Silhouetted by the sun, the APC was only a black shape. But Hawk could hear the internal hatches being opened. Several people walked out carrying rapidfires. As his eyes became adjusted to the light, Hawk could see it was Gaza and his wives, the women looking as if they just got fucked long and hard from the pleasured expressions on their faces. Obviously, the bitches liked to kill, and Hawk now debated the wisdom of surrender.
Walking closer, Baron Gaza looked as if he had just strode out of the keep to review the troops. His boots were shiny, clothes crisp, and he was freshly shaved with his hair slicked back shiny. Stepping over a headless torso, Gaza put a spray of lead into a corpse that moved and now swung the smoking barrel toward Hawk. To the former sec boss, the barrel looked as large as a bazooka and filled with the infinity of eternal night.
“Find any other survivors,” Gaza demanded, grinning down at his captured foe, “and line ’em up alongside the mighty Baron Hawk here.”
Whistling and grunting in reply, the women spread out through the fallen men, finishing off the badly wounded with a knife in the throat. The rest were stripped of their weapons and marched over by Hawk. With their hands on their heads, the four sec men formed a ragged line in the dirty sand, the stink of death already spreading from the recently deceased.
“Traitors,” Gaza muttered hatefully. Then he shouted, “All of you are traitors!”
“My lord!” a cringing man pleaded. “We didn’t know it was you!”
“We thought it was the Core, or coldhearts!” another added.
“Just get it over with,” Hawk retorted, lowering his hands.
Grinning in pleasure, Delia fired a round at the prisoner, and Hawk felt the lead hum by his cheek it passed so close. Damn, they were good with those! But aside from a tiny flinch of surprise, the big man refused to move.
Minutes passed in silence. Hawk could feel the blood trickle down his leg, and sweat poured off his face, soaking his shirt and making the earlier injuries itch fiercely. As if waiting for something to happen, Baron Gaza did nothing as the desert breeze ruffled his clothing, blowing loose sand over the living and dead alike. Then the baron pulled a handcannon from his belt holster and tossed it to the first sec man in the line. The trooper stared at the weapon and then at Gaza in confusion.
“My lord?” he asked, swallowing hard. Was he expected to chill himself now?
“Prove your loyalty,” Gaza said as the women behind him racked the bolts on their weapons, driving home the point. “Redeem your oath to me by taking the weapon and killing Hawk.”
He was going to live! In a rush of exhilaration, the man eagerly nodded and grabbed the blaster to swing it toward Hawk. But Hawk was ready and ducked as he threw a fistful of sand into the sec man’s face. Temporarily blind, the man pulled the trigger only to find the safety was still engaged. No! As he fumbled with the weapon, Hawk dived forward and wrestled it away. Then rolling over, Hawk held the sec men before him as a living shield and thumbed off the safety to aim and fire at Gaza.
Or rather, he pulled the trigger, but there only came the solid click of the hammer falling on a spent shell.
Throwing back his head, Baron Gaza let loose a bellow of laughter as Hawk desperately dry fired every chamber.
“Such a waste.” Gaza sneered, lowering the barrel of his rapidfire. “Haven’t I aced you already?”
“In the keep!” Hawk screamed, gesturing with the empty weapon. “I saw it all! He—”
Sitting in the gunner’s seat of the APC, Allison burped the 50-cal once, and Hawk flew backward, his last words torn from his exploded lungs by the hail of hardball round before they could be formed.
With the sand crunching every step, Gaza walked over to the still corpse and looked at the black scorpion crawling madly about the body as if trying to rouse its master. Muttering a curse, Baron Gaza stomped on the creature, cracking open its shell, and then ground his boot back and forth until its squeals ceased.