Cool Under Fire

Traveler and Rædis were currently in a situation that, across their adventures together, they took great precautions to not allow themselves to fall into. However, when they agreed to help a police detective friend track down and apprehend a lunatic who had been terrorizing a city on a world they were both quite fond of, the ensuing confrontation might as well been inevitable.

Despite the care and cleverness they took in discovering the identity and ultimate location of their quarry, when it came down to actually apprehending the villain they found themselves being quite liberally shot at by him.

They had taken up a defensive position behind a large concrete pillar on the fourth level of a parking strcture. Their suspect was taking pot shots at them from about thirty meters away. He was standing in the open, pacing back and forth attempting to get a bead on the pair while casually licking off shots from from a gun of ridiculously large caliber. To call it a pistol would be misleading. It was a hand cannon. To describe it in any other way would greatly understate its true size and power.

He was also taunting them between shots but his words were lost in the deafening report of the madman’s weapon as it reverberated off the concrete walls and low ceiling of the garage.

Both Traveler and Rædis had been in combat type situations before in their respective, individual exploits. Traveler had involved himself in four major conflicts in his journeys through time. The first took place five hundred years prior to his birth on his homeworld of Earth. He had been interested in this particular war since learning about it in school during his teen-aged years. Once he had mastered the ability to confidently travel to the time of the war and learned the skills required to ingrain himself successfully within the chosen time beyond any suspicion about who he was or where he came from it was remarkably easy to join in the conflict.

His choice on involving himself in this potentially fatal endeavor was simply because he wanted the chance to pilot a particular war machine he had become obsessed with upon first learning about it in his formative years. He used to build models of the machine and imagine soaring the skies, locked in razor sharp combat as if one with its amazing abilities. After having become adept at time travel and being a naturally gifted pilot to begin with, he was confident enough in his skills to be able to survive the conflict. When coupled with the training he received and the faith he had in the companions he made in this undertaking, he was fearless when truly faced with his own mortality for the first time in his life.

This was also the first time he was compelled to take life. He reconciled this most serious of issues by falling back on his training and operating under the premise that it was either his adversary or him. He also dehumanized this moral conundrum to a degree by rationalizing that he was pitting his machine against another and not the life of its human pilot. He fared well in his first foray in war and came through it with some distinction and numerous accolades. Then, exhibiting great discipline for a fledgling time traveler, made sure he erased almost all of his involvement in the war save for the beneficial outcomes of his actions for the faction he put his life on the line for.

His next three involvements in war were choices he made to aide groups of people he had come to like very much. They had, what he deemed, to be a bright, positive and amusing outlook on their existence and sought to better their world for the benefit of their kind and those they came into contact with. However, on each one of these occasions, these benevolent civilizations were under threat of brutal subjugation by hostile alien races and he viewed his involvement as just and the right thing to do. Also, in the third conflict, he had involved himself with a woman. It was one of the very few times in his life he allowed somone to know exactly who he was and where he had come from. It could be argued that it was the first time in his life he had truly loved and had genuinely been so in return. In this instance he not only fought for her kind, he fought for her.

When she was subsequently killed in the conflict and her death established as an immutable fact in the pool of time and space this became the first nail in the coffin of his heart. He began to realize that if he wished to continue his adventures in time, for the sake of his sanity, it would be best to avoid establishing such deep emotional ties with the majority of the people he would meet.

The pain he experienced when he lost this woman was almost enough for him to abandon time travel entirely but as his perception of the fourth dimension increased he could not deny himself the sheer, unique joy of playing with it. It was just too damned fun.

Rædis, although never involved in a full scale war, spent some time in the service of a police force on a particularly hostile planet he had visited early on in his expeditions after leaving his isolationist homeworld to explore the galaxy.

The agency he joined welcomed his unique abilities of being able to adopt various appearances, his heightened senses and the amazing computational prowess of his mechanical mind. He proved invaluable as an undercover agent and his indefatigable nature made hours of overtime and long stake-outs effortless. Plus, his curious, easy going manner made him well loved by his fellow officers and partners. He never excepted overtime pay and had a prolific record of closed cases.

His exceptional police work won him several prestigious civil service awards and like Traveler, he enjoyed the thrill and challenges of his job despite its inherent dangers. He also found great satisfaction in helping bring a modicum of peace and justice to an unsettled populace.

The nature of his police work rendered him no stranger to violence and though he was very good at de-escalating volatile situations he was no less skilled at dolling out considerable physical punishment in the execution of his duties.

The first time he was compelled to take a life was in the defense of another officer during a bank heist gone horribly wrong. He felt justified in his actions and though harbored considerable disdain for violence he had no sympathy for those that chose to inflict it upon the innocent. When motivated to violence he met it with cold, machine-like detachment and dealt with his feelings about it afterward.

So, neither friends being strangers to strife yet, having successfully avoided it for quite some time, managed to get themselves taken off guard and completely unprepared to deal with the homicidal psychopath now attempting to murder them with his massive handgun. The lunatic laughed and released two more rounds into the pillar they were flattened behind. They creased the corner of it sending chunks of debris whizzing past Traveler’s face. He winced at both the flying particles and the roar of the gun then turned to look at Rædis whose normally expressive face was cool and composed.

Rædis had dropped his human appearance and currently looked like the Silver Surfer in a fine suit. His eyes, however, shone bright with excitement.

“You didn’t happen to bring a gun of our own?” Traveler asked over the tone ringing in his ears. His hearing having been muted significantly by the repeated blasts of the psycho’s weapon.

Rædis, who could automatically protect and augment his hearing in the event of loud noises, shook his head.

“No. I suppose you didn’t either.” he replied so that Traveler could actually hear him.

“No. I don’t even own a gun.” Traveler shrugged.

“We really should have thought this through a bit before deciding to try and take him ourselves.” Rædis laughed.

“Well, if we make it back to the ship we can always use the time machine to try this again, if you like.” Traveler laughed back as the sound of another shot exploded through the garage. The villain then began screaming something inexplicable at them which was good because he wasn’t shooting and also inadvertently buying them time to think of what to do. Traveler looked at the few vehicles parked closest to them.

“We could hit him with a car.” Traveler suggested.

“Not a bad idea but it would take even me too long to get into one and start the damned thing before he lights me up with that cannon he’s got.” Rædis said, negating the idea.

“Aren’t you like, bullet proof in your natural form or something?” Traveler asked. At that moment the maniacal man concluded his rant and fired another shot their way. This hit the very vehicle Traveler was looking at. The round punched through the thing’s tough composite outer shell, through the thick slab of battery that powered it and exited the other side, stopped only by the concrete wall of the garage. Smoke drifted up from the holes it left in the machine which was quickly followed by blue flames as the battery began to burn. Rædis had no idea where his friend had gotten this idea.

“What!? No! Are you shitting me? I’m not bullet proof. Even if I was I wouldn’t want to get shot. Especially by that fucking hand howitzer.”

Rædis then looked down and saw a fist sized chunk of concrete at his feet that had been blown out of the pillar they were hiding behind.

“Oh! I have an idea.” he said with a sly smile as he reached down and picked it up.

“Awesome. What’cha thinking?” Traveler said, now a little worried as the burning vehicle grew in intensity. They were now stuck between a rapidly growing fire and an insane killer with a huge gun. “Whatever it is, make it quick.” he added.

“Well, I haven’t heard any empty shells hit the ground after any shots and our man here has fired seven rounds at us already since he paused to scream at us. Which means he’s only got one left in that particular piece before he has to reload. It’s an eight round cylinder. I need you to draw his fire for me.”

Traveler saw the rock Rædis was holding and understood his friend’s plan.

“Draw his fire. Right. No problem.” he said somewhat sarcastically. Except, his particular flair for bombast over-road his sense of self preservation. Rædis was counting on this and knew his friend well enough to know he’d come through.

Traveler searched the pockets of his jacket and found the silver speckled super ball he had been carrying recently to amuse himself with when nothing else was going on and he couldn’t smoke. He carefully snuck half his face around the jagged edge of the column.

“Hey asshole!” he called as loud as he could over the ringing in his ears. He could already feel the heat of the burning car growing uncomfortably hot against his exposed skin. The man with the gun paused in his pacing as he saw the edge of Traveler’s face peeking out from the pillar.

“Catch!” Traveler yelled and hurled the ball towards the man, bouncing it off the pavement halfway between them. The ball arced through the air towards the gunman. Not knowing what was thrown at him was merely a harmless ball, he raised his gun to take aim at it.

This was all the time Rædis needed to slip from behind the battered column and whip the concrete chunk at the maniac, side-arm and with great speed and viscious mechanical accuracy. It caught the man in the side of his head, just behind his temple. His head snapped violently to the side and he dropped unceremoniously to the garage deck instantly and without a sound. As if to have the last word his gun went off a final time when it impacted the floor. Rædis and Traveler both recoiled instantly back behind the column as the crack of the absurd weapon receded into the air.

As his hearing began to normalize, Traveler could make out the sound of sirens approaching from the streets below. He peeked from behind the column. Rædis was already halfway to the downed man. When he reached him, he picked up the gun.

The barrel was at least half an inch in diameter and eight inches long. Its eight chambered cylinder held rounds that were at least twice as long as normal bullets. He popped it out and ejected the spent cartridges, clearing the weapon. Traveler joined him.

“Holy shit. Look at the size of this thing.” Rædis said, turning the weapon over in his hands. Its chrome finish was blackened by powder burns.

Traveler looked down at the man who had been shooting it at them. He was bleeding profusely from the wound caused by the concrete rock Rædis perfectly pitched at his head. He nudged him with the pointed tip of a black, zip-up boot.

“Is he dead?” he asked.

“No.” Rædis said. “I made sure I didn’t throw it that hard.”

“Good. This bastard killed a lot of people and the cops need to know what he did with them, exactly how many, and where they all are. This guy’s mind is going to take a long time to pick. That was an outstanding pitch, Rædis. Well done.”

“Thank you. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any work like this.” the machine said with a satisfied, electric sigh. “It feels...good.”

“I can’t believe you were once an actual cop.” Traveler chuckled and shook his head. He pulled a bent a cigarette from an arm pocket and ignited it with a bite on the filter. The man at their feet groaned faintly. Rædis kicked him once across the jaw, dislodging it and knocking the man back into unconsciousness.

“Then again, I suppose I can.” Traveler said as he considered the brutality of the kick.

By this time, the cops were now closing in. They could hear the electric whine of their vehicles and the squeaking of tires on cement as they wound their way up the levels of the garage.

The car that was burning behind them popped and fizzled. Heat and black smoke billowed from the machine as it melted into a bubbling pool of mush around its frame.

“Let’s get out of here before the sprinklers-” Rædis was cut short as a foam fire suppression system began to flood the burning spot, releasing hundred of gallons of the stuff at high pressure into the fire.

Traveler grabbed the unconscious killer by the foot. Rædis took the other and together they drug him off to face the law.