The Indy Diaries

Say what you want about bounty hunters being crude sons of
bitches, but damn if the Guild can’t make a ship. Back in my ‘lancing days, I
spent five years as an associate Bounty Hunter, flying a Barracuda all across
Liberty. It was essentially my home, you understand. I knew it, my clients knew
it, and the engineers who designed the thing knew it. Yeah, it’s technically a
fighter, but you can stand up in it.
It’s cramped as hell and you can only walk a few steps until you hit your bunk,
but just the ability to walk around can make a world of difference when
you’re going to auto-burn a whole day or two to avoid some trade lanes. A
hunter’s real enemy ain’t the cops or the pirates- cops are easy to avoid, and
in those days, most of the organized crime was too busy with their turf wars to
notice little ol’ me. It’s boredom and cabin fever that’ll make you hang up
your spurs quicker than anything. So yeah, my ‘Cuda came with more cabin space
than anything else I had found. You had a bunk, a tiny little table, and a
holo-vision. It’s big brother the Hammerhead even had an honest-to- God chem
shower, too, if you wanted to spend the credits. I guess the legendary tales of
bounty hunter hygiene had reached Guild HQ.

It wasn’t just creature comforts with that
ship. It could take a pounding, give a
bigger pounding, and was made with parts that any base in Sirius would have in
plentiful supply. Guild engineering was all business and no frills- their
R&D department almost didn’t exist then. Of course, it was an old design
even when I first looked at it- my ‘Cuda was bought used, and I sold it even
used’r. Now, I had no illusions- I
didn’t dare fly farther than the Border Worlds in my rig, because even for a
ship named after a shark, there are far
scarier fish in the sea than a stock Barracuda. It was just right for my niche
at the time, though- plinking Rogues and delivering their asses to Sugarland.
Now, I’ll never exactly love the LPI, but damn if taking their jobs didn’t keep
me in parts, drinks and dock knockers. If you don’t know what a dock knocker is
or don’t approve of a man seeing to his needs, maybe you should stick to
helping old ladies cross the street. You’ll sleep better.

For someone who’s never been beyond house space, the
difference in ship quality can seem mighty counter-intuitive. How could yokels
on the fringe of civilization consistently turn out ships that are better,
tougher, and meaner than the fruits of house technology? I’ll fill you in, but
it ain’t exactly a secret for those with a shred of common sense. Even the most
died-in-the-wool navy flyboy will privately admit that your typical house ship
flown by your typical house pilot wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell in
a one-on-one dogfight against an Edge-world ‘lancer. In fact, he’d be lucky if
it were just a ‘lancer- most ‘lancers I know don’t go out of their way to pick fights
if they ain’t getting paid for it. Other folks, though- that shiny badge don’t
mean a thing beyond house space. In some systems, it would be a death sentence. You might wonder- houses have the bigger militaries-
why not just embark on some good ol’ fashioned campaigns to bring the Indies
and the pirates in line? I’ll tell you why. House leadership might be stupid,
but they ain’t stupid enough to try a stunt like that. Military adventures beyond house borders have
a way of going sour- just ask any Brit pilot in Dublin, or
dust off some history holos about the Rheinlanders’ attempt to “settle” with
the GMG. House military actually has a terrible record against Indies when
engaged en mass. Ain’t nothing changed, either.

If it ever came down to a for-real shitfight between a
Liberty task force trying to “bring freedom” to, say, a Corsair stronghold –
well, let’s just hope Fleet HR has a “we regret to inform you” form letter, or
else some poor clerk is going to have a mighty sore writing hand. Hell, the
only advantages Liberty would have are numbers and prettier pilots. I shouldn’t
even joke about it, really. You see, an Indy pilot- be them a ‘lancer, a
pirate, or a smuggler- has a totally different attitude about what it is to
fly. To navy, your ship is what you joyride in while flying the same route in
the same place. It’s your job- you clock in, you look forward to it being done.
That attitude don’t exist in the Indy worlds, because to an Indy, your ship is
your home. Remember when I was
talking about my old ‘Cuda? Well, any ship made by an Indy firm is going to
have a bunk, too. Period. It might be cramped, and you probably can’t stand up
all the way, but by God, you’ll have a bunk. It’ll also have food storage, a
water filtration unit, and at least basic facilities. Most of the time, this is
all packed in a tiny space right behind the pilot’s seat, but I guaran-damn-tee
it’ll be there. There’s also the fundamental difference in engineering
values.

You see, unlike a pansy-ass nine-to-five navy toy, an Indy
ship is designed to run for weeks at a time- while in the ass end of nowhere.
All the parts- the reactor, the drive, electronics- everything- all have to run
perfect, every damn time. If
something breaks, help is likely not available. The solution? Engineer it so that it doesn't break- at least, not without help from belligerents with ships of their own.
In fact, depending on who you’ve pissed off your last few jobs, chances
are good that folks at certain ports will answer your hail with a little
weapons test. Of course, if you’re stupid enough to try to feed from the hand that
you just bit, I say you’ve got no business being in Indy space to begin with! I
mentioned that an Indy’s ship is home- and like most homeowners, Indy pilots
take great pains to keep their property in tip-top shape. Again, it’s a
difference in attitude- in the fleet or Big Shipping, it’s the hanger tech’s
problem. For the Indy, maintenance is profoundly personal; whatever they can
do, they do; whatever they can’t do, they watch over like a damn hawk while the
technician works. Everything about the ship is a customized extension of the
pilot’s will (and budget)- the paint, the components, the weapons- even the
damn cockpit seat is usually aftermarket.

That reminds me: the equipment. That’s another little secret
that makes house flyboys squirm. See, the truth is pretty bleak- Indy weps kick
the tar out of house. Indy shields shrug off more damage. The sensors are
better, the reactors are tricked out, and you can buy black market capacitors
that make shields regenerate in no time. Some folks, they replace their outer
hull with armor plating. That’s for the hardcore mercs and ‘lancers- pirates
don’t usually have it. The added weight means less cargo space, you see. The
plating itself can range from just another layer of standard ship panels to
some top-secret material the Order cooked up that takes a lot of pepper to even
scratch. Some kind of
diamond-adamantine nanocomposite, I’m told. But you get the idea. Like it or
not, Navy buys it’s ships and weapons from the lowest bidder. House
bureaucracies look at budgets first, results second. It ain’t that house
militaries want inferior equipment-
it’s just that they can’t and won’t keep up with a murderous arms race that’s
outside their jurisdiction, and why would they?
A navy ship patrolling a core trade lane can go years without needing to
open fire, whereas a ‘lancer flying some cargo from point A to point B in the
Omicrons assumes that he will.

Of course, a scuffle between two armed groups is more than
just comparing ships and gear. Hell, it’s even more than weighing combat
experience; you’ve got to look at the people themselves. Even if all things
were equal and Indies had to use the exact same equipment as navy, I would still bet my bottom credit on the
Indies. See, no Indy is going to get drawn into the neat, organized, set-piece battle
that navy trains for- why would they? Have you seen some of the places Indies hang their hat? Lava storms, dense
asteroid fields, nebulas where your sensors don’t scan for shit- hardcore
Indies not only routinely fly but fight
in these environments as a matter of course- even with Liberty’s huge numbers
advantage, it wouldn’t be a fair fight. If Liberty was stupid enough to journey to the Omicrons, the Corsairs would have them for dinner- ain't a doubt in my mind.

Is it starting to make sense? If you really want to be a pilot above what you see in house space, you
move as far away as possible. If you really
want to turn your rig into a flying dispenser of righteous justice, you get in
good with Indies. That’s all there is to it. The very best shit is found at the
most dangerous areas- because of course it is, right? But even getting there
ain’t enough- you’ve got to be real chummy with the locals too, because the GMG
or Hessians ain’t just going to sell to any shlub who just wanders by. Hell,
groups like Corsairs and Outcasts won’t even give you enough time to transmit a
“howdy”- if they don’t know you, they blast first and ID later. Of course, if
those guys do let you just mosey up
and buy their deadliest wares, chances are good that your own moral slate ain’t
exactly clean- and you’ve probably burned some pretty important bridges getting
there. So there’s that to think about. Still think it’s worth it?

Editors note: The
opinions contained in this account are strictly that of the person interviewed,
and not the publisher's. Manhattan DucuVids maintains the highest confidence that
the ships, equipment, and personnel of the Liberty government are the best to
be found within Sirius.

At the time, I was
feeling like a big fish in a small pond. I was taking on Xenos and even the
occasional Outcast in addition to my usual Rogue popping, and Sugarland paid
good credits for higher-ranking criminals. Well, long story short, I got a
little big for my britches and took a job in Rhineland against some Corsairs. I
agreed to bring in a specific baddy who had a penchant for killing their
federal police; didn’t even salvage their ships or tractor in the escape pod.
This guy (I later learned it was a woman) was either a straight-up sociopath,
or had figured out that having a force of piss-scared cops was good for
business. The local authorities put a pretty sweet bounty on his (her) head,
and I happily and stupidly volunteered. I had no idea what I was in for.

Now, in retrospect this is clear as day- but bagging Rogues
sure as hell wasn't preparation for fighting Corsairs. For starters, Rogues are
basically petty criminals who got a raw deal- most of them come from poverty and
did some time in one of the Big Houses. Of course, that shit stays on your
record, and good luck getting a job fresh out of prison… not that going to
prison is difficult or uncommon if you’re poor or unconnected. The rural economy all over Liberty is in the shitter, and lots of honest folk turn to crime just to get
by. A criminal just out of prison only has two real choices- go back to piracy,
or join up with the Guild and start hunting down your old drinking buddies. Used
to be you could get a job at one of the factories on Houston even with a record, but nowadays they're
getting more and more automated. Any leftover human labor is scarce and pays
next to nothing. You’re either a slave
for the man, or you’re on the man’s payroll bringing in more meat for the grinder.
It’s no secret that the LPI regards Liberty's underclass as it’s private labor pool- the
saying goes that LPI will bust you for jaywalking but hire you for backstabbing.
So you get the picture- Rogues are typically a mixture of desperation and
resentment. Most of them don’t have any real flight training, and what assets
they have are from their more competent benefactors, the Outcasts. Their ships are usually those ramshackle
“hound” types that are more perilous to fly than to face- but as long as you
can lash some blasters onto them, they’re dangerous to someone.

Corsairs, on the other hand… Jesus, where do I even start? You
have to understand that we’re talking about a culture that has walked the
ragged edge of survival and death for hundreds of years. Every man and woman is
a Corsair first, and a human being second. Not all Corsairs are pilots, but all
are warriors in some way or another. There are no freeloaders, no ornamental
people like you see in London or New York- you either fulfill a useful function
from the time you can walk, or you’re a waste of scarce resources. Crete ain’t
Manhattan- crops don’t grow well, only certain parts are habitable, and what
resources it has are a bitch to extract. Until a few hundred years ago, the
Corsairs weren’t really a thriving people- until they figured out that rich
folk with more money than brains would pay through the roof for the one thing
Crete has in abundance: alien artifacts. Sure, Corsairs didn’t worry anymore
about where their next meal would come from, but the idea of contact with the
rest of Sirius only made them more paranoid. You see, Crete had gone from a
hellhole to a gold mine overnight; gold mines have a way of being seized by
force. So the Corsairs, who were already used to taking scrap and making a ship
that could be handed down generations, doubled down on their xenophobic
philosophy. If anything, their society became even more militantly
survivalistic- their pilots came to see themselves as not only providers
through piracy, but warriors as well. So you see, Corsairs started off on a world that tries it’s best to kill them- and
between the piracy and the artifact trade, most of their neighbors want them
dead, too. Their ships are excellent
because they have to be; their pilots are supremely skilled because the
alternative is death.

Naturally, I felt it was a great idea to take these people
on.

The operation actually went quite well at first; I bribed a
wannabe bounty hunter to shadow the Corsair from a Freeport in a pathetic
little Starflyer while I hung back out of range. He was a young, pimply-faced
kid who was more eager than thoughtful. The ship wasn’t even his- it was his
mother’s, and he had borrowed it to do some graduation sightseeing. What he was
doing at a Freeport was anyone’s guess. Still, a naïve kid in a ship that
couldn’t harm a fly was the perfect tail to send after a Corsair. Looking back,
it was the only smart thing I did; a little economy ship with an empty hold
ain't worth a pirate’s time, and the proximity to the Freeport meant that they
wouldn’t open fire even if they had a mind to do so. I was unsure about
tracking the Corsair myself; though I had splurged on a nicer
sensor array for my ship, I couldn’t know if the Corsairs had one of equal or
better quality. Plus, following a Corsair in a Bounty Hunter ship ain’t exactly
discreet.

I had been receiving transmissions on the position of three
Corsair ships for close to twelve hours before my target’s wingmen finally
appeared to go their own way. I had to take my tracker’s word, as I had been
flying blind in a nebula a well out of range; I could receive transmissions,
but neither my eyes nor my sensors could
make out more than a few meters in front of my cockpit window.

At the time, I had counted the nebula’s cover as a stroke of
brilliant luck; I could just follow and wait until my quarry was alone, reel
him (her) in, and collect my fat reward (minus the chump change I had promised
my hireling). Now that my target was alone, I throttled up the power and burned
towards her last reported location.

As my ship burst out of the nebula, I felt a burst of savage
anticipation as I saw that, as reported, my target was alone. My glee swiftly
faded as I heard the screams of my young assistant for a brief second as his
ship was destroyed by precision fire from one of the supposedly departed
wingman. Rookie mistake- he was so intent on keeping track of our target’s
position that it had never occurred to him to check his own rear. Well, it
wasn’t as though civilians were exactly accustomed to watching their back while
flying. I began to feel real pangs of guilt, or at least would have, if all hell
hadn’t broken loose at the same time. I don’t much like to talk about it;
besides, that tale's been told already by some hack who turned my retirement
story into a cheap piece of pulp.

Long story short- I got ambushed, left to die, and it took
me four days to limp back to the Freeport. Not sure if I got a wink of sleep in
that time. Nav was working only sporadically; I barely made it back in one
piece. My ship was basically scrap; by the time I was tractored back into the
Freeport, I only had a semi-functioning thruster, a leaking reactor with one
core working, and life support that kicked on and off. I was fully suited up on
account of there being a gnarly crack in the windshield. Couldn’t even hail
anyone on the comm- it was blasted, too. By the time I was within sensor range,
the Freeport boys figured on their own that I needed help and towed me in. The ‘Cuda
was trashed. I would have had to take on some serious debt to get her right
again, and I had my first black mark in the Guild registry for the blown
mission. Goodbye, paying jobs. See, for a hunter, reputation is everything. For
me to screw up my first mission outside of Liberty space and damn near get
killed- nope. Clients would access my Guild record and see that I was nothing
but a Rogue catcher who paid the piper for thinking that he could take on Corsairs.
I would be lucky to get a job babysitting convoys for gas money- and that ain’t
no way for a bounty hunter to earn his scratch.

I sold the ‘Cuda for parts and used what savings I had to buy
a used Rhino back on Manhattan. What a goddamn disgrace. The ship was
technically certified for jump gate passage, but I barely trusted it on a trade
lane. Whoever owned it before me must have thought that maintenance was
something that other people did to
their rigs, because there was always something broke on it. It was ugly, flew
like a sick pig, and the cargo hold started smelling funny whenever I hit the
cruise drive. The hull was thin, and the reactor had trouble powering both the
weapons and shields at once, even though they were so weak I might as well have
just skipped mounting them and saved the credits. Even the goddamn bunk smelled
like the last guy, no matter how many times I chemed it. Still- it was the only
thing that I could afford after booking passage back from the Freeport. At
least it had a similar cockpit layout as my old ‘Cuda- but it wasn’t my ‘Cuda,
and I was no bounty hunter. I had suspended my Guild membership indefinitely so
that I could become a truck driver and get back on my feet- at least, that’s
what I told myself. Truth was, I was done.

Old Hunters say that a man will always know his last job
with the Guild, one way or another. If you’re lucky, it means a scoring a dream
bounty. For some like me, it was a scrape that was too close to shrug off. For
most, though… well, the Guild is always hiring for a reason.