#6 by Carnifex

(This has some violence in it, knives and guns and death and stuff. Just so you know.)

Osaka Storage Facility had seen better days. Since the Outcasts sacked Honshu and the government fell the station had changed hands several times, being the major storage of basic supplies in the system had made it a prized target. Osaka's location out in open space, the most empty area of the Honshu system, made gaining the element of surprise impossible and as such the resistance fighters were slowly losing their ability to take and hold the station under the superior force of Outcast attacks. At present the Outcasts held the station and were quickly digging in, in preparation for a counter offensive.

Having powered down his ship and set it adrift so that it looked like yet another casualty in an ever growing list Carnifex donned his EVA suit and set out into the emptiness of space. The suit was a stealth adaption, with less armour to reduce inertia and paint on the outside to reduce his signature on small, fighter mounted, scanner rigs. It was outfitted with a cold-gas thruster attachment for zero-G EVAs like this one. While the Outcasts and the resistance had been duke-ing it out for the station (and the Outcasts doing rather well this time it seemed) Carni slid effortlessly through the silent vista of small fighters and bright explosions onto the hull of the station. Finding a section of hull damaged by a torpedo he crawled into the dark forgotten pockmark and waited. Once the Outcasts had secured the space around the station they sent in their strike teams and took control.

Carni set to work on the nearest door with a small hand held computer, his past as a Lane Hacker going to good use as he tapped into the door's mechanism that linked it to the station's main system and carefully severed it. This door now belonged to him. He opened it and the section inside vented, he hoped that no one would have relaxed enough yet to be watching a little breach warning while there still might have been Old Kusari officers on the station. Once inside he closed his first door behind him and found himself in a small corridor. Taking the door at the other end for his own as well he opened it and air rushed into the small corridor. Still in his suit he started searching the station for his target.

He was looking for a Kusari deserter, Ryutaro Shimamura, a prominent officer who his client in the resistance wanted made an example of. An eight million credit example. He knew he'd be somewhere near the station's main computer trying to gain control of it after the Old Kusari resisters locked it down to slow the Outcast's claim on the facility. His job was to also put in place new security lockdowns in case the Outcasts lost the station again. Carni had been tracking him for a few days now and monitoring communications.
Carni was lucky not to have been seen while he moved about; he figured the Outcasts would be moving quickly to establish a perimeter around centres of control and to bring in re-enforcements. Reaching the room that housed the main computer he could see from a distance a tired looking man at a main console with three mean and thoroughly dirty Outcasts looking over his shoulder.
"Looks like I've found him," thought Carni.

He slid silent as a cold, hardened wolf around behind the group of men. One of them seemed to be looking around. Carni stopped, breathing gently. He only had a small energy weapon at hand for use at range if he was spotted. He also had two knives at sides but they wouldn't be much help against three, maybe four, well armed men. When it was safe again he kept moving slowly. He was behind them now. Carni could smell them, the smell of soldiers recently in a life or death struggle with other people, the smell of adrenalin and fear and anger. Silently, with practiced silence, he drew his knives, one in each hand. As he moved in to strike like an evil spectre one of the Outcasts sensed that he was there and began to turn. As fast as his arms could move them he plunged both knives into the backs of the necks of the other two soldiers and kicked out the legs of the turning man with one leg. Now off-balance himself he drew his energy pistol and put a large cauterised wound in the chest of the fallen Outcast just as he raised his own assault rifle to fire. Three Outcasts now lay dead or near death at his feet, sweat beading on his face and breathing heavily through his opened visor he looked up at his target.
Ryutaro was stumbling backward in disbelief. The surprise on his face seemed utter until Carni put a charred hole in one of his legs and it grew in intensity before being diluted with pain. Carni wasted no time, by now anyone nearby on the station would have heard him. He grabbed a knife from one of the dead bodies and plunged it into Ryutaro’s chest bringing forth a short, pained scream followed by silence.

The moment his target hit the deck he was running. The adrenalin surged in his veins like fire. Rounding a corner he came face to face with an investigating soldier, probably another deserter from the devastated and disorderly former Kusari. Acting on instinct he hit him in the face with his gloved hand and flattened him without breaking step. As he neared the two newest doors to his collection he could hear some footsteps behind him. Sealing his visor he switched his suit's support back on. The cries and noises behind him were gaining; he was not as fast in his suit as angered pirates in station assault gear. Reaching the inner door he stopped, turned and anchored his feet to the metal deck with the magnets in his boots, bracing himself. Just as his pursuers rounded the corner into the small space he hit a control on the small hand held device that he had used to hack the door controls. The doors opened up onto open space, venting the atmosphere. A few shocked screams very suddenly died away and all the pirates were knocked flat and kicked forward by the explosive decompression. Emergency bulkheads sealed behind them as they floundered dying on the floor and Carni made a break for the breach in the outer hull. Leaping full speed into the enveloping black he vented almost his entire remaining thrusters to accelerate himself toward the spot where he had left his ship. Sending out tight-beamed signal to it he activated an auto-power up sequence and a tracking beacon so that he could find it. Unfortunately he knew everyone else would too.
"Time to be hunted," he thought to himself.