Chapter Text
Part Four (Cont’d)
Klath had generally been pretty miserable since they had arrived on Nimbus III. What with the heat, and the horses, and the bemusing rules of their bizarre location. But at long last, he was finally managing to enjoy himself. The weapons he was wielding may have been antiquated, but a battle was still a battle.
The Klingon fired his pistol off into the melee, before ducking back behind the cover that he, Jirel and Natasha had found, and turning back to his colleagues.
“This is much more like it,” he growled with satisfaction.
Jirel stifled a smile, even as several projectiles whizzed past their position, and fired in the rough direction they had come from.
Although it was hard to tell in the anarchic tumult that had descended on Goodlife Ranch, it felt like they were inching towards their goal.
The cavalry had arrived to find Toxis’s men already in the midst of scattering, as a result of whatever explosion had gone off. Many of them had continued to flee after seeing them arrive, clambering back on their horses and riding off. And the cavalry had let them go. But despite the pandemonium, plenty more had decided to stay behind and fight.
Klath fired again, then urgently gestured to the next building along.
“Now!”
He raced the short distance across the dusty ground to the next position of cover, with Jirel and Natasha following close behind, both of whom dived the final few feet as another pellet pinged past them and arrived at the fresh cover in a small cloud of sand.
“Any sign of the others?” Natasha called out as she checked her own weapons.
Neither of her colleagues had an immediate answer. They were yet to locate Denella, Sunek or Zesh. And most of the others that they had ridden in with from Arcadia Falls had quickly melted into the ranch to find their own cover.
An agonised scream sounded out from somewhere around them. It wasn’t the first. Natasha once again found herself hoping whoever it was had only been injured.
“We are making progress,” Klath reported as he scanned ahead of them, “More of our enemies have escaped. Those that remain are disoriented. There is little organisation to their attacks.”
He fired around the corner as he ducked his head out for a further check.
“And I believe I may have a route to the Bounty’s position from here. If you provide covering fire—”
He was stopped by a gentle pat on the shoulder from Jirel. “I’ll do it.”
“Jirel,” Natasha sighed over the melee, “Don’t be stupid.”
“Hey now, I’m always stupid,” he grinned, before looking back at Klath, “Besides, you were right. It was that dumb plan of mine that got us into this mess. Only fair I get us out of it.”
“It will be extremely risky,” the Klingon pointed out.
“True. But I’m faster than you are. Besides, it’s always a lot less risky when you’re the one doing the covering fire.”
Before the Klingon could offer any more resistance, Jirel reloaded his pistols and stepped to the edge of their cover, gesturing ahead. “Head to the right, around the back of the big outhouse, and I should have a clear path to where we’re parked, right?”
Klath nodded. Natasha drew up to the pair of them, looking distinctly worried.
“Jirel, for the last time, this isn’t a holodeck program.”
A further flurry of pellets whizzed past to underline her point, and for a moment, Jirel’s trademark cocky grin slipped from his face.
“Yeah,” he nodded, “I know that now.”
But before he allowed himself to get too serious, he also couldn’t resist picking his grin up from off the ground and adopting his most elaborate space cowboy pose to date, puffing his chest out to such an extent that it looked like he was about to snap a vertebrae.
“But don’t you worry,” he added with a painfully exaggerated drawl, “I’ll be back before you know it, little lady.”
With that, the Trill turned and raced out from their cover, as Klath fired as precisely as he could in the direction of their enemy’s positions for long enough for Jirel to reach his destination. Puffs of dirt were kicked up by pellets hitting the ground just behind the wannabe hero’s boots, spurs and all, but he just about made it to cover before any hit home.
Satisfied, Klath ducked back and reloaded his pistols, before glancing at Natasha with confusion.
“‘Little lady’?”
* * * * *
Denella landed a punch to the side of the Nimbosian goon’s head, causing the taller bald man to stagger back, his hat flopping to the dusty ground.
She followed up with a kick to the man’s standing leg that was strong enough to drop him down and join his headwear, and a second kick that connected with his head with enough force to knock the consciousness clean out of him.
Panting from the exertion, and feeling her lungs ache from the dirt she had inhaled, she relieved the unconscious man of his pistol and dashed for some cover.
She had been separated from Zesh ever since Sunek’s improvised distraction, having managed to break free of her captors in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. Since then, she had been doing her best to find either the Ferengi or the Vulcan. But all she had found were a succession of Nimbosian outlaws.
She peered around the corner of the hut she was now concealed behind and scoured the nearby landscape. In the distance, several buildings away, she could just about make out what appeared to be a cat-like woman in a nurse’s uniform firing a rifle alongside a cloaked nomad, the two of them fighting side by side from their own position of cover.
She shook her head to try and clear her vision, and after ascertaining that what she had seen hadn’t been a mirage, she decided that it might be best to head the other way.
She raced to the next building, even as gunshots continued to sound out in the distance.
But she arrived at the new cover at exactly the same time as another of Toxis’s men running from the other direction. The two of them froze as they saw each other, before Denella swiftly brought her newly acquired air pistol to bear on her target, assuming the Nimbosian would do exactly the same to her.
All things being equal, he may well have done. But Denella then saw that he wasn’t armed.
“P—Please, miss!” the young man cried out, raising his hands, “Don’t shoot!”
Denella gritted her teeth as she stared back at the terrified Nimbosian. She had done her fair share of killing just recently. Particularly, a vengeful rampage that had taken her back to the heart of the Orion Syndicate.
But at least she had known for a fact that everyone there had deserved it. Looking at the terrified and emaciated man in front of her, she wasn’t so sure that the same was true here. So, she found that her trigger finger, which had served her so well earlier, refused to budge. Instead, she lowered her weapon and jerked her head towards the exit of Goodlife Ranch.
“Run,” she muttered, “And don’t stop.”
The Nimbosian followed both instructions to the best of his ability.
Denella allowed herself a moment of relief that she still had a charitable side inside her, before she continued to hunt for her friends.
* * * * *
Jirel had taken a moment to get his breath after sprinting for his life to the cover of the building that Klath had indicated was the best location to get to the Bounty from.
He reloaded his pistols and placed them in his holsters for the time being, trying not to feel too much of a fresh sense of shame as he saw his fancy replicated belt buckle glinting back at him from his waist.
He crept along the side of the building and approached the open space on the other side. Peering around the corner, he saw a reassuringly familiar sight off in the distance. Just beyond the fence that served as the boundary of Goodlife Ranch, the Bounty sat parked in the desert, oblivious to the pitched battle still continuing in its presence.
Behind him, he could hear the gunfire was starting to drop in frequency and intensity, suggesting that while the battle still wasn’t over, the cavalry was winning the day and driving off the outlaws.
Once he was back aboard the Bounty, he could use the transporter to resolve the final few skirmishes. Whatever the rules were about what was and wasn’t allowed on Nimbus III, he was sure he could get away with that. So it was with a renewed sense of confidence that he stepped out from behind the building and started to make for the ship, with the slowly setting sun shining in his face.
Even though there was a lack of cover, the fighting was some distance away now. He felt safe enough to make a move for it.
After a few paces, his spurs gently clinking as he went, he heard the voice.
“That’s far enough, off-worlder.”
Jirel slowly turned around, already recognising who was there. From behind another building, a short distance away, Toxis emerged.
As the Trill furtively scanned the local vicinity with his eyes, worried about having fallen into some sort of ambush, the other man let out a dark laugh. “No need to check,” he continued, “This time, it’s just you and me, stranger.”
Despite the danger he was clearly now in, and despite knowing he definitely wasn’t on the holodeck, Jirel couldn’t help but feel an excited chill pass down his spine as he stood opposite the outlaw clad all in black.
It was just the two of them, facing off against each other. Both with pistols at their waists.
“…Awesome.”