Moon Rabbit
The alley behind the clinic was a cacophony of violent noise. Steel banging, heavy footsteps cascading off the iron pipes, heavy breathing, splashing water and shell casings hitting the asphalt. Shakk pushed them forward as he took up position behind the dumpster. Jon pushed Case forward into cover. He rested his forehead against the iron dumpster. His chest heaved and his eyes squeezed shut. The gunfire continued. A gust of wind blew down the alley as three hovercars zipped overhead, draining the ambient sound of the atmosphere below them as they traveled.
“BEHIND US! THEY’RE CLOSING US IN!” Jon screamed towards Shakk.
Shakk looked over his shoulder. He saw two men in combat kits carrying something that resembled a silver praying mantis. Their faces were covered in helmets with sleek, flat blast shields to hide their faces. The men pulled the arms of the mantis apart and Shakk realized what it was. A Tomahawk Light Machine Gun.
They were trapped.
Shakk made a judgment call. There was gunfire ahead of them - but if they died running forward, at least Rico’s mother could grant him an open-casket funeral. If they stayed behind the dumpster, the Tomahawk would make sure there wouldn’t be enough of them left to make identification possible. Shakk looked down the alley. They didn’t have many options - but they did have a window.
“The window - down the alley to the right. Go!” Shakk grabbed Jon and pushed him forward, firing over his shoulder to provide them cover.
He heard a sharp whirring behind him - the Tomahawk was powering up. Rico and Case followed behind them. Broken glass crunched under their shoes as they ran. Shakk hit one of their attackers at the far end of the alley. His scream was filtered through a voicebox disguiser - a muffled, tortured static was all that came out as blood burst from his chest. Shakk dove towards his companions. Automatic fire screamed out like a banshee. Glass shattered and brick turned to dust. They dove in through the window one after the other. Shakk didn’t waste time setting up. He leaned back out of the window and took aim down the alley.
Case was frantic - he had never been in a gunfight, or watched as the life drained from a sentient being as a result of his actions. He had been part of simulations - for trial weapons at one of his father's subsidiary companies. But now he was seeing the effectiveness of the end products. He could see what happens after those simulations are done, the guns are shipped out, and AppaCorp military ordinances are taken to some shithole world and deployed against living, breathing organisms. He had no idea that blood could look so crimson. Or that it didn’t run like water.
It stuck like adhesive.
Case wanted to gag but he swallowed it. He looked around the basement room they’d taken shelter in. Shakk was still posted at the window. His body shook slightly each time his gun went off. Case went to turn and talk to his non-engaged comrades and was met with a blow to the face. His head split with pain and color flooded his vision. His ears were ringing - but he could hear Jon and Rico’s voices mixing with others. Case felt an arm land on his shoulder and pull him forward. His head made contact with the cold metal of a support beam. More pain. Blows rained down on him - he couldn’t tell what was hitting him, or where. He was blind from the pain. He started to feel like he was floating above his body. Like his soul was hovering above the room, watching as strangers did their damndest to take his life. He heard a set of heavy steps crunching broken glass by him.
The click of an AutoKnife.
“Die motherfucker!” Rico screamed out.
A strangled, animal groan filled the air, filtered through the mechanical static of a voicebox disguiser. The blows stopped. Case managed to force his eyes open. He was staring into the dark, soulless orbs of a combat helmet. More context filtered in. The helmet was attached to a man - the body of a man, at least. Case felt something sticky and warm. Blood. Then he heard retching behind him. Rico was doubled over, holding his stomach. Jon was off to the side of them, bringing his foot down on a stranger’s windpipe. God have mercy, what’s happened to us?
“Rico, we gotta move,” Case said. Shakk dropped a mag and reloaded.
“Y’all gotta haul ass, I’m almost spent. Can’t cover for much longer.”
There was a door at the far end of the basement. Jon knew he couldn't die here; In fact, he refused. Anywhere but here. He knew these buildings - he played in them when he was young. They brought back memories. Good ones, bad ones… They flashed before his mind in rapid succession. Memories of kicking a ball against the walls while his mother worked. She was a strong woman - but she was strong in the way that men were strong. A heartless, frigid way. She made her living running girls from the lower side. Helping keep the nobility entertained. Her clients were just colleagues of Jon’s father, looking for cheap thrills and discretion. Sometimes, bodies turned up - never the nobles. She dealt with that too.
That was what the senior Tekla had reduced her to - from a matriarch to a madam. They needed to eat. Nobody wanted the mistress of a noble as an employee. Bad press. Jon swallowed hard, clenching his teeth together. He hated his mother once. He couldn’t understand how she became a version of the very thing he despised most. A parasite. The kind that fed off the misery and destruction wrought by a system that considered people like them disposable. She catered to the same kinds of people who threw them away. People that had known his parents when they were still together. It made him angrier and angrier each time he saw a hover Royce parked near his building.
It's not like he wanted to hate them - or hate his father for exiling them. His mother told him not to blame his old man. His mother always told him the senior Tekla was helping in his own way. Then his father threw him from their balcony - in between fits of beating his mother. He remembered the look of disgust his father had. The way the old bastard had spit the word he hated most at him while he clutched the grass of their lawn - the air forced from his lungs by the impact of his landing. The grass was wet from rain - always freshly cut. He rolled on his back and looked towards the moons. The craters that dotted the surface made images, sometimes. That night, it was a rabbit. As the world swam in his head, it looked like the rabbit was running to the other moon and back again. Blackness started to sink in - the rabbit started to fade.
Maybe it’s dying… maybe I am too… little Jon thought. He remembered feeling someone stand over his body - as a summer rain started gently in the moonlight.
Reality crashed back in around him. It had only been a moment in the real world - but it felt longer in his head. Much longer.
“JON!” Gunfire obliterated the bricks behind him, sending dust and shrapnel into the room.
“ARE YOU INSANE?” Shakk yelled in his ear. “START FUCKING MOVING! THEY’RE COMING!”
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Rico ran through the door first. Then Case, Jon, and finally Shakk. Rico looked down at his locator.
“We just need to make it five blocks and we’re at the ship docks,” Rico said.
“Thank God - cause I haven’t run this much since fucking high school,” Case said. They climbed the stairs to ground level and spilled out the back entrance. Another alley. The three kept running, but Shakk didn’t. Rico noticed the absence and turned back towards him.
“What are you doing? Let's go.”
“We’ll never make it. Not unless we get rid of them here. And getting rid of threats is what I do best. You go ahead and get the ship ready - I won't be far behind.” Rico turned to run. Shakk called out after him again.
“Rico! Wait!”
Rico turned back to him.
“I can count on you, right?”
Rico nodded. Shakk nodded back. Rico huffed as he ran after his friends. Shakk checked his ammo. Then his equipment.
“Two magazines left, huh? It’ll work.” The alley was full of puddles. He looked down into one and stared at his own reflection.
Raindrops rippled the still water. Something was missing - and if he was gonna do this right, he had to be in the frame of mind for it. He knelt down and scooped clumps of dirty mud together. He rubbed his hands together, wiping the dirt on his face. Two streaks of dark filth ran down from his eyes like tears. Just like how he did his war paint in the Corps.
Now you are ready to take life - and die if need be. A creed that was passed down to the Vizslas Mercenaries across generations. It was a promise that was meant to be kept - at all costs. The rain picked up. Rico looked back and saw Shakk kneeling in the alley. Lightning struck in the air, and the thunder made Rico flinched. When his eyes opened again, Shakk was gone. Screams rose in the air from the block next door.
“That man is the reaper himself,” he mumbled. Case looked around the corner at the entrance of the ship docks. There was a sign on the gate that read PRIVATE PROPERTY in bright red lettering. That being said, there wasn’t any security.
“Maybe they thought nobody would be dumb enough to steal from them,” Case whispered to Jon.
“I don’t know - but I know we have to get in there.”
Rico set his bag down and pulled out a small laser torch.
“Keep watch,” Rico said
. He ran to the gate and turned it on, slicing through the hinges of the gate. The fire of the laser made quick work of the cheap, rusted metal of the gate. He took his time, making sure the sound of engines or heavy rain poured was covering him. Rico removed the gate and set it down. Case and Jon ran over to join him
.
“Wait where did he go? The general?” Case asked mockingly. Rico turned to Case and Jon.
“Case, I'm going to say this once - if you value your life, don't provoke him too much. He said he would meet us at the ship.”
“What’s he doing right now?”
“Tying up our loose ends.”
Case gulped as he looked back down the alleyway.
“Let's go,” Jon said. He crawled through the fence line and sprinted towards the hangers. The Shipdock was small in size but the hangers were massive. Rico crept to the door and pulled out his drone/
“Terminal - activate spider,” Rico instructed. The drone whirred as the circuits and gears inside it sprang to life. Its legs stretched before finding their place, and it maneuvered cautiously to the wall. Rico motioned for it to open the door by cracking the keypad.
“Terminal - tell Spider to cause a short circuit.”
“Command acknowledged.”
The drone let out a harsh spark. The door slowly began sliding open. Rico grabbed the drone and charged into the hanger. Case looked around for something to carry as a weapon, settling on a length of rusted pipe in place of a baton. Jon maneuvered through the garage with the flashlight of his holo. The hangar was empty with no ship in sight.
“What the fuck, Rico? I thought you said it was here!” Jon barked.
“It's supposed to be - that’s what was listed on the manifest.”
“Would you two calm the fuck down? There's a whole other hangar,” Case said.
Jon spit on the concrete.
“Let's just check the other one,” Case said with a sigh. The three moved to the back door, peeking through the window of the connecting hangar.
“There she is,” Rico said.
“Terminal - we need another short circuit.”
“Command acknowledged.”
The door once again began to slide open. Jon began sprinting towards the spacecraft. When he got there, he touched the side of it, like it was some kind of majestic creature he was trying to soothe. He stroked it like he was afraid it would fly away on its own.
“We’re almost free,” Jon said.
“Who’s flying?” Case asked.
“We can run a flight program through my terminal and I can skim through the rest of how to fly myself from there,” Rico said, marveling at the spacecraft.
The hangar bay doors began to open. Light spilled into the hangar, and the sounds of magazines being loaded and guns being cocked rang out into the air. Rico felt fear grip his heart. He also felt the weight of his pistol in the back of his jeans. It felt heavy. Cold. Like something strange and evil, calling to him. The doors were rising higher. The light pierced through the darkness of the hangar. It was almost blinding. All three men braced for trouble - waiting for an army to blow them to hell. But there was only one silhouette.
“I asked y’all to do one thing,” the silhouette said. Shakk stepped forward, his dark skin stained with the rusted crimson of blood.
“Let's get the fuck out of here,” Rico said. Rico opened his terminal, and Spider crawled through one of the exhaust vents on the craft. After a few moments, a hatch opened on the bottom of the craft, and a platform lowered. The men boarded their new ship. The engines kicked on - the ship rumbled as the vessel roared to life. Rico plugged his terminal into the central cockpit of the ship. Jon beamed as he looked about the room, taking in the twinkling lights of the controls and the smell of fuel that clung to everything around them. He looked to his friends - and saw Case making his way back down the boarding panel. His face scrunched in confusion, and he grabbed his friend’s wrist.
“I don’t think I can be of any help where you're going, Jon. I’m more useful helping from here. I can make sure you get those supplies.” Case said, with a sad smile.
Jon stared at his friend solemnly. He walked down the ramp with him and hugged his friend.
“Take care of yourself - and stay in touch. See if you can tell me what happened with Nat and Clarissa,” Jon said. Case gave him a nod.
“You got it, chief.”
Jon ran back up the ramp as the ship prepared for takeoff. Case watched from the ground as the engines began to fire, and the hatch closed up, sealing his friends inside.
“Terminal 0 maximum output to engines. Prepare for an atmospheric exit.”
“Command acknowledged.”
The spacecraft jolted them out of the hangar. The ceiling split above them as the craft began to rise. It gained momentum as it began hurtling skyward. As Case walked back out into the city, staring at the sky, the ship became smaller and smaller. Soon, it was just a dot -Chasing the rabbit that played in the moonlight.