Chapter 15
There was a collective gasp from the surrounding villagers as they watched the bandit raise his knife to my exposed neck. I saw some of the bandit’s crewmates sneer or smile eagerly at the possibility of blood being spilled, and the leader himself looked pretty excited to see my neck sliced open as well.
The leader leaned in for a better view of the action, and he was so close to me that I was able to see his awful face up close. He was practically bald with a scar over the top of his head, and the strap of his eyepatch was buried so deep you almost couldn’t see it. But I could still see part of the scar underneath the patch, and that was a deep groove. Something had opened the side of his face at one time, though whether it was a blade or a claw I couldn’t be certain. The scar had healed very imperfectly and now featured uneven, lumpy edges and a sore, red, tight section of skin just around the patch.
Once I looked past the patch, I could see the man’s large nose with hairs that crept out of it to blend into the thick mustache above his thin top lip. The mustache was wild and unkempt, but he definitely spent whatever spare time he had away from stealing, hurting, or maiming innocent people to properly trim and look after it. His lips were so small they were practically non-existent, his teeth were yellow and brown, and thanks to our close proximity, I could smell the horrible stench of his breath.
I was acutely aware of the knife against the skin on my throat while I studied the other man. He was clearly very skilled at using it, since he held it close enough that I couldn’t move without drawing blood, but not so close that he would cut me before he had to. Since he knew exactly what he was doing with the deadly weapon, I had to be smart about how I proceeded with the conversation.
I could see Rayne in my peripheral vision swaying back and forth slightly. She was debating whether or not to try and get him away from me, but she knew that as soon as she moved, he would slice me, so she had to try and hold herself back from doing anything.
“I still haven’t heard a good reason why I shouldn’t gut you both right now and take your stuff,” the leader said.
“It’s kinda hard to talk with that knife at my throat,” I replied.
“Good try,” he sneered. “But this knife isn’t goin’ anywhere until you start talkin’.”
“I just think it’s a shame that you’re too scared to go to the nuclear plant,” I said. “Even though I’ve already told you about all the incredible stuff that’s there, and that I killed all those mutant things.”
“Scared?” he huffed. “I’m not scared. I’m just… We got a load of stuff from this village, and now we have whatever you took from the plant, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t just kill you and--”
“You can try,” I said as I looked him dead in his one eye. “But you’ve just seen what I can do. I mean sure, you probably could kill me, on a bad day, but I’ll take all of your crew out before it even gets to that point. Is that what you want?”
“You wouldn’t be able to do any of that before I--” he began as he pressed his knife further into my neck.
I grabbed his arm before he could break the skin and bent it backward. For a moment, he resisted, but then the extra strength that the suit gave me, along with the nanobots in my body, overpowered him easily. The arm bent backward, and the man groaned in pain. It was just on the verge of snapping when I let go and pushed him away from me. I wanted to take him out right then, but I knew that as soon as I did, his crew would start to hurt the villagers, and I couldn’t have that.
He stumbled backward a few paces but remained on his feet. Rage filled his eyes now that I had humiliated him in front of his crew and the village, and he puffed up his chest as he marched back over to me.
“Look, I’m not from here, either,” I said, and I raised my hands to show him that I didn’t want to fight.
“So?” he asked. “Why should I care?”
“I came down here to get some stuff from that plant…” I said.
“Down here?” he asked.
“Yeah, in my ship,” I said.
The crew all turned around suddenly, and the leader’s eyes widened. They tried to mask their reaction to the fact that I had a spaceship a second later, but it was too late. The bait had been dropped, and they were all hooked. Even Rayne looked over at me, but for a very different reason. She had no idea what I was doing, but she looked stunned that I had disclosed the fact that I had a spaceship to them, because now they would do anything to steal it from me and claim it as their own. What she didn’t know was that was exactly what I wanted.
“Your ship…” he said. “As in from…” He pointed up to the sky and raised his eyebrows.
“Yes,” I replied. “I mean, you must have known I wasn’t from around here when you saw my eyes. It’s just an observation, but I seem to be the only one with eyes like these in the vicinity.”
“There are a lot of continents,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe you come from one of those.”
“Nope,” I said and shook my head. “Anyway, I went to have a look around the nuclear plant with Rayne, and then we were going to come back to drop off the first load, get my ship, and go back for the rest.”
“Where is this ship of yours?” the leader asked in a much more polite tone than he had been using.
“It’s in orbit,” I lied with a straight face.
“Say it will only come down if you command it to,” Francine said. “That way, he will not kill you until the ship is on land in front of them.”
“It obeys my voice commands,” I added. “It’ll only come down from orbit if I tell it to.”
“I see,” he replied, and though he looked a bit disappointed that he couldn’t take the ship right away and kill me, he didn’t seem too disheartened.
“I was gonna call it down once we had taken everything out of the nuclear plant,” I said.
“Makes sense,” he said.
The leader smirked and turned to one of the goons that was closest to him, who grinned and nodded. While he was distracted, one of the villagers moved to hit him, but the leader turned around at the last moment and pistol-whipped the poor guy in the face.
The villager fell back, unconscious, and blood started to pour from his nose. The other villagers around him crowded him to make sure that he was alright, but the sight of another innocent person getting hurt only fueled my silent determination to rid Wildern of these disgusting men once and for all. I could see the children of the town cowering from the scary brutes threatening their families, and that was no way for a child to grow up.
“Leave these people alone,” I said. “You’ve got everything they have. All their belongings. Isn’t that enough? Just take it and leave.”
“I don’t know,” the leader said. “Some of the ladies here are alright, wouldn’t you agree, boys?”
His seedy crew muttered in agreement as their hungry eyes turned to the women in the village.
“You’re not half-bad yourself,” the leader said as he took a step toward Rayne. “Even if I do need to teach you some manners.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Rayne said as she took a step toward him with the most murderous look in her eyes I had ever seen on someone’s face.
“You know what?” I said to the leader.
“What?” he asked as he turned his attention back to me.
“Forget the nuclear plant,” I said. “You clearly have everything you wanted right here, and you’re too much of a coward to go there anyway.”
“Wha--” he sputtered.
“Besides, it’s my territory,” I said. “I found it first, and I’m gonna go and collect what’s mine. You guys better not follow me.”
I picked my gun up off the ground, turned around, and started to walk down the road that led to the front gate. For a moment, everyone in the village, especially the bandits, was stunned.
“That isn’t your territory, boy!” the bandit called out after me.
I smiled with my back to him, stopped walking, and spun around.
“No?” I taunted.
“It’s ours now,” he snarled.
“Fine,” I said as I walked back into the village square. “But you have to leave this village and these people alone.”
The leader turned to his crew with a smirk, and then looked back at me.
“Besides, you’ll need all your guys to help load your trucks,” I said. “There’s a lot of stuff in that plant.”
“Alright, we’ll leave this village in peace,” he said, although it was painfully obvious from the look on his face that he planned to come back the second he got me and Rayne out of the way.
“Good,” I said. “Let’s get going, then.”
“You heard the man,” the leader called out sarcastically. “Let’s get going, boys!”
A few of the bandit crew looked disappointed that they hadn’t been permitted to harm more people, or that they hadn’t had a chance with any of the ladies in the village, the thought of which made me, and probably everyone else in the village, feel sick. The way these men thought they could just come into these people’s homes, take whatever they wanted, or whoever they wanted, was unbelievably disgusting to me, but at least I had gotten them all to leave these poor people alone.
But, I still had the task of getting rid of them for good so that they could never hurt any people like this again.
The bandits shoved the villagers out of the way as they made their way toward the back gate of the village, where I assumed their trucks were parked. The leader put his arm around my shoulders and marched me toward the exit of the village, and Rayne stayed close behind. I was surprised at how much trust she had in me and my plan, but she must have known that I had one, or else she would’ve already taken about half of them out on her own by now.
“So, where do you come from?” the leader asked as we walked.
“Earth,” I replied. “It’s not in this star system.”
“That must’ve been a pretty long trip to get here,” he said.
“Yeah, I suppose so,” I replied.
“You must’ve really needed whatever’s in that nuclear power plant,” he pressed.
“There was something there I needed, yes,” I replied. “I was going to go back and get it, though.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” I replied.
“It is,” he hissed in my ear, and then he pulled me closer to him so that he could whisper to me. “Because my friend back there is right behind your lady friend, and all it takes is one look from me, and he’ll kill her.”
I turned slightly so I could see what he was talking about, and right behind Rayne’s head, I could see one of the unholy crewmates with a large grin on his face and a wild look in his eyes. I also saw the gun in his hand that was pointed at Rayne’s back.
“Fine,” I said. “I was going there to get uranium.”
“Uranium?” the bandit leader asked as his greedy eyes twinkled. “There’s uranium there?”
“Yes,” I replied when I saw how excited he was about the uranium. “Lots.”
“Well, I think we’ll be taking all of it, if you don’t mind,” he said with a smug smile that I couldn’t wait to wipe off his face. “Not that you have much choice in the matter.”
He flicked his eyes behind us, laughed, and then removed his arm from my shoulders and pushed his way to the front of the group.
Rayne moved so that she was beside me, but the rest of the bandits remained in a tight group around us.
“What was he saying?” she asked.
“I told him about the uranium that’s still at the nuclear power plant,” I said with a pointed look, as both of us knew the uranium was actually in the storage compartment of my ship, safe and sound.
“Seriously?” she said as she pretended to be annoyed for the sake of the bandits believing us. “I really hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I do,” I said. “Trust me.”
We had almost reached the edge of the village, and I was able to see the rusty gates up ahead. Rayne stayed firmly beside me and guided me in the direction of the exit, while Bob shuffled between us. As we walked, I bowed my head slightly so that no one could read my lips.
“Francine?” I whispered.
“Yes, Will?” the AI replied. “What is your plan, because right now, this is a bit of a mess.”
“No, it’s going perfectly,” I said. “Listen, I need you to keep the ship hidden until I say so. Then, I need you to fly it to wherever we are. Can you do that?”
“Of course, Will,” Francine replied. “Just make sure you are not anywhere near these men when I arrive.”
“What’s he sayin’?” one of the bandits beside us suddenly asked.
“Oh, I was just… praying,” I replied.
“What?” he asked.
“Praying,” I repeated.
“I don’t know what that is, but get a move on,” he said as he shoved both of us forward.
I made a mental note to ask Rayne about the religious side of things on Wildern at another time, because as I thought about it, none of them had mentioned it once. There hadn’t even been a ‘what the hell’ uttered by anyone on the planet so far.
When we reached the gate, we were pushed through without ceremony. We were closer to the trees back here, and I could even hear running water from the treeline, confirmation of my theory that there was a water source close by. There were also four trucks parked nearby that looked like old army trucks from World War Two, after they’d been in battle.
One of the bandits whistled, and a moment later, two guys, who hadn’t been in the village, emerged from the woods carrying four very large water containers. I had seen how hard water was to come by on this planet, so it made sense that these bandits collected as much of it as they could when they had the opportunity.
However, the appearance of these two men meant there were two more guys in the bandits’ gang than I had originally thought. In my mind, they simply replaced the other two, which the gang had left dead in the village square without so much as a burial. The newcomers loaded the water containers up onto the back of one of the trucks, and then the thieves started to hassle each other about who sat where.
The trucks were caked in mud and dust, and there were sections of the vehicles that had been patched up with other pieces of metal that didn’t match the original colors, or even the original vehicle. There were three front seats on all of them, and I saw one of the bandits grab a gas can from the back of a truck and then start to fill up the tank. I imagined that fuel and working vehicles of any kind were not commonly found on the planet, and I wondered what poor souls the bandits had stolen them from, since there was no way that they had acquired them honestly.
“You get in this one with me,” the leader of the bandits said as he pointed to the truck closest to us.
Rayne and I glanced at one another for a moment, and then we climbed into the back of the truck. I sat down on one of the benches while Rayne sat down beside me, and then the leader climbed in behind us and took the seat across from me. The leader had a grin on his face while he watched the rest of the bandits finally pile into the trucks, and then after a couple of faltering attempts, the engines rumbled to life.
The truck lurched as we set off, and the wheels kicked up a cloud of dust that followed us along the track. We drove across the gray plains in the direction of the nuclear power plant, and I tried to estimate how long it would take to reach our destination.
I estimated a few hours, even with the trucks, but we were never going to reach the plant. I just needed to get them far enough away from Rayne’s village that no villagers or houses would get caught in the crossfire or used as a weapon against me. All I could do for now was play along while I mentally geared myself up for a fight. Francine would be able to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it was time to bring in the ship, but I would still need to do a good job on the ground as well.
“You two look good together,” the leader said randomly about half an hour into the journey.
He sat opposite us with his legs spread wide and his arms folded. He had spent the entire trip watching us with an amused expression, and I’d thought he was just plotting the ways he would kill us.
“Oh, uh…” I said as I turned to Rayne.
“We’re not…” she said as she looked at me.
“We only just…” I said.
“Met, yeah,” she said.
We both looked at one another uncomfortably for a moment and then turned back to the bandit, who laughed.
“Awkward,” Francine said.
“Shh,” I said under my breath.
Of course, I found Rayne incredibly attractive, and I admired her skill when it came to fighting and holding her own in such a dangerous, unfriendly climate. But I had only just met her, and I also had no idea if she felt the same way about me or not. I looked at the bandit, who had a very smug smile on his face. He had known exactly what I was doing when he made that statement, and he had loved every second of the aftermath.
“So, Earth guy, how long are you planning on staying on Wildern?” he asked.
“Not long,” I replied without looking at Rayne. “Once I’m finished looting the place, I’ll take what I want and leave.”
“Shame,” he sighed. “You two could have made a good couple.”
I rolled my eyes and didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply to that.
“You guys are too easy,” he chuckled. “Do you have a girl back home on your planet? Is that the problem here?”
“No,” I replied.
“How did you two meet?” he asked.
“In the nuclear plant,” I said. “We were both looking for stuff there.”
“So, you only just met, and now you’re defending her village?” the bandit chuckled. “What are you, some kind of superhero?”
“No, I’m just a decent human being,” I said.
“Is that what you call yourselves,” he said as he looked me up and down. “What’s your planet like?”
“A lot like Wildern, but habitable,” I said. “How I imagine this place was before the war.”
“I would like to go there,” he said. “Maybe you can take me with you in your spaceship when you leave.”
He leaned forward and punched me jokingly on the arm, and I knew it was because he had some master plan to steal my ship as soon as he got the chance.
However, he didn’t know that I knew that, and that gave me the upper hand.
“That would mean I’d have to spend a lot of time with you,” I quipped. “I think I’d get about an hour in before I wanted to rip your head off.”
“Not if I rip yours off first,” he snarled.
“Boys,” Rayne said disapprovingly. “Are we done swinging your dicks now?”
“You’re right, m’lady,” the bandit said and he gave her a sarcastic bow. “I will be the bigger man and drop this argument.”
“How honorable,” Rayne sighed.
“What’s your spaceship like?” the bandit asked.
“It’s in orbit,” I said as I folded my arms.
“So you said,” he said. “But what’s it like? Forgive me, but I’ve never seen one before, so I’m curious.”
“It’s not super big,” I replied. “But it’s got shields, three rooms, and a lot of weapons.”
“It sounds wonderful,” he said with a smile on his face that the Cheshire Cat would have envied.
“I’m very lucky,” I replied with a nod.
“Let’s hope your luck continues,” he said.
He clearly thought he had the upper hand and was very cocky about it. What he didn’t know was that Francine was ready to strike whenever I said the word.
About an hour into the journey, I couldn’t see Rayne’s village behind us thanks to the swirling mist, nor could I see any signs of habitation anywhere around us. The leader had slid over to talk to the driver for a moment, which gave Rayne and me a moment to talk.
“You need to be ready to jump off this thing,” I told Rayne.
“Don’t worry about that,” she replied. “I’ve been wanting to get off since the moment we got on.”
I nodded and then looked away for a moment. Our surroundings were bare, and there wasn’t anything around us for miles.
“Francine,” I said under my breath. “Now.”
Rayne looked at me nervously, and I put my hand on top of hers. The bandit leader finished his conversation with the driver and sat back down opposite us. We stared at one another, and though I tried to mask it, there was a clear shift in the tension in the air. He picked up on it almost immediately and leaned forward in his seat.
“Is somethin’ wrong, Earth guy?” he asked.
“Five seconds until arrival,” Francine said.
“No,” I said with a smile.
He stared at me for a moment as he studied my face. I stared back while I counted the seconds in my head.
I saw his eyes widen as the realization hit him, but it was too late. He lurched toward us, but at the same time, Rayne raised her leg and planted her boot-covered foot right into his private parts. He cried out in agony and crumpled, which made the driver slow the truck so that he could check that his boss was alright. At the same time, I squeezed Rayne’s hand, and we both stood up. The truck was still moving, but it was slow enough that we could make our exit.
“Jump!” I shouted.
We both put one foot on the bench and then leaped over the side of the truck. We landed on the hard ground and rolled to absorb some of the impact. Dust puffed up around us, and as soon as I came to a stop, I checked that Rayne was okay. Apart from a couple of scrapes, she was fine, which she signaled with a thumbs up.
The trucks skidded to a halt when the other drivers realized what had happened, but before the bandits could come after us, a shadow descended over the convoy.
Everyone looked up as my ship flew down toward them, with Francine in control. I grabbed Rayne by the arm and helped her to her feet, and then we sprinted out of the way just as Francine opened fire.
Lasers rained down on the bandits’ trucks, and as we ran, one of the trucks beside us exploded into a ball of flames. I was thrown to one side, but quickly got back onto my feet and kept on running until I reached the edge of the battlefield.
Francine fired shots left, right, and center at the bandits, most of whom died in the initial barrage. A couple managed to return fire, but the shields easily blocked the bullets. Instead, the hot lead ricocheted back toward the bandits and took out several more.
There was hardly anyone left after those first few seconds of the attack, though a couple of the bandits had leaped from the back of one truck and were running across the wasteland. Francine rotated the ship and then mowed them down with ease.
However, while the ship was aiming at the runaways, I saw one of the bandits pull a massive gun out from a duffel bag in the back of a burning truck. It looked like a weapon that was a cross between a cannon and a bazooka, and he set it up quickly and efficiently. While the shields on my ship would stop any damage to the ship, I knew that a blast from something that powerful could send it flying, or even falling to the ground, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.
The guy opened the duffel bag and pulled out a rocket, which he slid into the launcher. Just like that, it was ready to launch.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Will…” Rayne said with a warning tone in her voice.
“I have to,” I said.
“Will!” she shouted.
“Don’t follow me!” I shouted before I took off across the battlefield toward the man with the rocket launcher.
If the man heard Rayne or me, he didn’t show it. He was focused on Francine, and even as I flew toward him, he swung the weapon toward the sky and right at my ship.
I wasn’t sure I was gonna make it in time.