He hurried back the way he’d come, and just as he rounded the corner he saw a figure emerge from behind a pallet. The light of the flair reached far enough to glint off the metal mask worn by one of Horruk’s crew, and off the carbine in their hand. Gaylen was the first to react, and fired. The shot dissipated against a crackling personal shield, and the masked person raised their own weapon.
Gaylen dove, and the shot missed. He made it around more pallets, and the shots that passed through them missed as well. With line of sight broken for a moment, Gaylen stuffed himself in between two of the materials stacks, and waited for a couple of seconds. The masked person came running, and overlooked him for the split-second it took Gaylen to reach out and get a grip.
He pressed the pistol up against the mask and fired. Whatever that thing was for, it sure wasn’t for stopping plasma.
The pirate’s remains slumped down, and Gaylen reached for the dropped carbine. A shout caught his attention before he could close his fingers, and the women he took for twins came into sight.
He threw himself into a roll as their bolts flew. There was nothing on this damned roof that could stop plasma, so all he could do was break line of sight. The women shot up some sort of crane setup, riddling it with melted, glowing hot holes as he ran past it. Finally, he saw a doorway. It meant darkness, hiding place, and a flight of stairs, and he happily ran to it.
The bellowing came from his left, and he looked to see Horruk. The pirate chief was charging him, and Gaylen’s reflexive, and final, plasma bolt hit a shield attached to his arm.
Horruk smashed into Gaylen with what felt like the force of a small car, launching him through the doorway and into a sprawled position. The man bellowed again, like the furious beast he was, and before Gaylen could get his bearings he had a big, heavy foot on his chest.
“I want my treasure!” the pirate screamed, hopped up on battle and quite possibly some other things as well. “I want the Gilded Box!”
“I know you do,” Gaylen croaked out, as his lungs compressed.
The two women entered, backlit by a tiny glow from that distant flare, and a fourth pirate joined them as well.
Horruk applied more pressure, and Gaylen’s lungs simply stopped working.
“I will take pieces out of you! Until your crew-”
Something shot past everyone with a bit of a hiss, and hit the wall next to the doorway. The flare then activated, and for a moment everyone was blinded. Then Gaylen heard a familiar scream, accompanied by rushing feet. He also heard shots, but didn’t hear them connect with anything alive. His vision recovered just in time to see Bers ram into Horruk.
The big pirate wasn’t braced against the attack and was knocked back. The others raised their weapons, but hesitated to shoot with their leader in the firing line. Bers had his axe, of course, and swung it at the other man; the red-faced one. The keremak blade sliced right through the outstretched carbine, and that was all the heed Bers paid to anyone else before swinging at Horruk.
Gaylen pushed through pain and fatigue and rolled himself up. The two women still had their guns, and their eyes, on Bers, and the second it took them to notice Gaylen rising was too long.
He ran into the nearest one and caught her gun arm. He wrenched it and aimed the gun at the other one, the one with the scars. That one aimed back, but again hesitated to shoot. The unscarred one managed to force her arm wide for a moment, but Gaylen forced it back. She flicked a button and let the plasma cell drop out, and with that the weapon was useless.
The scarred one tried to go around the human shield, to get a shot, but Gaylen moved his shield, even as it fought and wriggled with surprising strength.
Over the screams of the two bellowing savages trading blows mere feet away, Gaylen heard the red man coming. The pirate had a knife out, and Gaylen shoved his captive at the scarred one, to gain a moment of safety, then met the red man. He grabbed for the blade and didn’t quite get it. The man stabbed at him again, and this time Gaylen did catch the arm and redirected the blade into his gut. The man’s jacket turned out to be armoured, and he threw a punch with his free hand.
The scarred one took her shot, and the bolt blew by Gaylen’s head. The pirate in his grip yelled in outrage, and the unscarred one was now coming with a knife of her own. Gaylen had to let go to evade her thrust, and with that they were both stabbing at him, working together, driving him back, as the scarred woman circled in search of a clear shot.
Horruk was keeping himself alive with the now deeply-gouged shield, and striking back with a short, broad blade. Bers was fully wild, and having the time of his life. The twitchy beast had finally been let loose, and fought with utter mania.
Gaylen tried to get another grab in, but they were wise to it, and their cooperation made it all the harder. He was also having to dance about to keep them between him and the scarred one. There was no magic solution, no clever ploy, and no right moment to turn things around. All he could do was go in and strike.
He landed a hit on the man’s jaw, even as he was pretty sure that the woman landed a hit on him in turn. He ignored her for an instant, long enough to land a knockout blow on the dazed pirate, and down he went.
Gaylen sidestepped, not forgetting the scarred one, then went for the other one. He caught the incoming blade in his hand. The impact hurt, but the blade didn’t make it through his glove. He was going to turn her into a shield again, but the woman had skills of her own and redirected his strength and momentum into a trip to the ground.
The scarred one yelled out and stepped closer, aiming straight at his head. Gaylen kicked out desperately, just as she pulled the trigger, and the shot went wide. From a sitting position he reached out and got a hand around the barrel. Another shot went off, burning his cheek a bit as it passed by, but he yanked the weapon free.
He shot her in the face. Then the other one.
Gaylen turned on the other fight. Horruk’s shield had been halved and his blade was on the floor, and he and Bers were now fighting over the latter’s axe. It was an ugly, grunting, screaming wrestling match, full of kicks, headbutts and elbow shots, and Bers tried to get his teeth involved. Gaylen tried to draw a bead, but they were moving fast and erratically, and he’d hit his head on the floor.
Horruk got a particularly nasty headbutt in, with seemingly all of his weight and muscle behind it, and the blow actually staggered the wild Outer Fringer. Horruk drove the man before him, into a wall, and pressed the shaft of the axe into his throat.
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Gaylen tried getting up, but found himself more woozy than he’d realised. He fell down on his knees, and his vision swam. Bers fought back against Horruk’s choking grip, and the pirate chief switched to trying to yank the axe free. He almost had it; one of Bers’s hands lost its grip. Gaylen aimed the gun again, but his vision wouldn’t hold still, and for a second he wondered if he should just let Bers have the warrior’s death he always seemed to be seeking.
Then he noticed that the red-faced man had crawled over to the gun the other pirate woman had dropped. He had it in his hand, and was reaching for the discarded plasma cell.
Gaylen shifted his aim and fired and missed. The pirate’s movements became frantic, fumbling with the tiny thing against the bottom of the weapon. Gaylen fired again, and missed again, and the pirate got the plasma in. Gaylen let himself drop, and the pirate’s shot missed. Gaylen’s third shot did not.
He turned back around to see Bers punch Horruk in the throat. Now it was the pirate who was stunned, and Bers shoved him back, just far enough to swing the axe properly. It clove through what was left of the shield, then swung again, into the pirate’s black chestpiece. The armour slowed the blade enough that it didn’t pass right through, but rather lodged a few inches in Horruk’s flesh.
The pirate fell onto his back, and Bers yanked the axe out before he landed. He swung once again, straight through an arm that went up defensively. And then he chopped Horruk’s head off.
Bers let out some more of his beast-screams, and gave the body another chop, and another and another. Then he picked the head up and screamed in its face.
“You tell him,” Gaylen said, and managed to stand up. He didn’t lower the gun, just in case this wasn’t actually over, and led with the barrel as he turned at the sound of running feet.
“It’s me, it’s me!” Herdis shouted, and a couple of seconds later she came into the light of the flair. She did indeed have her rifle. “I…” She exhaled sharply. “Ran here after I ran out of targets.”
“Did you get all of them?” Gaylen asked.
She did a quick count of the bodies
“All that didn’t chase you out of view. How many were there in total?”
“I’m not sure.”
The words made her guard the doorway, as well as utter the words “Kiris is coming” just before Gaylen heard another set of footsteps.
The golden woman did arrive, with her own fatigued exhale as she stopped.
“I didn’t have a rifle,” she said. “Nor can I… sprint like these two.”
She put her hands on her hips and took him in.
“Do you see what happens when you run off on your own?”
“Yes,” he said. “You guys bail me out.”
“Again,” Herdis said, and now had a smile on her face. “This is just like the Red Tower. Honestly, what would you guys do without me?”
“We came here in a rent-car I asked Jaquan to secure for us,” Kiris said, as she slowly walked up to Gaylen. “Before the blackout hit. And I slipped a tracker on you, outside of that tower.”
She was relieved, and also a bit angry. Gaylen knew that some languages had a word for that, but he couldn’t remember any of them right now.
“Ayna gave me some tips, once,” she finished, and stared into his eyes from a few inches away.
“I’ll thank that sneaky little snowball if I ever see her again,” he replied.
“I am here right now,” she told him.
“So you are.”
He pulled her into a kiss.
“Thanks, all of you. Now…”
He tested his balance with a few steps.
“Let’s go.”
They did go, back through the half-finished interior and up a flight of stairs until they reached the roof. The rent-car was there; A plain six-seater.
“Is this where you were shooting from?” Gaylen asked, taking in the view..
“Yes it is,” Herdis told him.
“Not bad.”
“Try ‘good’, boss.”
Kiris got behind the controls, Herdis positioned herself beneath a sunroof in case her rifle was needed, and Gaylen put his hand on Bers’s chest as the man was about to enter.
“Bers. Drop the damned head.”
The Outer Fringer chuckled, then threw Horruk’s head like a ball. It bounced off the edge of the roof and down to the streets below. Someone was in for a surprise during their morning commute.
Both of them got inside, and with that Kiris lifted the car. They took the shortest legal route to Arret Blanc, at the maximum legal speed. With no pirates on their tail, they didn’t need awkward questions about their weapons, or the literal blood on Bers’s hands.
As the inevitable post-battle pains started kicking in, Gaylen did discover a cut he’d gotten at some point in all that knife business, and Herdis put her little medical bag to use.
“So… win?” Bers said after a bit of silence. “We win?”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Gaylen said, happy for the distraction from Herdis glueing his flesh back together. “Not just yet. Remember the size of that pirate ship. The space for a crew.”
The Lawless Black continued on around them, although the more dramatic manifestations grew further apart as they neared the more upscale area they’d docked in. It coincided, of course, with a stronger police presence, which certainly put a strain on the nerves. Everyone kept their weapons out of sight, but somehow Gaylen doubted a cheap rent-car was proofed against police-issue scanners.
Still, they were not intercepted. Kiris landed on a spot near the docking yard, the weapons vanished beneath coats and into bags, and they ran for the entrance.
“It’s us,” Kiris said to the armed guards outside. The lighting outside was good, and no one was likely to forget a Chanei, so there were no delays. They all just continued on, through the yard’s inoperative weapons scanner, and to the Addax.
Jaquan waited for them by the airlock, and sealed it up once everyone was inside.
“Is everyone alright?” the man asked.
“Basically, yes,” Gaylen said, and put a palm on the cut. “Are the special repairs finished?”
“They are,” Jaquan told him. “Those folks who came over to help… well, they were surly, scummy bastards, but they knew what they were doing. The ship is ready to fly.”
“Then we fly. Everyone, to your stations.”
“I’ll start cooking,” Bers said, with another one of his chuckles.
Gaylen moved up the stairs, wincing from the pain of his wound, and strode over to the cockpit. He plopped himself down, Kiris manned the gun, and he called the dock management.
“This is the Addax. We are ready to take off, and I notice that your roof hatches have emergency batteries, so let’s see them open.”
“Of course, dear guest,” said a pleasing, professional voice on the other end. “We hope that you enjoyed our-”
“We didn’t.”
He ended the call and fired up the engine. The roof did open, and he wasted no time in lifting the ship. He finally felt comfortable in ignoring traffic laws, and headed straight out into space as fast as the engine would allow. His scanners, set to pick up a certain ship signature, warned of another liftoff down below.
The pirates were taking off, and followed the Addax’s trajectory. The thirst for the Gilded Box hadn’t died with Horruk.
“Not quite over,” Herdis commented, her voice slightly stiff in the face of the G-forces they were experiencing.
“No,” Gaylen replied. He looked ahead, into space. “Alright. Let’s see who played this game better.”