Back on Sandstone, local mercenaries are looking over a group of
newcomers...a squad of Red Branch Knights incognito...who have just
arrived on the desert planet...
Skorz -- originally born on Gont, Skorz spent his younger years in
the Kronos army, where he rose to the rank of captain in the Special
Forces. After mustering out, he was hired as a security man by a
Gont organization known as the Fist. Commissioned by Hevace Trandon
to locate a pair of Utrakkian brothers, he was sent to Sandstone
where he found them and help setup Trandon's current operation.
Skorz likes hands-on duties so he lives and works with the
moneylender on the desert system. Skorz is a chain-smoker.
Hevace Trandon -- born on Gont in the Kronos League, Trandon is the
emissary of a criminal organization known as the Fist. Initially a
broker, Trandon made a small fortune smuggling contraband in the Awn
system, with the help of a corsair brotherhood. With his rising star
noticed by his Gont overseers, he was sent to Sandstone to setup an
advance base for a group of Awn privateers. Cooperation between
criminal organizations isn't unknown, and Trandon loans money for
support, as well as monitoring the actions of the pirates for their
Awn masters.
Accordian Railgun -- is from Rifts: Dimension Book 2: Phase World, pg 144.
SANDSTONE
"Who are those guys?" Skorz leaned over the bar and asked quietly.
The barkeep took a quick glance and poured the mercenary a drink,
"Dunno. They were here when I opened. I, uh, think I heard them
mention about dropping down on a lighter or something."
There were at least a dozen ships in port so it wasn't that unusual
to see new faces. Most were free traders in from the Trades, come to
the free market that went up at the end of each month.
Skorz waited for his partner's drink to arrive then made his way
back to the table in the corner.
"You find out?" his partner asked.
"No. Just new faces. They don't look like merchants," Skorz lit a
smoke, "More like mercs."
"Ya," his partner gulped at his beer. "Hey, look." The man nodded
over to another table.
The pair's head turned in tandem, as though they were on twin
swivels, watching another man and an furred alien make their way
through the crowd and sit at a table.
"Who's the blonde?" asked Skorz's partner.
"His name is Loptr," Skorz took a long drag on his cigarette, "A
free trader. That muscle-bound thing is with him. They're in with
those guys I sold the halftrack to," said Skorz, meaning Emerson and
Felum.
The newcomers eyed Loptr and Garm, then one of them split up.
"Why don't I see where he's going," Skorz' partner downed his drink,
and pushed his way outside.
Skorz remained in place. Sitting patiently, smoking, watching the
others.
* * * * *
The whine of the railgun died as the circuit was cut. Marvin Felum
whistled. He stepped out from behind the gun shield, and jumped down
to the sand.
He and Emerson had commandeered six empty, steel barrels from a
junk pile, loaded them in their halftrack and taken them out
beyond the port limits to practice with. The weapon had been
connected with a 500-round belt. The barrels had been staggered at
about 5 yards, spread out about 30 feet apart. As the gunner, Felum
had sighted on the middle barrel then opened fire, raking the weapon
across the spread. In five seconds the miniguns had delivered 320
rounds, shredding the barrels completely.
Felum stood, gaping at the blasted targets.
"Wait until we get the camera equipment and neural interface," said
Emerson. "We'll be able to control them via remote. It'll give us
the flexibility of another combatant."
Marvin nodded absently. To him, target practice was over, they had
no more targets.
Emerson had him retreive the barrel bottoms and placed them along
the ridge line of a nearby hill, while he reloaded the weapon and
repeated the process. Not only were the bottoms shredded but huge
chunks of the hill were removed, spilling sand, dirt and rock along
the path of destruction. The excavation reminded him of Emerson's
construction microbots, except much faster but nowhere nearly as neat.
The pair found another small ridge line and repeated the process,
then again and again, before completely destroying the ridge forcing
them to head back to the port.
"Now I know why Gentry wanted to sell us 120,000 rounds," said
Felum. Their training exercise had used up almost 5,000 rounds. He
looked over to Emerson who was smiling slightly.
"What's so funny?" asked Felum, driving the halftrack towards the
port bar, passing near a squad of Tri-Galactic's finest.
"I was just thinking about what our little baby would do to combat
armor."
* * * * *
The scene shifts outside, where Vonez, Skorz' man has just
returned...
"He met up with those three, just outside of the bi-level rooming
house," said Skorz's partner. He, Skorz and Hevace Trandon were
sitting in the loan-shark's groundcar, watching a group of five men
standing next to a pinnace, near the port bar.
Trandon shooks his head, "They weren't with any of the Awn crews. I
saw them all when they came in last night." He looked at Skorz.
"You're right, they don't look like merchants."
Skorz lit another cigarette, "I doubt if any of the free traders
could spare the cash to hire six men." He turned to his partner.
"What do you think? Working passage?"
His partner shrugged, "Could be," his face suddenly straightened.
"Hold it. Something's stirring them."
The trio looked back to the five strangers, who had suddenly
produced weapons before fanning out.
Coming out of the bar were Loptr and Garm.
* * * * *
Loptr and Garm had gotten no more than three steps outside the door
when they were surrounded by five armored men, each brandishing energy
weapons.
The pair looked at the men who stood a few paces away, plasma
weapons leveled at their chests.
"Loptr Laufnarson," shouted a voice. Standing next to a pinnace was
another man, hands on hips, a small smile on his face.
Loptr licked his lips, "Do I, uh, know you?"
From between Garm's teeth issued a low growl at the men who had the
drop on them.
"No, I don't think so," said the man, pulling off his jacket, "But
this might jog your memory." He turned the jacket around, revealing
the white shield and triple-red, stripe banner of Red Branch Shipping.
Loptr went cold.
"Yes. We're from Hidegar, I'm Kular," a smile spread across Kular's
face. "You and your doggy are coming back with us." Kular motioned
towards his men.
The engine noise of a heavy groundcar or truck entered the area.
Then a deafening blast of weapons fire broke the air.
* * * * *
Emerson used the Accordian to cut a swath of earth, sand and dust
along the ground a dozen feet from the soldier's who were
threatening Loptr and Garm. The weapon's fire got their immediate
attention, then by elevating the weapon, he cut the poor, helpless
soldiers to pieces as the hail of metal struck them.
Kular, protected by the small spacecraft, watched helplessly as his
men died.
Garm, instinctively raised a Phase Field and herded Loptr away.
Kular drew his plasma pistol and fired a few shots in vain as the
pair disappeared around the bar's corner.
Felum drew the halftrack up, following the fusillade of metal that
Emerson had cut through the patch of dirt in front of the bar. It
cornered in front of the pinnace, where Kular had been, the Red
Branch leader had just enough time to jump through the pinnace's
hatch and close it before Emerson could aim and fire.
"Dammit!" screamed Emerson, releasing the electronic trigger and
diving down. The pinnace was not only armored, but the hull's
charged field had been activated. It was a common defense against
plasma and particle weapons. The air between the halftrack and
pinnace was filled with riccochets, some dropping back into the bed.
Luckily, Emerson wore his helmet and body armor. "I'm all right," he
yelled. Felum gunned the halftrack forward and around the corner.
Stopping to let Loptr and Garm board.
"Glad to see you boys," Loptr's smile was oddly calm. "Quick, get to
my starship!" he yelled.
Felum nodded and circled the halftrack around the bar.
* * * * *
Kular scrambled to the pinnace's observation portal, watching as the
halftrack fired on his small craft. The craft's small fusion reactor
was already activated, so he polarized the hull plating. The cacophony of
metal striking the armored hull lessened noticeably, as the charged
field deflected some of the railgun's metal projectiles.
The pinnace had a single blaster cannon and Kular raced to it,
powered it on and rotated the weapon after the halftrack as it drove
off.
He loosed a single shot, which rocketed over the vehicle, impacting
on a distant mound of dirt in a huge explosion. He corrected for a
follow up blast but the halftrack rounded the corner of the bar and
out of sight.
Cursing, he raced forward, towards the cockpit. As he reached the
pilot's chair the front hatch opened, bathing him in sudden
sunlight.
It was one of his men, who'd been inside the bar.
Unfortunately neither was a pilot.
* * * * *
The halftrack ground to a sudden stop near the belly of a small red
& grey freighter, Garm and Loptr exiting hurredly. A tube dropped
from the freighter's underside, levitating the pair up and into the
ship.
Emerson was checking the Accordian, while Felum kept lookout,
jumping as the ship's power generators hummed suddenly to life
overhead.
Two stories above the dirt field, the starship's belly ramp groaned
and opened, dropping slowly, laboriously towards the ground. The
ship was directly opposite the pinnace, about 75 yards down range,
along an aisle of small craft and ground vehicles.
Loptr rode the ramp down, fastening a multi-optic visor to his head
and activating the zoom feature.
"Crap!" he yelled, motioning towards Felum. "You two better get to
the lift tube. NOW!"
Emerson looked up, engaging the visor on his own helm. As his
macrolens zoomed in he spotted a large, armored figure standing atop
the pinnace, next to him the pinnace's small turret rotating around,
towards them.
* * * * *
Kular emerged from the ventral hatch in his power armor, the only
other protection he had against the halftrack's devestating weapon.
It was poor at best, even if the slugs couldn't penetrate the suit's
advanced armor, the strong hail of the projectiles might knock him
over.
A small cloud of dust caught his attention, and he swiveled around
to follow it. His helm's HUD zooming in, spotting the halftrack
under the belly of a freighter.
"Corporal Carleton?" he called into his helm's mic. "The
halftrack's there to the west."
He looked over to see the pinnace's ventral turret rotate towards
the target.
"Underneath that freighter on the end," he called, seeing two
figures bail out and run under the ship. The pinnace's cannon fired,
striking the halftrack in the rear, the resulting explosion ripping
it apart, flipping the vehicle over before concealing it in a thick
cloud of smoke.
"Got it sir," cried Carleton.
Kular jumped from the pinnace, unfastened the particle-blaster rifle
locked to his side and took off running, "Sergeant," he called
through his comlink, "Keep your cannon on that freighter. If she
tries to takeoff, blast it."
* * * * *
"They blew up our halftrack!" screamed Felum, pounding the
freighter's closed-circuit viewscreen. Playing out on the monitor
was the smoking, twisted form of the vehicle they'd been in moments
before a jagged, gaping hole cut through the back and side of it.
Through the smoke a figure appeared, "Another armored prick!" yelled
Felum.
Emerson stood next to him. "He's not with Tri-galactic, they don't
have armor that big." At least he'd never seen any.
"That's Kular," Loptr removed his sensor vizor as he strolled past
the pair towards the bridge. "Remember that little story I told you
about the starport on Hidegar," Loptr put on his headset, a nodded
towards the screen. "He's with their security team."
Emerson grunted, "Well, at least we're safe."
"Yeah," Loptr said, switching on several systems near his seat.
"Until the guy with the particle cannon shoots at us."
"His cannon ain't big enough to hurt this thing, is it?" asked
Marvin Felum. The starship was small, but dwarfed the halftrack by
comparison.
"Won't know until he starts shooting," said Loptr, before barking
orders to Garm. The ship began to vibrate.
Emerson slapped Felum on the shoulder and pointed to the monitor,
"Marvin, put this 'prick' down."
Felum nodded, staring at the screen at the figure picking through
the wrecked halftrack. After about ten seconds of concentration
Felum found his Bio-Manipulation of no use. Kular's particle rifle
blasted futilely at the starship's hull.
Moments later Loptr's starship lifted off, without taking any
cannon fire from the pinnace. Staying low to the deck, she put
Emerson and Felum off at a safe distance, before gaining orbit to
leave the system.
* * * * *
After the slaughter, Skorz is "holding" Kular, for reasons that will
become apparent...
"Relax," Skorz said to Kular, "One of these trampers will be pulling
out for the Trades soon."
After witnessing the battle, Skorz and his partner had retrieved
their weapons from Hevace's vehicle. When Kular had raced off, the
pair had boarded the open pinnace and taken the remaining Red Branch
trooper prisoner, under the pretense of being local officials. Of
course Kular had no way of knowing Loptr had purchased fake
ownership papers for his hijacked starship from Trandon the previous
night. Loptr, who'd been low on cash, had needed to borrow a
considerable sum of money from the loan-shark as well. Allowing the
Red Branch Knights to take a paying customer away was simply bad
business. After Loptr had gotten away, Hevace had specified that his
newest customer should get a two-day headstart, minimum, so Skorz
was pretending that his men were looking into the incident, to
"determine Kular's culpability."
"If I don't radio my starship," warned Kular, "They'll be down here
come first light." The fleet courier was in orbit, waiting under
orders.
Skorz shrugged, "They're welcome to. I hope they don't cause any
trouble. There's 200 armored troopers less than a mile from here."
Skorz neglected to inform Kular that they weren't his men, just the
garrision for an independent merchant outpost.
Kular scowled.
"Don't worry," said Skorz, "My men will find these two with the
halftrack and the railgun and we'll get to the bottom of this."
* * * * *
Furcas has been busy, and the cover ship has arrived, a non-Patrol
vessel. He's assembled his own team and arrived on Sandstone...a bit
late...
As the OBSERVER approached Sandstone it detected three starships in
orbit. All seemed to be merchants, except one which broke formation
and headed the scout craft off. By the time it reached the newly
arrived starship, the OBSERVER's sensors had detected the ship's
armanent.
The OBSERVER was a federation-made ship, albeit very old. One of the
gunned merchants conducted what amounted to a custom's inspection.
Furcas and three of his men watched as a armed boarding party went
through the ship, before allowing it to land. Once dirtside, they
naturally went to the bar.
* * * * *
Skorz looked at Kular with mild amusement.
"Why did you do that?" he asked.
When Furcas and his men entered the tiny Sandstone bar, Kular had
gone white, snatched the cap off Skorz's head, donned it and propped
his head up under his arm. Furcas had organized things faster than
the Red Branch commander had estimated.
Skorz' gaze shifted to the doorway, where four men were coming in.
"Ah, not your boys I take it."
"Is there a back way out of here?" whispered Kular.
Skorz smiled, "Who are they?"
"Trouble," he whispered back. "Let's get out of here."
Skorz puffed on his cigarette, keeping Kular in place.
"All right, they're with the, uh, Federation," explained Kular.
Skorz's mouth dropped slightly. Sandstone was far from the
Federation's border and never saw their ships call here. That meant
they were with the Patrol. Skorz composed himself, apparently Loptr
had done something very bad, for the Patrol to come all this way.
Somehow Kular was involved, maybe a double-cross, maybe a
bounty-hunter.
Skorz stood, his tall frame shielding Kular from sight. He leaned
over to his partner, "Find out which ship those four came in on. I'm
taking our guest out the back."
Kular and Skorz filed over to the storeroom and out the bar's back
door.
* * * * *
Skorz' man meets with the Fixer and Mentalus later that night...
"You're lucky none of the locals were killed," said Vonez, "Could've
turned out bad for you."
Marvin Felum looked at Emerson, making a subtle sign with his hand,
asking whether he should apply his Bio-Manipulation to their guest.
Emerson shook his head, since he'd been expecting the visit. Skorz
had sold the pair the halftrack. Anything they did would invite
retribution.
"Come to the point," said Emerson.
"Well the boss says he can fix it, so that nobody says nothing about
who owned the halftrack," said Vonez matter-of-factly, pausing to
add: "Or where they might be found."
The shooting on the port field was common talk around Sandstone's
tiny port city. However with the nature of the incident and the
reputation the port already carried, no one spoke in particulars,
since as far as anyone knew the "merchants" from Awn might be
involved.
"How much?" asked Emerson.
"Skorz says ten thousand oughta do it," Vonez smiled.
Emerson nodded to Felum to retrieve the cash. He paid Trandon's man.
Vonez hesitated before leaving, "Oh, and if you know of anyone who
might pay for information on why a Federation Patrolship landed this
morning, give me a holler." He smiled before leaving.
Emerson and Felum stared at each other in shock.
"Federation Patrol? Here?" Felum was incredulous.
The pair scrambled for their weapons then ran to check on Professor
Bingham in the underground lair.
* * * * *
"There was some sort of gunfight here, the day before yesterday,"
reported Furcas's man. "A group of armed men tried to take a pair of
men away."
Furcas listened patiently to the descriptions of the men. The Wulfen
had to be Garm, which meant the other was Loptr.
"The trouble was that this halftrack showed up, had a railgun
mounted on it and shot the group to pieces," he nodded his head
towards the door. "Right outside."
"Whew," Furcas exhaled. "And?"
"Well, the halftrack drives off, and a pinnace sitting on the
landing field starts shooting at it with its particle cannon, and
takes the halftrack out. I got a look at the wreckage, it's a mess.
Anyway the halftrack had pulled up to this starship and everyone
must have gotten aboard because after the halftrack gets destroyed,
the starship takes off."
"Which ship?" asked Furcas, "Where did it go?"
"Nobody knows, or they're not saying."
"The pinnace?" asked Furcas, "What about it?"
"That's the best part. I had a look at it too," he nodded again,
towards the door. "Parked right outside. The insignia's been painted
over but I recognized the model right away."
Furcas shook his head.
"The one used by Red Branch Shipping."
Furcas rose from the table and headed for the door, his men in tow.
They crossed the graded path that served as the roadway in front of
the bar. A few starships were parked on the edge of the field, near
the bar, but no small craft. Furcas turned to his man.
"It's gone!" the man pointed to an empty spot a few feet away. "It
was here, twenty minutes ago!"
Furcas held his temper, "That bastard Kular!" he muttered. He split
his men up, leaving two to get the ship names and registry numbers
off the starships on the field. The rest accompanied him, piling
into the group's own ship.
to be continued...
newcomers...a squad of Red Branch Knights incognito...who have just
arrived on the desert planet...
Skorz -- originally born on Gont, Skorz spent his younger years in
the Kronos army, where he rose to the rank of captain in the Special
Forces. After mustering out, he was hired as a security man by a
Gont organization known as the Fist. Commissioned by Hevace Trandon
to locate a pair of Utrakkian brothers, he was sent to Sandstone
where he found them and help setup Trandon's current operation.
Skorz likes hands-on duties so he lives and works with the
moneylender on the desert system. Skorz is a chain-smoker.
Hevace Trandon -- born on Gont in the Kronos League, Trandon is the
emissary of a criminal organization known as the Fist. Initially a
broker, Trandon made a small fortune smuggling contraband in the Awn
system, with the help of a corsair brotherhood. With his rising star
noticed by his Gont overseers, he was sent to Sandstone to setup an
advance base for a group of Awn privateers. Cooperation between
criminal organizations isn't unknown, and Trandon loans money for
support, as well as monitoring the actions of the pirates for their
Awn masters.
Accordian Railgun -- is from Rifts: Dimension Book 2: Phase World, pg 144.
SANDSTONE
"Who are those guys?" Skorz leaned over the bar and asked quietly.
The barkeep took a quick glance and poured the mercenary a drink,
"Dunno. They were here when I opened. I, uh, think I heard them
mention about dropping down on a lighter or something."
There were at least a dozen ships in port so it wasn't that unusual
to see new faces. Most were free traders in from the Trades, come to
the free market that went up at the end of each month.
Skorz waited for his partner's drink to arrive then made his way
back to the table in the corner.
"You find out?" his partner asked.
"No. Just new faces. They don't look like merchants," Skorz lit a
smoke, "More like mercs."
"Ya," his partner gulped at his beer. "Hey, look." The man nodded
over to another table.
The pair's head turned in tandem, as though they were on twin
swivels, watching another man and an furred alien make their way
through the crowd and sit at a table.
"Who's the blonde?" asked Skorz's partner.
"His name is Loptr," Skorz took a long drag on his cigarette, "A
free trader. That muscle-bound thing is with him. They're in with
those guys I sold the halftrack to," said Skorz, meaning Emerson and
Felum.
The newcomers eyed Loptr and Garm, then one of them split up.
"Why don't I see where he's going," Skorz' partner downed his drink,
and pushed his way outside.
Skorz remained in place. Sitting patiently, smoking, watching the
others.
* * * * *
The whine of the railgun died as the circuit was cut. Marvin Felum
whistled. He stepped out from behind the gun shield, and jumped down
to the sand.
He and Emerson had commandeered six empty, steel barrels from a
junk pile, loaded them in their halftrack and taken them out
beyond the port limits to practice with. The weapon had been
connected with a 500-round belt. The barrels had been staggered at
about 5 yards, spread out about 30 feet apart. As the gunner, Felum
had sighted on the middle barrel then opened fire, raking the weapon
across the spread. In five seconds the miniguns had delivered 320
rounds, shredding the barrels completely.
Felum stood, gaping at the blasted targets.
"Wait until we get the camera equipment and neural interface," said
Emerson. "We'll be able to control them via remote. It'll give us
the flexibility of another combatant."
Marvin nodded absently. To him, target practice was over, they had
no more targets.
Emerson had him retreive the barrel bottoms and placed them along
the ridge line of a nearby hill, while he reloaded the weapon and
repeated the process. Not only were the bottoms shredded but huge
chunks of the hill were removed, spilling sand, dirt and rock along
the path of destruction. The excavation reminded him of Emerson's
construction microbots, except much faster but nowhere nearly as neat.
The pair found another small ridge line and repeated the process,
then again and again, before completely destroying the ridge forcing
them to head back to the port.
"Now I know why Gentry wanted to sell us 120,000 rounds," said
Felum. Their training exercise had used up almost 5,000 rounds. He
looked over to Emerson who was smiling slightly.
"What's so funny?" asked Felum, driving the halftrack towards the
port bar, passing near a squad of Tri-Galactic's finest.
"I was just thinking about what our little baby would do to combat
armor."
* * * * *
The scene shifts outside, where Vonez, Skorz' man has just
returned...
"He met up with those three, just outside of the bi-level rooming
house," said Skorz's partner. He, Skorz and Hevace Trandon were
sitting in the loan-shark's groundcar, watching a group of five men
standing next to a pinnace, near the port bar.
Trandon shooks his head, "They weren't with any of the Awn crews. I
saw them all when they came in last night." He looked at Skorz.
"You're right, they don't look like merchants."
Skorz lit another cigarette, "I doubt if any of the free traders
could spare the cash to hire six men." He turned to his partner.
"What do you think? Working passage?"
His partner shrugged, "Could be," his face suddenly straightened.
"Hold it. Something's stirring them."
The trio looked back to the five strangers, who had suddenly
produced weapons before fanning out.
Coming out of the bar were Loptr and Garm.
* * * * *
Loptr and Garm had gotten no more than three steps outside the door
when they were surrounded by five armored men, each brandishing energy
weapons.
The pair looked at the men who stood a few paces away, plasma
weapons leveled at their chests.
"Loptr Laufnarson," shouted a voice. Standing next to a pinnace was
another man, hands on hips, a small smile on his face.
Loptr licked his lips, "Do I, uh, know you?"
From between Garm's teeth issued a low growl at the men who had the
drop on them.
"No, I don't think so," said the man, pulling off his jacket, "But
this might jog your memory." He turned the jacket around, revealing
the white shield and triple-red, stripe banner of Red Branch Shipping.
Loptr went cold.
"Yes. We're from Hidegar, I'm Kular," a smile spread across Kular's
face. "You and your doggy are coming back with us." Kular motioned
towards his men.
The engine noise of a heavy groundcar or truck entered the area.
Then a deafening blast of weapons fire broke the air.
* * * * *
Emerson used the Accordian to cut a swath of earth, sand and dust
along the ground a dozen feet from the soldier's who were
threatening Loptr and Garm. The weapon's fire got their immediate
attention, then by elevating the weapon, he cut the poor, helpless
soldiers to pieces as the hail of metal struck them.
Kular, protected by the small spacecraft, watched helplessly as his
men died.
Garm, instinctively raised a Phase Field and herded Loptr away.
Kular drew his plasma pistol and fired a few shots in vain as the
pair disappeared around the bar's corner.
Felum drew the halftrack up, following the fusillade of metal that
Emerson had cut through the patch of dirt in front of the bar. It
cornered in front of the pinnace, where Kular had been, the Red
Branch leader had just enough time to jump through the pinnace's
hatch and close it before Emerson could aim and fire.
"Dammit!" screamed Emerson, releasing the electronic trigger and
diving down. The pinnace was not only armored, but the hull's
charged field had been activated. It was a common defense against
plasma and particle weapons. The air between the halftrack and
pinnace was filled with riccochets, some dropping back into the bed.
Luckily, Emerson wore his helmet and body armor. "I'm all right," he
yelled. Felum gunned the halftrack forward and around the corner.
Stopping to let Loptr and Garm board.
"Glad to see you boys," Loptr's smile was oddly calm. "Quick, get to
my starship!" he yelled.
Felum nodded and circled the halftrack around the bar.
* * * * *
Kular scrambled to the pinnace's observation portal, watching as the
halftrack fired on his small craft. The craft's small fusion reactor
was already activated, so he polarized the hull plating. The cacophony of
metal striking the armored hull lessened noticeably, as the charged
field deflected some of the railgun's metal projectiles.
The pinnace had a single blaster cannon and Kular raced to it,
powered it on and rotated the weapon after the halftrack as it drove
off.
He loosed a single shot, which rocketed over the vehicle, impacting
on a distant mound of dirt in a huge explosion. He corrected for a
follow up blast but the halftrack rounded the corner of the bar and
out of sight.
Cursing, he raced forward, towards the cockpit. As he reached the
pilot's chair the front hatch opened, bathing him in sudden
sunlight.
It was one of his men, who'd been inside the bar.
Unfortunately neither was a pilot.
* * * * *
The halftrack ground to a sudden stop near the belly of a small red
& grey freighter, Garm and Loptr exiting hurredly. A tube dropped
from the freighter's underside, levitating the pair up and into the
ship.
Emerson was checking the Accordian, while Felum kept lookout,
jumping as the ship's power generators hummed suddenly to life
overhead.
Two stories above the dirt field, the starship's belly ramp groaned
and opened, dropping slowly, laboriously towards the ground. The
ship was directly opposite the pinnace, about 75 yards down range,
along an aisle of small craft and ground vehicles.
Loptr rode the ramp down, fastening a multi-optic visor to his head
and activating the zoom feature.
"Crap!" he yelled, motioning towards Felum. "You two better get to
the lift tube. NOW!"
Emerson looked up, engaging the visor on his own helm. As his
macrolens zoomed in he spotted a large, armored figure standing atop
the pinnace, next to him the pinnace's small turret rotating around,
towards them.
* * * * *
Kular emerged from the ventral hatch in his power armor, the only
other protection he had against the halftrack's devestating weapon.
It was poor at best, even if the slugs couldn't penetrate the suit's
advanced armor, the strong hail of the projectiles might knock him
over.
A small cloud of dust caught his attention, and he swiveled around
to follow it. His helm's HUD zooming in, spotting the halftrack
under the belly of a freighter.
"Corporal Carleton?" he called into his helm's mic. "The
halftrack's there to the west."
He looked over to see the pinnace's ventral turret rotate towards
the target.
"Underneath that freighter on the end," he called, seeing two
figures bail out and run under the ship. The pinnace's cannon fired,
striking the halftrack in the rear, the resulting explosion ripping
it apart, flipping the vehicle over before concealing it in a thick
cloud of smoke.
"Got it sir," cried Carleton.
Kular jumped from the pinnace, unfastened the particle-blaster rifle
locked to his side and took off running, "Sergeant," he called
through his comlink, "Keep your cannon on that freighter. If she
tries to takeoff, blast it."
* * * * *
"They blew up our halftrack!" screamed Felum, pounding the
freighter's closed-circuit viewscreen. Playing out on the monitor
was the smoking, twisted form of the vehicle they'd been in moments
before a jagged, gaping hole cut through the back and side of it.
Through the smoke a figure appeared, "Another armored prick!" yelled
Felum.
Emerson stood next to him. "He's not with Tri-galactic, they don't
have armor that big." At least he'd never seen any.
"That's Kular," Loptr removed his sensor vizor as he strolled past
the pair towards the bridge. "Remember that little story I told you
about the starport on Hidegar," Loptr put on his headset, a nodded
towards the screen. "He's with their security team."
Emerson grunted, "Well, at least we're safe."
"Yeah," Loptr said, switching on several systems near his seat.
"Until the guy with the particle cannon shoots at us."
"His cannon ain't big enough to hurt this thing, is it?" asked
Marvin Felum. The starship was small, but dwarfed the halftrack by
comparison.
"Won't know until he starts shooting," said Loptr, before barking
orders to Garm. The ship began to vibrate.
Emerson slapped Felum on the shoulder and pointed to the monitor,
"Marvin, put this 'prick' down."
Felum nodded, staring at the screen at the figure picking through
the wrecked halftrack. After about ten seconds of concentration
Felum found his Bio-Manipulation of no use. Kular's particle rifle
blasted futilely at the starship's hull.
Moments later Loptr's starship lifted off, without taking any
cannon fire from the pinnace. Staying low to the deck, she put
Emerson and Felum off at a safe distance, before gaining orbit to
leave the system.
* * * * *
After the slaughter, Skorz is "holding" Kular, for reasons that will
become apparent...
"Relax," Skorz said to Kular, "One of these trampers will be pulling
out for the Trades soon."
After witnessing the battle, Skorz and his partner had retrieved
their weapons from Hevace's vehicle. When Kular had raced off, the
pair had boarded the open pinnace and taken the remaining Red Branch
trooper prisoner, under the pretense of being local officials. Of
course Kular had no way of knowing Loptr had purchased fake
ownership papers for his hijacked starship from Trandon the previous
night. Loptr, who'd been low on cash, had needed to borrow a
considerable sum of money from the loan-shark as well. Allowing the
Red Branch Knights to take a paying customer away was simply bad
business. After Loptr had gotten away, Hevace had specified that his
newest customer should get a two-day headstart, minimum, so Skorz
was pretending that his men were looking into the incident, to
"determine Kular's culpability."
"If I don't radio my starship," warned Kular, "They'll be down here
come first light." The fleet courier was in orbit, waiting under
orders.
Skorz shrugged, "They're welcome to. I hope they don't cause any
trouble. There's 200 armored troopers less than a mile from here."
Skorz neglected to inform Kular that they weren't his men, just the
garrision for an independent merchant outpost.
Kular scowled.
"Don't worry," said Skorz, "My men will find these two with the
halftrack and the railgun and we'll get to the bottom of this."
* * * * *
Furcas has been busy, and the cover ship has arrived, a non-Patrol
vessel. He's assembled his own team and arrived on Sandstone...a bit
late...
As the OBSERVER approached Sandstone it detected three starships in
orbit. All seemed to be merchants, except one which broke formation
and headed the scout craft off. By the time it reached the newly
arrived starship, the OBSERVER's sensors had detected the ship's
armanent.
The OBSERVER was a federation-made ship, albeit very old. One of the
gunned merchants conducted what amounted to a custom's inspection.
Furcas and three of his men watched as a armed boarding party went
through the ship, before allowing it to land. Once dirtside, they
naturally went to the bar.
* * * * *
Skorz looked at Kular with mild amusement.
"Why did you do that?" he asked.
When Furcas and his men entered the tiny Sandstone bar, Kular had
gone white, snatched the cap off Skorz's head, donned it and propped
his head up under his arm. Furcas had organized things faster than
the Red Branch commander had estimated.
Skorz' gaze shifted to the doorway, where four men were coming in.
"Ah, not your boys I take it."
"Is there a back way out of here?" whispered Kular.
Skorz smiled, "Who are they?"
"Trouble," he whispered back. "Let's get out of here."
Skorz puffed on his cigarette, keeping Kular in place.
"All right, they're with the, uh, Federation," explained Kular.
Skorz's mouth dropped slightly. Sandstone was far from the
Federation's border and never saw their ships call here. That meant
they were with the Patrol. Skorz composed himself, apparently Loptr
had done something very bad, for the Patrol to come all this way.
Somehow Kular was involved, maybe a double-cross, maybe a
bounty-hunter.
Skorz stood, his tall frame shielding Kular from sight. He leaned
over to his partner, "Find out which ship those four came in on. I'm
taking our guest out the back."
Kular and Skorz filed over to the storeroom and out the bar's back
door.
* * * * *
Skorz' man meets with the Fixer and Mentalus later that night...
"You're lucky none of the locals were killed," said Vonez, "Could've
turned out bad for you."
Marvin Felum looked at Emerson, making a subtle sign with his hand,
asking whether he should apply his Bio-Manipulation to their guest.
Emerson shook his head, since he'd been expecting the visit. Skorz
had sold the pair the halftrack. Anything they did would invite
retribution.
"Come to the point," said Emerson.
"Well the boss says he can fix it, so that nobody says nothing about
who owned the halftrack," said Vonez matter-of-factly, pausing to
add: "Or where they might be found."
The shooting on the port field was common talk around Sandstone's
tiny port city. However with the nature of the incident and the
reputation the port already carried, no one spoke in particulars,
since as far as anyone knew the "merchants" from Awn might be
involved.
"How much?" asked Emerson.
"Skorz says ten thousand oughta do it," Vonez smiled.
Emerson nodded to Felum to retrieve the cash. He paid Trandon's man.
Vonez hesitated before leaving, "Oh, and if you know of anyone who
might pay for information on why a Federation Patrolship landed this
morning, give me a holler." He smiled before leaving.
Emerson and Felum stared at each other in shock.
"Federation Patrol? Here?" Felum was incredulous.
The pair scrambled for their weapons then ran to check on Professor
Bingham in the underground lair.
* * * * *
"There was some sort of gunfight here, the day before yesterday,"
reported Furcas's man. "A group of armed men tried to take a pair of
men away."
Furcas listened patiently to the descriptions of the men. The Wulfen
had to be Garm, which meant the other was Loptr.
"The trouble was that this halftrack showed up, had a railgun
mounted on it and shot the group to pieces," he nodded his head
towards the door. "Right outside."
"Whew," Furcas exhaled. "And?"
"Well, the halftrack drives off, and a pinnace sitting on the
landing field starts shooting at it with its particle cannon, and
takes the halftrack out. I got a look at the wreckage, it's a mess.
Anyway the halftrack had pulled up to this starship and everyone
must have gotten aboard because after the halftrack gets destroyed,
the starship takes off."
"Which ship?" asked Furcas, "Where did it go?"
"Nobody knows, or they're not saying."
"The pinnace?" asked Furcas, "What about it?"
"That's the best part. I had a look at it too," he nodded again,
towards the door. "Parked right outside. The insignia's been painted
over but I recognized the model right away."
Furcas shook his head.
"The one used by Red Branch Shipping."
Furcas rose from the table and headed for the door, his men in tow.
They crossed the graded path that served as the roadway in front of
the bar. A few starships were parked on the edge of the field, near
the bar, but no small craft. Furcas turned to his man.
"It's gone!" the man pointed to an empty spot a few feet away. "It
was here, twenty minutes ago!"
Furcas held his temper, "That bastard Kular!" he muttered. He split
his men up, leaving two to get the ship names and registry numbers
off the starships on the field. The rest accompanied him, piling
into the group's own ship.
to be continued...
