The pulse rifle overheated.

James cursed his luck. At least his previous shot pink-misted the pirate aiming the mortar, but that only bought a few seconds before the next one took command. “Sweet Caroline, where the hell are you?”

“Two minutes and countin’ baby,” replied the UHC-17’s AI. She had a cheery aloof, cheerleader-ish Southern United States accent, and James hated it.

Meanwhile, Christoph Felton screamed in agony as he clutched the mush that was once his right arm as he hid behind the boulder that was the only cover in the generally flat terrain of this little corner of Nablus IV.  Christoph was the sixth richest man from Earth. He’d been kidnapped by space pirates and, now, after some weeks, was in the process of being retrieved by James. 

To James, Christoph was just a contract--a recovery, not much of a person. 

“Shut up!” James shouted at his recovery.

Recoveries--people kidnapped by pirates, or slaves needing rescue, or fugitives from justice. Recovery was a shit job; the power and benefits are great, but you need a certain temperament. James was among the best and the worst at it.

The pirates were a hundred meters out. James drew his old-school 1911A1 pistol and fired in their direction. Almost useless at that range but it’s what he had and the crack of bullets was a welcome distraction in his favor. He needed his sniper rifle but it was almost two minutes and counting away in the ship. No sniping today. 

One minute and a half for his air-strike.

The next mortar round soon whistled overhead as the position was re-crewed; James jumped on his recovery. “Stay down, you fucking idiot!” James shouted as the mortar exploded on top of the boulder behind which they’d found cover. Shit. Only a couple meters off. James returned fire.

One minute.

Second mortar exploded well beyond their position. Fairly safe. Running out of .45ACP. James was an asshole and an anachronist with his classic .45 ACP. Those hollow points were great for penetrating personal force-shields--big and slow--not good for much else on the late 22nd century battlefield. But they gave him a distinctive trademark, which he liked.

But that sound. That shrieking sound of a mortar round, followed by a supersonic craft approaching the position. The UHC-17 was the prior-generation US Marine Corps assault landing craft as their addition to the North American Combine. It was hyperdrive-capable, could carry either a full platoon of regular infantry, a squad of regulars and a light hovertank, or a squad of mechanized infantry. And his custom surplus ship was armed to the teeth; each of its straight wings had blocky engine-pods with rapid-fire 25mm gauss auto-turrets slung beneath, eight external hardpoints for gun or rocket pods, torpedoes, bombs, or pretty much anything else he could afford. Rear retractable rail-gun turret below and behind the landing ramp underneath the tail-cowling, which also had a grappling clamp to serve as a cargo-carrier for anything up to a Mk. III container, or a similarly sized ship. His gunship was up-armored, too. Armor in space combat was not particularly useful for a small vessel, but for ground-attack roles, the UHC-17 was damn near immune to anything below a Class III planetary defense grid.

As a Freelance Recovery Agent, James could equip his ship with Class IV and below weaponry; roughly the same as a Federal Intelligence ship or system-police, but as he was also a licensed mercenary, so he also carried up to Class VI weapons on board. It was technically illegal for him to use Class VI weapons for an FRA job, however. He could only justify their use under contract for an actual mercenary gig. However, in practice, he’d only get into real trouble if he used atomics or something else excessive and someone survived to report him. 

That supersonic screech. Sweet Caroline was a little early and screamed to a hover right above his position, about a thousand feet up.

“Can I shoot ‘em?” his AI asked through the minicom.

“Fire at will,” James replied.

The twin gauss cannons roared to life, and a stream of eight rockets from a pod underneath the left wing converged on the mortar position. It was extreme overkill. There wasn’t much left of the pirates or their position when James peered over the boulder. However, in the distance, he saw a couple of ground-effect-vehicles about five klicks out. Heavily armed, most likely. Armed enough to be a threat.

“Get us out of here, Sweet Caroline.” 

She descended to a low hover. James helped his recovery, still screaming in agony, on to the boarding ramp. James then turned back and placed a proximity charge by his now-worthless pulse rifle and left it, then climbed aboard. That’d be fun for the pirates to discover.

“Best speed to orbit, then Vega Outpost,” James ordered. He flew alone, most of the time. 

“Yessir,” Sweet Caroline said. “Your boy there ain’t lookin’ so hot.”

“I know,” James knelt beside the poor bastard and jammed two MorphX syrettes into the recovery’s functional arm. He’d already given him one.

James then prepared a gurney and lifted the recovery on to it.

Recovery Agents for Omnibus Underwriting Freelance Insurance Recovery--OUFIR--were required to be licensed as a Ship’s Surgeon-Auxiliary. So James could use an autodoc, perform minor surgery, utilize a cryostat (either part-specific or whole body--though he lacked a full stasis chamber for the latter.) He could also administer certain medicines while outside of settled star systems, but only outside. As a licensed agent he enjoyed immunity for almost any medical decision he made while on contract for a recovery. Gross or wanton negligence were notoriously difficult to prove against a person who operated on what amounted to military medical standards as opposed to civilian medical standards. 

When James found Christoph, he was being tortured by the pirates. They’d just finished crushing his arm in the grip of a Matsushiro Heavy Industries Type II Cargo Handler mech. Not a pleasant experience for Christoph, and the sound would not soon leave James--that crunch of bone between metal claws. 

Christoph could have just paid the ransom demand, but refused. Instead his corporation invoked its insurance contract, and James got the offer from Omnibus to recover, by any means necessary and available.

James was trying to keep his mind off the mangled flesh. He didn’t mind the gore so much, he’d seen far worse, but he wasn’t thrilled with having to amputate the arm of a guy who was worth more than some colonial GDPs.

But amputate he would. He knew that the moment he saw the bloody cargo handler in his initial attack.

His sickbay was small, but had everything he’d need. He washed up, put on robe and mask, and grabbed “the hacksaw” from the autoclave.

“The hacksaw” wasn’t a hacksaw--it was a vibrating monofilament cutter with precision laser-cauterizers which only vaguely resembled its ancient eponymous counterpart. 

“I’m amputating your arm, Christoph and we’re going to put it in the cryostat. The doctors on Vega may be able to reconstruct it.”

“You can’t cut my arm off!” He was more coherent thanks to the MorphX, but not particularly aware. “I’ll sue! I lift with that arm!”

“You can’t sue me. It’s a medical emergency. I can either use a local or a general. Your call.”

“All of it,” Christoph said. “The pain is too...”

James grabbed a hypo and set up a much higher dose of MorphX given the estimated body mass, and deftly shot it into a vein. “Sweet dreams,” James always said that. He didn’t know why. Just habit. That put Christoph under in about five seconds. 

And James went to work. It only took a minute to remove the arm. Good clean cut just above the elbow--unfortunately there was nothing below to save. His bones were splinters. Good luck to the docs on Vega or even back on Earth.

“You’ll be called ‘stumpy’ for about the next month. Or maybe forever, if they can’t grow you a new one. They aren’t saving this, but hey, I gotta try.” James removed his gloves, washed again, put on a fresh pair, and opened the cryostat. He removed a medium sized dewar flask and, as carefully as he could while handling a bloody pile of mush that had formerly been an arm, prepared it for stasis.

Took about another two minutes to prep and seal the flask and slide it into the cryostat which was tied into the ship reactor’s liquid-helium-cooling system. Most cryostats were on separate systems on larger vessels, but that was too expensive to retrofit into a ship like Sweet Caroline. So his coolant system froze the likely useless arm. It was just due diligence on his part.

James then changed gloves once more and set up the autodoc. He prepped it to inject Christoph with large amounts of of NanoMed-Hg and NanoMed-RE. Hg to rebuild the guy’s blood supply and RE to keep the wound-site suitable for reconstructive surgery. James thought the poor bastard ought just get a cybernetic. They were better than regular arms anyway. James didn’t have any cybernetics besides the usual contragravitational nanoimplants that Martian-born people have, which allow them to adapt to high-gravity environments, but if he ever lost a limb, he was definitely getting an integrated weapon system.

“James, we are now proceeding at top speed towards the nearest hyperspace jump coordinates.”

“We’re breaking the rules, Caroline. Prepare for an immediate jump as soon as we're outside of the atmosphere.” 

“You didn’t call me by my name, sir.”

“Sweet Caroline, take us to hyperspace right now. Fewest jumps to Vega Outpost.” James hated her. But at the same time, reprogramming an AI was more trouble than it was worth and after a few years, she’d learned what he liked, even if she was a pain in the ass about it.

“We will arrive at Vega Outpost in 96 hours. We have two correctives; one at buoy LVT-430134, second at LVM-211991”

James did not acknowledge her. He decided to grab a quick shower and a nap; the recovery would be out for at least twelve hours so it wasn’t like he needed to do much else.