by Jake Bible
“Who would think that?” Rage responded. “The guy’s a schlub.”
“You have all those weapons and no stunner?” Scutter asked, waving at Rage’s get up.
“I didn’t think the Scorchers were going to ignore me,” Rage replied. “I was expecting murder and mayhem. I’d prefer murder and mayhem over all this blah crap.”
“Well, it’s blah crap we’re dealing with,” Scutter said. “And time is running out.”
Rage checked the wrist tab on his armor. Time was running out.
“Fine,” Rage said and started taking all the weapons off his armor.
“What are you doing?” Scutter asked. “Is Max Rage setting weapons on the floor?”
“Ha fucking ha,” Rage snapped. “I’m getting free of entanglements.”
“What does that mean?” Scutter asked.
“Watch,” Rage said when the last rifle was set down and all he had on him was the combat armor. Rage worked at the wrist tab for a couple of seconds then jumped up and down a few times.
“Calisthenics?” Scutter said with a smirk. “Are you going to Jazzercise them off Mars?”
“Not quite,” Rage said and approached Bill.
As Jambas went, Bill was a big one. He also seemed to be extra oily.
“Bill? Can I speak to you out in the hall for a second?” Rage asked.
“Busy,” Bill replied.
“Be real quick. Just a second,” Rage said, trying to sound nice and polite. It was excruciating.
“What do you want, man?” Bill asked.
“Got a personal question that I’d rather no one else overheard,” Rage said. “Please?”
The pain Rage felt from having to ask please nearly knocked him to his knees. It was an internal pain that no armor could protect him from.
“Whatever,” Bill said and got up to follow Rage.
“No, after you,” Rage said and let Bill pass by.
He gave Scutter a wink then was out in the corridor outside the lounge. Bill stood there, all arms crossed, looking annoyed at having his fun interrupted.
“What’s the issue?” Bill asked.
“See that over there,” Rage said and pointed behind Bill.
Bill turned and looked down the corridor.
“What? Where?” Bill asked.
Rage, having dialed up the power assist on his armor, punched Bill in the back of the head as hard as he could. The Jamba dropped like he’d been deflated. For a split second, Rage worried that he’d dialed up the power too much and just crushed the back of the guy’s skull, but Bill let out a semi-conscious moan and Rage sighed with relief.
That relief was short lived as Bill rolled over and tried to get up onto his knees.
Rage hit him again.
That time, Bill stayed down.
“Scutter!” Rage called.
Scutter appeared in the corridor, looked at Bill, looked at Rage, looked at Bill, then glared at Rage.
“I said no killing,” she snarled.
“He’s breathing,” Rage said then double-checked. “Yep, he’s breathing. I’m going to haul him up onto the upper deck. Not sure how I’ll get him onto the ship, but I’ll deal with that when I need to.”
“What do I tell the others when they ask where he is?” Scutter asked.
“Tell them whatever you have to,” Rage said. “Stall until I get back and can knock out the others.”
“This is going to take too long,” Scutter said.
“Feel free to get started before I return,” Rage said.
Then he crouched, managed to haul Bill up over his shoulders, and stood, the combat armor’s servos kicking in to assist Rage. He carried Bill up and out of the party barge’s lower decks until he was back in the middle of an annoying dance party.
“Maximillian Rage!” Jack Connor, King of Mars called. He shimmied his way through the dancers, smiling at every one as he passed by, until he reached Rage. “I had a feeling you might need assistance when I saw you go below. Here I am. Ready to assist.”
“Did you bring a stunner?” Rage asked.
“No, I did not.”
“Can you carry this Jamba by yourself?”
“That would be unlikely as he is a big fella, isn’t he?”
“Then you aren’t much help,” Rage snapped. “I have the rest of the team below and none will cooperate with me. They’ve been affected by the nanites and just want to play video games and hang out.”
“Ah, yes, I have noticed that everyone seems to be in a non-killing mood,” Jack Connor, King of Mars said. “Perhaps I should go below and speak to your friends. I have a way of connecting with people that is less…”
“Less wanting to snap their necks and leave them for dead?” Rage responded.
“Yes. That. No offense, Maximillian Rage,” Jack Connor, King of Mars said.
“None taken,” rage replied. “Where’s the ship?”
“Right there,” Jack Connor, King of Mars said and pointed to the starboard side of the party barge. The ship was linked up with the party barges. “I was speaking with the ship and we came to the conclusion that there was no reason why we couldn’t join the link up. Especially since the Scorchers do not appear to be a mortal threat any longer.”
“That was a good idea,” Rage said and headed for the ship. “Go and see if you can talk the others up top. If not, then I’ll be back with a couple of stunners and a grav jack.”
“A fine plan, Maximillian Rage!” Jack Connor, King of Mars exclaimed. “A fine plan indeed!”
“Whatever,” Rage muttered as he maneuvered his way across the party barges and to the wide-open hatch of The Rage.
Forty-Two
Jack Connor, King of Mars had left the hatch wide open, which was nice because Rage could hop onto The Rage without waiting.
It was also not nice because a bunch of Scorchers thought the ship was part of the link up, and why wouldn’t they, so they climbed aboard and were busy partying up and down the corridors of The Rage.
“Move!” Rage shouted.
The Scorchers did move, but not out of the way. They just shifted their groove to block him as he tried to duck around. Even with the power assist, Bill was getting heavy.
“Your friend is leaking,” the ship said. “A lot.”
“He’s a Jamba,” Rage said. “They tend to do that.”
“I do not mean his naturally sebaceous oil secretions, Max Rage,” the ship replied. “I mean from his urinary system. He is currently peeing all down your leg.”
“Son of a bitch,” Rage said when he looked down to see that the ship was right. Bill was pissing all over him. “Just great.”
“And our new friends are leaking as well,” the ship said. “Human urine is not an issue, but some of the races currently letting their bladders lose all over my floor have a musk that will not be easy to get out. I may have to cut out entire sections of floor and replace it.”
“What the hell?” Rage growled. “Are they all pissing themselves? Shit, they are!”
“Yes. Shit, they are,” the ship said. “And in vast quantities. Much more than I would guess to be healthy, no matter the race.”
The ship was right again. The Scorchers were leaking way too much piss. In seconds, as Rage continued shoving past them to get Bill farther into the ship, several of the Scorchers had dropped to their knees, all looking drained and dried out.
“Shit,” Rage said as he started to sprint.
He navigated the ship and made it to the infirmary where he dumped Bill onto a table.
“Ship! Can you keep him from drying out?” Rage asked.
The table came to life and a hundred different apparatuses went to work stabilizing Bill.
“Rehydration pouches!” Rage yelled.
A cabinet opened and a dozen rehydration pouches were ejected at Rage.
“You could have just pointed,” Rage said as he gathered up the pouches, found a bag to put them in, and sprinted from the infirmary.
He made a stop
at the armory for a stun baton then headed for the hatch and the party barges.
The corridors were filled with dried-out Scorchers. Most were only weak looking, but a few had started to become husks of their previous forms. Rage kicked himself for not seeing that stage coming.
Out the hatch, across the party barges, then down into the lower decks of the one he needed to be on, Rage found everyone except for Scutter and Jack Connor, King of Mars laying on the floor in pools of theirs and the others’ urine.
“Here!” Rage yelled and tossed the bag of rehydration pouches at Scutter. “You know what to do!”
She did and got to work connecting the pouches to everyone.
“And what shall I do?” Jack Connor, King of Mars asked.
“Help carry them,” Rage said. “I didn’t get a grav jack. No time.”
“I am quite strong,” Jack Connor, King of Mars said and picked up Rasco, throwing the Starsch over one shoulder, then picked up Junior and threw him over the other shoulder. “See?”
“Yeah. You’re strong, Jackie Boy,” Rage said. “I’ll give you a cookie later. Right now, bust your ass and get them to the infirmary on the ship.”
“I shall do that. And not just because of the promise of a cookie, Maximillian Rage,” Jack Connor, King of Mars responded and was out of the lounge a lot faster than Rage thought the guy could move.
“I’ll get Labous,” Scutter said and went to the bathroom door. She yanked it open and began to gag. “There’s another phase to this.”
The police detective lay on the floor with the Scorcher he’d been banging. While Labous was simply wet from his own urine, the Scorcher had defecated and it was everywhere.
Every. Where.
“Great,” Rage said and threw Choosper over his back.
Once Choosper was secured, Rage crouched and scooped up Grandmaster Scunge, who had shriveled to the size of a carrot, and put the Sphuncter into a pouch on his belt. Then he snagged Lord Sahndle and tied a couple of the Ghej’s tentacles around his neck.
“Ready,” Rage said.
Scutter had just gotten Detective Labous over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
“He’s coated in shit,” Scutter said. “I really wish I’d stayed dead.”
“You may get to return to that state if we don’t get them on the ship and away from Mars in the next few minutes,” Rage said. “With the amount of nukes Earth Corp is going to rain down on this planet, we’ll need to be well out of orbit not to catch some serious heat.”
“Then go,” Scutter said, nodding her chin at the door.
Rage went. He managed to make it to the upper deck before an alarm in his armor started to cry out.
“They’re shorting out the armor!” Rage yelled. “How can they short out combat armor? This should be able to handle a tsunami of liquids!”
“Yeah, well, you never know how much piss and shit a system can handle until it has to handle a whole bunch of piss and shit,” Scutter said. “That’s how many civilizations were built and how many were destroyed.”
“Sewage,” Rage agreed.
“Sewage,” Scutter echoed.
Across the barges and into the ship, Rage raced before he collapsed. As soon as he stepped through the hatch, he fell to his knees and his armor powered down. Scutter stepped over him and kept going with Detective Labous.
“I’ll be back for the others,” she called over her shoulder.
Rage couldn’t really do much until she returned. The armor was completely out of power and without power it was a two-ton suit of metal weighing Rage to the floor. He was strong, but it’d been a long couple of days.
“While your cargo has not been secured in the infirmary,” the ship said, “and we have many more passengers than I was expecting, I assume you would like me to close the hatch and fly away from this planet before it is destroyed, yes?”
“Yes,” Rage replied.
“Then that is what I shall do,” the ship said. “I must warn you that there could be issues as I leave the planet’s atmosphere and orbital influence.”
“Like what kind of issues?” Rage asked.
The ship took off, hard and fast. Every Scorcher in that corridor slammed into Rage and pinned him up against a bulkhead. With the Scorchers came their bodily fluids and Rage was beyond grateful that he was at least enrobed in armor even if it wasn’t mobile at that moment.
Then the breathing issue began.
“What cheap ass armor is this?” Rage gasped.
The air filtration system didn’t have back up power. Rage would have cursed up a storm if that wouldn’t have taken too much oxygen and effort.
“Ship?” he whispered. “Hey, ship?”
“Yes, Max Rage?”
“Kinda…suffocating…here…”
“Asphyxiating,” the ship corrected.
“Fuck…you…”
“Unfortunately, I cannot do anything to relieve your suffering. My programming will not allow me to.”
“Your…what…? Why…?”
“Captain Choosper assumed you might be hard to capture, so all of the sets of combat armor have been altered so only a short supply of clean air is contained within their systems and the entire air filtration unit is set to turn off after a specific time of use. You have hit that specific time of use.”
“This is…happening…on…purpose?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck…you…”
“You have already said that, but I understand why you are saying it again, Max Rage.”
“Gonna…kill…her…”
“I doubt that. Are you seeing black spots yet?”
“Yes…”
“Then it is only a matter of seconds before you will no longer be conscious. Anything you would like me to relay to Captain Choosper before you go? In case you die and can’t tell her yourself.”
“Gonna…kill…”
Rage didn’t finish his threat. The black spots before his eyes combined into one veil of blackness and he was out.
Forty-Three
Rage was coming to and he could swear he heard someone rattling off an invoice. His lack-of-oxygen-addled brain caught up with his hearing and he was certain he was hearing an invoice being read.
“Hey…” Rage croaked.
“He’s awake,” Scutter said and gave Rage a hard smack on his cheek. “Get up, lazy ass. We have problems.”
Rage sat up and started to swing at Scutter for the slap then saw everyone’s faces. They were in the infirmary and Rage was the last one to wake up, but he was not the only one ready to swing and break shit.
“What?” Rage asked as he swung his legs over the side of the table he was on. “What’s going on?”
“May I say something before you continue?” the ship asked. It didn’t wait for an answer. “I just want to say how impressed I am at your rate of recovery, Max Rage. Even with the added chore of removing the detonator chip Ms. Slang put in you. Earth Corp built you well.”
“Compliments won’t stop me from ripping your cybernetic guts out, ship,” Rage said. “So keep them to yourself.”
“Worth a try,” the ship said.
“What’s going on, Max, is I am reading the bill sent to us by Earth Corp,” Scutter said. “Not only are we not getting paid, or our debts being forgiven, Earth Corp is blaming us for everything that has happened on Mars and we now, as a group, owe forty-six trillion credits.”
“So?” Rage asked as he hopped down from the table.
Choosper was staring at him. He glared at her as hard as he could, but her expression didn’t change. Then Rage realized he was stark naked and Choosper’s eyes were not staring above his belly button.
“We’re gonna have a chat later,” Rage said and pointed at Choosper. “But right now, I’m going to take a shower. How long until we reach Earth?”
“Seven hours,” the ship replied. “I’d go faster, but the media ships are getting in the way as they travel to report on what has happened to Mars.”
“Nuclear glass,” Junior said from under a pile of blankets on one of the infirmary tables.
“It’s being called the greatest art installation ever created,” Lord Sahndle said. “And I missed the creation of it because I was on this ship instead of down there.”
“You’d be dead down there, bitch,” Grandmaster Scunge said. “You may be royalty, but you can’t survive a nuclear attack.”
“Ghejs are quite resilient,” Lord Sahndle said.
Rage left them to argue their idiotic whatevers and worked his way through the ship until he found a locker room. He walked in, started up the closest shower, then stood under the water for as long as the ship would allow.
“Sorry. I do have to at least pretend to conserve water,” the ship said. “Even though I can resupply on Earth.”
“Don’t care,” Rage replied and dried off. “Where are my clothes?”
“You will have to wear a jumpsuit until you arrive home,” the ship said. “I do not possess jeans or black T-shirts.”
“Fine,” Rage said and put on a jumpsuit.
By the time he made it to the bridge, everyone was there.
“Had time to think in the shower,” Rage said. “Earth Corp planned this from the start.”
“Ya think, dude?” Rasco said.
“Yeah, I do,” Rage replied. “Scorching Dude was probably costing too much, so they nuked all of Mars and created one giant piece of art. Art that needs no maintenance or supplies and will now be valued at—”
“Six hundred gazillion credits,” the ship interrupted. “It was just listed on Sotheby’s.”
“There ya go,” Rage said plopped down into an open chair. “And we catch the blame for it.”
“But we are all alive and here together,” Jack Connor, King of Mars said. “And that’s what counts.”
“Is it, Jackie Boy?” Rage asked. “Is it what counts?”
There were grumbles from everyone else that said that was not what counted.
“I am sorry about your friends,” Lord Sahndle said to Grandmaster Scunge. “It is an inglorious end for the Sphuncters.”