Sorry about the delay, everyone. My PC crashed five times yesterday, and it was too risky to upload anything. Plus my dad wanted to defrag today, and I was out for most of the afternoon. As a result, I had to wait until really late tonight to post, and I don't have time for individual review responses. However:
Generic Review Response: Thanks for your review, I hope you're pleased with the story so far, and enjoy this next chapter! Review again, please!
There you go. Works for tonight, anyway. This chapter is mostly action stuff, so sorry if it seems a bit tedious or verbose or whatever. It's 5 pages on Microsoft Word, though. I hope that makes up for it. Enjoy, review, you get the picture. See you next week.
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The crew leaned over the side of the railing, eager to feast their eyes on the sight of the beautiful green planet. Grinning, Silver tried to get as close a view as possible, but his cybernetic eye couldn't see through the unusually thick atmosphere surrounding the terrestrial ball. He searched his pockets, but his hands came up empty.
"Where the devil's me glass?"
It actually lay on the galley table, next to a paring knife, and not four feet away from Jim emerging from his purp barrel hiding place. Skye also lifted herself out, and watched Jim stumble against the table. He put his hand to his forehead in dismay, but suddenly his eyes cleared as his head snapped up, focused.
"Skye," he said, ignoring his personal distress about the new revelation, "we've got to tell the Captain."
Jim raced towards the stairs with Skye at his heels, but was barely past the door when he stopped sharply at the surprised sound of his name.
"Jimbo."
Silver was there. Right there.
Skye twisted away before Silver caught sight of her, pressing against the inner wall besides the stair-well. As he stepped down into the room, his back loomed so close she couldn't see Jim for a moment, blocked by Silver.
"Playing games, are we?"
Silver's voice sounded strange. Forcedly pleasant. Though Skye couldn't see his face, she imagined he had a guilty smile.
"Yeah. Yeah, we're playing games." Jim's voice was cold.
He backed away and bumped into the table behind him. Though cornered, he could still see Skye hidden in the shadow of the doorframe. He grimaced at Silver, angry, untrusting. Silver sensed his fear and loathing, and did some quick-thinking.
"Oh, I see. Well, I was never much good at games. Always hated to lose," Silver said. To Skye's horror, the mechanical hand hidden behind his back swiveled to be replaced with a pistol, Silver unaware that she was even in the room.
Jim eyes flicked towards Skye. She noticed the knife on the table, and the idea came to her. She jerked her head ever so slightly in its direction, while her eyes darted from Jim's to Silver's pneumatic leg.
The next few seconds may have moved fast, but they seemed to play in slow motion. Jim's hand closed around the paring knife just behind him on the table. Skye saw him grab it, and shouted, "Us too!" Silver jumped towards the unexpected sound, and his momentary distraction enabled Jim to leap forwards and plunge the paring knife into the accordion-like mechanism of Silver's leg. It punctured, spewing air and crippling Silver, who collapsed to the floor yelling in pain.
Jim didn't stop moving. He grabbed Skye's wrist and pulled her up the stairs after him, dashing towards the Captain's stateroom.
Silver pulled himself up onto the deck. His eye clicked open, scanning the ship, and focused on two teenagers and a morph slamming the stateroom door.
"Oh, blast it all."
Staggering from the damage to his leg, Silver managed to prop himself up. He curled his mechanical hand into a fist and blew through it, producing a piecing whistling sound. The crew members on deck turned, puzzled.
"Change in plans, lads!" Swiveling a cutlass into position, Silver yelled loudly, "We move now!"
A great cheer went up from the deck as the pirates let loose. They swung and slid down the rigging to join their comrades. Mr. Hands broke through the door into the supply hold, and reemerged with a triumphant roar, holding multiple weapons in each massive fist. Silver called to the multi-eyed alien in the crow's nest.
"Strike our colors, Mr. Onus," he instructed.
"With pleasure, Captain," Onus sniggered, and the pirate flag went up, waving for the first time in a hundred years over Treasure Planet.
* * *
"Pirates, on my ship? I'll see they all hang!"
Amelia was livid. She tore open the cupboard in her stateroom, removed a pistol and inserted a laser charge into the side. She collected other weapons, and hastily tossed one to Doppler.
"Doctor, familiar with these?" She asked brashly. Doppler caught it, fumbling, and fingered the gun cautiously.
"I've seen...well, I've read-"
ZAP.
The glass globe beside Amelia exploded with the stray shot, strewing crystal shards over the floor.
"Um, no. No, no I'm not."
Amelia rolled her eyes. Suddenly the bolt on the door to the stateroom began to glow red-hot.
"Mr. Hawkins and Ms. Skye! Defend this with your lives!" Amelia instructed, and attempted to throw the brass sphere map to one of the two. Skye moved to catch it but Morph, ever the playful, snatched it from midair in his mouth, giggling.
"Morph! Gimme' that!" Jim yelled, as he wrenched it from Morph's grip and tucked it in his pocket. The door bolt sparked.
"How are we going to get out?" Doppler asked, panicked. Skye and Jim looked at each other, and then to Captain Amelia.
Amelia's eyes flashed. She had an idea.
Outside the door, Silver pushed through the crowd of pirates firing at the door latch.
"Oh, you're takin' all day about it!"
His mechanical arm went to the metal leg, and from the side of it he drew a large laser cannon. He fired, and the door to Captain Amelia's stateroom was destroyed in the same way the Benbow Inn was.
They charged into the room, and looked about wildly...and found a hole in the floor.
"Oh, stop them!" Silver bellowed, and tossed a pirate down the hole.
Below deck, Amelia, Doppler, Jim, Skye, and Morph raced down the corridors towards the docking bay, pirates hot on their heels. Doppler tripped and Amelia pulled him into the room, slamming the door just in time.
"To the longboats, quickly!" she ordered, while fusing the lock shut to buy a few seconds.
Jim and Doppler leapt into the longboat to prepare for launch, and Skye pushed down hard on the lever to open the bay doors. A pale, green-tinged light streamed upwards, and the door was being cut away by the pirates on the other side. Amelia flipped through the air into the boat, then reached a hand out and pulled Skye in after her.
It was then that Morph seized the map and floated away, thinking it a game.
"MORPH!!!" Jim yelled, and dived out of the boat after it.
The door burst open and several pirates rushed into the room. Amelia began shooting at them, hurling insults.
"Chew on this, you pus-filled boils!" Doppler, wanting to be useful, plugged his ear against the noise and shot.
His shot hit an exhaust vent above the loading deck, severing the cables that held it up. It plummeted down towards the planet's surface, taking out a large section of the deck and at least three pirates as well.
Amelia watched them fall downward, then turned to Doppler with admiration.
"Did you actually aim for that?"
Doppler looked at the gun in his hand in surprise and remarked, "You know, actually, I did."
But the glory was short-lived. Amelia pushed Doppler out of harms way as laser shots sizzled the air around them.
Skye heard an unwelcome rumbling noise. The bay doors below them were sliding closed.
Silver.
"Oh, blast it!" Amelia swore, and, looking around, did a quick calculation in her head.
"Doctor," she told Delbert, "when I say 'now,' shoot out the forward cable, I'll take this one." Delbert's eyes set on his target, and he steeled himself to aim.
Jim, meanwhile, was still chasing Morph. However, Silver was too.
"Morph!" Silver called to the pink blob when he had stopped for a moment. "Morphy, come here! Come to your dad, come on now," he whistled and called.
At the same time, Jim was trying to coax him in his own direction.
"Morph, come here boy, hey! Hey! Morph! Here! Now!"
Morph looked back and forth between the two, and, utterly confused, dived into a coil of rope, taking the map with him.
Both men lunged towards the rope, but Silver's damaged leg betrayed him- Jim reached it only seconds before Silver pulled himself into arm's reach.
Jim looked down for a moment, hesitating, then turned and ran.
Silver cocked his pistol, powering it up, and took aim at Jim's retreating figure...
...but he couldn't do it. He couldn't shoot.
As Jim jumped towards the boat, Amelia shouted, "Now!" and both she and Doppler fired. The two cables snapped, and the boat plunged down towards the still closing doors, where it jolted and bumped against them, causing Skye to stumble and trip backwards against the side of the longboat.
Jim's fall missed his target, and he grabbed onto the edge of the craft as it slid past the closing bay doors. The vessel fell outward and down, Jim dangling from the side. Just as Jim was losing his grip, Skye managed to disentangle herself from where she had fallen, and reached over, pulling him in by the collar of his shirt.
Amelia took the helm swiftly. "Parameters met, hydraulics engaged..." The small boat's solar sails shot up, and Amelia directed it towards the planet's surface.
Above them, the portly alien was aiming the ship's laser cannons at the boat, and was about to pull the trigger when Silver pushed his cannon aside.
"Hold your fire! We'll lose the map!"
Unfortunately, the alien's finger "slipped," and fired anyway. But luckily Silver's intervention sent the cannonball's course askew.
But not enough.
"Captain! Laser ball at 12 o'clock!" Doppler yelled, too late to give adequate warning. Though Amelia banked hard to the right, the energy ball still hit their tail, blowing off the sail.
As the four plunged in a haphazard descent, they grazed a tree, bumping them and damaging their rudder further. They couldn't turn. At all, which was a problem considering that another large tree was looming ahead.
"I got it!" Skye yelled, snatching up a pistol and taking aim, intending to blow it apart before they reached the collision point.
Amelia tried to warn her, "No! Skye that one's loaded with-"
But it was too late. A blast of icy energy shot out of the barrel, and the characteristically strong recoil sent Skye reeling backwards. At the same time, the tree in front of them froze under the ice beam, and the boat smashed into it at a gravity-driven breakneck speed.
The impact sent shards of ice flying. The longboat closed the gap between it and the forest floor, where it flipped over and skidded to a bumpy, grinding halt.
Jim and Dr. Doppler pushed the boat up, groaning. Jim looked over, rubbing his neck, and saw that Skye's left arm was bleeding.
Jim asked her, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she replied, "I just caught a couple of icicles back there, let me tie this up and I'll be fine." She tore off her sleeve where it had ripped on the boat and wound it around the cut. "Dr. Doppler?"
"Oh, my goodness," Delbert sighed, "that was more fun than I ever want to have again."
"To think we wanted to do this for a living," Skye joked.
"That's not one of my gossamer landings," Amelia chuckled as she stood up. Then, with a gasp of pain, she clutched her side and fell to her knees.
"Captain!" Delbert cried, and he helped her to her feet, supporting her weight for a moment as she collected herself.
"Oh, don't fuss," she protested, "slight bruising, that's all. Cup of tea and I'll be right as rain." She looked about for a moment, then turned to Jim.
"Mr. Hawkins, the map, if you please."
Jim removed the gold sphere from his pocket and held it up, smiling. Suddenly it rose into the air and hovered for a few seconds...
...and swirled into a pink blob, hysterical with laughter.
There was stunned silence for a moment
"Well," Skye jeered, "it's not the map."
"Morph!" Jim yelled, realizing his blunder, "Morph, where's the map?!"
Morph formed a miniature version of the map, and depicted it being put into a coil of rope.
"Are you serious?! It's back on the ship?"
Amelia turned towards a humming in the distance. "Stifle that blob, and get low. We've got company." A second longboat was heading from the Legacy towards smoke in the distance, no doubt from the cannon ball that had destabilized and ultimately caused the crash.
Crouching behind the wreckage of the boat, Amelia turned to Jim and Skye.
"We need a more defensible position. Mr. Hawkins and Ms. Skye," she handed each one a pistol, "scout ahead. But Skye- don't take the freeze ray."
"Aye, Captain," Jim acknowledged. Skye nodded solemnly, her left arm bandaged now.
Amelia gasped once again in pain, and Doppler eased her down to lean against the boat.
"Steady," he said, "Now, let's have a look at that."
Skye turned to follow Jim into the jungle, but paused for just a moment as she passed the pile of weapons lying next to the boat where Amelia had gathered them. After only a slight hesitation, she reached down, snatched up two cartridges, and slipped them inside a safe place- her left boot.
One cartridge was a regular laser refill.
But the other was an ice charge.
Hey. You never know.