Flash Fiction # 456 -- Raiders/6

 Lisel jogged up to join us and gave us a quick nod.  "Thank you.  We are so few, you see -- and if we can also save more of your people --"

I put a hand on Lisel's arm.  "We'll do what we can."

"They were hiding in fear," he said.  "People helped, but there are those here who think they run the station."

"Bully boys," Krisin snarled.  "What about local authorities?"

"From what I can tell, the station hired this group and now can't get rid of them."

"Well," I said.

"Yes, yes -- we'll take care of that, too," Lisel replied.  "Right after we save everyone."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Krisin replied.

"Where do we start with the big problem?" Lisel asked with a quick look around as though he only now remembered why we were here.  "We might not have much time."

I glanced around as well -- and discovered something odd.  The people looked ... friendly.  They hadn't been unfriendly before, but now they seemed to have gone another step.  People smiled.

That would help.

But we still had to be careful.  I put in my call to the admin sector, but the computer said no one was available.  No one at all.  I looked at the woman running the table next to us -- lovely scarves, hand-woven, too -- and frowned.

"I'm trying to get through to Admin," I said with a wave of my pocketcomp.  "What's the secret?"

"No one's been able to get through for the last four days standard," the woman said with a glare toward the center core of the station.  "Even the guards were saying they can't get contact."

I looked around with a start.  "But they're still running things."

"Yes, the station is fine," she said with a wave of her hand and dismissing that concern.  "But it is annoying."

"How long? Lisel asked.

"Four days," she said and gave us a slightly more worried look.  "Should we be more worried than we are?"

I wanted to just blow away her concern with a wave of my hand.  I couldn't do it.

"There's been trouble on other stations in the area," I said.  "Bad trouble.  You might want to be ready to head to the core.  Send the word around, but be careful.  We don't want to upset the wrong people."

She looked from me to Krisin and then Lisel.  I think she realized that we'd saved the Catchin and not the humans.  There was a look of distrust -- but it passed quickly.

"You didn't have to say anything," she acknowledged.  "And no matter what, the Cat's needed out of here before the guards killed anymore.  We'd have sent them off on our own if we could have."

I believed her.  So did Lisel, who picked up a scarf from her table and draped it around his neck.  He paid her ten times the worth.

"For honor," he said.

So Krisin and I did the same thing.  We bought from others and paid more -- and we won friends everywhere as word passed through the market.  People gave us things.

The guards showed back up again, too, with several more members.  I sighed and kept an eye on them.  They wandered around a few yards away, making trouble for some of the sellers but mostly behaving.  They didn't want trouble with anyone but us.

We'd been making our way closer to the hall that led to quarters and admin.  I had the feeling once we moved out of this area that we'd run into guard and have trouble.  I was ready for it, too.  The whole place was making me really, really nervous.

Then the call came that the Belgium was pulling out right now.  Not even time to go back if we wanted to.  I looked, half-panicked to Lisel.  He gave a single nod.

"We do what we can," he said.

I took a deeper breath. News that the ship was going would spread quickly.  We were going to look like easy prey soon.

Well, fine.

I was ready when the bully boys cut us off.  More than ready.  My adrenalin was up to fighter pilot level, which meant I was hyper-focused on all the areas around me.  I wasn't tricked by the five who moved to cut off the hall.

"Restricted area," one said with a snarl.  He wasn't one I'd faced before, and I thought I saw a glimmer of more intelligence.  "Locals Only, not ship scum."

Well, I had a little hope for him right until that moment.  I had even been impressed that he didn't look to the right where four more of his boys were preparing to 'surprise' us.

"Let me give you some advice," I said.  "If you plan on a sneak attack,  don't use gorillas."

I spun and kicked the first one in the knee as he rushed forward.  Lisel grabbed two others and just bounced them against each other and the wall.  Krisin kicked the last ... well, higher than I had kicked.

The leader of the bully actually smiled.  "I can't hire you, can I?"

"No, not going to happen.  You going to stop us from trying to get to admin?"

He looked for a moment at his four downed people and the four he still had standing and then waved them all away.

"Let them go.  Hell, maybe they'll have better luck than we did."

While I was glad not to have to fight my way through -- well, sort of glad -- I was also happy to get this part of the job done.  I had thought the bully boys were part of the bigger problem.  Now ... no.  Or maybe they thought to trap us down this hall.  Once we were past, I gave a slight twitch of my head to Lisel.

"I'm listening.  One is following.  I think it's their leader.  We can deal with him either way."

Yeah, we can handle it, I thought, along with all the other trouble...