Mistrunner 3 - Chapter 6 - Making an Example (Patreon)

I’m not powerful. In Earth terms, I’m a little above average. But on a galactic scale? I’m nobody. But I can overcome that. It’ll be difficult, and I have to think outside the box, but it’s possible. I have to believe it is.

Patrick Ward

I kept my pistol trained on the alien – Askar – as I said, “Okay. Go ahead. Make me believe I don’t need to kill this asshole right here and now.”

“You say that so confidently,” the alien said with a shake of his head that sent his fine, blonde hair swishing back and forth. “I am not your enemy.”

“Yeah? Prove it.”

“Askar has been working with us for years,” provided Isaac. “Tens of jobs. He’s personally saved my life multiple times.”

“Mine, too,” squeaked the girl. Her voice reminded me of a chirping bird. “Twice.”

“So? That’s not the convincing argument you think it is,” I stated. “For all I know, you’re all traitors, and you’re working for the aliens. You wouldn’t be the first, and I know you won’t be the last.”

Askar held out his hand, his motions slow and precise, presumably so I wouldn’t interpret it as a threat. Then, a holographic display appeared above his upturned hand. The hovering depiction of his face was instantly recognizable, and my Universal Languageinterpreted the glyphs beneath, giving me the gist of what I was looking at.

“What is it?” asked Patrick.

“A wanted notice,” I said. “Mr. Askar here has been a very bad boy.”

Indeed, the list of crimes was extensive. Theft was the least of them, but it also seemed that he’d committed numerous other offenses, all targeted at his own people. It painted a vivid picture of his own opinion of his race.

“Care to explain?” I asked, nodding slightly. I still didn’t trust him, but I did respect him a bit more. Anyone who’d killed that many aliens was worthy of my regard.

“My planet was invaded, just like yours,” he said. “It was centuries ago, well before I was even born, but the result was a dystopian world where every natural resource had been stripped clean. We had no choice but to leave because the environment had grown so hostile. I was born on a giant space station in a dark, mostly forgotten corner of the universe. My people, they were barely surviving off whatever scraps our overlords deigned to grant us.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said.

“No. It isn’t. This planet is a paradise compared to most recently integrated worlds,” he explained. “That will not last.”

“I’m aware,” I said. “Hence the reason I’m holding a gun on you. In my experience, most aliens are here to ensure Earth ends up like your home planet. That’s why I make it a point to kill them whenever possible.”

He raised his perfectly arched eyebrows as he asked, “Have you encountered so many?”

“I’ve seen my fair share. Now, keep going. I’m getting a little impatient.”

“Very well. I recognized the situation for what it was before I’d even reached maturity,” Askar went on. “And after I realized that my pleas for change were met with disdain and hostility, I did what I had to do to escape. I left my home behind, and over the next few decades, I positioned myself to travel to a pre-Integration planet.”

“Obviously.”

“Right. Once I got here, I sabotaged the mining operation I was supposed to help guard and went rogue,” he said. “Ever since then, I’ve been free. Isaac and I met on another job, and we decided to become allies.  We’ve been together ever since.”

“That’s it?” I asked, a little disappointed. I’d half hoped he would prove to be some sort of freedom fighter. Instead, he was just another mercenary. “I…I don’t know. I expected more.”

“Like what?” asked Isaac, incapable of hiding his surprise.

“I don’t know. Maybe that he was trying to organize a resistance or something,” I said.

At that, Askar let out a sudden laugh. I reacted to the sudden change by raising my weapon a little, but he held up his hands in surrender as he said, “No. I’m not making a move. I just found it a bit…implausible.”

“Meaning?”

“Resistance is futile,” he stated. “The moment this world is Initialized, a swarm of powerful aliens will descend upon you. There is no chance of winning. Only survival until you can escape.”

“Then why are you here if our situation is so dire?” I asked. My tone promised disbelief, but I knew how accurate his prediction was. My uncle had said the same thing.

“Credits,” he said. “The whole universe isn’t like these frontier planets. The core worlds are civilized. I intend to make enough money to get there where I can settled down for an easy life. Maybe raise a family if I can find a compatible mate.”

It was such a simple goal that it should’ve seemed unbelievable to me. However, I had seen how desperate people could be for what should’ve been a normal life. The fate of Askar’s world was a peek into Earth’s future, which made me somewhat sympathetic. Still, I didn’t let my guard down.

“And you think this job will get you there?” I asked.

“No. But it is a step in the right direction,” he stated. “One of many. These frontier worlds are dangerous and difficult to visit, but they offer incredible opportunities. Once the Initialization completes, the various powers will descend and monopolize the resources. We only have a couple more years to take advantage of this situation.”

I didn’t immediately respond. Everything seemed to have a proper explanation, but even so, I knew that I couldn’t trust someone like Askar. He wasn’t like Gala or Dex or any of the other merchants in the Bazaar. When he’d descended upon Earth, Askar had established himself as an enemy of humanity.

But just because he was the enemy didn’t mean I couldn’t work with him, at least until he and the rest inevitably betrayed me. I glanced at Patrick. Betrayed us, rather.

“Fine,” I said, lowering my pistol to the table. The tension remained, but the others visibly relaxed.

The man in the hat chuckled, saying, “I was hopin’ for a good tussel. S’pose I’ll have to wait.”

“Didn’t catch your name, friend” Patrick said, his voice laced with uncharacteristic venom.

“Didn’t throw it your way, did I, chief?” the man remarked.

That’s when I noticed the barely visible seam in his right forearm. Otherwise, the limb looked entirely normal, but I could recognize high-end fake skin when I saw it. What sort of cybernetic did he have under there? That he hadn’t visibly reacted to the tense situation only made me reassess and put him at the top of my list of threats. Nobody could be that calm in the face of danger unless they were used to such situations.

And unless they had a plan to come out on top.

“Don’t be antagonistic, Rex,” said Isaac. Then, he introduced the others. I already knew Huascar, who still looked extremely twitchy. The pretty girl was called Avery, the fat man’s name was Paulo, and, of course, there was Rex. As it turned out, Avery specialized in scouting, Paulo called himself a Mistrunner, and Rex was an enforcer of sorts.  Askar’s was a jack-of-all-trades, and Huascar fancied himself a pilot. Or a driver, perhaps.

Finally, Isaac was the group’s leader, and he was the one who’d come up with the plan we would follow. Which was both simple and more complicated than I expected. One thing I’d learned since my Awakening was that complex plans tended to go wrong. Sure, it was tempting to create intricate plans where everything fit together like a well-made puzzle, but the reality of it was that simpler was almost always better.  Complicated looked good on paper, but in practice, the more moving pieces a plan had meant that there was just more that could go wrong. And inevitably, it would. And when everything started to unravel, it opened the door to terrible consequences.

No - simple was definitely better, especially if, as was so often the case with me, you had the skills to back it up.

“So, let me get this straight – first, we need to hijack a train,” I said, once Isaac had gone over the basics of the plan. “Then, we have to get it into position so it blocks the route the gnomes –”

“Dengyts,” interjected Isaac.

“Right. Them,” I said. “Anyway, we’ve got to block the path their convoy’s going to take. Once they’re stopped, we hit them hard and fast, take what we can, jump in the Leviathan, and be on the other side of the world before they have a chance to respond.”

“You’re missing one step,” said Paulo, mopping the sweat from his face with a less-than-clean handkerchief. “I need to get into their systems so I can identify the one carrying the goods.”

“Right,” I said. I could have done it, and probably better, but I didn’t want to give away too much about my abilities. After all, I fully expected to be betrayed, so it wasn’t wise to show them too many of my cards. “Which requires another stop.”

“And Rex has to set the explosives to disable the extraneous vehicles,” added Askar. “Even then, we’ll have a firefight on our hands.”

“Do you really think we can do this?” asked Patrick. He was always the cautious one, but I had to agree that the question needed to be asked. Because from what I’d seen, the group of would-be hijackers were destined to fail.

It was telling that, if it was just Patrick and me, I felt better about the heist than if the others were included. I was fairly certain that I could rival any of the specialists in their specific jobs, and I knew for certain that I was a better {Mistrunner} than Paulo. After all, my Backlash had completely incapacitated him, and that hadn’t required any real input from me. If I truly flexed my abilities, he would have died in an instant.

“All you gotta worry ‘bout is flyin’,” said Rex. “Just be where yer s’posed to be, and we’ll do what we’re s’posed to do. No muss, no fuss.”

To accentuate his statement, he tilted his head to the side and spat on the floor. My dislike for the man grew.

“Yeah, if we agree to do this, I’m not sitting out,” I said.

“And you think you kin keep up?” Rex asked, leaning forward and smiling broadly. “Or are you just gonna be our eye candy? Huascar told me about that little get-up you was wearin’ when they found you. Put that little number on, and I’ll be right fine with you taggin’ along.”

I sighed.

Back in Nova City, I’d gotten into the habit of hiding my face behind Mimic. Rare was the occasion when I’d left our compound without wearing some sort of mask. However, in the years since the city’s fall, I’d worn my own face far more often. And during that time, I’d come to realize that men and women were very appreciative of my looks. I knew I wasn’t the most beautiful girl in the world, but I was definitely a cut above average. Combine that with a body that I’d spent quite a bit of time training, and I’d endured my fair share of romantic overtures. In the year when Patrick and I were apart, I’d even given in to many of them.

But there was a time and place for that kind of thing, and in the middle of a clandestine meeting concerning a potential job was neither. Especially from someone like Rex, who, though he was a decent looking man, certainly wasn’t my type.

So, I knew I needed to make another example. And judging by Huascar’s cringing expression, he knew what was coming as well.

In a lightning move, I exploded from my seat and reached out to grab the back of Rex’s head. He tried to react, but he was far too slow. With measured force, I yanked his head down, and a moment later, I was rewarded by the sound of cracking bone. He flailed in pain and surprise, and I released him.

That’s when his arm opened up, and a long, thin blade jutted up and out like the claw of a praying mantis. Before he could bring that cybernetic weapon to bear, I had Ferdinand II’s barrel pressed to the side of his head.

“Nuh uh, buddy,” I growled. “One wrong move, and your head’s a canoe.”

The others didn’t even have a chance to react, everything had happened so quickly. But already, Patrick had his gun in hand, and he was more than ready to do whatever was necessary.

A long moment of silence stretched between us, with each member of the group on the verge of attack. But then, a small, high-pitched voice interrupted, asking, “What’s a canoe?”

I glanced at Avery, who had a quizzical expression on her face. I answered, “Type of boat. They used to make them by hollowing out tree trunks.”

Her face squinched as she gave it some thought, and then recognition dawned. “Oh! I get it!”

Askar locked his eyes on me. He still hadn’t drawn a weapon. “If you’re going to kill him, let’s get it over with.”

“Don’t want to. But I couldn’t let that kind of thing go,” I said. “Slippery slope and all that.”

He seemed to understand my issue. If I let him act that way, he would keep pushing until he went too far. By taking care of it now – just as I had with Huascar during the first meeting – I’d cut that kind of thing off at the source. Perhaps Rex would harbor some resentment, but given his attitude, that was unavoidable. Men like him only understood one thing, and peaceful coexistence was never in the cards.

“If you let him go, we can work together,” said Isaac. “Kill him, and…well, things are going to get messy.”

“I want an apology.”

Isaac said, “What?”

“Fuck you!” spat Rex, his voice nasal from what I thought was a broke nose. “You let me up, and I’ll –”

“Know when to shut up, Rex,” interrupted Askar. Curiously, the other man snapped his jaws shut. Askar continued, “Apologize. Promise not to say anything offensive. And maybe we can get this thing back on track. Just think of the rewards, if it makes you feel any better.”

A long, pregnant silence blanketed the room, but it only lasted a few more seconds before Rex muttered, “Sorry.” When I didn’t immediately let him up, he shouted, “I’m sorry, aight? I didn’t mean it. Just foolin’ about is all. Don’t pay it no mind.”

After a couple of moments, I withdrew my pistol. I didn’t holster it, though. Instead, I remained wary as Rex pushed himself up. His nose was a misshapen ruin of blood, though I suspected it wouldn’t be long before it healed. The resistance I’d felt when slamming his face into the table told me all I needed to know about his Constitution, and though it didn’t compare to mine, it was still high enough that a little broken nose wouldn’t be more than a minor annoyance.

“So, do you want to do this?” asked Patrick via our secure connection. He hadn’t spoken out loud, so none of the others were aware of his question. “Or do we just leave?”

“You think they’ll let us?” I asked in the same way. “If we refuse, they won’t let us leave this room alive. We’ll have to subdue or kill them. They can’t afford us getting out and warning the gnomes.”

“Dingyts,” he said.

“Whatever. My point is that we either join them, or we hash it out right here and now. I think I can take a couple of them out before they have a chance to react, but that still leaves –”

“Let’s just go along with it,” he said. “If we feel the pressure, we do what we need to do.”

I resisted the urge to nod. We’d already discussed contingencies, and we’d made preparations for betrayal. So, we’d mitigated most of the risk associated with joining the group. It wasn’t safe, but it was as close as we could make it.

“Fine,” I said aloud. “So, let’s go over the details. And no – I’m not staying in the ship. I know you only wanted Patrick and the Leviathan, but we’re a package deal. And if I’m coming along, I’m going to make sure we don’t screw things up.”

“I think…I think we can all agree to that,” said Isaac.  “You seem competent enough that we’ll find a use for your…ah…skills.”