Meanwhile, outside the ship,
the greatest corporate war in centuries raged on:
The Macrohard™ armadas were blasting Quince™ to hell and back,
ships atomizing,
the entire orbit burning like someone had decided to host
a cosmic fireworks festival for people with severe psychological issues.
Thousands of drones died every second—
at exactly the speed accountants love to write off expenses.
When a sick child needs saving,
or humanity needs even a scrap of investment—
SORRY.
The tax office already sucked us dry.
No money left.
Not a single fucking crypto-buck.
But dust off a trillion to help two megacorps
club each other into scrap metal?
Absolutely.
Instantly.
With cashback.
Because who the fuck cares of HELPING for GOOD
when you can burn trillions
to fund two megacorp fleets
so they can pulverize each other into cosmic mulch.
They didn’t give a shit.
They had their own priorities.
They just wanted to burn something—
cyborg rat-mutants, random furniture, whatever—
just to warm their souls
like two homeless alcoholics
who weren’t invited to the party
and now stand in the corner,
drinking,
quietly hating the world.
Moments ago they had unleashed a gore-splattered massacre for Quince™—
wiped out rival bounty hunters
from all four gangs chasing the same “special cargo”:
Brown Mashers,
Blue Mashers,
Purple Mashers,
and… also Magenta Mashers.
Their creativity, my friend?
Equivalent to a damp mop.
Well, I’m not here to judge marketing strategies of assholes.
Mold’Pony‘s population decreased by exactly 37 thugs.
And as it turned out, the “cargo” was—
a cute girl locked inside a container.
Blindy pops open the crate:
“Holy shit… you’re sexy-schmexy.”
Zeros, already spiritually weary of humanity:
“No-no-NO.
We are NOT doing this.”
The girl wakes up—dazed and disoriented.
“Where… where am I?..”
Blindy leans in with a predatory grin, ignoring her confusion:
“Listen, cutie. New plan.
We’re NOT takin’ you home.
Well… not immediately.”
Zeros shifts from IDGAF mode to PURE RAGE:
“Excuse me, you USELESS meat-patty?!
We just KILLED several dozen headhunters,
destroyed THREE HUNDRED MILLION cyborg cockroaches,
broke SIX galactic laws,
PISSED OFF a megacorp—
and now you want to ABANDON THE MISSION
because you’ve got… a fucking BONER?!”
Blindy wipes his nose, zero shame:
“You’re a soulless robot—you won’t get it.
I’m IN LOVE.
I’ve felt this emotion at least…
I’m almost sure… three times.
And every time I regretted it.
But forget the sad stuff!
THIS time—it’s real.”
Zeros was vibrating with rage like a cheap vibro-toy on maximum setting:
“I HATE HUMANS. I. FUCKING. HATE. HUMANS.”
The CEO’s daughter sat on a crate blinking, still rebooting, still processing the fact she was not in her luxury bedroom anymore.
Zeros paced back and forth like a walking explosive someone forgot to install a timer on.
Blindy, meanwhile, was flirting as if none of this shit was happening:
“Hey, gorgeous… got a name? You free tonight? Wanna grab dinner? I promise—poor loser boys with terrible decision-making skills are totally your type.”
Zeros, flat as a dead universe:
“By the laws of quantum uncertainty I WILL shoot your dick off.”
Blindy shrugged:
“C’mon. You won’t do it.
For some deranged whim of the universe, you actually love me…
and I love my dick—so let’s skip the drama, pal.”
Zeros groaned, voice like a dying server rack:
“I should’ve let those color-coded pervert-gang freaks kill you…”
They hurried toward the exit—Blindy still flirting in the worst possible moment, the girl walking beside them in pure shock, and Zeros ahead of them, casually torching anything that moved and dying a little more inside with every step.
But then—
At the top of the cargo stacks…
A hunter.
One they missed.
From the Brown Mash-Up gang—lean, stringy, his whole body laced with scars like someone stitched him together from old leather belts.
Eyes wild, white, pupil-less.
In each hand: a plasma axe glowing like two tiny, pissed-off supernovas.
Hair standing upright, beard in full
“I ate electricity for breakfast and I LIKED it” mode.
He raised both axes.
They flashed like judgment day.
“THAT WOMAN IS MINE!!!”
And he jumped.
Spinning.
Twisting.
A deranged death-propeller of pure homicidal energy.
Blindy noticed nothing—
his brain was occupied with… something, but definitely not awareness.
But the daughter of Crook?
She noticed.
Faster than Zeroes.
Faster than the threat.
Faster than logic.
She ripped Blindy’s blaster from his holster—
he didn’t even realize he’d lost it—
stepped back, lifted her arm, and fired.
But before the shot, she screamed:
“I’M SO FUCKING DONE WITH ALL OF YOU!”
The shot hit the plasma axe dead center.
The hunter turned into a pink-orange fireball of pure giblets.
His shredded shoes flopped to the floor with a soft thup.
Blindy was so shocked
his jaw dropped another ten inches—
a new personal best.
Zeros turned, processed the scene in 0.0003 seconds, and muttered:
“Nice aim. Shame you shoot the WRONG brain-dead meatbag, no the one standing next to you.”
Blindy gave a high-pitched awkward giggle,
snatched the blaster back,
and instinctively took a step away—
because she was, after all,
the daughter of a giga-corp CEO
with a reaction time better than most elite special forces.
And, well…
some mistakes you don’t survive long enough
to regret.