by Adam Clark
***
Chainsaw-Boy was startled awake by a face full of cold seawater.
“What the hell, I was having the most awesome dream about this unicorn.”
“Shut up” Grigor ordered, standing over his wooden bed in the ship's hull “what the hell are you wearing?”
“Oh man, these are my sesame street pyjamas, check it out, they've got Big Bird and Elmo on them and everything!” Said an epileptically fit inducing multi-coloured Chainsaw Boy.
“How old are you?”
“39 month after next.” Grigor gave him a very unapproving look.
“Whatever, look, our plans have changed. The Dragon Heart was going to be the source of power and the locked away in maximum security at our new headquarters. Unfortunately, as you know, it got stolen in transit. Obviously Skwisfellgar and his men are completely incompetent, so we have to go get the heart back ourselves.”
“Okay, remind why I'm doing this with you?”
“You're my sidekick, the idea is that you'll die before me in any assassination attempt, allowing me enough forewarning to fight back. You also need to get good at wisecracking. Now get up. We've got work to do” with that Grigor got up and roller-skated out onto the deck of the rocking ship.
Chainsaw-Boy got out of his bed and considered the situation. Admitting that he had only joined the crew in order to get a free ride to New Zealand would undoubtedly get him killed. On the other hand, going along with Grigor would undoubtedly get him killed.
He mulled over the conundrum while in the shower. It seemed there wasn’t anything he could really do, they were out in the middle of the ocean, too far to swim away, Chainsaw-Boy wasn’t even sure he could swim anymore with his new arms. He could stick around on this quest and escape when he got the chance, or actually join the quest seriously. Maybe that was his calling in life he thought to himself, after his shower he decided that he would go with Grigor.
After dressing (one of the more difficult tasks Chainsaw-Boy came across in his new life) he walked out of his cabin and onto the early morning sun on the deck, hoping that he’d made the right decision. At the other end of the boat he saw a large crowd of people, all murmuring and talking at each other.
Everyone on the ship was standing in a crowd around Napalm Explosionface, who was standing on top of a barrel of rum. Who stamped his wooden leg on the floor until he had everyone’s attention.
“Look ye scurvy dogs, we need to go into hyperspace, I got the drive ready this morning, and we blast off in 10 minutes, get those hatches battened! And the poop deck swabbed. Jones you’re on swabbing duty, Michaels, you’re on battening duty! Get to it lads!” As he hopped down from the barrel the crew sprang into action, closing hatches and swabbing poop.
This left Chainsaw-boy, Grigor and Napalm standing on the deck amidst a flurry of action and people.
“Where are we heading then guys?” Chainsaw-boy asked.
“The Dragon Heart turned up on a very popular auction website, which, for copyright reasons, we’ll call DBay. We hacked the account using a binary SQL code, rerouted through the virtual network, and found out that it’s currently on an asteroid in the Belarus region. Luckily it’s about 12 hour’s hyper-travel from here, so we're heading there now” Grigor told him gruffly.
“That doesn’t make sense, the Belarus system is up,” Chainsaw-Boy pointed towards the stars, “and boats can only go perpendicular to that,” he pointed at the horizon, following it all the way until he’d done a full spin.
“This ship is capable of hyper-travel, it was modified to do so a few years ago, all prototype stuff. I believe it’s the only flying pirate ship in the universe.” Grigor told him smugly.
“Well, I'm going to go finish off the preparations, get ready, we jump in 8.” Napalm walked off towards the helm of the ship, but called back over his shoulder a few feet away. “Chainsaw-boy, go pull up some more of that tasty green and some grog from the galley for me, I won’t be able to leave the helm for a while”
“Ok” Chainsaw-boy called back “what are you going to do Grigor?” he said turning to the barbarian.
“Good question” Grigor thought about this for a moment. “I’ll either, start a fight with a bear. Or, do tons of drugs.”
“Oh good, have fun with that, I’ll be in the galley.”
“I will do, see you later.” Grigor was thinking about whether Chainsaw-Boy would make a good sidekick. On the one hand he had chainsaw arms, that was a plus. On the other hand he didn’t join in the bear-baiting or drug taking because of something called ethics. That would have to change if he was to be the best sidekick.
Down in the galley, Chainsaw-boy quickly found the boxes he was looking for, considering that grog and weed was all they had taken with them. Just as he was about to leave the galley with the boxes he heard a noise further back in the dark of the galley.
“Who's there!” he shouted back into the darkness, but received no response. He put the boxes down and decided to investigate further.
As he went to the back of the galley the scuffling noise he heard was getting louder. He noticed a foot wearing a high heeled shoe sticking out underneath a sack. He pinched the sack with his chainsaw arms and pulled it off in one swift movement.
Under the sack was a very beautiful woman. She was Italian looking with tanned skin, taller than the average and dark long hair. She looked very bedraggled however, as if she'd been living in the hull of a ship for the last week.
“Who are you?” Chainsaw-Boy demanded.
“Please do not tell them I am here. I am a lesbian supermodel, and I wanted to make my fortune in the new world of New Zealand” she pleaded with him.
“Well, I’m sorry, but we've had a change of plan. We're heading off to the edge of the galaxy on a highly dangerous mission that’ll most probably lead to the death of everyone involved.”
Despair was shown on her beautiful face. “You mean we are not travelling to the United States of New Zealand?”
“Yep, well, you can't get off now, and if you're going to be stuck with us, I'm sure we can find you some space upstairs. You'll have to work for your travel though.” Chainsaw-Boy held a stern look, which was completely overshadowed by the large red blushing patches growing on his cheeks.
“And why should I trust you?” she asked, looking up at him from the floor.
“Chainsaw arms” he said showing her his arms.
“Oh, I see, that is the mark of a true man, I will trust you” she said fluttering her eyes in a way that made him blush even more.
Before he could reply the ship's hyper drive kicked in and filled the galley with the thunderous noise of the engines. They both walked over to the windows and watched the slanted blue horizon get wider, then land could be seen breaking the clean line it had provided, and soon they were in the clouds. In no time at all they were high above the earth and flying away, watching it get smaller and smaller until it was a faint speck of blue, a long, long way away.
“My name's Illana, by the way.”
“I’m Chainsaw-Boy.” He said, looking into her eyes.
return of the bear