by Adam Carter
“Now look what you’ve gone and done.”
“Well, we have two days,” Darkthorne said. “I reckon we could make it to Port Caern by then.”
“You won’t solve this by running away,” Kiel said.
“How do you know until we’ve tried?”
“The king of all the lands is after your hide and you really think you can just disappear?” Kiel asked. “With your inclination against stealth and your need to broadcast your name to everyone we meet, regardless of whether they actually want to hear about you and your (usually made-up) exploits?”
“Come on, I’m not that bad.”
“You remember that time with the old couple who kept telling you to shut up?”
“Just trading war stories before he clogged it.”
“We were in the theatre!”
Darkthorne shrugged. “Fair enough. So, it’s obvious where to begin looking.”
“Too right it is,” Tarne said. “We go straight back for Shalla and pin her down for questioning.”
“I was thinking more of finding that casino and Sparky,” Darkthorne said.
“But Shalla knows something about the disappearance of the princess,” Kiel said. “The king told us as much.”
“And if he knew even half of what he was pretending, he’d have her by now, right? Am I right? Of course I’m right. And I’m going to the casino.”
“I don’t believe him,” Tarne muttered as he strode boldly off. “Well, Sara, you coming back to the brothel with me?”
“For the sake of my life, try to stop me. Oh, and I’m not a cannibal, Heather.”
“Jeez, Sara, I never said you were.”
FUTURE CHAPTER
The Princess Aurellia was a space vessel badly in need of repairs, yet her crew knew the need to shy away from heavily populated areas was paramount. The law was after them just as it always was, and they could not afford to be caught by a random police patrol. Captain Darkthorne had a semi-upheld policy against firing upon police vessels, although having their weapons systems entirely down did not help them any either. After due consideration and a meeting with his chief of staff, Darkthorne had decided to head straight for the heart of the known systems, and set a course for Bastelle.
“Bastelle?” Tarne asked, shocked.
“Bastelle?” Kiel seconded.
“Bastelle?” Sparky said also.
“Every pirate ship needs a parrot,” Darkthorne laughed, “and you guys are the proof.”
“But Bastelle is the capital world of, like, everywhere,” Tarne said. “You must be mad to even consider going there. Pay attention when I’m shouting you out.”
“Sorry, drifted off there. Heh, was wondering why lemmings blow themselves up all the time.”
“God, I rest my case,” Tarne said.
“They throw themselves off cliffs,” Kiel said flatly. “They don’t blow themselves up, Jagrad.”
“That’s a common misconception,” Darkthorne said. “Anyway, I’m talking about when you get them to blow themselves up. I reckon it must be something to do with the weasels, you know.”
“Weasels?” Tarne asked. “Tell me you haven’t been plugging games into the main computer again, please.”
“Well I haven’t been plugging them into the coffee machine, Heather, and yes I do know what the coffee machine looks like. Unlike some people.”
“I think we should get back to the point of Bastelle,” Tarne said. “I think I misheard, I take it you must have said Artelle?”
“Nope. Bastelle.”
“That’s funny, because I swear to God I heard Bastelle again. I didn’t hear Rillelle?”
“Whatever you heard, Heather, still doesn’t change the fact that I said,” and he cupped his hands together over his mouth, “Bastelle!”
“Do you mind dropping me off somewhere first, then?” Tarne asked. “Preferably somewhere a little less conspicuous. Somewhere I won’t be instantly picked up by the law and recognised as a smuggler.”
“Can’t spare the fuel for that, I’m afraid,” Darkthorne said. “Besides which, I need you here, Heather. Who’s going to fix my coffee machine when we’re in the middle of being pounded to death by enemy fighter-craft?”
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Nope.”
“I feel a mutiny coming on,” Kiel said, ever flatly, “although I suppose I do see your reasoning. You think the best place for us to hide is deep within a crowd. Plus no one will expect us to be anywhere near here, no one has reason to think we’re here, and no one is actively searching for us at the moment. We’re on wanted lists all over the gaff, but we haven’t done anything particularly bad lately.”
“Hide in plain sight?” Darkthorne asked. “Never thought of that. Good hit, Sara.”
“I’m not even going to ask why you wanted to go to Bastelle, then,” Kiel decided.
“I have a question,” Sparky said, raising his hand somewhat meekly even as he frowned, trying to work out whether what he was thinking actually made sense before he voiced his concerns to everyone else. “Uh, since the four of us comprise the crew of this vessel, and you said you just came out of a meeting with your chief of staff ... who the heck form the chief of staff?”
“Duh,” Darkthorne said, tapping Sparky on the forehead. “You’re the staff and I’m the chief, so therefore I am the chief of staff.”
There was silence on board the Princess Aurellia for several moments.
“Come again?” Tarne asked at last.
“Anyway,” Darkthorne said, taking his seat in the command centre, “it’s all moot now anyway, since I plotted the course in, then locked all the controls with a password none of you could ever guess, so we’re headed there no matter if any of you do decide to mutiny.”
“You prepared for our mutiny?” Kiel asked. “But I’ve only just brought up the idea.”
“Pays to be prepared with a crew like this one,” Darkthorne said. “Scoundrels, all of us.”
“We’re pirates,” Tarne said. “I think we’re supposed to be scoundrels.”
“I still don’t get it,” Sparky said.
“Get what?” Darkthorne asked.
“Why you’re still our leader. I mean, who is this whacko?”
“Kid has a point,” Kiel said.
“Any reason we have to have this conversation right now?” Darkthorne asked jovially.
“I suppose we could postpone it until we’re all dead on Bastelle,” Tarne said.
“Because I think you might just get your wish if you keep arguing.”
“You mean you might back down?” Tarne asked, hopefully.
“No, I mean that warship outside might just blow us out of the spaceways and prevent us from ever reaching Bastelle.”
They all spun about, staring through the fore windows of the Aurellia, although there was nothing before them but bleak space.
“Made you look,” Darkthorne laughed.
“Oh that was so funny,” Tarne said. “You maybe want to ...” Then something struck their vessel and she fell sideways, clutching onto the side of a rail to prevent herself from being pitched over the side.
“Fooled you twice,” Darkthorne laughed. “There was a warship really; it had just passed out of sight by the time you guys turned around to look at it.”
Tarne and Kiel were in their seats within an instant, both of them flicking switches and trying to get some of their weapons back online. Sparky hung on for dear life and began to pray.
“What are they?” Tarne shouted as something else struck their vessel. “That wasn’t an impact, was it?”
“Just the repercussion from some form of quake,” Kiel confirmed through her sensors. “If I could read any of these systems, I’d reckon someone was dropping depth charges on us.”
“Depth charges?” Tarne asked. “Why would a warship be dropping depth charges on us? Can’t they see where we are?” Depth charges were not an uncommon tool used by many militaries, altho
ugh the Princess Aurellia did not possess any form of stealth technology. Depth charges would show the position of even concealed vessels, although theirs was in no way concealed, nor of any real threat unless they decided to just ram the enemy. Any enemy who wanted to attack them had no need to deploy such tactics.
The fact remained, however, that they were doing just that.
“I have eyeball,” Tarne said, then raised her eyebrows as she brought the image of the enemy vessel onto her monitor. It was large, heavily built and very slow. “Looks like some kind of trawler.”
“Fishermen?” Kiel asked. “This far out?”
“And hardly looks like a warship at all,” Tarne said, turning scolding eyes towards her captain.
“Nice distraction, Captain,” Kiel said. “Really take our minds off busting your chops, that will.”
“Not a warship?” Darkthorne frowned. “Looked big enough to me.”
“Whales are big, Jagrad,” Tarne commented, “but they don’t even have teeth.”
“No, but they did give us Hugh Jackman.”
“Hugh Jackman was Australian,” Tarne said.
“Actually, he was born in Wales,” Darkthorne said, bobbing out his tongue.
“New South Wales,” Tarne said flatly. “Which is in Australia.”
Darkthorne opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, closed it again, looked at Kiel, looked at Sparky, looked back to Tarne and finally said, “Nah, you’re having me on.”
“Oh for the love of ... sometimes I really want to slap you into next Tuesday.” It doesn’t really matter who said that one, because they were all thinking it (except of course for Darkthorne).
“Hey,” Sparky said suddenly, “small planet on my scopes. Ya think we could drop down and investigate?”
The proportion of space which is filled with void is immense. Stars are common throughout the galaxy, although do not huddle in clumps. The distance between each star therefore is (quite literally) astronomical, and most of those stars are without planetary systems surrounding them. That a vessel which has just accidentally crossed paths with a space trawler should suddenly moments thereafter stumble upon a small planet they had not noticed earlier is something of a very, very slight possibility. In fact we can go so far as to say that it is just one example of lazy writing in that whoever has thrown the Princess Aurellia onto this new world has run entirely dry of ideas and is making everything up as he or she goes along.
Just so you know.
“No,” Darkthorne said. “Bastelle is our next stop.”
(Which somewhat negates the whole reason for having the planet turn up in the first place, destroys any interesting plot device the planet may well have held, but most certainly supports the theory that it’s all made up as we go along.)
Very little happened until the Princess arrived at Bastelle. Bastelle itself was a relatively small world colonised by Earth some thousand years earlier. There was a native sentient race, although in grand Earth tradition this race was exterminated that Earth might take their skies, their soil, their seas and everything else that was theirs. They ate their animals, polluted their air, and blamed the indigenous species, threatening to wipe them off the face of the planet before realising that they had already done this and that this was precisely where their troubles had begun.
Bastelle was now fortified against further attack, for the colonisers were strictly protective of everything they owned, everything they had appropriated anyway. They had established a large steel wall within their atmosphere, covering the entire world with this protection. They had then been forced to implement a system of artificial atmosphere, which had never quite worked right. Anyway, the entire planet, from space looking inwards, resembled a large steel football. That was until they decided to build upon it, adding several gun turrets to deter enemies.
Bastelle existed in this state for several centuries, entirely enclosed and not even certain there was an outside world. Then one day some bright lad came up with the theory that since they had never been attacked by any space-faring race, perhaps all these precautions were a little excessive and that they should get rid of them that they might attempt to reintegrate themselves with the universe as a whole.
The man was promptly declared an alien collaborator and executed for high treason.
About a decade thereafter, with still no attack, the government decided the youth’s idea hadn’t been that bad after all, spent the next five years trying to find him only to remember they had killed him, and went ahead with his plan anyway. The idea was to make Bastelle the most attractive planet in the known universe, and to this end did they take the steel football and build two giant domes upon its outer casing, domes which served no actual purpose other than pure aesthetics. They also added a deep, curved ridge below these domes. Anyone approaching Bastelle was now confronted with the universe’s first planet with a steel shell and a happy, smiling face to greet them.
Unfortunately, the steel shell still posed a problem, until the Bastellians decided to remove half of it, leaving only the face for show.
Three years later, an alien invasion wiped out the entire population of Bastelle and a new tribe of humans moved in.
Then Bastelle was made fully open to the public, complete with gaming cities, hunting cities, fighting cities and all-round sin cities. Oh, and the infamous Walking City, but that’s something we shouldn’t bother getting into here.
In the present day, Bastelle was the place to go for anyone who was anyone, and being situated at the very centre of the galaxy, it was also a very handy place to be able to reach and still be back home for supper.
The Princess Aurellia slipped through its low security fairly easily. For a planet which had at one time been taught in schools as the text-book epitome of security, Bastelle had fallen into lower standards of late, and Tarne only wished she believed Darkthorne had known that when he had suggested they land there. Whether he was supremely clever or simply insane, they made it to the ground easily enough, and found themselves landing in the district of mechanics.
“You know,” Tarne said as she shut down the engines, “I really have to hand it to you this time, Jagrad. I honestly thought we were going to set down in Fight City or something, and have to struggle our way out. Here we should actually be able to get someone to fix our ship, and head out as soon as they’re done.”
“Apology accepted, Captain Needa,” Darkthorne said.
“I don’t even want to get that reference, do I?”
“Probably not.”
“Let’s take a look outside,” Kiel suggested, moving towards the doors and making certain she had her gun strapped to her hip. “In a city devoted to fixing craft, we should have attracted a lot of the right attention, and they should all be competing for the best price.”
“Like lawyers at the steps of the senate in ancient Rome,” Tarne said, moving to join her.
“That a reference I want to get?” asked Darkthorne.
“Just be a good fellow and grab your gun, Jagrad.”
“You want for me to stay with the ship?” Sparky asked. “You know, in case whoever we hire tries to rob us blind or take off or something?”
We don’t have anything here worth stealing,” Darkthorne said, “and no one could ever guess my passcode, so I don’t see the point.”
The sun beat down upon them as they stepped into the light, and they were glad at last to be able to walk upon the surface of a world which would not a) burn off their skin, b) freeze their eyeballs solid or c) produce enough concentration of the right gases to keep them laughing for weeks afterward. Tarne breathed in deeply and released the inhalation slowly. “This is more like it,” she said.
“And to think, you didn’t even want to come here,” Darkthorne scolded. “I see someone ahead now.”
Tarne looked about even as Darkthorne moved to talk to the person he had found. The world was different all over, although the city in which they had landed was mainly desert, with small settlements
sprouting up seemingly out of the dunes themselves. Tarne suspected the population lived beneath the surface, at least within this city anyway, and that the only establishments visible above ground were those which serviced broken craft in need of repair, such as their own. The establishment which they now approached resembled little more than an old-style petrol station, and Tarne suspected they might have to move the Princess closer if they wanted this man to take their business.
Darkthorne was already in deep negotiation with the nomad when she arrived to join him. The nomad wore large goggles pressed tight against his face, thick shawls to cover his entire body, and a winning smile, which was all they could see of his skin.
“We have negotiated a price,” Darkthorne told Tarne, “and Mr Karruck here has decided to take our ship in and repair her for us.”
“Whoa there, cowboy,” Tarne said. “Don’t you think you might need someone else to help with your negotiations here?”
“My chief of staff dealt with it,” Darkthorne said. “I got the whole deal for just two grand.”
Tarne blinked. “Well, that sounds ... a little too good to be true.” She turned then to Mr Karruck. “I take it that it’s two grand to replace the rear dorsal fin or something, right?”
“Two grand is for everything that needs doing to her,” the native (well, descendent of an invader who wiped out the invading population who wiped out the indigenous life) replied. “Except if I find higher costs involved.”
“Here it comes,” Tarne said. “And what would ‘higher costs’ entail? If our ship has an engine or something?”
“If it runs on particle-charged nions. Does it run on particle-charged nions?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t have a problem,” Mr Karruck said. “And it shan’t cost more than two grand.”
“Besides,” Darkthorne said, “we just shook on it.”
“I thought that was you shaking hands when you said hello.”
“Close, it was me saying ‘good show’.”
“Are you patronising me again?”
“Perish the thought, dear.”
“Guys,” Kiel said, approaching, “I think that sand dune over there just moved.”