Unreal by Timothy Ellis

Author:Timothy Ellis [Ellis, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty Four

Dean parked Camel on the grass next to a group of police vehicles, and scared the shit out of everyone there.

I’d gone home to change into a suit, while Dean had put Camel at the jump in point for the American planet. I’d jumped straight to the airlock, where I found Doug was already there. He passed me actual sunglasses and a Stetson, and made me put them on. I felt ridiculous, but this was his party. If the sun was too bright I could just adjust my eyes through my PC. But, when Texas was a big thing, I guess you had to dress the part.

Once ready, Dean had parked us. The airlock opened immediately, and the ramp started down. And now I saw why the extras. There were a lot of police visible, all looking at us now, most pointing guns at us, and they all looked like Doug normally did. Since he was wearing his regular clothes, I quietly told him to change his suit setting to hair-trigger, so his clothing wasn’t damaged if someone did shoot at us. He nodded, and pointed out the hats were both merc varieties.

I looked around, and a dozen combat suits with stunners were lined up against the side walls, and not visible from the ground. A moment later Trip appeared off to one side, and then walked over to us. He was wearing merc clothes. All three of us were showing rank insignia.

Before the ramp made it to the ground, I started walking down. That triggered some of them to start forward as well, and several people came out of the nearby barn, and hurried towards us. One of them looked like he was the local sheriff, or at least that was my assumption.

I stopped at the bottom without stepping down onto the ground, and waited for the boss to come to me.

“This is an illegal landing,” he bellowed at me. “Get back in your ship and leave now, or I’ll arrest you.”

I gave him my best ‘you what?’ stare.

“And good whatever time it is to you to,” I said, pleasantly. “What appears to be the problem here? We’ve a valid contract to collect people and goods from this location, at this time, and this is a surprise.”

“These people are accused of stealing from the new owner of this property, and have been arrested. You do not have a valid landing permit, and I’m about to arrest you as well.”

“Sheriff is it?”

“Sheriff Thaddeus T Burdonsky, madam. And you are?”

“Colonel Lyla Cowan of the Unbound Mercenary Company. Are you telling me you have my citizens under arrest here?”

His smirk turned into a double take.

“What do you mean by your citizens?”

“I own the planet Unreal, and these people were my citizens as from the moment they contracted to move there. I assume you can show me some evidence these people have done something wrong?”

He blustered for a bit, and his eyes went to a civilian I hadn’t seen before. That man looked like a corporate shark.

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