Light and Haze, 5: Firewalker
20 Sep 2021Meowers
Well, you don't need to be especially smart to realise that seeing unknown armed people on your ship that supposed to be empty... Isn't a good sign, actually.
"Oh, hello, miss! Wow-wow, I'm mostly surprised! I was waiting for someone...", once I entered the main corridor, one of the men started talking to me with that false suave tone that doesn't bode well every time you hear it.
"What the heck are you doing on my ship?", I asked, quickly dropping my bag on the floor, grabbing a rifle and pointing it at him.
"No need to be so aggressive, honey!", he unholstered his laser carbine. Well, it was no match for my rifle, but, khm, sounds of weapon safety switches behind me were even more unpleasant than his voice. "We will cooperate, don't we? See, one of our major figures here had seen that nice ship of yours during the repairs... And wanted to purchase it from you. So we'll be happy to see it from the inside... Make a few spins in the space... Shoot someone, maybe! And these upgrades, oh... Truly a masterpiece! Can you please let us walk around to see everything, huh?"
Those 'skull-spider' signs, painted on the shoulders. Laser carbines, pistols, handcuffs, shock batons, paralysing devices. Smug faces. And that faint, but recognisable onionhead stench. Delaine's slaver crew. The worst people to be surrounded with. Two of them in front of me, also that guy in tech uniform, and... Definitely more than one behind. Two, three maybe. And I knew that they're here not for the ship. Either I pissed off Delaine, dragging Jacqueline out of the mess, or they were searching for her, or... Uh, well, I highly doubt that it was somehow connected to me personally, or my ship, apart from that rescue operation.
"Just give me that big toy of yours, okay? And nobody gets hurt...", he approached, looking at my weapon.
Had to give him the rifle. Grrr. You know, feeling a gun pressed against the back of your head leaves you not so many options. Thought about telling what happened to people who tried to disarm me the other day, but... Hmph. What's the point. I had to do something, and shaking the air with curses wasn't the best solution. And they were better than me at slick talking, that's for sure.
Yeah, five of them. Or six. Five Delaine's men and that tech guy, looks like he's with them too, he wasn't looking like a slave, or someone who was afraid, or somehow else forced to let them enter the ship. Honestly, he was okay with the situation, judging by that smirk. Argh... Dammit. And people dare to say that 'I'm almost paranoid', 'I have trust issues', 'I should be more open', blah blah blah. Yeah, just look at this mess. First time I left my ship open and now I have rats onboard. And they closed the entry airlock.
"Now you please give me the main keycard and we'll enter the cockpit. My friends are tired of waiting near that closed door...", he proceeded, holding my rifle with one hand and pointing at my pockets with another. "You know, it's rude to make good men waiting, don't you?"
"Ah, okay. I see where it goes. Then you're going to tie me and...", I curled a brow, trying to look sarcastic, "...and then you'll try to fly a highly modified combat ship with a personalised control setup. But end up with ramming the wall at five hundred and everyone onboard killed. You included. You're not going to get your bonus after that."
"Hey, guys! Just look at it. Aaah, how do I like when they try to kick back!", he addressed it to his companions, and then they all let out a cocky laugh. Slaver, who was standing behind me, pushed my head with his weapon, but I remained standing and looking at their leader. So then he proceeded, sounding more like... your usual gangster type. "Go and open that door, you dimwit hoe. Then reset your fancy trinkets, hand us the keycard and be nice. Understand?"
No chance now, I was still surrounded. And my pistol was in that bag on the floor. Slaver, that was behind me, pushed me in the back, commanding to go, but also I heard steps of some of them going deeper to the technical sections. Doubt they wanted to 'see the ship from the inside', all the specifications were in open access via the maintenance terminal. And that tech guy could show them on his datapad. They definitely had other reason to split up now.
The only way now is forward. Whatever it means...