I Do It All Right

“Why me?” Megan Voories asked, again.

“We’ve already been over this, blondie,” I responded, sighing and slumping in my chair.  “I pick people based on the harshness of what I think will happen to them.  If I could save everyone I would.”  I picked my drink off the table in the commercial space station and took a chug, the action giving me time to organize my thoughts.

Since humanity had begun using its advanced space travel and tracking technology to its fullest, we had discovered most of the galaxy.  Of course, after discovering this territory humans and all the other intelligent species within it began spreading out to new places.  With the notable exception of built-up planets and the areas surrounding them, this made lawlessness the order of the day.  Part of that lawlessness was a thriving slavery business.

I’m Heinrich Ungar, all around nice guy and champion of the people.  That causes reward money, a lot of which I can’t use because I’m always on the move.  So when I have some extra cash I buy someone who the slavers kidnapped and then take them back to their home, or any place else they’d rather go.  I don’t know exactly why I do it - I think I just like the idea that I can somehow put justice into a universe without it.

I had bought Megan because she was extraordinarily pretty, and it made me want to vomit imagining what kind of sick twisted shit someone would probably do to her.  I was about to explain this to her in hopes that it would eliminate the “survivor guilt” she was feeling.  As I saw who entered the bar, I instead decided it was a better course of action to grab her as I threw myself to the floor.

The blast from the eight-gauge shotgun plastered the wall behind us the instant we were out of the way.

“Stay here,” I told the girl, still lying on top of her.  “I have some old business associates to deal with.”  I removed two pistols from inside my jacket, regretting that all the heavier weaponry was onboard the ship, and sprang up to take the rude assholes under fire.  Their identities were confirmed the moment I saw them - Kenedar Nedar and Kenedar Batta, a set of twin sisters from the alien race known as the tanakans.  They had a nice scheme going where they would hook people on drugs and then sell them into slavery once they became junkies.  A couple of years ago I had destroyed a month's shipment of their drugs and liberated some of their slaves.  I think it goes without saying, but they didn’t particularly like me.

I fired my two Schott 8100 automatics at them, sending a hail of tungsten downrange that made them duck for cover.  Batta had the eight-gauge shotgun and she began threading her way towards my table while I reloaded my pistols, and Nedar got a bead on me with her assault rifle.  I dove sideways and tucked into a combat roll, sliding into a hallway adjacent the bar; the tanakan with the rifle cursed and followed me.

I quickly found I had entered the wrong hallway; it was unoccupied and came to a dead end.  What the hell a hall like that was doing on a space station, I had no clue.

A three-round burst from Nedar’s assault rifle slammed into my back.  My body armor caught it and I was flung forward, and as I hit the floor I decided to play dead.

The alien predator flipped my body over and picked me up by the shirt collar, smiling at my unblinking eyes.  She was about to sniff me to confirm the kill when my hands, still holding my pistols, flew up.  I jammed one barrel into each of her big, black bug-like eyes and pulled both triggers.  The back of her head shattered apart with a wet crunch as all of her brain save for a tiny chunk that remained attached to the nerve stem splattered across the ceiling in a spray of grey abstract art.

When I re-entered the bar I found Megan sitting on the floor, back against the wall and terrified as Batta stuck the eight-gauge in her face.  I holstered one pistol away then proceeded to blow out the back of both the alien’s knees in rapid succession with the other.  She dropped the shotgun and it bounced away as her body twisted on the floor to look at me.  I raised my weapon again and shot her twice in the body and once in the head, just like they had trained me to do in the army.

I put my weapon away as I walked toward Megan.  I extended my hand and helped her up off the floor.

“Based on what just happened, I’m not going to ask anymore questions.”  Megan's eyes were wide and her skin was pale.

“Smart girl,” I replied as I slide fresh magazines into my still-smoking guns.

“Who... who were they anyway?” Megan reneged on what she had just said.

“I thought you said no more questions?”

“I changed my mind.  Who were they?  Jilted lovers?”  I snorted derisively at the thought.

“No,” I responded, “They were an entirely different kind of woman problem.”