Galactic Menace

by Timothy J Meyer

  “Will you,” barks Moira again, snatching his wrist and yanking him out of sight of his attackers, “fucking pay attention? The absolute last thing we need are more red flags to our moons-damned position.”

  Whatever witticism he offers to that, Odisseus cannot hear as his cutting beam activates. Wielding such an implement without proper safety equipment, especially while standing in a stream of waist high water, is precisely the sort of behavior that claims the lives and limbs of many of Odisseus' profession. Possessor of all his fingers and eyes, Odisseus isn't thrilled about starting that behavior now.

  That said, it's a relatively simple task to smote each connecting spar of the grate that bars them entry into aqueduct proper, slicing through the wrought iron with the yellow-hot dagger of the cutting beam.

  Accessing the Palace Immortal via its plumbing was predictably Two-Bit's idea. According to his exhaustive research and Charybdis' testimony, the only conceivable chink in the otherwise impenetrable mail of Trija's planetary defense was their traditionalism.

  Constructed some thousands of years ago, the Palace Immortal was designed, mortared and maintained centuries before the more modern techniques of hydro-pumping or moisture collection. Instead, its architects relied heavily on an ancient series of aqueducts to ferry fresh water over the mountains, across the city and into the palace.

  Through millennia of technological advances, the traditionalist Trijans at once refused to modernize and unlocked a postern door that would allow a clearly inferior enemy, the Freebooter Fleet, to squeeze out a victory on technicality.

  Once severed from its masonry, the grate whines piteously before it twists and tumbles backward into the darkness of the culvert. Split seconds later, Odisseus hears a terrific splash below, echoing off the aqueduct's rounded walls.

  Odisseus calmly deactivates the cutting beam and glances behind at his companions. Once he's received Nemo's condoning nod, he lurches into motion, hurling his entire shaggy body into the culvert, as though to rescue the grate from drowning.

  A fall through pitch darkness, complete with the uncomfortable flipping of his stomach, lasts precisely long enough for Odisseus to wonder if he'd somehow miscalculated.

  Then the water, the blessed fresh water, rushes up to embrace him.

  Odisseus labored through the majority of his adult life as an uncomfortable, cumbersome and ponderous creature. He padded about space stations, spaceships and terrestrial planets on his stubby, underperforming hind legs. Along the way, he always dragged this markedly useless baggage, this two-foot-long tail, behind him.

  Now, when immersed entirely within the flowing water, even of this cramped aqueduct, Odisseus is once more lithe, limber and lissome, as his species was always intended to be.

  His companions are presumably going to clamber down the culvert's either side by some other means – frankly, the Ortok doesn't really care. His mind, for the moment, is completely absorbed with an Ortok's only intended purpose – the sheer sensation of swimming.

  His tail kicks experimentally once, twice, as though awakening from an eternal sleep and propels him momentously forward. His spine starts to mimic this motion, sluicing his entire form, from tip of snout to tip of tail, through the black water. His paws, their webbing fully extending, further assist this consensus of body, steering and tilting his alignment, pointing his back, his belly, his back upward at any particular moment. His fur, perennially dusty, matted and unkempt, instantaneously sleeks him into an arrow-straight missile, a hydrodynamic needle perfect for piercing through the water.

  Even his face acclimates. His nostrils seal impenetrably shut and his forgotten third eyelid slides into place, affording him a much clearer view of the thoroughly uninteresting aqueduct.

  He has a task, he now remembers – to locate a particular pipe that will guide them into the interior of the Palace Immortal. Upon further reflection, Odisseus is two decades removed from the planet of his birth and he is going to splash around in the water like a buffoon until somebody yells at him to stop.

  He breaches the surface occasionally, to re-experience that initial moment of plunge. When above the water, his matted down Ortoki ears detect the rumble of hushed conversation, assuring that his companions do indeed follow some distance behind along the walkway. He careens and cavorts the length of the aqueduct, shooting great distances ahead of his landlubber fellows with powerful snaps of his tail and returning to their sides with equal ease and speed scarce moments later.

  He plumbs the depths of the culvert, attempting to determine exactly how shallow the water actually is. He abrades his belly against the floor's flagstones and catches fleeting sight of the necessary pipe he'd been tasked to locate, some distance ahead. He churns against the current as he returns to the side of the Lover's crew and ribbons along the surface of the channel long enough to catch the word “Odi” spoken by either Nemo or Moira.

  In response, he pops his sleekend head, neck and torso from the water to glower at his companions, his tail treading beneath him.

  “Are you fuckers talking about me?”

  Caught in the headlights by his question and his sudden appearance, all three pirates appear at a loss for words, but it's Odisseus' saltbrother, oblivious to a fault, who confesses. “Nothing, like, bad.”

  “Tell me, then,” he challenges.

  There's another uncertain silence between them. “Two-Bit was saying–” tattles Nemo.

  “You fucking narmer,” hisses Two-Bit, slapping his Captain harshly on the sleeve.

  “–was saying that you look better without that sweater, my sweater, on. That you looked fat before–”

  “And now you don't,” a reddening Two-Bit attempts to clarify.

  “I didn't say a fucking thing,” Moira also attempts to clarify.

  Odisseus glowers at each offender in turn and frumps up his whiskers somewhat. “I found the adjoining pipe. If any of you gossips care.” That said, the Ortok swishes his tail once viciously across the surface of the water and douses all three entirely too dry pirates where they stand.

  His crewmates screaming in protest or alarm behind him, Odisseus is granted his first real appreciation of the workmanship of the Trijan aqueduct. Feeding water to various fountains and spas within the palace compound, the aqueducts were a marvel of ancient engineering that could conduct a fairly convincing illusion of indoor plumbing with only brick, mortar and elevation. A tunnel large enough to drive a drifttram through, complete with narrow walkways on opposite sides of the main water conduit, an aqueduct could also conduct four interlopers along an ideal highway beneath all Palace Immortal's main defenses.

  Illuminated solely by the feeble light of Two-Bit's Attaché, the aqueduct is a spooky tunnel to nowhere, the pale white light catching and highlighting the wet stones like the scales of a glistening reptile. Once again, were their errand not so drastic, their away allies pitching furious battle in the skies, Odisseus would adore the chance to, at his leisure, explore the Trijan underground aqueduct complex more fully.

  Odisseus derives a certain degree of cruel pleasure in watching his companions shuffle into the stream of freezing mountain water. Without tails, webbed feet or third eyelids, they bumble awkwardly into the flowing stream, floundering about with their inefficient limbs to keep the current from dragging them away. Odisseus doesn't bother to refrain his chuckle as they fumble with their oxygen masks, borrowed from the Lover's store of vacuum equipment, and flap comically against the current.

  “Everyone ready?” Odisseus prompts in his best childish pander.

  “You needn't,” Nemo denigrates, his voice muffled by the clear plastolieum mask cinched over his face, “sound so fucking self-satisfied.”

  “He's ain't nagged, though,” Two-Bit appreciates, his voice similarly dampened, as he, waterproofed Attaché in one hand, drawn Tigress in the other, keeps himself afloat as best he can. “Won't have another squeak to tragg up. Best do so now.”

  At his word, the three humanoids withdraw, che
ck the ammunition windows and prime the hammers of their individual firearms. Their own hands useless for the purposes of swimming, they might as well not bother paddling and simply allow the current to catapult them to their ultimate destination.

  Their previously appointed rearguard, Odisseus reasons that attempting to haul his Wreckingball through the pipe anywhere but snugly in its holster would impede not only his ability to swim but also his enjoyment of the ride. Each of his companions suitably masked and armed, Odisseus twitches his whiskers once and plunges back beneath the churning surf.

  Safely underwater again, the Ortok guides his three terrestrial followers, like a mother lonktonk and its newborn tonklings, down the aqueduct. His third eyelid engaged, for once, he relies more heavily on his sense of sight rather than his sense of smell. After a short swim, Odisseus comes up short on the opposite side of the pipe's jutting entrance and holds position with cunning motions of tail and hind paws.

  Like a paratrooper general safely seeing his troops through the open bay door of their dropcraft, Odisseus gives a confirming nod to each crewmember as they swim by and are subsequently sucked into the adjoining pipe. Moira's first, to frontload as much pacification of their eventual landing site as possible. Nemo comes second, to issue his orders and hopefully earn some facial recognition, even from the isolationist Trijans. Two-Bit follows third, his Attaché and its attached droidvox the key not only to translate Nemo's demands but, perhaps more importantly, to navigate the twisting halls of the Palace Immortal. Odisseus brings up the rear, with one final shudder of the tail and one final contortion of the spine, launching himself into the pipe and the new rushing current.

  The pressure within is immense. At as sharp a right angle as they can manage, Odisseus and the three confederates before him are catapulted directly upward, born swiftly upon a current of pressurized water toward the destination high above. As hydrodynamic as Odisseus is, he's concerned that his speed will increase too rapidly and he'll over take Two-Bit, whose his clothing and gawky frame provides that much more drag.

  Like spaceships midwarp, the crew of The Unconstant Lover imitate their beloved vessel, rocketing upward through the underground layers of the Palace Immortal to, within mere seconds, arrive amid their central courtyard.

  A blinding light accosts Odisseus the further upward he swims. He watches Nemo, Moira and Two-Bit as each are sucked through the final feet of the pipe. He watches them disgorged into a much larger body of water, the reflected light painting its classical scale patterns across the surface.

  Before long, Odisseus too pops free from the narrow tunnel and surfaces within the main body of the fountain. By the time he comes to stand amid the shallow pool, his three dripping companions have already found their feet and seemingly their firearms. While not personally witness to the instigation of hostilities, Odisseus would place a sizable bet on Nemo shooting first, by now all four weapons wielded by the soaking pirates aflame with ignited ditrogen.

  The fountain they surface from shames the word “baroque” with its ostentation, scarcely two feet deep but easily forty feet in diameter. Its centerpiece is a strange and ill-fitting hunk of contorted, twisted black metal, more at home amid a modern art gallery than such a classical tableau as the Palace Immortal's sacred courtyard. Whether a gift, a grant or a bribe from the galaxy at large, Odisseus isn't certain how exactly this eyesore came to be here, clashing so stridently against the Trijan's well-established motif of antiquity.

  Floating another forty feet over the fountain's centerpiece is a whirling, amorphous mass of sliding solxite mirrors. Resembling one of Charybdis' three junks in principle, with all its moving, reflective parts, the globe of rotating panels sweeps distant battlements with many of its mirrors. Others, angled oddly, capture each pirate as they burst from the water in bright beams reminiscent, more or less, of spotlights.

  Blinking, it requires all of Odisseus' limited eyesight to yank his shotgun free from its casing, shuffle through the paunch-high water and locate the nearest available ally. “Have we any idea,” he poses screamingly, over the clamant sounds of gunfire, “what the bloom that thing is?” he indicates, tossing his head violently upward toward the unknown aerial object.

  “You know,” Nemo supposes, lobbing shot after unsuccessful shot towards the line of approaching Trijans, “I think it might be some kinda like, floating, like, ball of mirrors, you know? Like, reflecting light down–”

  “Yeah, I'll ask Two-Bit,” resolves Odisseus. He racks his Wreckingball and tromps off in search of the jabberhead.

  The harsh overhead light from the mysterious “ball of mirrors” blinds the Ortok enough that he can't really discern much about the surrounding courtyard. The one characteristic he does notice, however, are the Palace Immortal's enclosing defenses.

  From every conceivable vantage point, Odisseus can spy Trijans moving swiftly to intercept them. As before, they're garbed, in uniforms both florid and ceremonial. They sing their harmonious orders back and forth amongst themselves. In response to the pirate's pistols and Odisseus' shotgun, the Trijans ready weapons of their own – disintegrators of a stripe to make even the high standards of Socorro Charybdis proud.

  The nearest such Trijan to Odisseus reaches disintegrator range in three steps and, being the dutiful palace guard she is, lets loose with a sustained blast. Dropping into a crouch, Odisseus is simultaneously able to avoid the warbling rays of the disintegrator and slug a shell straight into her stomach. She's bowled headlong to the ground and slams her neck conclusively into the fountain's marble lip.

  His allies thankfully meet with similar successes. Nemo's wild shots in the literal dark seem to elicit actual screams of pain from actual Trijans, somewhere beyond the range of anyone's vision. Moira's, expectedly, the most murderous. Righty and Lefty don't deign themselves to plug anything but a brain, a throat or a heart. Distracted by reviewing his Attaché, Two-Bit peppers at several separate enemies as they approach, though his preoccupation muddies his aim a considerable amount.

  “Your Attaché,” Odisseus wonders, once within earshot of Two-Bit, “got anything to say about that hunk of junk?”

  His Tigress not shy about discharging bolts while they talk, Two-Bit peers upward towards the hanging device. “Pretty sure it's–”

  Without warning, something unforeseen reels Two-Bit fifteen feet backward. Dropping both Attaché and Tigress in surprise, he's dragged by the wrist like an insistent parent and slams his body against the sheer black stone of the fountain's centerpiece with a hollow thud.

  The slab of strange stone now glows internally with some orchestrated sequence of inset lights, no doubt meant to be purely decorative. The sight of his comrade, pinned helplessly against the centerpiece by the wrist, inspires a horrific revelation within Odisseus upon spying Two-Bit's bracelet, immovably magnetized to the stone surface.

  Should one send an electric current through a substantial amount of micne, they would find that any amount of multe, no matter how trace, would be immediately drawn to its sister metal by an irresistibly potent magnetic force. While wearing his braggart's bracelet of multe, Two-Bit Switch is permanently fastened to the massive slab of micne that somehow forms the fountain's main attraction.

  A sitting lonktonk against the disintegrator-wielding palace guards making haste towards him, Two-Bit Switch writhes helplessly against the wet stone, attempting, by hook or crook, to pry his captured wrist from the micne's unrelenting grip. “Oi! Oi!” he hollers, attempting to divide his attention between the advancing Trijans and his present predicament.

  Odisseus wracks his Wreckingball again and backpedals as quickly as the water around his ankles will allow. The shotgun barrels out fruitless canister after fruitless canister to hinder any assailant that would dare threaten his pinned crewmate. Nemo and Moira, likewise, scramble to Two-Bit's defense but, from their previous positions across the fountain, have that much more ground to cover before they can truly threaten the closest and most dangerous attackers.
r />   With a Trijan-made disintegrator, however, all that's needed is one scrape.

  One lucky crackshot scores one lucky graze. The emitted pink energy of the disintegrator is immediately hard at work on dissolving the jabberhead's clothes a heartbeat after contact with his jacket.

  Still squirming, still barking “Oi! Oi!”, he thrashes against what Odisseus quickly understands to be an unshirkable fate, for all Two-Bit's wiliness. The disintegrator's ill effects devour cloth, skin and flesh.

  Within three full seconds of its first brushing his jacket, Two-Bit Switch, criminal mastermind, is reduced absolutely to a blackened stain against the micne and an empty multe bracelet, clinging defiantly to the fountain's centerpiece.

  Chapter 28

  vo Veaff strongly disapproves of her new koj. She disapproves of his swagger. She disapproves of the way he strains her former koj's chair with his sheer volume. She disapproves of his gaudy calabash pipe, choking The Loose Cannon's bridge with clouds of pungent tobacco.

  She especially disapproves of his confusing and unhelpful manner of speaking.

  Admittedly, vo Veaff's overall grasp of Commercial was to be considered tenuous, at best. Something either in the accent or the vernacular of her new koj's dialect, however, she found not only unintelligible but also irritating.

  The only thing about this newfound koj worthy of vo Veaff's approval was potentially his build. Much more than the slight koj Vobash had, this new koj deserves the title's literal meaning – Glutted One.

  From her post to the koj's immediate right, she watches the remainder of the crew, more simple pirates than adopted pariahs, scramble about their duties with an even higher degree of efficiency than normal. To hear Sarge, her translator and confidant, tell it, this new koj went very highly respected among the cutthroats and corsairs of the galaxy at large. To serve under his direct command appeared to be a honor of some not insignificant amount, a honor entirely wasted on the unimpressed and bereaved Baziron.