4 - Pursuits
Transcript
Grunk was utterly and completely certain that the prisoner had no useful information. The diminutive shopkeeper had no knowledge of where the ‘humans’ had been heading, or where they’d taken the thief Belto, and the amateur musician At-Un. The frustratingly opportunistic creature mostly seemed to be trying to upsell Grunk on some clearly not very good jewelry. Grunk admired the salesman’s steel resolve, he was jealous of it.
Grunk was getting old and wrinkled, like a Gindarian pear, but without the pungent aroma (most days). His steel was blunted, and rusted. He was tired, mostly. His back ached. When did his back start aching so often? Grunk’s society had crafted faster than light travel and harnessed the power of perpetual fire crystals, but it had yet to discover memory foam, or those pillows with the lumpy bit to support your neck.
Grunk was not where he’d always assumed he’d end up in life. He had, rather ironically, always wanted to be a lawman. He’d grown up reading holo novelas about the frontier planets, the brave folks who defended them from rogues and brigands and people who talk loudly about twist endings as they walk out of the cinema. Grunk had wanted to be on the side of right, not where he was, a gangster, hunting four armed thieves whom his employers eagerly anticipated seeing again, in one or more pieces.
“Well, you got it all figured out, ‘aint ya?” He said to the jeweller, “you figured out a course to follow and you made it your own. Bet you’ve even got one of those comfortable sofas with the corner bit you can kinda curl up in, don’tcha?”
The shopkeeper looked scared and a bit confused but mostly scared.
A light flashed in the interrogation room. It was a cyan alert, which meant “hey, when you get a minute, and if you’re not too busy, let’s check in, just a quick one.” Grunk punched a switch on the wall which teleported the shopkeeper back to the surface of the market world of Hermes below, somewhere inconvenient but within 20 miles of his shop, and picked up the comms device. He leant, heavily, on the bulkhead as he talked to his second in command.
A ship matching his target had been apprehended crossing through Jertvorian space, and then been immediately released in a conveniently short and presumably narratively satisfying amount of time.
Grunk slammed down the comms device and made his way through the corridors of his starship, the Blunt Bludgeon. It was a vast ship, many stories high and equally wide. It was a ship seemingly designed by an engineer with an active dislike of aesthetics. An engineer who had dated an artist in their youth, fallen in love, but then gone through an unpleasant break up, and steadfastly refused beauty ever since. It was a ship which was intently hellbent on proving the unequivocal truth that aerodynamics did not matter in space travel. It was ugly, and that’s how Grunk liked it.
He arrived on the bridge. Two of his senior staff were brawling, another pair were gambling in the corner. The only crew member who looked to be actually paying attention to her monitor, his second in command, confirmed what she’d said on comms.
“There’s something else,” she said, “At-Un, do you remember her from before?”Grunk did remember her. She had been the one who distracted him while the coward Belto snuck around behind him, sabotaging his men’s weapons. Grunk would always prefer that an enemy had the guts to approach him from the front, where he could just punch them.
“The trial records note that she was a member of The Sect of Rectification.”
The Sect was well known, but secretive and insular. He’d heard rumours of their gifts, their obsession with discussing their philosophies. She’d just looked like any other denizen of that market. If this were true, was this his way out? Was this a way to correct the mistakes he’d made?
“Plot their course, and full speed til intercept!” He commanded. One of the gamblers looked up, sighed, then punched in the coordinates on his panel. Grunk noted that his opponent stole two chips while he did so.
“And somebody go get me my biggest gun.”
[intro music]
“We’re gaining on ‘em” said Grunk’s second in command.
He saw that she was right. The dot on the view screen was growing larger, he could make out the ship’s fins, its pathetically spluttering engine. It was small and plucky, a ship for underdogs and the people he used to root for in the novelas. But in this, the real world, plucky just meant underfunded and not very good. The Blunt Bludgeon was faster, heavier and much more foreboding.
“I should open a channel?” Asked his second in command. He had never bothered to learn her name, and now enough time had passed that it’d be awkward to ask. He wanted to say something beginning with an X?
“No, let us get closer. I got a specific plan here. You see that there’s a Vector class. Got one of them holographic assistants. I wanna get to high bandwidth range, then make my presence known more… personal like.”
She smiled, revealing at least four pairs of fangs. He wanted to say Xankthulu, but that didn’t sound right.
“Hack their systems, use the pathways the Jertvorians left in there. I want access to their holographic projectors.”
Another inferior tapped at her console with satisfying complexity. Grunk cleared a space in the middle of the bridge, throwing the assorted blades and energy weapons that had piled up to the edges of the room. He made a mental note that when this was all done with, he wanted to send out an aggressively worded message to all crew members, reminding them of the high regard with which he held order and tidiness.
“Go on now, project me aboard,” he said, excited to properly meet his first Rectifier in person, without the distraction of, well, distractions.
---
Grunk towered over the crew of North Star, projected in light at the center of the control donut. He had to bend down a little, to keep his head from clipping through the ceiling. Vector starships were not designed for men of his stature.
“Grunk?” Belto asked.
“That’s what they call me.” He replied, smiling.
“What happened to Alpha?” Asked Tara.
“He ain’t hurt any, I’m just using his projector, wanted to come on board, parlay with you folks a little. You got something I want.” Grunk turned to look at At-Un.
“You’re not taking me!” Said Belto, Grunk could tell he didn’t fully believe the words he was saying.
“I could if I chose, little man, but naw, you ain’t what I’m here for. In fact, I’ll happily let you all be on your way. I just want a simple gift that’s all, a tribute, let’s call it. I want what’s mine.”“I sold everything I took from the gang already, I got some good prices mate, happy to point you in the direction of those I sold it to,” said Belto.
Grunk laughed. He had perfected his laugh over many years. To a villain, a laugh is like a favourite jacket. You want it to be comfortable and worn in, sure, but it’s also important that it’s impressive. You wear a good laugh. Grunk’s laugh was good, it was authentic sounding. It sounded the way you wanted the gangster hunting you down to sound. It was terrifying, raspy, deep and bellowing. It was a laugh you could hang your hat on, but you wouldn’t, because you wouldn’t want to get that close.
“I ain’t here for the gang, Belto, I’m here for what she’s carrying.” He gestured at At-Un. Recognition tripped over Belto’s face and fell on At-Un.
“No, not a chance.” She said.
“What are they talking about?” Asked Otis.
“Go on, tell ‘em At-Un. Tell ‘em what you’ been carryin’ in that bag of yours.”
The thing about keeping secrets is that it becomes a habit. Grunk suspected At-Un had kept this secret from the humans long enough that it was a struggle to even consider telling them. Belto had to know, but these odd, backwater creatures had likely never heard tell of The Sect of Rectification.
“Tell ‘em, At-Un.” He repeated.
At-Un took a deep breath. The others nodded. Belto smiled reassuringly then left the room, Grunk presumed to collect the object of his desire.
“I told you I live in the moment, that my culture tries not to be overwhelmed by consequence. I think you probably just assumed I was carefree or stupid or both. But it’s more than that. My people live that way, because we don’t have to live with consequences if we don’t want to.”
Tara and Otis looked confused. Even more so than the default.
“Every member of the sect of Rectification is gifted, via a beautiful ceremony, a device capable of exactly one time jump.”Tara put her confusion into words, “you mean, time travel? HG Wells type stuff?”“I never met him,” replied At-Un, “but yes, time travel, once in my life, at a moment of my choosing, I can jump back through time to unmake a mistake.”
Grunk knew all of this, of course, but to hear it said by a member of The Sect, to hear the immense power that was nearly within his grasp, sent shivers through his abdominal venom sacks. This technology was unmatched in the galaxy, limited to a tiny number of practitioners, and even then, a technology that could only be used once in a lifetime.
Belto returned with At-Un’s bag. She opened it, and pulled out a tiny device, on a strap. She secured it on her wrist.
“Huh,” said Tara, “looks like a watch”. Grunk had no idea what that was, but assumed that the cultural touchstone was informative and illustrative to the humans in the room.“My people live our lives relatively safe in the knowledge that we get to make one terrible mistake and put it right.” At-Un continued. “That empowers us to make bold choices, to be brave. So many worry about unforeseen outcomes, and they should given their linear existences, but we’re free from that.”
The crew looked baffled, everyone except Belto, who put three reassuring hands on At-Un’s two shoulders.
“I’m proud to know you, At-Un. That ‘philosophy’ of yours even rubbed off on me a bit, got me thinking about the chances I wanted to be taking.” Belto considered. “Which is, come to think of it, the cause of our being chased by this buckwild monster… so…” Belto shrugged, his reassurance had not gone as well as it had likely sounded like it would in his head.
Grunk was practically salivating. This was it, this was what he needed. A chance to intercept his life, and the decisions he’d made that got him here. His opportunity was out, in the open, on a little ship that his much bigger ship was gaining ground on. He hoped that his pixelated holographic form accurately captured his satisfied appearance, that it instilled appropriate fear in his opponents. This would all be much easier if they accepted their fate quickly.
“I don’t need Belto, I don’t need At-Un, I just need the device.” He said.
Grunk wanted out of the gang, but he wanted more than that, he wanted to have never been in one. He wanted to go back, talk his younger self back on to the path of righteousness. He wanted to be a good man, and he didn’t care how many people he had to hurt to get there.
“Slow your ship, lower your defences, and prepare to be boarded. I’ll take what the universe owes me, and be on my way. Heck, if I make it so I never got into this life, well you’ll all be safer for it.”
Otis looked confused, “wait, but if you never came looking for us, then you wouldn’t get the device, which means you wouldn’t-”Now it was At-Un’s time to be reassuring, “It’s OK, Otis. Scholars have tried for millennia to wrestle with that stuff. Time gets rewritten, it’s just so, don’t worry about paradoxes.”
“SLOW YOUR ENGINES” roared Grunk, blowing out the holographic projector’s speakers a little.
“No.” Said Tara.
“I beg your pardon?” Replied Grunk. He was not used to having his orders ignored, especially by people he’d held captive only days earlier.
Tara made a big mime of checking her universal translator. She twiddled nobs, pressed buttons. “Hello?!” She said, with what Grunk presumed was some form of human sarcasm, “hello? Can anybody hear me? Testing, testing, one two three. ”
She knocked the universal translator against the console.
“Helllooooooooooooooo” Tara said.
“It’s definitely working, Tara.” Said Belto, with one of his sickening smirks.
“Oh. Well then, Grunk, I said no. You can’t take At-Un’s property from her. We’re a crew. We stand up for each other. I’m still getting used to being threatened to be honest, and I’m not keen on it.”
Tara stood defiant. Grunk was unimpressed. He’d seen that look in the eyes of lesser lifeforms from one end of the galaxy to the other. He’d seen it drain pathetically once he took what he wanted. The North Star crew would be no different.
“The more you slow me down, the more you get in my way… I’m not going to make this easy on you.”
Otis, who had been hanging back from the console and also from the imposing figure of Grunk, slid back into his chair and started poking at the ship controls. Grunk looked down at him.
“You’re the one who called me kid, aintcha?” Grunk said, nostalgic for the alleyway, the straight line of sight and the pistol in his hand.
“That’s right, I’m the Tsar of.. Erm..”
“Ursa Fengris,” piped up Belto.
“There still aint no such planet.” Grunk smiled. He couldn’t help himself. “Well, kid, what are you doing down there? I never met a human before Hermes. I’m thinkin’ that’s because nobody has, which tells me you’re from a world of nobodies. Just some hick from a backwater town don’t know their antimatter from their FTL. Now what could you possibly think you’d know that’d get you out of my sights?”
Otis watched Grunk throughout his evil monologue. He listened. He nodded sympathetically, and then he got his head back down to his work at the console. Grunk didn’t know the interface design of inferior ships like the Vector class, but from what he could infer, Otis was mostly changing the settings for the little warning lights that go on in the ship’s bathroom whenever they hit an errant gravitational eddy or turbulent maneuvering.
“Never met a pre-interstellar species before. The Order would be fascinated by you.” He said.
Grunk had mixed feelings about The Order. His feelings would likely be less mixed if he wasn’t wanted by their bureaucratic peace keepers for more crimes than he could count. He’d not checked in on his bounty for a while. You could get obsessed with numbers like that. Still. Soon he wouldn’t have to worry about pettiness like bounties, he was going to make a new life for himself.
“I ain’t got any interest in waiting longer for this than I gotta. If you’re gonna drag your boots coming to the best option, I’ll pull you kicking and screaming myself.” Grunk turned to his second in command, X-something and barked. “Activate secondary energy scoops, I ain’t waiting.”
Belto, who was looking out of the window at Blunt Bludgeon, turned back to the group, the colour drained from his face, “They’re getting faster, we need a plan.”
“You’re gorath right.” Grunk cursed, “Like I said, I aint waiting.”
Otis looked to Tara, she looked back, they both smiled.
“Plan?” She asked.
“Plan.” He responded. She nodded to him. Whatever they were plotting, she’d given him the OK.
Grunk was bemused, he didn’t like it when his prey started smiling. He especially didn’t like it when it happened only moments from his inevitable victory.
“Grunk,” began Otis, “I want to tell you a story. It’s a story about a friend of mine, Steve. Steve and me used to work at Computer Planet. Weekends, back when I was at sixth form.”
That was a string of words that meant nothing to Grunk. He noticed that Otis was activating some of the ship’s inertial controls. Inertial stabilisation, to prevent a crew from being thrown around during maneuvers, struck Grunk as cowardly. When he was engaged in space travel, he wanted to feel the full force of his power. He also knew how seatbelts worked, which continued to be confusing to many lesser warriors. As the North Star was already at top speed, Grunk had no idea why Otis would need to fiddle with those controls right now.
“Now, Steve was not the world’s most interesting person. If I’m being honest, Steve was kind of annoying. He was rubbish with the customers, and he would always play us just the worst music he’d downloaded the night before on to his mp3 player. But Steve had one defining personality trait, one utterly important character strength, which means a lot to you when you’re seventeen and working a Saturday job at Computer Planet. Steve… had a car.”
Grunk didn’t know what a ‘car’ was, but as a man who also enjoyed a monologue, he’d allow it.
“Every night after work, Steve and me would drive around in the carpark, and he taught me a skill which I have prided myself on ever since, a skill which has given me the edge, a skill that might buy us some time. Steve taught me how to do donuts!”
Otis overloaded the North Star’s engines, that wouldn’t help, Grunk thought. He then did something strange, he began to turn. The Blunt Bludgeon course corrected with little trouble. Tara, Belto and At-Un all put hands on Otis’s shoulder, supportively. It was disgusting.
“What do you think you’re doing, ‘Tsar’?” Grunk asked.
“My name’s not ‘Tsar’, Grunk. They call me… Otis, Space Hero. Or at least they should.”
Otis slammed the reverse thrusters, the North Star began spinning in tight circles. The crew held on to Otis for dear life, the inertial systems were not helping as much as Grunk would expect. He heard his second in command making worried orders to the crew to stay on course.
Suddenly, and without warning, Otis pulled the ship straight and darted forward, flying directly at the Blunt Bludgeon, and then straight past it.
“FOLLOW THEM!” Grunk roared to his crew. But it was pointless. His ship was moving too fast, too much mass. Turning at this speed was slow. His ship was now actively flying away from his quarry. His second in command assured him that they would be able to resume pursuit, but that it would take a few minutes.
“Stop your ship!” He demanded of Otis. His signal was starting to drop out. It was an empty threat. “I won’t quit, I’ll chase you clear across the galaxy. I know your course.”
Belto muttered to himself, “he means it”. Through the failing connection, Grunk could see him fiddle with some controls, and grab a tool bag from a shelf.
“What are you doing, Belto?” Asked Tara.
“I’m gonna buy you more than a few minutes. Good luck guys, and don’t you dare turn away from your mission, I’m dying to know how it all turns out.”
“Belto-” At-Un started.
“Like I said, mate, you’ve inspired me to take chances. Let me take one more, will you?”
Belto looked up at Grunk. “Cheers for setting up a high bandwidth linkup, you fantastically overconfident jerk, you.”
And with that, Belto teleported. Moments later, the signal dropped, and Grunk was no longer virtually present on the North Star. His second in command informed him that the linkup had been overwhelmed with a high density data packet. In layman’s terms, it was sort of like when you’re doing an important video call in one room, and your housemate insists on streaming video in another room. Only, it wasn’t an episode of must see TV that had interrupted Grunk, it was a thief with a toolbox and a desire to save his friends.
Grunk knew exactly where Belto was headed, and made his way there quickly. He brought three pistols, and three of his burliest crewmates to carry them for him.
---
The engine room of the Blunt Bludgeon belched with chaotic energy and noxious catalytic sludge. It was a room that Grunk avoided as much as possible. It was also the heart of the ship, its systems were safeguarded by the best defense available, hulking, intricate mechanisms and heavy plating. The bankers of Plutus Prime had less protection.
It took Belto approximately twenty three seconds to take the engines out of commision.
As Grunk entered, Belto was sat on top of a large power bank, which was smoking.
“Bad news, mate, this ship is gonna be stalled for a day or so. I did what I could, but yeah. When did you get this serviced last? Loose mercury plugs. Terrible workmanship. Utter liability, mate.”
Grunk growled. The ground beneath his feet had indeed stopped rumbling, they had stopped moving.
“Gimme one good reason I shouldn’t vaporize you like a rat.” He said, through gritted teeth.
“No idea mate, you absolutely could and should. If I were you though, and I hated me as much as I suspect you might, I’d want me to suffer.”
Belto jumped down, and walked up to Grunk. He made a big deal of showing that all of his hands were empty and he posed no threat. Grunk was confused.
“Idiot. Why not just give me the device? You could have been gone, with your awful little ship and most of your awful little crew.”
Belto smiled. “I don’t let my people down. I know that’s an impossible concept for you to grasp, with that thick angry skull of yours, but you see, I love that awful little crew. All of them.”
Grotesque, Grunk thought. His men grabbed Belto by every limb, and held him up so he and Grunk could talk eye to eye.
“I’m gonna put you in a hole so deep you’re gonna miss the stars.” Grunk said. Enjoying every word.
“You got me.” Belto replied.
---
Grunk sat at the bar of the Blunt Bludgeon, a large glass in his hand, filled with a green liquid that would burn the hair from your head if you were ever unfortunate enough to be served it. He swirled the drink, he looked at it. He did absolutely everything he could do but drink it.
He was in no mood to enjoy his drink. Belto was a punk, an insignificant insect on a galaxial level. His capture would make the bosses happy, for sure, but it would do nothing to quiet the anger within Grunk. He was stuck doing the same job he’d been doing since he was not quite old enough to pick up a pistol. At-Un, and her device, were out of his grasp.
Upon fixing the engines, he’d been ordered to drop Belto off with the gang, in that time, they’d have lost tracking on North Star altogether. His chase was done, at least for a while. Maybe, if the crew kept on their adventures past their current mission, he’d be able to get after them again, but that was ultimately up to their longevity and whether the universe remained interested enough in their adventures to justify more of them.
No, Grunk thought, he’d not get that chance to rewrite his life. He’d go back to the course he’d been set. Maybe that’s what true villainy is, an inability to set yourself back on the right path. If Grunk had been smarter, or more creative, he might have realised that his life offered many opportunities to grow, to become better, and that no reset was necessary, but, alas, Grunk was not that wise.
He threw the glass at a bulkhead, which was a massive shock to the crew member sat underneath it, got up and headed for the bridge. Things were stuck as they were for Grunk. He looked forward to taking out that frustration on the next soul unfortunate enough to cross his path.