Kor stopped his hands before they could rise from his lap. No, killing Tisbel and robbing her was a tactical decision. Expedient, but costly down the line. This was a strategic question. He couldn't meet everything with threat elimination. He was going to need a fireteam. And they would need supplies. Strategically, hoop jumping made sense.
"How much time for the breakdown? And where is the range?"
Beside him, Qivan cleared his throat, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His head was buried in his digital assistant, same as the kid Kor had seen down the hall after stepping off the lift.
"What?" Tisbel's laughter burbled up from somewhere in the shop. "Breakdown? This is Varis I, big spender, no need to go to a shooting range. Port Council just wants its pound of financial flesh and to know who the hell you are."
"Oh." Kor frowned. "I am proficient, though."
He could practically hear her digital eyebrow raise. "Oh, I'm sure you are, soldier. I'm sure you are."
As she spoke, a half dozen mechanical tentacles came into view. Each carrying weaponry, the flexible, flat black arms moved through the air in a strange ballet as an automated table wheeled itself into view and rolled to a stop two arm lengths from where Kor sat. Automatic weapons, bullpup rifles, two heavy sidearms enclosed in a plasteel attache case, a compact shotgun. The arms dropped their cargo, retreated back into their mechanical housing and zipped away, returning to the back of the shop for more as Kor rose from his seat.
"This one?" Kor asked as he grabbed one of the automatic carbines. Surprisingly light, the model closely matched the Hector Mark VI he'd used in the field for most campaigns. "Real, or a knock off?" He raised the rifle, sited down its length.
The original had selective fire and ammo selection for AP, HE, and standard, with a floating air-cooled barrel and a collapsible stuck. Good for medium range, most Menelauns carried them as standard issue. This one felt off, though.
"Knock off," replied Tisbel. "But a highly accurate knock off."
"Feels too light. They skimped on the internals. Wouldn't last a sandstorm." Kor put the rifle aside.
"You know there's no sandstorms on Varis I, right?" Tisbel asked. Behind Kor, Qivan's groan told him everything he needed to know about how the kid felt. Old uncle was taking too much damn time at the store and he was already bored.
"I need something more compact, anyways. Need it to fit underneath a coat, give at least concealment at first glance." He swept his gaze over the other laid out weapons. "Send back everything but the sidearms."
Tentacular robotic extensions appeared from near the ceiling, snatched up the rejected goods from the table. "How much concealment?"
"Polymers, not alloys. No getting around in-depth scans, but I don't want every local on the street to know what I'm packing." He turned, looked back to Tisbel's motionless form, immediately felt ridiculous. "Have something that will work?"
"I think so. Prototype I came across that might fit your needs."
A thud sounded on the machine table's top, and Kor turned back in time to see Tisbel's tentacle manipulators arranging the case for show. Faster and more deft than any humanoid hands he'd ever seen, they rapidly spun the matte black plasteel case one-eighty, laid it back flat, released the locking mechanisms, and opened the case for view before retracting.
Kor was like Perseus seeing Andromeda for the first time. "Great crunch." He reached down, touched the gun like a lover caresses their partner. The rough pads of his fingers ran over the barrel, the molded grip, the manual selector on the side. "Does this use accelerant? Or is it a gyro?"
"Shotgun, actually. Originally designed for shooters that have cyber enhancements, since it tends to snap the wrists of non-augmented users."
Kor pried the bullpup pistol loose, hefted the solid weight in his hand. Offworlder handguns, with their lightweight frames built for weaker races, always felt like toys to him. This was a true Menelaun sidearm. "Tell me about her," said Kor as he sighted down the barrel.
"Sturdy," Tisbel said, "like a brick shit house."
As she spoke, Kor continued to heft the weapon. With the bullpup design, the receiver was just slightly behind the grip, centering the weight and making it easier to maneuver. "Semi-automatic, two-round burst, or fully automatic selective fire. It won't be good for anything further out than say, thirty meters, though."
"Don't worry about that." He placed the monster handgun back on the table. "She's just so I can have something pretty and reliable by my side while I'm out on the town."
"You'll need it after you get off the block. The Blues keep it relatively safe here." Kor imagined Tisbel would have been glaring at Qivan if she'd had eyes. "But every Corp exec runs with a personal sec team."
"Also need armor piercing, flechette, slugs, EMP."
"So? A not-so-standard grab bag."
"Exactly. Shock gloves and a blade, too."
"Body armor, too? Before you ask, Achilles type is beyond me."
"Anything heavier than these rags. Anti ballistic, slash resistance." He turned, leaned back against the table out of habit, remembered too late that it was on wheels. The mechanized table slid a fraction of a centimeter before an abrupt click sounded and the piece of furniture reacted to Kor's additional lateral weight. Maybe robots were alright in certain circumstances. "Achilles would be overkill, anyways."
"Anything else?"
Kor shook his head. "Should suffice for the moment. I'll have more business coming soon."
A tremble of mild pleasure ran through Tisbel's voice when she spoke. "Excellent. And how will you be paying?"
Kor dug into his pocket, found the small, metallic vial he'd been saving since his father passed. His family's last bit of wealth. He held it up for inspection.
Tisbel sounded uncertain. "You're fucking with me, right?"
Spark. Promethean. Elder Light. Genesis. Jump Juice.
The fuel had as many names as races that could utilize it. Kor could probably buy half Tisbel's entire stock with the money he'd make from its sale. Enough to live a small, comfortable life back on Menelaus. But not enough to restore his family's honor.
One of Tisbel's mechanical feelers came from the ceiling, delicately plucked the vial from his proferring fingers like a vitner twisting grapes from the vine at harvest. "More than enough for what you have. I can't go liquid on the rest, though. Finding a buyer for this will be tricky."
"As I said, I'm going to need to outfit a team. I'll need walking around money, and Driver here needs to get paid. Three hundred credits. Line of credit for the rest."
"Your license is almost done, too. Just need a name to go with your biometrics, and you're finished. I'll cover the rush fee."
"Kor. Just Kor."
"No family name? Thought you Menelauns all had a hard on for that kind of thing."
Kor grunted, pushed off from Tisbel's robotic table. "For now? No. I've heard you can buy anything you want on Varis. How much for a different one?"
Tisbel's disembodied chuckle sounded throughout the shop. "You know, most people I'd argue with, but I don't think you're most people, Kor. You're an odd one, even by Menelaun standards."
Kor raised a greying eyebrow, sighed. "Should I take that as a compliment?"
"Take it however you want. It'll cost, but you can afford it. Now, come on to the back of the shop and I'll show you the gloves I have picked out. They have a sap weight in the knuckles and enough of a shock to power a street pod. Driver, you come along, too. Let Kor test them out on you."
Qivan's head snapped up at immediate attention. "Hey, step off, yeah? You's ain't said shit about testing nothing, uncle!"
"That got his attention." Tisbel's voice was a digital drawl, and Kor could tell she was enjoying herself. "Back in my day, kids stayed off their assistants."
"You's fucking with me, yeah?" Qivan asked Kor's back.
Kor ignored the kid and headed to the rear of the shop. A plan was forming as he considered resource control in strategic situations, and how every faction in any warzone always wanted something. Sometimes it was land, other times it was population or water rights, control of key mining concerns in asteroid fields. Qivan was a resource like any other.
"Well, I know I was," replied Tisbel. "Not sure if I can say the same for tall, dark, and brooding here."
"Show me those gloves, Tisbel, and the blade. Then Driver and I need to move to the next phase."
"Uh, yeah, uncle. Sure. Next phase?"
"Need to find the rest of my team."
#
Previous Story Posts
That wraps Chapter Two, and comes a whisker shy of finishing off my accumulated back material on this. My next post should be Thursday or Friday, I believe, and then I'll be going down to once a week unless I can magically begin to make a massive bundle of cash off every post and it somehow allows me to quit my ghostwriting job. Seeing as how that likely isn't in the cards, going forward you'll probably be seeing these once a week.
Thanks again for all the early support! The curators and random folks who have found this little personal experiment have definitely made me feel very welcome, and I'm certainly looking forward to slowly unspooling this story for everyone on here.
