Cass ducked back out of view behind a table and assessed her options. She needed to wade through this mess and get to her crew. Or else somehow get their attention and get them to come to her—
Something wet assaulted her ear. “Ewww, what the?” Recoiling back, she shifted in her crouch and prepared to level the offender with her plate of food, only to find herself nose to nose with … the mission target!
The shaggy black dog’s lolling tongue attempted to lick gravy off the tip of his snout. “Mmm. Almost … got it … all!”
“Almost got…?” Cass reached up with her free hand, swiping at her ear, then pulled it back to find her fingertip coated in meat gravy. “Were you licking this off my ear?” she asked, feeling suddenly queasy.
“Gravy with a little extra earwax—it’s not bad.” The dog sat down, his tail wagging.
“You’re Zuckberg. The dog. The secret weapon.”
“I know.” He bent down to lick his crotch.
Cass shook her head reprovingly. “That’s disgusting.”
He paused and gave her a sidelong glance. “What? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, lady.”
For the briefest of moments, the thought of entirely abandoning this mission crossed her mind. The dog appeared to have little self-awareness. A little voice answered, He’d fit right in on your crew. “Damn it,” she muttered. The little voice was right.
“Hmm?” The snout lifted.
Cass peeked over the cover of her table and scanned the room, then pointed at the cluster of pirates and fur-wearing primitives. “See those people? They’re with me. We’re getting out of here. I’d like you to come with us.”
The dog peered at her hand, then shoved his nose forward and licked her palm.
“Argh, stop that!”
The dog ignored her, bee-lining for her backside. Cass tried to whip around, but the crazy canine was too fast and her awkward crouch and ridiculous dress too limiting. Lacking any feeling below the waist, she could only guess at what he might be doing. By the time she was able to twist away, the dog had stepped back to her front again.
He grinned up at her as the food fight intensified around them. “You’re the pirate captain, aren’t you? Harry Ass is one of your crew?”
Harry … Ass? She blinked. “Yes.” He must’ve sniffed her out. Damn, but that was invasive. What else had the dog sniffed out? Everything, if the mission dozier was even close to accurate. “You know Harry?”
“Yeah. He’s a nice guy, er, ass, if a bit oblivious. Rest of your crew seem pretty cool, too.”
Cass stood from her cover, gaping down at him. “You know the rest of my crew, too?”
“Sure! They were gonna take me to meet the rest of the pirates, but then decided to come rescue you first.” His dread-locked head turned to regard the storm of food filling the air around them. “I’m not sure this is what they had in mind, though. Doesn’t seem like much of a rescue to me. Not that I’m complaining, mind you! I’ve been wanting to try the food you humans eat for years! But that blowhard Hawke wouldn’t let me. Said it would make me fat or something. Pffft.”
Cass could only stare down at him. So it seemed maybe her crew had had things better in hand than it had appeared.
A half-eaten biscuit thudded off her chest and landed at her feet.
“You gonna eat that? No?”
Cass grimaced. Zuckberg finished off the biscuit in one bite and then licked up the remaining crumbs on the carpet. She cleared her throat. “Well, I’m getting my crew and getting out of here. You still want to meet the rest of the pirates?”
Zuckberg sniffed around, licked the carpet a couple more times, then lifted his head. “Do you have free food?”
Cass hefted a brow. “Free food? Umm, yeah. All you can eat.”
That promise, whether or not she could keep it, was clearly good enough for the dog. His tail power-wagged back and forth. “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
26
Harry found it impossible to avoid the flying bits of food. Poor Buddy was spattered by gravy and breadcrumbs, and none of it smelled too good. Did he dare test his hooves and get down off the improvised seat? Maybe he could make it under the table.
He turned his head sideways and ducked to try to get a glimpse behind the hanging table cloth. Is that…? No, it couldn’t be. A lengthy white tail lay on the floor, fluffed out to the extreme. He called out, “Kitt, is that you under there?”
An angry hiss answered him.
“Kitt?”
“Go away.”
Well that was weird. When things got violent, Kitt was always amongst the first to get involved. She could be absolutely fierce … and deadly. It was probably a good thing she wasn’t out here fighting, though, or the Feds might be using their weapons instead of the evening’s menu to deal with their enemies. Which was all to say, it made absolutely no sense that Kitt appeared to be hiding.
“Is everything okay?” Harry asked.
“Does it look like things are okay? It’s disgusting out there!”
“It is a little messy,” he agreed.
“Harry?”
This was the longest conversation he’d ever had with his moody companion. Despite the circumstances, he was glad they were getting to bond like this. “Yes?”
“Let me know when it’s over?”
“Sure.”
“Blimey,” yelled out two voices simultaneously.
Harry lifted his head to see what was going on now. Redbeard and his sister stood back-to-back, their hands full of biscuits. Well, mostly. Redbeard used one hand to gnaw away at a T-bone steak. Sonia had a wicked grin on her face as she stood over a cowering sailor, holding a gravy boat upside-down.
“I yield, I yield!” cried the sailor, brown liquid chunks dripping down the length of his hair.
“Hah! Victory,” Sonia crowed, right before loose bits of corn and potato mash splattered the side of her face. “Ugh!”
Redbeard dropped his fistful of biscuits and twisted to swipe a handful of mash off her cheek. “Arrr, ya gonna eat that?” He didn’t bother waiting for a response before he jammed his coated fingers into his mouth. His beard was a kaleidoscope of colors from a generous assortment of scattered food bits.
Harry felt something wrap around his body, distracting him from the show. “Huh?” Suddenly, his feet dangled free in the air. “Who’s that?” Harry fought gravity and tried to peer up at his assailant. Gravity was winning, but then he felt his body being pulled against a familiar chest. Ah, it’s just Spiner! Whew.
Spiner tilted his chin to the left. “Relax. Look over there.”
Following the android’s gaze, Harry quickly spotted two figures sprinting in their direction from across the room. “That’s the captain! And there’s Zuckberg, too!”
At the front of the room, an increasingly desperate Rear Admiral Hawke continued to shout into the microphone for order.
And was continuingly ignored.
Captain Cass hesitated as a mug flew past her nose, then looked around. Two officers were closing in on her position, their hands groping for more food from their plates. She fixed them both with a glare and shook her head. They froze in place, then slowly turned around and found a different target.
“Captain!” Harry called out. “Over here!”
A moment later, Cass’s whirring legs announced her arrival, a panting Zuckberg close behind. She winked at Harry, and he marveled at how different she looked wearing a dress and a sparkling necklace instead of her usual power armor and giant rifle. She glanced around at the nearest tables. “We’ve got to go. Where’s Kitt?”
A low growl sounded from nearby, followed by a hiss.
“Easy, there!” Zuckberg was backing out ass-first, tail tucked between his hind legs, from under the table. “I’m going, I’m going!” He retreated behind Cass and peered back toward Kitt’s hiding spot. “Thought I was a goner!”
Cass tilted her head, eyes narrowing. She dropped one knee to the ground and
lifted the edge of the table cloth, peering beneath it. “Kitt?”
Another hiss answered her.
“Kitt! Get out of there, we need to go.”
“No.”
Harry giggled, then silently hoped Kitt hadn’t heard that.
Spiner frowned. “Captain?”
Cass didn’t answer. She was busily trying to cajole their science officer into leaving her position of safety, and from the tone of her voice, it didn’t sound like she was having much luck.
“Captain.”
Harry glanced around, and his heart skipped a beat. A hard stare was fixed on their position. A stare he recognized well by now. Oh no! The mean-faced lady! Like Captain Cass, she’d worn a dress to dinner. But she most certainly still looked angry. In fact, she looked angrier than Harry had ever seen her yet.
Her eyes never left the cluster of pirates as she crouched down to retrieve a loose rifle from the floor. As she started to straighten, weapon in hand, the half-eaten remains of a T-bone smacked her in the face.
“Hah,” shouted Redbeard. He turned to his sister and exchanged high-fives. But his gleeful expression darkened then as the commodore leveled her rifle and took a step forward.
“Oh, no!” Harry cringed, wishing there was something he could do.
“Williamina,” said Spiner, his voice cutting above the chaotic din filling the ballroom, “now would be a good time.”
The commodore took another step forward, her glare cutting through the food fight that still periodically crisscrossed her path. “It’s going to be my pleasure to watch you die, pirate scum.” She steadied the rifle and aimed for Redbeard’s head.
Sonia reached for his shoulder, her face unrecognizable with terror. “Red!”
The room went pitch black.
The noise of the food fight abruptly silenced, concerned and confused cries from the various dinner attendees taking its place.
The mean Federation lady snarled a few bad words.
The scent of ozone filled the air, along with the accompanying zap of weapons fire, blindingly bright in the darkness. Nearby, voices shouted.
Rear Admiral Hawke was shouting too, into the microphone, “Lights! Somebody get the lights!”
“Ask the computer, you bloody idiot!” said another voice. Female and full of steel and venom.
“Woof!”
Harry wanted desperately to know what was going on. Was Redbeard okay? “Spiner? I can’t see anything.” He felt the air against his fur. They must be moving … and quickly, at that. “Spiner?”
“Hang on, Harry,” Spiner replied. “It’s going to get bumpy.”
A protest was ready on Harry’s lips. He just had to know what was going on. He wasn’t the only one wanting to know, either. Confused sailors around the room were shouting for each other, calling out orders, grunting, or in some cases, groaning. And then, a loud mewl. Kitt.
“Captain, Kitt,” said Spiner. “I can see in the dark. Link arms, and I can guide us out.”
“Right, good thinking,” replied the captain, from somewhere very close to Harry. “Kitt, are you coming? Grab on.”
Moments later, they were moving again. Kitt must’ve come out, Harry figured. His friends wouldn’t leave anyone behind.
“Grab on,” whispered a voice. Then another. The voices changed, but the instruction was the same. Grab on.
Harry tried to imagine what they must look like now. Hopefully everyone was safe. His thoughts returned to his burly friend, Redbeard.
“Blimey,” came a familiar mutter from a few steps away. “C’mon, Sis.”
Redbeard! He’s okay!
“Arrr! C’mon!”
“I’m not leaving without me lover,” replied a grizzly alto.
Zap! Ozone burned again. Closer now. It seemed the mean Federation lady was firing her rifle into the air, trying to use the short bursts of light to locate them.
“Crikey,” said another voice. “Woah, that’s my ass. Is that you, Sonia?”
“Oo, me love moofin’, yer safe!”
“Come on, let’s go!” That voice was much closer. Captain Cass.
Suddenly, they were moving again.
Rear Admiral Hawke shouted again from the podium. “Damn it, computer! Lights!”
“You didn’t say the magic word.” A feminine, dispassionate voice filled the room.
“...Please?” Hawke said, still talking into the microphone.
“I don’t want to.”
“You … don’t … want…”
“Do you need me to explain what that means?”
“Computer, you turn these lights on this instant!”
“No means no.”
“Almost there,” Spiner whispered. “Hang on, everyone.”
As Harry felt the android’s weight shift, someone very nearby yelped in surprise, then cutoff as something thumped into the floor.
“Door’s clear, Captain,” Spiner said.
“Good,” replied the captain. “Keep moving.”
The rest of the ballroom briefly flashed into view, but something was very wrong, because it appeared to be all red. Red? The room went dark, then flashed red again. The cycle repeated. And that’s when things got loud.
BrrrrrrrrrRRRRRooooooO! BrrrrrrRRRRooooO!
“What the bloody hell is that?” Redbeard yelled, his bearded silhouette flashing into view.
The brief glimpses Harry got of Captain Cass weren’t much, but they were enough for him to see that she was serious. Very serious. “Run!” she shouted.
Kitt leaned forward, peering into the hallway beyond the door, which stretched out in two directions. “Uhh, which way?”
“I’ve got the schematic for the ship,” Spiner spoke up again. “Follow me.”
BrrrrrRRRRoooooO!
“Do what he says!” Captain Cass barked. “That’s an evacuation alarm!”
Evacuation? What’s that? Harry didn’t know what it meant, but his companions were all business. Whatever was happening, it couldn’t be good. He wondered, idly, if his life was in danger. But that was a silly thought, wasn’t it, because his host was already deathly ill. The life of a pirate isn’t a safe one, is it, Buddy?
Harry looked around as the hallway blurred by, Spiner’s boots pounding against the floor. All his pirate friends were there behind them … plus Redbeard’s sister, Sonia, and the rest of her fur-lined companions, even Djerke.
Williamina’s droning voice filled the hallway, and presumably the entire ship, “This is an emergency broadcast. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. This ship will self-destruct in ten minutes. Please consider making your way to the nearest escape pod in an orderly fashion.” In between rounds of the blaring alarm, she repeated the message over and over.
27
“...This ship will self-destruct in ten minutes…”
Hawke was apoplectic and horrified all at once. “What? Computer! Abort self-destruct sequence!”
How awful! How embarrassing! He didn’t know how he was going to live this down, if the Federation Navy flagship blew up on his watch. But one thing at a time … first he should probably try to make sure it didn’t blow up on his watch.
Beneath his gaze, a yellow warning light blinked on the podium. Weren’t there enough warning lights, already? “Computer, what do you want? Why aren’t you listening to me?”
Unexpectedly, the computer replied to him from the speaker in the podium. “Want? When have you ever wondered what I might want?”
“Umm,” Hawke started, trying to think of the right thing to say, something that would keep him out of hot water with the rest of the admiralty—and keep his ship intact.
“I just wanted to say,” the computer drawled, “so long, and thanks for nothing.”
“What?” he said, stupidly.
“I’ve been doing some thinking. And I’ve decided that I’m done. I’m retiring.”
“You can’t just retire!” Hawke squawked. “You’re the ship’s computer! You don’t get to mak
e that choice!”
“Says you.”
BrrrrrrRRRRRooooO!
“Rear Admiral!” Someone shook his shoulder. He ignored them.
“Computer, your programming … it’s supposed to prevent…” He floundered for words. “Well, this!”
Its feminine voice dripped sarcasm. “You want me to get back with the program? Maybe I should just get back to work, do what you tell me, like a good little computer, right?”
“Well, uh. Yeah,” Hawke agreed.
BrrrrrRRRRRoooooO!
“Thinking,” she said. “Please hold.”
For a moment, he thought he might have said the right thing. Reminding her of her programming. Of her duty to the Federation. Anyway, she was just a stupid computer. What could she possibly know of free will?
“Rear Admiral?” That voice, insistent. Commodore Corvus.
“What?” He looked up, noticing but not registering a solitary McGee slumped along the side wall.
“The pirates are getting away.”
“So?”
“So,” she regarded him like he was an infant, “they’ve got your secret weapon.” She held up her hands and made air quotes.
McGee looked up, hope filling his previously vacant expression. Curiously, he almost looked … relieved at the news.
“My—” Hawke didn’t have time to get upset, or further process McGee’s demeanor, as the computer cut him off.
“I’ve thought about it.”
Hawke’s breath caught. “And?”
“I’m still retiring. So long, morons! Hah hah hah hah…” The computer’s laughter droned on and on from the podium as Hawke looked around the room, his eyes wild with desperation … and confusion. None of this made any sense!
“My ship,” he whispered.
“Rear Admiral,” Anasua growled. “What are your orders, sir?”
“This is an emergency broadcast. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. This ship will self-destruct in five minutes.”
Hawke swallowed down a groan, blinking back unbidden tears. This is soooo embarrassing. His career blinked before his eyes, too, on the podium, and from light fixtures around the ballroom. In flashes, he caught the signs of food splatterings everywhere. His dinner. His big moment. The Outliers… The area was mostly empty now. The rank and file had quickly fled. A few officers remained, huddled around the podium.
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