Calculating that the pervs wouldn’t venture too far into the zone at first, Sarah headed northward. In the area just north of the Sunset Park enclave she saw a high-end model pod making a bee line for a group of scavenger kids. Without a moment’s hesitation, she notched a shaft, drew and let fly. The arrow struck its target before it was near enough to be a danger to the children. The travelpod exploded in a ball of fire. Sarah beat it out of there as quickly as she could.
The next day the press reported that Harrison Lamen, the noted business tycoon and philanthropist, was savagely murdered while conducting a personal fact-finding tour in Brooklyn. The NYPD and National Guard promised to find the gang member or hunter responsible. Sarah noted, with some satisfaction, that neither law enforcement group had shown their faces in Brooklyn in spite of what the news said.
Life over the next few months was very hard for Sarah. The library was empty; more empty than just devoid of people. Sarah never realized before how much Amanda Running Deer had helped her as she struggled with the loss of her family. Now she was truly alone. When her eighteenth birthday dawned, Sarah never felt more alone. Birthdays were the time when she and Mandy were the family that neither one of them now had.
She considered recruiting and training a protégé, but she realized that Mandy’s finding her had been a lucky accident. Perhaps if lightning struck twice and she rescued a potential candidate, she might consider training someone. As it was, there was no one who could fill the void that the loss of her friend had left in her life.
Sometimes at night she would go into Mandy’s room and talk to her as if Mandy was there, discussing the night’s plan before going out to hunt. She continued to hunt at dusk when the predators from the Island still came to find their prey. These days she showed no mercy. Her explosive arrows had killed or maimed more than a dozen predators. The number of incursions into the zone had fallen again, even lower than before, but other numbers had increased.
Through their underground network the pervs had put an even greater price on Sarah’s head. It been one hundred thousand credits for anyone who captured her alive, and was growing steadily. The bounty had now reached one million credits along with a promise of relocation to the Bronx if the individual who captured her was a zoner.
After that fateful night Sarah was much more cautious when she took down a predator. She scouted out her hunting ground of the night to ensure there were no troops “hiding in the bushes”.
Dusk was just settling as Sarah was checking the area to the south of Bedford-Stuyvesant enclave. The area just west of there, previously thought to be too dangerous, was being checked out more and more by the scavenger children. The area Sarah was scouting out was an ideal location to hide a couple of skimmers. If she wanted to be sure the one she marked as prey wasn’t really bait, she had to check the whole area thoroughly.
Sometimes, as the extremely logical Ballarians would tell her, being too emotional is dangerous. So intent was Sarah on getting revenge for Mandy, that she didn’t realize that she was no longer paying as careful attention to covering her movements as she once did. That evening she paid for her mistake.
Sarah had just finished her reconnaissance of the overgrown Evergreen Cemetery, and was heading to one of her favourite vantage points on top of the old post office on Atlantic, when she noticed movement in the abandoned fast food restaurant between Jamaica and Pennsylvania. Two Knocker girls were fighting. Sarah’s “radar” went up, but it was too late. Seemingly out of nowhere a projectile struck her in the back of the head. She crumpled to the pavement.
When she came to, Sarah found herself being held by four very strong arms. To one side she could see a Knocker girl. The girl had Sarah’s jacket, containing all her weapons, draped over her shoulders. The rest of Sarah’s clothing had been cut away and was lying on the ground in pieces. She was naked, and being held in a most vulnerable position. Standing between her feet, leering at her naked body was Masher Mike Preston, the chief of the Knocker gang.
He smiled at her nudity with a leer of anticipation. “I’m sure I don’t have to introduce myself to the great Hunter Sassy,” he began. “We’ve heard so much about you, we have. Only, most of our people who have previously run into you didn’t actually survive, or if they did, all that they could tell me was that you moved too fast. No one could tell me what you looked like. I mean, if I’d known that you were this hot, I’d have tried a lot harder to find you long before this. So, now that we have finally caught you, we’re gonna have some fun…” he rubbed his crotch and licked his lips, “…before we collect that million credits from whoever it is that’s offering it.
“Just so you know, you decided which one of us goes first. Last year you took my kid brother and turned him into a scavenger.” As he spoke two more Knockers dragged a reluctant Peter Preston from behind the ruins of one of the houses in the area. “So I decided that it would be fitting if Peter redeemed himself by having the honour of getting this party started.”
Peter struggled against the gangers who were holding him. He was once again wearing Knocker colours. Masher Mike was not pleased by his younger brother’s attempts to free himself. “Well, well, it seems that my little brother isn’t in the mood at the moment, we’ll just have to fix that, won’t we?” He turned to a small group of girls that were watching the proceedings. “Trixie, Barbie, why don’t you help get little brother into the mood.”
The two girls called upon came forward. Sarah noted that they were a couple of years older than Peter. As one girl started to slowly remove his trousers and shorts the second did a fairly expert striptease for him. Then as the second, now naked, girl unbuttoned his shirt, the first girl removed her clothing in the same manner. Then they began in earnest. They rubbed their bodies against his, touching and stroking him. It was obvious that it was working. Peter had relaxed his struggles and was responding to their attempts at arousal.
“You see,” Masher Mike explained, “Peter was kinda sweet on the two of them before he suddenly went AWOL last year, thanks to you, but back then they wouldn’t give him a tumble. As you can see, they are the perfect choice to get him ready for action. Actually, I really don’t care how well he does, I just want him to be the first to take you; the first to violate you; to take revenge upon the great Hunter Sassy.” There was an anger in his voice, and a triumph. This wasn’t about sex or rape. This was Masher Mike Preston’s revenge for her rescue of his brother, and for repeatedly defeating his soldiers. Sarah was going to pay in his currency, before he collected the bounty.
Despite their youth the Knocker girls were expert in their task. They very quickly had Peter aroused and ready to follow his brother’s orders. Tentatively the two Knocker soldiers holding him released his arms. Peter, grinning broadly, turned toward Sarah. He approached slowly, trying to look like a prize stud about to perform. Masher Mike stood aside to let him pass, moving to Sarah’s side to get a better view of “the show”.
Peter assumed his brother’s position between Sarah’s feet. Almost imperceptibly he glanced at the soldier holding her left foot and back at Sarah. He hoped that she had understood, as he rushed the surprised ganger. Dropping his head down, Peter ran straight into the soldier’s chest. Even though Peter suspected that he may have been wearing protection he brought his knee up into his crotch with all the force he could muster. He ended by head butting the soldier’s nose so hard he, himself, was reeling afterward.
It was enough. Sarah yanked her left foot free and proved her suppleness by kicking the Knocker who was holding her right arm in the head.
Pulling her hand free she aimed two fingers at the eyes of the ganger on her left arm, blinding him. He released her, screaming in pain. The ganger holding her right foot was surprised enough that she was able to pull her right foot free as she fell.
As she hit the ground Masher Mike reached into his belt for her stinger, but as Sarah landed, she rolled in such a way as to right herself. She came to her feet in a fighting crouch. Seeing what
Mike was about to do with her stinger, she launched a well-aimed kick. Her right foot connected hard with Mike’s chin. She heard his neck snap, and, as his lifeless body fell, she snatched the stinger from his hand. She reset the weapon to its lethal setting, and began shooting. Half a dozen Knockers fell before the rest ran off. As the girl with Sarah’s jacket ran, it dropped from her shoulders. Sarah looked around at the body count as she retrieved it. That and her boots and socks, which she found off to one side, were all the clothes she had left.
She found Peter sitting on a pile of trash, still a bit dazed from his head-butt attack, and still without his pants. Sarah pulled on her coat, buttoned a couple of buttons and then went to him, carrying her boots. She sat down opposite him on a cinder block and began to pull on socks and boots. As she did Peter averted his gaze and Sarah realized that her coat only covered her adequately when she was standing upright. She smiled. Peter really was a good kid, just born into the wrong family.
“It’s okay, Peter,” she told him. “Don’t be embarrassed. You just saved more than my life.”
Peter looked back at her, keeping his eyes level with hers. “I don’t know what I can do now,” he told her. “Mike’s dead. I can see that from here. People’s necks don’t usually bend like that.”
“I’m sorry that I killed your brother, Peter, but I really didn’t have much choice. Tell me, what happened that you are back in gang colours?”
“That night, I went to the enclave, like you told me, but they refused to take me in because of my colours. It was only when the little girl and her parents interceded, the girl actually pleaded for me, that they let me in, temporarily.
“They held me in their jail for three days. I was treated well enough, but not allowed to go free. At the end of the third day they gave me some new clothes and provisions, and sent me back into the outer-zone, where I started scavenging for a living. I slept in that old church on Powell with a lot of the other scavengers. Without my colours, they accepted me well enough.
“Then yesterday, I was at Horton’s selling some stuff I dug up in a house on Sutter Avenue, when Switcher and Dixie just happened to walk in. They dragged me off to Mike. It was just by chance that it was tonight that they caught you, but it was because he blames you for my dropping my colours that the rest happened.” He dropped his head, “I’m sorry Sassy, I let you down.”
Sarah moved over to Peter and gave him a kiss on the cheek and a hug. “You didn’t let me down. You saved my bacon and my honour tonight,” she told him earnestly. “I owe you one!”
Glancing down at his state of undress she smiled at him and added, “At least they left your clothes intact, so I would seriously recommend that you put them back on.”
Peter blushed and went to get his pants. “The question still stands, though. What can I do now? It’s obvious that dealing with the outer-marketers will always put me at risk for being found by the Knockers. With Mike dead, there will be no one to keep them from killing me on the spot for dropping my colours – again!”
Sarah considered things for a moment. She thought, again, about her idea of training a protégé, but dismissed it as problematic. An idea came to her. “Pick up your colours, Peter.”
He looked at her with shock. “That won’t work,” he said, “They’ll still kill me if I try to return.”
“I’m not suggesting that you try. Head for the Bridge. If you make it without running into any rival gangs, then try to cross. Without your colours, they’d just chase you back, but if you’re sporting Knocker colours, they’ll arrest you. At least in jail you’ll stand a chance, and I hear that there is a program that you might qualify for.
“Instead of prison, they let you sign up for the Stellar Corps. You would do five years as a grunt in the Corps, and then you’re free to go where you will, with a clean record, and with the Corps’ educational package to get you started. It would be a new life.” She smiled at Peter as he buttoned his shirt. “Try it, for me? I’ll even accompany you to the Bridge for protection.”
Peter looked her straight in the eye, and then glanced down towards her waist. Her coat barely covered her nudity while she was standing still. Sarah got his meaning. She shrugged. “I’ll manage until we get you to the Bridge.” She told him. “I’m not shy,” then she smiled mischievously, “But if you try grabbing my ass you may end up with a fat lip,” she joked.
Peter smiled back, “Okay, I’m in, let’s go.”
From where they were it was a short sprint over to the Bedford-Stuyvesant enclave where Sarah retrieved her bike. The quicker she got this done the better it would be all around. As she started the bike she silently thanked Mandy’s wisdom. She was the one who insisted that they keep their bikes in tip-top shape. Its electric motor ran silently, and easily carried both her and Peter.
A half an hour later Sarah dropped Peter on Tillary Street next to the bridge entrance. She gave him a kiss and an earnest hug and sent him on his way. “Be safe, Peter,” she whispered in his ear before releasing him. “Remember, you have a friend rooting for you.”
For an instant, as she watched him jog up the Brooklyn Bridge access, she thought again about taking him on as a protégé, but instantly dismissed it as a selfish thought. “His chances are better this way,” she told herself.
It was as she turned to head back to the library that she saw the pod coming off the Bridge. Sarah saw that it had diplomatic plates. She wondered what a diplomat would want in the borough at this hour of the night, so she followed the pod discreetly, ignoring the fact that all she was wearing was her jacket and boots.
She followed the pod as it made its way to Grand Army Plaza. Many of the surviving public buildings there had long since been taken over by scavengers. There were a lot of children there. She wondered if the driver might be a perv.
When Sarah came to 8th Avenue she circled around and approached the Plaza by President Street. She locked her bike to an old parking meter and entered the plaza from the back just as the pod began to cruise slowly along Plaza Street West. If this diplomat was looking for a little action, Sarah was dressed perfectly to trap him.
She sat down by the old Memorial Arch. She did her best to look small. Not knowing how many might be in the pod, she stuffed her stinger up her sleeve for ready access. No matter how she sat, her lack of adequate clothing was obvious, so she did her best to look as if she was trying to hide. The pod stopped next to her and the window opened. The driver was a Galoran. He gave her the usual lines, and she answered appropriately. Seconds later she was sliding into the passenger side door. As she entered the pod she checked to see if they were alone, or if there was someone else in the back seat; there wasn’t.
As Sarah slipped into the passenger seat the driver turned toward her and solicitously made to help her with the seat belt. Sarah had been in that position far too often to fall for that one. She checked his sleeve as he leaned toward her. There was nothing there; no needle; no gas gun or stinger. Then she glanced down at the seat belt, and saw that the buckle had no release on it. If she allowed him to fasten it she would be his prisoner.
As he leaned in she drew her stinger from her sleeve. She had reset it to maximum stun. She jammed it into his genitals and pressed the contact. Sarah knew the weapon well. If she had pressed it to his temple or his chest, he would be dead now, but where she shot him only stunned him. It also ensured that if he did not yet have any progeny he never would.
She released his seat belt and pulled him from the driver’s seat. She was about to drive to one of the Queens crossing points to dump him when it hit her. He had just come across the Brooklyn Bridge. He was only able to do that because of his diplomatic plates. If he could come to Brooklyn that way, then she could go to Manhattan the same way.
Maybe six months ago she might’ve stayed with Mandy, but Mandy was gone, probably dead. She would want Sarah to try and get home. Besides, Sarah was tired. She had been fighting gangs since she was twelve years old. This pod would get her into the city, o
nce there she could go to her old home. Ever if her folks were in The Hague, she might still be able to access the apartment. There she could call her parents, and they could get her identity reactivated. She would be home!
Sarah jumped into the driver’s seat and turned the pod about. She took Flatbush to Tillary Avenue and turned onto the Bridge. As she approached the Manhattan end of the span she noted a light begin to flash on the dash. It was a request for confirmation of identity. For a moment Sarah jumped. She slowed her approach until she realized that a slot on the lower console was also blinking.
Sarah let the pod coast on automatic for a moment and jumped into the rear seat. She made a quick search of her unconscious passenger. In the left breast pocket of his suit she found what she needed; his embassy ident chip. She inserted the chip into the slot. The barriers at the end of the bridge opened for her. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Her relief was very short-lived as the whole console turned red. The chip was equipped with a biometric reader that told the car that it wasn’t an authorized driver in control. Sarah had heard of such systems, but had never seen one, ever. The pod was on full automatic navigation. She had no way of knowing for sure, but Sarah was guessing that she was on her way to the League of Systems complex and the Galoran Embassy. She wished that she was better dressed, or at least had more clothing on, for her first visit to another planet’s embassy. The fact that one of the embassy staff was unconscious in the back seat was not a great concern for her. The guy was hunting children in the zone. He was undoubtedly going to be in big trouble.
As the pod exited the bridge Sarah was surprised when it didn’t turn to the right as she expected, but headed into the city. Turning along Broadway the pod continued to 70th Avenue where it pulled up in front of a private dwelling. The console then sent out a signal and a tractor beam lifted the pod up to a cradle on the roof, where there were Galoran security staff waiting.
Sarah tried to open the pod door, but it wouldn’t respond to the command until one of the guards outside activated the exterior control. She started to exit the pod, still believing that the Galorans would want to know that one of their diplomats was kidnapping young girls or boys from the zone. She stepped out of the pod into the middle of the guards, and found that her assumptions were totally wrong.
Chronicles of the Stellar Corps: Sassy Page 7