Hull Damage

by Timothy J Meyer

  Should any of this reflect negatively on Nemo, however, he was deliberate not to show it. Indeed, Odisseus hadn’t seen his saltbrother this inspired since, as young miscreants, they’d hurled a Talosian cocktail through the district alderman’s bedroom window.

  Something about this ship ignited Nemo.

  “But the main concern,” he realigned, conjuring his abbreviating gesture towards the indicated area again, scrutinizing it under an appreciative eye, “has gotta be the afterburner. The ramjet is sorta, uh, wider than I’d like it–”

  “Main problem’s got nothing to do with the ramjet. The ramjet is fine.”

  “Well, not if you–”

  “Nemo,” Odisseus admonished as he wrenched back the main access hatch with a clattering creak and peered inside. “The main problem is that your drive motor is shot. Open up your side.” A pause, no doubt timed for Nemo to characteristically roll his eyes, before the rattling protest of the starboard booster’s access hatch signified his compliance.

  “Oh, shit,” came his echoed comment.

  “You see?” Odisseus indicated with a claw, to no one in particular, the jagged and blackened disfigurement corrugating the booster’s interior. “Look at this – you’ve a primary and secondary coolant leak from your drive motor, you’ve got barium scarring up and down this thing,” he reverberated from within the largely hollow booster. “She’s got three, maybe four warps left in her. I–”

  Something chitinous skittered in the murky recesses. Odisseus froze, hackles raised, and probed the darkness with a few deliberate flexes of his nostrils, though only the amalgamated odors of scorched fuel and congealed coolant distinguished themselves. A beat passed before Odisseus’ limited eyesight detected the trace moments of something slender and sinewy adjusting itself among the darkness.

  In a blur, Odisseus has extracted his head and crashed the access hatch closed with a resounding clank.

  “Odi?” Nemo inquired after withdrawing his own head from the starboard booster. “You were saying?”

  Odisseus unhooked, calibrated and sighted down the muzzle of his belted fusioner. “There’s something in there.”

  Nemo scowled. “Something something? Like, alive something?”

  “Apparently,” Odisseus asserted, resettling his goggles over the bridge of his snout. Nemo’s astonishment appeared legitimate.

  “That’s not possible. Hook and I sprayed the whole ship down. We–”

  “You didn’t spray for this,” Odisseus concluded abruptly, igniting the fusioner with a violent iridescent hiss, dislodging the hatch open and plunging the torch within.

  The saffron radiance from the fusioner's plasma barb, though dimmed by his goggles, spilled enough garish copper light within to reveal the crustaceous form of an bulky arthropod waving fronded antennae in alarm. It flared its barbed mandibles, issuing an undulating shriek as flaccidly sheared cables drooped from its mouth, and Odisseus wasted no time in unchaining the maximum power of the fusioner directly into its face. Whatever innate resilience the creature’s carapace possessed that allowed it to barnacle to spacecraft was woefully insufficient protection against the point blank application of the Ortok's fusioner. Several seconds of frenetic thrashing and wordless screeching later, Odisseus extricated the scalded remains of the sundered arachnid and hoisted it in pinched claws for Nemo’s inspection.

  Nemo briefly darted out his tongue in disgusted disapproval. “What the bloody fuck is that?”

  “Dead,” Odisseus straight-faced. Smote electrical parasite dangling between them, Odisseus regarded Nemo with all the exasperation of a vexed parent to their misbehaving child. “Nemo, what is all this?”

  “I’m not really sure; some sort of junkyard, uh, mollusk?”

  Odisseus flung the blackened creature aside, clanging to the floor plates. “No, Nemo, this. Her,” he denoted with a hollow slap on the port booster’s outer shell. “I thought you were a mercenary jockey.”

  Nemo seemed to envisage this as he pursed his lips in stark reproach. “Nah, I’m done with that. Wasn’t my thing, I don’t think.” His expression shifts severely, a bitter disfavor to a galvanized gratification, as he explores his gaze about the congested and overheated chamber. “That’s why I got her.”

  Reposing forward, Odisseus propped both forearms against the octagonal incline of the booster’s topmost covering. “Yeah?” he posed, “and what’s she for?”

  Odisseus would cite his answer and its accompanying expression, years later, when questioned about the original inception of Nemo’s career. As if to mimic his saltbrother, he deposited himself forward, buttressing his elbows against the booster’s greasy crown, rapping his forefinger thrice against the stained teltriton and exhibiting, for the first time, the long stare – the telescopic gaze of the drowned as they remember solid earth. “I’m not sure yet,” Nemo uttered. “Gonna blow things up. Kill some people.”

  Odisseus tightened his eyes. “Yeah?” he suspended knowingly.

  The distance of his scrutiny unchanged, Nemo gave his head the slightest noncommittal shake. “I think so,” he added in a small voice.

  He blinked and classic Nemo was back without warning, dash of an unresolved mouth furrowing into another insatiable smile. He clouted the booster’s housing with a hollow thump and cast Odisseus an anticipative glance. “So, what’s your ETA on this big bad bitch?”

  “Uh,” Odisseus reckoned, upending both paws as if the answer were etched on either of his pads, “without the right materials–”

  “Assuming I could order you whatever you need and money was no object,” Nemo swiftly discredited as he shafted both hands into the pockets of his immaculate aviator’s duster.

  Odisseus wanted to tell the truth, to confess to Nemo the hapless sincerity that this mystery freighter, this Poetic License, was a nautical abhorrence that belonged on Mox as much as anywhere, decorating the bottom of a junk heap. Even in the event that Nemo somehow could provide a boundless budget and a subsequent army of mechanics, this wreck wasn’t going anywhere.

  Odisseus wished he’d had the good sense to play straight with Nemo and dissuade him off this proposed warpath, but he understood only too well the cataclysmic effect disappointment carried for his capricious saltbrother. Disown him of this harebrained venture and there’d be no knowing what other, perhaps more senseless, endeavor he’d pursue, probably without Odisseus’ help. At least with this harebrained venture, he'd be needed on the ship and at Nemo’s side.

  “Well, uh, with money not as an object and not counting shipping times for the proper materials, we’re looking at a month for the warp program, another three for these two, uh, things,” he estimated with a shapeless gesture towards the boosters, still reeking of baked arthropod, “at least four months on re-stabilization and probably a spare month for any rewiring and, you know, other general maintenance.”

  Nemo absorbed this oddly well, quizzically calculating. “So, what, that’s–”

  “Nine months, Nemo,” Odisseus flatly informed.

  “Right,” Nemo recalled casually. He stumbled a hand through his coltish black tuft and exhaled, with a certain chagrined pensiveness. “Yeah,” Odisseus heard the question long before he asked it. “Really that long?”

  “Yes, Nemo,” Odisseus disillusioned. “Nine months. At least.”

  “Alright, alright,” Nemo loudly capitulated with an explosive shrug. “You call the shots. As long as you keep this baby afloat, you call the shots.”

  “The Poetic License, huh?”

  Nemo curled his lips and graded his head slightly to the side. “Gonna change that, actually,” he amended. He splayed his hands out as if flattening a pantomime tapestry against the air. “The Poetic Justice. You like?”

  “I could be convinced,” Odisseus allowed with a contemplative nod. “Would I have to call you Captain?”

  Nemo scoffed. “Of course not.” Extending his sullied hand, his saltbrother ripened a thick, proud grin. “Partner?”

  Ful
ly aware that this disconsolate jalopy would never cut canvas again, no matter the efforts he poured into her, relieved Odisseus takes exuberant Nemo’s hand in his greasy paw. “Partner.”

  Chapter 7

  Moira pivots the gyroscopic seat idly and sights Baz, an insipid white orb fringed with a flock of microscopic and disparate silhouettes, down the length of her amplified, triple-barreled anti-escort turret. She mimes squeezing the triggers, but her targeting sensor, swamping its inset screen with relative distance in negative red font, continues to silently affirm that, for several more minutes, the Lover remains far out of range.

  The shipborne munitions computer, akin to the sensor room’s hypercomm projection pad or the medbay’s surgical imager, was entirely too expensive, too fashionable and too useful to have originated aboard the Lover and was, consequently, stolen off a much cleaner, more contemporary vessel – a toothless and decommissioned assault corvette ferrying rations to the refugee world of Hivu. An extravagant piece of military software, the MI 19D Callsign InterTargeting Computer System was only three years outdated by the premium TFS models exclusively employed by the Imperium. It could measure distances to targets, distances between targets, establish decisive quarry locks, extrapolate potential trajectories in various degrees of likelihood, display technical read-outs relating to opponent shield strength, engine power and weapons systems and even came equipped with a complicated and intrinsic auto-gunner function.

  Moira, however, considered the munitions computer a precocious douchebag and invariably preferred entering broadside action with the exhaustive thing switched off.

  She lounges placidly in the topturret’s personalized bucket seat, absently fiddling a few dials, reconfirming the ammunition window and evenly nursing a frothing pilsner of Gitterswitch Gin, tightly nestled in its cup holder. Barring the more suicidal of Nemo’s past maneuvers, rarely could Moira object to topturret duty. Here, at the Lover's highest vertical point, she could enjoy comparative seclusion, a panoramic vantage point of the entire engagement and, most importantly, a profoundly-modified GG912 Concord Industries Antagonist Heavy Autofire Laser Cannon, the single greatest anti-fightercraft weapon in the galaxy, square between her knees.

  “Whaddya read for escort?” the warbled voice of Nemo inquires through the jumbled static of the comm.

  “Coupla squads of fighters, looks like Spurs, and oughta be…four corvettes, those little Karracki eight-gun jobs what with the munitions computer?” Abraham responds advisedly.

  “TFS 88F Chaperone-class,” Two-Bit flatly notifies from the helm. A feral muttering signifies Odisseus’ latest objection.

  “And how was I supposed to know the planet was blooming blockaded?” Nemo immediately bickers back. “I’d never even heard of the fucking place!”

  Odisseus’ reply is undoubtedly irritated, but to Moira, he only seems to snarl a string of unrelated indecipherable nouns, agitation further mangling a statement already beset by the tameless feedback of the Lover's undedicated interior comm channel.

  Over the past ten months, she’d managed a reasonably comprehensive conception of the Ortoki language, initially out of pure paranoia towards the surly otterfolk muttering inscrutable obscenities in her general direction. Every now and again, however, Odisseus seemed to revert to some primal dialect, chock full of bestial and unfamiliar vocabulary and the unreliable communicator only muddied the matter of her understanding even further.

  “Well, unless you’ve got a better option, unless you feel like taking a squatter over the side of the fuel reserve and shitting out a fresh new tank of free carbon petro–” Nemo retorts brusquely.

  “Cap’n, we got activity,” Abraham interjects urgently. “Two ‘a them, er, Chaperones, changed headings and be tackin’ right towards us. Forty-eight dottibles off the bow, port and starboard, respectively.”

  “Copy,” Nemo replies matter-of-factly. “Garrigan? You in place?”

  Several long seconds pass before an answer, set against an auditory backdrop of jostling and manhandling, wanders its way through the comm. “Uh, very nearly, Captain – Ebeneezer’s having some trouble, um, fitting inside the turret himself.”

  Moira hadn’t anticipated running afoul of any Imperium blockades during Garrigan’s recovery period and, in any other circumstance, Odisseus or possibly Danbonte or Rooster would just man the turret in his stead, but when faced with half a dozen warships, studded aft to bow in capital-class laser batteries, Nemo wisely opted not to skimp on the ventral gunner. While an inert leg would inhibit his ability to pivot the underturret, a crack marksman of Garrigan’s caliber was worth a dozen or more opposing batteries, bum thigh or otherwise. Moira, though, is currently disquieted by the knowledge that every single gunner aboard the Exacting Counterattack received the exact same basic training that Garrigan had.

  However, actually placing Garrigan into the underturret evidently required a two-man vaudeville act whose main event involved Ebeneezer climbing backwards down the access ladder with splint-legged Garrigan slung across his stomach on a medic’s harness. Despite the dire straits of the incoming fleet action, most of the conscript crew apparently made time to watch the festivities through the transparent plastolieum pillar, from the safety of the betweendecks corridor.

  “I’m good as I’m gonna get down here, Captain,” Garrigan waveringly relates. “Uh, yes, thank you, Ebeneezer.”

  “Excellent. Everyone else in place?” Nemo prompts pressingly.

  “In,” Two-Bit reports from the co-pilot’s seat.

  “In,” Abraham registers his station in the sensor room. Odisseus presumably replies accordingly from the engine room. Moira momentarily peels the pilsner away from her lips to answer.

  “In,” she swallows, presently returning to her drink.

  “Um, in?” Garrigan attempts from his lower turret.

  “In,” Rooster finally proclaims, somewhat breathlessly, from the belowdecks crawlspace.

  “Boom,” Nemo exclaims. “Let’s do this. The watchword today, folks, is speed. The sooner we break atmo, the fewer times they can shoot at us with their alarming numbers of guns. Odi, I tell you to juice her, you do it, consequences be bloomed.” The Ortok barks indignantly, something about “lunatic,” but Nemo’s swift to neutralize the argument. “Engine damage ain’t a problem until we touch down.”

  Moira squints towards the swelling shadows of the adversary, outlined against Baz’s pallid luminescence. Two of said shapes, the blockish, uninspired shape of assault corvettes, gradually materialize from vague dots into the rigid outlines of battle cruisers. Nemo, apparently undaunted, continues his tirade.

  “We’re gunning for the weakest relevant point of the cordon, but we’re still looking at one Pylon and four Chaperones as well as every starfighter these bastards can muster, between us and the payday. Keep that in mind, kids – the payday is on that planet.”

  “Abraham, you’re on jamming. Focus your efforts on the biggest, baddest motherfucker of the moment, specifically their targeting systems, unless I indicate otherwise. Savvy?”

  “Aye aye, Cap’n,” Abraham avows grimly, antiquated sense of mariner’s duty devoting him entirely to his task. Antediluvian prejudices aside, his vessel in peril, Abraham Bonaventure became a harder specimen than his blubbery frame could imply.

  “Two-Bit, you’re running shields, obviously. Rays up at maximum and while I know it’s gonna be tempting to angle all forward, once we start clearing hurdles, we’re gonna have more ships behind than before, so keep a weather eye to positioning.” If Two-Bit acknowledges the order, he does so nonverbally and Nemo wastes no time in advancing his stratagem.

  “Now, as for Moira and Garrigan, you’re to be exclusively reactionary – we’re dialing down cannon power to boost the shields and you’re not to engage unless engaged first. We don’t wanna draw more aggression than we gotta.” Down the gunturret, Garrigan mutters a muted understanding as the Captain addresses him. “Garrigan, I want you to target the bigger batteries, especi
ally on the Pylon while Moira, you concentrate on any fighter activity.” Moira reclines languidly back, well-oiled bucket seat silent in response.

  “Sure,” she coldly assents and begins the laborious procedure of cracking her various joints in expectation of their future and repeated use.

  “And Rooster, you’re the overture – the big gambit. Only way this is gonna work would be if we open hard and exit fast. Think you can handle that first part?”

  The self-assured jabber immediately confirms. “That’s an affi, Cap’n.”

  “We’ll be in gamut of these two corvees in just a few mites,” Two-Bit cautions pressingly. “Ray edgies at max bowside, Cap'n.”

  On cue, the glistening aura of the ray shields, a coruscation of redirected friction, actualize into view and ensconce the irregular outline of the Lover's anterior half, in preparation for the potential onslaught of two unloaded capital assault cruisers.

  Through the smudged glass, Moira discerns details on the first corvette, rapidly coasting towards them. Roughly double the Lover in size, the relatively small capital ship is a hulking trapezoid of military beige teltriton, girded by harsh support ridges, brandishing four immense capital batteries on each broadside and propelled forward with a thick, ovular bar engine. Its identical twin lurking several dottibles in reserve, Moira nevertheless detects the faintest shimmering of displaced energy limning the corvette’s hull – ray shielding of their own.

  “Abraham, untangle the signal and set up a secure comm channel to the first corvette,” Nemo instructs.

  “It’ll be more than a minute, Cap’n, but I can do her,” Abraham confirms.

  “In gamut,” Two-Bit pointedly informs and Moira watches each of the eight enemy batteries shift and adjust slightly, twenty-four barrels pointed directly at her. She imagines teams of technicians, running amok on their gundeck with their ditrogen shells and their targeting computers. All the Lover can muster in response to this hustle and bustle are a pair of anti-escort guns, manned by a crippled Vapid fiend and Moira herself. She permits a thin smile, enjoys a prelusive sip of her gin and collectedly deactivates her munitions computer.