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He’d done everything he could—the engine rods were all fractured from the strain, his synthesizer was only making the most basic protein paste to keep his metabolism going for as little energy input as possible, and he had physically torn the subspace transceiver from its housing to prevent it from being used to track him through FTL jumps. Of course, that meant each and every jump he made was just one more offense on his long list of misdeeds, but if he had anything to say about it, he would rack up another hundred crimes before the Enforcers got their claws on him.
He might have 2 or 3 more good jumps left in the engine rods at this point, but he needed to land, repair his ship, get real nutrients… Preferably someplace far away from an Enforcer station network.
And far away from any of the dozen or so crime syndicates he’d pissed off in the last few years, as well.
Somewhere in a minor arm—maybe an exofauna preserve? The Enforcers hated getting involved in interstellar-protected locations, after all. And hey, he could feed in the passenger seats and junk into the synthesizer to get the necessary materials to generate whatever he might need to blend in…
He set the navcom to the nearest spur and began scanning for primitive radio signals. This idea was just stupid enough to work.
‘Those cowboys’ll destroy Dodge, that’s what they’ll do! You’ve got to let that man outta jail! Right now!’
‘That man means t’ shoot me from ambush if I turn him loose, Risley—he stays right where he is.’
He’d already picked a new identity for himself—‘Jesse McCree’ seemed like a plausible name, given the culture he’d been acclimating to, and given the age that the dominant species on his target planet lived to, it wouldn’t matter if the designation was a few years out of date by the time he landed. Discerning dates of broadcast and how much time had passed got really tricky when traveling FTL, after all. He’d also already set his synthesizer to start producing whatever passed as food on OCA-GB-L-Sol-3; things like ‘stew’ and ‘beans’ and ‘coffee’ that he’d have to at least have a familiarity with, if he was going to blend in. He’d been subsisting on various dishes he’d been able to cobble together from these radio broadcasts and meticulously practicing the speech patterns and mannerisms for nearly 336 galactic standard weeks before his navcom targeting system began buzzing.
His ship dropped from slipspace near Sol 3a, the cratered surface pristine and silvery as he rounded the horizon—
Wait a damn minute.
‘Jesse’ pressed his face to the cockpit canopy, his gaze following lines of what looked to be fabricated causeways, leading to gleaming structures of chrome and glass. That didn’t quite seem like something naturally occurring on an atmosphere-less satellite—was this a research outpost? An exobiological blind? Had the local species achieved interplanetary travel since making the broadcasts he’d been studying? …Had some other species happened across this planet and, not realizing it was an exobiological preserve, ‘donated’ some technology?
“Well, now, that changes the landscape a bit,” ‘Jesse’ remarked, looking down at the planet below. It was blue and serene, puffy white water vapor clouds swirling above its surface. It was certainly generating a lot of radio communications as well. A constant wash of information that he didn’t particularly care to try to parse at the moment—that sort of number crunching took valuable energy, and time. All that really mattered was that it was all local; it even seemed like the structures on 3a weren’t communicating with the planet below.
Hopefully, that would make things easier.
“At approximately 03:30 local time, an unidentified flying craft landed near Watchpoint: Grand Mesa. Analysis of air traffic data from the time shows no likely origin. Agents, identify the object and do everything necessary to protect the Grand Mesa site. Since Soldier: 76’s break-in, security has been stepped up to protect the remaining materiel; if it is a Talon ship, then a battle may be underway when you arrive. If it is a civilian craft, then innocent lives may be in danger, both from the wildlife and the security forces stationed nearby.”
“So!” Winston grinned, turning from Athena’s screen and facing the motley group of agents in the room. “Who’s up for a trip to Grand Mesa?”
“Ooh! Ooh! Me, me! Pick me!” Tracer grinned, her hand shooting up in the air.
“Lena, you’re flying the ship—of course you’re going,” Winston chuckled.
“Yessss,” she grinned, pumping her fist.
“Perhaps my brother and I would be useful? We have a great deal of stealth training, after all,” Genji offered, turning his attention to the man at his left. Hanzo was doing his utmost to not look uncomfortable with the attention suddenly focused on him—it had been almost two weeks since he’d accepted Genji’s invitation to choose a side, and until today, it seemed like the other agents were happy to let him have room as he and the other slowly trickling agents acclimated to the little community. Only two weeks, and there was already an assignment, though…
“I suppose it will stave off the boredom,” Hanzo remarked, shrugging in a noncommittal way. He'd about had enough of watching old movies to pass the time.
The teams were necessarily small, what with the tiny pool of new and returning agents that Overwatch had to work with. Pharah was able to provide detailed schematics of Helix’s security detail around the Grand Mesa site, though given how flashy and readily identifiable her Raptora suit was, she was forced to stay with the ship and run Ops on-site.
“Genji, there is an infrared sensor array approximately 150 meters in front of you. Are you able to adjust your coolant systems enough to avoid setting it off?”
“Perhaps—or Lena could blink past. Her momentary presence would likely be considered a malfunction, would it not?”
“Good thinking. Hanzo and I will move outside of it’s range, I suppose.”
“Looks like your brother is already moving,” Pharah remarked, amusement in her tone as she watched his locator move through the dense woodland.
Indeed, Hanzo was maneuvering through the dark woods, trusting that if there was anything he risked stumbling across, security-wise, Pharah would alert him. They weren’t here to practice espionage, they were here to find a crashed craft of some sort.
He sniffed at the air, his brow wrinkling. Something like the smell of ozone, familiar from his dragons, and yet…other. Almost sterile, but more like the scent of something that ought to be there rather than anything that was. It made what little hair was left on the back of his neck stand on end. Something wasn’t right, he could feel it. Moonlight filtered in through the treetops, barely offsetting the shadow Hanzo spied moving along the edge of a small, rocky clearing. He carefully nocked an arrow, his gaze narrowing.
“Howdy!”
Howdy?
The slight shadow beyond the trees moved into the clearing, hands aloft. It was—as near as Hanzo could tell—a…cowboy. Broad-brimmed hat, woven serape, gun at his hip…he looked like a character from Six Gun Killer. A main character, if the detail in his costume and his handsome face were anything to go by.
“Sure didn’t mean t’ startle ya none,” the figure called, his voice honey sweet and just as thick and slow. “Why don’tcha come on out where we can both see?”
Hanzo held stock still, eyes wide. Had he been so careless in his movement that even a lost movie extra who had probably missed the last truck back to the hotel after shooting could spot him? Impossible… Bow drawn, Hanzo slowly stepped out from his cover, his brows knitting together as he scrutinized the man. He didn't recognize him from any recent films, Western or otherwise—must be his breakout role, then.
“Hey now, no need fer confrontation,” the cowboy soothed, “Y’all know whereabouts these parts I might find, uh, a general store? Or maybe a tradin’ post?”
Hanzo blinked, releasing a bit of the tension in his bowstring. Must be a method actor, then. “…You do realize that you are very near a paramilitary installation,” Hanzo offered. “I don’t think your director would require you to remain in character, especially in the event of such a confrontation.”
“‘Fraid I don’t quite catch yer meanin’, friend,” the cowboy smiled, his expression good-natured and politely puzzled. Definitely a method actor.
“Hanzo? Report. Who are you talking to?”
“Unsure,” Hanzo replied, “Civilian. Shall I bring them back?”
“Affirmative. Are they injured?”
“You go right ‘head an’ tell that little lady I ain’t got a scratch on me,” the cowboy said, tipping his hat as if the ‘little lady’ were present.
“Very well,” Hanzo said, straightening up. “…Was that your craft, then?”
The cowboy froze, his eyes widening slightly. “Uh…come again, stranger? Craft?”
“Yes. The craft that went down near here. We’re searching for survivors or wreckage, if it crashed, and intelligence if it did not.”
The cowboy let out a long, low whistle. “Again, ‘fraid I don’t know what yer askin’ after,” he said, looping his thumbs into his belt. “Ain’t no wreckage of nothin’ ‘round these parts.”
It was true—his ship had made it to the ground in one piece, and he’d managed to dump enough organic material into the synthesizer to get the cloak up and running. The engine rods would need some presumably exotic minerals, however, and he wouldn’t be able to properly calibrate the solar collectors until daylight, however long that would be. He knew that there were 24 ‘hours’ in a day and 60 ‘minutes’ in an ‘hour’, but he frankly had no idea how long either of those local time increments were—or where the concept of ‘Noon’ truly figured in.
Hanzo sighed, shaking his head. Actors.
“Come with me,” he ordered, turning and disappearing into the shadows again, “This area isn’t safe for civilians. The garrison stationed here will likely fire on sight. Especially if you were filming in the area,” he added under his breath. Really, a responsible director should be more cautious about these things—camera drones were likely to get him and his crew arrested at best, and get his actors killed at worst
“Lead the way, compadre,” the cowboy called, carefully skirting around the edge of the clearing to follow. “The name’s McCree, by the way—Jesse McCree.”
“Hanzo,” he replied, resolving to look up any ‘Jesse McCree’s in the film database back at the Watchpoint. The pair trekked back toward the Orca dropship in silence, with one shared thought between them.
The intelligence they had gathered prior to coming here definitely didn’t account for this.