Pewling Menial
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I'm currently writing this pseudo-western/sci-fi piece. These are the first 4 parts of the story and you can check out more of my writing on my blog itself. The link to it is in my forum profile.
Part 1: Train Ride to Nowhere
At the time I had accepted the fact that my lawless days were over, and all that waited for me was a hard life on the salt-flats of Eza Prime. It was a gun-deal gone bad that finally caught me, one of my men sold me out to the authorities. Ten years of gun running and drug dealing were weighted heavily on my shoulders when I went before the judges. But instead of the death penalty they whisked me away from Vosphor, away from the big cities and excitement and landed me on this rock.
The planet was like Earth someone told me, but when I saw Eza Prime for the first time from orbit I realized they forgot to mention that the planet had absolutely no water on its surface. When the prison ship finally landed on Eza Prime at some spaceport that reminded me of something that didn’t at all look like a place where people actually lived, the bay doors opened and the other prisoners and I were blasted with scorching wind and sand.
We were prodded with shock-batons out of the relative safety of the prison ship and were exposed to a temperature that was hotter than hell, at the time I thought that hell would have been much nicer, because at least there were sexy women-demons running around in hell stabbing people with magma-tridents to somewhat distract me from the horrible suffering.
We were then loaded up in a heavily armored three-sectioned train-like looking vehicle, except instead of rails and wheels it had tank-treads. I was in the middle-section of the crawler-train, that’s what I decided to call it. I sat down as comfortably as I could in one of the metal benches with my wrists and ankles shackled. Once the crawler-train was filled with the prisoners it roared into life, the cabin began to rattle rhythmically as the treads below churned the armored centipede onwards through the hot desert.
Looking out the iron-shuttered windows seemed pointless but I continued to do it for about an hour and a half. I had almost decided to look away when something on on the horizon caught my eye. Sand was rising up into the sky and then I saw the glinting of metal in front of it. Its distance away from us could not be told but whatever it was it was coming in fast.
As the object came closer more of its kind appears behind it. I counted seven in all and I looked closer they became more defined through the desert mirage. They were other vehicles, with skeletal frames and large tires that kicked up sand behind them. A pair of them had tripod-mounted tubes on the top with figures standing behind them. When I realized that those tubes were rocket-launchers I knew things were about to get interesting.
As if to confirm my thoughts a voice crackled over the speaker at the front of the cabin, “we got bandit dunesters comin’ from the east…. uh… or maybe north…. I can never tell with piece of gak”.
The prison guards looked at each other and began to talk into their personal radios. Prisoners scrambled to the windows to see the bandits and as the ‘dunesters’ got closer they cheered and whooped, thinking that the bandits were here to save them. I thought that as well for a moment, but before my view was blocked out by other prisoners I saw a familiar emblem on the hood of one of the bandit vehicles. A symbol all too familiar, the crude image of a dog pissing on a bush scratched onto the dunester.
Felix ‘Dog-piss’ Zorion, the man I believe sold me out on that gun-deal. He must not have been satisfied that I was sent to another part of the galaxy so he was here to kill me himself. I was shaken from thought when the back cabin was hit by a rocket. There was a terrible screaching sound and suddenly the crawler-train began to move faster, but only because the back cabin had been severed from the rest.
“Uhhh… gak…. well damn, you guards get your guns ready… because I’m out of here!” the engineer shouted through the speakers, he then detached the our cabin from the train. The section grounded to a halt and began to sink into the sand. With the rumbling engine moving away I could hear the cracks of gunfire coming from the third section of the train.
Two dunesters raced ahead of our cabin in pursuit of the fleeing engineer and I felt no pity for him. The stale, hot air was filled with body-odor and tension. Everyone went silent, we could hear some more gun shots but then the majority of the dunesters roared around the sides of this cabin.
Part 2: My gun-Slinging Savior
The bandits could be heard laughing and the occasional ‘your mother’ joke slipped out of them but all went silent when a final dunester pulled around. From what I could hear two men jumped out into the sand and my only guess was that it was Zorion and his second-in-command. For many years Zorion had been my trusted lieutenant in the gang, but he changed over the years and disobeyed many of my orders, actions that jeopardized my entire criminal network. I demoted him which made his cronies upset at me, and in his stead I appointed my good friend Daven ‘Beefy’ Keens.
The gang was officially cut in half in terms of loyalty, months later the gun-deal that should have landed me two million credits went bad, and arbiters rushed into the warehouse. Coincidentally Zorion wasn’t there at the time of the raid, that bastard.
At that moment I felt a mixture of rage and hopelessness, with a sprinkle of fear. The metal doors of the cabin burst open with swift kick from a booted man. Sand rushed inside and I looked away to shield my eyes. When I looked back four men and a woman had entered the cabin, all armed with various guns. I did not see Zorion among them, I suspect he was outside waiting for me to be thrown out.
The two guards who were in the cabin moments earlier had bailed out the side doors, I doubt they made it very far with the section surrounded by bandits. One held up an old ‘wanted’ poster of me and began to inspect the prisoners. I turned away to delay their findings as much as possible.
The woman pulled off the bandanna away from her face and said, “Ten credits for any of you lot who points out Carthage Cain”.
Comically all the prisoners simultaneously pointed at me, even though I had told no one my name, my reputation must have preceded me. She grinned and thanked them, she then took out a ten-credit bill and wadded it up into a ball and threw it into the throng of men. While the prisoners fought over the money the woman approached me with two bandits behind her. She was quite attractive, but I somehow had the notion that she was a total bitch.
“Looks like its my lucky day” I said.
“That it is” She replied as she took the wanted poster from the man behind her. She closed one eye and put the likeness of me on the poster next to my face. “They missed that mole on your cheek” she said grinning.
I smiled, “yeah, well you can tell the arbiters don’t pay those face-sketchers too well”.
“You know why I’m here, don’t you?” She asked as she leaned in closer to me, she smelled like lavender, but still, I knew she was a bitch.
“Felix” I said simply.
She rolled her eyes and smiled, “You’re a smart one aren’t you?”
Someone began to shout outside and she turned around to the exit, “Well boys, lets get him outside” she said as he hopped out of the cabin. The men behind her yanked me out of the bench, they smelled better than the prisoners, but only a little.
They didn’t get far, one of the roof-panels above was kicked in and sand fell through. The prisoners began to shout and cough. Through the drifting particles two figures dropped down.
A moment after they landed in the cabin one drew a pistol from his holster and put a bullet in each of the bandits next to me. Behind the unknown assailants the other two bandits cursed and brought up their weapons, and with another two shots they were dead like the others.
As the four bandits slumped to the floor the other silhouette went to side door and slammed it closed, he then rammed a crowbar between the handles. After a lifetime of violence I had not been phased by the gunfire and death and stood calmly before the figures.
“I’m guessing you’re not with Dog-piss?” I asked.
“Jesus-Exploding-Christ, Cain its good to see you alive!” one of them said, I recognized the voice and smiled.
The figure came towards me and pulled off his face-mask, and I was greeted with the scarred, sun-burnt and grinning face of Daven Keens. One of his front-teeth had been knocked out years ago in a bar-fight and I was pleased to see he had not replaced it.
The other man kept his eyes on the exits of the cabin, the bandits were trying to beat the door in, but the crowbar was keeping them out.
Part 3: The Mad Monk
We exited out on the opposite side of the cabin and were greeted with about a dozen bandits. Daven leaped off the platform and rolled behind the nearest dunester. The gunman and I dived down the steps and the sand that went down my prison suit did not feel good.
“We don’t have time for this” the gunman said simply. He regrouped with Daven and began to reload his revolver. I crawled towards them as bullets whizzed overhead and ricocheted off the train. “Cover me Beefy” The gunman said, and as he rose up Daven fired blindly over the dunester with a sub-machine gun.
The bandits took cover behind the several dunesters nearby. As soon as Daven stopped shooting the gunman was standing and waiting for the first brigand to return fire. A bandit cried out, “let’s get ‘em!” and stood up, the bullet that passed through his brain sent him tumbling backwards into the sand.
Every time a bandit came up to shoot they were met with a bullet in their face. After six shots from the revolver the gunman put the spent weapon into the holster and casually brought out another gun with the opposite hand.
I thought to myself ‘holy gak’ after each thunderous shot and peeked around the bumper of the dunester. “Let’s go” Daven whispered as he reloaded his gun. The gunman opened his revolver, slapped six bullets into the chambers and nodded.
We sprinted to the dunesters now carpeted with dead bodies. “Why didn’t we just take the one back there” I panted once we reached the last vehicle.
“It ‘aint fast enough” said a voice from behind the dunester. For a moment I panicked thinking it was another bandit, but when I saw that neither Daven or the gunman had not raised their weapons my fears were allayed. A scrawny bald man wearing shiny aviators popped up from behind the vehicle.
“Dammit Monk you almost had me shootin’ at you” Daven said as he hopped into the dunester.
“bs!” Monk laughed, “You can’t shoot me yet..”
The gunman looked back to the train and interrupted Monk, “Let’s go, more are coming”.
Monk grinned and went to the front of the dunester and yanked the hood up, “They ‘aint be able to catch us with this booster-juice in this puppy” Monk uncapped a glass vial and poured it into nozzle in the center of the engine.
The gunman and I had taken our seats in the back of the dunester when Monk climbed into the drivers seat. “Hold onto your butts” He looked back and grinned at us. Once he turned the key a couple times and the dunester sputtered into life. Monk stamped his boot down onto the gas peddle and we buzzed away from the other vehicles.
It wasn’t long before the bandits were in pursuit of us and it appeared they were going faster than we were. “They’re getting closer!” I yelled over the loud engine to Monk. He nodded his head and looked back.
“I know” he replied, “Gotta’ wait for ‘em to get into range”
“Range of what?” I yelled.
Monk pulled out a small antenna device with a single large red button in the center, “My radio!” he grinned.
The gunman handed me one of his revolvers, “Don’t waste my ammo” he said. I could see Dog-piss and his thugs closing the distance with their own dunesters and aimed the pistol at the first car in the pack. The revolver’s recoil surprised me when I fired, the gun was powerful. The round I shot punched through the dunester’s hood and thick black smoke began to spout from the engine.
“We’re about half way from the canyons!” Monk screamed as he looked back, “Oh good they’re close enough”. He held up the red-buttoned control, “Just close your eyes when I push the button, we don’t want you to be getting’ blind now after we saved ‘yer ass”.
I looked back to the pursuing dunesters and covered my eyes with my free hand. When Monk clicked the button I heard no explosions, no great cacophony, just one less engine roaring on the dunes. I took my hand away to see one of bandit vehicles had become a molten frame skittering across the desert. The dunesters behind the bright-orange wreckage had swerved off course or even stopped, their drivers most likely blinded by whatever had just happened.
Part 4: Escape aboard the Verrat
We drove our way out of the dunes and into some red-walled canyons. Dog-piss and what was left of his fleet of dunesters had broken off their chase an hour ago, we were moving at a much slower pace now as Monk carefully drove through the tight canyons, making sure to avoid the great chasms and fissures that seemed to plummet hundreds of feet down into the ground.
I handed the gunman back his revolver and asked what his name was, the man turned to me and removed his goggles that had hidden his eyes for as long as I had been with him. His face was grubby save for the patches of clean skin that circled around his eyes. I noticed that his right eye was of an odd color, and with further inspection I discovered it was robotic.
“Terrance Lazarus” he said.
Despite any sense of manners in me I asked, “How’d you get your implant? I hear those are expensive”.
Lazarus smirked and pointed to his eye, “Long story” he replied curtly.
“You see, Mr. Carthage, Terrance here is a mercenary…” Monk said.
I nodded and asked, “And who are you Monk?”
Monk kept his eyes ahead but said, “Well, I’m just a mechanic”.
I knew he wasn’t saying everything but I pressed the conversation no further. The rest of the ride was in silence, apart for the grumbling engine and Daven whistling some tune. We had began to slowly ascend as we made our way through the canyon. Eventually we reached the top of the canyon walls, and waiting for us was a star-ship.
The Verrat, Lazarus’ ship was an impressive sight, it was larger than most personal-craft on the market and sported some menacing weapons on the hull. The Verrat was painted an off-white color with a horizontal yellow stripe circling the craft.
“Holy gak, that’s quite a vessel” I told Lazarus.
“My thanks, but hold your tongue until we get inside, I’m sure you shall be further impressed” he responded.
I was officially jealous once I stood outside the Verrat, the ship must have been fifteen feet tall including the undercarriage. Lazarus typed controls into the slender computer strapped to his forearm and the landing ramp groaned into life. The mechanism lowered the ramp to the canyon floor and Monk revved the engine of his dunester and drove up into the cargo bay of the ship. Lazarus then lead the way into his prize.
We passed through the cargo bay where Monk was securing the dunester with vice-like mechanisms, the next room was smaller and had a sizable holo-projector table in the center surrounded by computer consoles and a high-backed chair mounted on a rail system so that it could move a three-hundred sixty degree circle around the table and computer terminals.
“This is the study” Lazarus said, “I have the C.E.G. Corporation’s galactic database installed on the computers. You need to know information about something or someone this room is your answer”. He then pointed to the door on the left side of the ship, “The armory” he said.
He opened the door and the room was lit-up when we stepped inside. The mercenary owned a large collection of weapons, both human-made and alien were mounted on all four walls of the room. In the center were racks of ammunition for the arsenal.
The door to the right of the study lead to cockpit and sleeping quarters, and since this ship was only designed for one person I figured I would be sleeping on the floor. Lazarus took his seat in the cockpit and began to manipulate the various controls in front of him. “As per the agreement between Daven and I, I shall take you back to Vosphor then we shall part ways”.
I looked at the holographic star-map that was being projected on the side of his chair and said, “It will be good to go home. But I do have one more question Terrance” I said.
“And that would be?” He asked.
“Just how much are we going to pay you for this rescue?”
He smirked and looked back, “Now that’s a long story”
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