“Oh hey!” said Bowie as though he had some logical explanation for the tableau ready at hand, and then walloped the surging pilot with the side of the sturdy case in one fluid motion as he reached for his blaster beneath his jacket coat. The briefcase loaded with illegal drugs caught the pilot right in the side of his lantern-jawed face and glanced off his almost Cro-Magnon brow. This did nothing to stop the giant’s rush and a moment later, as Bowie brought the blaster up to fire, the pilot easily batted it away where it discharged into the deck with a whiny shriek of blaster fire. The giant’s other fist smashed right into Bowie’s chin.
It was a solid connect. The giant pilot knew it. And Bowie did too. He sat down hard on the aft bench as the dropship cleared the rooftop hangar access. There must be a co-pilot or bot flying, he thought distantly as the pilot closed in for another blow.
Engines howled, and he shook his head, the giant hovering, waiting to deliver another rapid-fire blow to knock him out. He had all the cards. And position.
Except for the hovering part.
Jack Bowie drove his leg upward right into the man’s crotch. Eyes bulged and the pilot’s face went red.
The dropship heeled over and both men went sliding toward the open cargo door. Bowie’s blaster careened over the edge, tumbling in free fall, out of the game entirely. The crew chief landed along the edge of the roof. Barely. A moment later the ship was out over the distant streets below and climbing for cruise altitude. The giant, on the other hand, caught himself on the top edge of the cargo door with his unbroken hand and hung on as the rest of his body followed his feet out into thin air.
Bowie had only one hand too. The briefcase occupied the other.
The free hand caught the giant’s flight suit and held on as his feet left the cargo door and the city streets suddenly appeared below. Both men were now hanging out the cargo door as the dropship executed a hard turn to pick up a new course heading. At their feet the dropship’s starboard engine intake sucked air and howled as though it were threatening to ingest them. And then a moment later the craft stabilized back to the horizontal flight path and both men were suddenly thrown back into the cargo deck. Tumbling across it a moment later.
Bowie held onto the case.
The giant gave him a savage elbow in the ribs and scrambled fast, for a big man. Bowie stayed low and swept his body in a semi-circular motion, knocking the man’s feet out from under him and causing the giant to fall back to the deck once more.
What happened over the next thirty seconds was nothing more than a series of blows traded as fast as possible between two desperate opponents. The blows came so fast, neither man even had the time to register the pain and damage inflicted. Each had only one hand with which to strike the other. But elbows, feet, and even heads contributed to the sudden melee.
It was the giant who got his feet under him once more and began to stomp Bowie in the ribs as he lay on the deck of the dropship. As the third stomp was coming down, and this time aimed straight at his head, Bowie let go of the case and pulled his holdout from his back.
The giant missed as Bowie rolled, watching the briefcase slide toward the open cargo door and the swiftly passing streets below. He fired, hitting the giant center mass. The man let go of his hold on the ceiling of the cargo deck to clutch at the searing hot wound in his chest. A wound that was most likely fatal already. A shot to the pump and pipes. He was dead, he just didn’t know it yet.
Once more the dropship heeled over sharply. And suddenly. There was definitely a bot flying. Only they made such turns that lacked any kind of finesse or desire for passenger comfort. Now the cargo door looked down into the city streets once more. The giant tumbled out the open door and into the ether. And so did the briefcase.
It was just sliding out when Bowie lunged, one hand flailing for a loose cargo strap when he caught the briefcase’s handle. There was an uncertain moment as the cargo strap continued to play out, indicating that it might possibly be connected to nothing at all… and then it yanked taut, confirming otherwise.
Bowie leaned out the door, case in hand. One hand holding the connected strap. Carefully, he drew himself back around and crawled through the flight deck hatch.
It smelled of burnt ozone and electronics. The insectile chatter of flight control data droned monotonously. A flight bot swiveled its head and took in Bowie as he appeared through the crawl space.
“Where is Captain Jonso?”
Bowie raised his blaster and shot the bot in the processing housing. It slumped over as he slid behind the captain’s controls, stowed the briefcase, and took the stick.
All the nav data was set up in the HUD. Rendezvous with the Silver Koan in Sundance, location markers set up, and the direct to Cliffside with approach clearances already in place.
As he neared the big freighter that had set down on the salty plains that formed the Sundance district, Jack Bowie found a ball cap with the dropship company’s logo. Secure Transit. No doubt they handled all the dark traffic for the pimps that kept the nonstop parties going in the Cliffside district.
He donned the cap and put on his sunglasses.
The HUD inside the sunglasses interfaced with the dropship and informed him that damage to the power plant coordinator had been sustained. Most likely when he’d discharged the blaster on the cargo deck. A blaster that was now somewhere
