RHAPSODY IN BLUE SMOKE
27 Mar 2022Goldgunner1
The grey eyed commander reviewed his behaviour over the last two weeks. The reality occurred to him that so many of his moments of deeper thought and analysis took place when it was raining. Fact is he loved the rain. Soft, light, hard, forceful, pelting. It didn’t matter. So long as the monotony of blazing hot dusty planets was broken at least now and again by the beauty of precipitation, he was happy. He was happy now. The lines of rain swept in from the coast and softly machine gunned the cast iron rooves that made up so much of the sprawling hab complex, below him and the battered balcony of the Blue Contrail Bar that he was standing on. The Blue Contrail was famous for its excellent bar food, serving whistle grubs in beer batter and the most delicious planet-grown purple beryl nuts. The bar was even more famous for the influence and power of its gregarious bartender. Joe Jovial was well known in this sub sector. A big man with a big heart and an even bigger network of connections. Nobody challenged the perception of his open heartedness since in addition to his obvious personal warmth, below the bar he also kept a big black sap and a small but highly effective shotgun. The black sap was named Kiss and people said that the shotgun was referred to as Sweetcheeks. James had no intent to test either the owners good will or the engineering that went into modern versions of these bartender’s accoutrement. Besides he and his family got on very well with Joe.
Joe had been a ground pounder was upon a time and had graduated to his bar after an honourable discharge from the Witch Head AX Marines. A force that had been built at the outbreak of some of the famous sector’s hostilities against the Thargoids. There had been some fear that humans would be drawn into ground battles against the weeds and that had precipitated a high-priced experiment.
A division of hard hitting and well-trained military men and women. Called up to service from across the sub sector and beyond they’d been equipped superbly and trained in space-to-space warfare and boarding actions. They had suffered the indignities of planetary landings and battled against mock aliens of every ilk. In the end, they’d not been needed. At least not for AX. Not wanting to waste their investment the powers that be had put them to work snuffing out piracy and other anti social behaviours across near space. This strategy had recouped the financial investment from industrial magnates and made the numbers add up, but it had been a waste for the idealistic people who were the soldiers. Joe had returned planetside and put his earnings to good use.
Joe was a slab of a man with fists like hams, but he had a ready smile. The burns from an energy flash explosion didn’t detract from it and the wild blue eyes made him appear friendly when tweaked by the crows’ feet in the corners. Those same eyes looked like death if the crows’ feet weren’t cooperating.
The bar was bustling but the man was in the rain-soaked city for only one person. Word had it that Russle Snark was in the hab complex. The grey-eyed commander was a marked man. Russle and all his little friends hated him and would love to put him face down in a puddle somewhere. Oozing life. They were push dealers and were still a little miffed about an unfortunate misunderstanding which had resulted in a few bloody noses, short periods of unconsciousness and several mysteriously redirected allocations of funds out of their accounts. Exactly the kind of shenanigans that gave Henzler his good name.
They exploded into the bar, guns blazing, the kind of primitive but very effective slug throwers that were famous groundside. A heavy calibre bullet took the man standing next to Goldgunner in the throat. He’d have had trouble breathing if he had still been alive. Collapsing instantly to the ground another patron was dead on impact and a young woman was yelling as the slug tore off her hand. Typical bandits. S**t shots. Not a comment the dead patrons could make though, and the behaviour of his gang was both calculated and stupid at the same time. The confusion would have been to their advantage against another crew. The chaos of the scared patrons in a normal bar also advantageous. There were five of them and the volume of shot was intimidating and struck people indiscriminately.
But this was Joe’s joint.
No ordinary bar.
Commander Prime had his weapon out as the doors crashed open. Like a snake that man. His shot blew a chest out at twenty. Sacked and dead.
Henzler stepped in from the door and chopped that infamous lead pipe twice. He was showing off. Once smashed the wrist of a killer and the following uppercut shattered the killer's jaw; the killer's face and rammed his nose back into his brain. Dead on arrival. Lead poisoning.
The boom of the Bomanian Admiral’s engineered shotgun ended another bandit in an artful splatter.
Ricza fired laconically under-arm from where he was casually leaning against the bar. His shot clipped a tankard and flew in ricochet, running a line along the cheek of one of them. His teeth rendered piano keys in red.
The redirect from Goldgunner’s weapon permanently ended his need for corrective dentistry.
But that redirect gave Russle the opening he needed and his heavy slug thrower was extended; magazine lined up on Goldgunner’s forehead. The best laid plans and the best counter attacks sometimes have holes. This one did. The hole looked likely to be in Goldgunner's forehead.
The shot fell.
A crashing heavy punch. Like an antique. The heavy percussive, single-handed slap that meant a .50 slug.
Goldgunner felt the wind of the bullet. Reaching from behind him and racing ahead. Smashing the ganger's forehead to a bloody pulp. Russle's reflexive shot blasting powder and plaster from the roof and comically covering Goldgunner in white “icing”. Like a weathered and slightly undesirable cake.
Goldgunner turned ….
The tall woman behind the bar smiled at him, broad shouldered, blonde-haired and powerful, her six-shot Dragoon colt swirled-about with soft blue muzzle-smoke, complimenting the colour of some of her six figured tattoos.
“Scylla, you’re a sight for sore eyes and a s**t load prettier than Joe,” drawled the grey eyed commander; relief evident in his white-powdered face.