Carl

Carl fell out of yet another goddamn portal, but this time he leaned his shoulder forward and rolled upon making contact with the hard floor, into a roll. He stopped and came to his feet in front of a worn out Decha standing besides Lisa.

“Why did you not just portal the...” Carl yelled, but a sharp pain in his chest stopped him from continuing. The mace, Beth’s mace had hit him right there and it had impacted hard.

Carl grabbed his chest, trying to control his panting.

Lisa put a hand on his back. “You okay? You should not have tried catching that. A bit naive. But done is done.”

“You think your enemies don’t evolve or change their strategies over time? Navie is too weak of a word to describe your failure, Carl,” Decha said. “Beth remembers how you caught her weapon the last time and she thought that the young and naive Carl would go for the same strategy once more. Grow up. Just because something works the first time, doesn’t mean it will work the second time.”

Carl looked up, his breaths coming in at an even pace. “You could have portalled them out, or sliced them with your portals. Like you did to Amanda!”

Decha’s erratic behavior and mad decisions were damaging for the entire crew and the ship. As an initial idea, portaling their ship straight into the vicinity of the Final Sight might have been clever. But not when the goddamn ship was parked inside an alien space station. In hindsight it might be easy to deconstruct the plan, but the execution was awful. Decha had grabbed some coordinates and pulled their dreadnought through, without checking if the same coordinates took them straight into a star or anywhere else than their specific destination. Mad man.

Decha tensed his hands into fists. “It is none of your business how, where and why I place my portals.”

Carl knew he could do little, the Asian man might open a portal underneath his feet and close if before he was all the way through, effectively cutting him in half, like he had done to Amanda. Or portal him straight into the vacuum of space. None of which were any nice way of dying. Well, dying was never nice.

But arguing a little bit might be okay, at least it would sooth his anger some. “Something and somewhere. We cannot fight Milo, Beth and their alien pet at the same time. So, instead of spending all your resources on portalling us into an alien space station you might have thought the whole thing through and saved some of that juice. I am making good sense and you don’t like that.”

“Right, I don’t,” Decha said.

Carl fell, a portal opened underneath him. His ass landed with a thud on the cell floor once again. Hell, not again.

“Well, well,” Decha said, landing on his boots on the other side of the cell wall. “Is this not familiar?”

Carl shook his head, not giving any vocal response to the man’s command.

“You know, you were supposed to blow their reactor up while it was still inside, INSIDE, the ship,” Decha said. “How difficult can it be to follow my orders?”

The audacity of this man! Molten rock dripped out from his closed hands, his teeth grinding down so hard that his jaw hurt.

“Cunt!” Lisa snarled from the cell opposite his.

“Inside,” Decha said. “That was all I asked of you.”

“Just fucking do it your self!” Carl said.

Decha sighed, rolling his eyes. “I am the Admiral of this fine vessel.”

“Where the hell is the Admiral when the fighting takes place inside his own ship? Hiding in a corner like a rat, he is,” Carl said, spitting on the floor in front of Decha’a boots.

“You have survived all this journey because I have allowed it. At any moment, I could have killed you, so don’t tell me what to do. Have you ever opened a portal while blood fueled? No. So, then you cannot possibly know the cost it has on the user’s body. Fuck you, Carl,” Decha said. “I do big and grand stuff, and you grunts do the small and lesser stuff. Like fending off invaders from this ship.”

Silence fell between the two of them. Carl pressed into a corner of the cell, this wall had a dent right where the walls met and which created a kind of nice resting spot for his shoulder, which he leaned into it.

Lisa broke the silence. “I thought Asian people would be smart and not as dumb as you.”

Decha waved in her direction. “Silence, child.”

“No,” Lisa said.

A dark cloud expanded into a portal just besides her.

“Will you behave?” Decha asked.

Lisa pulled away from the portal, pressing herself into the cell’s corner, the portal’s pull made her hair move. “Alright. I will.”

“Good.” Decha extinghuised the portal. “We need a new plan. Grander. Bolder. I have portaled you over to their ship, I have portaled The Breach on top of their ship. What could be possibly bolder?”

Carl held his tongue still, not wanting to place any mad concepts into Decha’s mind. Not that he could think of any viable battle plans at this point, their drive cone was still ruined and the reason why the Final Sight was able to outrun them. He served Saif’s vanguard, he was capable. More than this fraud! When grander and bolder failed, you tried smaller and personal. That was their only play. Force the enemy to make a decision they were not comfortable with. Force them to make sacrifices, that was when they failed.

“I know what to do.” Decha smiled too wide. “If you cannot move to the mountain, you move the mountain to you!”

Carl frowned, scratching his face. That was not even the saying. “You have your streaks of stupidity.”

“You won’t be given a portal back to the ship next time. Show some fucking gratitude.” Decha turned.