“I will take your ear and sword,” the leader said, slowly, in the galactic common tongue that Dallas had been raised with.
“Come and take them,” Dallas said.
The leader charged.
#
Aside of his drubbing at the hands of Secunda’s pimp, Dallas hadn’t been in anything that could be honestly called a fistfight since his fifteenth year. As Gareth had noted, Dallas had been trained by martial artists of high renown and ability, which made him proficient at fighting in arenas with referees who ensured that all rules were followed and each fighter had a fair chance of success.
The fight he now found himself in followed none of these rules, save those of the proverbial jungle.
Everyone save Dallas and Yue pulled the triggers on their pistols.
Every pistol clicked, and failed to fire.
Everyone except Gareth paused for a moment. Gareth yelled, “Shit! Dampers!” and lunged at the Corporate leader of the who was now only a foot away from Dallas.
Dallas stepped back and swung his photonic blade, the yard-long blade cutting a deadly arc in the air with a soft hum.
The leader dodged, dropped the pistol his left hand held, and then used that free hand to grab Dallas’ right wrist. He then pressed the blade in his right hand onto Dallas’ left wrist.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dallas saw the blade begin to sink into the wrist of the leather glove with a soft hum that tingled against Dallas’ flesh. He held the gaze of the leader as best he could, knowing that the vibro blade would begin cutting into his wrist and severing his hand in a matter of seconds.
Gareth saved him, his pistol smashing the leader in the face, breaking his concentration just long enough for Dallas to step back again and slash his blade at his opponent.
The smell of burning meat filled the air, and the leader tried to raise his blade again and…
Only his shoulder remained.
He looked down, and saw his arm on the ground, the fingers still curved around the hilt of the blade.
He looked back up at Dallas, then back at his comrades; Yue stood over the prone, still body of one soldier, staring at him with her claws still extended. Joker had picked up one chair after another to throw at the two men who were slashing at House with their own knives while the big man blocked and tried to club them with his hand-cannon. Anja was engaged in a furious, slashing fight with her photonic sickle with the last member of the Corporate crew, who kept trying to use his vibro-knife to open up her side with parry after parry.
Dallas looked back at the leader, who was staring dumbfounded at the wonder of his removed arm. “Dallas!” Gareth said, “Help them! I’ve got this one!”
Dallas ran to the back of the bar, roaring like he’d heard his ancestors did at the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto all at once. He slashed his sword in two, sweeping motions as the Corporates turned to look at him, and as they fell he ran to Anja, who’d just landed a risky punch in the face of her assailant as he missed yet another stab at her.
It meant that the Corporate looked into Dallas’ eyes as Dallas reached him, his blade impaling the soldier through the chest almost accidentally.
Dallas looked into the eyes of the man who’d been his enemy. He looked down, and saw the bright, blue-white blade that now seemed to grow from his chest into the sword-hilt Dallas held in his right hand. He looked back at Dallas with a puzzled expression on his face as his knees buckled.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Dallas switched off the blade, dimly aware of Gareth’s voice behind him as he stared at the face-down man at his feet, a pool of blood widening on the floor without any real hurry.
Suddenly, a hand clapped on his shoulder and spun him around. Gareth’s face filled his field of vision. “Dallas, we gotta go, now!”
“Oh, uh- right, yeah…” Dallas said, his voice speaking through a mouth that felt sluggish as a snail trekking through peanut butter.
“Come on,” Gareth said, “Everybody, let’s get outta here! Fast, before the last one dies!”
“Flup!” Joker siad, “he’s right! We don’t wanna get stuck with the bill!”
“Survivor bill will be issued,” said the female bot who suddenly popped back up from behind the bar “to the last living member of the conflict who inhabits the establishment where the unauthorized disturbance took…”
“Shit,” said Gareth, grabbing Dallas’ arm and draping it around his shoulder, running with the young man past the still-standing leader who still stood still staring at his arm on the floor. “She’s giving the law-speech! Move, people! Oscar-Mike! Hustle! Hustle!”
The six of them were out the door in less than ten seconds. The bright lights of the main thoroughfare and the cool breeze snapped Dallas back to himself quickly, and he pulled back from Gareth and shook his head. “Wait,” Dallas said, checking his magbelt to make sure he still had his grandfather’s blade-hilt strapped securely. “Okay, got the hilt, but- what happened back there?”
“They got in over their head, is what happened,” Anja said. “And now that Corporate, if he lives, will be on his own and in debt, but only if we can get away from him fast enough that he can’t try to sue us. Where’s your ship?”
Dallas looked at the rows of shops and people who kept walking in two steady streams, seemingly unknowing or utterly uncaring about the carnage that had just taken place a few tens of feet behind them. What had looked beautiful and magical before now seemed to be an unfamiliar maze, teeming with uncaring life and trails that led nowhere.
“Docks are this way, boss,” Joker said, the lights from above gleaming off the cooling sweat on his bald head. “C’mon, it’s this way!”
Dallas blinked, shook his head. The fog had lifted, though he truly wondered if what he remembered had actually happened or if he had just awoken from a terrible, beautiful, amazing and terrifying dream.
No time to worry about that now. “Right,” he said. “Let’s head back, call the crew to return, and get the hell out’ve here before we get in any more trouble.”
“Couldn’t agree more, boss,” Gareth said. “I’ve got our docking bay right here.” Gareth took off at a stride while Dallas walked almost beside him, their four new crewmembers giving small, furtive looks to one another as they fell into line behind them.
“What,” Dallas asked Gareth in a furtive voice, “was that bot on about with a ‘survivor bill’?”
“Oh, that? Nothing to worry about. In a fight like that, the last man standing has the bill for repairs added to his or her tab.”
“So that’s why we left that leader standing?”
“That, and it’s generally poor form to kill a guy who’s in shock after you’ve literally disarmed him.”
“That’s…that’s funny…” Dallas said. Something in him suddenly grabbed his insides and wouldn’t let go, and he began to chuckle, then laugh. Then laugh harder. Most folks they passed didn’t notice, assuming Dallas was either drunk or a little batty.
“Whaddya think about our new boss, House?” Jaker asked in a voice quieter than the one Dallas had just used with Gareth.
“I think he just solved eighty percent of our problem with the Corporates. Ninety percent if you count chopping off the leader’s right arm.”
“Yue killed one.”
“I’m not the math guy. You know what I mean. I just might have the first good night’s sleep I’ve had in a month, and to me, Joker, that’s worth a guy who giggles a bit to let go of the stress after he’s killed three guys and maimed one to save my life.”
“Plus,” said Anja, smiling to herself as she tucked a stray lock of red heair behind her ear, “let us not forget one, very important thing.”
“That being?” Joker said.
“He iss much younger than our last captain, andt very much easier on the eyes.”
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...TO BE CONTINUED...