Chapter 1: Can't Stop What's Coming
Judas Station, North of Jericho's Reach
“Hear tell you run this town,” said the man down the bar. Slaver, from the looks of him. Right hand’d been replaced with cheap, ugly augments, a claw of pitted metal. He wore a coiled whip at his waist.
“Can’t trust everything people say,” said Callows, raising his glass, “Leastwise round here. Sunny days, shady people’s our unofficial town motto. Should be, anyways.”
“I think you’re bein’ modest,” said the slaver, grinning to show a face full of metal teeth. Arrow shaped. “What I heard, you’re sorta like the mayor, the sheriff and the hangman, all rolled into one. That’s what I heard.”
Callows took a sip of his drink. He savored the burn and spreading numbness, "This ain't the greenlands, friend. No sheriffs out here." The man with claw slid back from the bar. There were three others drinking with him, slavers too looked like. They got up with their friend. Callows didn't turn to face them, just took another sip. The barkeep, a one eyed man named Horace, put down the glass he was polishing.
"Hey now," Horace said, as the quartet sauntered down the bar, "Don't start nothin in my place of business."
"Shut up old man," said claw-hand, who sat down on the stool next to Callows, "This h-ain't your concern."
Callows finished his drink and sighed. He tapped the bar for a refill.
"This here," said the slaver, "Is 'tween me and the man what shot down my brother two moons past. The man settin' right here at your bar next to me."
"You think I killed your brother?" said Callows, turning to face his uninvited guest. Eyes the color of the clear green sky met the slaver's bloodshot gaze, "What for? He do something as stupid as you're about to?"
-
Callows stepped out of Horace’s place into the heat and light and dust of late morning. Stores were just opening up and main street was busy with caravaneers, slavers, guns-for-hire and whoever else the Road had washed in to Judas Station on this fine day. Callows slipped his hat over black hair going grey and checked his boots for blood. Clean enough.
He sighed, trying to remember a time he could drink in peace without having to keep an eye over his shoulder. He’d been running from killing for years, tried to turn his knack for violence into something productive, to give this place a semblance of order.
Problem with runnin' is you always bring yourself with you.
“Lyman, we got a problem,” a hoarse voice called. Callows looked up to see Helmsly pushing his way through the milling crowd. If Callows was the unofficial sheriff of Judas Station, Jed Helmsly was the unofficial deputy. They split the role of unofficial mayor 'tween them. A good man, Jed, smart enough by far for the job and quick enough on the draw, but maybe a bit too soft. He deferred to Callows ‘cause he recognized his own lack of necessary ruthlessness. That was Callows’ theory, anyway.
“Whatsit?” asked Callows as Helmsly climbed the porch of the saloon, “Today’s my drinking day- thought you and the boys could handle things.”
Jed spat into the dust of the road, “You need to see somethin’ Lyman. I got speeders waitin’ at the south gate.”
“Sounds serious,” said Callows, cracking half a smile. He produced a flask from his overcoat and took a pull. He offered Helmsly a swig, “What kinda serious?”
“I’d soon as not talk about it here,” said Helmsly, waving away the flask and nodding to the bustling street behind him, “See for your own self.”
-
The speeder was an original, not one of those bolted-together four-wheelers the cheaper mercs used. It skimmed quick and quiet over the rutted sand and bare rock of the Road, bouncing a bit when the ground gave way beneath her. The hum of the anti-grav plates was only just audible over the hot wind blowing in through the open windows.
Callows' eyes were on the haruspex unit built into the dash, which gave a crude read on the terrain for a mile around. Of course, a mile in any direction was still the Road, a huge sunken gash of churned sand and pitted rock cuttin' right through the desert. Not too much that was dangerous lived in the complex contours of the Road this close to the Station, but not too much was not nothin'.
Jed was drivin, his jaw clenched and shoulders hunched as he piloted the craft around boulders and over wolf scorpion burrows. Helmsly was not the kind easy to spook, and something out here had set him right up on the edge. A pair of Station militia on gunbikes trailed Jed on either side, dust billowing behind their slender machines.
Callows squinted as he watched the 'spex. It was registering something huge over the next rise- something Crawler-sized, but it wasn't moving and the speeder's comms wasn't gettin hailed by nothin.
Helmsly pulled over a ridge of dunes in the Road and slowed the speeder down to an idle. The gunbikes cut their engines and silence reigned over the baking red expanse of the Road.
“God's teeth,” said Callows, as he took in the scene spreading out below him. Saw the scale of it. He took a long drink from his flask.
"Patrols found it like this this mornin'," said Jed.
"Survivors?" asked Callows.
Helmsly shook his head, "Not that I found on my first run out here."
Callows took another drink. “Jed, we got ugliness comin' like I've never seen.”
