Tales of Kid Crimson
| Issues | |
Tales of Kid Crimson header
Tales of Kid Crimson is a ten part first-person in-universe serial story told from the perspective of the eponymous smuggler and outlaw Kid Crimson. It isn't entirely clear whether the story is a dramatization of actual in-universe events or an example of in-universe fiction.
Summary[]
- Issue #1
- Kid Crimson is being held at gunpoint by two attackers. They soon reveal they are working for Genevol Tarsis, a man living a dual life as an entrepreneur running several geo-corps and a large weapons racket. A month earlier, Kid Crimson had to dump a shipment of Tarsis's weapons to avoid getting tagged and was subsequently tied up evading a bounty hunter. The attackers inform Kid Crimson that he has to make amends, but one inadvertently steps between Kid Crimson and the other's gun. Kid Crimson stabs the closest one and manages to turn the tables on the other. He tells them he plans to make amends, but he'll kill any other goons Tarsis sends after him.
- Issue #2
- Kid Crimson docks his ship at the Covalex Shipping Hub, and after a brief conversation with Raj Benny, a Tevarin thug Crimson knows, he enters a bar called The Door. As he settles in with a drink, he sees a drunk at a table of Trigger players get up and accuse another of cheating. Security quickly removes the drunk from the room, and Crimson follows the drunk back to his ship, a MISC Fiera, and watches him take off. Crimson returns to his own ship and follows quietly for a few hours, and then pulls out in front of the Fiera and orders the pilot to drop his cargo or be fired on. The pilot does so and begins flying off while Crimson picks the discarded cargo up. He quickly discovers the cargo is a group of starving slaves of varying species, including Banu and Tevarin., held in stasis. Crimson is furious and returns to the cockpit to pursue and destroy the Fiera slowly, but another ship fires missiles past Crimson, beating him to the punch. Solar storms prevent him from finding or identifying the ship that fired those missiles.
- Issue #3
- Crimson waits a while and tries to determine if the mysterious ship is still around, but he can't tell until he risks firing a thruster and his missile lock alarms sound. Before he can decide what to do, an Advocacy agent he had seen at the bar orders him to power down. He decides she isn't the attacker who destroyed the Fiera, He decides to run for it, putting his shields full rear. They absorb the shots from her guns until she hits them with a dumbfire missile. He manages to prevent her from getting a missile lock as he flies for the jump-point. Two police cruisers try to intercept, first trying to shoot him down, but then switching the guns to disable, presumably after being told about his cargo. The Advocacy interceptor manages to get into his path, but he rolls over her and drops an EMP bomb just before entering the jump-point.
- Issue #4
- Three systems away at the Arshop Mining Installation in the Magnus system, Crimson meets with an old friend, Klay, now working as a geologist who agrees to keep his presence there a secret. He shows Klay the cargo he picked up and brings a young human male out of statis. Klay sits nervously by as Crimson listens to the teenager's story. He explains that he met an attractive girl looking to score some Neon at a club on Terra. He brought her to Kendrick, a dealer he knew, but the dealer was out and referred him to someone else. He and the girl went to a landing bay to meet the other dealer and are jumped by six guys, where he was knocked out. They find the girl isn't in the group of slaves Crimson picked up. After the rest of the slaves are awakened, Crimson arranges a deal with Klay where the rescued slaves can work to earn enough for a ticket out of there. After this, the teenager returns to tell Crimson that he remembered another guy show up where they were jumped, and that someone had called this person Kid Crimson.
- Issue #5
- Crimson heads to Terra and to the club the teenager described, asking where to find Kendrick. When this approach fails, he finally begins following people at the club around until he finds a pair of Neon buyers who inadvertently lead him to Kendrick. Crimson warns the buyers off and tells Kendrick he wants to meet Kid Crimson. For a twenty percent introduction fee, Kendrick agrees and brings him to a landing bay to meet the imposter. Once there, one of the imposter's thugs pulls on a gun on the real Crimson from behind. Crimson manages to quickly turn the tables, shooting the thug and Kendrick before leveling two guns on his imposter.
- Issue #6
- Crimson interrogates the imposter about the trafficking operation he's a part of. After shooting off one of the imposter's figures, the imposter tells the real Crimson everything. He reveals the operation is headed by a mysterious figure named Caro. Caro is generally known to be the head of a giant trafficking operation, but little else is known about him or her. Crimson is then ambushed by a squad lead by a man with a laser burn on his face. They first kill the imposter before Crimson can react, but Crimson gets out of the landing bay before they can kill him too. The man with the laser burn manages to cut Crimson off as he flees through a park, but after an inconclusive melee, Crimson manages to slip away, blending into a crowd on a public street. He then slips into a nearby restaurant to catch his breath. The TV shows Senator Hannigan giving a speech, and Crimson is shocked to see the man with the laser burn whisper to the Senator after he finishes his speech.
- Issue #7
- Crimson realizes Senator Hannigan is Caro, and purchases an expensive precision railgun from a weapons dealer named Dovkin in preparation for an assassination. Crimson begins studying the senator's public schedule to develop a plan, including a viable escape. He decides to kill the senator during his commencement speech at Terra University, but develops a backup plan to kill the senator at the Governor's Ball later if he failed to do so at the university. As he prepares, the Advocacy agent blows open the door to his room and levels a gun on him.
- Issue #8
- Crimson wakes up aboard the agent's interceptor. After a brief conversation, he realizes the agent is a well-known one named Raina Quell, an uncompromising agent who had taken out some serious players. At first, he decides to stay quiet about Senator Hannigan, but when Raina reveals she's going to turn him over to local authorities, he realizes the senator would easily learn about that. He desperately reveals the truth, but Raina is suspicious and brings him to the local police station anyway, revealing she already contacted them. Once there, a mysterious individual with an Advocacy ID demands that Raina turn her prisoner over to him. Suspicious, she demands to know by whose authority. When the mysterious agent fails to answer, she pulls her gun as the mysterious agent tries to do the same. Crimson then sees two others through the window aiming guns at Raina, and though cuffed, he pulls her to the ground before they fire. The mysterious agent finally gets his gun out, but Raina kills him and takes his ID. The gunners outside continue to shoot up the building, and Raina is forced to drop another armed man who enters the building looking for them. Crimson and Raina manage to slip away from the attack through the impound yard.
- Issue #9
- Raina takes them a cheap room. where she studied the ID she took and discovered it wass a bad fake. Still unconvinced about Crimson's story, Crimson uses the wallscreen to show her the senator and the man with the laser burn meeting after the speech. Then he reveals he palmed the key for the cuffs from her and after freeing himself, he offers her a deal. If they manage to capture the senator, she'll let him go, but if they don't, then she can take him in. She eventually agrees, and he convinces her to go back to the station so he can retrieve his blade. After that, they go to the news station to pull the feed where the man with the laser burn was seen talking to the senator so they'd have a quality image to use for an ID. In the news station's version, the man with the laser burn isn't there at all. Crimson calls in Raj Benny to help him find out who altered the feed he saw, and as they wait, Raina and Crimson realize the image, along with other details, was planted there to frame Senator Hannigan. Raj arrives and listens to their story, but after making a show of hacking the systems as they'd requested, he surprises Crimson by injecting a drug into him to paralyze him and then shoots and kills Raina with Crimson's gun.
- Issue #10
- The man with the laser burns arrives. After they take Raina's body somewhere outside, he and Raj reveal that everything from the cargo of slaves to the doctored evidence against the senator was intended to manipulate Crimson into assassinating the senator. Raj believed Crimson would get away with it, but Raj balks at revealing anything more. It becomes clear, however, that they still intend to kill the senator and frame Crimson for the deed. After a while, they see a newsfeed where the authorities have discovered Raina's body and have identified the weapon that killed her. Another thug arrives, and Raj leaves with the railgun Crimson had bought to go shoot the senator. Crimson manages to provoke the man with the burn, who is revealed to be named Gaz, into killing him early. The other thug leaves, deciding not to be a part of it. Gaz stabs Crimson, but Crimson manages to choke Gaz with his legs. He gets free and shoots the other thug when he returns, and then shoots Gaz to finish him off.
- Crimson patches up his wound as best he can and tries to warn the police about the upcoming assassination attempt, but they don't believe him. Instead, he forces the issue by going to the Governor's Ball, where Senator Hannigan is now present, and opens fire without actually hitting anyone there before taking off. He then circles around to try to find Raj, He had the foresight to take Gaz's comm and overhears Raj ask about Crimson. Crimson finally notices Raj outside a hover filled with other thugs. When Raj gets in the hover to head back to the hotel, Crimson follows. Once they are on back streets, Crimson attacks their hover. Raj fires back with the railgun, but only hits Crimson's hover. Crimson's shots badly damage Raj's hover, though, and it crashes into a building. Crimson lands and finds Raj still alive, but in bad shape. He reveals that this was a plan by Caro all along; Caro wanted to fake his death so he could "restart" his organization under another name. Raj offers to help lead Crimson to Caro, but Crimson beats Raj to death. Crimson manages to get to a doctor in time to avoiding dying from his stab wound and returns to space in Raj's ship, still wanted for Raina's murder.