A Justice Provider's Tale 07

Chapter 7

There was.

This spaceport had more holes than a Kermac T-cruiser after meeting up with the Devastator. While the north end of the corridor and the People mover ended up at the spaceport terminal with all the necessary controls, the south end of the corridor, after about eight klicks ended up in the open at a freight transfer field with stacked containers and crates. Robotic cargo handlers and drones were impervious to rain, fog and the sweltering sauna conditions buzzing everywhere with bright lights and rotating yellow warning flashers. However busy and efficient, completely ignoring me or my Silverhawk-Monoflash.

The field was separated from a paved road and the natural vegetation of this world by a ten meters tall physical fence, not even a force field barrier. The gang of wet S-10 robots removing moss and climbing plants from that fence, most likely doing that chore over and over again, also ignored me my speeder slipped past the opening gate halves to let a ground effect train pulling seven sleds loaded with containers out onto the partially overgrown road.

Currently, there wasn’t actual rain falling, but the moisture in the air was so thick that my repellers worked at full speed to keep the windshield clean.

I had raised the folding canopy over the drivers’ compartment. The second it had snapped into the receiving ring, the soft transparent plastic had become rigid, forming a transparent half-sphere bubble over me and the small driver - passenger compartment.

Lun, the Plato had given me instructions after I had uploaded a map of the planet. Behind me was the spaceport and the domed city of Blisterbahl-Green. In front of me, the road of Duro crete piercing the almost solid wall of dark green vegetation. It was according to that map and Lun going straight towards the soon to be opening ‘Shaill Trail Park’, whatever that was and the 1500 klicks distant town of ‘Misty Heaven’ where the Blisterbahl development cooperation was building the planet’s second spaceport. Why they did not simply expand the one they had was not clear to me, but I never claimed to know much about these things in the first place.

I wanted to surprise the suckers and figured that they had an eye on the sky since they had to wait for the Gulliver to leave.

He was much smarter than the average guy. I would be hard-pressed to hunt a guy like him, Lun that is. I’ve noticed the Wolfcrafts myself, I did not know they were part of a battleships fighter contingent. If there was a Union Battleship in the system, there wasn’t anything bigger than a molecule slipping past the heliopause without them knowing.

Their sensors tracking anything in real space or quasi for at least twenty or maybe fifty light-years.

I said it before, I was Army my friend, but I can tell you there isn’t much more professional and efficient out there than Union Navy. The scanner and sensor operators of that Union battleship would not only know the type, registry, and transponder data of everything inside their sensor horizon but what the pilot had of lunch.

On the other hand, parking your ship with powered down engines on the freight deck of a Gulliver, paying the captain the freight charge perhaps stating that your TL engines need to be replaced or something, was a perfect way to leave a system completely un-noticed.

Union engineers and robots most likely constructed that twenty-meter wide band of glistening wet Duro-Crete through that Jungle.

It was almost like passing through a dark green tunnel. At one point I passed another gang of robots, that at the side of the road cut and trimmed encroaching vegetation.

The Shaill-Trail-Park was, so a sign informed me was an upcoming amusement attraction tailored for the needs and entertainment of Shaill.

I rushed by a busy construction site with bright floodlights and an army of beings and workers.

According to the interactive map, I had traveled about eight hundred klicks already and made good time. I would arrive well ahead of lift-off and thus find time to find them and figure out what to do exactly.

A Dura plast sign informed me that there was a rest stop ahead, A tavern by the name of “Cool Steam” promising cold beer, hot food, locally sourced mold for Shaill and license-free hard Tox.

There out of the wet, greenish haze of steamy jungle air an island of lights emerged. The colorful advertisement lights surrounded by diffusing halos and fist-sized flying things.

I wasn’t going to stop, but the sight of three dark green Nofret-500 with Taxis markings parked among other skimmers and flyers made me stop.

Perhaps it was just a watering hole for taxi pilots, and perhaps there was no other connection between that guy who’s nuts I roasted than the same type of taxi, but in situations like this, I trusted my instincts.

It wasn’t raining at the moment, but the sweltering steamy heat hit me like a wet fist wrapped in a wet towel, as I got out of my Monoflash. The building was about thirty meters removed from the edge of the actual road and was two-story high. One of the many lighted advertisement signs told me that, this was also a hotel with the added feature of seven latest model Sex robots. Two of them of the human female variety.

The entire building appeared to be nesting inside an alcove of foliage and snake-like branches. I also found out what Neeezz are. While my outfit looked like standard leather pants, blacktop, and a leather jacket. I was a spacer and my everyday clothing was also a functional space armor suit. Able to be sealed in moments, with a small emergency supply of liquefied oxygen, rad shielding, and thermal insulation. It was thankfully also Neeezz proof from the neck on down.

Somehow I doubted this joint would attract much in terms of the expected tourist trade. Double-checking my weapons, not wanting to sweat any more than necessary out in that thick soup of moisture, heavy plant odor and buzzing things, I quickly stepped over something crawling and went inside.

Behind the sliding doors was a strong air curtain that probably kept most of the flying things out and the cool air-conditioned and reasonably dry air in.

I had been in many places just like it.

The atmosphere was of subdued light, that came from several colored advertisements, shaded lamps over the bar and a few tables.

A row of four Tabil Tosser game boxes, two of them in use. A public GalNet terminal. There was a row of booths on one side. Two doors, one on each side of the long bar. One with the sign Hotel and Dining room over it and the other with the universally know icon for multi-species hygiene facilities.

My arrival had been instantly noticed.

The four beings at the Tabil Tosser boxes had stopped playing. Six rough-looking beings at a green-topped table no longer paid much attention to the game they were playing and the bartender, the first thin and somewhat sickly looking Quadiped I had ever seen, put his hands on the counter staring at me, as if he was not sure if he should welcome new business or maybe ask me to leave. To the left of the bar stood a tall beautiful blonde human woman wearing, a very revealing outfit, made mostly of feathers and golden chains. I recognized the motionless, woman with the blank expression instantly, it was DeNoir’s LOLA. The Lifelike Organic Love Android made famous in countless jokes, sleazy stories and of course the similar famous LOLA commercials

I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for, the Taxi pilot I was associating with this place was certainly not here.

A sudden movement to the right of me made me duck. This time, it wasn’t unexpected or from behind. A Morgan slayer swooshed through the space my head had occupied a heartbeat ago and made a sizeable dent in the metal frame of the door behind me.

The attacker now staring into the muzzle of my TKU, did not try to swing it again. With the left, I brushed back my jacket seam and pulled my back up weapon, a sophisticated H&K Missile pistol, a tiny servo motor loading, a Uranium Tungsten tip micro missile with the characteristic little hum and click.

“Guys and gentle beings. I got enough hardware on me to level this joint to its foundations and kill every living thing in a radius of half a mile. So let’s do this over again.”

One of the beings by the Tabil Tossers, a Stangit from the looks of it, was the first who moved. I wasn’t sure if he was reaching for something with his long hairy arms, but I didn’t want to find out. The micro missile hissed at supersonic speed across the room and shattered the lamp above his head. “Drop it, whatever you got.”

The Stangian primate dropped a Neuro Ripper of all things with an angry hiss.

“As I was saying, folks. Let’s start over again. I am a thirsty and perhaps hungry traveler stepping into this cheerful establishment. You all smile to greet me friendly and you, Quadiped will ask me what I would like to drink.”

It was very quiet.

The man with the Morgan Slayer was about the built and size of one of the men that jumped me in the Glamour and Glitter district, he was humanoid and from the built, the hint of greenish shade in his complexion and hairless appearance, I suspected him to be of Herman’s Word. A place with almost two gee natural gravitation. The human Terran colonists had adapted over the hundreds of years they had been exposed to that gravitation and the skin staining flower dust of that world. “So you are the one that decided I needed a massage, Morgan slayer style!”

“Listen, traveler.” The Barkeep had found his voice.”We don’t like foreigners armed with guns and TKUs waltzing in here. We just minding our own business.”

“So but you are okay with locals that carry illegal Kermac Neuro rippers or trying to bash someone’s face in with a Morgan?.”

“If the police come, they will get a good description. You took a shot at Mikli.”

“Since one of you roasted the criminal Med Tech of this town, I am not so sure you want police in here. Now I won’t be back once I leave.

So most of you can go back to your entertainment choices soon, but I want to know where a certain off-world man could be found, you know the sun-baked joker from Gullster’s Paradise? He isn’t from here either I think. But he hangs out with that slayer swinging gentleman to my left.”

The man from Herman’s World spat on the floor. “I am not telling you anything. You can’t prove it was me who clobbered you in town or that it was me who shot your Chuckian friend, the one that sold you out.”

Something hard poked me in the crotch.”Drop your guns, bounty hunter!”

I looked down, a Holdian was pointing a Shrap-accelerator right between my legs. Everyone always thought these small rodent-like beings with their whiskers, black button eyes, fluffy tails, round ears, and soft shimmering fur were as cute and adorable, as innocent as a stuffed plush cuddle toy. I never shared this sentiment, and if there were one species in our lovely wonderful and diverse Union I true despised, it was Holdians! Why? Because I always overlooked them, underestimated them and like everyone else never thought of them as the source of anything evil. Even though their society had one of the highest crime rates among Union societies.

“I said drop them, shooters. spaceman. No med tech will be able to fix what I am about to blast!”

The Shrap gun was real, the weapon firing razor-sharp bits of tungsten steel at a very high velocity and from this range would most likely pierce my space armor.

I dropped the weapons.

The Holdian snickered.”Wise choice space scum. Come on guys let’s show him a good time here at the Cool Steam.”

The muscle packed, bald head from Herman’s World, poked me with the blunt end of his slayer. “High and mighty bounty hunter, eh? Well after we are done with you, they need your DNA to identify what’s left.”

A similar bruiser got up from the game table. From the looks of it a Tripe-Strong, this one male with slightly more hair than his slayer wielding friend the “Haven’t had me a nice workout, he’s a big boy he can take some.”

The barkeeper had jumped over the bar holding a slayer as well.

The rest of the bar was on their feet and were closing in.