Starship Armstrong - Season 3

Part 36 - Family Ties (XIV)

Mitzner and Ambie stood in front of the blank wall that served as the 'entrance' to the patriot's hideout. Mitzner still had her gun to the woman's back. There was no sound but the ominous distant drip drip drip of water.

Mitzner had decided that she would use non-lethal means to neutralize the kidnappers right up until the point where they threatened McAfree. Then she'd kill them all. This seemed like a good compromise. She was already running scenarios in her head, considering various plans of attack from every possible angle.

As the glittering space/time tunnel started to slowly open Mitzner prodded Ambie a little with the weapon.

"Don't you go running away as soon as the tunnel opens, now, it'd be a shame if I had to shoot you after you betrayed your companions so readily."

Ambie looked back at Mitzner with obvious terror. Mitzner initially felt sympathetic for the poor girl, but then she remembered how McAfree's face looked.

"Just don't do anything I don't tell you to do and you might survive the night."

Ambie nodded, too scared to speak.

"Those feelings you're experiencing right now? That primordial death fear?" Mitzner asked. "I want you to remember this feeling the next time someone asks you to aid in a kidnapping."

The tunnel widened all the way and resolved into an image of the other side. Mitzner could see three men staring slack-jawed through it.

Mitzner stabbed two fingers into Ambie's throat. The woman fell to her knees, gasping for air.

The men scattered, no longer visible on the other side of the tunnel. Mitzner charged through.

Mitzner came to a sliding halt and her genetically refined situational awareness immediately told her where everyone in the room was and what they were doing after the briefest of glances around.

The greatest threat was a man who had thrown himself at one of the particle rifles from the kidnapping. Mitzner rushed him before he could bring the weapon to bear, broke his right leg clean through with a brutal kick, and pulled the rifle from his hand as he fell.

The man screamed and cried in agony.

Mitzner quickly removed the energy clip, placed it in her pocket, and threw the particle rifle aside.

One man ran through a pseudowood door into another room. The other looked around frantically, clearly overwhelmed.

Before he knew what happened Mitzner was beside him. She elbowed him in the head hard enough to knock him out and he went down hard.

The pseudowood door wasn't locked but Mitzner kicked it open anyway for effect. She strode into the room while it was still swinging on its hinges.

McAfree was there, tied up and unconscious. The man from before was holding another particle rifle right at her head. At various positions around the room, Mitzner immediately took notice, were three other hostiles, two men and a woman. One man had a stungun, the other two particle rifles.

"Don't move," said the man with the weapon trained on McAfree. "If you-"

He didn't get to finish his thought. In the time it took him to speak four words Mitzner had drawn her pistol, switched it to the thinnest beam setting with her thumb, aimed, and shot the man's trigger finger off. He dropped his weapon, gasping in shock.

Nothing remained of the finger but red mist.

With the sound of the first shot still ringing in everyone's ears Mitzner shot again and the man's entire knee exploded, blowing off the lower portion of his leg. He fell to the ground gurgling with pain.

It all happened so fast the three others weren't able to react. By the time they recovered Mitzner was pointing her pistol at the woman.

"Everyone drop your weapons!" she snarled.

"You're outnumbered," said the man with the stungun.

"You're outmatched," Mitzner replied.

Mitzner waited just long enough to see if they were going to react immediately. They didn't. So she shot the woman's ear off.

The woman shrieked, dropped her gun, and put her hands in the air. Mitzner turned to aim her weapon at the other man with the particle rifle but he dropped it before she could.

The man with the stungun fired. The bolt struck Mitzner dead center mass.

Unfortunately for him all it did was give her a mild body buzz. The setting necessary to stun her was enough to kill a baseline human.

Mitzner turned around and shot him in the arm. This time her aim was a little off, possibly from the effects of the stun, and the beam struck him a little too closer to the chest than she intended. He died instantly in a cloud of red mist.

"Oops," said Mitzner.

And she had been so proud of herself for not killing these people.