"Every damn time."

"I know."

"Every damn time."

"I KNOW!"

...

...

"Is this like your kink or something."

"Shut up Ramirez, you're hardly one to talk."

"Perhaps I am, but don't you find it just a little bit weird that every other weekend you seem to get kidnapped by someone. I swear it's going to turn out you are a lot less vanilla than I thought you were and getting kidnapped is like your kink or something."

Adam sighed deeply, "Getting kidnapped is not my kink."

...

"I mean if it was, all you had to do was ask."

"Ramirez."

"I'm pretty adept at tying knots."

"Sweet lord in heaven above save me."

Below him the horse rocked slowly back and forth. Though he was objectively not off balance, having his hands tied to the saddlehorn certainly made him feel as if he were off balance. Below him Maroz grunted and tossed her head as if she knew something was going on. Ahead of them, the party of bandits, or outlaws or whatever the hell they were laughed and joked together tossing a bottle of whiskey back and forth.

At the head of the column rode their leader a man by the name of Vincint McBride. A man whose graces Adam had not particularly ingratiate himself into, but that tended to happen when you kick a man in the balls with the universe's most powerful servo operated mechanical prosthetic.

Adam had not gotten off lightly for that. He had a boot shape bruise on his face, a nose that was tender, but luckily not broken, and at least one or two broken ribs. He had certainly taken a beating from this group of men and it wasn't likely to be his last.

"I blame you." He muttered

Ramirez looked affronted, "how is this my fault. If it were up to me we would still be back in town wooing barmen and barmaids and drinking too much. It was YOU that decided to come out here in the first place."

"I seem to recall it was YOU who dragged me on this 'vacation'."

Their bickering continued for some time,the two hardly noticing as they dropped down into a small valley, and the line of horses pulled to a stop.

McBride looked around the little canyon, "We camp here for tonight!" He announced sliding down from his horse, "Someone get those two unloaded."

Turns out, unloaded meant being dragged and turfed unceremoniously onto the dirt from four or five feet up. Ramirez hit the ground with a grunt, and Adam did the same rolling onto his side groaning and coughing bound hands pressed to his aching ribs.

McBride stared at him in amusement.

"Tie them up."

His crew did as ordered grabbing them by the arms and legs and binding them fast.

Adam found himself pinned up against some sort of alien tree, a strange yellow grass brushing at the back of his legs

It was in that moment that he remembered the implanted tracking device in his cest, and lit up with excitement for a moment before suddenly realizing..... It only broadcast in moments of extreme distress.

And despite what was happening to them.

He actually hadn't been in nearly enough distress.

He tried to conjure some up, but it was no use.

He didn't feel anything.

McBride leaned forward puffing a swirling ring of smoke into his face from the cigarette dangling from his mouth, "You'll be worth a pretty penny. Who knows, maybe we can get something for the marine too."

Behind him his men chuckled.

Adam lifted his head, "Those will kill you, you know."

McBride took the cigarette from his mouth and contemplated Adam, "Better to live fast and die young rather than die old never having lived at all eh."

"Not when that dying young comes from lung cancer."

McBride pursed his lips, reaching up and knocking Adam's hat back off his head. Adam had to turn his head away from the sun that shone down on them through the bright blue atmosphere. He watched in apprehension as the man pulled a large, wicked looking knife from a sheath at his belt and tapped it against the side of Adam's face.

"How much did you pay for that eye boy, two thousand, four thousandmaybe. It looks like Tesraki work after all, and I know they run a hard bargain."

Inside his head, Adam watched as the targeting radicals of his mechanical eye fell over the man's face.

"Its a pice of junk." he lied

The man laughed, "Admiral Vir, you are a very poor liar." He leaned in close so that Adam could smell his hot, rancid breath.

"I think, before we sell you back to your master, dog, I might just sell the rest of you for scrap parts." He tapped the barrel of his gun against Adam's prosthetic making a hollow metal clattering noise as he did."

Adam felt his insides tighten up, no, not the leg, the eye he could get a new one but.... But that leg!

He wasn't entirely sure it was even something someone else could take off him. The Steel eye wasn't exactly keen on parting from him on most occasions, and he doubted it would take kindly to being removed by these thugs.

The thought made his entire body ache with pain that hadn't even come yet.

McBride turned his head to look over at Ramirez, who was tied to the next closest tree, "And how about your friend over here, does he have any spare parts I should know about."

Ramirez lifted his head in some measure of defiance.

"I have a couple spare parts I think you might be interested in...."

The sinister smile with which Ramirez gave the group of men made it pretty clear that while he was making a euphemism, his true meaning was going to be far more sinister.

McBride snorted, "Not likely. I'm not interested in 'your' spare parts."

Ramirez tilted his head, "Really because it looks to me like you could use a spare pair of balls."

The men in the circle snarled, and McBride raised hand.

"Don't test me, marine, or I might just have to borrow yours." He flipped the knife between his fingers and Ramirez went silent, though he kept a defiant eye trained on McBride.

The man looked at him with his head tilted to the side, peering out from under the brim of his black and red hat. The collar of his white shirt flickered somewhat in the wind that rolled down through the valley.

"While I appreciate your little banter, boys. It's time I get to collecting on my ransum,"

He turned to look at his group raising his voice to shout, "Get settled in. We camp here tonight and then meet with our fence tomorrow morning. He might be able to help us sell this one off before the train, now. Get to WORK!"

Adam turned his head to glance over at Ramirez as the group of men and women broke into a sort of frenzy, setting up camp. On occasion, a few of them would come by just to throw a jibe at Adam or Ramirez waving guns or knives in their faces and threatening horrible horrible things upon them. Adam didn't let them know that the threats were sort of getting to him. Granted this wasn't his first time around the block when it came to getting kidnapped.

This was, however, one of his first times getting kidnapped by another human.

And if there was anything he knew after years working with aliens.

It was that humans were far scarier than any alien.

The sky turned purple as the sun began to set, and as he sat there by the tree and watched the light fade and the shadows grow long, he couldn't help but wonder what Sunny was doing. He doubted she had been stupid eough to get herself kidnapped. If it was her in this situation, they probably wouldn't have been kidnapped at all.

He glanced over at McBride strutting around his camp like a Rooster struts around a clutch of hens, that long decorative knife glittering at his belt.

No matter how he came out of this.

McBride wouldn;t be leaving with that knife.

He was going to make sure of it.

***

He was half asleep running footsteps jolted him back to consciousness.

Adam lifted his head in confusion and looked around to see one of McBride's men skidding down from a nearby hill holding a rifle in one hand as his arms failed wildly to keep his ballance, "Vincent! VINCENT!"

One of the bedrolls on the ground jerked, and the outlaw sat up in bleary confusion, the fire flickering over his half dazed face, "What now!"

"It's the Sheriff! It's the sheriff and his boys. Followedus somehow, and heading right this way. WE HAVE TO GO!"

That got the entire camp on its feet very quickly scrambling for whatever they could grab.

"NO TIME." the man howled, "They're almost here!"
"Grab the prisoners, and LET'S MOVE." McBride ordered.

Adam exchanged glances with Ramirez who gave him a wicked little smile.

Adam nodded.

Two men ran forward to untie them, and in their haste became rather sloppy.

Adam watched hungrily as the man dropped to untie his legs from the tree. Adam shifted his pelvis to the side somewhat, and as the last rope came undone, he lashed out with a kick to the chest with devastating consequences. The steel eye prosthetic roared to life and set the man flying back a good two feet before he slammed into the ground gasping, eyes wide and bulging ribs cracked.

Adam fell to the side and rolled, and thorough the ground he could feel the thundering of hooves.

Off to his side Ramirez, without the gift of a powerful prosthetic, did something else.

With the grace and flexibility of a career olympic ice skater, he kicked one of his legs up smashing his foot straight into the chin of the other man, with all the flexibility and grace you wouldn't expect from someone wearing jeans and cowboy boots.

The effect was much the same as wat Adam had achieved, and he managed to roll to the side and skid down into a low rocky depression.

That is when the gunfire started and they could hear the sound of McBride ad his men shouting to each other.

Ramirez hand managed to get his tied hands out from behind his back and used them to untie Adam's feet and hands. Adam pulled Ramirz's hands free and then turned to run back up the hill skidding between rocks and boulders as he bolted towards McBride's voice. That little bastard was going to pay.

He came up behind one of McBride's men slamming into him with his shoulder and knocking him to the ground. He grabbed the man's pistol from his hand and, in a moment of uncharacteristic viciousness, pistol whipped the man across the temple causing him to fall to the ground silent and unconscious.

He could see muzzle flash from up the canyon walls, and kept in cover just in case as he chased after McBride. He could hear the horses going absolutely ballistic just across from him and peeked out from around the side of the boulder only to have to throw himself back as a bullet chunked the rock into shards beside his head, He cursed violently and crawled to the other side of the rock.

He peered out from behind and shook his head, No wonder these assholes couldn't hit the broadside of a barn since those of them using handguns insisted on firing with only one hand. Adam wasn't exactly the sharpshooter of the year, but he had been trained in the force long enough to know you were far more accurate using both hands.

At least that's what he thought until a moment later when one of his bullets managed to impact the side of another man's gun, shooting it from his hand. The man looked up at him in wide eyed consternation and awe. Adam just frowned.

He had been aiming for the head, but he guessed that wa going to have to do. Behind him he could hear Ramirez's whoop of triumph as he managed to get his hands on a gun, and together the two of them joined forces with the sheriff.

"There he goes!"

Ramirez shouted, and Adam followed his pointed finger to McBride who had managed to acquire a horse and was now riding up the canyon. Adam broke into a dead sprint after him. The horses were in disarray, but he managed to find Maroz rearing and screeching at the back of the group.

He reached up his hands to calm the horse, and to his surprise, the beast pulled back, lowering herself to the ground and shaking her head.

He grabbed her reins and hauled himself into the saddle, "Come on, Lets go!" He snapped the reins and squeezed her sides forcing her into a dead gallup after the retreating McBride.His body rocked in the saddle, but he kept his ips loose and his head low and forward as wind whipped past him.

McBride Turned in his saddle and shot off a few rounds, though riding a horse one handed was hardly the best way to take a shot and the bullets sparked off the canyon wall. Adam pulled out his own weapon, and making a sudden decision, he released the reins, drew himself up an fired with both hands.

He nearly fell off his horse, but the effect was a desired one as, for the second time that day, he sent a gun spinning from the hand of his enemy. That too was also accidental, but if he ever told this story he was definitely going to say that it was totally on purpose.

The two of them skidded around the next corner and Maroz was gaining, clearly a far superior horse to the tatty bay that the man had chosen.

Adam didn't have any rope, and even if he did, he had no idea how to use a lasso. Apparently he had missed that lesson on being a cowboy, and found there to really be only one other option afforded to him.

He drew up alongside the other man's horse and slipped his feet from the stirrups, bringing himself to a low crouch on the saddle.

He could feel his feet slipping and knew he had to act now, so he launched himself to the side.

Maroz whinnied loudly but kept her feet.

The same could not be said for either Adam or McBride as Adam tackled the other man from the saddle and the two of them went careening towards the ground. It was about halfway down that Adam realised this might not have been such a good idea since this was about the equivalent of pitching oneself out of a car at about 25 miles an hour.

Needless to say they hit the ground hard.

The kind of hard that knocks you into another dimension for a moment. Luckily for him he landed on top of McBride before bouncing off and tumbling into the rocks. It hurt like a sonofabitch but, finally he was able to stagger to his feet. Somewhere in there, he had gone and lost his handgun, leaving both him and Mcbride unarmed as they crawled to their feet winded and limping.

What followed was probably the most uncoordinated fistfight to have ever existed on the history of the planet as the two of them fell over, slipped, wobbled and cursed at teach other.

Hoofbeats were nearing them from behind, and more shouting voices. He thought it was the sheriff, and that is probably what got him into so much trouble.... As the horse barled into him, and he was knocked unconscious for a second time that week.

He woke up next to a fire groaning thinking for a moment that he had been recaptured before a familiar face turned to look on him from above, a familiar mustachioed face and a glittering golden badge.

"Sheriff?"

"That was the right stupidest thing I have ever seen, boy." The man announced in his drawing country accent."

Adam sat up with a groan hand on his head,

"The stupidest thing I have ever seen, but probably.... The bravest thing too." He held out a hand, something glittering in his palm, "here, take this, you earned it."

He looked up in confusion reaching out to take the shining handgun from the other man's hand.

"It's McBride's."

Looking down he could see the scuff that his own bullet had left on the side of McBride's gun.