Chain Gang

Water cascaded from the enormous artifact and the crew squinted in wonder as its multifaceted surface scattered sunlight in a million dazzling directions.

A now sensible Alex gave a smegged off, muscle popping, foot throbbing grunt as Seymour pushed past him to get a better look. He was beginning to wish he'd taken more than a fingertip's worth of DS. “Git.”
Seymour, predictably, let the others keep hauling away as he stared at the magnificent whateveritwas. "Goodness me, it's huge!"
"Why thank you."
Alex groaned. "Not now, Pancake, we're in the middle of-"
"Actually that was me."
"Sorry Phil."
Jay glanced quickly around. "Where is Pancake?"
Seymour's stomach rumbled as he muttered "I don't know but all this hard work is utterly famishing!” He looked away from the glistening object for a moment and up at one of the guards. "I say, garçon, do you have any caviar? I suppose you must do... Are any of you females?"
"What is this...'Caviar?'" The bone-armoured guard enquired suspiciously.
"Well, it's just fish eggs with-"
The guard lurched backwards in horror "WHAT!? You eat fish eggs?"
Seymour tilted his head, oblivious to Jay's desperate rib elbowing. "Well yes of course, I mean, who doesn't adore a lovely dollop of caviar on a cracker as a pre fish dish hors d'oeuvre?" He gave a little snort as if to think otherwise was preposterous.
The guard gathered himself, eyes narrrowed, and the others drew close.

There was a very awkward silence.

Seymour glanced innocently around at the enslaved crew and their formidable captors. "What? Why are you all looking at me like that?"
The main guard swallowed, making his gills frill. He sadly caressed a nasty looking instrument which Alex's mind kindly pointed out was a) Harpoonish b) Rusty.
The piscine guard cleared its throat "And, um. You all do this, do you? Eat fishkind?"
The rest of the crew looked over at him, all shaking their heads vehemently.
A pale Cass forced a chuckle. "Don't listen to him, he's lost his mind." And if he doesn't shut up, he's gonna lose an arm she added under her breath.
Davie laughed nervously “Hahaha! Of course not. Don't be silly, man.”
“Fish? Not us.” Jay smiled.
“I hate fish.” Contributed Alex.

Seymour frowned, baffled. “Eh? What are you all talking about? I've seen each and every one of you absolutely gorging yourselves on fish during our feasts after the Aquanauts' unfortunate demise. We battered them and had them with chips from the potatoes we found growing on the laundry deck, don't you remember? For such a working class meal, it was delicious!”

They shook their heads again. Gomez removed one hand from the chain for a moment to make an apologetic “cuckoo” gesture at the guards while he mouthed “mad”.

Seymour continued chattering away, nodding now in Alex's direction. “I recall Mister Solvay stuffed himself with what was probably a skip's worth of chips and an entire Aquanaut. He was so full that it took four of you to move him to his quarters. And Mister Jones had that utterly foul reaction which gave him terrible wind, forcing us to live in our enviro suits for three days. I can't believe you've all forgotten this already. It was only a few weeks ago!”

A particularly enormous and ugly guard held one of the harpoonish things to Alex's throat.
“Is this true? Your kind grow fat on the Forbidden Flesh?”
Sweat rolled down Solvay's neck. He gave a tight lipped small shake of his head. “Nope.”
The guard applied pressure to the harpoon, causing a rivulet of blood to join the sweat. “You lie, human.”

He glared for a moment then shifted and gave the other guards a command. They rounded on the crew and soon each chain straining Dwarfer, and Seymour, had an Eniram harpoon tip to the belly.

“Why are you doing this you fishy fiends?” Seymour wailed.
Phil gave him a pointed look “The answer's in the question, nerk.”

Cass sighed, then let go of her section of chain...

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<Thanks for the group hug. Right back atchy'all.>