Patience is a virtue. Too bad you aren't very virtuous.

Sure, you could probably sit tight and try and eavesdrop a bit to find out the who and why of things with these sudden invaders of one of your favorite places to relax and get laid, but the longer you wait, the more they fuck up the place and you can't have that. Besides, you were never the type to sit around while damsels, dudes and those of indeterminate gender were in distress and grateful blowjobs could be in the cards. And, on top of all of that, it does piss you off to see how they mistreated Evie who you'd just had a meeting of the groins with only a short time ago.

Taking all of that together, you take a deep breath, pull out your pistol and pop out from behind the wall. This would probably be the time some hero from the action holos called out a witty one liner and put down all the bad guys without a hitch, but you ain't a hero nor the type to play fair so you don't mess up your advantage of surprise as you take aim at the leader with your pistol. You get a bead on him and pull the trigger, the old-style ballistic handgun going off with a thunderous sound that gets the attention of all the people in the brothel.

The one who it garners the most attention from is the leader of the band of brutes as he looks in the direction of the sound with wide-eyes. It's right between those eyes that the heavy slug penetrates his skull, blowing out the back of his head messily as he is thrown off his feet by the **** of the heavy caliber bullet from your modified gun. He didn't even get a chance to make a sound as his body falls in a lifeless heap a meter or two away from where he had been standing.

The rest of his gang looks at the space where there boss had once stood in surprise and confusion and you take that chance to squeeze off another shot from your gun, taking another thug down in a single shot before ducking back behind the wall you'd been hiding behind. You do that just in time as the space you once occupied is now filled with energy bolts and bullets as the remaining six thugs recover their senses and start to fight back.

So it looked like the old cutting off the head of the snake tactic wasn't gonna work with these guys. Not that that's what you'd had in mind when you'd killed the leader, simply thinking that he'd been the one that pissed you off the most when you'd taken aim at him and blown him away. Still, it would've been nice if the rest of his gang had turned tail and run. Looks like you weren't that lucky though as you heard bullets ricochet and bolts sizzle out against the steel wall you hid behind. Thank whatever random space deity was listening that the pleasure cruiser this place had once been hadn't scrimped on the materials for their hulls.

But you can't hide here forever. So what do you do now? You used up your surprise attack and now it's a six on one firefight. Not good odds. You know you wouldn't bet on you in this situation. Still, you've survived worse and intended to survive this. The question was how.