***
“The rest of the fleet should be arriving in the vicinity of Laertia within the hour, Mr. Larkin. Shall I signal the Magnometriton?” the short, thick-set captain of the HLS Maryland asked Ned, eagerly waiting for a reply. Ned was surveying the starry landscape with an intricate eye-piece that only served to make the distant stars a tad less brighter. Nothing remotely strange registered; instead, the world of Laertia rotated slowly, filling most of the star-scape with its blue, white and green hues.
“Not yet, captain. I don’t see anything strange. It’s just that I’d never fully realised how beautiful home was,” Ned said thoughtfully and turned to look at the captain with a furrowed brow. “Have you noticed anything strange, Mr. Peelpot?” he then asked the plump little man whose uniform looked about ready to burst. The captain of the HLS Maryland gave the matter the short time of attention it required and formulated an easy enough answer: “We’re running low on beer, sir, and as any half-competent sailor will tell you, that could prove to be troublesome. A beer-disgruntled crew is no laughing matter; I’ll check the stores personally,” he said, turned about crisply and quickly disappeared below.
“I was under the impression that, with the ship being so small and all, there’s very little crew involved. In fact,” Ned said, not having realised the captain was gone. He then nodded at Winceham who was shooting craps with a small gang of sailors under the main mast of the Maryland and added, “there’s the whole lot of the crew right there. They look disgruntled all right, but I wouldn’t suppose it’s because of the beer,” he pointed out as another wave of boos and awfully uncharming swearing rose out from a half-dozen men who seemed to be having a suspiciously long-winded streak of bad luck.
“Seven times in a row? Again?” cried one of the crew. Judging from the look on his face, even if he was probably not very well versed in statistics, he knew there was something terribly lucky about winning seven times in a row, again. And everyone knew, luck has the propensity to run out in the end, not the other way around.
“Is seven a bad number for you? How about eight?” Winceham said with a provocatively smug grin, just about ready to throw the dice once more. Another one of the crew rose up to his full height, which was a little more than twice Winceham’s diminutive, halfuin-standard size. He gave Winceham a very haunting look that more than implied bad things were just waiting to happen, but Winceham continued unfazed.
“Bets? Anyone? No?” he asked around, more comfortable-looking than a pig rolling in mud. He received no reply and just as he was ready to pick up the small pile of coins resting on the ship’s floor, the tall, heavy-set sailor who otherwise looked like a nice fellow, if one could go around the fact he could crush a man larynx single-handedly, he told him in a rather calm yet threatening way.
“No ya don’t.”
Winceham cocked his head sideways and looked at him the way kids look at obnoxious neighbors. “These are my winnings. You know what winnings are, don’t you?” Winceham said as he made ready to gather the small shiny golden pile in his cupped hands.
“You’re a thief,” said one of the other sailors through gritted teeth.
Winceham laughed a polite little laugh before making a gesture with his hand, implying that was no secret to anyone.
“And a liar,” another sailor added with some more bravado.
“Now I won’t have any of that name-calling. First and foremost, I’m a gentleman and I demand that honor be satisfied,” Winceham said in a passionate voice even as he began sweeping the coins with the cup of his hand off the ship’s deck and into his money pouch. Every last one of the sailors had lost money in that dice game. A lot of money, perhaps equal to half a month’s pay, which amounts to about a quarter of their drinking money. Which was a lot.
One of them took the dice into his hand for the first time since Winceham started shooting, and felt them in his hands. Then he held one up and turned it round and round; they looked like perfectly ordinary dice. He shot one down on the deck, letting it roll freely; the dice hopped and spun, and fumbled and sat in one of its faces with a seriously ponderous wobble. The face was adorned with the crude drawing of an anchor.
“Anchor. Again,” he said and looked at Winceham, through angry, red-shot eyes.
“I wouldn’t hope to explain to you the intricate workings of a game of luck, but it is quite possible to become confused. Especially someone like you,” Winceham said with a barb in his voice, his withered, leathery face twitching in a well-placed insult.
“What’s that mean? Someone like me?” the sailor asked.
“A sailor?” Winceham replied, acting like an innocent git who was only happening to pass by.
“You playin’s us for a fool now, eh?” another, bulkier crewman said, rising up to Winceham, his shadow occluding him easily.
“Fools are a lot more fun than you fellas, even the bad ones,” Winceham retorted, cooly smug.
The group got up on their feet and huddled around Winceham, just about ready to unanimously vote on giving him the old silent soap-in-a-sock treatment. Ned, seeing where things were headed, demanded their attention, trying his most conversational, level-headed tone of voice: “Now, gentlemen, I’m sure we’re all a little uptight about the mission and all.”
The men slowly looked at Ned with a curious kind of gaze, the kind people might think lizards look like when copulating. It was eerie and uncomfortable, but Ned had somehow gotten their attention for a moment, only to have Winceham pull them back in:
“See what I mean? Even the bad ones are kind of fun,” he said grinning infuriatingly.
“Yer in fer a world o’ pain, shorty lad,” the tall muscle-bound sailor said and grabbed Winceham by his leather jacket, and whisked him into the air with just one hand. Winceham looked down upon the tall sailor and the rest of the men who nodded approvingly to what their idea of justice looked like.
“Now, let’s not make any hasty decisions,” Ned said and added with a generous smile and a show of his hands, “Have you ever heard of what happened when a pirate captain and a parrot happened upon a genie in their lifeboat?”
“What’s a genie? Is it some kind of cod?” a sailor asked, quite possibly in the hopes of getting a free lunch.
“No, it’s this mythological magical being, you see you usually have to rub a lamp and then ” Ned tried to explain before someone interrupted him.
“Rump of the lamb?” another sailor asked mildly confused.
“No, no, you see this genie, you make a wish, right? And the captain wished for the sea to turn into rum, so ”
“Why would anyone want that?” the tall guy said, Winceham still help up high in his grasp.
“Right. That’s stupid,” someone else said and the others agreed heartily, nodding in mumbling unison. “Where would we pee then?” someone intoned.
“Or take a dump? Think o’ the waste,” another one asked indignantly.
“Oh. Guess you’ve heard that one before,” Ned said to himself mostly and another sailor, the eldest of the crew, the one who had misheard earlier, did so again: “Rump, did you say? Wot’s going on? Is there lamb to be had on this ship?”
“Oy! We wants some of that lamb, right now!” someone roared.
“Aye!” the crew cheered unanimously, cradling mops and brooms, as well as ropes and knives, and all the assorted tools any sailor finds indispensable, like smoking pipes and switchblades.
“Could you be so kind as to hold me up a little higher, now?” Winceham asked strangely.
“Nah, I’m not kind enough,” the tall sailor said grinning. Winceham replied after weighing in his options for a moment: “That’ll have to do then,” the halfuin said and kicked hard and high, aiming for the sailor’s jaw. Instead, he missed and his boot connected with the sailor’s nose; a crunching sound was heard and blood spurted, some of it spilling on his boot. The sailor growled with pain and the next instant, a shout was heard from someone in the crew:
“It’s a free-for-all!?
??
Fists began flying and various instruments of seamanship found a new use as bruising, head-crushing implements. Stools and pegs were in good supply and eagerly used as well. Ned hadn’t realised how easy it was for a gambling issue to escalate into a full-fledged fist-fight. They had only been out to space for a day or so, and yet the beer had run dry, and the crew was already fighting amongst themselves.
“Wince? Stop monkeying around! These people are trying to help!” Ned shouted, only to receive a muffled answer of sorts a little while later: “But it’s my money now!”
The rest of Winceham’s voice trailed off into a dusty cloud of fists and brawler’s growls. He was well into the fight, and Ned knew that the captain of the HLS Maryland should be taking things into his hands sooner rather than later; unfortunately he discovered the captain was ostentatiously drunk, trying to steer the ship by using a strange mechanism that included a dead fish and one of those dangerous-looking, multicolored cannonballs. He was experiencing difficulties keeping the dead fish level on the rolling cannonball.
“What the hell happened to rigor mortis, eh? Bloody useless fish. Throw’em out to dead space, I say!” Captain Peelpot urged no-one in particular, and Ned sadly realised he was all alone, at least until the rest of the fleet arrived. Ned took the helm, smiling all the time at the captain who looked at him with a wild-eyed look of confoundment and asked him with glazed, red-shot eyes:
“Is that you, Melissa?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Peelpot. I’d say I’m flattered, but I wouldn’t be telling the truth now, in any case.”
“Come to me, my bristling sea-wench, smelling of salty toffee, wet like the breeze and hotter than my stovepipe!” Captain Peelpot cried and throwing the dead fish aside, tried to grab Ned with arms open-wide and kiss him.
Ned was very nearly taken off-guard and side-stepped the drunk-like-a-bat captain at the last moment; he put out his foot and tripped him, but as Captain Peelpot was going down, he reached out a hand and grabbed Ned from the belt of his pants, bringing him down with him. The prospect of being fondled on the deck of a very fast picket by a drunken captain of the Human League did not appeal to Ned who held on to the helm, making the ship roll with him vicariously.
The ship swerved violently and changed attitude and course as if some gigantic hand slapped its sides; and it was at that exact moment that Ned saw a blinding flash of purplish light fill the void of space above them, casting pinkish shades all over the ship. A great swath of light, like a flaming torrent of pure energy had missed them by a couple of seconds, Ned realised, and just a look whence the intense light came, made everything so much clearer and darker at the same time.
A huge oblong shadowy shape, stony black and flashing blue at times, was looming at an ever-decreasing distance, struts of jutting rock laden with bizarre crystal constructs dominated its surface. It was sort of terrible ship, shaped like a malevolent arrowhead made of grim, dark stone and it was clearly on a collision course with the HLS Maryland.
“Melissa? I’ll be gentle. Come hither, tis’ not alcohol you smell but after-shave,” Captain Peelpot said groggily, as if in a dream, one hand searching for a long-lost cup and the other groping at things better left ungroped.
“We’re under fire and on a collision course with a big black ” Ned urged him, but the captain put a finger to his lips before having a chance to explain the situation.
“Say nothing more!” Captain Peelpot yelled as if waking up from a terrible nightmare, demonstrating surprising clarity and brio. “Mr. Peppersplotch, man the C-taser turret! Mr. Roolgoolie, give me maximum sailing speed and Mr. Wooldredge, will you put the halfuin down? He’s a guest! Report to Mr. Galloway when the battle is over and detain yourself for conduct unbecoming of a sailor,” Captain Peelpot said in an orderly, commanding fashion, though still somewhat slurring his words. Ned was pleasantly surprised because they were still uncharred and alive, and the Captain seemed to know his stuff even when drunk as a squirrel in a barrel.
“I thought you were dead drunk,” Ned told the Captain with an approving smile, even as he gave the helm another random swing and push and the ship dived and swerved erratically, avoiding another swath of purple light, bright as the sun and wider than the main mast of the Maryland.
“That I am. Drunker than a dead dodo, sir, but blast me to pieces if I’ll lose her!”
“That’s a whole lot of devotion for a ship. I must admit it’s admirable Captain but let’s be realistic!” Ned shouted, trying to bring the captain back into the fold of reality.
“I was talking about Melissa,” the captain said and shot Ned a grim-eyed look that made him flinch instinctively. The captain swerved the ship around and with the crew finally taking their places and Winceham panting on the deck, searching for his pipe, the Captain screamed in a maddening show of the power of intoxication:
“I’m coming for you, Melissa! Full speed ahead, bear down all guns on that piece of flying rock!”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Ned suggested, feverishly trying to find a way out of an almost certainly oblivious turn of events.
“Of course not! If we we were sure, we wouldn’t be out there, caught in that God-forsaken storm, Melissa! Oh, Melissa!” the Captain said, barely holding back a full onslaught of tears and sobs.
“Right, I thought so as much,” Ned said and punched Captain Peelpot in the face, bringing him down on the deck harmlessly, but certainly painfully unconscious. Another great column of purple light missed the ship proper by a few feet, evaporating the top of the mast without so much as a sizzle.
“I’m not running away,” Ned murmured to himself, clutching the hem tightly, even as he heard Winceham complaining coarsely, still searching for his pipe: “How can anyone have a decent smoke in peace around here?”