The mark just had to run off and hide in an asteroid belt. Braun flips on the long range scanners and leans back in his pilot’s seat. His scout ship Mercurial drifts toward the asteroid through the darkness of space.

I need to capture this bounty. I’ll finally have enough to buy my freedom.

Braun looks at a bracer on his left forearm. Engraved on it are the letters BD2948. A tear balances on the rim of his eye.

He’s a well built human wearing a burgundy bodysuit denoting his hunter slave caste. His head is completely shaved, also required of his caste.

“Long range scans complete. No life signature found in asteroid belt.”

Well, he’ll have to do some digging. He’d tracked this Renlasiter Ploomin to this system, and he wasn’t going to leave empty handed.

Braun types in commands to his ship computer. He watches as autonomous drones separate from the Mercurial and propel themselves toward different asteroids.

“Anomaly detected from Drone E”

He keys into his computer. The feed from Drone E appears on Braun’s screen. A metal hatch in the side of an asteroid? The hatch opens.

Before Braun has a chance to process, the feed goes down.

“Contact lost with Drone E. And Drone B and C. Incoming missiles. Five”

Braun furiously types onto his keyboard. And takes hold of his piloting joystick. He sees Drones A and D returning to his ship. And decoy flares launch from his ship.

Of course I stumble on a secret military base. I gotta get outta here.

He turns the ship hard to the right until he’s piloting parallel to the asteroids. The ship’s sensors show him two of the missiles exploded. Three left pursuing him.

Braun takes a sharp drop down and shoots the rest of his decoy flares. Another two missiles exploded. One left.

He does a barrel roll, and pulls up. He twists left and right. But he can’t shake the last one. And he can’t keep a steady bearing long enough to turn on his FTL drive. And for all he knows the bastards are tracking him.

Braun releases Drones A and D. The drones point lasers at each other, heating each other up enough to hopefully trick the missile.

And the missile explodes into them. Yes! And now to high tail it–

Now that Braun is closer to the asteroid belt, he sees nearly all of the asteroids have metal hatches. And they’re opening.

“Incoming missiles. 20. 25. 30”

Well damn. Braun taps some keys on his bracer. A glass helmet envelopes his head, and his bodysuit expands into a spacesuit. He types a command in his computer. He hesitates for moment and confirms it.

A pod forms around him and ejects him from the Mercurial. He sees his ship moments before the missiles destroy it.

He’ll have to shell out for another one. And there goes my chance at freedom in the next five years.

Braun looks at the engraved letters on his bracers. His escape pod floats through the darkness of space.