A Load of Croc

The stars were an ocean. And here I was, floating through it, lazing about in open space. Nothing for miles, no reason to be here, just me and the emptiness of space. It was peaceful.

Would have been nicer if I had not been in a ship a few minutes ago. Even nicer still if said ship hadn’t been blown up by pirates.

I oriented myself to look at them, the two fighters that had destroyed my ship and most of my loot. They raced off towards a nearby mass which I now chided myself for not recognizing as a god damn space station.

Of course there were pirates. There were always pirates. And the worst thing about them was that you never think they’ll come after you till they do. And they had taken my latest haul.

This was unforgivable.

I started towards the base, identifying the location of as much of my gear as I could. It wasn’t much, I was lucky to retrieve the Derelict, which I had been playing with when the missiles hit. But it would have to do. All the important stuff was accounted for at least. I still had the Bomb, and my newest invention, the Sticky holes.

I picked up speed, quick bursts of energy accelerating me little by little, dodging debris from other destroyed ships, which I hadn’t even notice until now. There was something about space travel that made me… Non-attentive.

I hadn’t intended to have to wipe out a gang of pirates, but one doesn’t go out into space expecting everything to work out perfectly. Space was, after all, the last refuge of the desperate.

I set about sorting through the wreckage, looking for anything that might be useful. As many different ships as were in pieces out here, there had to be something salvageable. My shades located an energy source in a larger chunk of ship. An old Miner, from the looks.

The trace brought me to a single unopened crate. Popping it was easy, old Berusian trade collaborative. I still had the master keys for all the old trade collaborative systems. The crate contained somewhere close to forty or fifty little pillbug-looking drones. Multiwelders; Ship repair drones. Hundreds of these little things would crawl on the outside of mining ships and quickly repair small dents and scratches, and even larger breaches with enough of them working together.

I smirked to myself, the area alight with the glow of my protective field. An idea was forming. This might be a fun encounter after all.

I scooped them up by the arm full, shoveling them into my flatspace satchel. I had already set about reprogramming them en mass. Neurocoms were nifty things in the right hands. A powerful enough mind can do miraculous things with the right motivation.

Satisfied that I had what I needed to exact my revenge, I made my way towards the pirate base. A simple enough task to accomplish undetected, if I moved slowly enough. I crept by at a snails pace, being sure not to pick up enough momentum to trigger the proximity alarm. It wasn’t difficult, but after about five minutes, I still wasn’t very close...

...Yeah, fuck this.

I took off, blasting through several tons of wreckage, smashing through the broken ships like they were construction paper. It wasn’t that I couldn’t be stealthy. In fact, that was one of my strengths. I was a master infiltrator; my MO was leaving no evidence that I was ever there save for a calling card that simply read “Xel was here.”

But this was not a job. This was revenge. And I believed that revenge was a dish best served by blowing shit directly the fuck up.

My neurocom informed me that a proximity sensor had detected me. Luckily, that wasn’t going to be enough to trigger an actual alert; high speed projectiles were pretty common in space. They probably thought that I was a meteor or something. Boy were they going to be surprised when I kicked their door in.

The base looked to be an old mining facility. Probably one of the old Garanshyup robo-miner facilities. The Garanshyup were one of those species that thought robots solved everything. As a result, when it came to mining, they would send a group out to build a factory facility that built robots. Those robots would then build more robots, which would then mine for materials to build, you guessed it, more robots. The Garanshyup weren’t as prevalent as they once were, but a fuck ton of their factory facilities were still around. You could actually do pretty well salvaging some of the parts from these things, but a lot of them were still active, and the security was pretty gnarly. Dangerous old tech.

My specialty.

If I was right, the sensor system in use here was the original. Garanshyup tech was mostly self sufficient, but the problem was it almost never got an upgrade. The AI controlling these systems wasn’t very advanced, and didn’t know anything beyond it’s initial programming. This meant that the things that would trick the systems would always work; it never learned any better.

Lasers blazed around me, the automated defense system kicking in to eliminate what it perceived as a projectile on an eminent collision course with the base. It was missing pretty badly, I’m a pretty small target, but my plan wouldn’t work unless it made a hit.

My thought process halted as I pondered the irony of hoping to get hit by a giant laser. That’s when I got hit by a laser. I almost didn’t disperse it in time to avoid actual damage. I could feel the heat on my face. Shit that was close.

I threw up a dispersion field, which was really just my natural protective field with some fancy oscillations thrown in. It would disrupt the sensor arrays enough to make them think they had destroyed the target. It should be smooth sailing from here on in.

I waited to see if I was right. God, I hoped I was right.

…

Oh thank goodness. Alright, next step, get into the base and start fucking shit up. As I neared the open hangar that was standard for Garanshyup mining bases, I started to notice that some of this tech, especially the fighters inside, were not Garanshyup standard. Someone with some serious tech knowledge had set up shop here.

I began to reconsider my plan; not if I was doing it, but how. I was originally just going to let the multiwelders loose in the base and let them tear the place apart; multiwelders were as adept at cutting things as they were at welding them together. But if the new owners were tech junkies, they would be able to disable them about as easily as I was reprogramming them.

No, my new plan was going to need to be more subtle. I’d probably have to blow up the power core.

I landed in the hangar, bypassing the protective field with relative ease. I knew most of the modulation frequencies for these old derelicts pretty well, so it was child’s play. The tech on the inside was relatively new, most of the plating still pretty shiny. There were cameras, of course, but I was pretty confident my data scrambling program was doing it’s job and editing me out of any video feeds.

Like I said before, I was a master infiltrator.

I took a moment to admire the ships here. They were custom jobs, a model I’ve never seen before. Whoever had taken over this base was a master engineer, because these ships were bad-ass.

The few scans I had already taken were more than enough data to tell me how these worked. The entire thing had a plasma based everything; Weapons, defense systems, even propulsion. If the materials weren’t wrong, I’d almost think this was an Ophidian design. Thank goodness it wasn’t though. I was not ready for another encounter with those fuckers. What I had thought were missiles must have been high yield plasma bolts. It would have explained why I had almost no warning before getting hit.

Plasma power aside, these things were sleek, titanium mesh inside a nano-ceramic shell; Reinforced to the teeth and fast as hell even in atmosphere. You’d have to hit these things with a planet to even leave a scratch. Actually, all the plasma based tech made sense; the heat would actually make these things stronger.

Unfortunately for whoever built these, it didn’t matter how reinforced the ships were if I was just going to molecularly bond them all to the ground. Which, after dumping out the satchels worth of Multiwelders, I set them about doing exactly that.

I smirked. This shit was going to be funny. No chance of them evacuating the base now. It seemed a shame to waste all of these ships, but vengeance knew no mercy.

Actually…

With a second thought, I removed one of the multiwelders from one of the ships. Fuck it, I might as well get something out of this whole ordeal, and a new ship was a pretty nifty something. In addition, I was always on the look-out for some new gadgets, especially since most of what I’d had was blown all to hell, so I pocketed the multiwelder. I could imagine any number of situations where molecular welding could come in handy. Sealing doors for instance. I'd have to modify it, but that shouldn't be too hard.

Speaking of doors, it was about then that the doors on the far side of the room opened. Shit! I dove behind the ship I had picked out for myself, watching warily as a pair of figures ran into the room, clanking loudly as they did.

Wait, clanking? What the shit?? Were they wearing heavy armor or something? Who wears heavy armor inside their own space station? I peaked out to check, only to find that they had run directly up to where I was hiding. Shit.

I stood there for a moment, obviously in line of sight, but hoping their vision was based on movement. It was then I got a good look, and as a result, a good scan of them; Robots.

Of course they were fucking robots. Why else would someone set up shop in an abandoned robot factory other than to utilize it for their own means. Shit, actually, that was a fantastic idea; a self-sufficient factory reprogrammed to build an army was a pirate’s wet dream. All the perks, none of the work.

I stepped out, confident that they couldn’t see me. My data scrambler should work just as well on their eyes as it did on the cameras. I mean, that’s what they were, after all. I was careful not to make a sound though, not sure if I had made them as deaf as I had blind.

These were some funky looking mechanoids. They kinda looked like a cross between a solider and… well, actually, a crocodile. Big jutting jaws, sharp jagged tooth design. Weird choice for an aethstetic. Unless…

Then they started shooting at me. What the fuck? They really shouldn’t have been able to see me. I quickly dodged what I was thankful was laser fire; plasma does not make for easy dodging. But no sane person would use plasma weapons inside their own base.

This was not, however, my base. I pulled my plasma pistol from one of my many pockets, and opened fire, slagging one of them instantly, and melting the strut off of the ship it was standing next to. The ship fell, landing on the now molten pile of robot corpse. The other moved over slightly, and continued firing. It kinda seemed like they sort of knew where I was, but couldn’t actually see me. Good thing too, because these seemed to be high intensity beams, unlike the one I had deflected outside. At the very minimum, they would fuck my shit sideways, if not inside out.

My plasma pistol pinged at me, letting me know it was ready to fire again. Most plasma weapons took a while to build up a new charge, but I had streamlined the process by modifying it.

I popped up from behind the cover I had attained, and put the second bot down. It glowed red as it turned to a pile of molten metal.

Well, that took care of my company. Now the question was, how the fuck did they know I was here? There was a crackling as a PA system kicked on. Over the speaker system came the unmistakably sarcastic sound of a slow clap.

“Well well well...” Came a voice, it’s accent unique but familiar. “It would seem we are not dealing with a rank amature. Most impressive. Most impressive indeed.”

Was it… creole?

“Now I reckon you’re an individual of rather high caliber to have survived the destruction of your ship.”

Yeah, definitely Creole. Well spoken, but definitely an old creole accent. Strange, considering that the planet that accent originated from had been gone for hundreds of years. Just another check mark on the list leading up to the confirmation of my suspicions.

“You must think yourself quite clever, what with your fancy data scrambler programs.” He continued, his voice absolutely saturated with smug. “However, I regret to inform you that despite your efforts, I am quite adept, if I do say so myself, at spotting data manipulation in my system. I’m afraid your little tricks won’t do you much good.”

Well so much for that. Certainly explains the robots and their potshots; my illustrious host was controlling them directly.

In addition, knowing the sly bastards these tech junkies tended to be, he had probably already reprogrammed his robots to recognize my interference pattern.

“Now, I’ve gone ahead and programmed my boys to recognize that little ol’ interference pattern of yours.”

Knew it.

“So why don’t you go ahead and let us get a good look at you.” He said, smarmy as hell. “You know, for posterity’s sake.”

Likes to hear himself talk. Another check mark.

I shrugged, figuring maybe if he recognized me as the infamous bad-ass I was, he might be less inclined to send anymore of his metallic flunkies. Or more inclined. Ech, whatever.

I shut off my scrambler program, even going so far as turning and waving for the camera. I wore my smuggest grin. Two can play at the smarminess game, and I was one of the best.

“Oh well aren’t you the fine fellow. A mite short, but I’m not one to judge based on size.” He responded. “Even the smallest of kaimen has sharp teeth.”

Okay, crocodile robots and reptile puns. Fucking fuck, I just know I’m going to regret this.

“You’re a god damn super villain, aren’t you?” I shouted.

“Now, I’m afraid that I can’t hear you, as these old Garanshyup systems didn’t include audio equipment.” He said. “But I’m sure whatever it was, it was plenty clever.”

God damn. I did not like being talked at without being able to respond. Like, super hated it; what was the point of the whole ‘smarmy son of a bitch’ persona if no one could hear your clever retorts.

About a dozen of those robocrocs poured into the room at this point. He had been stalling. Of course.

“Now my boys here are gonna take real good care of you, if’n you catch my drift, so I’m afraid this is where I must bid you adieu.”

Fucking asshat. This was gonna be a pain, I just knew it.

The whole gaggle of them opened fire, bright pink laser fire blazing everywhere. What I wouldn’t give for my mirror shield right now; just one of the many things I lost when this jackhole blew up my damn ship.

Driven by vengeance for all of my lost gear, I pulled the Derelict from it’s holster and opened fire. I shot the eyes out of two of them before I had to reload. Good stuff, but it wasn’t going to do much good very quickly. To make matters worse, the ones I shot didn’t stop firing, and didn’t become any less accurate. Shit, he must be using the vision feeds from the others to compensate. Fucking clever.

I had to admit, this guy hadn’t fully impressed me yet, but I was getting there. Whoever he was, he knew his shit.

But I only had so much ammo on me, and I got the impression that there were more of these things where they came from. This was, after all, a factory that made robots. So I decided to go a little more old-school.

Holstering my favorite gun, I then drew my favorite sword with the same hand. The Dragonail was a gift from a being of great mystery, Xel’naga itself. The great Dragon of the Cosmos.

They were a cryptic asshat, but they saw fit to bequeath me with a pretty powerful weapon, so I wasn’t inclined to dis them too badly.

With my usual lightning quickness, I dashed across the group of bots, cutting them in half with a single stroke. I put a good amount of distance between us just before they exploded violently. Not waiting for more to take their place, I took off through the doorway they had entered from. I dashed down the corridor, keeping an eye out for any more patrols. A lone Crocbot came around the corner just as I dashed by, a swift swing taking it’s head before it had even drawn a bead on me. I carried the head with me, an idea had formed that required the use of the thing.

I hid out in an old storage room that had been stripped down. It wouldn’t be long before more of those fuckers found me, but I wouldn’t need long.

I am Xel Lovestar, after all.

Grinning to myself, I made quick work of pulling the thing apart, the bolts coming loose with ease after the application of some low-tone vibrations. I found what I was looking for; the primary processing relay. The AI used in these things was a remote unit, able to make basic decisions on their own, but relying on a master control AI for tactical decisions and orders. Nifty stuff, but this guy made the mistake of putting this thing’s “brain” in it’s head. Nobody does that anymore. Not with most heads coming right off and all.

So I rewired it, using it’s own transmission system to my advantage. I managed to tap into the control frequency, routing it through to my Neurocom. I wouldn’t be able to overpower the AI controlling these things, but at the very least I could listen in on what they were being told to do.

“Unit b 15 just went down in hall 27. Units B 16 through 30, search the barrack areas. Units B 31 through 60 search the main halls. I don’t want that son of a snake leaving this base alive, do you hear me? Shoot on sight, and don’t leave nothin’ of him moving. All C units are to remain at their posts.”

Okay, that was fucking weird. That came through my Neurocom. Wait, was he commanding all of these units himself?

Oh holy shit. That motherfucker had a Neurocom. He was the command AI.

I reeled at the realization. Not only was this guy some kind of machine master, he had to have a pretty powerful brain to be able to operate a bunch of remote units like this. Or he was a cyborg.

I did some more rewiring, coming up with an interesting addition to my plan. Putting the head back together, I wired a spare battery into it so it could run, at least partially, without being attached to it’s body. Switching it on, I turned it to face me, making sure the cameras got a good shot of my smug expression.

“Ahem, testing, testing. Hello out there.” I said to the head. “This is command calling red leader, come in red leader.”

“Well I’ll be frog in cream.” Came a response, the head’s mouth moving in time with the speech. I chuckled at the comedy of it. “If it isn’t our lil ol’ intruder. ‘S rather clever of you to use ol’ 15’s head to tap into my control frequency, if I do say so myself.”

“Yeah, well, it was either this or I try to pull one of the speakers out of the wall.” I replied. “And that actually seemed like more work.”

“I reckon so.” He replied, a tinge of annoyance in his voice. “So since we are now apparently on speaking terms, who, may I ask, do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

I grinned wide, unable to control myself. “I’m glad you asked. But first, if you don’t mind, I wanted to ask you your name. I had a suspicion as to what it is, and I wanted to see it I was right.”

“Oh really?” He responded, intrigued by my response. “Well, it’s rather irregular, but I’m inclined to oblige. I...”

Here it comes.

“Am Croc O’Dile.”

Motherfucker, I fucking knew it. “Yeah, I thought as much.”

I shook my head sighing and chuckling to myself. A fucking super-villain. Of course. Pirates were bad enough, but a super-villain was a pain in the ass. Arrogant, self absorbed, and usually damned clever. Clever enough to cause me problems, at least.

I always thought I’d make a pretty good super-villain, actually.

“So, now that you know who I am, I think it’s only fitting you tell me your name.”

I nodded. “I, dear Croc, am the infamous Xel Lovestar, and you...”

I brought the head closer to my face, peering into it’s eyes. “Blew up my damn ship.”

I let that sink in for a moment. My name alone was often enough to send people running. Now the ball was in his court. What would he do knowing who he faced?

There was a moment of silence.

“Well doesn’t that take the whole moon pie.” He came back laughing, not as worried sounding as I’d hoped he’d be. “This certainly is a treat. I’da never guessed the famous outlaw know across the verse would come and visit my lil ol’ base.”

“Yeah, well, you’re invitation was just so damn enticing. I mean, you sent your people out to meet me after all. How could I refuse?”

“Yes, well, it is the nature of our business, after all.”

“Our? I’m sorry, did you think we were the same? I mean, yeah, I’ve killed a few people, but not out of the blue. I only shoot at people that shoot at me or are worth a lot of money. I am a thief, not a pirate.”

“And what pray-tell, is the difference?”

“Style.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.” And just like that, I had won the smarm-off. “Now, I hate to be a bother, but must sate my curiosity and ask what it is that you expect to accomplish from the inside of what I can only assume is one of my supply closets.”

“Oh, yeah, that.” Fuck it, if I was going to get maximum satisfaction out of this, I might as well tell him my plan. “Well, see, like I said, you blew up my damn ship, so now I’m in your base killing your dudes, right? And when I’ve finished wrecking shop, I’m going to kill your base too. Assuming you haven’t upgraded much, I was thinking of putting a hole in your power core and blowing the whole thing to smithereens.”

Another moment of silence. “I would rather you didn’t.”

“Yeah, and I would like to still be in my ship. Guess life is full of disappointments, huh?”

“It would surely seem that way.” He responded. He sounded almost legitimately disappointed. “I had hoped that you would prove the reasonable type, and perhaps we could reach some sort of an accord.”

“Not gonna happen, lizard lips. Like I keep saying, you blew up my damn ship.”
“Then it would seem we have reached an impasse.”
Why did that sound ominous?
“Boys. Make ‘im pass.”

The door practically flew off it’s hinges. I barely had time to jump up, putting my free hand through the plating in the ceiling to create a hand hold, and doing a split kick to cling to the top of the small room, before the door clanged against the back wall.

Laser fire blazed into the spot where I had previously been, lighting the room in fluorescent pink. I pocketed the crocbot head and quickly drew my weapon, bouncing a few shots off of the floor, blinding the bots at the front as I had the others. That didn’t seem to deter them from firing, however.

Great. So now here I was, stuck clinging to the top of a tiny room, only a matter of time before my assailants figure out that they could easily walk into the room and shoot up. On top of that, my hand really hurt now. That was definitely more of a Xale move, though he wouldn’t have ever thought to do such a thing. Fucker can just absorb damage like it’s nothing.

Okay, so what were my options?

A) Drop down and try to fight my way through them. While that was normally an option, I imagine that he had re-routed many of his bots to this location for the assault, and no doubt that more were on the way. I didn’t feel like it was practical for me to try and fight every single crocbot on this station.

B) Use my plasma pistol to melt a hole in the floor beneath me, and drop down into what I hoped were maintenance tunnels. I mean, I knew a lot of these old bases pretty well. A maintenance tunnel would almost certainly run under each room, most of the vital systems being below as opposed to above. There would probably a few maintenance drones, but they were rarely equipped to hurt people.

Unfortunately, my pistol doesn’t have a ‘low’ setting. It has ‘Hot’ and ‘Really Hot’. No chance I was going to be able to use it in this kind of confined space and not roast myself.

The hole idea wasn’t untenable though. I could drop the multiwelder, but knowing my luck, it would take too long to cut a hole, and Croc would have his ‘boys’ take it out.

When I realized how dumb I was being about this, I laughed. I literally have an invention for this exact task. I holstered my weapon, and pulled a small black ball from my pockets. Cracking a thin crispy membrane on the outside, I dropped the resulting gum-wad to the ground below me as it began to spark. In seconds it had spread across the surface and become a perfect circle of inky blackness. Then, in a brilliant flash, it ate through the floor, down into, bingo, a maintenance tunnel.

Just in time too as I could now hear the shuffling of robots as the blinded ones were being moved from the front to make way for more visually enabled units. With a swift movement, I dislodged myself and dropped into the hole I had made for myself. I quickly scrambled down the tunnel, not wanting to make myself an easy target from above.

There was a moment where I wondered if they’d be able to follow me. However, referring to the schematics I had attained in my previous scans of the things, I didn’t imagine they’d be able to follow me as quickly. Or at least I hoped that would be the case.

Either way, I kept the scurrying up, moving as far away from the hole I had created as a I could. Making my way down the tunnels, I tried to tap back into the control frequency, maybe see if I couldn’t get a map of this place. Unfortunately, it seemed as though the head I had acquired had been cut off from the system. That would explain why I hadn’t heard him coordinating the attack.

I sat up, having rounded a corner, confident that I would not be easy to sneak up on. Okay, time to evaluate how the plan was going.

I was now in a cramped maintenance tunnel carrying the dismembered head of a super-villain’s robot minion, making my way towards an incredibly powerful power core with the hopes of causing it to explode violently so as to destroy the building I was currently occupying.

Hmm...So far so good. Probably my best plan in a while.

A small drone on treads bumped into me. It whirred and beeped for a moment before attempting to pass again. It took up a good portion of the tunnel, and as such had no chance of making it past me without me climbing over it.

Actually, this was just the break I needed. I zapped it a bit with a shock spell, shorting it just long enough for me to open it up before it could come back on. I pulled out one of the major circuit tubes and did a little creative rerouting. With this modification, I could hack into the maintenance AI and use it to find my way around. Within a few moments I had the access I was looking for.

Looks like the power core was in the direction I was going. Thank goodness, because I had fully expected to have to double back. The cosmos liked to screw me like that.

I put the tube back in and closed the drone back up. It was Garanshyup standard, not having the upgrades that the Crocbots had, so it was easy to keep connection with. It turned in place, and started heading away from me. I had basically told it something was wrong with the power core, so it was off to try and fix it. And, after all of thirty seconds of crawling, I decided it could give me a ride, too. Bulky thing that it was, it didn’t even slow down with my added weight. With the extra time, I pulled out the Crocbot head and a small omnitool, and set to work on it. If it really was cut off from the system, I could think of a way to make it useful again. I chuckled. This was going to be stylish as hell. Assuming everything went my way.

After about five minutes, the drone came to a halt. It seems we had arrived. I zapped the drone again so as to prevent it from pulling out any nasty tools. It may not have been built to hurt people, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t. I felt around under it’s chassis, locating the manual off switch. Reliance on robots aside, at least the ones who had created these things had the sense to put an off switch on them. That fact and their tendency towards “dumb” AI were probably the only reason the Garanshyup were one of the few Robot reliant races that wasn’t wiped out by their own creations, like the Cropus.

I popped the hatch above me, one leading straight up into the Power core room. Upon standing up straight, I was greeted by about half a dozen laser barrels pointed straight at me.

Fuck.

Reacting out instinct, I jumped, springing up into the air, the laser fire just barely grazing my feet as I launched myself above them. In quick succession, I fired and blinded them, one per shot this time. While tinkering with the head, I had found a point where the cabling comes together. One well placed shot was all it took.

That still left two. I vaulted from the ceiling, throwing myself at one as I hucked my sword at the other. The sword went through it’s torso, destroying enough of it’s major circuits to put it out of commission. I, however, simply crashed into the other one, putting it off balance, but mostly just pissing it off. It thrashed around, gnashing it’s teeth, trying to take a chunk out of me. I was out of options at this point, save for something I hadn’t tested yet. I cracked one of the sticky holes and jammed it to the crocbot’s head, jumping as away from it as fast as I could. The substance spread across the surface, covering half it’s torso before vanishing with much of the unit. Only a pair of legs were left, stumbling around as half a battery gave it intermittent power.

I stood up, careful to be quiet as I made my way over to where my sword still stuck out of the robot, and used it to finish off the rest of the crocbots, who were still blindly searching for me.

That out of the way, I knew I only had a few minutes to get set up for the next assault. This was going to be fun to do though, should it go according to plan.

Now all it was going to take to destroy this core was to pierce a hole in it’s outermost layer. Then the reaction inside would eventually unbalance, which leads to an inevitable explosion. The advantage I would have is that it would take a good while to do this, but would be impossible to stop.

Good stuff.

I took up a stance and thrust my sword into the translucent sphere… Or at least I tried. Instead it bounced off the surface, almost wresting itself out of my grip. Oh crap. I tried again, to almost the same effect. The blade vibrated angrily.

Craaaaap. I had forgotten the one thing that came with using the Dragonail. It could cut through anything, except in cases where doing so would result in the death of another person. It would simply refuse to even scratch something if it would kill someone, even indirectly. I can’t tell you how many times this was an issue. Really frustrating, actually.

This meant my plan needed to be revised. However, I had already sort of planned for this contingency, I just really hoped this worked.

The doors behind me opened, almost on cue. I turned to find a small squad of Crocbots armed with heavy laser rifles blocking the door. Well, heavier than what the others had been carrying. In between them stood a tall, vaguely humanoid figure, a long jutting jaw full of sharp and unnaturally shiny teeth. About half of his body was covered in mechanical implants and prosthesis. So he was a cyborg after all. So much for the super-genius thing. Just a regular kind of genius.

Actually, fuck, this guy was a legit crocodile man. I’d seen plenty of splices before, but this was a hell of a job. If this guy wasn’t a genius at bio-engineering too, then whoever had done this for him was. Kudos for committing to the aesthetic.

Upon getting a good look at him, I confirmed a suspicion I’d had for a while; that his minions were just slightly smaller full robot versions of him.

He stood there with both arms behind his back, regarding me as only someone who legitimately thinks they’re superior can. I had to remind myself that this guy was capable of commanding multiple robots at the same time just to be able to take him seriously. And even then, I really didn’t.

“Well, it would seem we have a snake in the garden.” He said, his drawl being a bit much when heard in person. “I see I’ve gotten here in time.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t want to start the party without the host, you know?” I quipped back at him.

“Yes, well I’m afraid your party is rather canceled, dear Xel.”
“Oh, come on.” I said, grinning. “There’ll be cake. Have a bite!”

There was a mechanical snapping, and Croc cried out in pain. A dismembered crocbot head swung from the end of his tail as he thrashed around. Perfect.

He seethed as he grabbed the head, and after a moment of what I could only assume was direct control, it relinquished his tail.

He held it aloft, examining it for a moment. “Cute. Very cute. You are a clever man, dear Xel. Far too clever for your own good, I’m afraid.”

“You know, people keep telling me that.” I laughed. I had already won, it would just take him a moment to realize it.

“Yes, well it seems I shall be the last.” He said. “Boys, take ‘im down a peg.”

His boys, however just stood there. Rather frustrated, he tried pushing them into action through his own Neurocom. I could actually hear him activating all manner of subroutines in an attempt to regain control. But it was too late. Now I was in his dudes. And I was going to kill his base.

I pulled up my pants, thumbing at imaginary suspenders. “Now I reckon...” I started, doing my best accent, imitating my ‘host’. “That you find yourself a mite frustrated.”

I could feel the heat of his glare.

“This is understandable for a reptilian such as yourself, in a predicament such as this.” I said, gesturing. The Crocbots started powering up their lasers. Actually, those were cannons, weren’t they. Geez, he had meant business. Good for my plan though.

“Allow me to clarify your situation a tad.”

I snapped, and the entire squad of crocbots opened fire on the protective cover around the power core.

Croc looked on in horror as he realized what I had done. He looked down at the head in his hand still, good old 15 B. The head I had hacked and installed a pretty malicious virus I had gotten a while back. The same head he had to re-establish contact with to force to release his tail. And once he had done that, my virus spread like wildfire.

Actually, that’s what it was called. Wildfire 3.5. Weird name for a virus.

I shrugged. Oh well, my job was done here. All that was left was to make a dramatic exit.

I leaped forward, just over the top of Croc’s head, blatantly slapping him across the face. “Later loser!”

My lithe form slipped past his with ease, stepping on his tail for extra punch, and dashed out past the crocbots, still mid-bombardment.

This was going to be tricky, actually. I had taken out one other Garanshyup core before, but that time the base had been abandoned. The Dragonail had pierced the core with no problems, and I had time to grab a few things and get out before the reaction even approached critical mass.

This way was going to take a little less time, and was going to be messier. Oh crap, way messier. Those were cannons. Not heavy rifles, like I had calculated for. This was going to be violent and probably involve an unheard of amount of fire. I needed to get out fast.

I pushed myself to my absolute limit, literally running through anything that stood in my way, using a combination of sticky holes and the Dragonail to plow a path directly to where I had a ship waiting for me. I had run out of sticky holes in the end, but had now collected enough data to improve my recipe. The next batch were gonna be more interesting.

I made my way to my new ship, confirming in the process that the other ships had been successfully welded to the ground. Couldn’t help but note that the multiwelders had finished their jobs and simply gone idle. Hmmm. Too bad the Garanshyup hadn’t invented these things. They would have been revolutionary, in combination with their AI control systems.

No one race ever gets everything right.

I climbed into the ship, a roomy transit fighter, which was really just a fancy way of saying a fighter with a small cargo area. Pirates were cheap.

Interestingly enough, apparently, they were lazy too, because wouldn’t you know it, the ship I had picked out for myself had most of the loot they had stolen from me. I wondered which one had the rest of it.

Wait, that didn’t make sense. I had to stop and think about that for a moment. Why wouldn’t someone who commanded robot minions with his thoughts have them immediately offload their cargo? It was a subroutine, no real effort on his part.

Crap, that meant it was a trap. I looked around, expecting to see a bomb of some sort. I even scanned the contents of the crates containing my loot, but they were still hermetically sealed. Then what was the trap? I fiddled with the controls, uncertain of what I was really looking at. It only took a moment to realize the problem; the ship was built for robots. It wasn’t connected to the control network except for when a crocbot was directly and physically interfacing with it.

That meant I couldn’t just control it with my Neurocom like I had hoped. Craaaap.

Okay, new plan, I knew where a mostly intact crocbot body was, and if I was lucky, I would be able to use it for my purposes. Now to get to it before the core went.

Actually, I was kind of surprised I hadn’t felt it rupture yet.

I waited a moment, expecting my typical luck to pull through, punctuating my thought with the exact thing I didn’t want.

…

“No?” I said aloud, looking up at nothing. “I mean, okay, that’s cool. Kinda nice for a change.”

I took off, not wasting the one break I had gotten in a while. I quickly made my way to where I had dispatched the crocbot that had proven so useful. It was upon arriving that I felt the shock of the core finally rupturing. Now the reaction would be completely uncontained and turn this ship into slag from the inside out. Just a few more minutes and I wouldn’t have anywhere to stand.

Speaking of, I determined that I did not need the legs of this thing to control the ship, so with some handy sword-work, I reduced the amount of this thing I would need to lug back with me. Still pretty substantial, though. And the slowly building radiation now present was messing with my mana, so it seemed like magic was out of the arsenal for now. I couldn’t pull up enough for even a bolt, much less a strength booster.

So now I had to drag this thing behind me the old fashion way. Which sucked, in case there was any question.

I estimate it took me about three minutes to bring the thing back with me. In actuality, I had no idea how long it took, because the entire time I was expecting to be engulfed in flames, or chiding myself for not leaving the legs on this damn thing and maybe hack it into walking for me, maybe even giving me a piggy back ride. I also cursed a lot, mostly at the damn half a robot for being so top heavy.

When I returned at last to the docking bay, I cursed quite a bit more, because a certain someone had made a special effort to be there and greet me.

“Yes, dear Xel, I assure you that the feeling is mutual. I must say, you’re caused me quite a bit of pain. I feel obligated to repay you in kind.” He stood there, much worse for wear, wielding one of the heavy laser cannons his minions had used on the core.

I smirked. “Had to destroy your own dudes, huh?” His glare was all the response I needed. “Bummer.”

It was then that he totally lost it. Like, full on berserk mode. Fricken terrifying really. Good thing his aim was terrible. Doubtful he had ever actually used one of his own weapons before today.

I spun in place to build up momentum, getting just enough to get the crocbot torso off the ground, I tossed it at Croc, bowling him over. Actually, that was probably a bad idea since I needed it to get the heck off of this crazy nightmare of a pirate base. Luckily, it was still intact. That is, it was until croc bit it the fuck in half! Holy shit guy, you are a fucking maniac!

“You’re a fucking maniac!” I shouted, dodging the chunks he was tearing out of the robot and hurling at me.

There went my ride. And there, and there. Damn this guy could throw. His accuracy rating was pretty impressive. Though I suppose that could be because of his…

His Implants! He was a cyborg, half machine, more than meets the eye. And I’ll bet that son of a snake had the necessary equipment to fly one of these things himself. I just had to figure out where.

“I’ll have your hide, Xel Lovestar!” He said, pointing at me with his incredibly high-tech looking arm. “I’m gonna turn you into a hat and wear you to your own funeral!”

Well, that was probably the most insane thing I’d heard today. I think it was time for me to go. In a single deft dash across his right flank, I cut his arm off at the shoulder. I wasn’t sure how much of that would be meat, but luckily the answer was none of it, because the Dragonail went clean through. Sweet.

“My arm!” He shouted.

“Mine now.” I responded, using his own severed arm to deliver a crushing uppercut as he turned to face me. I’m sure you can appreciate the irony of that, but it’s doubtful that he did, because he was down for the count. Still alive, but not going anywhere any time soon.

Which was a shame, because there soon wouldn’t be anywhere to be. Which reminded me of my own potential demise. I quickly boarded the ship, and with a small amount of effort managed to fit the arm into an interface aperture. A little further modification, and I had what was essentially a glorified joystick. This was going to cut it close, but I should have seconds to spare before the core went fully critical.

The constant rumbling of the space station deterred me from becoming complacent, and I made as short of work as possible figuring out the new controls for my brand new, plasma powered space ship. There was a clatter behind me, and I spun, firing the Derelict out of instinct. My shots ricocheted off the containers I had recovered. There was nothing there. A box had fallen from the stack.

I chided myself for jumping at shadows. I wasn’t supposed to be the antsy type.

I blinked… Something was off about the arrangement of the boxes.

“No, that’s not right.” Was all I could manage to get out before the stack of them came flying at me, seemingly propelled by the vicious roar emanating from behind them.

So I guess ‘down for the count’ was a stretch. Croc came barreling over the stack, hardly touching a solid surface as he lunged at me. Geezus, this guy was full on primal! For the first time in a while, I was legitimately terrified.

And that never bodes well for my aggressor.

Except I… I don’t really remember what happened next. There was a lot of light. A brilliant blue flash of light, twinkling sparkles that hung in the air. Tendrils of light and cosmic dust…

Then I sort of just woke up. My ship was adrift, and everything was quiet. Outside my cockpit window, the space station exploded in silence, but it was a good distance away. Like, almost hard to make out, actually.

How… how the hell had I gotten here? This was kind of weird, and not actually the first time it had happened.

Okay, I remember Croc lunging at me. He had chucked the containers at me, and came at me like a feral beast. I remembered fighting for my life, his jaws snapping and gnashing just inches from my face. I remembered a terror as I had only felt a few times before.

Then just brightness and then nothing.

I furrowed my brow, going over it again and again. Fruitlessly, it would seem. The more I thought about it, the more it faded. It was almost like my brain had locked down the memory.

Fuck. Great. More mystery for me to unravel. This shit was starting to get annoying. What's worse is I really hadn't intended to kill Croc. I just wanted to kind of fuck his shit up. Now I guess it was too late.

It bothered me. As I watched the space station disintegrate, ripped to pieces and dashed across the universe, I couldn't help but feel like I had lost. No amount of recovered loot would change the fact that I don't know how I had gotten away. If you don't remember how you won, did you ever really win?

I sighed, using the severed arm to steer the ship away. I'd had my fill of watching explosions in space. It was back into the inky, star-lit void. Onward, into the cosmos, towards my next unfortunate adventure.