CHAPTER 1: SHARKFUCKERS INCORPORATED

THIRTY MINUTES AND FIFTEEN SECONDS LATER, GALACTIC AVERAGE TIME.

Gizmo took a careful sip of piping hot coffee out of a particolored contraption that appeared to be the bastard love-child of an optical time-domain reflectometer and a toaster oven. He sat upon a chunk of smoking rubble that bore a disturbing similarity to the Galactic Average Thermal Regulator that contained the last remaining bits of once-famous engineer Greg. . . . He paused for a moment.

"Hey, Philo!" He called, throat still hoarse from screaming bloody murder during his recent planetfall. "Did Greg have a last name?" Philo called up from the smoking crater that marked the ship's final resting place.

"Not to my knowledge." There was a sound of shifting metal and the artificial grunts that androids make while accomplishing the sort of physical task that humans can only dream of. "He never listed one on the ship's roster, or payroll. He was always just Greg from Engineering, or Bearded Greg, or Fat Greg, or-"

"Thank you Philo." Gizmo interrupted. He took another sip of his coffee.

"Ohh, that hits the spot." He muttered through his graying mustache. He paused to brush some soot off of his standard-issue pale blue janitor's cap, before picking up a smoking hunk of what used to be a computer, examining it carefully, and tossing it dejectedly over his shoulder. It made a satisfactory THUNK as it hit Philo square in the chest. He didn't seem to notice.

Gizmo took a long look across the nigh endless mud flats they had crash-landed in, taking a last long glance at the farmhouse sitting pretty on the horizon. He could see the tell-tale steam signal of a large vehicle barreling down on his position, however, it was still too far out to venture a guess as to whom the pilot was.
He pulled his cap down against the burning noon sun, and wrinkled his nose at the miasma the ship had kicked up. Imagine the bastard child of a slow-roasted dirt-slug and three-day-old compost and you have something that absolutely pales in comparison to the reeking hell Gizmo was suffering through.

The only clue to his distress was his slowly twitching mustache, writhing like some Abyssal Murderpillar.

"Sir!" Philo called. "I found the Galactic Valet! It seems to be in perfect working condition!"

"Good! Toss it up this way!" Gizmo jumped to his feet and clapped his hands together, like he was back on the fields of Faber IV, about to join in a game of Arborean Hyperball.

A lunchbox-sized clump of dirt went sailing past Gizmo's hat. Gizmo began to rue building Philo's arms out of industrial kitchen mixers, then remembered exactly how awesome that was, and ceased his ruing. From the brief glimpse its arc allowed, Gizmo came to realize several things. The first and most important was exactly how beyond functional the Valet really was. Everything else concerned how exactly fucked the crew was, now that the Valet was broken.

You see, a Galactic Valet is what one might call a “black box” if they're retarded. Contained within the Valet is the identities of every crewmember on board, along with the ship's registration, itinerary, and several other things that may become important later on.

Each lifeboat is equipped with a Valet that's just a copy of the main ship's Valet. The main ship was currently blown to seven different kinds of shit, and the life-boat had exploded like an overripe banana in the damp hell of Bochco.
The surviving members of the Perse assault on Doctor Clockwerx's Deathatarium had, effectively, vanished off the face of the universe.

“Fuck.” Gizmo said slowly. He pushed the brim of his cap up off his forehead, itched at the little beads of sweat marching down his thinning hairline, and re-adjusted his cap. “Fuck.” He said, this time a little more assertively. He gazed out at the horizon, at the rapidly-approaching dot that he hoped beyond hope was Captain Ennings. “Philo” he called. “We're going to be leaving shortly, have you finished collecting the cargo?”

“Affirmative, sir.” Philo called from the pit. “Wait, I think I've found something. Would you like to see, y/n?”

“Sure.” Gizmo called, eyes still on the rapidly growing dot on the horizon. He could pick out the occasional odd shape floating circling around the ship, like the orbital rotator transistors usually seen on older-model ion engines, but they were far too large to be practical. He was thoughtfully rubbing his beard stubble when a large chunk of gray and pink rubber landed next to him.

“Well, that's. . .” Gizmo made an uneasy noise in the pit of his throat.

“Insulation?” Philo climbed out of the pit and stood next to him, wiping his hands on his pants.

“No sir, that's no insulation.” Philo said. “That there's a shark.”

“No.” Gizmo shook his head. “What makes you say that?” Philo nudged a triangular protrusion with the toe of his boot.

“Insulation doesn't have fins, sir.”

“Oh, damn.” Gizmo's head jerked up. “So that means-” Gizmo was now able to pick out the sound of the Captain's voice coming from the ship, now a blot the size of the average human thumb and rapidly growing. Philo waved at the captain while Gizmo scrambled up the first stack of boxes.

“Philo! Dirtsharks! Get off the ground NOW!” He shouted.

“Would do, sir, but I don't think we're at risk here.” Philo said calmly.
“But. . . Dirtsharks!”

“Sir, if we were at risk here, don't you think the sharks would have attacked by now?” Gizmo paused mid-apoplectic-panic. “It's my theory that the concussion from us punching through the topsoil drove them away from the area pretty quickly.” Philo stooped and picked up a handful of the damp muck. “Or it's possible that all the heavy metals we just introduced into the topsoil drove them off.” He turned and looked up at Gizmo. “Dirtsharks are very sensitive about these sort of environmental disturbances, you know.” Gizmo nodded slowly.

“Fascinating. Do you have a gun?” Philo shook his head.

“We gave them to Parson, remember?” Gizmo grimaced, and clung tighter to his box, as the truck grew ever closer.

“Of course we did. Keeping them, now that would have been a good idea.”


Ennings and Parson showed up moments later.

“FUCK ! THE TRUCK SHIT IN GET!” Ennings shouted as the hovertruck spun to a halt.
“WHAT HE MEANT TO SAY WAS, 'GET THE SHIT IN THE TRUCK!' FUCK!” Parson shouted shortly after. A hatch on the side of the trailer popped open and Philo started tossing in crates like they were Christmas hams. Parson climbed on top of the lime green cab with a protein disruptor rifle and started picking off Dirtsharks that got too close. Gizmo hopped off of his stack and dragged the Galactic Average Thermal Regulator to the trailer hatch, heaving it inside.

“Gizmo!” Captain Ennings shouted, firing wildly from his pistol “Get on top of the cab and get firing!” Ennings tossed the pistol to Gizmo, who flailed wildly for it before tripping over the tell-tale explosion of mud that signaled the arrival of a Dirtshark. It reared its ugly head, snapping its many rows of teeth together, trying to get a piece of Gizmo, before Parson lit it up faster than a pyromaniac's Menorah.
Granted, a protein disruptor rifle doesn't so much “set shit on fire” as it does “reduce organic material to a gray sloppy mess”, which had then exploded onto Gizmo's one good jumpsuit. His mustache frowned mightily.

“Sir! I need to attach the thermal regulator to a power source or Greg's head is going to decay!” Gizmo shouted while firing wildly at the sharks leaping around the truck. He crouched near the cab, keeping his back pressed against the door.
Suddenly, his gun jammed.

“Shit!” He shouted. “I didn't think energy-based weapons could jam like that!” The ground in front of him erupted into a yawning pit of sharp, vicious teeth. A scarred, blue-gray head emerged, the approximate size and shape of an Antedilluvian Giga-porter, the largest of all terran buses.

See, the Antedilluvian Giga-porter is capable of transporting no less than two homophobic football teams in a single trip, with seats carved out of whole Betelguisian Star-Buffalo. Basically, the thing ranks a “Holy Shit” on the Heisenbergian Scale of Hugeness.

“IT'S THE QUEEN SHARK!” Ennings screamed. “PARSON, WE NEED MOVEMENT!”

“CAN'T, SIR!” Parson screamed back, taking careful aim at the Queen Dirtshark. “I'M NOT TECHNICALLY IN THE COCKPIT.”

“RIGHT SORRY FORGOT ABOUT THAT.” Ennings screamed while attempting to rev the Hoverengine, draw another weapon from beneath the seat, and close the cargo hatch all at once.

Philo, tossing the last crate into the bay with one hand, saw Ennings pull forth the G.A. Inhibitor Mach 12 “Warcrime” automatic energy rifle, a gun so prodigiously lethal that it has to be belt-fed giganium power cores. Philo grabbed Gizmo by the collar and pulled him into the hold, just as the doors slammed closed.

“FUCK ON THIS SHIT ASSTARD!” Ennings screamed as the Warcrime kicked into gear. The twelve barrels kicked into action, spinning quickly, before unleashing a flood of superheated plasma straight into the Queen Dirtshark's vacuous maw.

It reacted in much the same way every large creature reacts to a flood of superheated plasma punching a hole through its skull. Namely, it howled in rage and attempted to bite the truck in half. However, by that point, the magnetic turbines began to spin the truck in a wide circle, whisking it away from the titanic jaws just in the nick of time.

However, the sudden jolt of movement knocked Parson straight on his ass. He rolled ass-over-head, right off the roof of the cab. He managed to deftly catch his fingertips on the edge of the window, swinging him feet-first into the driver's seat, accidentally kicking both the steering wheel and his superior square in the back of the head. Parson's rifle dropped to the cab floor, lodging itself firmly between the accelerator and gear-shift.

The whole rig kicked forward and began to fly across the mud-flats like a Pandemonic Rape-Bat out for a night on the town.

“GOD DAMMIT PARSONS TURN THIS SHIT-HAULER AROUND!” Ennings roared. “I WANT TO SHOOT THAT BITCH AGAIN.”

“CAN'T SIR THE PEDALS ARE JAMMED SIR AAAAAAH OH GOD.” Parson screamed, narrowly avoiding collision with a wayward Dirtshark. “AAAAAAH COULD YOU TAKE CARE OF THAT SIR I'D MUCH APPRECIATE IT OH GOD.” Ennings reached for the gun and pulled, only to have it accidentally go off in his hands. It blew a sizable hole in the bottom of a glove compartment, releasing a flurry of papers. A small brown moleskin notebook landed on Enning's foot. He picked it up, thumbed forward to the end, and began reading backwards.

“OH ALMIGHTY MERCIFUL SPACEJESUS WHAT DOES IT SAY?” Parson asked as hard as he could.
“THEY WERE FARMERS.” Ennings barked, voice growing hoarse. “DRIVEN OFF BY THE DIRTSHARKS.”

“DAMN WHATAPITY.” Parson cried out. “IS THE QUEEN STILL FOLLOWING US?” Ennings stuck his head out the window, noted the giant dirt-tumor that was keeping pace with the hovertruck, turned back to Parson, and nodded.

Prologue the Second: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fusion Reactor

SEVENTEEN MINUTES FORTY-SEVEN SECONDS LATER, GALACTIC AVERAGE TIME

Captain Chris Ennings, late of the Battlecruiser Perse, was having a good day rapidly turn from bad to worse. The stress was manifesting as a tendency to shout.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HIS HEAD POPPED OFF?" he shouted, eyes fixed ahead on navigating through an asteroid belt. Parson sat in the copilot's seat, wiping sweat from beneath his bedraggled brown hair with one hand as he used the other to plot asteroid positions into the navaputer.

"Chris, I mean a large stack of crates fell on him in such a manner that his head was-" Ennings gritted his teeth.

"-detatched and is now in the galley freezer on top of my last deep dish pizza. You told me all of this. But we can't afford to lose Greg- he's much too valuable!"
"We just hired Greg a week ago and virtually all of our crew is dead. Why are you upset over the guy who ate 750 Pentacreds worth of Vorlock Wings and got us chased across the Casella system by the Dreevan Bloodmuckers who owned them? I had to physically restrain you from spacing him after that."

Ennings sighed. "Because those crates that fell on him were every gigakeg of Olympian Moonbeer in this galactic arm, and Greg had just finished encrypting the locks on them to keep the crew from 'sampling' it before our next leave."

Parson's hands froze over his console. "You mean all of the alcohol on the ship is locked up with gigaquad encryption and the only person who knows the password is dead with his head freezing next to the Rocky Road?"

Ennings nodded grimly. "Precisely. And don't think I don't realize that you were also hiding your good junk food on this old crate." Parson grimaced.

"Greg figured it out at least a week ago. I saw him in the torpedo room eating your last deep dish pizza."

"THAT GLUTTONOUS SPAWN OF AN UNSTABLE SINGLUARITY ATE MY LAST DEEP DISH PIZZA? Take over, Parson, I'm digging out his flat corpse and heaving it out the airlock."

"We both know that's just the stress talking, Chris. Which is good, because the angrier you are the better you fly. Watch the planetoid to port."

"I HAD THOSE PIZZAS SHIPPED FROM EARTH!"

"I know, Chris. And he didn't even thaw it first."

Ennings made a strangled noise as he used the planetoid's gravity to slingshot the cargo hauler between two large asteroids in an artful move that saved both fuel and time. Moments later, the two asteroids collided.

"Nicely done." said Parson, resuming his plotting of hazards on his console. "That move got us clear of most of the asteroid field."

"And in visual range of Bochco." Ennings added.

The sudden bright flash of crimson light startled both men; the deafening explosion, violent lurch, belches of smoke and warning klaxons startled them further.

"WE ALSO APPEAR TO BE WITHIN VISUAL RANGE OF BOCHCO'S PLANETARY DEFENSE GRID" Parson yelled as he jabbed at controls on the comm panel. "BOCHCO PLANETARY CONTROL, HOLD YOUR FIRE! OUR DISTRESS BEACON IDENTIFIES US AS A LIFEBOAT!"

The only reply was a second shot from the now visible defense satellite, a shot that went wide of its mark.

Ennings laughed, his infamous devilish grin colored red by the emergency lights. "We're too small to target properly."

Gizmo's voice crackled over the intercom. "I don't know what you two are doing up there but one of my engines just got blown completely off. Cut it out."

Another shot crackled past, so close that Ennings fought the instinct to duck. "Can it, Gizmo. We're too busy trying to figure out why this planet is firing on a lifeboat."

"Probably because we don't have a distress beacon. And without it, the AIs controlling the defense grid probably determined that our mass, speed, and trajectory are consistent with that of a Punisher-class Antipopulation Missile."

"You're killing me, Gizmo. In fact, you're killing all of us. WHY DOES OUR LIFEBOAT NOT HAVE A BEACON?"

"You said at our last Crew Brunch that you were going to, and I quote, 'use the boatload of pentacreds we get for Clockwerx's reagent to get the Perse some ARCO sleds and that our space barnacle of a lifeboat could be used for target practice.' So I took the beacon and used its parts in my Portable Zerochron Singularity Generator. That's how I was able to finish it a month early."

"And you say we never listen." Parson was still transmitting hails to Bochco Planetary Control and getting no response.

A second satellite was firing; Ennings' tension was obviously mounting as evidenced by his using a barrel roll to dodge two converging shots.

"Gizmo, can your Chroniton Parallax whatever take out these defense satellites?"

"Zerochron Singularity Generator. And no. But it can keep a cup of coffee hot and piping fresh for up to ten trillion solar years. It's really quite exciting techn-"

"GIZMO, THE ONLY THING THAT EXCITES ME RIGHT NOW IS LIVING LONG ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU EAT YOUR PENTAQUAD SORORITY GENERATOR."

"I'll go back to monitoring the reactor if there's nothing else, Captain. Gizmo out."

Uncharacteristic tension colored Parson's voice. "We're caught in the planet's gravity well and we're not coming back out with only one engine. We're going in hot and fast. But the good news is we're past the defensive satellites so all we have to worry about is planetside defensive responses. And, of course, landing."

Ennings tightened his grip on the controls. "This may be the most stress I have felt in at least three weeks." his eyes narrowed as the lifeboat's scanner display lit up with incoming missiles. "And it looks like I'm going to need every bit of it."

Prologue: In Which Shit Gets Real, Yo.

The burning wreckage of the once-mighty laboratory laid stricken in piles around the battered room, chemicals melting holes in the floor while rogue Tesla coils arced into the lightbulbs in the ceiling, accenting the scene below quite well.

Chris Ennings, captain of the ship Perse, stood with what remained of his men, surrounded by the heavily-armed Doombot army of Doctor Clockwerx.

“Hah!” The Doctor spat, clutching his heavily-wounded arm with his good hand as hard as he could, failing to staunch the blood as the stain grew larger on his coat. “You came damn close, I'll give you that.” He turned his back upon the surrounded interlopers and limped to the yet undamaged throne of space-alabaster recessed into the far wall. “Captain Ennings, you and your men have proven to be entirely too skilled as far as opponents go-” A distance explosion sent the ship suddenly lurching to its side, causing the Doctor to stumble. “- Which is why I am, at this moment, unable to extend an offer of employment.” He sat down heavily upon his throne, lab coat draped ever-so-awesomely. “You see, I shall soon find myself sans-headquarters, thanks to the efforts of you and your band of intrepid idiots.”

“Gizmo, I do believe we're being complemented.” Malcolm, the ship's chef, remarked. Gizmo tightened the grip on his large wrench and grit his teeth.

“How wonderful. At this point I think I'd rather have him just up and kill us.” Gizmo remarked blithely.

“Well I don't know about you fellows, but I think I'm going to put off that whole dying business as long as I can.” Ennings remarked, wiping a bead of sweat from his tawny forehead.

“Hey!” Doctor Clockwerx snapped his fingers. “I was monologuing, here. I mean, good lord, you people!” He massaged his temples with his one good hand. “First, you rain down steamrollers on my secret island base, you hijack my satellites and drive them around like go-karts, and then you shoot my wonderful Doomship full of holes! You wreck up the place and don't even have the good sense to grovel before I kill you! I don't think I've fought a ruder group of heroes since Flatulon showed up.” Everyone assembled, even the Doombots, winced at hearing that name.

“Wow, I. . .” John Parson, second-in-command, itched the back of his head with the butt of his pistol. “If we had known you had dealt with Flatulon recently. . .”
“Yeah, we probably would have waited a week or so.” Philo, the ship's inexplicably polite robot, said. “I mean, I don't even have a sense of smell, but that dude is just crass."

“I appreciate it.” Doctor Clockwerx said, as another chain of explosions tore through the ship, shaking the room enough to dislodge one of the bulbs in the ceiling. “However, time has run short. I'm running out of things to complain about, so I think I'm just going to up and kill you now.” He solmenly nodded his head. “Terribly sorry, but Doombots, do kill them.”

It's worth noting that Doctor Clockwerx and his Doombot army had entirely subjugated the Hauser system without retreating once. To say that humans and Doombots have been joined on the bloody field of war is a wee bit of an understatement.
However, there are a certain number of maneuvers so simple and fluid in execution that space jockeys slap their foreheads in exasperation for not thinking of them first. The following is one of those moves.
They ducked.
Well, that's not entirely accurate. Captain Ennings and his men ducked, and fired like mad. The Doombots panicked (as much as robots can), given that they hadn't exactly been programmed to deal with friendly-fire. Those furthest from the violence began firing upon those Doombots who had the misfortune of unloading upon friendly units, who were then fired upon by friendly units, until the once-formidable force had been reduced to a pile of smoking parts and a few lone survivors.

“I'd say that worked well.” Parson quipped. “Quick thinking, everybody. We ought to celebrate with drinks later.”

Ennings punched the head off of a Doombot, nodded his agreement, adjusted his lightning-powered brass knuckles, spun, and punched another Doombot square in the chest. It exploded, sending an unfortunately large chunk of metal straight into Malcolm's prefrontal cortex.

“Oh, damn.” Parsons said. “Okay, so, a quick bit of mourning, followed by celebratory drinks. Right.”

Ennings ran straight at Doctor Clockwerx, still slumped over in his chair, while the rest of his men mopped up the surviving robots. He jumped, driving his fist straight into the good side of Doctor Clockwerx's skull.

“Now, I'll be taking what I came for.” He wiped the sweat from his eyes. “The reagent, if you would be so kind, Doctor.” The Doctor spun, and spat a phlegmy mix of bloody mucus and tooth-shards straight at Ennings. He missed, scowled, and reached into his coat.

“Wait.” He said, eyes narrowing. “First, you have to tell me what you aim to do with it. I think I deserve that much, before you kill me.” Ennings rolled his eyes.
“First, no, I don't. Secondly, no, you don't. Give me the damn serum or I swear to God I will punch you to bits and then I will punch those bits into smaller bits, you have no clue how serious I am right now.” Ennings scowled so hard part of his left eyebrow exploded into a fine bloody mist.

“Damn, okay.” He took a small capsule from a secret pocket and placed it gingerly in Ennings' outstretched hand. Ennings turned and swiftly strode out of the room, minions in tow. As soon as the door was out of sight, they broke into a flat-out run for the hangar, where their warship had undergone “improvisational docking procedures”, which is future-speak for “crashed the damn thing as hard as possible.”
A sinister laugh tore through the ship's PA system.

“You think you can escape alive, Captain?” The Doctor cackled. “You shall find that my ship has a few tricks yet hidden up it's- URK.” The signal was suddenly cut off by the sound of a piece of steel punching a large and bloody hole through Doctor Clockwerx's torso. It's a rather distinctive sound, in case you were confused.
“There's a hyperlift at the end of this hallway, should take us down to the janitorial access for the hangar.” Gizmo shouted over the din of the ship collapsing.
“Why can't we go through the main doors?” Parson asked.

“Clogged with bodies.” Ennings said coldly.

“Ooooh, right. Forgot about that.” Parson replied.

The party assembled in the elevator and quickly pushed the lowest button indicated, which would lead them through a serpentine series of pipes and access vents, before depositing them next to their glorious space-chariot.

However, that proved to be entirely unnecessary, as an explosion shot the hermetically-sealed Deathpod through the hangar ceiling, solidly embedding it in the wall next to the Supra-Aether Drive fueling station. The door burst open, and the four slowly oozed out into the hold.

“Damn.” Parson whistled, wiping his forehead with a spare handkerchief. “A few feet to the side, and we'd have caused quite a calamity.” He said, admiring the explosive nature of Supra-Aether Drive fuel.

Captain Ennings screamed. Everyone turned to see what the issue is, and began screaming in tandem. They experimented with a few harmonies, but nothing really struck.

You see, the ship Perse was a terror to behold. Ennings himself stole it from under the nose of the now-defunct Atom Pirates clan. A destroyer class, she was only a few hundred meters long, but she made up for her relatively small size with an array of weaponry that could give rugged survivalists spontaneous orgasms.

She was the sort of ship that could jump out of the Supra-Aether in the blink of an eye and tear any witnesses to shreds before their radars even picked her up. She was the sort of ship you could drive nose-first into a battle station and not even register a dent. She could drive circles around bigger ships and cut smaller ships to ribbons using weapons the likes of which the Military didn't even have their hands on yet. Sleek and fearsome, she commanded a force of bloodthirsty mercenaries some two-hundred strong, all of whom laid decimated or dismembered in the Doomship.
Save four.

Well, five. The chief mechanic, a fat bearded man named Greg was busy hauling large crates from Perse's ruptured cargo hold, over to a much smaller ship the approximate size and shape of four city buses taped together. He saw his commanding officers and waved them over. They began screaming in tandem again, before reluctantly jogging over to the new ship.

Normally, Perse has all the smooth lines and graceful curves of her namesake. She had a decided lack of, say, multi-ton blocks of ceramic and steel crushing the part of the ship where the cockpit used to be, or large titanium beams puncturing the engine, or a number of rogue repair-droids going to town on the hull, exo-brushes worn down to nubs.

Today, on the other hand-

“Good to see you guys made it!” Greg shouted. “I have some bad news about-”

“Everything, yes.” Ennings interrupted. “I figured, what with the rampant
destruction wrought upon my ship by terribly unkind forces.”

“Yeah.” Greg absentmindedly plucked the side of his beard. “Things kind of went downhill once the sewer line ruptured.”

“Oh god.” Parson interjected, close to vomiting. “I have a resolute and unyeilding need for you to stop talking. Let's go.” Ennings nodded and quickly ducked inside the ship.

“I just have more box of junk to load on the ship, I'll be right there.” Greg turned and dashed back towards the ship, but a sudden violent explosion tossed him soundly on his ass. A pile of crates neatly stacked next to the cargo bay door fell, landing heavily on Greg's prone form.

One wayward crate landed solidly on his neck, sending his head flying across the room. It arced gracefully, like some sort of sanguine comet, before being deftly caught in Philo's robotic embrace.

There was a sudden lull in movement, as the assembled tried to make sense of what happened.

Nothing was spoken. There are simply no words to describe what happened, so no attempt was made.

The remainder of the crew climbed into their lifeboat and worked their way towards the cockpit, save Philo, who headed for the cargo bay, to put Greg's head in the freezer.

“We ready to go?” Ennings asked, impatient.
“All accounted for, sir.” Parson replied without skipping a beat.
“Wait, where's Greg?” Ennings asked, checking around the cramped pit.
“He's, ah-” Parsons stammered

“Chilling out, sir.” Gizmo said. Ennings glanced askance at him, trying to understand the joke, before shrugging and realizing that more important tasks lay ahead.

For instance, not dying. Ennings threw the ship into manual and kicked up the engines like they had never been kicked before. Lifting up off of the bay floor, Ennings spun the ship around, pointed it towards the black, and floored it.

The ship handled exactly as well as you'd expect, and wheezingly sputtered towards the force-field currently preventing everything in the bay from being sucked out into the infinite oblivion of space.

“Gizmo, get down to the engine room and see what you can do. I have a hankering to be going faster than I am right now.” Ennings said through clenched teeth. Gizmo grunted his affirmation and ran towards the back of the ship.

The ship began humming along at a respectable pace after breaking free of the patchwork fields and shields and various other electromagnetic pollution produced by a ship marked for immediate destruction, and just as the Doomship began to explode, VOOM. The engines kicked up to a mighty-fine speed, sending the ship careening away from the wreckage just fast enough to avoid the more lethal bits of shrapnel.

“That was fun!” Ennings remarked, smiling much too wide for someone who just escaped death by the skin of his teeth. He reached for the intercom and held the receiver up to his mouth. “Hey, Gizmo, how are we holding together?” He was greeted with a burst of static and the sort of fevered hammering that you hope to never hear from the engine room of a well-maintained spaceship.

“It's good for now, but I'd like to set down for repairs soon. From the looks of things, this hasn't been used recently, and the stress of that last stunt pushed a few components into the red.”

“How soon do you need?” Ennings asked. A pause, and then
“How soon can you get me?”

“Parson!” Ennings called smartly. “Where's the nearest place we can drop anchor?” Parson's fingers began dancing across the screen of his console, skimming through maps of the area.

“Looks like there's a planet near the edge of the system, Bochco. Moderate population, several large cities, definitely looks like the sort of place we could lie low in for a few days, wait for things to calm down, you know?”

“That's a stupid idea.” Ennings suggested. “We just killed a notorious warlord, we'll be heroes! People will be lining up to give us money!”

“Or kill us.” Parson suggested. “I'm certain the Doctor has a few roving kill-squads patrolling the system, looking to avenge his death and reclaim his throne, you know how villains are.”

“Damn, yeah.” Ennings scratched his chin in contemplation. “Forgot about that part, Christ. From now on, we need to start killing less paranoid people, you know?”
“Mmmm.” Parson hummed, rhythmically tapping his fingers upon the screen. “Oh, sweet. Quick, tell Gizmo it's got a Brain-Trust.”

Ennings raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why would he care?”

Parson leaned back in his char and folded his hands over his eyes. “Ah, nevermind then. I'll tell you when we get there.