Hammer's War 1: Forging the Hammer (4 page)

Marcus
carefully backed out of the cantina, keeping the gun trained on Stan.  “Good boy Stan, I would hate for Carl to have to clean your brains off of his beautiful bar.  Now you do the smart thing, and stay right here and take care of your buddy.  I’m going to walk out the door and if you want to live to see another day don’t you try to follow me.”

Stan had enough sense not to try to
move, but he had seen the weapon that Marcus was carrying. It was not the common laser pistol most people were carrying these days.  Nope, this guy had an antique expanding gas powered weapon!  Extremely rare, and worth more to the right buyer then all the scores they had made that year.  He keyed his communicator, “Hey Boss, you there?”

A very annoyed voice came over the comm
. “This better be good Stan, or I’m going to gut you like a pig and make a modern art piece out of your intestines!”

“Max and I had just had a run in with a guy th
at is sporting some very expensive hardware, if you know what I mean.”

“I take it you relieved him of it?”

Stan stood looking down at Max, who was curled in a ball bleeding, “Well, not really.”

“What?  What?  What?  Then why are you calling me?”  The reply was so loud that the comm had a hard time compensating for the over modulation caused by the bosses screaming
.  Despite his best effort, it still was hard to understand.

Stan picked up the shot glass,
and swallowed the contents hard before speaking again. “Well boss the guy is good.  He took Max out and got the drop on me in a flash, but I think we can take him with a needle rifle.”  The boss listened to Stan’s plan.  He liked it and moved quickly to put it into action.

Outside the sandstorm had stepped up in intensity.
A harsh gust of wind slammed into Marcus and he felt like someone had just run a piece of course sandpaper across his face.  He now understood why the building’s paint was almost nonexistent.  He readied himself to deal with the sand storm and push against the wind as his made his way back to the hotel.

Lying in wait for Marcus was a sniper, he was armed with a standard issue needle rifle.  The sniper flipped up the plastic covers that shielded the optics on his thermal scope.  He had chosen the needle rifle because of the unique way in which it works.  The weapon
has a two-stage trigger and once on target, the operator pulls the trigger back half way and the weapon emits a tube shaped force field from the end of the barrel to the target.  Then when ready, the operator pulls the trigger all the way back and the weapon using magnetic acceleration, fires a metal dart down the force field tube to the target.  The dart can be filled with any number of substances from poison to tranquilizers.  In this case, the choice was tranquilizers.    

The man behind the needle rifle
wanted to test the scope, he looked through his thermal scope at a stray dog that had found a lose wall panel and was trying it’s best to hide from the whirling sand.  Happy that his scope was working under the harsh conditions he turned it away from the dog.  Focusing on the street, he waited for his prey to present its self. 

Not only was there sand in
the air, but the storm was generating large amounts of electromagnet energy which were wreaking so much havoc with Marcus’ hazard sensors that he had no idea he just walked into a trap.  If there had been no storm the sensors built into his suit would have detected the power signature the second the sniper flipped on the weapon, however the heads up display on his visor was a mess of static and jumbled information. 

Marcus came into range and the sniper was confused by
he saw in the scope.  He saw only a thin line of heat about neck level.  He stopped looking through the scope and looked over the top of the rifle.  He could barely see the outline of a man through the sand.  “Boss I’m having a hard time targeting him.  It seems the suit he’s wearing is masking his body heat somehow. I can only see a small patch of exposed skin on his neck.” 

“Then shoot at that
! You idiot.”  The boss screamed through the comm.  Carefully taking aim at the tiny patch of heat, the sniper slowly exhaled and fired.

The rifle made no sound as the
metal dart hit Marcus in the neck.  “Son of a”, Marcus reached up and pulled out the dart.  He shook off the pain easily enough, but two steps later, he was flat on his face as the darkness closed in around him.

“Got him, boss,” the sniper said. 

A few seconds later a beat up old truck stopped near the unconscious Marcus.  Two men jumped down from the back.  One of them was Too Tall Stan.  They grabbed Marcus by the shoulders and feet and swung him up into the back of the truck.  The truck pulled away and disappeared into the swirling angry sandstorm, any trace it was ever there was quickly eased.

A strange figure of a man dressed in what looked like the long cotton or silk robes that desert dwelling people have worn for thousands of years emerged from a cloud of sand and dust. 
His head was covered by a tan pith helmet, and he wore goggles over his eyes.  The rest of his face was covered by a white wrap.  He lowered his thermal binoculars and spoke into his comm, “Archie this doesn’t look like it’s going to end well for this young fellow.  Get the crawler please.  I think we’ll follow the goons, and see how this is going to play out.”

Marcus had no idea how long he’d been out.  For all he knew it could’ve been a few minutes or a few days.  Judging by the setting sun, he figured he’d been out for at least a couple hours. He found himself bound hand and foot.  As his view slowly came into focus, he could see that he was lying naked in the middle of an open truck bed with benches on both sides.  His skin, exposed to the hot sun for far too long, had turned an angry red, and was starting to blister.  On the benches sat mighty Max, two tall Stan, and several other men he did not recognize.  Max was still holding a bag of ice to his face, his shirt covered in dried blood.  Max looked down and noticed Marcus awake.  “You bastard,” Max mumbled through his broken teeth.  Then he let loose with a vicious kick to Marcus’ unprotected groin.

All Marcus co
uld do was moan in pain and draw his knees up to his chest to protect himself.  Max let loose a few more kicks, which landed, mostly on his legs.  Max could see that his kicks were having little effect, so he lifted his knee about chest high in an effort to stomp on Marcus’s head, but just as he was about to come down on him, the vehicle came to abrupt stop.  Max, being off balance, wasn’t prepared for the sudden stop and went flying forward smashing his face into the cab.  The other men just sat and laughed as a moan escaped Max, and blood smeared the window.

“Everyone out
!”  The command issued from a big barrel chested man with long wavy flaming red hair, and a curly red beard to match. The really odd thing about the man was he dressed much like a 17th century pirate, even down to the large gold hoop earring in his left ear.

Marcus took one look at his captor and had to swallow the urge to laugh,
as he seemed to be taking his pirate persona very seriously. “You must be the man in charge,” he said, looking at the red haired man, and wondering where his shoulder-riding parrot was.

“That I be!
I’m Big Red and I am, as you say, the man in charge.  This here’s me crew, the men of the Night Terror."

Marcus
was completely unimpressed.

Red seemed a little hurt by the lack of
Marcus’ reaction to his name. “What, you haven’t heard of the infamous Night Terror and her crew of legendary pirates?” 

“Can’t say that I have,”
Marcus confessed, thinking they were more likely legends in their own twisted fantasies.

Red
puffed up his chest, “Well I guess my public relations officer needs to do a better job, the scurvy dog!  I mean, I can’t be going ‘round the verse robbing people and not have them cowering in fear because they don’t know who I am.”

Oh God,
crazy and an egomaniac too…this just isn’t my day
, Marcus thought.  Trying his best to talk his way out of his current situation he looked around for anything he could use to get out of the restraints that held him while he spoke.  “Well Captain Morgan, I have to say you did a fine job.  You and your crew sure did, you got me, and it appears you also got my clothing as well.  Let’s just call this one a win for your side.  So how about you cut me loose and let me go?  I’ll walk back to town, no need to worry about a ride.”

Big R
ed waved at the men in the truck. They lifted Marcus up and tossed him out onto the sand. He rolled a couple of times before coming up on his knees. 

“
Nice trick!  That can’t have been easy, especially bound hand and foot.”

“Untie me and I’
ll show you a few more tricks,” Marcus said, spitting sand out of his mouth. 

Big R
ed approached him and placed his hand on Marcus’s shoulder, “I have no doubt ye would, but I’m no fool. Normally I’d just rob ye and leave ye naked in the desert, but ye exposed Max for the idiot he is, and in doing so that makes me look bad.  That’s something I just can’t tolerate.”

Marcus figured
this was it, he was about to die and didn’t care to hear the rest of what Big Red had to say so he cut him off.  “I get it! I have to die as an example to others bla, bla, bla.”

Red laughed and made a wide sweeping gesture
with his arm towards his men, then he placed his hand back on Marcus, “I like this guy.  He gets it, and he isn’t afraid of death either.  It’s too bad really. Under other circumstances ye would have made a good addition to my crew.”

“
Gee I’m sorry, but I make it a policy not to work for crazy, murderous, overgrown, bastards, who do really bad pirate impersonations,” Marcus shook off Big Red’s hand.

“Have it your way
then.  I would’ve thought that ye would’ve tried to beg for your life at least,” Red said with disappointment coloring his tone.

“There’
s no point.  You’re going to kill me no matter what I say, so I prefer to die with some dignity.  Besides, I’m not in the mood to let you enjoy watching me beg.  So will you just do me one favor, you know for the condemned man?”

“Oh
, and what would have of me?”  Red asked.

“Stop talking and get it over with
. Your breath is more torture then I wish to take.”  Marcus replied.

“
Right then, before ye die I think Max wants something from you first.”  Big Red waved Max over, and turned his back on Marcus so he wouldn’t see him check his breath.

He looked up at Max, “
Oh, sorry about the teeth and the lip thing.  Hey you’re not still mad at me about getting blood on your shirt are you Max?”

Max held up a pair of pliers and smiled
at him through a toothless grin.  “Thut up!  Hode him!”  Two of the crew grabbed Marcus by the arms while Max went to work pulling out his front teeth one by one.  After a few agonizing minutes, Max was done with his dirty work, “Shanks for these.  I’m gonna use them to weprace the ones you boke.”

Marcus
spit a mouthful of blood at Max, who was still standing too close to duck and was splashed fully in the face.  Max stumbled backwards and fell on his ass, while the others of his crew laughed again.

Big Red gave the order, “Have your fun boys.
”  The men surrounded Marcus.  Too Tall Stan was the first to throw a kick, which landed in Marcus’ gut.  Then the rest of the crew joined in the beating.  Some had metal rods, some used brass knuckles, or baseball bats, and one had a board with nails.  At first, his bones cracked but soon they couldn’t withstand the onslaught of blows and shattered. His flesh tore, spraying a fine mist of blood across the sand.  Badly broken and quickly swelling, Marcus lay slumped on the ground covered in blood and sand.

He could no longer
think straight, and was in so much pain he just wanted it to be finally over.  Barely able to hold onto consciousness, two of the crew picked him up by his arms. The engineer held up a large wrench like a baseball bat and swung.  The head of the wrench struck Marcus in the right eye socket shattering the bone, exploding his eye.  That was it, he was done, and finally the darkness took him.

One of the men asked, “Is he dead
?”

“Na, he
’s still breathing, but just barely” another replied.

Big Red, who
had yet to lay a finger on him commanded, “Wake him up.  I want him awake when he dies.”  With that, one of the men gave him a stimulant shot.  It took a few seconds for him to come around.  Barely aware of what was going on around him, Marcus could hardly see out of his good eye.  Every part of his body screamed out in pain.  Big Red held a small knife up close for him to see.  The red painted handle had a carved skull on the top. “See this!  This here’s my calling card so if anyone finds your corpse they know that you crossed me.”  Big Red pushed the knife into Marcus’ chest.  Thinking he had struck his heart, Big Red nodded to his men who dropped Marcus’ body onto the sand and left him for dead.

Before they left, Stan pulled his pistol and shot him once in the chest and once in the head
.  “Now who has a hole to ventilate their tiny little brain, asshole?”

The laser burned a hole through Marc
us’ right lung.  Fortunately, the shot to the head did very little damage other than burn the skin since Stan hadn’t checked his power pack. It was almost empty back in the bar, and had only one good shot left.  The residual energy in the power pack was not enough to penetrate Marcus’ skull.  Believing they had killed him, the crew of the Night Terror boarded the truck and left his body for the sands of the desert.

A short time
later, a dust cloud appeared on the horizon.  It drew closer and closer towards the spot where the dying man lay.  This was no natural dust cloud, but a sand crawler moving fast across the desert.  The driver was a fully articulated, chrome plated humanoid robot of two meters tall.  Sitting next to him was the short, wrinkled old man from Bob’s. The old man pointed to Marcus’ broken and bleeding body, “Archie, there pull us up as close as possible.”  The robot at the controls followed the instructions and stopped so that the back door was right next to him, insuring that if they had to load his body it would be easy to do.

The old man jumped down from the cab and
ran to side of Marcus.  He knelt down next to him and felt for a pulse.  It was weak and unsteady, but it was still there, and the victim was just barely breathing.  “He’s still alive, hurry get the kit!”