A Benumbing Barrage

[Vexhound Crew]

The man that had been on the bridge heard the entrance of more people that were coming in to the ship. He didn’t know how many, but he recognized the defeat easy enough. He was completely unarmed and he heard words spoken in English which made the bullets stop. He did speak English, but he knew that Yushan, the last man that was still in the cargo bay did not.

The man from the bridge stepped down from the stairs, and put his hands on his head. He’d been held in captivity before, by authorities and not. He assumed these people were the authorities. Arriving at the bottom of the stairs he looked and saw half way across from his was a short Caucasian man. He was wearing a thick winter coat, and it made him envious since he looked far more comfortable then he did.

”Yes.” he answered keeping his hands on his head. His face was still completely covered by the black and white head wrap, and he wore a baggy Arab style garb, with a green camouflage jacket over it. He didn’t know who the ‘Dolgans’ were, but when he explained they were the people they had taken he knew who he was talking about.

While this transpired, the other man who was in the cargo bay, named Yushan, watched. He saw the man from the bridge come down the stairs. He had been told to throw his weapon down, but he wasn’t sure what was coming. But when he saw the first man enter in a large winter coat, Yushan assumed that they were the legal authorities.

This was very bad news. He had a number of warrants out for his arrest, one of which was for escaping custody after being sentenced to death. Anyone who put his name in the cortex would be able to figure that out. He had come that far, and he wasn’t going to just be carted off for his execution. Yushan was a fighter, and had escaped death that far. If the fates were just, he’d escape again.

Yushan didn’t look at the man from the bridge, and reached behind him. He pulled from his belt a pistol that was hidden at his back. Yushan pointed it forward at the short man who had entered who spoke in English.

The man from the bridge saw this and his eyes went wide, and his hands outstretched, like he wanted to push him and stop him. ” Yushan! Voch’!” He yelled back in their native tongue, but it was too late.

Aiming for the mans torso he proceeded to fire a string of five bullets, at a range that made it impossible to miss.

[Marcus O'Terra]

Marcus saw the man come down with his hands up, and kept his grip on his shotgun. The man responded in english, and the look on his face as Marcus's other question told him all he needed to know. At least they had the right ship. It would have been hell trying to rationalize this if they'd blundered this hard.

The man yelled: "Yushan! Voch’!" Marcus's eyes shot from the first man to a second; and saw a gun pointed at his chest. "Shit." Marcus swore and exhaled. Turning to late to stop what he knew what was coming.

The shots hit him in the chest hard, all of them. The vest did it's job and kept the bullets from tearing holes in his skin, but he rode the force down to the deck floor, and kept his hands on the shotgun.

He let his body fall slack, and let out a cough that might as well have been a death rattle. But his eyes stayed open, and his hands brought the shotgun to bear on the man. He pulled the trigger and held the bucking gun steady.

So much for diplomacy Marcus's own thoughts sounded tired. He pulled back on the gun to chamber the next shell. Three more rounds. Fuck this guy He pulled the trigger again.

[Vexhound Crew]

Yushan watched the man hit the ground. He felt satisfied in his accomplishment of having killed him, and he was prepared to do it again. But the man’s eye’s didn’t shut, and Yushan hadn’t seen any blood. The man wasn’t dead, and Yushan knew the mistake he’d made. The man was wearing armor, and he hadn’t even thought about it. His eyes widened, and suddenly he saw the explosion from the end of the mans shotgun.

He felt the spray of metal dig into his chest, and it drove him backwards. He suddenly felt it again, and again, and again. The pain was in his entire torso. He could even feel it in his back. He couldn’t speak, and he couldn’t move. He just felt himself being carried towards the ground, and he landed on the metal floor of the cargo bay. Dead before he even hit the ground, a trickle of blood came from Yushan’s mouth, though it wasn’t as large as the one that was coming from the massive hole in his chest, through which you could see the bottom of the cargo bay.

The man on the bridge knew that was going to happen. He didn’t realize the man Yushan had fired at was wearing armor, but he knew that it would end with Yushan’s death. The man on the bridge knew that Yushan had a problematic past, and didn’t take the idea of capture as lightly as he did. The man that was on the bridge however did not have the same problem. He’d only been caught for fairly small crimes, many of which were from his youth in the bad neighborhood he came from.

”Hamr ak’aghagh e ugheghn” The man muttered looking at the dead Yushan who was on the floor. He turned back and put his hands in the air, since he knew the people would be more on edge with the ‘surrender’. He was the last one alive of the ships crew, and he planned on keeping that status by not doing something stupid.

[Jace "Original Zest"]

Jace still firing he heard shouting from within the cargo bay too muffled for him to make out over the gun fire, noticing the return fire slowing down and suddenly cease, he heard Marcus clearly shout out ceasefire, just as Jace was reloading he heard Marcus shout out , "Ceasefire!", again making sure everyone heard.

He seen Marcus peek around and begin walking to the center of the cargo bay, just as Jace noticed the dropped weapons and only two men remaining. Jace glanced up on the upper floor to the man who Jace judged as the one shouting the orders something caught Jace's eye though, the one closest to Marcus made a swift move and before anyone could do anything the man had a pistol out and was firing at Marcus's chest hearing the man upstairs shouting frantically in a unknown tongue Marcus flew off his feet and slammed into the ground as Jace just froze.

All Jace could think was that he was wrong about this crew. Suddenly shotgun blasts repetively from Marcus's gun riddled the man on the stairs in rounds a whole where his chest used to be was all that remained for his torso as he hit the ground. As soon as the fire from Marcus's guns rang out Jace was moving forward to get to him, gun fixed on the man upstairs Jace stared at him angrily expecting almost wanting him to make a move. He knew the reason he was angry was he felt stupid for allowing Marcus to get shot he was assigned to watch the man's back and the mission that garunteed him passage his partner was shot. Jace bent down beside Marcus half glancing at Marcus on the ground to see how bad his wounds was but not taking his aim off the man.

All Jace could do was look down shocked that the man had no visible wounds nor any blood coming from the him. He hadn't paid enough attention to remember anything about armor on any of the crew.

[Ilana Logan]

The man she shot hit the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut. She didn't hear his body land. Between the gun fire around her, and the strange ringing sound she'd heard since the explosion, she couldn't hear much of anything. The ringing was fading steadily though, albeit at a slower pace than she'd like, but it was fading nontheless. With every bit the ringing faded, a little more of her hearing returned. Before she had time to register the fact that she'd just added another human life to the list of people she'd killed, the gun fire stopped and she heard shouting. His words were garbled and sounded foreign to her, but the tone of his voice sounded distressed. Maybe someone had shot him. After a moment, she heard him shouting again, this time in what sounded like chinese, but she only caught one word: surrender.

That's fuckin great. Is he telling us they're surrendering, or that he thinks we need to? She thought to herself.

She peeked around the corner and saw his hands in the air, and a pile of guns in the floor. "Guess that answers that question," she said to herself.

Marcus started to move out of cover, and before she could tell him not to, he was out in the open. He was telling them they were there for the Dolgan's. He was closer to her, so she could make out his words, though they sounded a little funny. Like her ears were full of water.

The thought made he curious, so while she watched the man and listened to Marcus talking to him, she reached up and wiped under first one ear, then the other, and held her gloved hand out in front of her. There was no blood, so she figured her ears weren't bleeding. She returned her attention back to Marcus just in time to hear a handful of shots, and Marcus was thrown clean off of his feet, landing flat on his back. He made a strange noise in his chest, and she had her first moment of fear since leaving the ship.

"Shit!" Ilana shouted, her voice sounding funny in her own ears.

She was on her feet, gun out in front of her, moving toward Marcus before she could stop herself. She often forgot that he wore mesh armor, so when bullets hit him, which they inevitably did, she always thought he was dying. She always thought she didn't care at all about Marcus. Sometimes, she even thought she hated him. Then someone would shoot him and she got all freaked out about it.

She watched as Marcus's gun came up and he fired round after round at the man who'd shot him. The man crumpled to the ground like the fates had just suddenly cut his strings and she stopped near Marcus's side. She stayed upright, kept her eyes, and her gun, on the man who stood at the foot of the stairs with his hands up. Without looking away from the man, she asked, "You alright Marcus?"

To the man she said, "Yídòng zhème duō shǒuzhǐ, wǒ jiāng jiéshù.  Míngbáile ma?"

---

Yídòng zhème duō shǒuzhǐ, wǒ jiāng jiéshù.  Míngbáile ma? means You move so much as a finger and I will end you. Understand?

[Marcus O'Terra]

The man who shot Marcus was well ventilated by the shotgun rounds, blood spreading over his chest as he flew back from the blasts. Marcus exhaled a low groan as he let the gun rest on his chest, thankful that the insulating material kept the heat of the barrel from cooking his chest.

Jace and Ilana rushed in after the blast, covering the last man standing. Marcus held up a hand. "Don't kill him." Before he realized he couldn't hear anything. Rather the pain in his chest made it hard for his brain to realize it was hearing anything.

He shook it off as he forced himself to stand, using the shotgun as a brace to push himself up. "I'll live." He groaned as he looked at the man, then Ilana. "Find the Dolgans, then tie up this punk. I'll get Jay so he can do a once over." Marcus moved back from the group, shouldering the shotgun by its strap and putting a hand on old sidearm.

He passed Ray on his way out. "That was close." He grumbled, his chest starting to hurt, but in a passing way. Walking to the edge of the airlock.

"Jay! Come on. We're almost done." He called out, squinting his eyes so he didn't go blind from the snow glare. He turned back to the inside and exhaled. The fresh air felt great, but he could do without the ventilation to his coat.

[Vexhound Crew]

The man who had been on the bridge was somewhat scared of the situation he was in, but a certain amount of it had subsided with the death of the last crewmen aside from him. He had surrendered, and he believed these people were law enforcement from somewhere, and so he knew that he wasn’t going to have a problem. He was caught and it wasn’t the first time. He pulled the part of his head wrap that was covering his face, to reveal himself as a middle aged man of Arabic ancestry.

As he was yelled at in Chinese, he kept his hands up where they were. ”Ayo Ayo” he said nodding while speaking in his native language, while his brown eyes looked over the group.

The man who had been shot seemed to take it fairly well. He was wearing body armor apparently, but he ordered the man from the bridge not to be killed, which was reassuring.

When the man asked about the “Dolgans”, which he’d mentioned earlier were the primitive people they’d been picking up, he knew it was going to be the rough part of the discussion.

”They’re not here.” He said with a deep tone and thick accent.

He presumed that it might be a surprise to the people, but he may have been wrong. He didn’t care either way at that point. ”We didn’t have the food to keep them.” The man continued. ”Captain took them to a ranch, hundred miles from here.” The man sounded defeated, which he was. With no way out, all he could do was cooperate. ”He never came back, don’t know if they made it.”

He kept his hands in the air, and waited for whatever was going to happen.

[Marcus O'Terra]

Marcus hadn't gotten far when the last standing slaver confessed that the Dolgans weren't there, and that the 'captain' had taken them somewhere. That wasn't good in Marcus's mind. It meant there were more slavers than this lot.

It also meant the ones that went to keep the Dolgans in line were likely the more able ones. He held up a hand to signal that Jay should stay where he was. Marcus forced a neutral face before he turned around to face the slaver.

"Which way?" They'd fly over and give Joel a call along the way. Hopefully it wasn't far enough for them to have lost anyone along the way, any Dolgans at least. "And how long ago was it?"

[Vexhound Crew]

The brown skinned man that had been on the bridge wasn’t sure what the man wanted to know by inquiring about the other group. But law officers always wanted to know as much about certain subjects as they possibly could. To a point where it almost didn’t make sense to just about everyone else, but that was how they operated.

The man shook his head, rather the answer the question. The reality of what happened occurred to him a long time ago, there wasn’t any point to charging out after the others.

”They’ve been gone for two weeks.” He said with his deep voice, and his hands still up. ”It’s a trip that should have taken a two hours.” His arms were getting slightly more tired and so he lowered them at the elbows, but he didn’t put them down.

”They brought coms, and we never heard back.” The man explained. ”No food, six people on a breaking down hovercraft.” The man was by no means an expert on the area that they were in, but he’d been living there for a month, so he knew a certain amount. ”My guess is that the hover transport finally gave out in this cold weather.”

The man still wasn’t moving. As far as he was concerned it was their move. These people had killed the entirety of what was left of the crew. But with the climate they were in, without any food, shelter, way to keep warm, or any basic necessities of survival, it was obvious that anyone and anything would die out there, even the snow people they’d been picking up.

[Jay Fuller]

“Soooo, Jay. ... Have you ever shot someone?” Lulah asked. Jay looked at her and mustered up a smirk.

"Nope," he said, "I've managed to avoid that so far. What about you?" He took his pistol and set it in its holster on his hip. He kept his hand on it, however. Just in case.

Jay flinched a bit when he heard the various gunshots from the ship ahead. He became worried for the crew. If anything happened to them...He thought of Marcus, on the ground, dead and bloody. He inhaled sharply at the dread the thought brought him.

Then he heard Marcus called him over, "Jay! Come on. We're almost done." Jay waved back and pulled out his pistol.

"Hang here for a bit," he said to Lulah, "Keep an eye on the shuttle." He turned back just to see Marcus waving at him to stay. At least, that's what Jay thought he meant. "...Nevermind? Guess I'm staying here."

[Marcus O'Terra]

Marcus listened to the man and the cold dread of reality sunk in. Even if the slavers had succumbed ot the cold first, if the Dolgans were in any shape to get out on their own, Joel wouldn't have called Marcus's crew in.

He sighed, and walked back into the cargo bay. Wondering what to do with the man in front of him. Executing him now would be murder at best. There was no telling how much bad he'd done in his life, or how little. He might be a better man than Marcus, just being pulled down the wrong path.

"Ray, Jace. Find the bridge and start pulling whatever info you can. Contact information, their flight record." If they turned that over to Joel, who could in turn give it to authorities. They'd have a lead on a nice juicy slaver bust.

That would be great press after all the slag that'd happened in recent months. He pointed his pistol at the man and motioned for him to stand. "Congrats, friend. You get to live, at least long enough to enjoy the Muir justice system." If the man had a long record he'd be looking at a bad end. But something in the man's eyes. This was the better way.

He looked to Ilana "Take him to the shuttle. I'm gonna give this thing a better look." He exhaled as he began a careful exploration of the ship.