It was an uncharacteristically clear day in the wastes when the White Dogs rolled into town. Town… if you could even call it that. It was really just two platforms and a village center, not much to look at as Lucky, Sgt. Beam, and Matt Gin sat on the bridge drinking themselves to slow oblivion. The only thing that sobered them up was that first some Van Saar, then some Escher, and then to no one’s surprise… Goliaths. It felt like the town was about to explode in violence. And it did. Just not in the way anyone had expected.
Seemingly out of the wasteland dust itself, a whole mass of Cawdor zealots storming the town, soaking up the gun and lasfire everyone started laying down. Sgt. Beam took his juve aside and pointed at the suicide bomber running full tilt on bloodied feet toward a drilling tower. “Now, look there, Lucky. I don’t believe in much besides a good bottle at night and clear skies during the day but that there… that’s belief that done gone too far.”
Lucky nodded and even though Gin got a shot off now and then, riddling one zealot or another with wounds, his own weapon stayed silent. There was no point shooting at targets that far away.
“If we ain’t for the freaks, ain’t we against them?” Lucky asked.
“Well…, yup,” Beam agreed. “That there’s the meat of it.”
“Then ain’t we supposed to get down and help out?”
Sgt Beam grinned and tousled the kid’s hair. “That’s your youth talk’n, young’n! We go down there, we’re just as liable to get shot as that forger there. You wanna get set alight like that Escher girl. Nah… we got ourselves the proverbial catbird seat right here. Let’s let everyone else work things out while our buddy Gin over there makes sure they stay at what I like to call a ‘safe distance.'”
And the sargent was right. It was over almost as fast as it started. And the White Dogs went right on back to their drinking, confident the violence for that day had burned itself out.
Frank was always the gang idiot, if Jim was being honest.
“You’ve got the bullets,” Jim asked.
“A’yup,” Frank said, nodding.
“And you’re staying back until we need you…?”
“A’yup.”
“And that means no riding the bike this time…”
“Got’cha boss.”
“We only have so much fuel.”
“I got’cha boss! No fuel, no bike.”
“But you have my bullets.”
“Right, bullets! Yep!”
“I’m counting on you, Franky,” Jim said, glancing at the kid a second time. In retrospect, he should’ve brokent he kid’s legs.
They hadn’t been five minutes at the abandoned settlement before Jim heard the kid cry “Weee-hooo!” and rev the engine of the orange dirtbike, peeling out between piles of rubble and a couple of musclehead Goliaths.
“It’s wonderful!” Frank cried as he went up on one wheel.
A Goliath, looming over a pile of rubble as they were wont to do, raised his stub-cannon, so small in his massive hands, and loosed off a shot, almost as a warning… after all, who could hit a kid on a bike going as fast as he was with a random shot over some rubble? And yet, despite the odds, the round caught Frank dead in the chest, knocking him off the bike and onto the ground where he lay, gasping for air.
“You better be dead, Franky!” Jim shouted as he heard his bolter click dry. “Because otherwise, I’m gonna fucking kill you myself!”
Jim was using his old “Iron Stare” as he sat beside the makeshift negotiating table the Goliaths had built outside the settlement. They may have been a little dim but their table was a minor marvel of metalwork and welding. Jim doubted the Helmawr’s had something as shiny when the Imperial boot came to stomp.
But it wasn’t the other house Jim was staring down. No. It was Jack “the Tomato Can” Dempsey, that goddamned palooka joe of a “prize fighter” that, so far, had really only been costing his gang money. Jim was beginning to believe his corpse starch might be the most valuable thing he had to offer. And now, here again, he was going to have to shell out more credits because the bonehead ran out into the middle of a fight and got himself caught.
Now, old “One Punch” had gotten himself captured by the muscle heads, too, but Mark was one of Jim’s lieutenants, and a little enthusiasm that put him a bit over his toes in a fight was a good thing in a champion. Mark was a Road Sergeant worth paying for. And he needed a man like that to make it through these wastes.
The first rule of negotiation is that you should never negotiate against yourself. But Jim just wanted to get it over and he spoke before the big guy across from him–Emperor’s balls, was that a furnace plate strapped to his chest?–had a chance to open the bidding.
“You’re not selling Mark off to anyone,” Jim said. “I just want to be clear on that. We’ll fight you if we have to. But that one,” he said, looking at Dempsey and spitting. “He’s meat to me. You ask for a credit over twenty and as far as I’m concerned you can turn him into a protein shake for your next workout.”
The Goliath recoiled. He no eat person. Too gross. He Goliath not no underhive corpse grinder.
He put his big hand on the table, fingers spread wide. Then he lifted it and held it between them. Jim’s head could have been crushed within the large palm. Then the fingers closed and opened again.
“What’s that?” Jim asked.
“What we want. For both.”
Five fingers. Closed. Then opened.
“What is that?” Jim asked. “Two fives? A ten?”
“This amount!” Five fingers, closed, then opened.
Jim took a swig of white dog from his hip flask. A layer of dust had settled over the table. With gloved finger, he drew two fives in the dirt. One right next to the other. 55.
“Fifty-five?” he said, pointing at the numbers. “That’s what you want?”
The big guy crossed arms as massive as Jim’s legs across an unbelievably broad chest. His chin jerked up and down.
Jim’s own chin dropped to his chest and he heaved out a heavy sigh. “Tity-fucking St. Mina with the Emperor’s cock…,” he said, starting as a whisper and dying as a sigh. He looked up and met the big man’s eyes. “May you, and you, and you all suck it! Fifty-five! Fifty-five? You’re charging me fifty-five credits to get my guys back?”
A wide smile pulled across the Goliath’s face. A clear look of satisfaction.
“Well,” Jim said. “I supposed I am well and truly fucked. Lucky! Get your ass over here!”
The juve pulled himself off a scrap pile five yards away and jogged over to his Road Captain.
“What’s up boss?”
“Go find the Bullet Dodger, will you? And you tell him to open the lockbox and to empty out fify-five credits for these… people, here. And you tell him, I don’t care if it’s all our money, we need ol’ One Punch and numb nuts Dempsey back, you hear.”
“Fifty-five credits, yes, sir!” Lucky said as he took off in a run.
The Goliaths looked satisfied with themselves. There was a lot of backslapping going on. Which was a load off of Jim’s mind. Yeah, it was a hit to the treasury but not as bad of one as they could have demanded. And it meant the bullets wouldn’t be flying today. A day in the wastes without any violence. Well… That was a kind of win, wasn’t it?
The images in this post were generated using GPT Image 2 from tableaus built by the author using his own miniatures.
