GOTCHA!

Jun 10th 2011, 15:45 by E O Hatterpol | 913 AU FROM SUN

CAPTAIN Makemake's Meteor Knee was a giant ball of flaming death burning fear into my corneas.  But I stood my ground until I could smell the sweat of his armpits.


And then I dropped!  Straight to the ground like a rag doll - I just collapsed.  It was too late for Makemake to stop his forward momentum or even change its direction.  He drove his kneecap so hard into the cave wall behind me it imploded inwards the same way a meteor strike leaves a crater on a barren planet.  I shuddered at the fact that could have been me.


In the same moment, I heard Makemake's kneecap shatter into a million tiny pieces.  I didn't wait for him to stop howling in pain before dragging myself back to my feet and dashing over to the Canon.


"We're going to make you whole again, old buddy," I said softly.


I stuffed what was left of my friend under my arm, hitched up my bookshield and sprinted up the exit back to the cave's mouth.  It was difficult going, and my rib complained constantly, but I had no choice.  I had to push myself to keep from dying on a pirate-infested plutoid over three billion miles from Earth.  I was going to live, damn it!


Nothing in life could have ever prepared me for what I saw back on the outside: the wreckage of forty pirate ships and another ten of their asteroid tanks strewn out across the desolate landscape.  I saw arms with no masters; peg legs lodged deep into Makemake's surface, jutting out at strange angles; heads, eyepatches, masts, canons, hammocks, guts, bits of charred lung.  


I almost threw up - but then I didn't, because the thought of ralphing inside a space helmet grossed me out more than dead pirates.


A strange, bird-shaped flame raged in the sky and killer whales with machine guns mounted on either sides of their mouths were ducking in and out of it, raining gunmetal carnage on everything in sight.  Harpoons burst out over the sky, dragging the watery black assassins out of their flight paths into other killer whales; their burst into grotesque showers of fireworks and their smoldering remains drifted slowly down to Makemake.


I wiped my space helmet clean of ash and searched for the Starship Flybrary.  It took a while to spot it amongst the chaos, but when I finally found it my heart jumped forty astronomical units: it was lifting off into the skies!


"Wait!" I yelled.  "Wait! PLEASE, WAIT!"


But the blue whale had no ears for me.  Up and up it went and yet I stayed in the same place.  The Starship Flybrary had abandoned me!


"Abso-bally-LUTELY not!" I said firmly.  "I am gonna live, damn it! I'm gonna live!"


A pirate ship halfway down the crater was lifting anchor.  It was my only choice.


I sprinted down, stumbling over the grainy red ground like a drunkard until I finally took a somersault nosedive into the stuff.  I picked myself back up, grabbed my broken rib and told it shut up.  Every bone in my body was sore; every vein filled to the point of bursting with hot, desperate blood; my eyes were ten leagues out of their sockets.  Every morsel of my being locked on to that pirate ship and drove me to it.  There was no more fear; there was only life or death.


The ship was a foot off the ground - I was still a football field away, limping and gasping - ten feet off the ground - I struggled to keep going - twenty feet off the ground - I'd never make it - thirty feet - there's no way, but I was getting closer - and then I was directly under it.


"I'm scr- oh, yes!" I shouted.  An errant ladder had been carelessly left dangling over the railing in the pirates' haste to get up into the epic battle above.  I grabbed onto it and felt myself being pulled upwards.  I was a foot off the ground - two feet now - seven feet off the ground now - and then I felt a tug on my ankle.


At first, I thought it was the force of moving upwards that made my ankle seem heavier.  But then I craned my neck around and took a good look down.


It was Captain Makemake, slobbering, bleeding, cackling, coughing, spitting and thrashing about.  Somehow, he had chased after me despite his disintegrated kneecap.  Over his shoulder, I watched in horror as the plutoid receded rapidly into the background.  Bullets whizzed pass my space helmet and harpoon guns exploded in my ears.


Captain Makemake guffawed the kind of guffaw that can only be summoned when one has made the decision to destroy another person at the cost of one's own life.  He opened his mouth wide and smiled; both rows of teeth gleamed bright in the light of the fiery bird like a double-decker bus.


"GOTCHA!" he screamed.