by Jake Bible
“Hessa!”
“I am sending you to a work crew locker room,” Hessa stated. “The work crew that handles external maintenance.”
“External maintenance…? Are you kidding? You want us to suit up and go outside?”
“Yes,” Hessa said. “I will talk you to the locker room and also send Pol the location via his visual implants in case there is any unforeseen interference with our communications.”
“Yeah, you do that.”
38.
“Six levels up,” Roak said as he watched the numbers on the lift’s display. “How’s the passageway look outside these doors, Hessa?”
“You are clear,” Hessa said. “The next two passageways are clear, but you will run into Edgers in the third passageway. I am trying to slow them down at the door junctions, but they are overriding my attempts to stall them. I have to say that some of these Edgers are quite—”
“Don’t care about your admiration for Edgers, Hessa, just get us safely to the locker room.”
“Oh, how I have missed your kind voice, Roak.”
“Suck it, Hessa.”
“Anatomically impossible, Roak.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“The two of you are quite remarkable,” Pol said. “Your interactions are unlike anything I have witnessed between an AI and a living being.”
“You can suck it too, old man,” Roak said as the lift doors open. “Then keep on sucking it until you choke and die because I am so over your observations. Should leave you to die, but since you’re here, I might as well keep you and make this nightmare worth something.”
“You want chits,” Pol said.
“I always want chits,” Roak said.
They moved out, heading down the empty passageway with Roak in the lead and Spickle helping Pol long behind the bounty hunter.
“That’ll still happen,” Roak said, his KL09 held out in front of him, braced by both hands and ready for the next fight. “Chits.”
“Are those questions?” Pol asked.
“Did they sound like questions?”
“No, they did not. I will try, Roak. I honestly will.”
“Don’t like the sound of that,” Roak said as they came to the first set of doors. “Hold.”
Spickle took a much welcome rest, setting Pol against the wall, as Roak covered the doors.
“Nothing on the other side, Roak,” Hessa stated as the doors opened.
“Good to know,” Roak replied, still covering the next passageway. “But there is a girl named Pasha somewhere gunning for us, so I’m going to be extra cautious.”
The party of three continued into the next passageway.
“Yes, that young woman is vexing,” Hessa said. “I have been able to track her only briefly. She is very good at avoiding surveillance.”
“Any implants you can lock onto?” Roak asked.
A cabin door to their left opened and a green face appeared, saw Roak and his KL09, gulped, then shut the cabin door. A set of mag locks being initiated were easy to hear as they walked past the cabin door.
“In the brief moments I could get a reading on this Pasha person, I did not detect implants,” Hessa said. “But I find that hard to believe. She would have raised suspicion if she did not have at least a comm implant.”
“She was playing as a whore,” Roak said. “A cheap one on Razer Station. Not having implants wouldn’t be too much of a red flag.”
They reached the far end of the passageway and Roak held up a hand. Again, Spickle gladly let Pol rest against the wall while Roak gripped his KL09 and got ready for the fight.
“I believe you underestimate the ubiquitous nature of implants,” Hessa said to Roak. “But that is a discussion for another day.”
“Which I am sure you’ll revisit,” Roak said then nodded at the doors. “How many are we looking at?”
“Eighteen,” Hessa said.
“Eighteen? You wait until I’m standing in front of the doors to tell me that number? Better heads up next time, Hessa.”
“Quite remarkable interactions,” Pol said.
“Shut it,” Roak snapped. Roak sighed and set his feet. “Give me the spread, Hessa.”
“Four, three, three, four, three, one,” Hessa said. “The one might be a problem. Urvein.”
“I’ve taken out Urveins before,” Roak said.
“Yes, I know, but this one is…large. Quite large. And armored. Heavy combat infantry armor. GF issued, but since modified.”
“Will my KL09 be enough?” Roak asked. Hessa didn’t reply. “That’s not comforting, Hessa.”
“Concentrate on the others first,” Hessa said.
“Yes, thanks for the advice,” Roak said as the doors opened.
Roak squeezed the trigger eight times and eight bodies dropped before he had to dive to the right and avoid getting ripped apart by the return fire. He was happy with the initial body count. Eight on the draw was a good number. Still left ten, though…
Roak coiled his legs under him then leapt into the open doorway, his KL09 taking down two more Edgers as he rolled into the passageway. He came up into the fist of a Leforian that was missing one of his four arms. Considered one of the most helpful of races, the Leforian Roak faced was helping himself to beating Roak about the head.
Roak took two more shots to the face, keeping the Leforian between himself and the Edgers, then jammed the KL09 into a seam in the Leforian’s chitinous exoskeleton and pulled the trigger. The being’s natural body armor tore apart in several places and bug guts showered Roak from head to toe, adding to the guts, gore, and crap that he was already covered with.
As the large body dropped, Roak dropped with it, taking a knee as he continued firing into the group of Edgers that had stopped their own fire in order not to kill their comrade. Roak admired the loyalty. But his admiration didn’t stop him from doing his job. He put two blasts into an oncoming Slinghasp then three blasts into a Jesperian.
That left seven Edgers still standing.
Roak left his cover behind the Leforian body and sprinted at the closest Edger. A blast hit Roak in the right thigh and took him off balance, but he adjusted his attack and spun with the blast, letting the momentum take him into the next closest Edger.
Roak threw a hard left at the man, who was human, clocking the guy across the chin. The shattering of teeth and crunching of the man’s jaw bone echoed through the passageway and the man’s eyes rolled up into his head as he fell. Roak grimaced and groaned as the wound across the outside of his bicep grew wider and the scorched gouge in his shoulder opened back up from the force of the fist-to-face impact.
The Edger Roak had spun past began to turn around, but he didn’t make it halfway before he was hamstrung. Literally. Spickle appeared, blade in hand, as the man fell. His throat was slit wide open before his knees had touched the ground and Spickle gave the dying man a shove out of the way to join Roak.
Roak nodded and took aim at the remaining Edgers, firing his KL09 almost point blank into a woman’s chest. Blood and bone exploded out of her back as Roak shoved her away and put a blast into the belly of the Spilfleck man behind her. The Edger’s neck frill opened wide in shock as Roak adjusted his aim up and obliterated the lizard man’s face.
That left the Urvein.
“You weren’t kidding,” Roak said quietly as he faced off with the largest representation of that race Roak had ever seen in his life. Even larger than Cheev. A lot larger.
The Urvein’s head almost touched the ceiling of the passageway. Roak estimated the giant was over three meters tall. The beast was almost as wide as he filled most of the passageway. The Urvein was all that stood between Roak and escape from Razer.
“We can cut a deal,” Roak said. “You let us by and I don’t kill you.”
The Urvein laughed and Roak could have sworn he felt the floor shake and rumble.
“After what you have done?” the Urvein growled once the laughing was finished. “I think not. I will not p
ass up the chance to be the being that kills Roak.”
A screech filled the passageway and a blur of a Maglor rushed past Roak and leapt at the Urvein. The massive being’s eyes widened in surprise then a huge paw swiped through the air at Spickle. Unfortunately for the Urvein, that huge paw missed and the Maglor landed against the being’s massive chest. Blood geysered across the passageway as Spickle stabbed deep into the Urvein’s neck with both of his blades.
Spickle rode the Urvein to the ground, only jumping clear to keep from being crushed as the being fell face first onto the passageway’s floor, a torrent of blood still gushing from the stab wounds.
The doors opened and Roak saw the change in station structure. The passageway beyond was considerably more utilitarian, lacking even the recessed halogen lighting. Instead, bare bulbs burned bright along the tops of the walls. There were four doors in the passageway and the second on the right slid open as Roak grabbed Spickle by the back of the neck and lifted him to his feet.
“You got Pol?” Roak asked the Maglor who was coated from head to toe in Urvein blood.
“I get,” Spickle said and hurried back to assist the old man to their destination.
“Oh no,” Hessa said.
Roak didn’t even have to ask. He knew what was coming.
Pasha stepped from the doorway of the locker room.
39.
“Walk away from this,” Roak said as he assessed his physical state.
He was exhausted, beat up, wounded, and ready for the nightmare to be over. But if getting off Razer meant one more fight, even from a GF agent that had some serious blade skills, then one more fight it was.
“Gonna shoot me, Roak?” Pasha asked, eyeing the KL09 in Roak’s hand. “Afraid to face me hand to hand?”
She glanced past him and smiled.
“You made good work of that Urvein.”
“Spickle gets the credit for that kill,” Roak said.
Roak didn’t pull the trigger. He could have, but Roak’s instincts told him that the second he started firing, Pasha was going to let the blades fly, and Roak wasn’t too sure he had it in him to dodge blades that moved that fast.
“How do we get past our issues, Pasha? Chits? I can get you chits. Passage off this station? I can do that too.”
“I have a ride coming,” Pasha replied. “And plenty of chits.”
“Yeah, but your ride is GF and those chits are useless if they kill you for failing to get your objective,” Roak said. “The GF pretends to be all about law and order, but you’re playing in a deep cover, black books sandbox, Pasha. You don’t walk away from this when you show up empty handed.”
“I have value,” Pasha said.
Roak waited for her to say more, but the small woman didn’t. She stood in the locker room doorway and watched Roak with cold, dead eyes.
“Roak,” Hessa said. “Skrang will be within firing range of Razer Station in less than ten minutes. I advise that you hurry this along.”
“I’d love to, but I have a Pasha problem at the moment,” Roak replied.
“That your ship’s AI you’re talking to?” Pasha asked. “Must be quite the ship for your friend Bishop to betray you for it.”
“Bishop only betrayed himself,” Roak said. “He’s never getting my ship.”
Hessa clucked her virtual tongue in the comm.
“You know what I mean,” Roak said quietly.
“Give me the old tech and you get to live,” Pasha said. “How is that for a deal? You’ll have time to get to your ship and away from Razer before the Skrang warships turn this station into slag. Keep your life and get to hunt again some other day, Roak. It is a good deal.”
“Can I keep the Maglor?” Roak asked. “Take the little guy with? Or does the deal only apply to me?”
“I could care less about a Maglor,” Pasha said. “Why Pol aligned with those two, I don’t know.”
“Friends,” Spickle snarled from behind Roak.
Roak held a hand down and back to warn the Maglor off, but Spickle left Pol and started walking towards Pasha.
“I blame Roak for Sath death,” Spickle said. “But you do killing. You pay.”
“Little man, you should walk away from this,” Pasha said. “I will not give you another warning.”
“I like Pasha better when no talk,” Spickle said. “But now you talk, you have last words?”
Spickle held a blade in each hand.
“Spickle, think this through,” Roak said. “I’m the guy you want taking her on. You said so yourself. I kill Pasha to make up for Sath. You blame me, remember? Back off and let me handle it.”
“Like Roak handle everything? No. Roak get everyone killed. I get me killed now. Honor that way.”
“Spickle, pal, you need to think.”
“No,” Spickle said as he leapt at Pasha.
The woman moved so fast that Roak never saw the killing blow. All he witnessed was a flying ball of Maglor fury then a falling ball of a Maglor corpse. A corpse minus its head and one arm.
Spickle blood spurted across the passageway and Roak opened fire.
Pasha was already on the move. She jumped against the opposite wall, her left foot pushing off and sending her directly at Roak, blades extended and slashing.
Roak fired again as he threw himself out of the way. He missed.
He also landed on his bad arm and cried out as the gouge in his shoulder tore even more. Roak felt hot blood begin to flow as he hurried up onto his feet, his KL09 barking the entire time.
Pasha was staggeringly fast. She ducked under two blasts and spun out of the way of a third. The fourth caught her in the right hip which spun her into the fifth blast that took a large chunk out of her left bicep.
The KL09 clicked empty and powered down. Roak threw the spent pistol at the woman and drew one of Pasha’s blades from his belt. He stood and faced the small woman, his left arm hanging loose while he gripped the blade in his right hand.
Pasha looked Roak up and down and shook her head.
“Not sure what you’re so smug about,” Roak said. “You ain’t looking so great yourself, lady.”
“It is over for you, Roak,” Pasha said. “Blade on blade with me is suicide. Last chance. Get on your ship and go. Leave the old man to—”
There was a pistol blast and the flesh and bone above Pasha’s right eye disappeared. Roak heard the blast, but it took his mind a second to connect the two. Pistol blast, Pasha missing a good amount of her forehead and eye socket. Cause and effect.
The woman turned as she fell and threw one last blade.
Pol cried out as the blade hit him in the lower abdomen. The Blorta 22 he held in both hands shook then fell from his grasp.
“Eight Million Gods dammit,” Roak snarled as he raced to Pol. “Dammit!”
Roak threw the old man over his right shoulder. His left was no good and Roak wasn’t sure he’d stay conscious if even the old man’s small weight was put on the wide open wound.
“I am okay,” Pol tried to say.
“No, you’re not,” Roak replied.
He turned and started towards the locker room door then turned back around and stomped down as hard as he could. The sound of Pasha’s skull being crushed under Roak’s boot was satisfying a liquid pop and crunch. Roak wiped the sole of his boot on the dead woman’s shirt then turned back to the locker room and staggered inside.
“Roak, Pol will not be able to wear a suit with that blade embedded in his abdomen,” Hessa said.
“I’m aware of that,” Roak replied. “How much time do you think he has?”
“There should be a first aid kit in the locker room,” Hessa said. “Try the far wall past the racks of environment suits.”
Roak gently set Pol down on one of the many long benches that were in front of the rows of lockers.
“That was a stupid move,” Roak said, leaving the old man there as he rushed towards the racks of environment suits that hung one by one, waiting for an occupant to take them o
utside the station. “Good shot, though.”
Pol grinned around bloody teeth. “Least I…could do.”
Roak found the first aid kit and tore it open. Dust flew in every direction and Roak stared at the sparse contents inside. Occupational safety must not have been a high priority on Razer. All Roak found were three tubes of antiseptic gel and a single compression bandage.
Roak set the meager kit down next to Pol then returned to the racks of suits. He grabbed one that looked to be the right size for him then found a much smaller one for Pol.
“I’ll have to do this fast, Hessa,” Roak said. “So what’s the exact plan?”
“Once you both have suits on then I need you to get to the farthest corner you can squeeze into,” Hessa replied. “Do not brace yourselves. Protection from the explosion is key, but do not hang on to anything. I’ll be bringing you to me.”
“That sounds shitty,” Roak said. “But that’s Razer.”
Roak got into his suit, but left the helmet off so he could see what he was doing, and his gloves off so he could handle the compression bandage.
“Gonna hurt. A lot,” Roak said and yanked the blade free from Pol’s belly.
Roak squirted half a tube of antiseptic gel into the wound as Pol screamed. Then Roak shoved the compression bandage on and got to work with Pol’s suit. The old man cried out and struggled the entire time, but Roak ignored the distractions and concentrated on getting Pol’s legs into the suit. Then he jammed the rest of the old man inside.
When Roak sealed the suit and it tightened to fit Pol’s body, the old man’s eyes rolled up and he was out.
“God. This makes it much easier,” Roak said as he slipped Pol’s helmet on and checked the seals. Everything was in the green.
Roak lifted the old man into his arms and rushed to the farthest corner. He made sure to clip the two of them together with heavy duty carabiners before he crouched down and covered Pol’s body with his own.
