Through the shattered remains of the door, Gertie sees utter pandemonium brought down on her humble operation. Where once highrollers and their assorted thugs lounged in cauldrons of soothe and arouse, a battalion of spice rangers now runs amok, making mincemeat of any who stand before them.
Whores of a dozen species and three genders, all covered strategically in slime, go shrieking and scrambling in every direction. Here and there, pockets of armed resistance give brief battle but goons armed with sidearms and shivs are no match for spice rangers with Dominos and heatblades. The air of the bathhouse is thick with hovering rangers, opening fire into the panic with blaring green ditrogen, swooping down harpies to slice and sever with their heatblades.
The whole horrific scene is immediately blocked from view by a great, shaggy silhouette, blotting out the light from the doorway with his bulk. The silhouette growls something in Ortoki and prowls into the room, stomping past Gertie without a glance or a second thought to her.
“The fuck's happening?” she questions him. Her question's completely stupid; she knows he won't answer, she knows she can't understand him and she knows exactly what's happening outside.
In three swift moves, Odisseus has reached into the mostly drained cauldron, yanked free his saltbrother and thrown his naked body over his shoulder. The Galactic Menace, leaking seduce from his open mouth, makes no objection as he's carried, like a sack of grain, through the chamber.
As they pass the random pipe where he'd hung his clothes, he scrambles to collect his things but Odisseus doesn't stop. In the end, he only manages to snag his duster and his gunbelt, his pants, shirt and underpants landing in a slime-soaked heap on the ground.
Still numb from their sudden reversal of fortune, Gertie has no words to shout at him as they disappear through the open door. Nothing she says would stop him dragging the Galactic Menace away, no screamed apology or indignation or anything at he who brought the wrath of the moons down on everything they'd built here.
She has only enough time to turn and exchange a bewildered glance with Triggan, newly emerged from the soak, before they need to start hatching escape plans of their own.
Odisseus knew this would happen.
He knew that, sooner or later, all the fun and games on Thaksu would shrivel up and that bounty hunters or spice rangers or tax collectors could come tromping out here in force to capture their collective asses. He'd even guessed a few of the specifics. He'd probably be dragging Nemo out by the earlobe. Moira, sulking on the ship, would probably be of little help to him. Within minutes, Flask would probably appear, pants around his ankles, all shocked and alarmed and with nothing to contribute.
To look at the screaming, absurd panic of everyone around him, one would think Odisseus a psychic, to have made such a prediction. Instead, he simply had common sense, a sixth sense that might as well be supernatural, considering how absent it was amongst pretty much everybody out here in Bad Space.
Slimy, naked Nemo is muttering something over the Ortok's shoulder as Odisseus snarls and swats his way through the frantic gamblers, scrambling to escape Gertie's pleasure halls and flee to their spaceships. For the most part, he's managed to avoid any actual spice rangers, against all odds, they're smuggled safely among the alien crowds a moment. Again, however, the Ortok's acute common sense tells him they'll inevitably be discovered, sooner or later.
One step removed from the bathhouses, the gambling hall is utter disarray. Walkeens and greenskins and Cyngoks go running in all directions, their collected winnings spilling out of overful arms with each step. The spacious chamber has become a crowded obstacle course of upturned tables, stray holochips and rampaging criminals – some gunshot, some dismembered, a few actively on fire.
As he struggles through the press of bodies, Odisseus has spotted his preferred exit, the one that'll open onto the southern landing fields and eventually, the Ortok hopes, The Unconstant Lover. Shouldering and stomping his way along, he's not remotely surprised when Flask materializes from the crowd.
“We're fooking rumbled!” he announces pointlessly, shoving loose cash into every available pocket on his windbreaker. “Where's the–”
“Here,” Odisseus grunts and shoves past him, trusting him to fall into the path the growling Ortok carves through the chaotic mess.
“Oh,” Flask remarks, noticing the slime-streaked naked body tossed over the Ortok's hairy shoulder for the first time. “Howdy, coz,” Flask greets to the Captain, his leather duster flapping back and forth with each step. “The fook's all your clothes?”
“They got dropped,” the Captain explains groggily, pointing back the way they'd came with his pistol, “back there someplace. My pants. My shirt. My undies.”
Flask spikes an eyebrow at this. “What's with him?”
“All hopped up on Votagi narcotics,” Odisseus offers by way of explanation, elbowing his way past a Tracath that's so hairy, it's basically a shambling mound of white fur. “Had the all the brat boiled off him.”
“Huh,” remarks Flask, taking a moment from all the bloodshed and insanity to point at Nemo's exposed back. “Tattoo's getting pretty big.”
Odisseus stops dead, about to smack the shaggy Tracath where he assumes the head must be, when the realization occurs to him. “The keys.”
Flask scowls. “The what?”
“The keys. The spaceship keys.” Odisseus is frantic, visions of heat stroke, Fernhollow and pitched battle in his mind. “Nemo, where're the spaceship keys?”
“Uh...” is Nemo's very reassuring response.
“Check the jacket,” Odisseus orders Flask, standing still amid the swirling press of panicked species all around. “Check all the pockets.”
Needing no further bidding, Flask hustles around the Ortok's back and takes hold of Nemo's duster. The Captain makes some wordless protest but, from the frantic sounds of the leather creasing, Odisseus assumes Flask doesn't listen. Odisseus, meanwhile, holds position, growling away a greenskin that comes too close and shoulder-checking a Prydak so hard, they crash backwards into an open vat of sizzling soak.
“I hear them!” Flask announces, shaking the jacket so that it produces a jingling sound. “They've gotta be in here someplace, like!”
“We're not going anywhere,” Odisseus makes the ultimatum, finally earning a respectable berth from the surrounding screaming masses, “until I have visual on those keys.”
This is followed by another few seconds of searching, grown increasingly more desperate. “How many fooking,” Flask growls through gritted teeth, “pockets're in this bloody thing?”
“Everybody's yelling,” Nemo groans.
“Here!” Flask announces triumphantly, shoving a familiar key-ring into the air. Odisseus throws a glance behind to see the “I Heart Takioro” keychain that dangles from Flask's fist and that's all the more confirmation he needs.
“And we're moving,” Odisseus announces as he starts forward again, not waiting for Flask to catch up.
“Moons,” Flask remarks, hustling behind and shoving the fistful of keys into his pocket. “Can you fookin' imagine? Good thing we checked.”
The crowd parts a moment like a breaching wave and Odisseus is granted a momentary glimpse of the exit, maybe a dozen yards ahead. His renewed purpose is cut short, however, when he catches sight of who stands astride the door. A Xhorian, Domino-armed and harness-strapped, stands a dozen yards from Odisseus and, even now, is leveling his rifle for a killshot.
Surprised by his own nimbleness, Odisseus spins away, simultaneously shoving Flask back with a paw as green laserfire blisters past. An unlucky purpleskin takes the short burst in the torso and falls, screaming, to the thermosteel at Flask's feet.
“How many?” Flask mutters, craning past Odisseus to glance the door and yanking loose his own firearm.
“More, now,” Odisseus groans as the Xhorian's triangular mouth starts yammering into his visor's headset. A quick sweep of the gambling hall reveals another pair of rangers – humanoids both
and hovering on flamejets both – swerve from their search to converge towards their position.
“New plan?” proposes Flask, more a question than an actual proposition.
“That door,” improvises Odissues, pointing a claw across the room, towards an opening in the western wall made from a pair of deactivated blast doors. No sooner has he done this than a second barrage of green ditrogen sizzles the fur clean from a strip of his pointed arm. Swallowing the pain, Odisseus stoops and plows his way through the crowd.
“Raise Moira on the comm,” he commands over his shoulder. “Tell her to take off, come meet us on the western side of the compound.”
“Don't let Moira fly my ship!” shrieks a panicked Nemo.
“Nobody's gonna fly your ship,” Odisseus assures him. He adds, as quietly as he can in all the clamor, to Flask. “She'll use autopilot.”
“Don't let autopilot fly my ship!”
They're interrupted by a circle of screams from all around the fleeing pirates. Bolts of ditrogen streak down like vengeful lightning, landing amid the crowd to wound and outright slay anyone they touch. A quick glance over the shoulder not draped with saltbrother reveals the pair of spice rangers, hovering some distance on their trail, their Dominos afire.
Odisseus forces his way through the crowd, weaving as erratically as he can, the ruffians all around him smote by laserfire. Flask follows suit, covering his head with his hand, like this'll somehow deflect ditrogen, as he screams into his open comm channel.
“Quicksilver! We need what,” he glances to Odisseus for confirmation, “evac or summat? Come fooking get us!”
There's a pause on the frequency, long enough for Odisseus to trample an unsuspecting Vossa from behind. “You want me to,” Moira wonders tentatively, “fly the ship? To where?”
“Autopilot,” Flask's quick to shoot back. “Captain was very clear on that.”
“Don’t let autopilot fly my ship!”
“The western side of the compound,” Odisseus provides, somewhat more helpfully. “Lower the ramp, too – this probably ain't gonna be too clean.”
There's a sigh on the other end of the line as Odisseus throws his body, passenger and all, into one of the shallow alcoves on either side of the bulkhead. “Bounty hunters?”
The Ortok swings a paw around, as laserfire pockmarks the wall inches from where he's hidden, attempting to feebly slap the door control. “Nemo,” he beseeches his much better positioned saltbrother, “can you–”
“Oh, sure,” Nemo replies cheerfully. “Happy to help.”
“Spice rangers,” Flask replies into the comm. “No idea how in the fook they found us.”
“How in the fuck did it take them this long?” Odisseus asks instead.
As Nemo gropes and fumbles with door controls so simple a trained arlaxi could figure them out, the spice rangers close the distance, landing a little ways away. Unable to find purchase with their firearms, they're both sheathed with a quick motion and the dreaded heatblades extend from both wrists.
“Huh,” remarks Moira through the comm. “Weird that nothing woulda come through on my end.”
“Any blooming century now,” Odisseus growls to Nemo.
“Might wanna hop on them sensors, then, too, eh?” Flask suggests. “See exactly how fooked're we?”
“Yeah,” Moira agrees acidly, “lemme grow an extra arm, then.”
Nemo's aghast. “She can do that?”
That's precisely the moment that the bulkhead doors grind open with a tortuous sound. The Ortok's relief is immediately shattered when he realizes what's actually behind that door. The sound of roaring, backfiring and exploding engines fills Odisseus with a sudden sinking dread.
Demonic vehicles, mongrelized bastards born in the deepest layers of engineer's hell, smash and crash and rip one another apart on a muddy arena of spilled fuel and spilled blood. The defeated carcasses, smoke coughing from their grills and engines whining pitifully, are strewn across their path, creating a gauntlet for the remaining competitors to navigate. The stands are sparsely populated, though, less than a hundred total spectators here to watch this match of seemingly little consequence.
“The qualifying round,” hisses Flask to the Ortok's right. “There's gotta be another–”
They both turn to consider the gambling hall and any other potential exits they might take. Instead, they see two spice rangers, a yard and closing from heatblade distance.
“Nope!” resolves Odisseus and, taking a deep breath, sprints into the midst of the demolition derby.
He's not taken three steps before, hurtling unseen from the Ortok's left, a bellowing monster of a driftdozer, drenched in crimson paint and studded with whirring buzzsaws, races past, nearly reducing Odisseus and his saltbrother into red spray. The name Meat Grinder flashes before the Ortok's eyes before the whole massacring mess crashes into another less fearsome wrecker.
Looking both ways, Odisseus slogs further forward, all senses alert in every directions for the next death machine that's liable to bear down on them.
The smell of burning carbon petro, the thunder of engines, the squeal of thermosteel grinding against thermosteel jogs something in Nemo's scattered brain. “I wanna do it.”
“You're doing it,” Odisseus assures him, certainly too quiet to be heard.
Ahead looms – the first of many hurdles between here and escape – a the gutted ruin of a capsized gravelmulcher. Odisseus clambers inside the hulk's open belly, moving awkwardly to keep Nemo safe from the forest of jagged metal he navigates. Here, the Ortok stops to catch his breath, calm his quivering paws and survery the surroundings for the next hurdle.
He's somewhat surprised when Flask, all jittery agility, slides into the destroyed cabin right alongside him. “We ain't outta the shite yet,” he confirms between panting breaths.
“Really?” snaps Odisseus gazing around in surprise at their ravaged surroundings. “This isn't the ship? I coulda sworn–”
Then a shivering spear of flame, vibrating with sheer heat, slices the air between them. The strike came from above, shearing through shoddy thermosteel and missing Odisseus by the whiskers. On instinct, they both leap aside, to avoid the next few stabs of the spice ranger, squatting atop the gravelmulcher's cabin and going to town with his heatblades.
By some good fortune, Odisseus and Nemo reach the mud safely, no spice ranger obstructing their escape. It's Flask that comes face-to-face with a descending ranger, her heatblade extending. Odisseus shrieks something animalistic, afraid his childhood comrade will meet a fate too similar to Two-Bit. He's prepared to leap back through the gravelmulcher and save him when Flask, quite unexpectedly, saves his own life.
When Flask's feet hit the mud, he was close enough to hump the spice ranger's ray shield. As the heatblade swings back around to impale him, Flask moves a little faster and his weapon only requires him to click a trigger. The snub of his pistol sneaks just inside the ray shield and his single shot blasts the humanoid ranger in the shoulder.
Her counterstrike interrupted, the Consortium's finest staggers a few feet backward, gritting her teeth against the pain. Then Meat Grinder, reversing at top speed, flattens her to the earth.
Flask scrambles back through the gravelmulcher to join his crewmates, green laserfire pelting the mud all around him. Odisseus scoops up the Captain, tosses him over his shoulder and, soon as he's joined by Flask, makes a mad scramble for the next piece of wreckage. He knows he won't make it, however, the spice ranger still atop the gravelmulcher ready to gun them down in moments.
Instead, Odisseus is tossed fifteen feet forward by the kinetic energy of a massive explosion behind them. Slamming onto his stomach, Odisseus yelps in pain and surprise, throwing a glance behind to see what in all the moons just happened.
There's no gravelmulcher or spice ranger behind them. Instead, there's an enormous blackened crater, steaming green smoke. What could possibly have made such an impact, Odisseus has no immediate idea, until, moments later, it happen
s again. A chunk of the stadium, a good distance above them all, is struck by a godlike bolt of green ditrogen from somewhere far above, obliterating the thermosteel stands in a puff of green gas.
“I feel like,” comments Nemo in a moment of clarity, “that's bad.”
“Two things,” Moira informs them, crackling through Flask's comm. “First, autopilot is–”
“Blue button,” Odisseus replies on instinct, “beneath red panel. Upper inside of pilot's dash.”
Moira's mood seems to brighten ever so slightly, hearing this. “Second,” she continues, matter-of-factly, “we're being bombarded from orbit again.”
“That so?” Odisseus wonders as he gazes up to consider the rain of capital-class laserfire that streaks through Thaksu's crowded atmosphere to crater the earth in every direction. Not every blast that pours down from on high lands within sight. Those that do, hitting the stadium's shaky stands or occasionally impacting the actual arena, do so with devastating, demolishing effect.
“By who?” wonders a dumbstruck Flask, also staring up at their incoming destruction.
“Make an educated guess,” suggests Moira, the sound of the ship's engines rumbling in the background. “With all this buhoxshit in atmo, that's the best I can do. Think he's up to the task,” comes Moira's next pointed question, “of flying us outta here?”
As one, Odisseus and Flask look from the sky to the Captain and try to assess his ability to fly a spaceship or stand on two legs or wear clothes. When they do, they discover he's sitting fully upright, he's pointing behind them and he's suddenly awash in a pair of headlights. “Hey,” he warns them calmly. “Look out.”
Quick as he can, Odisseus slams both humanoids painfully to the ground with a paw planted in each chest. The shouts are drowned out by the thrum of what sounds like a Grav9 driftmotor, firing on all cylinders, screaming past, scant inches above them.
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