“How the hell can you luff a sail in a vacuum? Get down from there you idiot man!”

That was how it translated from Arachnian anyway, although the original had considerably more venom behind it, literally. Not that Sven was all that bothered about venom, being a zombie and all. Still, it tended to stain the ragged excuse for a spacesuit he’d scavenged from their last prize and he was a bit fastidious about staining it any more.

“Well if the damn things had any purpose it might matter! Who the hell builds a starship like this? I mean light sails I can understand but this thing!? It’s a freaking galleon! How the hell does it even work?”

“Dammit Sven, I’m a spider, not a ninjaneer! How the hell would I know? Ask the ninjas already!”

“They keep messing around with sharp things! I can’t go out with even more holes in my suit, what would our victims think? How am I supposed to be scary in a torn up spacesuit?” Sven had clambered out of the rigging but hadn’t noticed a rope wrapped around his ankle and stumbled a little, a spidery arm reaching out and catching him before adjusting the battered looking bicorn hat to a jaunty angle and readjusting her scabbard.

“You’re a zombie dude. That’s scary all by itself!”

“Says the giant freaking spider!” Sven was crying now, although being a zombie it was considerably messier than non-undead crying.

“Aww now, don’t be that way… Remember last week those funny orange aliens just laughed at me and pointed, it was you that scared em!”

“”Who woulda thought giant bipedal cats would be so finicky? I mean seriously, I think they were afraid I’d track bits of me inside their nice clean ship! Then when they give up their treasure its canned sardines! What the hell kind of aliens think that’s treasure!?”

“Well they did have some pretty strong booze…”

“That stuff melted half my epiglottis off! How the hell am I supposed to speak Klingon now?”

“You know Klingon?”

“Well no, but if I wanted to I couldn’t!”

“Don’t worry man, Klingon is totally overrated. Trust me, I went to one of their operas once… I thought I was gonna go deaf and I don’t even have ears! Besides, since the zombie tribbles Klingons are pretty scarce in this sector…”

“Good thing too! That’s how Peggy got her name you know… She acted like she was still the giant asshole of a guy she used to be and learned how nasty a batleth can be! I mean sure, he was all apologetic afterward but the leg was still gone off into that asteroid field. He did make it up to her with that really nice carved klarthwood leg but she’s a lot more cautious. For some reason she has the hots for Klingon men now… I can’t win for losing.”

“Dude, that was your best friend! Your best guy friend!”

“I’m a zombie, its not like I can be choosy… and besides, she’s hot, even with a pegleg!”

She grumbled for a minute before turning back to him with a breathy sigh from her spiracles.

“What the hell do you think you could do with her anyway? Does that thing even work anymore?”

“I’m not sure exactly how, but yeah…”

“I still say you’re lucky. I mean I got turned into a spider, and not just any spider but a girl spider! I can’t even be scary! Those damn cats thought I was cute!” She stamped 2 of her rear limbs to emphasize the point and crossed the top two over her thorax in a gesture that was undeniably cute.

“Well you are kinda, um… well, cute…” Sven scuffed a toe along the deck and looked up at her from beneath the remnants of his eyebrows.

“AAAAAAAARGH!”

“That’s the spirit! Give it another try!”

“Gah, I’ll never get the hang of it! Who the hell ever heard of a ninja pirate anyway?” Cory huffed and blew a fringe of purple hair out of her eyes.

“You’re not just a pirate, you’re a pirate ninjaneer! Take a little pride in that!” Jen subtly flexed an arm, enjoying the interplay of muscles in her hypermasculine form.

“What the hell are you, some kinda barbarian? And how come you’re the guy? I’m supposed to be the guy!”

“Be real Cory… you make a much better girl than I ever did and I make a much better guy than you did. Besides, it was your imagination that came up with this body! Thank you by the way…” Jen was suddenly bashful which looked a bit incongruous on his face.

“Yeah well you imagined mine… why the hell did you have to make me so damned dainty? And these things seriously get in the way!” She pointed at her chest and managed to poke one of her breasts quite hard. “Ouch goddammit!”

“Here let me help with that…” a large hand began gently rubbing the offended spot and the anger in Cory’s voice turned to quiet moans…

Farther aft the captain was standing on the poop deck, having just used it for its intended purpose. He smoothed a gaudy feather back into his raffish looking wing and peered through a dirty spyglass before calmly remarking to the imp on his right “Looks like a good day for some booty! Arggh…”

“Says the asshole who doesn’t have to swab bird shit off the deck. How the hell are you the captain anyway? You’re a giant freakin parrot!”

“I’m a giant freakin parrot with 2 pistols and a sword, that’s how! Now scrub! Smells like something died out here!” He cocked one eye at the imp who redoubled his efforts while trying vainly to avoid gagging.

The imp to his left twitched a little with mirth and drained a mug half again as large as herself, erupting with a profound belch and a giggle. “Hey birdbreath, when you gonna grow some shoulders? We’re supposed to be shoulder imps!”

The captain freed one of his pistols with difficulty and scanned his surroundings, looking for either of the now-vanished imps with an angry gleam in his eye but he lost interest when the cabin girl staggered out to join him, obviously still drunk.

“Ooooh is that a pistol or are you just glad to see me?” she swayed a little and hiccupped.

“It’s a pistol! Are you blind!” he squawked at her.

“Um… wait a second…” She reached up and extracted the glasses that had hidden within the unruly mass of hair, sliding them onto her face. She jumped backward as her vision focused on him

“Holy crap! Somebody help, there’s a giant parrot holding a gun on me!!!” The captain watched with bemusement as she turned to run and slipped on a pile of bird droppings, falling and knocking herself out cold. He picked up her glasses, cleaned them off and set them back on her face before turning to walk off and slipping in the same pile with the result that he lay beside her sleeping the sleep of the recently concussed.

The imp that had been scrubbing emerged from his shelter dragging a firehose and cursing. “Dammit Micah get over here and help! This is the first chance we’ve had to de-stink either one of em!”

“Ok fine… they do smell pretty ripe. Turn this valve, right?” she turned the indicated valve resulting in a wildly flailing hose with a screaming imp hanging on for dear life. “Wow… that thing really does the job! Tell me when to turn it off Jimmy…”

“Turnitoffturnitoffturnitoffturnitoff!!!!” was heard just before the flow ceased and the hose banged down on top of Jimmy, still leaking on him while he lay there shaking.

“That looked fun! Wanna go again?”

His eyes rolled back and he slumped to the deck, joining the captain and cabin girl in the arms of Morpheus.

“You people are no fun at all! I’m gonna go hang out with the ninjas…” She staggered and flapped her way belowdecks.

As she neared the bottom of the ladder Micah took her eyes from her feet and looked up at what first seemed to be a large fuzzy orange rug with some sizeable lumps in it. That seemed awfully attractive and she climbed on top of it, snuggling into the fuzzy softness and singing a little drunken imp song to herself which quickly became impish snoring.

A feline eye cracked open, examined the passed out imp for a moment and promptly closed again, extremely loud purring emanating from the large tabby striped cat. She shifted her bicorn hat a little and snuggled her bulk around the imp, purring mixing with snoring as her grip closed and relaxed on her sword hilt.

It was a peaceful, almost domestic tableaux until suddenly 6 feet of bipedal cat erupted from her comfortable ball and ran down the passageway snarling and spitting before slamming into a quickly closed hatch with a bone-shaking thud.

“You honorless Sthondat!” I’ll disembowel you! YOU NICKED MY TAIL! I’ll teach you to throw little pieces of metal around!” She was scoring deep gouges in the wood until she began to settle down and pet the offended appendage. “Damn ninjas… Why did I have to turn into a kzinrett? Snot fair…”

A snore from the still sleeping imp was all the answer she got aside from the giggling on the other side of the hatch.

The Jolly Rogered sailed on into the stars, sails flapping in the vacuum as a zombie lay snuggling an undeniably cute spider in a quickly built web hammock far above the deck…