Outlaws (The Slingers Trilogy, Book 2)

Chapter 12

At first, Vos Leiron thought he was seeing things when he saw the group of strangers walk into the club. He and a few of his Buzzard friends were sitting near a small shop, eating some fruit that they had managed to persuade the owner into giving them, when he saw them coming up the street. They seemed to be par for the course as far as most people who came here were concerned, but something about them seemed familiar. The guy in heavy armour was certainly a sight to behold, but that was when he saw the two younger, blonde-haired set of twins that were with them. Vos's eyes lit up with recognition, then excitement. So, this was where the Wavery twins had been hiding. They had avoided Rafe for quite a while, but now they were caught. He was sure to collect the bounty when he brought them back to Rafe alive. He elbowed both of his friends who were harassing the shop owner, and then pointed at the group. "Oi! Look here boys. We found Tweedles Dumb and Dumber at last." The two other Buzzards nodded and grinned wildly, then one of them pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the group across the street. Before he could pull the trigger, Vos pushed the gun away and kicked him. "What? Come on, Vos! Let's just waste em right now!" Vos shook his head and grabbed the Buzzard by his shirt collar. "What, and draw attention to ourselves? I don't bloody think so. We follow them in, and we take them, alive. Like Rafe wants us to." The two other Buzzards looked at each other, then back at Vos, nodding. They walked out of the shop, then into the club after the group.

Bunker followed the bartender through a large dance floor, full of people moving to the beat of the music that was blasting at a deafening rate, along with neon lights and lasers shooting through the air. They weaved through the crowd and into a separate room, which was thankfully soundproofed. In the middle of the room, sitting on a large circular chair, which had a table with several glasses and food on it surrounding it, was a man with dark ebony skin, wearing a grey robe, and had what appeared to be something most unusual on his head. His entire skull was made out of glass, his brain clearly exposed inside of it. When Elicia saw it, her stomach churned, and she had to keep herself from gagging. He spun around on his chair, and was stroking some of the women that were sitting on the table around him. When he saw Bunker, he grinned mischievously. "Bronson, my dear old friend. Welcome back to my humble abode." Bunker nodded. "Broker. A pleasure, as always." The Broker looked around Bunker and noticed Koil and the twins. "Who are they?" Bunker looked back at them and nodded reassuringly. "They're with me." The Broker looked at them for a minute with a glare, then laughed out loud, a large belly laugh. "Of course! Any friend of Bunker's is a friend of mine." He gestured to some seats, and they all sat down. The Broker leaned forward and stared at them. "Now then, my friend. What sort of trouble are you in to have to come to me for help?" Bunker explained the entire story about how Andress had been lost to the Independence Zero's Quantum Engine. He then handed the Broker a map. "Here's where her pod was roughly pointed at when she teleported." The Broker mulled over the map a bit, then sighed. "The problem with a Quantum Engine is it needs an algorithm to calculate where the ship will land. Without that algorithm, it's impossible to track." Bunker looked at him. "So you can't do it?" The Broker laughed again. "Oh my friend...whenever did I say that?"

A few minutes later, after the Broker had sent one of his men to the back room, he had come back with a small device that appeared to be an advanced memory drive. "One of my men managed to recover it when they raided a secret GDF manufacturing station. A place, it seems, where they were building that ship you described." Bunker was about to reach out and take the drive when the man pulled it away from him. The Broker gave a slight chuckle, this one less humorous and more sinister. "You really think it's that easy? You seem to have forgotten a certain incident that happened a few years ago, Bronson." Bunker's eyes widened then he sighed and groaned slightly. "Broker, you have to understand. Me and Andress were captured. Our ship was dead in the water. Blowing up the cargo was the only way to get ourselves out of there." The Broker slammed his hand down on the table suddenly. "I do not pay for excuses! What I pay for are good Runners who understand the value of cargo! You and your friend cost me a fortune in credits that day, and now you come back after avoiding me for so long, and you ask me for a favour?" He grit his teeth. "You'll leave this club in pieces." Suddenly, Elicia stood up and pointed her gun at the Broker's head. Two of his men pointed their pistols at her head, making Edvard aim his shotgun at the one on the right. Koil covered the left one, while he had three pointed at his head. Bunker aimed his chaingun at a group of them by the door. All of them were now caught in an old-fashioned Mexican Standoff. Elicia looked the Broker straight in the eyes with anger and contempt. "I'm so sick and tired of your macho, know-it-all, blushtai, understand? We've been looking for our friends, and have been shot at, nearly blown up, and sucked out into space. I'm a little stressed out at the moment, so I would appreciate it. If. You. Cooperated." She said the last words through her teeth, and the room was silent, with gun barrels pointed at everyone's head. Elicia kept staring at the Broker, and saw a single bead of sweat roll down his face. Finally, he muttered. "Stand down." The men lowered their weapons, and so did Bunker and the rest. But as soon as they did, there was a gunshot. Not from anyone in the room, but from the outside, and right after, the bodyguard standing next to Edvard went down with a hole in his head. Elicia turned and saw the three Buzzards from the market run in and open fire on the group of people, making everyone dive for cover. Then, the room erupted in gunfire.