Rechs didn’t wish for his hand cannon, because he didn’t have it. That was his way. He didn’t spend a lot of his life looking for perfect scenarios. He just made do with what he had. Killed with what was at hand. Charge packs run dry, slug throwers mag out, and swords break. Best not to cry. Best just to find something else to hurt the other guy with as fast as you can.
Blaster fire smashed into the bulkhead behind him, and Rechs landed the iron sight of the blaster on the incoming masked alien’s head. The thing was closing fast. He pulled the trigger. Again, two shots. Both hit. One in the throat and one in the mask. The shot on the mask deflected, but the other shot sent the alien to his knees, clutching at his burn-ravaged throat, dropping his own blaster on the deck. Rechs ran at him and sent a powerful kick from his boot right into the alien’s jaw.
It felt like he broke something, but without knowing the species he was dealing with, he couldn’t really say.
It didn’t matter. The shooter was down. That was good enough for now.
Another series of powerful blasts by the Nubarian bot controlling the turret on the main deck caused an explosion across the aft deck, showering the rear pavilion with deadly flaming fragments.
“Lyra…” said Rechs over the comm.
“Here, Captain,” replied the AI running his ship.
“Capture underway. Bring the Crow in.”
The ship confirmed his orders.
Right now, Tyrus knew his tricked-out old light freighter was surfacing from the waters of another small atoll located two hundred kilometers to the southwest. Rechs had told Lyra to hide out there until the operation went down. Now it would be her job to bring the ship in and stand by to receive the capture.
Which was Rechs’s next step.
And that capture wouldn’t be an easy one.
He found an access stairway up to the main deck of the ship. As he reached the top of the stairs, a thug came at him too fast for Rechs to get a shot off. Rechs instead ducked and rammed into his attacker with his shoulder, flipping the man onto his back. Then Rechs shot him in the skull.
The guy had been carrying an old Grendel. A nice, solid, heavy blaster that had seen a lot of action in the Jindo Conflict. High rate of fire, good punch. Not ideal for a capture that needed the target alive, but it would suffice to get rid of all the guards Gat was surely surrounding himself with right about now.
Rechs tossed aside the slender little trick blaster he’d picked up and hefted the heavy blaster. After checking the charge, he proceeded aft toward the security access to the top deck.
Gat’s guards had chosen to defend a small elevator that was the upper deck’s only access point. Five had moved impromptu barriers of plush reclining couches and anything else they could get their hands on to create a small fortress around the elevator. Someone in charge was clearly aware Rechs was coming after their leader. Rechs could only get so close to the ad hoc fortress surrounding the lift without exposing himself to direct fire at close range. And with the armor having been subjected to the juices stewing inside that tyrannasquid, he wasn’t keen on testing the system’s integrity with live fire.
Meanwhile, off the port side, two sleds full of guards opened fire into the shadowy recesses of the open-air deck the bounty hunter proceeded along. Rechs dove for cover behind the main bar and fired back. Expensive crystal decanters of the finest liquors the galaxy had to offer exploded in a pell-mell riot all around him as blaster bolts tried to find their mark.
Rechs duck-walked behind the bar, keeping his bucket down out of their line of sight. When he caught a brief break in the onboard fire coming at him from the fortress defenders, he quickly unloaded the rest of the heavy blaster’s charge pack on one of the two sleds. Specifically, he targeted the sled’s pilot—a guska. That particular species required a breather-mask that steadily pumped methane into their lungs. Oxygen-rich planets like this one were toxic to the guska.
The mask was blown off, causing the alien to cover its cavernous, toothless mouth and drop frantically to the sled’s deck. But that wasn’t good enough for Rechs. He continued to pour hot fire into the driver’s dash, smashing controls and sending up small electrical explosions. Finally, he struck something important. Smoking black bloomed from a fire at the driver controls, and the sled spiraled into the waters near the tyrannasquid.
The beast had been in the process of reaching up to clutch the hovering pleasure-maran with its flailing tentacles. Attempting to claim for its own the craft that had served it so many meals, but until now seemed unattainable itself. Thankfully the maran maintained enough altitude to stay just beyond the monster’s reach, though the occasional tentacle managed to caress the underside, causing the repulsors to jump and sway against the thick fibrous arms, sending the ship into lurches that felt to Rechs likes the swelling waves of a storm.
Hopefully the downed guard sled would distract the monster temporarily. The thing could have its prize… but only after the bounty hunter took his own.
Rechs checked his weapon. The charge pack was empty.
There were dead guards all along the deck, all of them either with weapons lying close by or charge pack bandoliers ready to access. But to get to these, Rechs would need to expose himself to the shooters at the lift. And these shooters weren’t amateurs. These were the best Gat could acquire. The cream of the crime prince’s crop of killers and assassins. Plus, there was still one sled full of guards hovering close by, seeking to get a better shot at the bounty hunter hiding behind the bar.
Rechs gave his HUD a quick scan. He
