A Different Place

Chapter 45 - Servbot #41

Teisel marched his large party onto the Gesellschaft's bridge. "All right, Tron," he said, "what exactly happened out there? Why did you destroy their ship? I thought we were just going to take their key and let them go."

Roll had been mollified somewhat by watching her favorite television show, but rage still flared behind her blue eyes. After learning Teisel had not actually been present during her ship's destruction, she had demanded that the elder Bonne find out why exactly why his family had decided to annihilate her family home. Teisel had originally been opposed to the idea, telling the girl she should consider herself lucky not to be annihilated herself, but he had eventually relented, just to get Roll to stop griping at him.

Teisel placed the Watcher key onto the table next to the Gesellschaft's flight control console, where the other two were currently resting. "Tron! Where is that girl?"

"Yes, Teisel?" Tron walked out of the meeting room, chewing on a pencil. She didn't look mad, but MegaMan suspected a raging tantrum might just be hiding under the surface.

Teisel shrugged, his next words sounding fairly depleted. "Tron, I know you were still up here after I left to watch my show, and I wanted to know if---"

"We want to know why you did it!" Roll shouted, knocking the much-larger pirate out of her path. She placed her hands on her hips and cast an incriminating glance at the other girl. "Why did you murder my Grandpa?!"

"But, I didn't murder anyone," Tron said calmly, her agreeable demeanor taking every single person, including the Servbots at their duty stations, by surprise. She looked earnestly at the Caskett girl. "That beam didn't originate from the Gesellschaft. We didn't want to pulverize your ship---only shake you up, so we could steal your key." She turned to Teisel. "Did we get that? I thought it was lost for sure when that little skyship went down."

"Little!" Roll's voice was full of vehemence.

"Yes, we did!" Teisel said proudly, as if he had played a part in the key's retrieval. "I've already put it with the others. I can't imagine how this little operation could have gone better---er, except for sinking your ship, of course," he added as Roll shot him an angry glance. He looked like he might have burst out in insane laughter, but then thought better of it.

"That's great," said Tron, taking a peek at the three keys placed together. "When are we going to Dig in the Main Gate?"

"Tomorrow morning," said Teisel. "We've had a difficult day---well, not me so much as the rest of you, but that's not important. Anyway, we'll take you two back to town," he said to Roll and the tall Digger, "and then we'll have plenty of time to prepare for our greatest challenge to date!" Teisel looked outside at the sky, his head no doubt filled with visions of the great wealth that awaited him.

"I can go, right?" asked MegaMan. He wasn't about to be left out now.

"Of course, my boy," said Teisel. "We'll all go! That Ruin won't stand a chance against the family Bonne!"

"What should we do?" asked the other Digger. What was his name, again? Dunce or something like that.

"I don't know. Go wait in the cafe," Teisel said, waving him and the girl off. "Number One, take them down there. Get them some coffee or something." Number One saluted and took the Roll and her Digger to the elevator.

"I don't care what that tramp says," Roll whispered to Dantz as the doors closed, "I know that if it wasn't for her and her weird family, Grandpa and Quackard would still be alive."

"And Data," added Dantz.

"Yes, and Data," Roll corrected herself. "I'm going to make them pay. I don't care how long it takes, I'll get my revenge."

Dantz smiled knowingly. "Don't worry. I've got an idea..."

"What was that all about?" Glyde asked irritably as he paused in his repairs on the Enarban Fell to check inside his stolen skyship.

"Er, keh-keh-keh. The Garoona Klang accidentally discharged as we inserted the final refractor, sir!" The Birdbot appeared a little nervous. After stealing a small flying vehicle from the islands's airfield, Glyde and the others had attached the Garoona Klang's rotatable circular base to the bottom of the small vessel, not nearly a third the size of his poor, exploded-before-her-time I.A.S. Glyde. The controls for the unreasonably destructive cannon were also filtered through the skyship's systems and into the pilot's control panel.

"The Enarban Fell has enough room to manuever on this deck," Glyde said as he stuck his head through the trapdoor. "I'm not going to let it just sit here. We might need it if someone attacks us."

"Keh!" squawked the Birdbot at the controls derisively. "Once we get the Garoona Klang finished, no one's gonna even get close enough to this ship to attack. We'll be unstoppable! Erreeeeeeerrrrrh!" The Birdbot was probably right. With the power of four large refractors, plus the immense Iscreme Cone in the center, the Garoona Klang would likely obliterate anyone who got within two or three miles of the Bumblebee Stinger.

"Be that as it may," Glyde said, "I still will press on!" He saluted with his wrench facetiously. "And try not to let that thing fire again! I don't want anyone to suspect what we're up to!" He paused in thought before removing his head from the bridge's ceiling. "I wonder if the last blast hit anything..? Oh, well, no matter. They wouldn't have known where it came from, anyway."

"Errrk," the Birdbot assented, continuing about his work re-wiring the control panel. They wouldn't be putting that last refractor back in until the work was done, THAT was for sure. "At least he didn't name the ship after himself again."

"How much longer until we reach Kattleox Island?" Prince Gary asked from his seat on the Garrdan royal family's skyship.

"Another six hours, sir," said the soldier at the helm.

Six more hours until he could save Tron from her bondage. Six more hours until he could pay that common orphan back for his humiliation. Six more hours until the stain on his honor would be removed, and he could claim his one, true love as his bride...

"Oh, Gary!" Tron sighed as she sank into her beloved's arms. "I knew you'd come for me! Every night, I wished to the stars that my handsome prince would rescue me, and now you have."

"It was easy," Gary said with contempt, looking at MegaMan's twitching body over in the corner. "Now, nothing stands in the way of our marriage."

Tron looked deeply into his eyes. "Gary, you are the greatest man in the history of the world..." She leaned forward, her lips parted ever so slightly for a kiss. "Gary," she moaned provacatively. "Gary..."

"Gary!" shouted Aunt Alaine.

"Sorry," Gary said, his head nearly slipping off the fist which propped it up. "I was...formulating my battle strategy." He searched through his mind quickly. "Guelly is battle-ready, but I don't know if he'll be enough, by himself."

Alaine looked fiercely out the ship's window. "Don't worry," she assured him. "You'll have your soldiers for backup, if they're needed, and I have a few...plans of my own."

"Really? What are they?"

"I'd rather not say, at the moment. I don't want to spoil the surprise." Alaine's eyes narrowed as she thought of what would happen to Gary's rivals.

As everyone who resided on the giant skyship now knew, night was not a quiet time aboard the Gesellschaft. Servbots, who required little sleep, would participate in many varied activities during the nighttime hours. They exercised, ate, bowled, performed interpretive dance, painted, watched television, and unlikely as it may have seemed, some actually worked during the off hourse. Some of the Servbots were unlucky enough to draw overnight duty on the Gesellschaft's bridge.

These Servbots were not the crack team of specialists of which the regular bridge crew consisted, however. These Servbots were chosen at random, by lottery. So, in fact, some of the day shift did occasionally have to work nights. But after eight P-M, one was far more likely to find the so-called "B-shifters" at the work stations than the regular day-timers.

This was why no Servbot found it particularly unusual when an unusual-looking one of their number, who seemed quite tall for a Servbot, emerged from the lift. His face was oddly-shaped, with one of his round eyes located slightly off-center, so it was a little lower than it should have been. His body was painted the wrong shade of blue, which the current bridge crew, Numbers Five, Thirty-Eight, and Ninteen, simply assumed was a personal choice on the odd Servbot's part.

Neither Five nor Nineteen thought anything was amiss as the Servbot bumblingly staggered around the bridge, almost as if he couldn't see. Number Thirty-Eight thought something might be wrong with the unidentified brother, but that whatever it was, it was nothing that a few hours' hard work in the gym wouldn't be able to fix.

The new Servbot nearly tripped over the short stairway in the bridge, then caught himself on a nearby console. Another thing about the newcomer was that his hands were not shaped like clamps, as was the norm for Servbots, but they were shaped like a human's hands, with five separate fingers. In fact, he moved kind of like a human, too, although without the coordination one expected.

Still, none of the Servbots currently monitoring bridge activity thought anything was out of place enough to stop the new Servbot. The odd Servbot knocked his head into a low ventilation duct near the helm, then stumbled over to to the table where the three keys were being kept. After maneuvering wildly around this table, the large, nonstandard Servbot shouted, "Awwww yeah! The D-Man strikes yet again!"

"What was that?" asked Number Nineteen from his place at the helm.

"OH-NOTHING," the other Servbot said quickly, hiding his hands behind his back. The voice he affected did not sound anything like a Servbot's, but did sound quite like some of the robots on old science fiction TV shows. "I-WILL-BE-LEAVING-THE-BRIDGE-NOW." He sidestepped over to the elevator, which he hopped in, looking a little nervous.

"Who was that?" said Five, looking up from the navigation console.

"I think it was Number Twenty-Three," said Thirty-Eight. "Or maybe Number Six."