Board Thread:Archive/@comment-24866242-20140527000107

Subject: Napalm in the Morning Date: Fri, Jan 30, 1998 9:57 PM From: PAHws

7400 HRS, The Rebellion Infested Jungle Plant of Iregyle IV

"You think he's alive?"

"Lord no, look at that gaping hole in his chest! Ain't even twitchin, th' bastard!"

"Yeah, you done him good." The man with the scar and green fuzzy iodized teeth grimaces, trying his hardest to smile and not succeeding. He shifts his weight around, getting antsy

"Maybe we better get the hell outta here, Sicky. We're all exposed an' vulneerabeel...I don't like it."

"Yeah, yeah...hold on, I wanna see somethin'...I heerd about crap like this, an' I wanna see somethin'."

The other man, the man with no shirt and the unclipped, brown, flaky, and vermin- ridden fingernails, the man called Sicky, bends down, pulling open a rusty switchblade with some difficulty and squinting. He jabs with the knife and tears upward, the muscles in his forearms squirming like they are filled with gelatinous goo

He sticks the knife in his back pocket, whistling

"Friggin-A! Frig-ging A! Would yer look at that? I knewed it! I KNEWED it!"

He stands, looking around, suddenly growing very nervous. He locks a fresh new clip into his cheap, ass-backwards assault rifle, slinging it over his neck and standing

"Come on, you was right...we gotta split, mah' man. They goin-ter be on us like crabs on a monkey now...we shouldn't never have come here, man...why'd you talk me into it, you bastard? I TOLE you it was too heavy...I TOLE you...but no, you thought you was Mr. Bad Ass, an' shanghied me here! Well, this is it! We're through! An' if you think I'm goin-ter fergit what you done, yer a friggin loony! Nah, I ain't fergettin' this one...I'm rememberin' this little escapade...you gonna pay for this one...not gonna forget this one, you bastard..."

Sicky had begun to sweat, and was pacing around the clearing, suddenly not sure if any direction was really safe. Green Teeth was frowning, ignoring Sticky and staring at the readout on the side of his COMM unit. The radar screen, normally placid and reassuring, had suddenly become filled with a massive and confusing number of glowing green dots. They filled the screen, overlapping and lighting the clearing up like the fourth of July

"Sicky, uh...Sicky?" He gives the side of the COMM box a thwap, but the blips continue to converge

"Sicky, I think you better move away from the bushes over there...C'mon Sicky, move away from them bushes, I think we might be in troub..."

Green Teeth looks up, his eyes growing wide

In the spot where until recently there had been a dead rodent with most of his chest a smoking hole of steaming gore, there was now a very live rodent chowing down on a cigar and training a very sleek, very powerful pistol on the man's bulbous and scarred head

The mouse whistles through his teeth, cocking his head to the prone body of Sicky, now minus one head and a leg

He pulls his jacket back on, buttoning it up over the hole and standing

>Got the drop on me, yer did. Must be gettin' old. I respect that; not too many people kin get one up on ole Patch.<

He sighs >Ya look like a good man, an' if yer hadn't tried ter kill me, I might could take yer as a prisoner and jest beat the crap outta yer once in awhile until the conditions were right ter use ya...<

He grins, and whispers >However, there's the matter of personal honor ta deal with. I cain't be lettin' my boys see me with my pants around my ankles, can I?<

Greenie just whimpers, as from the brush a solid platoon of men emerge and begin forming ranks behind the squatty mouse. They begin loading weapons and securing the area at Patch's signal, getting revved up for the next jaunt into the jungle

>So, I'm gonna have to kill ya. You understand, I'm sure.< He raises the gun, still smiling, but feeling a lot of empathy. Really

Greenster screams, falling over onto his butt and scrambling backwards "But what about th...we killed you...nah, nah, this ain't right..."

>Aw, you talking about that little flesh wound? Nah, that weren't nothing. All iron down there fer the most part. Ree-placeable. You did, however, manage to really disfigure the hell outta my tatoo...I believe that's what was botherin' yer friend so much...<

He sighs, bringing the gun back up >Now. Back to yer dramatic death scene.<

Greenie begins to moan, brining his hands up to shield his face

Patch shrugs, and shoots him in the eye through his left hand. The man crumples, dying quickly and getting blood everywhere

Patch squirms, scratching the hole and eyeing his men over

>They better pay me the full commision fer this worthless op, er there's goin-ter be some hell ter pay.<

Subject: Napalm in the Afternoon Date: Sat, Jan 31, 1998 6:21 PM From: PAHws

The man know only as El Vaca paces nervously. He has no shoes. He has no shirt. He has no hair. He does however have a very large, tubularly snakelike Chambers .06 "Rattlin' Gatlin" Slotted Railcannon draped around his shoulders and seated on his chest, and a very old pair of black plastic jogging shorts clinging to his huge, impressive frame

Most of the time El Vaca prefers to be free and unencumbered from the restraints of clothing, and be one with the highpowered weaponry he loves like women, but today he has consented to wear shorts as a personal favor to Patch, whose mobile encampment he is now guarding. It's not that Patch particularly cares what twisted fetishes a soldier might have, but in El Vaca's case, the nakedness tends to make the other members of his crew a wee bit nervous

"Hey Vac! Get yer ass over here and help me with this satellite the bossman wants put up..." A very small, angry looking man calls from the clearing, struggling with the large dish he has perched on his back and sweating profusely "...I'm fixin' ter blow a hemmyrage carryin' this bastard!"

El Vaca simply shakes his head no, gesturing with his eyes towards the mobile command post set up behind him. He follows orders better than most machines, and his orders today are to guard the command post

"Aw, cummon Vac, don't make come over there and teach you some friggin' manners! Jest help me out for a second! I'm dyin' here!" He falls to one knee, face contorting in agony

"Leave him alone Ricketts, he's doin' his job, you do yours..." A tall, milky-complexioned black T-shirt clad man sits Indian style at a laptop, typing away and barking orders at the small group of men who are trying to set up camp. The blazing afternoon sun is working everyone's nerves, and any semblance of order is becoming very hard to keep

"You stay the hell outta this, MacLimerick, ya friggin' techie! I don't see you luggin' around no 500 lbs on yer back in this heat!"

MacLimerick stands, cocking his head to one side

"What did you say?"

"You heard me, ya friggin' peesa lickspittle! Why don't you set up this dish, an' I'll screw around with that computer an' boss everyone around..."

MacLimerick glares, to Rickett's perverse satisfaction, and his face fills with burning color

"Oh, you talk pretty big, don't you? You want a piece a' me Ricketts? I been achin' to beat your ass since this mornin;' you just try me you worthless grunt!"

Ricketts tosses the dish aside with ease, drawing strength from his anger, grinning daggers and clenching his fists together. His small body is thickly roiled in slabs of intense muscle, and his senses are cranked up a few notches due to the hefty amount powdered Fructose he's been snorting

He charges at MacLimerick, swinging his shoulders and maximizing his weight thrust. Before he can end MacLimerick's short career as a human, though, El Vaca suddenly gives a whistle and growls a warning through his teeth. He has seen something in the brush. The two men quickly forget their dispute and draw their weapons from the folds in their clothing, becoming silent

With a silencing gesture to the rest of the men, MacLimerick crouches and trains his tiny Derringer automatic at the spot El Vaca has given his attention to. Ricketts squints, swiveling his neck around to take in the whole picture and tensing his hairy fists around an M-74 Assault Rifle

The bushes rustle, and a nervous looking skinny kid, 17 or 18, steps through, brandishing a gun and breathing heavy. His eyes barely have time to grow wide before they adopt the lackluster coat of death that usually comes when one is shot, halved, and blown up simultaneously in a hail of gunfire and high explosives

Patch scampers out from underneath the door of the MCU, wearing only underwear and dragging a bottle of vermouth filled to the brim with vodka (quick martini's) behind him. He stops underneath El Vaca, sighing and staring at the bloody mess

>Hell, men. Cain't yer keep yer guns in yer pants fer jest a little bit? Keerist, that's ugly...<

He walks over to the mangled corpse, fishing around in the entrails and goo for some kind of identification. After a moments search, he comes up with a plain manilla folder, covered in blood, with Major Patch Lightthorne stamped in block letters in the outside

>We done shot the messenger, boys. Hope yer proud of yerselves. Ricketts, you and Vivaldi get this crap scraped up, I don't want any flies in my camp. An' hurry up with that satellite uplink, willya? What do I pay yer for, anyway?<

Patch heads back into the MBU, envelope slung over his shoulder, taking pulls from the bottle when the fancy strikes him. He sits on a stainless steel card table, ripping the folder open with his teeth. Grimacing at the metallic taste of the fresh blood, he begins to read

Subject: Ah, Revelation Date: Sun, Feb 1, 1998 9:50 PM From: PAHws

FROM THE COLLECTIVE COOPERATIVE DESK UNIT OF GENERAL FIDEL AAMCOPPERANCIO

Greetings Major Lightthorne!

Gosh darn, what a bang-up job you are doing! I said to myself this very morning in fact, I said: "I wish all the mercs I hired were as thoughtful and truly life affirming as that rag tag bunch of scrappers I hired to get the job done!" And you are, Mr. Lightthorne, getting the job done! Why, all the reports are saying that the rebellion is going almost twice as fast as all the projected figures and I attribute it wholly and sincerely to you!

Wow! Blows my mind! The casualty rates alone are staggering, and my homegrown freedom fighters have yet to leave the relative safety of their living rooms! Just think, by this time next month, that evil and shifty despotic dictator running this beautiful planet with his messy, iron fist could be replaced by yours truly!

There is, however, one thing that is gnawing at my mind and causing me to toss and turn on my humble, bed of the people. You see, I just find it very hard to get any sleep done when I think of all the oppression and repression and depression my people are getting slapped with. Hence, the tossing and turning. If only there were some way to ensure victory and guarantee that my people were free, free as the doves fly! Can you think of anything,

Mr. Lightthorne? I sure can't! However, certain benefactors, who shall remain nameless and unmentioned, have brought it to my attention that there IS A WAY! Try to contain yourself, Mr. Lightthorne, I know you are excited, but I have reason to believe that with one foul swoop we can end this mess and get back to running a successful planet! Allow me to elaborate...

A large and posibly back crushing shipment of weapons and supplies will be delivered to the capital city of Pollo de Fromage at a date to be rendevouzed at a later time. Mechs, backpack nukes, the works! This shipment could be big things for us! Biiiiig things! If we can take that shipment, Lightthorne, I think we can win this noble, yet floundering revolution! I have faith, Lightthorne, I have faith!

Now, I know we've never met face to face, but I believe I know you well enough from your work, and I rest assured you will take this assignment with your usual zeitgist. Gee, I'd truly hate to think of what what would happen to me if you didn't! I might go crazy with disappointment! Do rash things! Hurt people! Maybe even...kill people. No, I wouldn't wnat to be around me if you decided to decline. But hey, you wouldn't do that, right?

Godspeed,

Fidel Aamcopperancio

Patch sighs, crumpling the note into a little ball, and setting it on fire

Subject: MacLimerick Stinks of Napalm Date: Sat, Feb 7, 1998 4:25 PM From: PAHws

Rance MacLimerick hadn't always wanted to be a mercenary. When he was in school, he had always told himself that someday he would be a doctor, or an engineer, or even a commercial pilot. He had even taken all the necessary classes to allow him access to a legit career, despite the jeers and taunts of his lower class, no-future peers. When all was said and done though, he had really just been lying to himself. He had been born a merc, he would live as a merc, and he would die a merc; fate had given him the shaft, and the only way he could avoid insanity was to hunker down and take it like a man

Sometimes he regrets his decision to let life lead him along its inevitable course. Take now, for instance. Here he was, loaded to the teeth with impact full-force weaponry and supplies, hunkered down in a pool of steaming mud, and desperately trying not to make any noise at all, for the express purpose of fragging a convoy he cared not one whit about. And why? Because some brainless, gumptionless RODENT had tolt him to. And he hadn't even been nice about it, it had been:

>MacLimerick, git yer ass in gear and set up that initial blow to get those bastards off guard! Take out as many of 'em as possible, and try to stay alive as best you can! I ain't hauling you back in a body bag, cain't afford it, so if you get waxed yer corpse is gonna be food fer the natives... <

No, sometimes life really sucked. But he had not yet reached the point where he was ready to part with it, and the mouse seemed to know what he was doing, battlewise. He would wait here, in the mud, baking alive, until he saw those hovertanks and Assault Mechs Patch'd said would be guarding the trucks, and then he would begin systematically nuking the hell out of them via programmed pre-positioned launchers buried into the ground

He sighs, trying to look on the bright side. At least he's not totally sick in the head, like Vac over there...and he can always go apply for that engineering job once this op's over and done with. The money he's making here might just cover the travel expenses to the good life, he thinks. Someday he might have a wife, some kids, a pet of some sort...things are looking up

He grins, his eyes moving back up to scan the horizon once more. Nothing. Maybe this was all some cloak and dagger escapade to get them off guard and there wasn't any convoy...it was past time, and he couldn't see a darn thing

He squints, sighing. Was that glint sun on a canopy? Could have been. He takes out his binocs and focuses in, a small gasp escaping his lips as he recons the complete formation, complete with 3 Marauders and a customized Raven doing perimeter scans

His COMM-Unit squawks in his ear, and he turns to examine the heads up display in Neurohelm

"We have contact, Jolly Rodger. Commence firing. And try not to hurt yerself up there, we know sometimes you techies can get a little scared when there's shootin."

MacLimerick rolls his eyes, fumbling around with a tiny warhead

"Up yours, Ricketts. We never did finish what we started..."

He mutes the COMM, plugging in trajectories and focusing his first shot at the Marauder on the left, closest to the bunker where the rest of the squad is powered down

He breathes in, holding it, and depresses the switch on the small backpack nuke silo he has set up on a flat rock. The missle corkscrews from its shell, knocking MacLimerick back a few yards and locking in on its target. MacLimerick stands, ignoring his cover now that the fish is in the water, and grins

The projectile plows through the cockpit of the Marauder, taking the ethnic poorly trained pilot by suprise, and detonating. The first wave, heat and fire, rushes through the first Marauder, and knocks a second one behind off of its legs. The pilots are cooked alive and then blown apart in glorious fusion, and then comes the second wave. The air rushes back in to fill the nuclear void, blowing the mechs into shimmering gossamer puddles of mechanical goo. Bee-yootiful

He glances over to the trucks and hover units that are making up the convoy, their target for capture. Except for one truck that has been flipped over and is lying on its back, wheels spinning away, the convoy seems unaffected. As for whether or not the crew members are loosing hair and hawking up their own vital organs, that is still up in the air, but at least the cargo is okay

The COMM-Unit beeps away madly, but is still on mute. He picks it up, watching people scramble around in the wreckage, and the mechs who weren't destroyed, the Raven and a now lone Marauder, walk around in confused circles. A teeny mushroom cloud appears in the sky, the signal for the rest of the squad to move in

"Good shootin', MacLimerick. Get on down here once we got this thing neutralized an' try to figger out how we're goin-ter transport all this crap, okay? Fine job, though. Almost worthy of myself. Patch out."

Rance pulls a cigar from a humidor in his flak jacket, toking up and heading back down the cliff to join the others

Subject: Ricketts' Charge Date: Tue, Feb 10, 1998 3:39 PM From: PAHws

"Up yours, Ricketts. We never did finish what we started..."

From the cockpit of his punchy and small custom Sentinel, Ex-Lieutenant Jim Ricketts turns a very deep shade of angry red, the vein in his forehead beginning to pulse. The audacity of that bastard MacLimerick...saying something like that over open air. He was really going to have to kill him now, for honor's sake. He couldn't imagine what merc life would be like if it was spread around that he was a coward

He flips open the COMM-Link from his perch, hand shaking

"Oh, yer goin-ter wish yer hadn't said that, love. I'm gonna rip yer a new one, and feed yer th' drippings...and that's just fer starters."

Too late. MacLimerick must have his box muted. Good, now he would be unprepared and allow Ricketts to squish his thin little pencil neck without much of a fight. He begins to fantasize about the most gory ways to kill him, his hands flexing on the sides of his chair in rythm to his own perverted brainwaves

His anger keeping its firm hold, Ricketts watches the convoy with growing blood lust. He is raring to go, only held back by the promise of unchecked killing when the bombs drop and confusion takes over the convoy. The tiny Sentinel matches his personality perfectly; little, mean, and very deadly

The mercenary mechs, three of them including Patch's 56 Screamin' Bejesus, are seated in a hollowed bunker at the edge of the forest with their reactors shut down. Next to Ricketts' Sentinel, Fredo Vivaldi, a rather quiet and stoically capable pilot, awaits oblivion in a large and sleek stolen Timberwolf. Ricketts glances over to the behemoth, trying to see his face through the tinted shielding. Is that laughter he hears? Is Vivaldi laughing at him? No...he wouldn't dare. Or has even he, after the gaul of that bastard MacLimerick, lost his respect?

He narrows his eyes, hitting record levels of sheer psychotic madness. He barely even notices the nuclear blast that rocks the convoy and obliterates a pair of Marauders; all his energy is focused on bloody images of MacLimerick's sallow face. The COMM - Link brings him down a couple of notches, though, as Patch begins to give orders

"Good shootin,' MacLimerick. Get on down here once we got this thing neutralized an' try to figger out how we're goin-ter transport all this crap, okay? Fine job, though. Almost worthy of myself. Patch out."

A ramp on the side of the bunker slowly unfolds, and Vivaldi and Lightthorne power up their respective mechs. Remembering who he is and what he's doing there, Ricketts does the same, taking the lead spot in the formation and tromping up the path. After a few yards, golden sunlight begins to pour through the canopy, and he begins to asses the situation through his haze of anger

"Hey Vivaldi, how's about me an' you squirrel that long and ugly Marauder at 2 O' Clock before it leaves us all greasy spots, huh?"

"You tag him, I kill him, boss. Right behind you."

"Th' Ravens all yers then, Ricketts. Try to leave some pieces to take back with us this time, okay?"

Ricketts growls, circling around to the base of the cliff and targeting the scrawny and poorly built I.S. Raven. All he had fitted into his mech for this run was a large autocannon and a few rounds of ammo, but that should be enough to take this pea shooter on sticks. The Raven swivels away from him, trying to outrun him and leaving an exposed and tempting backside. He gives his guns a twitch, letting loose a single, small burst, and the Raven goes up in apocalyptic glory, ammo explosions sending it to hell. Ricketts feels no remorse, and his thoughts return to MacLimerick

The COMM - Link begins to squawk about problems taking down the Marauder, and he vaguely comprehends Patch giving orders for ground troops to move in before he switches the box off. No more noise, except for the high-pitched squeal inside his head. Good. He ascends the cliff at an angle, scanning the ground for MacLimerick, and heading away from the heat of battle. A twisted grin works its way up the sides of his face

He pushes the throttle forward, breaking into a sprint. He rounds a curve, moving into a vacant alley and gaining speed. At the far end of the canyon, he spots a spec of a silhouette in the dust, and enlarges the picture until he can make out the profile. MacLimerick, walking briskly. Out of ammo, his only option is to crush him underneath the pads of his feet, but he finds this to be more comforting somehow. More personal. He knocks the stick all the way forward, locking it and settling back into his captain's chair

Ricketts' Neurohelm begins recieving signals on its job, and goes into action. Small corrections for angle and trajectory are made, and Ricketts begins his charge

Subject: Interludinal Bad Mojo Date: Wed, Feb 11, 1998 3:43 PM From: PAHws

Bored, and filled with tension and nervous energy, Patch finds himself in desperate need for something to do. He has been sitting in this bunker with nothing but the generator on for nearly three hours, playing Virtual Pong, and consistently beating the crap out of his onboard AI. He is ready to blow things up, and spin a little gratifying violence...but, it is not yet meant to be

He sighs, looking up at Vivaldi's big Timberwolf, which at present he is seated under. Now THAT's a mech. It's maybe not put together as well as a Lightthorne, but from the looks of it, it packs a pretty hefty punch. He wouldn't mind taking that monster out for a test drive, if the circumstances were different and he was not stuck rotting in this godfersakin' bunker waiting for a convoy he only halfway believed really existed

The Mighty Mouse begins bleeping at him, notifying him that the file he was downloading is finished and ready to rumble. He had taken the PADD from the fallen Pollo de Fromage guard with the atrocious dental hygiene, and discovered a nifty program entitled 1001 Ancient "Rock and / or Roll" Hits, which he had been subsequently downloading for the past week. And now, it was finished. Great! Something to pass the time

He randomly punches in a number, the screen telling him he is about to listen to a song by a band known as "The Righteous Brothers." Hmmm, the name sounds likely enough. He leans back in his chair, awaiting the tunes

"You've lost...that luvvvvin' feeelin...whoa-oah, that luvvvvin' feelin'...youve lost that LUVVVVIN' feelin', an' now it's gone, gone, gone - whooah-oh..."

His first clue that things are not at all right here is that the song is being sung by two guys, presumably to each other, and that is highly strange. Fruity, even. He begins to get a little nervous

"A love, a love, a love unlike anything ELSE...baybee, baybee..."

Yeah, he was beginning to get an idea of just what exactly that SPECIAL kind of love was, this realization sending him into kind of a frantic panic

"Baybee, baybee...I'll get down on my knees for youuuu..."

He screams, diving for the "Next Song" button and pressing it repeatedly. Another song works its way onto his speakers, and he sighs with relief. He knows this one, "Heard it Through the Grapevine," by Marvin Gaye. A winner, in his book. Patch croons along, keeping it low so as not to miss any important messages

Too late, though. Bad music is a bad omen to a mouse, and as things begin to happen, as he eventually does lead Vivaldi and Ricketts outside to do battle, he wonders just what exactly this firefight will hold for his squad

Subject: The End of the Whole Mess Date: Thu, Feb 26, 1998 8:10 PM From: PAHws

The sun rises over the large bustling metropolis of Pollo de Fromage

An hour later, another, brighter sun rises to the north, flash frying many of the citizens and sending shock waves of ultrasonic death to the others. A few suburbs to the extreme south are untouched for the time being, but without their energy source or staples, this luck will not hold out for long. Better to die early, of third-degree burns, than of starvation

The nuclear blast is a result of the triggering of a hundred or so 12 kiloton backpack nukes, the personal stash of one Rance MacLimerick. This is what as known in mercenary circles as "the revenge factor." Never kill a techie, unless you know he won't kill you in some creative, dramatic post mortem way

In this case, MacLimerick had, on a drunken whim, a small cybernetic trigger implanted in his brain stem, something he has never told anyone he had put in, nor cared to think about for too long. Upon death, this trigger would wait until it recieved no further brain signals, about 20 or so minutes after brain death, and then send a message to the aforementioned nukes to detonate away

So kaboom, MacLimerick finally got the respect he craved. So what if he killed a couple hundred million people. For the next thousand years, people would tell the tale of a lonely mech pilot who got the last laugh, personally decimated a pretty good chunk of the planet Iregyle, and almost single handedly ended a potentially devastating rebellion, before it even got started

A Week Later: A Tiny Cantina on the Iregylian Moon of Toreador, 0100 hrs

The double doors swing open, and the two people in the bar: the bartender and a scraggly man nursing a watery beer, turn to look. Dripping with gravity, and overtly aware that everyman's gaze is on his every move, a tall, burly man steps in, covered from stem to stern in black gauzy fabric, and positively bulging with complicated and expensive weaponry

He gives his neck a crack, approaching the bar and kicking the wooden stool in front out of the way. Squinting with distaste at the single patron, he slaps a wad of C-Bills down on the bar, letting the tender get a long, slow look before speaking

"Information."

The bartender sniffs, spitting into a glass and shining it up

"I want you to tell me where I can find Patch Lightthorne. He's a rodent; a, uh, mouse. I've come...to kill him."

The tender gives his head a slight shake, then shrugs, turning away to attend to the till

"Hey! I asked nicely once, don't make me ask again."

The bartender quirks his lips, tempted, but ultimately declining to reply

Growling, the man fumbles around inside his clothing for a weapon of some sort, but before he can access it, the scraggly beer drinker taps him on the shoulder

The dirty mongrel lips his lips, his eyes never straying far from the wad of cash

"I might know a Lightthorne."

The black assassin grins twistedly, relaxing

"Talk." He gestures with his head to a table. They sit, the Man in Black leaning forward eagerly to catch every word and weigh its merit

"Yeah, I seen a mouse once, didn't know his name at the time, but it coulda been Lightthorne. Mean little SOB, I can understand why got odds to settle with him."

The man takes a portion of tobbac from inside the lining of his shoe, rolling a cig with a cocktail napkin and sealing it with spittle

"It was the damndest thing..." The man looks around, behind him and to the side, suddenly nervous "Once, I was hauling this crapload a' cargo to del Pollo one time...as a Govinment conscript, and all...and we crested this rise, you know, for the last stretch. Clear outta the blue, a pair a' nukes comes raining down on us...blowing our support to kingdom come. Blam! Just like that!"

He laughs hoarsely, taking a drag

"Well, hell, I was just pulling in a few hundred C-Bills for the gig...and the cargo weren't none a' mine...so like any other sane, human being, I got the hell outta there. I took my truck, turned it for the mesa, and hightailed the bastard for the jungle. I figgered I could take it easy there, you know, till things quieted down."

"So I tuckered in, cut my engine, and took a breather. I was watching thin's from the trees, right, jittery as hell...and I seen this Mech. Musta been...three or four feet tall, at the most. It was just going friggin' AWOL, out there, though. Pluggin' some of those heavies with some kinda souped up artillery cannon, although I don't how in the hell they crammed that thing in there. It was just a mean mother, right? I remember thinkin' to myself, that thing had to've been remote control. It was just so tiny."

"Pretty soon, things get kinda slow out there, and I begin to get my sense back, so I try to make a break for it, right? I mean, I ain't got no death wish or anything, and I ain't taking a bullet for some government I ain't even a part of on some planet I can't even pronounce right. So I floor the truck, and head for a private airport I know about, hoping to book passage on the next thing to get off this friggin' rock."

"So I'm gunnin' along, makin' pretty good time, and I'm startin' to relax a little, you know, since I'm pretty sure they didn't see me or nothin...when all of a sudden I look up, and see this rat in my rearview mirror. He's just sitting there behind me, all dressed up an' everything. No friggin' foolin'. He's even got a little pistol, and a bottle of what looks to be friggin' Jack Daniels, for crying out loud. So I freak out, you know, thinking I've finally lost that last bit a' sense the good Lord gave me, and start screaming and hitting the brakes."

"That bastard rat jumps up and sticks his little pistol in my face and orders me to drive, and to stop yelping. Well, hell...I wasn't about to take orders from nothin lower'n me on the food chain, so I rear back to end his little miserable life, and he up and blows my left hand clean off. Clean off!"

The drunkard stubs out his cig, rolling up his sleeve and showing the assasin the scar where he had paid a boozehound medic a hefty sum to sew the hand back on. The Man in Black is unimpressed

"Anyway, this clears my head pretty damn fast. With him screeching orders at me, an' me trying to keep her steady with just one paw, it was the ride from hell, lemme tell ya. We finally got to the outpost, and as soon as I switched her off, this blinding...flash...just overwhelms me, and I'm out like a light. Still don't know what the hell that was. When I woke up, he was gone. I hooked it to Toreador, and am trying to forget the whole bloody nightmare, personally..."

The dirty and unkempt alkie leans back, somewhat satisfied at having got that off his chest. He points to the money, grinning stupidly

"I guess I'll jest be taking this here then, and be on my way..."

The black cloaked man laughs, coldly. He picks up the cash before the wino can, stuffing it into his suit. From the backroom, the toilet is heard to flush

"You didn't tell me anything. He could be anywhere by now, you idiot, you dropped him off at the airport. And then you waste my time with that long, boring, and POINTLESS story! I should kill your ass right now, but I..."

>It had a point.< A scratchy, familiar voice coldly addresses the man from the bar

>A lesson even, comrade.< The mouse raises his railgun, knocking back the tail end of a bottle of vodka he had started while in the bathroom

>Don't f**ck with a mouse, when he's been drinking!< The Man in Black, his mouth a suprised "O," barely has time to register the speaker before his head crystallizes into a million billion red fragments of plasmic dust, thus ending his short career as leader of the Iregyle Rebellion, General Fidel Aamcopperancio

The drunk grins, nodding his thanks, and heading straight for the man's cash supply

"Nice shootin' Patch."

>Thank yer, Ricketts. And from now on, keep yer head screwed on tight, okay? Iregyle IV, it can be forgotten, but I think it's time we went our seperate ways jest the same. Let's call it, irreconcileable differences.<

Ricketts nods, divvying up the cash and tossing Patch his share. He watches the mouse leave, scratching his wrist where the mouse had blown apart his hand on that fateful day. The story he had told was only a half lie, and his lesson had been learned 