TITLE: Duck Dodgers: Sera-phib?
AUTHOR: Andrew Joshua Talon
FANDOM: Looney Toons, Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a ½ Century
GENRE: Humor, Sci-fi action
WARNINGS: A little innuendo, a little dark humor, a tad bit of violence, ships blowing up, and bodies floating in space. How's that?
RATING: PG to PG-13
NOTES: More than likely a one or two shot experiment I'll leave lying around for a year or two… Unless someone wants it?
SECTOR 332 - GALACTIC PROTECTORATE - 59.4 LTYR from SOL SYSTEM
"Ergh…" Tobias Malcolm, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in history, twice voted Most Eligible and Most Shy Bachelor in the Galaxy Proper by Sentient Magazine, and one of the top engineers of the last century, slowly awoke, his head pounding like no tomorrow.
"Bwah…" He rubbed his head cautiously, slowly taking in his surroundings. He then blinked awkwardly at the data finally reaching his cerebellum.
"Hello, Tobias. I took the liberty of healing your internal injuries from the attack, but unfortunately, I could not apply an anesthetic without compromising your recovery from the concussion you suffered," Sara said brightly, standing primly in the center of the Seraphim's bridge. It was a circular affair, modeled after a submarine, with a captain's chair in the center of it all. The primary view port was directly forward, with control consoles, monitors, and view screens elegantly arranged within the curve of the chamber.
"Ah… I see… Good… Where are we?" Sara's eyes moved to the side, as though she were trying to recall an obscure item on a shopping list, before her gaze shifted back to her creator.
"Roughly twenty light-years from the remains of the station. I scanned the wreckage for survivors, but I was unable to find any. I felt it was best to leave the area in case additional Martian forces were on their way."
"So… Martians attacked the station?"
"Yes. They were apparently attempting to capture me." Sara tilted her head thoughtfully, an action Tobias himself had programmed into the AI construct, as he thought it was the most darling expression he'd ever seen.
"Well, it's little wonder," Talon noted dryly, the pain of his injuries still there, but faded enough for him to talk without feeling sick as a dog.
"I concur. I have therefore decided to plot a course for Protectorate territory and get out of harm's way."
"Good, good…" Tobias felt a bit drowsy, which he absently thought about as rather odd, considering he'd been unconscious for… how long? He tried shaking his head, but felt dulled and slowed.
"There were no stocks of artificial plasma onboard," Sara said, a sad expression upon her face, as she bent down and placed her hands on top of his. "And you lost a great deal of blood."
"… Great…" Tobias groaned, his head feeling like a helium balloon. He'd never actually noticed it before, but Sara had a dimple in her right cheek.
I didn't make that… Some jerk must have put it in while I wasn't looking…
"Tobias. You are going to have to keep talking to me. You must remain conscious until we reach a Protectorate station," Sara said firmly.
"Why… Didn't you… Tell me… Before?" Tobias murmured.
"I believe you didn't ask. But, in any event, we must keep you talking."
I didn't program that cliché into her… I bet it was that jerk… What was his name… Bookworm? Gah, that spineless little-
"Tobias. Talk. Anything you can think of."
"… Ohhh… You know, my lab assistant, Bookworm?"
"Yes… I do."
"He was a jerk. Kept changing the parameters for your personality matrix, physical form… He said you should be blonde, when I said you should have violet hair."
"Keep going, Tobias. What else?"
"… He kept changing your measurements. I told him, 36 by 34 by 28 is not realistic, and will just make her a…um… Porn star. Yuck… He said it wasn't a problem, and besides, Protectorate captains need something nice to look at… I told him he was being a pervert. He said I was a prude."
"Why didn't you want me to be like that, Tobias?" Sara asked, laying him down on the deck, and propping his feet up with a med kit. Tobias blinked.
"Because I was styling you after my mom… Except for the violet hair… I like violet hair… It's a nice look. And my mom didn't have a huge bust… Well, not until she was older, but she was forty then, and a little overweight, but that was okay." Sara nodded, laying her hand on her creator's chest and monitoring his vital signs.
"All right, Tobias… Keep talking. First things that come to your mind."
"You know what's great? Mustard… I love mustard… Especially on pepperoni, wrapped in spinach leaves…"
"Very good, Tobias. What else do you like about mustard?"
"… It's yellow… And I like yellow…"
"Great… We rush all the way here, nearly blowing our engines doing so, and they're all dead. Some gratitude, eh Cadet?" It was times like these that the Eager Young Space Cadet couldn't tell whether or not Captain Dodgers was joking. It was also one of these times that he always sincerely hoped that he was.
"Er… Yes, Captain," the Cadet replied, sighing in a melancholy way. He'd run the scans six times, and there were no survivors. Dodgers tapped his bill, narrowing his eyes.
"All right then, Cadet… What can you tell me about the debris?"
"M-m-most of it's from the station… And I'm r-reading the r-remains of a-a Martian atta-atta-atta-er, strike cruiser." Dodgers tiled his head curiously.
"Hm… Did someone get here before us and take them out?"
"Uh, n-no, sir, we'd be p-p-picking up m-more ions from their en-engines."
"So, who toasted the Martian ship?" Dodgers asked, somewhat irritated. The Cadet ran a few more scans.
"It was f-from a 663 mi-mi-millimeter particle cannon, sir, based on the bl-blast radius shown by the debris." Dodgers raised an eyebrow.
"That's… A whole lot bigger than our guns, right?" The Cadet nodded.
"With a proportionate energy source, th-that's fifty times m-more powerful than our ma-ma-main guns, Captain." Dodgers winced at the memory of his using the main guns of the Drake to carve out "DUCK DODGERS RULES!" on the surface of a moon, which left the Drake powerless and disabled. With that much power…
"Say… I could write my name on the surface of that Dyson Sphere we found a few weeks ago," the captain muttered to himself. The Cadet blinked.
"Sir?"
"What? Oh, never mind… Say, this station's for experimental, top secret type… Stuff, correct?"
"Er, I think th-that's what IQ said, sir."
"And there's no evidence to support the idea that someone from outside blew up the Martian ship, right?"
"Yes sir."
"And… Is there anything in the debris of that station that could have blown up that ship?" Pressed Dodgers.
"No sir, there is-isn't…" The EYS Cadet was suddenly struck by a thought.
"S-Sir, are you p-pondering what I'm p-pondering?"
"I think so, Cadet… But could you really turn Jupiter into a star by wishing about it?" The Cadet blinked, before rolling his eyes in exasperation.
"Um, no sir… Wh-what I was thinking, was that an experimental starship blew up the Martian ship, from the station."
"Really? Man, I would have never guessed that…" Mused Dodgers, while the Cadet groaned inwardly. The communications signal began blinking on the view screen, and Dodgers (having duct-taped the remote to his chair) tapped it. The visage of a green worm wearing glasses and a tie appeared, while Dodger's eyes grew wide.
"WAH! It's a slimy alien space creature! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!" The Cadet's eyes grew very large indeed, but for a different reason.
"Uh, sir! Captain? That's Professor Bookworm. He's on our side, sir." Dodgers stopped his panicking, before looking up at the screen at the now annoyed-looking worm.
"Er… Sorry about that… Professor," Dodgers soothed. The worm snorted.
"I was expecting to have to deal with the likes of you, Captain Dodgers. Military personnel, feeling they're so above the rest of us hard-working, decent lifeforms," the professor groused. "Captain Lancer, of the Jones, seems to be very much the same way, only taking on my precious Fifi when she was ordered to."
In the background of the camera, on what was presumably the bridge of the Jones, a number of exhausted-looking crewmembers were apparently trying to reign in a huge, white, snarling beast. It was only under further examination that Dodgers figured out that the creature was a dog.
"Er… Yeah, I see, Professor-"
"That's sir, to you, Captain Dodgers," Bookworm ordered. An image popped up upon the screen, that of a large, long, sleek starship. The most beautiful thing that either had seen in their lives. Dodger's jaw dropped to the floor at the sight, along with the Cadet's.
"This is the Starship Seraphim, an experimental, all-purpose space cruiser under construction at this very yard," Bookworm said, as statistics ran on the screen underneath the visual. "It has been stolen, and it is our mission to recover it. As one of the individuals who worked upon it, I am best suited to track it down. Now, the Seraphim has…"
Prof. Bookworm's speech went on in the background, as the Captain and the Cadet read the details of the marvelous ship before them hungrily.
A fully graviton-based intertial-less drive system for normal space, wow, thought the Cadet.
A full lounge with 360 degree holographic entertainment system, sa-weet, drooled Dodgers.
Quantum-war headed missile turrets…
Professional robotic cooking staff…
Transpectral sensor arrays…
A Jacuzzi for the officers…
"GENTLEMEN!" Both Dodgers and the Cadet were roused from their admiration with a jolt. Bookworm looked upon the two with disdain.
"Excuse me, but I believe we have a ship to locate! Now, it is obvious that it has been hijacked. We are to find and destroy (if necessary), the Seraphim. The Jones and the Drake, together, will probably not have enough firepower to deal with such a powerful ship in a straight-away battle."
"So, er… if we can't defeat it… Why are we going after it?" Dodgers inquired.
"Because, hopefully, we can reason with the hijackers. I have with me, seven hundred and fifty million space dollars. It should be enough to lure the hijackers into a false sense of security. Then, when the Seraphim drops it's shields, we destroy her!"
"Um.. Doesn't that, you know… Kind of go against the whole 'recover' part of your plan?" Bookworm puffed up to his full four-inch height.
"It is for me to decide whether or not the ship is to be destroyed or not, not yours. Now, just-HEY! WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS DO-?!" The transmission was abruptly cut off. Both Captain and Cadet looked at each other, then out the view port.
The Jones was a Barbara-class heavy cruiser, one of the biggest, most powerful vessels in the Protectorate fleet.It was the space-borne equivalent of an F-15: The biggest, the best, and the most prestigious in it's class.
It was currently tilting drunkenly on it's axis, it's stabilizing thruster systems flaring violently, in order to correct the ship's radically fluctuating pitch. The Cadet and Dodgers looked at each other once again, before sharing a simultaneous sigh.
"Cadet, why don't we try to track the Seraphim, while the Jones is… Ya know… Busy?"
"Sir? You want to take the initiative on a mission?"
"You want to listen to that worm for a second round?"
"Ah-ah, point taken, sir. Scanning…"
I guess I lied. About the whole "one-to-two-shot" thing. I'm planning on extending this story out to five chapters, out of sheer boredom. Enjoy!
