The Nautican Gambit
The Nautican Gambit
Core shook his head back and forth. His brother was the best pilot on this side of the Horsehead Nebula 
, but he certainly wouldn't be winning any intergalactic spelling bees. Watt was the tall and strong brother, sure. But Core was the smart one. He could solve a lightspeedcube in six seconds and was an interstellar champion at Quantum Chess. In fact, Core was the one that had built their ship, the Star Whisperer. And Core knew he was the only one that could save them from their impending capture by these Nautican corsairs.
"Oooooh, I hate Nautican corsairs," he said to himself.
And he was right to hate them. They were a vicious race from a vicious, ocean planet full of terrifying monsters that lived in the pitch black depths. Living on such a dangerous planet, the Nauticans had to evolve into strong, intelligent (and vicious) creatures. Anything less and they would have gone extinct long ago. But they did evolve. And they evolved well!
Nauticans had razor-sharp dorsal fins sticking out of their backs and running all the way down to their wide, flat tails. Their fingers were webbed, like a duck's feet... if ducks had long, needle-like claws. They had thick, leathery, green skin, like a cross between a frog and an alligator. But the scariest part of a Nautican was its eyes. They had evolved enormous, pale, grey eyes, like the eyes of a Bigscale Deepsea Smelt
back on Earth. Core shuddered at the thought of them.
✧ ✧ ✧
Up on the bridge, Watt was piloting the Star Whisperer as if his life depended on it. And it did! Ever since their hyperdrive boosters had malfunctioned, dropping them out of lightspeed, their only hope of avoiding Nautican capture was by outmaneuvering them.
"Easy," Watt said to himself. "I can outfly a Nautican corsair any day of the week."
That was true. Even the Nauticans knew that Watt was one of the best pilots in the galaxy. But the problem was that this wasn't just any day of the week. The Star Whisperer had taken a lot of damage. It wasn't just the malfunction that Core was down there trying to fix. The laser blast had damaged something else as well. Something that Watt couldn't pinpoint. He only knew that the thruster controls weren't responding like they usually did. He could feel it. Like there was a delay in the signal from the yoke
to the thrusters. But whatever it was, it was throwing off his accuracy, and the Nauticans were getting closer.
"Can you figure out what's wrong with the thrusters while you're at it?" Watt yelled to his brother.
"Why don't you come down here and try to fix this mess, and I'll go sit in that cushy chair and steer!" Core's voice echoed up through the porthole in the floor.
"Ha! You could never pilot this baby!" Watt replied. "She's too much ship for you!"
"What!? I built her! She's my ship!" yelled Core.
