[J m HofMarN]

Chad Lazor: Galactic Bounty Hunter

High above the stratosphere, on one of the rings of space station gamma, a man sat at what seemed like an ordinary computer and typed out the first lines of what he hoped would be a great and lengthy book.

"My name is Chad Lazor. I'm a bounty hunter for a major intergalactic corporation. It's dangerous for me to even write this. My own corporation would likely have me jettisoned if they realized I was recording my actions, many of which must naturally be kept secret. And rest assured that opposing groups would pay to see this. Pay or kill.

If just telling my story is dangerous, than the actual story of my life is frought with more peril than trying to buy the last can of scale lubricant for sale in the Lizardi system. I've persued some of the most notorious criminals known to my organization. Out here like this, floating in space, doing this job, you get to see the best and worst of all the races known to man kind. Mostly though, you figure out that man kind is the worst of them anyhow."

Just as he finished this line, a voice rang out over the intercom system.

"LAZOR! We've got a seller that didn't send and a buyer that didn't pay and the galactic parcel service lost three hundred orders this week alone you don't have time for your damned dear diary get to the bridge!"

Lazor knew the gruff and agitated voice well, passing it off with a swift apology and agreement before typing a few more lines.

"For instance, my boss Captain Jack Flange. He's devoted to his job and thinks everyone else should be. Of course he dosn't realize that other people have families or girlfriends. Well, not anymore, but that's another entry. Signing off." With these last words the view screen folded down into a small cube and the holo-keyboard dissapeared. The cube was tossed into his pocket and he walked out of the sparse and almost empty room, his steps echoing down the corridor of the G-bay base of Gamma station. He looked up at the sign that identified his section as the claims recoverers' sleeping area and then to one empty room.

He shook himself slightly as if to force out some dream that had stayed with him since waking up and then continued down the corridor to the bridge, where an angry Jack Flange would be waiting for him. The words he'd share with the captain would either send him on an adventure to capture the most wanted Gbay fraud in the galaxy, or force him into a mission to find out why a fifteen year old hadn't received his battlesaurus game card three days after he ordered it from someone on the same planet. Somehow, he had a feeling that it was going to be the latter.

[SimeSublime]

Interesting. Not quite the comedic punch that Glamis had when it started, but we'll see where it goes.

[floppydisk]

Hmm... Looking forward to the next chapter.

[J m HofMarN]

"Lazor!" Shouted the captain. The lazers were immediately fired, blowing up a small mirabellian cruiser that had been attempting to dock.

"No damn it, Lazor with an O, it's someone's name!" The captain scolded as several Mirabellians popped and froze in the chilling vacuum of space.

"Well spelling is quite inconsequential during auditory communication, isn't it?" Asked the gunman.

"That may be true but you can't just go blowing up cruisers every time I call out the names of crew members with typical futuristic names, I mean Lazor is as common a name as Smithotron or Cambellmatic!"

"I'm sorry sir, I suppose we really aught to have some sort of system in place to prevent this then." The first mate admitted. Meanwhile, Chad Lazor leaned against a wall looking bored and contemplating starting back for his room. However the fact that the captain would yell his name proved to be preventive, as Chad knew that any further exclamations of his surname would likely result in further destruction.

While Chad was having a debate on whether he'd be morally responsible for deaths resulting from his attempted escape, the Captain and gunner were concluding their discussion of protocol.

"Alright then it's settled. If I say lazer or a word that sounds like it than you'll ask if I want to fire, but if I say lazer while pointing at something that can be blown up that isn't one of our ships, you'll blow it up." The captain said condescendingly.

"Alright then!" The gunner replied enthusiasticly.

The captain finally turned to his rather annoyed subject.

"Lazer!" He cried, pointing at a far off asteroid. "Some kid on that asteroid says that his battlesaurus game card hasn't.... Fuck..."

The latter word was spoken in regards to the complete and total lazery destruction of the asteroid.

"Damn it all gunner why did you..." The Captain started out, before he remembered the words they'd previously exchanged and sighed.

"Well I have a lot of paper work I better get started on. Normally Gbay only has to blow up a structure once a year and that's for some kind of incredible failure to pay. Two things exploded in the same day, why I'll be doing incident reports for a week!" The poor man lamented before wondering off in no particular direction.

"Right. Well it looks like I'm going to be in a spot of trouble with home command, I'd better get something big done. How would you like to go after the most well hunted Gbay fraud in the galaxy?"

"But I'm really just a claims investigator!" Our hero protested.

"You know how to use a gun?" The captain asked in his military manner.

"You point it at what you want to die and press the button?" Chad asked hopefully.

"You see, you're a born bounty hunter! Now get on the case. You'll be assigned a sidekick unit by the tech squad before you leave."

Chad left the bridge happily, not even phased by the reports coming over the news link that a war had been started over the mysterious destruction of a Mirabellan cruiser.

[SimeSublime]

Now thats the spirit. Much laughs there.

[Slade]

Indeedly do. Though these submitting chapters one at a time don't cut it for me, because I always go back through every part of what I write a bunch of times. I'm writing something now that I actually started four years ago and worked on once every six months or so. I'm starting to do more and flesh it out into a full blown story instead of the short story that went nowhere, and my characters are developing themselves for me, and I can't help but laugh at some parts. When it's done, I might submit it a section at a time, but not right now, because everything could change tomorrow when I wrok on it some more.

Keep up the good work, JM. I'm almost done with book 2 of Glamis, editing wise.

[Chyld]

The Next Glamis? Lofty claim, we'll see about that...

Like Sime said, the first chapters a bit slow (but hey, its a different way to introduce the key characters, I suppose), but the second chapter is once again gold.

[J m HofMarN]

This work is going to be on hold for a while, I'm taking a little break since work is time consuming and I did just finish a play.