Hull Damage

by Timothy J Meyer

  The crackshot in question, the final capable crewman of The Dead Messenger is, of course, a jeering Triomman, bunkered behind the obliterated bar and jerking the chamber closed on his recovered firearm. Nowadays, with the remains of his posse dead or mangled at his feet, any last man favored yielding or at least withdrawal in preference to actually standing, but it seems this orphaned Triomman heavy, cocking his weapon and muttering a mulish challenge, hankered for an exit worthy of the erstwhile art of showing down. This is a yearning Moira Quicksilver, seasoned duelist, is only too charmed to oblige.

  For this task, she elects only Lefty. Leveling the single six-gun toward her single enduring opponent, Moira thumbs the hammer back and aligns the necessary adjustments to submerge a canister into his skull during the moment the Triomman spends upraising the clunky weapon to his beady eye. With the merest of sighs, Moira Quicksilver clicks the round out of the chamber, down the elongated barrel, across the breadth of the bar, meteorically through the Triomman's cranium and, accompanied by a squirt of escaping blood, into a half-full bottle of blue whisky.

  The final Triomman sags to a floor saturated in his spilled brains and the Lover's emerging crew collect themselves from the makeshift refuges they'd lunged to during the gunfight's brief epilogue. For a few passing seconds, Loose Lips is approximately peaceful, save the husky whining of the dismembered Prul and the discordant drawl, which resolves itself as the joint's injured shufflefeed, a monstrosity Moira hastily euthanizes with a second shot from Righty.

  With otherworldly sirens yowling several districts away, the conquering pirates begin to reclaim plundered weapons and despoil the cadaverous gunrunners' own personal goods when Moira makes brief eye contact with the Captain, disentangling himself from Odisseus and clambering awkwardly out of cover. On his hands and knees, he glances up to catch sight of his first mate, treating him to a flinty smile and one vainglorious pistol-twirl, before sheathing her signature sidearms.

  For once, Nemo rolls his eyes.

  –––

  Odisseus watches the man burn. It's a remarkably short spectacle – a plume of white-hot holocaust which washes the chamber's corrugated walls unholy orange for an exceedingly brief moment. During today's first immolation, Odisseus had literally blinked at the exact wrong second and where once a prostrated prisoner knelt, a meager whiff of soot spontaneously flourished instead. As Ott's attending technician effusively opines, the incineration was rapid enough to outdistance not only any screaming but also apparently the actual pain, though Odisseus doubted the pandering little Treffel spoke from personal experience on the matter.

  “Whoosh!” Nemo exclaims for the fifth time, arrested with childlike wonderment at the whole production, a display the more discerning Ortok found gruesomely distasteful. Though, as Nemo's sworn saltbrother, Odisseus reluctantly concedes a small measure of gruff satisfaction at the repellent's results.

  To Nemo's eventual left, Boss Ott, sitting the chiseled stone steps that promenade down from his vacant high seat, firmly weaves his upper arms together, drops his lower elbows to his kneecaps and gestures towards vo Qwer with a stiff inclination of the jaw. The definitively laconic Baziron obliges, depositing the next sopping captive, who tumbles awkwardly into the depression, with an unforgiving shove to the shoulder. “Which somewhat exacerbates my situation with Xo, as I'm sure you'd understand,” Ott continues.

  “How many are left?” Nemo interjects, jabbing an absent finger toward the heaving prisoner.

  Ott's lower right arm languidly scratches his chest. “Two, I believe?”

  “Indeed,” Rymple confirms, nodding his petite head. “One final Corporal and then the Captain.” The Treffel cohort, temporarily filling Ott's recently vacated “aide-de-camp” position, lingers the closest to the Imperium commando as any of them, vo Qwer lurking a taciturn vigil somewhere beyond the entrance, Odisseus posted at the foot of the relevant staircase that Nemo lounges on, with the Galactic Menace reposed on the next flight over. All five of them, however, focus their attention firmly upon the cavity's sole occupant.

  This one, a particularly scruffy specimen among the entire unkempt roster, spews a mouthful of repellent and fumes up at Ott, between saturated strands of matted black hair, with that hackneyed expression of hate, that stale silent vengeance pointlessly pledged by every sentient Odisseus had seen put to death this morning. This one, the First Corporal and subsequently the second-highest ranked among this most recently acquired crop of detainees, was gifted with the distinct displeasure of watching each and every one of his company, with the notable exception of his Captain, violently cremated before his very eyes. The deliberate practice of this, according to Rymple, ought to compel confessions out of those with ostensibly the most information but, as far as Odisseus could discern, seemed to breed bitter recalcitrance instead.

  Half the morning they'd devoted to exterminating another score or so of the Insurgent Company commando captives Ott had accrued while the Lover's crew went about the Galactic Menace's illicit business on Haess. While he'd purchased the entirety of the Messenger's hold, a voluminous supply of Halisdro-make assault rifles, for the munificent price of four hundred thousand in hard currency, as well as arranged profuse accommodations for the conscript crew within his palatial fastness on Baz's northern pole, Odisseus couldn't seem to shake himself of the growing suspicion that they were, the Captain especially, being coiled ever so gradually around a great blue finger.

  “Who is your commanding officer?” Rymple intones with as much thunder as the elfin little Treffel can muster. In keeping with tradition, the prisoner is reticent; only pants with persecution, ineffectually twists his magnetic bonds and mutters his disobliging shibboleth.

  “First Corporal Farriq, Group GH44, Insurgent Company,” he hisses emphatically with a voice drenched more in rancor than he himself was in repellent. Ott reaches for his Bubble.

  “I'm sorry – you were saying?” Nemo proffers conversationally.

  “Xo doesn't make a move unless they can wear gloves while doing it,” Ott reiterates, raising the soda can to his lips, before adding, “and that's where the trouble began.”

  Nemo pauses a breath. “What do you mean?”

  “Where were you stationed?” Rymple persists, undiscouraged, though again, the decumbent captive remains uncommunicative, brushing unctuous locks from his eyes to afford himself a better view of his persecutors, in order to continue adhering Ott with more murderous scorn.

  “First Corporal Farriq, Group GH44, Insurgent Company.”

  Ott dabs the carbonated residue from his lips with the meat of his lower right wrist before elucidating. “Perhaps, what, six or seven months ago, I received what was then a scintillating offer from 'Our Ingratiating Overlords of the Cleft-Assholes.' Seems they'd chanced upon a score, or rather an opportunity for a score, which they figured was a little over their heads and wanted to pool resources.”

  “Sure,” Nemo guardedly allows.

  The Doreen kingpin waves a condoning gesture with the aluminum can. “I'm cautiously optimistic, you know, make the necessary noises and they inform me that, basically, they're looking to move several capital haulers worth of contraband. Through the Haliquant Sector.”

  “That's a war-zone,” Nemo bemusedly recognizes. “That sector's sanctioned worse than this one.”

  “Exactly.”

  Finally, Rymple concludes with his last unanswered question, igniting a sparker as he speaks. “What were your orders?” The Corporal, instinctively glimpsing the frizzling sparker for a moment, hastily reinstates his glower towards Ott who, in turn, retorts with another quaff of his soda pop.

  “First Corporal Farriq, Group GH44, Insurgent Company.”

  With that, no information gained, no troop movements learned, Rymple casts the enkindled sparker into the depression with a stilted sigh and, on cue, a titanic gout of iridescent hellfire voraciously devours the Imperium commando corporal with such ferocity as to literally leave only ashes.

  “
Whoosh!” Nemo blurts out as Ott buckles and crunches the empty Bubble can in a fist.

  Momentarily abating his anecdote, Ott beckons down the slender hallway with a scooping motion and vo Qwer emerges to physically drag the final hostage, smearing a wake of repellent behind him like some enormous wet gastropod, across the thermosteel floor and tumble him into the crevice.

  “So, wait, what was the cargo?” Nemo strives to clarify, but Odisseus catches sight of Ott's subsequent countenance presumably before the Captain does.

  Boss Ott's expression is stony remonstrance. “By all the moons, boy. Any more invasive questions?”

  “I wasn't–” Nemo blusters a beat before the Treffel aide-de-camp interrupts.

  “Should I proceed, Boss?” Competing levels of both humility and inconvenience temper Rymple's request. Ott nods his consent and reinforces his reclining head with buttressed upper arms before continuing his tale, apparently unperturbed by Nemo's faux pas.

  “Like I said, flagrant acts of treason tend to run directly contrary to Xo's particular brand of business ethics, which one might politely describe as, say, 'serpentine.' Conversely, however, they weren't exactly about to let as profitable a prospect as this one pass them by or worse, land in some competitor's lap. Chiefly, mine.”

  “The best way to remove you from the equation is to cut you in,” Nemo appraises.

  “Smart kid.” Without line of sight, Odisseus confirms the particular brand of self-satisfied grin Nemo's face crescendoes into.

  Rymple clears his miniscule throat. “Who is your commanding officer?” This latest detainee, weapons-grade accelerant glistening off the seemingly polished pate of his bald head, appears entirely less composed than the remainder of his incinerated platoon, blackening the worn knees of his combat trousers. Toiling unsuccessfully against tears, he sputters out his name and rank with considerably more difficulty than his vanquished underlings.

  “Field Captain...Haldaz, Group...GH44, Insurgent, Insurgent, uh, Company...”

  “They habitually downplay my importance in the maneuver, of course,” Ott proceeds, completely heedless to the interrogation exhibited before his distracted feet. “In exchange for official courtesy and an unspecified token, Huong Xo requires the use of craft, ostensibly, but what they're actually after–”

  “–is a stooge,” Nemo completes. “A patsy. You move the contraband, you take the heat and Xo takes the goodies?”

  “At this point, heat's no deterrent for me. What, am I going to become more galactically menacing?” He shrugs his underpropping shoulders. “13 million's as effective as 15, 20 or even 30 million.”

  “Sure, but why wouldn't they just sub-contract out to a smaller-time middleman? Why run the risk tangling with someone who's obviously got the stones to contest them?”

  “I believe,” Ott construes casually, “Xo's supposition was that my mere presence discourages IMIS' direct involvement. Any other middleman, any black collar supplier Xo might approach for the task, would raise suspicion and prompt an investigation – exactly what they're looking to avoid. If Boss Ott's behind it, it's marked down to general outlawry on account of a rampant malefactor and annexes itself to my growing list of capital crimes.”

  “So, what, you went for it?”

  Boss Ott bubbles a sigh between browbeaten lips. “Unfortunately. That seems to be my biggest mistake of this whole affair. At the time, Xo's favor or courtesy or what have you, sounded at least useful and besides, you know how they operate, with the holodecks and such – finer negotiations are virtually impossible. The effectively irrelevant risk seemed worth a superficial reward, especially considering my circumstances here.” The Doreen adjusts his posture, planting both sets of elbows on separate stairs as he summarizes. “I enlisted three capital-class cargo ships, each with outstanding Imperium warrants and each specifically associated with my operation and, for the most part, the actual transaction was a notable success.”

  “Where were you stationed?” Rymple blathers forward and despite the Treffel's utter lack of presence, the waterlogged commando captain is fully cowed, practically unresponsive to any of the questions offered. Only after Rymple restates the question, with a barely perceptible spike in portent, does this Captain Haldaz blearily attempt to chime his ingrained byword, only to renege halfway through and devolve into dismayed mutterings.

  “Was it worth it, though?” Nemo presses.

  “Oddly enough, no. Or it hasn't been yet, I should say. Rather, it's actually resulted in a pronounced detriment not only to my activities abroad, but even here on the home front.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Apparently IMIS interpreted my involvement in the proceedings as some misguided endeavor on my part to interfere with the Haliquant campaign and, according to my Imperium sources, the powers-that-be now consider me a threat of entirely different color. Which, if increased landing craft are any indication, has manifested itself in a relative swell of troop activity these past few months.”

  Nemo hesitates before seeking a resolution. “And Xo?”

  “Gifts, mostly, in addition to a nominal fee, scarcely enough to cover the initial fuel costs. Those vats of Triomman blood,” he seems to suddenly recall, “which the Baziron headsmen I'm attempting to ply with appreciate on spec, but fail to regard as anything but a blank bestowal. This inquisition well,” he illustrates with a vague gesture about the room, “and the suite of architects and masons necessary to construct the thing.”

  Odisseus glances about the “inquisition well,” a great tapering shaft of a chamber, clearly contrived to dwarf any hapless being thrown both into the shallow bowl at the room’s conical bottom and before the anonymous mercy of the ten lofted arbiters, atop their encircling heights. With the severity of the partitions, the lighting's theatricality and the general specification toward occupants of roughly Quuilar Noxix's spindly proportions, it wasn't difficult to imagine the ten Yheum cabalists who comprised the galaxy's predominant criminal syndicate utilizing a chamber as austere and terrible as this.

  “This is precisely why I've attempted to even the score a little.”

  “By interfering with their–”

  “By stealing those prototypes,” Ott punctuates, before centering his attention back toward the dripping prisoner and his imminent doom. “By inducting you into my service.”

  Odisseus furrows his brow, half-tempted to interject, when Rymple prepares to conclude the morning's inquiries. Energizing his twenty-third sparker, the Treffel extends his last question and consequently, the commando's final moments.

  “What were your orders?”

  Shuddering at the sight of the sizzling sparker clutched in Rymple's upraised paw, Haldaz wriggles wetly in his magnetic restraints and incoherently fumbles over the recitation.

  “Oooh, hey, wait,” halts Rymple from hoisting back the activated torch. The Treffel glances back to spot, scrambling down the precipitous steps ascending over Odisseus' left shoulder, Nemo, rapidly en route down the sheer stairs and onto the floor proper, with palm outstretched. “Lemme do it.”

  After an endorsing wave from the roosted Ott, Rymple hesitantly hands the smoking sparker to the sneering Captain, made zestfully pernicious when armed with a tool of such sudden, assured destruction. Haldaz, bearing witness both to this unforeseen exchange and the murderous visage of his latest executioner, blanches a fresh shade of pale.

  “Be fucked and die, you–” is all Nemo has time to utter before he's interrupted himself by the hurriedly truckling hostage, stammering out a half-shouted plea.

  “Field General Pluvosh, Central Ground Command, Insurgent Company!”

  Nemo stays his hand a moment, briefly perplexed. “...is?”

  “Is his commanding officer,” Ott starkly apprehends, rising off his perch, “Nemo, hold off a minute!” Looking supremely disappointed, Nemo deactivates the sparker and shuffles several paces back as Ott begins to disembark the arduous staircase. “I thought Pluvosh commanded operations on the southwestern contin
ent.”

  “Grant me clemency,” Haldaz pleadingly beseeches.

  “Clemency granted. I thought Pluvosh commanded operations on the southwestern continent.”

  “He, um, he was promoted,” the basted captive hems and haws as he reveals, “to the head of a task force, here, on the northern continent. Groups GH, TS and CC, I believe, were all, uh, what do you call it, redistributed?”

  Ott alights ungainfully to the inquisition well's main floor, standing slightly winded to Nemo's immediate right. “To what end?”

  Haldaz who'd, up until this moment, fixed his jittery gaze directly into the puddles of excess repellent pooling at his knees, braves an irresolute glance up at the now-looming figure of the Galactic Menace. “Yours,” he shrinkingly confesses.

  Boss Ott absorbs the room's additional three scrutinies well, Odisseus' included, the Doreen sniffing dispassionately and demanding, with a certain degree of boredom lacing his voice, “What were your orders?”

  “Uh, engage the abbers on the northern continent as much as possible–”

  “Abbers?” Nemo requests quickly.

  Ott supplies him a withering look. “Imperium military parlance for aboriginals. Continue.”

  Haldaz struggles to gesture a progression through his restraints. “Uh, engage the abbers, provoke a response and, uh, well, CGC has, um, currently very little information on your whereabouts, so I believe the goal was to, uh,” he noisily swallows, as if to force the answer back down his throat, “take a hostage.”

  Nemo snorts. “Good job.”

  Rymple, however, does little to hide his incredulity. “We've heard absolutely nothing about this from the Dancing-Horizon,” he conjectures. “Is this information even reliable?”

  Ott meanders a scratching finger along the rim of his broad chin as he considers. “It certainly sounds in-character for koj Hhenel to withhold that sort of thing from a report.” He exhales wearily and crosses both sets of forearms. “Well, we'll have to find out, won't we? Anything else, Captain?”