Author's Note:
Wow… just wow…
Chapter 25: Retreat and Abandon Ship
"Ha, ha, ha!" Onus chuckled hysterically from the crow's nest. "There it is!" He looked down upon the main deck. "Feast eyes and click heels if you got 'em!"
The amazed crew gapped at the legendary planet. Silver stood at the top of the steps entering the mess hall and looked out upon the scene before him.
Treasure Planet… home to Captain Nathaniel Flint's trove… the loot of a thousand worlds… they weren't only just bedtime stories. His fool-hearty dream was finally coming together.
"Hmm…" The cyborg pawed at one of his coat's pockets. "Where's the devil's me glass?" He pondered aloud, referring to his pocket telescope.
He furrowed his brow in thought, trying to remember where he had had the collapsible telescope last. The pirate captain decided to search the mess hall and galley primarily.
"Thanks Jim…" Ariah wiped the tears from her copper-brown eyes. "For everything."
"Don't thank me just yet." Jim stated weakly, wiping away the tears that had fallen from his pale blue eyes with the back of his hand. "We still have to warn the captain about the pirates…" He stated. "And prove that you're not one of them."
Ariah sniffled. "Yeah." She shuddered at the vivid thought of her closest friends behind locked away or hung for piracy. She bit her bottom lip. "Some luck I have…" The young woman stated.
She bitterly tore the leather chain from her neck and tossed it forcefully against the floor in defeat. More tears fell from her eyes as she turned away from Jim with her arms wrapped around her knees.
The brunette teenager leaned forwards and picked up the discarded necklace. He looked over it meaningfully in his palm, seeing his reflection in the partially charred metal.
Jim inhaled calmly and gently lifted Ariah's chin so they were facing each other. Ariah hesitantly locked eyes with Jim.
"Don't give up, Ariah." Jim whispered as he placed the makeshift necklace back around Ariah's neck. "Not yet…"
Ariah sighed and inhaled determinedly. "I won't, Jim."
Jim hugged her closely, trying to reassure her that everything would be all right, though he was harbouring doubts of his own.
The two teenagers rose to their feet, hand-in-hand, and half-heartedly left the RLS Legacy's pantry. Ariah squeezed Jim's hand, hoping for some closure.
Jim's smiled weakly back at her, trying to stay strong. Ariah glanced up at a shining object on one of the mess hall's tables and gasped.
It was John Silver's pocket telescope, which meant that the pirate captain would likely be returning to retrieve it any moment now…
Silver slowly stepped down the wooden steps into the RLS Legacy's mess hall. His stalling cyborg leg was no help to the excitement welling up in his chest. There was a burning need in him to double-check that the planet before them was truly a myth made real and not some folly illusion.
He entered the mess hall and notice two things immediately. One, his telescope was on the first table to his left in the mess hall. Two, Jim and Ariah happened to be in the mess hall, despite their previous absence.
Silver pondered. Where had the two teenagers been all this morning? He could've likely guess that Ariah had woken up early to watch the crystalloid effect of the starlight on all of the space matter… But as far as he could remember, both Jim and Ariah had already left their hammocks when he had awoken that morning.
"Playin' games, are we?" John Silver raised an eyebrow at the two teenagers suspiciously. His look was no longer the soft, knowing look of a playful assumption; it had transformed into a cold, serious expression of mistrust.
"Yeah…" Jim stated cautiously. "We're playing games." He stepped towards Silver.
Ariah remained frozen in place, fearful of what was going to happen.
"Oh I see…" Silver forced a casual sighed. "Never was much good at games."
Something clicked behind Silver, within his cyborg arm. Ariah met the pirate captain's cold sights, stunned with surprise at what she knew he was charging up.
"Always hated teh lose." Silver stated level-headedly.
"Hmm…" Jim gritted his teeth together.
He had obviously heard the cocking of a laser pistol and was trying to figure out how to escape this pirate captain. Then the cabin boy spotted a sharp blade on the table.
"Me too!" Jim leapt for the blade -before Silver could draw his laser pistol- and stabbed it into the pressurized rubber of Silver's mechanical leg.
The older man howled in pain as a gust of steam hissed out of his cyborg leg. Jim quickly grabbed Ariah by the hand and ran forwards out of the mess hall.
The two teenagers bolted out of the mess hall, running for the captain's stateroom. Silver limped behind them, his laser pistol drawn and his cyborg eye calculating a crosshair for him to fire at either Jim or Ariah.
Silver's aim faltered and he didn't try to press the trigger of the pistol. Was it because there was too much a risk of hitting Ariah? That, the half-mechanical man could tell his crew and it would make sense as far as they were concerned… But really, he had a hunch that his lack of shooting was because he cared deeply for both of the teenagers.
The pirate captain stood to his full height and let out a high-pitched whistle, getting the entire crew's attention. "Change of plans, lads…" He boomed; his mechanical arm shifted from its normal hand to a cutlass. "We move now!" Silver ordered loudly.
All of the pirate crew immediately rushed towards the captain's stateroom, ready to kill the odd ones out and initiate the mutiny to their fullest content.
"Strike our colours, Mister Onus." Silver commanded.
"With pleasure, Captain!" The many-eyed alien saluted from the crow's nest.
He quickly removed Montressor's national flag, casting it out into the Etherium, and replaced it with the well-worn flag. On the black, ragged flag was a white three-eyed skull with a pair of atomic valences, similar to the tilted rings of Treasure Planet. It was the flag of Captain Nathaniel Flint, and of all pirates.
"Pirates on my ship, I'll see they all hang!" Captain Amelia opened her arms cabinet curtly and retrieved two proton rifles.
Ariah squirmed nervously, looking at the two men standing with her. Jim had thoroughly explained to the feline captain everything they had heard from the crew's meeting, but Ariah was still unsure whether the captain entirely trusted her.
"Doctor, familiar with these?" The red-haired captain lightly tossed a proton rifle from her weaponry cabinet into Doctor Delbert Doppler's hands.
"Oh, I've seen-… well I've read-"
The canine astrophysicist cut off his own statement by accidentally firing an energy-charged proton shot -that would've hit Ariah had she not quickly dodged it- and demolished a globe on one of the end tables in the captain's pristine stateroom.
"No, no, no… I'm not." Doctor Doppler restated firmly.
Captain Amelia sighed, and she reached into her cabinet once more. "Mister Hawkins, defend this with you life." She tossed a strange golden sphere with runes inscribed upon it into Jim's hands.
Suddenly a pink blob snatched the shining sphere from Jim's hands.
"Morph! Give me that!" Jim scolded the transformer, pulling the map from Morph's grip.
There was a pounding at the captain's stateroom's barred entrance. Ariah jumped on the spot, snapping out from her otherworldly thoughts.
"Ma'am… is there some connection to the longboats' docking area through your quarters?" The black-haired teenager demanded, searching the esteemed stateroom for another exit, besides the large window.
"Well of course there is Miss Clarke, but why in the Etherium would we-" The feline woman spotted Ariah's determined look, realizing what the young woman meant, and she sighed. "We're to abandon ship at the mercy of pirates?" Captain Amelia stated bluntly.
"It's better that getting torn limb from limb by them." Ariah chuckled weakly. She winced as another loud pound at the metal door to the stateroom jostled them.
"Good thinking, Miss Clarke." Captain Amelia nodded. "Through that door over there."
The pounding on the titanium door grew more intense as a large alien –likely Mister Hands- attempted to barge into the stateroom.
"Let's hurry!" The feline captain rushed towards the door with her three companions quickly dashing after her.
They exited the captain's quarters moments before the pirates barged into the room. One could tell from the buzzing of charges that the pirates had likely accessed the rest of the captain's weapons and were now armed and more dangerous.
There were few times in Ariah's life in which she had to run as fast as she was currently running at the moment. Most –if not all- of the times were life-threatening situations, but this was the first time in her life where that she had been running for her dear life from a pack of armed pirates.
The fleeing quintet weaved through the metallic innards of the RLS Legacy's lower decks. Sometimes one of them would stumble -most of the times being Doctor Doppler- but they quickly recuperated and kept running.
Finally, they arrived at the lowest deck where the longboats' docks were placed. Captain Amelia slammed shut a thick metal door behind her, namely on the pirates' faces, and she sealed it off with a stream of proton heat.
"Into the longboats, quickly!" She commanded.
Both Ariah and Jim were the first into the longboats' docks. Jim ran forwards and pulled the lever that opened the hull's hatch. Ariah quickly unlashed the ropes securing the longboat to the docks' sides while Doctor Doppler and Captain Amelia quickly entered the swinging boat.
"Oh yeh are takin' all day 'bout it…" Silver's voice boomed from the opposite side of the thick entrance. There was a lowly charging and the boom of a proton cannon as the thick door to the longboats' docks was blasted clear off of the wall.
Jim hopped into the boat, preparing to lower the ropes when suddenly a pesky transformer snatched something from his jacket's pocket.
"MORPH!" Jim hollered at the pink blob's horrible timing. He leapt from the longboat while Ariah, Delbert and Amelia took cover.
Silver defiantly pulled the lever back to its original position, watching the hatch slowly close under the longboats. He smirked as he was gradually closing in on those who kept the key to Flint's Trove from him.
The pirate captain turned to watch a stumbling Jim Hawkins trying to catch Morph who was holding –in his mouth- the very key to Flint's Trove.
Silver's eyes widened greedily as he limped forwards. He had to have that map…
"Chew on this, you pus-filled boils." Captain Amelia hissed at the pirates as she fired off rounds after rounds of proton shots at the ruffians.
"You're, um, pretty vicious when it comes to pirates, Ma'am…" Ariah stated, smirking at Captain Amelia's zeal.
Suddenly the doctor's rifle shot off, hitting a main support beam from one of the longboats' docks and a group of charging pirates fell to their deaths.
"Doctor, did you actually aim for that?" Captain Amelia enquired to the astrophysicist, who had shot the platform's support.
"You know, I actually did!" Doctor Doppler stated, amazed at his own untapped skill.
Quickly Captain Amelia shoved the doctor down -so he could avoid getting his head blown off by proton shots- and fired more rounds at the pirates.
"This isn't working!" Ariah shouted to the two hybrids over the rifle shots. "We need a plan before we get killed."
"I agree with Miss Clarke." Doctor Doppler stated. "Perhaps a friendly surrender and maybe we won't get executed."
Ariah huffed at the astrophysicist's suggestion. "That's not what I meant! Besides, they'd make us walk the plank into the Etherium if they weren't going to kill us up front."
"How barbaric!" The canine gasped.
"They're pirates." Ariah stated. "Haven't you ever read stories on them?"
"Well certainly-" Doctor Doppler whimpered as a proton shot made a sizeable hole in the longboat, close to his head. "But I can tell you that I have no intention of experiencing any of it!"
"Oh, blast it!" Captain Amelia cursed under her breath as her proton rifle stopped firing, as it needed time to recharge.
The captain looked around the chaotic dock house in her once mild-mannered ship. She examined the two pulleys holding up their longboat and then ducked down.
"Doctor…" She turned to the brunette hybrid and motioned towards the pulleys. "When I say 'now' you shoot out the forward cable. I'll take this one. All right?"
Doctor Doppler nodded obediently. Ariah smiled weakly, it wasn't the best of plans but at least it was a plan…
"Come on Morph, who's a good boy?"
"Come 'ere Morphy, come teh papa."
Both Jim Hawkins and John Silver were trying to fervently sweet-talk the little morph into handing over the map to Treasure Planet.
The aforementioned blob, however, was so equally torn between his two friends that he decided to drop down into a coil of ropes and see who could get the map first.
Jim, having no disabilities to wither the use of his legs, reached the coil of ropes first.
The young man swiftly snatched the shining sphere from the coil of ropes, readying himself for the planned escape. He paused a half beat and glanced at the cyborg suspiciously before rushing towards the longboat.
Silver lifted his laser pistol. His cyborg eye calculated all of the necessary components in a heartbeat but once again, Silver didn't have the stomach to take Jim's life…
"Now!" Captain Amelia cried as Jim dove towards the longboat, before the pirates could get a clear shot of them.
The two hybrids quickly shot the pulleys holding up the longboat and the transport skilfully dropped down through the hatch just as Jim landed against the port gunnels of the skiff. The longboat stopped falling once it hit the Etherium's anti-gravitational area, jarring its occupants slightly.
"Parameters met. Hydraulics engaged." Captain Amelia immediately prepared the longboat for flying, briskly assembling the solar sail and charging up the engine.
Quickly, before they started flying at fast speeds, Ariah and Doctor Doppler pulled the rest of Jim into the longboat; double-checking that he was all right.
Captain Amelia set the longboat at full throttle and began driving down through the planet's atmosphere towards its dense foliage.
As the orange-skinned alien had been among the pirates who had fallen to his death, there was only one other pirate alive in John Silver's crew who had an expertise for the ship's laser cannons.
Meltdown sat at a starboard side laser cannon. The crosshair of the laser cannon swiftly calculated everything to blow the retreating longboat to oblivion.
The dark brown salamander-like alien –albeit he resembled a very rotund salamander- snickered sinisterly. "Come ta papa…" He reached for the trigger and pressed his gluttonous digit down onto it.
"Hold yer fire. Yeh idiot!"
Silver and Scroop simultaneously shoved the laser canon off its given course, sending Meltdown flying from his seat. But nonetheless a large proton shot was fired.
"Ariah's on there, you fool." Scroop snarled furiously at the fallen alien, his golden eyes glowing with rage as he watched the proton ball soar towards the longboat.
"Aye, an' even if she weren't…" Silver glowered. "They've got the map."
"Cannon fire…" Ariah gasped as she watched the proton shot that was launched from the starboard side of the RLS Legacy approach them.
"Captain!" Doctor Doppler shouted urgently. "Laser ball at twelve o'clock!"
It was too late for the feline captain to divert their course. The giant blue-purple proton ball cracked against the stern of the tiny longboat, destroying the mast, solar sail and the longboat's main engine.
"Ah!" Captain Amelia let out a painful cry as she gripped her side, injured from the explosion.
The feline woman quickly snapped back into action, grasping the next to useless throttle and trying to steady their inevitable crash through giant mushroom infested forest of the legendary planet.
"Ariah, your solar glider!" Jim shouted to the stunned sailor.
"What?" Ariah steadied herself against the longboat's gunnels as it crashed through the top of another giant mushroom.
"Use your solar glider as another sail." Jim yelled.
"Too late." Doctor Doppler ducked down fearfully. "Take cover, we're going to crash!"
Ariah buried herself into Jim's arms as they both braced themselves against the bottom of the longboat.
The tiny longboat flipped over, spun completely out of control, and crashed forcefully into the ground. The inverted longboat dragged along the vine-riddled ground until it finally came to a stop.
Author's Note:
Thanks Whisperwings, for editing so quickly!
MG#6