I pulled my hair into a small knot behind my head and put my hat back on. I sent Achronyx the order to get into place ten thousand meters up, above the clouds and to prepare four one pound pucks and two three pound pucks.
Back when the Queen was dealing with Earth issues, the team had developed gravitic engines which drove kinetic weapons. The little guys are devastatingly powerful, and small. Barney’s stone walls wouldn’t help him much. Now, if he had some high-powered shields, I’d be in a tighter spot.
Perhaps.
Maybe. I’ve been known to pummel the ground near the shields to see if I can upset the foundations. It does tend to piss off anyone nearby. Fortunately for me, Barney didn’t have anyone near him. Most pricks concerned with their security liked a lot of open space around them. Killing fields.
Time to issue the ultimatum.
I sent commands to all but two of my drone cameras to look around his place as much as possible to give me the layout. I had the other two helping me. One looking behind me and the other in front of me. I’ve had enough situations where I got surprised and been hurt to worry about shit like that. You grow an arm back, you learn caution.
I made it to within a couple of hundred meters when the area became deserted and it was all flat ground to the castle. The rock walls were two stories high. Planet Bectal had carnivorous creatures that didn’t give a shit whether it was rude to eat you or not. Personally, I planned on sleeping on Achronyx up in space unless I had to stay down here for some reason.
Sleeping in space really reduces issues with being surprised while sleeping. I pulled my coat back to allow me access to both pistols.
I made it ten steps before I spotted the two snipers taking position over the right and left sides of the front wall, in the shadows. I double checked the drones before continuing my walk.
I did allow them an opportunity to not target me.
They failed.
I ramped my speed up to high-Vampiric using the Etheric connection and pulled my pistols. I shot at the walls in front of both snipers. The gravitic rail gun technology that Jean Dukes built into the latest versions used rail gun technology to push rods out but also used gravitic micro-Pucks to help control the kick these little bitches have. It allowed the pistols to push a much heavier round at higher velocity without making the recoil too much for even my enhanced body to handle. If the rock had been sandstone, both of those snipers would have been killed.
Fortunately, it was a local equivalent of granite and the explosions and shrapnel probably made those two wet their pants.
If they targeted me again, I’d shoot to kill.
I continued watching. The drone above showed the left was bringing his rifle back on target, namely me. I waited until I could see his helmet and I snapped a shot through it. I could see him fall off the walkway to the courtyard below on the drone video.
The one of the right refused to show itself.
Making sure nothing else looked like it was going to surprise me, I continued towards the building.
Barney was the local badass. Well, he was the representative of the local badass. Barney’s boss was in the city about a hundred galactic stans to the Northwest. About an hour’s flight in a jet aircraft.
He was running gambling and a few other criminal efforts. I wasn’t here for those sins. A Ranger doesn’t walk in and start arresting everyone, we couldn’t possibly do it nor did we always care. No, a Ranger is here to deal with major issues. The nice part is that we choose what’s major.
Like, with Barney. While I personally would think his mottled purple skin should be an issue, I’m not really allowed to choose to badger someone strictly based on looks. I’m human. Therefore I do understand how I might be pre-disposed to not liking how something looks. But I could be annoyed with other endeavors Barney might be involved in.
Especially the rumor that Barney was working in the slave trade.
Once a planet comes under the Queen Bitch’s jurisdiction, she will stop slavery. She’s been known to start at the top and work her way down until the point is made.
Slavery will not be permitted. Period.Fucking.Dot.
On one planet, it actually took six levels of leadership before those in power understood she would condemn everyone until there was nothing left but slaves alive and then they would be free, anyway.
Here, rumor had it Barney was grabbing off-worlders who had come into town and weren’t with a group. Someone off a ship that failed to go back in time, or worse, was drugged to miss their ship.
Usually, the females of species were the targets. The money is better for a female slave.
That stuff pisses me off. As a female of my species, I’d rather not have that kind of attention thrown at me. So, I found myself a minute later looking up at an eleven-foot door. I sure hoped Barney was trying to compensate.
I knocked on the door. It was made out of the local equivalent of ironwood. The only thing I accomplished was scraping my knuckles. Local carnivores had been known to figure out how to push open doors and occasionally break them down to go in for their food.
Apparently, crunchy on the outside with screaming nougat centers is what these nighttime killers like.
However, this hard-ass door wasn’t helping me at the moment. I figure they knew I was here. I could see from my eyes in the sky no one had come out of the main house to cross the courtyard. The guy I had shot was lying on his back on the ground. The other guy was peeking over the parapet with his rifle. I would have thought with his partner dying, he might have gotten the memo.
Well, unfortunately, I don’t give others many chances to get it right when it comes to my life. I un-holstered my right pistol and dialed the slug throwing power down to three. Watching the sniper from my little drone, I waited until he had pulled his rifle from his eye to lean over further. I ducked out from under the door overhang and shot him between the eyes. His rifle dropped, but his body stayed up on the wall, half on each side, hanging there like a pair of shoes over a power line.
“Barney, I’m going to give you to the count of ten to be out here, opening your door for me. Or, it’s going to suck for you big time!” I screamed this in English, the Intergalactic equivalent of a forgotten language.
“One...Two...Ten!” I yelled before I reached inside my coat for a small sticker. It was square with a red circle and a button on it. I peeled off the circle and placed it in the middle of the door.
>>Achronyx, send down a one pound Puck set at level three to hit the target I’m activating now.<< I pushed the button and made sure that no one was looking to sneak up on me.
I made it around the corner before the one-pound Puck slammed into the front gate. Damn! I felt the vibrations from over here.
Someone was going to need a new entrance.
I looked around the corner and sure enough, the front door area was still full of dust and splinters flying everywhere. I assumed everyone had their guns trained in that direction and reached into my duster for my hand spikes. Over the many decades I’ve been playing amongst the stars, I’ve requested all sorts of shit from the mad scientists from Team BMW and Jean Dukes. One or the other usually comes through for me.
Well, except helping me grow taller. Damned Mother Nature screwed me over on that one. You know how hard it is to impress someone when you’re five foot four? Shit, John Grimes comes in at about six and a half, and people shut up.