(Keen-arra City, kisArra)
“Captain, there is a large concentration of individuals gathering outside the ship.”
I perked up as Raven began speaking in my ear as we left the Trading Post, with several jobs to keep us busy while Ehyu settled his affairs on kisArra. I hadn’t expected to come in here without some excitement, but this was a little earlier than I thought it would be.
“Well-wishers, thieves, or killers?”
“Unknown at this time, but most likely killers and certainly thieves. I have already shot two with the underbelly turret as a ‘warning’ when they got too close.”
“Good thing I filed the appropriate paperwork and got permits for lethal defense of the ship, then.”
Shearah giggled. “You mean you bribed the stationmaster.”
I shrugged, since facial expressions were useless with the masks we wore. “Same thing on a world like this. Anyway, Raven, keep them off the ship. If they start sporting anything that could be a real danger, go ahead and shoot them even outside the normal perimeter. I’m not sitting around on this rock waiting to repair anything. We need the shuttle anyway, so we’ll start heading your way.”
“Understood. Numbers on the crowd are 30 individuals, armed with a mix of melee weapons and firearms. No power armor or military-grade weapons or armor.”
I nodded slowly. “So, local color who recognized our ship, probably from the last time we were here, and decided to make a play to get off this rock, like Ehyu, but being a lot less friendly about it.”
“They are no longer attempting to enter the ship. They have started setting up what look like ambush positions. I believe they mean to kill you as you try to get to the ship.”
Cali groaned. “They can’t really be that stupid, can they? Don’t they know that if Raven just shot two of their guys, they should move out of sight from her?”
“Analysis suggests that my actions have been construed as an automated defense protocol, due to the nature of the warning I gave them and the precision shooting.”
I grinned beneath my mask. “So they probably think they set off an alarm, which will have us running back to the ship, and we can ambush them. Most ships don’t have someone like Raven on them, after all.”
Jaynie shook her head. “I keep forgetting about that, since we’re around her all the time. Raven being different from the ‘dumb’ AIs that most people have in their ships is a huge advantage.”
I nodded. “Honestly, with a normal ship, especially a normal freighter, this would probably work well for them. Most automated systems would simply register two attacks and responses, sending alerts to the owner. They’d need to come back to make sure things remained square with the local authorities…”
Sheila sighed, “And walk straight into a crossfire. Well, now that we know what they intend to do with us, what are we going to do to them?”
I reached down to check the charge on my pistol. Fully charged, as it ought to be, but it never hurt to check your gear before going into action. You only had to screw up once for things to get bad. “Well, I was thinking that we go and spring the trap, and have some fun. Don’t tell me you girls haven’t been itching for some action.”
“Well, last night—”
“That wasn’t in the bedroom, Carissa.”
“Oh, well, then yes, I suppose even I have been looking forward to our next real fight. We’ve had fun with the space battles and all, but there’s something different between that and a shootout in person.”
Cali hugged the former office lady, and said, “Aw, honey! We’ll make a proper battle junkie out of you yet!”
I laughed along with the others while Carissa attempted to swat Cali off of her, since we all knew this was simply those two playing around. After a moment, I said, “All right, Raven, bring up a map of the spaceport. Highlight any other ships that have ‘defense permits’ as well. Don’t want to go accidentally tripping any defenses while we are on our way to the fun.”
Stolen story; please report.
Raven brought up a schematic of the spaceport in our HUDs, and I began looking at the different options. The Raven was flashing blue, and there were about six or seven ships out of the twenty others in the spaceport marked in green, with a circle to show the radius covered by their ‘defense permit’. The ambush positions the locals had established were marked in red.
“Now, someone took the time to arrange a party for us, so it would be wrong to not arrive in style.”
(Keen-arra Spaceport, Keen-Arra City, kisArra)
Bill Turner shook his head. How the hell had Paul convinced so many people to join up in this mess? How had Paul convinced HIM to join up in this? If it wouldn’t make him look weak in front of the others, he would already have bolted, once it became clear that the Black Star guy had paid the bribes to let his ship defend itself. Marco and Vijkarn were no longer around to appreciate their mistakes, since weapons designed to be used on starships don’t exactly leave much behind when they hit softer targets, like a human or Ihm. And somehow, Paul had gotten another ten people to join in after they heard about it, since a ship like that would definitely have loot, right? They were up to forty-two now.
Now they were split up in four spots, guarding the two ways into the bay where the Daughter of Trigon (which everyone said was the Starlight Raven) was sitting, waiting for her crew to return. The Black Stars had to have gotten the automated message by now. The fact that they weren’t back yet made him nervous. But how could he get out of here without looking weak to the others? Oh, wait, there was a way.
Bill slid over next to Paul, and said, “Paul, this ain’t gonna work if we don’t got eyes on, so we can warn the boys when they are coming. We just have them waiting like this, they’re going to get antsy, make mistakes. I’ll go topside, keep an eye on the South approach. Get someone from the other group to cover the North approach. That way, the boys can relax a bit, and be sharp when we need them.”
Paul looked him over, and nodded. “Your eyes always were better than your shooting in the dark. Yeah, I’ll have Brachthar set up on the North approach. You got a comm?” When Bill nodded, Paul continued. “Well, make sure you call in the moment you see them coming in the approach. This is the big one, Billy!” Paul clapped him on the shoulder, and then got on the comm, to give instructions to Brachthar and the boys.
Bill counted his good fortune, and began moving quietly, heading up to the top of the spaceport, where he could see the roads approaching the South entrance to the fields. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t see a thing until it was all over. If he was REALLY lucky, he would still be alive when it was all over.
(Mirikon POV)
“Captain, two individuals have broken off from the ambush sites, I believe they are sending out lookouts to spot your approach.”
“Surprised it took them this long. Still, that raises them up a bit from random idiots. Someone down there must have half a brain.”
I paused, and then looked at Shearah. “Your surveillance drones up yet?”
“Up and on station, feeds coming in now. I have two lookouts up on the rooftop, one Gauz male to the north, one human male to the south. Wait one. Gauz male looks to be prepping a rifle, getting into a sniping position.”
“And the human?”
“He appears to be praying. Raven confirms, the position matches the Sunnizen prayer for absolution in the face of certain death.”
I laughed, “Oh-hoh! We have a contestant that is starting to rethink his life choices. If he’s doing the Sunnizen prayers, then it is probably an honor thing or not wanting to look weak that is keeping him here. All right, we’ll continue on as before. Cali, you take Jaynie, Carissa, and Sana to the north. I’ll take Raven, Shearah, and Sheila to the south. Try for a stealth kill on the lookout. No sense letting him warn the others.”
Cali turned to me. “And what about the south lookout?”
“That depends on him.”
With that, we got out of the little hauler we’d used to travel into town, and quickly started climbing the east wall of the spaceport.
(Bill POV)
He had never been the most faithful servant of God, he knew that. He believed, but often strayed and broke the commandments when it suited him. But there was an old saying from Earth, long before man touched the stars. ‘There are no atheists in a foxhole.’ He had never truly understood that phrase until Paul had started talking about hitting the leader of Black Star. It wasn’t facing death that caused people to ‘find religion’ in the foxhole, but the waiting, just waiting, knowing that death was coming for you, hanging over you like a specter, and that there was nothing you could do to stop it that you had not already done. The crushing inevitability is what caused even the most faithless man to call out to a higher power in that hour of desperation.
As he finished his prayer, the comm sounded in his ear. “Paul, Brachthar here. Nothing yet from the North. You sure this idiot is coming? If I’d known we were just going to be sitting around all night, I’d have stayed home with the wife. At least listening to her yell isn’t boring.”
“Oh yeah, Brach, the guy will be coming. The defense permits say you gotta respond within a couple hours to talk with the stationmaster or they can’t pretend you didn’t blast someone. Bill, you see anything?”
Bill sighed, and looked out across the sands, and then keyed his comm. “Nothing here. But it is still another thirty minutes before the stationmaster’s deadline.”
Bill didn’t hear whatever Paul said in reply, because his attention was directed to the sound of sand beneath a boot, and then a shimmer appeared in his vision, as a blade cut across his throat. Bill tried to scream as he felt a white pain stabbing into his brain, but he was silenced! He reached up to his throat, only to find that he wasn’t bleeding. Turning as more stabs of pain ran through his mind, he turned, and saw a man in Freemen-style guard, standing there with dagger in hand. Just before he passed out, he heard the man say, “Almawt yamuru ealayk hadhih allaylat ya sidiqi.”
(Paul POV)
“Almawt yamuru ealayk hadhih allaylat ya sidiqi.”
Paul stared at the comm for a moment as that message came in over the open line. Someone had just jumped Bill, and did it sneaky! Damnit! Looking around, he called into the comms, “All right boys, they’re on their way, but they are going to try and be sneaky little thieves, instead of fighting like men. Everyone get behind some cover, and get ready! You all know the score. Stun the women, kill or collar the man. Those of you who decide to stay get to split the women, and those who come with get to split the profits from the ship! This is the score you’ve been waiting on your whole lives, boys!”
“Paul, the ship’s acting funny again!”
“What do you mean ‘acting funny’, Mac?”
“That cargo bay door just opened, and there’s some robots coming out.”
Paul sighed. Mac was a good man to have in a fight, but he wasn’t known for his intelligence. “And what are the robots doing, Mac? They building anything?”
“No, they’re just looking around, and—AUGH!”
Paul swore as the sound of rifles firing came across the commlink at the same time he saw the flashes on the other side of the bay. The fucker had some drones open up on his guys! Damn him to Shaitan’s embrace!
And that’s when the sound of more blasters could be heard, coming from above! They had come in through the ship access on the roof! Damn it!
(Stationmaster POV)
“So, you have no idea who these men are, or how they got all these holes in them?”
The ship owner shook his head, trying not to smile. “No sir. I was just coming back to the ship to respond to an alert I got from the security system when we found the bodies. Looked like there were several groups, so maybe they went and killed each other, disagreeing on who would get to attack my ship?”
As the man spoke, another 500 credits landed in the stationmaster’s account.
The stationmaster smiled, and said, “Well, the poor sods should have known better than to attack a ship that had paid for the defense permit. All right, you’re free to go, Captain Mollen.”