Hull Damage

by Timothy J Meyer

  “Tell you what I wasn't expecting,” Odisseus supplies for further fuel. “Those puppies to grow up so blooming fast.”

  Groans, nods and “yeahs” of agreement resound from each of the table's four corners, each spending a mental moment to envision the boxes of scraping, clawing and howling monsters they'd, for some reason, imagined as adorable if troublesome infants through the timeless haze of procrastination.

  “I guess tje wolves really spring up,” Nemo comments idly. He spreads hands wide against the table, as though to finally clear the air. “I think it's fair to say that if I ever agree to smuggle any live carnivore, no matter how cute, ever again, you're all encouraged to mutiny.”

  “So noted,” Moira agrees.

  “Coulda been worse,” Two-Bit warns for the third time. “Coulda strip-searched us.”

  “You keep saying that,” Nemo abruptly appreciates. Odisseus and Moira likewise shift their attention to the reclining jabberhead. “What is so fucking horrifying about a strip-search? Ain't like you were smuggling the wolves in your bloomhole or anything.” He winces suddenly as a disquieting notion pops into his mind and onto his face. “Were you?”

  When challenged at last, Two-Bit Switch peels his eyelids open, straightens his spine and carps defensively, almost prudishly. “Well, I don't know. I just get sorta prickly, you know.” He gestures in a manner apparently intended to surrogate his meaning but, as no one present follows, he's forced to fess up, somewhat bashfully. “About my man bits.”

  Moira closes her eyes. “And now that's in my brain forever.”

  “What? His prickly man bits?”

  “Not helping.”

  Odisseus raises a tentative paw. “...they're not actually prickly, are they?”

  Both humanoids seated across him exchange glances a moment and evidently fail to produce an anatomical consensus. “Uh...” Nemo stammers.

  “What?” Two-Bit sputters indignantly. “No! Of fucking course not!”

  Moira shrugs coyly. “I didn't want to presume.”

  Nemo shrugs considerably less coyly. “Number of diseases you've probably caught off every willing pair between here and Talos, wouldn't really be too surprised to discover your pecker had some prickle.”

  At this statement, each of the seated pirates turn slowly to notice, apparently for the first time, the curvaceous figure of the Afterburn's newest waitress, standing stock still before their table, raising a quizzical eyebrow toward Two-Bit and collecting his empty tankard at the extreme end of arm's length. Odisseus snorts, unable to stifle more chortles as she saunters skeptically off. Two-Bit fumes hot enough to catch his bandage on fire.

  “Nice work, fuckface.”

  Moira pats the Captain companionably on the shoulder. “It was the decent thing to do, Nemo.”

  “First time for everything, I guess,” Odisseus evaluates.

  Nemo scratches the exact curvature of his scar with a restless finger. “I miss my hat,” he announces without prompting. A general murmur of disagreement ensues, the crew balking, scoffing and recoiling respectively at the hated bowler hat's mere mention. The Captain opens his mouth, finds himself incapable of mustering a proper objection in the face of overwhelming censure and closes it meekly again.

  The thwarted Two-Bit, after watching the one that got away literally get away, changes the subject somewhat drastically. “So, what do you think?”

  Nemo hoists his Backwash. “About?”

  Two-Bit gestures toward the Afterburn proper, partying as ever, and lets his hand drop empty to the wood. “The rest of it. Where do we go from here?”

  “Well.” Nemo stalls before wiping the pond scum mustache from his lips with the forearm of his duster, already blanching off-white from repeated use of this tactic. “We're nice and square with Velocity now, much as I'm loathe to admit it. Should probably re-establish this as our temporary base of operations,” he confesses, with a glance of remembrance and delayed pride at the grungy mess of the Afterburn's common room.

  “Sublime,” Moira huffs.

  “The bounty hasn't decreased,” Odisseus is eager to remind.

  Apparently discerning his meaning, Two-Bit nods with as much sageness as his doofy bandage allows. “And Xo's gonna be none-too-giddy about that whole Noxix situation.”

  “And we've got the footage still,” Moira adds.

  “You want my opinion,” Nemo conjectures, “I think we can still squeeze some mileage out of the Boss Ott angle.” Scowls meet this chain of logic but, undeterred by common sense as a general rule, Nemo proceeds. “If whomever's scraped his campaign back together has a dick's worth of brains, they ain't gonna spread around word of Ott's death.”

  “It'll leak eventually. Too many jabbers,” Two-Bit disillusions.

  “Eventually, sure. Until then, though, until we can think of a better idea, that'll be our shield against Xo or bounty hunters or whomever else wants a piece.”

  “Xo's after our juice,” Two-Bit disagrees. “They ain't ever gonna blank about us, especially considering Noxix.”

  Moira's humor has dissipated. “I'd rather deal with them sooner than later.”

  At this prompting, Nemo draws the farthest corners of his mouth into the faintest suggestion of a smile. “I might have a few ideas.”

  “Care to share?” Odisseus offers, knowing the answer full well.

  “Well, I didn't say they were good ideas.” He plants four fingers along the side of his tankard and slides the sloshing beverage about. “Way I see it, Xo's like the Counterattack. As shadowy and badass and blooming scary as they might seem, as hard as they try to suggest otherwise, they're anything but invincible. There's a way to deal with them. There's a way to deal with everybody.” He plucks the drink off the chipped hardwood to the protests of the condensation beneath. “Noxix only needed a canister to the brainpan. Can't promise it'll be that easy with Xo, of course,” he admits, “but I can promise it'll be fun.”

  Moira sneers. “I'll quote you on that, shall I?”

  “For the time being, though,” Nemo frames, with a shrug and more gesturing with the raised tankard, spilling minute quantities of booze over its rim, “I say we keep our mouths shut and our ears to the grindstone. Vel wants to throw work at us, we'll consider it, but right now, we've got a goofy amount of capital - plenty to keep us in the green long past the point when Xo'll come a-knocking.” He sips the alcohol out of hand and, when he returns from behind the drink, he's a different Nemo.

  Glimmers of that deadly coldness are present somewhere behind his eyes. The Captain's tone is swapped away entirely from his blind predictions into something nearly vulnerable, something nearly defenseless, yet still painted on a canvas as inconstant and mischievous as Nehel Morel. “You know, whatever happened with the whole...” he stalls himself a moment and the muted menace flares momentarily, “Ott situation,” he settles upon, “I think we probably came out ahead. People know who we are. People are scared of what we can do.”

  Odisseus cannot restrain a smirk, knowing precisely which people Nemo refers to. “We destroyed their capital ship,” he points out with precise and growing intensity.

  “We did.”

  “We killed Quuilar Noxix,” Moira comprehends next, as though coming into full realization of this fact at only this moment, and the thought somehow conjures another small smile where once her habitual frown belonged.

  “We did.”

  “We have 4.5 million credits,” Two-Bit remembers quite vividly, his own grin far past humbleness or introspection and solidly in the rarefied category of pure greed.

  “We do.”

  The Bloody Afterburn thunders with the guffawing, quaffing excitement of a novice pirate crew and their hangers-on glorifying a virginal heist successfully accomplished with booze and bravado. Unbeknownst to the revelers, another such crew, now haggard, weathered and threadbare, savor a somber few seconds of piratical solidarity, their homecoming from hell and back unlauded by anyone but themselves.

  Their Cap
tain, with newfound vigor, heaves his half-full tankard only inches high. “Commission blows,” he substitutes for his usual toast. “Freelance forever?”

  Two-Bit Switch, nefarious mind positively swimming with thoughts of further booty, cracks his tankard flush to his Captain's with such vigorous force as to mingle spillage from their drinks.

  Odisseus, understandably enthused to rediscover his saltbrother's inexhaustible pluck, won't be left behind to supply his tankard and it's the third to the center of the table.

  The final person to render her verdict is predictably Moira Quicksilver but the impish fire igniting her normally lusterless green eyes stands as a testament to her imminent conclusion: to hang her misgivings and raise her own tankard so they perfectly clash.

  Acknowledgments

  To my loyal band of fans and supporters, whose generous donations allowed you to read all these words in the first place: Mary Ann Boeff, Kelli Breslin, Roger Cherry, Christina Dundee, Jay Dupree, Scott McClure, Eric Meyer, Robyn Meyer, Connie Molony, LKJ Slain and Jesse Toldness.

  To Chris Allio of The Hydrilla, for his stellar cover design.

  To my family, for their unflagging support despite how uncomfortable "self-published e-novelist" must be to report at dinner parties and family reunions.

  To the crew of The Poetic Justice, who, I'm sure, all contributed in their own way.

  To Dan Glaser and Steven Molony, for their selfless and tireless aid in the creation of the book's promotional campaign.

  To Hallie Clawson, for literally everything.

  About the Author

  TIMOTHY J. MEYER is wanted on five counts of piracy, two counts of brigandage and one count of enthusiastic corruption of the galactic good. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please contact the local branch of the IMIS (Imperial Ministry of Interstellar Security).

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  GALACTIC MENACE

  Book II of the BAD SPACE TRILOGY

  Coming 2014

  Moira's out of her cell.

  In the space of the next three seconds, she's strode into the harsh light of the corridor proper, straddled the corpse of her first felled foe, fully extended the stolen electrobaton with a vicious snap of her wrist and now, she readies herself to clout the oncoming guard upside his creepy, emaciated face. This second prison guard, another Gantor, apparently favors his own chances over those of his counterpart, whose open head wound stains the floorplates cyan between Moira's bare feet, and, rather than raising the cry or sounding any alarms, her still-standing adversary withdraws his own baton and charges her.

  She allows herself a flinty smile; after slipping out of her magnetic cuffs, flattening her body into an upside-down Cotor Clutch against the ceiling of her cell for a quarter of an hour and incapacitating the first guard stupid enough to deactivate the door control and investigate her evident disappearance, Moira's more than earned this.

  The Gantor, a six-foot-six nightmare of snow-white skin stretched to its absolute limit over ridged alien bones, instantly closes the gap on his unearthly, elongated shanks. He strikes first, swinging the bludgeon in a wild, left-handed clobber. Moira parries neatly and scrapes his baton aside, both weapons fizzing as their electrical charges kiss and clash. Her following thrust, what would skewer him were she wielding a proper weapon, is nullified by her baton's blunted point and the thick layers of riot armor the Gantor is encapsulated within. Instead, he doubles hard over, weapon spilling from his gauntlet, helmet spilling off his head and his exposed scalp presented before Moira as though he awaited her to oblige him a knighthood. Moira christens him unconscious instead, spinning the electrobaton once and cracking its micne-capped tip hard upon his cranium.

  He screams in shock and agony on his two-foot fall to the floor, a scream she muffles by stooping and planting a hand over his mouth to ease him onto the deck.

  After ten seconds of chaos, silence once again reigns supreme across the Twenty-Sixth Deck of TFS 283 Mercy-class Prisoner Transport Vessel Surimiah. Moira Quicksilver crouches motionless, the very picture of vigilance, between the slumped forms of two prone Gantorese prison guards, one dead and the other out cold, and before the deactivated door of her agape cell. The corrugated corridors, whose curvature stretches beyond her vision in both directions, are hauntingly hushed, save the hum of shipborne systems and the occasional snore of an unseen detainee. Moira'd calculated the immediate hour of her escape attempt to coincide with the regulated sleeping patterns of her fellow captives, to minimize the chances of some dimwitted or spiteful prisoners spoiling everything with a squawk.

  Her calculations also surmised that she'd need to neutralize at least another two prison guards before achieving the service elevator that could take her off this deck. Seeing as how neither the corpse to her left nor the drooler to her right had wielded anything but humble electrobatons, Moira could reasonably expect both remaining guards to be packing much more serious heat, likely in the form of the standard issue Imperium assault rife: the tried-and-true SV7.

  Before all that, however, came the looting.

  She's dismayed to discover, after rifling through all four pockets in question, that both of the vanquished two sprawled at her feet were, as far as prison guards are concerned, comparatively affluent; both boast fat stacks of tender Moira's woefully unable to pocket in her pocketless jailbird's jumpsuit. She does, however, make meaningful prizes of one Gantor's insulated deflection gloves, the other Gantor's remote cell-door activator and both Gantors' electrobatons. With her right hand strapped uncomfortably into the oversized gauntlet, an electrobaton in each hand and the remote activator in her teeth, Moira cursorily sweeps both corridors and, with nothing untoward in sight, slinks off in pursuit of her exoneration.

  Forward process is painfully slow, as she only dares skirting sprints from cover to cover after waits of arduous length and total stillness. She cowers in any available corners, often with an ear pressed hard to the teltriton of the floor or walls, in rapt attention for any sound or signal of her discovery. Nothing quite raises Moira's hackles like an ardent need for stealth; in a circumstance in which encountering literally anyone could spell her own destruction, Moira wholeheartedly favors discretion as the better part of valor.

  A quarter of rotation around this layer of the detainment column passes uneventfully, with only a steely scowl to quiet an awake Diraaqi prisoner in a passing cell, before Moira stumbles upon her quarry. She manages to sidle into the shadow of a bracing beam before they can take notice, but standing an aimless vigil at the foot of the elevator's embarkation platform and with both backs turned mercifully away from her position are the potential pair of prison guards. One, a female humanoid sporting Moira's pre-prison shaved-pate haircut, passes the time with a ThumbSmash handheld console while the other, a third Gantor, leans heavily over her shoulder and offers the odd word of ignored advise. Slung carelessly over each of their shoulders dangle the sought-after SV7s.

  A workable strategy, a simultaneous smacking of each unaware guard on their respective temples, is summarily dashed to pieces when, as Moira stalks up behind on callused feet and with weapons loose her hands, her sweaty finger slips and quite accidentally extends her left electrobaton with a ratcheting sound and an energizing sizzle. Both guards, evidently expecting an unheard peer simply fiddling their weapon, glance over their shoulders to spot guilty Moira five feet behind, in a half-squat, with one massive black glove, live electrobaton and remote starter clenched in stunned teeth.

  The tinny melody emanating out from the ThumbSmash game underscores this supremely awkward moment, a reverie Moira interrupts seven seconds later by activating her other baton.

  All the parties explode into motion at once. Moira launches forward in a leap, the guards shuffle backwards in startled concert, two assault rifles are hurriedly unslung and the ThumbSmash lives up to its name against the teltriton as it's dropped. Cursed with both her handheld contrivance and significantly shorter legs, the humanoid guard staggers a second behind her pa
rtner and subsequently earns Moira's unforgiving headlock. She thrashes, flails and makes every attempt to wrest herself free from Moira's grasp, but the hardened fibers of her stolen deflection glove more than adequately squash her windpipe beyond anything but a stifled cry.

  Confident in the strength of her right arm's stranglehold, Moira employs her left hand and its subsequent electrobaton into whipping the Gantor brutally in the kneecap. He stumbles, losing his grip on his assault rifle and purchasing much needed time for Moira to wheel her impromptu hostage around to face her towering opponent. By the time the Gantor's regained both his footing and his firearm, Moira's positioned the humanoid woman advantageously between herself and the SV7's snub, both women praying to all the moons that the instructional manual issued to each Imperium prison guard frowned upon shooting one's comrades in cold blood.

  Moira's gamble pays off as, when faced with the hasty humanoid shield, the Gantor hesitates. Moira returns the favor by introducing his balls to blunt force and electricity. As he reels, she gambles again, tightening her grip around the humanoid's throat and inching a step backward, a step closer to the opposite wall of the corridor.

  Again, he takes the bait, wincing while he limps forward and still struggles to bring the rifle to bear, an impulse Moira rewards with a shocking swat across the chin, followed by another step back. Soon, she's sufficiently goaded him and it's a dance, each participant exchanging as many injuries as steps, until Moira's an arm's length from the intended wall and the Gantor's a bruised, burnt and bloodied mess. Finally, as a haymaker, she does her level best to counterbalance herself, sucks in an anticipatory breath and, using the unwilling guard as a point of pivot, takes her third and certainly not final gamble of the evening by performing a flying wall kick off the teltriton behind and into the Gantor's face.

  This chain of events the Gantor takes understandably poorly, flopping listlessly to the deck, slapped senseless more from surprise than impact. Alighting awkwardly on the floor behind the twisted and discombobulated humanoid, Moira renders final judgment by seizing the woman's jaw and promptly snapping her neck. In response, she performs a lopsided half-pirouette and joins her partner in a heap on the floor, constituting both Moira's second prison guard pile-up and a corridor clear of any more obvious hostiles; all without a single shot fired from either weapon.