章 18: 18 - Fun at the range

"Okay, lean into it a bit, then push forward with your dominant hand and pull back with the other and spread out your legs a bit more."

"Like this?"

Having fitted River with some hearing protection, Mike was busy teaching her how to shoot at the pilot's guild's gun range which was otherwise devoid of people.

"Yeah, then it is just a question of lining up the sights with your right eye, don't try to close your other eye, you'll just cramp up and lose focus. Then when you see the bullseye through the sights and can easily move from target to target we can start to talk about the trigger."

Having River work over the sights and aim at a few targets in quick succession while flicking her forehead every time she messed up her stance.

"For a student from a small, peace-loving backwater country you sure know a lot about handling weapons…"

Rubbing a very sore forehead, River complained about Mike's surprising amount of competence as he cleaned up targets with a series of clean headshots.

"Yeah well I watched a lot of tv about this stuff as I had an interest in it, but I also did a lot of sports shooting growing up as there were a lot of hunters where I lived. The rest is due to this character, I'm pretty sure… But enough about all that, let's get you shooting."

Lining River up in front of the targets again with her PDW, Mike taught her about trigger control, jerk and general awareness.

"I'm surprised you didn't learn how to shoot before this."

"Well most people don't need to learn about all this, if you ever get into a proper gunfight something has gone seriously wrong, besides the common line of thinking is to just use one of those instead of these all manual weapons, I get not relying on stuff that can break down but those became standard for a reason."

Pointing to the lineup of weapons behind her that the pilot's guild was selling for huge markups, most of the personal firearms came with stuff like smart munitions, self-aiming weapon systems and rocket-assisted kinetic kill vehicles.

Stuff like single-action, semi-automatic weapons with iron sights and no sort of computers or fire control systems were far from the norm. Of course that had also been the norm in Interstellar Online, Mike hadn't gotten into the FPS aspect of the game if it had just been a generic rehash of other shooters and Mike had used a number of pretty high-tech weapons, but he hadn't brought those with him when going out for pirate hunting that fateful day he found himself suddenly transported to another world.

"Well that PDW there is meant to be your backup, something that works when everything else has failed, so if you find yourself truly shit out of luck with no other options left there's still one way out."

"Well, that got morbid fast…"

"Yeah, I guess it did. Although I only ever shot myself in the head to respawn when the game bugged out and I clipped through the floor. What I meant is that it's always a good thing to have options, I know for sure that I'm not going back to that fucking box again."

Trying out a few weapons that the guild was selling to give River a few pointers on different weapons, Mike received word that the Scorpion had been refuelled and decided it was time to leave. Returning to the reception desk, Mike sent a request for the bounties he and River had missed back in the Trane Imperium to be handled through the guild, although the guild would take 30% of the bounty to handle such a request, it was better than just letting it go as the railgun ammunition spent killing them still needed to be resupplied and didn't come cheap.

While Mike submitted the bounty claim, River sold their map data and detailed scans of the systems the pair had visited a cartographers guild terminal, once done the pair mixed in with the evening crowd of pilots heading out to drink after a day's work.

"Wanna grab a drink before we leave?"

"Let's not, although I kind of want to see how well you hold your drink we-"

Caught in their own little fantasy brought on by the merry mood around them, both Mike and River missed it, along with the crowd who hung around the pilot's guild a significant part of them didn't belong.

From their formation and spacing, it was clear they were hunting.

Out of nowhere high calibre automatic fire from up high tore into the crowd, from the number and position of flashes, it was clear that there were at least two camouflaged machine gun nests that had been hidden inside nearby buildings. Acting out of reflex, Mike grabbed River's hand and pulled her in behind him as he wrapped his arm around the neck of a corpse that hadn't even dropped to the ground after getting hit in the head. Using the corpse as a human shield Mike retreated back into the pilot's guild so fast he didn't even notice how much everyone around him was screaming as indiscriminate machine-gun fire tore random people to shreds and turned the lucky few who died instantly into minced meat. Within seconds of the gunfire starting the receptionist of the pilot's guild finally snapped out of her daze and pressed the panic button that sent the building into lockdown, it was only due to sheer luck that Mike and River managed to make it past the blast doors before they locked.

"WHAT THE FUCK!?"

Adrannerlin still pumping at an insane level it took Mike a few seconds to drop his human shield and realise he was covered in blood, the few remaining people inside the pilot's guild lobby were in a similar state of panic as the sound of gunfire still rang out strong from outside, once in a while a stray bullet would hit the blast door and leave a 5-centimetre dent in the metre-thick reinforced door. After what felt like an eternity, the machine-gun fire finally died down, but what followed wasn't any more pleasant as singular gunshots that executed survivors gradually closed in on the blast door.

"Well aren't you a crafty little rat! How did you like my ambush, Mike? Feels familiar?"

Recognising the voice coming from the other side of the blast door, Mike felt his blood start to boil, he could practically see the smug grin on his sunglasses-wearing face, his black suit still as perfect as always.

"You fucked it up, if you would have positioned the nests at ground level they would only have to worry about vertical deviation, were you afraid of friendly fire!?"

Taking control of his feelings, Mike chose to taunt his opponent, a taunt that clearly seemed to work.

"You little shit… That's it, I'm killing you myself, Mike! OI! Guild personal! We're only after this brat and his lady friend, if you give them up we'll leave, if not I'm skinning every single person inside that building alive!"

After giving an ultimatum, the operative seemed to turn and leave, it was only when Mike heard the sound of a handgun getting cocked he turned his attention to the inside of the pilot's guild, all the hairs on his neck standing on end.

"Feel free to try it!"

Turning around to face the inside of the guild, Mike saw exactly what he had expected to see, a room full of people scared to shit and willing to do whatever they needed to survive. As River was staring down the pilot who had drawn a handgun he blinked first, but RIver was faster. Closing the range in an instant, River used her arm to block a shot aimed at her head just like Mike had done before, it was only then Mike managed to react.

"Don't kill him!"

"Tch! Fine!"

Instead of severing the pilot's head with a well-placed kick, River forcefully broke her momentum just before reaching the pilot, as she smashed his pistol with her bare hand. Seeing a piece of metal getting smashed to bits really seemed to calm down the room, finally allowing Mike a moment to think.

If he did nothing, those who also found themselves suddenly captured would eat him and River alive, stopping that was his highest priority.

Turning to the guild receptionist, Mike asked what under the current circumstances should be an obvious question.

"Are you really going to toss us out?"

"I!-"

"Even though we're both members of the guild, are you sure it's a good idea to abandon us?"

The pilot guild's very existence was based on trust between the guild and the mercenaries that were part of it, without mutual trust between the two parties no mercenary would be willing to risk their life to claim a bounty, therefore the guild had made a sort of informal pledge to its members a pledge to protect their members.

If the guild receptionist broke that pledge of trust now, it could have massive ramifications for the guild down the line. Of course, Mike knew that between the reputation of the guild and her own life, the receptionist would choose her own life 9 times out of 10, so he needed to sweeten the deal a fair bit in order for him and River to survive.

(It's only a matter of time before those hoodlums break into this building, given their willingness to massacre a shitton of innocent people they'll have the means to break into this building… I would rather not die trapped in a corner like a rat…)

"Look, I'm not saying anyone in here needs to risk their only life for the two of us. I wouldn't do that for a stranger, but try and get me killed and I will make sure you all go down with us. This fight here is personal business, I won't be dragging anyone into it."

Addressing the pilot who had been the first to draw his gun, Mike saw reason win over in his mind after thinking things over

"... What the hell do you propose then?"

"Man, that brat really is too smart for his own good, too bad he could become my subordinate…"

Standing surrounded by corpses, the sunglass-wearing suit reloaded the pistol he had just used to execute a few survivors while muttering to himself.

"Sir, encirclement is complete. We're ready to breach whenever."

Interrupted in his idle thoughts by one of his subordinates, the sunglass-wearing suit's smug smile widened slightly.

"Okay, secure the outer cordon and make it clear to the remaining security forces that they're not getting paid to put their life at risk anymore. We go for breach in 10 minutes."

The only reason the sunglass-wearing suit could afford to launch such a brazen attack inside a station was that it lacked a functioning government, with no one getting paid to check cargo he could bring in as many toys as he wanted and with no one getting paid to lay down their lives in order to save citizens he could take as much time as he wanted to complete his mission.

"Sir, isn't it unwise to wait that long on the breach?"

"Nope, I want to make sure they're squirming first, bring up the drones. In 10 minutes I want to start exterminating every single rat caught inside that building."

"Sir, yes sir."

"Now let's see how you struggle Mike, you're going to regret turning down my offer as you die screaming… Man, I sure love my job."

While his subordinates were busy setting up for entrance, the sunglass-wearing suit heard multiple explosions from inside the guild building, but instead of worrying, he found the situation quite funny.

"Man, I did say I wanted them to squirm and all but it won't be any fun if they kill themselves… Go for breach, bring up the droids."

The 'drones' sunglasses were referring to was the reinforcements he had secured from his superior and represented the very best in autonomous weapons equipped with shield generators to deal with plasma and laser munitions and clad in religen armour to stop all but the highest calibre kinetic munitions they were tanks on legs, equipped with 40-millimetre automatic, belt-fed grenade launchers and heavy machine guns.

Retreating to his command nest next to one of the machine gun emplacements, the sunglass-wearing suit watched his toys close in on the heavy blast door at the entrance of the guild as his subordinates who had just finished setting breaching charges retreat.

About 2 metres tall and 1 metre wide, the droids looked like six-sided marble pillars with six mechanical spider-like legs and moved as fast as a grown man sprinting while keeping their massive main bodies perfectly upright and stabilised. As soon as the 5 droids were in position in front of the blast door the first set of breaching charges detonated, the first set of high explosive-shaped charges cut tennis ball-sized holes directly through the heavily armoured door, and then the second stage of the munitions triggered and launched a mix of fragmentation, flash and gas grenades in through the newly bored holes. After a series of explosions, an array of thermite charges were set off, just like the shaped charges they cut straight through the heavily reinforced door before high explosive charges blasted in the chunks of perfectly cut apart blast doors. Entering the lobby of the pilot's guild, the droids spread out before the top of their hexagon bodies spun around and scanned the room with LIDAR and other sensors.

"Droids report no contact."

"So they fled from the lobby, well, of course, they did… Lockdown the entrance with one and have the rest work upwards to flush them out."

"Sir, yes sir."

Relaying orders to the drone operator, the sunglass-wearing suit kept his eyes fixed on the various screens in front of him showing a live feed of the now deserted guild lobby. As commanded, one of the droids went back to the now blown-open entrance and went into standby, another one kicked open the door to an elevator with one of its massive mechanical legs before entering the elevator cabin. Instantly overloading the elevator, the elevator cabin started sliding down its rail supports until the droid extended 4 of its legs to each side of the elevator shaft, instantly destroying the elevator cabin like it was a tin can as its two spare legs split open to reveal machine guns that opened fire to quickly obliterate the rest of the cabin before it started climbing up the elevator shaft in a slow and rhythmic fashion. Right after the droid entered the elevator shaft an elevator door 15 floors above it was pried open, and then a 2-ton data vault server was pushed into the shaft.

From there, gravity took over.

"Droid 3 lost!"

"Yeah, no shit! Use the emergency stairwells instead."

"Sir."

On his order, 2 of the 4 remaining droids went to secure the north and south emergency stairwells respectively. While the droid that went north kicked in the door to the stairwell and started climbing it, the one that went south didn't need to kick down the door as it had already been destroyed, along with two and a half floors worth of stairs.

"Droid 5 unable to advance on objective, the shaft is too wide for it to climb."

"So that's what they were blowing up, for mere rats they think surprisingly fast on their feet. The longer we spend here, the larger the risk that the unemployed security forces start kicking up a fuss… Send in ground troops, and have the droids be point-men as they sweep each floor, but I only want one droid in the staircase at a time, we can't afford to lose more like we already did."

"Sir, yes sir."

Continuing to act exactly as Mike had predicted, the sunglass-wearing suit made the mistake of thinking his current job would be an easy one…