Loktaran Dawn

Loktaran Dawn


Weel squirmed underneath the steel-alloy gaze of the beam pistol I was holding. He was real low on the social ladder; a messenger for a number of gangs, cartels and criminal organizations that operated in the area. Coz and I knew him well. He never stayed in one place long and we kept running into him. It never went well for him.

“I’m getting impatient Weel. Tell you what I’m going to do,” I pulled the pistol away for a moment and adjusted a knob on the side of the gun.

“I’ve set the intensity of the beam real low, just enough to cook the flesh on your face. I’m going to count to three, and if you’re not telling me something that I’m interested in by then, I’m going to write my name in your forehead,” Coz chuckled. He didn’t approve of my methods usually, but with Weel he was more than willing to make an exception. Weel started blabbering.

“I don’ know nothing boss! I don’ no nothing! I real low here! They don’t tell me shit! Don’ hurt me boss, I swear I tell the truth!” Weel, of course, was lying through his teeth.

“Two,” I said. Weel’s eyes got real big and I could see the sweat suddenly pour out in spite of the extreme cold.

“Boss you skip one! You can’t do that!” I said nothing, “I swear! I swear I know nothing!” he put his hands together in a pleading gesture. He was awfully pathetic. I made a very obvious show of closing one eye and aiming with the pistol. Weel broke down.

“Okay okay! No shoot me! No shoot me please! I tell you what you want to know!” I smiled and lifted the gun away from Weel’s head, slowly.

“Answers now Weel. Your kind of scum disgusts me, and I wouldn’t feel at all bad about gutting you and leaving you to bleed to death on the street,” Weel swallowed visibly.

“The man you look for, he spend lots of time in local bar, the Freighter’s Rest. Real nice place. You no kill Weel, please?” I smiled sarcastically to let him know he was free. As soon as his back was turned I hit him in the back of the neck with my pistol butt, and he crumpled to the ground, unconscious. He was a liability I didn’t want to worry about. I looked over at Coz.

“Come on. No need to be covert anymore,”
Once back on our ship we headed directly to the back room. It was sealed in by a two-foot thick solid hephaestium door that was sealed magnetically and guarded by a virtually foolproof visual, vocal and fingerprint scanner. Once inside, we were assailed by the sight of hundreds of projectile, energy and bladed weapons, as well as almost a ton of ordinance, plus an abundance of other, non-lethal equipment. Then of course, in the middle of the room, were the most awe-inspiring pieces of equipment: two slightly scarred, Loktaran battle-suits, relics from the Horde wars, centuries past.

Coz and I suited up, in a slow, ritualistic sort of way. These suits had a great deal of history attached to them, and carried the whole weight of the Loktaran warrior’s code, and the honor we were sworn to uphold. Once we were encased in the titanium shells, except for the right gauntlet, we each lifted a small, primitive, ceremonial knife off of the pedestal that stood between the two suits. Holding my right hand up, I used the knife to slice the skin of my already scarred palm, and clenched my fist shut. I let a few drops of blood fall on the floor, then put on the gauntlet. The suit would heal the wound. Coz did the same. That ritual done, we went to collect our weapons.

The energy pistol I had threatened Weel with was fancy, but impractical. I used it mostly for show. My preference was the automatic magnetic slug launcher/grenade launcher hanging above the door. I also selected a machine pistol and a number of explosives. You could never be too prepared. Coz chose his loved and worn akimbo pistols. ‘Pistol’ doesn’t really accurately describe the guns though…each slug from one of those pistols had enough force to punch through a steel door. They sounded like miniature cannons and had a kick powerful enough to knock your shoulder out of socket if you didn’t know what you were doing. Lucky for Coz, he knew what he was doing.

Equipped with more weaponry than a small military frigate, we exited the ship, closing the landing ramp behind us and code-locking it. I wasn’t sure that we were going to need all that weaponry, but it was better to be over prepared than anything else.

We marched down the cold, deserted streets, not bothering to conceal our presence. If we had to we could tear this whole town apart to get to our mark. People who saw us rushed inside and locked their doors. Vehicles on the road pulled over or into side streets to avoid us. No one wanted to get between a Loktaran and his mark.

I was reminded of an ancient vid clip I once saw in the academy, of a strangely dressed man walking down a dusty, desert street with two guns at his side. People acted very much the same in that ancient clip, rushing indoors at the sight of him. I forgot the name of the clip, but I remembered what he was…he was a cowboy, some sort of ancient warrior class I supposed. He probably held the same noble ideas, followed the same warrior code. He probably relished in the combat, much as we Loktarans all did. I was that cowboy and more. I smiled. It was a pleasing image. Coz looked over and saw my grin underneath the helmet.

“Tark, you are one morbid motherfucker. I’m glad you’re on my side,” I bared my teeth at him, then turned my head back toward the road.

When we finally arrived at the Freighter’s Rest, by blood was hot and I was ready for battle. I could see by the way Coz was running his thumb over the handle of his pistol that he felt the same way. I noticed that Weel had lied to us again. He hadn’t lied about our quarry being here, I was sure of it, but Freighter’s Rest was the sleaziest, ugliest, most dangerous looking bar I had ever laid eyes on. The sign, which I assume once had some sort of pictorial relation to a resting freighter, was completely destroyed, and nonfunctional. Smoke poured liberally from the windows, and trash was lying everywhere, not just in the alley out back. I noticed at least one body in the piles, and I was fairly certain that it wasn’t just some drunk who got tossed out.

I looked over at Coz. Chances were high that if our mark was in that bar – and he likely was. We weren’t trying very hard to find him yet, but if he decided to play it that way, we could be very good at that as well. He knew it was going to end in a showdown – then most or all of the people inside were hired by him to fight whatever it was that came after him. They definitely wouldn’t be expecting a pair of Loktaran bounty hunters; more likely they were looking forward to taking apart an assassin ‘bot or some local law enforcement official. Either way, they were going to be dangerous. But we were dangerous too.

He pulled a fist-sized, dome-shaped object from his utility belt and pressed it against the door. There was a quiet noise as three steel spikes drove into the hard plastocrete. I unsheathed my weapon. The device that Coz had attached to the door was an explosive, a loud, nasty one. The flashbang Mark VI didn’t have a lot of explosive power – at most it would blow off your arm and burn your chest – but the people on the receiving end of it were subject to a thunderous bang, and a blinding flash of light. Unless you knew it was coming, you were likely to be disoriented for a long time. Our helmets would dampen both the noise and the flash.

Coz pushed a couple of buttons on the back of the explosive, then stepped away, removing his pistols from their holsters. There were a few seconds of incredibly tense silence, wherein I gripped my rifle with furious intensity. Blood pounded in my ears.

The explosive flashed, and the visor of my helmet dimmed for a moment. I waited; there was no use rushing in there without a full visual scan. The visor cleared, and I stepped through the door, followed by Coz.

Pieces of the door were strewn all across the floor. Dozens of people were clutching at their ears, weapons lying forgotten on the floor. I raised my weapon. It was an ugly, craven way to kill people, but our employer had specified that he wanted the target to suffer and we couldn’t get him killed in the crossfire. I opened fire.

There was a slow, almost cinematic feel to the way we killed the people in that bar. It was systematic. It was cold. My rifle swept across the bar blowing chunks of plaster and flesh across the floor. The barrel’s of Coz’s pistols produced alternating flashes of light. Shells clattered on the floor.

You don’t feel in times like that. You can’t let yourself feel. Emotions get in the way, muck things up. You had to be cold, calculating. They weren’t people, these screaming things. They were obstacles. I still felt, just a little. I would be scared if somewhere back there, my humanity wasn’t clawing its eyes out. But a warrior has no room for emotion, and neither did I. I ignored that part of me.

And then it was over. The bar was completely quiet except for the soft sobbing of the man hiding behind the bar, and the moans of someone who Coz hadn’t quite finished. As he walked over to finish the job, I walked over to the bar, reached over and hauled the pitiful-looking man up onto the table. He screamed at me as I pulled a long, serrated knife from a sheath by my side. I ignored him. Coz turned away.

As I walked outside, gripping the head by its long, greasy hair, the sun was coming up over the city’s skyline. Crimson light washed over us all. I smiled. How appropriate. There was blood in the sky, and blood on my hands.

Loktaran Dawn.