Chapter 9
Pirates Ahoy!
The Bonnes were not onboard the Gesellschaft; however, Tron and Bon were at their traditional stations at the primary controls, while Teisel sat behind them on a raised seat.
"Miss Tron, Master Tiesel!" exclaimed one of the Servbots over the radio. "That blue boy is coming on a boat!"
"Well what are you waiting for??" exclaimed Teisel. "Attack him already!"
"I only thought --"
"Don't think!" snapped Teisel. "Attack! Release the Zuuf Geleidos!"
Rock stood on the top deck of the boat. He now had an extra weapon: a "Power Buster" as Roll called it, designed for pure force. Unfortunately, it had virtually no rapid fire, and had to be regularly recharged.
"So, there's the ruins," he said, gazing at the island in the middle of the lake.
"Rock, I'm picking up something on the sonar," said Roll from below. "It's way too big to be a fish ... and I think it's metal. Keep an eye out, Rock!"
"I'm ready for anything," said Rock.
Then he heard a familiar splashing noise as two submarines like the one that had retrieved the Servbot surfaced.
"I knew it!" exclaimed Roll. "Their robots are here!"
"Okay, then!" said Rock. "I'll take 'em out!" He fired a shot at each from the Power Buster, and both sank, but not before one of them managed to launch a torpedo. Rock hurriedly fired a blast from his Buster, but missed. The boat rocked from the impact.
"Whoa!" exclaimed Rock. Another submarine surfaced, and he destroyed it with the Power Buster before it could get a shot off.
"Be careful, Rock!" said Roll. "I don't think the boat can take too many hits!"
"Then I'll make sure we don't get hit again!" said Rock, readying both his weapons.
"Rock, ahead!" said Roll.
He whirled around and saw another group of the submarines directly in front of the boat. One of them was close enough that he could see the words Zuuf Geleido emblazoned on one side. He fired at them with the Power Buster as quickly as he could, wondering as he did so how the heck you were supposed to pronounce "Zuuf Geleido", but one of them managed to fire a missile. This time, before it struck, Rock managed to destroy it with his normal Buster.
"Looks like I got 'em all," said Rock.
"Don't relax yet," said Roll. "I'm getting multiple signals on my sonar ... There's a lot of little weird signals coming from around us ..."
Rock looked around. He saw the Zuuf Geleidos moving around underwater, but so far, none of them were surfacing or firing ...
"They're above us!" exclaimed Roll.
Rock whirled around and saw three Draches flying towards them. They were too maneuverable to easily hit with the Power Buster, but his other Buster wasn't particularly strong. Either way, the Draches still had machineguns, and on the deck (such as it was) of the boat, Rock was simply not going to be dodging.
Fortunately, if the Draches were too fast to be hit, they were also too fast to aim properly. They slowed down so that they could fire on the boat, and Rock blasted at them with the Power Buster.
The last of the Draches plummeted into the water ... and crashed into one of several Zuuf Geleidos that were now surfacing.
"Watch your left flank, #24!"
"Agh, I'm hit!"
"They've sunk 26 and 34..."
"Ha! He's hit!"
Tron winced as she listened to the Servbots' radio chatter, and then wondered why she had at that particular comment. Outside, the Servbots -- her "kids" as she affectionately called them -- were getting shot at and plunging into the sea, but it was #19's report of successfully hitting him that had made her wince.
What was with her?? He was supposed to be their new mortal enemy, and now she was more worried about him than about her Servbots. It made no sense. Why should she care if he -- if that littel brat got hurt!? That's what she was aiming for, wasn't it?
"I knew our little blue boy'd show up!" Teisel was saying. "I figured we'd run into him sooner or later if we waited here!" He cackled with glee and turned to his sister. "You know what I'm thinking?"
Tron realized that with Teisel, this was a loaded question. "No, Teisel, I don't," she said.
"Neither do I!" he roared. "Ain't that a hoot??" He glanced at a readout screen. "Hmm, things aren't doing too good ..."
"Babuu! Babu, babu!" said Bon.
"Get 'em ourselves?" said Teisel. "Great idea, Bon! Now we'll get to try out this new robot! Oh, by the way, my compliments on your designs, Tron. It's probably one of your best yet."
"Thanks," said Tron.
"In any event, let's move out," said Teisel. "Slow ahead!"
"Slow ahead!" said Tron.
"Babu!"
"All right, men!" said Teisel. "Concentrate your fire on the blue boy! Blow him and his little toy boat out of the water!"
"But ... but Teisel!" said Tron. He turned to her, a questioning look on his face. Uh-oh. Think fast. "If we sink the boat, won't ... won't the key go down with it?"
Teisel waved the objection aside. "Aww, we can have a Zuuf Geleido pick it up," he said. "'Sides, once he's outta the way, we could make the mayor give us ten keys if we wanted, right!? We've got to take care of him once and for all!"
Tron sighed and simply let Teisel run off at the mouth like this.
"Thanks to him, our plans have been completely ruined! I'm going to teach him a lesson!" said Teisel. "All right, men! Let's do it!"
Rock gave an exasperated sigh as he sank another Drache. "How many of those Servbots do they have, anyway!?"
"From the looks of it, a lot," said Roll. "And there's more on the way."
"Wonderful," muttered Rock, firing his Power Buster.
He then realized that the Zuuf Geleido he was firing at wasn't firing back. Come to think of it, neither were the others. In fact, they seemed to be clearing the area.
"This can't be good," he said.
Then several Zuuf Geleidos surfaced on each side of the boat.
"AAAAUUUUGGGHHHH!!" Rock frantically fired in all directions, trying to hit them all. The boat rocked several times as the enemy weaponry impacted.
And suddenly, they were in the clear.
"It looks like we got rid of all the subs," said Roll. "But I can see something on the sonar ... Heads up, Rock! Something big's coming our way!"
And then it appeared.
It was probably twenty feet tall, with eye-like lanterns on the top of a disk-shaped head. Two enormous, clawed arms extended from either side. Its purple metal exterior seemed almost as tough as that of the Marlwolf.
"Yee hee hee hee!" cackled the voice of Teisel Bonne over a loudspeaker. "Let's get ready to rumble! You're goin' DOWN! You cannot possibly defeat the Barukon Gelede!" Then he fired several missiles at them.
"We're outgunned!" said Roll.
"Yeah, no kidding!" said Rock, blasting at the missiles with his Buster.
"We can't fight them head-to-head like this," said Roll. "We need a different strategy."
"Okay," said Rock, looking around. "See that river over there? Let's go into that."
"Hmm," said Roll, as the boat started to turn. "I see where you're going with this. If they don't fit, we can park someplace safe and you can get 'em on foot."
"What's the matter?" said Teisel, launching another barrage of missiles. "If you don't watch it, you're gonna end up with a big hole in your backside!" He laughed out loud.
"Here we go," said Roll, as the boat went up the river.
Large cliffs rose on either side of the water. In a moment, the Barukon Gelede was out of sight. "Well, so much for finding a safe place to park," commented Rock.
"No, there's a small pond up ahead," said Roll. "Getting back on foot is another matter. Oh ..."
Rock saw the top of the Barukon Gelede sticking out of the water. "So much for them not fitting!" he said, firing as it launched a torpedo.
Then they were in the middle of the lake. The Barukon Gelede surfaced fully, and suddenly there was a crunch of rock against metal. It sounded like the rock won, and the Barukon Gelede stopped maneuvering. In fact, it only seemed capable of slowly rotating.
"Okay, this is perfect!" said Roll. "Sounds like they broke their rudder or something." She began steering the boat in a ponderous circle around the giant robot.
Onboard, Tron just stared. "What do they think they're doing running around like that!?" she exclaimed. "Why don't they just give up!?"
She moved some levers, and the Barukon Gelede's left arm swung at them in an attempt to do direct damage, but the boat was just out of their reach. What's more, the blue boy began firing at the joints of the arms, as well as the missile launchers.
"Babuu!?" exclaimed Bon.
"Yeah, why aren't they running!?" yelled Teisel. "Do they think they can beat us!?"
"Um, Teisel ..." said Tron nervously. "It looks like the joints of the arms aren't as good as the rest of the limbs."
There was a dull crash, and the Barukon Gelede's arm fell into the water.
"Son of a monkey's uncle!" yelled Teisel, as the status readout for one of the missile launchers turned red (accompanied by an explosion on the outside. "All right, let's get ready to activate the SuperMega Plasma Cannon Deluxe™!"
"But, Teisel, that's tied directly into the power core!" said Tron, busily firing the other weaponry. "If they destroy that, the whole Barukon'll go with it!"
"Tron, I hate to say it, but we're starting to get desperate," said Teisel.
The Barukon's other arm fell into the water as the blue boy shot it with that powerful cannon he'd apparently got from somewhere. "Oh noooooo!" said one of the Servbots. "Miss Tron ..."
"Shut up! Stop your whining!" snapped Tron. "We still have one weapon, don't we??"
There was another dull explosion from outside. "Um, no we don't."
Teisel gave a sigh, a hand on his forehead. "All right, I didn't want to have to do this ..." He clenched his fist. "... but I'll teach them not to mess with the Bonnes!"
"I got all their weapons," said Rock. "Looks like the fight's over."
"Nice work," said Roll, "but it looks like they've got another weapon coming."
Rock looked up and saw a large cannon coming out of the top of the Barukon Gelede. On the side was emblazoned the words, SuperMega Plasma Cannon Deluxe™. He didn't have time to wonder if it really was trademarked or not, because it promptly turned towards the boat and fired. An enormous ball of plasma hurtled through the air towards him and --
--missed by ten feet. Rock sweatdropped; how hard was it, really, to look at the target's position, measure its speed, calculate where it would be by the time the blast reached them, and fire at that rather than at wherever the target was at the moment they fired?? Still, he wasn't going to complain.
"That was dumb," muttered Roll. "Okay, you know what to do."
"Roger," said Rock, raising the Power Buster.
There was another explosion, and this time all the equipment on the Barukon cried out in protest.
"All right, who's the idiot gunner??" yelled Teisel, running over to the weapons control board. "Gimme that!" He knocked Servbot #12 aside and sat down in his place. "Here we go! One roasted Blue Boy, comin' right up!"
This time, he aimed ahead of the boat, to compensate for the distance the boat was likely to be when the blast reached. Let's see ... fire ten feet ahead of them ... brace yourself as he hit the cannon again ... fire, and ... "Arrrggghhhhh!!!" The boat slowed to half its previous speed and the blast missed by five feet ahead of them.
"Grraarrrrhhhhh!! Why'd smart people have to pick a fight with us??" moaned Teisel.
This time, the pirates weren't fooled by the boat just changing its speed. This time, the blast was aimed very carefully. This time, whoever was at the controls of this cannon evidently got his arm jogged, because the blast missed by ten feet above him.
"Okay, this is getting pathetic. I'm feeling like it's a waste of the Power Buster's fuel," said Rock, lowering it and firing with his normal Buster.
It took only a few more hits before the cannon blew up. This caused a chain reaction in the Barukon Gelede's power core. A pair of Draches hurriedly landed on top of it, the (nervous-looking) pirates boarded them, and they took off and flew away. Just in time, too: the Barukon Gelede exploded in a fantastic display of pyrotechnics. Rock had to duck to avoid getting hit by the shrapnel.
"Okay," he said. "Now the fight's over."
Teisel sat dejectedly as the Draches flew them back to the Gesellschaft. After a moment, he said, "I'm sorry, Tron. After you went to all the trouble to make us such a magnificent robot -- well, what can I say? I mean ..."
"Cheer up, Teisel. Don't worry about it," said Tron. "We'll go back to the ship, and come up with a new plan!"
Bon also offered a few words of encouragement. "Babu, babu! Babu babu, babuuu~!"
"Yeah ... That's it! That's the spirit!" Teisel sat up, a smile on his face. "Thanks, you two! You sure know how to cheer a guy up. I couldn't have asked for a better brother and sister than you! We'll get that blue boy next time for sure!"
Tron smiled back, and then turned away, thinking to herself. I don't understand ... Even though he got the better of us again, I don't feel the least bit angry ... What is it with me??