A/N: This is the first part of Chapter 8 - the second should come soon. Not a whole lot to say about it, it's mostly introductory to Part 2.
As usual, keep in mind that Rayman by whatever name still belongs to UbiSoft. Everyone else in this chapter is mine and mine alone. *evil laugh*
PIRANHA
Chapter Eight Part One: First Mate
The energy gun cleared the way better than a police escort. He kept it ready, half-hidden in his big hand. It took a bit of trial and error to work out the right settings - the weakest one barely paused the big human pirates and had no effect at all on the robots - but he quickly worked up to a setting that would stun the humans. As for the robots, it was close to impossible to knock one unconscious - much like himself - but crumpling a limb or slamming them a foot deep into a bulkhead generally slowed them down.
Without the gun he might not have made it through the ship at all. At that moment, right after the war-room debacle, the sight of him inspired pure blind rage. Struggling at times to get through mixed clumps of robots and humans surging at him, his main concern was to avoid having to switch the gun to full force and blast a lethal path for himself through the mob. Officers and underlings attacked on sight, pursued him or occasionally were even lying in wait as he passed by, despite the fact that he was following a complicated path through the ship that couldn't have been predicted. Still, although he couldn't avoid blowing off the occasional metal limb or singeing some bit of human meat, he didn't think he had quite killed anybody. He definitely didn't want to over-use that weapon - it would cause him far more trouble in the end. They weren't making it very easy to practice restraint, however.
For an hour or more he darted through the various levels of the ship. He did so much shooting that he began to keep a wary eye on the gun's power indicator - all he needed was to run out of juice in the middle of a firefight. None of his opponents so far carried an energy pistol like his, but bullet-shooting guns weren't uncommon, and a few of the pirates - specialized, heavily armoured warriors - did have their own built-in blast weapons. (Far too familiar to him from some ancient time, the sight of them aroused breathless rage. It was with hard effort that he withheld himself from exploding every one of them to ecstatic splinters. Their encounters certainly didn't do the ship's hallways any good.)
Nevertheless, after a time, the level of attacks seemed to be dying down. The corridors were depopulating. Perhaps it was dinnertime... Or perhaps... Could they be getting discouraged, at least for the moment?
Just to check, he stopped and stood looking around. The corridor was deserted. He lounged against a wall for a few minutes. Nothing. He strolled down the hall, the gun hidden in his jacket. Though once or twice he thought he heard agitated whispers, nobody appeared.
He stood for a moment in the middle of the corridor and looked around, hands on his hips. Then, grinning, he took a huge leap and landed at a run, heading again for his cabin.
The sense of heavy oppression that had weighed on him ever since his first emergence, days ago, into the ship's halls fell away. Freedom!
Well, freedom of a sort.
And a freedom still not without its dangers. In the area close to the old section, where his cabin was, perhaps the news about Piranha's blast gun hadn't arrived. He ran into a few minor standoffs, and then as he raced ahead, not wanting to waste the gun's remaining charge at all if he could help it, he picked up a ragged handful of pursuers.
As he passed out of the mostly metal construction of the rest of the ship and came to the wooden floors and walls and many doors of the old section of cabins, he gasped, his body went cold. He stumbled, had to roll and spring up again to keep ahead of his followers.
Frantically, he speeded his run, twisting and dodging through the maze of halls. Once, darting into a side corridor, he ran face-first into a small clump of pirates who looked just as startled to be bearing down on him as he was to confront them. That time, teeth bared, he blew the lot of them apart without a second thought. And ran on, panting.
The devastation in the corridors - someone had been here ahead of him. A lot of cabins had been broken into. There were smashed-in doors everywhere.
It took him more half an hour, desperately, to get away from the mob - to lead them down hall after hall, gathering them together, tantalizing them like a broken-winged bird, luring them away from his cabin, finally to dodge into one of the invaded rooms, leap up into the air vent, pull the grate closed after him, and crawl off through the duct system before anyone saw where he'd gone.
He slid through the ducts as quickly as he could. With exploration and practice he'd learned to find his way around them with certainty most of the time. Forest dweller and long-distance traveller that he was by nature, he had a very acute sense of direction, and he was able to navigate even in those dark, featureless tunnels lit only here and there by faint grey light coming in from the vents.
Through the walls he could occasionally hear a few pirates still rampaging confusedly through the corridors, looking for him.
It was with a cold thrill of apprehension that he approached his own cabin.
As he neared it, he slowed. The halls in that area seemed to be quiet. But he sensed something ahead. He took a deep breath, made sure he could reach the gun in his vest, and crept silently forward.
He came around a bend. And gasped.
At the same moment, the duct reverberated with a scream that half-stunned him for a moment.
He grabbed her kicking foot. "Elly! Elly! Quiet! It's me!"
The invisible flailing thing in front of him froze up.
"Elly," he whispered. "It's okay, it's just me."
They were both silent and motionless. He listened intently. He couldn't hear anything outside the wall.
All he could hear was her rapid, panicked breathing. And his own.
He pushed a little closer to her. "Is anyone in the cabin?" he whispered.
Though she wasn't any taller than he was, her human form filled the duct much more tightly. She couldn't turn around. "They're gone now," she said. "They hung around for a long time, but they finally did leave. That was quite a while ago. I thought-" And stopped. He could feel her shaking.
"Let's go, then," he told her.
They crawled forward. After a few moments the thin light coming from the room began to outline her shape in front of him.
It was even more awkward for her to get out of the vent headfirst than it had been for him that first time. He did his best to help keep her from falling. Finally she made it into the room, and he followed.
The door had been bashed in. The room was torn apart. Although - he checked quickly - they hadn't done a thorough search by any means, they hadn't found more than one or two of his hidden weapons. But the place was a mess. He turned to Elly.
She was hunched a little, huddled in the middle of the room, glancing at him apprehensively.
"They didn't see you go into the vent, did they?" he asked.
"N-no. I don't think so. I got in as soon as I - heard them in the hallway, before they came to - to the door. You-you'd gone in there before, and I thought-"
"That was brilliant, Elly. I was kicking myself for not having warned you to do that. And you did it on your own!"
She glanced at him again. "You-you're not mad at me?"
He stared at her. "Mad? For doing the exact right thing?"
Her eyes kept flicking nervous glances at him as she crouched there. He came over to her. After a moment, he put a hand on her back.
"Calm down, kid."
She hunched even more.
He glanced around the room again. He walked over to the broken door and looked out into the corridor. No one, at least for now.
"Where to put you," he muttered. "They've been through here already... Okay. That's it."
He turned back to her. "We haven't had time to set up other rooms or escape routes. Damn it, we've got to have several locations. And you need to be able to get through the ducts to them... Ah, hell, what a shambles! Okay, Elly - get some food if there's any salvageable, let's get you out of here. Hurry, come on."
They gathered a few supplies and poked out cautiously into the hallway. He led her to an intact room only a few doors away.
It was as dusty inside as their previous cabin had been. He got her in, locked the door, and turned to her as she stood there, head hanging.
"I can't stay," he said. "We're not going to have a moment's peace until I've stopped these idiots from attacking me, once and for all. I think you'll be safe here for the moment, they've had their fun. You look worn out. Why don't you get some sleep?"
She looked around helplessly. "What if they come back?"
There was the faintest hint of a smile around his eyes. "Oh, that. I don't think so." But seeing her face, he smiled a little more. "Elly. Such a worrier. Listen, I - Oh, wait a minute, hold on."
He ripped off his jacket and hat and flung them over a chair. He swept some of the dust off the table with his hand. He grabbed the bag of supplies out of her grip, dumped its contents on the table, and with the bag sped around the room brushing the dust off the table, the chairs and the galley counter. He set the water running in the sink to clean out the pipes. He raced over to the bed and yanked the covers off it, sending dust billowing.
Silently she came over to help him beat the mattress and turn it over.
Then he looked at her. That quiet little smile was in his eyes still. "Better?" he said. "Just try to rest a bit, Elly. You'll be all right. Now I've got to go."
She looked at him soberly. She went to the galley and got a cup of water. She came back to where he was still slapping dust off himself, and offered him the cup.
He drank it, sighing with relief.
"Are you hungry?" she asked, taking back the cup.
"No time, can't eat now," he said. He was putting on his jacket and hat again. "Look," he added, "If anything happens - pull that vent trick again. And if you can't, for some reason-"
He pulled the blast gun out of his vest. He took the cup out of her hands and forced the gun into them.
"See here? It's an energy gun. This is off. This is full blast. You aim that at anything and press the trigger here and that thing will be gone, period. Got it? Be extra careful with this gadget, Elly, you could fry yourself."
She was gaping at it. "Where did you get this?"
"A gift. Hang onto it at all costs, no matter what! All right, now -"
She was pushing the gun back at him, pale. "I can't. I can't shoot anyone. You keep it."
He stopped moving. He focused those eyes, that abruptly intense, inscrutable, unyielding gaze, onto her until she wanted to turn into dust and blow away.
"Elly. If you have to, you use it. Got that?" He looked at her fiercely. Then added, his black eyes bright with irony, "Shooting gets easier once you start, I promise."
She winced, holding the gun like a very live snake in her hands.
He headed for the door. On the way, though, he paused and turned back towards her. There was that faint trace of a smile again.
"Oh, and uh ... If you're on speaking terms with any gods, put in a good word for me, will you? If you can." And turned again towards the door.
His hand was a fraction short of the opening button when something tackled him from behind, smacking him against the wall. Just barely, he held back his reflexive smash at the attacker.
For an instant, gasping, almost sobbing, she clung to him. Then let go and backed rapidly away, cringing like a dog that expects to be kicked.
He straightened his hat, looking at her noncommittally.
"Elly," he said sombrely. "Don't grovel. Don't you know it makes people want to hit you?"
And he was gone. Dully, she locked the door behind him.
She went over to the table to sit beside the gun, pressing her fists distractedly to her forehead; now and then glancing at the thing, as though the mere sight of it scorched her, from the corner of her eye.
He set out across the ship again, bounding through the halls in his best three-dimensional fashion - travelling, that is, by lamp or crate, off the floor whenever possible. Happily, he found he didn't rouse much attention; there were too many distractions. It was the ship's evening time by now, approaching curfew, and the lights in most parts of the ship were dimmed. The evening before a planetary landing and invasion, he would have expected the hallways to be deserted, everyone going to bed early; but in fact the opposite was the case. Maybe the problem was mass insomnia; it looked like there wasn't a pirate on board who hadn't made a sincere effort to drink himself into a stupor. In the process, however, they were all passing through a stage of trying with equal sincerity to help put each other to sleep, or preferably into a coma. Brawls were breaking out all over the ship, involving robots as well as humans.
It amused him a little that he found himself actually shaking his head in dismay. If the pirates wanted to make things harder for themselves tomorrow, why should he care? And if they were more interested in plumbing the depths of a bottle and thumping each other than in pursuing Piranha, he could live with that too.
He sped through the corridors, bypassing the knots of battle. He went from section to section, through the mess halls, the kitchens, the sleeping decks - but avoided the deck after deck of long grey-white "coffins." He ran through the regular cargo holds, the food storage decks, he stuck his nose briefly into the officers' bar. All were busy with growling, swilling, disputing crew. But in all the mass of humanoid and robot bodies, there was no sign of Anaconda's two main henchmen, and indeed hardly any robot officers to be seen. They were so very thoroughly missing that he began to get worried.
He was going to find them if it meant checking every square foot of the ship. He doubted that they were in bed already - or wherever robot pirates went at night. But if it came down to plowing through all the officers' cabins one by one, he would do it.
Running down a dark side corridor, he heard a quiet, non-drinking-related sound. He halted instantly and held still, his old pistol in one hand, a knife in the other, his eyes darting at the shadows. A chunk of shadow detached itself and took a few steps toward him.
Piranha held up his gun. "Stop," he growled.
The moving hulk stopped. "You're Piranha, aren't you?" it said, in a hoarse human voice. "No fight."
Piranha's eyes were seeking motion all around him, he was alert to any sound, his body swayed slightly, ready to spring. "No fight? Very funny!"
The figure flung something that clanked onto the floor. "No weapon," it said. "I'm unarmed. I want to talk with you, Piranha."
Piranha's head lowered, he fixed his eyes hard on the figure. "Come forward where I can see you," he said, his voice still low and fierce.
The figure shambled forward a few steps until the feeble yellow glow of a lamp fell directly onto it. It was a human pirate, tall and bulky, heavily scarred, with a wry grin that seemed to be a mark of damage to his face rather than the expression of any sort of feeling.
"Stop there," said Piranha. "Who are you?"
The pirate gave a real though scar-twisted grin. "Bubo. That's what I'm called. Been in this crew some six years now."
Piranha's watchfulness did not waver. "Six years? That's long survival for a human on this ship, I think."
"Yep."
"What do you want?"
Bubo made to take a step forward, but halted at Piranha's glower and flashing knife. "Want to be on your side."
Piranha did not change his threatening stance. "My side? Meaning what exactly?"
"You ain't been here long, Piranha, but I think I see the day of the robots is ending. The humans will be the winning side."
Piranha's teeth showed in a bitter grin. "Winning side? I'm not human. And I've killed more than one human on this ship."
Bubo shrugged. "If you want to keep winning you'll need men. You have them if you want them."
Piranha lowered his weapons somewhat, straightened from his aggressive crouch. "No. I'm not starting a revolt."
"Not talking about revolt. Every officer has his gang. That's how it goes, Piranha. Blargh's after you, and probably Hacker too, and so are their followers. You deal with the leader, and the followers will likely come over to you."
"And whose follower are you, Bubo?"
Bubo grinned again. "Yours."
Piranha said, coldly, "A deserter, then? Betraying your officer?"
"No. I never swore loyalty to any officer. Only to the Boss, of course, or I wouldn't be alive."
"So there are crew who don't belong to any gang?"
"Not many. It ain't easy, but I've stayed out of all that. But there are them that would desert to you. Some of us don't like the robots so much."
Piranha looked at him in silence for a few moments. Then he said, "So. I guess I'll see in a while what these words mean in action. Bubo, take your weapon and get out of here."
Bubo bent to pick up his sword, glanced at Piranha with a grin that showed broken teeth, and scuttled off into the dark. Piranha continued to hold still, listening for any sound, for at least half a minute. Then he set off again at a run.
The situation was, not to overdramatize, desperate. The thought of having to go down to the planet to fight the population there, while still liable to heavy attack from the pirates, was more than unpleasant, it meant almost certain fatality. And in the morning, the invasion would begin. There were only a few hours left to do anything about it.
It was critical to deal with the First Mate. Piranha had searched the ship for over an hour, but there was no sign of Hacker, Blargh, or any of the other top officers.
In exasperation, finally he ambushed a lower-ranking robot, alone in a passageway. Piranha held his gun aimed at the base of the robot's neck, where a number of crucial leads from the sensory apparatus came together just under the metal skin, going into the power supply in the chest. Even a smallish robot like this one was considerably stronger than he was, and he stayed out of reach; but the bronze-coloured pirate, eyes on the gun, didn't try to resist.
"Take me to Blargh," Piranha said. The robot looked at him startled.
"Take you to him?" he said. "Wouldn't it save time just to let me kill you right here?"
Piranha's black eyes flashed. "Comedy routines?" he growled. "Take me there now or I'll shoot you and find someone more helpful."
The robot shrugged. "Fine," he said. "I've been curious to see what would actually happen if somebody tore you apart. Follow me."
He followed the robot warily through corridors, into doorways that led first through crowded and then through abandoned rooms, and back out into other empty halls. At last, after leading him into more and more remote and disused areas of the ship, a section of bare corridors and blank metallic bulkheads, the robot tapped the wall and made an abrupt turn, walking apparently right into the metal. Another of those technological doors? But this time, it seemed, the same metallic colour as the wall, quite invisible.
Piranha paused. These damned secret passageways! Advancing into an unknown, blindly, knife and gun ready, he leaped suddenly through the invisible entrance and froze, expecting mass attack. But there was only the sound of his guide's heavy feet clomping far ahead, echoing in the black distance. He hurried after, down the faintly lit passage.
The robot had stopped beside a regular metal sliding door. He gestured towards Piranha as he approached.
"There," said the robot. "You go in first."
"All right," Piranha said, turning warily towards the door. And as the pirate flashed a small gun out of a pocket, Piranha whirled and shot him, knocking out his visual sensors, then instantly followed up with a dagger to the relatively vulnerable neck. Avoiding the oil slick that puddled just in front of the door, he tapped the entrance button and stepped into the room.
He was confronted with some thirty robot officers all frozen mid-motion, their faces staring in his direction. Evidently they had noticed the sound of the shot and the crash of the body, as well as the opening of the door. Most of them held cups in their hands, it looked like some sort of minor celebration had been going on. Piranha took a step into the room and peered impatiently through the crowd.
"Blargh," he said. "Where's Blargh?"
After a moment, the huge, heavily dented and misshapen robot clumped forward. "The Boss's little pet again," he said. "Thought you were at least smart enough not to show yourself in a place like this."
"I want to talk to you," said Piranha.
A thunderstorm of laughter erupted across the room. Piranha didn't stir. He waited until the last swirls and eddies of it subsided.
Blargh was standing with his fists on his hips, as though bracing himself against collapsing with hilarity. "'Talk?' One of those humanoid obsessions," he snorted. "It's going to be a lot less aggravating when you're gone, Piranha - I mean, Minnow."
"I think," Piranha said distinctly, "you might want to listen anyway, just once in your life. Since otherwise you might not have much life left."
"Making threats?" snapped Blargh, as the rest of the robots stirred, growling. "Not smart here, Rayman. No Boss here to protect you, Rayman. You're on your own right now, Rayman. New name or not, fancy clothes or not, blast guns or not, self-important little bloodbag - do you imagine all that can scare a room full of us?"
The acid repetition of that name did do something painful to his chest. But he didn't flinch.
"I'm giving you a chance," he said rapidly, "one chance, to come to an agreement with me. I'm here on the ship, whether you like it or not, whether it suits you or not; I'm here and I mean to stay. We can be enemies, fight to the death, Blargh; or we can be allies and both live, and you can have your gold and booze instead of the cold dark junkheap. It's all the same to me whichever you choose. I'm quite willing to let you live as long as I don't have to be watching you always for treachery. That goes for you, Blargh, and you, Hacker, and any one else who's listening. That's what I came to say; and I'm going to go now and let you think it over.
"We'll see later which ones of you can think."
He threw a quick glance around the room as if sweeping them all up in a net.
"Oh, and by the way," he added, holding up his empty hands, "we're even now - I don't have that blast gun." He stared at them all as they, in a suspended moment, stared back at him. Then, flashing a gesture that even robots knew to be rude, he grinned and darted out the door.
Nearing the invisible exit at the end of the passage, he heard behind him crashes, yells, and curses. The oil slick from the fallen robot. They hadn't wasted any time coming after him.
Waiting down the hall as the leaders emerged from the hidden door, he gave them just enough time to get some clue which way he was going, then took off.
Piranha sped through deck after deck of the ship at a relentless run, racing past clumps of groggily surprised men and robots, some of which came drunkenly after him if only because they saw something move. Seeing the officers in pursuit, other crew joined in. Well ahead of them all, Piranha continued to recruit pursuit, pausing near brawling or somnolent groups to attract their attention, occasionally swerving to kick a half-conscious pirate out of his stupor, circling back sometimes to taunt them a bit more if they didn't chase him. He jumped, stuck out his tongue, made impolite noises, waving his weaponless hands far above his head with a remarkably varied repertoire of insulting gestures. But he moved too fast for them to get very close, and he kept a sharp eye ahead of him so as not to be trapped. It was truly helpful that the crew was moving a lot slower than usual tonight.
Nevertheless, like dogs they were always ready to go after something that ran away. After a while, pirates were flooding into the pursuit from widely scattered areas around the ship, following each other, not always even knowing what the chase was about, but pleased at the break in pre-invasion routine. Eventually, a mob of hundreds streamed through the corridors, both robot and human, all converging on him.
[End of Part One]