Chapter 2: Alien Deep Fryer
The strangled cry to halt came sooner than anyone had expected. Tamama leapt lopsidedly from his resting place on the floor and slammed the emergency stop button. The crew grimaced as the ship came to a quick, grinding halt, sending anything not bolted down spiraling toward the front of the ship. Picking himself up off the floor, a shaken Fuyuki turned to Dororo: "What did you sense? How come we're stopping?"
The rest voiced similar opinions. This stretch of space looked like every other. "Sensors indicate that we've got about a thousand or so miles to go before we can see this planet through the window."
Keroro jumped up on a fallen shelf, "Screw the window! Kururu, use this ship's optic zoom to bring the planet into view. We should be close enough now."
"Way ahead of you captain. I activated the zoom on the main screen," yelled Kururu from under the pile of wires that had fallen on top of him, "I can't see anything from under these cursed things, but if you can't see the planet on the screen, then the shield is blocking my optics as well. Ku ku ku…"
"This is some shield!" Dororo exclaimed, startling the entire company, "Not only could it block our Sergeant Major's optics system, I can't extend my consciousness past this point. I can't be certain, but this race might have discovered a way to block thoughts."
Giroro was still not convinced. One look at Natsumi and they were on the same wavelength. Running to opposite corners of the ship, they punched in a short pin code and two doors slid open. Getting in, they activated the ship's turrets and opened fire into what appeared to be empty space.
The two energy bolts soared deep into the vacuum of space. The two watched closely as the bullets slowly disappeared from view. Exiting the turrets, they rejoined the mystified others. "How could bullets pass through where optics and thought fail?" asked Aki, trying to remember if any manga she had ever edited could provide a suitable answer. As if in defiant reply, the bolts fired not a minute past came back into view, soaring at more than double the speed toward the ship. As the Keronians stared in stiff shock, Aki grabbed the controls with lightning reflexes and pulled a sharp right, turning the ship nearly on its side. The two bolts missed by a hair.
After the crew had picked themselves up off the ground for the second time, (Kururu, tangled in the wires, had rolled kicking and screaming to the other side of the ship where he hit his head and passed out), they began to doubt the plausibility of their mission. While Aki splashed water on a bleary Sergeant Major, the humming of engines could suddenly be heard.
Tensing, Giroro assumed control of the turrets from the main deck and readied himself for battle. However, the ship radioed in a greeting and pledged that they came in peace. Breathing a sigh of relief, the Corporal recognized the crest on the ship to be one of a planet aligned with Keron. While the humans scrambled for cover, Giroro opened a live feed between the two ships. They had heard about the distress from Keron and asked if it had been resolved. With a nod and smile, Giroro assured them that it had. As it turned out, the ship had been ordered to investigate this patch of the galaxy due to unusually high radiation levels emanating from what was considered by some intergalactic cartographers to be empty space.
A thought passed through Giroro's head. It was a cruel and dangerous idea, but the only one that seemed to make sense at the time. Bending over the communications screen, he told the friendly ship that they were going to make a few repairs and then head back to Keron. He told them that they should continue on ahead.
With a jovial salutation, the ship signed off and powered up their engines; sailing quickly toward where the planetary shield was located. Fuyuki and the rest of the humans were concerned to why Giroro hadn't told them anything of the dangers ahead, but the Keronians all understood. This was the farthest from normal warfare as they could possibly get, so deception came easy.
As the allied ship gained speed, Giroro sneakily turned the engines on to 25% and began backing slowly away from the shield. He didn't know what the effect would be, whether the ship would be swallowed into a wormhole, be hit by an EMP, or just completely destroyed altogether, but he refused to risk his ship being hit by a rogue shockwave or the like.
Dororo, sitting cross-legged on the floor, concentrated with all his might, extending his consciousness until it smashed hard into the barrier. Easing up on his gritted teeth, he let his mind wash over the outer layer and felt for any weak spots. It came to no surprise when he could find none. Suddenly, he realized he could no longer feel the presence of the allied ship.
"It's passed the shield!" Dororo gasped, his head snapped up and he was drenched in sweat. For some reason, the act of moving through the shield unnerved Dororo to no end. As Koyuki laid him down on a sleeping cot and applied a cool towel, Dororo began to weep.
Seeing his teammate crying, ripped Keroro out of staring at the allied ship, slowly cruising farther and farther away. "Kururu! I need optics now!"
"Captain…are you high again? Ku ku ku…the optics can't see past the shield, remember?"
"I'm not talking about visual optics! Have you tried the ones that can see energy fields?"
Kururu choked on the curry he had been voraciously spooning into his mouth. Looking annoyed, he ran up to the control panel and tapped a few buttons, muttering: "I knew that."
Immediately, an intricate web of blue fibers stretched across the view screen. "We're looking at the shield," Kururu said dryly, pointing at the image with a curry-stained spoon, "By the looks of this bright blue color, it's running hot with energy."
As Kururu explained the different functions of his perfect energy mapping program, Natsumi squinted hard at the screen. "Wait…why is the color draining from the part right in front of us?"
Looking down, the team saw the blue color draining quickly from a small patch in the shield, the same place where the allied ship had gone through. "We're down to 20% power!" cried Kururu over the roar of the engines. Tamama was at the wheel and had initiated the boosters.
"HALT!" screamed Keroro, thinking his inferior had gone mad, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"Captain trust me on this!" yelled Tamama back to his superior, "We only have this one window of opportunity!"
The noise became so great that everyone clamped their hands over their ears in a desperate attempt to maintain a bearable volume. As the boosters charged, the ship began to shake violently, prompting the humans to throw themselves onto the beds for support.
"Tamama," Kururu motioned with one hand, "The energy is recharging! Now!"
The crew felt themselves being thrown back and pressed into the wall for the second time that day as the ship shot forward leaving a trail of superheated air in its wake.
It wasn't long until they had put the planetary shield far behind them and everyone clambered to their feet as Tamama turned off the boosters for a long cool down. Dororo was still shaken and sweaty, but stood up and took a couple of steps toward the nearest window. The allied ship was now in sight, and Tamama cruised smoothly toward it.
As they got closer, it seemed like the ship had turned all their lights on, as piercing yellow pervaded all the windows.
It was fire.
Momoka could scarcely avoid screaming as they passed by the ship. Yellow flames leaped back and forth inside the ship, eating up the fine tuned equipment, supplies, and the oxygen in the cabin. As they watched, a crewman rushed jerkily toward the window and slammed into it while making the intergalactic sign language symbol for "help". As soon as he finished motioning, his hair caught on fire. Opening his mouth in a silent scream, he used a specialized cutter to slice through the window pane and leap out into space. His twisted, seared form exploded in the vacuum, sending mini droplets of blood splattering on Keroro's ship causing Momoka to fall back in disgust. Fuyuki bent down and held her hand silently.
There was a solemn silence as the ship's fire eventually burnt out. Even Kururu looked a bit disturbed, and for once, wasn't the first to speak.
"So what the hell was that?" roared Giroro, suddenly angry beyond reason, "The freakin' alien deep fryer? Keron doesn't even have records of this kind of technology and we're going up against it blind?"
As everyone looked around uncomfortably, Tamama grabbed the cool towel and put it on his face. Instantly, he ripped it off and threw it on the ground, sputtering, "It's really hot!"
Lost in the moment, the crew hadn't noticed how hot the cabin was becoming. In a panic, the allied ship's crewmember's burnt face still branded in his mind, Keroro jumped for the AC control and pushed it to 30 degrees. The relief was as instant as it was brief. In its effort to cool the rapidly increasing temperature, it overheated and shattered, sending a shards of metal flying toward Aki. Normally it wouldn't have done anything, but the temperature in the machine before it blew had made the shards white hot and they pierced her skin with ease. Falling to the ground, Aki held her back as a stream of steaming blood cascaded onto the floor.
Fuyuki yelled in fear for his mother and ran to her, but Momoka held on instinctively to his hand and he fell on his face. It began to sting as soon as his skin came in contact to the metal ground.
Kururu picked up his laptop and rushed for the escape pod, calling for everyone to follow him, but his computer's interior was already on fire and he dropped it with a yelp. The fragile escape pod short circuited and grew dim, rendering it useless.
The whole room wasn't on fire just yet, but the heat was unbearable. Slowly, each member of the team fell onto the ground, panting for air, dying for just one more cool breath.
Visions faded, and blissful darkness awaited.