Set Adrift (Part 7)

Dave considered Ed, wondering how best to respond in order to not rile Ed further.

"Ed," he said, delicately. "Perhaps we should consider what that would mean. Shall we? Good." He got up from the floor and walked over to Ed, placing his hands on his friend's shoulders. "Ranforth is still active duty," he said. "They might notice if you walked through two-hundred odd Federation Heavy Troopers and leveled a gun at his head. And then you would be dead." He nodded, trying to get Ed to follow his line of thinking. Ed shrugged off Dave's hands and sat down at the table.

"I don't care. I have to kill him."

"Ed! We can't do it. I mean, why don't we just board and steal his frigate from him?"

"Well, now that you mention it..." mused Ed.

"NO ED. That would be stupid. Like, just join the Federation stupid, or sleep with Parsee and tell Quaz stupid." As he finished the thought, a blow slammed heavily into the back of his head and he fell the floor, muttering profanities and cradling his head.

"Ah know yoo wern ser'us, bu' ah can' tahke chances," said Quaz.

"That's understandable," groaned Dave. He turned his attention back to his friend. "Ed, listen to me," he said, still on the floor. "We're under-provisioned, under-armed, outnumbered, and have no idea where he is. We couldn't do it. We just couldn't." Ed stroked his beard in what he believed to be a manly and pensive fashion.

"Alright fine, you're right."

"Thank yo-" began Dave.

"For now."

Dave sat bolt upright.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

"You're right. For now," repeated Ed."I'm still going to find Ranforth and kill him, just not today. Today is a preparatory day." He got up from the table and walked out of the room, heading for the door to the outside. Dave jogged after him and grabbed him by the arm.

"I won't deny that the universe would be better off without him, but Ed, think about what you're saying. You can't do it," he pleaded. Ed shook him off and rounded on him.

"I don't care! Ranforth is evil and I can't let him live. I'M GOING TO KILL THE BASTARD!" Dave flinched and shrank at the scream and Ed glared at him for a moment before turning on his heel and walking out the door. Quaz and Parsee hurried to Ed.

"You alright?" Parsee asked him.

"I'm fine," he responded. "It's Ed I'm worried about. I've never seen him get like this about anything, even when they destroyed Alex,"

"Alex?" asked Parsee.

"SECBOT he had on Decken. It was destroyed for murdering three people. And almost me, come to think of it." Dave thought about that for a moment, unconsciously rubbing the back of his head. Then, being Dave, he decided to let bygones be bygones. "It's not important. They destroyed it and he just broke down and cried. He didn't get all...murdery and.. revenge... lusty."

"You think we need ta worry about 'im?" asked Parsee.

"I should say so. I've known Ed for a few years now and in that time I've learned two definite things about him," answered Dave.

"Wha's tha?" asked Quaz.

"You don't get between him and his liquor. And when he sets out to do something, he does it." He turned to face the other two. "Or dies trying."

*****

A few hours had passed and the sizzling rain had subsided along with the argument. In that famous bond between men, Ed and Dave both decided to put the difference behind them and let any problems from it fester and become health issues. The four of them had decided to pull the Condor out of the slop she resided in and rest her in Quaz's stabilization rig in order to effect repairs. Quaz had gone down the road to borrow one of his friend's tractors, his own having been destroyed in the firefight. He left Ed, Dave, and Parsee behind to open the rig to the proper size. Or, more accurately, Dave and Parsee as Ed had only had a couple years of mechanical and robotic maintenance training.

"Why does your dad have this thing?" asked Ed as he leaned against the controls to open it. The rig groaned as its two halves extended. Ed's question was a fair one. Quaz was a wheat farmer and the rig was unusually big for a man such as him. It was an astonishing two hundred feet long and seventy five tall. Parsee leaned over from the top of the rig, pausing in her and Dave's work to grease the stuck joints.

"Dad likes ta' help wayward trav'lers an' make a lil' money while he's doin' it." She moved to go back to her work but then another thought struck her. She leaned back over. "Plus he can maintain his persona as the big, mean, scary Koth man who'll kill ya if ya bother him." Dave decided to leap into the conversation as well.

"Isn't that just the best marketing of all time. 'Come to Hellhole; the acid rain pit of the known universe! Not only can you melt your face off by leaning too far out the window, you can also get verbally and physically abused by a mechanic because you forgot to drain your Gygax oil! It's really not so bad!'" he turned back to Parsee. "Now that I think about it, why do people come here?" Parsee stared at him for a moment. Then she lunged at him and smacked him on the head.

"Th' overwhelming hospitality. Now shut up and get back to work." Dave flashed Ed a grin as he and Parsee turned back to the greasing.

Just as they finished opening the rig, the hum of a motor drifted through the caverns connecting Quaz's house to the rest of Hellhole's developed underground. Looking to the tunnel in question, they found that Quaz had managed to get a tractor. He sat atop the front of the tractor, his spread rifle balanced on his hip, like some sort of grand savior. The effect was spoiled by the goofy grin he was a quite obviously trying to hide.

"How'd y'all git on with th' rig?" he asked, hopping off the tractor. Parsee slid down one of the access ladders and walked over to him.

"Pretty good. These two managed ta not get themselves killed." Ed and Dave stared at each other for a moment. A silent agreement passed between them. Then they both bent forward in extremely exaggerated bows.

"You astound us with your knowledge, O Great Rig Extender," shouted Dave.

"A veritable paragon of joint greasing!" exclaimed Ed. They carried on for some time before realizing nobody besides themselves thought it was funny.

"If yer quahte doon, ah'd lahke t' git tha' ship outta mah field today," said Quaz.

"Yes. Quite right!" responded Dave. He dashed off to start securing ties to the Condor to make her easier to pull out of the slop. As he did that, Quaz's friend got out of the tractor. Like Ed, he had a pistol strapped to his hip. This immediately stood out to Ed as he recognized it as an F.P.U-issued F-9 blaster.

"Eyd, thiziz Kizzvell. Kizzvell, thiziz Eyd," mumbled Quaz. Kizzvell and Ed stared at each other. Kizzvell had the appearance of a large insect. A very large insect. Kizzvell had to be at least six and a half feet tall, nearing seven feet. Kizzvell's face was a deep brown color, with two large eyes on a triangular face and Kizzvell had a pair of massive jaws at the point of Kizzvell's face.. Two long antenna shot out of the middle of Kizzvell's head, but other than that it was bare. Like Quaz and Ed, Kizzvell wore a set of mechanic's overalls.

"So," said Kizzvell. "You are stupid man, put ship in field?" Kizzvell spoke with a thick accent, akin to someone from northern Russia. Ed chuckled at Kizzvell.

"Indeed I am. Although you could make the argument that my pilot put the ship there." He pointed over his shoulder at Dave, who was trying to make one of the cables fit around the entire ship.

"Ah. He is stupid man." Kizzvell paused. "However, who is more stupid? Man who do stupid thing, or man who hire known stupid man?" Ed looked at Kizzvell, then burst out laughing.

"That's a fair point, Kizzvell. Let's agree that both of us are stupid and winch our poor ship out of the mud." Kizzvell nodded.

"This is good. Although, maybe I winching, you play with color-book, hmm?" Kizzvell asked.

In an hour, they had the Condor pulled out of the hole in the ground and set up in the stabilization rig. She was in sorry shape. Mud caked her sides. Where there wasn't mud, there were acid burns. But she was a ship nonetheless. Quaz and Ed took the majority of the supplies from the hold down to Aper Len. They would sell it all and use the profits to buy materials to refurbish the Condor.

*****

Ed waved to Dave and Parsee as he and Quaz set off down one of the tunnels.

"See you in a couple hours!" he yelled.

The scene played out before the man on the rock outcrop above them. He might have heard Ed even without the listening equipment. Dave's taunt in response back played through his headphones. He reached for the barrel of the disassembled sniper rifle next to him. He ran a cleaning cloth down it several times, clearing out the refuse that had accumulated through weeks of shooting.

"Yes," he murmured to himself. "You will see him. And then you won't see anything at all." He screwed the barrel back onto the receiver of his rifle.