FORGIVE ME!

Jun 13th 2011, 15:09 by E O Hatterpol | 1042 AU FROM SUN

"COORDINATES!" Captain Makemake screamed over the silent din of gunfire in outer space.

"Get a hold of yourself, man, I don't know them!" I shouted back, wriggling my ankle violently from side to side.

Makemake loosed his grip but grabbed the ladder; I immediately hauled ass to the banister & popped over the side, ignoring my shattered rib.

I had just enough time to appreciate the absurdity of old-fashioned pirate ships teaming up with asteroid tanks to fight killer whales with machine guns and bird-shaped nuclear bombs in outer space before seventeen pirates were on top of me.  The last one on top - who I assumed was Captain Makemake - nearly crushed me, but I fought to keep my feet planted and my bookshield above my head even though my back was nearly broken.

"Wahm, wahm, wahm," I said, gripping the neck of my beer bottle.  My mind shot back to the Flybrary's bookstacks, when I had shown Ravisius my unstoppable new technique.  He hadn't said anything at the time; I wondered what he would have said had he seen it now.

"You salty jokers better BRACE yo'selves - keeeeeee-yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, suckas!!!"

I whirled around in a devastating spin attack, slicing through cold pirate meat.  I was up to my full height again in a flash.  All seventeen pirates - including Makemake - were clutching fatal wounds to the abdomen.  After watching Ravisius defend both me and himself for so long, it was my turn to defend the both of us.

"See that, Ravi?" I said, picking up the Canon, "I TOLD you there'd be pirate guts all o'er the floor, man!"

The Starship Flybrary whizzed past the corner of my eye - the Carptain was hightailing it outta there!

"Oh, no you don't!  You are NOT leaving us here!  Me & Ravi - we're gonna live, damn it!  We're gonna live!"

At the ship's bow perched a deadly harpoon gun; it was probably the same make and model as the one that had injured the blue whale earlier.  I grabbed ahold of its cold, steel handle and looked down its barrel to the harpoon's searingly sharp point.

"Forgive me," I said softly.

PAOINK! went the harpoon, hissing pneumatically across dead space.  I cringed when it sunk deep into its mark.

All I had to do now was tightrope walk across the black nothingness while keeping a close eye on the ships whirring this way and that trying to destroy each other with nuclear fallout, gatling gun fire and asteroid tank bombs.  Should be easy enough.

I put my foot on the rope; it shook violently as the blue whale struggled to rid itself of the steely pain.

"You can do this, E-"

"SIMON SAYS DROP DEAD."

I spun my head around.  Captain Makemake was STILL alive!  He was spilling blood from his guts and from all the deep gashes given him by Ravisius and his sentience-based ninja stars.  He lunged for me, one hand keeping his bowels inside his body.  I had no time to walk slowly anymore.

"The friction should turn you to dust, Ravi, but now is as good a time as any to see if the Canon truly is invincible!"


I took a great leap into the nothingness, allowing the harpoon's fishline to pass me by.  Then, just when I looked doomed to float around in outer space until I suffocated, I snapped the Canon over the rope and grabbed either side with both hands.


Off I flew, ziplining like a madman through the chaotic space opera battle, blown this way and that by explosions and fearing death by stray bullet at any time.  I had to lift my legs once to avoid having them chopped off by a zooming killer whale's dorsal fin.


"Hahah!" I laughed.  I was in the clear!


"You don't have enough quarters to continue this game, Makemake-out," I said with a chuckle.  I craned my head back to see just how badly he was suffering at the tip of the ship's bow.


I nearly lost my grip on the Canon.  Captain Makemake was ziplining after me, hanging on to the steely rope with only one. bare. hand.