Ruins of Mumm-Ra’s Ship
Four Hours Later…

“You sure starting here is a good idea?” Pumyra asked as we walked down off the Feliner.

I shrugged. “If Mumm-Ra has Lion-O, then the best place to start looking would be Mumm-Ra’s proverbial back yard.”

“And if Mumm-Ra just so happens to be home?”

I glanced over my shoulder at the Spartan that was following us down the ramp. “That’s why Jorge is here.”

“You sure I’m here to actually do something, or am I just here for moral support?”

“Why not both?” I countered. “Anyway… Pumyra, you know the layout here. What’s the best way to get in discretely?”

Pumyra instead motioned to a large gaping hole in the hull. “Probably the conveniently located entrance.”

Walking up to the hull breach I started taking mental notes. The damage was recent, at least by ancient spaceship standards. There was no sign of corrosion on the perimeter of the breach, but without knowing something more about what Mumm-Ra’s ship was made of there’s no easy way to make some sort of educated assessment. “Jorge, you might know a bit more about starships. What do you think this hull is made of?”

The Spartan grabbed the edge of the hull and tried to flex it around. “Feels almost like a titanium alloy. Little to no give, incredibly hard by all appearances… But this stuff is warm.”

“What?”

“I can feel it through my armor. Go ahead, feel for yourself.”

A quick touch was all I needed to do two things. Confirm that someone very recently had blow a hole in this ship, and that the metal was still hot enough to singe the fur on the back of my hand slightly. “What the hell did this?”

“Probably whoever left the bloody footprints.” Jorge said as he pointed out the small smears of fresh blood lining the floor of the hallway inside the ship. “Whoever it was probably cut one of their feet on some of this glass.”

“Wait, glass?” I looked down and sure enough we were standing in a pile of glassy sand. “Well, son of a bitch. So I vote we follow the blood smears.”

“Without knowing who or what they belong to?” Pumyra asked, sounding somewhat insulted by the idea.

“You have any better ideas? No? Ok, we’ll go with my plan.” I said as I stepped through the hull breach.

It didn’t take long for the three of us to come to a large, rather familiar chamber, although the blood smears veered right and went around the perimeter of Mumm Ra’s command center. “Oh great, we’re back where this shitshow started.” Pumyra softly chided.

“I’ve got a contact, center of the room.” Jorge said as he hefted his chain gun to the ready. “Hooded figure, appears to be unarmed.”

“Oh fuck.” Pumyra spat. She was right to be worried, as sitting on a throne in the center of the command center was a decrepit looking figure. “It’s Mumm-Ra.”

“Looks like he’s sleeping…” Jorge observed.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not gonna matter big guy. We’ve just stepped into it big time.”

“So did that guy.” Pumyra said, pointing to a cloaked figure on the far side of the chamber.

“I’m not as weak as you would presume”

All three of us started looking around, but I had recognized the voice. “Well, Mumm-Ra ain’t napping!” I said, just as Mumm-Ra rose from his throne. “Jorge, suppressing fire! Keep Mumm-Ra-” I was cut off by a blast of red lightning that came from the direction of the other hooded figure in the chamber. “Ok, definitely suppress that bastard.”

“Uh, why?”

“Because Mumm-Ra is bound to be pissed off.”

“Right, I’m on it!” Jorge replied, immediately letting loose controlled bursts from his chain gun.

“And what exactly are we going to do?”

“You’re going to hold on.” I retorted as I grabbed Pumyra. The teleportation spell quickly brought us across the chamber, right alongside the hooded figure. “Alright, who the hell are you?” I demanded, drawing my pistol and aiming it at the figure.

I could make out a beard in the shadows under that hood, briefly illuminated by a flash of light from the center of the chamber. “Pumyra? I never thought I’d see you again...”

“Lion-O?” I asked, lowering my weapon. “Damn, you got old.”

“And neither of you have aged a day.” The cat replied. “No matter, we can worry about those details later. Right now-”

“Take cover!” Pumyra yelled.

The three of us managed to duck just as Jorge came sailing overhead and into the wall next to us. “Yup, you definitely brought me for the moral support.” The Spartan groaned.

“Ok, new plan. Let’s get the hell out of here!” Pumyra yelled.

“Agreed.” I said as I pulled my radio out. “Dawn, we’re coming out hot. Have Tygra get the ship ready for dustoff!”

“Copy that, we’re on it.”

“Jorge, we’re going to make a fighting withdrawal. We’ll alternate fire between you and me. Lion-O, Pumyra? Make for the Feliner. We’ll cover your retreat.”

“Well there’s a problem.” Jorge pointed out. “What am I supposed to cover you with? Oh, and just for the record someone owes me a new chaingun!”

“Then all three of you just move!” I shouted. By this point Mumm-Ra had powered up and was no longer that frail looking body we had seen sitting on the throne. But he wasn’t moving around much either, pacing around the central part of the chamber as he waited for me to get in arms reach… So I ended up stopping short. “You’re still not at full strength, are you?”

“It matters not. I’ll still flatten you like a bug under my heel!” Mumm-Ra roared.

But judging by the fact that Mumm-Ra would only stray so far from his throne, I was doubting that he could. “Your throne… That’s what’s helping you regenerate, isn’t it? For right now that thing is your lifeline.” Mumm-Ra took a swing at me, but his fist just couldn’t get close enough to land a hit, instead sailing past my muzzle. “That would also explain why you kicked Jorge’s ass. He got too close to you.”

“Shut up and fight me!”

I shook my head and started making for the exit. “I’m not thinking so, at least not right now. Wouldn’t be that fair of a fight anyway. Just know this Mumm-Ra; you’re days are numbered.”

The demon kept yelling, and I could hear him as I made my way back towards the hull breach as he ranted on about claiming his revenge or something like that. “You know, I thought there would be more than just shouting.” Pumyra observed as I passed through the hull breach.

“Well Mumm-Ra can’t get too far away from his throne. My guess is he’d either depower or disappear, but either way that’s what he’s using to regenerate.” I explained. “If we had the ordinance we could hit this place from orbit, at least buy Faust some time to get that spirit urn built.”

“Great, now he thinks we should nuke this place from orbit.” Jorge droned while we reboarded the Feliner.

“Oh come on Jorge, we don’t have-” Suddenly the deck jeered violently upwards, before stopping a good three seconds later. It was enough to send us all tumbling to the ground, only to start sliding around violently as the Feliner began to maneuver quite hard. “Some warning would’ve been nice Tygra!”

CREEEEEK!

The sudden sound of tearing metal woke me up to what was obviously a problem. The Feliner was now very obviously off in a bad way, and it was rather likely that we would be experiencing an earth-air interface and said interface’s infinite coefficient of friction. In other words…

“Brace for impact!”

Ten Minutes later…

“So just so we’re clear, everyone’s in one piece?” Tygra asked for the third time.

“You got the same answer the last two times.” Jorge countered as he slid out of the Feliner’s starboard engine nacelle. “Yes, we’re all still in one piece. And no, no one is missing any limbs. You happy?”

Tygra glared at Jorge for a moment before nodding. “Not exactly… Did you at least figure out what took out my ship?”

Jorge nodded and handed Tygra what looked like a tracker head to a heat seeking missile. “Small SAM right up your tailpipe. Blew the turbine clear to hell, and from the looks of it the shrapnel tore up just about everything else inside the nacelle. Unless you can replace that entire unit, we’re probably not going anywhere.”

“I don’t remember Mumm-Ra’s ship having working air defenses.” Pumyra added as she took the seeker from Tygra.

“It’s been twenty years for these guys. That’s more than enough time to reinforce a position.” I pointed out. “Regardless, we need to get out of here. Any ideas?”

“We’ll have to hope the radio is still working and get a hold of Thundera.” Tygra said. “We’ve recovered some other ships over the years, so one of those could be sent out.”

“Well that’s time we don’t have.” Jorge said, pointing towards the horizon. “We’ve got incoming contacts!”

Well that sucks… “Pumyra, grab the rifles and ammo. We’ll have to hope what we brought will do for now. Tygra, go get on that radio!” Pumyra must’ve read my mind, because I caught the DMR she tossed me right before it hit my face.

“Just what is that supposed to do? Help is hours away at minimum!”

“If we’re lucky Faust already has a-”

“Wait, those are Warthogs!” Jorge called out. “Son of a bitch, they’ve even got a Mammoth!”

My radio suddenly gurgled to life. “Prince Dusk this is Admiral Baxter, do you copy?”

“Baxter? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Princess’ orders. HMS Paris is at your disposal.”

You know what? Screw it, I don’t really want to know the details right now. As the Paris came into view overhead from behind me, I started feeling a lot better. “Well then Admiral, you can start by packing up shop. We’re moving out.”

“Sir?”

While I’d rather go after Mumm-Ra now that we have support from the Paris, I knew deep down I couldn’t risk confrontation. “We’re not forcing the engagement Admiral. We’re not ready, at least not yet.” But with that being said, I’m still hoping that’ll change quite soon…

***

Bridge of the HMS Paris, One Hour Later

It took plenty of time to wrangle the Mammoth and what was left of the Feliner into the main hangar aboard the Paris. It also took just as much time to come to an important realization; Lion-O needed a shower. Badly. Copious amounts of deodorant probably wouldn’t hurt either, but then again when you’ve been practically living off the grid for who knows how long some of those problems might readily be forgiven.

“Now just so we’re clear, we can’t engage until Faust has her trump card ready to play, and even then you still don’t know how to play said card?” Baxter droned, basically summing up the conversation that we had while waiting for the rest of my group to arrive. “Dusk, you’re putting an awful lot of faith in this woman. Is it worth it?”

“Tim…” I knew where Baxter was going with the question. We know so little about Faust is it worth trusting her? “You’re not wrong to ask, but I don’t see any other options at our disposal.”

“And I get that Dusk. Now you would still know better on this one, but what if Faust isn’t what she seems?”

“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it Tim.” It wasn’t that much longer before the rest of the entourage finally filed onto the bridge. “Well I’m going to assume you’ve all found the showers, and at least some of you decided to find a change of clothes too…” I said, noting that Lion-O had ditched his armor for some Marine’s training uniform.

“Look, that’s not important. We need to start planning our strike against Mumm-Ra.” Lion-O retorted. “His forces have established outpost along Thundera’s border, and they’ve been stockpiling munitions at staging grounds nearby for the better part of the last six months.”

“Do you have the locations?” Baxter asked

“Of course I do.”

Baxter nodded as a wry smile crept across his face. “Well if you have the locations, go give them to my navigator. This is a warship after all.”

Lion-O seemed to finally realize that last bit, and hurried off to go find the navigator. “So you’re thinking we hit their ammo dumps.” I observed.

“Exactly.” Baxter replied. “You said we can’t force an engagement yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to piss Mumm-Ra off. That way when we do go to force the engagement, he’s more likely to come out to play.”

“So arrive, raise hell, leave?” I asked.

“In that order.” said Baxter.

“Sir, we’re picking up radio chatter on one of the lower bands. Unknown origin.”

Baxter glanced over at the communications officer and nodded. “Put it through to my station.”

BZZZTTT…. “-overun! Repeat, outer wall-” BZZZTTT….

“Well that can’t be good.” I observed. “Tim, that has to be Thundera.”

“Agreed… Helm, set course Thundera and give me best possible speed.” Baxter called out before grabbing the interphone off the side of the holotable. “Now hear this, general quarters. All hands man your battle stations!”

I glanced over at Pumyra and pointed to the door. “Come on, we need to go gear up.”

“And just what exactly do you plan on doing?” Pumyra asked as we both walked off the bridge.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I retorted. “We’re going to show those Marines how its done.”

Author's Note

So... Yeah. Mumm-Ra can't do shit yet, as he's the equivalent of a dog on a leash. Of course that won't be the case by the time we get down to a proper showdown. In the meantime writing for this arc is about done, I'm just wrapping up the Faust angle to it. Because yes, there's a Faust angle. I'm also going to try and do some more updates on the Codex over the next few days.

Anyone got questions? Like what you're seeing so far? Hell, maybe have some gripes? There's a comment section and the Mirrorverse Codex. Read and comment away, because I want to hear from you fellow denizens of this corner of the internet. Until next time gang!
-Striker