Deadline
By Cheezey
Chapter Two: Ten to One
The following morning passed quickly for Haggar. She called in the robots to pull an all-nighter on her bio chamber and she was relatively pleased to see that they had it in nearly working order by noon. That did not exactly give her much time to get a Grade A robeast in working order by the deadline Zarkon had given her, but she had a few back-up experimental beasts in the pens and she decided that she could charge a halfway decent one in less than an hour with the energizing beams on one of the larger battleships. However she needed Cossack’s assistance with that as it was difficult to monitor the energy levels and energize at the same time when she had not had the opportunity to put some of the higher-tech diagnostics in without benefit of her laboratory. With what she had to work with, she had to be in close proximity to the beast while it was being energized, not on the bridge of a ship.
Unfortunately Cossack was less than punctual and it was getting on her nerves. She had called him over half an hour prior and he was only in his quarters, a ten minute walk at longest unless one of the elevators was acting up, and she suspected it was far more likely that he was dilly-dallying than anything else. Finally a few minutes later the door to her lab burst open—without a courtesy knock beforehand, of course—and Cossack strode in with a surprisingly energetic swagger.
“Well it’s about time.”
“Oh, sorry about that,” he said with an apologetic shrug. “I got distracted on my way out and then before I knew it I was running way behind schedule. I also forgot to eat breakfast, so I had to snag a few cookies off the lunch tray on its way to the throne room.”
After a quick roll of her eyes at the fleet commander’s “breakfast of champions” she looked at him pointedly. “Distracted with what? You better not have been playing grenade hunter again.”
“No!” he protested indignantly. “I didn’t even get into my office this morning. That shock I got last night must’ve knocked me for a loop because I slept in real late. Not just sleeping-in-on-a-day-off kind of late, but I-should-have-a-hangover-from-hell-‘cause-I-passed-out-drunk-at-4-AM kind of late. Only I didn’t even have so much as a beer last night. Go figure.” He glanced over at her nearly repaired bio chamber, upon which the robots were putting the finishing touches.
Haggar scooped up Coba with one hand and grabbed her staff with the other and gestured for the door. “Well with all that sleep you should be rested enough to get a move on, so let’s go already.”
As she breezed past him, he made a face at her and silently mocked her pissiness, but fell in step with her. “I don’t see what we’re rushing so much about anyway,” he remarked as they made their way to the landing bay. “We both know how it’s going to turn out. Drop robeast A on planet B and watch Voltron show up and hand our asses to us after it gets sliced into itty bitty pieces.”
“Well thank you for that vote of confidence, Commander Optimistic,” the old witch snapped irritably. “I suppose you have a better plan? One that I can go to Zarkon with that’ll appease him enough to get him to overlook the fact that he expected a robeast ready by this afternoon?”
Cossack frowned. “Yeah, actually I do,” he countered in a sudden bit of inspiration. “How about we try a new approach? It’s obvious one robeast, no matter how well we build it, isn’t gonna do Voltron in. But ten on the other hand—”
Haggar stopped dead in her tracks and looked at him incredulously. “We’ve tried the multiple robeast approach before. Two or even six robeasts don’t fare much better than one powerful one standing alone.”
“Not ten wimpy-ass robeasts, Haggar, I’m talking ten of your full strength ass-kickers. Take say, Voltron’s double, Bokar, Prince Avok, maybe a medusa, and even that nipple-spear gladiator we sent against him way back when he first resurfaced. Sure, they all got their asses handed to them taking Voltron on one on one, but if they were all there together—they’d have plastered his metal ass all over the Arusian landscape. And that’s just five. You really think ten fully powered, maxed out and charged robeasts couldn’t defeat Voltron? If so, why bother making one at all? That’s really a lost cause.”
The old witch’s grip on her staff tightened. Cossack did have a point, although she did not particularly care for the way he phrased it. “Do you think you can build a better robeast?”
“No no,” he answered, waving his hand at her defensive challenge to his statement. “You build the best robeasts in the Denubian. No one with any brains would argue that.”
“Well I was considering the source,” she said huffily.
Ignoring her remark he went on, “Like I said, no one robeast is going to match Voltron. But if you throw ten at him, what’s he going to do? While he’s giving the first the old one-two with the B.S.,” he said, and proceeded to pull out Yurak’s light sword, still on his belt from the night before, with his right hand to demonstrate with a wild swinging motion, “a second one will come up from behind and shove its equivalent straight up his sanctimonious GA ass.” Cossack then made a wild upward thrust to the air with a fierce look on his features.
“And then even if he’s quick enough to dodge that, how about how another one will be wrapping a tentacle around his neck,” he pulled out his electrolash with his left and whipped it in the imaginary Voltron’s direction, “number four will come and slam a spear right into the dead center of his metal head! And hopefully right between that smarmy captain’s beady human eyes,” he finished on a savage note, and smiled at Haggar triumphantly. “And I didn’t even have to go into what numbers five through ten could do while all that goes down.”
Surprised to hear such a well thought out plan from one of the most impulsive commanders she had ever worked with in her long years as Zarkon’s magical aide, Haggar nodded to him. “Not a bad thought, Cossack, but did it ever occur to you there’s a reason we’ve never done that before? You know, this radioactive stuff that powers my robeasts that we have limited quantities of called lazon? It doesn’t grow on trees you know, and even if it did, Doom’s hardly a forest-rich world if you get my drift!”
The commander’s lips pursed as he considered her argument. “Well yeah, I guess that would take a whole heap of lazon.”
She let out a cynical laugh. “To put it mildly.”
Still, Cossack was not swayed. “Okay, so we wait until we get enough lazon to do it. Kinda save it up until we have enough to pull it off. You can whip up robeasts pretty fast and Zarkon or Lotor always manages to find enough lazon to send ‘em off before long. I bet if we pulled out all the stops, hit a few of the remote outer mining asteroids and maybe put some cash out in the private market, you could scrounge up enough lazon in a few weeks. Think of it like banking it.”
“Saving advice from the man who donates half his paycheck to a weekend bar tab,” Haggar sneered incredulously.
Cossack frowned again. “All I’m saying is it could be done, if you wanted it badly enough.”
That time it was Haggar’s turn to frown. “Of course I want to defeat Voltron! But I’m not convinced I should waste enough lazon to power Castle Doom for a year in one shot to try it.” She tapped her staff against the rocky ground. “I’m surprised you do. Since when are you so gung-ho about beating Voltron?”
“Gee, I don’t know, maybe since the last six hundred times he kicked our asses?” he retorted sarcastically. “I dunno about you, but I’m pissed that overgrown robot keeps making us look like the Drule Empire’s biggest joke. It’s embarrassing for our whole planet! And it sucks more than a little to be the one getting shit from the king for our defeats all the time, especially when Lotor’s the one calling the shots half of it, as I’m sure you know.”
“At least he doesn’t usually buy it when Lotor tries to pass the blame,” she said with a shrug, “and he is harder on the prince than he is on us.”
“It still doesn’t change the fact that if we could annihilate Voltron once and for all, we wouldn’t have this problem!” His features twisted into an angry scowl and his fists clenched the weapons still in his hands. “I’d like to rip him apart and blast those lions into dust one by one.”
“You shouldn’t take Voltron so personally, Cossack. He’s defeated more than just you and me. King Zarkon himself faced him and lost.” She sighed wistfully at the memory. “His robeast was one of my best creations, too. Damn that nosy Alfor’s restless spirit…”
“How can you not take it personally, Haggar? You blasted him apart once and he came back. I’ve led I don’t know how many missions against him and lost. I had Oron conquered and he just took it from me like that,” he snapped his fingers, “and he wasn’t even supposed to be there by the GA’s bullshit law!” He glared off into the distance. “Did I ever tell you how I got the title ‘Cossack the Terrible’?”
“I assumed it came from your jokes.”
“Ha ha,” he retorted sarcastically before adopting a more serious tone once more. “But really, do you know how I got it?”
The old witch’s hooded head shook a negative.
“It was back in my days as a captain. I was assigned to lead my soldiers to quell a rebellion on planet Qlorth. You ever see the reports on the Qlorthian uprising?”
“I heard some about it. It was rather bloody and brutal if I recall—they somehow got hold of enough weapons to infiltrate one of our bases and killed every soldier stationed there.”
Cossack nodded. “Not a one left standing by the time I got through with ‘em. We obliterated the city that base was in into dust and killed every last one of them. You know why? Because they pissed me off. Ordinarily I might’ve given them the chance to surrender and be taken as slaves and prisoners, but not that time. An old buddy of mine, a lieutenant by the name of Sortan that I’d known since boot camp, was stationed at that base on Qlorth and got axed in that mess. I took that personally, so I gave the Qlorthians what they deserved. My men started calling me ‘Cossack the Terrible’ right after that victory. Got a medal for it too, from High Admiral Phrix.”
He smiled slightly. “So yeah, I guess I am starting to take Voltron personally, ‘cause the way I feel about Voltron is about how I felt that day. I want him obliterated.” After nearly drawing his weapons again he let them go. “Don’t you?”
Something about Cossack’s resolve struck a chord in the witch and she too smiled, infected by his enthusiasm. “Yes. Yes I do. You know, I think being hit by lightning really did shock some sense into you. I’ve never seen you so driven and focused.”
Cossack shrugged. “I didn’t realize that really wanting to kick Voltron’s ass was news.”
“Oh, take the complement if you’ve managed to earn it,” she retorted haughtily. “As for your ten robeast plan, let’s assume we can get enough lazon to power ten full strength beasts. Have you considered the other limitations?”
“What? The ships? We got enough battleships to get ‘em there. We’d have to gamble a little on the fact that not much would happen elsewhere, but we could probably cover it with the right soldiers and robots assigned to the major posts.”
“And who’s going to direct ten robeasts in battle? My magic can amplify them all, but I can’t maintain full control over more than two at once. You I wouldn’t let take more than one, which leaves seven others in need of pilots or battleship-side navigators. If we get Prince Lotor involved that’s four, but even if you manage to drag King Zarkon himself out onto this mission—which is a big ‘if’—you’re only up to five.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Ah, don’t worry about that, Haggar. That’s what we got our robots and admirals for.”
The old witch made a face. “My point exactly. I hardly share your confidence in those inept fools’ abilities.”
“Aw, the admirals aren’t that bad. Well, some of ‘em are kinda weenies, but I would pick the competent ones for a mission like this.”
“I wasn’t talking about those overpaid military buffoons; I meant the robots. I don’t trust them to properly do my laundry without supervision, much less control a full powered robeast.”
A confident smile flashed across Cossack’s features. “Oh Haggar, you don’t give King Zarkon’s mighty robot army enough credit! Sure, they can get a little short-circuited every now and again, but most of the time they’re pretty sharp.”
“Compared to what, an automated pencil sharpener? I’ve worked with them.”
“They rebuilt your bio chamber, didn’t they?”
“A bio chamber you broke.”
“That was the lightning!”
Haggar shook her head. “Anyway, fine. Let’s say we get the lazon and you by some miracle assemble a few admirals and robots competent enough to deploy and manage a robeast in battle. We even get enough battleships available to make the trip and attack Arus. There’s still one other major stumbling block.” She raised an eyebrow. “Selling Zarkon on the idea.”
Cossack smiled as he realized that was the old witch’s way of saying she was in favor of his plan. Taking her by the arm he pointed to Castle Doom. “I knew I could count on you, Haggar! No problem,” he assured her, “you just leave that part to me! I’ll do all the talking!”
“Not like I could get you to shut up anyway,” she groused under her breath as the two of them made their way toward the throne room.
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