#ReturnToTheFateGear

15: Pirates of Mercury

#FanFiction #OthersidePicnic #FateGear #EdgarRiceBurroughs
#wss366 #MastoPrompt

It was true. The mergaunts had delayed the Fate Gear just long enough for the pirate fleet to catch up. The fleet was a ragtag bunch, comprised of everything from decrepit galleys resembling junks to gold-embossed, three-tiered triremes. Small, swift galleys were already in position to cut them off. Like gnats, they encircled the Fate Gear above, to starboard, and to port. Below, on the #surface, having finished the fallen mergaunts, magma worms waited hungrily.

The Fate Gear could have plowed through the galleys ahead of them, but the resulting hail of arrows, bullets, and cannon fire would have been difficult to withstand. Staying would be suicide.

“All hands to their stations,” Captain Mina bellowed. “Yuri, get this tub of ungreased gears moving. If she blows a boiler, so be it.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Yuri replied, while Fate Gear whined.

(“All my gears are well oiled, and I don’t have any boilers.”)

“Get moving, you capitalist swine, or I’ll tear every one of your gears out and throw them overboard!”

(“Aye aye, Captain Tinbottom.”) The Fate Gear’s tone may have been sullen, and the insult ludicrous, but it surged forward. The beams creaked, and the generators throbbed as the ship threw every ounce of its power into outrunning the pirates.

“You two up there,” Mina yelled up at Sorawo and Toriko. “You are hereby #installed as gunner’s mates. If any of those mercurial scavengers come into range, pick them off. We’ll show them that the Fate Gear isn’t a lily-livered, limp-dick jellyfish. Our blood runs as true and red as any buccaneers.”

“I wish she wouldn’t describe our blood as running,” Sorawo said under her breath.

“It’s a saying,” Toriko responded, still smiling at becoming a gunner’s mate.

“Saying or not, I wish she wouldn’t do it.”

Behind the ship, the smaller galleys were losing ground. Ahead, many of the galleys turned away, fearful of the massive bulk of the repurposed prison ship hurtling toward them. The Fate Gear and its crew would have surely won free except for the trireme and two accompanying biremes. Their oars caught the ether, propelling them ever faster after the Fate Gear.

A simple skull and crossbones flew from the trireme's mast, and a muscular yet lean man stood at the bow. Unbound, his blond hair flew free in the wind. His bold face showed no signs of fear. His prey was almost within reach, and he would capture it as easily as a falcon snatches a dove from the air.

#MicroFiction #TootFic #Serial #NMPrompts #NMV366 #NMMP #NMRTTFG
#UraPi #Steampunk #Pirates #Metal #JMetal #Satire #PoliticalSatire