Twinks in Space: Fantastic Voyage - Part Two - 46. Chapter 46 - Young Quigley, Part 3

The beautiful men outside of Pickle’s Place whooped and hollered at seeing the young bounty hunter and older woman together. Pickle was walking with Quigley on the street back from the smoke house, arm in arm beneath the sunshine. At the front entrance, she kissed the back of his hand, and entered. Quigley remained outside, and he smiled at all the compliments he received from the prostitutes.

“On a date with mother, I see, how impressive!”

“Our little boy’s becoming a man!”

“Look how much he’s risen!”

“Do you fancy yourself a stud now, handsome?”

Quigley blushed and could not stop himself from giggling at the words of the men out front.

Inside Pickle’s Place, the pair of Tizomin and Frilnin had no intention of leaving anytime soon. They had plenty of money, and they were not finished enjoying all the pleasures that the establishment had to offer. The two men were at the bar on the second story looking out the windows at the setting sun. Both of them were holding wine glasses that were almost empty, but before they could order another, the bartender placed small vibrant shots onto the counter.

“Gentlemen, these are from the throuple in the booth against the wall.” He pointed.

Tizomin and Frilnin looked over at the three other men who all raised their glasses in greeting, but then they turned back to each other and did not show any more interest in anyone else.

“Delightful!” Tizomin said with a smile, turning to the drinks.

He and Frilnin knocked back the shots. The thick drinks were sweet and fruity. They placed the tiny glasses back onto the bar top and finished their wine, just as one of their favorite house men entered. Tizomin and Frilnin were unaware that a plan had been set in motion against them.

“It’s Snowbear!” Frilnin declared.

Tizomin turned in the direction his companion was looking, and he was delighted to see the burly bearded man heading straight towards them. His skin was fair and freckled. He was wearing a beaming smile.

“Hello, you two scoundrels!” Snowbear stepped right up and kissed one and then the other on the lips. “What are we drinking? Daddy’s ready to get tipsy!”

“These shots were nice,” Tizomin told Snowbear.

The fair-skinned fellow pouted and whined, “I want one too!”

Frilnin snapped his fingers at the bartender and pointed at the two small glasses. “Three more,” he ordered.

“This’ll be the perfect way to start my buzz,” Snowbear stated as the bartender placed the little glasses filled with the bright concoction. Snowbear picked up one of the shots. “So, have you naughty bois been enjoying your time at Pickle’s? Here’s to all the fun we’re going to have!”

The other two raised their glasses, and the trio downed their shots.

“What have you fellas been drinking?” Snowbear asked, eying their wine glasses, but he did not allow them to reply. “I want something stronger! You bois wanna share a bottle of Seventh Star liquor?”

A mere fifteen minutes later, Tizomin and Frilnin were very drunk. Snowbear was also feeling tipsy, but he had spent more time topping up the other two men’s drinks, rather than drinking his own.

One of the Pickle’s Place bouncers made his way through the bar, collecting empty glasses onto a serving tray. When he picked up Tizomin and Frilnin’s empty wine glasses, his platter became unbalanced, and he tipped it onto the trio of drinkers. The glasses shattered at their feet.

Tizomin and Frilnin both jumped up in a rage, but Snowbear just looked surprised at being splashed.

“Sorry, gents,” the bouncer grunted, grabbing a cloth and roughly wiping them off.

The inebriated burglars lashed out, each taking a swing at the bouncer, both of which he dodged. He gave them a shove, and Tizomin and Frilnin went sprawling onto the bar floor. The big man grabbed them each by their collars and dragged them to the foyer of Pickle’s Place.

“Get your things and go,” the bouncer commanded. He pushed them over to the tavern’s coat check.

Tizomin and Frilnin both fumbled with their tickets, but a moment later, they were collecting their effects and heading to the door. As they pulled it open and exited into the dimming dusk of the city, Tizomin turned back to the bouncer with his hand blaster drawn and aimed at the big man’s chest.

“Not so tough now, are ya?” Tizomin mumbled, but Frilnin suddenly cried out in alarm and fell to a clump on the ground behind him. Tizomin turned, and a blaster muzzle pressed against his cheek. Holding it was what looked like no more than some kid, but the kid reached forward and snatched Tizomin’s gun out of his hand. “Who are…” With a flash, the blaster against his cheek whipped around, and its stock slammed into his temple.

It was more than a few minutes before the two burglars came out of the daze and were able to get their bearings. They found themselves locked in a large metal room with no windows. It took a few more minutes for them to shake their delirium, but they eventually realized where they were.

“This is a cargo shuttle,” Tizomin stated.

“Who took us?” Frilnin added.

The door to the storage room was locked from the outside, but there were quite a few full crates in the space.

“The power channeler for the cavitation engines in these ships is located inside the back wall,” Tizomin stated. “Let’s see what’s in these boxes and try to get at the channeler.”

Up on the cargo shuttle’s bridge, young Quigley was piloting the ship through the void to the specified destination where his prisoners were meant to be deposited. There were still over five hours of flight time, but to Quigley’s alarm, the shuttle suddenly dropped out of hyperspace and a warning light flashed that the cavitation engine was no longer functional. The computer also indicated that an auto-distress call had been sent out to the neighboring galaxies.

“What’s wrong with the ship?” Quigley said aloud.

Another alert began blinking that the cargo hold lock was broken.

“Godsdammit!” Quigley spun in his chair and rushed to the stairs that led down to the storage compartment. He pulled out his blaster, just as a bolt that was fired from below exploded on the railing.

A voice shouted up to him, “Who do you think you are?!”

“People keep asking me that,” Quigley grumbled to himself as he adjusted his weapon’s settings.

Another bolt burst at the top of the stairwell.

“Your ass is dead!” another voice roared.

Not yet, thought the young bounty hunter. He slipped a shockwave disk from the pouch at his belt and tossed it right over the edge of the landing. The coin-sized object tumbled down to the bottom of the stairs and exploded.

“What the?!” one of the voices exclaimed. “Tizomin, are you… by all the gods, Tizomin!”

Okay, Quigley thought, one down, one to go. He removed an angled mirror and used it to peer down at the levels below while remaining out of sight. The second man was rushing up in a fury. Quigley slinked against the wall, knowing where the man was about to be on the stairs, and the bounty hunter moved with speed and precision. He stood, aimed, and fired so fast that the man coming up at him was dead before he took his next breath.

One corpse lay below Quigley with a hole punched through its back, but at the bottom of the stairs, the scene was much worse. The shock disk did not land on the floor and detonate, but instead, the tiny weapon had impacted with the other man, releasing its shockwave into him. His body burst, and chunks of it now coated the bottom of the stairwell. The head was facing up with its unfocused eyes looking at Quigley.

The intensity of everything caused the bounty hunter to vomit over the side of the railing, and he fell to the floor at the top of the stairs. Tears were in his eyes and his mind was swimming in an ocean of chaotic self-doubt.

The shuttle’s communicator started beeping. Quigley wiped his eyes hard and answered. A woman’s voice started speaking before he said anything.

“Cargo shuttle DSX-4.7, this is the starship Mad Goddess. I picked up your distress and am about to drop out of hyperspace at your position. How can I be of assistance?”

How am I supposed to explain this? Quigley thought to himself. “Starship Mad Goddess,” he called out, “are you receiving me?”

“Loud and clear, cargo shuttle.”

“No assistance is required at the moment,” Quigley said quickly. “There is no need for you to stop here. Please be on your way.”

The Mad Goddess appeared in space beside Quigley’s rented cargo shuttle.

Dammit.

“Cargo shuttle, I can’t detect any damage on your ship’s exterior. Do you know what happened to your systems?”

“Affirmative,” Quigley replied, “my cavitation engine has some minor damage that I’m just about to repair and I’ll be on my way again. Nothing to worry about.”

The voice from the Mad Goddess said, “I’m docking with your ship and I’ll take a look.”

No, no, no! Quigley heard the clunk of the two ships connecting. At least the airlock is nowhere near the stairs. Just need to keep whoever this is away from the stairwell.

A young woman and a very strange square robot were on the other side of the cargo shuttle’s door. The robot rolled forward and spoke before the woman could say anything.

“I am Lady Talula!” it declared.

“No you’re not,” the woman replied, shaking her head. She smiled at Quigley. “I’m Lady Talula, and this is X-Ø.”

“Quigley,” he replied.

Lady Talula looked concerned. “Are you alright? I can tell you’re upset.”

“I’m just trying to fix the engine and get out of here.”

“Okay, Quigley, do you mind if I plug into your shuttle and see if I can figure out what’s wrong with it?”

The bounty hunter shrugged. “Go ahead.”

She pulled out her device and connected it to the ship. “Hmmm, looks like there is a rupture to the interior wall of your cargo hold. Let’s go check it out!”

“No!” Quigley said louder than he intended. “Sorry, no, we can’t go down there.”

Lady Talula was confused. “Why not? That’s where the problem is.”

“We just can’t.”

The young woman was in her early 20s; she was clever, and she analyzed Quigley. “Listen,” she said in a quiet voice, “I just want to help. I know something’s wrong, but is it something more than just the engine? It seems like there’s something really wrong. Let me help you.”

“You can’t,” Quigley whispered.

X-Ø spoke again in Lady Talula’s voice. “Lady Talula is a good friend.”

“Thank you, X-Ø. You’re also a good…”

“I killed two people,” Quigley mumbled. He was looking at the floor and his shoulders were slumped. He expected to be reprimanded for the deeds he considered evil, but a gentle hand came to his shoulder.

“I’m sorry you had to do that,” Lady Talula replied. “Do you want to tell me what happened, why you had to kill them?” There was no judgment in her voice.

Quigley looked up at her and choked down his tears. “I was bringing in my first bounty on this cargo shuttle, but they broke out of the hold and came after me. I didn’t mean to kill the first one, and I had to kill the second one; he almost got me.” His tears began to trickle.

“Are their bodies on the ship?” Lady Talula asked, and Quigley nodded.

He turned and looked toward the door that led to the stairwell, but as Lady Talula started to walk in its direction, Quigley began to protest. “Don’t do it. Don’t look.”

She turned back to him. “It’ll be okay.” Lady Talula reached the top of the stairs and looked down. She observed everything below for a moment and looked over at Quigley. “It’ll be okay,” she repeated as she walked toward him again. “I need to get something out of my ship, and give me a few minutes to deal with the bodies, then we’ll handle the engine issue together.” She stopped walking to stare into his eyes and give him a small reassuring smile. “It’ll be okay,” she said once again.

Lady Talula entered her ship, and she returned with a sword. She stepped up to Quigley. “Stay here,” she commanded. She drew the blade from its scabbard at her hip.

The weapon in the Lady’s hands was unlike any sword Quigley had ever seen. Its curved, single-edged blade was black, but not black like onyx or obsidian or ebony, or even a shadow. Lady Talula’s blade looked like a hole in reality, like it was made of the utter darkness from the void beyond oblivion. As she walked, the unsheathed blade left a ripple in the air behind it, as if molecules were being cleaved to their atomic parts by the weapon’s unworldly edge.

Lady Talula disappeared down the stairs.

“Hello,” X-Ø said in Lady Talula’s voice, “what’s your name?”

Quigley looked at the boxy robot. “I’m Quigley, remember?”

“I am a good friend,” X-Ø declared.

“You seem a little confused,” Quigley replied.

X-Ø made a sad noise, but the robot’s face stayed fixed with its permanent smile. “I wasn’t meant to be a friend.”

“I’m not sure I was meant to be a bounty hunter,” Quigley murmured to himself.

“I think you are,” X-Ø replied.

Quigley looked at the strange robot with curiosity. “Why do you say that?”

“Hello,” repeated X-Ø. “I am Lady Talula!” it stated again.

“Quigley!” yelled the real Lady Talula from the stairwell.

He approached the top and called out, “I’m here!”

Lady Talula asked up to him, “Do you have something to store these in?”

Quigley took a tentative peek over the damaged railing that the blaster bolt had exploded against during his brief fight with Tizomin and Frilnin. On the stairs below Quigley, where the man he shot had died, quite a lot of blood was slowly drying, but the body was gone. Looking farther toward the bottom of the stairs, Quigley saw Lady Talula standing in the smear that was left from the other man. Both the heads were at her feet.

“You don’t want to not get paid, right?” she said up to him with a smile. “I looked in at the damage. I think these two used some tools that were in the cargo hold with them to dismantle the wall. The cavitation engine’s ruined. I think you should just abandon this ship. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” Lady Talula looked around herself at all the blood; the chunks of flesh were gone. “Also, it’s a mess.”

“But it’s a rental,” Quigley replied weakly. “They have my payment information.”

The Lady smirked up at him. “Aren’t you a bounty hunter? Don’t you and your ilk often work outside the law? Why don’t you figure out a way not to be charged for abandoning it?”

“What do you mean? Like change my bank account so they don’t know how to charge me?”

Lady Talula laughed. “Well that sounds like a pretty easy solution. Now, what about these heads? What do you have to store them in so you can at least drop them off with whoever issued the bounty and get yourself paid?”

Quigley descended, avoiding the bloody patches, and he joined Lady Talula at the bottom of the stairs.

“Does this ship have a refrigeration unit?” she asked.

“The galley’s this way,” he answered. “What happened to the bodies?”

“The sword took care of them,” she replied vaguely.

They stuck the heads into the portable freezer and wheeled it into the elevator that led up to the airlock, where Lady Talula’s Mad Goddess was docked. X-Ø was waiting for them.

“Hello, friends, I’m a friend,” it said.

Quigley looked at the Lady. “Why is X-Ø so confused?”

It made another sad sound, and Lady Talula laughed. “Can’t you tell? She wasn’t designed to be a robot. I turned her into one when we were first alone.” The Lady’s bright demeanor fell a little. She seemed to have been unaffected by dealing with the corpses, but something about her own words had diminished her vibrancy.

She opened the door to her ship and perked up again. “Welcome to the Mad Goddess!”

“Welcome to the Mad Goddess!” X-Ø repeated with exactly the same inflection.

“Quigley, why don’t we go clean up?” Lady Talula recommended, holding up her bloody hands and pointing out the red on his. “Let me just detach the cargo shuttle from the Mad Goddess.”

A short while later, her ship was rocketing through the void toward the location saved in the device that Quigley had received from the bookie when he took on the hunt for Tizomin and Frilnin.

“Only ninety minutes more,” Lady Talula informed Quigley.

They decided to make themselves a snack, and an hour and a half later, the Mad Goddess dropped out of hyperspace at a free-floating warehouse orbiting an icy planet.

Quigley hailed the small space station. “This is the bounty hunter Quigley, and I’ve come with prisoners Tizomin and Frilnin to collect payment.”

A deep voice from the orbital storage facility replied. “Glad to hear it. I’m sending you a docking code. Looking forward to seeing them.”

Lady Talula leaned toward Quigley and said under her breath, “Or what’s left of them.”

“Transfer payment,” Quigley said loudly, “and I’ll bring them down.” His monetary tracker dinged, confirming payment.

The Mad Goddess entered the warehouse’s hangar and landed beside another starship. X-Ø remained onboard and the other two exited with the cooler.

A large man greeted Quigley and Lady Talula with a smile as they wheeled the refrigeration unit off the Mad Goddess. The man’s face went from enthusiastic to confused. “Where are they? Where are the prisoners?”

Quigley patted the refrigerated unit with pride. “They’re right here!”

“Where are my sons?!”

“Y-your… sons?” Quigley stuttered.

“Oh gods,” Lady Talula whispered.

Both of them looked down at the cooler.

A jovial voice behind the two new arrivals called out, “Tizomin and Frilnin! Where are my brothers?”

The dead men’s father stormed up to Quigley and Lady Talula, shoving them both back from the freezer. He opened its lid and wailed in anguish. “Dilpak,” he cried out, reaching for the young man behind Quigley, “come to me! See the remains of your two beautiful brothers! They did not deserve this!” The man’s third son approached the cooler, drawing his blaster, as his father’s sorrow turned to wrath directed at Quigley and Lady Talula. “How could you do this?! Why did you call them prisoners and imply they were alive? What a cruel joke, and this was supposed to be a no-kill­ bounty!”

He grabbed the blaster from his son’s hands and fired wildly. The bolt passed between the bounty hunter and the Lady, and they both dove in opposite directions. Lady Talula landed at the door to her ship, but Quigley ended up hidden behind a crate, and he was unarmed.

Lady Talula screamed for him. “Quigley!” She did not have a blaster, but her unique sword was strapped to her hip. The Lady unhooked the scabbard and slid her weapon across the floor of the hangar right to Quigley’s knees. “Get yourself out of here!” she yelled as she leapt into the Mad Goddess and sealed the door. Her ship launched out of the warehouse.

Quigley pulled the sword to his heart and stayed hunched as low as possible behind the crate. Bolts were exploding on either side of him and their noise was deafening, but they suddenly stopped and Quigley drew the blade of darkness. The two men were on him faster than he could have expected, but the sword protected the bounty hunter. Quigley was not adept with bladed weapons, but the sword did not require him to be.

The blade was like a fractured shard from a black hole. Quigley swiped with it and made contact against the side of one of the father’s hands. Instead of chopping a few fingers off, his digits simply disappeared. He screamed and his son grabbed Quigley from behind. The bounty hunter turned and thrust, and the man gasped, felling backward with a massive hole missing from his torso where the blade pierced him. It looked more like he had been shot with a blaster rather than stabbed by a sword.

Quigley looked at the weapon and the way it seemed to sizzle the air around it.

The man whose hand was missing a few fingers used his other to clutch at Quigley, but the bounty hunter swiped again, and the brutal blade moved through the man’s arm and part of his side. A huge portion of the limb where the sword touched was gone, and all that was left was his hand, now lying beside him. The man’s innards bulged from the catastrophic wound in his side.

Quigley turned to the other starship in the hangar behind him, the vehicle that had been next to the Mad Goddess when it docked. He knew it had to belong to the father or son, and he looked down at them. The ship’s controller was hooked on the dying man’s belt. Quigley grabbed it, and the father tried to protest, clawing at Quigley’s hand, but he was in agony.

“That’s… my… ship…” he managed through his teeth.

Quigley yanked the controller away, rushed onboard, and activated the vehicle. It blazed out of the hangar. The Mad Goddess was gone, and Quigley had no way of getting in touch with Lady Talula, but he needed to get away before trying to find her again. He entered a coordinate into the computer, and the ship disappeared into hyperspace.

Maybe all of this was a mistake, Quigley thought. Maybe I’m really not cut out to be a bounty hunter. He opened his monetary tracker and did a double-take. The bounty for both Tizomin and Frilnin had been deposited in his account, but there was more than that. There was a bonus attached to the primary payment. Both numbers were the same. Quigley had made double what he anticipated getting from the job.

“Okay,” he said to himself, “bounty hunting it is.”