Wild West (Part 2)

Posted on Sun Dec 12th, 2021 @ 7:49am by Executive Officer Jake Ford & Micheal Robertson & Nollel Livaam (*) & Angel Ramirez

Mission: Mission 14: Holoworld
Location: Holoship - Westworld
Timeline: MD03-1000Hrs
1810 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

"All right then, compadres. Let's go hunt us down some dangerous outlaws!" Jake declared.

"Just gotta grab my street sweeper from my horse first, Boss," Micheal replied as the group moved back out onto the boardwalk. Moving over to where he had left his horse, Micheal drew the long barreled shotgun from its holster. After cracking open the breach to ensure it was loaded, he snapped it shut again and moved back to the group. "I'm ready to dance."

Angel went to his horse, too, and retrieved a rifle. He wasn’t any more familiar with the Winchester than with the Peacemaker, but they’d offered to help. “Wish we knew the layout and weren’t going in blind.’

"C'mon, Angel." Micheal chuckled softly. " You never danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight? Ya gotta take chances to live a full, exciting life, amigo."

"Chances are there are safeties on this simulation. Try not to worry; if you get shot at I'm willing to bet they've got worse aim than a freshman cadet at Starfleet Academy." Jake chuckled, twirling the gun around a finger and slotting it back into its holster. "Should be fun. Go ahead, Micheal, why don't you knock for us?"

The former bounty hunter grinned, enjoying both the setting and the adventure of the simulation. "Yes, sir." He turned and leveled his shotgun at the door handles of the closed front door to the bank. "Knock, knock!" he shouted as he squeezed the double triggers.

The deafening double blast of the powerful weapon nearly covered up the sounds of the doorknobs and lock mechanism exploding inward as the door crashed into the bank. Spinning away to reload, Micheal allowed the others to move in.

Angel followed after the others. “Wait, the safeties only might be on?” Angel reiterated as they stormed the bank into a firefight. “You tell me that now!” He juked right to try and head for some cover.

"They are on," Nollel assured as she tried to hurt herself with a piece of metal. The hologram just phased through her skin.

Once the street sweeper was reloaded, Micheal moved to cover the door, allowing the rest of the team to handle the robbers. His job would be to ensure none got past him.

Giving him a nod, Jake raised both his Colt pistols and rounded the angle of the entrance, popping off shots and sliding in behind what looked like a teller's counter. "Y'all throw your guns out and we can end this all peaceful-like!" he called, trying to get a little into character.

"Not on your life!" a voice called back in response to the request.

“There is no other way out, amigo,” Angel called. “You’re trapped in here.” He took a couple of shots at the robbers before ducking back down behind the counter again.

"There are always ways out, like through you or over your dead bodies," the voice declared, making Nollel snort at the accent. It was so much thicker than anyone else's that she looked at everyone blankly as she tried to understand.

Jake grinned, looking over at his allies. "We tried talking them down. Angel, you and Micheal take the right. Nollel and I can flank them on the left. We'll catch them in a nice crossfire."

Nollel nodded at the Executive Officer, glad she was heading with him. He was less likely to cause trouble and go in guns blazing. “Is it worth me sneaking around and getting behind?” she questioned Jake.

"Try not to get yourself killed..." he nodded with a little grin, knowing that such a thing was unlikely.

Nollel grinned over her shoulder at the man and shook her head. She would be more than careful she was fed up of sickbay and worrying Michael.

Angel nodded, and started a squat-shuffle toward the right. He took a moment under cover to fumble with reloading his Peacemaker as everyone got into position. How did fighters deal with this? Phasers had a passive recharge ability. Yes, it took a while, and they could be actively recharged from a fusion pack, but they also had a lot of shots. Even the small bridge officer phasers could get off at least a score of shots before the power pack was drained and needed to be replaced.

Jake peered over his cover. There were maybe five or six of them left, it was hard to tell for sure. At least two had some sort of long-barrel weapon, probably a shotgun or rifle. The others had similar sidearms to himself. Although at first glance his group had them pinned, there looked to be an open route out the back. Probably a good thing that Nollel was working her way around. maybe she could pincer them as they tried to escape. He took aim and fired another shot to keep their heads down, watching to see how Angel and Micheal performed.

With his double barrel at the low ready, Micheal slowly sidestepped around the perimeter of the lobby, his eyes moving with each step, looking for a threat. Suddenly, one of the bank robbers stepped out and started to raise his own shotgun. Micheal was faster. Snapping the weapon up, he let both slug rounds fly. His target was so close that, not only did the impact of the twelve gauge slugs lift him off his feet, they also tore his chest apart violently.

Angel winced. That was a lot of mess. He was a lot more used to a nice, clean phaser wound. With the focus on Michael, Angel low dashed over to the next pillar in the room, firing with his Peacemaker to keep the robbers’ heads down so they couldn’t shoot at the more exposed Michael. A few shots, though, took out some of the marble of the pillar as Angel ducked behind it, and he hissed a bit as he felt stone cut his cheek. “Damn, this is real!” he said with a chuckle. He reloaded and came around the other side of the pillar and fired, hitting one of the robbers in the upper arm. These guns were heavier than a phaser!

As Angel moved and fired, Micheal saw how he handled the Peacemaker. Moving to his side as he cracked the breech of the shotgun and replaced the two spent shells with fresh ones, he said, "Easy on how you hold it. Too firm and you'll break your wrist from the recoil. Too loose, and it'll fly back and hit you in the face."

As one of the men turned to escape around a corner, he was knocked to the floor by something heavy, and Nollel appeared behind the bad guys. She gave a thumbs up to say that she was ready if they wanted to send people her way.

Jake saw her movement and fired from his hastily reloaded weapon. Two of the outlaws made a darting run for the back, towards where Nollel was. A third – possibly the last -- was an angry-looking man wearing all black clothing. He glared at Jake and raised his gun to fire, but Jake ducked and fired first, sending him sprawling to the ground, no longer a threat.

The first man got knocked to the floor easily whilst the second one tried to evade the woman. Nollel swung again and the saucepan hit him in the face knocking him to the floor. “Think they are out!” Nollel called, calculating pan hits to the face versus the ones out on the floor in front of her. Her arms aches but she had a sense of satisfaction in doing something even wearing the stupid dress.

Angel paused behind his pillar, listening. No one seemed to be shooting at them anymore. “Everyone okay?” he called out, cautiously peering around his cover. “Madre de Dios…” he murmured upon seeing the carnage in the bank.

“Not quite as clean as a phaser, huh?” Nollel commented, a frown as she stepped over a man lying on the floor bleeding out. It was hard to not comment even when she knew that it was just all a hologram fictitious world. It was hard to see death that way when it had not been that brutal in a very long time.

"I've seen worse," Micheal commented matter-of-factly as he snapped the breech shut after reloading two fresh slugs into the shotgun. As a bounty hunter, and during both times that he had been trapped in the Andromeda Galaxy, he had. "At least here it's just photons."

Nollel looked at anyone but the man as he said that. It made her uncomfortable, but she did not comment, just looked at Jake, expecting him to break the uncomfortable silence that had descended.

“It’s just usually not so…real on the holodeck,” Angel said, moving around to check bodies, his Security training kicking in, to see if anyone was still alive to offer help or take into custody.

"These are way more new and high definition that any that I have seen previously." Nollel agreed with his comments on not being as real. New Lauruimn had never had anything as new or good.

"Depends on where the safeties are set in the programming," Micheal stated as he pulled out a cloth and started to clean the dust off the barrels of his shotgun. He didn't seem fazed at all by the carnage around them.

“I guess someone likes it realistic, then,” Angel said, reloading and putting his guns away. “We saved the day. Do we get a reward?” he asked. “A pretty senorita on the arm and a bag of cash?”

"If that's what you want, I won't stop you," Jake retorted with a grin and slight eye roll. He looked at Nollel. "You did well back there. If we're all going for pretty senorita's on our arms then I'll stick with the one who swings a mean saucepan. How about a celebratory drink at the saloon?"

"Can thank the baseball game I went to. It was good practice for today," Nollel said brightly as people started to look out windows to see the bad guys defeated on the floor. The undertaker was already moving towards the bodies littered around.

“It’s all over now,” Angel said as he moved around the civilians on the floor, offering his hands to help the ladies up. “You’re safe now.”

Micheal exited the bank, stepping out onto the boardwalk outside. Keeping the shotgun at a low ready stance, he slowly scanned the street, ensuring there were no other threats. His very demeanor seemed to scream that he could be a very dangerous man.

"Drinks are on me, folks," Jake said, patting his comrades on the back. This was much better than getting dressed up for one of Eden's old-time adventures...