Star Trek Cowboy

Why did we listen to Spike?

As disruptor blasts ricocheted off the rocks above Jet's head, he finally remembered why it was a bad idea to listen to Spike.

So when Spike said he had a plan to free Kesta. Jet steered the Bebop toward Ma'ris a backwater hole-in-the-wall not even listed on tourist maps.

Which is why Jet had been more than a little surprised to a transport shuttle appear in front of them, artillery at the ready—the shuttle pilot couldn't steer it out of the way of said artillery in time to avoid a hit. The shuttle had plummeted to the ground below before Faye could even find her voice to scream obscenities at them for possibly killing Kesta.

Anyway.

Jet crouched behind an outcropping of stone at the foot of a tall rock formation shaped (for lack of better comparison) like a hand reaching right out of the cracked desert, tall columns of stone stretching fingerlike toward the lilac sky and yellow clouds roiling high above the terraformed earth. Faye would probably mock Jet for talking flowery, but the only other things he could think to compare the big rock to were those big sandstone mesas in you always saw in old westerns and John Wayne movies—yeah, that's right, from Old Earth's Monument Valley in what was it, Arizona? Arkansas? He never could keep the United States straight, anyway, and Faye already made enough fun of him for being an old man without knowing he liked classic cinema. With the finger comparison he'd stick.

Another blast ricocheted off the stone; Jet fired back blind, robotic arm barely even feeling the recoil. Jet pressed his organic fingers to the sherif star shaped com badge. "Spike? Faye? Ed?" he asked.

It crackled with static.

Jammed? Of course it was being jammed it's what Klingon's do

Cursing, he chanced a glance over the top of his rocky hideaway. Dozens of the mesas dotted the parched earth in all directions, masses of stone dark against pale dirt, and they all looked pretty much the same: completely useless. A column of smoke drifted from behind one mesa maybe five hundred feet away, black and oily and thick. The shuttle, obviously. Shot down and burning. No signs of life or civilization in any direction aside from the Klingon morons he'd spotted crouched some yards off behind another bit of bulbous rock. Just two, with a bird of prey parked a ways behind them on the desert floor. Which meant there were three other were in the area, as unaccounted for as the rest of the Bebop crew.

Jet raised his hands into the air, his converted Walther P99 phaser dangling by the trigger guard from one metal fingertip.

"Now, now, fellas," he called during a lull in the gunfire. Tone jovial, casual, nonchalant, he said: "Why don't we cool our heads a minute, see if we can work this out?"

The gunfire stopped.

There followed a pause.

Cautiously, Jet peeked over the top of the rock.

The Klingons spotted him, yelped, and opened fire.

Jet jerked back down again with a grumble. "Guess they're not really the talking sort."

Not that the attempt at a ceasefire hadn't been without some success. He'd gotten another look at the klingons locations. Leaving the Klingons occupied with a phantom enemy, Jet allowed himself a satisfied grin and picked his way around the edges of the gigantic rock formation, sticking close to the shadows at its base as he circled the thing—circled it the long way 'round, hooking back toward the thugs and their own hiding spot. He glanced left and right whenever he got a good vantage point, scanning the horizon and the dozens of other mesas for a shock of bright blue jacket, livid yellow hot pants, or flaming red hair.

He didn't see any of those things.

He saw only a dark wall of cloud to the west, rising black and ominous against the pale purple sky.

Jet paused when he spotted it. The roiling black cloud stretched from the ground to even above the tops of the mesas, enveloping the mesas one by one in its dark mass as it made its steady way toward him across the dry, cracked plains. The yellow clouds in the clear purple sky shuddered and rippled, and when the black wall reached them, they dragged downward like bubbles through a straw and disappeared into the dark cloud below. Above it all loomed the bloated bulk of Jupiter itself, dominating the western sky like the watchful eye of some great and hungry god.

A sandstorm.

Fucking great.

"Never should've listened to Spike," Jet muttered, and as if summoned by his words a wind kicked up, hot and biting and full of grit. Jet shielded his eyes with one hand and spat a mouthful of dirt onto the stone below his feet. He'd have to make this quick, find a place to lie low until the storm passed. He just hoped the others saw the storm in time and took cover before it hit.

Continuing around the rock formation took only a few minutes, no more time spared for the ominous wall of dust heading his way. Ears trained on the gunfire still pop-pop-popping right where he'd left it, Jet rounded the entire formation on silent feet until his mental map of the terrain told him he'd gotten close enough to take a shot. Jet sketched a map in his head of where the two Klingons with the guns should be and, back pressed tight to rock, peered around a boulder toward their position.

Jet saw movement.

Jet struck.

No time to think, no time to plan; the firecrackers would run dry soon. A black figure moved amidst brown stone and Jet raised his gun, training it on the man in a motion born as much from training as from instinct. He squeezed the trigger in that same glide and pull of practiced muscle, Walther P99 roaring it fired a phased blast and cut the air toward its intended target. The man screamed, lurching to the side, but Jet's sharp eyes noted that he'd only hit the Klingons shoulder—not a killing blow. He raised the gun again as the Klingon stumbled back and headed for the cruiser, sight trained between the man's retreating shoulders.

Something crunched behind Jet's back.

He turned.

Atop a jut of rock crouched the other Klingon, gun raised.

Jet had time to think only one thing—that the corporate jerks had had the same idea he did, circling around to mount a surprise attack—as he raised his gun and tried to beat his attacker to the gunfire punch, but he knew it wouldn't make a difference. The asshole carried a handgun and the barrel had already been leveled, a leering face behind the weapon promising Jet's death with a single pull of the trigger. Still, Jet tried to raise the Walther, and time seemed to slow as the enemy's arm flexed, muscles contracting one by one, finger bearing down on the trigger millimeter by excruciating millimeter—

Over Jet's shoulder, thunder boomed.

The Klingon yelped and fell backward in a spray of blood.

Jet didn't move. He stared at the boulder before him, at the top of it where the thug had fallen out of sight, without comprehending.

That thunder—where had it—? That's when he saw Kesta, she was laying in the middle of the shuttle wreckage.

Kesta's survival instinct did what her conscious brain could not, and turned her body to face her newest threat.

Of all the things Kesta expected to find behind her, she did not rank among the number. However Jet black was not one of them, Kesta smiled before everything went quite black.