One Small Favour

[Omi]

Deshima Station wasn't quite what she'd always imagined it to be. Hunter types - both in her mind and in her experience - had always been rather pragmatic types. Those on board Deshima, however, looked decidedly more theatrical. The entrance to the bar had been done up to have actual saloon doors, for goodness' sake - although Komachi privately doubted that it was real wood. In the old, old movies, everyone who'd have been drinking in a real saloon would have had a gun in their holster - but back then, more than a millennium ago, guns were a lot less destructive. Certain bars, even in the ninth century after landfall, weren't renowned for their peaceful atmospheres - and if she had to put her money on which type Deshima was...

Judging by the looks they've been giving me, I think they might know something's up. Not for the first time, she wondered if it was some kind of set-up. Hunters of all shapes, colours, and sizes had been eyeing her up ever since she first pushed the doors open - and more than a few looked tense. Then again, for all she knew, her face was on some list of baddies somewhere - especially this close to Kusari. But that was fine, right? She just happened to look very similar to that particular girl. After all, which wanted criminal would willingly walk on board a station packed to the brim of people who spent every waking hour hunting criminals for money? Not her! With her new Ageira Technologies jumpsuit on - the badge prominently displayed on her chest - and her hair up in a ponytail instead of down in its usual, lazy style, Komachi was confident that she blended in. Almost. Or at least looked like she had a reason to be there.

For now, at least, her disguise seemed to be holding. Sort of. People were looking, but nobody ever wanted to mess with Ageira types, just in case they were genuine. A miscalibrated jumpgate or lane ring could kill a man as easily as any plasma round through the canopy, and for that reason their technicans tended to get a wide berth. Live and let live, so to speak.

Using this knowledge to her disadvantage - and conscious that it might not last long, especially considering she looked fairly 'off the clock' here in the bar - she strode up to the counter, waiting until the bartender caught her eye and moved over. She was no expert, but he looked somewhat of a swarthy man. Kinda Hispanic, too, in the right light. Him being Cretan was pretty likely, at least as far as she reckoned.

"Hi," she preempted, giving him a little wave. "What's your name?"

"Miguel," came the grunted reply, beady eyes staring back at her from above a bushy moustache. "What'll it be?"

Her heart leapt - or, at the very least, it lurched upwards a little. This had to be the guy. Right?

"I, uh," she began, before leaning in closer, her voice dropping to a whisper: "-do you do 'chooros' here, Miguel?"

His eyes met hers again, flicking up from the bar with - was that fear she saw? At the same time, she became distinctly aware of the sudden silence that had descended on the whole room. A hundred pairs of eyes were on her now, and the lack of any noise whatsoever was deathly.

Komachi's heart sank. Oh dear.

"What?" she asked, to nobody in particular. Some of the room's occupants, in particular, looked furious. More than one hand was already reaching for a holster.

"Nobody ask for churros but Tortuga, senorita," mumbled the bartender. He looked faintly apologetic, but in no way did he look willing to try and hold back the crowd. Some of the guns were out now.

"Wait, wait, wait! But I'm getting them on his - Tor-too-a's, I mean - on his behalf! I'm here to get them for him - they're not for me!"

Again, the same silence returned to the bar. This time, though, it was even more uneasy - particularly with half a dozen pistols trained on her back. Some of them were the more usual laser or plasma variety, but a couple were old-fashioned projectile shooters. Not the sort of thing that would help her day, especially with the advancements made in that area of ballistics. A fist-sized chunk of expando-plasteel embedding itself in her lower spine would do her no favours whatsoever.

"You got any proof, chiquita?" Miguel sounded a bit sympathetic now, his head shaking slowly. Perhaps he thought she was stalling for time - but for Matsuda's sake, she was here on the guy's request! But proof? He hadn't said she'd need any proof.

Already, she fancied she could hear fingers tightening on triggers. This wasn't going to work. It was, more than ever, now time for plan B. Or, at least, the plan that started with a B.

"Six-zero, six-zero," she began, her tone steady and direct as she spoke into her lapel microphone. "Tally mud, three-three-zero level! Split, cleared hot! Over!"

The assembled hunters seemed more than a little confused by the sudden spiel, but made no moves for now. More than likely, they assumed it was a code. All eyes flicked to Miguel, who looked just as nonplussed.

"I got no idea what-"

Luckily for Komachi, that's as far as he gets before something very bad happens to Deshima's (in)famous bar and grill. A ferocious boom breaks the near-silence with a tremendous noise, the entire station seeming to shake as something very fast and sizeable comes rocketing through the saloon's panoramic windows. As it does so, she breaks into a run, diving for the exit doors as the floor buckles and shakes beneath her. Already, the sound of the room depressurising is all around her, an urgent hissing in her ears that spurs her onwards. She'd have to make it beyond the bulkheads before the section got sealed off. All around her, the assembled patrons of the bar are either too stunned or too injured to follow quite yet, their brains still not completely au fait with what was going on. After all, it wasn't every day you went from holding a young woman at gunpoint to having an Ahoudori rammed through your favourite watering hole at cruise speed.

As such, her few seconds of head start is enough to leave them behind, and she skips through the bulkhead aperture before it's even more than a quarter of the way closed, her footsteps clanging and banging on the metal walkways as she sprints back towards docking point six - churros nowhere to be found. Klaxons blare from every loudspeaker she passes, but the corridors she's passing through are surprisingly empty. Then again, perhaps it wasn't that surprising - on a station full of bounty hunters, no doubt every single one was busy rushing to the source of all the commotion; no doubt intent on discovering a bounty or two hiding amidst the carnage. Hunters really were predictable.

Just like she'd thought, the docking bay is deserted when she arrives, not a soul other than her there to watch her clamber hastily into her Sabre, detach the clamps with the aid of the station's VI mainframe, and soar off into the Galileo gate lane. As she goes, though, she can't resist twisting the ship around and killing the engine, drifting the last hundred metres or so in reverse so that she could survey the destruction. Deshima looked much less foreboding with an Ahoudori half-embedded in its upper area, smoke and gas belching from its newfound wound. Passing ships had already begun to clump up in close proximity; some intent on helping, some merely stopping to watch the incident in progress.

With a smirk on her face, she twirls the fighter one-eighty degrees again and activates the lane sequence, disappearing promptly into the pinkish-blue clouds of southern Shikoku. Tortuga could get his damn churros himself, next time. She'd had to call in a favour of her own to get 'extracted' safely, and favours like that didn't come cheap.

F**k it. I'm going back to Pueblo, and then I can wrap this whole shebang up tout-suite. I'm not getting bounced all around Sirius on one teeny-tiny little favour after another - especially if they're all as dangerous as that. Leave that sort of thing for some other joker, because I'm bailing before my one small favour turns into a recipe for disaster.

The jump vortex swallows her Sabre like a fat kid with a chocolate bar, and then she's gone.

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