"We're doomed," said Guybrush hollowly.
"Stop saying that," said Wally. He was looking around the hold area for something useful. So far, nothing had turned up.
He looked at the large red rock in the middle of the floor. "What's this?" he asked. "Don't remember seeing this before."
"It's just something I picked up from the last pirate we killed," said Guybrush morosely. "Who cares anyway? We're all dead."
Wally paid him little attention. He ran a hand over the surface of the rock. "Dusty," he said. "And smooth. And it seems to be glowing a bit. Hmmm."
Guybrush groaned. Wally was going to dredge his encyclopaedic memory and tell him some completely useless piece of esoterica about the rock. Guybrush had become acquainted with Wally's encyclopaedic knowledge for some time now. There was nothing he didn't know the answer to. It was annoying.
"Don't know what this is," said Wally, puzzled. "Have you got a spectrograph?" he asked.
"Ummm... maybe," said Guybrush.
"Strangely light," mused Wally, giving the rock a gentle shove. "Wonder what the melting point is..." He reached into his back pocket, and took out his blaster. Aiming for a point roughly in the centre of the rock, he fired.
The shot impacted on the rock and vanished. No crater. No rebounding blast. It was completely absorbed, as if Wally had fired into a black hole.
"Hmmm," said Wally. He started forward to examine the rock, then stopped.
The blaster shot seemed to have set something off inside the rock. It was glowing, pulsating from a deep, almost invisible black to a bright cherry red. Back and forth. Back and forth.
"What have you done now?" said Guybrush.
In a bizarrely anthropomorphic way, the rock seemed to be waking up. The pulsating rhythm was speeding up, and the rock was now vibrating, almost shivering. As if awesome forces were battling it about from within - and barely balancing.
The rock leapt into the air, and hovered. It turned slowly, executing a full 360 degrees. It stopped, and Guybrush got the strangest idea that the rock was looking at him.
The glowing light inside the rock waxed to full intensity. The hold was filled with ruby light so bright that Guybrush couldn't see past his own face. But no heat. No sound.
Boss Hog vanished.
Upchuck suddenly sat up, staring at the black space where his quarry had been. He tapped the instruments. Nothing. No radar, no visuals, no infra-red. Upchuck growled. Depressurized needlefighters didn't just vanish into thin space.
With a snarl, he brought his ship around and headed for home base. "I don't know where you are, Guybrush," said Upchuck, "but I'll find you. You know I will."