by Jake Bible
“I thought party barges flew themselves?” Rage snarled. “Choosper!”
“It’s called The Rage!” Choosper yelled. “I named my ship The Rage.”
Everyone was quiet for about three-quarters of a second. Then they erupted into laughter. Except the laughter wasn’t aimed at Choosper, but at Rage.
“You’re named after a ship, bruh!” one of the Punches shouted as he pointed at Rage.
Unfortunately for the Punch, he did not put his finger down in time. Rage closed the distance between them and snapped the finger off before the Punch could even blink.
Laughter turned to screaming as blood geysered out of the stump.
“Don’t waste that shit, bitch!” Grandmaster Scunge yelled. “Get a pitcher, yo! I’ll drink it!’
Scutter got the Punch a bar towel and the rest of the douchebruhs huddled around their wounded bruh, all telling him they’d get Rage back and he had nothing to worry about because at least four of their parents were like the best surgeons in the galaxies.
“Too far, Max,” Scutter said.
“I watched you rip the tits off a woman for batting her eyelashes at me once,” Rage said.
“Totally different situation and you know it,” Scutter said. “She’d weaponized those tits and was going to open fire on us at any second.”
“Still…”
“Let me talk to Choosper,” Scutter said. “I can get to the bottom of this.”
She walked over to the Kalanip and huddled close. Rage was annoyed by being shut out, but if Scutter could get Choosper to take them all to her ship, then he really didn’t give a shit.
Scutter became animated as she talked while Choosper got more and more rigid, her agitation turning into horse-willed stubbornness. Scutter backed off for a second and glanced at Rage. He had no idea what the look she gave him meant, but she gave him a look.
“Bitches, am I right, yo?” Grandmaster Scunge said from down by Rage’s boot.
Right down by Rage’s boot.
Rage’s boot…
Rage thought about it. Oh, how he thought about it, but in the end decided he didn’t want to waste the effort of scraping the worm off his sole. And he had no idea if the stink inside the Sphuncter was concentrated or not. That smell would be impossible to get out and Rage really liked the boots he was wearing.
“What’s up with the Kalanip anyway, yo?” Grandmaster Scunge asked. “She’s like totally obsessed and shit. You ain’t that hot, yo. Kinda ugly, if ya ask me.”
“No one did,” Rage said.
“Sometimes, I give wisdom for free, bitch,” Grandmaster Scunge said then wriggled off back to the bar.
Rage watched the alien go then turned back to see Scutter heading his way.
“She’ll do it,” Scutter said.
“Goddamn right she will,” Rage snapped.
“But you can’t say a thing when we get to her ship,” Scutter added. “I mean it, Rage. Not one fucking word.”
“Say a thing…? What are you babbling about, woman?” Rage asked.
“You tell her, yo!” Grandmaster Scunge shouted from the bar.
“Shut up!” Rage shouted back. He glanced at Choosper then at Scutter. “Tell me why I can’t say anything. What is there to say? It’s a ship.”
“She’s…decorated it,” Scutter said and shook her head. “That’s the problem.”
“Decorated it? So fucking what? I don’t care what she’s done to the ship,” Rage said. “Does it fly?”
“From what it sounds like, it flies great,” Scutter said.
“And it’s armed, right?”
“Heavily.”
“And she remembers where she parked it, yeah?”
“Of course. Don’t be an asshole.”
“Too late, yo!” Grandmaster Scunge yelled.
“Oh, burn, bruh!”
“He got you, bruh!”
“Gonna need some ice for that…burn…”
“I said burn, bruh.”
“Yeah, I know, bruh, but… Never mind…”
“What’s the problem?” Rage asked.
“You’ll see,” Scutter said. “But only if you promise not to say a fucking word. I mean it, Max. Promise or she won’t fly us off this crap planet.”
“Hey!” Grandmaster Scunge shouted. “I live on this crap planet!”
“That’s why it’s crap!” Rage yelled.
“Damn, bruh!”
“Burn volley, bruh!”
“Point, set, and burn, bruh!”
“Oh, that was a good one, bruh.”
“Yeah, best use of burn, bruh.”
“SHUT UP!” Rage roared.
He tried to shoot the Punches. He had his rifle up and he was squeezing the trigger over and over, but nothing happened. Rage would never set foot on a party barge again. If he couldn’t shoot and kill what he wanted to shoot and kill, then there was no reason to be on one ever.
He composed himself, slung his rifle, and walked over to Choosper.
“I promise, no matter what I see, not to say a word,” Rage said. “That work for you, Choosper?”
“Yes,” Choosper replied, but wouldn’t look at Rage.
“You know I really don’t care enough about other people for anything they do, no matter how weird, to really matter to me, right?” Rage said. “You could have wallpaper of kittens getting eaten by Grandmaster Scunge there and it wouldn’t bother me.”
“It’d bother me, yo!” Grandmaster Scunge said. “I ain’t no kitten eater, bitch!”
“I think she knows what I mean, asshead,” Rage said. “Choosper? You know what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Then get us to your ship so we can get off this crap planet.”
“I heard that, bitch!” Grandmaster Scunge called.
“Don’t fucking care!” Rage replied.
Choosper hesitated then steered the party barge about thirty degrees west. The party barge’s navigation system complained about the course change with some loud beeping, but Rage punched the console until it shut up.
“Don’t think I broke anything important,” Rage said.
“It’s mostly all for show,” Choosper said. “There are really only three working buttons and basic helm controls.”
“How long until we reach your ship?” Rage asked.
“Not long,” Choosper said. “We have to pass over three regions, but that shouldn’t take long. There’s no party barge traffic at all.”
“Hey, Rage!” Bill called. “I think we have a problem!”
“Can you explain it to me or do I have to play twenty questions?” Rage called back.
“Incoming rockets!” Bill yelled. “Everyone grab your asses and kiss them goodbye!”
“Hey, bitch!” Grandmaster Scunge yelled. “You didn’t let him ask a question!”
Then the world around them exploded and the party barge plummeted back down into the chaos of Scorching Dude.
Twenty-Three
Pain. So much goddamn pain.
Rage felt it everywhere. The majority of the pain was because his body was healing from the trauma of being nearly blown apart. That meant he was alive. Rage was happy about that part. Still, it hurt like fucking hell which just flat-out sucked.
His left leg reshaped itself from a strand of wet spaghetti back into a leg. His left arm bent back the way it was supposed to. Half his skull, which had been caved in like a deflated volleyball, snapped, crackled, and popped back into a skull shape. All of his ribs (all of them!) stitched together and once again became a protective cage around his internal organs.
Ah, the internal organs…
His spleen had ruptured, but that little sucker reversed its popped balloon impression. Both kidneys, which were bruised to the point of being easily mistaken for overripe fruit, swelled then shrunk back to original size. Half of his lower intestine started to unravel itself, no longer resembling knots tied by a severely inebriated sailor.
Then there were his lungs.
&n
bsp; “Fuuuuuuuck!” Rage roared when he was finally able to not only take a full breath, but then force that breath back out to create the word he had just screamed.
His ears popped and he heard the cries, groans, moans, and whimpers of those around him.
Rage opened his eyes and slowly, carefully got to his knees. Just that movement caused a considerable amount of pain. Life was no bueno.
“Sound off!” Rage called out. No one replied. “Team! Sound off!”
“Breathing,” Bill muttered.
Rage glanced to his left and saw the guy lying on top of the shattered bar portion of the party barge. Oil was everywhere.
“Can you get up?” Rage asked.
“Do I have to, man?” Bill asked.
“Might be a good idea,” Rage said.
The distinct sounds of bloody violence were not too far off in the distance. Rage had no idea where they had crashed, but it was ahead of the hell battle. That wouldn’t last for long.
“Scutter?” Rage called.
“Not dead,” Scutter moaned from somewhere behind Rage.
He looked over his shoulder and saw her squatting on the ground, her hands on her head, blood dripping from between her fingers. He also saw that his rifle was still strapped to his back. God, he loved a good dual plasma, laser-guided hot rocket launching, never-empty Axis combat rifle.
“Rasco!” Rage shouted.
“Nope,” Junior said, crawling out from under some of the party barge’s under paneling. “He didn’t make it.”
“How do you know?” Rage asked.
Junior reached back and produced a severed arm. It was distinctly synthetic, but in that way that could have only come from a Starsch.
“Doesn’t mean he’s dead,” Rage said.
Junior reached back again and produced Rasco’s head.
“Okay, he’s dead,” Rage acquiesced.
“Lord Sahndle,” Scutter said.
“Here, Ms. Slang,” Lord Sahndle said as he came tottering over to them. “I was thrown clear, took a bad bounce, but appear to have all of my tentacles.”
“Yay you for being a sentient blob of jelly,” Rage said and got to his feet. “Ow.”
He turned in a slow circle and shook his head. The rocket had obliterated the party barge. It was all bits and pieces that had rained down on the tents and stalls of Scorching Dude below it. Rage couldn’t tell what any of the tents and stalls had been selling, offering, or promoting. They were flattened, smoking, ruins.
“The Punches,” Rage said as he continued to turn in a circle. “Oh…”
He found them. All of them.
Rage blinked for three full minutes straight as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. During those minutes, the others, including a semi-aware Detective Labous and a completely unscathed Grandmaster Scunge, joined Rage’s side and stared as well.
“What are the odds of that, yo?” Grandmaster Scunge said.
“Pretty fucking high, Scunge,” Rage said. “Pretty fucking high…”
The Punches had landed one on top of each other. That in of itself defied the odds, as Grandmaster Scunge had expressed. But it wasn’t so much the landing on top of each other, as it was the fact that each one of the Punches had landed so that their heads were jammed up inside the Punch they had landed on.
It was an eleven-person train of nothing but heads up asses.
“That even disturbs me, yo,” Grandmaster Scunge said. “And I’m the guy that swallows people up his two buttholes, so I ain’t exactly anally squeamish and shit, yo.”
“That’s simply nature with you,” Lord Sahndle said. “This…? This is not natural.”
“Oh, man, we’re never gonna win the competition now,” Junior said. Everyone turned to stare at him. “What? I assumed they’d reschedule for a later date.”
“How is he still alive?” Scutter asked.
“My daily question,” Rage said.
“Rage!” Grup came bouncing, scurrying, zipping, and dodging up and around the crash debris until he was right next to Rage. “Phew! Everyone lived!”
“No, dumbass, everyone did not fucking live!” Rage snapped. “Does that look like everyone lived?”
“I really meant you and Junior,” Grup said. “I barely knew those guys, so if they die it’s not like it affects my day-to-day life, man.”
“He’s been hanging out with you too much, Rage,” Scutter said.
“We need to move,” Rage said.
“No, wait, I have something to tell you!” Grup exclaimed.
“Okay, what?” Rage asked.
“Uh, the mob is here,” Grup said. “Right behind me. They have lots of bloody weapons and foam.”
“Foam?” Bill asked.
“Bloody foam,” Grup said, the emphasis on bloody. “Coming out of their, well…everywheres.”
“Sandy?” Rage asked. “Are they supposed to have bloody foam coming out of their everywheres?”
“Do not be insulting,” Lord Sahndle said. “I ordered homicidal, not messy homicidal. I do have taste, Mr. Rage.”
“Right. My bad,” Rage said. He focused back on Grup. “And by weapons you mean…?”
The ground around the group exploded with plasma and laser fire.
“That!” Grup yelled and took off running in the opposite direction.
“Follow the Clickelack!” Rage yelled, yet another phrase he never thought he’d utter in his lifetime.
“Max, no one is in any shape to run,” Scutter said.
“Then get in shape fast!” Rage said.
He debated all of one second then grabbed Junior up under one arm and Lord Sahndle up under the other. Leaving Junior behind meant he’d certainly get killed. Mascholine would hunt him down to the ends of the universe. And leaving Lord Sahndle behind meant he’d never get his debt paid off and have Earth Corp hunting him to the ends of the universe.
Earth Corp’s reach was much bigger, but Mascholine’s anger would for sure trump anything Earth Corp might do to him. The decision to take both was an easy one to make. Well, maybe not easy, but simple…
“My mom is gonna—!”
“Shut up, Junior!” Rage roared.
“Mr. Rage, this is quite an uncomfortable way to travel. Would it be—?”
“Shut your facehole too, Sandy!” Rage snarled. “I can’t drop Junior, no matter how much I want to, but I’ll drop the shit out of you if you make this shit worse than it is!”
“I do not see how my speaking is—?”
“You don’t have to see, assface! I am the only one that has to see!”
Then Rage saw. He turned a corner and was faced with an empty path between several tents and stalls. Except he knew the way was not empty. The shimmering air halfway down told him that he was dealing with more damn stealth suits.
“Really?” Rage growled. “What in the hell did I ever do to the Charbeshuns?”
“You got their goddess killed,” Junior said. “Remember that? I told Mom you’d be trouble after that, but she said…”
“What did she say?” Lord Sahndle asked.
“I’d, uh, rather not say,” Junior replied.
“You cannot start a story about someone killing a goddess and then not finish said story,” Lord Sahndle responded, sounding incredibly put out, thank you very much.
“She said… The dick was worth it,” Junior replied.
“She calls Mr. Rage a dick? Doesn’t sound like they are very affectionate,” Lord Sahndle said.
“Yeah, she meant his dick was worth it,” Junior said and began gagging.
Rage dropped them both and pulled his rifle from his back.
“Hey, Chatty Kathy’s, go gossip inside that stall right there,” Rage ordered as he aimed his rifle at the shimmering air.
“Here?” Junior asked.
Rage risked a glance away from the shimmer. He sighed.
“Junior? Why would I have you hide in a stall selling pillows?” Rage asked. “Especially when the next stall over is fi
lled with huge kettles. Kettles made of steel. Kettles made of steel that are large enough so you can each climb inside one.”
“I have already done as told, Mr. Rage,” Lord Sahndle said, a tentacle waving from inside a large kettle.
“Points to you, Sandy,” Rage said. “Junior, get your fucking ass in a—”
Something slammed into Rage’s back and sent him falling to the ground. He recovered in time to look up and see a headless, one-armed body sprinting right at the shimmering air.
“Wasn’t expecting that,” Rage said.
Rasco’s headless, one-armed body crashed directly into the shimmering air. A sound like bowling pins smashing together filled the air then that air stopped shimmering to show a dozen suited Charbeshuns flying in all directions.
The collision didn’t slow Rasco down one bit. The headless, one-armed Starsch kept on running, and running, and running.
“He is quite spry for a being sans head,” Lord Sahndle said, peeking out from his kettle. “Is, as the kids say, the coast clear, Mr. Rage?”
“NO!” Grup shrieked as he came sprinting by.
“Go! Go! Go!” Bill shouted, right behind Grup, Rasco’s arm clutched in one oily hand, Rasco’s head clutched in another.
“Shall I run too, Mr. Rage?” Lord Sahndle asked. “Or would you prefer to carry me again?”
“RUN!” Scutter yelled, dodging around Rage, right on the tails of the others.
Detective Labous was directly behind her, Grandmaster Scunge clutched tight to his chest.
“What the fuck you standin’ there for, yo?” Grandmaster Scunge shouted. “Get to sprintin’, bitches!”
“Yeah, you should run on your own,” Rage said then turned around to face what was coming for them. “Junior! You’re responsible for Sandy! Sandy! You’re responsible for Junior! Buddy system your shit right outta here now!”
Rage didn’t have time to open fire. The mob of murderous Scorchers was already on him.
Rage let go of his rifle and lifted his fists as the first Scorchers attacked.
“WHO WANTS SOME RAGE?!”
Twenty-Four
“FUCK YEAH!” Rage roared as he threw his fifteenth left hook.
Just like the last fourteen left hooks, his fist found its mark, that mark was a face, and that face was obliterated.