When the Storm Arrives
Posted on Mon Mar 26th, 2018 @ 12:52am by Amare
1,749 words; about a 9 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter IV: Rezer's Edge
Location: Nar Shaddaa, Cargo Landing
Timeline: Three weeks after the Battle of Jericho; follows “Give Me Liberty with Danger”
Tags: Caleb, Verne, Mystery Voice, Nar Shaddaa
OLD:
“You’re not very bright being out here all by yourself, girl,” said the mercenary. “Turn around so I can get a good look at you.”
And for the first time this night, Coda felt very much like she was about to die…
ON:
The gale tore at her face. Zaracoda, bruised and aching from the crash pushed through the deluge into the spaceport lobby. She brushed and shoved past a few confused bystanders waiting to arrange their off-world flights whilst breathlessly repeating "Sorry!" with every rude bump as she bolted towards the nearest hanger. A high intensity bolt of energy struck the wall near the lift. She yelped with a fright still not used to be shot at. There had been so many attempts on her life this evening that she had lost count how many times the mercenaries had pulled their triggers to cut her down on the very first night of her freedom.
She got on the lift and pounded the button rapidly to get it to move. The lift doors closed barely in time just as the mercs caught up and the lift began its descent to the hanger level. The mercs punched and slammed the shut doors furious that their nautolan quarry had eluded them, at least for the moment.
Coda dropped to one knee struggling for air. The only good feeling that kept her going was the rain water on her skin. The moisture granted her a measure of comfort and nostalgia for the ocean world from whence she was born. She wondered how it came to this. Why this had to happen to her, or if she would even live to survive this horrible night…
A short time earlier…
“Hey squid girl! I’m talking to you!”
Coda had frozen in place, her back to the man that demanded her attention. She heard another man nearby that was chuckling at her predicament. It was a mocking, teasing kind of laughter that started to make her forget her fear, and inspire a deep antipathy towards these bullies.
A blaster shot from one of the men that narrowly missed her left leg, striking a nearby cargo container, made her flinch, but it did not extinguish her inner rage.
“I said I’m talking to you!” the man shouted again, his warning shot making it clear he had no intention of letting this end well. “Turn around, now!”
Do not be afraid. Be calm.
Coda heard, or rather felt a string of whispered words sweep through her thoughts and she started to feel a bit at ease. She kept her hands low at her sides and slowly turned, but not completely. She stopped halfway giving only her right side to them, enough to get a good look at her foes with a sidelong stare. She was fraught with fear, but surging with anger. She was at a point now where she'd rather die where she stood than let herself be captured again.
"Is that her?" said the other man who laughing that was a bit further back from the first merc that verbally assailed her. "She looks like a twi'lek to me."
"You idiot," the first man said turning to glance over his shoulder at his accomplice. "Twi'leks don't have more than two head tails. This is a nautolan. You just went on a date with a twi'lek last night. How can you not tell the difference?"
Make them fear you.
Coda used the moment of their chatter to clandestinely move her left hand, concealed out of sight by where the men were standing in relation to her sidelong stance, to slip under the left side of her tunic and draw Widowmaker from its holster. With an easy movement of her thumb she disabled the safety switch to make the weapon hot. She lowered her posture just barely enough to where her right hand was close enough to quick-draw her other hidden blaster, Retaliator.
"I'm not going back," she said to the first merc with a scowl, now having eyes on both men in their plated white and blue armor. There were cargo containers to her left and stacks of other containers further ahead providing ample cover. The rain picked up just as a cargo craft was landing nearby. The moment to act was upon her.
"What?" the first merc demanded to know, irritated by her sudden defiant tone. "What did you just say to me?"
A flash of lightning seared above accompanied by a clap of quaking ear-piercing thunder as Widowmaker came to bear. "I'll never go back," Coda screamed, unperturbed by the dangerous conditions above. "NEVER!"
The initial blast from her opening rapid-fire volley struck the first merc square on his breastplate, and the second caught his right shoulder on the exposed gap between the shoulder plate and the armored cuirass he wore that was covered only by black fabric. When he went down, Widowmaker's remaining shots went wild, and then Coda drew Retaliator with her other free hand. The second merc fired a poorly aimed shot that narrowly missed Coda striking a box behind her, and then he dove for cover as Retaliator threw its own furious laser salvo.
Coda gritted her teeth as she fired, backed off, and kept the second merc suppressed by maintaining her twin blaster shots. She looked up for a second and saw dockworkers witnessing the sudden gunplay, and looked back in time to see the second merc popping out of cover to return the favor. Coda barely dove behind a nearby container in time to avoid quick death.
"Verne! You alright?" the second merc called out after firing in Coda's direction again striking the cover she fell behind.
Verne, who had been the nautolan's first victim, was groaning in pain, barely able to crawl behind cover of his own. His right arm was out of commission, but unfortunately for Coda he was left-handed. He drew a sidearm pistol, ready for vengeance. "Damn the reward, Caleb. We're gonna kill that wench. Hit me with that med-stim. I'll cover you."
Verne was prone and peeked around the left side of the container he was behind, and thought he saw a part of one of Coda's shoes sticking out. He opened up with slow and steady semi-auto blaster bolts to try and disable her footing.
A shot narrowly missed, and Coda pulled her foot back in time before the second shot slightly grazed her shoe. She had never faced this level of danger on her life before. It inspired a terrible cacophony of feelings in her that made her want to cry and give up, but survival was all she had left now, and she was armed. She refused to go down the same way her parents did.
Caleb fired his blaster rifle as he moved up to his wounded partner, and Verne opened fire to further hold Coda down with more deadly pressure. His bolts caused sparks to fly all around where Coda was hiding, but the nautolan refused to be completely daunted. She held up her twin pistols over her head and above the rim of the container she was behind and began firing blind. Every shot missed, but it halted Caleb's advance forcing him behind cover again, but only a few feet from where his friend was prone and suffering.
Verne screamed as searing white hot pain from his shoulder wound was becoming too much for him to ignore. He had been shot once before, and that too was hell on earth to endure, but this somehow felt even worse. He was starting to wonder if the girl's blaster was illegally modified somehow. His arm felt like it was cooking more and more, and there was a crackling sound coming from his flesh with a burn that smelled almost acidic. The smell was also coming from his breastplate. While the plating stopped that first shot, the impact zone was starting to melt and form a deepening hole. It was then that he realized why the bounty posted was set for twenty-thousand credits, and not the usual five or ten large; the girl was packing serious heat and wasn't afraid of a shootout.
The truth was Coda was scared out of her wits, but she was operating on pure instincts fueled by her intense hatred and determination to never be enslaved again. Death would have been preferable at this point than having to endure a shock collar for the rest of her life.
She briefly peeked around the side of her cover, and could see where Caleb was with his leg sticking out from where he moved to. She heard Verne screaming like a child, but she felt absolutely no remorse because all she could think of was her parents. She finally felt like she had a chance to avenge them even if these armored thugs were not their killers. It somehow felt good to have the power to fight back, to put evil in its place for once.
More are coming. Go! Leave this place!
The words streamed across the forefront of her mind that was more like a gut feeling than a voice. She wanted to punish the mercs further, but with all the added bystander attention being drawn her way, she knew she had to make a break for it before other armed people came along spoiling for a fight.
RUN!
She continuously fired at Caleb's general direction, confident that Verne was no longer a threat, both barrels steaming and glowing red hot as she pulled the semi-auto triggers as fast as she could. She backed away almost losing her footing on the slick oil and water-soaked metal flooring of the dockyard. She hunched down as she moved staying low, moving from cover to cover, and then rose up and bounded into full retreat when out in the open.
Caleb tried to pursue and take a few shots, but his short-barreled carbine threw them wild and was unable to connect. From his perspective, the girl was small-framed, light, and remarkably quick on her feet. He wasn't a smart man, but he knew his limits and realized he could never catch up in his bulky combat armor.
"Call the others," Verne bellowed at Caleb. "Get backup. Tell 'em we found the mark. Shoot to kill!"
"But we have to bring her in alive, right?" Caleb asked.
"SHOOT-TO-KILL!"
TBC in "You Can't Deny the Prize"
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