The Space Pirate 1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

single one of them had the leery smirk of a rapist. Charley smiled and made to remove her shift.
    “Looks like you got me, fellas,” she purred, removing the first pellet she could find in her pocket. This one was green, whatever that meant. She was about to find out.
    She thrust the thing into the jeep and watched it crack open upon contact with a man’s forehead. A yellow gas spread through the interior, making the men gag immediately. Feeling emboldened, Charley held a hand over her nose and backed away. She watched, slightly sickened as the men hung over the edge of the jeep and vomited uncontrollably. Before long the cloud had dispersed over the salt pan, carried by the midday winds. But the damage had already been done. The men clutched at their throats desperately, anything to remove the toxic scum settling there. Charley dragged each one from the jeep, laying them on the crusted sand in a neat row. The goons were simply too ill to muster any defiance.
    “I’m sorry, I know you’re just doing your jobs,” she announced. “But I’m a fucking space pirate and you’re standing in my way.”

7
     
    And with that she blasted them all neatly through the chest. Charley didn’t have a sadistic bone in her body and was keen to make their deaths as clean as possible. Besides, apart from being power-addicted thugs, they’d done nothing to Charley directly. They were just victims of a bad, bad system.
    “Blame society,” Charley muttered as she sat in the jeep and gripped the wheel.
    She was skidding over the salt pan in seconds, eager to hit the front gates at high speed. She was pleasantly surprised to find the gates were still open.
    “How’s one girl gonna beat four big guys, right,” Charley said bitterly as she crashed into the guard waiting at the gate. He was thrown several yards into the compound and didn’t move. Charley leaped from the jeep and put him out of his misery. Just in case he needed it.
    Using the jeep as cover, Charley peered over the bonnet with both pistols poised. Her targeting computer pointed out three men. Two had scrambled for cover behind a sheet of tin and a pile of wheel caps respectively, while the third peered down imperiously from the villa’s third storey balcony. That man carried a crude, home made shotgun fashioned from piping tube and rusted circuitry. It was only capable of firing one round but it was enough to remove a large chunk from the front of the jeep.
    “You’re done, asshole,” Charley muttered as she fired at the red graticule her computer offered. The balcony guard fell back, bounced off the window and tipped over the rail to land awkwardly in the dust.
    The other two goons cowered beyond view. Most of these guys just weren’t prepared for a heavily-armed girl from the local shanties. Charley stepped forward with confidence, knowing that taking these two down was a simple matter of flanking them. She picked off the first one as he tried to make for the villa entrance. The second rushed her with a pickax and was thrown back by plasma bolts from both of Charley’s pistols. The yard was clear. Charley checked the battery pack levels of both blasters - medium. More than enough to take care of Boss Pete inside the villa, but it also meant Charley would need to source fresh energy cells after the fight. Silverton had given her plenty, but in hindsight she wished he had more in the way of support supplies. But then again, carrying them across the salt pan would’ve been difficult anyway.
    The front entrance to the villa was secured by two old-fashioned cross beams on the inside. Boss Pete had never had need to protect against energy attacks. Until now.
    Charley unleashed several bolts into the lock mechanism and turned it into scrap metal. The inner bolts themselves took a little longer. When the doors finally burned through and swung open noiselessly, Charley took an instinctive step back and waited. Whoever was inside would’ve had plenty of time to prepare