“Sex,” a breathy voice hissed into Commissar Nutmeg’s ear.
Such happenstance was not entirely foreign to the Commissar, being a strongly built earth pony with a clean light-blue coat and a shortish blonde mane—not to mention a crisp red-and-black uniform with shiny gold buttons and yellow shoulder-tassels. However, the situation was diminished considerably by the heavy iron shackles keeping Nutmeg’s legs clasped and spread out wide upon the surface of a grimy metal table in a dark, clanking, steaming engine room. Which in turn was tucked deep within the bowels of the warp-ship whose name escaped him due to the cloying proximity of the mare in question.
Nutmeg could negotiate on any of those details, save for the latter one. He stole another quick glance at said mare, seeing far more than he wanted of the razor-tongued, bio-enhanced, heavily armored hulk bending close to his head. Grotesque and suggestive carvings marred the surface of her pink power armor, showcasing the hallmarks of its ravishment by the powers of Chaos, and specifically by Slaany Saddles, the Dark Princess of pleasure, fashion, and loud music. Apart from the mare’s armor and large purple-lensed glasses, only her scarred white face and two-toned blue-and-aqua mane were visible.
She broke into a wicked cackle. “Come on, dude; what’s it gonna take to get the Pinder IV defense shield codes out of ya? I can have six busy mares in here before you can so much as shiver with antici—.” She gave him a broad wink. “Or stallions, if that’s your thing. Or any combination that it takes to get you going…”
Suppressing his revulsion, Nutmeg turned his head and looked her straight in the eyes—or at least at her opaque glasses. “Tell me: did you have a name before you fell from the Empress’ light, traitor?”
“Yeah. They used to call me Vinyl Scratch, if you can dig it. But now I go by DJ—” She paused, flicking her tongue out to accentuate the “L” sound— “Luscious the Eternal. Cuz y’know, Chaos has a kickass retirement plan. It's called partying forever.”
“Heresy!” Nutmeg barked. “Rhinal Snatch, do you understand you are about to die as befits your treason to the Empress?”
She paused for a moment, blinking. “Um, my name’s not ‘Rhinal—’”
“And more to the point,” Nutmeg interrupted, “do you know the way in which you’re going to die?”
“No… dude, seriously, you're chained up, and I'm three heads bigger than you. Even if I slip out of my power armor I still might end up crushing you before things get anywhere near interesting.”
“That is precisely what I wanted you to think!” Nutmeg shouted, eyes blazing with steely resolve.
DJ Luscious leaned back, shaking her head. “You must be trippin’ balls if you think you're in charge here. I mean, don't get me wrong, some role play could be fun and all, but I got a job to get done.”
“As do I. As does my faithful—DO IT, DO IT NOW—!”
There was a loud gasp followed by the ringing sound of a length of pipe falling to the deck. DJ Luscious spun around with much greater speed than her power armor’s bulk might suggest possible. Behind her stood a shaggy brown earth pony stallion, hanging his head and doing his best to look put-upon.
Nutmeg groaned with frustration. “Gun-Sergeant Blobbin, you are the cowardliest and least-effectual pony in the entire bucking fleet!”
The newcomer, whose proper name was actually Dobbin, affected a hurt expression. “Weren’t my fault,” he said automatically.
“I’m sorry, were you trying to jump me?” DJ Luscious asked.
Dobbin kicked at a spot on the floor. “I was framed,” he murmured.
DJ Luscious looked at each of the stallions in turn, eyebrows climbing above her massive glasses. Then she facehooved and let out a groan. She reached a forehoof around to the back of her armor and drew a long, thick, rectangular firearm out of a black neopone holster fitted to the suit’s power-pack. She pointed it at Dobbin’s head and hoofed a rune on the side of it that made it light up in a bright electric blue and emit a high-pitched whining sound.
“So,” she said, visibly perturbed. “You have a friend. That’s awesome. Friendship is so bucking special. But the question… the real question… is, is it special enough that you’ll give me the codes instead of watching my EDM gun liquify your homeboy’s skull right in front of you? I mean, if you’re not convinced I’m serious, I could just put it in Tweeter mode and shatter a few of his teeth…”
Nutmeg broke into a menacing grin. “You’re gonna do what with the what now, traitor scum?”
DJ Luscious scowled at him, then turned and looked back at the gun she wasn’t holding.
…Because she wasn’t holding it anymore. She did a double-take at her empty hoof, then looked with panic at the glowing rectangular barrel that Dobbin was now somehow leveling at her head.
“Look at this fancy whoziwhatsits,” he said, adjusting his aim.
“Fancy indeed!” Nutmeg bellowed, his tone triumphant. He affected a brief stretch of his limbs, except that their already-stretched position made it hard to do much more than squirm. “Ah. Gun-Sergeant Fobbin, would you be so good as to release me from these bonds?”
“Ain’t gonna happen, cuz he wouldn’t dare take that gun off me,” DJ Luscious contered. “Cuz if he did, the first thing that would happen is I’d pulp his head with my hoof. Then things would really start gettin’ ugly.”
“Traitor, you were ugly to begin with. Poppin’-and-Lockin’, take her down!”
DJ Luscious held a hoof up to Dobbin, then looked at Nutmeg. “Okay, hold on. Before we do this… are you, like, physically incapable of getting ponies’ names right?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, traitor scum.”
“Say my name.”
“Excuse me?”
DJ Luscious threw her head back and groaned, but not the least bit seductively. “My name. Just say it. Humor me.”
Nutmeg narrowed his eyes, but after a moment he said: “Spinal Latch.”
“No, just… try again.”
She facehooved again. “This is pointless.”
“I agree, why don’t we—SHOOT HER IN THE HEAD—!”
Dobbin squeaked and dropped the EDM gun. It clattered to the floor, then discharged. A wave of horridly overproduced sound blasted over DJ Luscious and Nutmeg. She was blown end-over-end backwards onto the floor, and pain whited-out Nutmeg’s vision as he bucked and rattled on the table. The table itself fared much worse, though; evidently the gun had still been set for craft-breaching, because a few moments later, the table shattered.
Nutmeg came down groaning in the midst of hunks of metal. He woozily pointed a hoof somewhere in Dobbin’s direction. “Fobbin, remind me to either give you a commendation or a court-martial when this is over.”
“I didn’t do nuffin’,” Dobbin said.
With a chuckle, DJ Luscious slowly worked her way back to her hooves, then adjusted her disheveled mane and glasses. “Nice try, hot shot,” she said, giving them a grin full of sharpened teeth. “But pretty much all I do all day is listen to EDM. Well, that and banging anything in sight, and taking massive quantities of drugs.”
“How stereotypical of you,” Nutmeg said, struggling to his hooves as well.
There was a hissing sound as the door’s hatch slid open. Another Noise Mareine poked its head in. This one was similarly attired, with helmetless pink power armor, large black sunglasses, and a bluish-gray coated and dark-gray maned head.
“Uh, you okay, boss? Me and the crew were all out bangin’ when we heard a sick drop…”
“Can it, Neon Lights! Get ‘em all in here! Looks like we’re gonna have to do these guys the hard way!”
Nutmeg watched the newcomer turn away, presumably to get backup. He turned and saw DJ Luscious’ grin get even bigger. He looked over and saw Dobbin continue to look at once both as innocent as possible yet inveterately guilty at the same time.
Then he looked down and spotted the EDM gun near his hooves.
He lunged for it. A muffled curse and the hiss of powerful hydraulics indicated that DJ Luscious was doing the same. But he was closer, and he managed to scoop it up before tucking into a roll. He came back up, raised the gun, and blasted a point-blank shot straight into her face. The sheer force of its throbbing wubs knocked him back several feet, but it also sent DJ Luscious spiraling across the room and into the far wall.
He pointed the gun at the deck plates below. Then he braced himself and pulled the trigger. Once again, the recoil juddered his shoulders and made his heart skip a beat, but the modulated bass-drop caved-in a large hole in the floor.
“Gunner Sobbin, to me!” he shouted, flinging himself through the hole and into the quite manageable drop to the deck below.
He took off galloping as fast as he could with three hooves, unwilling as he was to discard the EDM gun. A few moments later he heard, then spotted, Dobbin galloping beside him.
“I guess we’re surely done for,” Dobbin said.
Nutmeg scoffed. “Have faith, gunner! And don’t call me Shirley! We have half a detachment of guardsponies stationed on this ship. All we have to do is reach their barracks!”
“You didn’t hear, then,” Dobbin said, heaving a sigh. “The lot of ‘em got spaced by one these yay-hoos’ boarding torpedoes.”
The Commissar skidded to a halt. “Are you serious?!”
Dobbin slowed more gradually, eventually turning back with a hangdog look on his face. “Weren’t my fault,” he said automatically.
Nutmeg stood silent as a variety of expressions crossed his face. “Well Zobbin, if we don’t have ponies we can trust to throw themselves into the jaws of death while we stand back and note the glory of their virtuous self-sacrifice, then perhaps it’s time to set our hopes upon the ship’s penal compliment.”
“That don’t sound right,” Dobbin said, grimacing.
“Indeed not, Gunner, but sometimes the needs of the Imperium as a whole must lead us to reach around our preferences and take firm hold of our penal brethren!”
Nutmeg took off galloping again. Dobbin paused and shook his head before following.
Given that the ship was fairly large, Nutmeg had to blast though neigh-onto a dozen decks before he and Dobbin eventually fell through to the cold steel floor of the ship’s massive hold. The sound of traitors hollering in hot pursuit spurred them through the red lights and blaring klaxons of the hold, as Nutmeg checked each of the house-sized cargo pods in turn, looking for a specific manifest-scroll that he knew was pinned to one of them.
“Aha,” he said eventually.
Dobbin shuffled up beside him, taking a sidelong look at the scroll. “Wozzis’un? ‘Excommunicate Extremis — Unchecked Mutation — Handle With Care — This End Up?’”
“Yes it is,” Nutmeg said, giggling as he rubbed his forehooves together. “Those filthy traitors will never get the codes now, not with this mutant roaming the halls.”
Powerful uptempo blasts from elsewhere in the hold announced the growing proximity of their pursuers. Nutmeg cursed, then leveled the EDM gun at the cargo pod’s door and fired.
The only thing louder than the blast from the gun or the shattering metal was the roar from within the pod that followed them.
Nutmeg and Dobbin threw themselves to either side of the pod as a huge, hulking thing ripped its way through the remains of the door. It was bigger than a Space Mareine. It was almost impossibly big for the pod itself. It was gray, and walked upright on two incomprehensibly muscled hind legs, and it swung a pair of forehooves that were thick as torpedoes. Its body was neckless, though had a neat white collar and a tiny pink bow tie nestled somewhere in the midst of it all. Its head came to a point at the front, and a set of wicked jaws with rows upon rows of sharp teeth worked open and closed beneath its beady eyes and improbable mop of dark hair.
Another series of loud reports from the Noise Mareines’ EDM guns drew its attention. It roared again, ripped off a length of metal from the pod, and took off dashing with thunderous strides in their direction.
On the other side of the bay, DJ Luscious and her Mareines took shelter behind cargo pods, laying down a fusilade of heavy overdriven beats. As it approached them, the shark-creature struggled to power its way through the wall of sound. But once it reached a pod behind which one of them was hiding, it grabbed the pod itself with its mighty hooves, and roared loudly again, and flipped the pod over onto the cowering Noise Mareine, crushing them flat. The rest of them scattered as the shark-thing raised its hooves and pulled itself up onto the overturned pod, glowering down at them.
“Hey! He owed me twenty bits,” shouted DJ Luscious, stepping out from a nearby cluster of her Noise Mareines. She moved her forehooves to either side of her power armor, drawing out a wickedly curved sword with one hoof and a writhing, almost prehensile whip in the other. “And I’m gonna take those bits outta your tail, sharky!”
The shark-thing roared again. DJ Luscious answered it with a battle cry. Then the two of them leapt at each other with murderous intent.
From his prone position next to what was left of the pod, Nutmeg looked up and grinned at Dobbin. “Now you’ll see, Gunner. Now that horrible, marauding Final Catch will get her comeuppance for boarding our ship!”
Dobbin coughed as he brought himself up to his hooves. “But sir, what’s gonna happen when ol’ sharky there finishes ‘em off? Ship’s prolly crippled, and now we’ve got that thing running amok. ‘S prolly gonna eat us, it is!”
“Heresy,” Nutmeg breathed. “We’ll barricade ourselves on the command deck when she’s done and call for backup. Then cleanup gets to be somepony else’s problem!”
“I suppose… but what do we do until then, sir?”
Nutmeg grinned. “Now, Swabbin, you and me get to sit back and enjoy watching some vigorous mare-on-mare action!”
Dobbin facehooved again. “I don’t fink that means what you fink it means, sir…”