Let's Be Bad Guys

by Dracoulis, Zachariah

  “I flooded the ship with carbon dioxide and they died horribly,” Prescott said with a disturbing amount of pride, “not to worry though, I would never do that to you or your crew. Probably…”

  “Thanks, I feel very safe,” I scoffed, only mostly confident that he couldn’t bypass the safeguards and actually kill us, “just get me to the medbay, shit-bird.”

  “It’s in the next section, Mr. Tetchy.” Prescott replied, reveling in the fact that he’d finally gotten to me.

  As I passed through the door, several fluorescent bulbs around the gray and white room flickered to life in a seemingly deliberate attempt to taunt my one good eye.

  The room was largely bare, the entire left wall having had its various cabinets and such pried off, and there was a space where a ten-foot-long handwashing basin had clearly once been.

  “Ten pods seems excessive, right?” I said as I turned my attention to the right wall, the ten RevitaChambers coming off it leaving little clearance between each of them and the far walls.

  “Well, the ship has a critical capacity of a little over a hundred people, so no.” Prescott scoffed, “Now, payment.”

  “Ah, yeah, right,” I replied, walking over and setting the case down on the nearest pod, “drives are good?”

  “Provided it’s got money on it, yes.” Prescott said as I opened the case, revealing the foam encased red thumb drive, “I’ve opened a port on the wall above the pod.”

  It took me a moment to find the small slot, the port sitting just outside my narrow field-of-view, “Just straight in?”

  “No, first you must spin it three times,” Prescott groaned, “yes, just put it straight in and strip down.”

  “Alright, damn,” I chuckled, inserting the drive, “now who’s tetchy?”

  Prescott neglected to respond with his standard jabs, instead choosing to quietly mutter to himself as the pod opened, letting the case slip off and clatter as it hit the ground.

  “Watch it.” I grumbled, undressing as I did, “I assume everything’s in order?”

  “Mmhm,” Prescott replied distractedly, “you climb on in and I’ll make sure you’re well looked after.”

  “I…” I trailed off, concerned about Prescott’s sudden amiability, before shrugging and climbing into the pod, the blue cushions forming to my body near-instantly, “Whatever, sounds good.”

  “Can I get you anything to make you more comfortable?” Prescott asked the laughed to himself, “Actually, you know what? Let’s get that eye of yours fixed up good and proper first.”

  Still confused, I struggled to work up a response before the pod had closed over me, the vents above me flooding the chamber with a faint blue mist.

  Then I realized why he was being so nice.

  “Wait, no-” I shouted in my final moment of consciousness, forced to drift away with the knowledge that I’d left that self-important douche of an AI with just about every bit I had to my name.

  Hands down, in the top ten biggest mistakes of my life.

  CHAPTER 6

  ‘Nexotic Cybernetics Ocu-10 installed’ read a small notification as I groggily awoke, the faint sound of the pod’s vacuums sucking out the gas that surrounded me.

  Ignoring the popup, I shot up out of the opened pod and desperately pulled the red drive from the wall, my vision foggy and my memory of the past 24 hours being equally hazy.

  “Good, you’re awake.” Prescott said, having lost his friendly demeanor, while I struggled to figure out why I was so desperate to get the drive out of the wall.

  “Thanks for caring.” I replied as my vision cleared up shortly before getting hit with all my memories at once, “The bits! Please tell me you didn’t-”

  “Yep,” Prescott interjected, “you’d be surprised at how quickly half-a-million bits goes when you get excited.”

  “All of it’s gone!?” I moaned, letting my arm hang out of the pod, “All of it?”

  “Relax, that eye of yours was a good 50,000 on its own.” Prescott replied as if he’d done me some big favor, “Top of the line.”

  “Yeah, what about the other 450 grand though?” I jabbed bitterly.

  “Upgraded my sensor array, fixed up some other bits and pieces, and got ourselves a proper teleportation unit, which you’ll now find under this section,” Prescott explained, “amazing what you can simply pull from the Net now, huh?”

  “I’m gonna-”

  “Now, now, I think you’ll find you have bigger fish to fry,” Prescott once again interjected, “let’s just say you should probably make your way to the bridge.”

  “I-” I started then stopped, deciding it’d probably be in my best interests to get out and dressed and find out what ‘bigger fish’ was for Prescott, “Where’s Dutan’s pistol?”

  “Armory,” Prescott replied, “figured you wouldn’t need it until you could, you know, use it. You’ll also find your holster and pistol down there.”

  “So, you could move my guns but couldn’t dress me-never mind.” I sighed, starting off towards the bridge, “Going to give me any sort of heads up?”

  “Seems kind of redundant at this point. Oh, and I’d avoid going in direct sunlight for a few hours,” Prescott called after me, “it won’t kill you, but it won’t be pleasant.”

  “Thanks.” I grumbled as the door ahead of me slid up.

  Beth and P’riti were already manning two of the five stations that semi-circled around the front transparent titan-glass, leaving the central captain’s chair empty.

  Compared to the rest of the ship, the bridge was surprisingly new looking, a fact I tried not to focus on for too long as I realized that it was probably due to Prescott’s little shopping spree.

  “What are we looking at?” I asked as I walked over and took a seat in the unbelievably comfortable captain’s swivel chair in the middle of the bridge.

  “Dutan’s men,” P’riti replied without looking away from her station, “they must’ve-fuck me!”

  “What?” I asked worriedly as she stared at me sitting in the white chair with a mix of panic and disgust, “Am I missing something?”

  “I-Fuck.” Beth blurted out flatly once she’d turned to face me, “What the fuck? I… What the fuck?”

  “This is starting to hurt my feelings.” I half-joked, figuring they’d have told me by that point if there’d been something wrong with the chair.

  “Hey, Prescott,” Beth murmured, “do you think you’d be able to put Bart’s face up on the big screen for a second?”

  A few moments went by before a screen slid down over the titan-glass, giving me a close-up look of my deeply, deeply disturbing face.

  “Wha…” I trailed off, staring at the semi-translucent skin that made up most of the left half of my face and my new eye which, while incredibly realistic, was spinning violently, pausing briefly to focus on random points in the room.

  “Don’t worry about the eyeball,” Prescott said disinterestedly, raising the screen as he did, “it’s just calibrating for now, should stop soon. Shouldn’t affect your vision at all.”

  “What about my skin?” I asked, too caught up in the shock of the body horror I’d just witnessed to be angry.

  “That’ll cure in a few hours,” Prescott replied, “like I said before, don’t go in the sunlight and you’ll be fine.”

  A volley of shots glanced off the front of the ship before I could ask anymore questions, triggering a focused part of my brain that I hadn’t used in a good long while.

  “Get us in the air, Beth,” I ordered, hovering my right hand over the front of my chair’s armrest, activating a small keypad, “and spin those guns up, P’riti.”

  “Already on it,” P’riti replied as I punched in the ship’s code and brought up a holographic screen about a foot in front of my face, “please tell me we aren’t worried about collateral damage.”

  “To this shithole?” I scoffed, tapping through the ship’s cameras to make sure we didn’t have any unwelcome guests, “Go nuts. Lock off the
bridge, Prescott.”

  A loud ‘thunk’ sounded from the door as the deadbolts slid into place and we finally started lifting off, the sounds of our guns’ loud blasts barely making their way through the hull.

  “Take-off clear?” I asked, noting the ‘FIRST FLIGHT +100xp’ popup as we rose above the stacks, the ship barely registering the small arms fire while P'riti’s fire scorched the earth and sent stacks tumbling.

  “We’re good on that front…” Beth trailed off, her head looking violently between the screens on either side of her, “Landing gear’s up, doors are locked, and we’re… pressurized. All clear, Captain.”

  “Not so much…” I muttered, watching as two of the pods in the medbay opened to reveal stowaways, one of which coming out with a heavy SMG, “You still got that shotgun, P’riti?”

  “Yeah,” P’riti replied distractedly as I noticed five of Dutan’s men in the cargo hold, apparently having managed to jump on and break in at the last second, “just by the door.”

  “Mind if I borrow it?” I asked after deactivating the screen and making my way towards the sealed door.

  “Sure, sure, whatev-booyah!” P’riti boomed excitedly before looking over her shoulder to me, “Have fun.”

  “Always do.” I chuckled in response, grabbing up the weapon and tapping it on the door, “Open up.”

  “Open, close, open, make up your bloody mind…” Prescott mumbled, disengaging the deadlock and unsealing the door while I shouldered my gun and got ready for a fight.

  Have to say, I really should’ve given the two stowaways more than a second’s glance on the monitor before deciding on the ‘guns out’ approach, would’ve saved me a whole boatload of embarrassment.

  CHAPTER 7

  As the doors slid open, I got my first proper look at the two stowaways, both of whom were women.

  The one furthest from me—the one with the gun—wore an olive tank top, a pair of jungle camo pants, a set of thoroughly worn-in black leather boots, and her brown hair in a messy bun.

  Saying nothing of what was left of her uniform, it was blatantly obvious by the way she held herself that she was active or very recently active military, not to mention her strong but still distinctly feminine frame.

  The other was a bit harder to figure out.

  She stood maybe five-foot-tall, had a thick black braid that ran all the way down her back, and orange, black-dotted skin.

  She was also barefoot, wore a thigh cut black skirt, and a baggy black t-shirt.

  “Evening.” I said coolly, my shotgun aimed squarely at the chest of the short alien as she turned to face me, not with panic or even shock at the gun, simply curiosity, and halfheartedly raised her hands.

  “Evening,” the furthest woman sighed as she considered whether or not she wanted to raise her own weapon, “I don’t suppose I could convince you to lower that cannon of yours?”

  “Well, that largely depends on you, doesn’t it?” I replied with a smirk, “I understand you probably don’t want to put the bullet-hose down either?”

  “You’re quick, aren’t you?” the woman scoffed, “Right, guess now’s as good a time as any to do introductions. I’m Trell, Val Trell, and the lovely lady you currently have your sights on goes by MJ.”

  I took a moment to plot my next move.

  If there was time to shoot, it was then, in that brief moment before they could react, but something kept me from pulling the trigger.

  “Bart,” I said with a polite nod, “care to explain how you came aboard my ship?”

  “If we’re being completely honest, we thought you’d be dead by now,” Val replied calmly, “heard some shit heel talking about how he was going to rip someone off for a clean half mil, figured we’d catch him by surprise when he came back.”

  “And if he didn’t?” I asked, thinking I knew the answer.

  “Hope you were the persuasive sort and could use a couple extra hands,” Val said before nodding at the shotgun, “guess we were wrong.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I huffed amusedly, lowering my gun, only then remembering that Dutan’s men were working their way towards us, “know how to work navigations for a ship like this?”

  “She can,” Val replied, resting her SMG on her shoulder and pointing at her alien companion with her elbow, “hasn’t had a lot of practical experience, granted, but she’s had a decent amount of training.”

  “Good enough for me,” I said as I finally took my finger off the trigger and let the shotgun hang at my side, turning my attention to my former hostage, “you happy with this arrangement?”

  “She doesn’t talk,” Val clarified while MJ simply smiled, “you get used to it.”

  “Fair enough,” I breathed, still struggling to get a read on the seemingly cheerful alien, “well, we should probably slide into the bridge. Got a couple of the shit heel’s boys coming up on us.”

  Rolling her eyes, MJ started pulling her massive shirt over her head, revealing she was rocking an eight-pack and wasn’t wearing a bra over her sizeable yet perky breasts.

  “What’s she doing?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t planning to seduce the men while also quietly wondering how someone could be so ripped yet still so… chesty.

  “She’s a genetically superior being cooked up in a lab,” Val explained as MJ pulled her skirt off and kicked it away, “we should probably leave her to it.”

  “Aren’t you a little short for a genetically superior being?” I chuckled, to which MJ smiled and got up on her tippy toes, “So… she’s some kind of a psychic?”

  “What?” Val scoffed as she passed me, MJ having wrapped her braid around her neck a couple of times and come to hold it in her teeth, “No, that’d be fuckin’ stupid. No, she’s… it’s hard to explain, come on.”

  I was obviously skeptical of the tiny woman’s ability to clear out the room, but I accepted that the soldier probably knew what she was talking about and followed her out onto the bridge.

  Worst case scenario, I’d have had Prescott flood the medbay with CO2 and dealt with Val in the best way manageable, whether that was convincing her that there was nothing we could do or something more permanent would’ve been entirely up to her.

  Remember, I had two other people to think about.

  Plus me.

  Mostly me.

  What? We still had a fairly new relationship, sue me.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Everyone, Val,” I said as P’riti and Beth turned to face us on our way into the bridge, “Val, everyone. Prescott, stick the medbay on the big screen.”

  “Right away, your lordship.” Prescott mocked, bringing the screen over the titan-glass, blocking our view of the night sky we were hurtling towards.

  “You’re sure she can handle this?” I asked as the girls finished with their awkward waves and smiles and I set the shotgun down on my chair.

  “I’ve seen her tear through a squad of spec-ops like they were nothing,” Val chuckled while I watched MJ climb up a wall like a lizard and turn invisible, “she’s got this.”

  After apparently deciding to give me a few moments to appreciate that the mutant was capable of handling some back-world mercs, Dutan’s crew came through the back door, scanning the medbay with their weapons at the ready.

  Well, as ready as they could’ve been expected to be.

  “Can we get audio?” I asked, watching as the men reached the middle of the compartment.

  A faint audio pop followed by the men’s breathing came my answer, followed shortly by a ‘thud’ that made the men spin around.

  “I hope she’s bulletproof…” I muttered.

  “Just watch…” Val murmured, her eyes tracking something that I couldn’t see on the screen.

  Then it happened, one of the men in the middle of the group got ripped in half, his plasma rifle firing off a few shots into the guy directly in front of him as another had his leg then head cut clean off.

  “Fucking Hell…” I trailed off as blood splattered the naked MJ,
something on her arms slashing and carving through the remaining standing men in a matter of seconds, all before burying her bladed weapon in the back of the one who’d been shot before he could so much as get on his hands and knees.

  “What did I tell you?” Val said with a smirk.

  “What the Hell did we just watch, Bart?” P’riti asked as Val went toward the doors.

  “I’m still processing it myself.” I replied, baffled by the ten second slaughter.

  "Mind getting this open?” Val asked, “Don’t need her to start eating ‘em.”

  “She’s not going to do that,” I chuckled meekly, “is she?”

  “No, but still…” Val replied, tilting her head at the door.

  “Open up,” I ordered as I made my way over to Val, Prescott following my order instantly, “so you’re clearly not looking out for her.”

  “Aha, no,” Val chuckled, “we’re together.”

  “Huh, fair enough.” I replied, unable to hide my mild disappointment.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure we wouldn’t mind sharing,” Val said with a wink as the door finally opened, revealing a no longer invisible and a surprisingly clean MJ with seemingly no way to chop full grown men in half, “all good?”

  MJ sighed and poked her tongue to indicate she was tired before nodding and smiling.

  “Where’s the blood?” I asked while MJ went about getting dressed.

  “She probably absorbed it,” Val replied, “just one of her many interesting qualities.”

  “You say ‘interesting’, I say ‘mildly terrifying’,” I joked before heading back onto the bridge, “feel free to pick those bodies clean of guns and such, but I want ‘em off the ship before we break atmo.”

  “Ooh, strict and handsome,” Val remarked with a smirk, “really lucked out with you, haven’t we?”

  Struggling to come up with anything other than a smile in response, I turned my attention to Beth and P’riti, both understandably confused by the whole situation.