Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

"Drop Dead"

The PRIVATEER Stories
"Drop Dead"
By Nicholas Mahaffey

I rubbed my face, glad that the ordeal was coming to an end. Mr. Kepler hadn't been very cooperative; no, not at all. I'm a privateer. My partner, Snake, and I fly missions for hire. When we complete a mission, we usually prefer to receive full payment . . . actually, we always prefer to receive full payment. Plus some. Mr. Kepler, however, wasn't terribly satisfied with the quality of the ore we'd just delivered to him. Iron ore isn't very common here on Tersa IV, the "Obsidian Sphere" as this planet is sometimes called. Most of the surface was covered by large mountains composed of semi-precious stone. It had been terra-formed over a century ago, but it wasn't capable of supporting a wide variety of vegetations. The main exports were precious stones and ultra high-grade silica. Nearly everything had to be imported to the planet; food, fuel, clothing, and building materials. This shipment of ore we'd just delivered was apparently too low-grade to build the mining equipment that they'd intended it for. Mr. Kepler, a man in his early 50's with greying red hair and a firm grip, had insisted that we "return to sender."

The problem was that we had another job lined up and were eager to load our new cargo and head out. His majesty wasn't too pleased, then, when we told him to take up the issue with his supplier and then asked for our payment. After a debate over contractual obligations (and a few threats of legal action), he finally offered half of our original payment. I was furious, but didn't have time to argue with him. I was already late to meet with our next employer for the contract signing, and Snake was busy checking over the local publications for more job opportunities. Fortunately, our next employer's office was located in this same commercial building, just a few floors up. I, personally, was eager to return my pistol to its holster. This particular commercial structure allowed individuals to carry weapons on them as long as the weapon wasn't concealed. However, I had agreed to leave my sidearm in a cardboard deposit box just outside Mr. Kepler's door. My hip felt naked without the weapon in its holster. I kept it on my hip because it was much more "ergonomic", or, I could get to it more quickly when I felt the need.

Mr. Kepler finally handed back the manifest with "Paid" stamped at the bottom. I would have preferred "Paid in Full". I took it from his hand and headed for the door, perusing it on my way, still seething. "A pleasure doing business with you.", he said to my back, sarcasm dripping in his voice, and then a muffled cough. Normally, I would leave without a response, but today I just felt game. "Drop dead."

Thud.

I spun around quickly enough to make myself momentarily dizzy. There, on the floor, with a gaping, bloody hole in his forehead, was Mr. Kepler; stone dead and oozing brain matter. My first instinct was to hit the deck. I dropped to my knee and rolled onto my side, looking the room over once as I did. My eyes came to the door and found a black-clad man holding a smoking pistol, much like mine, only newer . . . and with a silencer. Before I could get a close look at him, he turned and ran down the hallway. I jumped up and ran out after him, grabbing my pistol as I passed the box. Thumbing the safety off, I cocked it and fired one shot at him as he rounded a corner; it took him in the torso. Instead of crumpling as he should have, he regained his footing and kept running; the bullet embedded in some kind of body armor. Before I could fire another shot, he was around the corner, and had too much of a lead for me to chase him.

I turned back to the body of Mr. Kepler, which by now was lying in a pool of blood; the hole in his forehead clogged with remaining chunks of brain. I walked calmly and stood by the corpse, too confused by the sudden happenings to really know what to do. I just stood there, with my smoking .45 in my hand. It was my bad judgment, I guess, not to make an attempt right away to contact the authorities. A few seconds later, a young secretary peered through the doorway to see Kepler’s body with me standing over it; gun still smoking. I’m sure it didn’t look too good. I know for certain that she didn’t like the looks of it. She screamed. Loud. She dropped the folders she was carrying and ran. I still stood there, now dumbfounded. It couldn’t have been ten seconds later that Snake burst into the room; his new E-14 combat knife drawn and ready.

“What the bloody heck?”, he demanded as he surveyed the same thing the girl had seen. I looked at him, shrugged, and replied. “He got shot.”

“Why on earth would you shoot him?”, Snake continued to demand. Not being in a terribly coherent state of mind, I thought briefly and said, “Well, he only gave us half our payment.” Snake’s eye’s widened and his jaw dropped, lips in a frown: an expression of surprise. “So you put a bullet in his head?!?”, he asked incredulously.

“Well, I didn’t.”
“Who then?”
“The black-clad man.”
“The who? What?”

“I was reading the manifest and I told Kepler to drop dead. Then he did. I looked up and there was a black-clad man in the doorway holding a smoking silenced .45.”
“Why?”
“I dunno. Maybe he didn’t like him.”

Snake backed up, stuck his head out of the door, and glanced both ways down the hall. When he was sure that no one was immediately on top of us, he looked more closely at Kepler’s blood-soaked head. As soon as he was satisfied with whatever it was he was hoping to learn, he stood up and announced, “Well, the half payment is a motive. The wound will suggest your gun. Did you fire a round?” I nodded. “Yeah. The black-clad man took off, so I took a shot at him. He was wearing body-armor.” Snake thought hard. “So, you have an empty chamber, but no bullet holes to prove that your shot wasn’t the one that killed Kepler. And did anyone else see this ‘black-clad man’?” I shook my head. “I doubt it.” With that, Snake shook my hand. “You, sir, are officially screwed; and I'm not entirely sure I believe you, to be honest."

I must have looked like a child; I admit it. I was certainly scared to death. I looked at Snake, my eyes suddenly blinking uncontrollably, and said, "You gotta believe me, Snake. I didn't shoot this guy. The last thing we need is to get entangled with the authorities again." Snake took another long look at the corpse and sighed. "Well, murder has never really been your style, so I guess I believe you." He shook my hand again, then continued. "The police, however, will be another story. Let's book."

I've noticed that, for some reason, we always seem to get caught by aggressors at the most inopportune times. Just as Snake and I turned to leave the room, four security guards came bounding down the hallway opposite the black-clad man had fled down. Luckily for us, three of them were only armed with big sticks. The third, however, was wielding a low-yield neutron rifle. By "low yield", I mean low enough yield to avoid destroying an entire section of wall if you miss your target, but certainly strong enough to turn a squishy, fleshy human into a squishy, fleshy splatter across said wall. The sight of that gun brought me back to composure, and we decided not to stick around to see if that particular guard was a good marksman. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”, he announced. “Fat chance!”, I retorted. With that, we ran down the hallway; doubled over as we ran to present a smaller target.

I’m glad we’d chosen to do that. The sound of a neutron weapon is unmistakable: something akin to the sound of a huge balloon popping, amplified through a p.a. system, with the bass response turned all the way up. No buzz, no fizzle, no pitch slides reminiscent of sci-fi movies. Just a deafening cross between a boom and a pop. That sound rang out a good three or four times in two seconds, and I felt two pulses of scorching heat zoom over my back. The other two must have been too high. The fourth shot hit the right side wall just five meters in front of me. A me-sized section of the wall shattered and sprayed across our path in fragments of plasti-brick, drywall, and electrical wiring. The lights in the hallway went out. “Oh, good.”, Snake heaved as we dashed the next few meters. “Less light to aim by.”

I felt a little better about it, too. That is, until the next volley of shots thundered after us. We had just reached the corner (the one that the black-clad man had escaped around) when the guard fired again. I dove around the corner to safety. Snake dove in the opposite direction, slamming himself into a wall, barely avoiding two shots that were intended for him. The shots instead tore two chunks out of the wall. As soon as the debris had fallen, Snake dove across the hallway and behind the corner; I was already a good ten feet ahead of him, probing for an exit. I could hear the shouts and footsteps of the guards chasing after us.

The thought suddenly occurred to me that I was carrying a .45 pistol, and that I could probably drop the three of them as they rounded the corner, and maybe even out-shoot the one with the neutron rifle, so long as my aim was better than his. The problem was that my .45 only held six shots, and I’d already fired one. Another problem was that, if I killed any security guards, I’d lose any chance I had of proving any sort of innocence. Gunplay was not an option; we had to make an escape.

Rounding another corner, Snake peered through an open doorway and spotted our salvation: an open window with a fire escape. I had already run past it when he called out to me. I turned my head to see him scrambling backwards to get to the doorway, and I did the same, hoping to dive through in time to avoid being seen by the security men. The room was an office, complete with a desk, cabinets, computer, and all other such office things. Snake and I quickly hugged the wall a few feet away from the door and prayed silently that none of the guards would peer in here far enough to see us hiding. It couldn’t have been more than seven seconds until the guards were past us and rounding the corner, but it felt like seven years. Snake and I traded glances and heaved a sigh of relief. Now that we had a moment of breathing room, we’d be able to make use of the fire escape and possibly make our way back to our ship. Snake must have read my mind for what he said next. “Well, I guess we won’t be attending our meeting upstairs, huh?” If we hadn’t been running for our lives, I might have chuckled at that.

When we were certain that the guards had indeed missed us, we scrambled to the window, and I proceeded to crawl out onto the metal fire escape. Just as I had gotten myself entirely through the opening, a fat businessman strolled casually into the room; this must have been his office. Imagine the look of shock and confusion at seeing two rough-looking characters like us making use of his window and the fire escape. Fortunately for us, in his shock, he didn’t speak. Snake, acting decisively, reached through the window and grabbed my gun from its holster.

The man’s eyes grew wide as he mumbled and stuttered, fearing the worst as Snake purposefully crossed the room, weapon in hand and trained on the man’s head. Just as I feared the man was going to scream like a little girl, Snake pistol-whipped him, leaving him out-cold but otherwise unhurt, aside from a cut on his forehead and the probability of a severe headache when he came to. As the unconscious man started to slump from his standing position, Snake gave him a gentle push so that he slid a few feet along the wall and away from the door: the same spot we’d been standing in less than thirty seconds ago. Snake handed my gun back to me. “That’ll learn ya to show up for work.” I commented. Snake smirked and climbed out the window.

We climbed quickly down the fire escape, making a half-hearted attempt to duck under the windows we passed in an effort to avoid being seen and intercepted. I paused for a brief moment to survey our surroundings. This building was part of a small cluster of similar buildings, which stood in the midst of a barren, sandy basin about ten kilometers wide. Unfortunately for us, the spaceport, along our ship, was five kilometers from where we were. We’d taken a makeshift rail-train to get here from the spaceport, but I suddenly realized that we wouldn’t be able to take the train back if the actual planetary police were alerted to the incident with Mr. Kepler. I grabbed Snake by the shoulder.

“Snake, we don’t have a way back to the ship! We can’t go on the train if the cops come out after us.” Snake frowned. I frowned. It was turning into a frowning day. We both looked and took another survey of the area. This time, my eye caught something: a two-man cargo land-buggy parked near a utility shed about a hundred meters away.

I pointed without speaking, and Snake nodded. We continued our way down the fire escape without much event, other than me banging my shin when I missed a rung. More frowning, plus mild cursing. We jumped the last story instead of climbing the rest of the way; hitting the ground pretty hard as we did, but shaking it off. We jumped up and sprinted to the unmanned buggy, hoping that the security guards hadn’t yet figured out where we’d gotten to. We reached the buggy in record time, though out of breath, and Snake started looking for a way to hot-wire the ignition.

“Any luck?”
“Uhh . . . hang on . . . it looks like this wire can be cut to by-pass the-”

The shock wave hit before the sound even reached us. Sand sprayed up everywhere, and I feared that one of us had actually been killed. About a second later, the sound of several neutron rounds rang out from the building. The guards. When the sand settled, I checked to make sure that all of Snake was still there, and then that all of me was still there. We were fine, but it looked like the guard with the rifle had spotted us from a window high up and was sniping at us. His rounds had hit the ground all around us, kicking up sand and small, glassy, purple rocks. I drew my .45 and fired back at the building, knowing that I’d never hit the guard because of the range. I was just hoping that he didn’t know that.

“Snake, hurry the bloody heck up!”, I demanded. Snake didn’t speak, but rather grabbed his knife and cut two wires. The guard appeared to have ducked behind cover at the sound of my fire, so I kept the gun trained on the building and watched for his head to reappear. As soon as it did, I fired again, hoping that Snake would have the buggy cranked before I had to reload. I only had three shots left.

Just as I prepared to fire another shot, Snake announced triumphantly, “Yes!” and the buggy growled to life. I fired the shot at the building to keep the rifleman at bay, and then climbed into the passenger seat. Snake climbed into the driver’s seat and took a quick look at the controls before hitting the gas and sending up a spray of sand and dust as the wheels spun. We turned in the direction of the spaceport and accelerated, and I fired my last two shots at the building as we vanished over a hill.

Wind and sand are a bad combination. “This buggy probably wasn’t designed for this speed”, Snake casually commented as wind-blown sand swirled up and stung any part of our flesh that wasn’t covered. I noticed that Snake was handling the vehicle like a pro. “I didn’t know you could drive one of these.” He grinned as much as the stinging sand would allow. “Another ‘course’ I took on the Braxton. One of the work release programs was to a mining colony similar to this one. The buggies I drove were quite similar to this one, really. Just bigger . . . and slower . . . and a lot harder to steal.” I chuckled. Deciding that it would be a good use of my time to reload my pistol, I reached into my jacket breast pocket and pulled six more rounds from where I kept them hidden. I kept two reloads on my person at all times, just in case of emergencies like this. I thumbed the bullets into the chambers and tucked the gun inside my jacket. No need to put it away just yet, but I wanted to keep it out of sight, just in case.

Five kilometers isn’t a very long way when you have a vehicle, so I’d pretty much figured on us getting to the spaceport without any further harassment. I was wrong. We’d gotten maybe halfway there when a high-pitched whine in stereo filled our ears. I’d recognize that sound anywhere. Small anti-grav units. Only big enough to support the weight of, oh, say, a one-man speeder. As surely as I had the thought, two hover-bikes appeared from just over a knoll in our path and flew past us in a blur, kicking up sand, dust, and rocks. I swore. Snake swore. It was becoming a swearing day. The two speeders made a wide turn to the outside and swung around to settle in behind us; sirens blaring and lights flashing. “Friends of yours?”, I asked Snake. “Nope.”, he replied, “Must be on your guest list.” Snake pushed the stick throttle to the maximum and we gained a little speed, but we both knew that there was no way this little buggy would outrun two hover bikes. Not without strapping on afterburners or something. The two speeders held position behind us.

After about fifteen seconds, I was beginning to wonder if these two bikes were actually going to do anything to stop us, or just follow us. I had almost opened my mouth to say something to Snake when I heard a familiar sound again: neutron rounds. These were warning shots. I could see the blue muzzle flash from the front-mounted neutron guns on the lead craft, and the shots went a little wild and plowed into the sandy terrain around us, spewing up more sand and grit. I pulled my pistol, pointed it at the lead bike, and unloaded two rounds. The result, much to my surprise, sounded like clang-ping-pang and a small chunk of something fell out of the bike. The whine of the anti-grav unit stopped altogether, and the rider made a swift dive from the bike just before it nosed into the ground, crumpling on impact and skidding across the basin floor, leaving a deep furrow.

When it came to a smoking, fiery stop, I looked back beyond it to see the former rider picking himself up off the ground and giving us the finger. I chukled to myself and returned the gesture. That is, until the second craft lined up for a shot to blow that finger off of my hand. Actually, to blow my arm off of my torso. And then some. “Snake! Break! Break! Break! He’s gonna shoot!” Snake took the que and swerved to the left just as three shots thundered past us and into the spot we’d have been hadn’t we moved. I cocked my gun and fired round number three at the bike, probably missing. I couldn’t tell. For some reason, I suddenly caught on to the irony that Snake was piloting this buggy and I was playing ‘gunner’. It’s amusing what you’ll think of when you’re playing a life-or-death game of dodgeball. I snapped out of my reverie just as Snake swerved around a large, dark rock jutting out of the ground. Another volley flashed after us, one shot striking said rock and throwing it into the air as a shower of pebbles. I turned in my seat to keep my eye on our tracker, switching my gun into my left hand in order to keep it trained on him. Too bad I’m not left-handed. I awkwardly cocked the gun and fired the fourth bullet, missing yet again. Swerving again, we dodged in between the rounds of another volley, one of which actually passed between me and Snake. Switching hands again, I turned completely around in my seat and stood, cocked the gun, aimed as well as I could under the conditions, and fired shot number five.

Plang

Better than nothing, I thought. Suddenly, I felt the urgent instict to sit back down. I dropped down as low as I could and felt two pulses of heat pass so closely over my head that the hair on the back of my dirty, unwashed neck curled. Had I been standing, that spot would have been my stomach. I peeked my head back up and glanced over at Snake. He looked rather nervous. I was too.

“Boss, we’re coming up on the spaceport. You might wanna lose that speeder bike if you want to make it inside. Once we have to ditch this buggy, he’ll run us down for sure.”, Snake said over the sound of another volley, which sprayed a mere foot over our heads. I nodded. Standing again, I aimed and let loose shot number six. Nothing.

Snake cursed, and I didn’t blame him. I couldn’t reload my gun in these conditions, and we were still a good thirty seconds out from the spaceport. We couldn’t hope to evade the bike’s shots that long, much less lose him on foot when we got to the base. “Any bright ideas?”, I asked Snake earnestly. “Uhh . . . maybe”, came his reply. “Hang on!”

I didn’t particularly like the implications of “hang on”. In all likelihood, whatever he had in mind would involve us flying violently from the buggy and landing in an unpleasant manner. However, obediently, I sat properly in the seat and fastened the safety belt securely. Snake swerved wide, taking us way off course to the left, and let off the throttle. I watched behind us as the hover-bike began to make the same swerve, when Snake suddenly jerked us back to the right, still slowing. The rider and I must have thought the exact same thing when we realized that we were going to collide: That maniac! Before I even had time to swear at Snake, my side of the buggy collided with the hovering speeder, sending it into the air and the rider flying several meters away. I remained firmly in place, though only because the plastic belt had kept me in my seat.

The bike came back down and hit the ground with terrible force, sending flaming pieces and fuel, dust, and sand everywhere. Snake and I instinctively ducked as the shower of parts rained on us, but continued on towards the spaceport, which was now within walking distance. Within a few seconds, we were at the outer fence, and Snake killed the engine. That’s when I noticed the smell. I looked over at Snake only to see the hair on top of his head burning and smoking. I stared.

“What? What are you looking at me like that for?”
“Hair’s on fire.”
“Wha?”

That’s when the fire must have actually heated his scalp. “AAGGH!” He swatted his head to put the fire out; wincing at the pain. I was tempted to swat it once or twice myself, for all of those times that I should have but didn’t. When he finished swatting, I inspected his head and laughed to see the bald spot on the very top. The smell was horrible, but the sight was incredibly funny. Tiring of my ridicule, Snake hopped from the buggy and started scaling the fence. I followed suit.

Ten minutes later . . .

I peered around the corner of the building cautiously, keeping my hand on my holster. Snake and I had managed to cross the open expanses of the spaceport grounds without being noticed. I’d reloaded my gun, and we were slowly making our way to the hangar where our ship was parked, but we weren’t sure if the planetary police were actively hunting for us or not. We’d gotten past their bikes, but if any armed guards caught up with us, we’d be hard-pressed to make it to our ship and get off the ground.

“The coast is clear”

We walked at a normal pace around the corner, angling towards the open door of the hangar. A few people strolled past, but no one that would recognize us. The two of us marched right up to our ship, as if we hadn’t a care in the world. We hadn’t had any repairs made, so the only fee was docking and re-fueling. The small terminal next to the ship winked to life as I neared it and produced the electronic key device. Snake opened the hatch and climbed in as I entered my account number to pay for the services. This machine was also used to schedule your take-off, up to three hours in advance. I selected a slot about ten minutes ahead and turned to start prepping the ship.

I was proud of my Black Sun 490. She was a good ship, even though she was an older model. The 490, of course, was nearly twenty years old. The newer 560 model had a lot more bells and whistles, and the design was a little different, but Black Suns had always been reliable in the hands of a skilled pilot. Even ones with outdated gadgets.

Closing the hatch, I ducked through the narrow space and slumped into my acceleration couch. It was a light brown false leather, well-worn, and had become very much conformed to my shape. Flipping all of the proper switches, I started the engines and began booting up sub-systems and secondary devices. VDU’s and readouts blinked on and gave off their hazy glow as the screens warmed up. It was starting to look like we’d get off-world without any further incidents.

Ten minutes later, out on the runway, things were still looking
good. No security teams had come snooping to find us. No odd delays in our take-off. All we needed to do was get into space and we were home-free from a crime that I didn’t even commit. The tragic irony of that was staggering, I was absolutely certain. As I taxied the ship and lined up on the centerline of the runway, Snake muttered something aloud. “I wonder if this planet has signed the Articles of Confederation.” I didn’t like the sound of that question; Snake had a way of thinking of the worst-case scenarios on-the-fly, and he was usually right, and they usually started with questions like that one.

“I don’t know. Why?”
“Well, Confederate law requires the use of non-lethal force except as a last resort when capturing suspected convicts. But, if this planet isn't governed by Confederate law, they might not do that."

"Well, that would certainly explain the live ammo being fired at us on our trip here, wouldn't it?" Snake snorted as I pointed out that little detail. "Well, I suppose you're right.", he concurred. "But, what are we going to do if they come after us in space?" I hadn't really taken the time to think about that. "I dunno. If this system isn't confederated, they won't have confederate fighters. I wonder if their insys space patrol has decent equipment." Snake sighed. "Hopefully, we won't find out the hard way." I voiced my agreement and pushed the throttle to the firewall.

We accelerated slowly, at first, but started picking up speed within a few seconds. When we'd reached the maximum ground speed of our engines, I engaged the afterburner and pulled back on the stick. I was terribly relieved when I felt the landing gear come off of the ground. Within a minute, we were climbing past forty thousand feet, and would soon be blissfully cruising through vacuum.

An Hour Later . . .

"You know, I'm quite glad we're close to the jump point.", Snake announced from his turret, unbidden. I couldn't help but agree with him. "Me too." We'd managed to wade through the usual traffic without any disruptions. The insys patrols had come by and done their scans, but didn't give us any trouble. I was becoming confident that we were going to get away from this mess in its entirety. Confident, that is, until I heard the announcement come over broadband frequency that we were to be detained "for questioning". The call detailed our ship, our ID, and our approximate location, based upon our time of takeoff. My mind flashed back to the terminal I'd used to schedule our takeoff. "Oh, crap." I heard Snake mutter.

Surely enough, said crap was hitting the fan, and we were about to be caked in it. Fortunately, we'd gotten past the contraband patrols nearly twenty minutes ago, so, if we hurried, we might be able to make it to the jump point and get through before those fighters caught up with us. And, of course, we'd taken time to notice that they were indeed decent quality hardware. Without sinking further into the thought, I punched the afterburner and locked it on. Snake's head popped up through the turret hatch. "Doesn't our nav computer have an E.T.A. monitor that compensates for afterburners?" I doubted it did, but, since we'd "acquired" this new computer upgrade, I wasn't absolutely sure that I hadn't just overlooked that option, so I turned my attention to the console on my right and started pressing buttons. It showed me the estimated time of arrival to the jump point at our maximum cruising velocity, but not with the afterburner engaged. I shook my head as I responded. "Nope. Doesn't look like it. You got your calculator?" Snake glanced around for his ugly, dirty, green duffle bag. He'd had that duffle bag ever since I'd known him. Throughout all of the decompressions, cockpit fires, boardings, and regular rough treatment from day to day, the bag was miraculously still intact. Tough stuff.

Snake climbed completely out of the turret and began rooting around the clutter underneath the passenger couch that usually doubled as a bed when one of us needed a nap. The duffle was indeed there, full of dirty laundry and Snake's personal items. He pulled out his trusty calculator and I tossed him my scratch pad. We started crunching numbers, but our first few calculations showed that, in all likelihood, the patrol fighters would still overtake us. "Well", I sighed, scratching my beard, "we can't outrun them . . . most likely can't out-fight them . . . any bright ideas?" "Why do you always ask me for the ideas, Mr. Big-Bad-Space-Captain? Does it ever occur to you that I don't always have the answer?", Snake spat angrily. I grinned. "Each and every time, Snake." Snake scowled, and my grin became quite smug.

"As to the situation at hand, though" I continued, "what are we going to do?" Snake furrowed his brow, and I wasn't terribly comforted at seeing that. "Well, there aren't any closer jump points . . . too many witnesses for us to hide . . . not much we can do." Perplexed, I turned to the console and stared at the distance readout at my mind scrambled to piece together an escape plan. Moments later, I still came up empty. "Well, Snake, I guess we're going to have to run for the jump point as best we can and hope for a miracle." At my use of the word "miracle", Snake's expression changed from one of perplexity to one of minor disbelief, but he said nothing. I shrugged in response to his gawk. "It's all we've got."

Sixteen minutes later . . .

The fighters were only seconds out of firing range, and neither Snake nor myself had taken notice of any miracles, so far. They had easily caught up with us, and we were still too far from the jump point for any hope of being able to outrun their aim.

“How long?”, I asked Snake. His only response was a swear. I took that as my cue to start juking. Indeed, just as I changed our vector, orange beams flashed past us. “Those Starburst lasers, like ours?”, I asked; my mind somehow coming up with that question to ask while I changed our vector again. “You know, you seem to have the innate ability to ask the stupidest questions at the entirely wrong times.” Snake punctuated every other word with a volley of fire at our pursuers. The four police craft moved into a diamond-abreast formation and continued to close. Snake kept me informed. “They’re trying to flank us.”

My scanner was showing me just that. Using their respective cones of fire as barriers, they were boxing us into a confined corridor that was sure to tighten when our shields got thin. I continued to juke as best I could, but their concentrated fire was quickly lapping up the capacitors of my rear shield emitters. Normally, Snake’s fire would keep lone attackers at bay, but our power plant couldn’t provide enough gun juice to break down the defenses of four maneuverable vessels simultaneously. Within a few more volleys, our shields were at nill, and we were defenseless.

“Alright, captain, this is your last chance to surrender yourself, your crew, your ship, and your cargo for investigation concerning the murder of Citizen Kepler. Be advised we have been authorized to prevent your escape by any means necessary.” I turned my head and asked Snake, “Murder conviction or vacuum?” Snake’s reply wasn’t what I expected. “I don’t know about you, boss, but I don’t intend to go back to jail. For what it’s worth, it’s been nice working for you.” Before I could even open my mouth to respond, Snake opened fire again, actually puncturing the shields of the second ship in formation. An instant later, the missile warning chimed. That was it. We were dead. At this range, we couldn’t evade that missile, and, without our shields to soften the blow, it would rip my precious Black Sun 490 into pieces. They had us dead to rights. I closed my eyes, clenched my teeth, and waited for the impact as the chiming grew louder . . .

Thump-clank!

I jumped at the sound, but quickly took note of the fact that I wasn’t dead. “What the-”

“Holy piece of- It’s not a warhead!”

I turned in my seat, straining to get a look at the spot above our second engine where the thing had impacted. I caught a glimpse of some sort of a clamp, and, from it, a lengthy cable trailing back to the lead police unit. After just that brief glimpse, however, the visual enhancers flickered off, and the artificial gravity winked out in an instant. “We’re being drained!”, I announced. The lights in the cabin blacked out, and I could hear the engines slowing. “Nice observation, Mr. Obvious.”, came Snake’s rebuttal. “Grab your sidearm! And throw me my knife.” A few second later, Snake reconsidered. “Actually, don’t throw me my knife. I don’t want it flying at me in the dark.” I reached over to Snake’s duffle, fished out his knife, and gently floated it in the direction of his turret hatch, hilt-first. “It’s floating your way, hilt-first. Get your flashlight.”

We floated there in the dark cabin for what felt like an eternity. Using Snake’s flashlight to see by, we made an attempt to initiate the ship’s emergency batteries, but the only result was a few seconds of light and a brief flush of gravity. Just enough gravity to slam us into the floor and then allow us to float freely again. We were painfully aware that it was just a matter of time until the “paddy wagon” shuttle arrived. I had read an article a few years before about a handful of outer-rim systems that had developed strategies for disabling craft and boarding them without damaging the vessel. The “paddy wagon” was a shuttle of armed law enforcers who would arrest us and confiscate our ship. Our only possible chance was to overthrow the troops inside, and fly both the ship and the shuttle back to the planet, and then somehow plot an escape from there . . . assuming that the fighters didn’t require some sort of special codeword to ensure successful capture.

In all reality, it was probably thirty minutes while we waited and prepared for the shuttle’s arrival. We’d done our best to rig the cargo bay door so that it wouldn’t open, and then to rig the double airlock door to the cabin, as well. When the shuttle arrived, I was hunkered down in the turret hatch with my pistol trained on the door, and Snake was floating by the door; knife at ready. The proceedings began with a most dreadful realization. They had no intention of just unlocking the bay door. They used torches to cut through the locking mechanisms around the outside. That infuriated me, because, if we somehow survived this, and ever got out of prison, and ever managed to get my ship back, that was going to cost a lot to fix!

The cargo bay wasn’t pressurized, but we could hear the clank-clank-clank of what sounded like a half-dozen police troops stomping around inside my ship with magnetic clamp boots. The fighters were still outside, shining searchlights into the cabin; most likely reporting what they saw to the troops inside, hoping to give them a tactical advantage. There was another clank, and then the sound of the door locks creaking open. I saw Snake glance back in my direction, his face illuminated by a passing sweep of searchlight. He mouthed “magnetic countermeasures”, and I knew he meant our locks were being forced open by a magnetic device. A few seconds later, the locks stopped creaking, and the door slowly and quietly swung open. I was rather surprised, to be honest, that the cabin didn’t depressurize. Apparently, the troops had replaced the bay door and pressurized the room, as not to kill us without giving us yet another chance to surrender. I cocked the gun and prepared to fire at the first figure that showed itself . . .

Nothing. No one came through the door. I couldn’t see very far into the bay, but it looked like there wasn’t anyone in there at all. The effect was actually rather spooky, to be honest; like something out of a horror flick. The suspense was certainly horrible. Snake looked back in my direction, hoping I might have some insight for him. I silently shook my head and then nodded towards the door, and, with the slightest of sighs, Snake nodded back and positioned himself to peek through.

No sooner had the whites of his eyes passed the frame of the door when a fist-sized ball flew through, just missing his head, and bounced off of the back of my acceleration couch. Snake and I both recognized immediately what it was: a grenade. Frozen in sudden fear, we both screamed out loud, but our screams were cut short when the weapon went off . . .

One week later . . .

I signed the paper and handed the clipboard back to the technician. The repair on the door had been costly. The impound fees had been much more costly. However, the court charges and lawyer fees had been the most costly of all, I’d say. The grenade thrown into the cabin was none other than a non-lethal stun grenade. It knocked both Snake and myself rather unconscious, and the cops then had no trouble at all taking us, and our ship, back to the planet. The door had been clamped in place for the trip back, but the locking mechanisms had to be replaced. Upon arriving back at Tersa, we were promptly put in a holding cell, questioned, tried, and eventually released.

As fortune had it, the police were familiar with the “black clad man” I’d had my encounter with. Turns out, he’s something of a notorious hitman on Tersa, and was under the employ of a rival mining operation in another system. His existence had been a well-kept secret, as the local government didn’t want knowledge of his existence scaring away businesses who were planning to open up a branch here. Also, the information I gave them from my experience with him aided the police in catching the man. Just so happened that, even with body armor, that .45 slug punched him pretty hard in the kidneys, and, a handful of hours after I explained the story to the local police, he was arrested at a local restaurant when an off-duty officer noticed him peeing blood in the restroom. The courts, then, of course, couldn’t convict me for the murder of Mr. Kepler, but they did convict me of resisting arrest. Snake and I were fortunate, though, because laws here were pretty lenient in that area, and we were merely slapped with a fine and sent on our way. There was a reward for assisting in the arrest of the black clad man, and it just barely covered our court fees and fines, lawyers’ bills, and repairs. Getting my ship out of impound was what dug into our credits.

I climbed into the side-hatch to check on Snake. He was in the process of re-stocking our food supplies. We’d also taken the opportunity to get our laundry done, which was nice, I must admit.

“Repairs done?”, he asked nonchalantly.
“Yeah. We’re officially in the hole, of course.”
“Any luck finding a run?”
“Eh, some precious stones to a planet a few systems from here. It’ll get us back on our feet.”
“Well, good, I guess. I think we’re pretty good on supplies. Unless you have more business, I think we’re good to go.”
“I think so . . . by the way, did you pick up the ‘special’ supplies?”

At my question, Snake chuckled and reached into a small crate full of supplies, fished out a small box, and tossed it in my direction. “Yeah, I got your ‘special’ supplies.” I smiled at the reassuring weight of the box as I read the label: 120-count .45 Bullets

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