Bob started laughing. It didn't really help the situation, but he enjoyed it.

  "Shut the fuck up, Bob." Sheena said, she considered shoving her fingers in Bob's eye sockets. She didn't, but Bob was certainly aware she was considering it. What with reading everyone's surface thoughts all the time.

  "Sheena, new best friend, let's not do anything hasty now." Bob said.

  "I have an idea to get us back to the ship, fast." Lucas had the map, and the map had the teleporter's rules built into it, sorta. He knew enough to know the end destination could be reprogrammed. He walk over to Sheena and put his hand out for the skull. "Bob here is going to help me reprogram the teleporters to get us back to our ship, lickety-split."

  "Alright, Lucas." She handed the skull over.

  "What about my consent to be passed around. I'm not a skull of loose morals you know. I want to go back to Bethany. She touched me with the most reverence."

  Lucas took Bob, walked over to Rex, and handed him over. "Hold this and follow me, please."

  "You just did that to further screw with me!" Bob complained.

  "Then we understand each other." Lucas smiled, "If you don't help quickly with the teleporters, I will teach Rex to play football with your... you. Come on, Rex!"

  The two men went over to the teleporter circle carved in the ground, and Bob got to work explaining how to modify the teleporter so that it would dump them all out near their ship. "Some quick rune carving adjustment is all it will take. There are only two runes to change, in this setup. One for the direction, and the other for the vector length. How's your ancient arcana alphabet boys?"

  "What's that?" and "Bad," came the answers from Rex and Lucas.

  "Well in that case, Lucas, would you like a headache?" Bob asked.

  "Ugh... fine. Hit me." Lucas said. Rex just stood there confused.

  Lucas parsed the ideablast MUCH better this time. Partly because he knew it was coming, and partly because it was technically, his second rodeo with this sort of thing. Still gave him a brief, intense headache getting blitzed with the meaning and function of thousands of runes at once. He twitched, but only enough to turn on the disco ball multicolored light function on the codpiece.

  "Oh dammit." He stripped it off from the outside of his exosuit and tossed it back toward his crew. "Can you turn that off, and stuff it in a bag... please. I'll be a few minutes carving some of these floor tiles into new runes."

  His infiltrator suit had a built in dremel-type tool with a few different heads. Useful when locks refuse to be picked the normal way, or, apparently, floor tiles needed ancient runes carved into them in a bit of a hurry.

  While the menfolk worked, the rest tried to pass the Bechdel test.

  "Yorna," the Nuphidri approached and sat near her, she was still snuggling the dragons, "Would you be willing to allow me to draw a small amount of blood for some testing? I'd like to make sure you're not carrying any diseases that might be harmful to my friends."

  "We're going to take you and the dragons with us, if you want to join us that is," Sheena said.

  "I think I'd like that very much." Yorna didn't sense any malice in the big blue three eyed alien woman, or the two women sitting on the couch with her. "You may take my blood."

  "Aha, full sensor linkage re-established." The Nuphidri's suit started projecting the airspace above them again. At the same time she pulled a magitech scanning device called the tetra-corder. Like a tri-corder, but it also scans magical frequencies.

  She detached the probe and said, "Small prick," before she stuck Yorna in the upper arm with it.

  "That was rather simple." Yorna said. She was expecting a knife, or at least a visible needle, not a little round thing that barely pricked her skin. "What does your machine say? Am I diseased?"

  "Quite the opposite. Your immune system should be studied, it seems quite robust. Magically enhanced in a way I've never seen before. Have you... ever been sick?"

  "Once, as a very small, but never since then."

  "Dragon's blessing?" Bethany asked.

  "Maybe. I wouldn't put it past old Flux to have enchanted me in my sleep when was sick and wouldn't have noticed. Usually I'd notice that sort of thing and copy his spellcraft."

  "The Frexard has launched its fighters," Sheena said, looking at the tactical hologram "And another ship dropped out of warp and is joining them on the way down here. Makes four bad guys inbound."

  "Activating the ship's cloak." The Nuphidri said, pressing some buttons on her wrist device. "Though it is not designed for use in atmosphere."

  "That's a torgritoid bomber." Bethany said. "Tough little bastards, those thing have regenerating plasma bombs and a mean-ass turret on top."

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  "FUCK!" Lucas broke the tile he was carving after getting the complicated rune 90% completed.

  Not be outdone by technology, Bob sent a ping of detection magic out to gather information.

  "Oh, rough time to fuck up Lucas. Those ships are closing in fast." Bob said, as he projected his own illusion of the battle space in Lucas field of view from his eye sockets. A nice 3d illusion. "Ohhh, that bomber seems to be charging something up. Better work faster Lucas."

  "Why do you sound like you're enjoying our impending deaths?" Lucas asked. Starting the carving process again.

  "Because it would be, frankly hilarious to be if all the prophecy and planning of my maker and his friends gets fucked up because of a stupid space-sasquatch pirate." Bob laughed some more. "Besides, there's four more of me out in the galaxy in case this plan fails. Do you want me to do it with you? I can show you how to carve stone with magic you know."

  "Go ahead!" Lucas said, not quite catching what he'd just agreed to.

  From Bob's skull a flurry of lights in every color of the rainbow flew into Lucas.

  From Rex's point of view LuBobcas then squatted down and used magic to reshape some stones, before putting them back into the circle. It was like he turned them back into wet clay for carving, and then returned them to fired clay a moment later. But the floor was stone, not pottery.

  The lights of Bob fled Lucas' body, and Rex said, "Damn! When did you learn magic Lucas?"

  "Uhh, I didn't."

  "I borrowed you. I'm a fair bit more limited when I'm not connected to a great big ley line adjuster," Bob said. "By the way, that bomber just released a payload. I think it's coming this way."

  "Is the teleporter ready?" Rex asked.

  "Aye. Go two at a time," Bob said, "And remember, the most important thing in battle, is the element of surprise."

  Rex slapped the activator button while Lucas tried to figure out what exactly that meant.

  "The Nuphidri and Yorna go next, with the Dragons." Bob took control choosing teleportation partners, "Sheena and Bethany last, and take me with you, please!"

  It took them just less than ten seconds to fully execute on Bob's command, and just barely more than ten seconds for the plasma bomb to hit.

  The teleport had not taken them to their ship. Instead it had quietly, subtly dropped them in the back of the bridge of the Frexard.

  Surprise!

  "Plasma bomb detonated. All life signs on the surface in the area have been eradicated." The tactical officer reported. "But there was some sort of magical activation just before detonation."

  "Now's the time to shoot first and ask questions, never." Bob telepathically transmitted to his new crew.

  Rex drew his pistol, unnoticed until he also pulled his sword and powered it on with a sizzling crackle.

  He opened the crew's 'hello' with a shot to the back of the pilot's head, and a roaring leap toward the killitoot captain, who had noticed them, with his electro sword. The pirate captain, being a Space Sasquatch, roared back. Fun historical fact, the original Sasquatch was actually a killitoot criminal that crash landed on earth, and was just trying to lay low.

  Lucas used this moment of surprise to put two ineffective rounds in the chest of the tactical officer, the man was wearing a blaster resistant breastplate. But Lucas followed up with one very effective round into his face. He was a human, blaster rounds to the face are generally pretty deadly. Now the tactical officer was just protein stock for the recycler. Lucas pushed his corpse aside and issued commands with that console to recall the fighters and bomber.

  Bethany started working on pulling up a shield spell around herself, Sheena, and Yorna. Poor Yorna was still suffering from disrupted quintessence, after Bob slapped her with True Name magic, so she just ducked for cover, and protected the dragons from incoming fire with her body.

  The Navigator caught a stun round from Sheena, he bore a slave's collar, and therefor got the stun rounds instead. A few more fellows on stations on the bridge in collars saw the first enslaved man get stunned, and basically offered themselves up for a stunning. Can't get magically forced to fight your saviors if your body is physically incapable of doing much more than maintain a heartbeat and breathing, right? Sheena obliged each man with a stun round to the chest.

  Pirate marines and slavemasters started coming from deeper into the ship, not because they wished to save, or help their captain, but to claim ownership of the ship from whoever was killing him, after they killed them. They were not shy about firing their weapons onboard their space ship, so Lucas sealed the bridge shut from the tactical station. "Well, that'll buy us a little time. Nice fuckin' surprise, Bob!"

  "Thanks! I thought so too."

  Rex parried an electro-sword swing with his own, and dodged the next, hopping back. Brup-targ pulled a pistol, but found it shot from his hand by Lucas. "Nuh-uh, I think Rex wanted this to remain a sword fight after the last time we met."

  Rex took the pause to holster his own blaster pistol. A grin stretched across his face as he charge back in with a free hand for punching and laid one on his foe after slapping his weapon out of the way.

  The crew of the Chrysaora had a bit of history with these assholes. They'd lost more than one score to Brup-targ in the Frexard showing up after they'd already disabled all the traps and solved the dungeon to get to the loot. Rex had swore up and down he was gonna kill that killitoot bastard with his fucking sword after the last time... and the opportunity was here staring him in the face.

  Rex kicked his foe in the shin, and parried another electro-sword swing at the same time.

  Brup-targ swore in killitootian, and tried to lock swords to press an attack, only to find that Rex was, in fact, stronger than him in man-to-squatch combat. Perhaps it was a strength enhancing exosuit, maybe it was the adrenaline and righteous indignation, but when they locked blades it was clear, Rex had the upper hand.

  He stepped his hairy opponent back several steps, pinning him against his own captain's chair.

  "Uhh, I think they have might have override codes for the doors, get ready!" Lucas said, before moving to cover and preparing to fire down one of the hallways the doors were about to open, and reveal a bunch of pissed off pirates

  Rex kneed Brup-targ in the genitals.

  Killitoot males keep their family jewels in the same place you humans do, betwixt the legs, and for the same reasons too, mostly temperature control. Not to get too far off on a tangent about space-squatch balls, but they are also extremely sensitive to kicks, knees, bites, and any other sort of violence one might apply to them.

  After having his gonads crushed by a knee, Brup-targ was dazed. Rex used the opportunity to relieve the captain of his sword hand, and sword.

  Brup-targ screamed, in surprise as much as in pain. Before he could try to stagger away and attempt to parley, Rex had bashed him face with a hilt strike from the electro-sword, and suggested he get on his one remaining knee by stomping the other one sideways.

  The doors to the bridge opened as Brup-targ fell to his knees. The pirate crew were greeted by Rex grabbing their captain by the head with one hand, and slicing clean through his neck with the sword in his other. Rex was so mad that he forgot there was helmet glass in the way when he tried to spit on the fresh corpse he'd just made. He wanted the last thing Brup-targ saw to be his corpse being spit upon. What he got was good enough.

  "Who's next?!" Rex roared.