Who knows, this might turn into something. Update: Added/changed a few things.
With bullets repeatedly slamming into the other side of the crate he was hiding behind, Jonah realized he was not having the best of days.
“Ni ta ma de! Tianxia suoyoude ren. Dou gaisi! Would you go tsao de bastards stop shooting at me!?”
In fact, it started a few days back, when he first landed on Silverhold. He had always heard interesting stories about how these particular colonies took a much more police-state viewpoint on law enforcement, but he was not banking on quite so fast of a response time out here in the far reaches of a largely unoccupied cargo-handling facility. Unfortunately, he had not accounted for the fact that the Silverhold Enforcement Squads purchased hovercraft a few months back. Intel does tend to be useful from time to time. At the moment, though, Jonah could have settled for just a single distraction…
“Soon as you come out from behind that box!”
The job he originally took that ended with him on Silverhold facing impending perforation was simple enough – pick up some rich dandy’s cargo from Beaumonde and ferry it here. Hell, the cargo was even perfectly legal and legit, with the Alliance, with the Silverholders, and with Beaumonde. Unfortunately, on the rather long jaunt between worlds, Jonah got to thinking, and that is generally a bad habit for anyone with too little cash, a small criminal record, and the desires for something a little better than what he has now.
“And how the tyen shiao duh am I supposed to accomplish that with you shooting at me?”
Once he got within range of Silverhold, Jonah made contact with a few acquaintances he had made there a few years back, to see if they had anything they wanted to ferry off-planet in a… surreptitious… manner. Unsurprisingly enough, they did, and to make matters even better, considering the size of Jonah’s transportation, it was not a particularly large item. In fact, it fit into Jonah’s pack with room to spare. The meeting went exactly according to plans, the item was handed over along with instructions on where to drop it off on Persephone to get paid, and the parties went their separate ways. Things started going south a few minutes after Jonah left the meeting, with the first real indication being, coincidentally enough, someone trying to shoot him. That pattern had continued for the better part of the past two days, and things were looking like they were coming to an end, one way or another.
“A’ight. We stop shooting, you come on out.”
The sad thing was that he even had is own firearm with him, and was a rather fair shot with it at that. Of course, the worse thing was that he was out-numbered about six-to-one, and while he had more than enough bullets for that kind of situation, they had even more, and could probably shoot faster. Being a mostly law-abiding citizen of the great and almighty Alliance occasionally has its drawbacks. Well, actually, those drawbacks strike more than occasionally, but considering the shortcomings of the current governmental administration while being shot at does not tend to extend one’s life expectancy.
All things considered, and given the behavior of the Enforcement Squad up until now, their offer was certainly a reasonable one. And, if it were not for the fact that he was currently in the possession of some slightly illegal (at least in their opinion) goods, he might have honestly taken them up on it – after all, his papers were in good standing, and no government had any crimes levied against the particular name imprinted upon the set he had with him now. But seeing as how he did not want to spend the next night (or the quite-a-few thereafter) in a confinement cell, he did the next best thing to turning himself into the authorities.
He ran.
Waiting for the last bullets to splatter into the dirt around him, he poked his head over the edge of the box, and eyed the six Enforcers still watching him over the barrels of their firearms. Fortunately, this also gave him the chance to verify the contents and design of some of the other crates and containers laying about the cargo handling area they were currently situated in. One of them suited his fancy, so the time of action was upon him. Unfortunately, he was a born and bred coward, so it took him a moment to get all of his thoughts together.
“Y’all done trying to ruin these good people’s cargo?” was about the only thing that came to Jonah’s mind to buy time.
“Wouldn’t ‘a had to if you had just stopped runnin’ when we told you to.” Of course, it was the largest, most heavily armed and armored Enforcer who spoke up, causing Jonah to momentarily wonder if the size and accouterments came with the job, or vice versa.
However, having reached the extent of his witty repartee, Jonah simply called out, “Fair ’nuff,” got to his feet, and promptly shot the compressed gas cylinder sitting a scant ten feet from the farthest-left Enforcer.
Considering that he never bothered shooting back at the Enforcers while they pursued him, they certainly were not expecting that reaction to their demands to come out. Additionally, considering that it was a compressed gas cylinder he shot, the target of his aggression immediately launched itself across the area, careened into a stack of containers, and sent the whole pile flying into the air. By way of a distraction, it certainly served its purpose – the Enforcers ducked and covered like their lives depended on it (the odds were good that they did), and Jonah took the opportunity to run like hell.
His ship had been in sight for the past five minutes that the Enforcers spent riddling his hiding spot with holes, and he had already planned his route through the crates down to every last turn. Granted, the terrain changed a little with the whole compressed-air rocket darting back and forth around the boxes, but Jonah made the distance in what was record time, at least for him. Having the foresight to mash the controls on his remote before reaching the ship, he dove in through the now-open hatch, sealed it tight behind him, and crawled into the pilot’s chair. The Enforcers had the opportunity to squeeze off a few shots and mar up his paint job before Jonah was able to floor the throttles, vector the thrust, and get his bird off the ground, cargo and, more importantly, himself perfectly intact. Headed for the black as quickly as his bucket of bolts could take him, he knew that the Cortex would be swarming with information about himself, his illicit cargo, and his ship in very short order. His only hope at the moment was that he could outrun any aerospace intercepts sent his direction, and head outbound before anyone decided to start hunting him down.
Finally breaking clear of the forces of gravity and tendrils of atmo, he plotted the quickest course (at least for his ship) to Persephone, checked all of the automatic systems to ensure they were working in at least moderate order, and stuffed the circuitry of the comms control panel back into its box. Something about the vibrations of leaving atmo always made it fall apart… Pushing back from the pilot’s console, Jonah allowed himself a moment’s pause, and rested his face in his hands.
“Aiya. That was a close one. You know, I really wonder what it was that Zel gave me…”
Hearing the distinct sound of a round being chambered into a firearm behind him, however, convinced Jonah that his series of bad days was far from being over.
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