Commonwealth [Inactive]

Vex watched as the Mercs got in their hovercraft and left. "Looks like we're in the clear, at least for now. I need to find a place to set down that's out of the way... Any ideas?" he asked, glancing behind him. "I saw what looked like a Traveler's outpost not far from here." Alice suggested. Vex thought for a moment, waiting until the Mercs were out of sight before wheeling the ship around. "Good enough for me. We can settle there for a while, collect our nerves. Maybe get some medical assistance for your friend." he said, glancing back at the Captain.


After a few minutes of travel they were near the outpost. He pulled the ship to a clear spot and landed, letting out a long sigh as the engines powered down. He stood, making his way back to the two. "Well, that could have gone much, much worse. We're not in the clear yet, though... Mercs like that don't usually give up that easily." he said, digging around in one of the lockers. He pulled out what looked like a mechanical collar, moving over towards the Captain. "Got some jewelry for ya. At least until you're fit enough to fight properly, that is." he said, handing the collar out to him.
 
Kuzzuk watched the ship fly away from the crash from his hiding spot in a nearby tree. "That cyborg must've been the one who disabled my hovercraft..." He had actually arrived minutes ago, but knew from the look of the ship that a fair fight would most likely not have gone his way. Only good Bounty Hunters have ships like that. But he was able to do one thing. Pulling out his datapad, he watched as the tracking device planted upon the ship pinged its location every few moments. Kuzzuk grinned. He had placed the device by firing it at the ship from his cover, a modification he recently added to one of his pistols. he did this so as to not alert any other crew or potential AIs of the bounty hunter. The tracking device itself was very low power, but limited range. It could not track a ship if it went off planet, but it's low power output made it practically undetectable by passive sweeps, and it would take a very observant man scanning, or a paranoid one, to realize it as a specific energy source and not just background noise. Kuzzuk put his datapad away, confident the device would not be found, and headed to the wreck. Perhaps he could find something with which to repair his hovercraft somewhere in it.
 
"Feeling like a princess, cap'n," he joked, referring his hand to his blood-caked jawline with a smirk. "But uh, no... no blaster pike for me," he continued, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out his tablet, "Not that I would be much good with it anyway. Nah, this little toy of mine right here is what'll do us some good." He ran his fingers along the long, shallow cut at the back of his head. Well at least that looks sealed up for now, grateful that he at least wouldn't bleed to death. "What's the plan? We just gonna let him treat us like animals before he dumps us off at some Commonwealth rock?"
 
Mark clapped Alexi on the shoulder, "Atta way! Hang in there slicer." Then he leaned in close and whispered, "We'll play along for awhile, I think. Anyways, it's a free ride to a settlement." Then Mark gestured to the tablet in Alexi's hand, "So what's our ace slicer?"
 
Vex stood behind the Captain for a few moments, holding the collar. He sighed slightly, adjusting it for a moment. Well, if the Captain wasn't going to put the thing on willingly...


Vex suddenly pulled a pistol from his belt, pressing the barrel against the back of the Captain's head. "Be a good guy and put this on, would you?" he asked calmly, pulling the hammer back on the weapon. He tossed the collar on the crates in front of him. "Non-lethal suppression and tracking collar. They're actually quite comfortable. I'm sure you understand why I need you to wear this." he said, pressing the barrel of the weapon just a little harder on the back of his head. "Don't need you running off before you're in top shape again. After all, there's really no honor to be had in hunting such a high-profile target like yourself if you're not at one hundred percent."
 
Kuzzuk searched all throughout the crashed ship, muttering something under his breath about being a murderer, not a scavenger. Eventually, he managed to find all the supplies needed, and headed back towards where he left his hovercraft. If left uninterrupted, figured he'd be able to get his hovercraft running within half an hour. As he scavenged and worked he made sure to be aware of any other potential scavengedrs, and every now and then checked his datapad to be sure his tracking device was still transmitting.
 
The bounty hunter jabbed a pistol in Mark's face. That was the worst move he could have made. Mark spun around sweeping his arm up in a flash and ducking at the same time. The gun fired and a bullet grazed his temple, but he was relatively unharmed. Then continuing, Mark grabbed the wrist of the cyborg, twisted it, and sent his foot into the cyborg's chest in a sidekick. For a normal human, this would have been impossible. However, because Captain Fuller was a heavy gravity human, he was able to do this, though not easily. He now had his own blaster-pike trained on the bounty hunter. "I agreed to tag along, but you still owe me that fight before you're putting anything like that on. I have nowhere to go at the moment, so don't be worrying about my escape, just be watching your back."
 
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Vex showed no signs of pain from the attacks. At this point, he had altered his body far past the ability to feel all but the most intense of pains. He tilted his head a bit, no small amount of amusement in his voice. "Alright then. If you would rather us have our little skirmish now and not wait for you to heal, then that's on you." he said, easily twisting his wrist out of the man's grip.


He stepped past him to a weapons locker, opening it. "If we're to make this fair, you'll need more than that pike." he said, pulling out an assault rifle. He did a quick check of the weapon to make sure it was in working order and full up on ammunition. "We will do this by the proper rules. Your friend here will be held on the ship. If you manage to defeat me, you both will be given your freedom. If you do not, I will take the bounty on your head. Deal?" he asked, opening the cargo bay door. "You may not trust me to hold up my end of the bargain, but I swear on my duty as a Hunter that I will. You seem like an honorable man, so I will trust you to hold up your end."
 
The captain turned back to Alexi, "Hang in there slicer." He brushed away the assault rifle and jumped out of the ship. He pulled out his blaster-pike, pressing a button that made the barrel twist and elongate. Then he pounded the pike on the ground, the weapon was now as tall as he was. "So how are we going to do this then?"
 
Vex followed him out, the cargo bay closing behind him. The ship lifted off, coming to a hover fifty yards in the air. "However you please." he answered, pulling his assault rifle from his back. "Though, I would suggest running." he added, suddenly boosting high into the air. His eyes flashed from a blue-green to a red color, as his vision's spectrum switched to infrared. He could see his target clearer now, and he quickly shouldered his rifle and began firing. As he reached the apex of his jump he boosted backwards, hoping to find some cover when he landed.
 
Mark saw the bounty hunter launch into the air. He swore under his breath, rolling forward behind the cover of a rock. He stood up, took a shot, then threw the blaster-pike at him, the boomerang ability activating.
 
Vex mumbled a curse, boosting back further than intended. Before he landed he shifted his weight, the blaster-pike grazing his arm. It left a decent gouge, but wasn't deep enough to break through the armor plating. He landed and rolled backward, firing off a grenade from the underslung launcher at the rock, hoping to destroy the cover before rolling behind cover himself. Just after he heard the grenade detonate he suddenly boosted out of cover, unloading the rest of his magazine at the Captain's location.
 
Captain Fuller pressed his back against the rock as something exploded and he was showered in debris and sparks. He timed the throw of his blaster-pike and popped up to grab it. His cover had been reduced by half. He leaned around the side and let off three more shots. Then he stood and sprinted to a new rock, shooting sideways as he ran.
 
Alexei stumbled weakly onto his feet, pulling out his tablet once again. "The bounty hunter gets to play his game, now let's play ours," he murmured with a grin, examining Vex's ship. All he had to do was find a terminal to be his gameboard. He limped toward a locked door leading to the cockpit and held his tablet to it, opening a program. He hastily typed a line of code and let the device go to work, only having to wait a few moments for the correct numbers to fall into place. Alexei slowly crept into the cockpit, looking for some kind of terminal or at least a navigation computer. "Hang in there, Fuller," he muttered half a second before being startled by a sudden flash of blue light. The light slowly formed into the shape of a young woman.


"Identity confirmed as Alexei Sviridov," announced the AI with a mild inflection of concern, "Initiating console encryption, hostile presence detected." Alexei muttered a curse before gritting his teeth in frustration. Regardless, he approached the locked terminal and examined the screen. He held his tablet up and used it to examine the encryption. Nonstandard code. Commonwealth? No, illegal formatting, AI generated encryption. Black market more likely. Conventional code-breaking won't work, he pondered to himself for a few moments. His eyes scanned across his tablet for whatever other information he could get. One word, a name caught his attention: Alice. He entered a search command into his sensitive information channels for anything having to do with this Alice and entered in another keyword: bounty hunter.
 
A light flashed on the tactical console in front of Thomas.


"Weapons fire? It's in the direction we last saw that bounty hunter going." He grinned, he may still have a chance with this one.


"We need a vehicle" he said as he turned to one of his soldiers.


They loaded up another hovercraft, this time Thomas took the controls himself, two soldiers with assault rifles and light armour with a jungle camouflage pattern climbed into the seats behind him. With the push of a few buttons, the craft glided smoothly down the cargo ramp of the Providence Spirit. When they had reached the ground, Thomas shoved the throttle forward and turned in the direction of the indicated weapons fire.
 
Alexei glanced out the window, and back at his tablet, waiting for all the results to be compiled. Wait a second. He looked out the window again, gazing at a hovercraft charging toward Vex's ship. He sighed, arching his eyebrow, before returning to his results. A series of private messages caught his attention. What have we here? he mused with a certain child-like joy. He opened the file and examined the message exchange, one specific message catching his attention:


Look, I don't know what a bounty hunter would want -- especially someone like Vex -- with this kind of AI. It's not like anything anyone has ever had me develop. He calls it "Alice." I'm not sure whether to be terrified or just shut up and take my pay.





"Well that's that," he said aloud to himself. He looked around the room before softly asking, "Alice?"
 
As mark worked his way from cover to cover, he tried to get closer to Vex. Finally, he saw his chance. The sound of a hovercraft had distracted Vex for a moment, and that's all he needed. Captain Fuller hurdled his last barrier and leapt into the air. He went a lot higher than a normal human ever could, and landed right next to Vex, kicking the rifle away. Now there was no rifle, and he couldn't shoot with his blaster-pike because of the close range. So now it was just a pike. Mark spun around, whacking Vex in the back of the knee with his pike. Then followed up with another spin and a blow the the cyborg's head. Now was the real battle. Captain Fuller was fighting a Cyborg, but he was a heavy gravity human, and could hold his own.
 
Kuzzuk finished his repairs, and began riding his hovercraft towards the sound of the gunfire. "what was the use of a tracking device if the one you're following begins shooting up a forest?" Kuzzuk thought. This time, he would be sure to ride through the trees on low power to avoid scans, and to disembark before his craft would be visible by sight, as well.
 
Alexei released a long, heavy sigh, rapidly tapping his fingers on the terminal screen. The only thing I could do to decrypt this would be programming a counter AI to weave through any other code Alice would create automatically, but it would have to be faster. Of course, I certainly as hell don't have any time for that, he thought with increasing panic that his face was unwilling to portray. Alexei reluctantly looked for some kind of weapon around the controls in a last ditch effort to help the captain. A pistol caught his eye, a relatively weak firearm, but it would do, hopefully in spite of his lack of training. He staggered out of the cockpit and out onto the loading ramp as fast as he could, his eyes darting around, searching for Vex. He tried to line up the shot with Vex's head, clenching the gun tightly. He took a deep breath and calmly squeezed the trigger, sending the bullet soaring. He could only hope it would at least graze the bounty hunter's shoulder. There he was, doing it again: hoping. "I need to stop doing that," he muttered.
 
The craft stopped about 20 metres away from the battle, the two soldiers jumped out, not bothering to use the doors. Thomas stood and loaded the .50 calibre machine gun mounted on the hovercraft.


"Hey, Hunter, this bounty doesn't look claimed" he shouted mockingly in Vex's direction.


The two soldiers found cover, crouching behind some rocks.
 
Vex found it fairly amusing, watching as the Captain tried to engage him in hand-to-hand combat. As the man closed in he quickly slung his rifle, allowing the Captain's strikes to land. "You made a mistake, trying to take me on at this close of range, Captain." he said, his hand suddenly shooting out to grab the man by the throat. He lifted his other arm, a long blade sliding out of the forearm. "I told you to run. You should have taken my advice."


"You didn't even buy me dinner first... That's not very gentlemanly." Alice said over the loudspeaker to Alexei, the ship suddenly dropping fifteen feet straight down. With Alexei not strapped into anything, it would mean a very, -very- unpleasant meeting with the ceiling. "If you need information, Alexei, all you need to do is ask. I won't be able to tell you everything, obviously, but I'll do my best."





Vex was about to add a new hole in the good Captain's chest, as the same Merc from before pulled to a stop nearby. Vex slowly turned his head, his eyes burning like coals. "Just a friendly duel, Merc. It's none of your concern." he said, his voice taking on a dangerous edge. He was just getting into this fight, and interrupting him was a bad idea. "You don't know when to leave well enough alone, do you? Alice, drop the good Captain and myself some heavier weapons. Oh, and destroy that hovercraft, there's a .50 cal on board that doesn't look too friendly."


"Yes sir." she said in a playful tone, a crate dropping from the underside of the ship. It landed with a heavy thud nearby, and Vex let go of the Captain's throat. "Go get some real weapons. We'll finish this after we're done disposing of the Mercs."


The blade on his arm slid back into place as he shouldered his rifle, firing off a volley in the direction of the head Merc. His ship swung around, suddenly firing off three missiles at the hovercraft before pulling out of the combat zone. 
((Damn guys, I'm out sick for one day and you guys go nuts! xD ))
 
"That's the best decision you've made today Vex. You know one more second and you would've been paralyzed. I've got some tricks up my sleeve too." Then the captain turned to the hovercraft, trying to pic the side mercs off. Captain Fuller stood in next to Vex, no cover between them and the hovercraft, firing at a common enemy. For most this would be considered a death wish.
 
"One more second and you would have been breathing through a hole in your chest, so I guess that makes us even." Vex replied, a bit of a laugh in his voice. He backed up to the crate that dropped, keeping supressing fire on the Mercs. The crate opened and Vex reloaded, before opening fire again. "We'll finish this, then get back to what we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted."
 
"You better start writing your last will and testament first." chuckled Mark. He noticed Alexi out of the corner of his eye, holding a pistol. When did he learn to shoot?
 
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