A/N: Well, like it or not, take it or leave it, whether it makes sense or not... this is it, I can't do any more with it! Unfortunately, there is a lot of possibly confusing action and an unusual setting in this chapter. I've described it as best I could, but if you can't figure out what I'm talking about, feel free to e-mail me, and I'll do my best to sort it out and clarify the story. I just can't tell anymore if the descriptions of actions and scenery are understandable until I get some feedback from somebody.
This is one case where a few pictures really could have saved me several thousand words! *Sigh.*
Also, just for your information - the flaming corona I describe during the chapter is an actual phenomenon (more or less), known as St. Elmo's fire, which can occur under very heavily electrically charged conditions. So don't think I'm making absolutely EVERYTHING up. Just stretching a bit.
Now, let us not forget that without UbiSoft Entertainment, creator and owner of the character formerly known as Rayman, this story could never have happened... but all of the other characters and the story itself are mine, © 2003 Rayfan. I hope you enjoy it!
Chapter Eight Part Two: First Mate
And at last, following each other, they caught up with him. It was not in a good place. They were at the top and back of the ship, in the huge cavernous bulge that housed the ship's 50-foot-high, automatic, mostly untended engines. A few feet in from the metal ceiling and walls was a separate inner wall and ceiling, a lattice-like freestanding structure like a huge inverted basket woven of six-inch-wide metal strips, forming a loose weave with yard-wide gaps. The metal lattice served to contain the heavy energy discharges that occasionally erupted from the engines, to catch them and funnel that excess, waste energy into batteries that converted it for use inside the ship. The upper part of the room was rather dark, nearly all the lighting being some 40 feet below; and the blue-white, crackling discharges sparking across the metal weave like lightning would have been brightly visible, if anyone had bothered to look.
The pirates entered the room; indeed, they kept entering it for quite a while; some four or five hundred of them, roughly a third the ship's crew, by the time they all arrived. Even that many didn't come close to filling the enormous room.
They roamed the area, hunting around and behind the huge, loudly hissing engines placed at intervals along the floor, each in its own heavily shielded bunker. Because of the intensity of the discharge the engines gave off, it was dangerous to touch or even go within several feet of the bunkers, let alone the engines themselves; just to be in the room was asking for an accident. If that freakish little upstart Piranha had been foolish enough to come in here, imagining no one would dare follow him, it was quite possible he was already dead, crouching stricken in some poorly-chosen hiding place.
But, just in case he wasn't, they hunted through the room with caution, grumbling, under the constant engine rumble, about the slight but deeply annoying vibration of the floor, cursing at the occasional painful static-electric snap. Piranha couldn't be found.
"He's not in here," growled Hacker, who was one of the last to arrive. "He gave you the slip. He's probably locked in his cabin right now having a good laugh at us all."
"I saw him take out the guard and go in," protested a crewman. "And the other door is still guarded. He couldn't sneak out without being seen."
The pirates were very testy by now, having been led on a wild goose chase through the ship for the better part of an hour and now having had to search the most unpleasant room on the ship. Most were bored, ready to forget the pursuit altogether and satisfy themselves with guzzling a last bottle or two before falling into bed.
"Yeah," said Blargh, finally convinced that the pipsqueak had ducked out somehow. "Enough wasted time. Tomorrow we have the invasion. Everyone go –"
"Hey! What about me?" came a light, scornful, half-laughing voice.
"Look up there!"
And indeed, up there, near the ceiling, hanging on the outside of the woven metal lattice, facing down into the room, sticking his head in through one of the large open spaces in the weave, and weirdly illuminated by the flickering blue-white discharges, was the darkly grinning face of Piranha.
A few crew members raised their weapons – but they were slapped down by better-educated comrades. Firearms were strictly prohibited in this room. An energy gun, taken into the wrong spot, could explode; and firing an energy beam in here, it would get absorbed by the metal web, could overload or unbalance the system, could conceivably even blow up an engine and damage the ship's hull. Bullets were just as dangerous; they could easily ricochet into something sensitive and cause the same catastrophe.
How Piranha could endure to hang up there amid the crackling forces of the metal web, they couldn't figure out. The energy surges would short out a robot, a human could be badly shocked, even killed. But Piranha seemed entirely at ease.
"So," he called down to the hundreds of faces turned up towards him like a seething bed of grimy, tattered flowers, "You're probably wondering why I called you all here. Ah, I've always wanted to say that."
"Get down here!" bellowed Blargh.
"You know," went on Piranha imperturbably, "You know, we may have to cancel the invasion tomorrow. When the entire crew gets court-martialled for carrying weapons in the engine room, what's the usual method of handling? You all team up to execute each other?"
"Don't you dare fire in here!" screamed Hacker suddenly. "No energy shots–"
There was a silence; his too naked panic had left everyone a little nonplussed.
Abruptly starting to move, Piranha set off sideways over the metal web with the effortlessness of a monkey swinging through a forest canopy, his hands and feet launching him across the bars securely and swiftly. He came down a little lower on the web, entered through one of the gaps in the lattice, and launched himself into the room, jumping powerfully away from wall and falling down to a freestanding metal tower that was part of the power-funneling apparatus. A blue bolt of static flashed out at him from the tower even before he touched it, and there was a snapping discharge as he grabbed onto the tower near its top. An involuntary gasp went up from the human pirates below – that snap sounded painful at least. But Piranha was laughing – as though, from the sound of it, he was being tickled. He clambered rapidly down the tower and stepped onto an encircling platform halfway down, still far above their heads. He glanced around the room and laughed again, a different laugh; there was scorn in it this time.
"All right," he said. They were still staring at him stunned. A lot of the pirates were also glaring accusingly at Hacker and Blargh. For days, all the talk had been of the feebleness, the helplessness, the pitiful squashability, of this little pet of Anaconda's. About how all one needed to do was get a good grip on him, and he would instantly be misshapen clay. That story, never very convincing, was getting less plausible by the minute.
Piranha looked them over. There was ironic amusement in his black eyes.
"You know," he said casually, "I've been getting the idea that a few of you characters are trying to make an enemy of me. An enemy! I can't see why. Do all new recruits get treated like this? Me, I've got nothing against anybody. Okay, yeah, the next person who calls me the Boss's pet is going to get his head knocked off. But other than that, I'm a pretty peaceable guy. My idea of a good time does not consist of running a sword through every big dope in sight because he wants to squash me into jelly."
He paused. They were growling, stirring restlessly. He added, "I can think of several better things to do than trying to slaughter all my teammates. That's right. Team-mates. You're my teammates. And I do know what teammates are.
"Unlike some I've seen." He fixed his eyes directly on Blargh.
The rumbling of voices was increasing. Piranha's clear voice rang out again with startling volume.
"Maybe you guys should take a look at who your real enemies are. Like officers who don't think human pirates are any better than slaves. Who send you out to be killed by the dozens so they can get a bigger share of the booty. Who have hidden caches of gold and weapons..."
"What? You don't know that!" Blargh yelped.
Piranha smiled. He'd found a few things in his travels through the ship's air ducts and into hidden places in the walls, and had made a good guess where they might have come from.
Many of the human pirates, even a few of the robot pirates, were eyeing Blargh now with a cynical expression. Looking a trifle panicky, Blargh seemed just about ready to whip out a gun even if it did blow up the ship.
"Now, you, Blargh," Piranha continued, lazily. "Blargh, the First Mate. When there's plunder, you do see it gets shared out fairly, right? Since the men keep you on as their leader, they must like the way you handle things."
"What! The men! I'm First Mate because the Boss put me here!" roared Blargh. "The men have nothing to do with it! What the–"
But a gradual perception of something about the room made his voice fall away. Blargh looked around; and he felt, somehow, that what he was saying really wasn't the best thing to say just at that moment. Even though at any time in the past he could have said it, and had said it, with considerable success. But it didn't seem to be working this time. He paused; and his hand nervously gripped the butt of his gun.
"The Boss – put me here," he muttered. But not so anyone heard.
Hacker, too, was looking around uneasily. He knew very well that anything that Piranha might have implied about Blargh applied to him even more.
One of the crew – a human – barked, suddenly, as though surprising himself, "The Boss put Piranha here! He's here for a reason!"
"No he –" blurted out Blargh, in outrage. But other sporadic shouts went up.
"Piranha's never lost a fight –"
"What about fair shares of the booty–"
"Blargh! He's not so tough, I could lick him–"
"What happened to our shares from the invasion of Platicus!"
"From Gandilon!"
"From Teratera three years ago! I'm still waiting!"
"There's never enough booty to go around!"
"Except to the officers!"
"I want my fair share!"
"Where did you find it, Piranha?"
Blargh and Hacker and the other robot officers looked at each other over the heads of the increasingly excited crew. At the same time, scuffles were starting to break out here and there among the men – if for no other reason than to let off the tension.
Piranha stepped forward hastily.
"Blargh!" he shouted. "How about it?"
Blargh glared up at him with a profound suspicion that he was about to be entrapped again. "How about what?"
"How about declaring a truce, and let's work together?"
Blargh pulled himself up to his full, very considerable height. "Work together? I'm First Mate. You're nothing. Nothing but the Boss's pet. I'm his right-hand man, and Hacker's the left. He can only have two hands. So you're nothing – unless you're his tail."
His devastating wit, however, didn't have the desired effect. Before Piranha could open his mouth again, another man jumped up and yelled, "Then Challenge!"
Blargh, if a robot could go pale, went pale. Piranha held still. The word swept instantly through the crew like a wave, hitting the walls and sweeping back again. "Challenge! Challenge!" The word began to form into an eager chant.
The pirate in the crowd who had spoken grinned up at Piranha. It was the man he had met earlier, Bubo. Piranha glanced at him briefly, not smiling. He watched the crowd, and Blargh, and Hacker, closely.
More scuffles were breaking out. Fists and daggers and some half-full bottles were being waved around. The chant of "Challenge!" was getting more and more insistent.
Piranha stood up very straight. He threw up his hands and gave a high-pitched yell that cut instantly through the chaos. However, the utter silence that followed – except for the deep heavy throbbing of the engines – was caused less by his voice than by the fact that a moment later, he was suddenly on fire. Tall, rapidly flickering, hissing blue-white flames shot up from his head and each upraised hand – though his clothes and skin showed no signs of actually being burnt. The feathers on his hat, the loose sides of his coat, even the ruffles of his shirt, all stood stiffly away from his body, a few sparks jumped about the daggers lodged in his vest, and a bluish, crackling, incandescent halo flared around him that caused some of the more impressionable pirates to go a little weak in the knees.
He held still until the flames and the glow subsided – which took a while. Then, slapping the crackling residual charge away, he stepped forward to the edge of the platform. The pirates were staring up at him openmouthed. He looked down at them. They saw him smile.
"So, Challenge, then?" he said. His voice mild, even playful.
Blargh, abruptly recovering his dropped jaw, yelled, "No! No! You have no right–"
Piranha stretched himself up to a much taller height, spread his hands, in their big, stiff-sleeved gloves, out further from his body, opened his large eyes very wide, leaned forward a little without bending his body, his big coat swinging open. He seemed doubled in size. Deliberately, he said, "Blargh. I challenge you."
For an instant Blargh fumbled, seemed about to run. Then he gathered himself together and faced Piranha grimly.
"You challenge, do you, magic toy? Then I pick the weapons: None. Bare hands. And no cheating with energy bolts!"
Piranha, still holding himself very tall, let out a short laugh with palpable contempt. "No problem," he said.
"And it will be held–" Blargh was saying, but Piranha cut him off.
"Right here, right now," he snapped. "Everyone move back, give us some space. Delays only bring treachery, right Blargh? Right here, right now."
A human pirate ran up to Blargh and seized the gun from his belt. "Bare hands," he said. Two other men pulled other weapons off the first mate and darted away. Bleakly, he watched them go. He turned back to Piranha. After all, he was twice the little faker's size. And he was a robot. What humanoid could beat a robot in hand-to-hand combat?
All the same, seeing the figure up above him he had a flash of recall, of once seeing something like that shape leaping off of vast heights and sending bolts of lightning from its hands as it descended. He clenched his fists.
"We fight on the deck!" he yelled. "Get down here!"
Piranha smiled, a very dark twisted smile, and lunged off his tower. He was a good twenty-five feet up, and he dived headfirst straight for Blargh. Crewmen scattered, crowding out of the way. Blargh, though a little confused by so many bodies rushing in all directions, held his ground. And he slipped his fingers into a pocket inside his shirt as the black figure shot like a lance straight towards him.
Piranha saw the glint of the knife before he hit, and grinned. His big gloved hands grabbed the pirate's head, the force of his momentum bowling them over backwards. A groaning creak of bending metal was heard along with Blargh's yell as his neck snapped back. The huge body hit the floor with jarring force, bouncing a couple of times, Piranha bouncing too into a somersault over Blargh's head.
Piranha rolled out of reach, then whirled and darted in again before his heavy opponent had managed to push himself up. He reached for Blargh's collar, ripped hard at his shirt, exposing the big metal chest plate that covered the power source and crucial circuitry. He danced away again. The heavy cloth of his own black coat was ripped across the chest where the knife had caught him, hitting the vest and the armour of daggers underneath. But if his skin had been touched, he gave no sign.
The crowd, having recovered its voice, set up a deafening racket of howls and hoots of support and execration. There was booing as some spotted the knife and the slashed jacket. But, Piranha thought, what difference did a knife make? Just one more piece of metal.
The opponents circled, feinted back and forth. Blargh was enormous, shambling, stolid, mountainous, his huge arms and hands and feet ready to crush like an avalanche. He moved in short bursts, those massive clublike arms, about the size of Piranha's whole body, swinging with killing force. He could move fast straight ahead, but turning was another matter. He had so much momentum and weight that it was all he could do to stop his own charge.
Piranha, dodging and dancing, swerving in and out, swaying in place then darting aside in unpredictable directions at the last moment of Blargh's rush, was a ceaselessly moving, maddening target. His black eyes were bright, hot, full of fury and excitement – he hadn't looked this alive since arriving on the ship. His teeth showed in a smiling snarl. And now and then, seeing an opening, he shot forward and tore off a piece of cloth from Blargh's chest, kicked looser an exposed, untended screw, unbalanced his enemy in the effort to twist after him, and swept back to take advantage of the moment by launching himself with surprising power to smash up with both fists under Blargh's jaw, staggering the big robot backwards as the metal neck creaked with another fractional bend. Then to flash away before the metal arms could touch him.
He surged up and, feinting to the left, leaped and kicked the knife out of Blargh's right hand, so that it clattered across the floor and someone else pounced on it. Then, as Blargh threw himself at him, he lurched the other way, jumped uncannily high and fast (the pirates remembered now how extraordinarily high he could leap), and flipping in the air smashed both feet against Blargh's jaw, twisting the robot's neck another notch further back, so that more and more he had to contort himself absurdly just to keep his eyes on that evil little devil of an enemy.
Blargh managed to block another incoming kick, flinging Piranha away, but the whirling black form righted itself like a cat and landed on both feet, surging forward instantly. A black boot heel connected again with the robot's hand; a couple of fingers bent back. Blargh gave an outraged yell. Meanwhile, Piranha leaped again and smashed his feet against the chest plate, launching himself away in the process. Blargh staggered back, and Piranha was at him, grabbing a warped corner of the plate and giving a tremendous yank that threw the gigantic pirate off balance; he spun around and dropped to his knees, and Piranha lunged at him, landed sideways against his head with both feet. There was a loud screech and crack as metal bent and straps and connectors snapped. Blargh windmilled his fists but the target was gone. And Piranha repeated the attack from behind, smashing against the pirate's back-bent head with both feet again. The head cracked forward with a horrifying suddenness. Blargh got up, staggering, his head wobbling crazily on his neck, a continuous howl emerging from wherever it was his voice came from. Some snaps and sparks of shorting wires buzzed at his neck.
The noise in the room by now was unearthly. Cheers, boos, hoots, and laughter drowned out the noise of the engines. Quick bets were being made among the spectators. Hacker had already quietly slipped out the door. The humans in the crew were screaming ecstatically, yelling every time a fist or foot connected. More and more, their yells tended to be cheers when the blow came from Piranha, and boos on the few occasions when Blargh managed to land one.
The robots were more subdued, staring in horror at a sight they knew was impossible. No creature of flesh could beat a robot without a weapon. But then, after seeing him living among the lightning, they were not very sure that Piranha had anything to do with flesh at all. But, although so far things weren't going the way they should, the fight was by no means over yet.
Doggedly, it went on. Piranha raced back and forth, seizing every tiny opportunity to cause some damage, aiming again and again for the chest plate, for the fasteners that protruded from it, for Blargh's much-abused wobbling head, and relying on sheer speed to evade those swinging arms. Several times, when Blargh's blows did glancingly connect, Piranha was sent spinning into the crowd. It flung him back again into the fight so that he staggered, once or twice fell, but rolled with the fall and leapt back up. And he leapt literally into the air, spread-eagling himself in midair in a fierce display, his hands and feet far from his body, his savage eyes wide and white teeth bared, his heavy black coat swirling widely around him so that he appeared to expand, to blow up into something immense, a night-swept demon, in the instant before he struck. It was enough to unnerve even a robot. But Blargh still had full use of his arms.
One time he managed to grab Piranha's foot as he kicked, and yank the small black body up as easily as if it were made of straw. The crowd gasped. But Piranha, stretching as no human could have, slammed his other foot hard against Blargh's badly battered chest, and propelled himself and the robot in opposite directions. He nearly lost a boot in the process, but broke the grip on him. Landing on his feet, as Blargh was struggling to regain his balance, Piranha with all his strength flung himself bodily against the robot, hitting, light as he was, like a cannonball, and sending Blargh reeling across the floor. He smashed up against one of the huge concrete engine casings. Hit by a jolt of energy as well as concrete, Blargh gave a metallic screech that might have been pure clashing machinery. He toppled over, away from the casing. For a moment, he was still, his eyes dimmed; then, in an apparent reboot, the red glow came back into them. Creaking, his enormous body lurched up, his heavy feet staggered forward, and the fight continued.
Though his attack didn't let up, Piranha was starting to tire. It was getting a little harder to dart in and out with such precision and such wraithlike speed. Blargh's monumental fists began to connect more often, just barely, with glancing blows that threw both the combatants off their stroke. And sometimes connected hard enough to sprawl Piranha onto his back or side; though no matter how quickly Blargh dived at him, he always managed to gather himself together and spring or roll away. But the one time Blargh really solidly hit him came close to ending the fight right there.
Piranha was coming in fast, hands first this time, in a lunge aiming once again for the robot's chin. He had miscalculated for once. A metal fist caught him full on the left side of the head. The impact threw him hard to the right, his body arching back stiffly, and he crashed onto his back and spun across the floor.
The crowd scattered back to avoid contact with a possible corpse. A blow like that could smash a man's skull. Piranha's body lay stark, unbreathing, for an instant; then twitched, and he rolled quickly up into a crouch, perching unsteadily on his toes and fingers.
He was up, but clutched at the floor gasping, nauseated and sickened, deafened by a screeching buzz in his head, his vision blurring, the room around him reeling, blackness washing over him like a tsunami. If his opponent had been moving a little faster, that would have been it.
But Blargh, not too agile at the best of times, was having difficulties with his own vision and motor control; his head wobbling erratically, his circuitry misfiring, he was confusedly finding himself lurching off about 30 degrees to the left of where he meant to go. He went swinging those huge fists with all his force, to the point of throwing himself off balance, at enemies that weren't there, or at least weren't Piranha – sending the crowd once more scrambling back on itself to get away. Meanwhile, Piranha had a moment to gasp in some breath, steady himself, realize again where he was, and force his trembling body to its feet.
Near him on the floor he spotted his wide black hat, long ago fallen from his head. He snatched it up, flung it spinning in front of Blargh's face. The already disoriented Blargh swung automatically at it, stumbling clumsily; and Piranha made another dive. One more time he snatched the loose, kinked-up lower corner of the chest plate, thrust his feet against Blargh, and with an awful wrench that sent a shock of pain throughout his own body, finally ripped the metal away from most of its remaining connections. Then, landing on the floor, he lunged again and smashed up at the plate from below. It bent sharply back, still attached across its top, just below the level of Blargh's neck. The robot, staggering backwards, found his view blocked by his own skin. As he started to raise his arms to pound the metal plate back down, Piranha darted in once more. His big hands thrust deep into Blargh's open chest, grabbed hold of whatever they could, and, again slamming his feet against Blargh's solid abdomen, he shoved himself away with all his strength.
There was a loud series of cracks, electrical snaps, a long buzz, a smell of burning; spurts of oily liquid sprayed out from broken connections. The massive body took one step, then froze up, tilted. Blargh teetered hovering for a moment, as though struggling to comprehend his own defeat; then keeled straight over, slowly, like a massive felled tree.
At the same time, Piranha was picking himself up from the floor where his own momentum had thrown him. He watched Blargh fall, watched the red light of his eyes go grey, watched the last few stray crackles of the wiring. There was no motion.
Then he straightened himself. He was still breathing hard and fast, not yet able to speak. His gaze moved rapidly around the room. Hacker, he noted, seemed to be missing.
A hundred robot faces were staring blankly at him or at the toppled Blargh. They couldn't assimilate what they'd seen any better than Blargh could. A few hundred human faces were staring too. Seeing that chest plate ripped off by main force, and then seeing Blargh fall, with such finality, all so abruptly, had turned their enthusiasm into frozen shock. Much as they'd been excited by the fight, much as they enjoyed the sight of an unarmed humanoid holding his own and even scoring against a robot, not many of them had believed that Piranha could win. Flatly, it wasn't possible. Piranha saw their eyes turn towards him with expressions ranging from hostility to disbelief to awed respect to ... possibly, hope? A low, uneasy mutter began.
Still panting a little, he faced the crowd steadily, standing very straight.
The murmur in the room was getting louder. The robots were muttering among themselves too, sending increasingly fierce glares in Piranha's direction.
If he didn't do something, somebody else might make a very unhelpful decision. He took a step forward. "Well," he said, calmly. "That's that. Unless there are others?"
At that, a distinctive-looking robot stepped forward from the crowd. He was one Piranha had noticed before in the company of Blargh, tall, silver-coloured, and broad-shouldered – though, compared to the massive Blargh, relatively slight. He was battle-dented like all the robots, but unlike most of them, polished to a shine, clear of the usual scratches, rust and old oil; and again unlike most of them, wearing nothing but a rank insignia on his shoulder. He stood a little apart from the others, looking steadily at Piranha.
Piranha took a deep breath. He clenched his aching fists. His eyes, bright, black, fierce, met the robot's without a flicker.
The silver robot eyed him for a moment. Then he turned and strode quickly over to the fallen Blargh. He crouched down, rummaging among the tattered shreds of Blargh's shirt, and pulled out the large oval-shaped insignia of the First Mate.
Piranha held his breath. A battle now over that silver button? Should he have grabbed it himself? He hadn't even thought about it.
The robot straightened up and turned towards Piranha. For a long time he simply looked at him. As he stood there, the excited muttering of the human pirates died away, the robots stopped looking at each other; the whole room's attention came to rest on the smooth metal disc in the robot's hand. In the silence, the ponderous throbbing, crackling, and hissing of the engines was overwhelming.
Then the robot walked across the empty floor where the fight had just taken place, towards the small, straight black figure. Eyes on him, Piranha didn't stir. Without a word or gesture, the robot walked directly up to him and stopped an arm's length away, towering over him.
Then he dropped to one knee, putting their faces more on a level. Piranha held motionless as the long silver arm slowly reached forward and hooked the insignia onto his shirt. It was so large on him that the robot placed it in the center of the chest, nesting it like an egg in the satiny ruffles. Then he inclined his head slightly. His face was smooth, a solid silver mask with only a slight suggestion of humanoid features, incapable of expression; his oval eyes glowed a deep blue. His voice seemed to come from somewhere just below his head.
"Tulik, First War Lieutenant. Piranha: You have won First Mate."
Piranha looked at him without expression. He glanced around the room. Every pirate, human or robot, was standing still, staring at the insignia on his chest; over four hundred frozen, scarcely breathing bodies. (Although some of the robot's shocked stares were now directed at Tulik rather than Piranha.) Every mind in the room seemed suspended, undecided.
Then he knew what to do. He smiled.
At his dark, ironic smile, a stir went through the crowd. Piranha smiled more broadly, his teeth showing. He looked directly at the pirates, his eyes scanning them rapidly. He spotted the human pirate who'd spoken to him before – Bubo. He grinned. Then, as though breaking out of the ice that had frozen the whole room, he jumped back, flinging his hands out.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Pirates!"
From a standstill, Piranha made one of his tremendous leaps into the air with a backward flip, landing with a hand upraised, holding the silver insignia. "Crew of the Insurrection! Can you see this?" he yelled.
There was a brief silence. Then, "Yes!" shouted a voice – perhaps Bubo's.
Mutters and then shouts of "Yes!" and more of "No!" began to scatter through the crowd.
"No? All right then!" Piranha leaped again, shoving the insignia into a tight pocket of his coat, came down on his hands in a cartwheel, then soared into the air once more, landing ten feet up the ladder of the electrical tower he'd jumped off of earlier; he grabbed on with his hands only, swung his boots over his head to hook the rungs above him, rapidly yanked himself up and then scrambled the rest of the way to the high platform. He jumped forward to its edge and again held out the metal disc, sparks glinting off it, for all to see.
"Pirates!" cried Piranha. "You see it now?"
More voices were shouting now, more willingly, with renewing excitement. "Yes!"
"What is it?"
"First Mate!" cried many scattered voices.
"Who won the fight? Me, or Blargh?"
There were some hesitations, but the shout went up from many with enthusiasm. "Piranha!" More joined in. "Piranha! Piranha beat Blargh! Piranha beat Blargh!" Whatever else they thought of him, there was no disputing that, as they stared at the bright trinket held out by the exotic figure high on the tower.
The disorganized yells fell into a chant. "Piranha beat Blargh! Piranha beat Blargh! Piranha beat Blargh!" The human pirates, much to the discomfort of the robot officers, were clearly enjoying themselves.
"So whose is this?" cried Piranha. He held the medallion, crackling and sizzling as discharges hit it, way up over his head. He stared down at them all, his bared teeth glinting, his eyes enormous, glittering, savage. Even at such a distance, their intensity was startling.
"Yours! Piranha! Piranha!" came the shouts from the deck. There were those who said nothing, those who growled dissent, a few even drunkenly yelled "Blargh!" – but the chant was overwhelming now. "Piranha beat Blargh! Piranha beat Blargh!" The crew, most of the humans and even a few lower-ranking robots, gleefully shook their fists in time with the chant, yelled, hit each other in excitement.
"Are you sure?" came the shout from the tower.
"Piranha!" howled the men.
"Then you say I should wear this?"
"Piranha beat Blargh! Piranha's First Mate!"
He held still a moment longer, staring down at them all, a fierce grin on his face. Then, deliberately, he hooked the insignia back on his chest.
A tremendous cheer went up this time. "Piranha! First Mate!" Now with a sudden huge surge of excitement – somehow they had chosen their own leader. And at this moment he was looking like something extraordinary.
High above their heads, Piranha made another leap and flip in the air, the electric-like charge on the tower sending his wide black coat flaring around him, his bright golden hair standing up, a visible incandescence crackling over his body. He landed at the edge of the platform, thrust his fists high, let out a triumphant yell. The crew gave themselves completely over to the moment now, alternately hugging and slugging one another, pouring rum on each other's heads, bellowing with delight. They hadn't had this much entertainment in ages.
The tall silver robot, Tulik, was still standing quietly where he had put the insignia on Piranha. He was looking up at the defeater of Blargh with his expressionless face, his head tilted slightly. Piranha, glancing briefly at him, wondered if that was a good or a bad sign.
Then, before the excitement of the crowd could rocket completely out of control, Piranha again flung up his hands.
"Pirates!" he yelled.
They cheered.
"Invasion tomorrow! Right?"
The cheer quadrupled.
"Are we ready?"
Of course they were. They laughed, hooted, shook their fists in the air.
"There's just one small thing missing..."
They paused, staring up at him – were they supposed to cheer at that?
He grinned down at them. "Where's Hacker?"
A laugh went up.
"Don't tell me he – No, he didn't run away?"
A bigger laugh. Hacker's habits were well known.
"How can we invade without the Strategy Chief? How will we know what to do?"
An even bigger laugh this time. Piranha smiled.
"What do you think, should we find him? Ask him for help?"
Cries of scorn and some aggressive hooting.
"I'd like to have a little – human talk with him... D'you think I should?"
Cheers again. "Talk to him like you talked to Blargh!"
Piranha jumped off the platform, grabbed onto it with one hand as he dropped, and swung there over their heads, looking off towards the exit. "But where could he be hiding?"
A chaos of answers and laughter exploded. "In his cabin!" "In the bar!" "Squealing to the Boss!" "Maybe he jumped ship!"
He looked down at them, grinning, still hanging on by one hand. He raised the other in a comical little shrug. "What do you think, should we all go have a talk with him?"
There was a loud, astonished inhalation from many throats; and then an explosion of cheers and hoots. The outrageous idea of crewmembers tackling a senior robot officer seemed to have some appeal.
Piranha pointed at the exit. "Let's go find him!"
A cheer went up again. The men stood slapping each other on the back, chanting his name, waving weapons in the air, impatient for him to come down. Piranha looked over the crowd. Yes, there were small groups of men and robots who were muttering uneasily together, wary of the mass of enthusiasm around them; but it wasn't that many, and they obviously didn't want to attract the wrath of the majority.
Dangling there, he took a deep breath. There was no more doubt now. The battle was over. The battle was over!
How much more war might still be coming, he didn't yet know; but – in the past half hour he had apparently gone from outcast, invader, targeted enemy, to at least the momentary general of an army.
He felt a little dizzy, a little sick. The blow to his head? The accumulated overdose of energy discharges? Or just the giddiness that comes when a universe up-ends itself.
Instinctively about to drop off the platform and helicopter to the ground, he halted himself with a brief shudder. He swung back onto the platform instead, and slid quickly down the ladder. Men came up to him as he arrived at the floor. Though some seemed a bit disconcerted – up close, he was unexpectedly small – their eyes still gleamed with excitement.
One summed up what was evidently on all their minds. "A human First Mate," he said. "And we're going to keep it that way," he added, glaring. Others growled in agreement.
Piranha did not select this moment to argue about trifles, such as whether or not he was human.
"We need to finish this business with Hacker," he said.
"That metal bastard! He won't stand a chance if we all gang up on him!" said one of the men excitedly. It seemed to be a new idea. Other men were gathering around, barking agreement. "None of the robots would stand a chance if we all ganged up on them!" "There's a lot more of us now!" "Less of them!" "We could–"
Piranha backed up from the crowd, giving himself some room. His black eyes savage, he flung his fists into the air. "Wait a minute," he bellowed.
The growing agitation of the men stilled a little as they looked at him. He glared at them all ferociously.
"I don't give a damn who's metal and who isn't," he barked. "All I want is to get the cheats and cowards out of the way. Now Hacker–"
Snorts of laughter from the men. "Hacker? He tells great tales of battle, but nobody's ever seen him in one!" "He's so crooked, when counting his gold he even cheats himself!"
Piranha grinned at them fiercely. "How about seeing if he can cheat death this time?"
The men grinned too, but there was still a feeling of agitation, of an unrest that had been suppressed too long suddenly finding its way to the surface. Piranha added, "And then tomorrow –"
"Tomorrow, we'll see how much more justice we get from Piranha than from Blargh and Hacker!" roared another voice. Piranha swivelled to look. It was Bubo again. He sent Piranha a wide grin, then faced his fellow pirates. "We all know the booty is mostly Anaconda's, but we'll see how much more of our true share comes to us! That's what matters, ain't it? We don't need to get ourselves slaughtered fighting officers, we just need fair play and justice! Ain't I right?"
There were some cheers and some growls.
"Find me Hacker! I'll negotiate with him!" Piranha laughed, pulling back his coat to show a large dagger.
"Come on!" Bubo cried, jumping towards the exit. "Let's have some fun with that tin-plated slop bucket!" And the men, laughing, set off after him.
Bubo glanced back at Piranha for a moment as he was heading towards the door. Piranha bowed gravely in his direction.
As he walked towards his hat to pick it up, a few of the remaining men elbowed each other to be the first to grab it off the floor and hand it to him. He accepted it, grinning at them darkly; pointed at the door. "Don't miss your chance," he said. They ran after the others.
Aside from the last of the men crowding to get out the door, there was now only a handful of robots left, top officers, all standing together in a tight group gaping at Piranha. A little apart from them stood Tulik, still in the same place as before. Piranha settled the hat on his head and turned to face him.
He took a deep breath. He was feeling a trifle ill yet from the discharges on the grid and the tower; although he could tolerate a great deal of energy, he'd definitely had more than he wanted. And he was becoming more aware now of how much his body ached from the blows and heavy strain of the fight, not to mention an annoying, itching pain across his chest. He shook it off.
"Tulik," he said, "You called yourself the First War Lieutenant."
Tulik inclined his head slightly. "I was Blargh's lieutenant. Now perhaps I am to be yours."
Piranha noticed a slight stir among the other robot officers at that. They were watching the scene very closely.
Tulik added, "You were incredibly lucky that energy pistol you got hold of didn't explode up there on the grid."
Piranha smiled coldly. "Would you bring an energy gun into this room?"
Tulik said, "You do have one, don't you? At least that is the rumor going around the ship."
Piranha said, calmly, "I have one, yes."
"You do. So... if you wanted to kill the First Mate, why didn't you just ambush him?"
Piranha couldn't repress a laugh. "Tulik, first you proclaim me First Mate and then you insult me? As if I wasn't hated enough already – and then you expect me to do something stupid like that and unite every one of his men to avenge him! And who said I wanted to kill Blargh? What I wanted was to be allowed to be part of the crew! He wouldn't let me do anything but fight. And now, after all that, you tell me I'm First Mate... My brain is turning inside out trying to keep up with these flip-flops!"
He looked at Tulik, wondering what was going on behind those featureless eyes, wondering if the expressionless robot knew how to read a living face. There was a moment of silence.
"Did I hear you say," went on Tulik, abruptly, "that you didn't care who was metal and who was human? Did you mean that you would treat them all the same way?"
"I said something like that, didn't I," said Piranha. "Yes, I stand by that."
"Even," Tulik went on, "after what happened on that planet you came from? As I recall, the humans couldn't handle it at all, and it was almost entirely a force of robots who were sent to subdue that target. You fought a lot of robots there, defending your world."
Piranha drew back a little and looked at him coldly. "Yes," he said. "I stand by what I said."
"Why?" asked the robot.
Piranha shook his head impatiently. "How do you explain something that's too obvious for words?" he said. "We have no choice but to work together. We can't have factions."
He was very conscious of the other robot officers watching and listening. It occurred to him that perhaps the silver robot was thinking of them too.
"Factions," said Tulik. His rather flat, coarse metallic voice could have had a trace of amusement in it. "There have always been factions. That's what powers the ship, Piranha."
Piranha smiled grimly. "No doubt you're right, Tulik. And I should respect that," he said. "If this crew had been united, if the officers hadn't been more preoccupied with infighting than with conquering – I and my planet would now be dust." He paused. "My problem is, I'm kind of limited. I don't know any other way to function than to have everyone pulling together." He gave Tulik a slight, wry smile, then turned to leave.
Before he'd taken a step, however, Tulik spoke again.
"Piranha. Sir."
Piranha turned back and looked up at him inquiringly.
Tulik paused. Then he inclined his head and put a hand on his chest. "You have my allegiance," he said. "I will support you as First Mate."
Piranha was silent, eyeing him. Then, still silent, he repeated Tulik's gesture exactly.
After a moment, he said, in a low voice that barely carried over the engine noise, "How much does this nice little badge really mean?"
Tulik tilted his head a little, gazing at him steadily. He also spoke too quietly for the others to hear. "I think you know that's pretty much up to you."
Piranha said, still quietly, "I don't really know anything."
Tulik replied, under the loud hissing of the engines, "Oh, yes... Yes you do, Piranha." He took a step back and spoke in a normal tone. "Rumors will be flying. Go see the Boss, Piranha. Before someone else does."
Piranha smiled. "I do know that much."
Again he repeated Tulik's gesture. Then, turning to the rest of the robot officers, he grinned and gave them a casual salute, more of a wave of the hand.
Then he set off at a run across the now-empty floor. After a minute, he reached the exit, sweeping the massive door wide open. It slammed shut behind him with a crash that shook the floor even over the vibration of the engines.
Tulik had watched him go. Now he turned to face the robot eyes all glaring at him.
"Did you hear his words, back in the retreat room?" he said to them. "'Which ones of you can think?' Think about that – can't you?"
[End of Chapter 8]