Session 8
THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE by jak981125
Note: This story is part of a series. It will make more sense if you read the
previous sessions.
In the Martian town of
“Sir, we have concluded our investigation.”
“And what have you concluded?” asked Akira.
The guard turned out the lights and turned on a holographic imager in the
middle of the table. The image it projected was the mistaken bounty offer on
Lau. “This projection is completely inaccurate as you can see,” said the guard.
“A bounty hunter who hadn’t read it carefully enough could have easily believed
this was valid.”
“So you’re saying that Lau might not have faked his own kidnapping, is that
it?” asked Akira.
“Sir, we’re quite certain that he didn’t,” replied the guard. “We have even
identified the two who took him. Not only are they known bounty hunters, but
they were former companions of Spike Spiegel.”
Akira was silent for a moment.
He rubbed the spot on his chest where Lau had shot him. “So, it would appear we
were mistaken,” he said at last.
“What are your instructions regarding this matter?” asked another one of the
guards seated at the table.
Akira thought for a moment. “We will give him one chance to live,” he replied.
“I think I’m being more than generous, all things considered. You will
re-acquire Lau and you will bring him to me. That is all.” Akira picked up his
sword from the table and walked out of the room.
The Bebop was still on
Ganymede. After having collected the bounty on Roscoe, they were in better
financial shape. Faye managed to convince Jet to join her at the dog races. Jet
had owned a greyhound as a younger man and thought he might be able to spot a
winner if he got a look at the dogs. He knew exactly what he was doing and the
two of them made quite a pile of money.
Lau on the other hand decided
to go catch a movie. It was supposed to be that year’s great action feature.
Lau was bored to tears with the whole thing. When he noticed he could see the
zipper on the costume of a space monster on screen, he checked his watch. “Only
28 minutes into the show,” he said to himself. “I can still get my money back.”
He snuck out of the theater and headed to the ticket counter to get a refund.
That’s when he noticed that the ticket counter was being robbed.
“Nothing personal, but I can’t leave any witnesses, pop,” said the robber to
the old man at the ticket counter. Now this poor fellow looked like he would
die from terror. Lau was watching this from over by the snack counter which was
now closed. He picked up a steel napkin dispenser and threw it at the robber.
It struck the guy in the head. Lau charged at him and kicked the gun out of his
hand and then kicked it far enough away from him where he couldn’t get to it.
The robber threw a punch at him, which he easily dodged. He struck back with
his left forearm, knocking the robber unconscious. He dragged him over to a
nearby handrail and cuffed him to it.
Lau walked over to the man
behind the ticket counter who was still shaking. “It’s OK, that punk can’t hurt
you now. Call the police and tell them...” Lau never finished. He saw a
reflection in the glass on the ticket booth. There were some syndicate guys
approaching. Spike would have spotted them much sooner but Lau had not.
“All right Lau, don’t try to be difficult,” one of them said to him. Two of
them handcuffed Lau and a third took his gun. They lead him outside to a
waiting sedan.
Back on the Bebop, Faye and Jet
were getting worried when Lau hadn’t shown up. “He didn’t even call,” said
Faye. “That’s not like him at all. His movie was supposed to get out three
hours ago.”
Jet’s communicator rang. “That’s probably him right now,” said Jet as he
answered the call. He was wrong. It was an old cop buddy of his named Conrad.
“Jet, I have some bad news,” he said. “A bunch of our guys just got dispatched
over to a movie theater. It’s your partner. A bunch of syndicate guys grabbed
him.”
Faye grabbed the communicator out of Jet’s hand. “Who?!
Which syndicate?! They didn’t hurt him, did they?!”
Jet took the communicator back. He was trying to stay calm, but he was
frightened too. “Conrad, it wasn’t the Blue Snake, was it?” he asked. Jet was
worried that this might be payback for Roscoe.
“No, it was the Red Dragons,” replied Conrad. Jet and Faye exchanged terrified
glances. “It doesn’t look like they harmed him. They forced him to get into a
car with them.”
At that moment, Lau was sitting
in the cargo hold of a Red Dragons cruiser as it headed towards Mars. He
probably would have been scared had he been awake, but they had tranquilized
him.
Back on the Bebop, Jet was
punching in a course for Tharsis. Faye sat on the
couch with her hands folded. Her face was white as chalk. She suddenly got up
and ran to the bathroom. She had to throw up.
Lau woke up, only to find himself being dragged into the new Red Dragons headquarters.
He looked around in a daze and he saw former friends of his everywhere. Not too
many of them seemed to have any sign of sympathy for him in their eyes. What
they did have was hostility. To them, he was a traitor. Lau was taken into an
elevator and then taken upstairs into the lair of the Van. There he saw Akira
and the other elders gathered.
At that point, Lau had pretty
much given up all hope of survival and figured he was going to say what he was
going to say. “So, do I get to talk this time?” he asked coolly.
Akira frowned. “Don’t act cocky Lau. You’re in no position to do so. You have
no reason to speak. We know what really happened. We do not hold you
accountable for your absence nor for the death of a few of our people.”
Lau was almost relieved to hear that, but he knew that if they had brought him
here, he was not out of danger.
“Our purpose in bringing you here is to let you choose life or death,” said
Akira.
“Well that’s a pretty obvious choice,” replied Lau.
“To live, you must agree to re-join the Clan immediately. If you do, your
former status will be restored to you.”
“And if I refuse (as if I didn’t know the answer to this one)?” replied Lau.
“If you already know then why ask? You have twenty-four hours to make a
decision.”
“I don’t need twenty-four seconds,” replied Lau angrily. “The answer’s no. Now
kill me and get it over with.”
Akira rose to his feet in anger but sat back down. “I’ll give you some time to
think it over, anyway,” he replied. “And if you are set on refusing, then you
can consider this time I’m giving you as a time to dread your death. Take him
to the Chamber.”
The Bebop was orbiting Mars and
approaching Tharsis when alarms started going off.
The Dragons had already expected Faye and Jet to make an appearance. Several
small ships attacked the Bebop. “Oh great, a welcoming committee!” growled Jet.
“Let’s give them a little welcoming party of our own,” replied Faye. Faye
boarded the Redtail and Jet got into the Swordfish,
since it was stronger in battle than the Hammerhead. The two flew out and faced
their adversaries head-on.
Back on Tharsis,
Lau was taken to the new Chamber. It looked remarkably like the old one. They
chained his wrists to the wall as they had done to Vicious and left him alone in
silent darkness. Lau remembered when he had sent traitors in the old guard to Vicious’s rescue when they were about to execute him. The
Van had been slaughtered in that fight. Lau couldn’t help but wonder if this
was some sort of cosmic retribution for the role he had played in their deaths.
Jet and Faye continued to shoot
it out with the syndicate ships. Only minor hull damage had been inflicted upon
the Bebop. Faye skillfully dodged the fire of two ships on her tail. Jet shot
one of them down and she nailed the other one. Jet tried an old trick he had
seen Lau pull off once. He flew head-on towards a group of ships. Sure enough,
four of them crashed into one another in the confusion. One of Faye’s thrusters
was stuck but she managed to shoot down two more. Then Jet got another two. The
ships that were left knew they were outmatched. They sent a message to Mars
warning them that the Bebop was still coming.
In the chamber, Lau’s legs
ached horribly. He had been standing for three hours. He was very tired, but
obviously could not sleep in that position. He also had to try to pull on his
shackles to keep his arms as bent as possible. Otherwise it would have been
like crucifixion. His chest muscles would have cramped up, rendering him unable
to breathe. He also had a very full bladder. He couldn’t help but feel sorry
for Vicious for having to go through this. But at least Vicious had a fairly
good idea he was going to be rescued. Lau did not. He tried very hard not to
feel sorry for himself. He prayed silently that if he was to face judgment at
his death, that his current way of life would matter more than his old one. It
was so dark and quiet, Lau could barely stand it.
The Bebop started to touch down
in a Tharsis harbor. As soon as it had docked, the
Red Dragon vessels that had fled, along with two watercrafts, attacked them.
Jet had foreseen this happening. He had gone back to the Bebop after the fight
but told Faye to hover above him and wait so she could cover him if they were
ambushed. That’s just what she did. The boats were sunk immediately. The
aircraft made another attempt to hit her but even with a damaged thruster, she
was far too good for them. Not a single aircraft made it out of there intact.
Faye landed back on the Bebop. She and Jet had to plan quickly for how they
were going to try to rescue Lau. They tried not to think about the odds against
them.
Back in the chamber, the
silence was nearly maddening. Lau couldn’t imagine how deaf people could stand
it. That made him think of his late wife, Talia, who had been blind. He didn’t know how she could
always stay so sweet and so upbeat in her condition. He thought about all the
times she had begged him and Vicious to get out of the Dragons. Tears ran down
his face remembering her. He missed her so much. Well he would be re-united
with her shortly anyway. Then he remembered Faye. He really did love her and
hated the thought of what pain his death might cause her. He was glad none of
the Dragons were here to see him blubbering like this. On second thought, he
would have been glad to see or hear anyone at that point.
Lo and behold, he got his wish.
He heard someone approaching the chamber. The gate was closed but a side door
was unlocked and in came a hood named Damien. Damien had not been a friend of
Lau’s when he was on the inside but he knew who he was. Damien signaled for him
to remain silent. He checked outside one last time and then walked over to Lau.
He produced a set of keys and unlocked the shackles. The very first thing Lau
did was to hurry over to a corner and relieve himself.
He was embarrassed but he couldn’t help it. He’d been holding it in for hours.
“Sorry about that,” he whispered. Damien put his finger to his lips and
signaled him to follow quietly.
He lead
Lau into a hallway. They crept down the corridor quiet as mice. They went into
a meeting room and shut the door. It was safe to talk now. Meeting rooms were
soundproofed and swept for bugs twice a week.
“Damien, I’m extremely grateful, but why are you betraying the Clan for my
sake?” asked Lau.
“Last night, did you prevent an old man from getting killed in a robbery on
Ganymede?” asked Damien.
“Yeah. That’s when they caught me,” replied Lau.
“That old man was my father,” said Damien. “Last night he called me and begged
me to help you. I may be loyal to the Clan, but a man has to have his
priorities. My dad comes first. Now I’m going to try to get us up to the roof.
I have a shuttle waiting up there.”
“They’ll know it was you,” said Lau. “Once you do this, there’s no going back.”
“I know, but I owe you,” replied Damien. “I can’t guarantee we won’t run into
trouble, so take this.” He handed Lau a Glock and two
spare magazines. Lau knew he’d never see his Leuger
again, so he accepted the weapon gladly. The two snuck out of the room and made
their way towards the stairs that lead to the roof.
They hadn’t gone more than
ninety feet before they ran into a group of guards. Lau and Damien drew their
weapons and gunned them down. They started running. They knew that everyone on
the top floor had probably heard the noise. As they ran, Damien attached a bomb
to the wall. When a patrol showed up behind them, he pushed a button on his
watch and the bomb exploded.
The Swordfish and Redtail were flying over the west side of Tharsis as quickly as they could towards the Red Dragon
headquarters. Jet was fairly sure that they would be keeping Lau in the
Chamber, and that they would find that on the top floor. They had planned to
fly up to the top level and shoot out the glass on a set of windows. Then Faye
would pull up alongside, get out of the Redtail and
jump inside. Neither one of them figured they had a great chance but they
weren’t about to let Lau die. Syndicates usually performed executions at dawn,
so they figured Lau was still alive since dawn was still an hour away.
Lau and Damien fought their way
through one more set of guards and then approached the door to the stairway
leading to the roof. That too was guarded. One of the guards shot Damien in the
arm and Lau took him out. Damien managed to hit the other one. They ran up the
stairs to the roof. The shuttle was right out there. They were so close. Then
the worst possible thing happened. The shuttle exploded. As soon as the guard
had realized what they were up to, they activated the self-destruct mechanism
by remote. They were trapped!
Within seconds, guards came
spilling out of the entry. Damien was killed in the crossfire. Lau dragged his
body behind a utility shed and pulled one of those bombs out of Damien’s
pocket. He threw it at the guard. He hit the button on Damien’s watch and took
out every single aggressor. But now he was really trapped. Then things got much
worse. Another shot rang out. It was Akira! He had climbed up the fire escape.
His bullet grazed Lau’s forehead. Any wound like that bleeds like crazy and Lau
now had to worry about getting blood in his eyes. He and Akira exchanged fire
for what seemed like an eternity. Then both of them ran out of ammo. Akira drew
the sword on his back. It was not a katana, but a straight double- edged sword.
He charged at Lau. He swung at him several times, but only managed to inflict a
cut to his arm. Lau kicked the sword out of his hand. The two began to fight with
their fists. Lau and Akira specialized in two different martial arts, so
neither one had any clue what to expect from the other one. They were pretty
evenly matched. Neither one of them seemed to be able to get the upper hand.
Lau wound up getting kicked in
the mouth pretty hard. It hurt him fairly badly and made him angry, bringing on
a spurt of adrenaline. He threw a punch that Akira tried to block. Akira wound
up with a broken arm for his trouble. He hit Lau in the gut, nearly making him
vomit. The blow caused him to lower his head, and Akira wasted no time hitting
him in the back of the skull. Lau retaliated by kicking him. He was aiming at
the solar plexus, but aimed a little too high, hitting him in the ribs instead.
The force was enough to knock Akira onto his back. As soon as he got up, Lau
punched him, knocking him back down again. It was true that Akira was stronger,
but Lau’s metal hand was giving him a real edge in this fight. Akira struggled
to get up one more time and Lau kicked him in the head with all his might.
Akira was knocked completely unconscious.
Lau had no time to celebrate.
The guard couldn’t get through the door because of the explosion, but pretty
soon they figured out how Akira had gotten up there. Soon, they too started
climbing up the fire escape. Lau dived over to where Damien lay. He pulled a
grenade out of his pocket and tossed it at his attackers. That took out a few
of them, but more were coming. Lau grabbed Damien’s Glock
from his hand. It was empty. Damien had one more magazine in his coat pocket.
Lau had to conserve ammo at this point. The guard certainly didn’t have that
problem. What was worse was that some of them had machine guns.
Lau figured this was probably
it for him. Well, he figured that he went out fighting and he defeated Akira.
He believed he could die proudly. He shot two more guards. He pulled out a
cigarette, but his lighter had been taken away. More and more bullets were
flying his way, and the burning shuttle had another explosion which caused
flying debris to cut his face.
That’s when he heard the most
welcome sound in the world. It was the Redtail. Faye
and Jet had seen all that was happening on the roof. Faye opened fire and
blasted right through the guards. She flew up to the roof and opened the
cockpit. “Get in!” she yelled. Just then, more guards showed up on the other
side of the roof. Faye had to break off and go after them. Lau ran to the edge
of the roof and saw the Swordfish. He was tempted to jump onto the top of it,
but it was moving way too fast. Jet moved in to take on the newcomers. Faye
backed off and made another attempt to rescue Lau. This time he got in. There
wasn’t a lot of room in the cockpit so they were very cramped. Lau was bleeding
all over the place. Faye wanted to cry when she saw him.
Jet’s voice came over the
radio. “Get him back to the Bebop right now! I’ll handle these guys!” Faye
didn’t have to be told twice. She turned around and took off towards the harbor
as quickly as she could get the Redtail to move. Jet
fired back at the guard some more and took off too. He didn’t notice Akira
waking up. Akira had been hit so hard, he couldn’t remember anything that had
happened in the past twenty-four hours. He had no clue as to why he was on the
roof with all this fire and carnage around him.
Jet and Faye didn’t loose any
time at all. The second they got back on board the Bebop they carried Lau
inside and laid him on a couch. Then Jet started up the ship and instructed the
auto pilot to leave the planet immediately.
Faye held Lau’s head in her
arms and sobbed. “I thought I would lose you. Look what those bastards did to
you!” Lau looked bad but his injuries were relatively minor. He sat up and held
Faye in his arms until she stopped crying. Jet came back in.
“Where are we headed?” asked Lau.
“We’re getting the hell out of here,” replied Jet. “We’re going to Venus and I
am not taking you back to Mars ever, so don't ask.”
Lau was not at all thrilled at
the prospect of going there but figured he should keep his mouth shut. Jet
pulled out some rubbing alcohol and swabbed some on Lau’s arm.
“What are you doing? I’m not hurt there.”
“I know,” replied Jet. “Just hold still.” Before Lau knew what was going on,
Jet stuck a needle in his arm.
“Ow! What was that for?” asked Lau, rubbing his arm
angrily.
“That was a vaccination for Venus sickness. Me and
Faye have already had ours.” Lau decided not to complain. After all, Talia had been blinded by Venus sickness.
Lau smiled at Faye and pulled
her closer to him. “Gees, don’t tell me you’re feeling romantic right now!”
exclaimed Faye.
“Hey, I thought I was going to die,” he replied. “I think the worst part was
the isolation beforehand. I was so lonely. I thought about you a lot.” Faye sat
down and kissed the one part of his forehead that didn’t have blood all over
it.
“I’ve never told anyone in my life that I loved them before, but I sure do love
you,” she said.
“I love you too, Faye. And I have said that to someone before, so believe me
when I say it.”
Lau told both Jet and Faye the
story of how he was freed. They were impressed. “That reminds me of a story,”
said Jet. “This lady is traveling on a train with some hyper nephews and a
niece. To settle them down, she tells them a story about a girl who was so good
that everyone in town loved her. Thus when she fell into a pasture containing
an angry bull she was saved by the townspeople. The kids were all too quick to
point out how stupid that was. After all, wouldn’t they have saved a rotten kid
too?”
“What’s the point, Jet?” asked Faye.
“These particular people we dealt with were not the kind of guys who would have
rescued someone rotten. Probably they wouldn’t have saved most good people
either. Lau’s one good deed saved his life.”
The Bebop floated through
hyperspace towards Venus. There was no sign of any pursuit. Maybe they would
never be able to go back to Mars, but who cares? Who knows what tomorrow will
bring? Thus ends season one of Cowboy Bebop: The Lau Saga.
HAVE YOU DONE A GOOD DEED TODAY?
(c) 2004 Joseph Kerner jak981125@catholic.org
Disclaimer: I did not create Cowboy Bebop. I wish I had, but I didn’t. This is
just fanfiction