by Tom Dublin
Next the villain gestured to Zalah Gilt. "Who's the big boss here?" he demanded. "Who's in charge?"
Gilt climbed to his feet. "I'm the manager..."
"Like I give a fuck!" Malfic sneered. "They're not going to leave a thin streak of piss like you in command of a turdpit like this."
"It's me," announced Thavo Domp, using the edge of the bar to hoist himself up. "I'm Thavo Domp, owner of this 'turdpit'."
"Over there!" ordered Malfic. "Both of you!"
The two men joined the three hostages already separated from the rest of the group. Thavo Domp put his arm around Nat's shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze.
"OK," snarled Malfic. "Now the cop, and the smug bastard sitting next to you. Go!"
Sergeant Barber turned to the lean figure beside him-
Jolio Phisk.
"We'd better do as he wants," advised Barber, taking care not to step on anyone's fingers or toes as he picked his way through the group.
Working hard to maintain an air of importance, Phisk did the same.
Vimor Malfic's lips moved as he silently counted the people he had chosen to keep as his insurance against an immediate and violent end to the stand-off, then turned to the remaining hostages.
"The rest of you, get the fuck out!"
A wave of relief swept across the room as those remaining in the bar area cautiously stood and hurried toward the main doors, all the while keeping a close eye on the villain's weapon just in case this was some kind of cruel prank.
Would their captor really give them the hope of release only to gun them down as they made their way to freedom?
"Gilt!" Malfic shouted to those chosen to remain. "Let them out, then lock the door behind them."
Nodding, Gilt joined the exodus, pulling a large bunch of keys from his trouser pocket.
But he wasn't the only one on the move.
Jolio Phisk found himself the recipient of an angry snarl as he made his way over to Malfic.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing, cum-nugget?"
Phisk did his best to remain stoic. "It would be in your best interests to release me as well."
A look of thunder spread across Malfic's face. "Is that so?" he growled, pulling back the hammer on his gun once more.
"Yes," replied Phisk. "Swap me for one of those window-lickers before they all leave."
"And exactly why would I do that?"
"It would demonstrate a certain intelligence," Phisk explained. "That you're not just some dumb fuck who somehow managed to find his way off the moron farm."
Snarling, Malfic quickly raised his gun and pressed the barrel into the dead center of this mutinous jerk's forehead.
"Go ahead!" he hissed. "Keep up with the insults, shit-for-brains. I fucking dare you!"
Phisk didn't flinch. "You wouldn't say that if you had the slightest idea who you were talking to."
"Is that correct?"
"Absolutely."
Vimor Malfic turned his weapon ninety degrees to the left, the muzzle pressing a circular indentation into Phisk's pale skin.
"OK, I'll humor you," growled Malfic. "Then I'll blow your goddamn brains out the back of your skull. Who are you?"
"I am Jolio Phisk," came the confident reply. "High priest of the Temple of Persha and chosen mouthpiece of the twin goddesses."
Malfic considered this information for a moment.
"I understand you will be feeling foolish right now," asserted Phisk, using the back of his hand to push the aggressor's gun away from his face. "However, I agree not to share with the authorities your blunder in keeping me behind once I have been liberated."
Vimor Malfic smiled darkly. "That is very kind of you."
"Think nothing of it."
"So you're the infamous Jolio Phisk, huh?"
"The very same."
"The high priest?"
"Just that."
"Nah, you're more than just a high priest," Malfic countered.
Phisk frowned. "I am?"
"Yeah!"
"I don't understand," Phisk confessed. "What am I?"
This time Malfic grinned. "You're my fucking trump card, dude!"
Pulling back his hand, the felon slammed the handle of his gun as hard as he could into the high priest's face and turned Jolio Phisk's world into an all-consuming sea of darkness.
15
Moon of Hann, The Barbed Codpiece S&M Dungeon
In their makeshift base of operations, Chief Pargo walked the long line of police officers taking statements from dozens of recently-released casino hostages.
Pargo had originally wanted to set up shop in the Shrillexian Fusion Restaurant directly opposite the Blue Diamond Casino. However the maitre'd had not been happy at the prospect of losing an entire evening's business from a long line of well-paying customers—some of whom had booked months in advance for the opportunity to sample the celebrity chef's much-praised experimental cuisine.
Instead, the team had been forced to requisition the business next door to the restaurant as their temporary headquarters, where fewer customers would be inconvenienced.
The Barbed Codpiece S&M Dungeon catered to an extremely different type of clientele. It was a legal brothel specializing in discreet sado-masochistic experiences for visitors with a taste for leather, chains, whips, and oddly-shaped vibrating devices designed to be used in any number of oddly-shaped alien orifices.
Following the promise of a full refund and free upgrade to gold-plated nipple clamps upon their next visit, the dungeon’s patrons and dedicated staff had vacated the premises, leaving the police department free to occupy the business's popular Pit of Pain and convert it into a fully-functioning ops area.
Currently just over a dozen of the casino's freshly-freed hostages were perched on a wide variety of discomfort-delivering devices as they gave first-hand witness accounts of what had happened to them across the street.
Several of the grateful gamblers were already raising the question of compensation from the casino's owner, and one particularly perturbed punter was loudly demanding the chance to return to the scene of the crime to retrieve the stack of chips he had been forced to leave behind.
Whenever the opportunity arose, the opportunistic police chief would pause beside one of the distraught witnesses to insist they accept a Pargo for Mayor button from him or ensure they listened to pre-prepared soundbites disparaging his rival's utter lack of decency.
All the while wielding a sleek ebony dildo he had confiscated from one of the establishment's 'insertion experts,' which he believed to be a shiny version of the standard-issue police nightstick.
Pargo still couldn't work out exactly what benefit the vibrate function would provide when cops used the device to subdue wanted criminals.
Publicist Oxbo Lake scurried with his camera a couple of paces behind the chief, trying to find angles from which he could take candid photos of the mayoral candidate at work without revealing the disturbing decor of their location.
Campaign pictures featuring Bis Pargo standing beside a revolving wire rack display of spanking paddles and ring-gags were unlikely to present the family-man persona he wanted his client to radiate.
"What's going on here?" Pargo demanded, leaning over a distraught croupier sitting very uncomfortably on the edge of a bed of nails.
"This gentleman is giving a description of the hostage-taker to our departmental sketch artist, Chief," replied the officer, gesturing to a long-haired woman busily scraping a lump of charcoal over a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard.
"Let me see!"
The artist made a few final strokes, then handed the image to Pargo. He took the sketch over to where a single bare lightbulb hung above a large piece of dungeon equipment labeled The Rack.
"Well, well, well..." he drawled. "So this is the wannabe desperado who chose to play tough fucker on my moon, is it? Ugly bastard. Not surprising he lost his shit trying to win next week's rent on the turn of a card.
Lake peer
ed around Pargo, eyes grew wide as he studied the sketch. "Oh, fuck!"
"What?" demanded Pargo. "What's 'oh fuck’!?"
Lake gestured to the illustration with a trembling hand, his wide eyes flicking to the other hostages as they gave their own descriptions to other sketch artists.
"That's not just some desperado, sir!" he croaked. "That's..."
Producing his tablet, he launched the app for Taglen's most trusted news channel. "That's the escaped serial killer Vimor Malfic!"
Pargo snatched the tablet from his publicist's hands, looking from the bearded police mugshot to the artist's rendering and back again.
"No!" he breathed. "That's not him! They don't look anything alike!"
Dumping the rest of his paperwork on a stack of zoologically-themed crotchless underwear, Lake kept back one sheet of paper. Folding it in half, he drew a crude hair-free mouth and chin on it and slid the paper over the bushy beard the criminal wore in the official police photo.
The result was undeniable. The man in the sketch was Vimor Malfic.
Pargo blanched.
"Oh, fuck!"
Planet Taglen, Lymak City, Temple of Persha
"Equipment check, everyone," said Jack, sliding his modified Jean Dukes Special from its holster. He ensured the weapon was recharging correctly and that the dial which set the gun's level of power from stun to utter annihilation turned smoothly.
The team had released Dabriel Yagash twenty minutes earlier, telling him to collect his daughter Hamble from the home of the friends who cared for her during the day and go into hiding somewhere safe. Once they had Jolio Phisk in custody, he would be called upon to testify against the high priest when it came time to be tried for his crimes.
Dabriel had quickly agreed, sharing with the Shadows exactly where the bodies of self-sacrificed sinners were taken to be cut up and turned into pre-prepared packed meals made from unspecified meat—a food processing factory known simply as 'The Plant'.
At first Tc'aarlat had been uncertain whether awarding Dabriel his freedom was a wise move, but Jack had impressed upon the worried priest just how many resources the group had and how they could track him down in the event of his disappearance.
And just to be certain their prize witness wouldn't be able to vanish into thin air, he'd given Adina the nod to fix a microscopic tracking device to Dabriel's scalp while supposedly checking his head for wounds he might have sustained when he'd fainted.
Once Dabriel had set off, Jack had split the group into two teams: he and Tc'aarlat would head to the casino on Hann to apprehend High Priest Jolio Phisk, while Adina, Draven, and Callis would hurry to The Plant to retrieve Merfel Strumm's corpse before it became a main course for the planet's homeless population.
As Tc'aarlat and Adina inspected their identical weapons, Draven produced a gun that looked similar but not exactly the same.
"Ooh, I remember those!" exclaimed Adina, reaching for it. "That's the Mark Two Special. I was part of the team that worked on those, adding the upgrades suggested by agents who used them in the field."
Draven handed her his gun. "So I've got you to thank, have I?" He smiled. "This thing has saved my skin more times than I care to remember."
"All in a day's work!" Adina grinned as she held the weapon at arm's length and squinted down its line of sight.
"Well, it won't do my skin much good if you accidentally disintegrate it!" protested Tc'aarlat, dodging as Adina swung her aim from one side of the room to the other.
"Isomorphic!" Adina reminded him. "If your personal DNA signature isn't programmed into the gun's memory it won't fire." To demonstrate, she repeatedly pulled the trigger.
Until a zap of electricity caused her to squeal and drop the weapon.
Diving forward, Draven snatched the gun from the air before it could hit the ground. "I'm guessing the shock deterrent was built in to the Specials after you stopped working on them?" He smirked.
Adina sucked her tingling trigger finger and nodded.
"What about me?" asked Callis. "If I'm coming with you guys, do I get a gun?"
The Shadows looked at one another uneasily for a moment.
"Tell you what," said Tc'aarlat, "we'll go one better..."
The Yollin gave a shrill whistle, the signal for Mist to leave her perch on his right shoulder. She flapped across the room and perched on one of the hooks on the coat rack. As Callis watched, her feathers melted from their usual blood-red to the same green as the vestments below her.
Removing his leather shoulder pad, Tc'aarlat slid the strings over Callis' wrist and up to her armpit, where he re-tied them. Once the pad was secured on her shoulder, another whistle instructed Mist to move to her new position.
"You stay with Callis and look after her," he ordered, staring deeply into the raal hawk's eyes. "Protect her as if she were your own offspring, understand?"
SKARRRR! cried Mist, ruffling her green feathers and nuzzling her beak against Callis' ear.
"OK," said Jack. "Looks like we're set. Now, what do we know about the place where this Jolio Phisk character has gone?"
Giving her shocked hand a final shake to relieve the painful pins and needles still coursing through it, Adina pulled back the sleeve of her jacket and spoke to what appeared to be a slim silver watch strapped to her wrist.
"Solo, tell us about the Blue Diamond Casino on the Moon of Hann."
The EI’s avatar appeared on the gadget's glass screen and she spoke tinnily through its speaker.
"Previously known as the Sapphire Fountain, the Blue Diamond Casino was purchased by its current owner Thavo Domp a little over a decade ago. The facility has the reputation of being able to cater to almost any personal desire, no matter how immoral, illegal, or dangerous."
Jack nodded and turned to Tc'aarlat. "You and I will take the Pegasus to track down Jolio Phisk. Keep your weapon at hand in case he tries anything stupid when he realizes the game's up. Draven, you, Adina, and Callis—"
"Whoa, wait a minute!" exclaimed the Yollin, holding up his hand. "Are we just going to let that go?"
Jack blinked. "Let what go?"
Tc'aarlat grabbed Adina's wrist, pushing back the sleeve of her jacket. "This!" he cried. "Since when do we have watches that allow us to talk to Solo when we're away from the ship?"
"It's not a watch!" countered Adina, pulling her arm free and angling the gizmo toward her colleague. "It's a personal communicator. It doesn't tell the time."
"Actually, I can tell you the time if you wish," announced Solo from Adina's wrist.
"I don't care what it's called!" barked Tc'aarlat.
"Then what's the problem?" asked Jack.
"When did we get them?!" demanded Tc'aarlat. "Have you got one?"
Jack shook his head. "It's not an official piece of Etheric Federation field tech," he replied. "At least, not yet. And no, I haven't got one."
"I have." Draven smiled, sliding back his shirt sleeve to reveal an identical silver device. "In fact, the one Adina's wearing is my spare."
Adina nodded. "I was able to reprogram it to work with our frequency."
Tc'aarlat closed his eyes for a second in an effort to calm himself. When he opened them again, his voice was quieter but no less firm. "If we're splitting into two teams..."
"Which we are," confirmed Jack.
"Then I don't understand why one team gets two communicators and the other has to go without. Jack and I have got just as much need to stay in contact with Solo, if not more."
"How do you work that one out?" asked Draven.
"You lot are just scooting off to stop a dead body from being minced up and made into pies!" the Yollin declared. "Jack and I are hunting down a potentially dangerous felon."
"All right." sighed Adina, unfastening the strap on her communicator. "You can take this."
"No," Tc'aarlat insisted, pointing to Draven. "I want his."
"What?" cried Adina. "What difference does it make?"
"He said it himself!" said Tc'aarla
t. "Yours is a spare. It hasn't been tested in the field. Jack and I need a device we can rely on."
"But—”
"No, buts!" declared Tc'aarlat. "We get Draven's communicator, and that's it. I'm putting my fuck down!"
"It's foot," Jack corrected.
"What is?"
"The thing you put down in that saying!"
"Foot?"
"Yes! You know, that thing you've shoved down your throat every time you've opened your mouth recently?"
Tc'aarlat frowned. "I don't understand."
"We've come to expect that," said Draven, handing over his wrist communicator. "Here, take it."
Tc'aarlat accepted it with a small nod. "Thank you," he said. "You may have just saved both Jack’s and my life. Who knows how this degenerate priest will react when we corner him in the casino?"
"Or the hostage-taker!" added Solo from the gadget.
Everyone turned to stare at the avatar on the tiny screen.
"Say that again?" urged Jack.
"The violent serial killer who has taken hostages and barricaded himself inside the Blue Diamond Casino," replied Solo. "Didn't I mention that part?"
16
Pegasus II, En Route to the Moon of Hann
"Unbelievable!" exclaimed Jack as he scrolled through the local news updates on his tablet. "The two men we're after are both in the same place! What are the odds?"
Tc'aarlat shrugged. "No idea. I've never been much of a gambler."
Jack turned to look at him. "You paid for the Fortitude with money you scammed from a mafia poker game!"
"That wasn't gambling!" The Yollin scoffed. "That was good honest theft!"
He shrugged his shoulders again, then once more.
"What on Yoll are you doing?" Jack demanded, sliding his tablet away. "Don't tell me you're developing a nervous twitch."
Tc'aarlat frowned. "Something's missing."
"I could have told you that months ago," said Jack, tapping the side of his partner's head. "I think it started when you cracked your skull on that low beam in Cargo Bay Six."