There are, in this universe, three kinds of rescue missions.
The first kind are the heroic rescues. These involve impeccable timing, elegant tactics, and a protagonist with cheekbones sharp enough to cut through laser grids.
The second kind are the desperate rescues. These involve duct tape, bad odds, and at least one person saying, "This is a terrible idea," right before doing it anyway.
And then there was the third kind.
This kind involved Limes.
On the bridge of Dixie's half-broken ship, beneath flickering monitors and one alarm that had apparently given up on language and was now just screaming in pure electronic despair, Limes stared at the grainy CRT screen showing a live feed from Warlord Judge's prison block.
Dixie sat behind force bars with the slouch of a man mildly inconvenienced by being swallowed by fate.
Moore stood with both arms crossed, radiating the sort of fury that usually preceded structural damage.
CAT remained seated, motionless, like imprisonment was simply an alternative posture.
Limes leaned closer to the monitor. His bulging yellow eyes narrowed. His little claws flexed.
"Zhit," he whispered.
The narrator, who had seen many rescues and several disasters pretending to be rescues, would like to note that this was the exact moment Limes made a decision.
Not a good decision.
Not a smart decision.
But a decision with heart.
Limes turned in his chair and looked at the empty bridge.
No Dixie.
No CAT.
No Moore.
No one to say, "Limes, maybe don't infiltrate a warlord's flagship by yourself."
Which, in hindsight, was perhaps the final missing ingredient.
He scuttled across the console, yanked open a compartment labeled EMERGENCY TACTICAL OPTIONS, and found inside:
one flare,
two stun grenades,
a grappling wire,
three expired ration sticks,
a novelty mustache,
and a folded pamphlet titled SO YOU'VE DECIDED TO DO SOMETHING STUPID.
Limes stared at it.
Then, solemnly, he put on the mustache.
"DizguiZe," he said.
It was not a very good disguise.
The narrator would go further and say it was not, by any accepted definition, a disguise at all. It was a fake black mustache stuck to the face of a bright orange crab-man with gills and eye stalks.
But confidence, dear reader, is the true spirit of espionage.
Limes spun dramatically toward the ship's reflection in the viewport.
"Operation: Save Dizzle."
He paused.
Then corrected himself.
"Operation: Save everybody, but moztly Dizzle."
He jabbed a claw at the controls, and the ship gave a tired mechanical cough.
"Stealth mode."
Nothing happened.
He jabbed it again.
A panel blinked to life and displayed:
STEALTH MODE UNAVAILABLE
REASON: THIS SHIP IS EMBARRASSINGLY LOUD
Limes frowned.
"Fine. Zneaky mode."
He lowered the lights manually.
That, apparently, was sneaky mode.
Judge's flagship hung in space like a slab of armored malice, surrounded by patrol craft and enough artillery to ruin anyone's whole week.
Limes' ship drifted in under the cover of wreckage and debris. Or, more accurately, it drifted in under the cover of Limes muttering "pleaze, pleaze, pleaze," while every system rattled loud enough to file a formal complaint with stealth as a concept.
The prison ship's outer hull loomed closer.
The narrator would like to emphasize that Limes had no map, no support, no extraction plan, and only a cinematic understanding of infiltration based entirely on vibes.
Naturally, he proceeded.
He launched the grappling line.
It missed.
He launched it again.
It hit a rotating antenna, wrapped around it twice, and yanked his whole shuttle sideways with such violence that Limes slapped against the cockpit window.
"Still counts," he hissed, peeling himself off the glass.
By some miracle, a category of event that happened disturbingly often around this cast the line snagged onto a maintenance ring on the lower hull.
Limes sealed himself into a scavenger suit three sizes too large, mag-locked his boots, and stepped out into open space.
The stars burned around him.
The warship groaned beneath him.
And across the vacuum, in the silence where brave men heard destiny, Limes heard only the tiny crackle of his own comms and his breathing.
"Thiz iz fine," he said.
It was not fine.
He waddled along the hull toward a maintenance hatch.
From a distance, he might have looked like a master infiltrator.
Up close, he looked like seafood escaping the kitchen.
Still, he made progress.
That was when the patrol drone rounded the corner.
Its red lens brightened.
Limes froze.
The drone scanned him once, twice, then projected a beam of text:
IDENTIFY YOURSELF
Limes straightened, adjusted his tiny mustache, and deepened his voice.
"Maintenance."
The drone whirred.
YOU ARE NOT ON THE MAINTENANCE ROSTER
Limes pointed accusingly at the drone.
"Are you on the maintenanze rozter?"
The drone paused.
There are many flaws in automated security. One of the most persistent is the inability to process confidence delivered with complete nonsense.
The drone's lens dimmed slightly.
…PROCEED
Limes blinked.
The narrator blinked.
Even destiny blinked a little.
"Thank you," Limes whispered, and scuttled through the hatch before reality could correct itself.
Inside the ship, the corridors were all industrial steel, flickering strips of pale light, and the low pulse of engines bigger than morality.
Limes crept past two guards arguing over ration vouchers.
He slid under a cargo cart.
He climbed through vents.
He became briefly stuck in a vent.
He became loudly stuck in a vent.
He then, with great dignity, became unstuck.
At one point he passed a mirrored panel, saw the mustache still on his face, and nodded to himself.
"Zo far, zo good."
Meanwhile, in the prison block, Dixie lifted his head.
"You hear that?"
Moore looked up. "Hear what?"
A distant metallic clang echoed through the vents, followed by something that sounded very much like muffled swearing.
CAT tilted his head by three degrees.
"Small-bodied ally detected," he said.
Moore stared at him. "That is absurdly specific."
"I know my friends," CAT replied.
Dixie grinned.
"Aw, hell. That's Limes."
Moore's face changed through four emotional states in under a second.
Confusion.
Hope.
Dread.
Then a final settling into absolute certainty.
"Oh no."
The prison corridor outside their cell was guarded by four armed pirates, one camera, and a turret in the ceiling that looked like it had been designed by someone who hated joy.
Limes peered around the corner.
He drew back.
He looked at his available gear.
One flare.
Two stun grenades.
Three expired ration sticks.
And the pamphlet.
He unfolded the pamphlet.
Inside, in cheerful bold print, were the words:
STEP 1: CREATE A DISTRACTION
STEP 2: IMPROVISE
STEP 3: REGRET
Limes nodded gravely.
"Authoritative."
He threw a ration stick down the opposite corridor.
One guard glanced at it.
Another shrugged.
No one moved.
Limes considered.
Then he lit the flare and tossed it.
The hallway exploded into red light and hissing sparks.
Alarms began shrieking instantly.
The guards shouted.
The turret dropped from the ceiling.
And Limes, powered now by equal parts terror and loyalty, hurled both stun grenades around the corner and screamed:
"PRIZON INZPECTION!"
The first grenade bounced off a wall, rolled back toward him, and detonated.
The second hit the turret directly.
The corridor became a storm of sparks, smoke, and screaming pirates.
Limes ran through it all like a tiny orange missile with a fake mustache and absolutely no business succeeding.
One pirate lunged at him.
Limes smacked him in the shin with a wrench he had found somewhere and did not remember picking up.
Another guard aimed a blaster.
The damaged turret, perhaps offended by the whole situation, fired wildly and blasted the guard across the hall.
Limes reached the cell controls, slammed every button at once, and shouted:
"OPEN THE FRIEND BOX!"
The controls buzzed.
The cell doors opened.
Not just Dixie's.
All of them.
Up and down the prison block, force fields dropped with a hungry electrical sigh.
The narrator, in the interest of accuracy, must report that Limes had not freed three prisoners.
He had freed all the prisoners.
For one long second, everyone stared.
Dixie slowly rose to his feet.
Moore put a hand over her face.
CAT stood, joints humming.
A dozen pirates-turned-prisoners and prisoners-turned-problems looked around in delighted disbelief.
Limes gave a shaky smile.
"Surprize?"
"Limes!" Dixie barked. "You beautiful, catastrophic bastard!"
Moore pointed at the corridor, where smoke poured from the ceiling and sirens blared at volumes usually reserved for divine judgment. "You turned a rescue into a riot!"
"I prefer 'moraleboost event,'" Limes said.
CAT stepped out of the cell, picked up an unconscious guard with one hand, and took his rifle.
"This operation has deviated from precision," he said.
Dixie clapped him on the shoulder. "Son, precision left the building the second Limes put on that damn mustache."
Moore squinted at Limes. "Why are you wearing that?"
Limes touched it protectively.
"DizguiZe."
Moore opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Then, against her will, laughed once.
Just once.
But it counted.
The escape was, in structural terms, a nightmare.
In cinematic terms, it was magnificent.
Dixie led the charge with the swagger of a man who had escaped enough cells to develop preferences.
Moore disarmed guards with the efficient fury of someone taking out her week on the nearest available targets.
CAT walked through blaster fire like it was heavy rain and used a riot shield as though he'd been born carrying one.
And Limes scampered through the chaos at their center, waving a stolen security baton and yelling things like, "LEFT! NO, OTHER LEFT!" and "THAT EXPLOZION WAZ MOTIVATIONAL!"
At one point they slid beneath a blast door.
At another they stole a prison transport cart and drove it straight through a wall labeled DO NOT BREACH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Which, naturally, they breached.
Then came the corridor of lasers.
Because all prison break parodies, sincere or otherwise, must eventually kneel before the altar of the laser corridor.
Thin red beams filled the hallway in impossible patterns.
Dixie stopped dead.
"Well now. That's just rude."
Moore narrowed her eyes. "Can you disable it?"
CAT examined the wall. "Yes. In twelve minutes."
"We have twelve seconds," Moore snapped.
All eyes turned to Limes.
He looked at the lasers.
Then at his own body.
Then back at the lasers.
"I am zaped like bad decision."
Before anyone could ask what that meant, Limes dropped flat, twisted sideways, tucked his claws, sucked in his gut, and began scuttling through the beams with the concentrated desperation of a man trying to sneak past the wrath of a geometry teacher.
He missed one beam by a hair.
Then another.
Then another.
Dixie whispered, awestruck, "Look at the little fella go."
Halfway through, Limes paused and turned back.
"Why are you all juzt watching?!"
"Because this is incredible," said Moore.
At last Limes reached the far panel, slapped it with both claws, and shouted, "BE OFF, RED DEVIL STRINGZ!"
By pure chance, one of the controls shorted.
The lasers shut down.
No one spoke for a moment.
Then CAT said, "Effective."
Limes stood, panting with pride.
"Thank you."
Then a backup alarm started.
The lasers came back on.
Much louder.
"Oh, come on," said Moore.
They finally reached the hangar with half the prison deck behind them in flames.
The shuttle Limes had arrived in sat crooked on the platform, still attached by grappling line and what looked increasingly like stubbornness alone.
Behind them came shouts, boots, gunfire, and the deep mechanical groan of bulkheads sealing.
Ahead of them was freedom.
Small, ridiculous, barely functioning freedom.
Dixie looked at the shuttle. Then at Limes.
"Be honest with me, mate. Did you have any kind of exfil plan?"
Limes climbed into the pilot seat.
"No."
Moore nodded once. "I respect that more than I should."
CAT boarded last and bolted the hatch behind them.
The engines whined.
The ship did not move.
Limes hit the dashboard.
Still nothing.
He hit it again.
A screen blinked on:
ENGINE FAILURE
SUGGESTION: PANIC
"Already doing that!" Limes shrieked.
Dixie leaned over his shoulder and flipped a hidden switch.
The engines roared awake.
Limes turned, scandalized. "There waz a button?"
"There's always a button," Dixie said.
The shuttle launched just as blaster fire tore through the hangar behind them. They shot out into open space trailing sparks, smoke, and at least one piece of prison signage lodged in the rear stabilizer.
Inside the shuttle, everyone breathed.
Then breathed harder.
Then collectively realized they were alive.
Moore sank into the nearest seat. "That was the worst rescue I've ever been part of."
Dixie laughed so hard he coughed.
CAT checked his weapon charge. "Objective completed."
Limes straightened in the pilot chair, trying to look cool with the mustache half-peeled off his face.
"See?" he said. "Flawlezz."
There was a long silence.
Then, somehow, all three of them answered at once.
"No."
The narrator, who had watched this operation with a mixture of horror, admiration, and secondhand embarrassment, can confirm that they were correct.
It was not flawless.
It was not stealthy.
It was not professional.
It freed several people who probably should have remained imprisoned.
It caused at least three small fires, one riot, and an internal security review that would later be described as "emotionally devastating."
But Dixie was alive.
Moore was alive.
CAT was alive.
And Limes the absurd, loyal, impossible little Limes, had done what all great heroes do.
He had made a terrible plan.
And then made it work anyway.
Far behind them, Judge's flagship burned in scattered places, still gripped by chaos from within and terror from without.
Far ahead, the stars waited.
And somewhere in that dark, the larger nightmare of the Wraith still moved.
But for one stolen stretch of flight, in one battered shuttle full of smoke and surviving fools, victory belonged to them.
Limes adjusted his mustache one last time.
"Zext mizsion," he said proudly, "Ze Zo quietly."
No one answered.
Which was wise.
Because the shuttle immediately emitted a noise like a dying trumpet and shed a whole side panel into space.