When we finally arrived at Birgis, everyone was feeling a bit tense. We were all in the cockpit, ready to man various stations should things devolve into a space battle. None of us expected any real issues, but this was still the first heavily populated planet we were visiting since we had stolen the Intervention. We had our comms connection with the Intervention open constantly, with Tatnia giving us frequent updates on what the warships' more powerful sensors were picking up.
"We are being scanned, but it's nothing out of the ordinary," She reported, her voice slightly distorted through the tightband comms. "I'm not picking up anything that could really threaten us. Just civilian level defenses."
"Alright. Julus, contact the docking bay that we are coming down from orbit now," I said, leaning back in my chair. "Go ahead and begin the descent, Intervention. Calima, follow them in."
We descended on the planet slowly, heading for the very outskirts of the largest city on the planet. The berth we found was waiting for us, empty, with plenty of room for both our ships to land. It was a significantly large landing pad and would cost us a good chunk of credits to rent for a week, but it was unfortunately necessary.
With any luck, it would be worth the cost.
Once the Chariot landed with a reverberating thump, the crew spent about an hour getting organized and preparing. The B2 guards were activated and quickly started moving around the ships, with four from the Chariot and six from the Intervention taking up a patrol outside, the rest walking around inside.
When Miru was sure B2s were all working well, she spent about fifteen minutes explaining the BX's abilities to everyone. She also had one put on a demonstration, the nimble droid running around the cargo bay, jumping and bouncing over crates. It was an extremely impressive display, especially considering just how stiff most of its CIS robotic soldiers were. She also ended with a word of caution.
"These guys are much tougher than the B1s, but they are not indestructible," She explained, rapping her knuckle on one of the droid's chest as it stood at attention. "Like most CIS droids, they are also a bit on the reckless side. Order them to do something dumb, and they will do something dumb, even if it gets them killed. None of them will develop personalities, but they are still expensive tools that will absolutely jump needlessly into the way of danger if you give a stupid order. We nudged up their self-preservation a bit, so they won't step into moving traffic when you ask them to cross the street, but it's still something to keep in mind."
"Why won't they develop personalities?" Tatnia asked. "Why not do what you did for the repair droids and have one leader who goes unwiped?"
"At some point, we might," I responded. "For now, though, I want the very dangerous combat droids to have as few quirks as possible. Besides, lots of evidence shows that CIS droids kind of fall apart when they aren't frequently wiped."
"Oh. Alright, fair enough."
When Miru was done, I ordered two of the BXs to climb into the Arrow, the droids following their orders silently and marching toward the hangar. Julus and I said our goodbyes for the day, packed up the last of what we needed, and hopped into the Arrow. Julus volunteered to fly while I took a seat next to the sensor controls Miru added a while ago. It would make finding a lot of our targets easy.
"Alright, our first target is a bounty posted by a farmer about an hour from here," I explained, sending the location to the front screen in front of Julus. "There's a herd of invasive grazing animals, something called a 'Dorum', that we are going to trim down. The pay is five hundred credits."
"Oh, wow. No wonder no one else has picked it up," Julus said, taping the controls for the Arrow and slowly lifting off the first deck of the Chariot. "If I didn't know you needed to kill animals anyway, I would say it wasn't worth our time."
"It almost isn't any way," I agreed. "I would have picked a more profitable option, but this is the first time I'm doing this, so starting with a relatively docile herbivore while I get used to the process sounded like a good idea."
After a bit of slow maneuvering and guidance from Miru, we drove from the central cargo space into the starboard hangar bay and out of that into the open air. As Julus flew up and over the ship's berth walls, I considered the idea of keeping the starboard hangar reserved for ground units. Being able to open the bay doors and send out a bunch of speeder bikes and an air speeder could be extremely useful. So far, the plan had been to find starfighters that could fit in each bay. Either that or to find even more tri-fighters to convert into raindrops, but the idea of having a rapidly deploying ground force was also pretty tempting. Then again, starfighters could be used against ground assets with incredible effectiveness. It was and usually a lot safer for the starfighter, too.
For now, I put aside the idea and focused on activating the sensor unit, setting it to scan the ground, mostly just to get a feel for the concentration of wildlife. There were three very hostile creatures that the government would pay us to kill. There were stipulations, mostly about them being within range of any city, village, or town, but the range was so broad that it ended up being a significant chunk of the continent we had landed on.
It seemed that the government had little concern for conservationist ideas.
About an hour later, we were flying over a massive expanse of plains and lightly forested land. Inside that area was a large farm, at least a dozen or so acres across. The field was planted with what looked like small purple-green plants, maybe two feet tall. By the time Julus brought us around and finally landed us in the driveway of a decent-sized home on the outskirts of the field, an older human man was waiting for us. He was armed, but the blaster rifle was slung around his back.
I climbed out of the Arrow and made my way to him, shaking his hand when I was close enough. We had a short conversation about the bounty and confirmed that he would take care of the corpses.
"Dorum meat is edible, but not exactly top quality," He explained, pausing to spit something in the dirt. "Even so, there are plenty of people here who can't afford to be picky. I'll take some for myself, but most of it will go to those around here who need it."
"How large is the herd?" I asked. "And how many do you want us to kill?"
"There are about fifty of them," He responded. "I want at least fifteen dead. I also want the largest stud taken out as well. Usually, they are the reason the herd gets so large in the first place."
After a short conversation, he directed us to the last place he saw the herd, around the easternmost portion of his farm. As I sat down in the passenger seat of the Arrow I went over a basic plan.
"I'm going to be on the ground with both of the BXs as backup," I explained. "You are going to be above us, hovering in place and in control of the Arrows turret. If I get overwhelmed, then you can use the cannon to basically turn the herd to paste. That's a last resort, though. And you, BX-1 and BX-2."
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Both droids, who up until now had remained completely silent, visibly shifted to focus on me completely when I used their new designations.
"Only attack animals I've hit with my weapon in the last sixty seconds," I explained. "Unless I give you the weapons-free command. We will follow them when they run, slowly taking down all fifteen. My first target is going to be the largest male of the herd, the one he specifically wanted us to get."
As we slowly hovered over the eastern edge of the farmer's field, the damage that the herd had done to his farm was pretty obvious, as was where that herd had gone. The BXs and I dropped off the Arrow and landed easily on the ground, the droids almost popping up, scanning the areas for threats. Julus stayed in the Arrow, following us from the air as I adjusted the satchel full of soul gems hanging on my hip.
Slowly, the three of us on the ground followed the obvious trail the herd of dorum left, following along the edge of the treeline and down through a section of the clearing that wasn't currently being farmed.
Eventually, after following the "trail," which was really just a massive swath of the clearing where the dirt had been torn up enough that it was just mud, we stumbled on the herd. Dorum's were substantial beasts, a cross between a capybara, a boar, and a rhino, with a pebbly hide and a row of spikes running along its back. The slow, steady grazing reminded me a lot of a cow, but the farmer assured me they were fast runners when they wanted to be.
Silently I gestured for the BXs to spread out a bit, the droids crouching low as they moved away from me, stopping when they had a clear firing line. I summoned my bow, adding the Soul Trap addition as I did. Slowly, I let out a breath, mentally reminding myself that not only would all of this meat be used to feed people, but this herd was invasive and hurting people's livelihood. Not only that, but I would be using the energy to protect my crew.
I pulled an arrow from my back, knocked it and focused on the largest dorum in the field. I took a deep breath before slowly letting it out, drawing the bow in one smooth motion. After a second spent adjusting and preparing my shot, I fired. The purple-conjured arrow snapped across the field, slamming into the large invasive animal's head and cleanly punching into its skull. It convulsed once before collapsing to the side, its body locked for a moment before going limp.
Immediately, I drew another arrow, drew a bead on a second animal, and let the arrow fly. It slammed into its skull as well, but this time a bit lower, the animals still dying almost instantly. By now, the herd was panicking, simultaneously trying to spot the threat and figure out what was going on. They were spooked, and the herd broke up, breaking up and running in three different directions. I watched closely, the two I shot still twitching on the ground. After several seconds, just long enough for me to start to worry, the corpses began to glow, a spiraling, swirling energy coming off of them and reaching out to me. The energy swirled around my bow, making a subtle whirling, sizzling sound before directing downward to my satchel.
Once the purple life energy was gone, I knelt and put my bow down, pulling my satchel around and digging through it. I had to look through the hole back, but after a minute I managed to find two gems that seemed to be fully charged, with a third that I assumed was partially full. The two filled gems had a subtle glow to them, while also looking significantly less transparent, to the point of almost being a solid opaque color. The fact that the partially filled gem was only just barely glowing and was now translucent rather than transparent led me to believe that as they were filled, they became more and more opaque and glowed brighter and brighter.
With a new theory in mind, I lifted my comms and waved to Julus.
"It worked," I said into the comms with a smile. "Make a note of where these are. I'm going after more."
"Alright. Good luck, Boss."
I waved one last time before heading off to find the largest of the three broken-off groups. This time, I cast Muffle on myself as we got closer, knowing the herd was now on alert. As we walked, I gave the BXs their new orders.
"When we get in range and I stop, spread out again. This time, I will be hitting as many as possible, so engage and finish off any I hit but fail to kill.
"Roger Roger," BX-1 said quietly in a deep robotic voice, his volume adjusted low.
I nodded and continued to follow the herd's tracks, then used Clairvoyance to find them when my absolute lack of any real hunting skill reared its head. When we finally found the smaller group, I motioned for the droids to spread out again. After they silently confirmed they were in position, I took a moment to focus before slowly drawing another arrow, sighting in my next target and letting the conjured shaft of magic fly. Once again, my first shot slammed into the target's head, killing it almost instantly. Unlike before, I wanted to hit as many as possible this time, so I drew another arrow and fired again, pushing myself as fast as I could.
My second shot hit a dorum in its hip, causing its back legs to lock up. By the time I lined up my next shot, red bolts of blaster fire lanced out from BX-1 and BX-2's positions, finishing off my second target. I managed to hit much closer to the chest on my third target, and the dorum immediately dropped. My fourth shot hit my fourth target's front leg, barely even slowing it down as it ran with the rest of the group. Thankfully, the BXs easily took it down as well.
When the bodies were done glowing, and all of their life energy was in my soul gems, I commed Julus again, turning to look back and up at the air speeder as it hovered about thirty meters back and forty meters up. A quick comm conversation later, and I was off looking for the next dorum group.
This continued for about three hours, the task getting a bit more time-consuming as the groups got smaller and smaller, and it became harder and harder to sneak up on them. Still, I was hunting herbivores with a bow meant to punch through fantasy metals, backed up by assassin bots with blaster rifles, so while time-consuming, it wasn't exactly difficult.
When the job was done, we returned to the farmer, who was now joined by a few other people, all of them with repulsor lift trucks of various types. We handed over the locations of the freshly hunted dorum, and he handed over five hundred credits, shaking my hand in appreciation.
"This herd has been causing issues all around the grasslands. You just made a lot of farmers happy," He said with a smile. "Not to mention feeding quite a few people. Thank you."
"I'm glad we could help," I said with a smile, before saying a quick goodbye and heading back to the Arrow.