Saving Guildmaster Namura

[t0l]

Tal crept quietly through the corridors of a musty, old Bactrian, his suppressed carbine shouldered as he bobbed and weaved throughout the rusted hallways. Months of gathering intel, hearing rumors, and searching the ends of Sirius had led to this moment. This was the one. It had to be.

There was yelling further down the hallway, coming from the intersection just up ahead. It was close enough for him to discern each syllable, although he didn't speak much in the way of Spanish so most of it just sounded like gibberish anyways. Their tone of voice, however, signalled to him that they were well panicked by this point, and he couldn't exactly blame them. It wasn't every day that a Scimitar burst from the asteroid fields and disabled a slaver's freighter, nor was it exactly every day that some crazy man with the swagger of a college kid boarded it.

The first man burst from around the corner, holding a pistol. Tal was able to distinguish the slaver's age by virtue of him not setting his rail-mounted baby detector off, meaning that he was, in all likelihood, weapons free, with no threat of committing a crime against humanity. Using his forward underbarrel-mounted vertical assault grip as leverage, he twisted the weapon on target, welding his cheek to the shoulder thing that went up before peering down the lens of his holographic creeper peeper. The red ballistic reticule was easily visible, shining bright as day in the dimly-lit corridor, and so he placed the first dot onto the man's T-zone before firing off a hammered pair. With two quick thwacks, the man's heart was liberated from his upper chest by the power of Ageira Technologies, with no damage whatsoever to Tal's hearing thanks to his patented bang-to-putt convertor. Hell, the poor guy didn't even see it coming.

Next up to bat was the man's accomplice, likely some kind of co-pilot trying to make a living so that he could feed his family, but Tal didn't have time for any of that shit. Another double tap as he rounded the corner and he continued sailing forwards into the wall, catching only a brief glimpse of the strange, masked man in the hallway before Tal painted the hall red with the man's brain matter. Hearing no more commotion, Tal continued creeping down the hall, pausing only to shoot the first man three more times after he swore he heard him make a noise. Hell, he even shot him a fourth time, since well-ventilated bad guys reach room temperature quicker.

With all the speed and precision of a professional, he leveled the weapon back up to shoulder-level and continued forwards, making a swift right into the secondary hallway, likely leading to the cockpit. He tread as softly as he could for a man burdened by fifty pounds of malarkey that was strapped to his chest and back, but the sounds of boots on metal undoubtedly caught the attention of an Outcast who'd otherwise be asleep in his room. It was definitely the boots, too, and not the fact that he just shot two people dead about five feet down the hallway. Unbelievable. This is why he didn't buy Kusarian anymore.

The man popped the door open behind Tal, poking out into the hallway briefly to shoot Tal square in the lower back through all his malarkey. Just as quickly, Tal spun around like a ballerina, fast on his little feet, and shot the man right in his face, leaving nothing more than a weird, fleshy crater that was leaking ketchup. Worried that someone else might be in that very room, he began creeping in that direction, weapon raised especially as he heard a woman's scream. By the time he got there, the woman, evidently an Outcast, was grieving over her (presumably) lover's (definitely) dead body. The man's gun, a refurbished Glock 34 - the kind you'd use to shoot up a bar or something - lay in the room, right next to his crumpled corpse. Strangely, Tal didn't feel any pain, and he turned briefly to check his back, until he saw the crumpled 9mm bullet lying in the hallway. Pfft. It didn't even go through his malarkey. What a joke. Who the hell would use a Glock 34 in 823 A.S.?

The woman looked up at him, cursing at him in Spanish through her tears. He knew they were curses only because there was this one asshole he went to school with who knew every curse in Spanish, but they didn't faze him whatsoever. He stood in the hallway, watching her idly until her hand gravitated towards the pistol, whereupon he raised his carbine.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he'd warned, waggling his trigger finger at her to try and dissuade her from doing anything stupid, "Don't do it, don't do it!"

But secretly, he wanted her to do it, and so she did! Once he saw her take up the handgun, he shot her too. Several times, in fact, until she shared the same fate as her husbando. Carefully, he stepped over the tangled pretzel of limbs lying in the doorway, sweeping the room with his baby detector in case there was anything lurking. Unfortunately for his unsated bloodlust, there was nothing else in the room, although there was a nice chain on the nightstand. Quickly, he crept over and pocketed it before leaving the room. Nice.

As he stepped back over the little performance art exhibition in the doorway, he punted the Glock 34 across the hall, just in case either one of them had eaten Hydrangea macrophylla leaves or something and came back to life. Actually, the gun looked pretty cool, so he bent over quickly and pocketed it, stuffing it into his drop pouch for later analysis. Moving back to the objective at hand, he plucked some stray lint off of his sleeve and put that too in his drop pouch, lest he leave a trail of breadcrumbs for someone to follow should they stumble upon this place later, before he started for the open cockpit.

It was a mess up there, of soda cans and empty chip bags, with crumbs strewn every which way. He brushed some moldy cheese dust crumbs off of one of the instrument panels, grimacing as he did so, and went through a list of cargo containers. Each one read SLAVES in bright red lettering, which was real helpful, and so he just went by number. 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... ... 9... 10... 11... 12... 13... 14... 15... 16! That was the one. Cargo container 16. It was what his lead had said. That done, he took his carbine back up and jogged back down the hall, heading a right to get to the cargo bay access.

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The cargo bay was in no better condition than the rest of the ship, with an air of straight BO and dankness to it that made him glad he lost most of his sense of smell on Tomioka earlier that year. Sliding down one of the ladders instead of taking the stairs like a normal person, he made his way along the rows of containers until he came upon one marked 16 in faded lettering. Letting his carbine dangle on its tactical three-point harness, he brushed it aside and reached around to bring his trusty backup bang-bang around, flicking the flashlight on as he moved to find out how to open this thing. Since the people who owned this thing were probably poor as dirt, there was no electronic lock on the container, instead, there was a shitty diary lock someone probably bought from a 100 credit store keeping the thing locked. Sighing, he brought the shiny FWG-5 up, aiming down the guttersnipe sight to acquire the target before blasting the plastic lock clean off.

That was easy.

He moved to wrench one of the doors open with his gloved hands, pulling it until it eventually gave way and opened. Someone really needed to oil the hinges on this thing. As he peered back around the door, he was met with a horrid sight and smell - a 800-pound mail-order Outcast bride with a "return to sender" sticker pasted on her back, and what looked like a lanky, malnourished, tortured man on the little bench that was welded to the side of the interior of the living container.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," he thought, holstering his pistol as he moved towards the man, flipping him over. There was no doubting it, even if he was about 40 pounds below a healthy weight, he still had the face shape, the haircut, and most importantly, the glasses. It was him.

Keiji Namura.

Lifting him from the bed, he wrapped the weakened man's right arm around his shoulder, holding onto him with his left arm as his right gravitated to his carbine to protect them during their egress. Holding the weapon at waist level, it wasn't the best stance, but it'd do for now.

"Noooooooooooooooooooo! You can't take my Nammy away from me!"

The blood-curling cry behind him likely wasn't a good indicator of what was about to happen. He turned, still holding Namura, and tried to engage the walking gunboat with his carbine, but it had failed to feed due to a defective high-capacity assault banana. His pistol didn't do much good either, as he drew it and fired it at her, scoring several hits that did absolutely nothing to stop her advance. With few other options, he pulled Keiji away from his predator and out of the container, through the only open door. The woman, as large as she was, failed to squeeze through the doorway, and was otherwise unable to open the other door, getting wedged between. Honestly, it was a miracle that she could even walk, but he digressed, simply giving the woman a gloved middle finger before dragging Namura out, up the stairs, and through the hallway back to his Scimitar, where they made their escape and rode off into the sunset.

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