Chronicles of a Space Mercenary

by Ronald Wintrick

  The Katons scattered under my withering rain of fire, their number already reduced by half and I as yet unscathed. I was a small target lying prone on the floor and the Katons having to fire into the mind blowing cascade of blaster fire reducing their accuracy, their nerve gone, never having faced death so intimately. These were Navy men and the closest they had ever gotten to the battle was behind the computer screens at their targeting consoles, if they had even ever gotten that close. They scattered like sheep and I took this opportunity to jump again to my feet and run.

  Coto followed me after leaping down from the wall where he had taken refuge. I think Coto was fast enough to avoid laser fire from this distance, his reaction time so far beyond human scale, and quickly raced beyond me, easily outdistancing me.

  I have excellent endurance and continued running for clicks after I had lost sight of the Katons, taking every twist and turn along the way. The aliens we passed got out of our way quickly, but stood aside after with expectant faces, hoping to see sudden bloodshed if we were caught up, but the Katons weren’t catching up. They had wounds to lick. We finally came to another lift and I ran to a stop before it.

  “So how did the Katons find out about Cheryl?” I asked Coto. Coto chittered, as if he understood what I was saying. I didn’t know that he did not.

  “Yeah, I think it was Melanie too.” I said. Unfortunately I couldn’t understand what the hell had gotten into her, but I was sure it had to have been her. Melanie was normally so level headed, so calm, so in control, compared to the rest of us, even Manuel and Janice, who are the epitome of level headed-ness and competence most of the time (though they were often hot tempered with one another), that it simply did not make sense.

  We waited tensely for the elevator, watching both ways down the corridor, but the lift arrived before the Katons, if they were even still following. I was hoping they weren’t that determined. That I had discouraged them sufficiently. They sure didn’t seem too intelligent, standing right there in the corridor outside Cheryl’s quarters in their stupid obvious blue uniforms like a big dumb ass sore thumb. Like I wasn’t going to notice them! Now more than half of them were dead for their efforts. I didn’t re-holster my blaster until the lift doors had closed behind me and I knew for certain we were safe.

  The Katons were certainly winners at picking losing battles. They were no smarter than the older bully who doesn’t understand the little boy he is picking on every day is going to grow up one day. Grow up and seriously hurt him one day. In a very real way I wished I had stayed and fought it out no matter the outcome; at least then I’d have been there for Cheryl when I was supposed to be. Instead I had been run off by some lousy green Troopers still wet behind the ears. If there had been even one seasoned Trooper amongst them I wouldn’t be standing here even now. The only member among them who might have had any seasoning at all I had eliminated immediately (so maybe I had purposefully targeted him). After all the beatings I had given these people, you would think that maybe they had finally learned their lesson. One could hope.

  The lift doors opened on whatever floor I had punched into the keypad, eight hundred something or other, and anything so long as we were moving away from the Katons, and Coto and I carefully exited. There were no humanoids anywhere visible. I didn’t even see any bipeds, though the corridor around us bustled with activity. Lizards of every stripe and description turned to glare at us but none made any overtly threatening gestures.

  I chose a lizard watering hole across the corridor, just at random, and walked towards it. A flashy neon sign advertised the place in a strange curlicue writing, which I could not read, of course, but the frothing tankard highlighted under the writing left no doubt as to the establishments business. Its door slid open as we approached and we went in.

  Lizards liked the bright lights, flash and glitter of neon and glamor. This place was no exception, lit up like a Christmas tree on the Fourth of July. It had the same rectangular design as everywhere else, but that was where the similarities ended. The walls were lined with electronic gambling machines, each and every one patronized by some sort of lizard pumping money into them. Some stood, some crouched, or leaned half upon, and in most cases there were lizards lounging around waiting for their turns at the machines. Multicolored lights and computer generated images moved across the walls and ceiling, changing from abstract designs to what were obviously sexually con-notated images I did not spend long studying. Sex was used by all species to excite the lusts and passions of their patrons and generate a fervor to gamble. It was the one other thing, along with violence, that transcended all racial boundaries. Sex and violence. It took both for any species to climb to dominance of their worlds. The bar was in the middle of the place and was of a rectangular design to match the circumference of the room itself.

  The lizard behind the bar gave me an inscrutable look as I came up to it. Most of the lizard races were incapable of facial expression. They simply did not have any facial muscles at all, other than their jaws. Their jaws were always well muscled. Lizards invariably communicated their feelings amongst their own kind through phenomenal release, which I of course could not detect. Coto could, however, and I had but to watch him to know what the lizards around me were thinking. Lizards could be tough inscrutable poker opponents sometimes, but their body language wasn’t as unreadable as their facial expressions, and there was usually some tell which gave them away, if you studied them long enough, and I could read body language like a book. This lizard’s face may have been giving nothing away, but its body language was saying it would be happy to take my custom. All sentient races loved money, as well, without fail. The lizard unclipped an auto translator from its belt, a thin little palm sized job that was mostly display screen, and held it out for me to speak into.

  “Whiskey.” I said.

  The lizard looked at the screen of the translator where my words would have been translated into its language and grunted what I took to be its assent, because it then went under the bar and pulled out a bottle of what certainly looked like whiskey, though I couldn’t tell by its label, and poured me a generous slug into a clean glass, which it then handed across to me. A little taste convinced me it wasn’t anything I was familiar with but was yet quite good.

  The auto-translator went back on the lizard’s belt and then it unclipped another device, this time a Kievor Credit/Debit idento-reader, which it told the amount and then showed me, not cheap, and held out for me to look into.

  “Accepted.” I said as I looked into the device. It beeped and the transaction was complete.

  There was a public communicator on the other side of the bar so I walked around and picked up the headset, letting it scan my eyes before putting it to my ear (there was nothing free on a Kievor Trade Station) and asked it to connect me to Cheryl. It beeped several times and then I got her answering machine. I hung up. I wanted to explain to her in person how I had been run off, though I knew there was no excuse she would accept. Twenty Katon Troopers or not I should have been there.

  I drank the whiskey and with the false courage it gave decided that the only thing I could do was to turn right around and go back. If the Katons were still lurking about, I would finish them off to the last man. Any other action would simply dishonor my love for Cheryl. Any other action would have Cheryl hunting me with more furor than the Katons.

  With that thought in mind I walked back around the bar and headed for the exit, Coto following along uncertainly, my behavior and pheromone release probably erratic to him. I was possibly ten steps short of the exit when the door opened in front of me and a huge lizard entirely filled the doorway, both entering the bar and blocking my way.

  Of the types of lizards with which I am familiar, the lizard in the doorway was one of a rare variety of upright walking species which seemed to have developed along the same lines as humans, probably having been tree dwellers like humans, it had developed an upright posture, strong rear legs with forward jointed knees and dexterous hands. Nor
had it lost its distinctive carnivorous features. It had a mouth so full of teeth it could hardly get it closed for the teeth being in the way. Its fingers were tipped in razor sharp claws, and it had the reflexes of the true predator. It massed about twice what I did though was only slightly taller than I. It was armed with a laser pistol strapped to its scaly hide. The only other adornment it wore was gold chains thick around its neck, leaving its sex plainly visible. It was a female. I recognized its species, having dealt with them before.

  It recognized my species as well, because its eyes turned and locked on my own like a laser guidance system. Not only did it recognize my species, it recognized me! A huge forked tongue shot out and sampled the air between us with senses a blood hound would have sold its soul to possess. Then its clawed hand dove for its holstered laser.

  I felt a searing pain burn my left arm even as my own blaster came up, much the slower of us, having been completely surprised by the lizards blazing speed and wondering, briefly, in that millisecond flash of intuition that is common in such situations, whether this wasn’t the end for me, but then my blaster was leveled and firing, Fate apparently still having It’s use for me.

  I know I had time, in the slowed down way I was experiencing the moment, to register the lizards own surprise at how fast I was. As my weapon leveled on its chest and it realized it had wasted its one chance with a missed shot, that I was not going to miss, that I could not miss with a Kievor blaster at that range, that it was about to die, it tried throwing itself out of the way at the last moment, and might have succeeded was it so fast, if it hadn’t still been inside the doorway of the establishment and couldn’t throw itself sideways. The door jamb stopped it.

  Still its movement was enough to disrupt my aim just enough that my shot took it at its left arm, where it’s chest had been only a moment before, completely evaporating the arm and part of the lizard’s torso for good measure, but the lizard’s laser pistol was in its right hand, and it was bringing it to bear on me again. I saw all this in seeming slow motion, but it was happening as fast as thought could comprehend it. Like striking lightning.

  I dove to my left because the lizard’s pistol was swinging right and because if I’d attempted to bring my weapon to bear again the lizard would have had me. A double homicide. I would have had it, but I’d have been just as dead and I had a certain apathy towards death. I didn’t want to die. I saw a brownish black blur racing along the floor towards the lizard as I dove, and I knew Coto had joined the fray, but then something went terribly wrong, completely out of the script I had prepared for the final moments of this altercation.

  I put out my left hand to check my dive and begin the roll I planned to come out of in a firing crouch (a move I had perfected through hours and years of practice), but my arm did not come up like it was supposed to and I dove face first into the trans-metal floor (and let me just say, though the Kievors can manipulate it at their whim, it was just as hard and unforgiving at the moment of impact as any other solid floor I have crashed into in the past, except that I had seldom done it face first). Run head first into a brick wall if you’d like to know what it felt like.

  I hit directly on my left cheek and felt the unmistakable crunch that means broken bones (in this case I guessed shattered would be more appropriate). My neck was wrenched viciously and accompanied by popping noises, and then a blazing pain as what was left of my arm, cut off nearly at the shoulder, skidded along on the floor on its fresh stump, I now noticed. It didn’t slow me a bit. This was a matter of life and death.

  I no longer had a left hand to help me lever myself up off the floor, but I didn’t have the time to screw around so I rolled with the momentum of my dive, ignoring the three fold agonies I had just incurred and came to a rest lying on my stomach, my right hand held out in front of me. In my right hand I held my blaster and within the sights of the blaster I held the lizard's massive chest.

  Coto had arrived while I played on the floor and was attached to the lizard’s left leg, its mandibles removing said object just below the knee. Greenish blood squirted out around Coto’s mandibles as they worked, the shiny black carapace now completely covered with the lizard’s blood and hiding the extent of the damage Coto had already inflicted, but I knew the damage Coto could inflict and the lizard would shortly be minus a leg.

  The lizard had made the mistake of turning its attention to Coto and completely forgetting how to use the laser in its one remaining hand and tried to use the weapon as a club to attempt to dislodge Coto. If there was any effect at all, it was only to cause Coto to redouble its efforts to remove the leg. Its mandibles were relentless and the lizard screamed its agony. Bugs are approximately a hundred times stronger than humans, and if that meant it was only five times stronger than the lizard, the swatting was still no more than a nuisance to Coto. Then I fired.

  I might have felt a moment’s guilty sentiment, but only a moment. No more than you might feel shooting a crocodile which had you by the leg and was dragging you backwards into its stinking watery lair. I squeezed the activator of the blaster and watched as the small ball of yellow flame leapt away from the end of the blaster and leap across the distance separating us. It slammed into the lizard’s chest.

  The destruction a blaster wreaks has to be seen to be believed. Green blood and gore exploded out of the back of the lizard and sprayed into the corridor behind it and onto the crowd of lizards which had gathered to rubberneck the entertainment. I for one was happy to do my part to further mankind’s reputation as a murderous, dangerous species. The crowd in the corridor stood in rapt attention, unmindful of the blood and gore which now covered a number of them, happily watching as the lizard in the doorway slowly toppled and fell backwards into the corridor. It was minus its left arm, most of its torso, and now also minus the left leg, which Coto had just managed to finish separating before it fell. Unmindful of all else, and now that the lizard was dead, Coto gorged on the meat of the leg it held in lower arms, making quick work of it. One less meal I had to buy. I wasn’t complaining.

  I felt sick and dizzy but the laser had cauterized closed my stump as it cut it, so I hadn’t lost blood. I kept my blaster trained on the lizard while I got painfully to my feet and walked up to it to make sure it was dead. Yep it was definitely dead. If I’d had a free hand (I wasn’t going to put my blaster away now) I’d have reached down and relieved the lizard of its gold chains, but my free hand was lying on the deck behind me and I took more risk than I wanted just picking that up and working it behind my belt, hand downward, so the thicker upper arm would not slip through the belt as I walked, but no lizard offered us hindrance as we took our leave.

  I was staggering before too very long. Shock was setting in. I didn’t know where the nearest lift was located unless I went back the way I had come, and I was in no condition what so ever now to be tackling the remainder of the Katon force.

  “Kievors?” I asked, coming to a halt to catch my equilibrium, my blaster barely held in my weak grasp, my good arm hanging tiredly at my side.

  “We are forever at your service, Captain.” A mechanized voice said from the thin air beside me.

  “I need the fastest route back to my ship.” I said.

  “Do you accept the point zero five Credit charge?” The voice asked politely.

  “Yes, yes. I accept.” I said, feeling weaker by the moment, the shock really beginning to be felt. Stupid weak human body, I cursed. Immediately a green arrow lit within the deck under my feet and I set out again, following it, with an exhausted sigh.

  We only had to follow the arrow around one corner and we were standing before a lift, which opened as we approached. At any other time I would have been angry, but I just didn’t have the energy for anger. Two small lizards already in the lift were talking animatedly and gesturing at the floor number as depicted in their own language on the wall inside the lift, which obviously wasn’t the floor they had expected to arrive at, but my point zero five Credit charge had made me the priority
and now they were faced with a blaster bearing, one armed human, and a blood covered forty kilo ant angrily clicking its mandibles at them (Coto was angry I hadn’t let him finish his meal). Deciding they would wait for the next lift they quickly vacated while we boarded. They ran past us as we got on, the lift doors closing swiftly after them.

  Within seconds we were on Level One and following the green arrows again onto a slide walk, down a number of blocks (which I didn’t count) and then back into another lift. I didn’t have to say a word. The doors closed and we were on our way. As I watched the blur that was the floor counter I felt a tug on my belt and looked down to see Coto trying to remove my arm from my belt. I swatted at him with my blaster and he jumped back angrily. Xiongs did not like to have their dinners disturbed.

  “It’s not your lunch!” I told my pet. “You should have brought your own. This is mine.” It would take a lot longer to grow a new arm than it would to have this one re-attached (besides which, I did not want Coto acquiring a taste for my flesh.) It would be as good as new as soon as I could get myself into Last Chance’s auto-doc. This wasn’t the first time I had lost a limb, though I wasn’t trying to make a habit of it.

  The lift deposited us on Nine Fifty. I poked my head around the edge of the lift entrance and looked both ways but didn’t see any humans at all. A group of what I guessed was methane breathers were waiting for the lift and were in no way scared by our erratic behavior or appearance. They just patiently waited, watching to see what we would do next, who might come along to try and kill us. Methane breathers were no different in their love of violence than us oxygen breathers, they were just more reserved about it.