Tevun-Krus #12 - Space Western

Tex Hotsauce and the Outlaw of Cydonia

A short written by @ForbiddenPlanet's own, @MadMikeMarsbergen

1

"You'll never get away with this, you ugly bastard! I have friends in high places!"

        Tex Hotsauce listened to this bleeding mess of a man, nodding sympathetically in all the right places. "M'facial scars ain't really rel'vant t'ya dyin', cowboy. Bu' thanks a bundle fer noticin', all th' same."

        When Johnny 'Strongarm' St. Cool's melodramatic monologue had finally reduced itself to moans, groans and a whole hell of a lot of blood being sputtered, Tex placed the barrel of his XenTech X91-Lazerevolver to one of Johnny's concave temples. He flicked the thumb-switch to SloBurn and waited for the gun to hum to maximum-power. It was a six-shooter, but he only needed the one cannister to do this job—regardless, he had (literally) pantlegs full of extra Lazer-cannisters. It never hurt to be prepared, especially when you're a space-cowboy single-handedly hunting down the Nasty Three—soon to be Two.

        The X91's hum had become a whirr, high-pitched and no-doubt deafening St. Cool at such a close proximity to his ear. Oh well. He'd soon be losing a little more than the ability to hear loud music from a music-box.

        "Just... finish it... You... ugly... bas—"

        Johnny's same-old tired insult was cut short when Tex pulled the trigger. In a half-heartbeat, the Lazer-cannister expended all the light-energy it had stored. A series of mechanical- and electronic-processes occurred inside the gun, shooting the Lazer-beam through a network of miniature tunnels and tubes. Cleverly-placed crystals filtered and focused the beam, removing any unstable energy and potentiating what was left. Finally, a blast of blue blew a Lazer-hardened mass of blood and bone and brains out the side of St. Cool's skull. The rock-sized amalgamation of matter landed with a thud, bouncing a little on the lifeless dehydrated soil before rolling to a halt.

        "An' that's—" Tex stood up, removed his white high-crowned wide-brimmed hat (revealing faint traces of what was once black hair) and wiped the sweat off his large pockmarked forehead. "—why ya dun hang wit' th' wrong crowd, bucko." He replaced his hat and left the corpse for nature—or what was left of it, anyway—to reclaim. He made his way to an area devoid of any giant cacti or even-more-giant boulders, then whistled loudly for his steed.

        A sentient robot-beast heard the whistle of its master and roared down into the atmosphere of this bleak dead Earth. Before it smashed into the ground at Mach-1, it stopped on a dime and righted itself for mounting. By all appearances, it looked like a robotic version of an animal from the Old Days, back before Armageddon had rocked the planets and left them dreary and desolate, utterly emptied of any non-human soul. With its metallic sheen, it had four thin but powerful legs, which were connected to a bulky armoured body; a large and long head (where its processors were located, naturally); and a showy tail made of a bundle of stray optical-fibres. "Howdy, Tex Hotsauce," it said, in a very precise and posh English accent. "Did everything go as planned?"

        This was Stallion69, Tex's Wildpony: a one-man ship with enough weaponry to disintegrate a small moon. They were quite common for space-cowboys to ride upon, all across the Wild Wastes of outer-space.

        "Ya, Stal, ol' girl. Went beaut'fully," Tex said, mining a nostril for green gold.

        "Sir, you know I am not of the female gender," Stallion69 replied, not quite insulted—as its processors didn't allow for such emotional modifiers.