Nomad

Foreword

Space is an absurdly big place. So vast and massive, so incomprehensively large, that it’s not a huge surprise the noisy little planet of Earth went unnoticed by a galactic civilization.  When the planet was finally stumbled across, it was not the peacekeeping or even political arm of that civilization that discovered it, but the criminal element.  A wealthy outlaw who delighted in collecting and selling unique things found our planet and chose to harvest a few dozen of its more interesting and unique life forms. Perfect examples of evolution on Earth, such as the great white shark and the common crocodile were high priorities, as were oddities such as the Baobab trees of Madagascar. This criminal spent weeks carefully collecting his specimens, adding them to the menagerie already on board his ship, and allowing the pursuing law enforcement ship time to follow his trail and find him in orbit of Earth.

The criminal had modified a native virus to use as a weapon for just such an occasion.  The outlaw held the population of Earth hostage, threatening the law enforcement ship with the extinction of all humans on the surface of the planet.  A failure of communication led to the ships engaging in a firefight, and the release of the virus.  Only a small percentage of people survived this efficient flu, in strict quarantine areas.  While plummeting to the ground, the criminals ship automatically released its entire load of rare and exotic life forms onto the surface of Earth in emergency drop pods. The vast majority of them died in the crash landing, or upon exposure to Earths environments.  A small number of them thrived however, changing the flora and fauna of Earth dramatically. 

A third alien faction had been listening in on the communications and observing the conflict through long range sensors.  Once both the law enforcement and criminal ships were shot down, this faction sensed an opportunity.  Several dozen massive ships descended upon Earth, performing a rush scavenging job.  They collected anything of technical or mineral worth they could easily find, and quickly left the area before additional law enforcement could respond to the situation.

The response of the galactic civilization was one of sadness, having failed to properly protect a young species that could have one day become space faring and joined their ranks.  Quarantine was set up around the solar system, and centuries of debate and discussion began, while a single alien life form was sent to Earth to act as a caretaker of humanity.  This creature’s job was to remain unknown while guiding those few humans left to a survivable future.

A couple of centuries later, the Nomad walked west across the wastes of what was once the United States of America.  His pack slung across the small of his back and his weapons strapped across his body, he kept his wide brimmed leather hat pulled low to shield his eyes against the sunlight.  His duster jacket covered most of his arsenal, but a simple wood and metal rifle was visible slung across his shoulders, its barrel far too wide for conventional bullet projectiles.

He rubbed his goatee as he stopped in the sun and heat of the desert to drink from his canteen, looking around at the ridges he was walking in between.  As he passed into yet another canyon he took notice of a vaguely man shaped blur in the middle of the slopes.  It had been days since he had seen another person, and the presence of another human being in the wastes was not exactly comforting.  He used his binoculars to get a better view, but heat waves shimmered from the ground and blocked clear sight at his distance. He took off his hat and ran a hand over his dreadlocked hair, sighing at the heat.

After he waited for ten minutes and marked no movement, he approached the man shaped blur in the canyon.  He walked closer, stopping to use his binoculars and assure himself there had been no movement. That didn’t preclude all the dangers he could encounter in the wastes, but it was a good start.  As he walked up to the body, he ascertained that it was indeed a corpse.

A desiccated and partially mummified corpse was grotesquely positioned in a scarecrow stance.  Simple rods of wood had been thrust through the rags of clothing left on the body and dug into the ground at its feet.  Leather strips had been used to lash the corpse in place on the frame.  The arms were broken and set against the frame in position with the legs in a semi crouch.  The head had been removed from the neck and set into the hand at the scarecrows back, its face tilted upwards as empty eye sockets gazed at the corpses shoulder blades.

The Nomad studied the totem for a few moments, trying to think of what it could mean. “Well, if it’s a warning, it’s a bizarre one.”  He turned and followed the finger on the hand extended in front of the totem and noticed a slight movement on a nearby shelf of granite.

The Sniper chuckled to himself, rubbing his cheek against the smooth plassteel butt of his hybrid rifle.  “Finally, the chump figures it out.”  He was a tall man, brown of skin and quite weathered looking with a meticulously shaved head, but his large frame was hidden under a therm-optic net draped over his body.  And his body was itself partially buried into a crater of soil, whereby he watched his quarry. His visual, heat and sonic signature were largely hidden, but his propensity for fidgeting was not.

The Nomad threw himself sideways just before the Sniper fired, taking the high caliber round in the shoulder as he fell.  The round violently tore through his duster and punched a hole in his meshed titanium ceramic armor weave at the shoulder. It spun him in the air as he fell, sending him to the dust in a heap. Fighting the urge to scream as the searing bullet throbbed in his shoulder, he tried to move forward in a crawl before slumping to the ground.

The Sniper chewed briefly on his thumbnail in nervousness, before returning to his rifle scope to confirm the kill. “That was a definite hit…but it didn’t look lethal.  Why isn’t he moving…”   He moved slowly to unchamber the single shot bolt action, a replacement round creeping up in his hand from the rifles butt.  The Nomad peered at the chalky slope, his grip tight on his pistol.  Movement from the Snipers fidgeting gave him away again, and the Nomad rolled over, spraying rounds from his metal storm pistol until it held only one.  The Sniper ducked, chuckling as every round spattered into the hillside around him, none close to hitting him.

He began taking aim for another shot when he noticed a strange smell.  The acrid stink of fuel pervaded the air around him.  The Nomad pressed the electronic safety button on the side of the gun, allowing the final round to be fired.  The other rounds in the metal storm pistol held small pockets of concentrated fuel, and the final round held a small napalm burst payload.  The Nomad took careful aim and fired it.

The Sniper had just decided to jump up and run, but a sudden burst of heat and force slammed him face first down onto the stone ground as the fuel-air detonation roared across the valley.  The Nomad ran, putting distance between himself and the Sniper.  Once he was out of the canyon, he slumped against cover and groaned in pain at the high caliber round still lodged in his shoulder.  He unslung his customized rifle and set it against the stone slab he was hiding behind, sliding his left arm out of the armor weaved duster gingerly.

The Nomad sat down, digging a small and ancient med kit out of his pack.  It held two precious treasures he needed desperately to survive. He slid his knife from its sheath and inhaled through his gritted teeth, slitting the wound larger while trying not to cry out in pain.  He then clenched the knife handle between his teeth and took a series of deep breaths while he readied a strong magnetic extraction tool from his med kit.  He held the broad surface to the wound and pressed the button to activate it, screaming in agony as the shards of the bullet were dragged quickly from the wound.  Blackness encroached on his vision as he steadied himself and dropped the extractor.

He leaned against the rock and took a few breaths, trying to steady his shaking hands before he opened his med kit again and drew out the more precious of the two treasures.  He pressed the ampule of advanced microscopic medical robots to the skin next to his wound.  The needle activated, pressing through the small rubber tip and injecting the swarm into his body.

Relief flooded him immediately as potent painkillers flooded his system and nerve endings were blocked while the medibots diagnosed his wound and began working to fix it. The blood flowing from his wound slowed and became a clear plasma discharge as the wound scabbed over.  It began to itch as the robots stimulated cellular growth and made thousands of tiny sutures from the inside.  The wound tingled slightly as the Nomad stood and began walking again, this time climbing the granite slope to circle around to the Sniper’s position.  He loaded his metal storm handgun with another magazine of his customized fuel air rounds but unslung his grenade rifle to lead with.

The Sniper snapped awake, his head throbbing and nose bleeding. He took his sound wave canceling earplugs out and wiped his nose with his sleeve as he struggled to his feet.  His camouflage cover had protected him from the heat of the fuel-air explosion, but the pure concussive force had knocked him senseless.  He kissed each of his special earplugs before tucking them gently into a shirt pocket.  He tilted his head back to attempt to stop the nosebleed while he chuckled.  After a few moments, the bleeding had slowed enough that he simply stuffed a shred of cloth in each nostril and began collecting his gear.

The camouflage wrap was toasted, its power supply charred and useless. The overload it had suffered protecting him from the intense heat was its last act.  He folded it neatly and covered it with rocks.  After he was done with that chore, he carefully selected an armor piercing round from his ammunition supply and chambered it in the huge rifle before he slung it across his back.  The Sniper looked around, collecting his single spent shell casing before jogging down the hill.  He stopped at the bottom and carefully looked around every bit of cover before continuing on in the direction the Nomads tracks took him.  He came upon the blood-spattered ground and the fragments of his own round, chuckling to himself again. “Cheeky bugger’s still kicking. That won’t do, no…that won’t do at all.”

The Nomad climbed down from the charred rocks above the Snipers old perch.  He searched the nearby area, noting the small pool of blood.  He noticed the strange rock pile and uncovered it, taking out the scorched wrap.  Figuring out what had happened, he started down the way the Sniper had gone, following his own tracks back to the slab he had dug out the bullet behind.

          A very crude outline of a man wearing a long coat and a wide brimmed hat was scratched in the dirt where he had been.  The fragmented round from his shoulder was now partially pieced together and pressed into a small hole in the ground at the drawings forehead.  The drawing had been arranged so that the bullet in the forehead was perfectly positioned with his bloodstain.  The Nomad scowled, searching the hills around him for the Sniper, aiming his rifle at every crag that looked like a good hiding place. He followed the Snipers tracks until they disappeared at the start of flat grasslands. The grass was flattened in a circle and the tracks just vanished there.

          The Nomad lifted his binoculars and scanned the horizon, finally finding the Sniper far in the distance. He was on a thrust bike in the distance, rapidly getting further away.  The thrust bike was a seat between a set of four ion engine thrusters. It couldn’t get very high off the ground but was incredibly fast and agile. The Nomad felt his disadvantage, but simply kept moving. Nightfall wasn’t far off, and he wanted to find cover before that happened.  He also felt the need to put as much distance between himself and the bloodstains he had left behind.  Blood in the air brought Jackals from miles around.

          He used his binoculars to scan the area again, this time looking for proper cover for the evening a few miles away from the cliffs. Before heading out into the grassland area, he brushed the bloody areas on his clothing with dirt to scrub as much away as he could. He searched the grasslands until he found a small nettle plant and ground it up before applying the paste of it across the bloodstains. It would help limit the smell of the blood but was not a real fix.  Jackals were as bad as sharks about blood, and a frenzied pack could kill heavily armed men easily.

          If he couldn’t find cover before dusk though, jackals would be the least of his worries.  After a few hours of walking, he saw a grove of trees in a small depression in the land. Picking up his pace, he soon encountered a worn path leading towards the grove. Hope for a town rose in his chest in spite of his new enemy the Sniper.  He saw after a few more miles that the grove of thick trees did indeed house a small town.

          As he approached, a woman stepped out from behind one of the trees with an ancient, but automatic rifle raised at him and commanded him to stop. She had dusky blond hair tied back in a loose pony tail and bright blue eyes that never wavered from him.  The Nomad, used to this treatment, slowly raised his hands and tried to appear as non-threatening as he could.  The healing bullet wound in his shoulder caused him to wince and stop his hands before they reached the height of his head.

          “Alright. I’m law here. How are you armed?”  She spoke with a bored authority.

The Nomad scowled, wondering if he was about to be robbed.  “I’m packing a metal storm handgun, a twenty-five-millimeter grenade rifle, and my revolver, along with various explosives and a knife, of course.  I was hoping to trade and spend the night here.” He lifted his gaze to meet hers, smiling roguishly at her from under his hat.

          She shouldered her rifle and walked over to him.  “That’s alright. I’ll just need to store your weapons in my office while you’re here. We don’t allow anyone to carry inside town proper.  And we DON’T take explosives in trade.” The Nomad nodded his head and unloaded his weapons, handing the guns to the Law Keeper with a smile.

          They walked into the town proper, making pleasant small talk. Her official duties finished, the Law Keeper became rather pleasant.  The Nomad learned that she had not seen the Sniper, as well as some basic town history. The tiny one road town was a trading post and waypoint for the area.  There were some forested ranches scattered around the area, as well as some light travel from the east.

          As they walked through the gate that led into the town proper, the first night swan of the evening let out a hunting scream. It was miles away, but the sound echoed off the cliffs and across the valley.  Night swans were a type of predatory alien bird.  They were called swans because of their beautiful feathering, which was usually a creamy white.  The creatures had wingspans of seventeen meters, and long graceful necks. Their beaks were curved, and they had killing talons on each foot.  They were strictly nocturnal, and never ventured out of their caves and groves before dark.

          The Nomad followed the Law Keeper into what appeared to be an Inn, nodding at the innkeeper as the man waved hello.  “Hi there Melinda! Who’d you find this time?”  The man chuckled as he took in the Nomad, looking him up and down.  “I like his hair.”

Melinda sat down at the bar and smiled at the Innkeeper as he poured her a glass of something fizzy and orange. The Innkeeper was a tall lanky man with blonde hair he kept spiked up in the front and shaved close around the sides. He had a chunk of metal stuck through his lower lip that had been carved to resemble an arrow.  He smiled broadly and poured a second glass of the fizzing orange liquid, sliding it across to the Nomad.  The Nomad sat down hesitantly, smiling back and setting his hat on the bar.

          She chuckled at her friend and sipped from her drink.  “Mikee, this is a traveler, heading west.  He just needs a room for the night and a couple of meals.”

Mikee leaned against the backboard of his bar, rubbing his chin in thought.  “Well, Nomad…have you got goods to trade with? I wouldn’t turn you out to the swans or nothing, just like to get paid for my nicer room if I’m using it.  Plus, I offer companionship for a bit extra if you care for it.”  He stuck his fingers in his lips and blew a piercing whistle.

          “I was already comin, love!  No need to be whistling for us like we was animals.” A short, attractive woman with long red hair in thick bouncy curls walked out from the back of the inn accompanied by a thin man with long black hair.  She was in a pink dress with frills and lace, He wore black leather pants and a mesh shirt.

Before the Nomad had a chance to figure out what they were there for, the Gigolo shook his head and sat down at a table with a deck of cards.  “I see you lookin at me, Nomad. Aint no charge for a good look, but I don’t serve men.  Talk to Abby here about that.”  He shuffled the cards and began dealing out a simple game onto the table in front of him.

          Abby slid up next to him at the bar and winked.  “What do you say, Mr. Mystery…am I your type?”

The Nomad flushed deep red and nodded.  “Uh, yes indeed you are. You’re very pretty.  I just…ah…I wouldn’t feel right paying for it.”  She stared at him with her head tilted to the side, unsure if he was insulting her, so he continued.  “I’d feel like I hadn’t earned your interest, like…you didn’t actually want that from me.  And if that was how I felt, I couldn’t partake.”

She continued staring at him for a moment, eyes narrowed.  Finally, a tiny smile creased on lip and nearly changed the Nomads mind by itself.  “Oh darling, you underestimate how much…”  She leaned in to whisper in his ear.  “I LOVE my job.”

He stiffened slightly, shoulders becoming tense as his jaw flexed.  “All the same.”

Mikee shrugged as Abby sighed and went to play cards with the Gigolo.  “Ah well, room and board then.  Let’s see what you offer in trade.”  The Nomad reached into his pack and produced a small pouch.  Melinda winked at Mikee and went to join the Gigolo at the card table, leaning against him.

          “I got this in trade back in the mountains, in the shelf city. Sugar.”  He paused, his head tilting to one side.  It makes things sweet.”

Mikee held up a hand.  “I know what sugar is, we get traders from shelf town pretty regularly. Half of that pouch is good for a clean room and two square meals, plus as much drink as you’d like for the night.  If you change your mind about Abby while she’s still available, the rest of the pouch and she’s all yours for the night as well.”  He sighed slightly, clearly unimpressed by the offered item, or the Nomad himself.

          The Nomad carefully portioned out half of the fine powder and kept the rest in his pouch.  Mikee swept his pay into a pouch of his own that he produced from under the bar and smiled politely as he shook the Nomads hand. A group of people who lived in the evergreen grove town came into the inn to eat and drink for the night, apparently a common occurrence.

          The Gigolo began another game, his hand painted laminate cards flashing colorfully as he dealt.  The Law Keeper Melinda, seemed to be very fond of him.  They spent the evening chatting and joking and after a few hours, the two of them went to a room together.  Mikee shook his head when he saw that and muttered to himself.  “She never pays anymore…”

          The Nomad enjoyed his meal and a few of the fizzy orange drinks before falling into his bed and sleeping until mid-morning.  He rose and dressed, gathering his things and making certain nothing had been stolen while he slept. Satisfied that everything was as it should be, he went to the main room to have some breakfast.   He stopped after sitting down and rolled his shoulder, feeling the drastic improvement.  The bullet wound was nearly completely healed.  He wolfed down a hot breakfast while chatting with Mikee about where in town he could do some trading.

          As he was finishing up and gathering his things to leave the inn, the Gigolo came in with his arm around Melinda.  He was shirtless, and she had her hair down.  The Gigolo kissed the Law Keepers forehead and raised an eyebrow at the Nomad as he walked past.  He went out the front door and stretched, yawning.  The Nomad thanked the Innkeeper again and headed outside to join the Gigolo.

          “Staying to do a bit of trading?” The Gigolo was sitting on a carved bench, hands behind his head.  His long black hair was draped down behind him, and he appeared to be at complete comfort, basking in the early morning sun.

The Nomad nodded.  “Directions as well.  I’ll be needing to know at least where to head next.”  He stepped aside as Melinda tapped him on the shoulder.  Before he was able to even say anything to her, a sharp snap of air passed between them and the pretty Law Keeper with the blue eyes crumpled.

          A scream sounded inside as part of Melinda’s brains splattered across the entrance to the inn.  The faint crack of the Snipers shot passed over them. Abby fell over backwards, her legs pushing against the floor as all the color drained out of her face. She clutched her midsection, blood pouring out from between her fingers.  Wordless sounds of pain escaped her lips as she pushed backwards against the table she had slumped by.

          The Gigolo and Nomad had darted inside immediately, the latter slamming the door behind them and taking cover.  The Gigolo slid to Abby’s side and pressed his hand to her midsection, applying pressure to her wound as she had lost the strength to.  Mikee scrambled to the windows, a large scatter rifle in his hands. He peered out and shook his head.  “I don’t see him anywhere!”

The Nomad kicked Mikees leg out from under him.  “Get down! He’s a sniper, and you’re sticking your face in windows.”

          “Abby needs help!  I have to get the doctor!”  The Gigolo sounded frantic.  The Nomad crawled on his stomach over to them and took a clean cloth out of his medical pouch, all that was left of his meager supplies. He lifted the Gigolos hand and a grim look came over his face.

He pressed the cloth to the wound and shook his head.  “The bullet punched through her kidney, that’s arterial bleeding. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring this on you.”

          The table above him blew splinters as another diamond/carbon tipped round punched through it. The Nomad rolled to his side as more rounds punched through the front of the building.  Mikee smashed out the window and fired blindly in the direction the rounds were coming from as the Nomad scrambled to hide behind the brick fireplace.

          Two kilometers away, the Sniper lay out on his blanket, on a grassy hilltop. “Little bastard…he’s quick on his feet.  Should have tried for a closer spot.”  He peered through the high-tech scope again, seeing the thermal image of the Nomad hunkered behind black squares. Anything solid black with a red outline on the scope was registered as something his rounds couldn’t pierce.  Based on the shape, he guessed the Nomad was hiding behind a fireplace.

          “Brick, huh? Well, we have a solution for that. Yes, we do, yes indeed we do.”  He worked the bolt and caught the bullet as it flipped into the air.  He set it gently on the blanket beside him and continued muttering to himself as he took a long round with a red painted stripe around the casing and eased it into the open slide of his rifle.  “Shame about the pretty little thing, but I suppose that’s just what happens when you’re Law.”  The sounds of Mikee’s scatter rifle being fired drifted to him across the grasslands.

          “You shooting at me?  He’s shooting at me.  That’s a laugh.  Me shooting at you on the other foot…well that’s also a laugh.  C’mere!” He shouldered his rifle again and peered through the scope. He watched Mikee fire the scatter rifle and began giggling.  He laughed so hard he had to set the rifle down and compose himself for a moment before resuming.  “Oh man, a scatter rifle. That is rich.  Now where’d that little fellow get to?  Oh right, the bricks.”

          The brick fireplace he was hiding behind suddenly lost part of its front side, the brick simply exploding in chips all over the room.  The Nomad began frantically searching the room for some way to either get out or hide from the Snipers equipment.  The Gigolo stood, holding Abby in his arms and walked over to the door.

“You go out there and he’ll gun you down!” Mikee shouted at him.  The Gigolo glared at him and kicked open the door.  He stepped out onto the porch and started sprinting up the street but stopped dead as a piercing howl suddenly filled the sky.

          Everybody looked skyward as a butcher knife shaped pod fired retrorockets before slamming into the ground in the middle of town. Its front end hissed and popped open, exposing a soft blue glow coming from inside. A man with broad shoulders and thick shaggy sideburns pushed his way out of the pod and turned around, reaching back inside. The thick black antenna on top of the pod suddenly launched high into the air above the town, ascending on a thin pole of metal.  The top of it began to spin, and a strange tingle of static electricity passed over the Gigolo.

          The Spacer turned back to him and took two fast steps towards him.  He was wearing white molded armor that covered his vital areas in thicker plates while thick looking fabric stretched between plates. A heavy belt held many pouches, and he reached into one of them as he approached the Gigolo.  “Set her down, the wound needs to be still.”

          The Gigolo was shocked into doing as he was told. “What are you doing to her?  The Sniper!  We can’t stay out here!”

The Spacer shook his head. “I put up an electromagnetic field around the town. He can’t hurt anyone unless he has a laser or plasma weapon.  I’ll deal with him in a moment, treating her now is critical. Her heart has stopped beating. Unless we get that round out and fix the damage done to her kidney, she will die.”  The Gigolo brushed stray hairs off Abby’s pale face as the Spacer dug in his belt pouch again.

          He removed a small gun shaped device and held its tip just inside the wound, pressing down a button on the side.  A sharp clink sounded, and the Spacer pulled the device out again, removing the bullet with it.  He adjusted a set of controls on the side of the device and a long needle slid into place at the tip. The Spacer stabbed it into Abby’s chest, through her breastbone.  He pressed the trigger, and then removed the gun.  He tore Abby’s dress open and drew two tiny panels off the medical gun.  He stuck the leads on her chest, allowing the tiny wires to unspool from his medical gun.

          “Clear.” The Gigolo blinked at him, still shocked by everything that was happening.  The Spacer gently removed his hand from her forehead. “Don’t touch her for a moment.  Don’t worry, this is going to work.” He pulled the trigger on the medical gun again.  Abby heaved as the defibrillator shock sent adrenaline racing through her body.  She gasped in pain briefly before slipping back into blackness.  The Spacer gripped an ampoule and inserted it into the medical gun, pressing it to her midsection above the wound.  He made a few adjustments to the settings on the gun and pressed the trigger again.  The bleeding from her wound slowed, becoming a clear stream as the wound began to slowly close.

          The Spacer stowed his medical gun and reached down on his thigh for a different device.  The weapon he drew had a triangular barrel that extended about seven inches from the hand hold. The Spacer flipped out a panel on the side of the gun, using the targeting systems to track the Sniper. He used his networked implants to mentally manipulate the camera in the gun, locking onto the visual distortion signature of the sniper’s scope and held down the trigger for half a second.

          The triangular barrel housed three independently tracking laser focusing chambers.  Each would track heat signals and movement in a close quarters fire fight or could be programed to lock onto specific targets. The user could also lock them in place and have all three fire simultaneously. A bright red activation light surrounding the top barrel was visible for half a second before blinking out.  No beam of light was visible, but the cybernetic implants placed a tracing beam in red over his natural vision for the Spacer.  The Spacer flipped the small panel closed and holstered the laser pistol.  “The Sniper is dealt with.”

          Two kilometers away, the Sniper took his gaze out of the scope for a moment to brush away a beetle that was tickling his hand. When he turned back, the scope on top of his rifle blew backward in a spray of melted glassteel and plasteel.  He dropped the rifle and lay down flat on his stomach.  “Think dead thoughts old boy. That’s the ticket here. I’m not still alive out yonder, I’m just another corpse for the swans.”  He lay still for a moment before his chest began to shudder and choked laughter bubbled from him.  “Hahaha! A scatter rifle! Bahaha!”

          The Gigolo turned and looked at Melinda’s body on the deck of the inn and turned back to the Spacer.  Sensing the question, he shook his head.  “I’m sorry, I can’t help that one.”  He turned back to his pod and gathered a few things before shutting down the shield and sealing it shut.  He walked past the Gigolo and up the steps to the inn.  He paused to place Melinda’s body on the bench out front and place her hands over her chest.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here fast enough.”  Was all he said.

          The Nomad was at the window with Mikee by the time the Spacer made it inside the building.  The Nomad took a step back as the Spacer approached him, offering an armored hand in greeting.  The Nomad stared at it for a moment before he shook it and offered a weak smile.

          The Spacer pulled a chair over to a table and sat down, motioning for the Nomad to sit across from him.  Mikee went outside to tend to Abby as the Nomad slowly sat down and waited for the Spacer to explain things.  Instead, he pulled a small plasteel tab out of a gauntlet on his wrist.  He flipped open two further extensions on it and pressed a switch on his gauntlet. The space in the air in front of him lit up, showing a backdrop of stars with a huge cylindrical construct sporting four massive wings in the center focus.

          “This is my home. It’s a space station in orbit of Earth.  Its construction was completed five years before the spacecraft crash that killed most of the people down here and spread those alien animals.  The purpose of this particular space station was a long-term habitation experiment.”  He slid his gloved finger through the projection, showing other images.  “The experiment was meant to last for ten years, with a possibility of extension to a total of fifty years.  My people have been up there for one hundred and fifty-nine years.  The station can no longer sustain us.  Fortunately, the station was also designed with the possibility of an emergency re-entry.”

          The Nomad scowled. “Woah, you talkin’ about landing that thing down here?”

The Spacer nodded and continued. “Yes, I am. The station has a full supply of fuel for the entry systems and they are in good repair, but we have a problem.  Without accurate scans of the terrain, we can’t begin the reentry procedure.  We can’t fly the station and need to basically drop it in its landing zone.”

          The Nomad turned his head, confused as to what all of this had to do with him.  “Can’t you do those scans from the station?”

The Spacer sighed.  “We used to be able to, we had full scans and a landing zone picked out.  Then my father destroyed the information and the topographical scanning equipment. He erased the backups and wiped the computer hard drives. It’s a rock.”

          The Nomad kept trying not to look at the grey and red stain on the floor behind the Spacer.  “So your own father sabotaged your station? Why would he do that to you?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The Spacer closed the screen on his wrist and folded his hands. “I don’t know. He used to be the head of the station, but now he won’t talk to anyone. He is very old, and dementia is a possibility. He’s locked up in our brig.  I took control of the station and started looking for a way to save my people.”

          The Nomad shifted in his seat uncomfortably.  “I’m sorry for your troubles, Spacer. I’m just really wondering where I come into this.”

The Spacer got a hard look in his eyes. “You don’t Nomad. Something in your possession does.  There is an abandoned military base underneath the granite hills you just came from. It has a computer we have been in limited contact with, but it has the capabilities to provide us detailed current topographical information.  You have the key to its doors.”  The Nomad had a shocked look on his face, and touched the small of his neck reflexively, a motion the Spacer took immediate notice of.

          “What do you mean? I don’t have anything like that.”  The Spacer reached across the table and pulled the Nomads necklace up out of his shirt. It was a simple tab of metal with a green gem on one side.

It had the basic appearance of a military dog tag but was a centimeter thick.  “Before my father destroyed most of our scanning equipment, we had used it to find an extremely rare artifact from the days before the bio weapon apocalypse.  After the equipment was destroyed two days ago, I ordered round the clock visual watches on you, to keep track of your movements.  It was our only contingency plan.”

The Nomad gave the Spacer a distrusting look.  “What about that sniper that’s been following me?”

The Spacer shook his head. “I have no idea what he wanted you dead for, but he’s been taken care of.  Which is the down payment on that necklace, by the way, saving your life.”

The Gigolo had entered the room quietly and stood listening until that point, when he approached.  “And Melinda? You could have stopped the sniper from killing her!  Why didn’t you do anything!?”

The Spacer stood and un-holstered his laser pistol.  “Calm down.  I was called by an alarm when the first shot was fired.  That was the shot that killed Melinda, there was nothing I could have done to stop it.  Preparations for the landing weren’t complete, but I had to get suited up and drop in now, or that Sniper would have killed more people.”

The Gigolo still scowled, but he didn’t make any threatening moves towards the Spacer. “Where is he?”

The Spacer scowled.  “Who, the Sniper?”

The Gigolo nodded.  “I want to confirm that he’s actually dead.  I owe Melinda that much. Maybe I’ll take his scalp, just to be sure.”

          The Spacer flipped open the panel on his laser pistol and rewound to the last shot. The tracking information was displayed.  He did some quick calculating and walked to the door of the inn.  Checking the information on the panel again, he pointed with the fingers on his right hand.  “If you walk directly that way for two kilometers, you’ll find him.  The gun says he is at a slightly elevated position, so he’s probably on top of a hill.”

          The Gigolo nodded and went back into the inn for a moment, gathering a few things.  He returned holding the handle of what looked like a knife, but had an oversized handle and wires running along the blade edge.  The Spacer stopped him.  “Can I see that please?”  The Gigolo shook his head, thumbing a switch on the side of the handle.

The wires on the edge of the blade sparked and sputtered into life, casting a dull orange glow across the room.  “I don’t think so Spacer. This is a rare and valuable weapon.”

          The Spacer shook his head. “You misunderstand my intentions, I apologize. Allow me to help you with something though.  As a way of apologizing for not being able to help your Melinda.”  The Gigolo stared him for a moment before releasing the switch and allowing the blade to die out.  He handed it to the Spacer.

          The Spacer looked it over, using a small tool to tighten the wires framework a little before he pried a piece of the hilt open and dropped out a cylinder.  He set it on the table and took a cylinder from his belt and pushed it into the hilt.  He snapped the hilt closed and thumbed the button.  The plasma edge whooshed into life, a brilliant red light emanating from the blade edge as the wires magnetically contained the rush of plasma.  He released the activation button and handed it back to the Gigolo.  The Gigolo nodded at him and accepted the blade, turning to leave.

          The Nomad still clutched at his necklace, an unsure look on his face.  “Why do you need my necklace?”

The Spacer turned back to him.  “It’s a virus program. Specifically designed by who knows to open the entrance to the underground base I need to get into.  I need it.”

The Nomad slid the necklace back inside his shirt.  “This was given to me by somebody I care deeply for. I won’t part with it.”

          The Spacer leaned forward.  “If I don’t breach that base and use the scanning systems there to locate a landing site, everybody on board my station will suffocate in seventy four hours and 3 minutes from now.  That includes my father. It also includes my wife, and our unborn daughter.”  He lifted his wrist and showed a glowing countdown clock on the armored bracer.

The Nomad leaned back. “Again, Spacer…I’m truly sorry for your problems.”

The Spacer raised an eyebrow at him.  “What do you want? I’ve got weapons, medical equipment, food.  Name your price.”

The Nomad shook his head. “It’s not for bloody sale friend. You need to get that through your head.”

The Spacers gaze darkened.  “I don’t want to rob you, or even worse, hurt you to get that thing. But I will if I have to.”

The Nomad eyed the Spacer nervously.  “So what’s the compromise? I can’t just loan it to you, obviously. You said it has a program on it, why not just use one of your computers to make a copy?”

The Spacer shook his head. “You really don’t know what kind of thing you have. The algorithms on that drive around your neck are huge. That tech was next level.  I could fit the information on my pods main drive perhaps, if I wiped it of everything else, but then it wouldn’t be very portable.  If we could find another next gen drive like that, perhaps then I could make a copy, but I simply don’t have time. If I leave in the next hour, it will take me until dark just to get to the damned entrance of the base.”

          The Nomad got a sudden twinkle in his eye.  “This is an old military base, right?”  The Spacer nodded.  The Nomad spread his hands and smiled. “Perfect. Take me with you.  Once you get your station landed, I get my pick of weapons, explosives, and meds from the bases stores.”

The Spacer eyed him for a moment before responding.  “Fine. Get your gear, we leave as soon as you’re ready.”  He stood up and left, leaving the Nomad to find the Law Keepers office and collect his weapons.

          The Spacer returned to his pod and used its communications to send a message to his people on the station.  He told them of his success in acquiring the key, sent his love to his family, and signed off. He promised to make contact from the military base and finished the packaged message.  He fired off the communications burst, and then locked up his pod.  He carried all of his gear on his armor and wired his helmet to his belt.

          Shortly after the Spacer and Nomad set off to find the underground base, the Gigolo crept up to the area the Sniper had been shooting from. There was nothing there but a flattened area of grass and a slagged rifle scope.  The Gigolo bared his teeth and started searching for tracks.  He found them leading to another flattened area of grass.  This one had a line of flattened grass stretching from it in an arc that lead around the town.  The Gigolo started after the Sniper, disappointed and ecstatic at the same time.  “Don’t worry Mel, I’ll make the bastard suffer before he dies.”

          The Nomad stopped to take off his wide brimmed hat and wipe the sweat off his forehead. They were walking through the shale cliffs he had come from but taking a different route.  “Holy balls it’s hot out here!  How much further?”

The Spacer turned around and glared at the Nomad before checking his wrist again. “According to my very complicated time keeping device, its ten minutes after the last time you stopped to have a whining break.  Move.”

          The Nomad chuckled. “I aint whining. Just making observations about the current surroundings and inquiries as to our progress.”

The Spacer sighed. “Keep moving. You’re killing our progress and if we don’t make the entrance on schedule, we get to be out at night with the swans. Now, I’ve never been out with them, but I understand it can be an unpleasant experience.”

The Nomad nodded.  “Oh yeah man, they’re like…really big.  They can take a man right off the ground like he was just a mouse or something. Oh, and they like to make hunting calls when they start hunting you from far off, but they get all silent when close so they can sneak up on you too.”

          The Spacer grit his teeth against the chatter and kept walking towards the base.  “Come ON.”  The Nomad took a quick drink from his canteen and hurried to keep up to the armored Spacer.

As they walked, he tried to make conversation. “Hey, you really have a wife up there?  Just kind of floating around the planet out in space?”

The Spacer didn’t look back as he kept walking. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but yeah.”

The Nomad scowled. “How’s she feel about you coming down here to shanghai my pendant and go break into some underground military base?”

          The Spacer stopped walking. He took a water bottle off from his belt and took a long drink.  “She hates it, plainly said. She thinks it’s going to be dangerous and I’m going to get killed.”

The Nomad looked at him sideways. “Wait, dangerous? Dangerous how?”

The Spacer raised an eyebrow.  “Well, the computer system in the base would only give us limited information, but it claims it’s intact. It says the base has not been breached since the original lock down order was given.” 

          The Nomad wiped his forehead again. “So, like…what? Security systems?”

The Spacer started walking again.  “Yeah. Robotic security may still be intact.  You feel like giving me that key yet?”

The Nomad grinned.  “I aint afraid of a fight Spacer, and you aint getting your hands on my pendant.”

          They continued walking on into the afternoon.  “Hey, you don’t talk much, you know that?”

The Spacer was finally breathing heavy after the strict pace he had set most of the day.  “You talk enough for both of us, I didn’t think my contributions would be needed.”

The Nomad scowled. “You’re rude.”

The Spacer, clearly exasperated, leaned against a nearby protrusion of rock wall.  “And you smell! You’re filthy, you look like you haven’t bathed in weeks!  Plus, you never shut up, and you are hindering my mission to protect my people. You’ll just have to forgive me for being a little short tempered.  I promise we can be best friends once that station is on the ground and my people are safe.”

          The Nomad straightened his hat and walked past the Space with his chin up. “Treatment like this, I doubt I’ll want to be friends at that point.  Keep moving, daylights wasting.”

He mocked the Spacer with a nasal tone in his voice towards the end, but the Spacer was ignoring him.  “Shut up! Do you hear that?”  The Nomad stopped and listened.  The wind in the canyons took on a suddenly deeper tone, and the Sniper came around the bend behind them on his thrust bike.

          He wore thick goggles with dark lenses as he lifted his rifle to his shoulder. Before they could react properly, he fired a single shot and raced past them, roaring laughter as he went. The round slammed into the Spacer, hitting his armor in the center of his chest and slamming him to the ground in a heap.  His armor stopped the round from causing any harm though, and he quickly rolled and jumped to his feet, chasing the thrust bike.

          He pulled a bulky rifle from its locking clamp at his back and lifted it, running around the next bend.  The Sniper was turning the thrust bike for another run and had raced it up to the edge of the shale cliff.  The Spacer opened fire, sending bullet shaped packets of magnetically attracted plasma hurtling across the lip of the ridge. They scorched the air as they flew through it, sizzling and leaving light trails of black smoke.  Each one burst in bright orange gouts as they hit and detonated the containment charge within the magnetic packet. The thrust bike took four shots to its underside, blowing it apart in a shrapnel storm that rained across the shale cliffs.

          The Nomad ran up next to him and pulled a tube out of his pack.  It was a plain plastic tube, used in cheap gardening projects before the end of the world. It had thick rubber caps on both ends and a fuse sticking out of one of them.  The Nomad lit it quickly with an ancient lighter and tossed it up over the embankment where the Sniper had crashed. A few seconds later, the cliff top was awash in flames. The napalm grenade sent waves of force pushing the flaming liquid across its area of devastation.

          “OW FUCKER!” The Snipers pain filled exclamation was heard from the top of the cliff.  The Nomad pulled another two explosives from his pack.  Both were simple fragmentation grenades, relics of the time before the apocalypse. He pulled the pins on each of the tube-shaped grenades and allowed the spring-loaded triggers to pop off before he threw one of each in opposite directions above the edge of the cliff.  After they exploded and rained down chunks of shale over the two of them, there were no more sounds from the top of the cliff.

          “You think we got him?”  The Nomad started looking for a way to climb up the cliff, but found nothing.

The Spacer shook his head.  “That was a hell of an impressive demolitions show you put on. He’d have to be very lucky to have survived it unharmed.”

The Nomad shook his head. “I’ve killed this guy with a fuel air explosion, you killed him with a laser pistol, he just keeps comin back.”

The Spacer holstered his plasma rifle and started walking again. “Hope he doesn’t this time.  Let’s go.”

          Two hours after the fight, the Gigolo finished cutting his hand and footholds in the cliff side with his plasma cutter and hauled himself up over the edge of the ridge. He took in the destruction before him.  There were scattered pieces of the thrust bike scattered all over, and three distinct blast marks on the ground.  The blast in the middle looked scorched and blackened.  He carefully searched the area, finding a small splash of blood and a fresh set of tracks.  As he started to follow the tracks, he heard a low growl behind him.

          A jackal stalked slowly towards him, snarling and drooling from its massive mouth.  Another beautiful alien animal, the jackals were named for their olfactory abilities.  The jackals actually most closely resembled a great cat.  The creatures had lithe bodies and exceptional agility, with front paws almost capable of tool manipulation. They had elongated snouts, shaped like an alligator’s with a darkly colored nose at the end marked by broad nostrils.  It’s thickly furred coat ranged from bright blues to deep purples. The one the Gigolo stared down was over excited by the blood in the air and a fresh kill in front of it.

          The Gigolo kept his calm, stepping over to the shallow cliff he had climbed up.  He moved slow until the right moment, and then jerked into a run to trigger the jackals charge. He dropped over the edge and caught his first handhold with his right hand, lifting the plasma cutter to the edge of the cliff and flicking the switch to turn it on.  The jackal made a screaming noise as it slid its head over the edge, right into the hissing blade.  It slumped as the cutter sliced through its face and into its brain, toppling over the edge and almost taking the Gigolo with it to the bottom a handful of feet below.

          He climbed back to the top and began following the tracks of the Sniper. His left arm was covered in the jackal’s blood, and the Sniper was still bleeding.  He left a few drops every dozen steps or so, more than enough to bring the jackals in the area rushing to him.  The Gigolo picked up his pace, lightly running to catch up to the Sniper before the jackals got him.

          The Spacer stepped closer to the cave they had found, edging towards the entrance.  The Nomad laid a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.  He held a finger to his mouth, and then tapped an ear.  The Spacer clicked on an amplifier for his hearing in his helmet. He heard heavy breathing and a high-pitched growl coming from inside the cave before he clicked the amplifier off. The Nomad reached down for his metal storm pistol and lifted it, pointing at the entrance.  He motioned at the Spacer to fire just once after he had emptied his gun and then duck back behind cover.

          The Spacer pulled his plasma rifle into place, and then nodded at the Nomad.  The setting sun at his back, the Nomad darted into the entrance of the cave and started firing.  The rounds spattered against the floor and walls towards the back of the cave and sent every jackal running right at him. He darted to the other side of the cave as the Spacer stepped in and fired once, sending a tiny ball of orange flame trailing black smoke into the cave.

          Before he was even clear, the fuel air mixture detonated.  A massive wave of kinetic force rolled through the cave, blowing the jackals and part of the walls apart.  The jackals were scattered in charred pieces all over the main floor as they stepped in to survey the damage.  Parts of the roof of the cave had collapsed and there was shale all over the ground.

          A claxon alarm began to sound, with flashing red lights illuminating the far side of what was left of the cave. A large metal blast door loomed in the darkness of the back side of the cave. The ground in front of it was metal, only broken by a small cut in the floor. The Nomad started towards the door, but the Spacer stopped him with a hand on the shoulder.  He pointed at the gap in the floor. “That is a perimeter defense laser grid. Any unauthorized passage over it will result in the grid firing.”  He grabbed a severed jackal limb and tossed it over the gap.  The leg sparked as the invisible laser grid burnt holes into it, slicing the limb into strips.

          The Spacer followed it to the wall, where a similar strip was cut deep into the wall.  He pointed to the ceiling.  “Look, hardened titanium armor.  That key on your neck is really the only time sensitive way past this.”  The Nomad reached in his shirt and produced the key, handing it to the spacer.

The Spacer used his bracer to search the walls next to the grid, looking for the manual over-ride panel.  Once he found it, cleverly hidden as a slab of shale, he took the necklace the Nomad offered him.  He carefully slid it into the slot gem first.  It clicked into place and a small screen lit up in front of him.  The image of a skull and crossbones flashed on the screen and it went black.

He moved with confidence across the grid, unharmed and began accessing the blast door.  He tapped phrases and numbers into a screen by the door as the Nomad approached cautiously.  “Ok, so…I’ve been thinking.”

The Spacer continued entering the password, referencing his bracer occasionally.  “Did it hurt?”

          The Nomad narrowed his eyes.  “If you had no idea your dad was gonna flip out and trash your scanners, why would you have such an off the wall contingency plan?”

The Spacer glanced at him, and then returned to his work at the door.  “You’re right. I lied to you.  It wasn’t exactly a contingency plan.  We always intended to take this base for ourselves.  I’m going to land my station right here on top of this base. There’s a flat grassland expanse above the base, and we can build paths into it from up there.  My people have spent years communicating with the computers here and working on programs to slave the systems here to our needs.  We’ve been tracking you for a couple months now, after we managed to scan out the drive you carry.”

The Nomad touched his recently returned pendant.  “So, why lie to me about it?”

The Spacer finished inputting codes to the door and motioned for the Nomad to step back.  “I didn’t think you’d like the fact that we’d been following you, waiting for a chance at your pendant.  No one destroyed our scanning equipment; this base is just the only viable landing site.  I’m not sorry I lied, I had to do whatever it took to get that drive here.”

The Nomad shrugged.  “I’m getting paid one way or the other.”

All talking between them ceased as the blast doors began to open.  The Spacer slid his helmet on and synched it to his implants and both his weapons. Alarms in the helmet began to sound almost immediately, and he shouted for the Nomad to get back.  As the door slid down into the ground, an automated tank began firing into the room.  The tank was on treads, an older model.  It was without smart tracking systems and had no self-charging energy weapons, so the Spacer simply waited behind his cover as the vehicle expended its ammunition.  It laid waste to the cave, blowing it apart with machine gun fire and explosive rounds from its cannon.

The Nomad huddled down against the depression he had hidden in, trying to cover his ears against the noise before screaming out in pain at the deafening onslaught.  The Spacer heard it as his helmet flashed a warning on his heads-up display.  The Nomad had no ear protection, he realized.  Stepping out from cover, he lifted the laser pistol and began pressing the trigger.  The red warning lights surrounding the three barrels each lit up and every time he pressed the trigger, one of the tanks weapons melted into bubbling slag in an explosion of sparks.

It attempted to respond to the damage by turning its remaining weapons towards the Spacer, but he simply melted each before they could turn fully towards him.  His cybernetic implants synched to his helmets heads up display kept a constant stream of information on his targets, helping him stay ahead of the tank.  Its final attempt to kill him was to roll at him.  He simply swung the laser pistol at each tread, cutting through the steel and into the mechanical systems, destroying its ability to move.

The bases computer shut off power to the tank, but its next threat was much worse. Two hovering drones swung into the remnants of the cavern, causing alarms in his helmet to sound as they targeted him with their own laser systems. He felt the heat from searing burns race across his armor as he darted back into cover.  The Spacer ignored the pain from burns that had happened through his armor, synching his implant to the laser pistol.  Without removing his back from the side of the blast doors frame, he tilted the pistol out, tracking and firing.  One drone burst into flames, puddles of molten metal forming beneath it as the other drone shot the laser pistol out from the Spacers hand.  He cursed, pulling his smoking glove back behind cover.

The drone began to swing around to expose the Spacers cover as the Nomad stepped out from behind the slightly melted tank and opened fire with his grenade rifle. The first round knocked the flying drone to the side, but its thrusters compensated, and it started to swing around to the new threat.  The Nomad quickly cocked the rifle and fired again, then again. He kept up the onslaught of grenade rounds until his rifle clicked empty.

The drone was grounded, still attempting to swivel its laser turret to either the Nomad or Spacer.  It was caught on a piece of shale though, and kept moving the ruin of the drone just a little as it swung back and forth. The Spacer pulled his plasma rifle out from its place on his back and made a quick adjustment on its control panel. He lifted it to his shoulder and fired once.  A bolt of blued purple plasma scorched the drone into slag.

The Spacer checked his laser pistol, removing the small atomic battery that trickle charged the capacitor.  It was all that had escaped destruction, mostly due to its heavy shielding.  The Nomad nodded at him as he fed grenade rounds into the rifles breach.  He cocked it as they entered the blast doors. The first room was a massive garage. Many vehicles sat in their docks, and most looked to be in good shape for having been in storage more than a century. They walked slowly down towards the end of the garage, heading for a set of double doors marked with entrance signs.

An alarm sounded in his helmet as two turret defense systems started to swing down from the ceiling.  He quickly raised the plasma rifle and splattered the one on his side with a sizzling burst.  The Nomad fired his grenade rifle and blew the other one into fragments.  He stopped and pointed at the turret in front of the Spacer.  It was a stump, still smoldering as the rest of it was splashed across the ceiling behind it.  Slowly, the metal stopped dripping from the ceiling and solidified.  “Yours is much cooler looking.”

The Spacer regarded the shattered husk of the turret on the Nomads side. Its barrels were bent apart and smoking pieces of it were scattered around, twisted chunks of plastic and metal sticking out from the turret in crazy angles.  “I dunno, I kind of like yours. There’s more than a puddle on the ceiling to look at. It kind of looks like a sad elephant.”

He pushed through the doors, covering the hallway as his implants searched for any threats.  Behind him he heard the Nomad mutter.  “What’s an elephant?”  With a grimaced smile, he ignored his now tender burns and continued moving forward, using his bracer as a guide. Within a few moments and a couple more destroyed turrets, they reached the armory.

The Sniper looked inside the demolished cave, looking at the shredded jackals and frowning. He had always liked jackals.  He hefted his rifle, grimacing at his wounds. His left arm was blackened and scorched, and a chunk of his thrust bike was still lodged in his ribs.  The pain and sudden gout of blood he had experienced when attempting to remove it discouraged any further attempts.  He resolved to find the guy in the white armor with the laser and plasma weapons and take his medical gear. Back in town, he had watched with great interest through his scope as the Spacer had healed the woman he had accidentally shot in the midsection.

He glanced up at the sun, which was quickly departing behind the horizon. It would be dark in moments, and he heard the first swan of the night begin its song.  Without hesitating any further, he stepped into the cave and around the semi melted tank.  A thought struck him and he climbed onto the burnt tank, prying open the unlocked hatch.  Thick white smoke boiled out, and the Sniper waited until it cleared before climbing down into the tank.  He emerged holding a ten millimeter semi-automatic handgun and a pack of modified sabot rounds for it.  He giggled as he darted down the hall way behind the garage and towards the armory, following the trail of melted and exploded turrets in the ceiling.

          The Gigolo crouched in the shadow of a rocky outcrop as the swan hunting him passed by overhead.  He waited for its back to be turned and sprinted forward in the canyon, marking the blood droplets as he went.  The massive bird of prey circled and gave another of its chilling screams as it dove towards him.  He slid into cover again, causing it to wheel upwards, hooting in dismay.  The Gigolo narrowed his eyes as he watched the beast.  Timing his dashes with its approaches, he darted from one point of cover to the next.  He reached the demolished cave about an hour after dark, just ahead of the pack of jackals returning from their hunt.

He sprinted, heedless of the hunting calls behind him and the freshly indignant scream of the swan above him.  He saw the open blast door and dashed for it, sprinting through the garage as the jackals excitedly loped by vehicles towards him.  The double doors slammed open and he bounced off the wall with a lifted leg acting as a shock absorber, turning and dashing down the hallway towards the armory.  He glanced over his shoulder and gave a grim smile, the jackals had caused a pileup in the doorway, slightly hindering their own progress.

Freshly equipped from the armory, the Nomad and Spacer continued through the medical bay and towards what they hoped would be the main control room.  Before they could get to it though, they entered a massive hangar, with many aerial vehicles docked on the ground.  The roof was many meters over their heads and was shaded in darkness, as the lights were only on at the ground level.  It was several football fields in length, so the Spacer and Nomad began walking towards the far end.

The Nomad wore a special pair of armored pants, with an armored vest under his duster.  He was now equipped with a plasma rifle of his own, just like the Spacers.  He also had a laser pistol, and a new tactical backpack full of grenades.  Many kinds of grenades, as the Nomad was fond of explosives. The best addition to his new arsenal for him was a compact belt fed machine gun for his fifteen millimeter grenade rounds as well as plenty of ammo. 

The Spacer had taken the time to repair the laser burns on his armor, and fresh patches of grey armor adhesive streaked his suit. He had replaced his destroyed laser pistol with two new ones, exactly the same model as his old one.  The armory had been defended by another pair of drones, but his implants had warned him of them ahead of time.

They had set a trap for the drones, with the Nomad setting up grenades with sticky attachments to the walls as the Spacer went ahead and tossed a smoke grenade around the corner. He bounced it off the wall, instead of exposing himself to further laser burns. The drones immediately gave chase, and the Spacer ran past the Nomad, who pulled the pins and turned to run himself.  The high explosive grenades went off as the drones turned the corner, blasting them both with kinetic waves of force, gouts of superheated flame, and rubble from the wall.  Neither drone survived the experience.

The Sniper stopped in the armory briefly, taking a specialized longer range plasma rifle and reading through the book that was with it in its case. He fiddled happily with the high tech scope on top of it and forgot his wounds as he played with his new rifle. “Self-charging radio isotope trickle charge atomic battery…wherezat?  Oh.  Must be that thing on the back with the atom symbol.  Very swag!  I do believe I’m in love.”

He looked up absently at the ceiling signs, following the trail of rubble and destroyed turrets and droids into the medical bay.  He paused there to wash his arm and apply a series of skin grafting bandages to it.  He found a package of microscopic medical robot injection ampoules.  He filled a pouch with a few handfuls before stabbing one into his side where the shrapnel was lodged.  “OK.  Time to be a man.  Pull me lads pull!” He gripped the edge of the shrapnel and gave it a jerk, screaming in sudden pain as it scraped against the bone of his ribs.  The scream dwindled into a high pitched giggle as he took a few shallow breaths.

“That was exhilarating.  Aw fuck it, let’s do it again!”  He gritted his teeth and yanked the shrapnel out, collapsing against the shelf for a moment as the waves of pain assaulted him.  He clapped an instant adhere bandage to the wound, grimly smiling as it shrink wrapped itself around the rent flesh. It began to tingle and itch as he walked towards the hangar, absently scratching at the area around his wound.

A low rumble filled the air above them as the Nomad and Spacer walked through the hangar.  “What the hell is that noise?”  The Nomad turned around and began walking backwards, his thumbs hooking into the straps of his pack.

The Spacer consulted his helmet, which forced entry into the peripheral systems of the bases computer.  With a start, he too turned to look back the way they had come.   “The computer has been prioritizing which systems to use to eliminate us. It decided the equipment is too valuable to continue using against us.  It’s opening the damned hangar doors!”

The Nomad scowled in concern.  “Do you mean…?”

The Spacer nodded grimly, bringing his plasma rifle around into the ready position. “Swans. The computer has them scanned out as being nested right near here, and already sounded hunting calls on the surface.  We need to run.”  Before he could take a step to turn around, his armor sounded an alarm to his neural interface implants and pulsed an emergency electro-magnetic wave.  The tight green bolt of plasma the Sniper had fired at him splashed apart a meter away from him, spraying his armor with searing specs of plasma.

The Sniper grinned as his rifle began to hum, its cooling system compensating for the heat of firing it. He looked through the scope again as the Nomad hauled the Spacer back to his feet and started sweeping his laser pistol in the Snipers direction.  The Sniper ducked, as strips of the walls and vehicles sparked and bubbled.

The Nomads laser pistol sounded a warning chime and stopped firing as its cooling systems hissed and sputtered.  He pulled on the burning Spacer, getting the man stumbling in a run as his armor expelled coolant to put out the fires on his body.  He snapped out of it as the sound of swans hunting calls rang out across the hangar.  Their excellent eyesight had picked up the two men running, and they saw they would not make the far wall and doors before the swans were on them.  Adding to it, the Sniper was firing at them again, bolts of sizzling green plasma hissing past them and filling the air with smoke.

The Gigolo had braced the door to the armory, effectively cutting off the pursuing pack of jackals.  They were not giving up, the smell of blood driving them into a frenzy.  They began slamming themselves against the door, causing the bench he had dragged in front of it to push a little further out each time.  He quickly gathered a plasma pistol and a laser pistol, running into the medical bay.  He saw the fresh blood and scattered supplies left by the sniper and grabbed a medical pack of his own.

The crash of the bench hitting the opposite wall sounded behind him, causing him to take off in a sprint again.  He dashed down the final hallway to the hangar, rushing through the door to a most welcome sight.  The Sniper was crouched behind a crate, firing sizzling bolts of green plasma at the far end of the hangar.  The Gigolo shot a bolt of red plasma into the back of the Sniper, who collapsed forward with a sharp exhalation and fell to the floor.

The Gigolo fired up his plasma cutter and slashed at the Snipers exposed thigh as he passed, bringing another explosion of cursing from the downed man.  “That was for Melinda asshole! Enjoy the Jackals!”  He sprinted along the back row of the many vehicles, trying to avoid the swans as they wheeled and dove all over the hangar.  He stopped as he heard the firing of a hand gun behind him, followed by a scream of rage and pain.  With a grim smile, he began climbing a covered ladder marked “emergency surface exit.”

He quickly became the target of the swans in the immediate area.  One wheeled nearby, screaming loudly at him as it passed.  He grimaced against the loud noise and hung to the ladder with one hand, firing his plasma pistol at the passing bird of prey.  Its ivory feathers burst into flames and the creature spiraled down to the floor of the hangar without a sound.  The bolt had killed it on impact.  More wheeled in close though.  The Gigolo slid down a few rungs as one slammed into the wall, catching grips on the cover of the ladder and trying to reach its beak in at him.

He holstered the plasma pistol and drew his laser pistol.  With a quick sweep, he cut the swan and ladder cover into strips.  He raced higher as more swans started trying to reach him through the metal bars of the ladders cover. The Gigolo used his laser pistol to cut them apart as they latched onto the cover, still racing towards the roof.  He finally reached a hatch and struggled with it for a few seconds before it gave way, screaming with the rust caked onto the top of it.

He emerged in what looked like a bunker, with a heavy glassteel window looking out over the grassland.  The room was half collapsed, with shale and dirt covering part of it.  The exit was still uncovered though, as was most of the window.  Through some hanging vines, the Gigolo gaped at the giant fireball in the sky that was heading right for him.

The Sniper was suddenly glad he had taken armored pants and an armored jacket from the armory.  His plated titanium jacket absorbed the lighter plasma bolt from the pistol, only party slagging and causing a light burn on his back.  The plasma cutter had separated the armor plating on his thigh but didn’t cut far into his leg.

He lifted his rifle from a sitting position as the first jackal burst into the room.  He fired a single green bolt that burned a hole through the beast at such close range and blew the door apart behind it.  The jackal slumped, its fur catching fire as the Sniper pulled his new pistol.  The heavy handgun kicked solidly as he fired sabot rounds into the jackal pack advancing on him.  After he shot the first few dead, he struggled to his feet and limped to the other side of the hangar, slumping behind a thrust bike set into its charging dock.

He blinked, a blank stare coming over his face as realization hit him.  With a brief scream of rage, he stood and fired the rest of the rounds in his handgun at the jackals.  The sabot rounds streaked brightly into the creatures, blowing huge burning holes through them.  He sat on the thrust bike and kicked its starter, smiling as it rose a few inches off the ground and disconnected from its charging dock. He slapped a fresh magazine into the handgun and took off down the length of the hangar, chasing the Nomad and Spacer.

The Spacer regained his senses and turned, lifting both laser pistols and leveling them at the flock of swans that was closing on them.  He interfaced with both pistols and began firing, tracking each of the six barrels in different directions. The red warning lights surrounding the barrels flashed on and off as he flicked his wrists in a sweeping formation.  Just over two dozen swans dropped out of the air, sliced cleanly in half by the Spacers impressive display of firepower.

He docked the pistols in their holsters, noting the pleasant hum of the tiny atomic reactor on each.  He and the Nomad pushed through the end of the hangar and took off down a final hallway to the center control elevator.  It opened the doors and they stepped out into a room full of computers, screens, and skeletons.  The Nomad pointed at one screen, showing the Sniper on his new thrust bike heading down the corridor towards the control room.  The Spacer reached into his belt pouch and produced a portable drive, sliding it into a computer at the center of the room.

Everything went dark for a moment, and then the computers came back on.  A flashing prompt was on screen as the Spacer began typing frantically.  He hit a command, touching a screen as he went from computer to computer.  A heavy blast door slammed down in front of the elevator, and turrets sprang from the ceiling. On screen, the Sniper slammed his bike into reverse, expertly whipping it back around into the hangar.

The Spacer ignored him, turning back to his task of getting in communications with his station.  “Alpha control, this is ground.  Do you read?”

A brief crackle of static, and his wife’s voice came from the speakers in front of him. “Damn you ground, you scared the hell out of us! Alpha control is reading the telemetry, we have a good copy. Perfect timing ground, our orbit brings us into the landing vector in two minutes.”

The Sniper slowed the thrust bike and worked it through the corridors back to the garage.  He stopped beside the semi-melted tank and stared into the sky as a huge ball of fire plummeted towards the shale hills. “Well, that’s new…”

Back inside the control room, the Spacer frantically went from screen to screen.  He relayed information and talked into the radio almost constantly.  The Nomad simply stared at a bank of screens, tracking the stations approach.  It roared out of the night sky in a huge ball of flame.  The flames petered out as the station came low enough into the atmosphere.

The Gigolo and the Sniper both ducked and covered their ears as the ionic engines on the stations massive wings turned the surrounding area into a hurricane.  Unbearably powerful winds from the giant engines slowed the station until it landed gently.

Once it had landed, the station began to unfold.  The ionic wings slid into their new positions atop the station and its cylindrical design opened up on huge stilts and rolled the structure out into a large rectangle on the ground.

Inside the control room, the screens filled with images of the station, from many different cameras hidden throughout the shale hills.  “Ground, this is alpha control reporting a successful landing procedure.  See you in a few minutes babe.”  The Spacer slumped into a chair, finally letting out a breath in relief.

The Nomad smiled from behind him.  “That was pretty cool...”