Hull Damage Page 21

  Contracted smugglers and payroll pirates often padded gift packages with pilfered pieces, while fellow gangsters and kingpins would attempt to flatter with flawless replications or, in many cases, previously-vanished originals. As a result, the polar redoubt was choked with antiquated artwork, each apparently exhibiting a litany of individual merits, according to Ott’s much more erudite and interested personnel.

  At the end of the day, Ott merely smiles and nods, personally preferring the candor of Nemo’s objective assessment.

  The Galactic Menace was, in all honesty, surprised himself when Nemo’s remix rattletrap first appeared on their outer scopes. Just as the Captain had pegged him for a frothing gangster, Ott was certain that a freebooter with as flighty a reputation as Nemo’s would balk at a direct summons and slum his chances with the anglers somewhere in the Offchart Territories. Yet, against all logic, here he stands in his shabby flight jacket and appalling bowler hat, squinting at a wall-hanging of dried vomit and waiting to be murdered.

  “You’re aware Taré worked for me, right?”

  Nemo’s squint deepens. “Until this exact moment, no.” Ott watches the degradation of his thought process. “Fuck,” he sputters. “Which means–” he breathes before another, “Fuck,” more resolved, more condemned.

  “My chief financial officer estimates that Kiesha’s prototypes are valued at 200 thousand. Apiece.”

  “Uh,” Nemo manages, suddenly very intent on the splotchy mess hanging before him.

  “I’ll save you the calculation,” Ott summarizes. “That puts you into me for 2.8 million credits, not to mention a top-tier operative, her own craft and some forty of her underlings.” Nemo unscrambles his forearms, parts both wings of his threadbare duster and inters his hands deep in breech pockets – the very image of a flabbergasted debtor. “I assume you’re unable to settle the outstanding balance?”

  “Sure,” Nemo brusquely confesses.

  Ott meanders backward a step before mentioning, “It’s a popular opinion, especially among Taré’s comrades like Tizor back there,” he indicates with an upper left thumb, “that I should kill you. As messily as possible.”

  A husky noise from the apart Ortok slightly shifts Nemo’s stance, hands sliding subtly from his pockets to hook thumbs beneath the broad black gunbelt and dangle idle fingers over the holstered butt of his obsolete pistol. His whole form seems to bristle as he, with a severe flick of his head, banishes a few errant wisps of black lock from his seething gray eyes, annealing steely in preparation for violence.

  Ott marvels a moment. Nemo looks nothing of the cornered animal, or the blubbering captive, with no desperate self-preservation in his deportment but rather all the threat a remorseless, professional murderer ought to carry. Ott marvels at the unadulterated, twenty-four-carat stupidity of this Captain Nemo.

  Disengaging from the Luq 3211 and mounting the half-staircase, Ott enfeebles the Captain’s mordacity with a casual command and a halfhearted gesture. “Come here.”

  The map room focalizes around its expensive namesake, a rotary projection pad, which crests a small dais at the epicenter of the chamber’s encircling and priceless decorations. Ott, laboring through that implacable polar weight with each stair, hoofs himself up the seven stairs to the dais’ conical top, Nemo presumably lingering somewhere behind.

  Years ago, before the complications here arose in earnest and he was forced to relocate his operation to this most isolated of headquarters, Ott had considered himself a hale individual of sound constitution and capable frame but some vestigial failsafe in the subtropical Doreen’s homeostasis facilitated an involuntary blubber build-up relative to global positioning. The farther north or south he deviated from his current planet’s equatorial regions, the more fat his body would produce, in order to compensate against the assumed climate change.

  Inside his thermosteel and torridity-controlled fortress however, Ott remains nothing but haplessly fat and perpetually hot.

  Achieving the pad a little more winded than he’d prefer to admit and with Nemo dawdling a step or two below, the Galactic Menace triggers one projection port to spray an enlarged freeze-framed legal document, shimmering, orange and holographic, into suspension above the display pad. Ott waits a moment for the desired effect to wash over his guest.

  “Planetary deed, isn’t it?” Nemo realizes, pique of interest betrayed not only by his tone, but also by the three more steps he ascends to peruse the projection clearer.

  “Have you ever seen one of these before?” Ott probes harmlessly, but Nemo, leveling up on his left, scrutinizes the hologram with squinting disbelief instead.

  “Bloom me out, is that–”

  “Emperor’s signature. Yes. Never seen that before either?”

  Nemo exhales the first note of his impression the entire evening, the hanging portent of his potential murder utterly dissolved. “No.” He declines comfortably forward, propping both arms against the lip of the pad before pointing an absent finger towards the deed’s subject line and inquiring, “B33 is Baz, I take it?”

  “Correct. Here.” Ott pounds a handful of familiar coordinates on equally worn keys to sequentially activate the seven other projection ports encompassing the pad and recall the weary holographic globe of Baz, translucently orange in this rendering, complete with highlighted continental shores and a lonely illuminated moon at a modest apogee.

  “Under section 44BQD of Imperium Planetary Property Law, I own this entire planet and her one moon, Nebho.” Weaving his upper arms together while his undermost left holds the ‘function’ key to the pad and the undermost right clicks a corresponding key, Ott summons a purple perimeter of orbitals near Baz’s proverbial equator. “Here’s the blockade.” He taps another two keys before patches of muted magenta bruise the untouched orange of three of the four continents. “Here’re their harvesting farms.” Jabbing the center of the keypad lacquers the hologram of Nebho lavender as he continues, “Here’s their lunar depot and,” he adds as he rattles a final set of coordinates into the console until, after a moment of computerized concentration, somber swaths of violet blot the majority of the digitized globe, “here’s a bead on the projected range of every known Imperium infantry group stationed on planet.”

  Hunkered before the pad, Nemo’s face is painted more purple in the light than orange. “They’re in violation of their own ordinance? What in all the moons for?”

  “Doxychoraphum.”

  An anticipated graveness tempers Nemo’s expression as he turns it towards Ott, Baz’s implicit planetshine waning to a half-moon on his face. “Repellent.”

  Ott blusters a pre-expositional sigh, withdrawing both underarms from the keypad and returning them to his trouser pockets. “Like teltriton or ditrogen before it, doxychoraphum is the Imperium’s current commodity of choice. Whatever warfare they face in the Haliquant Quadrant, they seem to believe a few billion Wolfsbane torpedoes is the appropriate solution.”

  Mindlessly redrawing his only visible scar with a forefinger against his left cheek, Nemo furrows his brow. “So they’ve invaded you?”

  “Effectively. They’ve cited some loophole, some ‘manifest destiny’ something that legalizes their actions here, but it’s an invasion.” He paws absently forward, dipping his fingers beneath Baz’s holographic surface, and spins the planet on its axis, the dichotomous orange and purple coalescing together on Nemo’s face as it twirls.

  “Troop-wise,” Ott continues, “they can’t commit to an entire campaign’s worth, nor can they risk any planetary bombardment, as it would certainly ignite the repellent. For the time being, they’ve deployed a single company, which protects their provisional harvesting farms and engages the natives in jungle warfare,” he mentions, hopefully planting the seed.

  Ott reaches both arms forward and snatches the globe out of its rotation. Grasping it like a skooshball, he thumbs the hologram around to face its northern zenith. “My polar fastness is adequately defended for now, but it’s only a matter of
time before they tire of these guerrilla tactics and execute an actual invasion,” he concludes with a calculating sigh as he releases Baz. The hologram, freed from bondage, rolls peacefully back to its original position. “Which would mean landing craft, gunships, surgical strikes and ten million strong, in all likelihood. At which point,” he resolves, crossing his upper arms again and inching away from the pad, “my polar fastness is no longer adequately defended.”

  Hook in mouth, Nemo mutters a gauged question. “Natives?”

  Ott ensnares as casually as he can. “The indigenous Baziron,” he denotes, uprooting his underarms from his pockets and shuffling forward to enter a new code on the keypad. “They’re mounting a resistance in these regions,” he indicates as the purple highlights short out and, informed by the new coordinates, a few dozen emerald dots speckle and contrast against the orange orb, “and we’re supplying them with as much aid as they’ll allow, but they’re woefully outgunned and overmatched against Insurgent Company’s trained commandos.”

  “Insurgent Company,” Nemo obliquely states.

  “Indeed. It seems they appreciate an ironic garnish to their genocide.” This the Captain seems to chew sourly as Ott, with a few weighty taps of the keypad, deactivates the projection pad entirely. “I landed here ten years ago – another ambitious gangster with planetary deed in hand and an eye to make a quick buck.”

  Without making eye contact, Nemo presses the inevitable, “And now?”

  “Now I’m not sure,” Ott acknowledges, after a measured response time. “According to the Imperium, I’m the Galactic Menace.” He initiates an unconcerned shrug of his upper shoulders before adding, “And I could kill you.”

  “But that ain’t likely to settle the debt.”

  Where a conventional hoodlum might plead, cajole or balk, Nemo utters a challenge, riposting Ott’s pressuring with his own easygoing shrug and all the implied proposition that comes with it. The Captain finally diverts his unflinching forward glare to catch Ott in an assessing smirk. “You need soldiers.”

  “I need pirates,” Ott specifies starkly. “I need things that aren’t for sale.”

  Nemo’s offhand smirk denatures into the first real smile of their association, an honest, no-holds-barred grin, something of felonious majesty. “You know, I’m good at that.”

  “Are you? How fortunate.”

  “Boss, you can’t be serious,” comes the cry of the unobserved third party. Bald Tizor, his cockatiel crest bobbing with agitation, takes a cautious step forward from his post opposite the Ortok, extending a halting gesture.

  Ott’s wearily unfaltered. “Why not? The good Captain’s unlikely to obtain the 2.8 million on his own terms and killing him now would only achieve a waste in salable repellent.”

  Nemo arrests himself an apprehending moment. “Repellent? You were gonna–”

  “Yes. Assuming, of course.”

  “Boss–” Tizor attempts to interject, but Nemo’s shock flattens his objection.

  “That’s fucking evil.”

  “Not really,” Ott counters calmly. “Dunk them in enough, their nerves burn too quickly to register a painful reaction. According to my technicians, anyway,” he qualifies.

  “Who do you do this to?”

  “Boss–” Tizor endeavors again, more emphatically.

  “Imperium captives.”

  “Oooh.”

  Stepping up to the lowest stair of the centralized dais to reinforce his grievance, Bald Tizor, after repeated effort, clumsily inserts himself into the conversation. “Boss, may I have a word?”

  “Apparently.”

  “In private?” the Gord insists. The Galactic Menace unenthusiastically contemplates the request and subsequently its spokesman, standing perturbed at the foot of the staircase.

  “Nemo, would you and your companion mind giving us a few–” Ott begins, coloring his request with an aggravated sigh and a taxed massaging of his temples.

  “Uh,” Nemo stammers a moment, shooting a glance towards his own, apparently respectful bodyguard, “sure.” As Nemo innocently descends the staircase and the Ortok grumbles something unheard to him, Tizor shuffles up to Ott’s left, entirely overlooking the Captain’s presence in the room as he commences his complaint.

  “I say he dies.”

  “Do you?”

  “Sight unseen.”

  The latest to occupy the frequently vacated position of Ott’s right-hand, Bald Tizor had hammered himself hard an unyielding distinction as a hardboiled mercenary, though a reputation wasn’t the only thing earned during his thirteen years as a hired gun. His piecemeal appearance paid homage to this truculent history – he sports a sculpted Imperium powered plate, a disparate set of Kelkian vambraces and a matched pair of flared Whuudi pauldrons; all of it repainted, all of it scuffed, scraped and stolen as spoils from the Laerto Revolt, the Ten Systems War, the Doxia Incident and the countless other campaigns across the Midworlds under which he’d seen action, all save the personalized helmet, tailor-made to accommodate the unique shape of his Gordian skull.

  His fame and notoriety brought him under Ott’s influence nearly seven months previously, to replace a previous bodyguard who’d met a foul end at the hands of a disgruntled Baziron headman. Tizor had thus proved a competent, if uninspired, second-in-command. While a formidable opponent on the field whose pillager crew went unchallenged in both ferocity and accomplishment, he lacked a particular initiative whose absence normally spelt death for any commander, no matter the rank. Tizor, though, had managed to avert the fate of his predecessors thus far, so perhaps Ott presupposed too much.

  “Elaborate.”

  Requiring less than the slightest provocation, Tizor launches in at full depreciation. “Destroyed your prototypes. Murdered Dijiqi. Banged up the Shame and decimated her crew. That cocksucker and his shitty old freighter have, single–”

  “Hey,” Nemo’s voice barges in from the distant doorway, “whaddya got, one of those powered breastplates?”

  Tizor, obviously confounded by the interruption, deadpans a “Yes.”

  “Damn things make you near invincible from the front, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Huh. Cool.”

  The shriek of laser fire smashes the chamber’s conversational quiet. Tizor’s Gordian features bubble in revulsion and he falters, pitching forward to slouch awkwardly on the dais stairs, muttering incoherencies on quivering lips and absently groping for the bloody back wound as it dyes his plumage a sickly pink.

  His own bodyguard apparently around the corner, only Nemo and his copper firearm stand immediately behind, the former squinting down his weapon’s barrel, the latter disgorging accusatory smoke.

  Ott regards the trembling corpse at his feet with muffled alarm. “Oh my.”

  Nemo lowers the weapon and considers his handiwork gruffly. “Douchebag had it coming. Besides,” he rationalizes with a weak shrug, “you don’t need asswipes like that anymore. You got asswipes like me.”

  “Huh,” Ott concludes. “Bold move.”

  “I guess,” Nemo returns, evidently not entirely convinced of his own daring.

  Ott honestly evaluates his would-be vassal, blocking the room’s only exit route with a still-smoldering firearm in hand and pondering over the high-ranking lieutenant he just unfairly butchered. “You know, I’m not entirely unconvinced you’re not a dangerous lunatic with a hair-trigger.”

  “And I’m not entirely unconvinced you’re not a blood-sucking megalomaniac with a god complex.”

  The Galactic Menace frowns approvingly. “Fair enough. You wanna go burn some Imperium captives alive?

  Nemo’s shrug is all sprightly self-evidence. “Do I?”

  Ott tiresomely disembarks three steps before halting a moment to propose, “One thing.” Nemo vaults an eyebrow, to which Ott suggests, “Lose the hat?”

  “Lost,” Nemo instantly complies, peeling the bowler hat clean off his matted black mane.

  Chapter 11

 
; Odisseus bangs his head. In an effort to prevent the whipping centrifugal force of the frenziedly careening Lover from pitching him headlong into Starboard's open access hatch, the Ortoki mechanic had managed to adequately brace himself against jamming the booster with half his thrashing torso and undoubtedly further complicating the calamitous engine failure his beloved and abused freighter labored under at present. What he hadn't braced himself against, when The Unconstant Lover wheeled about a fourth time, was banging his head.

  Suffused in surplus exhaust and gloaming bright blue from the residual heat necessary to propel half a spaceship across a quarter of the Outer Ring, Starboard's interior is a white-hot ruin, even through the insulating filter of emergency goggles and welder's gauntlets.

  Seeing all this, Odisseus forces a frustrated exhale between clenched incisors when his belted comm, whose warbled pandemonium somehow manages to overshadow even Port's unrepentant roar, burbles to life and accosts him with stupid, clarifying questions.

  “What do you think? The drive motor?” Nemo posits, barely contained panic present in the shout of his voice.

  “The drive motor?” Odisseus screams his rejoinder. “The drive motor? You're blooming kidding me, the drive motor...”

  “Well, what then?”

  “What have I been telling you to fix this entire time?” He inches as much of his upper torso as he dares into the service gap, cautious against making even the slightest unprotected contact with the blistering surface of the inner booster, lest he wish to catch his fur afire.

  “Uh,” Nemo procrastinates a moment, as a cavalcade of dashboard alarms resound about him. “The igniters?”

  “I'll give you a hint,” Odisseus offers as he hunts for the motor control box, “it starts with 'p' and rhymes with 'bressure helix!'”

  “Ah. Yes. Of course.”

  “Yes the fuck of course!”

  A routine warp disengage, on a routine return trip to Takioro, had rocketed a thousand zottibles south of wrong when, for what Nemo persistently terms as “no good reason,” the starboard booster engine sputtered once, coughed a burst of spent fume like an effervescent swan song, and promptly died. This succinct, almost ephemeral malfunction immediately spawned a harrowing list of lesser, procreated system failures, a list that Odisseus had, doing time at Dirty Djembe's, repeatedly read on ever so many collision reports.