The bounty of Janu Coons

The contract came down late — high-value target, name of Janu Coons. The briefing said he’d been moving through Stanton under the radar, bouncing between shady contacts, and finally holed up somewhere on Hurston. No station pings, no transponder, no witnesses. Ghostkiller7 and I were tapped to track him down.

It wasn’t simple. The trail bounced us across Stanton: R&R stations, a couple of moonside waypoints, even a shady bar where someone swore they’d seen him. Five stops later, we finally had a fix — a cave system out on Hurston, unmonitored and deep enough to hide from scans.

We took Ghostkiller7's Cutlass Black — an old, patched-up bird we'll call the Ashen Vow. She wasn’t pretty, but she got us there. We landed on the scorched surface, suits humming under the brutal heat. 223°C . Out there, we had maybe ten minutes of survival, and our PILSS let us know it with warning after warning. Good thing caves run cooler.

We disembarked and ran for the cave mouth. About twenty meters in, we hit paydirt — Janu’s crew.

Ghostkiller7 must’ve had a death wish. He charged in wearing nothing but an undersuit and helmet, no armor, no weapon. Unless you ask him, he'll tell you "my hands are registered as deadly weapons". Before I could even level my weapon, he’d boxed one of them unconscious with his bare fists. That’s when the rest of Janu’s men opened fire from deeper inside.

My sidearm jammed on the first volley — useless. I threw it at one guy,  cracked his helmet visor and he was quickly removed from the fight.  We scrambled, looting what we could off the fallen. Ghost grabbed an SMG with a thirty-round mag, and I turned up one with sixty. Not ideal, but better than empty hands.

We pushed deeper. Every few meters, another firefight. I kept a tractor beam handy, pulling bodies to me to grab ammo and then tossed them into a neat pile nearby so we could haul their gear later. Ammo was tight, but their losses became our gains.

A pink flare lit the way ahead. Odd — all the others had been white. We figured it was a signal, a marker for their base. Oxygen was running low by then, so we hit the injectors and pressed on.

At the bottom of the cave, we finally found him. Janu Coons. No guards left, no fight in him. Just sitting there, staring at his tablet like none of it mattered. Muttering something about the crime stat system was rigged, he didn't do anything, it wasn't his fault, blah blah blah.  He didn’t even raise his weapon. Ghost shackled him while I checked a few dark corners. Nothing but dust, rock, and the sound of our own breathing.

We marched him topside, collected the bodies, and made Janu strip his crew’s armor, medpens, and gear to load into the lockers on the Ashen Vow. From there, it was a short flight to the nearest UEE office to hand him over.

With the contract closed, we swung back to Port Olisar. Sold off the excess armor for cash, grabbed a couple of beers, and ended the night with double dogs in the lobby. Not a bad payout, considering the cave nearly cooked us alive.