by Unknown
Officers on the transporter seemed to have lost, according to Mikka, all sense of a moral compass. They would be getting down in the town, going to have some fun, like they wanted to have fun with her before she broke the nose of one. What is it that the other one said to the one who tried to rape her, just before she lost her consciousness?
“Oktok, let her go,” she seems to remember one of them talking, “She is not worth it…You will be in Wilkie’s within an hour. Girls are much…”
Yes, Wilkies, she needed to find Wilkie’s.
But first, she needed to rest. And eat. She realized how tired her muscles felt,
and could not even remember the last time she ate anything.
Below an old willow tree, whose weeping branches were almost touching the water, She went waste deep inside the water.
It chilled her whole body, but she didn't care. She imagined the rushing water of washing away from her all the dirt, all the pain, the misery, the fear...She stroke the first fish that dared to be seen swimming next to her pants.
IT was half-her-arm big, and slimy. But Mikka's fingers and nails dug inside the fish body, and she pulled her out of the water, throwing her to the river bank where Silent was standing, waiting.
"The rock, hit it on the head with the rock...Just make as little sound as you can." Mikka told her as she saw Silent violently smashing the fish head with oversized stone.
Mikka remembered and took the best knife she had stashed behind her back and threw it toward Silent, landing it right below Silent's foot.
So, by the time next fish flew out of the water, silent was ready and with a single stroke had chopped the head of the fish.
Just to make sure to have enough.
"We cannot light up the fire...we eat this raw," she was saying as she started to gut and file the fish. Even though it was slimy, the inside of the fish seemed white and hard, and tasted much better than Mikka expected.
"I never saw anyone being so fast. Your hands, the way you stroke them...You didn't even need a spear. Can you teach me to be as fast as you?"
Mikka looked at her, thought about how many years of training it took her to become so fast, and decided not to say anything.
"we cannot eat too much of it now. Our bellies will hurt." Mikka told her seeing how full the girl's mouth was already,
"We move from here, and eat somewhere else. We have already made too much noise here."
They went up the river, stepping on the stones, trying not to leave any footprints. After a few minutes, Mikka cut off few branches of a young tree, and sneaked inside the bushes, making a little space in there for them, and using cut branches to camouflage it all.
By the time she finished, she knew that only people with very keen eyesight would be able to notice them. There, almost completely hidden, they set down on the pile of leaves and leaned their backs on each other.
She relaxed her muscles, slowed down her breathing, thought only of the passing water whose sound was only interrupted by a few songs of the hidden birds. For a second she thought that this planet was way too nice to be made into a prison. then she let go of that thought just like it was a leaf which fell in the water. She let go of all her thoughts...
In an hour, when she opened her eyes again, she realized that silent didn't move an inch since they set down.
Mikka saw her eyes constantly observing the space around and realized she has been awake for a whole time.
Thinking about it all, she realized that she really appreciated how little silent talked, how little noise she made.
It was almost like she was not there at all, and Mikka touched her hand just to make sure she was real.
The last thing I need is a crying, sobbing little girl, she thought, but this one is tough...probably much tougher than I would be in her place. I wonder what would become of her?
After filling up their bellies with another fish, they stretched their legs and in silence continued up the river.
..........
It took them the rest of the daylight, walking up the river, to get to the outskirts of the town. They could smell it before even seeing it as an open raw sewage was running down the dirt road toward the river.
“Are you sure you want to go in there?” Silent whispered to her.
“Yes. Yes I do. But you will not come with me. I have something to do that you cannot help me with. I cannot worry about you now. But I promise I will come back for you. You have to hide until then. Stay underneath this big tree until the morning. I should be back by then. Do not talk to anyone, just hide away.
“I’ll be back for you, I promise.” Said Mikka looking at the scared girl, hiding already..
“I want to come with you.”
“You will, but not now. I won’t tell you what you need to do if I do not come back, because I will come back, you understand? “ She said staring at her eyes before she moved away.
As the night started to set in, she closed in on the town. Houses made of wood planks were constructed in the most basic way and were unable to provide anything other than the most basic shelter. But Wilkie’s was a place like that. It was in a town’s center, a building of two stories with a neon lights shining its name to anyone who would walk into the town.
She looked around, trying to locate the transporter. But nothing was there, not even a single person walking the street, not even a mad dog barking at her.
They must have placed it outside someplace. She thought hoping that they have not dropped some of the guards off and took it to up the sky. Or maybe they have all left already.
No, those boys, they looked like they were about to party all night. No, they must be here. I bet human life is very cheap here, probably cheaper than a piece of a decent steak.
So, she walked across the muddy street toward the bar.
At its entrance, two oversized guards leaned on the wall, holding guns. They got pointed at her as soon as she showed intend to get closer.
“I am here to see Oktok,” she said with a smile on her face.
“I haven’t seen you here before.”
“That’s funny, he requested me the last time he was here as well…Maybe you didn’t see me because you were drinking somewhere. I guess he likes me a lot...” She even giggles shaking her breasts in their face.
She thought about just walking through as they made some room for her. But their looks, she didn’t like. They reminded her too much on the looks of men she killed just a few hours ago.
So, as she walked by, her knife slid the throat of the guard to the left. He seemed bigger, seemed hungrier. So he was spraying blood first. The next second, as the second guard started to move his gun, her weapon was already firmly placed between his eyes .
She took those rifles, examined them, unsatisfied. They were flippers, electronic bullet blasters, top of the line at least some 100 years ago. Now it was just a sub-standard junk. She was not even sure how accurate they were. But still, they were better than the knife. She threw one over her back, and the second one put on a single shot mode.
She also was interested in a hat of one of them, green, pointy. It didn’t have that much blood on it, so she put it on, covering half of her face.
Then she walked opened the door through which she could already hear music that was way too loud and way too mechanical for her taste.
She didn’t have to search for the police troopers at all. Three of them were sitting at a table in the middle, decorating themselves with girls in skimpy clothes.
“Which one of you fouls can tell me where the transporter is?” She said just a tiny bit louder than the music. Everyone turned.
The first bullet left the rifle's long barrel silently and took the officer who was on a way to stand up right in his chest.
The second one, sitting with two working girls in his lap, couldn't really get up, couldn’t even reach for his gun. He bit the bullet between his teeth knocking him backward with girls falling over his already dead body.
“Wait!
Wait-“ The third one yelled, putting his hands in the air, being smart enough not to go for his gun, “If you kill me, you will never know-“
She killed him anyway.
The music still played loud, almost uninterrupted.
She noticed one more tables occupied, on the far side, but the four men that set there seemed locals more interested in drinking than dying. So she looked at the bar, long, and curving with nobody seems to be behind it. But then, as the man's head showed coming from underneath it, she took it off his shoulders with a double shot.
“Can you girls be kind enough to tell me where can I find the cop called Oktok?” she asked as she approached the table with three dead officers.
One of them pointed to the door upstairs.
She dropped her rifle on the blood covered table, and took one of officers' handgun.
It had a scope; it felt heavy; it could blast concrete walls. She liked it. So she took two, pulling the lever on both of them to the 'max power’ setting.
Feeling just a bit better for the first time in days, she deliberated whether or not to kill them all.
“Where is the boss?” Mikka asked.
The girl’s eyes pointed upstairs.
As she raced up four stairs at the time, the dried, unpolished wood creaked under her feet, the music hardly covering it up.
For a second she stopped...Three doors. Which one to go in first? She decided the one on the far right, the one that looked the most run down, the least fancy, would be fine.
She felt the handle realizing the door was not locked, so instead of having to break through it, she just opened it nonchalantly.
The man with his pants down to his angles was ready to jump on the bed where a woman not older than 20 was waiting for him.
“Hi Officer Oktok.” She said as he turned his head around, revealing a stupidly-surprised looking face marked by one very red and broken nose.
She shot him in the ass with two shots strong enough to cut his body in half.
He still had a second of his life I him as she walked over the upper part of him..
She wasted no words on him, but took her hat off, revealing her long burning red hair. Then she just gathered all the saliva she had in her mouth and spit on his 'I-cannot-believe-it' face.
The woman in the bed was already screaming her guts out.
“Shut up!“ Mikka told her with every intention of say it only once, and the prostitute zipped her mouth instantly.
The wood creaked in the next room. The alarming voices could be heard, and Mikka positioned her guns accordingly, then fired one shot after another.
Why complicate things? she thought.
The splintered wood of the bedroom wall flew all around, and when Mikka finally stopped, the half of it was gone. Through the giant hole, she saw a man laying there in a pile of bloodied human parts, almost unidentifiable.
Parts of a naked woman lay next to him while the pilot's complete uniform was neatly hanged by the door.
She walked through the broken wall, and dug deep with her fingers inside the head of the man without a face.
Brains, bones and more brains, she struggled to find the implant.
“I should have used the knife. Who knows if it is working now,” she whispered to herself regretting firing the guns.
As she pocketed the chip, she counted three pairs of steps rushing around the corridor outside. They would rush to the room with the door open. The one that stays to the back would be the boss. She calculated.
There was no safe way to do what she had to do next. If she fired at them, they would probably fire back at her. And she didn’t like those odds. She looked around the room.
Voices outside yelled names.
They are cautious, she figured.
The window of the room could be opened easily revealing the third room with a small balcony. That was her way in.
She jumped on that balcony and through the window saw a man whose huge body was almost completely blocking the doorway in front of which he was standing. He didn't even have time to turn around as she shot him twice, first in his right knee and then his left arm. While the glass was still in the air, she jumped through, and in two big steps flew into his body pushing it out of the room.
Her eyes were already pointing toward the corridor and two men who stood 20 feet away with their guns out.
Maybe it was her red hair that flew through the air like parts of a Saranian phoenix; maybe they didn't want to spray the space with bullets unsure if they would hit their boss. Anyway, they blinked, and before Mikka could turned her guns on them and extinguish their existence, they succeeded in only making one bullet fly.
It brazed Mikka's left arm, knocking her hand backward, forcing her to drop one of her gun.
As soon as the sound of the dead bodies hitting the wood planks reached Mikka, the huge man, who was just a second ago slammed into the wall by a woman tenth her weight and strength, started to beg.
“Please don't kill me,” he knew it was time for begging, “I’ll give you money, everything I have. I'll call all my dogs off, give you everything I've got, just don't...”
“Gold…” was all she said.
He, took his left hand from holding his right shoulder, letting the blood suddenly to start pouring out, and took a chain off his tree-trunk thick neck.
“Here is the key to the safe...take it, take it all.” He said as his eyes went to the huge metal safe behind the desk.
With a click the door opened. There really wasn't that much gold in that huge safe, not even a kilo, she calculate. But her eyes caught a stack of light blue glass tags neatly placed on top of each other.
She knew what they were, Emperor's Obligation Tags, each worth 10,000 credits. With one sweep of her hand, she cleaned the safe of all of them, 20 at least she calculated.
“Are there only 5 troopers here?” She asked unsure if there were two pilots in the cabin.
“Yes, yes, there are only 5...” the man’s words came trembling out of his mouth.
“Let her through!” he yelled then at the top of his voice, “Everyone, lay down your weapons! Nobody moves a finger on her!” He kept on yelling as she stepped over him.
“Thank you, thank you...” he said as Mikka turned around. Mikka knew he was reaching, reaching for her mercy point. There were none. And she put her gun toward his head.
“Let me live, and I will be in your debt forever.” she was quite unsure how many bullets she still had left, how many were standard on this guns, 25? How many did she shot? 20?
Let space gods decide his fate. If the massive bleeding does not kill him, maybe he is meant to live, she thought as
“You Big Wilkie?”
“Yes.”
“I think you need to clean this place up a bit, don’t you?”
So she left Big Wilke there screaming thanks and ordering his men not to shoot and to lift their hands up.
Mikka then slowly started to descend the stairs. Five men stood around bar with rifles laying around them. Their hands might have been empty, but their eyes said that they were ready to jump her regardless of what their boss ordered.
So she, one handedly, dropped them all there almost before they could reach their weapons. The last one succeeded in firing two shots, one of which took part of her red hair off, missing her head by an inch.
As she came down, four locals still nursed the half empty bottle, looking at her like a never-before-seen goddess with eyes as wide open as humanly possible.
“Now, I asked, where is the transporter?”
“In the garage of course!” answered the skinny one, with a long, light beard.
“And where is the garage?”
“In the backyard. But you will need Big Wilkie's key to get there.”
She pointed at Big Wilkie's neck chain, making the man swallow his saliva.
“The one in the middle,” he answered . “I’ll show you the way.”
She bothered not to answer it, but with the gun poi
nted him to go.
As the man opened the back door, Mikka heard the voice scream.
“What's going on there...?” Someone kept yelled from underneath her feet.
“You need to open the door with it.”
So, Mikka pressed the key and soon the floor in front of her started to open, lifting the 30 foot transporter from the floor underneath. Next to it was another guard, walking nervously forward.
“I said…”
The skinny man threw the knife which suddenly appeared in his hand at the guard and connected it to the man's throat.
“Take me with you. My life will be yours, and I'll serve you until it is no more.” The words he used, the way he said them, Mikka was not sure if she could like them. She didn't want to trust anyone, certainly not a convicted felon sent to Pluk.
“I can stitch you up really good. I worked as a medic before. I can do whatever you ask from me, for the rest of my life.”
“I don't want your life, little man,” she answered.
“The name is Irkoniss, and I bet I know more about getting out of here then you do. I mean, the first, you need an authorization chip from the pilot...”
She took out the bloodied chip from her pocket,
“Yes, that will get you up in the sky, but then, what then? Do you know how to go through the space security there?”
Mikka thought she knew. But when she stopped to think about it, she was not quite certain. The police space station which controlled the security net around the planet…she had no dealing with that before. And if she had to go to that station and kill everyone on it so she could get off…Not impossible thing to do, but…
“Yeah,” she said, slowly raising the gun in her right hand.
“I can get us a transporter if you put us in space...I know people, and we can be anywhere in the empire within a day.”
That meant something. She was ready for the revenge. Why wait if it can be done fast? The man saw her indecision and dropped to his knees.
“I am Irkoniss, the drunk, the one who wasted my life away, but give me a chance to serve you, and my Groklin blood will be bound to you,” he was saying as he cut his palm with a second knife that again mysteriously appeared in his hand.