Scavenge for the Future

by Evilhumour

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Detailed Report let out a sigh as she sat down at her desk, forcing back what was threatening to turn into a yawn.

“Need more caf?” Steady Aim asked as he walked over to her, bearing two cups of the stuff.

“Thanks Steads,” she said lifting the mug to her mouth.

“No problem,” her partner said as he leaned back in his chair, his eyes darting over to the outlander in lockup and squinting for the umpteenth time with Report shaking her head. “Still can’t see anything?” she asked him.

“Nothing,” Steady replied with a sigh. “There’s something bothering me about this guy, but for the life of me I cannot figure out what.”

“You’ll figure it out soon,” she said patting his arm. “So tell me,” she said, changing the subject. “How are the kids?”

“They’re good; Scratch and Aero left early late night so they could put this new thing they found yesterday,” he said amidst the hustle and bustle of the station. “They think it’s a whole ship they found…” He trailed off as Sentence walked by and stood up slowly, eyes moving to the holding cells where their latest guest was now standing up and using his magic to pull something out of his vest.

“Steady, let it go already,” she said while the hair on the back of her neck stood up for some reason and a sense of dread started to build. “Look, we’ve got a lot of paperwo-”

“GUN!” he shouted suddenly with fear in his eyes as he struggled to pull out his piece only for their prisoner to shoot Steady Aim’s head completely off his shoulders, blood coating the back of the room.

With everyone stunned by this sudden act of violence, the shooter then turned and began to use his smuggled in blaster to kill all of her fellow security officers with sickening ease as for some reason their aim seemed to slide off the shooter. Ducking low to use her desk as a shield, Report saw more and more of her friends and colleagues fall dead around her.

Struggling to keep her breath steady as she tried to draw her gun, Report strained her ears to listen for the killer when she remembered he was a unicorn.

Before she could react, magic grabbed her neck and mane and dragged her head upwards.

“Quit squirming, you little bitch,” he growled at her, placing his gun’s barrel against her temple. “Get up and don’t try anything stupid.”

Nervously, she did as he said, her eyes flicking about to see the utter carnage and destruction he had done to the place she had worked her entire life and the people she had come to love as her family all dead.

When she was fully standing, he threw her into a terminal roughly with the gun still pointed at her temple. “I need you to find me something,” he barked. “It might have been hauled in by one of those scavengers. Serial number-”

“Wait, that’s what this is for‽” she snapped angrily, glaring at him. “Beyond the fact you can submit a fucking request to see if they pull something in already, this is on a chan-”

The world exploded in pain as he socked her in the face with the gun, and she was barely able to keep conscious.

“What did I say, you little pig bitch!” he shouted at her, hitting her again with his gun, his magic hovering on the trigger. “Be quiet and do what I say! Serial numbers, four-eight-fifteen-sixteen-twenty three-forty two.”

With blood flowing down her face and an already swelling eye socket, Report reluctantly began to type the numbers into the computer and waited to see if something came up.

By the gods, either good or bad, something actually showed up as a match. It was a tail fin and-

“That’s his ship,” the killer said over her shoulder, breathing heavily into her neck and face. “Or part of it, anyways. Where was it found?”

“I don’t know,” she said as she spat blood off to the side, glaring angrily at him. “Scavengers don’t share details of their finds unless they need to report a corpse or stolen goods.”

“Then who found it, you stupid pig,” he rolled his eyes as if she was being difficult. “You should have that, right?” The way he drawled out the last words made her wish to castrate him even more than she already wanted to. Typing away, she pulled up the crew that had pulled in the fin and her heart sank.

“The crew of the Excelsior,” he read over her shoulder before he enlarged the images of Steady’s kids. “Those brats,” he snarled with his magic tightening on his gun before he managed to calm himself and a disgusting look came onto his face as he stared at Scratched’s profile.

“Does she have family?” he asked her with Report reluctantly again being forced to open the information with the killer examining both images of her mother and her father.

“Huh, he looks somewhat familiar,” he muttered to himself, face in a puzzled state.

“That’s because you just killed him, you piece of shi-”

Again the world spun away from her as he used his gun to smack her in the face, with the pain even worse than before. She was barely conscious now, and couldn’t tell if her eye had swollen shut or he had damaged it enough that it had popped out or something. And she knew that it wouldn’t matter as he was going to kill her any second now that she was no use to him.

“Check Mark, huh?” he muttered to himself as he pushed her to the floor. “Says here’s she a teacher. That will work just fine for me.”

Glaring up at him with her one good eye, Detailed Report watched him lazily aim his gun at her head before pulling the trigger.

---

“Easy goes,” Zaat said over the mic to Aerostorm. “Keep it steady. I think we got enough of the ship free now.”

“Roger that, Zaat,” Aerostorm said, holding back a cough before switching over to Scratch. “How is it on your end?”

“Good,” Scratched replied, eying the Terakian ship. They left very early in the day so they would have enough time to dig the ship up and then properly harvest it. “I think I can fly in; the ramp is open.” She peered at the entrance, no doubt forced open upon crashing on Zeehale.

“Okay, go in; Zaat, cover her when you get it secured,” Aerostorm said as she slid the Excelsior into hover with Scratched flying into the ship.

Landing inside, Scratched began to pan around the ship with her flashlight. The Terakian ship was a small, one person ship that was clearly meant for speed and nothing else.The cockpit was directly ahead with only one room off to the side with stairs leading down to the engines on the other side of door.

Walking down the hallway as Zaat began to secure the ship within their own, Scratched began to mark parts of the ship that they could use for themselves to patch up the Excelsior. Peering into the sole room on the ship beyond the cockpit, she could see a spartan bedroom which would require a more thorough search afterwards. Walking to the cockpit doors, Scratched began to try and tug them open. Grunting as she put more muscle into it, the pegasus let out a squeak of surprise when she finally forced it open and landed on her face.

“Everything okay there?” Aerostorm asked over the coms instantly, worry clear in her voice.

“Yeah, just fell on my face lo-SHIT!” Scratched swore as she shined her light onto the captain’s seat and seeing the dead body there.

“What’s wrong‽” Aerostrom shouted while Zaat saying he was on his way.

“It’s a corpse ship,” she sighed with both of them groaning loudly. As per the law of scavenging, any ship that had a dead body in it had to be reported and anything they found on the ship had to be turned over which meant that this entire trip had been one massive waste of time and energy.

“I’ll set up the flags; head on out,” Aerostorm said, coughing into the mic.

“In a moment, I wanna take a closer look,” Scratch said while making a mental note to drag her girlfriend to the hospital to get that damn cough checked out at long last.

“Just be sure not to touch the body,” Zaat said unneededly as she knew full well how much trouble she could get in if she touched the corpse.

Muttering that she knew and wasn’t going to do it, Scratched walked closer to the dead unicorn. It was a stallion dressed in semi-military vest that had blood splattered on it from the gunshot wound on the head of the dead body. She could spy the gun at the bottom of control station and a metal data box. It was highly unusual as most people used data crystals to store loose information these days.

“Uh Scratch, come up here, we’ve got a call from home by your mom,” Zaat said, causing Scratched to pause and stuff the data chunk into her pocket without thinking. Flying out of the ship and onto the hanger bay of the Excelsior, making her way to the cockpit to see what her mom wanted.

Standing next to her friends, Aerostorm gave her a warm smile before turning on the communicator and everything went to hell.

On the screen was her mother but she looked completely terrified and slightly beaten up, no doubt due to the stallion holding the gun to her head.

“MOM!” Scratched shouted in utter horror and fear with both Zaat and Aerostorm gasping loudly.

“Scratch-” her mom began only for the unicorn to smack her in the face with the gun.

“Shut up!” he yelled at her before turning his attention back to them. “Listen to me, you damn brats; you’ve got something I want and you’ll give it to me.”

Scratched could only stammer with her mind unable to comprehend what was going on and was thankful when Aerostorm placed her talons on her shoulder and spoke up for her. “What do you want.”

“You three pulled up a ship yesterday and my intel tells me you went back to it,” he stated, pushing the muzzle of the gun against Check Mark’s skull with the mare whimpering. “On it, there’s a data box. Bring it back to me within the hour and she gets to live.”

Scratch took a step forwards, pulling the data box out. “I found it but we can’t get there in that short amount of tim-”

“I said within the hour or she dies!” he shouted at Scratched before an ugly grin appeared on his face. “Unless you don’t care about her…”

“You idiot, we literally can’t get back there in an hour,” Zaat snapped, slamming his fist onto the counter. “We’re at least sixteen hours out from -”

“I don’t care; find a way to get back here now or she dies!” He snorted. “And don’t bother calling the cops; corpses can’t help you.”

That caused everyone to freeze with Check Mark ceasing her crying and getting a faraway look on her face. Scratch saw how volatile and unstable this stallion was and prayed her mother wouldn’t do what she was about to do.

“Computer, status of Aim, Steady, privilege status of spouse Mark, Check,” she shouted with Scratched wincing.

“Privilege status recognized,” the computer voice called out. “Steady Aim is currently reporting no life signals. Alerting the medical staff for possible loss of life.”

Check Mark let out an incomprehensible wail before she launched herself at the stallion, smacking at him with her wings and hooves. It was for nothing as the stallion smashed her across the face with his gun and knocked her to floor before giving an angry kick with the mare letting out a pained sob.

“MOM!” Scratched cried out again, tears in her face. “For the love of god, PLEASE STOP!”

“Come to the station if you want to see her alive!” He shouted, pointing the gun at the camera. “End transmission.” he said before panting heavily before swinging the gun downwards, seemingly unaware he was still transmitting. “You stupid bitch!” he shouted as he began to kick her again and again. “I said keep quiet!” he screamed as the gun vanished from view but from the increased shouts of pain, it was clear he was using it again to beat her before he dragged her head upwards. He leaned into her face and said, “Once your bitch of a daughter brings me what Goods stole from my boss, I think I’ll enjoy screwing her before I kill her and her friends like I killed her daddy.” He then chuckled before placing the gun back against her head. “Too bad you won’t be able to see it, you old ugly cow,” he said before pulling the trigger.

“NO!” Scratched screamed, causing the stallion to spin around with wide eyes of complete surprise on his face. It was quickly replaced by fury and a snarl as he shot the screen.

Scratched stood there dumbfounded for a long second before falling to the floor and crying uncontrollably. She felt Aerostorm’s embrace, the griffon holding her close and whispering comforting sounds. Sobbing into her girlfriend’s shoulder, Scratched was aware of Zaat and Aero talking about where they should go to before she felt Zaat turn the ship upwards while Aerostorm guided her to their room, where she continued to cry into Aerostorm until she finally passed out.

Comments

[Asolem2]

“Nothing,” Steady replied with a sigh. “There’s something bothering me about this guy, but for the life of me I cannot figure out what.”

Interesting

With everyone stunned by this sudden act of violence, the shooter then turned and began to use his smuggled in blaster to kill all of her fellow security officers with sickening ease as for some reason their aim seemed to slide off the shooter.

Very interesting

Also, something is very off about this guy, besides the obvious i mean.
It's like he expects everything to go his way, and it mostly has, which is very concerning

[LoudThunder]

Well ... they dead.
That was something. Wonder how this is gonna progress

[Direct Access]

I can see where this is coming to... If that was a normal story.
Sadly, is you story. Your stories are fucked up.
Therefore i can't.