my finger to ease up. I shifted to aim at the target and fired again. Hits lit up across it, including the central area. The gun felt completely perfect.
“Yes,” said Mr. Jones, “That fits who you are. This is a Gatling laser. You can set it for single fire and it will be as accurate as any other gun, or in other words, as accurate as the person who fires it, but its main operation is as a quick fire laser. Each bolt is not quite the power of a normal gun, but it delivers several to the same place while any other gun is preparing to fire again. Not a lot of people are suited to this, but I can see you are one of them. Let me see what you can do from the left side.”
I swapped the gun over to the left holster and repeated the exercise. A bit slower this time but the same results.
“Good,” he said. “You wear two of these, and only the truly stupid will take you on without hesitating. Even with only one, and some more appropriate attire, you will look like someone not to be messed with. This is good I think. Keep you alive longer, especially when your pretty friends are not around you. You will want the suit, two of the Gatling lasers and both holsters I would be thinking?” He looked at me for confirmation. I nodded. He asked for the belt and holsters back, and I removed them and handed them over.
“I will send them along in several hours, with the permits for carrying. Invoice with delivery, payment then, yes?”
“Yes,” I said, and meant it.
The big man returned to the hover-container, packed away everything, and the two of them left. Amanda came over from the door. Alison from the desk.
“Good choice I thought,” said Amanda. “Not my style, but he was right, that style of gun does suit you.”
“Why?” I asked.
She laughed. “I can’t tell you that, but it is definitely the right choice.”
Alison chimed in with “I agree. You have some time now before anything else is scheduled. Why don’t you start looking at clothes catalogues?”
I threw my PC to the coms unit again and brought up search mode on the flat screen with holographic hand controls. I limited the search to male clothing, on station. I definitely wanted new jeans, so started with them. My current jeans were standard jeans, lightened up in colour by long use. I wanted true blue denim jeans again. And there they were. There was even the stretch variety I preferred. I tagged them. Next I went looking for shirts. I found a series of short sleeve t-shirts with collars and tagged the colours I liked. That was what I mainly wore when I was not out and about. But I needed clothes portraying a higher image, that of a successful pilot and captain. I went for red casual long sleeve shirts, collared but not designed for neckties. On a whim, I also tagged the emerald green.
I needed new sleep ware as well, so I went looking for boxers, which were easy to find, and non-collared t-shirts, where I found some nice pale green ones, all of which I tagged.
Shoes next. I prefer low heel Velcro strap shoes, but have always found them difficult to find. Eventually I located a pair in my size in a pale green and white combination, and tagged them. Underwear and socks I didn’t need to worry about, as the auto dispensers did adequate underwear and I’d never felt the need for anything else.
What was I missing? Oh yes, jackets. I’d been wearing a battered old denim jacket for years now, and it was not up to standard, now I was something more than a student. I wasn’t sure exactly what more I
was as yet, but having a lot of credits definitely made me more than I had been. It took a while, but finally I found the perfect jacket I’d always wanted, zip up the front, minor collar, and in just the right burnt red colour. It had optional epaulettes, which I would need if I was to present myself as a pilot or captain, since anyone with space skills wore appropriate badges for their skill level. I had the qualifications for able spacer in all four disciplines, and I’d been credited with being captain of the Wanderer and pilot of the fighter they had awarded me. So at the least, I’d wear pilot and captain badges. I’d need to follow that up some time soon.
I assembled the tagged list and sent it off to the tailor. It was quickly receipted with a tentative delivery of tomorrow afternoon.
I’d been ignoring emails again, so I spent some time on them. I had several inquiries from traders wondering if I was going to offer escort services, and I replied that at this point, I was unsure, but I would let them know if I did. I moved those in to my future action file.
That prompted me to go onto the Trader Guild’s site and look around. I started with my profile, and found my skills already listed, as was my Captaincy of Wanderer, and Pilot of a Gladiator Heavy Privateer. I tagged myself as ‘not looking for work’ to forestall any further inquiries for the time being. I browsed through the software list, and found an interface overlay for ships systems allowing for any ship to be searched for in the Trader Guild database for status and bounty, if any. I noted my own status was listed as being in good standing.
I did the same on the Bounty Hunters Guild and Mercenary Guild sites, tagging myself as not looking for work, and downloading their status and bounty overlays. On the Bounty Hunters site, I also found I was tagged as having a number of bounties out for my destruction. I was not required alive, just dead. I found an overlay that would pop up a warning if I encountered a ship which had accepted a mission under one of the bounties on me. Got to hand it to the BH Guild, they played things both ways. Perfectly happy to have bounties registered against members, but made sure members knew about it and had some warning if someone wanted to collect.
However, that put a damper on being a pilot and captain, as going back out into space looked decidedly unfriendly. I went back into the profile and added a comment to say I had no intention of firing on any BH Guild member unless fired on first, but I would consider anyone who attempted to collect on the bounties to be as much a pirate as the pirates that had placed the bounties. With a bit of luck, it would give some people pause. I went back into their software looking for an overlay tagging a ship where the known pilot was a guild member. I did the same for the other guilds in case one day it mattered to know a ship was a member of a guild.
Lastly, I went into the Traders Guild product sales site and ordered several pairs of both Pilot and small ship Captain badges.
“Why the long face?” asked Aleesha. I jumped. She stood next to me, chuckling. I hadn’t noticed she and Amanda had changed over. I looked around. Alison wasn’t in sight either. I looked up at her.
“Half a million in bounties on your head tends to do that to you,” I replied.
“Is that all?” she said. “They can’t be taking you seriously yet.”
“If that’s not taking me seriously, I hate to see what is.”
“Unfortunately, if you live long enough, you will. We'll do anything we can to help you through this, but I hate to say that I don't think you have yet grasped just how big a bulls-eye is painted on your arse. That’s why we want to get you tooled up and prepared, for when we can’t be with you. Sooner or later we'll get a job and need to head on out. Of course, that won’t happen until our ship is repaired, so it won’t be happening tomorrow.”
“I appreciate it you know. In fact, I’m not really sure why you're going to all this trouble.”
“You kidding? You saved us. If you hadn’t had the balls to take that shot, we would have been out of air long before they hauled our ship in anywhere. We were gone. We were all down to less than fifteen minutes suit air when we docked here, and we had used every source of air on the ship that the damage had left us. We lost our pilot, and the damage to the ship left us stranded and at that pirate’s mercy. He had none to offer. We were gone!”
I looked at her. “But I was only saving myself.”
She reached down and grabbed me by the shirt and hauled me out of my seat.
“Listen you! We know that. We also know your PC was fritzed, you had major head trauma, you passed out twice, and you still managed to kill that bastard and tow us all to safety. That makes you special; because most other people would have laid down and just died where they were. You saved yourself, and you saved us when you could have equally been selfish and just seen yourself to safety. We OWE you big time!”
And with that she kissed me full on the mouth for so long that when she pulled away, I flopped back on to the chair gasping for air. She flounced off. With what she was wearing, flouncing didn’t really work, but she carried it off anyway. I struggled to bring my breathing back under control.
Eight
Alison turned up again later in the afternoon while I was having a nap. She poked her head into the bedroom, saw I was awake and crooked a finger indicating I should follow her.
I rolled off the bed. In the sitting room, sat a parcel. On the outside was an invoice that for a moment startled me, until I remembered I had credit to spend. I opened the parcel. On the top was a box containing a suit belt. The invoice listed it at fifty thousand credits. I opened the box and put on the belt. It immediately tightened around my waist comfortably and I received a pop up asking to update my software, which I authorized.
I hunted down the menus looking for something to test the suit on and accidently hit the wrong option. I immediately stood there wearing a yellow dress over my clothes. Two women had immediate hysterics. I blushed, cancelled the option and it returned to a belt.
I turned back to the parcel and removed the two gun boxes. I did not see any holsters though. The invoice listed one gun at thirty thousand credits. There were definitely two guns. I pulled one of them out. Immediately, a holster appeared on my right thigh. I slotted the gun into the holster, and it fit perfectly. A pop up notified me the gun was setup in stunner mode. I pulled out the second gun and another holster appeared on my left thigh. I put the gun into it. Same pop up. Next I pulled out a pack of six charge packs. Immediately each holster sported three slots for the charge packs and I fitted each of them in a slot. A pop up informed me that charging was in progress.
Lastly, there were two small bolts, each in its own pouch. The pop up for those told me they were to change the gun from stunner to stun-laser and full laser with a diagram showing how. Seemed easy enough. What was odd was there was no feeling of wearing any weight at all. I’d expected to feel the weight of the guns dragging down on the belt, but I didn’t feel a thing. On a whim, I accessed suit control and selected the slinky black outfit the twins wore.
“That is seriously bad-arse.” Both women were staring at me. I struck a pose, hands resting on the grips of both guns.
“Yeah!” yelled Aleesha, suddenly grinning. Amanda poked her head around the outer door, grinned, gave me a thumb’s up, and left again.
At the bottom of the package was a charging unit designed for two guns and six charges. I plugged it into the power on the desk, and then plugged in each charge and both guns, noticing as I removed each that the holsters changed to provide somewhere for it to go, vanishing as each went into the charger. I changed back to a belt and made a note that I should first double check I had clothes on underneath.
A pinged message arrived from the Tool man, with a link to his drop account. I activated it and was taken to a bank site where I authorized payment of the invoice. Immediately I received an email with a copy of the invoice, and dozens of permits for carrying obvious weapons, seeming to cover most of known space. There was also an advice that my guild memberships had been updated with the permits. I sent him a thank you
in reply, and an assurance that when I needed something again, I’d be in touch with him. He pinged back a thank you for my service and my custom. I pondered for a moment and wondered just how much of a discount I’d really been given, beyond a free gun.
“Are you up for a dinner guest?” asked Alison.
“Sure. Your boss?”
“No, our second pilot. He's not much of a combat pilot. Pilot is actually his secondary, and he does the boring running around jobs that a real combat pilot baulks at. In his case, it saved his life, as our combat pilot was the only one of us killed. He’s wanted to meet you ever since we heard you had pulled through in the hospital. His name's George.”
“By all means,” I said.
George turned up just before dinner. He was dressed in a brown overall. I couldn’t tell if it was a real overall or a suit. Dinner was pleasant. We talked about piloting and simulators, found we had an interest in strategic computer games that bored the ladies, and swapped game experiences. The ladies steered us back into more general topics. There was a warm camaraderie between Aleesha, Alison and George. It made me feel part of the group. I speculated maybe that was the whole idea. After dinner, we cleared away, and settled into easy chairs. I turned to George.
“Is that a suit you have on, or real clothes?” I asked.
“Suit of course, why do you ask?”
“I didn’t see that sort of overall on the clothing menu, so I wondered.”
“Ha, yes. I do a bit a dabbling in suit programming.”
“Just clothes?” I asked.
Hero at Large (The Hunter Legacy Book 1) Page 5
