Limitless Evolution As a Snake

Stealing the floor seemed like an excellent way to surprise Horass, right up until the floor arrived against my coils and reminded me that surprise weighed several hundred pounds.

The theft icon had cleared while I crawled through the flooded passages. The loose panel’s center sat inside my three-meter range, and the gap beside me was wide enough, so Mine Now, Dickhead happily completed the worst delivery of my life.

Its weight dragged me sideways. I let go before it pinned my tail, then followed it through the opening it had left behind, because falling with a plan sounded better than being dropped by furniture.

[System: Beautiful work, ya goose. Most blokes steal the hotel towels, but you’ve checked out with the bloody building still attached to your arse.]

I would accept a complaint about the execution once we reached somewhere that wasn’t becoming an aquarium.

Water carried me into the lower compartment, where a machinery guard stopped the panel with a crash. My buoyancy kept my head above it long enough to spot a narrow service shelf, and my fins dragged the rest of me onto it.

The shelf ran toward a dry stairwell. I climbed using smoke tendrils around fixed rails, keeping my burned fin folded close while Horass leaned over the opening above.

”That was an expensive decision, Matthew, although I respected your commitment to making it everybody else’s problem.”

”You fired a rocket inside a boat, mate. I wouldn’t start handing out awards for property care just yet.”

His launcher stayed pointed away from me. He had already learned that obvious shots became dangerous when my beer trick was ready, and he wasn’t offering practice while he could follow the noise instead.

I reached the next door with my side aching badly enough to make every breath annoying. Beyond it, thick cables passed through guarded channels toward the cargo lifts, and an engine-driven winch shook the floor beneath a bright warning sign.

The sign showed a stick figure being folded around a drum. Whoever designed it had understood that some customers needed pictures before respecting machinery capable of turning them into lunch.

[System: That’s you in the safety drawing, champ. They’ve even left out the brain to keep the diagram accurate.]

I was considering a complaint about personal likeness, although the little bloke still had more limbs than I did.

A deckhand wearing ear protection spotted me beside the doorway and started shouting about restricted access. I told him a mercenary was coming, which moved his attention from workplace rules to the large hole behind me.

He took one look at Horass stepping onto the stairs and left through the marked crew exit. I didn’t chase him, steal his keys or ask for his tragic background, because the NPC had made a sound decision and deserved to enjoy it.

The winch controls remained behind a locked mesh cage. Through it, I could see a cargo platform moving upward on one cable while another drum slowly wound in the slack line beside the floor.

I couldn’t operate the ship by wanting it hard enough. Galaxy Brain helped me follow visible parts and labels, which showed that the machinery pulled far harder than anything my coils could manage.

Horass entered without hurrying and checked the ceiling before checking me. Then he looked at the cables, the cage and the space between us, taking in the same useful details I had hoped to keep special.

”A powerful machine was a reasonable idea,” he said. ”During the Second Custard Siege, an apprentice crane driver captured an armored division with a cargo sling and a divorce notice.”

”Was that before or after the generals surrendered to a particularly rude pudding, because your wars needed a better editor?”

[System: Don’t encourage him, mate. He’ll bring out a bloody map drawn on a tea towel and explain why the custard had naval support.]

Horass swung a loose timber brace across the doorway instead of firing. It struck the shelf beside me, taking away the route back while I slid beneath a low maintenance bench.

Splinters scraped my scales. My tail protested when I turned, and the warning ache became a sharp pain that made me bite back the next insult rather than hand him proof of exactly where to hit.

He didn’t need the confession. His eyes followed the slower bend, and he moved toward that side of the bench, forcing me to keep the solid worktop between us.

My phone carried Bridget’s voice beneath the machinery. The response launch had clearance to leave, but the crew needed the vessel’s current position and a usable boarding point.

I gave her the room label and told her to ask the ship’s crew for their position, because I couldn’t see through the hull and invent coordinates. Then I told her the lower compartments were flooding behind me.

”Stay above that damage if you can, and stop trying to sound cheerful for my benefit,” she said. ”I knew you were hurt before you started discussing the decorative value of blood.”

”I was keeping you informed, sweetheart, although I would appreciate a less accurate girlfriend once this particular evening finished.”

Her quiet laugh lasted just long enough to loosen the fear sitting under my ribs. Then Horass kicked the bench and sent it scraping toward me, which ruined the moment like an unpaid actor entering the wrong bedroom.

I slipped into the cable service channel while the bench struck the cage. Above me, the cargo platform reached its stop and the loaded winch began its next pull.

The moving cable dragged a broken packing strap past my face. I watched it vanish around the drum, then spotted the steel guide assembly that kept the return line clear of the open service lane.

Horass stepped onto the far end of that lane and lowered his launcher into a position that covered my exit. Behind him, the engine changed pitch, and the cable beside my head snapped tight enough to lift its guide from the damaged floor.