"No time for dancing. Get moving."
Sadly, the Devaronian was a professional. She didn't feel the need to emphasise her order by prodding me in the back with her blaster or something similar. I got my balance back a little slower than I normally do, and kept walking.
The stormie was silent, again. I was hoping it'd furnish me with some framework for assessing my chances of getting out of here, or even better, it'd know the layout of a wherever I was - but, of course, it's never that easy. So I kept an eye out on the layout as Ms. Discipline steered me through the passageways.
Maybe if I had been a galaxy-spanning interstellar man of mystery, I might have been able to pick up on some clue in the layout to tell me what kind of facility I was in - "Aha! Three doors in the prison block? I must be on a KDY Nerf-class light cruiser! Bring on the beautiful women while the villain explains his master plan!" - but, sadly, I'd only been on board three types of ship - and of those, one had been falling apart while the other I'd been trying to help blow apart. Add to that the fact I wasn't even sure I was on a ship, and my only real choice was to hang out for information.
It wouldn't do me much good to jump out the hatch into vacuum.
I couldn't devote my full attention to trying to figure out the layout - call me paranoid, if you will, but I find it difficult to ignore someone with a blaster pointed at me. The fact that I didn't feel at all dressed for the occasion didn't help that. I mean, I know it's a standard psychological breaking tactic to deny a captive clothing, but I found that knowledge didn't serve as any kind of shield. I felt acutely aware that I had no protection whatsoever, and I felt vulnerable and exposed. Which, come to think of it, I pretty much was.
Look, you get marched around naked by people who don't like you, and tell me if you don't have any unhelpful thoughts going around in your head.
Finally, Ms. Discipline directed me through a door, and I was on what looked like the bridge of a ship. Or at least, I thought it did - it might have been a holotheatre, for all I knew. In the centre of a room was a small podium with a translucent hologram of a tetrahedron spinning around above it. "Keep your eyes on the holo," ordered Ms. Discipline, a touch too loudly, I thought. "You're not here to sightsee."
I had already caught a glimpse of the windows, though, and they had shown me a view of an arid landscape. This was good. I was on a planet, and this was presumably a ship. I just hoped the planet in question was still Earth, or I was in deep trouble however I looked at it.
I stiffened as the muzzle of a blaster dug into the small of my back. "Keep walking, screwhead. You've got a message to record."
"Can't I do it from here?" I asked, trying to reinforce the image of the stupid primitive. It wasn't much, but when the time came for me to make my move, I'd prefer they thought I was stupid, rather than dangerous. And chances were, they'd be right anyway.
Ms. Discipline replied in the Intergalactic Language of Blaster-Shoving, so I kept moving. "All right," I whined, "But what's all this about?"
A chuckle emanated from somewhere behind me, and the hairs stood on the back of my neck. As if I hadn't suffered enough indignity already... "We must provide assurances to your... colleague, Mr. Coghlan," the Phantom Chuckler said, his voice twisting just enough on 'colleague' to imply he thought there was a deeper relationship. Oh, ho ho ho. Capture a guy, march him around at the point of a blaster, chuckle at him remorselessly and then cast doubts on his sexuality. What a riot. The galaxy had obviously lost a talented comedian when this guy was born.
Someone else in the room thought it was funny, though - there was a noise I can only describe as a snigger. I started to wonder just how many people had come to see the Naked Josh Show. Still, it was another data point. Chuckles and the Mistress weren't the only people on this tub.
"Assurances of what?" I asked, trying really hard to keep my irritation from showing, and slapping some more Farmboy over the top.
"That you are alive, and in relatively good condition," said Chuckles wearily. "Look at the hologram, and tell your... friend... that you are all right, and that we are treating you well."
"Well?!" I yelped, channelling Farmboy like mad.
"Ahuhuh," said a voice I hadn't heard before. "He wants room service." Obviously, this represented a staggering feat of wit for the speaker, as he dissolved into fits of skull-vacant laughter.
"Ayup," replied another voice, apparently content with the affirmation. I was popular today.
"In your own time, Mr. Nolan," Chuckles said, his voice full of royal condescension. Not wanting to disappoint His Majesty, I stepped up to the podium and stared at the tetrahedron.
"Hey Nick, it's Josh here. I don't know where I am or who's keeping me here, but they're making me record this so you'll know I'm okay. Mostly. They've only inflicted a little bit of unnecessary pain on me, and I don't think much of their laundry services, but I'm otherwise okay." I stepped back from the podium. "Is that all you need?"
"That will be sufficient, Mr. Nolan."
I nodded, and wished once again my hands were free - my face was itching, and there were several people in the room who needed bits broken. Still, the restraints had one, tiny, benefit - they wouldn't show Nick more than he needed to see on the holo.
Chuckles snapped his fingers - or at least, that's what it sounded like - and said, "Grat, Mr. Nolan is now in your custody. See that he gets some clothing, please."
Mr. Wit replied, "Sure thing, boss!" I heard movement behind me - I wasn't about to look away from the holo, not with a blaster pointed at me - and a bulky guy moved into my field of view. He looked like the kind of guy that would get called 'Bubba', no matter what his actual name was. He was dressed in greasy overalls, and had a bulky blaster slung at his right hip, and a few teeth missing. "Now you just go along quietly," he said to me, "and there won't be no reason for no-one to get hurt, huh?"
He spun me around - carefully making sure I didn't turn towards where Chuckles was lurking - and began to push me out of the room. Another man, similarly clad in overalls, tall and lanky where Bubba was short and squat, grinned gormlessly at me as I was marched on my way. As I walked past him, I heard him fall into step with Bubba behind me.
These guys were most emphatically not professionals. They seemed to have tremendous fun with the discovery that, yes, when they shoved me, I would move forward kind of quickly. Certainly Bubba seemed to think it tremendously amusing, encouraging his companion to have a go now and then. After the umpteenth shove, I decided to at least get something out of this situation. "Weren't you supposed to get me some clothes?"
"Ayup," replied Bubba's mate.
"No-one gets nothin' for free on this here ship," added Bubba. "If you want duds, you gotta earns 'em."
I tensed at this, but forced myself to relax, the better to defend myself. If these guys mentioned anything about squealing like a pig, or even a GFFA animal I'd never heard of, there was going to be hell to pay, hands bound or not. There was no way I was going down without a fight.
"Ayup," confirmed Gormless.
"Yeah," continued Bubba. "You wants 'em, you gotta..." he dissolved into sniggering.
Here it was. I figured I could clock Gormless with my restraints, and maybe give Bubba the Glasgow Kiss, but beyond that...
"You gotta..." he was wheezing now, but he was getting closer to being able to speak. "You gotta... clean the 'fresher!"
"Ayup."
I tried to look duly horrified. Oh no, B'rer Fox, don't throw me into the briar patch!
They herded me along the corridor, still sniggering from the revelation. Finally, we reached what I assumed to be the 'fresher, and, sure enough, Bubba keyed the door with a big grin on his face.
Then the stench hit me, and I realised that there was a reason they hadn't called it the refresher. Apart from them being illiterate morons. Come to think of it, I hadn't heard anything from Bubba's mate other than "Ayup."
The defresher was, quite possibly, where sewer systems went to die. Someone had obviously heard of the concept of plumbing and then decided that they wanted nothing to do with such an unholy concept. If the 'fresher's floor wasn't a slightly lower level than the corridor, I'm pretty certain it would have spilt.
I turned to my scholarly friends, and followed the script. "You cannot be serious!" I also took the opportunity to study Gormless a bit - it seemed his chin had been transplanted to his height, and something about the way he looked at me suggested his family tree was somewhat more linear than mine. But despite the dimness in his eyes, the way he moved suggested muscular power to spare. I was still frowning from my John McEnroe impression, and he grinned back at me.
"Ayup," he said.
"Bowb's right," Bubba added. "We wanna be able to see our reflections in it."
I bit back my comment on how that was most likely a bad idea, and instead, asked, "How?" If they suggested licking it, it was resistance time again.
Luck was with me - Bowb (the name seemed so fitting, somehow) disappeared around the corner and returned wheeling what looked like a Swiss Army Cleaning Kit, and proudly brought it to a stop in front of me.
"Giss yer hands," said Bubba, and I held out the restraints towards him. Without any visible sign of why, the clamshell popped open and my hands were free again. Bubba took the clamshell and nodded at me. "Now get started."
I crouched down to better inspect the cleaner, hoping it'd be diagrammatic rather than in Aurebesh, when Bowb's foot lashed out and knocked me sprawling towards the 'fresher. I managed to halt my movement with only a few millimetres between the stubble on my cheek and the muck that covered the floor. Bubba guffawed, and added, "And mind yer step."
"Ayup."
"A prisoner's first duty is escape." The stormie's voice, confident and calm, let me put things in perspective. These guys were tools. In both senses of the word. I could put up with them until I knew enough to break out - and once they were used, I could get rid of them.
I didn't want to give the wrong impression, so I didn't whistle as I got back up again.
It took me a good hour or two to clean out the defresher. It might have taken a shorter time, but my guardians seemed to take great pleasure in finding new ways to unbalance me and topple me into the muck. Fortunately, I was able to rinse myself off under the pretext of testing the shower nozzle for blockages - and I'd saved this for after I'd cleaned out the rest of the stall.
They marched me down to the ship's recycler, and after I'd dumped the various wastes into it - the ship's environmental systems must have been strained to the limit, missing all of this - Bubba proudly presented me with some coveralls of exactly the same shade and cut as his and Bowb's. Good doggie, gets a biscuit. Woof.
While it felt good to actually get a bit of covering, I still had bare feet. "Uh... do I get some shoes, as well?"
"You ain't that bright, ain'tcha? If you wants boots, you gots ta earn 'em." Having my hands free meant I had a few more options... "We'll get you ta clean the cargo bay."
Cargo bay. This was good. This was very good. The cargo bay, almost by definition, had to have an exit. Things were looking up. I bowed my head, and sighed. "Okay," I admitted grudgingly, and sighed again. This guy is broken. Move along.
Fortunately, it wasn't a long way from the recycler to the cargo bay by rough shove, but the bay itself was massive. And there, sitting near what looked like airlock bulkheads, was perhaps the most beautiful thing I could have seen - a speeder bike. A gleaming, sleek, streamlined machine, it sat patiently by the door, but like a cat staking out its prey, I knew it was simply waiting for a chance to spring.
Okay, so maybe I was projecting a little.
"We'll start ya on the floor," declared Bubba. "Do it good and quick, and we'll get ya yer boots." He fell silent, and I waited for him to finish.
"Ayup." Bowb, the Human Punctuation Mark, then kicked the back of my knees. I could have resisted, but crumpling to my knees seemed the polite thing to do. Bubba guffawed, and lent his own foot to the cause, catching me between the shoulderblades, leaving me sprawled on the deck. Man fall down. Funny. Bubba seemed to think so.
A rag flew out from somewhere and landed on the back of my head, followed by a plastic bottle full of liquid that bounced off my back and landed near me. "Don' ferget the elbow grease!" admonished Bubba, and kept on laughing. I pried myself back up to my hands and knees, trying to convey a dogged determination to please. I picked up the bottle and examined it, and was surprised to find that apparently the GFFA hadn't come up with some powered version of a spray bottle.
Apparently, the lack of a powered tool seemed to mean that Heckle and Jeckle got bored more easily, because they began to amuse themselves by kicking me when I wasn't looking. As kicks go, they weren't that hard - I'm not sure it would even have left any bruises - but they were annoying, and, of course, more of an excuse for Bubba to laugh.
Still, I managed to plan out a cleaning routine that brought me close enough to the airlock controls to have a look. Sure enough, there was a large red button on the control pad, and a small diagram near it had me pretty sure it was the emergency vent control. There was also a set of readings, apparently comparing the inside and the outside in three ways. Between kicks, I figured these to be pressure, temperature and composition, and since all the readouts had big green lights next to them, I felt fairly safe in assuming that I didn't need to guess which was which.
It also meant that chances were I wouldn't need equipment to survive out there. Reducing the variables - always good.
I also tried to surreptitiously examine the controls on the bike while I had a chance, but came up blank. Still, I knew an Ewok could figure out the controls on at least one type of speeder bike, so how hard could it be? Just twist the handlebars and steer. I hoped.
I continued to clean the floor, trying to work out when I should make my break. There was a lot I didn't know - where we were, if we were on Earth, how many other people were on the ship...
"No battle plan is ever complete. The enemy is the ultimate variable."
The stormie was right. And I had all I needed to make my break now. I might not get another chance. Still, there was no sense getting into a brawl where it might hurt the bike. Or the airlock controls. I moved my cleaning activities back away from the bike, and waited for my moment. I needed a bit of breathing space to deal with one before tackling the other.
Finally, Bubba wandered away to lean against a wall and scratch himself, leaving me relatively alone with Bowb. I kept rubbing the rag on the floor, wondering when Bowb would let loose with another kick.
I waited.
And waited.
I finished everything within reach, moved along, and started cleaning again.
And waited.
I wondered if I was doing something wrong. I should have been kicked about four times by now. Maybe -
No, there it was. Right in the ribs. I groaned, and collapsed, crawling away from Bowb as if I could take no more of his brutal punishment. This was, of course, the precise thing that would have him eager to inflict more, and sure enough, he stepped over and grabbed my right shoulder.
I rolled slightly towards him, whipping my right arm out to grab his bicep. Once I'd gotten a grip, I yanked myself upwards, driving the heel of my left hand up into the base of his nose as I rose. His head snapped back, and his feet actually left the floor.
A lot has been said about the supposed killing strike where one drives a fragment of your opponent's skull into their brain, and, let's face it, not very much by people who have tried it. Supposedly, by striking the base of the nose hard enough at the correct angle, the cartilage detaches and, lo and behold, drives into the brain. Of course, what doesn't get said is that if you don't quite pull it off, it causes less pain than simply breaking the nose, and you've now got someone who's just hurt enough to be pissed off who thinks that you've just tried to kill them.
This was what was going through my mind as Bowb left the ground, because I hadn't heard or felt anything to suggest I'd done anything in the least disabling. Then, just as my hand nearly reached full extension, his face caved in with a sickening crunch. Bowb's entire body convulsed, his feet catching me on my thighs, and he fell to the floor in a shuddering heap.
I always remember what happened next in slow motion. I was looking down at Bowb, and wiping my now-wet left hand on my coveralls, and looked up towards Bubba, just in time for his hand to slam into my throat. I remember thinking, as he threw me back towards the wall, just how he'd managed to cover so much ground so quickly. And then I wondered if someone had turned off the gravity, because I'd spent an awfully long time in the air.
I hit the ground way too hard, and slid backwards into some shelving, and sat there for a while, dazed. Then Bubba was there, yanking me off the ground. "Just ignore the fatso," he snarled in my face, punctuated with spittle and lashings of halitosis. "He'll be the easy one." He spun then, and tossed me through the air like a rag doll. Unfortunately, I hit the ground like a ninety-kilo meatsack filled with bones, about five metres away, and slid into the wall hard enough to set fireworks off behind my eyes.
I was just enjoying the grand finale when Bubba had to stick his ugly mug in the way. "Wassa matter? Never run into a heavyworlder before?" He punched me in the face, and I felt my nose crunch. I wasn't in much of a state to do anything but hurt, and then I was airborne again.
"Tactical procedures."
Even though I was in the middle of an unpowered flight, the stormie's voice focused me. My mind cleared, and my pain lessened. All that mattered was here and now.
"Resolve is the soldier's greatest asset. Lose it, and you hand your enemy the victory. Keep it, and you will strike back when your enemy least expects it."
I slammed into the floor, and although one of my ribs gave, I stayed in control of myself. I let myself slide, relaxing my muscles, preparing my counterattack. I had almost let my injuries defeat me.
"When faced with a superior foe, seek to seize or destroy his assets. Even if you are killed, you may deal the blow that will leave your enemy reeling, and vulnerable to your forces."
My enemy was sprinting towards me, apparently winding up for a kick. I felt the wall come up behind me, and I let my momentum fold my legs, ready for a spring. When he came within range, I leapt out to meet his charge.
And with my right hand, I seized his assets.
He had the edge in momentum, so I was pushed back when we slammed together. I tightened my grip, and his eyes bulged. He grabbed my arm, trying to tear my grip free, but I did my best to convince him that would do more harm than good. While his guard was down, I smashed the blade of my forehead into his nose, and shoved him away.
He reeled back, and I showed him what I'd done with my left hand.
In sheer disbelief, he slapped his holster, trying to convince himself his weapon was still there, but it wasn't. It was in my hand, and pointed at him. I had turned the tide of battle.
I squeezed the trigger.
There was a flash, and a blast wave of heat spilt back at me, forcing me to stagger back, scalding my face, hands and feet. I opened my eyes to see what was left of my enemy falling to the floor, while a crimson haze spread out into the cargo bay. Apparently, my enemy kept his blaster at an impractically high power setting.
His funeral.
I sprinted over to the airlock control, opened the panel over the vent control and slapped the button. The airlock clanked, and the bulkheads slowly started to open. I ran to the speeder bike and climbed aboard. I twisted the handlebars, and the bike began to move forward. I heard shouts from behind me, so I jockeyed the bike towards the gap in the bulkhead doors, ducked down on the seat, and twisted the handlebars as far as they'd go.
A blaster bolt flew past me, but by the time I brought my own weapon around to return fire, I saw nothing but sand. I allowed myself a small grin of satisfaction, and put my attention towards operating the bike.
Which began to slow down, despite my best efforts.
And speak at me.
It wasn't in any language I knew, but a distorted bass voice was saying something like "Jinuna kinamana oudi melagal no."
I tried kicking at one of the levers near my feet, but to no avail. The bike was still slowing.
"Galput, slaymo. Nidora bantha poodoo." Something snaked around my ankles, securing them to the bike. I glanced down at my left ankle, and saw what looked like coiled metallic tape around it.
And then the tape flashed blue, and everything went black.
"Mr. Nolan, you have displeased me greatly."
I was upright. My arms were spread out against a wall, and my legs were curled up below me, my ankles bound together. I wasn't standing on anything - it felt like I was hanging from my wrists.
"The human body, oddly enough, finds a certain arrangement of muscles to interfere with optimum breathing. You will find, in your current position, you will try to support your entire body with your arms. This is impractical, of course, and your muscles will start to spasm eventually anyway. Placing weight upon your ankles will activate the nerve inductors holding you to the wall - but after a while it will seem like the lesser agony. I'm not sure whether you will die of dehydration or suffocation first."
I opened my eyes, and found the cell I was in was empty, and only had the minimum of lighting to let me know this. I closed my eyes as Chuckles continued.
"It will take you some days to die. I would tell you to enjoy the rest of your life, but we both know you won't."
Then, one by one, the lights went out.
In the silence, the stormie whispered, "Mission status - failed."