Chapter 3

Talion 6

The road from the spaceport to the wedding venue was through an ivy-covered walkway. In the distance the planet's forests could be seen, and if the ambient noise had been lower, the sounds of birds could've been heard. Many of the angular buildings had tall fences across the fronts of them, which were covered in thick ivy growth, including the businesses, which were noted by lavish signs over their gates.

It was through this sun dappled path that the trio walked, or floated in one case, with Deathtrap in front, Gaige in the middle and Jinx bringing up the rear. An order that Jinx had insisted on to best defend against ambushes.

"This is ridiculous, I feel like some kinda prisoner being escorted" Gaige whined "Artemis, come up here and talk to me."

"It's for your own good, you insisted on doing this wedding, and I'm insisting on keeping you alive."

"It's my business, it's taken years to build it up to this point, I can't just abandon a client. It would kill my reputation."

"Being dead would do that too." Jinx grumbled, "Whatever made you want to be a wedding planner anyway?" She asked before suddenly stopping, her head cocked to one side, spinning around and dashing back the way they'd come from. Leaping as high as she could, she caught something tracing an arc through the air, and was trying to throw it back when the grenade detonated in her left hand. But instead of a standard explosion, a huge crackling sphere spread out from it, enveloping her and extending through Gaige, stopping just before reaching Deathtrap. Jinx landed bad, her left leg collapsing under her as if everything in it was dead, her left arm flopped out, the grenade slid from her limp hand, still projecting the dome.

Gaige started forward, when she realized that her left arm was limp, causing her to stagger from the sudden shift as the dead weight pulled her off balance.

"Stay back." Jinx yelled, as best she could, from the ground "It shorts out electronics or something. Also, ouch."

"Very good" came a cold voice as the thrower stepped out from one of the gates. "EMP grenade, prototype Holloway tech made specifically for dropping that thing" he motioned to the still floating Deathtrap, who was glaring as best he could at the crackling dome. "Still never expected anyone to try and catch it, so kudos to you, whomever you are, I am impressed, it was stupid, but impressive. Still, going to have to kill you for interfering."

Gaige looked at the speaker, he was dressed the same as the attackers on Galia, same dark armor, though his seemed much heavier, which fit his massive frame, his head hidden behind a bulky helmet, in his hands was a heavy assault rifle, crude and low tech, probably an old Bandit or maybe a C.O.V.. As she looked another group of similarly dressed goons stepped out as well, though they were less built and in lighter armor, carrying a similar crude-looking assortment of weapons.

"The other thing about that EMP, is that it fries most guns, hence the low tech. But best of all, it killed your shield, meaning this will all go right into that fragile little flesh of yours." She could hear the disgusting smirk in his voice. "And before your monster there gets any funny ideas, like lasers or missiles, any of us see that and the rest will fill you with lead."

"Guess that explains the armor then." Jinx commented looking up as the group moved around her "Pity you didn't all spring for the good stuff, cause I'mana have ta kill ya now."

With that the closest goons head exploded as her pistol fired almost straight up into it, the bullet ricocheted into the next guy staggering him. "NOW!" she yelled emptying the gun, killing a goon with each shot, and bouncing the bullets into nearby mercenaries dropping eight of them with six shots, and causing the rest to spin at her in panic, only to be cut down by Deathtraps laser.

The boss though, was the most experienced and with a swift punch to her stomach, sent Gaige soaring as she struggled to get her assault rifle up with only one hand, sending her through the nearest gate and dove after, just as the laser shot through the space where he had just been.

Jinx let her empty pistol fall and caught the nearest dead guys' gun as he fell. Pulling herself into a sitting position she braced it across her good knee, and let loose on the leader, the bullets pinged off his armor, but she just tightened her aim till she hit her mark, and his gun smashed under the stream of bullets just as her gun went dry.

"You are one annoying bitch." he roared in frustration throwing down his now useless gun "You could have died nice and easily, but no, you had to make this hard, well this is on you now." and with that he landed a solid kick into Gaiges' stomach, driving the air from her lungs, leaving her gasping for breath. He went to follow up, when Jinx, hopping on one leg, threw herself between them.

"Seriously?" he yelled in exasperation "What the hell can you do? Do you just want to die first? Well wish granted." And his massive hand shot forward, catching her throat and lifting her up so he could look her in the eye as she choked. "I hope you're happy now, I was going to savor killing you, but for my men's sake and for all the trouble you caused…what the hell is that?"

He had failed to realize that her good arm had not been fighting his grip, but instead flailing at something on her back, until the hand cannon pressed against his helmet. Jinx straightened her wrist and grit her teeth before firing all three shots point blank as fast as she could. The first two cracked the helm while the last obliterated it along with his life. His hand loosened and dropped her, before his corpse toppled backwards. Jinx landed on her butt and rolled onto her back in front of Gaige, who was just catching her breath. She could tell by the way the other girl's face had gone waxy that she was not alright. Her hand was on the ground next to her, sweet was beading on her forehead and her breathing was short and rapid.

"Are you…alright. Of course your *cough* not after that *cough*, hospital, you need a hospital,
b-babe get a hospital." she wheezed.

"Get. Wedding. Be. Fine. Take. Grenade. Go." Jinx panted out through her gritted teeth.

Gaige was about to say something when she realized that the dome had expired and she could hear sirens coming closer. She staggered to her feet as Deathtrap arrived and gave her a hand up.

"Are you sure?"

"Mmmhmm. Meet. Later." Jinx affirmed.

Gaige staggered over to the spent shell of the grenade and scooped it up, along with Jinxs' guns and leaning on Deathtrap for support, got out of there.

As soon as she was out of sight, Jinx's eyes rolled back and she passed out.

A Few Hours Later

"No no that goes there, and that one goes there." Gaige desperately tried directing the staff "Sorry you were sayi… No, that spot's left open for their grandfather."

Amid the chaos, she spotted Jinx making her way across the room, limping slightly and her right hand tucked against her chest.

"Artemis, good to see you back up, how bad is it?" She nervously asked.

"Broke most of the bones in my wrist. But they fixed that right up, not supposed to shoot with that hand or do anything too stressful with it for, like, thirty six hours or so, and then I took about an hour to fix what I could in my limbs, need to get back to the ship to tear them apart and replace most of the servos and circuits and stuff. Had to make a report to the police too, but I kept you out of it. But I'll manage. You?"

"Thanks. Same, sorry, HEY that doesn't go there, the blue ones are the grooms' side. Idiots."

"You seem pretty busy" Jinx observed as Deathtrap flew by with an arm load of decorations "Anything I can do to help?"

"Oh my god, yes, talk to that guy, find out what he needs, excuse me." She stormed off, yelling at the people trying to get the hall ready "No, blue goes there! Are you color blind? You are? Then why are you doing that? Go help him out. You, take over."

Jinx turned to the exasperated man standing in Gaige's wake. "So, I guess I'm like an assistant or something now, so what's your problem?"

"Az I waz trying to tell ze bozz, zer waz an attack on ze farm we get our Tamtrol from. Due to ziz zey have none to delivar to uz. Zey were ze main course, oui. Without zem we would be az zey zay, a cooked goose, without ze goose."

"OK, Tamtrol, those are native birds here right?" Jinx thought about all she knew about them "Still ones in the wild, how long do you need to cook them?"

"Zey need to cook for four hours."

"Four hours, right, right, how long before they absolutely need to be cooking?"

"Three hours, forty-seven minutes. Prezizely."

"OK then. Let me talk to the boss and see what I can do about that." With that, Jinx turned and went over to where Gaige was rearranging decorations.

"Can I leave?"

"Wow, three minutes, I think that's the record for shortest employee I've ever had. What's up?"

"Something about there not being any Tamtrol. I was going to go get some."

"No Tam…that's the main course, how can they not… I put the order in months ago." she turned to the head chef "HEY, why didn't you bring this up earlier?" Turning back "Where are you going to get some?"

"I'm gonna do my job."

"But you can't use your right hand, right?"

"I still have a backup one, I'm just not as good with it." She unslung her rifle, switched it to her left hand and brought it up toward her left shoulder. Gaige heard a thwacking sound and watched Jinx's
lips thin as her face turned red, tears formed in the corners of her eyes, as she slowly curled into a crouching ball.

Gaige waited as the other girl rubbed her chest "I'm gonna need some help." Jinx managed "Need to move this chest protector to the other side."

Gaige tried not to laugh as she helped unhook the guard, then tried not to be embarrassed working around the other girls' breast. Once they were finished Jinx tried again and this time the gun went smoothly to her shoulder.

"And what if something jumps you from close up?"

Jinx raised her left hand and a stiletto blade snapped forward out of the back of her arm, which with a hum was quickly covered in a Digi-structed energy blade. "I got it covered."

"Alright then, you sure you can do this?"

"The nearest hunting ground is probably fifty minutes away, but my guess is that it's already been picked clean, so I'm gonna have to go out a bit farther. Can you manage without me for a few hours?"

"I managed before you got here, but I can't manage without those birds, so get gone."

Jinx turned to Deathtrap who had floated up while they were tightening the chest guard "Watch her back big guy."

"Ururg"

"Righto, be back in a few." Jinx said walking away with a wave.

Gaige watched her go "I worry about that one" she said to her robo buddy before turning back to the room "Oh for the love of…OI! Blue goes on that side, what, are you also color blind?"

Three Hours Twenty-seven Minutes Later

Gaige gave the wedding hall one last look over, her clients would start to arrive any minute now to inspect it before the guests arrived.

"Everything good?" came a question from the side door.

Gaige gave a startled turn "Artemis. Don't sneak up like that, wait you're back? Did you get them? Tev's been up here every few minutes asking if you're back yet. Tev's the chef by the way."

"Got a good haul, speak of the devil." she said as the frantic looking chef entered.

"Finally. You are back. Did you get zem? Where are zey?"

"Cool it. Yes, I got them. Bagged six of them." she said unslinging the bag on her back and handing it over to the chef, who yanked it open. Inside Gaige could see a pile of birds covered in dark scale like feathers, each a little smaller than her torso.

"Yez yez very good, and all shot clean through ze neck, all headz intact."

"Yah I read the recipe on the way, you use the brains as marinade? That's just weird. Can you cook one of the extras without the brain glaze for us? The staff I mean, unless you wanna eat brains?" She turned to Gaige, who was looking a little disgusted.

"Nope, I'm with you."

"Fine, fine, but you don't know what you are mizzing, I must go, perfection awaits."

As he hustled out of the room, Gaige turned to the other girl. "Chefs are so weird, almost all of them, weird. So you got six with your off hand, damn, you weren't kidding about that hunter thing."

Just then Deathtrap floated over leading a stern looking older man.

"You must be the wedding planner." he said with a bit of a condescending sneer "Waste of money if you ask me. This had better be perfect, or you'll get docked, you hear. So, is everything ready?"

Gaige's hand twitched slightly, which only Jinx noticed, and a smile appeared on her face. "Of course, everything's ready, we're ready to start once everyone arrives."

"Don't lie little girl, I read the ECHO this morning, I know what happened. Dinner is supposed to be Tamtrol and there are none in the city, so what? You didn't think I'd know? Were you going to try and serve something else and pretend it was Tamtrol? Ha, I'm onto you. Not only am I going to dock you for the wrong supper, but for lying as well. Let that be a lesson to always be honest to you customers. I've been in business for thirty years, and I've never once lied to a customer, you could learn something from me."

"But sir" Gaige said with a thin smile "We are serving Tamtrol for dinner, just like planned."

"What did you bribe someone for theirs? You expect me to pay the inflated cost for it then? No
way. I'm not paying any more for it, if you've got them at all. Or wait, did you manage to find
one and plan to serve something else to the rest of the guests? Is that it? Or did you find some
in a freezer somewhere?"

"No sir, four fresh Tamtrol are being prepped as we speak."

Jinx noticed that Gaige's hand was clenched behind her back, her knuckles white with frustration.

"And where did you get them, huh, every restaurant in the city is trying to get their hands on them
as we speak?"

"That is why she keeps a hunter on staff. Sir." Jinx cut in dryly. Her lips were curled slightly but her eyes were narrowed predatorily. "If you have any doubts as to the quality of my catches, feel free to inspect them in the kitchen."

The man swallowed nervously "Fine, I will, but just to make sure everything is satisfactory."

As he stormed away, Gaige let out her breath slowly. Jinx watched him go "Sorry to but in like that. But are all of your clients that big of, what's the term, asshats?"

"No, but you get ones like him every now and then. Always trying to pinch a buck wherever they can. I'm so glad you got here before him though. I don't think I could have taken that smug shit without being able to rub his face in it afterwards."

"Yeah, I can't begin to imagine what kind of nasty crap he would have spewed if he'd been right. That said I think I should get out of here before he gets back."

"Awww, you're gonna leave me with him, and run away while you can?"

"Sorry, not sorry. But I should get back to the ship anyway, need to get these fixed while I can." She flexed her left hand, watching it move stiffly. "You need any parts or tools as long as I'm going?"

"Yeah, let me write them down. You should also change clothes before coming back."

Jinx looked down at herself, the stains on her knees, her dirty boots, a couple leaves stuck under her chest guard "Why?" she asked with a straight face.

"I mean, it is a wedding."

"Fine. Wait, you want me to be around, at the wedding? Me?"

"The reception more of. Here take the list, and get outa here, go leave me to my fate, flee, go."

Jinx took the list "Fine. Just try not to kill your client."

"No promises."