Madame Guillotine

by Jason Anspach

  But these men didn’t seem to think so. These thugs knew how to carry and use their blasters. How to cover each other as they worked. And how to make sure she knew that no tricks could be pulled as the legionnaires were heavily sedated and carried out on stretchers. They bound them up as well, despite their wounds. The lights were turned on, and she could see what a pitiful job she’d done trying to keep them clean and dressed.

  In her time playing nurse, the one called Beers still hadn’t really regained consciousness. Lopez was occasionally lucid.

  “Where are you taking them?” she shouted past the pros who remained to cover her with wicked little subcompact blasters.

  “Easy, girl,” said the one in charge. The man from before, with the cruel eyes. “Question is… where are we taking you? That’s really the question, ain’t it, shooter?”

  And then the old professor was back with the hypo. Sweat poured down into his eyes as he pushed his way past the pros covering her. She was backed into a corner, her hands out and ready to slap, grapple, smash a throat, or even gouge out an eye if she got a chance. She wouldn’t make things easy on them as long as they had control of the two wounded legionnaires.

  And as long as she had control of herself.

  Maybe, she thought as she got ready to smash the gangly academic’s Adam’s apple, maybe they’ll figure out that if I can help the leejes I’m much more controllable. Without that… I’ll be a problem.

  Never make things easy for them. They’d taught her that in sniper school. During the escape-and-evasion course specifically.

  And here she was… making things easy for them.

  The two pros came in quickly and restrained her with little effort. The academic came close now and jabbed her with the hypo, then backed off like he might from a wild taurex.

  She felt herself instantly slipping into the darkness of a nightmare world she was sure she wasn’t going to like.

  “First we gotta go down the rabbit hole,” said Cruel Eyes from far off. And then he called her “Alice,” though she didn’t know why.

  Amanda only knew that she kept losing every battle she was fighting. She knew that. And one other thing. An important thing. Maybe the most important.

  She wouldn’t quit.

  The legionnaires were going somewhere, and she’d likely end up there too. The pros needed her. Otherwise they would have let the vicious children spewing hate use their blasters along with the spit and piss. She was sure they’d shoot down an unarmed marine in a heartbeat and think better of themselves for having done it.

  Some prayer surfaced in her mind. Or maybe it was just a plea. Please don’t let me fall into the hands of these children.

  And then she thought of the legionnaires.

  Good men in a…

  She fought the closing nightmare. Felt the wall slide up her back.

  Good men in a galaxy full…

  Her eyes were closed and she felt them rush in and grab hold of her ankles to carry her out of the cell.

  … of bad people.

  18

  Rechs was in his armor, sans the battered old bucket, organizing his gear within the weapons workshop aboard the Obsidian Crow. He would carry the hand cannon as always. That was his secondary. He’d probably need to keep moving within the city, and a heavy or even a medium blaster would stand out. Especially if Repub Navy Intel was running drones over the populated urban areas. The drones would tag and identify every weapon they could spot.

  Those type of blasters got spotted easily.

  He selected the Jackknife V he’d picked up from the Altirian arms bazaar. For CQB. It looked like a large datapad, but with the flick of a button it became a small subcompact automatic blaster capable of thirty blast bursts per charge pack. Good for breaching and close-quarters firefights where massive amounts of fire in a short few seconds often made the difference. Bad for anything else. But it wouldn’t be noticed by most bot surveillance.

  The one thing he could get away with, with respect to recon drone scans, was a scattergun. Most of those weapons qualified as permissible for home defense and hunting even on worlds like Detron with oppressive anti-weaponry laws. He went into his weapons shop and pulled out a pump-action Nak-9 he’d taken off a gunrunner specializing in “missing” military shipments. The Legion had used these a long time ago for clearing operations on the Savage cruisers. One charge pack per shot sent a spray of short but powerful blaster fire out from the barrel in a nice tight cone. Perfect for destroying some blast doors and armored Savages. Devastating on flesh and less-armored targets.

  Rechs had swapped out the stock for a pistol grip and mounted a wireless targeting interface above the charge pack ejector port. This, coupled with the acquisition laser set to tri-dot, gave him a pretty good idea of what he’d destroy with every shot. It held six small charge packs.

  Six shots. Pump-action.

  If that didn’t do the trick, nothing else would.

  “I thought you just needed to meet Giles Longfree to book passage into the city, Tyrus,” asked Lyra from the ether of the ship’s open spaces. They were alone in his workshop.

  But of course, she was just a voice coming through the ship’s speakers.

  G232 was on the flight deck busy monitoring a feed from a wireless snooping worm Rechs had managed to leave near the command section of the Green Zone up on the top level of the docks. Some of the tidbits coming in were quite interesting…

  The marines were forbidden from keeping their weapons loaded with charge packs.

  They had to call in to request return fire even if they were being shot at. Even if they’d been shot.

  All marine patrols were off the streets as of now.

  They’d managed to set up listening posts on some of the buildings downtown, but the LTs in charge of these were requesting to be pulled out due to the fact that the rioters were threatening to burn down the buildings with the marines still on top.

  These requests were being denied by the military command team. Mainly a Legion point who seemed to be asserting unwarranted authority.

  A marine colonel in charge of air-defense operations had requested permission to shoot down the pretty little liar when her chartered ship tried to enter restricted airspace over the city. Intel said the rioters were staging a rock concert downtown to celebrate her impending arrival.

  The colonel was relieved of duty within thirty minutes and a new commander was appointed and on scene. No one was to engage the ship when it made its illegal approach through the city’s no-fly zone.

  Several commanders and NCOs swore over the net.

  Retaliation and relief were promised if this kind of insubordinate behavior continued.

  The net went silent after that.

  “Chances are,” replied Rechs to Lyra’s question, “I’ll need to get this Giles and his crew to take me through tonight.”

  “Is that safe?” she asked. Her voice ethereal within his weapons shop.

  Rechs hoisted a tactical shoulder-strap bag stuffed with charge packs. Easier to access during a firefight if he carried it messenger-style. He was carrying some meds too. The last feed over the entertainment of the two captured leejes had been analyzed and showed they’d been badly wounded.

  One of the network pundits had said they “got what they deserved for standing in the way of this historic and much-needed push for progress.”

  No one relieved that guy.

  There was a part of Rechs that wanted to get angry at all of this and start making people pay. But that wasn’t why he was here.

  He had to keep reminding himself of that.

  Get these guys out and then accounts could be settled on the back end. That needed to happen on the other side of all this. Because that was how you made sure situations like this didn’t ever happen again.

  Only… they always do.

  “T
yrus?” Lyra asked.

  Rechs finished stuffing the old tactical bag with the last of everything he thought he’d need. He was keeping the expensive little Jackknife in there with all the charge packs it and the scattergun would use up.

  “It’s safe,” he sighed.

  The AI was still insecure. Still unsure of herself. And… she was patterned on a woman he’d…

  What, Rechs? What had you? he asked himself.

  Loved.

  Yeah. So, go easy on her, he told himself. She’s learning.

  Still, he didn’t like a lot of questions. Never had. Maybe that’s why he’d remained alone for so long. Fewer questions that way.

  “If we schedule a time to cross, it gives them more of a chance to bushwhack me,” he explained. “Time to get them and twenty of their scumbag friends together to see what they can do. I’d hate to have to kill a bunch of people just to get into a city. I’ll need all the charge packs just to get the two legionnaires out. Not interested in wasting them on scumbags.”

  Pause.

  Silence.

  Everything was ready and Lyra wasn’t pressing the discussion further.

  “Oh yeah,” he said to himself absently. “One last thing.”

  He never went anywhere in armor without the carbon-forged machete he’d carried for so long. He took it up from the cloth he’d laid it on after sharpening it and placed it in the worn leather sheath on his back.

  “Be careful, Tyrus,” whispered the ship, her voice small and quiet. “I’ll be watching all the feeds and listening. If you really need me, I’ll fly in and pull you out. Even though…”

  “I know.”

  “…It’s not my specialty, Tyrus. But I am getting more confident flying. Be patient. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re doing great, Lyra.”

  “Thank you for that, Tyrus.”

  Forward at the airlock, G232 greeted him awkwardly. “He says we should just fly around the city letting him shoot things until they give us the two soldiers… er… um… legionnaires… back.”

  G232 was referring to the little Nubarian gunnery bot.

  “You agree with me, master… ah… I mean Captain Rechs… that this would be a very stupid plan?”

  “I do,” said Tyrus as he opened the Crow’s outer airlock. The boarding ramp was still lowered. The vast hangar beyond was dark and silent. He put his bucket on and checked the seals. The HUD came online.

  “Excellent,” said G232. “I have repeatedly tried to tell him that all his ideas are pure folly, but he refuses to heed the voice of sanity and rational thought. He’s intent on turning everything into a shooting gallery. Honestly, master… flying around the city shooting everything up like we’re casino robbers in some big-budget action heist entertainment. Although I suppose what we did at Cassio Royale came rather close to exactly that. Either way, the idea is ridiculous!”

  Rechs started down the ramp.

  “Three-Two,” said Rechs, turning back, “I agree it’s a ridiculous plan. But it’s not completely off the table. We’ll do whatever it takes to get them back.”

  He was halfway across the hangar and heading for the blast door by the time the stunned admin bot murmured a low, “Oh my.”

  19

  Down at the lowest levels of the Docks Rechs stepped out of a lift and was greeted by shadows, with the only pools of illumination lying farther off within the dark of the level. The AI running the elevator had warned Rechs, as it made its long slow trundling passage down the shaft, that this level was not secure and that planetary police services, medical and emergency also, would not be available. Rechs was not quite at the bottom of the Docks, but the only levels below this were reserved for waste-management vehicles coming in to service the undercity.

  He switched over to IR and scanned the silent darkness. There were a lot of people down here. Many gathered in primitive circles around some seedy holographic light show, passing cheap lotus back and forth as they stared like zombies into the shifting technicolor lights that barely flickered in the gloom. These were not the smugglers he was looking for.

  He approached a young kid, whose face twisted into a sudden sneer when Rechs disturbed him from whatever image he was absorbed by on his datapad. The old screen was cracked and broken. The kid was covered in piercings. His clothes dirty.

  “Looking for Giles.”

  The kid’s face immediately told Rechs that Giles was indeed somewhere close by. His eyes darted back and forth. Fear and apprehension. Then the sudden realization there might be credits to be had. Junkie thinking. Followed by a look that thought better about getting involved. Survivor thinking.

  “Don’t know who you’re talking about,” the youth muttered.

  Rechs moved on, deeper into the darkness. Abandoned kiosks and empty storefronts played their parts in the general-abandonment scenery of the place. Within seconds the kid he’d talked to had hustled off, talking into his datapad. No doubt alerting Giles, or someone who knew Giles. Hoping for credits, or a hit, or to pay back what was owed by working the safer side of the equation.

  Rechs didn’t mind paying for information. But he never liked to support a habit. A bad one especially. He was against slavery. That’s why he always set bots free when he acquired them. And this kid was exactly that: a slave to the lotus.

  Two shadows came for Rechs out of the darkness. A human, big and hulking, carrying some kind of cane that wasn’t just for show or assistance with walking. The other a smaller, lithe Doro dog man.

  The dog man did the talking in typical Doro snarl. Legionnaires had called them dobies in the long conflict they’d fought on Psydon—because most of them looked like the old Earth breed of Doberman. But humanoid. Deadly hunters. Fierce fighters.

  “You lost?” the Doro snarled.

  Rechs came to a halt. He had the stock of the scattergun cradled in one glove, the other wrapped around the pistol grip. He’d racked the first charge pack in the lift down.

  “Looking for Giles,” he said simply.

  Neither of the thugs reacted. Chances were, they’d been sent out to vet him. Was he a bounty hunter here to collect or terminate? Giles would want to know. Better yet, was he looking for passage into the city through the marine- and rioter-held lines?

  And could he be jumped easily. All that ran through the air like a thing that could be felt. He didn’t need to read their soulless eyes. The way they carried themselves screamed it.

  “Business with Giles?” asked the Doro. The big hulk remained silent.

  “Passage,” muttered Rechs through the ghostly gravel of his bucket’s external speaker.

  Now the two thugs exchanged a look as the Doro’s hand moved to his blaster rig. It was so dark the dog man thought he’d done it on the sly, not counting on Rechs’s bucket having a full suite of imaging capabilities through all the light spectrums. Which was stupid; most armor had some form of imaging.

  Strike one, thought Rechs.

  “That’ll cost you,” said the Doro abruptly. “To get to Giles. Consider it a tax.”

  Strike two. Rechs didn’t like taxes. Especially made-up ones.

  “Or we can just…”

  The Doro was pulling and Rechs simply shifted the scattergun so it landed on the Doro’s dark and tan chest, a necklace of human and alien teeth swinging in the half-light, and pulled the trigger.

  At close range a powerful scattergun can tear a body to shreds. At extremely close range its several bolts of blaster fire just blow one giant hole through a person. This is what happened to the Doro. The sound of the blast filled the dark arcades of the level, resounding and echoing through all the empty stores, crash pads, and chill rooms the junkies had fixed up for themselves to wait for their inevitable overdose.

  The echo continued bouncing off distant chambers, forever lost in the dark down there, long after the body of the Doro
dog man hit the dirty tile.

  Rechs racked another charge pack, lightning quick, and pointed the scatterblaster at the head of the big hulk. The guy hadn’t even moved.

  “Don’t!” Rechs ordered.

  And the giant didn’t.

  “Take me to Giles,” the bounty hunter said in a low growl.

  The oaf muttered some slang and unwisely motioned for Rechs to follow. Anyone twitchier on the other end of the powerful scatterblaster would’ve blown the ogre’s head off right there. But Rechs was a pro. And loss of life needed to be kept to a minimum. Every blaster shot, every body, every argument, fight, what have you, increased the likelihood that whoever it was that was holding the hostages would hear he was coming for them and make their play. Which meant killing at least one of the legionnaires so the House of Reason would take them seriously.

  And if that happened… Rechs was pretty sure he’d need to just go ahead and kill everyone so that didn’t get done again anytime soon.

  Object lessons were the best lessons, but they did leave an impression. And generally ended up either increasing the bounty or getting him war criminal status—as had happened in the past.

  The image of the Doro’s chest cavity suddenly turning into a gaping hole had dissuaded the oaf. That was an object lesson.

  Following the oaf, Rechs soon approached a bar whose electricity and lighting were still working. It was deep in an old pleasure arcade that had once offered simulated combat thrills in the old VR uprights. Now it seemed an island of neon fantasy in a sea of darkness.

  The bar was called The Tennar’s Shell. But most of the illuminated letters had been shot out. Now, glowing neon red in the darkness, all that could be read of the old sign, unless you had full-spectrum imaging like Rechs did with his bucket, was the word hell.

  The oaf with the cane turned back slightly and rumbled, “Giles is inside.”

  Then he stepped back and let Rechs pass, indicating he would stay where he was.

  Rechs carried the loaded scattergun cautiously as he entered, expecting a fight.

  What he found within was like any old honky-tonk a bounty hunter could find on almost every outer station, fringe colony world, and Class F star port no one ever really went to, complete with stellar pool tables where all the balls were cheap knockoffs of planets and the pockets black holes. Except on these broken tables, instead of a background image of space or swirling nebulae as the pool table’s surface, they just showed the projection face, a dull reflective mirror staring back up at the player and daring them to get any enjoyment out of the lifeless game.