James Axler – Judas Strike

Raising his mug, Glassman used the last sip to toast the slaves’ good luck in finding the hinges. If those were lost, or severely damaged, then the ville was in real trouble.

Marching boots and the clatter of weaponry heralded the arrival of Baron Thayer and his personal cadre of guards. They looked well rested and freshly scrubbed, clothes clean and boots polished, unlike the grimy sec men who stood guard during the night and fought off the Hunter as it came roaring through the wall of fire. Glassman narrowed his eyes at the sight. Sleeping while the ville was attacked.

“Good morning, Captain,” Baron Thayer hailed, walking over to join the man. “How goes the work?”

Smiling, Glassman pulled his blaster and slapped the man across the face with the iron barrel. Twisting, Thayer stumbled and fell to the ground. His bodyguards reached for their weapons, then stopped as a Firebird streaked over the ville to detonate in the sky. With hands only inches from their weapons, the ville sec men glared at the petey sailors on top of the wall, pointing a dozen of the long black tubes in their direction. Slowly, the sec men moved their hands and backed away from the baron. Never wavering, the sailors tracked their movements with the Firebirds.

“Idiot! Feeb! Incompetent ass!” Glassman shouted, cocking back the hammer and pointing the blaster at the prone baron. “Ryan and his people were here. In your ville. Eating their dinner. Right here! You had them in the palm of your mutie-loving hand and let them escape? How is that possible?”

“You dare to strike me,” Thayer growled, touching his aching cheek. There was the coppery taste of blood in his mouth, and a tooth felt loose. “I’m the baron of this ville! Within these walls, I rule supreme!”

In response, Glassman tightened his finger on the trigger. The hammer fell, flint scraped steel, throwing off a spray of sparks that ignited the black powder in the primer pan, which set off the main charge in the barrel. The actions took a second to happen, and Thayer could only cringe before the flintlock thundered in the morning air. The baron’s face exploded from the crushing arrival of the .75 mini-ball, his teeth and eyes flying in different directions as his skull burst apart, brains and hair blowing across the ground.

“The baron,” Glassman muttered, handing the smoking blaster to a waiting sailor. “Not anymore, dolt.”

The sailor immediately passed the captain a fresh blaster and began to reload the spent weapon.

Staring at the still body, Glassman was surprised to discover that he didn’t feel any shame or remorse. There was no shock or revulsion at the sight of chilling like before. In fact, deep inside, the former healer had to admit that he liked it, the taking of a life by force. He had used his healing skills to avoid fighting, to make himself far too valuable to ever risk in combat. And whichever side won would always need the services of a healer. He had tried to be beyond violence, not from the love of life, but from the fear of losing his own. Since childhood, Glassman had been terrified of being hurt. Just a sniveling coward, yellow to his bones. But on this mission for Kinnison, he found that new doors were opening inside his mind, and the rush of a chill was becoming a delight, only equaled by the release of sex. Something deep inside the man rose to fight off the growing madness, tried and failed. Glassman felt its departure and stood very alone in the middle of the ville, knowing that with this death he had crossed a line and would never be the same again.

“Colonel Mitchum!” he bellowed, still staring at the ground.

Hobbling through the crowd of busy slaves, the sec chief stopped a few yards away from the captain. He glanced once at his aced baron, then didn’t give the headless corpse another thought.

“Yes, sir,” Mitchum said, resting awkwardly on his crutch. The colonel was unshaved, having stood watch with his men through the long night. His clothes were filthy, a leg and an arm stiffly wrapped in bloody bandages. The gun belt from around his waist was slung across his chest in the manner of a bandolier, the holstered flintlock in easy reach of his good arm.