Gunship

by J. J. Snow

  “Hey Skeet! You want to earn some extra credits and have a little fun at the same time?” Ty had a gleam in his eye. He turned and waved Seth on as he started across the alley.

  Skeeter shrugged and followed Ty. After a few turns, they found themselves in the gaming district. Ty walked down the street looking at the various booths, which sported electronic gambling machines, physical challenges like arm wrestling or boxing, and other nefarious-looking gaming dens. He finally turned into a seedy-looking establishment with a sign proclaiming “Rooster’s Perch.” The sound of gunfire could be heard emanating from inside, accompanied by hoots and cheers. Seth paused on the front porch, wondering if he should just go back to the TORR, but Ty grabbed his arm and pulled him in.

  Seth coughed as he stepped through the door. The room was dark and smoke-filled. People were everywhere, some drinking, most betting and sitting along the walls. The focal point for the establishment was a diabolical-looking stage which featured a variety of targets that required rapid and sometimes trick shooting using modified laser blasters. At the front of the room sat a short man with two pet roosters tethered at his side. It was apparent that this was his place as the rest of the crowd gave him and his roosters ample room. The birds pecked at some scattered cracked corn on the floor or drank water from a gold-rimmed china bowl. The man watched the current shooter showing off his skills for the crowd and then noticed Skeeter.

  “Oi! You there! Can’t ya read the bloody sign? No kids allowed—so scram!” He pointed towards the door while the crowd laughed.

  “He’s all right, he’s with me, Rooster.” Ty stepped forward, and the short man grinned and stood to shake his hand.

  “Joby Ty! Here to lose some more of your money to me, then? What’s with the kid? He’s not yours, is he?” The man looked aghast at that thought.

  “Nope. I know his father…though I guess if I didn’t he could be one of mine!” The two of them burst out laughing at that.

  “Still the ladies’ man, then? Bully for you! Women are too damn complicated to settle for just one.” Ty nodded in agreement as Rooster continued. “I got me a different one for each night of the week right now, ’cept for weekends, since I got one who’s trying to make an honest man of me. Poor lass, she really believes I’m a right proper businessman, too! But enough about me, what can I interest you in? Call the target? Best of three? Double draw?”

  “Actually, I was thinking of Rapid Randoms, if you still run that.” Ty smiled as Rooster raised his eyebrows.

  “Ha! She must be something else, this one, for you to be feeling that bold! Yeah, I still run it, just not a lot of folks take to it, big pot, lot o’ money to drop and lose for one game. You up for it, then?” Rooster leaned over and whispered something to a man behind him, who nodded and walked off. “Humphrey will get ’er set.”

  “Let’s make it really interesting, then. High score wins, five hundred credits to buy in, and I let the kid shoot in my place.” Ty leaned in. “What do you say?”

  Rooster looked at Ty and then sniffed his breath. “No, not drunk, maybe drugging it, then?” he muttered to himself. “Well, if you’re sure, I’ll put the call out, see who wants a go. Always a pleasure taking your money, though!” Rooster stood up. “Oi! You lot, listen up! My mate here is offering up five hundred credits for Rapid Randoms to anyone who can outshoot this kid here. Five hundred to get in, set it up with Humphrey if you’re game. Winner takes all.” He stepped down as the crowd laughed and began to murmur, looking Skeeter up and down before placing their bets.

  A few moments later, six men had come forward and dropped their credits. Ty dropped his last and then turned to Skeeter. “You ready?”

  “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.” Skeeter nervously looked around the room at his competition. All of them were big and several had prison tattoos and were well armed. Although there was no actual threat yet, his brain was furiously processing angles, cover, escape routes, and the like as he considered the possibilities.

  “Relax! You’ll do fine, just focus like you did the other day on the course and think about all those credits you’ll pocket at the end. Rooster’s agreed to let you shoot last, so we’ll sit here until it’s your go so you can see the types of shots.” Ty pushed Skeeter onto a bar stool at a tall, round table up front. “Now pay attention, kid.” He pointed again to the shooting gallery, where the first competitor was getting ready to start.

  A gong went off and the targets began to drop. Rapid Randoms was a game in which the competitor scored points by hitting the most targets but also could score points based on the complexity of the shots and the number of hits within the one-minute time limit. The laser could be shot directly at the target to obliterate it or bounced off of one or more mirrors in order to hit angled, hard-to-reach targets. Each mirror used added a point to the final target struck. There was some danger involved for both the shooter and the audience, since if the mirrors were used the wrong way, the laser blast could get bounced off the front wall and into the crowd.

  The first shooter was a grizzled vet who had a good rhythm and moved through the targets rapidly. Most of his shots were straight on, but he did use a few of the mirrors to hit a couple of the closer-angled targets. The crowd cheered and catcalled as he worked his way through the course. The gong sounded and he handed off the gun to the next man, a middle-aged transport pilot who sported a healthy gut, indicating that he spent more time planetside than he did on an actual ship. The gong went off again and the computer generated a new course of fire, randomly dropping targets across the shooting range. The pilot fired wildly in the hopes of mowing down more targets in less time, causing the crowd to duck several times as stray laser rounds blasted overhead and into the ceiling.

  Seth watched with interest as each shooter stepped up to tackle the course. The computer randomized most of the shots, but there were a few that repeated every course, along with the targets that moved on the variable-speed tracks in the background. He watched as some of the shooters used the mirrors to hit the angled targets, the best one using no more than four mirrors to bounce the laser along. In each of the far corners, a small mirror sat. A large mirror about the size of a dinner plate sat in the middle, with two offset angled mirrors to either side. Mirrors of various sizes were interspersed throughout the rest of the range between lines of targets rolling down vertical chutes or in lines across the back, popping up and down on horizontal tracks. A few targets bounced and rolled along the floor, and another couple flew out and away from the shooter. His brain took all of this in while Ty jeered and clapped as the shooters finished up.

  “All right, Skeeter! Go show ’em how it’s done!” Ty grinned, giving Seth two thumbs up as he swayed on his stool.

  Seth turned and walked slowly up to the front as the crowd giggled a bit. The last shooter was a dark-haired man in his early twenties who looked like some sort of mercenary. He had done the best so far and was giving the crowd a cocky smile as Seth stepped up. He looked like trouble, and Seth felt his brain kick it up a notch as he got closer to the man.

  “Here ya go, kid!” The man shoved the blaster into Seth’s chest, knocking him back a little, while the crowd laughed or hissed. Seth stood frozen clutching the gun and staring at the floor as the man looked at him, waiting for a response. When nothing happened, he laughed and messed up Seth’s hair as he walked off the platform to join his friends.

  Seth’s brain saw red. When the man had pushed the blaster into his chest, it had been all he could do to stop himself from pushing back. His mind had gone into survival mode, his brain calculating trajectories, rates of fire, threats, and exits. He tried to slow it down, but it was impossible. Some defensive line had been tripped; there was nothing he could do. As he stood looking at the targets, he realized the gong had already sounded. The crowd was hollering at him to start, a few of them laughing. Something snapped.

  He turned and shot one blast into each of the four corners, using the small mirror
s. As those four blasts deflected, bouncing from mirror to mirror around the range, he focused on the vertical chutes and promptly cleaned all six out, then took out four targets that had launched away from him. The crowd noise faded into the background and everything went black and white. He could feel his finger on the trigger, each shot leaving the barrel on the perfect line to take down the target. He took out everything that moved. The four initial blasts all arrived at the center mirror simultaneously then blasted out, refocused and blasted back, completely eliminating the horizontal lines of targets. He stood, looking for more targets, until the gong sounded again. The score board flashed bright lights around his numbers, but he ignored them. He shook his head, feeling slightly dazed, as his vision began to come back to normal. He dropped the laser blaster on Rooster’s table as he exited the platform and walked over to where Ty sat, open-mouthed and staring, and sat down. His head ached again and he focused on the wood grain of the table, trying to slow his breathing, trying to calm down.

  Ty stared at him a moment more, then got up without a word and walked over to a shocked Rooster, who reluctantly swiped his handheld, depositing the winning pot.

  “Bloody hell! How’d he do that?” Rooster stared at the shooting gallery again and then back at Skeeter.

  Nobody in the joint moved or spoke as they walked out the front door and down the street. Ty looked at Skeeter several times, started to say something, then shook his head and looked back down at the ground. The kid looked upset and a bit sick. They got back to the TORR and sat down in silence.

  A few minutes later, Duv and Tiny pulled up on the back of another TORR with the rest of the parts and supplies. Ty climbed out to help them load the crates. Tiny paused, looking at Seth and then back at Ty again.

  “Something is wrong here.” She looked at Ty accusingly as Duv turned to see what was going on. He saw Seth leaned over and holding his head in the front seat.

  “Skeeter! Hey, are you okay?” Duv put his hand on Seth’s forehead. “He feels like he’s burning up!” He walked to the back to grab the med kit and some water.

  Tiny walked over and grabbed Seth’s wrist. His pulse was racing. He was supposed to be in control mode, according to Zain and the doctors. Something had happened to trigger this. The boy had gone into his defensive programming for some reason. She wheeled around to face Ty. Five men stood around the back end of the TORR. The side street was eerily empty at the moment, and Ty had his blaster drawn and was covering down on the men, even as Tiny drew hers to join him. Duv stood frozen, his hands braced on the side of the TORR. A man stood with his blaster against the back of his skull, daring him to make a move.

  “That was some little setup you had in there.” The voice belonged to the dark-haired man, the challenger who had pushed Seth as he got up to shoot.

  “Look, I don’t know what this is about, but I’m sure we can solve it without resorting to violence.” Duv started to lift his head. The man jammed his blaster on his neck, forcing him to stay still.

  “Well, that depends on your friends here giving us our money back.” The man tossed his handheld to Ty, who swiped it on his own and tossed it back. The man scrolled across the screen and then released the safety on the blaster.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Hold on a minute, let’s not rush this. You got your money back—” Duv began again.

  “All of it. Right now.” He tossed the handheld back to Ty.

  “I gave you what you put in. We won the rest fair and square, it ain’t your money!” Ty snapped.

  At this Duv looked around. “You took my son gambling? Are you kidding me? That’s what this is about? I’m going to—umph!”

  “Shut up!” The man with the blaster knocked Duv soundly in the back of the head, causing him to stagger briefly while fighting to maintain consciousness. “Now you fix that balance there, or your mate here is going to be missing his pretty face in a minute.” He pressed the muzzle of the blaster back to Duv’s skull.

  Ty grimaced and swiped the handheld again, then tossed it back to the man. The others took a step back, still training their guns on Ty and Tiny. The man checked the balance and then smiled. He pulled the blaster away and turned, walking three steps off of where Duv stood, still hanging onto the TORR’s roll cage. Then he turned and leveled his blaster at Duv again.

  “Now, this is going to hurt, mate, but it won’t kill you. I’m sorry for it, since my quarrel is not with you, but I have to make a point. No hard feelings, I hope?” The man started to pull the trigger as Ty and Tiny faced off against the other four.

  Suddenly, the man made a horrible screech. Seth had come up behind him and in one rapid movement had broken his arm and taken the blaster away. The man fell to the ground clutching the injured limb. Seth turned, his gaze flat and lethal as he put all four of the others down, then he turned back to the dark-haired man. He leaned forward and swiped his handheld, taking back the credits. Then he fired two rounds into man’s chest. He looked around the area, his brain scanning for other threats but finding none. Then the blackness of that dark, familiar vortex sucked him down, and he passed out.

  —————

  “Captain! Captain Campbell!” Reilly swung open the hatch to her room. Marek stood outside the door, panting.

  “What is it?” Reilly was sharp enough to recognize trouble when she saw it, and she pulled her blaster.

  “I don’t know, ma’am. We just got an emergency hail from the TORR and Ty says they have two down. They’re on their way back now.” Marek jogged to keep paced as Reilly vaulted down the metal stairs two at a time.

  Reilly swore. “Are they coming in hot?”

  “No, ma’am. Ty said it happened in town; they got jumped on a side street during load-up. Other side had no survivors,” Marek reported.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  Marek’s face looked grim. “He says its Duv and Skeeter.”

  Reilly was taking no chances. After they had loaded out the remaining gear from storage, she had Duv move the ship into the scrub brush of the desert. They could see any trouble coming from a ways off, and it gave her options in how to best deal with it, too. She tasked Marek and Brynt, one of the new recruits, to provide long-range cover fire if needed. They grabbed their sniper rifles and headed out, flanking to either side of the vessel and looking for high ground to shoot from. Chang sent the other recruit, Macen, to grab the med kit and get the ship’s guns warmed up in case they needed to take off and provide some extra firepower.

  Chang waited with Reilly at the back of the bay, watching for the telltale line of dirt that would indicate that a TORR was inbound. A few minutes later they spotted it, and Marek’s voice confirmed Ty at the wheel and Tiny in the back. They waited to see if anything else was coming, but it was clear that whatever had happened had been finished in town.

  Ty roared into the bay, locking the brakes on Maude as they screeched to a halt. A bruised and bloodied Duv stumbled out of the passenger-side seat, while Tiny helped Chang load Seth’s limp body onto a litter. Reilly knelt next to him and looked him over, checking for broken bones or gunshot wounds, but found none. The kid was burning up, though, and his pulse was through the roof. She reached to pull back his eyelids to see if there were signs of a head injury, but Tiny stopped her.

  “He’s been like this for the last thirty minutes. High temperature, crazy pulse. I need to get him up to the med center and take a look, but I think it might be an infection brought on by stress.” Tiny looked down again at Seth with a worried expression. As the Captain stepped back, Tiny took a quick breath. Her real fear was that Seth would interpret Reilly as a possible threat and, in his current state, attempt to neutralize her.

  She is genuinely concerned for him, Reilly realized as she got Brynt and Macen to help carry Seth upstairs. She turned back to the rest of the crew. Something was up, she could feel it.

  Duv turned to Ty. “You stupid son of a bitch. What the hell were you thinking? You almost got us all killed.
” He held the back of his head, which was still bleeding from where he had been struck.

  Reilly looked askance at Ty, who looked away. Instead, Duv answered her silent question.

  “Tiny and I got back to the TORR with the rest of the parts late. I guess Ty and Skeeter got done early, so Ty thought it would be a great idea to take him to Rooster’s for a little gambling! Anyway, the fellow Skeeter beat in the game thought he had been conned and took it personal. He came looking for them with a few of his boys.”

  Reilly was still staring at Ty. “Sergeant, you have anything to add?”

  Ty looked around defensively. “It was one game of Rapid Randoms. I thought it would be fun, and the kid’s a good shot. He won it all fair and square and we walked out with no problems. I didn’t know that guy was going to take it bad.”

  Duv was livid. “Did you really think some mercenary was going to be happy that he had lost a bunch of credits to a kid?”

  “Look, I didn’t plan for trouble. It was just supposed to be something to do while we waited.”

  “I almost got my head blown off!” Duv was furious. “That’s the fraggin’ problem, Joby. You weren’t thinking! Where’s your head at? You didn’t plan and it almost got us killed. Ow!” Duv put his hand to the back of his head again, and when he took it back down, it was bloody.

  “You need to get up to the med center. Gunny and I can take a look at both of you there.” Tiny grabbed Duv’s arm as he swayed again and motioned Marek over to help him up the catwalk.

  Marek looked back. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I’ll be up in a minute. I need to talk with the Captain and Sergeant Ty for a moment.” Tiny looked up at Chang and Brynt on the catwalk above. “Alone, please.”

  Marek made it to the top of the steps before Duv passed out, and Brynt helped him carry Duv through the portal towards the med center. Once they were through, Chang started down the stairs. Reilly looked up at him and shook her head. He paused and looked thoughtfully at Tiny, then turned and went back up through the hatch. Tiny turned back to Reilly and Ty.