Here's the final part of Chiv's story, for now, I will be coming back to him, but I think this is a good, a place than any, to close his chapter. If you haven't read the first or second part of this story, I'd advise you to do so, otherwise, it'll be hard to follow what's happening. Here's part 1
@killerwot/bounty-hunt-part-1
Two days of walking had started to take its toll on Chiv. He was glad that he had gathered up some rations from the bodies back at the makeshift camp. Hunting had been disastrous, not only were creatures hard to come by, but when he finally caught sight of one he seemed to miss every shot. This new rifle was terrible, the lack of scope made it hard, but, his jittery hand made it even worse. He had thought of giving Gun-Kin Deset a go of the rifle, but, decided against it, knowing that he couldn't trust him as far as he could throw him.
The two of them sat at their camp around a fire, the sleep deprivation had also been hard on Chiv's mind. He felt slow, slow to respond, slow to move. He walked as if he were in a hazy dream, but, one so vivid as if he was recalling a memory as he followed Gun-Kin. Micro sleeping wasn't enough, he had no choice though. "You can sleep if you want, I won't run away." Gun-Kin had said to him in a chirpy voice before. Yeah, I'm not worried about you running. I'm worried as soon as my eyes close you'll kill me. He would Chiv knew, he had been around people like him back in his younger years, smile to your face while planning what better way to kill you.
"How far now? You said it wasn't too far away. It's been two days." Chiv said shaking off his tiredness. "You think a two-day walk is a long time? You wouldn't have made it long if you grew up here." Gun-Kin laughed out, as blobs of spit flew from his mouth. So much so that their fire hissed slightly from the droplets. "Yeah? Well, I doubt you would have lasted long on Trisk, or New Trisk for that matter." Chiv said in a slow droning voice. "New Trisk? As I remember the planets called Rotchnok, we used to deal with some Rotchi back in the day. They were easy to work with." Gun-Kin said as his sentence veered off as if he were reminiscing. "The Rotchi dealt weapons to the Confederation troops. When they came back to Trisk for their second occupation, after their first one failed, they devastated us." Chiv's memory of his home-world bubbled up, but, he was quickly able to make the thought subside.
"Then the Triskens went on to occupy a planet, becoming the thing that they fought so hard against. Funny how things turn out." "Shut it. You don't know what you're talking about." Chiv hears a crunch from behind him and quickly turns to look out into the darkness surrounding him. "Yeah. I don't know anything." "Shut up. I just heard something." Chiv whispers. "You're hallucinating from lack of sleep most likely," Gun-Kin says in his usual, condescending lispy tone. "I said shut up." Listening out to the darkness, everything was still, silent.
A blast fly's past Chiv's face and hits a rock behind him. He rolls and gets to his feet quickly. Unholstering his pistol, he returns fire. The light from his weapon illuminates the darkened area and he counts three people. They charge at him and he lets off a flurry of shots, he sees one going down as the others make it closer, one charges him with a melee weapon and the other lines up a shot. He could see them now. They were a Zun-Kullen Warband. Chiv grapples with the closest one, he loses his footing landing on the ground, the one on top lets out a wail as he knocks Chiv's weapon out of his hand. He can feel a tight grip wrap around his throat and tries to reach his weapon. Instead, he picks up a rock, with it in hand he swings. Cracking the skull of the one on top no doubt. Falling limp to the ground Chiv has a chance to regain himself, picking up his pistol with his free hand. "Little help here!" He sees that the final opponent is grabbing at Gun-Kin without thinking Chiv lets off a few blasts killing him. Once again, their camp falls silent, the only sound being their fire crackling.
"You okay? I told you to shut up." Chiv coughs a bit and spits up some phlegm. "I think you hit me too," Gun-Kin says in a steady tone. Chiv walks over to inspect the damage, Gun-Kins stomach had smoke coming from it and his shirt was scourged and smouldering slightly. Dampening it, Gun-Kin let out a scream. "You'll be fine. You're lucky it was just a laser pistol or you would have been in real trouble."
Chiv spends the next hour tending to Gun-Kins wound, in the light he realised it was worse than it seemed. Without real medical attention, it'll get infected and kill him. I need to get to this base and get him back before he dies. Otherwise, he'll only be worth 150. Chiv contemplates, considering leaving right now and forgetting the base. Quickly he shakes off that thought. The potential earnings from raiding their base were too much to give up.
"How far is the base?" Chiv asked him while the two sat once more by the fire. "Are you serious? You still want to attack it. I feel like I'm going to die." Gun-Kin says in a panicked voice. "You just might, would that base have some kind of ship or land speeder?" "Well. Yeah." Gun-Kin writhes around while speaking. "We can either walk for a few days back to the nearest town, or I can kill your old gang steal a speeder and get back to town faster. What do you think we should do?"
It was their only option. Chiv could sleep easy this night, knowing that Gun-Kin needed him as much as Chiv needed the price on his head. The next day's walk was slower than it had been, Gun-Kins stomach had started to ooze and in the daylight, it seemed a lot worse than he previously thought.
"There it is." Gun-Kin said through gritted teeth. "An old military outpost? There looks to be a lot more than seven people in there." Chiv looked upon it, the walls were crumbling and the sands of Zun-Kulla seemed to be reclaiming it. There were two towers in the front and a few more at the back of the base. There seemed to be one large building and a few smaller ones dotted around inside the walls. Wait until nightfall he thought to himself, it'll be around shortly.
Dusk came, Chiv had a plan of action in mind. But, was open to any suggestion from Gun-Kin, who was too busy to think up any ideas. "I'll be back soon, stay here." Chiv said. "Where the hell do you think I'll be going?" The previous wit of Gun-Kin had fully devolved to sarcastic jabs. Not that it mattered much to Chiv.
He made it to the walls of the complex, there was hardly any light within the place, which he knew would make it easier to remain undetected. By the look of it, there was no one manning the towers. The patrols were so sporadic, that there was no way of counting how many there were or what their movements were, so he just had to take it as they came.
Inside now, hugging to the wall of the larger building he could hear the voices of those inside. He unholstered his club, knowing that melee was his best option, taking each one by surprise. He wouldn't last long on his own in a gunfight. The first guard was easy to kill, standing outside pissing against the wall, it only took two hits to kill him. The second and third were a bit harder, he had to wait for them to stop talking and walk away from each other. They were too close to each other still, so he knew that whacking the first would alert the second. He had to strangle the first and that gave him an opening then to take down the second one.
It's taking too long, he thought to himself. The longer he takes the sooner someone will come looking for them. He had rummaged through some of the corpses and found, among other things, that two had been carrying explosives. He saw the speeders, three of them. One seemed in better condition than the other two, must be the bosses. If I blow one of them up, I could hoax the others outside. He thought to himself, knowing that close quarters wasn't the best option. He set the charges and dragged the two most recent corpses to one of the speeders, to make it look like an accident. Keeping one of the charges on him.
He looked for the best place to hide and lay in wait, deciding to scale the building, which gave him a good place to overlook their exit. He set them off and the blast could be heard echoing throughout the base, ones the noise went away he could hear shouting and scrambling from within the building. Soon they were outside, he counted six. Gathered around the flames of the speeders watching on, unsure what to do. He activated the final charge and tossed it down into the crowd, they didn't even hear it drop. Chaos, the base was finished and the Chemer Gang was done. He slid back down to the ground from the roof, he could hear the groans of some of the ones left on the ground, but he soon finished them off.
He entered the base, it was quiet, but he took his pistol out in case there was some left. The first room was more or less empty, other than rubbish and some food left out, deeper into the base though, he found the stash. An armoury stacked full of weapons of all kinds, he dumped the rifle he had previously scavenged and took a Beskin one instead, well maintained, polished and it even had a scope and what seemed to be a brand new charging stock. He would have preferred a Trisken rifle, but this one would have to do for now. He even got his hands on a new pistol, not one of the laser ones either to his delight. He was about to move on when he saw a full set of armour, leather, mostly. But, steal arm pads, shoulder pads and shin guards, as well as a steal chest piece and helmet. The helmet he didn't need but, decided he would come back and take it before he left. The new armour was heavy to wear, it had been a long time he had anything of this quality. He scoped out the rest of the place, taking his time to search through everything, there he found the stash of money. He skimmed every last Token. Seeing the numbers rising almost made his mouth water, by the end he had 1,793 FST's. More than enough to keep him going for a long time, including in that the price he could make from the weaponry he was going to take and sell from the armoury.
He was walking back out, distracted by his newfound wealth when he heard a swoosh behind him and was struck on the back of the head so hard, he heard his exo-skeleton crack.
End
Okay so Chiv's final part here took a bit longer than I intended it to and I'm still not where I thought I would end it when I first started writing him. His story is going to continue, but, I'd like to get back to another character for the time being.
Here's a link to Part 1 of Flux's newest chapter, Getting Settled.
@killerwot/getting-settled-part-1