Kraken 2.0 stood in the bathroom and stared into the mirror, disgusted by himself, he raised a knife to his throat and took one deep breath, slicing off his precious beard braids. “You know, spying on a man in the bathroom is not very polite.”
“You know I always hated those stupid chintacles.” She said playfully.
“Well they represent something that’s gone. I can’t change my face, but I can change how I display it. I should really change my name too. Something reborn.
“Cut the head off a hydra, and it grows another one back and only gets stronger. Earth seamonster mythology. The Kraken has fallen, hail Hydra. Or Hyde for short.”
“Hydra…interesting. Of course, the girl with the sea monster DNA would pick another sea monster to replace the old sea monster.
“Well you gotta show your face eventually. You can’t run and Hyde forever.” She quipped.
“See here I thought you were the perfect Nicole, but clearly the one thing that didn’t evolve was your sense of humor.”
“Vinn would have laughed.” She gasped sarcastically.
“Vinn laughs at fart jokes, you wanna compare your attributes with that?” he asked.
“Touché” She said.
“Any thought on your name?” he asked.
“Nicole.”
“Not changing it?”
“I just had my last name changed to Gurvmurmurder or whatever it was, and one of me still has that bullshit. I’ll take back the one I was born with, if you don’t mind.”
“Fair enough. Easy for me to remember.” He said, evening his beard, now 2 feet shorter and more…traditional.
“And yours make you easier to forget…which is not entirely a bad thing.”
“Wow, just moving the shock collar from my neck right to my nuts, hu?”
“Don’t tempt me. I’m still pissed off on some level. Don’t give me ideas to make metaphors a reality. So where are we? I wake up in a basement, and you still don’t tell me where I am?” she snipped.
“It’s…not a basement. It’s a cargo bay. You’re on a stolen spaceship.” He admitted. She turned with a look of pure irritation.
“You turn good and the first thing you do is steal a ship?” she asked.
“Turning good is a hell of a stretch here. We’re literally born criminals, escaping the government to open space, you’re part sea monster, part zombie, and I went from The Kraken to Captain Hydra. At what point do we just admit we’re pirates and get a black flag with a skull on it?”
“Uuuugh…other Nicole has a shirt that would just be perfect for that.” That bitch has all my good stuff. Id really love to get some of it back.”
“Are you standing there refusing to call yourself a pirate while contemplating robbing half your loot from yourself using a stolen ship?” he grinned.
“Okay we’re basically pirates. Fuck it, Yolo!” she said unenthusiastically, remembering the ironic meaning of that, both in how she used it and how they both lived at least twice already.
“Are we really risking everything to steal your own shit?”
“No, we’ll buy more shit. You got a lot of money from that double cross deal before you took me hostage. Oh my god, we really are pirates. And I just realized half the stuff I have, you can’t buy.”
“Captain Hydra and the dreaded Nicole.” He said poetically.
“And why are we assuming YOU are the captain here? Which of us has worn the shock collar?”
“Which of us can fly a ship?” he grinned.
“Okay fine we’re co-captains but we’re getting some guns immediately.”
I remember the first day I met you…aside from today. Your buddy pointed a gun at my dick.”
“And it worked.” She noted.
“Exactly, we’re getting guns, I’m not disagreeing. Guns work. But we don’t need to beef up this piece of ship, we need to buy something better and less stolen. We need a mobile home we can park and hide, not a stolen cargo hauler. Can you imagine living in a small cargo ship as your home? Plastic bunks, plastic panels, hell some of the older ones had sections made of essentially reinforced cardboard. You’d be an absolute dipshit to live like that willingly. I’m no mechanic, you’re no mechanic, so aside from computer skills and wiring based on video game systems and my knowledge of military tactics and basic ship flying, we’re severely short a crew.”
“And we can afford one, and a ship.” Nicole smirked.
“Exactly. And I know where to get a crew. But first, we need a ship.”
Nicole’s eyes twinkled like she was in love, staring at a dark behemoth that looked like a cross between a battleship and a stone castle.
“What about that one?”
“That one little lady is a Masonry ship. Built by the Masonry over 50 years ago, but don’t let the age fool ya, these stone giants are indestructible. They may have been pacifists, but they were paranoid pacifists who believed in defenses. The only guns on the ship are the two forward EM cannons that were used to disable energy shields. Of course now they’re obsolete with RNE plating.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“You said the Masonry. You mean the Masons?” she asked.
“Of course not. The humans that worshiped the Masonry? They couldn’t build a temple that lasts 50 years, let alone a flying one that’s barely even broken in after 50. Those sentient bricks knew how to build a ship. Shame they went extinct.”
“How did they die?”
“Just…ran out of grout.”
I assume these cannons can be gutted and used for…other installations?” asked Hyde.
“For the right price, I’m sure anything is possible, sir.”
Nicole stepped inside and placed her hand on the wall, running it down the stone as she explored.
“Now we haven’t had a chance to finish it out. It needs power washed and painted, there’s some water damage from a pipe that froze, but structurally she’s rock solid…quite literally. Really just a few basic repairs, and most of the work it needs is cosmetic. Right now it looks like a dungeon.”
“I want it.”
“That’s fantastic and at this price you’re getting a hell of a deal, because all that painting and cleaning is the real money sink, and we have a crew that will do it for half the going price as a package deal for buying the ship. It’s always cheaper and better to buy gently used with good bones and fix up the cosmetic issues.”
“Leave it. Fix the damaged pipes, fix the outdated systems, get it running like new, and don’t put a drop of paint on her. She’s already perfect.” Nicole whispered, brushing the mossy crack in the wall and closing her eyes.
“Hey if you wanna do the decorating on your own, be my guest. I would still recommend tearing out the ceiling panels, the old wiring up there got wet and crumbled, so most of the lighting has been disconnected for safety.”
“How much for just bare steel conduit and sodium lamps?” she asked.
“Uh, truthfully I’ve never been asked that or looked into it, but it would be cheaper than tearing out the panels. You guys really in a hurry and doing some temporary industrial work?”
“Sure we are.” Nicole smiled. Orange sodium, every 15 feet, 30 watt bulbs.”
“Some of us can’t see in the dark, Nicole. Switch that to 60 watt with a dimmer setting.” Hyde corrected. Otherwise you heard the lady. Radiation cleaning to kill the germs and bacteria, and I guess…just leave the rest vintage.” He sighed, placing his hand on Nicole’s shoulder and pulling her in close to talk quieter. “Vinn may have let you have everything you asked for, but I’m buying you a ship and there will be compromises and tradeoffs. No ankle deep water, no dripping pipes and no flickering lights. And those pusscifist cannons are gonna be refitted with Delmarian weaponry.”
“No traditional superstitious spirals?” she asked.
“What do I look like, some kind of spiritual Tool?” he scoffed. “Traditions died when I did. I do what I want now.”
“So now we need a crew for this.” Nicole noted. “What you thinking? Plucky mechanic, a cyborg, a token idiot to be the scapegoat, right now we’re just got aquatic, clone and Delmarian covered. Where do we even start?” she asked.
“The food court.” Everyone has to eat.
“That reminds me, we need some kitchen supplies, I have…slightly odd diet you may find disturbing or amusing.”
“I expect nothing less from you at this point.”
The two of them sat behind a plastic table with a hand written sign that read “Hiring crew, cash, no Federation.” On black marker.
“Brilliant plan there, captain red-beard. Just sit here without disguises with a cardboard sign on a space station for cargo haulers?”
“There are too many shady illegal ships for anyone to notice one stolen shitbox, nobody knows who we are here and nobody is looking for us, just a stolen ship. If we leave the ship to drift, they find it, recover it, we don’t exist. Look, right there, that woman has a mechanic’s logo on her jacket. HEY YOU! Mechanic…wanna make a lot of money?” he said
“That depends…how naked for how long?” she asked.
“Very funny. We need an onboard mechanic. You have a name?” he asked
“Duffy LaCroix. But I have a ship and a crew already…even got half a Delmarian. Not interested. See ya.” She said, waving them on and heading to the churro stand.”
“Well that was ominous.” Hyde huffed. “I wonder which half he got.”
“Don’t even go there.”
“I know which half you would want.” He smirked.
“Gross.” She cringed.
“Rather Insulting.”
“No I mean, Yea, I know what you mean but…gross to there only being half of one, presumably dead. The morbid part of that is gross. The other part…yea you’re probably guessing correct.” She shrugged. “So this was a crap-out idea. You can't even buy a damn crew.”
“Well… maybe we can.” Hyde pondered.
So we’re getting a real robot. That’s pretty cool and all, but I have questions. Just out of curiosity, is there a reason they’re all naked and anatomically accurate?”
“Well, they’re pornbots left over from the collapse of the Musk Empire. That weird bastard flooded the market with them. BUT that makes them cheap and disposable, so we can stockpile a few for parts and backups. They’re designed to do what you tell them to do, and they removed the naggy spam software so they won’t keep trying to get you to upgrade to premium for the same damn thing with a gold star logo. Everyone uses this for cheap labor.”
“Doesn’t feel like slavery?”
“They’re not sentient AI, they’re 2 bit toasters that take orders, vibrate and call you daddy. They remove the last 2 features when they stockpile them for mining work. Believe me that cause a whole incident. Thousands of good men died happy in those mines.”
The male model looks too much like Jack. It’s creepy.
“The blonde looks too much like your friend Dee, that’s a problem too. I guess that leaves her. The tall butch one. Sir, we’d like the third model, and any spare parts or repair kits.” Hyde hollered at the seller.
“Excellent choice.”
“Do they come with clothes at least?” he added.
“Yes, but only the default they were shipped with, so just Dallas cowboy Cheerleader and Dominatrix.”
“Shit, of course they would.” Hyde grumbled. He lowered his voice slightly and stepped closer. “Now…do you have these outfits in smaller sizes, say, something that would fit a 5 foot model?”
“Yes we do, the same default two. Unfortunately, we don’t have any 5 foot bots available at the moment.”
“Oh I don’t need the robot. Just give me both outfits in the small size and one…shit I dunno cheerleader outfit for the robot I guess. That’s maybe slightly less questionable for the time being until we get a uniform.
“So do you have a five-foot bot model already? We do offer cleaning, repairs and upgrades.” He smiled.
“No, just shut up and take my money. Discreet packaging, dress the bot, I want a spare charger and…” he said staring at Nicole. “Maybe give me two of the small outfits, they may get torn up in the washer or something."
“Understood.” He winked.
“Don’t do that. Don’t you ever do that.”
They both sat on the couch watching TV in the damp basement-like confines of their new ship-brick, construction workers diligently in the background, getting it flight ready as the robot charged in her charger.
“This feels familiar. Like my life is just on repeat. Sitting in a basement with a Delmarian I just me, with construction workers in the other rooms, just waiting to start a new life.”
"And I’m here, waiting for guns to be installed for another mission, following orders from someone I just met who has a plan and needed a soldier. Funny how everything keeps changing, but it seems to never really change.”
“I miss my friends. I miss my home. I miss my clothes even, this outfit is starting to get the funk.”
“You’re a pirate, you’re gonna smell funky sometimes. But I get it. Everything here is a shitty replacement for what you used to have.”
“Well…different isn’t always worse. Sometimes it’s better and sometimes you just get used to it. I’m gonna go take a nap. Let me know if anything changes.” She said, trying to decide what room to throw her sleeping bag into.
The life of a pirate be cruel sometimes.