The one thing he could get away with, with respect to recon drone scans, was a scattergun. Most of those weapons qualified as permissible for home defense and hunting even on worlds like Detron with oppressive anti-weaponry laws. He went into his weapons shop and pulled out a pump-action Nak-9 he’d taken off a gunrunner specializing in “missing” military shipments. The Legion had used these a long time ago for clearing operations on the Savage cruisers. One charge pack per shot sent a spray of short but powerful blaster fire out from the barrel in a nice tight cone. Perfect for destroying some blast doors and armored Savages. Devastating on flesh and less-armored targets.
Rechs had swapped out the stock for a pistol grip and mounted a wireless targeting interface above the charge pack ejector port. This, coupled with the acquisition laser set to tri-dot, gave him a pretty good idea of what he’d destroy with every shot. It held six small charge packs.
Six shots. Pump-action.
If that didn’t do the trick, nothing else would.
“I thought you just needed to meet Giles Longfree to book passage into the city, Tyrus,” asked Lyra from the ether of the ship’s open spaces. They were alone in his workshop.
But of course, she was just a voice coming through the ship’s speakers.
G232 was on the flight deck busy monitoring a feed from a wireless snooping worm Rechs had managed to leave near the command section of the Green Zone up on the top level of the docks. Some of the tidbits coming in were quite interesting…
The marines were forbidden from keeping their weapons loaded with charge packs.
They had to call in to request return fire even if they were being shot at. Even if they’d been shot.
All marine patrols were off the streets as of now.
They’d managed to set up listening posts on some of the buildings downtown, but the LTs in charge of these were requesting to be pulled out due to the fact that the rioters were threatening to burn down the buildings with the marines still on top.
These requests were being denied by the military command team. Mainly a Legion point who seemed to be asserting unwarranted authority.
A marine colonel in charge of air-defense operations had requested permission to shoot down the pretty little liar when her chartered ship tried to enter restricted airspace over the city. Intel said the rioters were staging a rock concert downtown to celebrate her impending arrival.
The colonel was relieved of duty within thirty minutes and a new commander was appointed and on scene. No one was to engage the ship when it made its illegal approach through the city’s no-fly zone.
Several commanders and NCOs swore over the net.
Retaliation and relief were promised if this kind of insubordinate behavior continued.
The net went silent after that.
“Chances are,” replied Rechs to Lyra’s question, “I’ll need to get this Giles and his crew to take me through tonight.”
“Is that safe?” she asked. Her voice ethereal within his weapons shop.
Rechs hoisted a tactical shoulder-strap bag stuffed with charge packs. Easier to access during a firefight if he carried it messenger-style. He was carrying some meds too. The last feed over the entertainment of the two captured leejes had been analyzed and showed they’d been badly wounded.
One of the network pundits had said they “got what they deserved for standing in the way of this historic and much-needed push for progress.”
No one relieved that guy.
There was a part of Rechs that wanted to get angry at all of this and start making people pay. But that wasn’t why he was here.
He had to keep reminding himself of that.
Get these guys out and then accounts could be settled on the back end. That needed to happen on the other side of all this. Because that was how you made sure situations like this didn’t ever happen again.
Only… they always do.
“Tyrus?” Lyra asked.
Rechs finished stuffing the old tactical bag with the last of everything he thought he’d need. He was keeping the expensive little Jackknife in there with all the charge packs it and the scattergun would use up.
“It’s safe,” he sighed.
The AI was still insecure. Still unsure of herself. And… she was patterned on a woman he’d…
What, Rechs? What had you? he asked himself.
Loved.
Yeah. So, go easy on her, he told himself. She’s learning.
Still, he didn’t like a lot of questions. Never had. Maybe that’s why he’d remained alone for so long. Fewer questions that way.
“If we schedule a time to cross, it gives them more of a chance to bushwhack me,” he explained. “Time to get them and twenty of their scumbag friends together to see what they can do. I’d hate to have to kill a bunch of people just to get into a city. I’ll need all the charge packs just to get the two legionnaires out. Not interested in wasting them on scumbags.”
Pause.
Silence.
Everything was ready and Lyra wasn’t pressing the discussion further.
“Oh yeah,” he said to himself absently. “One last thing.”
He never went anywhere in armor without the carbon-forged machete he’d carried for so long. He took it up from the cloth he’d laid it on after sharpening it and placed it in the worn leather sheath on his back.
“Be careful, Tyrus,” whispered the ship, her voice small and quiet. “I’ll be watching all the feeds and listening. If you really need me, I’ll fly in and pull you out. Even though…”
“I know.”
“…It’s not my specialty, Tyrus. But I am getting more confident flying. Be patient. I’m sorry.”
“You’re doing great, Lyra.”
“Thank you for that, Tyrus.”
Forward at the airlock, G232 greeted him awkwardly. “He says we should just fly around the city letting him shoot things until they give us the two soldiers… er… um… legionnaires… back.”
G232 was referring to the little Nubarian gunnery bot.
“You
