Interlude Four - The Nightshade

Of all the bounty hunters around the Jupiter circuit, there was none more respected and feared than The Nightshade.

When The Nightshade showed up, bowels were emptied, prayers were made, and pirates across the Jupiter circuit disappeared in explosive conflagrations.

People assumed that The Nightshade was a beautiful woman. They had a mental image of what she looked like, and there was plenty of salacious art. A bombshell babe, a femme fatale, ready to step on some lucky pirate's junk before putting a hole in his head.

She flew a heavily modified Corvus 501b Nightstalker. It was the principal fighter-interceptor of the Earth Alliance at the start of the third inter-system war. The fighter was phased out by the end, but it had a good reputation.

The Nightstalker wasn't just a reliable fighter, it was a sexy one. History buffs placed it next to the Spitfire and the Mustang, competing for the hottest fighter craft. It was twenty-three metres of hex-grid framing around a single powerful engine.

You wanna talk manoeuvrability? The Nightstalker could drift through a barrage of heavy point-defence like a sparrow darting through a forest canopy. Forty-two manoeuvring jets and a cockpit designed to let its pilot control each and every one independently.

It was the fighter-interceptor with the highest number of aces during the war. And one of the highest number of pilot fatalities too. It was a right bitch to fly. Temperamental, rude, impolite. The Nightstalker treated its pilot like shit, but it got results.

That was why The Nightshade was the best.

At the moment, she sat on the leaderboard. Four from the top in highest pirate kill counts, but only because she exclusively took on seek-and-destroy work. If push came to shove and the others had to fight The Nightshade, they'd turn around and slink back home.

Which was why Pixie was pissed off at the moment.

She had a rep. She had respect.

But only when she was in the cockpit, her double 30mm railguns hot and her full rack of seeker missiles primed.

Out of the cockpit she wasn't The Nightshade. She was Pixie Starling, general mechanic for Flower-Power Ltd. The Nightshade's favourite mechanic and only known associate outside of the Jupiter Bounty Board.

Pixie climbed up onto the tips of her toes, reached an arm up as high as it would go, then tapped the ringer another time.

"For fuck's sake," someone said above her.

She quickly stepped back, crossing her arms and trying to make the fact that she had just been straining less obvious. Finally, she was noticed.

Pixie was waiting for these parts for six months already. Her baby needed a fresh set of filters and an oil change. Nothing big, but it was still important. She treated her ship right, and it did her good in turn.

"Oh, didn't see you there," the big lug behind the counter said. He wasn't all that big, really, more like an average-sized grunt, but the counter was tall, blocking his sight of her when she was too close to it. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"I have an order that came in," Pixie said as she tamped down on her frustration. "Under the name Starling. Pixie Starling."

The man hummed, then pulled up a tablet that he pawed through. Pixie watched, her patience already a little short. "Ah, yeah, I got ya. Do you have any ID?"

She nodded, then fished through her purse for her ID. After he checked it--and she noticed that he eyed her age for a moment longer than he needed to--the man nodded. "Did you want to bring things yourself or... uh... nevermind, I'll schedule a delivery."

She glared, but... yes, the filters were rather large, and carrying them all herself would be somewhat complicated. Once everything was set, she turned on a heel and stomped off.

This was life on Io. At least, for her. No matter where she went in person she was consistently and constantly underestimated, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Well, no, that wasn't true. There was one thing she could do, but she wasn't sure if it would be wise.

With a shake of her head, she pushed the thought aside, even if it had been nagging at her for a while now.

She crossed from one side of the station to another, taking a slight, unnecessary detour as she did. There was a window here that she enjoyed. It was built from floor to ceiling, inch-thick glass with a permanent kinetic shield on the other side. From here, she could look out past the walls surrounding the station and out onto the vast plains of Io.

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Io was one of the solar system's largest moons, with a slight gravity and no end of trouble waiting for people who wanted to settle it.

The moon was volcanically active. Constantly spewing steaming liquids out from its porous surface with pools of sulphur all over. The surface housed some two thousand-odd mining stations, drilling into the moon for its precious metals. With those came hovering factories. Massive structures held off the moon's surface and tethered in place by chains with links taller than Pixie.

Io was the industrial hub of the Jupiter circuit. There were more machines here than people by a factor of a million.

It was an impossibly hostile world whose hostility was due to the very thing that made it so valuable. The skies from the surface were constantly tinted in a pale yellow as dust from a dozen active volcanoes coated the moon's barely-existent atmosphere.

It was beautiful, from within the safe confines of a station.

Pixie stared for a moment more. In the distance, a hauler was shuffling along at a snail's pace. It was a cargo ship that could probably fit ten of old Earth's super tankers in its hull with room to spare.

Kilo-per-kilo, the sulphur and iron and silicates mined on Io weren't worth all that much, but when they could easily extract them by the millions of tons? There was value in that. And the ships that carried those resources were slow-moving whales. They needed protecting, which was why, when she wasn't out and about, she was The Nightshade, keeping miners and investments safe from pirates and thieves and the less scrupulous corporations of Jupiter.

With a hum, Pixie turned and started the walk back to her ship. The filters would be arriving soon enough, and she had to keep an eye on the repair drones. She'd had more than one attempt on her life already. Lowering her guard would only make it worse.

She took an auto-tram out of the station and across some floating rails to another station only half a kilometre away. This one was a spaceport. Some fifty or so square openings lined the surface of the station, each one currently closed to keep out the sulphur dust from the ships tucked away within.

Her ship was sitting in one of these, costing her a pretty penny for every hour it sat there, but needs must. Besides, being one of the best bounty hunters in the system meant that she could set her price, and she didn't set it low.

More and more, she was considering retirement. Or maybe... maybe she could let the title of The Nightshade live on?

It was an idea for another time, maybe.

On arriving at her hangar, she took a moment to take in her baby. The Nightstalker was sitting pretty in the middle of the space. Usually, teams would share a hangar, there was room for a dozen smaller fighters, and even a larger interceptor like her Nightstalker only took up a fraction of the space in here, but... well, she had money to burn, and having a whole space to herself meant that someone coming to mess with her shit would be all the more obvious.

Pixie walked towards her ship, pausing near the nose to reach up and pat it.

She couldn't reach.

Grumbling to herself as the moment was ruined, Pixie continued on around the ship and sent a signal to open the ramp. It lowered, and she climbed aboard.

Within was a small living space. A tiny cooking spot, a fold-out table, a few drawers and cabinets for gear and such. It was a tight space to live in, but she didn't mind. Space was a premium on any ship, and on a fighter that was doubly true.

Closing the hatch, she slipped out of her boots and put them in a box that she clamped shut, then she changed into something a little more comfortable, her custom flight suit.

As she started to warm up a meal, she connected to the station's internet systems. It didn't take long to notice that she had a message waiting for her. Well, no, she had a few dozens. Work offers, interview offers, one threat--fewer than usual--and some administrative crap, but only one message jumped out to her.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subj: I need a favour

Pixie's heart skipped a beat. Then she stilled it with a frown.

Yes, it had been a while since she'd last talked to Missy, but she was over the warmime. It was done with. Missy went on and did her own thing.

Pixie wasn't going to fall in love so easily with the next tall, dark, and dangerous woman she met. She promised herself!

***