Gun Runner

by Larry Correia

  Weapons and bots ready, they waited. The counter was almost up. Bushey signaled for them to put their helmets up to protect their hearing.

  Katze looked up at the gel smeared hatch. “You’re not going to smoke us all, are you?”

  “I am an artist who prides himself on using just enough explosives, but not too much. Okay, actually, that’s all I had left.” They backed away. Then Bushey brought out his control, held up three fingers and counted down.

  Chapter 34

  A sound brought Jackson back from the brink. The explosion was muffled, but it hadn’t been that far away.

  Doc Tiny Ears was in the room with them, preparing another syringe full of drug cocktail. He started at the noise and turned toward the door.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Jackson said. “Tui? You hear that?”

  Except Tui was still out, and from the look of things, barely alive. He was too far gone to respond.

  A moment later a red frame appeared around all the displays in the room. An automated voice spoke. “Code seven. Code seven.”

  Tiny swore. “Perimeter breach.”

  There was a rapid series of thumps. Jackson knew suppressed gunfire when he heard it. Someone began shouting, but the thumps cut whoever it was right off. Were the Originals storming the castle?

  More shots rang out. Closer this time. More shouting. The action was clearly moving this way. Tiny ran for his briefcase, popped it open, and withdrew a small handgun. He must have activated his comms. “Fain! What’s going on out there?”

  Something hit their door. Hard. Every time that door had been opened since Tui had made his escape attempt, Jackson had seen a pair of guards stationed there. One of them started screaming. In pain.

  Tiny Ears pointed his gun that way, trembling.

  This part of the facility was new construction, not original ship, so the door was like what you’d find in a normal home, plastic and sheet metal. Nothing nearly sturdy enough to stop the next guard as he crashed through it. Tiny screamed and backed into the corner, firing blindly into the hallway.

  Tiny stopped shooting when he realized no one was there. Except he was wrong, and he looked down as a two-foot-tall, pastel purple, cartoon-looking bunny rabbit hopped in.

  This couldn’t be happening. The crew were light-years away by now. It had to be the meds. Some kind of chemical dream state…

  Except that rabbit was just too real. Jackson was delirious, but not that delirious. “Jane! I’m in here!”

  “What is that thing?” Tiny demanded as he pointed the shaking pistol at the bot.

  Jane’s voice came through the bot’s speakers. “Jacky, did this man hurt you?”

  “Lots!”

  The rabbit’s eyes turned red as it leaned forward, revealing the subgun mounted on its back. BRRRRRRT.

  Bullets stitched Tiny from belt line to forehead. He slid down the wall, painting it red.

  One of Jane’s little beetle bots zipped into the room, flying from corner to corner, searching for other threats. Once it was clear, Jane walked into the room. “You look like hell.”

  She looked awesome. Stunning. First-rate. And that wasn’t just the drugs and brain damage talking. He’d never been so glad to see anybody in his life.

  “You’re too late.” Jackson knew that. And somewhere in the distance part of him was sad about that.

  Jane’s attention was split between several tasks at once. From the sound of it, her bot swarm was flying around the compound wreaking havoc. The little rabbit covered the entrance. She paused to check Tui’s pulse. “The Chief and Jacky are alive,” she reported to someone. Then she hurried to Jackson and put her hands on his head to examine Doc Tiny Ear’s work. “How do you feel?”

  “The demons are in my head. I couldn’t stop them. I can’t think straight. You’re beautiful.”

  “You’re delirious.” She held his forehead, pulled one of his eyelids up. “Look up.”

  He looked up.

  “Look down.”

  He looked down. “Kill me, Jane. Please. Before Warlord sends me any orders. I won’t be able to resist them.”

  “Get them both free,” Jane told her bots. A little teddy bear Jackson hadn’t even seen dropped from the ceiling. A whirling saw blade extended from its arm and sparks flew as it sawed through the reinforced chains that Fain had locked around Tui. A few of her smallest bots leapt from out of Jane’s hair and began lasering through the bonds at Jackson’s wrists. “Listen to me, Jackson. We’re going to get you out of here, and we’re going to get this fixed. Okay?”

  Bushey ran in, his combat suit flashing through camouflage protocols to match his surroundings. He leapt over the rabbit, took cover inside the doorway, and began shoving a new magazine into his carbine. “Your swarm is raising hell on the guards, but there are a lot of them. We’ve got to boogie now.” Then, gun reloaded, he leaned out and began firing down the hall.

  He must have been laying down covering fire for Katze, because she came in, moving inhumanly fast. She slid through the doorway on her knees and ended up next to Tui. The bots had cut Tui free, so Katze dragged his limp form out of the line of fire.

  “There’s at least a dozen more coming up from the hangar,” Katze warned. “Humans, and they’ve activated their own bots too.”

  “They’re not as good as mine,” Jane said.

  “But there’s a lot more of them. We’ve got to go now.” Katze checked on Tui, peeled open one eye, even slapped his cheek. “Chief, can you hear me?” But he was still out.

  “Give him a shot of warazine,” Bushey told her. “We’ve got to jump-start his healing mods.”

  “In this state combat drugs might kill him!”

  “If you’re carrying him out, then that’s one less of us shooting back. Zap him, Katze. That’s an order.”

  Katze pulled a syrette out of her medpack and jabbed it into Tui’s neck. He didn’t immediately come to, but his whole body began to twitch, as if he was having a seizure.

  Jackson was used to Bushey being a clown. But he was no nonsense when he was the one who had to be responsible for everyone else. “Can Jackson walk?”

  He aimed that question at Jane, but Jackson answered. “It’s too late. Warlord’s in my head. Shoot me now. Save yourselves.”

  Bushey was confused. “Jane?”

  “Shut up, Jacky. Don’t worry, Bushey, it’s nothing I can’t fix with a little brain surgery. I just need to get him someplace safe.”

  “That sure as shanks ain’t here!” Bushey leaned back around the corner and fired another burst. Someone out of sight yelped as the bullets spalled off his armor.

  The bots made short work of Jackson’s bonds, but it turned out he’d been in the same position so long that he couldn’t stand. Jane caught him before he fell and held him up. “I’ve got you. You can’t give up yet. Trust me.”

  “I trust you. I don’t trust myself.”

  “I know.” Then Jane shouted at the others. “We need to head back toward the hangar, down the hatch, and find a place to hide in the hull.”

  Tui wobbled to his feet like a drunk. “Whoa. What did I miss?”

  “It’s a daring rescue, Chief.” Katze handed him a carbine. “You up to shooting some bad guys?”

  He blinked, rolled his head a bit, then focused his gaze. “Always.” He checked the chamber. Even half dead and covered in his own drying blood, hands shaking and eyes twitching from the powerful stimulant, Tui was still one scary professional. “Lead the way.”

  “I’ll have my swarm cut us a path.”

  She gave the command. A moment later, there was a high-pitched shriek and a lot of unearthly wailing ahead of them as Jane’s bots went nuts. They weren’t just deadly. They were also designed to be psychologically unnerving.

  “Hallway is clear for the moment,” Jane said, and the five of them exited the room and moved down the hall, Bushey and Katze in the lead, guns shouldered. Jane helped Jackson along, and Tui brought up the rear.

 
; There was movement ahead. A guard leaned around the corner to shoot at them, but Bushey shredded him. Katze rushed up and took that corner. She fired a short, controlled burst at someone out of sight. Another man appeared on the catwalk above them, but he began screaming as one of Jane’s bots appeared from out of nowhere and slashed his jugular. He flipped over the railing and fell to his doom, being ridden by what looked like a cuddly lobster.

  “Our exit’s just ahead, to the right,” Jane said. “We’re almost there.”

  Bushey and Katze disappeared from view. A second later they both came running back.

  “Not good,” Bushey said. “Not good!”

  There was the sound of heavy footsteps. A thumping like a one-ton giant was headed their way.

  “Ogre!” Katze shouted.

  The Ogre 55Z Armored Combat Exo was a heavy-duty thing. A thing meant to withstand grenades. A thing meant to clear spaces.

  “Hey, didn’t we just sell him an Ogre?” Jackson asked.

  “Friggin’ karma,” said Tui.

  “Back! Back!” Bushey shouted. Jackson was starting to get his legs under him, so he didn’t need Jane to hold him up anymore. This part of the compound he recognized, and he’d spent a lot of time studying the schematics of the place looking for potential escape routes. “The hangar is that way. There’s an air shaft in it we can blow open to get down into the hull.”

  Jane’s army flew, ran, and bounded past them. A few moments later, the Big Towners who were part of the Warlord’s detail began to scream and curse. Behind them was the methodical thumping of the Ogre’s armored feet.

  There was a heavy-duty blast door leading into the hangar. Unfortunately, it was closed. Jackson hadn’t thought of that.

  “Liesel, open,” Jane said, and by some miracle, the blast door began to slide aside. “I never could hack their network, but as soon as we were inside, I sent one of my girls to burrow into their hardware.”

  The guards who had been left inside hadn’t been expecting their door to open, so they never knew what hit them. Suddenly they were being stung by metal wasps, blasted by bunnies, or chain-sawed by bipedal teddy bears. The ones Katze shot got off easy. As soon as they were inside, Jane ordered the doors closed behind them.

  Catching his breath, Jackson looked around. Most of the modern mechs that had been here before were out, either on harvesting duty, or crushing the rebels at the CX plant. Notably missing was the Spider, but the Citadel he’d stolen was sitting there, pretty as could be. Too bad he didn’t have the Warlord’s token, because in that thing they could just fight their way out of Big Town. The blast door shook as the Ogre crashed into it. They didn’t have much time.

  “The shaft should be somewhere in this wall here. You guys got any extra explosives?”

  “Sorry. Fresh out,” Bushey said.

  Tui pointed at the munitions lockers for the mechs. “We can improvise something.”

  Just then, a massive display on the wall lit up. Jackson knew immediately what he was looking at. The dozens of smaller images around the edges were all from the external views from a single mech’s cameras. They showed that the mech was moving fast along the exterior of the orbital. There were glimpses of the CX processing plant, and space-suited figures clambering to get away from it. Framed in the center was the pilot’s face. Warlord.

  From the way the cameras were moving, the mech had multiple legs. It was the Spider. The men in space suits must have been Originals. Because one by one, Warlord mercilessly gunned them down. Frozen blood droplets floated away as the pierced bodies spun off into the darkness.

  “Who has the nerve to come into my home?” There must have been a camera in the hangar because Warlord’s eyes narrowed furiously. “They’re here for Rook and Fuamatu.”

  “And now that we have our people back, we’ll be going now,” Bushey said. “Call off your dogs and we won’t have to kill any more of them on the way out.”

  “Such audacity. That’s far more loyalty than I expected from a gang of pirates.”

  “We’re not pirates. We’re gun runners. Totally different.”

  “Except Rook doesn’t work for you anymore. He works for me now.”

  “Kill the feed!” Jane shouted.

  Katze immediately put a bullet into the display. The image winked out of existence.

  Except Warlord’s voice still came over the compound’s intercom.

  “Jackson, terminate the intruders.”

  There was no fighting it. The command simply was.

  Jane was right next to him, a pistol in a holster at her side. He snatched it from her. She tried to grab his hand, but he punched her in the face, snapping her head around hard.

  The real Jackson was horrified. The new, artificial, evil invader in his head was ecstatic. As Jane fell, Jackson turned the pistol on the surprised Bushey and fired a controlled pair. Then he shifted toward Katze—

  Tui hit him.

  The bullet struck the floor, but he still had Jane’s gun. Tui was badly injured, moving way too slow, so Jackson was able to stagger back as he aligned on Tui’s face.

  KILL HIM.

  Somehow, Jackson pushed back against the demon that was pushing down on his trigger finger.

  Tui raised his open hands slowly. “This ain’t you, brother.”

  “Shoot me, Tui. Hurry!” The nanites were stabbing his brain with ice picks of agony, trying to force him to comply.

  “Fight the slaveware. You can do—”

  BLAM.

  Katze shot Jackson through the hand.

  His gun went flying. One of his fingers was still connected to it. He looked in shocked disbelief at the ruined bone and pulped flesh and the hole big enough to see light through. Then the pain hit and Jackson screamed.

  “Sorry!” Katze shouted. “I didn’t know what else to do!”

  Tui shoved him to the floor. “Toss me a tourniquet.”

  Jackson wanted to fulfill the order to kill Tui, wanted to fulfill the order to kill them all. Except getting the bones of your hand turned into shrapnel really caused a loss of focus, so Jackson lost what tenuous hold he had, and Warlord’s command kicked back in.

  Jackson hit Tui with his uninjured left, but it was like punching a brick wall. Tui just slapped Jackson’s arm away and pinned him. “TQ! Now!”

  Katze got one out of her med bag and threw it to Tui. He caught it, expertly looped it around, Jackson’s wrist, and turned on the automatic windlass. It tightened. Supertight, superfast, and the shock on his damaged nerves was enough to make Jackson black out for a second. He came back to hear Tui shouting, “Bushey, status?”

  “One got through my armor.” Bushey grunted in pain. “It ain’t bad.”

  “Now’s not to the time to be a tough guy!”

  “Okay. It’s bad. It’s in my side. Don’t know what it hit, but nothing’s squirting.”

  The Ogre crashed into the blast door again. It moved a bit.

  Warlord’s voice came back over the intercom. “Oh, that was marvelous. Gunfire, screaming, such drama! Poetry to my ears. How many of you did he get? This is what you get for thinking you can come into my house and mess with my property. I don’t know who of you are still alive, but if you’re from Tar Heel you’ve got nowhere to run. I called in a favor. I’ve got a real pirate ship on its way to blow your sad freighter to bits. Hide while you can, because as soon as I’m done exterminating rats here, I’m coming home to take care of you personally. Let the hunt begin.”

  “Liesel, destroy all their comms in and out of the compound. Fry everything.” Jane picked herself up off the floor and winced as she touched her swollen eye. “That should shut him up.”

  “I’m sorry, Bushey,” he said through the waves of awfulness that were radiating up his arm. “I tried to warn you guys.”

  “You sure did, so don’t worry about it.” Tui looked over at Jane. “Take him. Katze, help Bushey. I’m going to find something that can cut a hole through that wall.”

  The Ogre kept
pounding on the door, accentuating the fact that time wasn’t on their side.

  Jackson thought he might be starting to go into shock. If he could get ahold of that TQ, he could probably release it, then he’d swiftly bleed out. Everyone would be a lot safer.

  But another part of him didn’t want to bleed out. That part wanted to follow Warlord’s orders.

  Jackson looked down at the TQ. Just release it, he thought. Before the pain subsides and you’re lost forever.

  Jane knelt next to Jackson. “Quit eyeballing that. I know what you’re thinking. You’re not quitting yet.”

  “I didn’t want to hit you.”

  “I know.”

  As he said it, there was a brief moment of clarity, a momentary weakening of the desire to execute the Warlord’s order. He suddenly knew what was happening and felt a moment of horror. “Jane, keep your promise,” he said. Holy Mother, she needed to keep her promise.

  Tui shouted from the lockers, “There’s a ton of stuff, but I don’t know what we can break down in time.”

  Jackson looked toward the mech. “The Citadel could tear through that wall like it was nothing…And then tear the legs off Warlord’s spider when he gets back. Do you think you could bypass the security and get that mech started without the token?”

  “Maybe. I poked around in its systems while it was aboard. But then what? We put a guy who is under mind control inside a giant stompy robot in the same room with us?”

  “How are you at multitasking?”

  “Are you serious?” But then Jane looked toward where the Ogre was still banging away. “How long is that door going to hold?”

  Katze eyed the catwalk running along one side of the hangar. “About as long as it’s going to take the guards to cut through the doors up there. They’re bound to use plasma cutters. Why? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to put Jackson’s brain block back on manually. He’s freshly baked, but I’ve got minutes to stop the curing.” She shed her pack, ripped open a compartment, and pulled out some surgical implements.

  “You’re going to do brain surgery? Here?”