(atheists in foxholes)
Gunshots. Some of them short and sharp, like hailstones on windshields. Some of them buzzing and hollow, like a synthesised buzz-saw.
"Sealing the doors."
The tapping of a keypad. An aesthetically-pleasing swoosh, and the outside noise is dulled. The sound of weaponfire, some of it friendly and some not, is now reduced to a staccato rhythm in the background.
Sighs of relief. They are both safe for now.
"That should hold them off for a while."
"Yeah."
"Not forever, though."
"Nah. If the damn Pirates can shoot through turret hulls, a steel door won't hold 'em back."
So. Better to accept their fates than to die in denial.
The sounds of battle continue outside. Every few seconds there is the twisted sound of a death cry. Both sides are dying at the same rate, but there were more Pirates to begin with.
"Well. Looks like squad leader had a good reason for choosing this room."
Wolf whistle. "Didn't know there's an ammo reserve all the way down here."
"Neither."
A hesitant pause.
"Well, if we're going to go down, might as well drag drag 'em all down with us, eh?"
"Right with you, Heavyweight."
Metal scraping on metal – the unmistakable sound of weapons being pulled down from shelves as fast as their shaking hands can reach for them. They laugh like children with candy, clicking safeties off as they stockpile their way through the room.
A hoarse laugh. "Not exactly what I had in mind when I enlisted."
"Heh, yeah... I remember I'd gotten it into my head that the Galactic Federation Navy had a one percent mortality rate."
Another sharp laugh. "Yeah... back when we were young and stupid."
The pause in their conversation is punctuated by more shots. They have grown less frequent.
"Spider. Think we're winning out there?" The question is pointless.
"Do those sound like Fed guns to you?" The answer, equally so.
A choked sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. "Guess not." Talking isn't about to save them but words are all they have left. "Hey, this shelf is full of ammo. Volatile-looking stuff, too."
Footsteps as the one called 'Spider' crosses the room. Then, an appreciative whistle. "This is some lethal stuff. Wonder why they never let us use it."
"Are you kidding? This is gotta be for the Elite squads. Why waste good ammo on a couple of footsoldiers?"
They both laugh bitterly.
Outside, there is a final volley of weaponfire. Then nothing.
The silence doesn't last for long. Almost instantly there rises a cacophony of inhuman screeches, the victory cries of Pirates. The cries are fanatical; warriors' spirit mixed with primal bloodlust. It is a sickening noise.
The scraping scramble for weapons begins again, faster than ever before. Chairs clatter to the ground as makeshift barricades; test shots bang and echo inside the cramped room as its occupants make sure that their newfound guns work as expected.
Their voices are now hollow; any last traces of bravado are gone. Even their shallow, low-oxygen-atmosphere breathing has a melancholy sound to it.
"They saw us go in. They know we're here."
"Well, we're ready for them."
But they aren't, and their voices betray their fear. Dying in a blaze of glory is a romantic notion but a hard one to cling to when death is so near and ugly and real.
"Hey, Heavyweight."
"Yeah?"
"Let's hear that story. The one you wanted to tell last night." (Last night? Maybe it was centuries ago.)
"Which?"
"The one about the bounty hunter."
One can almost hear the eyebrow being raised. "Capital 'H'? Thought you said you it was a load of bull."
"Yeah, well."
"Well. Okay, Spider." A sigh, but not an unhappy one. "Well, there are lotsa stories about the Hunter. You'll hear a million different versions depending who you talk to. But I know the best one. It's the best one 'cause it's true. And the truth is way better than stories."
"Go for it." The cheers have stopped outside. It seems they have not been forgotten.
"Okay, so the Hunter is cruising past this Fed outpost, right? Only the outpost is on this barren rock, in the middle of deep space, all mined out, so why would there even still be soldiers there? But that's where they are, and the Hunter, he just happens to be in the neighbourhood."
"Sure."
"Now the Hunter is just doing whatever he does in his downtime, he's not expecting trouble, right? His ship isn't-"
"Wait. What exactly does the Hunter do?"
A sharp breath: an incredulous 'huh'. "For real? You've never heard a Hunter story after all this time in the navy?"
"Guess I never really listened when they were being told."
"Huh." A short, uncertain pause. "Okay, well the Hunter is... the Hunter. I mean... how do I put this? Uh... well, you've got your run-of-the-mill bounty hunters, right? The sort the GF sends after deserters and stuff? Then there's mercenary armies and freelance guns somewhere up above that. And then way up at the top of the pyramid, you have the real professionals, the super-elite hunters. They've lasted dozens of battles. The sort of people who you could send unarmed into a planetful of Pirates, and he'd kill every damn bug in the place and still have ammo to spare."
"Huh." The voice sounds genuinely impressed. "So the Hunter is that good, huh?"
"No, man. The Hunter eats hunters like that for breakfast."
"You're pulling my leg."
"No joke. The Hunter's not a one-man army, he's a one-man... well, you get the idea, right?"
"Does he have any other names? Or is that it? 'The Hunter'?"
"I think he used to have a name, but he stopped using it once he quit the GF Navy. So they wouldn't know who he was."
"He was in the Navy?"
"Yeah. Apparently he was one of Malkovich's elites."
"Man was a legend."
"Yeah, he was-"
Without warning the shots outside start again, but now at an ear-splitting volume. The Pirates are right outside the door and they are trying to get in. The deadlocked door groans, absorbing the assault of lasers with an equally loud string of hisses and creaks.
"Here they are." A safety catch clicks in and out of place, the universal sound for fidgeting with guns.
"Back to what I was saying." Their voices are raised: the louder they talk, the slower the Pirates must be. "So the Hunter's passing by this outpost. Middle of nowhere. Now he's just cruising by; he isn't expecting anything, so his ship isn't properly fitted for battle. And then he gets a distress signal."
"All right."
"Any normal person would approach the planet carefully, maybe try to radio with the ground or something. But the Hunter doesn't. He's got this instinct, you see, and he just knows that whatever's happening down there is real serious. He blasts off straight for the outpost. Guess what he finds there."
"What?"
"A full-sized Pirate attack force. They're bombarding the outpost, and slowly eating away at the soldiers' defences. The ones on the ground, I mean. Just as the Hunter pulls into the atmosphere, the Pirates break through the last shields and start dropping into the base. Hundreds of 'em. So many that the sky turns black. Before they hit the ground they're already firing in "
"Nasty..."
"The Hunter doesn't even stop to think. He just jumps out of his ship midflight. Sails straight through the passing cargo ships and the 'chuting Pirates and lands smack bang on top of the base where the Pirates are trying to drill inside. And he just waits."
"He waits?"
"He waits for them to notice. 'Cause they've heard of him. All of them have. He's killed millions and millions of their cousins in his time. The Pirates fear the Hunter. They know that once he shows up, they're dead. And when the Pirates see him, they just all freeze. Scared stiff. But only for a second. Then the Hunter starts giving it to them.
"They die by the shipful. He carries this energy cannon that can pierce through ship hulls, and he just blows their heads off with it. If they get too close he just crushes their skulls with his bare hands. And they're all shooting at him but he's dodging and flying around them like lightning. Occasionally one of those hundreds of Pirates get that one-in-a-billion hit on him, but it doesn't even sear his body armour. He just keeps going like it's nothing. And for him, itis nothing, see? They can't hurt him, and he knows it. Little bugs don't stand a chance.
"Course, the Pirates are blasting into the compound from all directions, and he can't shoot them all from the one place. So once he's scared them off, he heads inside to deal with the ones that got through."
He pauses for breath.
The Pirates outside have stopped shooting. They are talking animatedly between themselves, all trying to be heard above each other. Every now and then one of them bangs on the blast doors for good measure, and every time that happens the soldiers inside the room stop for a moment, listening.
"What are they doing?"
"Never mind. Keep going."
"Keep...? Right. Right... yeah. The Hunter finds this spot where the Pirates have drilled in, and he slips through and finds himself in the docking bay. There are soldiers and there are Pirates and they're shooting at each other, and the Feds are better but the Pirates just keep coming through. Half a minute before the Hunter gets there, bang! - a huge hole got blown in the wall and a pair of Pirate fighter-ships came shooting through the gap, firing away at our soldiers. And now the Federation soldiers are thinking 'we're so screwed', but they keep firing back anyway. And pretty soon lotsa them are badly wounded, and they can't fight any more, see? And then the Hunter comes in, takes one look, and do you know what he says?"
"What?"
"He says, 'This won't do'. And you know he means business. Then he fires a warhead at the ceiling. A huge chunk of metal falls down – smash! - right onto one of the Pirate ships. Whole thing goes up in a mess of smoke. The other ship whirls around to fire at him – lot of good that would do them – and the Hunter just jumps on top of it.
"I know, you're thinking, how does he get up that high? Well, he just finds a way. Leaping across disabled ships and broken pipes, bouncing off walls and spinning through enemy fire... he doesn't even think about it, he doesn't miss a single step... Now he's on top of the Pirate ship, right on top of the cockpit shield, and he stares straight into the pilot's eyes. That's the last thing the little scamp ever sees. Next thing you know, the Hunter's shoved half a dozen missiles straight through that shield and into the Pirate's face, and the ship just spins into a wall and drops, crushing a couple dozen Pirates on its way down. The Hunter just laughs, and then he clears the room. Turns out he made it right in time. The soldiers are all pretty badly wounded, but they'll live, and the Pirates are way too scared to send more troops down there."
"Nice."
"Tell me about it. So the Hunter goes a little deeper into the outpost. One or two Pirates have gotten in here and there, but they don't stand a chance. Then he walks into the central maintenance shaft, where he finds himself one helluva surprise.
"Turns out that the Pirates didn't just randomly attack this base. One of the techies working the outpost turns out to be the only granddaughter of a certain big-shot in the top ranks of the GF. The Pirates came there just to kidnap her, use her as leverage. And because of her connections, this is big. We-lose-the-war big, I mean."
"Good thing the Hunter was there, then?"
"Yeah, that's right! The Pirates are frightened like shriekbats in front of the Hunter, but one of them drags out the hostage and puts a gun to her head. He says to the Hunter, 'If you kill us, the girl dies too'. Well, the Hunter isn't a heartless guy, and he certainly doesn't want the Federation to blame him for Miss Politician's-Granddaughter's death, so he doesn't shoot. He just stands there, waiting for the right moment..."
A loud crackle cuts through the air, followed by a series of buzzing sounds. The Pirates' voices are sounding triumphant again. They are cutting the power to the door.
"Then, just as the Pirates are getting cocky, he whips out a different gun. This ain't any ordinary point-and-shoot, oh no... this is a tractor beam. Like a serious, heavy duty grappling gun for lifting ships with. He points it at the girl – fires! - and flings her back out through the closing door to safety. And then he looks at the pirates, and they're staring at him in utter terror, and through his helmet hesmiles at them. He just smiles."
"Then they die?"
"Then they die. Bang, bang, and they're all just floating clouds of ash. Then he turns around and takes the girl by the hand and leads her out of that hellhole. Back out through the hallways and the docking bay, and then he gives her to the soldiers, who are all back on their feet. He says 'Take care', and just like that he's gone. Back in his ship going out into the depths of space, ready to take on the next plague of Space Pirate vermin."
The doors make screeching sounds, as a half-dozen contradicting emergency overrides fight between 'open' and 'closed'. The Pirates' tools are still blasting at the wiring outside, running so fast that the whole room shudders, discarded guns and munitions clattering to the floor.
"That's it?" He doesn't sound disappointed, just enraptured. "No more?"
"Do we have time for another story?"
"Ha. Guess not."
With a final swoosh, the blast doors slide open, and there's nothing but an unlocked blast door between them and the Pirates. Outside the talking stops.
"Here they come."
"I've got my gun."
The Pirates are preparing to enter. As the soldiers check their weapons one last time with tell-tale clicks and snaps, so too can the sound be heard of Space Pirate laser weapons being charged.
"Hey, Heavyweight?"
"Yeah, Spider?"
"Reckon he might be out there somewhere?"
"Who? The Hunter?"
"Yeah. He's always in the right spot just in time. Maybe he heard our leader's distress call."
"And he's landed and cutting through the Pirates outside."
"Yeah." Safeties click on and off. "Straight through all of 'em."
"Hedoes have this alien device that can detect soldiers in danger. He'd follow it straight to us. No need for maps, even. He has blueprints of places like this memorised down to the wiring."
"Yeah. Those Pirates outside are probably the last ones left."
"Yeah." The sound of epiphany. "Of course. That's why they're so desperate to get in. They don't want to kill us, they just want to hide."
"'Cause the Hunter's coming, right?"
"Right! And he's going to slaughter them just as they open the door!"
"Yeah. And we can watch the little buggers die."
"Yeah."
Real relish is in their voices now.
"Hey, Spider?"
"Yeah?"
"Think the Hunter's found us yet?"
"He must have. Otherwise he wouldn't be him, would he?"
"Nah, guess he wouldn't."
"Those Pirates don't stand a chance."
"Sure don't."
They wait.
The door slides open.
What do you think? Yes? No? I hear what you have to say, both about the style and about the story itself. It's a bit experimental, but I was fairly happy with how it turned out. Not that I reread it more than once or anything, but...
Anyway, if reception seems positive enough, I'm thinking of doing several related short stories, which also look at other archetypes of 'Samus stories' and the sorts of people who tell them.