Poor Man's Fight (56 page)

“Turtle!” Chang shouted. He gestured to two of his comrade’s men, then gestured for them to fall back and around through the passageways. Turtle nodded, relaying the instructions while Chang turned his attention back to suppressing the enemy. Their only hope of ending this mess was a flanking maneuver. Wild-assed bravery wouldn’t win this fight.

The minute the flankers were off, though, Takashi’s guys came to exactly the opposite conclusion. Sensing that the fire of their opponents had diminished, several of them charged. They leapt out from behind their cover, shooting and screaming as they charged up the passageway. Chang had equally feared and hoped for this. Pirates relied on bravery and aggression, taking wild risks that exposed them to danger but often won great gains for the survivors.

It wasn’t always as easy to cut down onrushing men as it looked in video games. The designers rarely took into account smoke, or awkward cover, or nerves.

Chang and his men emptied their weapons into the charging men. Bullets and blasts flew everywhere. Far too many of them went wild as excited, frightened pirates sprayed and prayed. Chang held his cool, putting down one, then another as the rush came on. One of his mates gurgled and fell back. Chang didn’t look. He focused on the enemy. In a rush, it was over; the charge was defeated, but not without cost.

T
he passageway went quiet. The charge left Takashi with only one or two more guys at the most. Chang shrank back behind his corner, pulling out a fresh magazine. He looked to Turtle.

Gunshots rang out through the passageway beyond Turtle and the hostages. Ricochets sparked against the bulkheads. Turtle didn’t see it; he fired his gun
toward Takashi again, risking a look around the corner this time. “Turtle!” Chang screamed.

Turtle didn’t look up from his shooting. Someone down the passageway screamed in pain as he took a hit from Turtle’s rifle. “What?”

“Behind you! Shit, behind you!”

The guy watching the hostages behind Turtle
understood. He turned to look, brought his gun up and ready, but hesitated when someone appeared around the far corner. The newcomer didn’t. A single bullet blew through the pirate’s skull. The hostages pressed themselves to the bulkheads and the deck.

Then the new attacker in Darren’s stupid combat jacket aimed and fired again; Turtle went down with his head left in a bloody ruin. The last man standing on Chang’s side quickly followed suit with a wounded cry.

The newcomer’s weapon ran empty. He charged. Chang gave up on reloading his rifle, knowing he’d never have it ready in time. His opponent rushed across the intersection, heedless of incoming fire from Takashi’s remaining guns.

Chang threw up a fist and then elbow into the face of his attacker. Tanner tried to block but had committed too much to his charge. The blows threw him off-balance,
sending him past Chang to land on his back. Chang brought his foot down into Tanner’s gut in a punishing stomp.

Tanner latched onto Chang’s foot and knee, fiercely twisting Chang’s leg with both hands. The pirate tumbled to the deck beside Tanner, leaving both in a violent pile. Chang struggled to recover, but Tanner came out on top. Roaring with anger, Tanner pulled his knife and went straight at Chang’s face and neck. Blood flew. Tanner didn’t let up.

“Tanner?!” someone asked. “Oh my God, Tanner, is that you?”

He stopped stabbing. Tanner looked up from his grisly work to find Nathan Spencer there among several other total strangers, all of them
clinging to the edges of the passageway. Nothing concealed the shock in Nathan’s eyes as he stared at his classmate.

Breathing heavily, shaking with pain and anger, Tanner turned away to find a gun.
Plenty of them lay on the floor around him. Tanner spotted an expensive, tricked-out laser rifle, snatched it up and forced himself to his feet. People spoke around him, but he didn’t listen. The rifle had his attention.

Full power cell. Computer-enhanced scope. His enemies had an awful lot of top-dollar weaponry. Thi
s would work.

“Tanner, wait! Where are you going?”

“Shuttles,” Tanner grunted as he lurched around the corner. He limped down the corridor dripping with blood. Two men appeared at the end of the passageway, stepping out from behind cover to greet their apparent ally.

“Oh man, Darren,” Takashi said. “Thank God you showed up, I thought we—!”

Tanner cut him off with a blast from his rifle, did the same to Takashi’s comrade, and kept moving.

***

“Shuttle Alpha has docked with the destroyer. Marines have boarded,” announced Commander Trinh. “Nothing different from what we can see from here. Ship seems to have been vented, most systems powered down.”

Captain
Leigh nodded. She looked to her comms officer. “No response from the pirate?”

“No ma’am.”

The captain frowned. “This isn’t good. If they want to jump out in a shuttle, we can’t risk firing on them, but if something’s gone wrong on their end…”

Trinh looked up at her. “Ma’am?”

“Grapple and board,” Leigh ordered. “Helm, bring us in. Marines, stand ready for boarding.”

***

All of his successes, all of his power and influence, and it came down to this. Half a dozen pirates, himself included, rushing a handful of hostages to a getaway vehicle like he’d just fucked up a simple bank robbery.  Casey hurried his companions, willing and otherwise, down the corridors to the shuttle bay.

Disaster or not, he would get away. No fleet captain would fire on a ship carrying hostages just to eliminate a handful of fleeing pirates. He would get away, and then he’d start anew. Rebuild. He’d taken things this far. He still had his cash, his connections, and his reputation. The loss of
Vengeance
would hurt the latter, of course, but eventually he’d recover. He could cook up an explanation. There would still be pirates who remembered him as the man who’d led the Qal’at Khalil raid.

The
Pride
shuddered. His group stopped, looking around nervously, and Casey stole a look at his holocom and its ties to the bridge monitors. “They’re linking up to board,” he said. He pointed to the passageway leading to the shuttle bay. “That puts the battleship on the other side from us.” He looked at his men, hoping to inspire all the determination he could. “We’re going to make it.”

At the bay hatch,
Casey and Lonnie took to either side of the portal with weapons at the ready. The shuttle bay was a wide, spacious area, kept clean and inviting for the high-paying passengers who might charter one of the small craft for a jaunt during the luxury liner’s stops. Legally, the shuttles were there for the use of ship’s business, but as anywhere else, money talked. The shuttles were ideal for Casey’s needs.

“Dennis, Kyoshi, you guys take the helm,” he said. “Shouldn’t take more than a minute to get her warmed up. Go,” he urged. As the two rushed out,
Casey turned to the others. “Lonnie, Travis, you’re bringing up the rear. Any more of our guys make it down here, we’ll take ‘em with, but you’ve gotta watch for hostiles. Anyone looks the least bit unfriendly, waste ‘em. Chad and I have our guests,” he finished, looking at the handful of others menacingly. “Don’t anyone try anything clever. You run, we waste you, and if we can’t we’ll just waste one of your friends here.”

He looked out at the shuttle bay again. Dennis and Kyoshi were halfway there.
Casey shoved one of their hostages through the portal, than another. “Go! Get going!” he shouted.

They ran. Kiyoshi and Dennis were already inside the shuttle, firing up its engines.
Casey looked left and right as he and Chad brought up their hostages, watching for anything that might screw up their escape.

All the other doors remained shut. No one else was about. Fifty meters or so off to the left
sat the second shuttle, resting in its launch bay all alone, except for the blood-soaked guy crouched underneath its fuselage with a plasma carbine.

“No,” shouted
Casey in an instant of panic, “Christ, no!”

The plasma carbine went off, striking near the main thrusters of the shuttle. Sparks flew as metal melted and burst.
Casey, Chad and all their hostages instantly dove for whatever cover presented itself. The plasma carbine went off again, striking the shuttle in the same spot.

It was only a simple civilian craft, with nothing anyone would call armor to protect its hull. The boom of its exploding thrusters shook the entire shuttle bay.

***

He didn’t expect an explosion. Tanner’s heart leapt into his throat when the blast hit, moreso for the screams it elicited from the people in the starship liner uniforms than anything else. He hadn’t even seen them
before he fired. All he saw were the two pirates climbing inside a vehicle he had to keep from leaving.

That job was done. Whether or not the pirates inside were down would have to wait; there were more outside. Tanner spotted them amid the liner crewmembers through the smoke.

“Casey, what—?” shouted one.

“Chad,” the other barked with a familiar, gravelly voice, “grab her! Now!”

The other pirate reached for one of the liner’s officers. Without thinking, Tanner dropped the plasma carbine on the deck and took up his laser rifle, bringing it to his shoulder. “Human male,” he said to the targeting computer. “Beard. Headshot.”

Circuits in the weapon hummed to life. Tanner looked down the scope, training the crosshairs on the face of his enemy as the pirate wrapped one arm around the woman’s neck and placed a gun against her head. The outer brackets of the crosshairs flashed green. Tanner pulled the trigger.

A second later, with the rifle’s computer correcting for Tanner’s aim, Chad fell away from his hostage with a hole burned through his forehead.

Sudden, overwhelming force struck against Tanner’s chest. Tanner felt himself rocked off of his feet by the impact. It felt as if the whole left side of him just collapsed. He didn’t hear the boom of
Casey’s shot.

The world seemed to go fuzzy for a moment. Everything slowed down. Soft, rhythmic tapping brought him back, increasing in volume and clarity as the world cleared up again. Tanner realized he’d been shot.
His combat jacket hadn’t entirely blocked the bullet. He didn’t know how bad it was.

His eyes fluttered open. The pirate captain ran toward him, dragging along the same woman the other pirate had tried to hide behind. Just the pirate and his hostage, running for Tanner—no. Not Tanner. For the shuttle. For the only means of escape.

Tanner’s mind still felt fuzzy. He genuinely considered lying down. He was badly hurt. There was just one hostage left. It would be sad, but nobody could hold it against Tanner after all he’d been through. He might not even live another minute. He’d been hurt. Casey had hurt him.

He’d hurt lots of people.

More than anything else in the world, Tanner needed to hurt him back.

Casey
ran with his hand on Sarah Woo’s collar, half shoving and half dragging her along. The other hostages scattered away too quickly after the shuttle blew to corral them, and he didn’t have time to fuck around with that, anyway. Lonnie and Travis would either get a clue and catch up before he had the bay doors open or they wouldn’t. Casey had a way off the ship and something to shield him from reprisals. That was all that mattered. Fuck the details.

Then Woo yelped and fell out of his grasp. She nearly pulled
Casey down with her. Casey stumbled, recovered his balance, and turned to grab her again. Instead, he saw Tanner let go of Woo before he tackled the pirate captain.

They tumbled to the deck together.
Casey absorbed most of the fall, feeling the breath knocked out of him. He swung his gun around even before he tried to rise; Tanner caught him by the wrist just in time to ward off a bullet. Tanner’s free hand came into Casey’s side once, then again, but as he cocked it back for a third punch Casey wrenched his gun-hand free and pistol-whipped Tanner across the side of his head.

As Tanner stumbled back,
Casey leveled his gun at the younger man’s face and pulled the trigger. All he got was a frustrating click as the gun jammed. Casey growled, sliding back the clearing action on his pistol to fix the problem.

Angry hands grabbed both
Casey’s wrist and the pistol, twisting them away from one another. Casey gasped in pain as his thumb broke under the sudden strain. Then an elbow came up against his chin, knocking him back. The gun fell away. A solid punch landed on Casey’s jaw, and then another.

The pirate
tried to retaliate. He stepped back to get space, bumping into the shuttle but ignoring it, and lunged forward with a fist. Tanner caught him at the wrist, twisted and pulled him forward, and then stepped slightly behind Casey to bring his elbow down on Casey’s shoulder with a pop. He heaved Casey’s wrist up again, hyperextending the pirate’s arm before slamming his elbow down against Casey’s. Casey let out a scream.

Tanner didn’t stop. He shoved
Casey against the shuttle, punching again and again into the other man’s gut, then his chest and then face as Casey slumped to the deck.