The trip down to the moon surface occurred mostly in silence. Guybrush knew their helmets would be bugged, and besides he couldn't think of any small talk. He looked at Wally, and wondered what he was thinking. The two pilots in front of them were concentrating fully on their flight, and hadn't even turned around to look at their passengers.
Guybrush was surprised at the trust Captain Kate continued to show them. They weren't behind bars, nor were there any barriers between them and the pilots. But of course the appearance of freedom was illusory. Guybrush knew Captain Kate was waiting above, with a fleet of Government fighters, watching them like a unblinking, computerised hawk. And the surveillance would be continued once they left the ship.
Their only hope was that Captain Kate didn't know quite as much about the Space Moose pirates as she seemed to...
With a gentle thud, the ship landed on the surface. One of the pilots turned to them. "Okay, you guys, suit up. Remember you've got one hour. So don't hang around."
Two minutes later, they were out on the surface. Stretching before them in every direction was a barren, grey wasteland of broken rock. The sun's feeble illumination barely lit up their surroundings, so it was as if they were walking at night under a near-empty moon. Lights on their spacesuit and from the ship behind them were their only illumination.
"This doesn't look promising," said Wally. "Where are these pirates supposed to be?"
"Patience," said Guybrush. The spacesuit visor offered magnification of various wavelengths - infrared, ultraviolet, microwave - and Guybrush had a precise value keyed in. The results were displayed on the inside of his visor, and showed a distinct pinpoint of radiation.
In this way, stumbling in the bad light, Guybrush led Wally onward. After ten minutes, he stopped. "Here."
Wally looked around. They were still on bare rock, a little higher up, but that was the only difference. "Where?"
Guybrush knelt down, and punched his hand through the rock. He gripped something below, twisted, and now the 'rock' slid aside. A column of yellow light blazed from the hole.
Guybrush was the first to climb down, followed by Wally. After stepping off the ladder they found themselves in a small cubic room. The hatch above swung shut. Immediately Wally was blown against the wall by a blast of pressured air. Gauges on the wall started rising, and after a few seconds Guybrush pulled his helmet off.
He helped Wally up. "Probably should have warned you about that," said Guybrush. "It's a little gag they like to play on newcomers."
"Yeah. Funny," said Wally, groaning. They got out of their spacesuits and pushed them up against a corner. Just as they were doing this, a doorway opened. In came a rather fat pirate, holding a blaster pointed somewhat nonchalantly at them.
"Huh," he said. The tone of his voice suggested he'd been disturbed from some pointless but still desirable leisurely activity, and that these unannounced visitors would find it well within their interest to keep him from it as short a time as possible.
"Where'd you bastards come from?" he said.
"Exus-1," said Guybrush, evasively. "Mancomb anywhere around?"
The pirate shrugged disinterestedly. "Bugger's probably round here somewhere. Try his cabin, he's usually nearby." He turned and left, footsteps dragging in the metal corridor.
"Tight security," commented Wally.
"It's better than it seems," said Guybrush. "Trust me, I know these guys. And they know me. Anyone else had come down here, you'd have body organs all over the place." He started along the metal corridor the pirate had taken.
"So why do these guys tolerate you?" asked Wally. "You're freelance."
"They think I'm an undercover spy for them," said Guybrush. Both of them felt free to talk now the spacesuits were long behind them. "Plus I do sell some info to them now and again. The Space Moose value intelligence very highly."
"And Mancomb? What about him?"
"We go way back," said Guybrush. They'd walked some distance now, along featureless metal corridors. The fat pirate had disappeared, and they hadn't seen anyone else. Now Guybrush stopped at a shut metal door. "And here he is."
Fifteen minutes had elapsed.