Rogues Revenge Ch 4 completed 3/6/03

[SteveMill]

Chapter completed below the --------------------

Steve

Chapter 4: Station Prime

“It’s a valid code Sire, and tracks back to one of your pilots. Visual ID and voice-prints match.”

The human on-screen smiled nervously as Law methodically fastened his tunic, one silver buckle at a time. The man, Law dredged for a name as he adjusted the fit of the collar seal, had every call to exhibit concern. Kannor, he pinned the name permanently to the face, Kannor was a hold-over, one of the few former crew of Station Prime taken into his service and so had a lot to prove and to fear. Disturbing Law unnecessarily during a sleep cycle was rumoured not to be without risk.

Law looked at him for long, silent seconds, watching the young communications officer’s struggle to maintain composure.

“Efficiently performed Mr Kannor, transfer the details to this station.”

Kannor’s face vanished, replaced by a still shot of a crag-faced man, unsmiling beneath the type of severe military cut Law liked to see on his mercenaries. It spoke of the correct attitude.

Law remembered him now, a good man. He delved further into his record. A reliable man, married, nothing to suggest any connection to Force despite the suspicious serendipity of his arraignment. Of course, with a bounty of such size on his head it was purely a matter of time before someone collected, but even so, when the brief encrypted data squirt came through from Confed Station, Law felt a tinge of regret beneath the anticipatory thrill.

Obliging Force to leap through whatever hoops he cared to device, forcing him to help Law tighten his grip on this sector, that would have been amusing as well as useful. Continuing the psychological torture of his woman, that too was diverting.

Law grinned in the semi-darkness of the commandeered sleeping space. Once it had been remodelled according to his specific requirements and she had watched every second of the long and elaborate fate he would devise for Force, she would provide him new entertainment, after of course, entertaining his men. That would be something for Force to witness at some point.

It was hard to believe Force would be so careless as to drop so conveniently into his hands, particularly following the news of his unexpected accession to control of Menelaus Paradise. That would have seriously impeded his plans but Force’s protracted demise would smash that delicate diplomatic compromise. But Force was reckless; Law could easily believe he would gamble on the eggshell loyalty of a captured mercenary.

Law tapped directly into the comm system and transmitted a single word of permission. Then he turned to his own preparations, he had consistently underestimated Force and now he was almost in his grasp he would not be allowed to trick his way free.


“Uhh, good call on the permission thing,” Max conceded. The LT ahead of them was already primed, aimed and ready to fire and the other four in the defensive cone covering the gate tracked the Pegasus as Joker after-burned through a corkscrew defensive break.

“Just in case,” Joker murmured as Max braced himself against the front seat. The half-expected blinding blast did not come and Max drew a half breath of relief which froze in his throat as the Pegasus curved back towards the centre of the gate sector.

“Is that..?”

“A shipyard?” Max finished Joker’s question for him. “Yep, or it soon will be.”

The basic outline was already in place, the distinctive hanging ribs of the construction cradle, the workshop and manufacturing towers, all prefigured in the framework of structural supports and ready fabricated modules hanging in space, close to Law’s new base. A small army of construction droids, made visible by the constant flash of their manoeuvre jets, swarmed over the construction site.

A dozen assorted Clan fighters flew CAP around the shipyard. Another six circled the LT defined perimeter of Station Prime.

“You knew about it?” Joker stated. “If you were real smart you’d cut a deal.”

“If I was that smart do you think I’d be here? Run those layouts by me again.”

As the Pegasus entered docking range Joker quickly ran through again what he remembered of the station layout. Max tried to fix it in mind, visualising each fork and branch. It would have been easier if he had brought Xela along, she could have flashed the routes onto the shades now sitting uselessly in his breast pocket, but Max did not want to risk losing her too, in what his heart told him was probably a futile mission.

But a man’s gotta do, Max thought, as the saying goes.

Joker called for docking permission and the string of guide lights flashed to life.

“Any last words Max?” Joker asked as they slipped through the docking tunnel entrance.

Max checked the charge on his blaster before concealing it back beneath his tunic and refastening the cuffs.

“Just good luck. We’re both going to need it.”

“Ain’t that true,” Joker muttered. “Switching to auto-dock.”

The station auto-pilot guided the fighter through to the designated docking bay. It was a small, deserted side-bay, with barely enough slots for three ships. The bare metal walls bore the carbonised scars of a fire-fight and the stink of burnt insulation permeated the air. Close by stood a cluster of armed guards, as the fighter approached the middle bay Max was crushed immobile by the safety field. By the time they’d landed and Joker was standing over him, reaching down into the cockpit, he could hardly breathe.

“Relax Max, it’ll all soon be over.”

Joker threw a quick wink as he leaned in and disconnected the field, covering Max all the while with the folded stock rifle held easily in a pistol grip. Grabbing him by the collar he half pulled Max from the cockpit. With his wrists locked before him, he struggled to keep his balance.

A half dozen human guards, faces hidden behind mirrored helmet visors, sidearms and stun clubs at the ready, stood waiting in a semi-circle, a discreet distance from the ship.

“Be ready to make your move when I do,” Joker hissed. “Hey you guys, where’s the big man? I sorta expected him to be here, with a fully loaded credit chip. What the…?”

Six weapons snapped up in a ragged, alarmed, ripple, pointing towards him. His synapses were already firing, fight or flight reflex, when he realised the barrels were pointing beyond them.

“It’s just a droid, it’s just a droid!” Joker yelled, wide-eyed with surprise. “I boosted a damaged ship is all!”

Oblivious to the excitement the floating repair droid drifted to the rear, and sprouting the appropriate tools, began opening the rear port stabiliser intake.

“See!”

Max held his breath until the leader ordered his troops to stand down with a snapped hand command. Reluctantly the barrels went down.

“Law has ordered that Force be taken into custody, pending identification and security checks. You are to be extended every courtesy in the meantime. You will be sent for when Law sends for Force, you will receive your payment then. Force is known for his subterfuges, Law trusts that is acceptable.”

Max tried to hold himself relaxed and ready, waiting for the moment to throw off the manacles and reach for the weapons beneath his flight suit.

“Law’s right to worry,” Joker laughed cynically, stepping back behind Max. “Because it’s all a ruse!”

Max was shucking off the restraints before Joker even completed the sentence and had one hand on the blaster, his fingers curling around the trigger when his world exploded with pain and stars.

Joker stood over his prone, groaning form, wiping Max’s blood from his rifle barrel on a sleeve.

“Mine!”

----------------------------------------------------------

Functioning purely on instinct Max managed to keep hold of the concealed weapon, attempting to roll and draw. A boot caught him in the side of the face, others followed, to the stomach, the ribs and as he curled into a ball, to his arms and legs.

Finally an authoritative voice barked, “Enough!”

Blinded by pain Max felt himself being hauled to his feet, arms pinioned in two strong grips while other unseen hands divested him of the gun, grenades and both his hold-outs, even the thin plasteel blade down the side of the left boot. His mouth tasted of iron and blood was slick on the back of his pounding skull, seeping hot and slow through the matting hair to his neck.

Dazed and unresisting Max allowed his hands to be cuffed behind his back.

“You see boys,” Joker crowed, “There’s more than one way to gut a Boron. Can you believe this pussy actually believed I’d help him bust out his ****** whore in return for freedom and a few credits? I believe the going rate for his head is a helluva lot higher.”
Something metallic, cool, touched his temple and Max forced himself to full consciousness by an effort of will. Joker stood at his side, holding the gun and grinning. For an incongruous moment all Max could think was how yellow his teeth were.

“Wakey, wakey, Max, you dumb-ass MF. And you boys back off, this is my prisoner and he ain’t going nowhere until I get my credits. You tell the big man that, tell him now!”

Despite his histrionics the gun didn’t move a fraction.

The guard squad had backed off slightly, standing in a hesitant arc, their weapons aimed as they looked to the commander for guidance.

“I want to see Law and I want my credits now,” Joker said, suddenly calm. “I didn’t come all this way to be short-changed by flunkies or shot by those damn LT’s before I can spend anything. I want credits and I want a guarantee of safe passage from the only person around here who counts and I want him to look me in the eyes when he makes the promise. And I’d better be getting what I want soon or I’ll blow this girl’s head off, then your boss won’t get to play all those fun games he likes. Not with Force anyway.”

“Joker, you traitor, I’ll get..”

Max’s threat, blurted through swollen, bloody lips, was aborted by a fist to his solar plexus.

“You say another ****** word and I’ll burn you where you stand and settle for just the half mill,” Joker snarled.

The weapon hummed its pre-fire sequence, the barrel grew warm against Max’s skin and the squad commander, quickly absorbing the implication of the situation, not least his own likely position if Law was deprived of his revenge on a live Force, whispered urgently into his throat mike.

Max decided to shut up and concentrate on pulling himself together, against the unlikely event that an opportunity to escape should arise. Damn, how could he have been so careless as to take Jackson’s word that Joker was sound, or at least motivated enough to co-operate?

“Fool.”

He muttered it to himself, risking the punishment his arrant stupidity had so richly earned.

“Fool!”

Joker caught him in the face with a jabbing elbow, blinding Max with the pain.

When his vision cleared Max spat a rich, red gobbet of contempt at Joker’s feet and pulled himself up straight, parade-ground erect.

Joker just laughed.

“Better to die on your feet eh Max? I’m betting you don’t get that chance!”

“Law commands your presence,” the squad leader announced. “You will follow us, and you will refrain from further damaging his property.”

“You hear that Max, I’m getting paid, now move it.”

Encouraged by a barrel jab to a bruised and painful kidney Max stumbled after the guards as they swept from the bay, clearing repair crews from the dimly lit, bare metal corridors, scarred by heavy fighting, as they went.

Their leader brought up the rear.

As they went Max did what Marteene had been trained to do if captured. Ignoring the pain in his tightening ribs that made each breath a struggle, he counted the turns, picked landmarks and estimated levels flashed through on the elevator, stifling the small voice that berated his trusting, reckless, stupidity.

It would not be still though, despite the adrenaline driving his body to neglect the beating he felt he was teetering, precarious on the edge of a gaping pit, a black hole swallowing hope like incandescent plasma peeled from a captured star.

The shadow-conspiracy, the Cabal, the alien technology and now the universe dancing on the precipice of war; all the deaths, the blood of innocents. It was enough, it was almost too much. Getting Tyre out alive, that was all that counted now.

He was, Max thought, so comprehensively screwed that the thought was funny. Hope did not spring eternal.

Max had lost track of their whereabouts by the time the squad leader called a halt outside of a non-descript set of grey doors. Somewhere near where Joker had indicated the C and C facilities were located was his best guess.

The leader whispered again into his throat mike. A few seconds later the doors split open, sliding away into the bulkheads with a pneumatic hiss.

“You men are dismissed, you two. In.”

The officer waved his pistol towards the entrance.

“You heard the man, hero.”

Joker shoved him roughly towards the door, tension under-pinning the bonhomie tone.

It looked like it had been a small conference room, judging from the long, rectangular table pushed against the left wall. A single, large chair, atop it’s own dias, dominated the empty space. Law’s brooding presence filled it. Their escort indicated where to stand, a good twenty feet short of the dias. There was a faint tang of ozone in the air.

“Nice throne Law, try to come up with something more original than ‘At last Commander Force, I have you in my power,’ okay?”

The bravado rang hollow, even in his own ears.

“Commander Force, we meet at last. Is that acceptable?”

Law’s small smile of contempt said all that needed to be said.

“You would do well not to bait me. No matter how bad things get for your woman, be assured they can always get worse. Much worse, do you understand?”

The remaining colour drained from Max’s face. He nodded a reply.

“Now Joker, or to be utterly pedantic, Mr Arman, it was my understanding that you were in my employ. Now you stand before me demanding a substantial payment? Explain yourself.”

“Well, it’s like this,” Joker began, still digging his weapon into Max’s back, between his manacled arms.

Max saw nothing, just felt the gun barrel removed, heard the snap of bone behind him. He reflexively turned, straight into a sweeping blow from the blaster barrel that caught him on the temple, sending him reeling, dazed to the deck besides the body of the squad commander. His nose was bloodily concertinaed up into his skull, between lifeless eyes.

“I had a wife.”

Max had just enough wits remaining to attempt to struggle to his feet, taking a casual left-handed backhand in the face that knocked him down across the dead soldier.

“Had,” Joker said quietly, covering Law with his weapon, held in a single-handed white knuckle grip.

If he was expecting some response from Law he was disappointed, the man simply sat there, filling the chair with his bulk. Only the tapping of an index finger on an ornate arm betrayed any tension.

“I know, now you have one million credits. A fair exchange, no?”

Max tried to not make any move as he blindly rifled the corpse.

“No time-wasting games Law.”

Max’s fingers closed around what felt like the butt of a small pistol jammed in waistband of the dead soldier’s uniform. Joker sounded serene, at peace.

“Die.”

He fired from the hip, plasma bolts ripping through the air to engulf Law. Joker kept firing until the power cell died.

Law sat untouched, a thin half smile on his scarred face. Casually he removed a pistol from his tunic and fired. Joker died with a look of total shock frozen on his face.

“You know Mr Force, I find it somewhat depressing that someone in my employ would be so stupid as to believe I would permit him into my presence without taking elementary precautions. Personal force-fields, a boon to the tyrannical don’t you think?”

He tapped the chair arm again, three guard entered immediately, their hand weapons drawn.

“Commander Force has sequestered a weapon on his person, disarm him. Then remove the rubbish and leave.”

Max was hauled to his feet and briskly disarmed. Joker’s corpse was dragged away.

“No empty threats, Commander? No bluster, no bravado? No attempt to deal for your woman’s life?”

He kept his weapon drawn, in his lap.

“What’s the damn point, get it over with, whatever it is. My people will get you one day.”

“Ah, you see, that’s much better, a little spark of defiance. Now that I have you there is no hurry, pleasure should be a long savoured affair. You are both delicacies. I can make her experience things you’ve only dreamed of. So many things.”

It was enough. With an inchoate roar of rage and desperation Max charged the dias, launching himself in a high two-footed lunge towards Law’s deformed face. He rebounded from the invisible field to lie twitching at Law’s feet as residual energies dissipated through his nervous system. He lay there stunned, feeling the blood flow again from the clotted scalp wound, and feeling despair.

[Mercenary]

Excellent,

Something made me wonder if Joker had his own hidden agenda and I can think of two reasons.. Will be interesting to see what happens next..

[Deleted User]

Excellent.

Umm. is that robot all what it seems. Does Max have backup plan?

Unless of course its red herring

IO

[Adamskini]

bahahabhbahbahbahbahahahbahbahbahbah

dam cliffs!

\o/

[KiwiNZ]

Great read, Steve. While it may look like Joker has double-crossed Max I believe he is just very capable when it comes to improvising as the situation did not look like they had anticipated. Will be interesting, though, how they get out of the dilemma.

Great, can't wait for the next installment.

found two typos:

"Max tired to fix it" - tried

"a probably a futile mission" - probably a

[Moss]

Mmm I wonder if Joker did infact lose his family, after all Law kills with such abandon that it may well be true, or could it have simply been a very plausable ruse all along? Was Joker a plant from the begining? (I can't actually remember the details of his capture atm, curse those fading memory cells )

Do tell Steve, do tell

[Mercenary]

It struck me as surprising that Law seems to have a memory for faces and people (not a bad thing). Only if he recognised the pilot and that he had a wife and kids, then he might also remember what he did to them (if anything at all).

[SteveMill]

It struck me as surprising that Law seems to have a memory for faces and people (not a bad thing). Only if he recognised the pilot and that he had a wife and kids, then he might also remember what he did to them (if anything at all).

All, okay, some, will be revealed soon, possibly later today if I get a lunch break. Thanks for the spots Kiwinz, i've changed things.

[Gandalf The White]

Hmmm,

I'll weight and see for this one. Good read, but I'm going to reserve commenting on the next bit.

[SteveMill]

Chapter completed.

Steve

[Faze]

As in another lanugage.

Woot, Woot.

[Adamskini]

oh

\o/

[Gandalf The White]

Hmmm,

I think that things are about to get rather nasty for our dear friend Max. Wonder if his girl will survive? It is looking more and more unlikely, unless Max does have a super force field busting weapon to hand, or unless his forces do indeed arrive and create a good distraction. Hmmm, wonder if he has some sort of personal homing device?

[SteveMill]

Hmmm,

I think that things are about to get rather nasty for our dear friend Max. Wonder if his girl will survive? It is looking more and more unlikely, unless Max does have a super force field busting weapon to hand, or unless his forces do indeed arrive and create a good distraction. Hmmm, wonder if he has some sort of personal homing device?

You know as much as Max knows Daz. No rabbits, not even a hat.

[spikey]

Cracking read again. Up to the usual high standard Steve. Very dark and moody, excellent.

Spikes

Ps. when can we have some more??

[Gandalf The White]

Well, not sure how to reply to that one Steve. Although if you look at the story title, "rogues revenge," that could suggest that he indeed wants to avenge her death.

Hope am not right though. Would be nice to see something good happen to Max for a change.

[SteveMill]

Well, not sure how to reply to that one Steve. Although if you look at the story title, "rogues revenge," that could suggest that he indeed wants to avenge her death.

Hope am not right though. Would be nice to see something good happen to Max for a change.

Just letting you know Max is in genuine difficulty, he hasn't organised any back-up off the page so to speak.

Who's to say he continues as the main character?

[Deleted User]

he hasn't organised any back-up off the page so to speak.

I'm still suspicious about that robot.

IO

[Moss]

Well this is looking very nasty, and a little thin on any possible Rogues Revenge at the moment, well any that'll involve Max anyway unless he has a guardian angel watching over him. Very good read Steve, not sure I wanna watch the hero being tortured tho

[Mercenary]

After all the guile and duplicity of Joker. I guess it was just his thirst for revenge that clouded his judgement in the final instance...