The Maxi pod bobbed vengefully in the dark tides. The crew watched it drift into the dark as they preceded forward, weapons ready.

  After a long and tiring paddling, ending with everyone soppy and sore, Greg's arms tired and tingling from the effort, they finally made it to the shoreline. They began trudging through the caves, re-checking weapons as Duffy held her scanner up to find the blip.

  “Let’s go kill a bitch.” Said Duffy

  “Don’t we need that key thing?” asked Lawg.

  “Awe, shit. I forgot about the key.” Greg said kicking the air in frustration.

  "You think I'd lead you here if this place didn’t have the key we needed?"

  “Well, it's in the same cave.” We can just go get it real fast. Shouldn’t take but about 5 or 6 pages.” Said Greg as Barbary, showed her scanner.

  "Right down this path." she added.

  “That’s insanely convenient. An entire gas giant planet, and the one item we need happens to be the same cave as the boss? What is this, a linear platform game?” Greg asked. Duffy pondered for a moment.

  “Metaphor is more like some kind of medieval fantasy novel. It’s a 50/50 chance. If it was anywhere else it would be a long and drawn out journey over potentially months or years, lots of walking and people dying, enough to cover 9 hours or more of movie time if it was made into a fantasy trilogy.

  "I'm familiar with one." Greg yawned.

  "Can you imagine how boring it would be just trudging endlessly through scene after scene of forest, misty mountains, caves, plains, more caves and probably some dramatic molten hellscape at the end that would bring us all together or tear us apart till only 2 or 3 remained. By then, people would get bored and move on, tired of sitting through 3 hours of movie jus to be left with another cliffhanger and the same visual of the destination that never get’s any closer.” She noted.

  “That’s not necessarily true," Greg objected "You could keep it interesting with some epic battles, magical items like enchanted swords and cursed items to be destroyed, making allies and enemies along the way, ramping up the battle scene proportions each movie. If done right that could be amazing in a trilogy, even with 9 hours of run time and too many characters to do a single ending.”

  “Or even 6 movies if you did prequels.” Lawg suggested. Greg grimaced as the girls followed.

  “No, nobody would sit through that, once the ending was established for the first 3 movies, another 3 films would just be milking the franchise and it would be too drawn out. CG budgets would diminish; everything would look familiar but kinda generic, lotta filler. No amount of cameos and dragons could keep it going that long, maybe one additional prequel under 2 hours, but 3 more huge films would be a mistake.” he assured. "People don’t like filler, hell half the people are probably skipping this dialogue page right now." He chuckled.

  “The crap are you talking about?” Barbary asked Greg.

  "I'm making a point about filler that has nothing to do with the mission."

  They made their way through the misty cave to what appeared to be an opening, illuminated by some torches that would have probably gone out after about half an hour unless magically prolonged. The room was massive, filled with misty water, and in the chasm was an old wooden ship, slowly bobbing, despite no sea to generate waves and no wind to move the sails. An old man sat alone in the center of the forward deck. He was armed with a smile and a cup of tea. Clearly some mystical shit was a foot, or even up to the knee. Greg walked slowly across the boarding board, leading from the stone edge to the ship, covered in the same soggy alien moss as the rest of the ship, indicating it was extremely old and probably fragile under the weight of a 650 pound titan. Greg noticed as he approached, the tattoo across the old man’s chest. As his face peered up, Greg recognized the way only an old warrior would. Not the only the writing, but the man himself was ancient Mongolian. The tattoo of a very vibrant blue dragon wound its way around the old man’s shoulder, and almost seemed to glow as the light moved across the rocking ship. He took a hit from his bone pipe and opened his moth for some words of ancient wisdom. He had been waiting a long time for the chosen adventurers, and chosen his words carefully for this moment when the great blue dragon would arrive.

  "Who the fuck are you dumbasses?" he asked. Greg stepped forward.

  "Me? Just a humble pirate, former blacksmith who can handle a blade shockingly well. I'm coming to get my woman, who was stolen due to using my last name, by pirates, so I had to recruit a pirate myself and steal a ship to find a secret cave where she was being held by another pirate, hell-bent on using her blood in a ritual of immortality." said Greg, "Except it was my blood she needed. That old chestnut."

  "She looks familiar." The old man said looking at Duffy as she hid behind Greg.

  "Duffy? Nah, sue's just helping me, She's a crazy former captain, driven half insane by the heat and loneliness, while marooned in a shuttle pod for 18 months. She's a bit touched in the head, but she's as resourceful as she is lucky. She can fly a shuttle fairly well, like a bird.”

  "Like a sparrow." Lawg said, handling his sword to look intimidating.

  "And you?" asked the old man.

  "I'm Lawg…Admiral Captain William T Lawg. Just a guy named William, who never knew his father and was reluctantly roped into a life of ships and swords because I owe a lot of debts and betrayed a series of dangerous people while befriending equally dangerous people…all for the hopes of scoring some booty every ten years or so when making port."

  "Can you handle your steel? William?" he snarled with rotten teeth.

  "Probably…they didn’t let me have a real sword. Mine just made of plastic. I fall a lot. It’s probably a good idea for mine to have an off-switch.”

  "Not a very formidable crew. A crazy woman, a dumbass with a broken compass, and a pistol that only holds a single shot, no additional reloads."

  "The gun’s not very special, but I only need one shot, for a special lady. She's been in my head for a while, only fair something of mine get's stuck in her bones as well." he smirked. “Mainly because we only had enough antimatter for one bullet so I have no choice. I assume you have the special key we need for whatever reason?” Greg asked.

  "So you have no ship, a compass that doesn’t work, and enough weaponry to barely rob an old drunk. What makes you think I'd help you?"

  "Immortality. They think Izzy has the key to it in her blood." Duffy said.

  "Technically we don’t have blood, it’s a metallic protein gel coolant, but essentially yes, they want her blood. What they don’t realize is that she isn't a true Greggarious. The blood they need flows through my vein-like coolant system. The blood of a true immortal. Technically my son might also work but he's not here." Greg added.

  "And If I help you save your wife, you would give me that immortality?" he asked.

  "Scout's honor. And she's not my wife. She's a clone I made, and her clone is already married, I'm just kinda stealing her, but it's fine, she's onboard with it." Greg shrugged.

  "Who is her clone married to?" asked the old man

  "Doesn’t matter, screw him. You got the key?” he asked

  “Slow down, son. Enjoy life. Have some fruit, the apples are in season.

  "I can’t really enjoy an apple, my Osirian tastebuds don’t taste sweetness. You ever had an apple minus the sweetness? It just almost turns to ash in your mouth."

  "What a curse, to have no satisfaction of the finer things. You are a cursed man, unable to satisfy your cravings, neither living nor dead and damned to walk these Earths forever, fueled by lust and greed. You're destiny is one of great an-.”

  “Flattering…so this key thing.” Greg pushed

  “For a man outside of time, you have no patience. One day you will learn to slow down and listen, but not today. Your willingness to sacrifice all for your woman makes you worthy, but never believe you are done growing, or your journey will truly be at its end. They key you seek is in this chest.” He said tapping his heart and letting out a sigh. The old man chuckled creepily as he appearing to glow. Without warning, he simply died and his spark faded away.

  “Oh nasty.” Lawg said. “We gotta cut it out of a dead man’s chest? What's the point of that?”

  “Best place to hide something for eternity, inside a guy who live forever till you need the key." Greg shrugged. "Would really suck to accidentally get the wrong person."

  “Greg, we got company.” Duffy said as a second ghostly ship passed from the shadows of the cave wall into the light. It solidified into a physical ship floating between them and the way out. Zombie pirates began scrambling to the cannons. One of them fired, peppering the deck like a well seasoned omelet. Duffy pulled a shiny shard from the wooden deck.

  "Take cover, they got scattershot." hollered. Barbary

  "Who cares?" Greg scoffed. "What's a little cannon fire to a demigod? He said drawing his cutlass. "I'm immortal and I can't die, so what can you do to stop me!?" He roared triumphantly into the depths. The ship shuttered at they exchanged cannonfire. Everyone ducked and reloaded as Greg smiled darkly, standing with a boot on the rail as a shot ripped his sleeve off at the elbow, barely even getting his attention.

  "You'll have to do better than that you greasy whores!" he roared as another volley flashed. He laughed maniacally and then stopped, suddenly grabbing his face and stumbling over.

  "My frigging eye!" he yelled.

  "Aim for the beasts eye's and the nuts!" shouted the ghost Captain.

  "EVERY TIME!?" he growled, hip-firing a cannon and covering his netherly treasures from further cannonfire.

  "We can't take heavy fire like this." hollered Captain Barbary. “This old ship could sink any second just from shittiness or oldness alone.”

  “Lawg, stab the dead guy in the heart and get the key.” Greg yelled. Lawg reluctantly readied his knife.

  “I don’t wanna stab the old dead guy. What if I do and I get cursed to sail the zombie ship or something?"

  "Stab the heart!" Greg roared.

  "I don wanna." he whined.

  “Either remove the key from his chest, or when my eye grows back you’ll have to remove my boot for your ass.” He proposed. Lawg jabbed the dead guy and the knife stopped just mere millimeters in.

  “He’s got some kind of internal armor!” Gasped Lawg. Duffy grabbed the knife and yanked it away.

  “They’re called ribs you dickweed, you can't go through them like that. You go under the ribcage.” She said slicing and digging as he gagged.

  “I swear in every movie I’ve seen, they just go right through the middle. Have I been lied to for my entire life?” he asked, looking lost.

  “YES!…KEY!” Greg barked, fighting off pirates with one eye.

  “I got it!” yelled Duffy “what…the hell?” she said holding up a thin square of plastic. The zombies faded and crumbled as Greg rubbed his cornea and stumbled to see what it was.

  "It's an encryption key, a very old one. This key is old as time, or at least the early 90's judging by the floppy disc." Said Barbary.

  "So what was the point of this? To get an encryption key?” asked Lawg.

  "An encryption key that will make Greg's mind impenetrable. This disc, once installed, will seal your mind like a locked chest and prevent Jenny from controlling you. This was destined to find its way to you." Barbary noted.

  "It’s a floppy disc. What is it, like 2 megabytes of data?" Greg bitched

  "It's a magic floppy disc, so it's whatever capacity it needs to be. The item is irrelevant, it just takes the form of some ancient technology like a physical key or a medallion or a beating heart. Since you're biomech, it took the form of a 3.5 inch floppy disc."

  "BURN!" chuckled Lawg.

  "Floppy DISC…DISC, Lawg." Duffy corrected.

  "Oh, I heard something way different, the floppy part made it funny. He shrugged.

  "I'm gonna need a USB 9 adapter or newer." Greg said as the disc melted and formed into a USB drive. "Or that, works too." he added. "Back to the ship. we got guns to reload, software to update and people to kill." he smirked. They felt a rumble from the ground as Greg looked concerned.

  “Earthquake!” Lawg yelled.

  “No, that’s the sound of a ship taking off.” Greg said rushing to the next chamber as the room glowed red with exhaust flames. He stood powerless as the Tast-E-Chill lifted off, and he looked down at a small computer chip covered in blue goop. He pointed the gun at the Tast-E-Chill, remembering he only had one shot, and lowering it. He picked up the microchip and sighed solemnly.

  “What’s that?” asked Duffy.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Osirian locator chip.” Greg said with a look of defeat. “Izzy's locator chip. I swear when I find Jenny, I'm gonna pull her head off and keep her spine as a gear shift.” He growled.

  “That’s creepy.” Lawg nodded.

  "I get pretty vindictive when you go maliciously cutting on my Izzy."

  “Without that locator, she could be headed anywhere, even assuming she set up her lair in this system, that’s a dozen planets and moons covered in hiding places and layers of clouds." Duffy sighed. "Those afterburners are used to break atmosphere, so it's unlikely she plans on returning."

  "I got an idea." Greg smirked. "You're gonna hate it, but it's happening."

  "Whatever we have to do for Izzy." Duffy said. "Even of Lawg doesn’t like it."

  "No, it's you who's gonna be unhappy, Duff." Greg shrugged.

  The Maxi-pod sputtered along as it descended into the atmosphere of the gas-planet's nearby moon. Duffy and Barbary stood in the cockpit, awkwardly staring.

  "I didn’t know you could just patch and re-use a discarded Maxi-pod." Duffy said with a look of disgust."

  "It's not ideal, but apparently Survival-green tape is pretty tough stuff, and after drying out all the grut and moisture, apparently they can be re-used in a pinch." Said Barbary, looking equally unhappy.

  "This bothers me greatly, I'm gonna go burn a bowl." she sighed, heading topside.

  Greg stood proudly, peering into the distance like he was navigating. Duffy grabbed the compass from him and turned it upside down, shaking it with a look of alarm.

  "Why is the weed gone?" asked Duffy, looking horrified.

  "We burned it." Greg said, exhaling vapor, his eyes dimmer than usual.

  "But why is the weed gone!?" she asked.

  "The compass points towards whatever drug the owner wants most. Marley legally owns the compass until we sell it, and what he wants most is weed. Since we already had weed, the compass just spun. So we burned it, that way it points towards your stash you left in Izzy's purse. The compass points towards Izzy." Greg explained.

  "Awe that's bullshit." she complained. "Cant you just call Marley and have him legally give you the compass, so it's yours. Then the drug you're addicted to most, being Izzy's wide ass, so it would just point us to the same location?"

  "No time, already burned the weed." Greg said.

  "Good thing Marley doesn’t drink." said Lawg said. "Or the rum would be gone." Duffy yanked it away from Lawg and tossed the bottle over the side.

  "WHY?" Lawg asked.

  "This way we all lost something today." She sighed.

  "You guys suck. You both are a couple of really bad eggs!" Lawg pouted.

  "Yo, hoe." nudged the bald guard pirate, getting Izzy's attention.

  "I'm not a hoe." she snipped. "I'm Greg's woman."

  "Fine. Yo, Greg's woman. Captain wants to see you."

  She stepped into the Captain's quarters, hands cuffed and her shock-collar still active. Jenny sat silently, as Izzy already guessed who was behind the mask and under the big hat. Jenny turned, dramatically removing it for the big reveal.

  "Well shit…should have known it was you." Izzy said sarcastically sitting down.

  "And how on any number of Earths, would you have guessed that?" Jenny said circling

  "Osirian technology, knowledge of Osirian anatomy, plus something really crappy happened specifically to me and it wasn’t Greg, so that narrows it down."

  "Have you slept with him yet?" Jenny asked. Izzy rolled her eyes.

  "Oh good grief, why does everyone assume I'm just a slut?" she sighed.

  "We knew your clone sister before you were born." She answered.

  "Crap." Izzy huffed.

  "Be glad you are. Greg protects his woman, which means keeping you alive brings me Greg, and that's exactly what I want. It's all about application of proper leverage. You're the leverage I need to bring him in with a passive entrance, instead of just taking down the whole cave from orbit. I can do the rest from there."

  "You got a narrow ass." Izzy snipped.

  “Childish quips, I see why you two get along. Nevertheless, I have to keep him frozen and harvest his blood to become truly unstoppable. With the Tast-E-Chill in my grasp…oh how I despise saying that name… That ship now in my grasp, I have the printer with the Osirian files, your brain with Older Izzy’s access codes, and with Greg’s unkillable DNA I’ll have everything I need to build my own army of me's and take over this backwards little universe.”

  “You can’t kill him, we’ve all tried.” Izzy yawned.

  “Why would I want to kill him? I don’t want him dead, I want him submissive, like a little poppet on a string, and his mind under my control. With your clone-sister’s access codes I can simply…pilot him. You and I both know that is just a matter of cooperation and time.”

  “Well shit.” Izzy said calmly. “I assumed when he called you his evil ex, he meant it like all people do when someone dumps them or cheats on them, you know, where demonizing them makes the breakup easier. I had no idea he was this literal.”

  “I’m not evil, sweetheart, just insanely greedy. I'm worth it. I had him once and I want him back. That fact that I get to take him back from the woman he’s currently with, who happens to be the clone of the bitch that got me convinced and locked away, is pure poetic justice. So after I take over his mind and crack your skull open like a coconut for the codes that Izzy left in there, I’ll enjoy watching him tear you apart piece by piece, and then I’ll send the video to your sister. I get everything I want.”

  “Yea, yea, it’s official. I do, in fact, hate you more than any other being in existence.” Izzy nodded. The faint sound of yet another clunky ship landing harshly, echoed through Jenny’s lair.

  “Only slightly later than I anticipated.” Jenny smiled, grabbing her sword and turning on the panel next to her, with a series of big levers and lights. "Enjoy the show."

  “Alright, this is where we split up.” Greg said. Duffy looked offended.

  “We’re a team…and Barbary. None of us are going to stand here and let you face her alone, except maybe Lawg because he’s a bitch…and also maybe Barbary because she’s just helping us and in it for the money.”

  “So literally just you.” Greg nodded.

  “I didn’t realize it was going to reduce down to just me, I really had a big team vibe there.” she sighed as Lawg stood forward.

  "Greg, I'll back you up. This fight is mine too." Lawg said drawing his plastic sword.

  "Got anything to do with the fact that you can't run the trailer without me as a power source?" He asked.

  "N-no. You're one of us. The fact that you are also the battery for the trailer is unreverent.” He bluffed.

  "Irrelevant." corrected Captain Duffy.

  "Greg, you're part of this team and part of my ship." Lawg explained.

  "You mean part of your crew" Greg sighed.

  "Battery and security officer. Part of the crew, part of the ship…whatever." Lawg scoffed.

  "Doesn’t matter. Jenny set up a radiation grid over the treasure room. You see that blue hue that looks like moonlight?" Greg asked.

  "Not moonlight?" asked Lawg.

  "That much Nadion radiation would strip the flesh off your bones instantly. Those beams could even strip an Osirian down to a skeleton. Fortunately the magnetic flux it causes also speeds up regeneration, so I can regenerate almost as fast as it can hurt me. Jenny is a bit of a sadist." he shrugged.

  "At least it should look really cinematic." Captain Duffy shrugged.

  “Oh yea, it's gonna look really cool. But you guys wouldn’t last .2 seconds, so you just stay here and make sure the way out is clear of bad guys, or just start hauling all this gold that we’re walking on. I don’t know why jenny has so much gold but I feel good stealing it from her.” He shrugged casually.

  Greg stomped into the room, the beam (resembling moonlight but totally not made of moonlight) cut through his face flesh as he passed through, revealing his bones like some sort of Osirian ghost effect.

  "Jenny… I believe you have something of mine." Greg said drawing his cutlass.

  "Always full of surprises. I thought I knew you better, yet here you are risking everything for this girl." she said turning the antimatter cannon towards Izzy.

  "Everyone's got something they treasure. Funny how you never meant Jack to me." He said as his eyes glowed blue. Her eyes flickered and her smile faded. She stared into his eyes and her pupils cycled through the colors she could manage, his resolve never moving.

  "So you figured out how to block my signal?" she said, unable to control his mind. Greg grinned, running the key generator program and discreetly taking out a few coins from his pocket, one of them particularly thick for some reason. He bent down and picked up a handful of gold coins to bury the last one.

  "I never took you for a money-grubbing type." he said, flicking coins at her to provoke, making sure the last coin missed enough to hit Izzy. She looked annoyed, then she looked close at the coin, as Greg winked.

  "Well, girl's gotta fund her planning and dominating." she smiled. "You burned down our cottage."

  "Oh Jenny, you may be drop-dead gorgeous and clever, but you can sometimes be really stupid. Kinda sucks when you lose your biggest tool in the final round?"

  "Greg, you've always been the biggest tool of all." she said drawing her own cutlass and strutting towards him, walking on gold coins and power cables. He stepped back into the light, the blue glow vaporizing the outer skin and revealing bare bones and tendons. She stepped into her radiation beam, showing him she wasn’t intimidated.

  "This is substantially painful." Greg said calm defiantly.

  "Let's dance." she whispered through her skeletonized smile. Swords met in mid-air and deflected, as she hopped under his follow-up shot. As he drew back, her blade clipped his face, leaving a slight gash, that mended in moments. He switched hands, faking a slash with nothing and when she went to guard, he jammed the sword in her neck, breaking it off and letting her stagger. She pulled out the shard as her flesh mended.

  "Upgraded your armor?" He asked.

  "Well, when you need to kill a god…" she chuckled, drawing a second blade from her back, flipping a switch and watching the blade burn violently red, sparking with red electricity.

  "Electric sword? Oh come on, that's just demented." he complained.

  "It's why you married me." she grinned, rushing at him. He guarded, locking blades as she spun it out of the way and let him run into the blade.

  "Duffy, We gotta do something. Greg is getting boned like a fish...or someone just getting metaphorically boned." Lawg hollered.

  "He's fine, you can't hurt Greg." she argued, picking up some gold as an object bounced across the ground, something blue and squishy. She stared blankly.

  "That a fingertip?" Lawg asked.

  "I really hope so." she sighed.

  Izzy struggled to break the coin, revealing a handcuff pick coated in crumbly plaster and gold paint.

  "Clever boy" she smiled, fidgeting to get the pick in the keyhole.

  Greg let out a grunt as a piece of cold Amantine jutted from his ribcage.

  "Ow." he said with a wheeze

  "Not the first time I broke your heart?" Jenny said, her eyes going green.

  "So what now, just a couple of immortal demigods dueling pointlessly till Ragnarok and the fall of Valhalla?" He sighed.

  "Or you could just submit." she said. Izzy broke free of her cuffs, gasping and spotting the pistol lying in the pile of gold. She grabbed it, fighting the shock collar.

  "Greg! CATCH!" she yelled, tossing the pistol. He caught it and turned it slightly, firing and hitting Jenny in the chest. She raised an eyebrow and huffed, unimpressed.

  "You carried that pistol around ten days and now you wasted your one shot?" she asked.

  "I didn’t waste it…it's just got a fuse delay long enough for me to do this." he said doing a dramatic Michael-Jackson spin and punctuating the landing with a big middle finger. There was a slight pop, her left eye flickering red, and then lost its green glow. Her smile faded to sadness.

  "I feel…cold." she sighed, dropping like a rock. Greg's smirk turned to panic.

  "Oh balls. Alright people, that's a wrap, time to run really briskly back to the ship." Greg said tossing the pistol and shuffling through the gold chunks.

  "We can't keep some of the treasure?" asked Duffy

  "She felt cold before she died." he said as he darted past. "Remember when I bet my cut of the mission pay that nothing would explode?"

  "Oh hell." Izzy sighed.

  "Aaaaaand, I don’t get paid for this." he said rushing past.

  "You idiot!" Izzy yelled, dropping her fancy umbrella and rushing behind him.

  "Why is that bad? Don’t people usually feel cold when they die?" asked Lawg.

  "Not Osirians. We don’t generally feel cold at all." he said rushing past Lawg. Izzy grabbed Lawg and drug him along.

  "Unless you puncture the coolant overload control instead of the primary core circuit. Then they feel cold, and then they explode." Izzy explained.

  "You missed? All that and you missed?" Lawg yelled, missing steps as Izzy drug him by the arm.

  "It's a 1 centimeter target to hit through 4 inches of fleshy armor, and she was moving. I'm a sword guy, not a pistol guy. You're lucky I hit anything vital." he defended. Duffy joined the running party, waving her arms frantically as she waddled with overalls full of gold and a big fancy hat blocking half her vision.

  The Tast-E-Chill slowly and heavily struggled to take off from the strange atmosphere, as the ground below them crumbled and melted, sucking into a giant vortex of cool-looking green light, as an antimatter bubble suddenly rose from the center. The mushroom cloud of the detonation approached them as their escape velocity was just shy of the explosion speed.

  “We can’t outrun it, the bomb was too powerful and the ship is just too crappy.” Lawg yelled.

  “We need to drop some weight.” Greg yelled. "Find something heavy to toss over."

  “New chick.” suggested Lawg.

  “I mean, like the gold.” He corrected.

  “We can’t dump the gold, it’s all the gold we have.” Lawg objected. "If we dump the gold we won't have any gold left, and that's super lame!"

  “We don’t have anything else heavy enough to make a difference. Nothing that we can quickly spare.” Duffy hollered.

  “Maybe if we all stop eating except for one small meal in the mornings…” Lawg suggested.

  “We need to lose about 3000 pounds in just a few seconds.” Greg barked.

  “Well that’s not so easy. Weight loss is a lifestyle choice, not a magic button. You can’t expect results before you commit, let alone that quickly." Lawg yelled.

  “I’m about to keep a hundred pounds of gold, throw you into the pile of gold and then dump the gold with you in it. Mathematically speaking that would work, you know?” he said looking serious as Lawg pondered

  “Would the rest of the gold act as a barrier and protect me from fall damage?” he asked.

  “No.” Greg replied.

  “Could I just wait till right before I splatter and do a roll, negating fall damage?” Lawg asked.

  “What video game is your brain stuck in? It’s a 3 mile vertical drop into an antimatter explosion. You could have a parachute and a ball of mattresses and you'll still die, that's why it’s a scary threat!”

  “And we don’t have any invincibility potions…" Lawg barked.

  "DROP THE DAMN GOLD!" Greg roared.

  Lawg sat very depressed, holding up the one piece of gold that got stuck in the airlock and didn’t fall into the explosion. Marley sat down on the couch next to him and handed him a hard-soda.

  “At least you got a good story, bout 200 bucks in gold, and everyone survived.” Marley said kicking back and looking at the big tape patches in the hull. “And we can totally drywall putty those bullet holes at the next gas station. Duffy’s been dying to hit the truck-stops for some reason and the important thing is that we all ended up exactly where we were before we started this 2-part mission…minus your hot tub that got exploded by a cannon-ball of course.” Mar yawned.

  “I wanna go home.” Lawg sighed.

  “Luckily for you…you live on this very cardboard shitbox…so you already are home, Captain.” Marley smiled.

  “I wanna go to someone else’s home.” Lawg whined.

  "Anyone seen my weed?" Marley asked as Duffy walked by.

  "Why don’t you use your compass to find it?" she asked.

  "Left the weed in the compass that I can't find again." he sighed.

  "And what did we learn?" she smiled.

  "That everyone steals my weed." He sighed.

  The piratey music played them off as the silence and sadness sunk into the crew and the busted-ass ship, now sputtering on one engine. It majestically arced through space to its destiny, and hopefully a body shop. A single gold coin tumbled in its wake.