THREE

Jack quietly and swiftly made his way out of the elevator and hid behind a large pillar, ready to make his move. At least, he was almost ready. There was a pesky, uninvited guest that he had to contend with first. He had known that she was likely to make an appearance, but hoped she would take this particular day off.

He positioned himself in a way that was both out of sight of the Rabbit, and around the corner from what was likely going to be Arissa's hiding place of choice, once she climbed onto the roof. To his surprise, Arissa spoke up from around the corner. She was already there.

"Fox." She greeted him with a cordial whisper.

"Hi Arissa. I heard you hit the ladder pretty hard. Did you put on weight or something?"

"Doubt it, but you look terrible. Did you wake up in a grave this morning?"

"Not yet. Are you here to screw up another one of my jobs?"

"He's mine, Jack." Arissa's tone was stern. "I need him."

"Let's make a deal. I get the Rabbit and you get whatever cash he has in his pockets." Jack took another look at the target, getting anxious that the window of opportunity was closing but trying not to show it.

"This isn't about money. I need information."

"Oh, you're a customer of his? Why didn't you say so? What is it? Dirt on a politician or something?"

"They took my sister."

Finally, Jack was at a loss for words. He knew how brutal the slave trade was. Pretending not to care, he held on tight to his poker face. "Alright, fine. You can take three of his fingers if you want. Surians only have eight to start with so that's a pretty good deal."

When Arissa didn't respond, Jack thought he might have pushed the coldhearted routine a little too far. His relationship with her was a "like-hate." If he was being honest with himself, he respected her, no matter how much she got in his way.

"Look, I'm sorry," he said. "Maybe after I bag him I can help you get answers or something." Again, no response from around the corner. He must have really pissed her off. "I said I was sorry." He leaned around the corner to find that his annoying colleague was gone. Two seconds later, the blast of her weapon ripped out into the night.

"God dammit."

Jack abandoned his hiding place and rushed into the fray.

Arissa, for all her tact and stealth thus far, was surprisingly liberal with her ammo as she hosed down the rooftop with super-heated proton bolts. The green cylindrical projectiles left ever so slight trails of falling embers as they zipped across the brand new battlefield.

"Jesus, girl! Could you try not vaporizing them?" Jack ducked out from his cover, firing several lead slugs, more for the sake of participating than actually hitting anything.

"Shut up, I'm trying to focus!"

In that moment, Jack actually considered putting a round in Arissa's leg, just to get her wild ways out of the game. Then he realized that her attack wasn't wild at all. It was incredibly well calculated. She was firing merely six inches above each target, pinning them down, but not killing them.

Likely just as Arissa had hoped, the Rabbit's young client threw his hands high and ran in terror from the hellfire. So far, so good. Jack appreciated the girl's strategy, and now he planned to use it to his advantage. Every time his competitor fired a new volley, he advanced, drawing closer to the mark. It was a classic case of cover and leapfrogging.

Was she helping him?

No. No way.

Jack achieved a flanking position and gained a perfect shot at the Rabbit. This was when he realized that, although scaring off the relatively innocent client had been a good thing, it opened the gates of a terrible recourse. Before Jack could fire, he watched in horror as the Rabbit rolled to the experimental pistol that had been left on the ground and activated it, bringing the barrel to a teal glow. He took aim.

A cutting beam, textured like lava, cylindrical, and the width of Jack's thumb, leapt from the barrel and punished the metal duct behind which Jack was hiding. He had about to a second to realize that the handgun's incredible power was about to melt its way through the metal and punch a hole through his brains.

He dropped flat to the ground, and the sweeping beam of death cut through the air just one foot over his back.

"Arissa?" Jack shouted.

"What do you want?" The girl sounded annoyed.

"Um… HELP!" He scrambled to his feet, sprinted, and slid behind one of the elevator shafts, knowing it's thick walls would provide better cover against the onslaught burning annihilation. He heard Arissa's rifle reporting in, and hoped she was aiming a little lower by now.

The Rabbit's death beam subsided, he had likely been forced back.

How much ammo could a thing like that have?

"Fusion energy, you bottom feeders!" The Rabbit shouted, with his antagonizing voice. "I can cut this place up all night!"

Well, now I know.

Jack swung around the corner and sent five slugs in the Rabbit's general direction. Watching his bullets ricochet off of the metal was almost as disheartening as feeling the heat of the Rabbit's weapon crushing its way into the elevator walls.

I may be out gunned here.

"Am I doing all the work here, Fox?" Arissa sounded stressed. "Get your head in the game!"

Jack only grumbled to himself. "We don't all have top of the line rifles, sweet heart." He ran for cover, never wanting to stand still in a firefight. Unfortunately, the destination he picked had also been selected by the Rabbit's hulking bodyguard. It was difficult to say who was more surprised by the sudden "hello," but the bodyguard reacted first, kicking Jack square in his chest, sending him onto his back.

The guard took aim with his grizzly-looking shotgun. Jack sent a wave of motion through his body, which flung him back to his feet. He leaned wide, avoiding the shotgun's cone of death that would have shredded his body, then threw his weight behind a kick that knocked the gun from his attacker's hands. The weapon fired when it hit the ground, nearly hitting both combatants.

Jack's ego caused him to throw a rather ineffective punch at the Surian, as if it would do a lick of damage. Absolutely nothing happened. Quickly, he recalculated his strategy, ducked beneath a wide swing from the brute, stuck his gun into an exposed rib, and pulled the trigger. The giant collapsed.

"Arissa! One down. What do you think of that?"

"Good for you! Any other valuable tactical information you want to announce?" Her rifle let loose another three bolts.

"I'm trying to demoralize him! You listening, Rabbit?"

The Rabbit answered with a punishing splash of energy from his overpowered pistol.

"Fox!" Arissa yelled. "Do it!"

"Do what?"

"Cover me! Want me to spell it for you?"

 "You two are really bad at this!" The Rabbit yelled.

Jack rounded his corner and sprayed more bullets in response, keeping the prize from rising to take a shot. Arissa booked it across the rooftop, sending sparking bolts ahead, along her path. They were working the rabbit into a corner.

Ever a fan of cutting corners, Jack pushed an advance of his own while the girl was still on her feet, rather than waiting for her cover. At this point, either one of them could bag the dirty smuggler. Jack aimed to secure a better chance of winning the chase.

When she was safely covered, Arissa called out again. "When are you going to join the twenty-seventh century and get a real gun, Jack?"

"Never! Don't you watch old western movies?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure they used six-shooters!"

"Thirty is my lucky number!" Jack took aim and launched another two of the thirty rounds in his clip. He watched as the Rabbit popped up and took aim at Arissa. With a half lucky, half skillful shot, he sent a bullet right into the Rabbit's shoulder. Instead of burning a tunnel in Arissa's chest, the experimental pistol's beam swept high like a searchlight as its operator took a graceless, spinning fall to the ground.

"Saved your life!" Jack called. "You owe me a rabbit!"

"By that count, you owe me three!"

They were both charging towards the wounded smuggler, but neither would reach him. A civilian shuttle car came noisily hovering down towards the rooftop. An escape car, no doubt.

No, not hovering, but crashing. The impact was intense, and the craft's metal frame crumpled as it skidded across the rooftop, directly between the two bounty hunters and their prey, igniting flames along its path. Jack dove back to avoid being smeared into the car's crash landing.

When the metal-on-metal screeching stopped, all was eerily quiet. Only the crackling flames could be heard. Through those flames, Jack saw the Rabbit leap over the roof's ledge, making his escape either by ladder or awaiting shuttle. It was a plasma fire that separated the two of them, and Jack decided taking in the Rabbit wasn't quite worth receiving third degree burns on his manhood.

"Dammit!" He looked around the wreckage and kicked metal scrap, spiting the accident. It was a daring and reckless diversion that allowed the Rabbit to escape. Considering the pilot could have lost their life, they must have been lower level in the smuggling organization, probably looking for some kind of a reward, if they survived.

Now the tables were turned, and Jack hoped he could turn the driver in for some kind of a reward. He cautiously stepped towards the totaled shuttle, gun pointed low but ready to spring high with a moment's notice.

"Hands!" he shouted. "Show me hands or I'll show you pain!"

The person in the shuttle gave no answer. As he drew closer, Jack saw that the crash might not have been entirely intentional. Plain as day, there was the scorch mark of a volt cannon etched into the vehicle's hood, right above the reactor block. A hit from something like that could easily have taken down a simple civilian car.

Jack quickened his pace.

Upon his arrival, he saw that the driver was not some scuzzy criminal, but a girl, perhaps in her late teens. A small laceration beyond her hairline was releasing a thin flow of blood along her cheek. Jack searched the skies for whatever might have shot the vehicle down, but all was quiet. Remembering his annoying competitor, he scanned the rooftop for Arissa, but she too was gone.

That was reason enough for Jack to holster his weapon and start fighting with the banged-up shuttle door, trying to break it open. When it refused to give way, he grabbed a metal scrap of the utterly destroyed roof and drove it repeatedly into the driver's side window. It was shatterproof, of course.

As the flames grew nearer, a digital voice squeaked out of one of the car's external speakers.

"Emergency situation detected. Please stand clear."

Perfectly placed micro-charges in the car detonated, blowing the door clear off. The bang caused the girl to stir, and as Jack pulled her from the metallic mess, her eyes opened and looked right into his. He dragged her a safe distance from the crash. Explosions were unlikely with all the modern safety features, but you could never be too safe.

He laid the girl down, and she tried to speak.

"It's alright, we're going to get you to a hospital." Jack remarked at how odd it felt to say something borderline heroic. He didn't really like it. A would-be fatal explosion ripped into the sky from the shuttle. Jack cocked his head.

Never too safe, indeed.

"Don't," the girl said.

Jack wasn't sure if he should shush her or ask what she was talking about. He went with the latter, and asked.

"Don't let him…" she replied.

"Let who what, kid? You're going to have to do better than this."

"Don't let him take me."

Jack groaned. Sympathy for the wounded was not a strong point of his. "Who, kid? Who? WHO?"

The girl pointed over Jack's shoulder, to the sky beyond him. He turned.

There was a silent-running, military grade hover ship hanging in the sky above. It couldn't have actually been military, though. It had a new black and red paint job, and a few bastardized upgrades, or maybe downgrades. By the looks of it, it was also a couple generations behind the latest model, and the military definitely didn't play with old toys.

The cockpit was empty, no doubt running on autopilot. The ship's starboard bay door was open, and standing on that ledge was a man that looked grimmer than the reaper himself. His right eye was overtaken by a metal-shielded ocular implant that made him a powerful adversary in any staring contest. He, like his sweet ride, was absolutely not military. The sight was a puzzle, with only one useful piece. At his side, the grim man was holding a volt cannon.

He had shot this poor girl out of the sky.

Jack's instincts drew his handgun, pointing it right at the grim man, who unfortunately had the high ground and the higher tech.

"What are you doing, Jack?" He asked himself, under his breath. "This isn't your business. Hand her over."

The grim man, confident as all hell, didn't even bother to draw his weapon. He simply stood there, hovering over the crash site, watching Jack. The bounty hunter didn't so much as flinch. He was confident that he could put a bullet in the grim man's left eye at this range, assuming his ship didn't have a shield generator.

Move along, friend.

Jack wondered if the thought was meant for him or the killer that hovered above him. Then, at the peak of the crisis, the grim man tapped a button on his wrist. The shuttle closed its door and revved up its engine as the man stepped back inside. It turned, burned, and disappeared into the night.

When Jack was confident the man wouldn't be returning, he shifted his attention back to the girl. She had lost consciousness, once again. In that stillness, Jack could tell she looked… strange somehow. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but she definitely had an odd quality to her.

Now what was he supposed to do? Take her to the hospital was the obvious choice, but why did that seem wrong? For some reason, he didn't think that even a place of healing would be safe for this girl. She was a hot enough target to justify being shot out of the sky. As stupid as it seemed, Jack felt compelled to help her. He told himself it was because she probably held a high prize on her head, but deep down he knew that her fair nature had somehow found a weak spot within him.

"Well Jack, you're in it now." He groaned as he hoisted her over his shoulder, into a fireman's carry. "Whatever it is, you're in it."