Re: LAST. THING. STANDING. [S!1][ROUND ONE: TELEVISION LAND]
01-28-2012, 05:25 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by BlastYoBoots.
"So what's your gimmick?"
Kriok gave her fellow contestant a sideways glance, the quiet whooshing of decks passing upward to either side.
"C'mon, your gimmick! Ability, power, specialty. I'm basically a wrecking ball, not much good getting out of anything's not a solid prison. Hurry, I don't know if we have hours or minutes, maybe less. That weird time-delay between channel hopping, or whatever."
"Minutes until what, exa–?"
Kriok was interrupted by a harsh carnival of klaxons, announcing the too-close warp-in of an unknown vessel.
Moments of shaking and attempts to grab conspicuously nonexistent safety bars for support later, the elevator was smoothly descending as before. Freefall waited a couple moments more for an intruder alert that never came.
She scratched her head. "Huh. Wasn't them."
"You were expecting something else?"
"Not important. Look, you have any ideas on how to get outta here? Any fancy systems on your cyber stuff pointing to escape routes, or-"
"The first step to escaping, I imagine, would be to live long enough to escape."
"Oh, relax! We'll be fine. We just have to find some sort of communicator that can break out of-"
"Would you just tell me who 'them' was? I am extremely sick of surprises."
"Yeah, uh... I've just never outrun so many cops that easily. I can't imagine they're far behind."
Quite literally so, given the absence of McMiller's internal monologue – gone with his consciousness – and the channel's typical jazz accompaniment, which tended to vanish when something physical was about to happen.
"This the place?" "Yea."
Two hard-edged, coat-draped mobsters ascended the steps to McMiller's floor, carrying telltale violin cases.
"Let's see how much this wiseguy likes lead for dinner."
Taking positions in front of the detective's door, they unveiled their weapons at jump-cut speeds and opened fire.
Already on the floor and blissfully unaware of his surroundings, McMiller missed the chance to make a frantic, showy leap to the ground to escape the ensuing chaos. A shower of bullets tore through wall, wood, and glass, shredding furniture and sending the letters of his name and title engraved on the fragile, translucent door-front flying symbolically apart and onto the surrounding wreckage.
When the bullets ran dry, a surprisingly unscathed McMiller lay under a pile of minced office, underneath an even more surprisingly unscathed television blaring noisy static.
"Let's reload and hit it again, just to make su-"
The gangsters were interrupted by the metal click of a pair of handcuffs locking one's right forearm to the other's left, followed by a further cascade of clicks from the cocking handguns of an impossible number of LAPD police officers.
Clint Gladwell stepped in front of the men, staring through sunglasses oddly impervious to the channel's older setting. A fresh bruise spread from underneath one of the lenses.
"We'll be confiscating your automatic weapons."
A now sweating, quivering gangster traded a glance with his partner, then eyeballed the strange officer, alighting on the LAPD insignia on his jacket.
"It- it ain't your jurisdiction-"
"I DECIDE when it is or isn't my jurisdiction, punk. And I'll have you know that this happens to be a federal case." Gladwell stared the man down above his lenses, flits of static flashing across his usually-hidden eyes. The target of his attention narrowly avoided soiling himself.
He stepped back and lit a cigarette, a luxury not afforded to him within his home channel's censors. "But I admit, we seem a bit... underequipped to deal with the current situation. Perhaps you boys wouldn't mind explaining where we could find more of these 'violins'?"
Freefall kept up beside her. "Alright uh, I don't get it yet... are you the warrior race type, or the techie, scientist type or what?"
"Do members of species you've never met tend to fall into such 'types'?"
"You're half-robot, and they put you in a battle to the death. It isn't all that complicated. So is that arm of yours electric, a laser, magnetic... C'mon, spill it, Turok, I'm guessing you wanna escape and I need to know what you can do!"
Kriok winced at her error, or bristled slightly; hard to tell with a face half cybernetics. "I'm guessing you have a case of selective hearing."
"Yeah, I get that a lot. Look, are we gonna escape this battle or not...?"
The bird-like alien slowed her pace to level a cold, mechanically emphasized glare at her newest 'companion'. "Yes, I am trying to escape this battle. I am also trying to be reasonable and practical about it, unlike most of my so-called competitors who seem to be insane, delusional, useless, impulsive, psychotically murderous, or more typically some infuriating combination of all of the above!"
"...Alright, well you can rest easy. Pretty sure I only heard one of those that applies to me."
"That's... fantastic."
The grating circus of klaxons erupted again, this time accompanied with red emergency lights. "Critical Alert! Multiple armed, hostile intruders on decks twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five..."
"And I'll give you a hint..." – Freefall cracked her knuckles at the sound of incoming footsteps up ahead, lots of them – "It's definitely not 'useless'. Hurry down that other hall, we've got company. I'll catch up."
Kriok broke into a run as Freefall began tearing a screeching hole into metal sidewall.
Rather than answering any of Nizzo's inquiring thoughts about the situation, this-male-one-of-riches and this-one-of-changing-shape continued to spit harsh and hostile conflicting thoughts – targeted at both this-male-one-of-riches and Nizzo himself, regarding some of the odd concepts the shapeshifting mind had broadcast to him earlier – leaving him completely in the dark as to what his container's movement into an oddly accelerating and decelerating sort of current meant.
In reality, Nizzo happened to be even more clueless than he would have expected. He had no idea that they had entered what amounted to a transport shuttle, nor that these-ones-of-spreading-ideas nearby were reporters with recording equipment, or said reporters' roles in the situation as mere tools to excuse Aaron's intrusion onto the ESS Pyreness, perhaps to new competitors and companions.
But what he happened to be the least clueless about, amidst the trio, was the presence of hundreds of those absurdly focused "copyright" minds, assembled just beyond the walls and doors of their small vessel and emanating the idea of concealing-oneself-from-potential-prey. Why wouldn't anyone explain to him who they were? Couldn't they sense them?
Which is to say, nothing quite made sense. Internal consistency, but little more. She'd gotten nearly accustomed to the patently ridiculous, so this infuriating TV setting decided to give her something frustratingly between sense and nonsense, just to throw her off.
A resounding couple of beeps, and the door opened. Kriok sighed with mechanical lungs. Part of her wished she'd accidentally blown the whole anachronistic goddamned ship apart.
Her successful, irate stride into the cargo bay was preempted by three loud, metallic bangs from the wall opposite the control panel.
A muffled voice. "Hey, Big Bird. You out there?" "...it's Kriok. Would you elect to remember it, this time?"
Freefall punched her fingers through, then stretched open a gaping hole in the wall, slowly erupting from it amid a deafening shriek of tortured steel. Coming out of walls was always more fun, she thought; you got to see the dumbfounded looks on criminals' faces. Kriok desperately regretted not having opted for cybernetic ears to match her eyes; the klaxons, which had subsided to leave the pulsing red lights as the indicator of persistent ship alert, would have been a welcome alternative.
The superhero finally escaped onto the hallway floor, soaking wet with still-warm condensation.
"Do I want to ask what you were doing?"
"Broke off a nice big steam pipe into the hallway. Blistering hot, kept any of the bacon on my tail from heading your direction. Or at least I'm pretty sure it was those damn cops. We're in the clear, it sounds like; 'fore I left, I caught a glimpse of laser-security shooting back. Bet it would've been like watching a paintball match between rejects from the Imperial Stormtrooper marksmanship academy-"
"What could a spaceship possibly need with pipes full of hot steam?!"
"Oh, you kidding? This is a TV show. Broken steam pipes are showy, you don't get the impression of the ship falling apart without a few jets of smoke."
Kriok noted distant footsteps and the occasional cracks of projectile weaponry, emanating from the direction of the hall she'd left unexplored. "Let's lock the door behind us. Just in case."
The pair entered a large, impressive cargo room, tiered floors lined with crates, equipment, and large, gently humming loading pallets hovering just under a foot off the ground each. Freefall could imagine a couple dramatic uses such a room could have, like bringing down cratefuls of weapons for an upcoming on-ship standoff, or large bombs to be deployed in a serious situation.
Regardless, "This place is probably chock full of weapons. Think we should have a look around?"
"If that's how you get your kicks, fine. I need to worry about getting this door closed."
Kriok began unwelding the sides of the inner control panel. Freefall wrung a bit of moisture out of her ponytail, then kneeled next to a nearby loading tray's moving handle and wrapped her hair once around the middle. She pulled both sides of the ponytail, garotting the metal pipe in two; a two-foot, handle-ended half-lever clattered noisily to the floor.
"Gotten any crates full of oh-so-fun weapons open yet?"
"Nah, just getting that door closed for you."
Kriok turned, then leapt away from her work just in time to avoid Freefall plunging the handle-end of the broken rod into the controls, a shower of sparks erupting from the impact. The bay doors rapidly shut, red lights around the frame unmistakably signifying a lock.
"And what in blazes made you think that was a good idea?!"
"TV show, Kriok. That always works. See? It's shut."
"You couldn't have known for sure. And now we're locked in."
"You think I couldn't pry us back through those in under a minute? Actually, you go do your tech stuff, I'm gonna pinch these shut even harder in case anyone tries to force their way in."
Freefall set to work crushing the seams of the heavy doors into their frames, each other. Kriok went to do something useful, and made a bold red mental note of how this 'Freefall' went about solving problems.
However, their base of power itself had just been uprooted, smashed into the fabric of another channel, and compromised. So, too, was their usual immunity.
Now, Copyright Central was instead Central Command, the newsstation-situated forward base of an influential group with the means and wherewithal to assault piracy and infringement across the galaxy, no matter the cost. And as means went, well... let's just say that their already-powerful methods had been molded into a setting-appropriate level of absolute superiority.
The news-crew shuttle that the Pyreness had unwittingly allowed upon its decks contained not dozens, but hundreds of cloaked CC agents hidden amidst its civilian payload. Spreading themselves across the ship's decks and uncloaking, unleashing dangerous projectile weaponry banned by intergalactic treaty in favor of more humane laser-based pistols and rifles, was the simplest of tasks.
Wresting the bridge from its owners was equally simple.
"I told you to reverse the engines. You're risking the lives of everyone on this ship!"
Admiral Huxley was holding his hands in the air, standing in the corner of the bridge at the gunpoint of one of four heavily-armed, suited agents occupying the room. He knew these extremists wouldn't cease at a simple appeal to humanity, not "CC", not those who would violently overthrow a ship with an anti-piracy mission over a couple of suspected pirate stowaways, dyeing security's red shirts even redder with their deadly, illegal projectile rifles and even deadlier aim.
Rather, he was stalling to edge slowly towards the unconscious Ensign Cain, eyeing the laser pistol on his belt.
"Negative. Just understand that we take piracy a little more seriously than you do, Admiral."
"The gravity shift from Twin Ships Media entering our vicinity has us drifting slowly towards that," Huxley warned, pointing at the swirling anomaly displayed on the now-cracked monitor. "If you don't let engineering make a simple course correction, we'll all be finding out what's inside the Black and White nebula firsthand!"
"Well then, it sounds like it's in your best interests to make sure we find our infringers sooner, rather than later."
The agent picked up a shipwide announcement radio/mic, handing it to Huxley and gazing at him through silver, teched-up shades.
"Call off security and tell them to join our search. We want every able officer on this ship to help us track down our fugitives as soon as possible."
The agent walked over to a cowering Maria, lifting her chin up with the muzzle of his rifle.
"Every able officer."
A third crate landed and split open, the victim of an unceremonious toss by Freefall off the fourth tier of cargo. Dangerous, loaded plastic show props spilled out, sliding across the smooth deck floor.
"Anything useful in those for your matter-ma-whatsit?"
Kriok was beginning to wonder whether these beak-less bipeds she'd been meeting lately had some sort of evolutionary flaw, or perhaps even a shared religion against common sense.
"How about we stick with the ground floor crates, for now?"
Freefall gently fell from the floor above, landing next to her. Kriok picked up one of the exhumed weapons, apparently the same handheld laser-toys Security had used to accost her earlier.
"The shell's mostly hydrocarbon polymers." She handed it to her fabricator, deconstructing the middle of the weapon. "A silicon dioxide crystal - more nonsense - and other scattered... mhmm. This is basically useless. Find me something bulkier, more raw materi-"
*fwuuup!*
Kriok turned to find her 'assistant' test-firing the weapon at a few crates, launching – *fwuup fwuuuup!* – tacky violet beams that left steaming scorchmarks where they hit.
"Yeah, what I thought. Shittiest lasers I've ever seen."
"Did you just test-fire a hot weapon at potentially bomb-containing storage crates?"
"Alright, you need to relax. I told you I've pretty much seen these guys in a firefight, these piece of shit lasers can't punch through anything."
"I don't understand you. Are you stupid, or just suicidal?"
"Shut up. I know what I'm doing."
"I've been trapped, mocked, threatened, painted on, and forced to cook since I was abducted into this damnable contest, and yet nothing so far has made me feel more uncomfortable or close to abrupt obliteration than you. Why should I trust you not to get us killed?"
This was an exaggeration, to be fair. Asteroid mining had been far riskier business than any of this, and Freefall seemed saner than her previous allies of convenience, at least. But Kriok had several practical, tactical, and conversational reasons not to let a violent thug of a competitor in on her abilities.
"Ain't gonna happen. This is my job."
"Ah, that's right. You were some sort of 'hero'. Is putting everyone around you in danger part of your job description?"
"Listen up, you bird... robot... thing!" She slammed her palm against the standing gunmetal gray corner of an otherwise shattered crate; meaning to lean against it to punctuate a confrontational stare-down, she instead sent it tipping to the ground, leaving her standing awkwardly. "I'm not an empty suit. I'm a superhero. A problem solver. Groups like mine get called in whenever you have to deal with a superpowerful anomaly. Something like a gang of robbers carrying stolen experimental weapons, or a giant goddamn beast made of crystal unleashed by some oblivious scientist. Aliens. Ghosts. Fucking witches, the magic kind. I do a damn good job helping defend my city. I keep people safe from shit like that, and they respect me like a celebrity. You're the one I don't understand. If you're going to play the whole lone last-of-your-race deal, at least play it straight and threaten me or something like a proper out-of-touch asshole. But don't you dream of telling me I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know about you, but this contest isn't some big shocker I don't know how to handle. It's practically an average Wednesday."
"...Sure."
"Sure?"
Kriok opted to add a generous, dripping coating of sarcasm to her usual condescending tone. "Sure. Let's say you've really been through this sort of nonsense before. Just how is this battle going to play out? I mean, you're the expert. Enlighten me."
Freefall put a hand to her chin for a moment or two.
...Contemplative? This should be good.
"...Round three."
"I'm sorry?"
"It'll be over by round three. Maybe four, since we're doing the whole environment-swapping thing, and that's gotta play out a few times, but four max. We're gonna gather people together, one by one. Probably fight a few of them before they learn to stop being dumbasses, got a lot of villains in our lineup. One of 'em's just gonna be some evil asshole, another one joins and betrays us when they throw something heavy to break us up... Those sorts of characters are just gonna get karmic deaths. Y'know, run off like a coward and get confronted by a swarm of mooks, or refuse a helping hand and get crushed by a giant rock. That sorta thing. Probably gonna be the less human guys like zombie-dude, too, no offense to you, Kriok. Just callin' it how I see it. All the while we're building science stuff like whatever the fuck you're working on, we get a communicator up, my team comes to help, and we all get together to kick the announcer's ass and go home. ...Yeah, that's about it. Sorry, I don't usually talk this much, did that make sense?"
A nice, long pause.
"...the announcer."
"Yeah, the show host."
"We assault a TV show announcer, and that lets us go home?"
"Alright, look, I don't know if it's the announcer specifically. Could be a producer, a director, point is I'm betting we'll see one goddamn guy running this thing. Or girl, computer, whatever. We kick its ass, this contest never happens again."
"You're completely insane."
"Hey, I'm helping you. If that makes me insane, then you're goddamn lucky I am."
Kriok grabbed a bulky replacement ship-part from one of the containers they'd split open, and returned silently to her work.
Freefall had a point, she realized. If her competitors had been sane and rational... well, she might not have survived them.
"...What exactly are you building, anyway?"
"A thermonuclear mining charge," Kriok replied sarcastically to the liability.
"Oh... whoa whoa, hold on, we're not killing anybody! Letting them do their fucked-up channel stuff and shoot each other like they always would is one thing, we can't goddamn well stop them. I don't wanna blow them up–"
"Do you see any uranium or plutonium around here? It was a joke. I'm surprised you even knew what one was."
"Excuse me if I'm not impressed by your sense of humor-"
"Whatever we'd need to escape would presumably require a lot of power, more than we could take with us if I constructed an enormous generator. Right now, I'm going to build anything I damn well please. You can help, if you're so inclined."
"Alright, fine, but no killing. That's my rule. If you want my help, you're going strictly non-lethal."
She turned to Freefall. "And if I have no other choice?"
The hero scowled, cracking her knuckles. "Well then, we'd have a problem, wouldn't we?"
Kriok returned to her work once again, fabricator-arm humming brilliantly.
I stand corrected. A major liability.
Several moments passed, with nothing but the fabricator's mechanisms and machinations interrupting the tense atmosphere.
"It's 'Freefall', correct?"
"Mhmm."
"How much can you carry?"
"So what's your gimmick?"
Kriok gave her fellow contestant a sideways glance, the quiet whooshing of decks passing upward to either side.
"C'mon, your gimmick! Ability, power, specialty. I'm basically a wrecking ball, not much good getting out of anything's not a solid prison. Hurry, I don't know if we have hours or minutes, maybe less. That weird time-delay between channel hopping, or whatever."
"Minutes until what, exa–?"
Kriok was interrupted by a harsh carnival of klaxons, announcing the too-close warp-in of an unknown vessel.
Moments of shaking and attempts to grab conspicuously nonexistent safety bars for support later, the elevator was smoothly descending as before. Freefall waited a couple moments more for an intruder alert that never came.
She scratched her head. "Huh. Wasn't them."
"You were expecting something else?"
"Not important. Look, you have any ideas on how to get outta here? Any fancy systems on your cyber stuff pointing to escape routes, or-"
"The first step to escaping, I imagine, would be to live long enough to escape."
"Oh, relax! We'll be fine. We just have to find some sort of communicator that can break out of-"
"Would you just tell me who 'them' was? I am extremely sick of surprises."
"Yeah, uh... I've just never outrun so many cops that easily. I can't imagine they're far behind."
***
The monochrome streets around Joe McMiller, P.I.'s monochrome office were quiet. Too quiet.Quite literally so, given the absence of McMiller's internal monologue – gone with his consciousness – and the channel's typical jazz accompaniment, which tended to vanish when something physical was about to happen.
"This the place?" "Yea."
Two hard-edged, coat-draped mobsters ascended the steps to McMiller's floor, carrying telltale violin cases.
"Let's see how much this wiseguy likes lead for dinner."
Taking positions in front of the detective's door, they unveiled their weapons at jump-cut speeds and opened fire.
Already on the floor and blissfully unaware of his surroundings, McMiller missed the chance to make a frantic, showy leap to the ground to escape the ensuing chaos. A shower of bullets tore through wall, wood, and glass, shredding furniture and sending the letters of his name and title engraved on the fragile, translucent door-front flying symbolically apart and onto the surrounding wreckage.
When the bullets ran dry, a surprisingly unscathed McMiller lay under a pile of minced office, underneath an even more surprisingly unscathed television blaring noisy static.
"Let's reload and hit it again, just to make su-"
The gangsters were interrupted by the metal click of a pair of handcuffs locking one's right forearm to the other's left, followed by a further cascade of clicks from the cocking handguns of an impossible number of LAPD police officers.
Clint Gladwell stepped in front of the men, staring through sunglasses oddly impervious to the channel's older setting. A fresh bruise spread from underneath one of the lenses.
"We'll be confiscating your automatic weapons."
A now sweating, quivering gangster traded a glance with his partner, then eyeballed the strange officer, alighting on the LAPD insignia on his jacket.
"It- it ain't your jurisdiction-"
"I DECIDE when it is or isn't my jurisdiction, punk. And I'll have you know that this happens to be a federal case." Gladwell stared the man down above his lenses, flits of static flashing across his usually-hidden eyes. The target of his attention narrowly avoided soiling himself.
He stepped back and lit a cigarette, a luxury not afforded to him within his home channel's censors. "But I admit, we seem a bit... underequipped to deal with the current situation. Perhaps you boys wouldn't mind explaining where we could find more of these 'violins'?"
***
Kriok had wasted no time in setting a quick pace toward the distant rear of the vessel, which a scattered map or two assured her would contain the ship's hold. I need to find a storage or cargo area. Cargo means matter, all shapes, sizes, and complexity levels. I just need some time to myself in a material-rich bay before any more surprises catch up with me. Least of all any of hers.Freefall kept up beside her. "Alright uh, I don't get it yet... are you the warrior race type, or the techie, scientist type or what?"
"Do members of species you've never met tend to fall into such 'types'?"
"You're half-robot, and they put you in a battle to the death. It isn't all that complicated. So is that arm of yours electric, a laser, magnetic... C'mon, spill it, Turok, I'm guessing you wanna escape and I need to know what you can do!"
Kriok winced at her error, or bristled slightly; hard to tell with a face half cybernetics. "I'm guessing you have a case of selective hearing."
"Yeah, I get that a lot. Look, are we gonna escape this battle or not...?"
The bird-like alien slowed her pace to level a cold, mechanically emphasized glare at her newest 'companion'. "Yes, I am trying to escape this battle. I am also trying to be reasonable and practical about it, unlike most of my so-called competitors who seem to be insane, delusional, useless, impulsive, psychotically murderous, or more typically some infuriating combination of all of the above!"
"...Alright, well you can rest easy. Pretty sure I only heard one of those that applies to me."
"That's... fantastic."
The grating circus of klaxons erupted again, this time accompanied with red emergency lights. "Critical Alert! Multiple armed, hostile intruders on decks twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five..."
"And I'll give you a hint..." – Freefall cracked her knuckles at the sound of incoming footsteps up ahead, lots of them – "It's definitely not 'useless'. Hurry down that other hall, we've got company. I'll catch up."
Kriok broke into a run as Freefall began tearing a screeching hole into metal sidewall.
***
Minutes ago, back in the company of the familiar this-male-one-of-riches, Nizzo was anything but less confused.Rather than answering any of Nizzo's inquiring thoughts about the situation, this-male-one-of-riches and this-one-of-changing-shape continued to spit harsh and hostile conflicting thoughts – targeted at both this-male-one-of-riches and Nizzo himself, regarding some of the odd concepts the shapeshifting mind had broadcast to him earlier – leaving him completely in the dark as to what his container's movement into an oddly accelerating and decelerating sort of current meant.
In reality, Nizzo happened to be even more clueless than he would have expected. He had no idea that they had entered what amounted to a transport shuttle, nor that these-ones-of-spreading-ideas nearby were reporters with recording equipment, or said reporters' roles in the situation as mere tools to excuse Aaron's intrusion onto the ESS Pyreness, perhaps to new competitors and companions.
But what he happened to be the least clueless about, amidst the trio, was the presence of hundreds of those absurdly focused "copyright" minds, assembled just beyond the walls and doors of their small vessel and emanating the idea of concealing-oneself-from-potential-prey. Why wouldn't anyone explain to him who they were? Couldn't they sense them?
***
Dextrous talons picked through the cables and wires ostensibly controlling a heavy cargo bay door, the feathers on Kriok's arm brushing along metal borders the wall once shared with a control panel. It was a basic matter of sending a pulse through the correct wire while a safety circuit was disconnected, power more easily siphoned from a cable to a nearby light fixture than supplied by her comparatively unwieldily fabricator arm. The very idea of using fragile, ancient wire-dependent circuitry in something as supposedly sophisticated as an interstellar vessel stunned her, as did the relative insecurity of the device, though the schematics she'd pilfered wirelessly from the ship refused to highlight said ironies.Which is to say, nothing quite made sense. Internal consistency, but little more. She'd gotten nearly accustomed to the patently ridiculous, so this infuriating TV setting decided to give her something frustratingly between sense and nonsense, just to throw her off.
A resounding couple of beeps, and the door opened. Kriok sighed with mechanical lungs. Part of her wished she'd accidentally blown the whole anachronistic goddamned ship apart.
Her successful, irate stride into the cargo bay was preempted by three loud, metallic bangs from the wall opposite the control panel.
A muffled voice. "Hey, Big Bird. You out there?" "...it's Kriok. Would you elect to remember it, this time?"
Freefall punched her fingers through, then stretched open a gaping hole in the wall, slowly erupting from it amid a deafening shriek of tortured steel. Coming out of walls was always more fun, she thought; you got to see the dumbfounded looks on criminals' faces. Kriok desperately regretted not having opted for cybernetic ears to match her eyes; the klaxons, which had subsided to leave the pulsing red lights as the indicator of persistent ship alert, would have been a welcome alternative.
The superhero finally escaped onto the hallway floor, soaking wet with still-warm condensation.
"Do I want to ask what you were doing?"
"Broke off a nice big steam pipe into the hallway. Blistering hot, kept any of the bacon on my tail from heading your direction. Or at least I'm pretty sure it was those damn cops. We're in the clear, it sounds like; 'fore I left, I caught a glimpse of laser-security shooting back. Bet it would've been like watching a paintball match between rejects from the Imperial Stormtrooper marksmanship academy-"
"What could a spaceship possibly need with pipes full of hot steam?!"
"Oh, you kidding? This is a TV show. Broken steam pipes are showy, you don't get the impression of the ship falling apart without a few jets of smoke."
Kriok noted distant footsteps and the occasional cracks of projectile weaponry, emanating from the direction of the hall she'd left unexplored. "Let's lock the door behind us. Just in case."
The pair entered a large, impressive cargo room, tiered floors lined with crates, equipment, and large, gently humming loading pallets hovering just under a foot off the ground each. Freefall could imagine a couple dramatic uses such a room could have, like bringing down cratefuls of weapons for an upcoming on-ship standoff, or large bombs to be deployed in a serious situation.
Regardless, "This place is probably chock full of weapons. Think we should have a look around?"
"If that's how you get your kicks, fine. I need to worry about getting this door closed."
Kriok began unwelding the sides of the inner control panel. Freefall wrung a bit of moisture out of her ponytail, then kneeled next to a nearby loading tray's moving handle and wrapped her hair once around the middle. She pulled both sides of the ponytail, garotting the metal pipe in two; a two-foot, handle-ended half-lever clattered noisily to the floor.
"Gotten any crates full of oh-so-fun weapons open yet?"
"Nah, just getting that door closed for you."
Kriok turned, then leapt away from her work just in time to avoid Freefall plunging the handle-end of the broken rod into the controls, a shower of sparks erupting from the impact. The bay doors rapidly shut, red lights around the frame unmistakably signifying a lock.
"And what in blazes made you think that was a good idea?!"
"TV show, Kriok. That always works. See? It's shut."
"You couldn't have known for sure. And now we're locked in."
"You think I couldn't pry us back through those in under a minute? Actually, you go do your tech stuff, I'm gonna pinch these shut even harder in case anyone tries to force their way in."
Freefall set to work crushing the seams of the heavy doors into their frames, each other. Kriok went to do something useful, and made a bold red mental note of how this 'Freefall' went about solving problems.
***
Copyright Central's agents, forged from the sheer power of anti-intellectual greed and creative lack, were usually immune from the warping effects of any particular channel.However, their base of power itself had just been uprooted, smashed into the fabric of another channel, and compromised. So, too, was their usual immunity.
Now, Copyright Central was instead Central Command, the newsstation-situated forward base of an influential group with the means and wherewithal to assault piracy and infringement across the galaxy, no matter the cost. And as means went, well... let's just say that their already-powerful methods had been molded into a setting-appropriate level of absolute superiority.
The news-crew shuttle that the Pyreness had unwittingly allowed upon its decks contained not dozens, but hundreds of cloaked CC agents hidden amidst its civilian payload. Spreading themselves across the ship's decks and uncloaking, unleashing dangerous projectile weaponry banned by intergalactic treaty in favor of more humane laser-based pistols and rifles, was the simplest of tasks.
Wresting the bridge from its owners was equally simple.
"I told you to reverse the engines. You're risking the lives of everyone on this ship!"
Admiral Huxley was holding his hands in the air, standing in the corner of the bridge at the gunpoint of one of four heavily-armed, suited agents occupying the room. He knew these extremists wouldn't cease at a simple appeal to humanity, not "CC", not those who would violently overthrow a ship with an anti-piracy mission over a couple of suspected pirate stowaways, dyeing security's red shirts even redder with their deadly, illegal projectile rifles and even deadlier aim.
Rather, he was stalling to edge slowly towards the unconscious Ensign Cain, eyeing the laser pistol on his belt.
"Negative. Just understand that we take piracy a little more seriously than you do, Admiral."
"The gravity shift from Twin Ships Media entering our vicinity has us drifting slowly towards that," Huxley warned, pointing at the swirling anomaly displayed on the now-cracked monitor. "If you don't let engineering make a simple course correction, we'll all be finding out what's inside the Black and White nebula firsthand!"
"Well then, it sounds like it's in your best interests to make sure we find our infringers sooner, rather than later."
The agent picked up a shipwide announcement radio/mic, handing it to Huxley and gazing at him through silver, teched-up shades.
"Call off security and tell them to join our search. We want every able officer on this ship to help us track down our fugitives as soon as possible."
The agent walked over to a cowering Maria, lifting her chin up with the muzzle of his rifle.
"Every able officer."
***
*CRASH*A third crate landed and split open, the victim of an unceremonious toss by Freefall off the fourth tier of cargo. Dangerous, loaded plastic show props spilled out, sliding across the smooth deck floor.
"Anything useful in those for your matter-ma-whatsit?"
Kriok was beginning to wonder whether these beak-less bipeds she'd been meeting lately had some sort of evolutionary flaw, or perhaps even a shared religion against common sense.
"How about we stick with the ground floor crates, for now?"
Freefall gently fell from the floor above, landing next to her. Kriok picked up one of the exhumed weapons, apparently the same handheld laser-toys Security had used to accost her earlier.
"The shell's mostly hydrocarbon polymers." She handed it to her fabricator, deconstructing the middle of the weapon. "A silicon dioxide crystal - more nonsense - and other scattered... mhmm. This is basically useless. Find me something bulkier, more raw materi-"
*fwuuup!*
Kriok turned to find her 'assistant' test-firing the weapon at a few crates, launching – *fwuup fwuuuup!* – tacky violet beams that left steaming scorchmarks where they hit.
"Yeah, what I thought. Shittiest lasers I've ever seen."
"Did you just test-fire a hot weapon at potentially bomb-containing storage crates?"
"Alright, you need to relax. I told you I've pretty much seen these guys in a firefight, these piece of shit lasers can't punch through anything."
"I don't understand you. Are you stupid, or just suicidal?"
"Shut up. I know what I'm doing."
"I've been trapped, mocked, threatened, painted on, and forced to cook since I was abducted into this damnable contest, and yet nothing so far has made me feel more uncomfortable or close to abrupt obliteration than you. Why should I trust you not to get us killed?"
This was an exaggeration, to be fair. Asteroid mining had been far riskier business than any of this, and Freefall seemed saner than her previous allies of convenience, at least. But Kriok had several practical, tactical, and conversational reasons not to let a violent thug of a competitor in on her abilities.
"Ain't gonna happen. This is my job."
"Ah, that's right. You were some sort of 'hero'. Is putting everyone around you in danger part of your job description?"
"Listen up, you bird... robot... thing!" She slammed her palm against the standing gunmetal gray corner of an otherwise shattered crate; meaning to lean against it to punctuate a confrontational stare-down, she instead sent it tipping to the ground, leaving her standing awkwardly. "I'm not an empty suit. I'm a superhero. A problem solver. Groups like mine get called in whenever you have to deal with a superpowerful anomaly. Something like a gang of robbers carrying stolen experimental weapons, or a giant goddamn beast made of crystal unleashed by some oblivious scientist. Aliens. Ghosts. Fucking witches, the magic kind. I do a damn good job helping defend my city. I keep people safe from shit like that, and they respect me like a celebrity. You're the one I don't understand. If you're going to play the whole lone last-of-your-race deal, at least play it straight and threaten me or something like a proper out-of-touch asshole. But don't you dream of telling me I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know about you, but this contest isn't some big shocker I don't know how to handle. It's practically an average Wednesday."
"...Sure."
"Sure?"
Kriok opted to add a generous, dripping coating of sarcasm to her usual condescending tone. "Sure. Let's say you've really been through this sort of nonsense before. Just how is this battle going to play out? I mean, you're the expert. Enlighten me."
Freefall put a hand to her chin for a moment or two.
...Contemplative? This should be good.
"...Round three."
"I'm sorry?"
"It'll be over by round three. Maybe four, since we're doing the whole environment-swapping thing, and that's gotta play out a few times, but four max. We're gonna gather people together, one by one. Probably fight a few of them before they learn to stop being dumbasses, got a lot of villains in our lineup. One of 'em's just gonna be some evil asshole, another one joins and betrays us when they throw something heavy to break us up... Those sorts of characters are just gonna get karmic deaths. Y'know, run off like a coward and get confronted by a swarm of mooks, or refuse a helping hand and get crushed by a giant rock. That sorta thing. Probably gonna be the less human guys like zombie-dude, too, no offense to you, Kriok. Just callin' it how I see it. All the while we're building science stuff like whatever the fuck you're working on, we get a communicator up, my team comes to help, and we all get together to kick the announcer's ass and go home. ...Yeah, that's about it. Sorry, I don't usually talk this much, did that make sense?"
A nice, long pause.
"...the announcer."
"Yeah, the show host."
"We assault a TV show announcer, and that lets us go home?"
"Alright, look, I don't know if it's the announcer specifically. Could be a producer, a director, point is I'm betting we'll see one goddamn guy running this thing. Or girl, computer, whatever. We kick its ass, this contest never happens again."
"You're completely insane."
"Hey, I'm helping you. If that makes me insane, then you're goddamn lucky I am."
Kriok grabbed a bulky replacement ship-part from one of the containers they'd split open, and returned silently to her work.
Freefall had a point, she realized. If her competitors had been sane and rational... well, she might not have survived them.
"...What exactly are you building, anyway?"
"A thermonuclear mining charge," Kriok replied sarcastically to the liability.
"Oh... whoa whoa, hold on, we're not killing anybody! Letting them do their fucked-up channel stuff and shoot each other like they always would is one thing, we can't goddamn well stop them. I don't wanna blow them up–"
"Do you see any uranium or plutonium around here? It was a joke. I'm surprised you even knew what one was."
"Excuse me if I'm not impressed by your sense of humor-"
"Whatever we'd need to escape would presumably require a lot of power, more than we could take with us if I constructed an enormous generator. Right now, I'm going to build anything I damn well please. You can help, if you're so inclined."
"Alright, fine, but no killing. That's my rule. If you want my help, you're going strictly non-lethal."
She turned to Freefall. "And if I have no other choice?"
The hero scowled, cracking her knuckles. "Well then, we'd have a problem, wouldn't we?"
Kriok returned to her work once again, fabricator-arm humming brilliantly.
I stand corrected. A major liability.
Several moments passed, with nothing but the fabricator's mechanisms and machinations interrupting the tense atmosphere.
"It's 'Freefall', correct?"
"Mhmm."
"How much can you carry?"