| A Hard Day's Work |
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“I heard a quote once. It went something like this… ‘Live with a man forty years. Share his house, his meals, speak on every subject, then tie him up, and hold him over the volcano's edge, and on that day, you will finally meet the man.” Vincent whispered into his comm. as he crouched behind the stack of crates, showers of sparks rained down over him from the bullets disintegrating as they tore into the metal containers.
“And your point is?” Riana’s voice lilted cheerfully back through his comm.
“My point…” Vincent began as he stripped a grenade from his belt and tossed it carelessly over his shoulder toward the source of the gun fire. The hail of bullets slowed down as the shooters realized what had been thrown at them and scattered around the area. Vincent took the opportunity to dive forward and roll behind another crate before the deafening ‘ka-woomp’ of the grenade washed through the room. “…is that after all of the years I have been running. After all of the times I have dealt with Cal. I never once considered the possibility that he might actually start shooting at me.” As another round of gun fire began eating into his new cover he amended his statement, “At least not after the first year or so. I thought we were beyond this sort of thing.”
Riana giggled into the comm. “Well, most of your business contacts are not exactly what your average person would call reputable.”
“Easy for you to say. Everyone you know is an upstanding, moral example.” He replied sarcastically.
“There’s no reason to be mean. It isn’t as though I set him on you.” Her tone was still playful.
“I know this. It just seems as though this time is different somehow. Something isn’t quite right here.” He fired his pistol over his shoulder a couple of times before rolling behind another nearby crate.
“I told you I should have come along.”
“Ree, I am telling you that would have only made matters worse.”
“Oh.” She paused a moment then keyed up the mic again. “You mean worse that being betrayed and shot at by a trusted contact?” Now the playful tone was draining away from her voice.
Vincent sighed heavily. “Here it comes.” He said to himself, then keyed up his own mic again, “I don’t think it would have made much difference Ree. He was waiting for me with his gun in his hand, in all my years dealing with him that has never once happened before today.” Glancing around the area he saw his destination, the door to the cargo hold was now a mere thirty feet from him. Thirty feet of open space with a perfect line of fire to more than half the good cover positions in the room. “Shit.” He said simply.
“What’s the matter?” Riana’s voice was concerned now.
“Nothing.” He hadn’t realized that his mic had still been open.
“Vin…”
He sighed heavily. “There’s a good thirty feet of open space between me and the door.”
There was a long pause before the circuit opened again. “I’m coming.” Was all she said.
“No! Ree we need to keep the ship ready!”
There was no reply and the bullets pounding into his cover kept him from being able to devote too much energy to the conversation as he returned fire quickly, wounding one shooter in their gun arm and another in an exposed leg. “Riana!” He hollered into the mic.
“It’s taken care of. I’m nearly there.”
“Damnit!” He cursed out loud. Quickly he whirled around and took instant stock of his surroundings. With practiced efficiency he squeezed off half a dozen rounds from his pistol, causing nearly a dozen people to duck behind their respective places of cover. In an instant he was covering the distance to the door at a full sprint, slipping his pistol into its low-slung thigh holster and gliding the larger, sawed-off shotgun looking weapon from its holster across the small of his back.
Mere feet from the door he heard a single, resounding click as the hammer of a pistol was locked back. He stopped in his tracks. He had almost made it.
“That’s far enough Vin. Turn around. Slowly.” Cal’s voice echoed through the room and was punctuated by several of the other people standing up and leveling their own weapons at Vincent’s back.
Vincent slowly turned around to face them, his hands held out from his body, his bolt caster held loosely in his right. “It doesn’t have to be like this Cal. I don’t know why you are doing this, but it doesn’t have to be this way.”
The other man stood there, looking truly torn as he held the large caliber revolver leveled at Vincent. His dress was casual, a pair of nice pants and a stylish button-up shirt underneath a bomber’s jacket. His long, dark hair was pulled back into a pony tail at the base of his head and his cool blue eyes were leveled at Vincent. They eyes were what betrayed him. They betrayed his emotions despite his years of dealing with runners and thugs. That was why Vincent had started to trust Cal, because his eyes told a person everything they needed to know about him, if one knew how to read them. And today, his eyes were telling Vincent that they wished they were somewhere else, doing anything other than what was happening here, now.
“I’m sorry, old friend, but I am afraid it does.” His voice was calm and level, despite the betrayal of his eyes.
Vincent quickly cast his eyes to the bolt caster hanging loosely in his right hand. There was no way he could get a shot off before they could put him down. “I don’t know what caused this Cal, but I want you to know that you still have a chance to get out of here before this turns very ugly.”
Cal’s face almost turned into a smile as he eyed Vincent suspiciously. “Don’t do it Vin, no way are you going to get a shot off before we drop you.”
“I’m here.” Riana’s voice came coolly across the comm. In the access shaft just above them.”
Vincent sighed again. He liked Cal. Of all of his contacts and business partners, he liked him the most. Trusted him. At least as far as anyone in the running business could be trusted at any rate. “I’m sorry it had to be this way Cal.”
“Me too Vin. Me too. Now drop that rocket engine before it goes off and someone gets hurt.”
Vincent looked at his bolt caster again and released the handle. The weapon spun around on his finger, ending up dangling upside down loosely on his index finger by the trigger guard.
“Drop it.” Cal intoned.
“My dad gave it to me.” Vincent said coolly. “It’s the only thing he ever gave me. No way am I ever going to let it drop!” As he finished his statement, the ceiling seemed to erupt into pieces above the men. Shards of metal and debris rained down around them slicing a few of them up a bit as they scrambled to dive out of the way.
Riana landed lightly in the center of the metal rain, her fitted, shimmering duster billowing out around her, hardly having an instant to come to a rest before she sprung into the air again, whirling around in a graceful pirouette and lashing out with feet and hands, deftly disarming the panicked group, their weapons clattering off of the walls of the cargo hold and their surprised yelps filling the air.
Vincent slid his bolt caster back into its pouch and drew his pistol as he dived behind a crate that was much closer to the door on the opposite side from where he had dashed a moment ago. “Very subtle.” He quipped into the comm.
“Subtle goes out the window when my family and friends are on the line.” She said simply as she spun around, grabbed the barrel of someone’s weapon and twisted their arms into a close approximation of a bow as she deftly spun the weapon out of their grip. The man looked into her violet eyes for an instant and she looked back with a laser beam intensity before calmly placing her left hand on his chest and launching him backwards across the room with an easy push.
“So it seems. You know. That boy is never going to grow up right if you keep charging to his rescue all the time.” He said sarcastically.
Riana began striding toward the door where Vincent was now standing, waiting for her. A few steps brought her to where Cal was standing, his revolver at his side as he watched her confidently moving through what was left of his people, most of whom were nursing sprained and broken hands and wrists from her sudden attack.
She stopped next to him and glared unwaveringly into his eyes. “If you ever hurt him. I will stop at nothing until I find you, and make you pay. And pay. And pay some more.”
Cal looked at her coolly, his eyes calm despite her threat. “I’m sorry. I was left no choice in the matter.”
“Interesting.” She lied. “But now you DO have a choice. You can either take yourself and your goons out of here, alive and well. Or you can take option two where I like to vary the details a bit but the end result is, most of you never get to eat again. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to why that might be.”
Cal stood calmly and stared at her. Seemingly considering his options.
“So, what’s it going to be?” She prodded him in the shoulder with the butt of the gun she had taken from the last person.
Slowly a smile spread across his lips and then he bowed theatrically before slipping his large revolver into a shoulder harness under his faded bomber jacket. “Please. Enjoy your flight.”
“That’s what I thought you were going to say.” She quirked her lips into a smirk and turned toward Vincent. As she moved in his direction she tossed the gun over her shoulder where it struck one of the other people in the forehead as they were preparing to shoot her in the back. The person dropped to the ground like a sack of engine parts and Cal grinned widely at the entire scene.
“For what it’s worth Vin. I’m sorry.” He spoke across the room.
Vincent offered a disparaging look in return. “Uh huh. It was nice seeing you again Cal. Say hi to the kids for me.”
Cal grinned wider. “I will. Fly safe old friend. And watch your back, there will be others try...” His voice was suddenly a gurgle as the faint report of a bullet snapped through the room.
Vincent and Riana turned to face him at the same time, just in time to see his body drop to the floor, blood pumping from a large wound in the top of his head.
“Cal!” Vincent began to charge toward his friend but Riana reached out and caught him with her hand around his waist. “Let me go!”
“No. Vin look at the others.” She pointed with her other hand toward one of Cal’s men just as a spurt of blood erupted from his chest and he crumpled to the deck. “We have to go. Now.”
In a flash the pair dove through the door and into the hallway, then broke into a run toward the hangar where the Serendipity was waiting for them.
“The hell was that?” Vincent huffed as they ran down the hallway, dodging around people going about their business.
“I don’t know. But it seems we have an angel of death looking over our shoulder.
“Yeah. About that. You said you had the ship thing covered?”
“I do. Call control and get clearance. I’ll handle the ship.” Riana tapped the bracelet on her left wrist and a holographic display appeared in front of her. With deft movements she accessed the ship’s computer and began the start-up sequence for the engines as they continued to run down the crowded hallway.
Vincent just shook his head as he watched her hack into his ship’s computers. “I don’t know why I am at all surprised.” Then he tapped his comm. unit and hailed flight control.
The Neophyte Serendipity blasted away from the Mars Station much faster than it should have been moving. As they hurtled away from the facility all manner of warning lights and buzzers were going off, trying to inform them of their shattering the port speed limit.
Vincent ignored the warning lights and noises as he throttled the ships twin ion drives up even further. “Anything?” He asked calmly without taking his eyes off the controls.
Riana was busily scanning the sensor readouts, looking for any sign that they might be followed off the station. Thus far everything looked as though they had made a clean break. “Nothing yet.” She replied just as a blip appeared on the vessel’s side-scanning RADAR. “Shit.” She punctuated her statement.
“What is it?” Vincent asked calmly.
“It’s a small shuttle. But it’s moving fast. Faster than it should be able to.”
“Time to intercept?”
“Twenty seconds.” She replied after a moment.
“With our lead? That IS bloody fast.” He replied with a note of excitement in his voice as he throttled back the engines.
“Why are you slowing down?!” Riana gaped at him.
“There is no chance we can out run them. Not if they are moving that fast. I’ll just burn up the engines trying.”
Riana looked at him seriously for a moment, trying to figure out if he had gone completely insane. “Alright. What’s your plan?”
Vincent grinned from ear to ear as he spun around in his flight chair and hopped to his feet. “We open the door and let them come aboard.” He deftly drew his pistol, ejected the magazine and replaced it with a fresh one as he moved to the ready room behind the cockpit and grabbed a few extra magazines.
Riana stood up and quirked an eyebrow at him, the tips of her long, tapered ears rising a bit curiously. She hadn’t actually used any of her guns earlier so she knew they were all fully loaded and ready to go. “So we invite them aboard and then what? Whack them and eject their bodies into space?”
“Not my first choice, no.” He smiled t her. “There is no way that shuttle can match our guns or armor. But we can’t outrun it. So we give them a choice. They can talk this out, whatever it is, or we can blast them to atoms.”
Riana sighed as he spoke, trying to make some sense of the situation. “Ok, but that leaves two big holes in what is going on here.”
“What’s that?” He jammed his pistol back into its thigh holster and slipped back into his seat just as the comm. Started buzzing.
“Firstly, what are they after?” She said, her arms folded under her breasts.
“No idea, but I hope to find out here in a moment.” He flicked a few controls as he spoke.
“And secondly. If you are planning on a ship-to-ship battle, why are we checking our sidearms?”
“Because.” Vincent replied as he reached for the comm. switch. “They shouldn’t have been able to track the Serendipity once we cleared the station, so we may not be alone in here.”