Star Strider: Worst bounty hunter ever (still)

All righty, Star Strider (Fighting Fantasy 27).

Again, I am baffled that during my last playthrough the book didn’t even seem familiar and I was legit surprised to see that I played this back in 2016. Well, that just gives me a fresh start and something new to enjoy.

I’m the most elite bounty hunter in this part of the galaxy, with which really is sad considering my Skill 8 and Luck 9 and a Fear of 8. The president of the galaxy has been abducted and I have 48 hours until they hack through his brain and get the launch codes. How do we know they’re doing that, or how  quickly they’re progressing? Don’t be a wise guy, just turn to page 1.

The shuttle lands me on Earth at some nameless spaceport, and everyone starts transferring to the local Silverhound rocket bus to Madrid. I decide to wait for a private car so I have more flexibility. But the joke’s on me: the local taxi and car rental services are shut down due to budget cuts, so either I wait until tomorrow for the next Madrid shuttle or else I just start walking to… wherever it is I think I could go.

That stinks, as I have no idea where I am and no clue where I would go even if I did know. I step outside onto a road, and head east.

Some hours later, I see a car parked by the side of the road. As I walk past it, some guy hucks a rock at me, then barrels out of the bushes at me. The resulting fistfight is brutal and one-sided, in his favor. I only get two hits in, and he kicks my ass all the way to 0 stamina. I wake up hours later, stripped of everything and tied up in the middle of nowhere. My mission is failed.

Sheesh! I totally suck at my job.

Okay, book, let’s go. We’re doing this, Skill 8 be damned!

Shuttle, food, land at spaceport, get into the Silverhound bus…

The cops pull us over and again I refuse to discuss my mission. That’s fine and dandy, though the cop does throw up an illusion of a big scary head trying to at least get a rise out of me. What a dick. But they have nothing on me, so I get back on the bus and we arrive at the diner. Four hours have passed already and I’m not even to a city yet.

At the diner, I see a guy I recognize from having busted him previously. I ignore him, though, because I have other business today. Too bad, because he’s still pissed off at me. He enlists a biker gang to burst into the restaurant with guns ready, and they drag me outside for a curb-stomping party starring yours truly. And they stomp the crap out of me. I knocked out two of the three thugs, but the dice rolls just weren’t lucky for me and the third thug beats me unconscious. I wake up tied to the back of a rocket cycle, and am ditched in the desert, left for dead. I don’t know whether I survived out there, but I failed my mission.

You know how most of the FF books have a note “the true path can be won with even low scores?” I notice that this one doesn’t say that…