Chapter Text
In order to properly process that, Clank looked away from Alexander to instead inspect the garage itself. Although smaller than any of Ratchet’s preferred work areas, this one seemed less ordered, and more filled with what Clank could only describe as stuff. Most of the shelves had small appliances with tags on them, tools lined the walls, but every other free space had half-disassembled machines, clothes, and even snacks. Personal nick-knacks were scattered around too, giving tell to a life and a past Clank could only guess at.
He jumped off the workbench to wander, but stopped when Alexander immediately shot him a wary look. “Where’re you going?”
“To think of a plan, since you have put paid to my initial one.”
The lombax raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment, instead slowly turning back to his work. Clank nodded and continued on, letting his attention go where it wanted.
It all felt like Ratchet, but… not, at the same time. In all the time Clank had known him, Ratchet had never been one to put down roots. He never collected anything but weapons, schematics, and tools. Everything needed to have a use, or he didn’t see the point. It had taken literal years of nagging before he would even buy more than one set of clothing that wasn’t armour.
But if he had been… if Ratchet had been the type to settle down, this would have been what he would fill his life with. Posters of celebrities, collectable figurines, music and gadgets.
It made Clank very sad, for some reason.
His foot nudged against something and he pulled back, just enough to see he’d almost stepped on a notebook. He glanced back at Alexander, then picked it up to rifle through.
Sketches. Schematics. Designs. Clank couldn’t read it – it was in lombax script, and as Ratchet had come to expect from lombax designs, it did not translate into the common language. But he could recognise the sketches and designs for what they were.
Ratchet liked to tinker in ways that rarely made sense to others – sometimes he would look at things and think ‘but what if I did this’. They’d been told that all lombaxes had the same kind of habits, always wanting to improve what was finished. Sometimes, Ratchet’s inventions had a skewed sort of logic that other people understood, even if Clank did not. Electroshock underwear being one of the most memorable.
But Clank could understand these designs.
They were still strange, but more along the lines of Gadgetron or Grummelnet kind of strange. But more like traps than weapons. And non-lethal. The one he was currently looking at seemed to be a bird-like projectile that used gravity destabilisers to hold people off the ground.
Clank turned, opening his mouth to ask about it, when the ground abruptly lurched beneath him. Alexander swore and jumped out of his chair. “What the hell? Did you feel that?”
“It felt like an earthquake,” Clank noted, and Alexander shook his head.
“Not possible. Crydon is a floating city – there’s no earth to quake,” he said, and hurried over to the door, only to stop and pull back a little. “For the ground to move like that, either something happened to the magnetic propulsion units, or –”
Another lurch had him stumbling into the wall, and Clank almost fell onto his back. Alexander shoved himself straight, teeth clenched as he looked at the door again. “Something’s knocking us off orbit. And to do that, you’d need pretty heavy force. We’re being attacked.”
“That is quite the assumption,” Clank observed. “Is it not more likely to just be a failure of the propulsion system?”
“We’d be plummeting if it was,” he pointed out, and hesitated one last moment before yanking the door open to look outside.
Absently stowing the notebook inside his chest, Clank wandered over to peer around Alexander’s hip. He couldn’t immediately see anything but the carpark. But after a moment, a ship flew low overhead, making Alexander yank out of the way only moments before the slipstream slammed past them. He swore again.
“That was a pirate vessel. Darkwater!”
“Darkwater?” Clank repeated. The name sounded oddly familiar. “Who is that?”
“Ugh, a better term would be what,” he said, and pushed the door shut again, eyes darting around the garage. “Darkwater’s a robot space pirate that’s been causing trouble across the Polaris Galaxy since before I was born. He shouldn’t even be in Centronian space, there’s nothing for him here!”
Clank’s response was interrupted by another lurch of the ground, and Alexander stumbling past him to head back to his workbench. He wavered, feeling off-balance both figuratively and literally, and then followed. “Can you think of any reason why he would?”
“None. Darkwater goes after treasures. Technological and philosophical marvels. Centron is basically a resources sector, and since Darkwater doesn’t build, there’s no reason to be here,” he said desperately.
“And yet you seem concerned.”
“He’s a pirate,” he shot back. “They’re dangerous. Yeah, I’m concerned by them attacking the planet where I work.”
“I do not see why they would cause you problems.”
Alexander rolled his eyes and picked up the remote to point at him. “Well, I’m not gonna waste time explaining it to you. I have to go check on Feeble and then lock this place down. Stay here and out of sight, you got me?”
As always, Clank took this instruction with all the gravity he felt it required, and trotted after Alexander as he headed for the only other door in the room. It opened onto a large shop, filled with sparkling machines with exorbitant price tags attached to them. Alexander ignored them all and hurried toward the front of the shop, leaving the door open for Clank to sneak after him.
“Feeble! Did you see those ships?”
“Zan! What the heck are you doing out of your shop, get back there!”
“Those are Darkwater pirate ships! Why would they even be here?”
“That ain’t none of our concern. If you’re worried about them, go hide under your bed.”
Clank finally caught up enough to see the creature Alexander was talking to. Like most species in the universe, it towered over the small lombax, all scaly red skin and bulbous black eyes. It was poking one of its three fingers between Alexander’s eyes as if trying to keep him back.
“So, what, you’re just going to keep the shop open like nothing’s wrong?” Alexander demanded. “They’re pushing our city out of orbit!”
“I’m sure it’s just some kind of intimidation tactic. So long as –”
The slamming of a door cut them off, and they both flinched around to stare.
A tall, lanky robot was strolling through the door, blasters casually held in both hands and a crooked smirk lifting into place as it laid eyes on Alexander. “Well, well. The fishwives spoke true. A stray lombax in the wrong galaxy. Little far from home, ain’t ye, boyo?”
Alexander pulled back slightly, spine straightening. “Shove off, Darkwater. There’s nothing for you in this galaxy.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Raritanium be as sweet as a siren’s call, if ye know the right wrench. But I admit I agreed with you until a few hours back,” the pirate said slowly, “when me sensors picked up signs of space-time bending.”
The red alien, who Clank could only assume was Feeble, immediately glared at Alexander. He actually managed to look annoyed by the suggestion. “Oh come on. How would I even do that with the appliances I get to work on?”
“A question for the ages, lad,” Darkwater said, stalking forward. “I’ve known too many lombaxes in my time to bother askin’.”
“W-” He stumbled back, fist clenched around his remote. “Even if I did, or could, what would it matter to you? You’ve done way worse in your time.”
“Aye, but I know a zoni trick when I read one,” it continued. “And nobody gets to the zoni before I do.”
Clank did a double-take, only to immediately recall where he’d heard the name Darkwater before. Darkwater was the pirate Ratchet had to fight in order to find him, when Nefarious had him locked up in the Great Clock. Darkwater had a device that could contact the zoni. This could be his way home!
But he wasn’t given time to decide on a course of action before Feeble suddenly snatched Alexander’s bicep and yanked him off-balance. “What did you do, Zan?”
“Nothing! I have nothing to do with this!” he insisted.
“Don’t you lie to me, boy!”
Clank had spent the better part of ten years watching Ratchet for signals, which was the only reason he caught Alexander’s split-second glance, warning him to stay down. He hesitated but did so, and Alexander went back to his boss. “Why would I lie about this?”
“I think the pirate with a history of problems with your species would be a pretty good reason,” Feeble pointed out. “But I’ve told you before. You came to the Centron galaxy; you have to play by our rules. We stick to our own business.”
They both jerked around as Darkwater stepped around the front counter. He gestured to Alexander. “Then keep to your business, and give me the lombax.”
“Easy now, friend,” Feeble said slowly. “You may not be my business, but the lombax is. He’s my apprentice, and a good income of bolts besides. You want him, I want compensation.”
“What?!” Alexander stared at him, but for all his shock, he didn’t look that surprised. More angry.
“Well now,” Darkwater said, lazily gesturing with one of his blasters, “I’d say me leavin’ with your city still in one piece—not to mention your head on your shoulders—would be plenty of compensation.”
“A short term proposition,” Feeble snapped back. “I let you take this boy and half the Praetorian Guard comes down on my head, while the Polaris government sanctions all hell out of Aotic. How long do you think I’ll keep my head then? You want this boy, I want safe passage out of dodge.”
“Son of a three-legged space rat,” Alexander swore under his breath, and then lifted the remote. And then there was light, pain, and nothingness.
For the second time in a day, Clank felt himself come back online slowly, one process at a time.
Eventually, he became aware that he was in a ship, travelling through space. A glance to his left showed that he was still with Alexander, who had gained a nasty cut on the back of his head, blood still seeping down the back of his neck and into his shirt, the long sleeves of which were charred.
“You require nanotech,” Clank said in greeting, but Alexander’s only response was to drag in a deep breath through his teeth and keep staring ahead. Clank blinked once, then began looking around. He did not know of anyone who did not carry enough nanotech in their daily lives to prevent bleeding and clothing damage. But the ship was small, with only a single large bag thrown in the miniscule space behind their seats. There were no nanotech crates to be seen.
So Clank hesitated, then settled for accepting it (for now) and instead asked, “May I enquire as to what occurred, back in your shop?”
“It wasn’t my shop, it was Feeble’s,” Alexander said evenly, his tone tight and warning the way Ratchet’s only got when he was truly furious. “And what happened was that I screwed my entire life for a glitchy piece of scrap that I barely know.”
Clank fell silent, recognising the very thin ice he was obviously skating over. He got the impression that asking ‘why’ would not help his chances, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to word any other question. He hesitated, looking down at his feet for a moment, then tilted his head back up again. “Why did you not want me to intervene?”
“Because I am an idiot,” he hissed, still not looking around.
“I believe I owe you gratitude, but in truth I am not clear on the reason,” Clank said carefully. “Do you think I would have come to harm if Feeble or Darkwater had known about me?”
Alexander’s jaw worked silently for a moment, before he sighed out a controlled breath. “Darkwater is obsessed with finding rare and valuable treasures, especially ones that relate to the zoni. No one knows why. I don’t think he would have asked nicely for any information you had on them.”
“Oh. Thank you, then,” he said, and Alexander sucked in another breath and said nothing. Clank considered his feet again as he worked up the nerve to ask his next question. “May I ask whose ship this is?”
“Feeble’s.”
“He gave it to you?”
“I’m gonna tell the cops he did, and he’s probably going to stick with that story.”
Clank peeked at him. “Why?”
“Because if he doesn’t, he’s going to have to explain why I would ruin my entire life for a ship,” he snarled. “Because he still doesn’t know about you. So he has no explanation for why I would give up my apprenticeship, clock my boss over the head with a stolen blaster, potentially cause an intergalactic incident, and steal his freaking ship!”
Clank winced, but was given no time to respond as Alexander continued yelling.
“I have no explanation for it either! I am a freaking lunatic! My whole life, ruined, all because I fixed up a mini warbot and didn’t immediately hand it over when someone came looking for it! What am I supposed to do now? Where the hell am I supposed to go? I can’t go back home, my parents would kill me! And even if I did, what am I supposed to do? Even if—if—Feeble lies for me, and I don’t have Alister breathing down my neck for the rest of my life, no one is going to take an apprentice that abandoned his apprenticeship! Especially not one that took intergalactic politics to arrange! I am so incredibly screwed! All because I didn’t tell Darkwater about you!”
Listening to Alexander yell was difficult. Not least because Ratchet didn’t do this anymore. Hadn’t for years. These days, when Ratchet was truly angry, he got quiet and dangerous. It was yet another reminder that not only was this not Ratchet, but that this was what Ratchet may have been if he hadn’t lived a life full of moments like this. Worse was that he suspected Alexander was not completely exaggerating. He did seem to have put himself in a difficult position without sufficient cause.
“What will you do now?” he asked quietly, and Alexander finally looked at him, but didn’t even manage to swear before he seemed to falter, his wide eyes flickering all over the place and teeth slowly beginning to unclench.
Eventually, he turned back to the flight path, looking more worried than anything. “I don’t know. I don’t… I could probably explain this to my father, and he would probably square things with Marshal Azimuth and the Council, but that doesn’t change the fact that I abandoned my apprenticeship.”
“Could you not go back?”
He chuckled humourlessly, sounding far more like Ratchet than he ever had thus far. “Go back? Even if I hadn’t knocked him out, Feeble was absolutely going to sell me to Darkwater. Call me childish, but that kind of thing can put a serious damper on your professional relationship.”
Clank had to give him that. “And surely that would be reason enough for anyone to leave an apprenticeship. It has no bearing on your professionalism.”
“What does is that I wouldn’t give up you for it,” he shot back. “I was on Aotic, where the rules are simple: keep to your own. I didn’t even know for sure that Darkwater would hurt you. It made no sense. And I chose to violently attack my boss and run away rather than point out that you were there and involved with the zoni. That speaks to my credibility.” He sighed loudly, hunching toward the controls. “The worst thing is… I don’t think I’d do anything differently if I could do it again. What is wrong with me?”
“Nothing. I may be biased, given that it was my sisterboard on the line,” Clank said gently, “but I think what you did shows you are a good person, who cares about others. Whatever consequences it may have, that speaks very well of your character.”
The corner of Alexander’s lips edged upward, and he glanced over again, but said nothing. Clank let the silence drag for a few moments before deciding it was safe to ask, “What did you do, back there? Why did I go offline?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Controlled area electromagnetic pulse bomb,” he said, reaching into his pocket to hand over the remote he’d been carrying all day. “It knocked out you and Darkwater, and half the electronics in the store – including Darkwater’s blasters. It seemed like my best option.”
“Indeed. Why did you have it?”
“We lombaxes have a bad habit of tinkering, and I have a really bad habit of screwing up, in case today didn’t already prove that to you,” he said wearily. “Unless I’m doing something routine, the stuff I build tends to go crazy until I fix it. I made the CEMP bomb that so that no matter what happens, I can switch them off in a hurry.”
He chuckled. “A wise decision. Ratchet could learn a thing or two from you.”
Alexander laughed weakly, but it quickly trailed off, and he lifted a hand to touch the wound on the back of his head. When he looked at his fingers and saw them still bloody, he sighed and wiped them on his thigh before reaching for the navigation console. He keyed in a request for a refuelling station with an attached shop front. “So. Since I apparently have nothing better to do anymore… where would we find these zoni of yours?”
Clank jerked. “You are willing to help me? After all that has happened?”
“Hey, they’re time travellers, right? Maybe they can send me back to before I messed everything up,” he said blandly. “If not, well… it at least puts off me calling home for a while.”