BALLS TO SHOES
23 Apr 2022Goldgunner1
Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat.Steven Erikson 2000
Reginald was sweating. It was running down his back, under his expensive flight suit. The one with the hidden armoured panels and the clever nano-stitching that concealed the auto-muscle-bundles that leant him his superior physical acumen and his inflated feeling of capacity. It was running down his arse crack and from his hairline into his beard. It was dripping from what passed for his pectoral muscles but frankly, despite the expensive surgicals, sagged a little. That, in the provacy of the deck of his ship, the "Pinnacle", when his crew were certain he couldn't hear, warranted other, less savoury labels.
“It was almost like getting soaked in the cursed rain”, thought Reginald sourly.
Reginald was sweating because he knew who the man sitting at the table reading what appeared to be a book on a tablet was. It was none other than the mark of the day; no, the mark that he had wished for for a long time. James Red; his handle in the lanes; Goldgunner. The man didn’t look like all-that. He didn’t look like the vaunted combat pilot that he was made out to be in his file. The grubby mismatched file full of clippings and print outs that Reginald had nursed like a polluted voodoo doll all these months. He didn’t look at all; at all, like the talented flyer of the heavies that made Goldgunner a famous eliminator of whomsoever he was contracted to deal with. Perhaps the delicate fingers, pausing now and again to swipe at the tablet as he presumably turned pages, perhaps in the strain marks on the tired face and the hard grey eyes that softened every now and again as he reached a part of a page that drew from him some or other emotion. That face and that expression of ingrained exhaustion spoke of long hours in the cockpit and that type of work, even with the dampeners and anti-grav wore on a person over time. Hard roads leave marks.
It had been six months since Goldgunner had blown Reginald’s previous ship to smithereens in a Haz Res out at LHS 1358. Reginald and his expensive flight suit had spent more than three months in cryo in a pod before being rescued by The Snatchers. Reginald smelt only slightly better today than he had in that cramped escape pod.
The Snatchers were a criminal organisation that thought nothing of a little good-natured indentured slavery as a suitable reward for a rescue. Reginald’s sorry arse had been theirs now for the whole period since his rescue and the debt wouldn’t be paid back for a few years unless he got a lucky break. Here it was. If Red could be killed, his ship and assets would be forfeited. Maybe a small share to the hackers that would open his accounts and another to the people who would see to it that the corpse ended up in a foundry slag river. Not too bad. Rumour had it Red had a pad, a hab space and several businesses that made him passive money. Even a share in Chedwyk Station in Backlumba along with his scummy pals. Then there was his bank accounts and his black needle-shaped Corvette. The heavy hunter-killer named “Kingsnake”. She was still ticking with superheated cooling vents on the tarmac a few hundred metres from this bar. Why did f**king bastards like him have all the g*ddammed luck. When he took her from Goldgunner, he wouldn’t erase the triple elite decal. Why the f**k should he. Nobody would know. Reginald felt sure that he looked the part. The hard face, the expensive combat suit. Who the f**k would ever know?
Reginald was going to be rich.
Reginald took a minute to slam back two quick shots of Seven Spirits. Two shots. One for courage and one for hope.
Fortified, he stepped out across the bar and slid the pistol out of the concealed pocket on his suit. He was so close. Seconds. He crossed the barroom floor and entered the restaurant area where the tall grey-haired commander was reading. He approached the man, registering that Goldgunner had chosen a place to sit where his back was against the wall and from where he could observe the whole bar. He registered that there was a mirror opposite too as his reflection flashed into view.
“Did he see me?” wondered the angry man as he closed the distance, “he’s too into his s**t to care to notice me and why would he remember?”
Reginald was right next to Goldgunner when his pistol touched the grey eyed man’s forehead.
“Stand the f*ck up you piece of shit”, spat Reginald. The sweat, precipitation by this point.
“Stand the f*ck up and leave quietly and I’ll make it quick” Reginald continued.
What happened next people still speak about in hushed tones.
Like a striking snake; like the namesake of the black killer on the tarmac, Goldgunner slapped aside the pistol and stood. Grabbing Reginald’s shoulders, delicate fingers like claws, digging through that reinforced suit and crushing Reginald’s traps in grips like steel. Ramming him against that big wall. Ramming him like a sack of trash. Ramming him and taking away his breath. Ramming him to savour the feeling.
Reginald was panicking. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t reach the slip-knife in his side pocket, his eyes were tearing up from the pain of that grip.
The grey eyed man leaned in, close to the struggling man. His hissed speech was audible across the whole bar.
“You know Reginald, you f**ker, it’s ok to have ambition, it’s ok to go for the throat; it’s ok to take your chance”.
“I understand you feel aggrieved”, the grey eyed man added as he shifted his grip to Reginald’s throat, the younger man, half suspended against the wall, eyes bulging, and feet scrabbling looked wild with fear as he heard the sibilance of a weapon being drawn. The crash and tinkle of patrons diving for cover.
The Tormentor’s snub-nose pushed hard into Reginald’s groin.
“But I piss on compromise”.
The shot was a hard burp in the confined space, noise suppression and audio masking keeping it subtle. The effect on Reginald wasn’t subtle at all. Smashing his groin and sheeting blood onto the floor and the wall behind the unfortunate man.
Looking up at the frightened patrons and arching his eyebrow, Goldgunner spoke once more, “Balls to shoes?”
He let Reginald go and the body slipped down the wall and into the booth Goldgunner had vacated. Holstering his weapon, tossing money to the barman, the grey-eyed man stalked from the establishment, wiping the last spots of sweaty Reginald on a napkin.