Galactic Menace by Timothy J. Meyer

Author:Timothy J. Meyer [Meyer, Timothy J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: pirate, aliens, bounty hunter, spaceship, outlaw, jolly roger, space pirate, pirate ship, pirate captain, crime action, pirate adventure, laser gun, nemo, bad space
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Odisseus nearly jumps out of his sweater, blubber and fur. "Moons of Jotor, you scared the bloom outta me."

"You're still wearing that thing, huh?" Nemo observes dumbly, underscored by the faint and familiar sounds of scraping hand tools against engine components. "You know, one of these days, you're gonna be forced to relinquish that fucking thing. Captain's orders and all."

"Don't get power hungry on me," Odisseus returns, undertaking the famously uncomfortable wriggle through the two-foot-tall orlop tunnel from access ladder to engine room.

"Somebody did attempt to assassinate me," the self-important voice of his saltbrother continues to point out.

"I was in attendance, actually," grunts the Ortok, negotiating his paunch past the passage's least pleasant and most restrictive section.

With an honest-to-moons popping sound, a panting Odisseus once again emerges from the sadistically short crawlspace that serves as the engine room's exclusive entrance. He's buoyed, however, by the comforting sights of both Port and Starboard, The Unconstant Lover's lovable pet jetboosters, awaiting his return with the indefatigable patience one can only reliably expect from inanimate objects.

A sight somewhat less buoying for the state of the Ortok's soul, however, is that of a neticgrappler-wielding Nemo, clanging and spattering the tool about within Starboard's propulsion cavity, creating a percussion of hollow thuds and muted sparking.

"What're you doing?" Odisseus spits, repressed lobes of his bestial brain suddenly enraged by this most unexpected breach of territory.

"Had a little free time," Nemo replies oddly, contorting his face with effort as he bangs and clatters about the booster's delicate interior. "Thought I'd recalibrate the upshift–"

With as fluid a mustelid movement as the environs will allow, Odisseus practically gallops on all fours around the engine's side, reaches Nemo's position within a span of six seconds and snatches the neticgrappler from his humanoid hands. “The upshifter does not require recalibrating,” is his only justification.

“But I wanna go fast,” whines Nemo.

The Ortoks snaps his fangs dangerously once, scampering his saltbrother a full four feet away from the open booster.

Sufficiently browbeaten, Nemo merely throws his hands up and waddles aside, to plant his meddling bloomhole casually onto the fold-down technician's seat. He crosses his legs in contentment. "Suit yourself.”

Halfway through righting whatever internal damage the unsupervised Nemo might've inflicted upon his beloved Starboard, Odisseus gradually withdraws his neck and shoulders from the access hatch and considers his saltbrother down the end of his faintly twitching nose. "What exactly are you doing down here?”

"Recalibrating the upshifter, I–"

"What exactly," Odisseus repeats with increased insistence, "are you doing down here?"

Nemo seems to shrink somewhat in his seat. "Hiding."

Odisseus twitches his whiskers derisively once, "From your adoring public?"

His expression holds a degree of unreasonable terror directly at odds with the spoken description of his evident bugbear. "From Gertrude."

"Down here?" Odisseus presses incredulously. "In the engine room?"

Nemo's haunted expression doesn't falter. "She could be anywhere. She could be naked."

Odisseus rolls his eyes, shifts his weight and plunges his torso fully into the hatch's open gap. As he scooches himself left to right until he's satisfactorily jammed inside, he

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