“Crash, you blundering bag of bolts,” Eris exclaimed. “Get this mess free from this debris and fast, we’ll see to that vault.” The unusual Uraor stepped towards the door, her rust colored form already met by sunlight as she ducked her head to clear the portal. A growl grew from deep within her gut; it rolled its way upwards until it made the short tusks that only just protruded out from her lips tremble and quake. Every muscle in her fearsome frame flexed and rippled as what little of what had been a plan escaped her.
“I’ll rip those two defective dimwits to pieces! What do they think they are doing?” Eris realized as she stepped out into the bank’s lobby that Crash’s steel skinned siblings were both missing. As she ranted with rage another member of their roster of rogues approached her from behind. Standing at seven feet tall it was rare that Eris had to look up when anyone spoke to her, but Trapper was definitely an exception. The eternally unhappy Ursian maintained almost a full foot in height on Eris, and stayed in as sullen a mood as anyone she had ever met.
Typically it was well-known that Ursian’s were fairly friendly and somewhat passive folk by their nature. But something had happened to Trapper long ago to mold her into the melancholy marauder she had become. Even though marked by a large furry form, often people misjudged Trapper’s small eyes and rounded ears as a reminder of a childhood cuddle-cub. And she was anything but.
“I’d offer to let you guess,” Trapper commented coarsely. “But we both already know, don’t we?” Eris couldn’t resist the thought that, as usual, Trapper was just a ray of sunshine. “Smash will be trying to apply his less than capable mental faculties to the vault, and Bash will be looking for a fight or making one.”
True to form, as Eris rushed out into the bank she found Smash hard at work ramming his head repeatedly into the vault, attempting to breach it with brute force. And just as predictable Bash had a security guard’s limp body in one hand while his other was busy pounding his prey with punches. “Told you,” Trapper confirmed as she followed Eris away from the vehicle.
“Alright, nobody is going to move,” Eris snarled. “No pretty words or fancy nonsense, just know that if you don’t do as I say Bash and Smash here are going to give you a personal demonstration of how they were named. And that is only if you’re lucky enough that we don’t get our hands on you!” She could hear Trapper huff a little in irritation at the notion beside her, probably already bored with the job at hand.
“Trapper, see if you can’t spare Smash a bit and tinker with those vault controls.” “Yeah, yeah,” Trapper complained with a groan. “Bash, drop that sorry sack and keep your eyes peeled for any trouble makers. What did he do anyways, try to stop you?” The body dropped down to the floor with a thud, still without so much as a twitch. “Asleep,” Bash admitted automatically and as Eris scanned the room she found herself unable to question the fact.
Nobody moved a muscle. Every single helpless soul still inside the building was frozen in fear. In fact, Eris wasn’t even sure anyone had even heard her little threatening tirade. It was enough to aggravate an Altain – which to be fair didn’t truly take all that much she had to confess. But still, Dyzon probably didn’t have to deal with this kind of headache. Just the thought of that man was maddening.
Taurus himself had sent word for her crew to handle that Titan Train this time, Bloody Bachelor or no, he was playing with fire. But this little job ought to even out the score. Let them have the slim pickings of those passengers, she would lay hands on the bigger prize stored here in town. Rumor was the next scheduled shipment back off-world had been delayed by a storm surge. Which meant that Redemption’s share would be stashed here in the vault before it could be sent out. Nobody was willing to risk sending their share back down the line to wait where they couldn’t keep an eye on it. Anything might happen to it. Including it being stolen or accidentally added to someone else’s yield.
It was precisely the kind of thing people figured couldn’t happen if they locked it up safely in the town’s bank. Eris had to chuckle at that, the idea that anything was safe from them. “How is it coming Trap,” she asked, still feeling more than a little angry about everything.
“Hammer head here triggered a code recalibration so it’ll take another minute to crack the combination,” Trapper explained. “Or we could just blow the thing if you’re in a hurry.” Eris wasn’t about to waste time standing around thinking about it; she wanted some loot in hand and to be clear of this headache. “Blow it then,” she answered.
“Been nice knowing you folks,” Trapper told those trembling faces nearest to her. Reaching into her pack she paused only briefly to ask one thing. “So how much of what is in there do you want to still be there?” Yup, Eris decided, she is just one big ball of happy. And somehow she had been cursed with this whole crazy crew. It was no wonder they kept getting shown up by the Bull-Boys.
Episode 12 – Laughter Is Lethal
Marshall sprinted at full speed down the street; heading in the direction Grandma Grael had pointed him. His first time out he just hoped he made it there in time to make a difference. He did regret having to leave the Hole-Maker and his Scavenger’s Shard, but there simply hadn’t been time to grab all his gear. Besides, he was in a hurry and when you have to deploy rapidly you only grab what is absolutely necessary.
His feet slammed into a rhythm pounding along the compressed dirt road while he felt the reassuringly familiar presence of some of his gear. Firmly positioned along his hips, with handles pointed outwards were both of his Tamel’s. He had practiced with them countless times, honed and perfected their use to the point of nearly surgical precision. Having their weight at his sides was like an old friend there, at once comforting as it was encouraging.
The hilts of heavy gauge blades brushed at his thighs as they reminded him of their presence as well. ‘Claw Breakers,’ he liked to call them, and the humor of the name always made him smile. Their blades were nearly a foot long with handles that were almost half that. He had been told they were actually hand-forged, unlike most of the automated manufactured garbage most people called a good blade these days. But what had sold him on these little gems was the thickness of the tetrasteel blades themselves. They were easily over half an inch thick and easily capable of cleaving through wood like an axe or turning aside a swung blade. And to think, you could find them in a survivalist shop that catered to explorers and colonists.
Rounding the street corner, the sight of a wheeled transport still clinging to a ruined rubble wall redirected Marshall’s mind in a flash. It was time to focus; it was time for him to get serious and go to work. He tried to take everything in all at once as he assessed the situation. With his back pressed against a small portion of stone that somehow was still standing, Marshall carefully peered inside.
There were several hostages littered along the ground, most of them unmoving save for the subtle signs of their shallow breathing or the trembling touch of fear. No where to be seen was a guard or security officer that he could tell, but there were plenty of robbers to deal with. By his count there were at least four in the bank and a fifth moving about in the crashed vehicle. Not the best odds, but then again he didn’t expect to be facing anything remotely resembling a fair contest.
Marshall closed his eyes and took a deep breath before reaching up to tug the brim of his hat down. You only get one chance at an introduction and if this was it, well, he wanted it to be as perfect as possible. “This is going to be your one and only warning,” he stated as solemnly as he could. He kept his tone as firm and final as he issued his ultimatum. “Disarm and surrender yourselves peacefully or else.”
“Is this some kind of sick joke,” Eris asked in spite of herself. She had heard the demands from outside but for the life of her she couldn’t think of anyone foolish enough to make them. “Do you know who you’re dealing with here? Huh, who do you think you are to try and threaten me? Why don’t you just show yourself and explain to me just what you mean by ‘or else.’
Crash, you get out here too, let’s all have a see at what should terrify us so to make us give up this lawless life.”
Marshall cleared his thoughts and emptied himself to keep his senses sharp. Relaxed he let both his arms fall to rest across his waist, each one only just brushing a handle’s grip. Reserved to let the chips fall where they may he decided to test his luck and stepped clear of the clutter to address his foes face to face. “It’s simple, really,” Marshall explained every word a challenge that dared them to test him. “Either you give yourselves up, or you take your chances with me.
So what will it be? You want to give up, or face a Gauntlet that leads to an early grave?” Marshall was hoping to make the most of the dramatic moment and find his foes caught off-guard, perhaps even manage to bluff them down. But instead the reaction awaiting him was somewhat unsettling to his pride. For instead of fear or even serious consideration he found only a chorus of cackles and lively laughter.
“Crash, Bash, Smash; kindly remove our foolish and funny friend here before he makes my sides hurt,” Eris ordered in between howls of humor. All three bot-brothers moved obediently in unison towards Marshall still snickering. He had to consciously push his wounded pride aside to keep it from distracting him. All it would do was strip him of the edge he needed to deal with things, but he couldn’t completely rein it in. It resisted him until he realized it had slipped free from his grasp to demand he respond.
“I warned you,” he declared with deadly determination. And all at once both his hands seized a hold of patient pistol grips and swung out to take aim in a flash of movement. His Tamel’s trained themselves on the trio treading towards him as the first two shots leapt like lightening from the drawn duo he held at his sides. Both blasts barked to life to barrage one of the bots in the chest before he sighted down to send a second series into another.
In quick succession all three thieves were pierced and punctured by Marshall’s projectiles until they fell to the ground. With them went the chuckles and giggles as well. Eris stared in shock as she barely registered that this stranger had just drawn and dealt with three members of her crew in a blink. Who was this Gauntlet character?
“Trap, charge; we need to get clear of this crusading chump,” Eris ordered in a panic. “But I thought you said that badge-bearer promised no resistance,” Trapper asked as she triggered the explosive she had been preparing for the vault. She hadn’t even had the time to wire in more than just a partial charge but it should be enough she figured. “Just do it,” Eris added agitated and Trapper chucked the demolition device.
Marshall barely had time to react, in the split second he watched the devious duo duck into a dive heading for the door. There wasn’t any time to contemplate or consider what to do, so instead of laying chase he rolled his back and angled himself to try and shield the closest civilian. The bomb erupted just overhead with a thunderous concussion that rattled his teeth and threatened to force the air from his lungs. For a few moments all he could feel was a sickening pressure in his belly as if he had been run over by a heavy-hauler.
Once he found his feet again he shook the dust from his hat and tried to look around. As far as he could tell it looked like the blast had only managed to stun most of the people still inside. Only a few folks were still not moving and as his eyes fell on a blood stained uniform he marked one of them who regretfully never would again. Someone had only begun to pay.
Episode 13 – The Illusion of Law
Marshall returned his revolvers back into their holstered homes. His empty hands echoed the hollow of his heart. Here an innocent man lay slain, violently, and for what? He had arrived to help, to stop such a thing from happening and somehow he hadn’t made it soon enough. It was a small consolation that he had saved the lives of the other people, or the vault itself.
His thoughts turned back to the fact that he was still standing at the scene of a crime, and the Deputy had already warned him about what might await him if he was caught openly engaging anyone in public. He had to get clear from here before anyone else arrived. The thought of finding himself behind bars again was intolerable. Besides it wasn’t like this was a low profile situation, somebody would have to have reported the explosion, let alone the vehicle crashing through a wall.
“Wait a tick,” Marshall muttered to himself deep in the spinning workings of his mind’s mechanical motion. “Why aren’t the authorities already here,” he mused. With his thoughts tumbling away from him his feet began to move of their own accord. They started to carry him back through the ruined rubble, out to the streets and into a briskly paced jaunt. A phrase came back to him, something that one of the robbers had said.
“The badge-bearer promised no resistance,” Marshall parroted. So far he had only come across two people in this town who wore a badge, and of the two only one seemed like the kind of man who held the authority to even be capable of making such a deal. There was only one worthless weasel in Marshall’s eyes who could possibly be content with only providing merely the illusion of law.
A man was dead at the bank, a man whose only job had been to keep the bank itself safe. And while Marshall had no such responsibility to spur him into action; he had done so to protect others, to save lives. Even now he felt torn between the decision to track down the two that had escaped him and confronting Arbiter directly. Already the trail was growing cold; the wind would have masked any remaining trail with a fresh layer of desert dust making his hunt that much harder.
“What am I doing,” Marshall snapped at himself, struggling to reason out what to do. How much good had he even accomplished, how much could he even hope to do if he was just one man? He could hear the voice of his old drill instructor hollering at him in his head; almost taste the pounding rain that made the ground slick with mud from memory. “Just who do you think you are, boy? Huh,” the screaming superior spat.
“Do you think you’re some kind of playtime hero, some silly storied saint sent to save everyone? Well this is your wake up call son – grow up! The time for such childish nonsense is dead and gone; nobody wants some goody-two-boots poking their nose into their business. Give it up or I’ll give you back to the gauntlet until they run you into the grave. There is no place here for little boys playing at hero!”
Those words had shaken him to the core, even now it was a notion he couldn’t quite fathom nor accept. The idea that heroes were no longer needed of unwanted was like a kick in the teeth. But the memory leapfrogged straight into another; as such precarious thoughts of the past are often want to do. The self-same sergeant had made it a point to visit him in prison, if only to further mock him. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” he had prodded. “I guess this isn’t exactly the reward you thought you’d get, ‘eh crusader? But I figure this is more than ironic, you were always trying to be the good guy and now you’re just another piece of the trash, left to rot in here.”
It had lit a fuse inside him back then, that notion that it satisfied men like those he served with to see someone who stood up get torn down. They relished watching someone good being pulled down to what they thought was their level. Marshall refused then and there to ever become like them, to ever let them win. If he gave up now he would be doing just that.
Had he not arrived when he did nobody would have stopped that bank robbery and who knows what might have happened. He had taken out at least three of those bandits, and while he might not have the other two in custody that would have to be enough for now. Instead he decided it was time he paid that Sheriff a visit and confronted him. If Arbiter was as dirty as he expected he wanted to know for sure, and if so deal with the matter. It was time someone called him out as either a coward or corrupt.
“Time to make an office visit,” Marshall told himself as his eyes began to scan the streets for any sign that read ‘Sheriff.’ “Sure hope I don’t need an appointment,” he remarked as an afterthought before realizing that it honestly didn’t matter. It still burned at him to let those two go but if Arbiter wa
s involved at all, even by allowing it to happen in the first place, then he deserved to be held accountable. Not even that little silver shield would save him from Gauntlet, when the armored fist of justice came knocking.
Episode 14 – A Tight Leash
The wind whipped and swirled lingering wisps of dust about around him as Marshall silently stood outside of the Sheriff’s office. Just as Arbiter had claimed; the word ‘Sheriff” was scrawled above it on a sign that swayed back and forth lazily over the door. Without the simple marker you might not have known it was anything other than just another one of the town’s little shops or merchant stalls. A wooden walkway of plank boards ran in front of it covered by a crude overhanging awning that did little to shelter the structure from to bright sunlight.
The lumber lamented his booted presence with a groan as Marshall stepped up to approach the door and the sleepily swinging sign squeaked. Through a sun shielding screen of glass he could make out the still burning brilliance of a lit light. Somebody was indeed still at the office after all. He let his closed fist declare his arrival in a rhythmic series of raps that paralleled his pounding pulse. Unable to restrain himself, Marshall opted to forgo the customary courtesy and instead decided to charge inside.