A pair of the corrupt cops came from behind Kamak, and one of them managed to get the drop on him, striking him in the back of the head with a heavy blow. The sucker punch took him down, and the two cops might’ve pinned him on the ground if not for a quick kick from Farsus. His faster reflexes kept him ahead of the ambush, and that was about the only thing the bounty hunters had going for them.

Corey had taken a baton to the face within seconds, and never got a chance to recover before the cops had him pinned to a wall. They kept pummeling him in the face until he passed out, which, to Corey’s credit (and severe bruising) took a while. He hit the ground hard, and his datapad fell out of his hands before he could finish calling for help. Tooley found herself swiftly tackled and pinned beneath three particularly heavy-set officers. No amount of struggling or cursing could free her, though that didn’t stop her from doing either.

While the one-sided struggle unfolded, Vansis stood and extended his cuffed hands to one of the officers he’d paid off. As soon as the bonds were undone, he drew the rifle from his back and pointed it at the unconscious Corey.

“That’s enough, red,” Vansis said, spitting the color as if it were a slur. “Surrender or I’ll kill this one.”

Farsus kept his fists clenched, but the fighting stopped for now. The officers he had been raining blows upon were more than willing to take a step away.

“Go ahead, kill him,” Farsus said, which Corey luckily was not conscious to be offended by. “You’re only hurting the cop’s share of the bounty.”

The tense glares of the officers towards Vansis made it apparent this was an alliance of convenience, and more importantly, profit. They didn’t like Vansis pointing a gun at a potential payday for them.

“Let me guess,” Kamak added, from the floor. “You get to kill Tooley, and the cops keep the rest of us for the...what? There some underworld manhunt out for us?”

It couldn’t be a conventional bounty since Kamak, as a bounty hunter himself, would’ve been immediately notified. There were still black market assassination contracts, though.

“What’s the payday, by the way? I’m curious what the going rate of a cop is nowadays,” Kamak said.

“Judging by the weight of these fuckers sitting on me, got to be good,” Tooley grunted. “What do you do, chug raw lard on your lunch breaks?”

“My species is naturally dense.”

“In the head, maybe,” Kamak said. He took a quick look at Farsus. His crimson ears were twitching. Good sign. “You really think you’re getting the better end of this deal?”

‘These officers are, in fact, profiting from this exchange,” Vansis said. “I pursue a higher cause than profit.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“I’m sure that’s what you’ve told ‘em,” Kamak said. “Wouldn’t exactly be willing to admit the blue one is worth the rest of us put together.”

“Twice over,” Farsus added.

A skeptical glance passed between Vansis and the cops, but not much else.

“What kind of gambit is this meant to be, exactly?”

“Come on, did you not tell them? Ol’ Tooley’s done got herself knocked up by the crown prince of Turitha,” Kamak said.

“What part of ‘secrecy’ did you not understand, Kamak?” Tooley snapped back. She wasn’t sure what gambit Kamak was going for, but she figured she could play along. Worst case scenario, she died doing something she loved: lying to cops.

“Listen, lady, you’re not paying me to die,” Kamak said. “By the way, Vans, you might want to tell those friends of yours to lighten up on Tools. You’re squishing the baby.”

Tooley was not unpinned, but she did feel the pressure lighten. It didn’t free her, but it did give her enough wiggle room to feel the thumping in the floor. She smiled to herself.

“Your new blue friend here is trying to cover up the planetary political scandal of the century,” Kamak said. “We’re just the bodyguards. She’s the prize. You’re getting screwed.”

The cops pinning Tooley looked down at her, and then back at Kamak.

“She reeks of alcohol.”

“We said she was an expectant mother,” Farsus said. He spoke louder than usual, to better muffle certain background noise. “We never said she was a good mother.”

“Enough of this,” Vansis said. He pulled his rifle away from Corey and stepped up to face Farsus, sparing a derisive glance at Kamak as well. “Do you think anyone is stupid enough to fall for this? Did you expect us to turn on each other and free you?”

“You know, I really didn’t,” Kamak said, entirely honestly. “But we weren’t trying to get you to fight each other.”

“Our sole interest was in getting you to not fight us,” Farsus said. He nodded downwards, towards Corey. Vansis spared a glance, and saw the datapad still glowing -with Doprel’s contact info active.

The door to the station was blasted off its hinges by a single punch from a massive, blue-green fist. While the shock of Doprel’s ballistic entrance still rippled through the room, Farsus sprang into action, tearing the rifle out of Vansis’ hands and breaking it beyond usability. Instinct almost pulled Farsus’ hands toward his own gun, but discipline kept them at bay.

“Doprel, don’t squish anybody,” Kamak shouted. Somebody had already been punched hard enough to break a few ribs, but he’d live. “They’re all cops.”

While there was certainly no love lost between Kamak and the police, especially not with these corrupt sellouts, killing cops came with a whole host of problems Kamak really didn’t want to deal with right now. But not everyone in the room was a cop.

After Doprel came through swinging hard enough to dislodge even the boulderlike cops pinning Tooley, she immediately sprang for Vansis. She had her hands around his throat in an instant.

“Don’t kill him either,” Kamak snapped. He kicked a cop in the gut while they were down and then pulled Tooley away from her prey. Or tried to, anyway. She had a surprisingly strong death grip. “Tooley, you can kill him slowly and painfully later, we still have questions.”

That did get Tooley’s grip to loosen. Slightly. Enough so that the oxygen deprivation caused Vansis to pass out instead of dying outright.

“You’re carrying him,” Tooley hissed. Kamak raised no objections, and slung the unconscious Sturit over his shoulder while Farsus cracked the temples of the last conscious cop. Once Doprel was done stepping on people and had the also unconscious Corey on his back, the crew ran for the Hermit as fast as they could and never looked back.