Galactic Menace

by Timothy J Meyer

  Clues, despite the chaos and confusion, appear individually with each inch Moira scrutinizes past the point of their entry.

  Signs of looting are both many and exhaustive. All registers are smashed, all pockets are picked, all shelves are swept clean and, Moira is certain, all the storerooms, Ikoril's real prize, are empty. Less popular to the Outer Ring's outlaw populace, perhaps, but Ikoril Federate Station remained a pivotal point on Valladia's Line and a sizable shipping depot for the whole Quadrant. Whomever the guilty party may be, they could no doubt assuage said guilt by languishing in the precipitous mountain of booty they'd just stolen.

  All the telltale and obvious watermarks of a Freebooter Fleet sack are readily, even repetitively, apparent: the half-eaten food, the haphazard dispersal of corpses, even the habitual urine stains against the pristine plating. Graffiti grows like expected moss against walls, floors and, in the depleted gravity, even ceilings, brandishing all the familiar images and slogans – five of six Jolly Rogers, The Eyesore's excluded, as well as the litany of popular slags against both Imperium and Valladia.

  None of the fractal paint derision, Moira notes with some bemused interest, is original. Every vandalism she sees is a recognizably dimwitted reproduction of a similar phrase splattered against the walls of the GalaxGas Refinery Complex, Valladia Prime and the Adrogi Wet Market.

  The carcasses, from customer to vendor to station staff, are demonstrably the work of an unleashed Freebooter force. Studied observation reveals provable points – the multicolored ditrogen scoring each individual wound, the increased frequency of canisters pumped into each target and so on, the encyclopedic array of pistol, rifle, carbine and machine gun fire responsible.

  A more casual observation reveals a more telling trend: no dead pirates. Indeed, as indistinguishable as an ordinary spacer and a true-blue pirate can occasionally be, Moira recognizes none of the requisite tattooing, scarification nor many-belted apparel that categorizes a career corsair among the floating dead.

  Nor, she realizes, does she spot among the slaughter any demonstrable member of an Imperium resistance. An absence of any razorback bodies, hanging in dead space, suggests that Ikoril went undefended at the time of its supposed sacking by the Freebooter Fleet.

  The journey to rejoin with her companions is hardly an arduous or lengthy one. The weight of the burning revelation in Moira's chest hastens her all the more.

  A fresh foursome of Freebooters, Greatgullet among them, have joined the initial four, each one gaping slack-jawed at the very spectacle that's initially enraptured the Lover's own crew. As Moira approaches, Nemo, Odisseus and Two-Bit bounce and rebound themselves, as best they can, closer to their returned companion.

  "Find anything?" Odisseus prompts eagerly, his Wreckingball clutched in all ten claws.

  "Found something," grants Moira, her expression steeling over. "Somebody clearly beat us to the punch."

  An unimpressed Two-Bit scowls. "And?"

  "And I know who."

  Nemo's scowl crinkles to better match Two-Bit's. "Xo?"

  "The Imperium."

  Two-Bit Switch would rather die an agonizing death – dissolved by eight stomach's worth of scalding acid within the rollicking gullet of an Eparese trashcow, say –than make such an admission. Credit where credit's due, though, the Imperium may actually have outfoxed him this once, criminal mastermind and all.

  This means someone, on either the Ministry's Menace desk or the Risk Prevention Board at Valladian Shipping, may, when push comes ultimately to shove, possess more than a tumbler's worth of brains. Considering the PR bungle that originally brought Nemo's irrational wrath down upon them and their laughably sluggish attempts to retaliate, Two-Bit previously neglected this possibility as too far outside to prepare a contingency for.

  Forced to watch and re-watch the moment of his adversary's triumphant cleverness on the strategic imager, a punishment already contrived for the hellish and specifically-tailored ring of his afterlife, a begrudging Two-Bit eventually admits, if only inwardly, that this was cannily done.

  Dead bodies in motion remain in motion. Beads of liquid – tears, blood or alcohol – threaten to transform the hologram into a piece of pointillism. The view rendered in negative red by the strategic imager's underperforming projector and the audio reduced lower than low by interstellar distance, the footage GAC's reporters grabbed is infuriatingly well-filmed artwork, practically festival-quality fare.

  Despite the high pixelation of the images he's presented with, Two-Bit Switch occasionally can distinguish specific scenes, snapshots he only remembers he encountered sometime after.

  A floating accordion, perhaps once the property of some busker or specialty shop, caterpillars past camera, its songs silenced by a stray ditrogen bolt to the bellows. Its motor removed, its radio removed, its steering levers removed and its four Eussi passengers murdered, a driftcart's once singular ability of levitation is plagiarized by everything aboard Ikoril not nailed down.

  All this heart-rending sensationalism, however, quickly fades into unfocused scenery against which a series of statistics, at once startling and somewhat meaningless, are tabulated.

  The stern yet sympathetic voice of the anchor, the friendly neighborhood Cadafreyan whose channel the local feedcasters must most prefer to outsource across Talos' sector, indexes the incident numerically, citing casualties, property damage and so forth, accrued on Ikoril's attack.

  While her current audience proves somewhat less than receptive to her claims, the anchor's eyeless expression somehow conveys all the necessary remonstrance to a grieving galaxy. "At this time, the Menace and his followers are presumed to have fled toward their hidden fortress somewhere on the moons of Talos."

  Her expression softens suddenly, as though struck by a passing pang of guilt. "As the authorities continue to pursue decisive action against the Freebooter Fleet, tonight our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims caught in the wake of this monstrous tragedy. No stolen property was worth their sacrifice."

  "Oh, get bent, you sopping bleeder!" roars an outraged Greatgullet. "That's buhoxshit on its face and even she knows it!"

  Seemingly shamed by the Obax's sudden outburst, the newsplash footage, with a hiccuping quaver of picture, re-loops to the segment's beginning. For quite possibly the third time, Two-Bit's lost count, it starts its glitzy, overpriced "Breaking News" coverage.

  Simply the most vocal, Greatgullet is far from the only other observer. Everyone and their entourage's here, everyone who would normally attend a convergence of the Captain's Council, from Vobash, to Aju Vog Xah Qaj, to Charybdis. Even a chary Nemo, the Galactic Menace, sits as a sullen and somber shadow somewhere to Two-Bit's right.

  For a venue known to host a variety of entertainments and distractions, from banquets, to Iniquity, to pirateball, little of any significance had occurred since the meeting convened. Any discussion of actual tactics, response or retaliation had yet to commence. The score of those present were preoccupied with watching the captured media clip, attempting to sore-assedly process how hard the Endless Imperium had just fucked them.

  How Valladia squared themselves with the notion of their militaristic patrons slaughtering an entire station-load of loyal customers, Two-Bit couldn't guess. All he knew was that one fell swoop from the Imperium had robbed the Freebooter Fleet of their prize of Ikoril, condemned them for their thoughtless butchery across all of interstellar feedspace and secured an opportunity to make vast amounts of cash and cargo vanish without a trace.

  Two-Bit could conjure half a hundred theories to explain how they could've accomplished such an extensive feat under the galaxy's and his own nose, with repurposed commercial vessels first and foremost.

  Their actual methods, however, were not of as much consequence. What was most consequential was the havoc this granted the Imperium the opportunity to wreak in the press.

  It went without saying that, even prior to the declaration of the Menace, the entire Imperial polit
ical and publicity machine devoted a substantial portion of their energy to painting Nemo as both scheming terrorist and senseless barbarian. This Ikoril business, though, represented their first masterstroke, the ability to create and control the actions they decried as deplorable rather than simply exaggerate and hyperbolize them. Where their attempts to combat the Freebooter fiasco with physical power had failed them, here had the morally bankrupt Imperium, demonizing Nemo for the crimes they themselves committed, shown that they too would refuse to play by any civilized rules.

  The Cadafreyan, an expression of urgency and duty worn so hackneyed on her eyeless face, reappears behind her news desk. At once, she rattles, full tilt, into her prepared remarks. "Shocking developments in the–"

  It's Vobash who mercifully spares everyone present another unnecessary rehashing of the Imperium's flawless victory, with a spindly finger pressed decidedly on the imager's mute button. He takes command of the conversation even before speaking, adjusting his weight and sending his secreted brushvezzer scurrying about to avoid being crushed. "I would hope that you all consider attacking Yime, at this point, to be out of the question?"

  "Out of the question? Bloom me, out of the question," protests Greatgullet with a majestic showing of bluster and bellicosity. He points stridently towards the silent red hologram, continuing her silent story to a now inattentive audience. "Last thing I'mana do is allow–"

  "Best case–" Vobash attempts to interject.

  "–these pompous motherblooming liars–"

  "Best case," Vobash repeats, revealing a dash of his own outrage towards the tempestuous Obaxi buccaneer, "there's an entire armada of privateers, possibly even Imperium warships, in orbit around Yime Orbital." With nowhere left to attack, with Yime's lonely anchorage the single point remaining unsacked on all the Shipping Line, the mystery of the Freebooter Fleet's next target was simply solved. "Worst case, they raid the station themselves, pocket all the profit and blame us for the bloodshed." One Triomman shoulder creeps upward in half a traditional shrug. "It's either a slaughterhouse or a waste of fuel."

  "You-propose-what, then?" Charybdis bottom-lines, ever the chase-cutter.

  Vobash is painstakingly diplomatic in the following suggestion. "I propose that we've made tens of millions of credits each. I propose that we've indelibly altered the course of galactic history. I propose," he suggests innocently, "that we cut our losses and call the thing complete."

  No reaction of universal disapproval explodes from the Council. Even Greatgullet, clearly stewing in displeasure, does not muster an actual objection. The passage of time, devoid of objection or censure, nearly ratifies the better part of valor into law.

  Nemo, staunchest opponent of the wiser option, offers no alternative. He remains sunk shoulder deep in his new melancholy, chipping away flicks of veneer off the Captain's Table with a fingernail. Much as his Captain relied upon him for planning, advise and logistics, so now does the Galactic Menace rely upon Two-Bit to defend his indefensible ideals.

  "And, what, be thought of as yellow?" Forty odd eyes swerve aside from Vobash, Nemo or the hologram to settle on Two-Bit, this unlikely champion of imprudence. "You jabb," he aligns towards Vobash, "about galactic history and all that. You think galactic history's gonna vizz toasty on them what blagged nine of Valladia's ten?" With his words sinking into so many thick skulls, Two-Bit reclines backward, the conclusion he outlines foregone. "They jabbed us as monsters. If I'm gonna be thought of that, might as well be the actual gritty, eh?"

  This seems to land with better reception that Vobash's oddly more optimistic plan of action. Charybdis nods resignedly, the Xend quiver their antennae and Greatgullet even enjoys a jocular chuckle. The grumpiest considering the Imperium's swift and sure denial of any potential profits in the Ikoril or Yime enterprises, Vobash has positively and predictably gone sour, especially in light of no one agreeing with his assuredly safer solution.

  Wood scrapes and skids against teltriton. Two-Bit turns at the sound to see Nemo abruptly on his feet. Before anyone can open their mouth to even word a question or objection, he's strode the ten steps to the mesh curtain and, with a temperamental swish, the Galactic Menace has officially stormed out of the meeting.

  Confounded expressions travel from the clinking curtain across the chamber to settle on Two-Bit Switch. In his capacity as the Menace's primary minder, the responsibility falls to him to follow Nemo out into Pirateton's inky night.

  His silhouette stalks some distance ahead of Two-Bit. On a night such as this one, following a handy defeat at the hands of a preemptive Endless Imperium, no crowds of clamoring sycophants cloud the Galactic Menace's progress. With no bountiful booty to satiate them, the corsair citizenry could care less how menacing this Captain Nemo was to the galaxy at large.

  To them, he was merely another hoodlum, circuiting the desolate streets of the city he founded.

  Pirateton mends. Weeks following the surprise violence the 4th Fleet wrought upon the town, the damage is patched, plated over or, most frequently, ignored, the ditrogen-scarring quickly becoming familiar pieces of demarkation in everyone's minds, landmarks by which to orienteer by. This is defeated somewhat by the influx of new ships, however, and Pirateton is, if anything, so changeable that it remains an absolute nightmare to navigate.

  What Two-Bit is most thankful for, however, is that the shelf life of the trophies, the Imperium commandos captured or killed during the ground skirmish and strung up on gibbets or pikes across the city, has more or less expired. Most of the reeking corpses have rotted away enough than their owners either destroyed them or possibly they just no longer smell, reduced wholly to skeletons and helmets.

  At full hustle, Two-Bit's reduced practically to panting by the time he's circled about the Captain, plunging headlong into the teltriton tangle surrounding his own spaceship. To both keep ahead of Nemo and speak sense to him, Two-Bit's forced to scuttle backwards through Pirateton, an enterprise fraught with stumbles and potential pratfalls. "You ain't vizzing at this the right fucking way."

  "That right?" a despondent Nemo returns with each sloughing step through sand and garbage. "Is there another way?" He waves one hand dismissively, Two-Bit's opinion a vexatious fly. "It's nothing to do with the loot. I've more money than I know how to throw fucking away. It's the..." he trails off, hand grasping at what intangibly bothers him.

  "The press, mate," Two-Bit supplies. "I understand."

  "You remember any of this with Ott?" he presses with an ambush of conviction, his gaze leaping up from the ground to bore into Two-Bit with crystalline clarity. "Ott threatened them. Ott, they respected. They had to."

  "Don't know," Two-Bit begins to counter, nearly losing his balance over the carcass of a gutted dash left lifelessly in the lurch, "if you've blanked or what, Cap'n, but ain't there hundreds of millions of their rhino lining our pockets?" He thrusts a finger skyward to pinpoint the shadow of the pulverized Pylon, visible against the illuminated orb of Talos Prime. "Ain't that the blooming capital gantine they cast off to kuckle us? Ain't there," the finger remains extended to wave inches back and forth from Two-Bit's own face, "only one port on the Shipping Line we ain't tossed?"

  "Two," Nemo grunts petulantly.

  Two-Bit's arms fly wide and only careful footing rescues him from a nasty backwards spill when confronted with an abandoned pair of sneakers, lying unseen beneath the topsoil of trash. "Not as far as the galaxy knows. That they made certain."

  "I know." With eye contact re-established, some buried spark of the bold and brash Nehel Morel is visible beneath this bone-deep veneer of gloom, a spark Two-Bit intends to rekindle if they'd any hope of completing this ridiculous escapade at all. "If this is gonna be me now, if this is what they'll know me for, I won't have them," he spits with obvious disdain, "tell it."

  With a cautious shrug and a creeping smile, Two-Bit spots his opening. "They jabbed the galaxy one thing," he reasons. "Maybe it's time you jabbed them something else."

  "And what wou
ld that be?" Nemo wonders with dejected skepticism.

  "That piracy ain't pointless."

  Chapter 23

  Odisseus votes against Ulic Traffo of the Anglia Daily. With his upscale fashions, his immaculately-trimmed goatee and, worst of all, that smile as thin and forced as one Moira Quicksilver might wear, the Anglian positively reeks of Inner Sector pomposity. At even a passing glance, Odisseus pinpoints Traffo as precisely the type of uncaring elitist who most likely drives a Glide9 around the suburbs and thinks he's driving a Glide11 or a Glide12.

  The Ortok does lately suppose that this may or may not reflect that poorly on his journalistic credentials.

  In the interest of full disclosure, Odisseus also voted against Pluwu Plaxon of Galaxy Gossip. Xaddixoro of Alien Monthly also failed to earn his vote. In fact, none of the half a dozen candidates Two-Bit thought to parade before the disapproving eyes of both saltbrothers and one Grimalti this morning were quite up to the Ortok's snuff.

  Chances were good he would therefore vote against whichever secret seventh candidate Two-Bit was doubtlessly keeping safely sleeved. Odisseus did not, in point of fact, think this whole scheme was necessarily the wisest course of action they could conceivably take, anyway.

  To make matters worse, the Ulic Traffo that Odisseus didn't approve of was little more than a hologram. The stiff-backed Anglian – snooty dress sense, suspicious goatee, feigned smile and all – wavers occasionally, when the hypercomm projection pad his likeness stands upon cannot maintain a consistent feed. A mere recording, he doesn't physically nor verbally react to the small bevy of buccaneers who hem and haw over him, like choosy shoppers poking and prodding a prospective side of buhox.

  While this method may come with certain advantages, Odisseus laments the lack of olfactory evidence he can bring to bear against the reporter. Seven some sectors divided is no way to judge a sentient's character, in Odisseus' esteemed yet ignored opinion. A cocktail of damning and distrustful aromas undoubtedly swirl about the smarmy Anglian.