“Of course,” Paslik continued, “since you have expressed such interest in me, it’s only fair that you introduce yourself.”
“Maybe Nolan can tell you. Wait, where did he get off to?” Mallory looked around in mock confusion.
“Don’t be cute.”
Mallory generally saw no harm in using her professional name publicly. ‘I go by “Squire.”’
“Well…Squire…looks like you’ll never make knight.” Paslik’s cronies pretended that was funny.
“I suppose n-“
The conversation was cut short by a loud bang, which shook the building and almost immediately knocked the power out. Mallory could hear Paslik and his minions’ being rushed out of the room. She couldn’t help but notice that Manriol ran to the exit by himself with more impressive reflexes than the others.
“Turn on the backup generator!” Paslik cried.
“That was the backup generator!” Crannol answered.
Amid the confusion Mallory overpowered the two guards restraining her and followed her quarry through the darkness, but she was too late to keep a track of them. More sporadic laserfire followed by that all-too-familiar eye of the hurricane. Guards rushed past taking no more action against her than an occasional potshot. This must be bad. Mallory had a feeling that flight was the best option, but there was no way she was forfeiting this bounty. Not after all that work.
She followed the chaos to a large room. Flickering lights and smoke added to the dread. A chorus of frightening chatter swelled up into screams of terror. Gunshots rang out. A few guards ran out of a dark passage, too panicked to attack her. One even screamed “Run!” At her. She was about to enter the ominous corridor when she noticed a rapidly brightening cerulean glow from around a corner. Her eyes widened, and she instinctively dove out of the way just in time to avoid a massive fireball.
Something flew out of the smoke toward a developing phalanx of newly-arrived guards, hitting one of them and inspiring perturbed babbling from his friends. Mallory glanced at the offending debris only for eyes to meet Nolan’s. She had a feeling she’d meet him again sometime. She has half right. In the next instant another massive jet of blue flame shot out toward the group, burning some and scattering the rest, some of whom were picked off by frighteningly accurate laser fire. The flames had not yet dissipated when out from them burst the fattest (male) dragon Mallory had ever seen. He was dark slate with long black hair and his massive stomach was encircled by a spiked belt with a skull on it. She ducked out of from the sights of his pistol before he sent a bolt down her way. Vemesol S89, she observed as the bright blue beam exploded nearby. Matches the belly. He immediately attempted to bring his axe-like tail down on her, but she dodged and found concealment far enough away for him to downgrade her in this threat assessment. The dragon continued to massacre the guards who remained foolish enough to confront him. She observed that he wasn’t terribly agile, but he could make good use of his bulk and short-distance burst speed. Being covered in fangs and spikes helps, too. She tried to take advantage of the fight to rush across into the hallway leading to Paslik’s panic room, but was knocked aside by her competitor’s wall of flesh. After finishing off the last of the guards, the dragon turned his gun on her as she returned the gesture. Mallory knew the only way she could quickly neutralize her ventripotent foe was a headshot; the layers of fat surrounding his body, much to her awe, actually were thick enough to stop small arms fire. Meanwhile he had the advantage of her whole body. “You know,” she smiled nervously, “How about I just go after Manriol, and yyyyyou can get the rest…”
The dragon’s face dropped with the exception of his widened eyes. Before Mallory could get a word in edgewise, he turned away and moved with surprising celerity toward Manriol’s private quarters. She blinked in confusion for a second and then ran off to the panic room. There she found inches worth of transparent synthesteel separating her from her bounty. Virtually indestructible to any substance this side of the UGA. No doubt it was self-contained and could only be opened from the inside. There was no way she could get in.
“You should leave,” Paslik told her through an intercom. “Reinforcements should be on the way.”
“You’re right.” The least Mallory could do was wait for the dragon to arrive for a second opinion on the door.
“You and your friends set this up real well, didn’t you?”
‘Didn’t seem to work out for most of those “friends,” didn’t it. Besides, I don’t even know the guy.’
“You’ll pay for this,” Paslik snarled. “You cost me millions of repairs and manpower. Not to mention by best employee.” Crannol spread his arms at this.
“Not to mention your best friend. I saw the way Manriol ran off. How does that make you feel?”
Paslik glared at her for a second then looked past her. “Better that about that, I suppose.” Mallory turned her head to find the dragon squeezing into the room with Manriol’s body in tow. Scowling, he walked up to the portal and growled.
“So, big guy, you got a solution to this?” Mallory spoke at the same time as Paslik was reciting some prepared speech about how the shield was indestructible and how his cavalry was coming. The dragon ignored them and carefully scanned the edges of the vault door. Then, after a strenuous snorting sound, coughed up a medium-sized container. “You set us up, didn’t you?” she accused as he concentrated on unlocking it.
“Actually, I was expecting much better out of you people,” he answered with a rather intimidating baritone. He then produced a large limpid mine and stuck it onto the synthesteel wall. He adjusted the timer and armed it.
“Excuse me, did you listen to a single word I just said?” Paslik said (“No,” the dragon replied over him). “This vault is bomb-proof! You won’t be able to collect any bounty on us, you corpulent buffoon!” The mogul’s face dropped when a distinctive whine began to emanate from the bomb.
The dragon looked back at him and with a bored expression. “I’m not interested in your bounty.” He picked up Manriol’s body and strode out of the room as the whine loudened and everyone inside the vault began to scream. It was a Neutron Separator. Who the hell has that kind of hardware? Mallory desperately wanted to disarm the device, but she couldn’t recognize any of the controls or machinery once she cracked the outer shell. She had to get out of there, and fast. She was fortunate enough to find an airship in one of the hangars.
As the compound exploded on her six, she figured that, with the extra speed of her personal ship, she had enough time to acquire it and then intercept the dragon at Paslik’s nearest secondary airbase. She arrived at that area just in time to track a beaten-up Komdu Aetheria-Class light courier taking off from the nearby citiport.
“Aetheria-Class light courier. This is Bounty Hunter ID 446633254. Immediately request that you land and submit yourself to a search.” The small maroon ship hesitated for a second and then careened into the clouds. He must be insane if he thinks he can escape me in that thing. She followed the surprisingly humble craft into a nearby canyon, where she lost track it of it. Suddenly her sensors picked up a contact charging from her in the mist. He is insane. Thanks to lightning reflexes, she barely escaped her opponent’s insane suicide charge. The cockpit readout chirped to inform her that the courier had passed close enough to momentarily encroach on her shields. Crazy. She continued after the little ship, which was unable to outmaneuver hers. After enough disabling shots to the propulsion system and shields, the Aetheria was finally willing to accept defeat and land.
Mallory kept her assault laser trained on the craft’s entrance as she approached it. When the rearward hatch opened, she saw that the dragon was crammed so tight into its little cargo hold he had no room to move sideways. His decidedly skinny upper body looked pathetic in comparison. He could still breathe fire, though. “I want my bounty, dragon,” she told him. “Or what’s left of it.”
“You mean this?” He produced a skull. “I was going to keep it, for…sentimental reasons…” He enunciated words with an almost forced precision, but his deep voice still possessed a recognizable drawl from the A3 Quadrant. An indicator was the drawn-out r’s, as if the “r” sound was so heavy that it dropped from the Northern Quadrant and sunk into some placed in the Southern Quadrant of the Galaxy. “Don’t worry. It’s him. A DNA test will confirm that.”
Mallory caught the trophy when it was tossed to her. She quickly checked it with her OmniScan without looking down. He was not lying.
“Now that you have what you want. I trust you’ll stay put until I leave.”
“Who are you?”
“Pyrodox.”
“What did you want from Manriol of all people?”
“Like I said, I’m sentimental. Goodbye.” His massive stomach knocked her off her feet. He was sucking it in the whole time? He then quickly retreated into his ship and activated an autopilot take-off. “I’m sure you’ll get a good price for it!” he shouted as the hatch closed. Mallory watched as he escaped out of the atmosphere. She looked down at the skull in her hand. At least the day wasn’t a total loss.
Lomoll was a rich man, but not enough to truly afford the job that he commissioned Mallory and her team to do. He did, however, have access to a rather high-end lab. It was this lab that was studying what was left of Manriol. Sometimes I wish these clients would just take my word for it. Mallory waited in the man’s atrium, wanting to admire the architecture but keeping vigil lest fatboy show up to touch base with the object of his apparent charity. Eventually, Lomoll entered with his chief scientist. “It’s about time,” she grumbled.
“An interesting find you have here…” he said.
“And…?”
“Look I’m sorry for what happened to you and your team, but you can’t just give me anyone’s skull and call it a day.”
Mallory was dumbstruck for a second. Could nothing on this day possibly go right? “Excuse me? That’s Manriol, I know it. I did a DNA Test on it. Are OmniScans not reliable?”
“They are,” replied the scientist. “They can even pick up fragments. Which is all this skull had left. And there might be some similarities, relation-wise.”
“How can that be be? If it has his DNA, it has his DNA! It must be him!”
“Miss Squire…” the scientist replied. “This can’t possibly be Alliason Manriol. We did a carbon test. This skull is at least 4,000 years old.”
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