The Turncoats
Stars poured through the wormhole like wine. Space and time swirled around The Sunfish, distorting images of distant galaxies and brilliant nebulae. If the tiny ship strayed too far from its path, tidal forces would tear it to shreds. “Steady on,” Blind Tiger advised his apprentice.
Zozzled did not appreciate his counsel. The younger man turned his unnecessarily wide-brimmed hat and gave his mentor a tasteful amount of side eye. “I don’t look steady to you?”
Tiger turned his apprentice back around by the brim of his hat, careful to avoid its jaunty feather. “Just keep your eyes on the path ahead.” Zozzled harumpf’d, but performed his task with skill and grace.
Dangerous as the wormhole was, real danger waited for them on the far side. A cathedral loomed over their destination, its art deco towers and flying buttresses blocking their path like a cemetery gate. Wrought iron ballistae on its parapets swiveled to track them. The Franchise was already here.
“Raspberries!” swore Zozzled, echoing his mentor’s thoughts.
“Evasive action,” Blind Tiger said with what he hoped was inspiring confidence. He adjusted his sword belt and turned to leave.
“Duh,” his apprentice confirmed, yanking the control levers dramatically. The green-and-gold planet outside spun dizzyingly. “Where are you going?”
“To greet our guests.”
The Sunfish was remarkably comfortable for its size. Blind Tiger walked past their bunks and into the main living space: a kitchen and sitting area of warm bloodwood. Gold accents glinted from fixtures and recessed lighting. It smelled of incense and red pepper. If those palookas did any damage to his baby, Tiger would have their heads.
An airlock branched off from the starboard side. It opened as he approached and Tiger gave its frame a comforting pat. “We’ve got you, darling. Just keep dancing.” The ship responded with a happy purr.
He stepped inside and took a deep breath as the door closed behind him. A cloud of nano-dust puffed out of the vents, coating Tiger’s layered robes and split-toed shoes, his wire-hilt rapier and shoulder holsters full of knives. This dust hardened instantly into a dark, glittering metamaterial. A panel over his face bulged and became clear.
Tiger checked his weapons and the unneeded dust flaked right off. He forgot to check the exterior gravity, but Sunfish had his back. She wouldn’t let her dearest friend fall into the void.
The outer door opened to a galaxy on fire. The cathedral had given chase, looming over them like a tidal wave. Iron bolts, large as trees, hurtled toward them. The stars spun, leaving trails in his vision as Zozzled pitched and weaved, but artificial gravity kept Tiger’s feet planted on the hull.
Boarding parties in tin cans, powered by chemical rockets, burned toward them at breakneck speeds. Zozzled dodged them, too, but they were more maneuverable than the ballista bolts. And there were just so many of them. One latched onto the port side, opposite Tiger, so he rolled over The Sunfish’s folded solar fins to meet them.
He leapt atop the boarding craft, little more than a cargo container. Missionary thugs were already pouring out, cut-rate cutlasses at the ready. Blind Tiger drew a pair of flying daggers from his shoulder and threw them at the first two unfortunate souls. The diamond-shaped blades didn’t do much damage, but their gravity fields caused the rubes to fly off in random directions. Space swallowed them whole.
Two more daggers, two more rubes. One got pinned painfully against the hull, his body weight suddenly magnified. His fellows tried to help him, but the dagger wouldn’t budge. It would return to its master in about a minute, which was more than Tiger needed. He flipped over his remaining enemies, drawing his rapier. Cutlasses flashed, but the boomerang blade turned them aside. Quick jabs to the knee, wrist, or faceplate sent recycled air hissing from their suits, turning white as it boiled.
A man inside the tin can took aim with a flintlock pistol, intending to explosively decompress the Turncoat’s skull. Tiger flicked his boomerang blade and the top third snapped off, flying straight into the barrel of the gun. It backfired horrendously, filing the tin can with smoke. The boomerang blade returned to Tiger, impaling another would-be pirate in the back. Tiger reclaimed it as the thug fell.
The last man standing tried to leap off The Sunfish, rather than face its captain, but the artificial gravity thwarted him. Tiger gave him some help with a flying dagger. He went cartwheeling sideways into the void. “This would be easier, if you came inside,” Zozzled groused in his ear. “It’s hard enough to keep us in the sky without worrying about you falling off the darned ship!”
“You’re doing great,” his mentor countered as a ballista bolt the size of a monument cruised past them, almost close enough to touch. “Well, you’re doing alright. I’m almost done here.” The period on that sentence hadn’t even dried when a second boarding party latched on, further astern, near the gravity drive.
“Doesn’t sound like you’re done!” his apprentice heckled.
Blind Tiger growled. “Almost. I said, almost.”
He sheathed his rapier and waited for his flying daggers to return. They glinted in the harsh light of the nearby star. Tiger plucked two out of the air, then caught the third as it left the thug pinned to the hull. The man did not get up. The fourth was coming up behind The Sunfish, past the boarders. Tiger stepped to the side and it followed him, striking one of the newcomers in the back. They fell sideways off the ship, directly into a ballista bolt. Ouch.
Tiger prepared to face the rest, drawing his rapier and his neutronium dagger, planning an acrobatic path through the throng… when yet another enormous bolt plunged right through the second tin can, scattering rubes like dandelion seeds. Sadly, it also obliterated his baby’s gravity drive!
Tiger’s whole world flew apart. Suddenly weightless, his feet left the hull. Debris knocked him around like ice in a tumbler. The infinite void reached out, ready to welcome him, but Zozzled wasn’t about to let that happened. The Sunfish’s twin solar fins unfolded from its top and bottom, spreading like red-gold wings. A barrel roll scooped Tiger up and he scrambled for a handhold as he slid down to the fin’s very tip. The planet’s jeweled dome grew larger and larger — and larger! — as he climbed hand-over-hand to the airlock.
As the door irised closed behind him, air cycled in and the nano-dust suit exploded off his body. He stumbled forward, through the swirling cloud and onto the floor, gasping. Closest call in a while. “You alive?” his apprentice howled over the comms.
“And kicking,” Tiger reported.
“Yeah, well… don’t get used to it.”
He hurried to the cockpit. The stern bulkhead was down, sealing off the engineering bay. “Sorry, girl,” he apologized. A mechanical whine was the ship’s only reply. In the bubble cockpit, Zozzled was wrestling with the control levers. He’d turned the ship sideways, using its solar fins like wings. Wind resistance rattled the ship as mountains, then prairie blurred past. Tiger sat down and pulled a restraining web over himself. He’d always hoped he’d die dueling a cardinal high atop a tower under a blood-red moon, but you get what you get.
Zozzled bled off their momentum in a barely-controlled climb over some low hills, then skittered down the far side until they crashed into a dark and foreboding forest. Their impact crater was the most beautiful thing Blind Tiger had ever seen, simply because it wasn’t moving. The Turncoats unwebbed themselves and began climbing out of their sideways ship. Zozzled had even managed to avoid burying the airlock.
They jumped down from the still-hot hull and took stock of their situation: solar fins shredded, gravity drive destroyed, stranded deep in the Fray without any backup, and only a few of their speakeasy contacts even knew they were here.
“So much for saving the locals,” Zozzled summarized, trying to strike a dashing pose, no matter that there was nobody to impress. His slate-gray vest and pin-stripped slacks looked immaculate. You’d never know he almost died two minutes ago. “Who’s gonna save us?”
The machine forest reached its neon-streaked branches across the sky, blotting out the sun. Feral, insectoid robots flitted through the gloam, skittered beneath the brush, and slithered amongst the branches. Zozzled tried to keep his cool. They were only machines, right? Created to serve. Nothing to fear. Then… a headless, winged drone dive bombed him from the canopy and scared him pretty much scatless.
Raspberries! He peeled his fingers off the hilt of his chainsword. He straightened up from a defensive crouch and tried to look nonchalant. Absitively, posolutely nothing to fear.
He checked his pocket watch, a silver number with delicate filigree. It’d only been ten minutes. Seemed like hours. He was searching for anything that might help them repair The Sunfish. He’d done his best to save her, but those cathedrals are no joke! Had they hit anything but the gravity drive, they’d all be dead in space right now. Rather than left for dead on a planet. Didn’t stop him from feeling guilty, though.
The machine forest was overgrown, a gnarled thicket. Bolts of fabric poked up from the ground like gourds. An old oak drooped under the weight of all the spare sensor parts in its branches. Electrical conduits wound around everything like vines. No gravity drives, no solar collectors, nothing to repair the hull. He could tap one of these trees for its sap, but there was no telling what it would do. Could grow a waste recycler out of The Sunfish’s stern and that simply wouldn’t do!
Movement. Off to his right, deep in the shadows. Zozzled’s sword hand was on his hilt faster than a thought. The feel of its diamond-pattern wrap calmed his nerves. He flicked the oval crossguard, loosening the weapon in its scabbard.
A howl to his left, than another to his right. Another and another and another. Feral robots? Native predators? Did it matter? Had this been an ambush, they would’ve struck without warning. No, they were trying to spook him, make him run. Zozzled wasn’t such easy prey. He took a deep breath and howled right the heck back!
The cacophony he unleashed shook birds from their perches. A lanky, blue-gray figure burst from the forest and charged him with a wooden club. Its business end was a small, hard sphere stained an ominous shade of red. The shaft tapered down to a cloth-wrapped handle and that handle… was held in wicked claws. The floppy ears and needle teeth of a canine snarled down at the Turncoat as it leapt into the air, abdominal muscles rippling, fangs bared, brows thickly furrowed with hate.
These must be the natives they were here to save. Perfect.
Zozzled leaned out of harm’s way, letting the warclub whistle past him, a puff of displaced air making the feather in his hat dance. Then, he ducked under a lateral backswing and dragonfly kicked away, opening some space between them. “Friend!” he hollered. There was no way this bloke spoke Codex. Zozzled put his hands up, leaving his chainsword at his hip. “No fighty-fight. Me. Help. You.” His illustrative gestures added nothing.
The dog-headed alien growled and circled him, keeping its wrist loose with theatrical swings of his club. It psyched itself up with a series of — honestly, quite intimidating — barks and growls. Then, it came at Zozzled with a flurry of savage swings! The Turncoat retreated, dodging each attack by the length of his nose. Before he backed into a tree, Zozzled ducked low and stepped inside his enemy’s swing, unsheathing his sword just enough to jab the dogman in its ribs.
A chorus of excited yips erupted from the darkness. Were they playing with him?!
Another dogman, this one mottled brown and white, dropped out of a tree directly above Zozzled. It drove a spear down like a thunderbolt, but the Turncoat was already rolling away, losing only his very fine hat. Thankfully, it didn’t get skewered.
Both aggressors moved to flank him, but Zozzled didn’t get the sense they were working together. They barked angrily at each other, as if competing for the kill. “Hey, fellas, I don’t wanna get in the middle of anything — “
The spearman lashed out first, tossing its weapon behind its shoulders and out to full extension before snapping it back and forth, trying to slash the Turncoat’s throat.
Fudge nuggets! Zozzled drew his elegantly-curved chainsword and blocked these rabbit-punch blows with alacrity. He retreated again, putting both enemies in front of him before the first dogman could crack him across the spine. This was getting out of hand. Time to take this seriously, even if it was a game.
Zozzled dodged sideways and let the spear zip past him, then stepped inside its reach and swung upward with his chainsword. The microscopic teeth along its blade chewed through the wooden haft with appetite, decapitating the spear. He leapt over to his first opponent and, on the downswing, cleaved their warclub in twain.
Only the subtle hum of the chainsword’s teeth disturbed the silence that followed. Then, before Zozzled could try again to communicate, the night itself seemed to whistle. A blow dart flew toward Zozzled’s neck and, instinctively, he parried it.
His two opponents, the ones he could see, melted back into the shadows. Was that it? Had he won?! As if in reply, dozen more darts filled the air, converging on the Turncoat. He dodged or blocked as many as he could, but that still left one in each of his thighs and a third in his shoulder, pumping poison into his bloodstream.
Raspberries! He had to get back to the ship and its cornucopia machine. Whatever these predators had done to him, The Sunfish could cure.
Ten minutes away. He could make it.
“There you are.” Blind Tiger found his missing dagger lodged in what remained of The Sunfish’s gravity drive. “Poor girl.” He gave her a reassuring pat and she responded with a sonorous purr that vibrated through her hull. “I know, darling. Save your energy.”
They’d met in deep space, years ago, after Tiger got himself in trouble with some pirates. And then out of trouble, like you do. The Sunfish had been basking in a solar mirror when Blind Tiger crashed right through it. The ship could have held a grudge, but she was a soft-hearted angel and fished him out the black, instead. They’d been together ever since.
The hole in her stern was clean, but only a single lobe of her gravity drive remained. Tiger had never seen the inside of one before. Its inner workings were beyond awe-inspiring: a mesh of clockwork mechanisms so small and intricate, they spiraled down into fractal infinities. It might be enough to grow a new one, but they’d need power and The Sunfish’s solar collectors were in tatters. “I should never have dragged you and Zozzled — “
“Help me!” It was more a gasp than a shout and it came from the edge of the crash site. Blind Tiger vaulted over his ship and found his apprentice lying face-down in the dirt. Most alarming of all, his hat was missing.
Tiger covered the intervening ground in two strides. “What happened?” Zozzled held up a thin, wooden dart by way of explanation. “Hold on.” Tiger took the dart inside, clambering through his sideways living room to the kitchen prep table. Its surface lit up with readings and diagrams when Tiger held the dart against it. Nearby, one of the beverage dispensers thrummed to life. Tiger climbed up to it and held a tumbler under the nozzle. A light, emerald liquid poured out, just a finger’s worth. Must be potent. With a thankful pat, Tiger lowered himself down to the port side wall and then up through the open airlock.
Consarnit! A dozen dog-headed boys now stood quietly, and well-armed, around his apprentice. The one in the middle, the tallest, was wearing Zozzled’s hat. They looked hostile, but mostly on account of the teeth and claws. They weren’t acting hostile, so the Turncoat decided to take it slow.
He walked over and handed the tumbler to his apprentice, who swallowed its contents in one gulp. Poor boy’s face puckered like an old fruit. Served him right, his mentor assumed.
Blind Tiger continued on, putting himself between Zozzled and the locals. Slowly, he reached into his robes and produced a large, stone coin with a square hole in the center, engraved with images of koi fish and lotus flowers. He tossed it into the air… and it exploded into fine powder. The dog-headed boys stepped back and raised their weapons, all but the smallest pup. That one watched with wrapped attention as the dust began to glow, revealing a topographical map of their village. It’d been the Turncoats’ original destination.
Longhouses appeared in green, arrayed around a segmented well, which glowed brilliant orange. Nearby, a stone oven flared to life, then a dome further away from the village center. These three gifts — water, fire, and waste recycling — had been dropped onto their planet ages ago, along with the seeds of the machine forest. The dog-headed boys whooped their recognition.
Then, the map zoomed out to show their entire world and, in orbit around it, the wormhole. That caused some conversation, mostly directed at the young pup. Tiger noticed him protectively hugging a satchel bag.
Next, the image flew through several wormholes to a Franchise world covered in glorious cities. Jade skyscrapers and red-tiled burrows filled with aliens zipped past in an overwhelming melange of culture shock. The dogmen fell silent, their questions too numerous and profound for words.
Just one more topic to cover. Tiger gestured to the point cloud and a recording of their fight with the missionaries began to play. It showed the boarding parties, the bolt that damaged The Sunfish, and Zozzled’s daring crash landing. If Tiger was interpreting their expressions correctly, they seemed honestly concerned for his ship. Sympathy was good. The Turncoat could work with sympathy.
As the point cloud collapsed back into a coin, Tiger got down on his knees and bared his throat to the hunting party. The older boys barked and jeered, advancing on him. They took his rapier, his flying daggers, and the neutronium blade at the small of his back. Zozzled gave up his chainsword and flintlock pistol, but he wasn’t happy about it.
The one wearing his hat prowled around Tiger, growling and stamping his feet. The other boys bayed in response. Then, he got down in Tiger’s face, all fangs and hot breath, trying to make him flinch. Might as well intimidate a mountain. Frustrated, the dogman kicked Tiger over and walked away.
“Did that work?” asked his apprentice, clearly eyeballing his hat. “Or did you just gift them our weapons? I’m rather fond of my weapons, mentor.”
“One thing at a time,” counseled Blind Tiger as he stared up at the azure sky. “At least we didn’t have to harm them.”
Zozzled didn’t seem impressed.
The young pup approached the Turncoats as his fellows spread out to search the area. Tiger heard The Sunfish close her airlock. Smart girl. The pup crouched down and tapped Tiger’s casting coin with one claw.
“You want to see it again?” Tiger mimed tossing it into the air and the pup followed his example, hucking the coin skyward. Once again, it exploded into a cloud of dust and a map of their village.
The pup pointed excitedly at the segmented well. It would provide clean water and medicine, like The Sunfish made for Zozzled. “What about it?”
Thinking for a moment, the pup pantomimed breaking a twig between his claws. “Your well is broken?” Tiger guessed. The mission must’ve been here longer than they thought.
“No wonder that speakeasy gadfly knew all about it,” Zozzled complained, apparently feeling well enough to heckle his mentor. The pup pulled open his bag and showed them a canteen, then uncorked it and let the Turncoats peer inside. Zozzled’s eyes lit up. “Is that machine sap? To fix their well, they’d need sap from the original tree. And they’ve got enough of it to repair The Sunfish’s gravity drive. We’re saved!”
Blind Tiger wasn’t so sure. “This isn’t about us,” he reminded his apprentice. “Maybe someone in their village needs medicine. Maybe the water is contaminated.”
“It’s probably a missionary trick,” scoffed Zozzled.
“Probably,” Tiger agreed, “but helping these people is our mission.”
Zozzled’s hat mocked him, bouncing jauntily on that dogboy’s head. It didn’t even fit him! The cynocephali were cut, no doubt about that, but they were still small, way too small for a wide-brimmed fedora. He looked ridiculous. Zozzled should just take it back. He’d be doing them both a favor… but the Turncoats were there to help, not to help themselves. That’s what separated them from the missionaries. That and style.
The pack leader interrupted his reverie by gesturing for everyone to get down. They’d been walking through tall grass for hours, unable to see more than a few spans ahead. How much further down did they need to get?! Dutifully, Blind Tiger crouched and Zozzled did the same. Patience, patience, (sigh) patience.
As they crept up a sudden incline, Zozzled caught a familiar sound: the electric clack of a servomotor. He stood up — just a little! — and saw a prairie full of runners. You could find them throughout the bramble, roaming across deserts and tundra, wetlands and high mountain ranges. They rolled around on four wheels, each at the end of a robotic arm. Their headless bodies were slender enough for a human to ride astride, capped with cushioned seats, and stirrups on their sides. Two could ride at once, if they didn’t mind getting close, or they could carry a camp’s worth of cargo.
This was really going to cut down on their travel time, not to mention make the trip a whole lot more fun. “I’m gonna get us one,” he declared, but Blind Tiger held him back.
“Let them take the lead,” he insisted. Patience, again. Ugh.
The dog-headed hunters fanned out through the grass. They could get around on all fours pretty gracefully. The pack leader got a boost from one of his wingmen and flew up onto the nearest runner, howling in premature victory. He grabbed the control knobs on its back, but failed to get his feet into the stirrups. The beast reared up and tossed him like a trebuchet. Zozzled resisted the urge to run out there and retrieve his hat.
Next, the rest of the party encircled an unsuspecting runner and tried to tie down its limbs, but it engaged it wheels and spun in a circle, spooling them in. One by one, the dogmen flew away into the tall grass. Zozzled laughed and laughed… and laughed. His mentor scolded him with a look, but come on! It was funny.
Whatever. Patience was for palookas.
Zozzled took off at a sprint, tearing through the grass and leaping onto the back of a runner. He kicked off its flank, twisting his body sideways and holding on tight the moment he landed, feet securely in the stirrups. It reared, bucked, but he held fast. He tried to direct it with the control knobs, but the beast resisted, racing away from the herd. It slalomed side to side, trying to throw him, but the real kicker was the backflip.
The runner threw its forelegs up over itself and leapt with its rear legs. The planet rotated around them. Zozzled slipped, lost his grip, and skipped across the prairie like a flat stone over water. It was humiliating. Also painful.
When the dogmen came to collect him, they had toothy smiles on their faces. Their awful, goofy, floppy-eared faces. He expected them to drag him back to his mentor, but instead they helped him to his feet and petted him on the head. Was this friendship? A maniacal laugh bubbled up from Zozzled’s chest. They even gave him his hat back.
By the time they rendezvoused, Blind Tiger and the young pup had wrangled enough runners for the entire party. “What witchery is this?!” Zozzled gaped. “All I managed to tame was this very fine hat.” He showed it off, as if he’d won a prize.
Tiger helped him up and offered to let his apprentice drive, despite what just happened. “The pup has a knack for it,” he explained. “Just walked up and treated them gently, made some calming sounds, and they let him right up. You all made it too hard on yourselves. It’s like I keep telling you — “
“Patience,” Zozzled finished, taking the controls. His mentor climbed up behind him. “Not any time soon.”
If the hunting party expected a warm welcome, they got one. The entire village came out to greet them. Dog-headed women and children, wrinkly-faced elders, they emerged from their longhouses with fangy smiles. The dog-boys raised their weapons in celebration, but nobody cheered. The young pup raised his canteen triumphantly. Still, nobody cheered. Instead, the dog folk couldn’t wait to show their wayward sons something exciting in the center of town.
Their well was already repaired! Water gurgled from its spout and pooled in a circular basin. One segment was dry; it would produce medicine for anyone who approached. Confused, the pup offered to pour his hard-won tree sap over the spout anyway, but the elders made him stop. They took his canteen and wandered off, presumably to store it somewhere hallowed. Blind Tiger could feel his apprentice’s eyes tracking it.
All things in due time, Zozzled.
Then, the big reveal: a dog-faced woman in a shapeless, black dress appeared at the flap to the largest longhouse. She had a human with a handlebar mustache in tow. He was dressed in a similar garment, but draped over his shoulders was an ornate scarf of white and gold, the vestments of a missionary barker. Four men with equally ridiculous facial hair followed behind him, armed with emberblades.
“What a welcome surprise!” bellowed the Barker. “After your unfortunate accident, we’d presumed you both dead.”
“As it ever was,” Blind Tiger replied. “You presume and we survive.”
The Barker shrugged. “We all have our appointed hour.”
“Maybe today,” chuckled one of the barkersmen behind a lowered fedora.
Zozzled nearly drew on him. “Not now,” his mentor whispered. “Not here.”
Satisfied that the Turncoats wouldn’t do anything too stupid, the Barker returned his attention to the poor rubes he’d been in the middle of swindling. “Welcome to the Franchise, brave warriors!” The dog-headed woman in the black dress watched intently and did her best to clean up the translation before repeating it to her kin. Some, but not most, applauded.
The Barker continued, “You have received the gifts of the old gods and now you’re ready to join us, their inheritors. Our wisdom has repaired your well. We share it freely with all who join our great Franchise!”
“Can you believe this scat?” Zozzled spat, giving the barkersmen a heavy dose of hairy eyeball. They were more than happy to return the sentiment.
“I’ve heard it many times,” Blind Tiger sighed. “We got here too late.”
That night, the Turncoats huddled with the hunting party, or most of it, in their barracks. It was cozy, insulated with material from the machine forest and built atop a platform of heated tiles. Gifts from the Gift-Givers. Everything else, they’d made themselves: tapestries and weapons, beds of woven grass, bowls of fruit and nuts they were happy to share with their new, alien friends.
Blind Tiger had prepared another presentation for them. He let the young pup do the honors, flipping the casting coin high. It burst into a point cloud and the image of that teeming, alien city reappeared. This time, the fly-through stopped at the steps of a massive cathedral, emblazoned with the same symbols as the Barker’s vestments. Humans and aliens knelt in prayer as barkersmen prowled the crowd, correcting people’s posture with a crack across the back or a swift kick to the ribs.
The dogboys murmured their confusion, but Blind Tiger had more. Vignettes of people painting (poorly) or cooking (poorly) or singing (poorly) and being met with similar “corrections” by priests, tutors, or just their loved ones. Men and women spied on their neighbors, ratting out artists and freethinkers to the barkersmen.
Then, finally, a return to their village, where tiny dogmen and dogwomen were all dressed in the same shapeless, black garments. Any who deviated — dared to practice their own culture or speak their own language — were coerced into conformity, until nothing remained but the Franchise.
The young pup had seen enough. He waved his hand through the point cloud and it resumed its inert form. He turned to his brothers and gave what Tiger assumed was a rousing speech of sharp yelps and emphatic gestures. It riled up the pack and soon they were organizing into teams, heading out in two’s and three’s. One of them handed the Turncoats their confiscated weapons.
“What can we do to help?” Zozzled asked.
Blind Tiger crossed his arms, leaned back, and smiled.
“Easy. We wait.”
“Ugh.”
“It was the Turncoats!” shouted the Barker in the early morning hours. Pre-dawn on this planet was a deep, plum purple. Zozzled roused his mentor, realized the barracks were empty, and then marched into the village square to face these scurrilous charges.
The Barker pointed a single, prosecutorial finger at him from across the well. “They were going to steal it to repair their ship! We were saving it from them!” He clutched the young pup’s canteen to his chest. Blind Tiger pushed aside the door flap and joined his apprentice, but did not bother responding. He didn’t need to.
The hunting party already had the Barker and his men surrounded. The pup was barking at this elders, pointing and signing. It looked to Zozzled like they’d caught the missionaries red handed, trying to steal the sap and frame the Turncoats. Classic Franchise. The hunting party must’ve laid a trap. Never underestimate the locals.
In any case, nobody was buying what the Barker was selling… nobody except for the dog-headed woman in the shapeless dress. She put herself between the Barker and the tip of a spear, spread her arms wide, and yelped plaintively.
The Barker, predictably, snatched her up and put a gun to her head. “This is unacceptable behavior!” he yelled. Then, to his men, “Burn it down.” The four thugs drew their emberblades: straight, double-edged swords that glowed like hot coals.
“Oh, no,” Zozzled gasped, anticipating the atrocity that was about to happen.
His mentor was already moving. Blind Tiger drew his rapier and flicked it to the left, snapping off the top third of the blade and flinging it into the shadows. It whistled through the night air, looping around until it was traveling parallel to the hunters’ line of spears. One after another, it chopped their spearheads right off!
“Don’t do this,” Blind Tiger warned the missionaries.
The beast with the handlebar mustache cocked his pistol. “Why not?” His men turned away from the hunters and stuck their glowing blades into the nearest longhouse. It went up like a book-burning pyre.
The Turncoats rushed in, instantly dividing up the task ahead. Blind Tiger would handle the hostage situation. Zozzled would do everything else.
“Put out the fires!” Zozzled shouted, waving the hunters out of his way. He pointed them toward the well, where the young pup was already organizing a fire brigade. “I’ll handle these palookas.”
“Will you, now?” the barkersmen laughed. “Four against one. How ever will you manage?”
Zozzled drew his pistol and shot the nearest thug through his chest. He fell like a lead weight, emberblade searing the grass. “Check your math.”
He rolled under a volley of return fire, one hand on his hat, and came up in a low stance. He drew his chainsword and severed a missionary’s hand. The thug’s weapon hit the ground tip-first and stood upright, flames licking its blade.
The remaining two came at him with a frenzy of lunges and slashes that seared Zozzled’s retinas. Fortunately, he could beat these two with his eyes closed. His chainsword carved a figure eight pattern through the air, sweeping the emberblades away. He dodged between them, dropping his weapon and slashing one thug across both thighs as he passed. Blood sprayed on the ground as the missionary stumbled and fell.
“I can take you all by myself,” boasted the last mook standing. He twirled his glowstick around in what he must’ve thought was an intimidating display. “Do you know the difference between you and us, Turncoat?”
“Style?” Zozzled guessed.
The thug scowled. “We’re not afraid to go for the k — “
He never got to finish sharing his wisdom, because Zozzled slapped that upright-standing emberblade with the flat of his sword, sending it cartwheeling into the windbag’s midsection. Flames engulfed him like the wrath of a vengeful god.
The rest of them ran off into the forest. They could run all the way into orbit, for all the Turncoat cared. “The difference is, I lack patience,” he told the burning corpse. “Ask my mentor.”
The Turncoats rushed in, instantly dividing up the task ahead. Zozzled would handle the barkersmen. Tiger would do the hard part.
He dashed across the village square in his split-toed shoes, footfalls gentle as a breeze, and threw a flying dagger at the pistol pressed against the dogwoman’s head. It lodged itself between the hammer and the spark plate just as the Barker pulled the trigger. No spark, no gunshot.
An instant later, the dagger’s gravity field kicked in, yanking the pistol from the missionary’s grip and hurtling it toward Tiger, who casually leaned out of the way. The dog-boys could add it to their collection.
Blind Tiger drew his boomerang blade, but the Barker held his hostage in front of him like a full-body shield. His grin was bloodthirsty… and short lived. The dog-headed woman clamped her jaws down on his arm, rending flesh and crushing bone. The Barker squealed and tossed her away. Wisely, she let go and ran off into the night. Tiger had a feeling she wouldn’t be wearing the Franchise’s uniform any longer.
He dove at his enemy, a deep lunge, but the Barker drew his emberblade with alarming speed. The weapons ricocheted off each other. Tiger stepped back and parried a riposte aimed at his heart. Fortunado’s Three-Point Defense protected him from a series of slashes that might have set his robes on fire. This Barker had some training!
“More than you bargained for, Turncoat?” he bragged, broken arm held high and behind, dripping blood on his coat.
“We shall see.” Tiger’s rapier was longer, giving him the advantage of reach, and the Barker’s style was aggressive. Aggression was exhausting. If the Turncoat could maintain a strong defense, his victory was only a matter of time.
Wind Through Falling Leaves kept Tiger just out of reach as the Barker renewed his attack, split-toed shoes dancing lightly across the square. His enemy responded with Diego’s Gambit, a leaping faint that turned into a low swipe at the legs upon landing. Tiger saw it coming and countered with a No-Shadow Riposte across the Barker’s back. His vestments fell off, sliced clean through the middle.
The Barker retreated, sweeping the emberblade around himself in a blind defense before Tiger could do any more damage. “What are you lot even saving them from?!” howled the missionary, already short of breath. “Civilization? Prosperity?!”
“Mostly,” the Turncoat taunted, “having to listen to you lot prattle on.”
“They’ll excommunicate this entire world, blockade it until the end of time! You’ve doomed them and yourselves!”
“You’ll certainly try.” Owl Swoops Upon Its Prize. Blind Tiger danced forward, striking down from a high guard, threatening his enemy’s feet. The Barker parried frantically — left-right, left-right — then countered with Shark Strikes From below. His emberblade scraped over the Turncoat’s robes, intent on skewering him up through the jaw. Tiger leaned back and watched as the glowing sword kissed the tip of his nose. He throttled backwards, patting out the flames on his wardrobe. Close one.
This goon had a strong defense, after all. Blind Tiger would have to lure him out. He settled into an even stance and gripped the neutronium dagger behind his back, presenting his enemy with an obvious opening.
“King in a Glass Castle,” scoffed the Barker. “I’m not stupid.”
“Nobody said you were,” Tiger shrugged. “What I will say… is that you’re a craven, two-faced zealot who preys on the weak and innocent, robbing them of their heritage and identity. You sabotaged a well, just so you could prance in and ‘fix’ it! What a disgrace. Such tactics reveal your morally-bankrupt ‘church’ for the vainglorious sham that it — “
Scorpion Strikes Its Prey. Good choice by the Barker, a high jab toward the Turncoat’s face, no doubt designed to silence his blasphemous tongue. Tiger stepped into it, blocking with his neutronium dagger. It rang like a church bell when struck, its inertia instantly skyrocketing, making it an unbreakable barrier. Simultaneously, Tiger flicked two thirds of his boomerang blade into the night and used the remaining, shorter blade to stab the Barker in his thigh, under his arm, and several times in the chest.
He disarmed his enemy with ease, tossing the emberblade away. “Surrender,” Tiger whispered as the Barker’s eyes went wide, “and no more harm will come to you,” an offer that was somewhat undercut by the screams of a man burning to death behind him. Thanks, Zozzled.
“Never!” spat the missionary.
“Suit yourself.” The two boomerang blades returned from the darkness and drove themselves deep into the Barker’s back.
The men of the village had returned mere hours after the conflagration, carrying a gargantuan ungulate with antlers the size of trees. After the village elders had vouched for the two hairless apes in their midst, Zozzled had helped carve the animal up and barbecue it. The cynocephali knew how to party. Fermented fruit, psychedelic fungus, music and dancing… beat the heck out of that bringdown speakeasy Tiger liked so much.
Days later, they’d returned to The Sunfish with the hunting party, plus a few of the men. The villagers had decided to gift her the sap they’d gathered from the center of the machine forest. The dogmen had taken particular interest in her, peering into the cockpit and gently stroking her hull. They’d be exploring space themselves in no time, if Zozzled had anything to say about it. And he always had plenty to say.
Blind Tiger and the young pup were at the stern, applying sap to The Sunfish’s wounds, including the gravity drive. Already, it was doing its work, drawing material from the very air and depositing it where needed. She was a feral ship, unique, and Zozzled hoped it didn’t mutate her too much. Although… would a wet bar be too much to ask?
In the meantime, at least the locals would be left alone. The cathedral was still up there, blockading their wormhole. Those zealots would shoot down any vessel that tried to leave, or any that came to their rescue.
Someday, that young pup would find his own ship and take to the stars. If the Franchise had their way, he wouldn’t make it to orbit. The Turncoats couldn’t let that happen. The Franchise had to fall.
But first, they’d have to let their ship heal, then run the blockade and do a better bloody job of it, this time! The only thing between them and rejoining the fight was time and the bridge over time was… patience.
Zozzled could wait, he really could, just so long as the dogmen had more of that fermented fruit.
Written by Daniel Bayn
Introducing…
- Blind Tiger, the Turncoat mentor
- Zozzled, his Turncoat apprentice
- The Sunfish, their feral longship
Based on “Fast Ships & Cool Swords,” a shared storytelling universe by Daniel Bayn. Fast Ships and Cool Swords © 2024 by Daniel Bayn is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 #FightTheFranchise
Daniel Bayn is a prolific author of games and strange fiction. He’s written three tabletop roleplaying games, monthly columns, short stories, and one non-fiction book on the psychology of online social behavior. He holds an interdisciplinary master’s degree from the University of Minnesota and works as a user experience designer, strategist, and researcher. http://DanielBayn.com
His premier novel, Mercyblades, is available on Amazon.
