With a tumultuous tilting motion, Nemo careens the Lover into a rare patch of open space amongst the claustrophobic curtain of mines. Moira spends the sudden reprieve twisting her turret one-hundred-and-eighty degrees to consider this nameless advancing privateer.
“Cap'n, they're increasing crackle,” Two-Bit states flatly as Moira squints against the sheen the worldshine casts onto the plexishield. “You might wanna take evasive–”
“Are those fucking horns?” Moira mutters bemusedly, as the privateer chasing craft comes completely into focus.
Resembling a thickly carapaced, rocket-propelled beetle, the redoubtable little tug on their trail does indeed bristle a pair of massive horns. Two asymmetrical spar of jagged metal jut forth from the craft's undercarriage. Whatever the ship's original schematics, Moira could hardly imagine Terro Fleet Systems, Concord Industries or Vbeck & Rhissol Rocketeering including either these twisted tusks, all that forward hull reenforcement or the word “BULLSEYE” that's emblazoned blatantly across her prow.
“Those're horns,” Moira confirms numbly. “They fucking have horns.”
“Well, they're at horning crackle, Cap'n, you–”
The inertial dampener is no stranger to Nemo's shipborne antics. It reacts with uncharacteristic poise and presence when the Captain so strains the yoke that The Unconstant Lover is somersaulted upwards, her boosters bawling and her ray shields freewheeling wildly.
As always, Moira's sense of direction stubbornly refuses to adjust. She watches The Bullseye, once behind her, now below her, heedlessly bulldoze ahead. Unable to cut its galloping momentum, the privateer crashes plumb into a convenient cluster of orbital mines.
Their bombard shields protect them entirely, however, gently spinning any encroaching mines aside, where they clink and clunk comically into each other.
“There's a crazy motherbloomer,” Nemo remarks admiringly. “Moira?”
The Unconstant Lover completes its loop de loop and Moira's once again returned to her preferred position above both spaceship and planet. She wastes no time in swinging her Antagonist around and selecting a non-lethal target on The Bullseye's backside.
The craft complains and careens its way into an attempted three-point-turn, jostling orbital mines with each minute adjustment. One by one, Moira pricks an individual bolt towards an individual section of the unshielded privateer. On their own, each shot seems strangely inconsequential but, like that of an impressionist painter, Moira's artistry is only made more appreciable by time.
The righted Bullseye, it sloping horns aimed with unerringly intent for the bow of the oncoming Lover, dumps fuel into its engines in preparation for another breakneck charge. Thanks to Moira's careful precision, however, it gets no farther. Instead, The Bullseye's thrusters uncouple and drift clumsily away from the main body of the craft, the clamps once mooring them in place now nothing but gnashed wreckage.
For all its velocity and wild abandon a moment ago, The Bullseye is solemnly reduced to a sputtering cripple, spilling carbon fuel in all directions and twisting helplessly in Adrog's gravitational pull.
“You may applaud,” Moira allows.
“Gonna gift-wrap this for Vobash?” Two-Bit either wonders aloud or poses to Nemo.
Nemo's voice is replete with downcast disappointment. “I should.”
Despite his words, Moira notices, mere seconds later, the familiar silhouette of a zooming torpedo, arcing gracefully from a point beneath the Lover's prow. The missile streaks towards the defenseless Bullseye, where it rests amid the mixed, explosive company of orbital mines and venting carbon petro.
Two-Bit Switch crunches the arm off his deep-fried starfish.
"Help me out here," requests Vobash, a prelude to further chastisement. The Triomman himself doesn't partake of the fishy bounty the other pirates avail themselves of. Instead, that sleeved varmint of his, now fully emerged and revealed to be some species of brushvezzer, munches voraciously on the plate of sporefin proffered before his master. "Which part of 'spare the privateers' confused you?"
"I don't know," Nemo pops a shrimp fully into his mouth with a flick of his forefinger, chewing contemplatively. "Maybe the part where it was an order?"
Charybdis jumbles her noodles mechanically. "No-one-ordered-you."
"We agreed," Vobash emphasizes.
"Did we?" Nemo wonders around his shrimp, fooling no one. "Guess I forgot."
An entirely oceanic world with a booming ecosystem and without a speck of terra firma to plant a flag onto, the planet Adrog held the dubious distinction of the Outer Ring's primary fishbasket since time immemorial. Therefore, the majority of the non-cash, non-spaceship-related booty hauled off the smoldering remains of Adrogi Wet Market consisted primarily of comestibles and, among those, seafood was the most universal.
Vobash's fence contacts across the Ring would wholesale the vast majority of the freeze-dried fish to the hungry public at heightened prices. A not-inconsiderable portion of the loot, however, was actually purchased by the growing population of street vendors and wreckage restauranteurs flocking to Talos II.
An entire miniature economy had begun to spring up on the once-abandoned moon, all to service the needs of the Freebooter Fleet. Often enough, they were reselling plunder to the very same pirates responsible for its initial plundering, the Council of Captains among them.
The sheer variety of maritime meals selected by the tables thirteen some occupants seemed to speak volumes about the Fleet's motley leadership. For his own lunch, Two-Bit'd selected a bushel of deep-fried starfish. Among all the Captains and their entourages, only Odisseus shares the same meal, savaging a whole bucket of the slimy things raw.
Whereas Greatgullet would normally come rushing to Nemo's defense, the Obax is preoccupied with his own platter, piled high with spiky mollusks. Within the unforgiving vice of his mighty jaws, he masticates the shells of crabs, clams and mussels alike.
"We urge that," states the Xendo ambassador, tiny tentacles of the still-struggling cephalopod visible in one chitinous claw, "if the Captain cannot refrain from this wasteful behavior, The Unconstant Lover must abstain from the upcoming sack of Kezz."
"Better flash," Two-Bit announces before the Xend can shove this next creature into any awaiting mandibles. Wiping starfish crumbs from his lips with a hand, Two-Bit rises officiously from his chair. He passes both Nemo and Odisseus, the former rooting about for his next selected shrimp and the latter dripping starfish appendage and saltwater from his muzzle, before arriving at the strategic imager.
Installed at his request, the shiny piece of Imperium military tech was a model or two nicer than the one stolen off that TFS Chaperone all those months ago for the Lover's use. Two-Bit opens a pre-programmed subroutine with a greasy fingertip. "We ain't even touching down on Kezz unless we can specc on a means to kuckle this fucker."
The image that cycles into view, somewhat distorted by the food stains and smeared fingerprints the imager's already accumulated, is that of a truly terrifying piece of technology. "Munitions Intergalactic Model A18 Liberation Anti-Orbital Heavy Torpedo Launcher" reads its label. The hologram depicts a mountain-high planetary missile tube and includes a literal adjacent mountain for scale.
"Motherbloomer's a blockade bagger," Two-Bit elucidates as each Captain considers the spinning hologram. "Installed maybe a month ago, by our toasty representatives in the Endless Imperium. Second somebody they don't like drops atmo, this blowbag'll be chaveling an anti-gantine zoomer deep up that somebody's exhaust pipe. Ball it up for me."
Both hands occupied with her quartet of strange Trijan stick utensils, Charybdis cuts to the chase. "Can-we-assume-you've-some-way-past-this?"
"You can," Two-Bit awards knowingly, tapping forth the next hologram on the imager's edge. "This," Two-Bit identifies, pointing toward the ring-shaped contraption of coils and casing that now floats before the assembled Captains, "is a guidance clasp. Not much to vizz at, sure, but that dohick there is more or less what keeps the wheel'
s thinkbox thinkin', if you follow."
"We do not," deadpans the ambassador in a manner to make even Moira jealous.
"Point is," Two-Bit reiterates, "they're a specialty part and they gotta coop these buggers in from IntraGalaxy Commerce or someplace if they hank another and kuckling this one dohick'll bring the entire anti-orbital wheel down, won't it?"
"How do you propose," Vobash questions, retrieving the postprandial form of his brushvezzer off the table and stuffing the snoring rodent further up his sleeve, "we incapacitate this clasp, then, if landing on Kezz is such an impossibility?"
"And what's," Greatgullet manages between clamorous bites of his clams, "this to do with the Boss blooming blowing up privateers?"
"One gantine, properly scrambled as some innocent cargo hauler, ain't feez to draw much attention from this motherbloomer," he directs towards Vobash, hoping that, by the conclusion of his argument, Greatgullet's question will likely be answered. "What we're vizzing at here is an insertion team. Wankful of brunos boot their way onto the planet, gank the guidance clasp and hoovy the way for you and the rest of your buckos to touch down, torch the place."
"Your-volunteering, then?" Charybdis supposes.
The Captain offers no objection, munching his next shrimp, tail and all, in one bite. Two-Bit merely shrugs. "Keeps us outta your hair for one, yeah? You sail under him long enough," he adds, gesturing absently towards Nemo, "you learn a few tricks on how best to herd him. Are we agreed, then?" he poses to the entire table. "We hink about that clasp, you bloomholes do all the hinking about them privvies?"
The required murmur of agreement, from the correct number of mouths, allows Two-Bit to nod gracefully and return to both his seat and his meal. Once arrived, a chewing Nemo chucks him solidly on the shoulder.
"Why I pay you the big bucks."
Odisseus can't help feeling at least somewhat inadequate. His Wreckingball combat shotgun, pilfered off the corpse of a Surimiah prison guard, was certainly nothing to laugh off.
He's standing in the shadow of a hundred-story-tall firearm, however, one capable of shooting a ballistic missile eighteen hundred mottibles into low orbit and pulverizing a small capital ship to smithereens with a repellent payload.
Unsurprisingly, the comparison between the two's a little unfriendly towards his own poor shotgun.
The Anti-Orbital Torpedo Launcher, or “Big Boner” as Nemo'd immediately named it, resembles less an erect member and more an accusatory finger, pointed angrily at an uncaring heaven. Fully tall enough to have wisps of actual cloud playing about its pinnacle, it was remarkable to consider that, essentially, this sky-high spike operated on technology no more sophisticated than what rode about in Odisseus' humble shotgun.
“Know what gets me?” the Ortok opines conversationally over his shoulder.
“Hm?” Nemo grunts with no true curiosity in his voice.
Odisseus nudges his head towards the towering torpedo launcher. “They erected this thing in, like, a month.” Like a visiting tourist before some sightseeing attraction, he cranes his neck fully back to appreciate the precise heights to which the sky-high barrel rises. “Probably airlifted the whole operation in, you know, from some offworld weapons manufacturate.” He returns his gaze weightily to his saltbrother. “All to stop you. Specifically.”
“Warms your heart, eh?” a proud Nemo concurs, placing his hand on his chest.
“It does something to my heart,” Odisseus agrees mutteringly.
Both the torpedo-enforced embargo against any unwanted spaceship ingress and the compound encircling the anti-orbital launcher were comparatively easy to puncture. The first barrier they circumvented via the use of The Unconstant Lover's growing library of innocuous scramble codifiers. The second barrier was surpassed with a scenic hike through Kezz's terraformed hills, a handful of slain sentries and a grappling tether to scale the curtain wall.
Currently, the crew lingers at various states of alert – Two-Bit and Moira – or repose – Nemo and Odisseus – near the service entrance to the launcher's control bunker. While Two-Bit, humanoid lockpick, hunkers at his post before the door control panel, Moira keeps watch, her electrobatons extended. Nemo and Odisseus loiter ten paces away, double checking their ammunition and drumming fingers against the stocks of their Wreckingballs.
“All to stop him generally,” Moira corrects helpfully, stepping forward to smash a guard rounding the corner punishingly in his mandibles. “I doubt they'd bring out the big guns,” she mimics Odisseus' gesture by glancing over her shoulder as the Kezzerak, his mouthparts both bruised and blackened, slumps to a squirming pile to the mossy ground, “for us and only us.”
“You might be surprised,” Nemo begs to differ. “Some people don't like me very much.”
“That a fact?” Moira Quicksilver, reigning queen of deadpan, reminds Nemo of her title.
Nemo shrugs with resignation. “Haters gonna hate.”
“Haters gonna vaporize you from orbit,” Odisseus clarifies.
Nemo nods his consent. “That's pretty hateful.”
“And that's access,” Two-Bit exclaims, climbing to his feet and backpedaling to Odisseus' side. Moira withdraws both electrobatons and draws both pistols in a single bewildering movement. Both saltbrothers raise their Wreckingballs toward the service entrance.
Made shy by all this attention, the side entrance sphincters slowly open.
Derived from what few signs of civilization Odisseus has seen thus far on their homeworld, Kezzerak architecture is pretty bizarre. According to Two-Bit, charged with jury-rigging open one of the bulkheads, Kezzerak user-interface is also pretty bizarre.
Most likely, Odisseus realizes, it's Kezzerak psychology that's ultimately the bizarre root, given their atypical reaction to four armed strangers busting open the door to the military bunker and leveling assault weapons at them.
Namely, they react with motionlessness and unblinking bewilderment, as though the idea of pirates upon their impenetrable homeworld was a concept their brains simply refused to allow. The control chamber they seek is now filled with, in addition to incomprehensible consoles designed for insectoid limbs and a dozen six-foot-tall sentient mantids, an equal number of blank and benumbed stares from compound eyes.
“Yo ho ho, motherfuckers!” Captain Nemo, breaker of ice, announces, striding bodily into the room. He empties the first round of his Wreckingball into the ceiling, understandably expecting some manner of reaction from the petrified Kezzerak. “Hand over your booty or prepare to walk the plank. Yarr, asshole!”
Thanks to Nemo's subtle wordplay and even subtler use of his combat shotgun, the first Kezzerak he approaches seems to, in a bolt of inspiration, understand the threat he poses. The mantid scuttles away from him, following the Wreckingball's instructional waving towards the center of the room.
“Shiver me timbers!” an enthusiastic Two-Bit declares, proceeding to copy Nemo's tactic of advancing on the nearest Kezzerak and spouting buccaneer clichés. To Odisseus' irritation, this actually seems to have an appreciable effect, the technician Two-Bit selects raising its forelegs in surrender and joining his comrade in the chamber's center.
“Thar she blows! Swab the poop deck!” Nemo continues gleefully, shepherding mantis-men at gunpoint. “Come on!” he beckons to both Moira and Odisseus, still standing undecidedly in the doorway. “Try one!”
“Try one?” Odisseus spits, lowering his Wreckingball. “Try one what? They can't blooming understand me!”
“Avast,” Moira intones, anomaly of a smirk coloring her face. Lawmen extended, she stalks into the chamber.
Standing now alone in the doorway, Odisseus pricks his whiskers in annoyance as Nemo and Two-Bit continue to moronically yammer out their meaningless catchphrases.
“Batten down the hatches!”
“All wanks on deck!”
“Pieces of eight!”
Despite himself, the Ortok paces forward, shotgun at the ready, towards the nearest and subsequently most unfortuna
te Kezzerak. “They aren't even gonna speak Ortoki,” he mutters. “I could say anything and they'd react exactly the same.” His expectant crewmates watching him, Odisseus roars “Sour cream and onion!” directly in the chitinous face of the poor mantid.
When presented with a mouthful of snarling gangs, the Kezzerak scampers its six legs away from Odisseus. To the crew's sniggering, the Ortok shrugs his shotgun. “See?”
When each member of the mantid gunnery crew is successfully corralled into the chamber's center, Nemo assumes his commanding posture. Wreckingball propped statuesquely along his shoulder, he scans the inhuman visages of his captured prisoners. “Now, who's in charge here?”
The called-upon Kezzerak, wearing the most officious looking uniform-rig, tentatively raises a crooked forelimb.
“Wonderful. Now, where do you keep the, uh...”
“Guidance clasp,” Two-Bit provides.
Nemo inserts the term without missing a beat. “Where do you keep the guidance clasp?”
Two-Bit Switch admits that, among the Captain's celebrated history of stupid and humiliating hats, the guidance clasp isn't actually his worst.
The ring of jagged metal, thoughtlessly torn from amongst Big Boner's mechanical innards, resembles more or less a crown, albeit a gunmetal gray, ill-fitting and supremely uncomfortable one. Perched lopsidedly atop anyone else's head, the clasp would look inappropriate or tacky or somehow more intangibly wrong. Upon that matted black mane of his, the goofily grinning Nemo perfectly embodies some mad count, a king of fools, a master of ceremonies.
Swilling his Gitterswitch, Two-Bit enjoys the spectacle of his Captain and his carousing from afar. For once, his crew is seated somewhere far from Nemo's side, by both choice and necessity. High upon the dais, the Captain wines and dines a guest of special honor; Dvalex the Diehard, legendary Skunyen coach of the Dragnoor Dragons and registered captain of The Breath Weapon, the team's official transport freighter.
Galactic Menace Page 36
