"Forced Retirement"
"Join the great exodus! Help save humanity! Meet new lifeforms to study or kill!"
Those brochures… no.
Three generations frozen. Ninety billion gone to void. Blast them, beat them, break them.
This blaster is a newish one… I think it's from LasCoTech. Or is it Colonial Armaments? Frontier United Creations Killtech Section? There's no hole in the barrel. Crystal and glass in this thing… blasted fragile in a real fight. I saw enough of these 'modern' weapons kill the user.
This time, I want it to. I need it to.
Outside this viewport… bores the hell out of me. I had a career out there. Paid well. Forgot about the bitterness. Kept it in. Let it out when I had to be really sadistic bastard. Planked 'em, plinked 'em, plonked 'em. Then politics got involved. Oh, those military bastards were always too busy. Out fighting aliens, or stamping on rebels, or going back to Earth to kiss ass. They never fought us unless we brought the fight to their doorstep. And they killed us… not with war but with peace.
Earth- damn it, I bet Nelson's Column is gone by now.
And the rest… damn them all. Damned Salazar. Damned Reiter. Traitors. They knew what they were getting into. When the armada came and blew away my kinsmen, I didn't blink a second eye. Traits of traits. Ha.
Ah, screw it, I came here to kill mys-
No. They didn't give me this leg for nothing.
Let them come. I'll get-
The door slides open easily with the fiddled card, smooth as death rides over the terminus. It's quite sad, really. This was a man who was a scourge. Scourges don't just come out of nowhere. Even among the poor and defective, scourges demand respect.
The old man's not alone. He sits behind the starlodge desk, slumped over, but he's breathing heavily. Two goonloons stand behind him, dressed in full regalia. My Hypnos Tas sends thousands of volts into the turncoat's nerve system vis-à-vis a shot to where the skull meets the spinal cord faster than the more traditional-looking pirate can hiss "Decatur!" in melodramatic loathing. The scurvy dog's been reading too many Jack Sparrow tales. Heavy eyeliner gives him panda-eyes over his trim mustache and Vandyke beard. His cutlass is a raysword and his blaster's butt is tattooed with engravings and etchings. He struggles to ready his pistol. I shoot him with a blaster set on shock.
His companion is also a wantabe reenactor, but is dressed less gaudily. The corsair wears pajama pants under a flimsy vest with no shirt underneath. He's probably no more thought of Medina than taken a style check at his turban-like flophat of many colors. His sword is made of superheated space alloys, ready to strike, as is the dagger in the other hand. I shoot him with the Taser set on high. His one-thousand-first tale has ended in tragedy.
He fries, he dies. At the very least he won't be playing with sharp objects once he gets out of his coma. The other is tougher than I thought. He actually dodged the shot before I fired, which was the only way to avoid it. He nearly brought the cutlass down on the old man's throat before I kicked a chair into him, knocking him back. I shot him again, but he let himself fall to avoid the shot. He slants forward though his body is on the ground, and shoots at me with the fancy gun. No dime. Far too off. I shoot him again.
Scurvy dog is down. Blasters aren't meant for nonlethality. The coin-sized hole in his shoulder is cauterized, but he'll miss it.
The room was crappy, grimy, and Spartan. The only bucca-gear I could see was the classic Jolly Roger grinning on the cap. It actually looked like something that Napoleon might wear, had he been willing to be never taken seriously. I grabbed the cap and slipped it into the unbuggable shielded pocket in my jacket. Another trophy.
I turn to the scourge.
"It's an honor to meet a brigand so great who needs a second-rate PKer to rescue him."
He's barely conscious from the Tas shock, yet he flashes me a profane gesture.
"So you hate being called brigand, pirate?" I looked down at the prostrate form. "You're past your prime, old dawg. Can't turn tricks no more. Your nation has forsaken you."
An explosion burst somewhere out in the hall. I sighed, and slung him over my shoulder. I ran out of the corridor, where a third pirate stood. A young buck, dressed in an astrosuit even gaudier and foppish than the other two combined. I managed to shoot him three times with the Tas before he realized that he had been hit in the eye with pure voltage.
I ran into the elevator. No one was aboard. The lodgekeepers must have sealed off the floor on purpose, which meant that the military men were already here. So much for getting credit for securing the last Crossguard Privateer all by my lonesome.
The blue-tuniced dimlight in front of the elevator pointed a gun at me. How many of his pals did I just save from the pirate nations? No matter. I threw the old space dog into his arms. His superior came to me and saluted.
"Well done, corporal," he said to my rolled eyes, "You've secured him quite well. We'll take it from here. You'll be receiving you recompense in just a moment."
The old codger is on the ground, dreaming of the blood and booty. I shrug my shoulders.
"Just make sure to spell my name with an 'u.,'" I replied.