by Ian Cannon
“Then they must have a private roster of contractors they use directly,” Ben said. “A two party structure. No middleman.”
“Yes, this is that,” the Krutt agreed.
Ben leaned back in the booth drumming his fingers on the table in thought. His eyes went to Tawny. “What do you think?”
She made a cursory face and said, “I think I need another drink.”
“Hm. Me too.” Ben extended a hand to the Krutt and said sincerely, “Thank you.”
The Krutt gave a nuanced reaction, said, “No.”
Ben squinted at him, and then said, “Thank you, No.”
They shook hands. “Yes.”
Ben got up and made his way to the bar. The only open spot was way down at the end through a crowd of drinkers. He rubbed his face and waited for the tender. He agreed with Tawny. He needed a drink. Their earlier drunk was gone. It had been wiped clean, thanks to an Orbinii bounty squad. Already he’d seen more action tonight than he’d bargained for. He rubbed his face. A night out on the town with his wife, some frolicking and play, a little romance… was it too much to ask for?
He sighed.
Thanks to their new friend, all was not lost. He digested the Krutt’s words. According to him, the bounty squad had tracked Tawny and Ben all the way from the Orbin moon O’rae. A sudden question occurred to Ben. O’rae was one of three Orbin moons. How did the Krutt know they’d come from O’rae, specifically?
He must’ve followed the Orbinii bounty squad.
“Whatcha drinking, pal?” the bar tender asked.
Ben looked over to the booth. He could see Tawny’s face as she spoke to the Krutt. They seemed to be dialoging comfortably enough. He took a breath, angling in his mind.
The Krutt had also suggested the Royal Council had a private roster of bounty hunters they contracted from. They never went to the Guild data net. But that wasn’t true. It made Ben’s eyes squint. The Orbin Royal Council had scattered the Heiress contract all across the solar twin system. The last thing they wanted was privacy. They hadn’t pulled from some esteemed roster of private contractors. They probably didn’t even have one.
“Hey, bub, whatcha drinking?” The bartender threw a towel over his shoulder, waiting.
Ben’s eyes widened, still staring across the diner at his wife.
He remembered King Oto offering them a two-party contract for the Menuit-B job. Two party contracts weren’t standard practice for the Orbinii. The Krutt had said two-party contracts were the only way they did business.
That was a lie.
Ben’s mouth dropped open.
“C’mon, guy, order up!” an impatient drinker called standing behind Ben.
The Krutt hadn’t tracked the Orbinii bounty squad from O’rae. He’d been tracking Tawny and Ben. The Krutt was a bounty hunter himself. The Orbin Royal Council wanted them dead or alive. And they were willing to pay big yield.
The Krutt hadn’t saved them from the Orbinii bounty squad. He had stolen them.
Now Ben gasped, felt the blood flush from his face.
“Hey, pal, is there a problem?” the tender asked.
Yes there was, as a matter of fact. His wife was alone way across the restaurant, sitting with a Krutt headhunter!
Tawny looked over scanning for her husband. There he was, way over there, through the crowd, across the diner wildly waving at her. The look on his face was horror, panic in his eyes. She squinted at him. What did he know? What had he figured out?
Her eyes went to the Krutt sitting across from her. His mask showed no life through that opaque visor. No eyes to read. No expression to analyze. But something was wrong. She was in peril. The Krutt was dangerous. She knew it. His head tilted. The Krutt knew she knew it. His secret was out.
Tawny gasped.
Immediately, violently, without warning, the Krutt thrust a knife at her face.
She blocked left.
He missed.
He thrust again.
She blocked right.
He missed a second time.
She bent his arm back.
Twisted his wrist.
The knife dropped.
She snatched it.
Swung at his mask.
He blocked with an elbow.
The knife dropped.
She slapped a hand on it.
He slapped a hand on top of hers.
She was trapped.
She punched his helmet with her free hand.
He recoiled.
The knife slid across the table.
Out of reach.
She reached below, drew her gun.
His boot kicked forward.
Pinned her hand.
She yelped.
The gun dropped to the floor.
The Krutt snatched up the knife.
He swiped at her.
She pivoted her head.
He missed.
He swung again.
She pivoted the other way.
The blade missed again.
It snapped her suspender in half.
Left a stripe of blood on her shoulder.
She lunged, grabbed his knife hand.
He sneered, forced the blade toward her.
She deflected his thrust to the left.
The blade stabbed the booth next to her ear.
He jerked it back.
Stuffing went everywhere.
He thrust for her again.
She deflected it to the right.
It stabbed the booth next to her other ear.
More stuffing flew.
They tangled up, all elbows and limbs, locking against each other.
Then everything froze in combat position. Their eyes went up. The waitress stood at their table looking silently shocked, eyes wide, mouth open. Tawny gave her a wide, innocent smile. “Oh—we’re only practicing,” she said.
“Combat in close quarter,” the Krutt added.
“Oh,” the waitress said looking suspect. “Can I… get you two anything?”
“We’re about done,” Tawny said.
“Yes, about done,” the Krutt said.
“Okay.” The waitress nodded and turned to leave.
Tawny called, “Oh! Do you serve Raylon vodka with cherry?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“How about one of those?”
“Uh, sure,” she said, turned her back, and left.
Tawny slammed the Krutt’s knife hand to the table with a bang.
His fist opened, released the knife.
She shoved it away.
It hit the floor.
He lunged at her over the table.
She dodged the blow.
She snatched her broken suspender.
Lassoed it around his throat.
Flipped him over.
Bent him over the table backwards.
Whip quick.
He growled, losing breath, clawing at the choker.
She jammed one knee against the edge of the table, teeth clenched angrily, and cinched the noose like reigning a Molosian horse until her tendons became like wire. There was nothing he could do.
And then Ben was there standing over them looking down at the struggle, fire in his eyes. He slid into the booth next to the Krutt. Tawny released and said, “Now play nice, jerk-o.” The guy corrected, sat back up rubbing his neck. Ben put the knife blade to his ribs. The guy had lost the struggle. Tawny was too quick. She was like lightning strikes in the atmo storms of Optus. And now he was trapped between the two of them. It showed on his demeanor. He didn’t move.
Ben whispered very angrily, “This is what happens when you fight with her. You lose, pal. Trust me.” He jabbed the point of the blade against his side. “Why are you here?”
“Contract,” the Krutt said.
“The Orbin Royal Council?”
“Possible.”
Ben jabbed the knife harder making the guy squirm.
“Yes,” the guy said.
“Who else?”
“There are many.”
“Who?” Ben insisted.
The Krutt’s vacant visor plate turned to him slowly. He said, “Many.”
Ben’s eyes went to Tawny. “What do you want to do?”
“Is it too late to get that drink?”
He looked at her ridiculously. “Really?”
Tawny sighed. They couldn’t let the Krutt go. He’d still follow them, hunt them. At the very least, word would get out that they were soft on killers. They couldn’t let that happen. She shrugged. “There’s only one thing we can do, babe,” she said matter-of-factly. They had to kill him right here in the restaurant, leave his body sitting at the booth as inconspicuously as possible.
Ben nodded, said, “Nothing personal, friend. Looks like you signed the wrong contract, is all.”
He jammed the knife forward as if to slide the blade between the guy’s second and third ribs right under the armpit, penetrate the lung, sever the trachea…
But the Krutt was gone, vanished in a blink. Just like that. Poof.
Ben jerked back, surprised. The blade was clean. No blood. They looked at each other, shocked. Tawny gasped, “Matter transporter.”
He had one on his person. Now he was gone. Very tricky. And there was no telling where he was. He could’ve been anywhere—a thousand miles away or right around the next corner.
“We gotta go,” Ben said.
Tawny grabbed her gun off the floor as they scooted out of the booth and bolted for the door. Back out in the mall, they dashed for the hub exit parting the crowd. They didn’t get very far before...
“There!” a voice called.
They both looked over. Another bounty hunter. This one was a Deridiae male from the jungle planet Deridian—jade-colored skin with stark red patterns across his neck and chest, and long marsupial arms. He pointed at them calling to his unseen counterparts with a comm device. “They’re headed for the hub exit!” He was strapping a rifle behind his bareback, a blaster at his side.
“Oh, great,” Ben said, redirecting.
The sound of a blaster went off joined with the sound of a defiant growl. He knew that blaster. He knew that defiant growl, too. It was his wife. He turned around. Tawny blasted away. The crowd screamed, hit the deck. The Deridian dropped down covering up.
“Go, go!” Ben screamed. They pounded through the exit and out into the main thoroughfare leaving Guilder’s Mix in their dust. The passage was wide, well lit, lots of stark white light. People moved in packs and cliques. The mirror planet showed through the viewport to the left, the backdrop of space to the right. They didn’t stop, kept running, pealing around station goers.
REX was several hubs away. It would be a very long mad dash. “We should take the zip train,” Tawny said from one pace behind.
“No way,” Ben said. “We could get trapped on the train. Nowhere to run. We’ll have to make it on foot.”
No sooner had he said that, he came to an abrupt stop. Tawny bumped him from behind, matching him. They looked way ahead through the crowd. There were four of them. Very suspect. Each one was dressed in bounty gear, light body armor, personal paraphernalia hanging off belts, blasters at their sides. One had twin bandoliers across his chest. They made eye contact. One of them pointed unmistakably at Tawny and Ben.
“Looks like we’re already trapped,” Ben corrected himself.
“Who are these people?” Tawny sneered.
“Don’t know, but train. Definitely the train,” Ben said redirecting their course.
They flew through the nearest zip train loading station and down a broad stairway where the crowd thickened. A train car waited for passengers. He started swimming through the crowd with Tawny close behind. She threw a glance over her shoulder. The bounty crew appeared at the top of the stairs, each scanning frantically for their bounty.
“Better hurry!” she said.
Ben charged through the train entrance jerking her inside with him. They bumped station goers out of their way, everyone looking disgruntled. Through the long passenger window they saw the bounty crew pursuing, making their way through the crowd. The doors whispered shut as they reached, cutting them off. They were face-to-face through the window, Ben staring into the nearest one’s black V-shaped visor and sighing in relief, while Tawny released a loud, triumphant heckle.
“Too slow, you Molosian slugs!” she howled as the train jerked forward. She waved, “Bye bye!”
They flew from the station driven by sudden, mag drive inertia replacing the view of the loading dock with the eternal gut-drop of space.
Ben turned around and rested his back against the viewport rubbing his face. That was close. Too close. He looked around. There was nowhere to sit. Standing room only. Other passengers looked curiously up at them. Blue-skins, gray-skins, green skins. Some with antennae, others with spines and ripples. A thousand different eyes. It made him nervous.
“Come on,” he said, taking Tawny’s hand. “Let’s go to the forward car.” He led her through the crowd as people shuffled out of their way. They reached the passenger door, but before he could step across the pass-through, they heard…
“Benjar and Tawny Dash!”
They spun around. A broad figure stood front-and-center wearing a half-helm and large shoulder armor over a bare, muscle-rippling trunk. He pointed a silvery, two-handed wand weapon at them. “You’re wanted dead or alive for data theft by the Orbin Royal Council. Come with me… and I won’t kill you.”
Tawny gave him a flippant show of annoyance and yelled back, “Oh, bi-lords, are you kidding… mehehehe!” The man fired a plasma net from his weapon that reached out and engulfed her, locked her up, made her go rigid, surrounding her with plasma energy.
Ben flashed fury, unholstered his wife’s blaster from her hip and sneered in rhythm with his blasting: “You” BLAM! “Will not” BLAM! “Take” BLAM! “My” BLAM! “Wife” BLAM! “You” BLAM! “Little” BLAM! “Sonuva” BLAM! “gitch!” BLAM!
Everyone screamed. The guy dropped. His wand clattered to the floor. Ben thrust himself toward it, picked it up and smashed its tip against the floor. It shattered releasing the web. Tawny dropped to her knees shaking her head.
“You okay, sweetie!” Ben yelled going to her.
She stood back up and muttered, “Ouch.”
“We gotta get off this station.”
“I completely agree.”
Three railway docks later, the train hissed to a stop. A voice called, “Passengers disembarking for hubs one-two-five through one-three-zero may exit now.”
Ben and Tawny exploded from the train scanning the crowd. Nothing looked overly suspect, just a bunch of passengers and station goers milling around. They hit the stairs and back out into the main thoroughfare. Fexx Pol’s shop was just ahead. They stormed down the reception steps with the view of the huge maintenance bay opening up. Fexx’s client vessels were visible—some were fat and bulbous, others were sleek winged-back things. Ben spied their ship. REX had a midsized, nondescript fuselage, but his mag-spires reached way down toward the Speculus void. He was all patched up, looking good. The repair crews had completed the work and moved on.
Ben muttered, “Thank Ae’ahm…”
Tawny muttered, “Thank Wi’ahr…”
Simultaneously.
“There you are!” came a familiar voice from behind. It was deep, almost bottomless. They spun around, prepared for anything. It was Tub’Num holding a Station Oficium security blaster down at his side.
Ben’s shoulders dropped. There was no running from Tubs, no shooting him. He was station security. That would be against the law. And given his Telosian biology, there wouldn’t be any beating him up either. They were trapped.
“What do you want, Tubs?” Ben sneered.
“I hear names Benjar and Tawny Dash wanted by Orbinii Royal Court. Figured half the station come to your vessel, wait for you. I here to give security. You go now.”
Ben and Tawny glanced at each other, both laughing relieved.
They had lots of enemies on Station Oficium. But they had a few friends, too.
“Thanks, Tubs…” Tawny said, but her face went to horror.
The Krutt bounty hunter blinked into existence behind Tub’Num. Before she could scream, the Krutt stabbed the Telosian with a knife. Tubs’s eyes went wide. He made a small, deep groan and dropped to his knees shaking the floor.
Tawny whipped her pistol and blasted away. The Krutt deflected with his force shield, the blasts banking off harmlessly. Ben swept his wife behind him protectively, both stepping backward.
The Krutt approached, that dispassionate visor betraying a heartless objective. “One way or other,” he said in his robotic overtone, “you come with me.”
“How much are they paying you?” Ben asked.
“More than you have to pay,” he said stepping forward.
“Is it worth murder?” Tawny sneered, her eyes glistening over.
The Krutt shook his head pathetically. “I kill Telosian. I kill Orbinii. I kill all in my way,” he said. “And now I kill you if you no do what I say.”
Ben said to Tawny, “Boy, he sounds angry. I think you really irked him off.”
Tawny returned, “It’s not my fault he’s so slow.”
The Krutt snickered away the insult and admitted, “You do good knife work. But now, you have nothing.”
“You sure about that?” Ben asked.
The Krutt reacted with a bewildered tilt of the head. “What you have, humanoid?”
Ben smirked wily and satisfied, “Friends, dude.”
Two thick arms wrapped the Krutt up from behind pinning his arms to his sides. It was Tubs. He said, “Stupid knives. Stupid Krutt—hahaha!” He picked him up, turned him over and body slammed him powerfully down on his head. The helmet flattened shattering the visor. A flush of heat and steam rushed from the Krutt’s head as his internal atmosphere evacuated, and he screamed in agony, his natural voice becoming clear. It was shrieky and piercing, an ugly howl. Ben and Tawny flinched back.
The Krutt vanished again—gone.
“Damn that guy,” Ben said.
“You must go now. More others will come. Go.” Tubs said.
“You okay?” Tawny asked a little horrified.
Tubs looked down at his wound. It was a big bloody mess. He nodded his head. “I have stabs all the time. I get some wound foam. You go now. No time!”