Gun Runner

by Larry Correia

  “Well, ain’t you just a cup of sunshine today, Javi?”

  The XO shrugged. “Rumor is Prunkard’s ships are the ones that have been chasing down freighters along the outer gate circuit. He’s popped five or six now that I know of, including a Redcor patrol escort. You don’t do that without plenty of guns aboard.”

  The captain didn’t keep Castillo around for his charming personality, but rather because he was usually right. They were both former Earth Block Navy and knew their business. Castillo had earned his commission doing the deadly hopper run between the moons of Jupiter back during the war. His gut instincts were second to none.

  “You think frigate-level firepower then?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me in the least, Cap.”

  “Well, then we’ve got us a real fight on our hands.”

  Castillo just grunted in agreement.

  The Downward Spiral would be in long-volley missile range soon, but he knew Prunkard wouldn’t start shooting just yet. He’d save his ammo until he could get the most bang for his buck out of it. That was the downside of not working for a real navy.

  They had tried to contact the other ship before, but it had been ignored. He tried again, mostly out of stubbornness, and was surprised when the Downward Spiral answered.

  Jeet Prunkard’s square, bearded face appeared on the screen. He had a fat dog with a cyborg eye tethered next to his chair. “Attention, Tar Heel. This is Captain Jeet Prunkard of the CSS Downward Spiral.”

  “Nice dog.”

  “Thanks.” The pirate reached out and gave the pit bull scritches behind one ear. “Now cut your engines and prepare to be boarded.”

  He had to laugh at the audacity. “By what authority?”

  “By the authority vested in me by Big Town Control, whose space you’re trespassing in.”

  “Oh, cut the crap, Prunkard. Warlord’s power ends just outside the reach of his guns. I know why you’re here.”

  Prunkard had what was quite possibly the most malicious grin ever. “Good. I don’t have to waste my time pretending to be diplomatic. I hate that nonsense.”

  “How much is Warlord paying you to try and run us off?”

  “Nothing. After he told me you thieves are the ones who stole my livestock hauler and got me arrested on Nivaas, this one is personal. I’ll recoup the fuel costs when I sell your wreck for salvage.”

  “Good luck with that, scrub.”

  “I knew it. You didn’t even try to deny you stole that goat boat! I’ve heard about you, Holloway, Mr. Fancy Pants, academy grad, was such a screwup Earth kicked him out of its navy. You’re not such a big shot now. Look at you, sad, washed up, pathetic, stealing goats to makes ends meet. I’m gonna nuke your ship and ransom your crew and—”

  Alligood sent him a silent message on Jane’s net. “Incoming message from Big Town. It’s from the Citadel we stole.”

  Curious. “Hang on, psycho. I got another call. I need to take this.”

  “Hey! Nobody hangs up on Jeet Prunk—”

  The captain dropped him. “Jackson, is that you?”

  There was voice, but no visual. Jackson sounded rough. “Yeah, Cap. Long story. Sending a data dump.”

  “Same.” He signaled for Alligood to shoot the info packet over. It was kind of amazing that Jackson had actually stolen the Citadel back. The kid really was a miracle worker. “We’re about to throw down with Prunkard’s ship. You need to find a way off Big Town and past the defensive picket so you we can pick you up, but we need to deal with him first.”

  “Roger that. I’ll tell Jane and Tui.”

  “Just so you know, any damages to my ship or crew are coming out of your account.”

  “Love you too, sir.”

  “Missile launch!” Alligood said. “Multiple incoming.”

  The captain was pleased by that. At this range he had plenty of time to maneuver, so those would just be wasted. Dismissing Prunkard must have really pissed him off. “Good luck, son. Tar Heel out.”

  The red alert sounded. Everyone on the Tar Heel was already at their battle stations. The crew was already nervous, spun up, but he knew they would be steady. They were a solid bunch, because he’d picked the gems from the dregs, treated them with respect, worked them hard but never unreasonably hard, and paid them well…but ship-to-ship combat wasn’t a regular event for them. They were smugglers, not pirates. They avoided fights rather than picked them. But their captain had just picked one hell of a fight, and now they were in it up to their eyeballs. Having missiles inbound sure did change one’s perspective on life.

  Which was why the captain had already prerecorded a message. Now that they were committed to battle, he sent that message to every member of his crew. It said that he had complete faith in their abilities, the proceeds of any salvage from this upcoming fight would be split evenly among them, but most importantly, he had taken his share, the captain’s share, the biggest share, of the Big Town sale they’d just made, divided it up equally, and it was being sent directly to each of their accounts right now as they heard this. Possible impending death or not, that was one sweet bonus. Nicholas Holloway understood the value of morale and loyalty.

  So much for his retirement though.

  “Guns up, Mr. Castillo. Let’s smoke check this clown.”

  * * *

  The Citadel stomped through the hangar’s open blast doors and into a wide tunnel that gently sloped up to the street level of Big Town. The fake sunlight shone upon him, indicating it was day up there. He checked his countdown for LaDue’s package. Fifty-two minutes.

  That was enough time. The more heat he could pull down on his head, the less would be going after Jane and the others. So Jackson would give Big Town a show it would never forget.

  Except that’s when something decided to stab him in the frontal lobe.

  “Sorry, Jacky. I saw your vitals just spiked. Warlord’s nanites are counterattacking the ones I gave you. I’m revising their strategy now.”

  He grimaced against the headache. “Oh, good. I thought I’d had a stroke.”

  “That might still happen.”

  “So how’s it going on accessing this thing’s first-aid protocols?”

  “My program’s chipping away. Almost there.”

  He didn’t remember falling, but the Citadel had wound up on its face again, blocking most of the access tunnel. His eye movement caused the head camera to tilt enough for him to see that several really brave soldiers were running at him, trying to take advantage of him going down. It looked like one of them was carrying a satchel charge. If they stuck enough explosives directly to his cockpit, armored or not, it would pulverize everything on the other side.

  “Good news, though. I’ve brought your basic weapon systems online. Nothing good yet, just the simple point-defense stuff, but it should be better than nothing.”

  The flamethrower pod on the Citadel’s shoulder ignited, bathing the approaching men in fire. A second later their charge detonated, rocking the tunnel.

  The mech got back up but had to crouch a bit to not hit its head on the ceiling. It continued on, wobbling as if it had a few too many. The basic instruction manuals for these things always contained some line about don’t pilot while under the influence of mind-altering substances. He was violating the hell out of that right now.

  “Listen, Jane, Captain’s got his own problems. He’s tailing Big Town just out of gun range, but Jeet Prunkard’s ship is engaging them. They’ll stick around for you, but you’re going to need to hijack a transport or something to get to them. I’m going to draw off all the guard for you.”

  “There’s no talking you out of this, is there?”

  “Of course not. But don’t worry. This isn’t a one-way trip. I’ve got this.”

  “Jacky…I…”

  “Yeah. I know. You’re regretting that you said no when I asked you on a date.”

  “Wow. No. That’s not…Pilots really are cocky, aren’t they?”

  “Oh, come on. We k
ind of have to be. So anyways, is that a yes this time?”

  She actually laughed. The sound cheered him right up. “Deal. We survive, we celebrate.”

  “Awesome.”

  “And I got your basic close-combat reflex systems unlocked. Medical is crumbling. ETA five minutes.”

  “Almost as awesome.”

  The tunnel came out on the grounds of the governor’s mansion. The main road was nearby, which was smart. That would allow the Warlord to easily move his mechs around the orbital. There were individual soldiers there, but they were only shooting at him with inefficient small arms. However, there was another Ogre, which had taken cover behind the compound’s outer wall.

  It began shooting, but Jackson dodged and took two long strides, extended the carbon spike from the Citadel’s wrist, and impaled the exo. The spike fired a small charge. A moment later there was an explosion that hollowed the Ogre out.

  The blast and heat flowed around Jackson as if he were a boulder in a stream. He retracted the spike, picked the Ogre up with his good hand, then hurled it over the wall, onto the roof of a parked troop carrier.

  He had to admit, despite the pain and the suck, it felt good to be kicking ass in a mech again.

  Jackson checked his limited displays. Jane and crew were safe for the moment. He quickly scanned the Big Town news feeds. There was still an altercation ongoing at the CX plant. Luckily all the mechs which had responded to that hadn’t made it back yet, but they would soon enough.

  In the meantime, Jackson decided to make a bit of a statement.

  The Citadel walked up to the governor’s mansion. He smashed his fist through the facade, exposing a nice hole into the Warlord’s main room with all the trophies of Swindle on the walls. Jackson engaged the flamethrower. The trophies of Swindle beasts burned to ash. He kicked over the pillars. Ground the stone into powder and began pushing over walls.

  This, of course, caught a lot of attention. His cameras picked up movement outside the walls. Some soldiers, but also a bunch of regular Big Towners. Faces appeared in windows, curious about the noise. People walked onto their roofs and balconies, to see why there was smoke in the air. The mansion was such an iconic landmark, it could be seen by a big chunk of the population of the tube all the way around, across, and above.

  Jackson zoomed in on the faces. When they saw Warlord’s castle crumbling, many were horrified, but others seemed happy. Good. Let them see their fearless leader wasn’t as invincible as he made himself out to be.

  One of his cameras caught something moving his way fast. A mech was sprinting down the main road. Approximately four meters tall and painted bright red—he immediately identified it as the He22 Korvan that he’d previously seen in the hangar. The captain had sold them this one a few years ago. It was a fourth gen, regularly no match for a fifth like the Citadel, but Jackson figuratively had one hand tied behind his back. Literally, he had one hand with a bloody hole through it, and the only reason he wasn’t bleeding to death was the incredibly painful tourniquet cutting off that mess.

  “Hey, Jane, I could really use some guns right now.”

  “Working on it.”

  Whoever was driving the Korvan had some skill and battle sense, because he slid in behind a building for cover, then leaned out and began launching rockets.

  Jackson ducked the Citadel down behind the burning walls of the governor’s mansion. Whatever he hadn’t trashed was surely done in by the resulting explosions. Everyone in Big Town must have heard that noise. The closest bystanders, the scared and gleeful both, all ran for their lives.

  If he’d had all his sensors up, the other mech that came up from behind never would have surprised him. But Jackson never even saw it coming.

  Something collided with the Citadel, knocking it through the burning wreckage. He careened off a solid metal piece that probably dated back to the original colony ship. That strut bent. Part of the Citadel’s armor crunched. Jackson jolted, but the Citadel had top-of-the-line dampeners for the pilot, and so instead of his head cracking open, it simply shook him.

  His assailant was the third-gen giant. An evolutionary dead end. A big fat, slow target. Or would have been, in any other circumstances. In a slugfest? It was a bulldozer.

  The mech followed him into the fire, crunching through the remains of Warlord’s home. Smoke swirled around its massive, blocky frame. From its arm extended a spike. It pulled back to stab him, but Jackson activated the Citadel’s plasma cutter. A glowing blue crescent arced across the Citadel’s knuckles, and he sliced into the other mech’s arm. Sliced it like it was made of butter.

  The giant was huge, but slow. The Citadel spun around it, running the cutter across the mech’s lower back. Jackson had never dealt with one of these big ones, but that’s where he thought the motor controls were. It weighed so much though, the giant simply leaned into him, shoving the Citadel across the grounds. The manicured lawn disintegrated beneath its feet. The big mech slammed its spike into the Citadel’s torso, but the Citadel was made of tough stuff, and the smart armor hardened to absorb the hit. Energy radiated through the gel.

  Jackson sliced its arm again, then ducked down, slicing across its belly. That was where the cockpit was on these, so Jackson hoped to hit, or at least unnerve the pilot.

  The mech stuttered. A part of it froze. It fired its cannon but was pointing in the wrong way. The damaged troop carrier exploded in a shower of sparks. Jackson sliced it again, but now he could see there was nobody in the mech, which meant it was being controlled by some AI. A computer pilot could be good. But not an old one like this, and certainly not good enough to take Jackson.

  He reflexively ducked a clumsy swing, jabbed the spike into the cut he’d made on its back, and deposited an explosive charge right next to its brain box.

  The old mech spasmed, its motor functions badly damaged.

  The red Korvan had used the time to close. The pilot lit him up with an autocannon. Explosive shells detonated across the Citadel’s back.

  Jackson grabbed the old mech he’d just crippled and used it as a shield. The Korvan kept circling, firing, as Jackson kept the giant between them. The antique was getting ripped to bits, but it was thick, and armored like an old-time battleship. Some shells missed, and flew off into Big Town, exploding who knew where. People’s businesses and homes probably. And that really, really pissed Jackson off.

  “I need guns, Jane!”

  “You need to get out of there. Feeds show more mechs converging on the compound.”

  The autocannon ran dry. The Korvan raised its other arm, wrist hinging open, exposing a chain gun. It began firing, but that was a desperation move, because the small caliber projectiles did nothing to the mighty Citadel.

  That was his chance. Jackson took it. The Citadel ran, jumped the compound wall, and ducked into Big Town.

  * * *

  Jane, Tui, Katze, Bushey, and her remaining bots moved through one of the tunnels beneath the skin of Big Town. She had scouts ranging ahead and behind, and for a brief moment, it appeared they had shaken pursuit.

  They were in a small room maybe three meters square. To one side were storage containers. The bot scans suggested they were supplies should Warlord need to escape. Probably weapons and food, but Jane whispered for the team to stay away from them, because she had no idea what would happen if they tried to force them open.

  “We need to stop,” Katze said. “We have to tend to Bushey now, or he’s not going to make it.”

  “I’m fine.” But that was an obvious lie. Bushey’s suit was punctured, ripped, and still smoking from burns.

  Jane glanced down the corridor they’d been running down and saw that Bushey had been leaving a trail of red droplets. She quickly ordered one of her bots to start scrubbing those to make them harder to track.

  “I can make it.”

  “Shut up and sit, you stubborn bastard.” Tui took Bushey’s arm and guided him to the floor. “Thanks for saving us, by the way.”

  “
You would’ve done the same for us, Chief. How are you doing?”

  Tui looked like death warmed over. Jane had access to his vitals. He’d been in really bad shape before the fight, and right now he was only running on stims. The pain threshold of soldiers never ceased to amaze her.

  “I’ve got good healing mods. I’ll be fine in a few days, but only thanks to you guys.”

  “I can’t believe Jackson shot me,” Bushey said. “That little ingrate.”

  “It wasn’t his fault,” Jane said quickly.

  “That don’t make these gunshot wounds hurt less, Jane!” Bushey grimaced as Katze pulled open the bloody gash in his suit. “Ouch. Ouch! Careful.”

  “We flew way past careful a while ago, you old goat.” Katze said as she checked the wound. Blood was slowly leaking from Bushey’s side. She frowned as she opened her med kit. “I could use a hand here.”

  Jane dispatched Baby to help Katze, since she had the best first-aid protocols. While Tui and the rest of the bots covered them, Jane concentrated on her systems. Her programs were still working on the Citadel. She began flipping through the ships currently docked, trying to figure out what they could steal or stow away on. She’d left Liesel behind in the compound, so she was still quietly gaining access to more of Warlord’s system. Jane was trying to figure out the location of the remaining guard and police, because there could be a hundred guns waiting for them above. However, it looked like most of them were focused on Jackson. But wait…

  “Whoa.”

  “What is it, Jane?” Tui asked.

  She activated some holos of the Big Town feeds so the rest could see. The streets were chaos. People were running. Security cars flying overhead. There was a shot of Warlord’s palace, flattened and burning.

  “It looks like they’re rioting again,” Katze said.

  “Only unlike the one we saw before, the cops are too occupied to squash it,” Tui said. On the holo, one of the security cars was struck by a Molotov cocktail. Despite Warlord’s weapon’s ban, there sure were a lot of guns in the hands of the mob. And the ones who didn’t have guns were armed with axes, saws, and scythes. “Those are harvester tools. And those flags they’re flying. That’s the Originals’ symbol. They’re rising up.”