Guardian Angel Haruki
KTostada
Morose
Scrawl Banditta
Neziul
Blizz
Forsythe
BlueSky44
Achronum
Simply Not Real
Beth with special guests: A ton of angry and very rude people ie: Red, that Doctor, and some henchmen
The coffee in Beth’s hands was cooling down, but she didn’t seem to notice. She hadn’t taken a sip for a few minutes. Instead she was staring out the window seeing something that wasn’t there. One might think she was watching the horizon, not there was a whole lot to watch, but if one could see into her mind they’d know that she was thinking about her twin sister’s wedding. An event that had happened almost three years prior, an event that Beth had missed.
Jess and Beth hadn’t spoken in nearly five years, not that they didn’t want to, or at least Beth wanted to speak with Jess. She missed her twin sister, but Beth had gotten herself into and out of a few pickles that made contacting Jess dangerous for the other twin. Now she was starting a family, for all Beth could guess Jess probably already had kids, which made Beth an aunt. Not that that was something new, but it’d be the first time she was a full aunt instead of a half-aunt. With dozens of half-siblings out there, not to mention the even more amount of cousins and fictive kin, it was impossible for Beth to go somewhere and not run into family. There was however so few full blooded siblings that Beth held their relation to her closer. The thoughts of Jess turned to her baby brother, and what he may be doing.
She took a sip of her coffee, the added ‘flavorer’ burned a bit, but nothing she wasn’t used to. A proximity alarm beeped. The other’s were back, that was a relief. Spending alone time meant thinking too much. Beth made her way down to bay, took another swig of her coffee, they hadn’t been gone long enough. Something must have gone wrong.
The bay doors opened on their own. Beth stood for a moment confused. The door revealed, a man who was clearly in charge of this expedition, a woman in a lab coat that had once been white but the desert had turned it a yellow brown, and several henchmen.
“Fuck.” Beth said under her breath, and finished off what was left of her cold coffee it left a bitter acrid taste in her mouth. ”Can I help you?” She said, this time loud enough to get the man’s attention. Beth wondered what happened to her shock gun she had stolen on Godwin.
“Heh, yes you may. Your captain told me there was a box here for me. A very valuable one. I’m here to retrieve it.” How had this tool heard about the box? Who had Trish told? There was no way the capt’n had sold it, not for anything. Beth had seen his look when he found out it was space sickness. No this was Trish’s doing, it had to be.
”Sorry no can do. He told me no such thing.” Beth made a small prayer to the gods of the circus, the only gods she had ever prayed to.
“I don’t think you understand. I’m here for the package.” Several guns were raised and pointed at her. Well that escalated quickly. Over her dead body Beth decided. She dived, rolled and bounced up onto a crate. The circus gods were listening it seemed. The coffee mug lay forgotten as she jumped and grabbed the railing of the catwalk. Bullets rang out as they hit the hull and cargo crates.
Beth pulled herself up onto the catwalk. ”I’d have your men stop firing. They might hit the crate with it in it.”
“You wouldn’t be dumb enough to lead them to shoot at it.” The man shouted at her.
“I was born shipside.” That response weighed heavily across the distance between her and the man. His group boarded the ship. Trish for the love of god please tell me you left a bomb somewhere on this ship. Beth doubted it, all of those resources were being used on the mission the group had been sent on. The man looked up at her on the catwalk.
“You’re spry.” He grinned. “Could use you. If you hand over the crate I’ll let you join my men.” Beth felt a chill down her spin.
”I’d rather suffer space sickness.” Not that she could of course. The guns were raised again at her, she was already rolling away from where she had been standing when the bullets started flying. Good thing these ships were designed to not let bullets through. In space that’d be really bad for the oxygen level. Beth dropped off of the catwalk behind several of the crates.
Beth opened one to see if by chance something useful was inside it, packets of food, that’d be great for dinner, if she ever got to see that again. Okay, time to split them up, she could handle one at a time. There were four henchmen, the doctor and the gross man. The henchmen would have to go first. Then she’d have a gun.
“Behind those crates.” There was a scraping sound and the crate Beth was hiding behind started to move. She now stood feet from the invaders of the ship. Jerks. She jumped, using the crates as a step up again, grabbed the catwalk, swung around and kicked one of the henchmen in the head. Beth missed her barstool, made fighting more even when everyone had a barstool or a cue pole. Beth was good with a cue pole, at playing pool and kicking ass with it.
“Impressive.” The man said as Beth flipped up onto the catwalk again. She was running, and used that momentum to launch herself onto another collection of crates. “Find the crate.” She heard from the man. Beth cursed under her breath. The psycher did not make this easy. Trish really needed to pick better friends, ones that didn’t like to kill, that’d be nice. Beth didn’t particularly want to be killed, she had things to do, people to see, things to drink. Mostly the last one if she was honest with herself.
The henchmen were searching now though. One was unconscious, three searching, and damn she hadn’t grabbed that gun. Maybe now she could get one of the henchmen alone though. That’d be the best. Bar fights she’d fight many, real fights she preferred one-on-one. She slipped off her boots, they’d only make noise and get her caught.
For a few seconds Beth thought of her days high up on a rope with nothing but air between her and the hard ground. Those were the good days. She mentally sighed and started making her way around the crates listening for the sounds of boots against the metal of the cargo bay.
Someone was rummaging through a crate. Silently she stepped from behind her own crate to find one of the henchmen elbow deep in the packaged goods, looked like it might be linens. Before the man could realize she was there she kicked the side of his knees hopefully shattering it. He cried out in pain, and the cracking sound was satisfying. She pulled his gun away from him, shot him once in the chest and ran, hiding again.
A part of her felt bad for shooting the man the other part of her knew she had to. If his knee wasn’t broken he’d be picking up the other gun in moments. Beth doubted the shot actually killed him, it would just finish incapacitating him. She remembered a phrase from her father, ‘An injured man did more damage than a dead man’. An injured man would draw more manpower to help him than a dead man. It was too late for the dead man.
Another shot rang out, and the sounds of the man struggling to breath stopped. Well so much for that idea. The doctor wasn’t going to be distracted now.
Two henchmen down, two to go. Then the doctor and the man. She did not want to kill someone the capt’n had been doing honest dealings with, but this was not honest. She hoped he’d forgive her. Maybe taking out the doctor first would be a good idea. What little Beth knew about psychers though she couldn’t do too much heavy lifting without knocking herself out.
Beth climbed back onto the catwalk. High ground was always good to have. She saw one of the henchmen trying to sneak around a crate. Seriously, she had already proven she could get up on the catwalk without trying, no one was looking up. Idiots. She shot him aiming for his head, but hitting his shoulder. Yuck.
Not taking the view in too long Beth already started moving, no way in hell was was she going to stay in one place too long. A life philosophy practiced on a much smaller scale.
A few shots rang against the catwalk and pain flared in Beth’s back. She reached back and when she brought her hand forward it was covered in blood. That was bad, very bad. The only doctor Beth knew about was the one below her looking for the space sickness containers.
“Found it.” The last henchman’s voice rang out behind her. Sure enough he was standing in front of the correct crate. Beth took the shot, missing him, took another and shot him in the arm. She needed to practice her shooting badly, if she made it out of this. He shot at her, a bullet just missed her face. She dived and shot at him again this time nailing him in the chest. The doctor came into view, holding her own gun now. Beth took a shot, missed her, the doctor raised her gun and aimed at Beth. Both guns went off at the same time. The doctor’s shoulder started bleeding and Beth felt like her forearm was on fire.
The doctor retreated.
“Best hope this is the last time we meet little miss.” The man called from the cargo bay doors. He and the doctor left, leaving the four bodies behind.
“Great I’m going to have to clean that up aren’t I?” Beth leaned against the catwalk railing and took a few deep breaths. ”First my wounds, then the bodies.” Beth pulled herself up and took the stairs off the catwalk. She closed the cargo bay doors, and then went to the medical bay. She stuffed the wound in her back with gauze first. There was no exit wound, which meant at some later point she’d have to get help getting the bullet out. It also seemed that nothing major had been hit, that had to be a miracle.
Once Beth finished cleaning and wrapping that she took care of the graze on her forearm. That was basically the same as a burn. A drink was order when she was done with that. From a flask in her now ruined coat she took a deep swig. ”Alcohol thins the blood don’t drink it when you’re freezing or bleeding.” She recited and took another drink. ”I know dad.” That was better all around though. Now to clean up the mess and make sure the one she had kicked in the head was still unconscious or dead. That probably would have been a good thing to check before she had left him alone. All well, she had been bleeding pretty badly.
