After securing the portal, Kitty made her way to the bridge, where Deacon was inspecting a handful of screens. The stolen plasma caster was at his feet, a tangle of wires extending from it to his compressed rail handgun. Its coolant system was softly whining, and a tiny cloud of mist particles could be seen drifting around the barrel.

  “Thanks for the rescue, Deacon.” Kitty spoke softly, looking over his shoulder at the distracting screens. Several dots were converging on their craft at what looked like high rates of speed.

  “Those thanks may be premature,” Deacon replied. He shifted in his seat, pointing to one of the screens. “I show a major battlegroup closing on us. We seem to be faster than about . . . half of them? The rest should catch us within a few hours. Six or seven hours at most.”

  “We have a plasma caster.” Kitty scowled.

  “That is the US Navy you’re talking about. Even if I could be convinced to fire on them, they have way bigger guns than we do.” There he paused, looking over his shoulder at her. “They’re going to catch us.”

  “What’s the reward they offered?” Kitty raised an eyebrow.

  “Ten million.” Deacon shrugged.

  She shook her head. “Shocked Blacklight hasn’t turned on me for that much.”

  “Blacklight has all the money they could want; this is a PR nightmare if their involvement is exposed,” Deacon replied. He scowled. “Besides, Blacklight provides communications services around the world for no money. They’re basically a non-profit. I don’t think turning you in for a bounty is their style.”

  Kitty growled in the back of her throat. “I really wish I could slap people who call Blacklight a non-profit. Their communications company is non-profit, but only if you’re stupid enough to think money is the only thing of value in this world,” Kitty snapped. She turned, facing him more directly as she calmed and continued in a gentler tone. “A single conglomerate that has control of the entire world’s communications system? Why would they care about money?”

  “Everyone cares about money.” He shook his head with a snort.

  “I don’t,” Kitty said softly. She looked out the window. “How much money would it take for you to betray me, your oaths and duties, all that fun stuff? What would be the price tag for you to turn me in, right now?”

  Deacon nodded; eyes narrowed in thought. “Well, more than ten million.”

  “I’ll remember you said that.” Kitty snorted, her attention focusing on the monitor, and the dots representing those who wished to take her freedom. Or life. She sighed. “I need equanimity,” Kitty muttered. She sat and stared silently out the window for a few minutes.

  Then an idea popped into her head and she grinned.

  Kitty pointed at one of his monitors, the one keeping track of the forming hurricane. “Head straight for that, top speed.”

  “Wait, what?” Deacon blinked a few times.

  “You heard me Ape, into the storm.” Kitty said, dismissively over her shoulder.

  She hurried down to the landing pad room and opened the roof. Then she climbed up onto the deck and produced the ion thruster’s control device. It took her a few tries to learn the controls fully, and she had a close call where she nearly destroyed the huge device getting it settled. But after a few minutes of work, the thruster was docked and charging, with the roof secured above it. It was a tight fit, but Kitty felt pleased with her plan as it came together.

  Next up on her list was a little panache. All good pirates had to have panache.

  She stormed into the master bedroom and dragged open the closet door, retrieving the rolled up tiger skin rug and spreading it out on the bed. Flipping it over, she revealed the pure white underside and grinned. Ransacking the ship for paint took a bit longer than she wanted it to, but she discovered a stash of what she needed in the maintenance area underneath the landing pad. A can of gloss black quick dry paint. Returning to the room with her newly discovered treasure, Kitty immediately began painting.

  The can of paint had its own spray nozzle, and it was easy work to pull up a quick painting guide for the image she required. The guide projected from her phone onto the skin, giving her an outline to work with. It was purely in her mind, but it adjusted for her own movements and provided a stable guide that made for quick painting.

  With only a few minutes of work, the quick dry paint was set, and Kitty’s new flag was ready to go. She rolled it back up and hauled it up onto the bridge.

  Deacon watched her with a raised eyebrow as she pushed a button for the ship’s flagpole. It was stored internally, using a telescoping pole and a refrigerator sized door for access. She popped it open, applied several broad head clamps to her new flag, and crammed the whole assembly back into place. Then she just pushed the button to raise the flag and moved to the bridge controls.

  Swiping up the right video feed showed the new flag flying proudly in the wind, orange and black stripes on one side, with the skull and crossbones on the other. Deacon rolled his eyes. Kitty grinned.

  “Hey, why am I driving us directly towards a forming hurricane?” Deacon asked, concern obvious in his expression.

  “We have on board safety systems, I checked when we first boarded. That’s not even a cat one yet.” Kitty said, pointing at the tropical storm. “We can survive in a category three.”

  “Not indefinitely. Those systems were designed to get you out of storms like this, not into them,” Deacon replied. His voice increased in pitch as he spoke.

  “Oh relax, Ape. I have a plan.” Kitty turned to leave. “Trust your captain.”

  A few minutes later, she was back in bed clicking the plug in jack into place in her temple. She took a moment to revel in her custom home page, falling through a darkened tunnel while swiping through the news of the day. There were plenty of articles and videos of her misadventures, including partial video footage of her escape from the repair bay.

  The video was taken by a crew member on the rig, and showed the portion where Kitty was led in zip ties towards the repair tents. It cut out immediately after the plasma blast had destroyed the roof above all of them. Kitty chuckled and swiped to log back into Deadeye.

  The jangles, thumps, shouts, and clatters of a busy saloon loaded in first, followed closely by the feeling of ice cold water surrounding most of her body. As her vision loaded in, she jumped out of the bathtub and grabbed a nearby towel. Shuddering as she dried herself off, she glanced in the mirror to see that she had forgotten to clean her hair.

  It was still streaked a vibrant purple from the cat monster’s goo, but the stink seemed to have worn off.

  “Silver linings and all, I guess,” Kitty groused. She sighed, bending to get dressed.

  Kitty froze upon opening the door to the saloon, taking in her surroundings. A quick glance at the bartender’s puffy bruised face showed her that something was drastically wrong.

  All of the tables were filled, almost entirely with men wearing matching long black duster coats. Several more were stationed at the bar and scattered throughout the room. All of them were drinking heavily, and armed.

  She noticed a welcome sight near the back of the room, where Jimmy and Gadot were seated, watching the rest of the room warily. Before heading over to them, Kitty focused on several of the men scattered throughout the room and confirmed her suspicions. All of them were players, and most had bounties.

  Jacob’s gang was in town.

  She wove her way through the group to sit down at the table with Jimmy and Gadot, ensuring her back was to the wall and dropping Kurt’s old hat on the table. “Hey guys. Genuinely good to see you both.”

  Jimmy leaned over and hugged her to him in a one armed embrace. “How you holdin’ up Cat?” He wore plain blue jeans with a dingy white work shirt and a calfskin vest. The only notable article of clothing was his gun belt, which housed two revolvers; one at his hip, the other across his waist in a side accessible holster. The gun belt was covered in brass shells, and his satchel had a row of shell loops sewn to its front.

  “Could be worse Jim-Jam, could be worse,” Kitty replied. She gave him a wan smile.

  He looked troubled still but nodded.

  “Kitty.” Gadot glanced over, before going back to scanning the room. She wore a set of tan leather pants with a loose cotton tunic, and a wide brimmed floppy hat. A small recurve bow and quiver were hung over the back of her chair, and a Winchester repeater leaned against the wall directly behind her. Kitty could also see a dingy revolver hung from her belt.

  “Gadot,” she replied, turning back to Jimmy. “How much do you guys know?”

  Jimmy cleared his throat, looking around the room for someone before giving up with a quick shake of his head. “Enough. You hung someone the other day, and now his gang is here to wreck the place and kill everyone.”

  “It’s actually so much worse, but that’s enough to get by on for now. Team meeting after we deal with this situation.” Kitty hunched in her chair, glaring about the room with her lips thinned into a grim line.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  One of the duster wearing men staggered away from the bar, shoving against one of his companions as the other man slopped hard liquor onto his boots. He shouted good naturedly and laughed about the waste of whiskey before declaring he was going to go find the facilities. The exact language used was less polite, but the message was clear.

  He approached their table and staggered into it. “Scuze me,” he growled before moving past them to a nearby doorway.

  Once through the door, he allowed it to close to a crack, took off his hat and duster, hung them on a nearby peg, and smoothed out his hair. Underneath it all was a dark charcoal gamblers suit. He turned to enter the room again and sat down at the table with them.

  “That’s my hat!” Kurt said, indignant. His face was different, but similar enough to be recognized even after a forced respawn.

  “Oh Kurtis, don’t get upset. You can have it back.” Kitty replied, smiling at him. “What do you have for me?”

  He sighed before starting. “It’s not good, we’re short on time. The leader, Jacob, and his troop of hardcore players are making the rounds to the ranches right now. Pillaging and preventing reinforcements, sounds like. Once that’s done, they’ll ride into town shooting, and that’s the signal for these idiots. When that happens, they kill everyone in town and burn the place down, after looting to their heart’s content of course.”

  “You get a sense of their numbers?” Jimmy asked casually, the fingers on one hand lightly drumming his waist holster.

  “At least a hundred, but I got the impression the main group is small. Four or five real contenders. The rest are chum.” Kurt leaned back in his chair, looking around the room quickly. “Good chunk of em are here, but there’s a few more groups scattered around town. Staking out the shops and bank, most likely.”

  “I need an exit strategy.” Kitty said, scowling at the table.

  Gadot finally spoke up. “They came here in a train; Jimmy and I saw it. It’s still at the station, I think.”

  “Good thinking Gadot.” Kitty sat in silence for a few moments before speaking again. “Right, here’s the plan. We get as many townsfolk out as we can on that train.”

  She looked between her team-mates. “Kurt, Gadot, with me to the train. We take it as quiet as we can and start getting people to it. Once things pop off, we kill and save as many as we can, as appropriate. Jimmy, I need you to stay here. This is the herd; cull it for me. Judiciously.” She looked up as the ceiling above them rained a tiny puff of sawdust. “And find Nels for me, would you? He’s likely hip deep in one of the prostitutes upstairs.”

  Kurt grimaced. “I don’t like Nels, he’s weird.”

  “You’re made of glass Kurtis, don’t throw stones.” Kitty dismissed his statement.

  Jimmy nodded. “Nels is solid, man. Good shooter. I’ll go get him.” He chuckled, looking up. “Hope you don’t mind if I give him a few minutes first though.”

  “Nope, bust in on him mid-thrust for me Jim-Jam.” Kitty said, straight faced. “Get a good eyeful.” She stood up and started weaving through the crowd, Kurt and Gadot following a few feet behind. Kitty turned back in the batwing doors to see Jimmy looking up at the ceiling, a deeply concerned expression on his face.

  Laughing as she exited, Kitty led Kurt and Gadot down the street toward the train station. It was nearby, located just off the bend of the main street in town. As they turned the corner, the station was directly ahead of them on the road, as were its defenders.

  Two men in dusters were chatting together, leaning against the wall of the station and smoking. They looked bored until they noticed the trio approaching. Then both men pushed off the wall and exchanged a look. One drew his revolver and spun the cylinder, the other merely cocked his lever action rifle.

  Kurt smiled and stepped forward, drawing his hand along the edge of his hat as he approached the men. He raised both arms and smiled wide, gesturing for the men to approach. “Gentlemen! Tonight is your lucky night. Your friends at the saloon have sent you a little gift. Something to refresh you, they said.”

  They seemed wary as he approached, but before he reached them, Kurt turned around and showed his back to them while he pointed at Kitty and Gadot.

  The man with the lever action rifle pressed it against Kurt’s back, stopping him as he took a few steps backwards. “This area is off limits; you guys’ll have to leave.”

  Kurt screwed up his face in chagrin. “Ah, my humblest apologies gentlemen. I’ll be off then. Hawk my wares elsewhere.” He turned and swept off his hat in an overly formal bow. “A shame really, they were paid for in full.”

  “Woah now, no need to rush off.” The other man holstered his revolver and nodded with his chin towards Gadot. “You really pimping out players?”

  “Oh my goodness no. Such an ugly word.” Kurt winked at him. “I merely . . . facilitate the arrangements. Think of me as a humble matchmaker!”

  Gadot clenched her jaw muscles as the men leered, but Kitty smiled at them, licking her lips. “Hi there boys.” She gave them a diminutive wave, turning aside in faux modesty.

  Both men took a few steps off the porch, moving towards the women and past Kurt.

  He drew two broad bladed knives from under his suit jacket and lunged forward, sinking each into the base of their necks before twisting viciously, severing their spinal cords with a pop. Both men dropped without a sound as Kitty and Gadot hurried forward. Gadot grabbed one of the bodies under the armpits and dragged it backwards into the train station. Kitty helped Kurt with the other, following close behind.

  Once they were secure inside, she walked towards the ticket counter and slapped Kurt a high five on her way by. “Classic honeypot, good work Kurtis.”

  Gadot drew her bow, nocking an arrow. “How can I get him to stop using me in his scams?”

  Kitty chuckled. “I’d say that I would let you know when I figure that one out, but I’ve honestly given up.”

  The train station itself was a small but open building inside, built around a caged-in ticket booth. On the north side of the booth was an area for luggage. On the south, an area for passengers to sit out of the rain. Two sets of double doors exited towards the train tracks on either side of the ticket booth. Kitty approached and cracked one open, peeking out toward the train itself. It sat steaming on the tracks directly outside.

  She turned back with a shrug. “I don’t see anybody else.”

  A shuffle got their attention and Kurt took a step back, melting into the shadows of the building.

  Kitty swung her shotgun down and cocked both barrels, moving to the only enclosed structure in the building. After peering inside, she set her shotgun down with a thunk on the counter and elicited a yelp from a young man hiding in the ticket booth. He faced her, tears, blood, and snot encrusting his face.

  Looked like Jacob’s men had slapped him around too.

  “Ooh, nice shiner,” Kitty said. She smiled disarmingly at him. He was crammed under the only desk in the room, knees tucked up to his chest as he sniveled.

  “You here to finish me off?” His voice shook as he spoke, but Kitty could tell he was trying to control it.

  “Nah son, we’re the good guys, as sad a statement as that is. C’mon out from under there, it don’t suit you,” Kitty said. She gentled her voice as she spoke. The door behind him slid open silently, as Kurt entered the booth. She shook her head at him once, and he sheathed his knife.

  The boy couldn’t be more than fifteen, with fresh acne on his cheeks and a heavy sense of shame hovering around him as he extricated himself from the desk.

  Kitty nodded at him. “We don’t pass judgement, son. Why don’t you tell us what happened?”

  He produced a handkerchief and wiped off his face in embarrassment. “Those bastards on the porch beat the hell out of me when I told em they couldn’t stay on the tracks, then locked me in here.” There he turned back to gesture at the door and noticed Kurt for the first time, visibly startling at the sight.

  “He’s with me, you’re safe.” Kitty tapped on the counter to get his attention again, and when he turned back to her she smiled at him gently. “Listen up now, this is important. What happened to you is happenin’ all over town. These men mean to kill you, and every man, woman, and child in Delusion. What’s your name?”

  “Andrés Velasquez, ma’am.” He tried to stand taller, but his rail thin chest just made the impression of weakness stronger.

  “Don’t ma’am me, I’m just Kit.” Kitty gestured towards the train. “Listen Andre, we’re all getting out of here tonight. You have any family in town?”

  “No ma’am . . . Kit. I was brung in from the orphanage at Stillwater to run the station here cause I did such a good job on the railyard. All the capital cities have a railyard, and they always need workers. Hire from the orphanage all the time.” He reached back under the desk and produced his striped engineer hat. “I’m a workin’ man.”

  “Well hot damn, ain't that a lucky break for me and mine. You know what a position scout guard is, Andre?” Kitty raised an eyebrow at him.

  “No ma’am.” He flinched at his use of the word but didn’t correct himself this time.

  “Quick study like you’ll be a natural,” she said with a smile. “Here’s what you do. Get in that doorway over there, where she is. When this all goes to hell, and it will, you should be out of the main fray. But if you see any of them bastards with the dusters comin’ this way, you fire off two shots at em and run like hell. Think you can do that for me?”

  “I-I don’t have a gun.” He stammered.

  Kitty gestured at Gadot with her empty hand, pointing to the body next to her on the floor.

  Gadot narrowed her eyes but drew the dead man’s revolver and tossed it to her. Andrés’ eyes followed her gesture, and he recoiled at the sight of the man on the floor. Kitty thumped the revolver down on the counter and slid it under the separating bars to him.

  “I’m sorry ma’am. I don’t think I want to kill anyone.” His face was twisted in thought, leaning towards fear.

  “Oh Andre. You won’t be. I promise it.” Kitty scowled, looking at the bodies. “These aren’t people. Just monsters wearing people. You find yourself in the end times, Andre.” She pierced the young man with a glare. “Shoot at ‘em or near ‘em, as you will. I’ll come runnin’ either way. They won’t scare though; you should hide on the train.”

  “Yes ma’am.” He no longer flinched when saying it.

  “Pull that hammer back to cock it, and you’re off to the races. Careful not to point that at anybody you don’t mean to kill, ‘specially not me,” Kitty quipped. She smiled at him as he picked up the gun and carefully pointed it away from her.

  “Th-thank you ma’am.” Andrés seemed to steel himself, taking a deep breath and nodding before he moved to the exit. He faltered as he approached the dead men, but kept going anyway, moving into position beside the door.

  She turned back to see Kurt emptying the small safe behind the ticket counter and rolled her eyes at his shrug. “Get over here.” She hissed.

  Kurt positioned himself near the door by her, while Gadot moved to the other. Kitty gave them a nod, and all three slipped out as quiet as they could. The big boiler on the locomotive ticked and spit as it sat, giving them some cover to sneak around and secure the train.

  Kitty took the cars, as Kurt moved up to the engineer’s cabin and Gadot went around the back side. As Kitty approached the coal cart, she heard a body thump into it. Peeking over, she saw Kurt extricate his broad bladed knife from where it was buried in the dead man’s throat. He wiped it on his victim's jacket and looked up at her. They exchanged a nod and moved together to clear the rest of the train, meeting up with Gadot along the way.

  Jacob’s engineer had been the only man left on board, and all of the cars were dark and empty. There were five cars to clear in total, not including the coal cart and locomotive. Two passenger cars with stock standard hardwood seating lead the front of the train, and two cargo cars were stationed directly behind them. A small caboose with a desk, cast iron stove, and a single cot ended the procession. Kitty hauled open both cargo cars, but the only thing in either was a series of empty cargo pallets and some scattered packing straw.

  She hopped down from the second with a shrug. “Guess that’s our new home. Let’s go get our people.”

  “Yeah, about that.” Kurt fell into step beside her, walking past the station back towards town. “Why are we bothering with the NPCs? Let’s just get Jimmy and bail.”

  “You mind if I explain all my choices and motivations after we escape the crushing peril about to consume us?” Kitty snapped. She stopped and faced Kurt. “Would that be good with you Kurtis?”

  He scowled and took a breath. “Yes.”

  Kitty slapped his cheek affectionately. “Atta boy.” She started walking again, heading toward the saloon. “Thought you were on the clock. Marking ‘needs improvement’ on your assessment forms you keep this up.”

  Kurt shared a look with Gadot, and both shook their heads as they fell in line behind Kitty. “I just thought we were short on time,” he grumbled.

  Kitty froze, her shoulders hunching slightly. She turned to him, her face a twisted mask of annoyance.