The Lone Ranger Returns

  The Lone Ranger Returns

  Michael Anderle

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2020 (As revised) Michael Anderle

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  This book is a Michael Anderle Production

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  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

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  LMBPN Publishing

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  Version 1.10, July 2020

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  The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015-2020 by Michael T. Anderle and LMBPN Publishing.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Other LMBPN Books

  Dedication

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  To Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  To Live The Life We Are

  Called.

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  —Michael

  Chapter One

  Far Outer Torcellan Quadrant, Space Station Yu’mfred 60699

  There had been seven of us at the beginning of this game, but now we were four. Hopefully, there would only be three after this poker hand.

  I would be one of the three. At least, I sure hoped so.

  It wasn’t really poker, but it’s the closest way I can explain the game, and it is how I think of it.

  I desperately wanted to get off this fucking infested space station and back out where I could do something decent with my damned life.

  The rat-faced cyborg across the table from me laid down her cards—three aces high, and a pair of black fours. “You can all suck my ass.”

  The Torcellan next to her made a face and folded his cards, then pushed his metal cash into the pile. “I’m out, and it’s ‘kiss my ass,’ you cybernetic cretin. Get a damned dictionary.”

  “Fucking hell.” James tossed his cards onto the pile.

  I looked at Rat-face McAssSuck and grinned. “Bite my shiny metal…”

  PEW PEW!

  “The fuck?” John yelled as the large mirror behind the bar exploded into shards, two pieces implanting themselves into Bob, the bar guy.

  “Take it like a man!” someone told poor Bob as blood erupted from his mouth.

  I didn’t think he was going to shake that one off.

  PEW!

  I hit the fucking deck, and everyone else scrambled when the laser blasts started flying. I was thinking clearly for the first time since last...uh… Shit.

  Day before last month?

  Whatever. I reached up over the table to grab my money and pulled it back down to me, stuffing it into my pocket on my second try. These fucking tits of mine are too damned big.

  Teach my sexy ass to get a body-mod when I was as high as a wind skiff.

  I looked around to see what was going on, and that was when I saw that James wouldn’t be doing anymore kissing—or sucking— ass, mine or others. Not with that hole through his skull.

  That kind of bit the long cylindrical vegetable. He was good in bed on Tuesdays—or was that Thursdays? Well, dammit.

  Had James been any good?

  I couldn’t think about these existential questions when I was in a bar that was being shot up to hell and gone.

  Rat-face McAssSuck was grinning at me from the floor on the other side of the table, daring me with her eyes as her arm reached over the table to grab more of the pot. I had to give it to her; she had balls.

  No, really! I could tell now that I was on the floor that Rat-face McAssSuck was actually a male. “Shiny balls you got there!” I yelled over the screaming and explosions rocking the place. I looked over my shoulder at the three Indie mercenaries who had pulled up a table and were using it to try to hold off four of the local merc-military police by the front door.

  Shit.

  Rat-face McAssSuck screamed, and I turned back. His arm was on fire. He was flinging it about, then he spotted the toilet rooms and started running in that direction. One stray beam went toward him before he made it inside, and I grimaced.

  I could only imagine the decision he had to make, with his arm burning and looking at that toilet, thinking he had to shove it into that disgusting filth.

  I turned back to the Skaine merc-military police, knowing that if I had to choose between my arm burning or sticking it into one of those toilets? Fucking hell, I wasn’t going to stick my arm in that stank sludge. I’d rather eat plasmium bolts and be done with it.

  One of the errant blasts came streaking in, and my leg jerked. I scrambled to the side and looked down to see the damage to my feet.

  “YOU FUCKING SONSABITCHES!” The shot had taken off the bottom two inches of my favorite three-inch heels.

  “I got these in Larkatia!” I reached down and unbuckled the screwed-up pump and rolled over to throw it toward the front door. “I hope one of you chokes on it,” I groused to myself as I unbuckled the second shoe. “Anybody have a damned clue how hard it is to get a passport to shop in Larkatia?” I bitched as I flung it after the first one.

  The next bolt hit another mirror on the wall a few feet away, showering me with glass.

  This bar fight was burning off all the drugs I had spent a shit-ton of money to purchase and drink, eat, and shoot up. I was trying my best to forget the last job I had been on.

  These military motherfuckers had just wasted my high. Worse than that, they had caused me to remember.

  My love was dead.

  Chapter Two

  Welcome to the life and times of Meredith Nicole Grimes. You could call me “Merry” if you knew me back in the Etheric Federation, “Nickie” if you were my friend, or “Scary-ass Bitch” if you pissed me off and my neck was stinging from the mirror shards raining down on me.

  I was officially pissed off.

  Now, I like a good fight as much as anyone. Hell, I was raised on fighting—or “practicing,” if you wanted to call it that. I called it “slave labor,” and my grandfather John just smiled at me like he knew what kind of person I was going to turn out to be.

  Well, joke’s on him. He’s in some other god-forsaken galaxy helping aliens or kissing their stank-butts or whatever, and I’m right here getting shot at because I wanted to go out and see the worlds.

  And get my ass handed to me.

  Fuck my grandfather and his incessant need to be right all the time. If I’d had a way back home, I might have taken it, but his friend the Etheric Empress had given me seven years-to-life to go figure out what kind of future I wanted.

  I’m in Year Six, and if I don’t pull my head out my ass soon, I might as well French-kiss it goodbye since my head is already so close.

  I hated it when Bethany Anne was right.

  I reached under my jacket and engaged all the advanced tech that ran through my body. I hadn’t done that in all six years of my so-called—or more accurately, forced—vacation from the Etheric Federation.

  Systems came online that I had hated to use in my youth. I could have used them earlier, b
ut if I had, those who wondered where I might be would know for sure.

  Sometimes you don’t want family to pull your ass out of the fire.

  The nanites kicked into gear, and what little buzz I had left vanished faster than Kurtherians around Bethany Anne. My hand ignored the normal pistol everyone saw and wrapped itself around the special one—the one my grandmother had made for me.

  The pistol whose onboard computer checked me out as I yanked it out of my backup holster. The sweet feeling of a lover’s curve graced my palm.

  Time slowed down as the enhancements kicked in. I looked around one last time and noticed another patron—who was hiding under his poker table—staring at the pistol in my hand.

  These fuckers are rare.

  You don’t want to be around one in use, and for God’s sake, you don’t want to try to use one that isn’t safety-locked to you personally. Just use your own pistol—eat the barrel and pull the trigger. It would be less painful.

  That patron’s eyes locked on me, and then he started crab-crawling toward the bathroom. There are rumors about people like me—people who have a Jean Dukes Special.

  I wondered if he would find a dead McAssSuck or a smelly one?

  Giving up that line of questioning, I rolled over and started having fun.

  My name is Grim’zee P. Bonesticker (“Grim” or “Z” to my friends). I frowned when the table I was hiding behind received a fresh laser hole just three inches from where my Yollin mother’s favorite son was hiding his head and hunched my two-legged exoskeleton-covered ass down a little lower

  “You got any extra packs?” I called to the next table to my left. Two of my shipmates were stuck behind that table now. They’d had to ditch the last one when the merc-cops busted into the place.

  “Skaine-loving pissants,” was all the poor Torcellan Kremlich got out before those same Skaine-loving pissants drilled him through the chest, making the question of needing any of his packs a moot point. Fortunately, his partner Shara, a human, bit down her scream of surprise and kicked his gun over to me.

  I grabbed the gun, checked the safety and the charges remaining, and looked to my right.

  And that was when she stood up, eyes blazing red, and I knew the Skaine merc-police behind me were dead.

  I just didn’t know if my mother’s favorite son was about to die as well.

  “I’m telling you…” the main merc-cop ground out as he shot for the fifth time into the table. The hole he had drilled finally exploded, and he was satisfied to hear the grunt of someone dying on the other side as blood splattered the wall beyond. “That the Skaine captain wants the human for a slave, so don’t waste her!”

  “What about the Yollin?” Quarter-three asked.

  “Cred a dozen,” Prime Quarter answered, and started shooting into the table the Yollin was hiding behind. “I don’t have a Yollin skull yet, so try not to mess it up too much.”

  There is “enhanced,” there is “merc-enhanced,” and then there are the scary sonsabitches from the Etheric Empire. That group had come from Earth, once upon a time.

  (Yes, there are a shit-ton of history books on that story. I don’t have time to tell you about Auntie Bethany Anne and Grandfather John Grimes (may someone kick his ass sometime soon), my grandmother Jean Dukes (who I love to death), and the rest. If you are interested, go look it up. I’m sure it is just riveting reading.)

  Anyway, I’m here to tell you about those scary sonsabitches and me. I’m one of the offspring. I’ve got shit inside me that still hasn’t been turned on, and I know my ass will explode if someone tries to get to it.

  Which explains the asteroid-sized chip on my shoulder.

  There was talk about how those at the sharp end of the stick in the Etheric Empire were protected to the best of their abilities, and so were their kids.

  And for a select few, their kids’ kids.

  I had just wanted to be a wild child, so I was.

  But these Skaine motherfuckers had pissed off a Grimes.

  The first merc barely registered that I had stood up. It was part of my upgrades—the ability to move much faster than a normal human. Two of their party were already dead, their bodies blown back through the open doors while the HUD implanted in my eyes tracked to the next two targets.

  I heard that asshole’s last comment. “I don’t have a Yollin skull, so try not to mess it up too much.” I shot him through the ear, blowing the right side of his skull completely out.

  “Fucking racists!” I yelled. Wait, were they racist or alienist or what? I never get that right.

  I hate those who hate other aliens, and I hate Skaines. Especially Skaines, so I hated that one twice as much as the next one I shot.

  Then it was my turn to twist to my left and dodge as rounds whizzed past where I had just been. On my third twist, I nailed the sonofabitch.

  After looking around, making sure no one was about to shoot me in the back, I stepped carefully across the floor, fucking glad I hadn’t gotten any glass in my feet while I dodged the fire.

  A Yollin and a human woman stuck their heads up over the table. In the background, I heard a lamp crash to the floor and a grunt, and I turned to see a patron laid out with the lamp covering his head.

  Fucker never saw that coming.

  I looked around again. “Ah! Just what I need.” I found a human woman, her shoulder and abdomen punctured and blood around her on the floor. I bent down, unbuckled her boots, and pulled them off. “Sorry, but you won’t need these anymore, and they are Robotens, so they shouldn’t go to waste.”

  It took me a half-minute to pull out a few pieces of glass I hadn’t noticed in my feet and put them on. By that time, the human and the Yollin were standing up. “You guys got names, or shall I call you ‘Slave Bait’ and ‘CAD?’”

  “’CAD?’” the Yollin asked.

  I pointed to one of the Skaines. “Cred A Dozen,” I told him. “He didn’t think you were worth saving, and they wanted you,” I pointed to the woman, “for a slave.”

  I’ll give her credit. She walked around the table and spat on the dead Skaine. “Putoh!”

  “Well, I’m getting out of here,” I told the two, and strode to the door. As I moved across the floor, I stepped over two of the dead Skaines, then bent down to rifle their pockets. “Ah, good.” I slipped their money and whatever else I figured was valuable into my pockets.

  “You’re robbing them?” she asked me.

  “They are paying me back for my shoes,” I told her, going through Prime Quarter’s pockets. “They haven’t nearly paid me enough for my fucked-up outfit or the new monkey on my back.” I grabbed another couple of items I would need soon.

  “You know,” the Yollin commented, “the Skaines are going to come after you.”

  I drew my pistol and turned it sideways to check its charge, then flipped the safety on and stuck it behind my back. “I doubt it.”

  “Why not?” the woman asked.

  I stood up and looked at her. “Because they will be dead. I’m not done with those assholes.”

  “Who the hell are you?” the Yollin asked, his voice somber.

  “I’m mad as hell, in need of a ship, and someone who recognizes that leaving pissed-off Skaines behind me with a ship I need would be a bad idea.”

  “Right.” He moved over to me and tried again, sticking out his hand human-fashion. “Grim’zee P. Bonesticker. ‘Grim’ or ‘Z’ to my friends.”

  I shook it. “Meredith Nicole Grimes, ‘Merry’ or ‘Nickie’ to my friends.”

  “Don’t rate that yet, but I’ll work on it,” he replied.

  I liked him. “You do that.”

  “Want backup going after the ship?” he asked me.

  I looked at him and held my hand back out. “Call me Nickie.”

  Two sets of boots clomped down the corridor as Nickie and Grim’zee took a right.

  We heard the clomp clomp clomp of booted feet coming in their direction from the space docks. When the Skaine contingen
t came around the corner, we both took a step to the side to allow them to clomp clomp clomp right between us.

  The eight of them ignored us since we seemed to be appropriately cowed.

  I stepped out of my little nook in the wall and turned toward their retreating backs, pulling my pistol. I had shot four of them by the time I heard Grim’zee’s pistol firing next to me.

  I nailed the leader next, then worked my way back as Grimmie took another one out.

  The eight Skaine bodies littered the hallway.

  “Cleanup on Hallway…” Grimmie looked around, “P3K-3R.”

  I smirked. “Grimmie, you are such a dick.”

  “Thank you,” he told me as we resumed our walk toward the docks. “I don’t remember offering that as one of my names.”

  “It fits, so shut up.”

  “Okay, Mickie,” he replied.

  I considered my comment as we turned the last corner—probably thirty more steps to the last door. “Yeah, okay. I’ll go with ‘Grim,’ and if you call me ‘Mickie’ one more time, I’ll shove your foot up your armored ass.”

  “Grimes and Grim,” he said as we reached the door. “It has a ring to it.”

  I smiled. “It kind of does.”

  “Any idea how we are going to get onto the ship?”

  “Yes,” I told him, digging around in my pocket. I pulled out a ship’s security card. “The main man back in the bar thought we should have this.”

  I pushed the button to open the door. “Well, if we fail, it’s been nice knowing you.”

  He chuckled and I looked at him. “What’s so funny?”