Back in Action

Thirteen hours. That’s all it had taken for it to go wrong.
Jerrold Pershing stared at the smoke coming from the barrel of his M6B, his eyes moving to the body of the man whom his gun had been pointing at. Blood still poured from the open wounds caused by a pair of 12.7x40mm SAP-HE rounds. The man was killed almost instantly, his lungs likely obliterated by the twin high explosive rounds, not to mention any damage done to nearby organs from the explosive pressure waves.
Jerrold’s eyes moved from the corpse to the second man standing behind it, mouth still agape at the sight of his dead associate. The second man’s gaze lifted from the body and met Jerrold’s, crazed fear on full display. For his part, Jerrold only scowled in return as he shifted the pistol to point towards the second man’s skull. The other man, upon seeing the pistol directed at his head, panicked and dropped his own weapon, falling to the ground.
“N-no! C’mon man, don’t kill me! I give up, I quit! You let me live and I never come back. I-I’ll leave the planet, even. Please man, just don’t kill me.” The man pleaded, the start of tears appearing in the corner of his eyes.
Jerrold rolled his eyes and sighed, taking a few short steps back from where the man had knelt down. The man, believing this to be a sign of mercy, exhaled deeply in relief. He rubbed the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand as he stood up shakily.
“H-hey, man. Thanks for not kill-,” the man was cut off as a sharp crack split the air, his body crumpling to the ground an instant later, blood and gray matter leaking from the back of his freshly ventilated skull.
Jerrold surveyed the area, and, satisfied that it was clear, took a second to blow away the smoke coming from his pistol before moving to holster the weapon. Following the brief burst of noise and violence, the world fell abnormally quiet in its aftermath, with only the sound of the brush and nearby trees rustling in the light dusk breeze. The relative silence was broken a few moments later when a voice came from behind him.
“What the hell did you do?”
Jerrold turned his head to look at the source of the voice, a man whom he had briefly forgotten was there during the confrontation. He turned his head back and began walking towards the two bodies, speaking up as he did.
“Saved your life and property, I’m pretty sure.”
The man continued to protest, “Like hell you did. Aside from killing an unarmed man, which I’m pretty sure counts as murder, do you know who those two were?”
Jerrold furrowed an eyebrow as he knelt down next to the two bodies, “Like, personally, or in general?”
The other man, whom Jerrold had learned prior was named Samsom Bramnov, frowned, “I’m serious, jackass. Those weren’t just some two-bit shitheels looking for drug money. They were from the Tecarida Cartel.”
Jerrold simply responded with a deadpan gaze, “You know that means absolutely nothing to me, right?”
Though that was technically an accurate statement; Jerrold had truthfully never heard of any group by the name of Tecarida, he understood the point Bramnov was trying to make. Any kind of organized criminal group was dangerous when provoked, and Jerrold could only think of a few things more provoking than executing a gang lord’s enforcers. Bramnov, his own protests aside, remained markedly calm during both the shooting and the fallout.
“I don’t get why you had to kill them. I’ve dealt with them before, I’d have gotten what they wanted if I had another day or two.”
Jerrold looked down at the first corpse, then the next, before glancing back over to Bramnov, “Yeah, I’m not so sure about that, pal.”
Bramnov raised an eyebrow, “Oh yeah? What makes you say that?”
Jerrold reached down into the first man’s jacket, pulling out several magazine’s worth of ammo for his handgun, followed by a long stretch of rope, tied neatly into a loop at the end. The second man’s pockets yielded other evidence to their ultimate goal; several bottles of lighter fluid, and a box of matches. He held all the items up for Bramnov to see, and even though it was clear he got the meaning, Jerrold spoke up to eliminate any ambiguity.
“Default on your payments once or twice already? These guys were here to string you up and burn your shit down. Seems to me this Tecarida group wants you dead, with or without me popping a few of their goons.”
The revelation rendered Bramnov both silent and significantly paler than he had been moments before. Jerrold continued, “You got a local sheriff you can tell about this?”
Bramnov shook his head, “There’s a sheriff, but most people think she’s on their payroll. Last guy before her took a hard stance against them moving in, and then one day, they found him floating in a nearby lake. She got ‘elected’ afterwards, but no one’s ever liked her, so we’re all pretty sure they rigged it in her favor.”
Jerrold sighed and rolled his eyes, Of course, fuckin’ Frontier politics…
He would deal with that little issue later, but for now, he had more pressing matters. He grabbed the discarded weapons from both men, and their respective collection of ammo, and inspected them. A pair of Hayashiri Arsenal Type 177s, semi-automatic, polymer framed pistols chambered in a common 10mm cartridge. Inexpensive, reliable, easy to acquire in bulk, perfect for equipping your army of thugs and stooges.
He handed one of the pistols, and a decent helping of ammo, to Bramnov, who looked between the gun and Jerrold with incredulity, “What the hell do you want me to do with this?”
“Because I need to make a trip back into town to grab some gear, and you need to be able to protect yourself while I’m gone. You do know how to use that, right?”
For his part, Bramnov looked genuinely annoyed at that, as if it had been a stupid question, “Of course I know how to use a gun. I’ve just never shot people with one before.”
“Well, it’s never too late to learn, y’know? Oh, and if I were you, I’d look into putting those somewhere,” he gestured to the two dead men, “if you’ve got pigs somewhere nearby, that’d be a good start.”
With that, Jerrold Pershing walked off back to the truck the two gangbangers had brought out to Bramnov’s farm, hopping in and starting it up with the key he’d snatched from their bodies. It was only a few minutes before he transitioned from Bramnov’s bumpy dirt road to the slightly better maintained dirt road that led into the town of Messime. As he drove, he took the time to reflect on how it had come to this.
After deserting the UNSC at the end of the war with the Covenant, Jerrold Pershing had fled Earth with his fellow Freelancers, each breaking up and going on their own, with the intention of meeting back up soon after. But shit had gone sour, as it so often tended to with them, and he’d found himself alone. It had been five months since the end of the war and their defection, and he hadn’t seen a single other Freelancer, just rumors. It was a rumor that had brought him to Vasidrus last month looking for Tennessee’s team and, when he found nothing there, another trail had led him here, looking for Nebraska.
That had, so far, also been a dead end; but it had led him to Samson Bramnov. The younger man was a homestead, like most everyone else on Peruggio, but he owned roughly two dozen acres of land that he had started a farm on, providing most of the corn and about a quarter of the potatoes in Messime. Jerrold, having been unable to locate Nebraska and running dangerously low on funds stolen from the UNSC, had responded to an ad Bramnov had set up looking for seasonal help. It guaranteed pay, food, and housing for at least a few months and by then, Jerrold was hoping to be able to move on again, or at least take up jobs more suited to his skillset.
It was rapidly looking to become the latter option as, whilst they were occupied with packing up equipment for the day, they were met by the two cartel enforcers. Despite having no context, Jerrold had years of experience telling him they were bad men, and despite having no involvement in it, he had a conscience that forced him into action. Now two were dead, and more would surely be coming in the next few days, and he wanted to be ready for them. Out of all the things he had done over the years, he had no doubt he could deal with a bunch of two-bit gangster pricks, but he didn’t fancy the idea of doing it with nothing but his pistol and a pair of dirty work fatigues.
As he made it into town, he turned down towards the mid-sized prefab customs building that sat in front of the large, flattened field that counted for the town’s space port. Once there, he went inside and down towards the custom building’s decently sized storage room, looking for the locker he had rented out to store his equipment while he recovered some credits. Upon finding it, tucked away in a far corner, he opened it and retrieved the large man-sized case, hefting it onto his shoulder and heading back out with it. He quickly made a second trip to grab the smaller case, though it was still a deal larger than most of the other luggage around, exiting as quickly as he had entered.
A few short minutes later, he was back out beyond the borders of town, away from any sort of traffic or people. Pulling over into the grass, he got out of the truck and moved to the bed, crawling up and in so that he could access the cases. He popped the latches on the smaller one, followed by the larger, and opened them just long enough to ensure their contents hadn’t been discovered or tampered with. A brief glance assured him that his weapons and ammo had remained untouched and he quickly resealed the case and went to do the same with the larger one when something caught his eye.
He found himself staring at his own reflection in the silver-colored visor of his Mark III PISCES armor. It had been the first time he had even seen the armor in months, despite carrying it with him everywhere, let alone considering putting it back on. He hadn’t worn it since the end of the fighting on Earth, and had only barely managed to secure it with the others before being forced to flee. Since then, it had remained in this case, unseen and unused. That was about to change.
As he climbed back into the driver’s seat and began moving again, he briefly wondered why he was about to do this, for someone he didn’t know. Jerrold wasn’t sure, truth be told, but something inside him felt… good, and that was good enough for him right now. He’d figure the rest out later, like he always did.
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