I was busy packing the next morning when
there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Nick standing there with a
bag in his hand, I turned and walked into the lounge room with a jerk of my
head and said over my shoulder as I went,
“Don’t tell me you want to come along as
well or has Sammy finally given you your marching orders—or both.”
When we arrived in the room, I turned to
face him as he put the bag on the side table, unzipped it, and pulled a Colt .45
Desert Eagle semiautomatic pistol from it.
“Do me a favor and take this with you,” Nick
said.
“In God’s name, why, Nicholas? I’m flying
there to save them, not exterminate them!”
“You don’t know these people. They had front
row seats when the human race decided to destroy each other in an orgasm of
fire. They may have become mentally unhinged by the ordeal! I’m pretty sure I
would have been.”
“Mate, you’ve always been mentally unhinged.
Do you have any idea what would happen if you fired a gun in an oxygen-rich
environment such as the inside of a spaceship? The whole damn thing would
probably explode! Even if it didn’t, the bullet piercing the hull would cause a
massive decompression, which would cause the ship to implode, and I wouldn’t want
to be on that ship when either, or both, of those things happened.”
“Just humor me and put it in your bag. I
would feel happier if you did. If you don’t have to use it, well and good. But
if you do, aim very carefully,” he advised.
“Yeah all right, but I don’t see any of them
attacking the people who are saving them from certain death,” I insisted.
“Good, I feel a lot happier about it. Not
that I give a rat’s ass about your sorry butt, but if the rest of the crew got
murdered, Sammy and I would have to do all the work around here! You don’t do
much around here anyway.”
“Screw you and the ship you flew in on,
Nick!”
Nick and I had a talent for adjusting
derogatory and insulting epithets to suit our circumstances.
“ That’s spaceship,
you idiot. See you at the staging area in three hours,” he said over his
shoulder as he left, chuckling to himself.
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