The Gospel According to Plisken

“I still don’t believe it,” said Alex, resting on a dusty rock beside Plisken as he took a break from the planning of the attack.
“It’s still true,” smiled Plisken, leaning back with the brim of his hat protecting his eyes from the hot rays of sun.
“Really?”
“Yes!” laughed Plisken – when he started to tell the story he didn’t think Alex would need this much convincing. He slide an eye from under it’s protection and it twinkled at Alex.
“Allan Quartermain? You’re saying you were the inspiration for Allan Quartermain?”
“Yup,” said Plisken calmly, the eye retreating to stare blindly at the inside of his eyelid.
Alex stood up, shaking his head in disbelief. He wandered away to continue doing whatever it was before he sat down. Plisken silently, but happily, dozed under the heavy Middle-Eastern sun.
A Little While Later
Plisken flexed his metal hand, opening and closing the cold, very-nearly lifeless fingers and closing them again. It was a sort of calming method he’d developed over the years, although its effectiveness in truly alarming situations was untested. Plisken glanced around at his comrades, who at the present moment had lost any sure control over their bowels as they were being vacated with force. Whoever had created the device was clearly of the sadistic nature and had either far too much time on their hands or was desperately constipated. Either way, this weapon was clearly more powerful, and damage inducing, than any nuke, R-Bomb or De-Mat Cannon.
Plisken clutched his stomach in pain and felt an alarming sensation erupt from the pit. It was, thankfully, only the warning of incoming sick being thrown up through his throat and not, unlike many of his crewmates, crap piling up in his pants.
Plisken leaned back on the wall of the craft and allowed the sensations of pass, doing his best retain his dignity and his health. Since retrieving his male body, which had caused less surprise among his friends than expected (although, in hindsight, there were more pressing matters at hand other than Plisken’s current gender), Plisken had felt strangely ill. He felt slower, sluggish and just plain ghastly. He hadn’t even been able to lit his pipe because the very thought had caused his stomach to threaten to empty.
But back to the matter at hand, and the assailant armed with what could only be described as a Sick Stick, and most sick indeed (although probably not the same kind of sick as Jaxx would use in his surfer laden lingo), Plisken fixed his coat, in a most cool fashion, and brought himself together. Artemis had saved the Dwarfers from any more disgustingness and everyone was silently thankful.
The bare bones of a plan to assassinate Pilate, although Plisken wasn’t entirely sure why (his age was getting to him, he surmised), were being thrown together. Also, interestingly, the birth of Christianity was being born. Life was surely different from the years of guarding Store 988.
The aging, and qualifying for old, man glanced around at his much younger comrades. He just didn’t have it in him to fight anymore, centuries of continuous wars and crusades will do that to you. Silently his slipped out the back of the group as they began to pull away parts of the ship in desperate search for weaponry of some kind. Subconsciously, and out of force of habit, Plisken padded his holster to check for his own weapon, the battered and trustworthy LeMat revolver, despite knowing for sure it was there. He adjusted the brim of his hat as his eyes narrowed in the bright beams of the sun as he stepped back out into the dusty landscape. He took a seat on a comfortable rock and lay down in the sun.
It was then that Alex came over and when Plisken proceeded to tell the tale of Allan Plisken, the inspiration for King Solomon’s Mines.
“Oh,” shouted Alex, catching himself and turning back to the dozing Plisken, “Make yourself useful.” Alex tossed a rugged leather bag over to Plisken. It was heavy and clunked down onto his chest. Plisken held up a hand and began to dig through the bag looking for some useful equipment. Unfortunately, the bag contained little more than spent magazines, a card for some form of currency, cigarettes and a couple of hand grenades. But Plisken did find one other ‘useful’ item: a pristine, black, leather bound journal completely blank and begging to be written. A small ball point pen was, luckily, also kicking around at the bottom of the bag. It amazed Plisken that such devices were still in existence. He cracked open the book and breathed in the smell of newness. He paused for a moment, slowly considering what to write down in this fine book. Then a smile danced across his mouth and his eyes seemed to glint happily. Slowly, and neatly, he began to write: The Gospel According to Plisken. Carefully he recounted everything up until this point, from his unexplainable arrival at Jay’s feet to the present as the Chryst our Captain and his Disciples of Crew prepared to unleash ‘holy vengeance’ on Pilate. It was quite a jolly read by the time he had finished. But there was still many more pages left so Plisken tucked the book away in his pockets for further use. But he did leave a copy of what he had done, re-written on some scraps of paper he had found, just to mess with the future.

Plisken stooped back into the ship, looking for something semi-useful to do. In all his years of life he had picked up few skills and his only notable one of these few, aside from those he had displayed during a lifetime during the late Victorian Era England, was war. And he knew it. A few empty weapons lay out on a table, magazines discarded next to them. They were of poor quality, and liable to break after the fire fight. But they were clean and Plisken proceeded to chamber the mags, enjoying the simple mechanical clunks and snaps that was missing from more modern weaponry.

<Snip>

"Mr. Plisken! Check this out" Artemis said, shambling out of the engineering compartment.

"What is it?" asked Plisken, who was loading rifle magazines.

"It's a Rubidium grenade, I used the Rubidium from the ship's thermoelectric backup generators and put them in a chemical disposal canister. I've modified the canisters to have some semblance of a time delay, and filled the tops with water. You pull the pin, the water trickles down and BOOM...huge explosion...or it catches on fire...it's been a while since I worked with Rubidium"

Artemis handed Plisken one of the grenades. "Trust me, you'll want one of these puppies when the simulants come-a-knocking"

Artemis returned to engineering and brought the crate of grenades up to the deck.

"I've got a few dozen of these, and there's plenty of Rubidium left in the generators if we need more. Though someone will have to fetch some more canisters from storage" Artemis said to Plisken, and Dave, who had just walked in.

</Snip>

Plisken set down the grenades he had retrieved from the bag outside and began to neatly organise the weaponry. This plan, with its careless and loose planning, was unlikely to work, at least to Plisken's mind, but at least they would no were all the weapons where. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Evelina come forth. A glance down to knee hight revealed Jaxx as well.

"Mr. Plisken?" asked Evelina, her voice strong and demanding.

"Plisken will do, Mrs. Jaxx," said Plisken, not looking up from the table of guns. He leaned in close and rummaged around for his spectacles. He placed them firmly on his head and muttered his damnings of pirates as he saw the guns were devoid of any serial numbers. "But I think this will suit you best," he said, handing the young woman, although a child in his eyes, a large and powerful rifle.

"Thanks," she said with a smile, rather taken with the gun.

"Don’t you want one?" asked Plisken, looking down at the little skutter.

"Sorry bro, I don’t use guns - it's against my religion," the mechanical voice groaned.

Plisken shrugged, not as if religion has stopped people from carrying weapons in the past. "Grenades?" he asked, not wanting the 'man' to go into a fight without proper weaponry.

“Yeah I can use those, but they look different.” Plisken showed Jaxx how the Artemis grenades worked and warned him of the dangers as well.

Jaxx and Evelina wandered away, leaving Plisken alone with his guns again. The old man picked up his hat and ran a cold metal hand through his long hair. He sighed,as he often did, and went to stand outside again, waiting to see if anyone else required his help.