Britz-Moonbeam's been released on the Universe folks, poor Universe.
Chapter Eleven
Dave turned away from Richie's body and to the kid and woman who survived, "Luuucy, you gots some 'splanins to doooo!" and laughed, ignoring the blood splatter on his kingcobra as he slipped it back in his shoulder holster.
"Like what?" Asked the guy, he was sweating bullets.
"Like why are you here for a start, this is supposed to be alien first contact." Rachel asked, the M16 hung casually by her side and both the prisoners' eyes were drawn to it.
"It isn't, we've been invading for years." the kid finally stuttered under the posses hard stare, the woman looked mad as hell.
"You what?" Moonbeam asked, "I ain't noticed you flying about blowing up national monuments like procedure dictates."
The kid looked confused but after a moment of self-consultation he continued, "Us, the Yeerks, have been invading in secret."
"Why do you look human if you're, Yeerks?" Taz asked, "What are you like the fuckin pod people?"
"Not...quite." Said the woman.
Moonbeam was reaching for the hilt of his colt when a light started blinking at the kids station with an annoying beeping noise, the kid turned to it almost automatically, punched at an alien keyboard and a picture of outside the ship cropped up, alien fighters were on their way.
"Squadron of Bug Fighters approaching." the kid said.
"Yippie-kay-yay!" Moonbeam shouted, taking the steering console again, "Saddle-up and hold onto your asses people!"
The posse took seats around the bridge, shoving bodies off their seats and letting them fall like sacks of potatoes to the floor.
The Blade Ship jerked forward violently and blazed towards the 'Bug fighters', Moonbeam thought the name-sake was suitable now he thought about it, Siggs manage to take out two of them as they turned for a head-on attack, more from their surprise and close grouping then anything else.
There was still at least ten left, Moonbeam blazed through the midst of them, Siggs shot down another one but they were taking hits from all sides.
"Put up the damn shields!" Yelled Moonbeam at the Yeerks, not even sure they had such a thing.
"Shields up" a mechanical voice droned.
"That's refreshing," muttered Moonbeam, "You two might be about to live out your usefulness!"
"There's another weapons station open here!" Yelled Siggs, Rachel gingerly leapt over Richie's body and took it, sending a stream of blazing red lasers into space as she grabbed the controls.
Even with shields up the ship jolted back and forth from laser blasts, Rachel and Siggs fired, another Bug bit the dust, a burst of semi-automatic fire came from the doorway, someone or something down the hall fired back, Roach yelled in pain, "Damnit, I thought we got all the sonsabitches!" He returned fired and something mirrored his pained yell.
The red planet rushed by, it was amazing the speed they were travelling, it took space cruisers over a day to get from Earth to the colonies on Mars, "Where did the Bug ships come from?" He yelled.
"There are Pool Ships waiting outside the system." The woman replied, she didn't seem scared, more like she was biding her time, staying alive so she'd have time to strike and take them all out. Not good.
"Where abouts?" Moonbeam asked.
"Uhh," murmured the guy, the other Yeerk gave him a subtle nod, "Coordinates 378z 2908p 514t."
I'm gonna take that as 'thisaway'." Yelled Dave and continued on the way he assumed the fighters had come.
"They're hiding in the shadow of the ninth planet," said the woman helpfully but with a glitter of dark thoughts in her eyes.
More jolts back and forth, Siggs and Rachel took out all but three fighters and the big ball of ice that was Pluto appeared on the main screen, they'd got to the edge of the system in a little over five minutes, the fruitless mission ship sent this far by mankind had taken many months.
Another fighter blew courtesy of Rachel, Moonbeam going at speeds human scientists could only dream of rounded the ninth planet, and there the invasion ships were, three of them, like gigantic bloated jellyfish.
The main body was a huge sphere that was flatter at the bottom, like a basketball slowly deflating, around it were three legs, bent up then tucked back down like those of an obscene three-legged spider, hanging below were tentacles, each at least a quarter of a mile long.
It looked like a giant madman's jellyfish so where was it's sting? "Fuck the fighters! Go for the big daddy's!" Dave yelled to his motley crew.
A screen sprung to life not far from Taz, a lizard-creature's face appeared "In the name of the Yeerk Empire I demand to know who is piloting this ship!"
Moonbeam pressed a button he assumed was an intercom, the face appeared on one of the smaller screens in front of him, "It's your worst nightmare bitch."
The lizard looked taken back and flustered, "Stop your offensive immediately or you will be destroyed!"
"You wanna destroy me?" Moonbeam asked, "Roll the dice and take your chances." A Jack Nicholson impression flared through both his voice and crazed eyes and he switched off the communications channel.
"Boring conversation anyway." He muttered. "Balls to the wall people!" Ironically the only two controlling the craft other than him came without that anatomy attachment, which ran through his mind as he spoke, causing a secretive smile.
Through concentrated fire power one of the legs of the closest Pool ship blew off, the huge ship started limping away but Rachel and Siggs kept firing, the ship still rocked back and forth from the agile Bug Fighters.
The Pool Ships started blasting, going wide at first but getting closer and the Yeerk woman made her move, she lunged forwards and pulled a dial on her station, 'Shields down.' announced the ships computer, it seemed to almost have a note of boredom about this turn of events in it's mechanical voice.
The space around the ship turned red and they went spinning through space, Taz, wasting no time, he shot the woman three times in the back, shredding her internal organs, blood on the shield control station as she collapsed to the ground.
The Yeerk guy shrieked shrilly as they were tossed back and forth as the laser blasts, each powerful enough to turn a house into an ashy crater, pounded the ship mercilessly. Roach was thrown from the doorway, his right shoulder, already bleeding profusely from a Yeerk's gun banged against the deck and blood spurted, "Shields up!" he still managed to yell through a pained grimace.
The screens cleared, they were under the wounded Pool Ship, dodging tendrils, a fighter following had no such luck and spun into one, blowing itself and the tendril to shreds, the other Pool Ships quit firing to avoid hitting their own.
"Blast it!" Dave yelled to Siggs and Rach as they got up and back to their chairs, they swivelled the guns to the belly of the huge ship and fired as Moonbeam dodged and weaved.
They flew out from under as the legs, almost in sync blew apart, licks of flame fired into the coldness of space, cracks like an earthquake in a B-movie thriller formed over the main body, air was sucked out along with various debris and the occasional Yeerk creature before the whole damn thing blew like every Hollywood alien space craft before it.
The blast wave rattled the Blade Ship for a moment, only one fighter got away in time and while caught in a brief spin from the blast was cleaned up by Siggs.
The posse cheered, the Yeerk looked horrified, huddled in a corner. "That's one down." Dave said solemnly.
"You can't be serious sugah." Siggs' southern accent drawled, he just looked at her, "Damn you are serious."
Moonbeam swung the ship around and went in for another pass; the Pool Ship's weren't firing, not yet, without turning his head he called to the kid, "Yeerk! This thing have like, warp drive or whatever?"
The kid seemed to get the Star Trek reference without problem; it struck Dave as strange that an alien would but now wasn't the time to give a shit.
"It-it has Z-space drive, that's what you want." The Yeerk told him.
"If you say so kid, fire it up for a quick get away." Moonbeam told him.
The Yeerk was torn, all the posse could see it, unlike his dead compadre, with her suicidal bravery to stop them, he was afraid to die and terrified of Moonbeam himself, they'd seen the same look in Richie's eyes many times before that one final spark of rebellion. "I'll, umm, I'll, where do you want the coordinates? To go, where do you want to go?"
Laser blasts started slamming the shields, rocking the Blade Ship like a rowboat in heavy seas but this was not what took Moonbeam's attention, he turned very deliberately to the Yeerk, "Gee I dunno." He remarked scathingly sarcastic, "Where's nice this time of year?"
"I'll, I'll set the cords myself." The kid replied nervously.
Rachel and Siggs started shooting, "Good decision kid." Moonbeam said and turned back to the controls.
Gaining lunatic confidence from his little experience Moonbeam pulled in terrifyingly close to the second Pool Ship, the girls scorched the surface with lasers blasts, one shot burst through and what looked like dirty water came spurting out and turning to crystal with an otherworldly beauty, Dave wondered briefly what so much water was doing in a space ship, but then it was a POOL Ship, maybe they'd just blasted through to a giant alien hot-tub.
A squadron of Bug Fighters appeared behind them, the Pool ship had given up taking shots for fear of friendly fire, the fighters didn't mind, they were causing almost as much damage to the ship as the posse was.
Dave swung around a leg of the ship and a badly piloted fighter ran into it, Rachel and Siggs concentrated their fire on the leg; another couple of Bug's got in the way and were demolished.
The leg blew apart, the Blade Ship was caught in the outskirts of the blast, the shield station started blaring warning, they spun through space, a blast from the other Pool Ship caught them sending them into even worse a spin, the station blared louder.
"Shields are down, Shields down!" Screamed the Yeerk in terror.
"Prepare for z-speed." Moonbeam told him as he righted the ship.
"The lever!" Yelled the Yeerk, "You gotta pull that lever!"
"One last pass ladies." Moonbeam said.
The Blade Ship blazed up the side of the second Pool Ship, the third, not intent with one shot kept shooting, they were getting closer but the damage went to the dying Pool Ship, blowing huge holes in their own, Moonbeam was vaguely aware that one of those laser blasts could blow them all back to Hell without the shields.
Siggs and Rachel shot burning holes all up the side of the Pool ship and as a final gesture left the top of the sphere, which they hoped was the bridge, no more than a smoking crater.
Moonbeam yanked the lever down, the relatively small planet Pluto grew huge in the main screen before the entire universe turned to white.
***To Be Continued***
Britz-Where to now folks? Well, I already know and hell so does CB, but I'll let you find out for yourselves, I'm begging for reviews here, I won't bribe cause it's kind of empty, I got so many chaps written the next will be up in days whatever I get, but I'm still begging, that should be enough.
Chapter Eleven
Dave turned away from Richie's body and to the kid and woman who survived, "Luuucy, you gots some 'splanins to doooo!" and laughed, ignoring the blood splatter on his kingcobra as he slipped it back in his shoulder holster.
"Like what?" Asked the guy, he was sweating bullets.
"Like why are you here for a start, this is supposed to be alien first contact." Rachel asked, the M16 hung casually by her side and both the prisoners' eyes were drawn to it.
"It isn't, we've been invading for years." the kid finally stuttered under the posses hard stare, the woman looked mad as hell.
"You what?" Moonbeam asked, "I ain't noticed you flying about blowing up national monuments like procedure dictates."
The kid looked confused but after a moment of self-consultation he continued, "Us, the Yeerks, have been invading in secret."
"Why do you look human if you're, Yeerks?" Taz asked, "What are you like the fuckin pod people?"
"Not...quite." Said the woman.
Moonbeam was reaching for the hilt of his colt when a light started blinking at the kids station with an annoying beeping noise, the kid turned to it almost automatically, punched at an alien keyboard and a picture of outside the ship cropped up, alien fighters were on their way.
"Squadron of Bug Fighters approaching." the kid said.
"Yippie-kay-yay!" Moonbeam shouted, taking the steering console again, "Saddle-up and hold onto your asses people!"
The posse took seats around the bridge, shoving bodies off their seats and letting them fall like sacks of potatoes to the floor.
The Blade Ship jerked forward violently and blazed towards the 'Bug fighters', Moonbeam thought the name-sake was suitable now he thought about it, Siggs manage to take out two of them as they turned for a head-on attack, more from their surprise and close grouping then anything else.
There was still at least ten left, Moonbeam blazed through the midst of them, Siggs shot down another one but they were taking hits from all sides.
"Put up the damn shields!" Yelled Moonbeam at the Yeerks, not even sure they had such a thing.
"Shields up" a mechanical voice droned.
"That's refreshing," muttered Moonbeam, "You two might be about to live out your usefulness!"
"There's another weapons station open here!" Yelled Siggs, Rachel gingerly leapt over Richie's body and took it, sending a stream of blazing red lasers into space as she grabbed the controls.
Even with shields up the ship jolted back and forth from laser blasts, Rachel and Siggs fired, another Bug bit the dust, a burst of semi-automatic fire came from the doorway, someone or something down the hall fired back, Roach yelled in pain, "Damnit, I thought we got all the sonsabitches!" He returned fired and something mirrored his pained yell.
The red planet rushed by, it was amazing the speed they were travelling, it took space cruisers over a day to get from Earth to the colonies on Mars, "Where did the Bug ships come from?" He yelled.
"There are Pool Ships waiting outside the system." The woman replied, she didn't seem scared, more like she was biding her time, staying alive so she'd have time to strike and take them all out. Not good.
"Where abouts?" Moonbeam asked.
"Uhh," murmured the guy, the other Yeerk gave him a subtle nod, "Coordinates 378z 2908p 514t."
I'm gonna take that as 'thisaway'." Yelled Dave and continued on the way he assumed the fighters had come.
"They're hiding in the shadow of the ninth planet," said the woman helpfully but with a glitter of dark thoughts in her eyes.
More jolts back and forth, Siggs and Rachel took out all but three fighters and the big ball of ice that was Pluto appeared on the main screen, they'd got to the edge of the system in a little over five minutes, the fruitless mission ship sent this far by mankind had taken many months.
Another fighter blew courtesy of Rachel, Moonbeam going at speeds human scientists could only dream of rounded the ninth planet, and there the invasion ships were, three of them, like gigantic bloated jellyfish.
The main body was a huge sphere that was flatter at the bottom, like a basketball slowly deflating, around it were three legs, bent up then tucked back down like those of an obscene three-legged spider, hanging below were tentacles, each at least a quarter of a mile long.
It looked like a giant madman's jellyfish so where was it's sting? "Fuck the fighters! Go for the big daddy's!" Dave yelled to his motley crew.
A screen sprung to life not far from Taz, a lizard-creature's face appeared "In the name of the Yeerk Empire I demand to know who is piloting this ship!"
Moonbeam pressed a button he assumed was an intercom, the face appeared on one of the smaller screens in front of him, "It's your worst nightmare bitch."
The lizard looked taken back and flustered, "Stop your offensive immediately or you will be destroyed!"
"You wanna destroy me?" Moonbeam asked, "Roll the dice and take your chances." A Jack Nicholson impression flared through both his voice and crazed eyes and he switched off the communications channel.
"Boring conversation anyway." He muttered. "Balls to the wall people!" Ironically the only two controlling the craft other than him came without that anatomy attachment, which ran through his mind as he spoke, causing a secretive smile.
Through concentrated fire power one of the legs of the closest Pool ship blew off, the huge ship started limping away but Rachel and Siggs kept firing, the ship still rocked back and forth from the agile Bug Fighters.
The Pool Ships started blasting, going wide at first but getting closer and the Yeerk woman made her move, she lunged forwards and pulled a dial on her station, 'Shields down.' announced the ships computer, it seemed to almost have a note of boredom about this turn of events in it's mechanical voice.
The space around the ship turned red and they went spinning through space, Taz, wasting no time, he shot the woman three times in the back, shredding her internal organs, blood on the shield control station as she collapsed to the ground.
The Yeerk guy shrieked shrilly as they were tossed back and forth as the laser blasts, each powerful enough to turn a house into an ashy crater, pounded the ship mercilessly. Roach was thrown from the doorway, his right shoulder, already bleeding profusely from a Yeerk's gun banged against the deck and blood spurted, "Shields up!" he still managed to yell through a pained grimace.
The screens cleared, they were under the wounded Pool Ship, dodging tendrils, a fighter following had no such luck and spun into one, blowing itself and the tendril to shreds, the other Pool Ships quit firing to avoid hitting their own.
"Blast it!" Dave yelled to Siggs and Rach as they got up and back to their chairs, they swivelled the guns to the belly of the huge ship and fired as Moonbeam dodged and weaved.
They flew out from under as the legs, almost in sync blew apart, licks of flame fired into the coldness of space, cracks like an earthquake in a B-movie thriller formed over the main body, air was sucked out along with various debris and the occasional Yeerk creature before the whole damn thing blew like every Hollywood alien space craft before it.
The blast wave rattled the Blade Ship for a moment, only one fighter got away in time and while caught in a brief spin from the blast was cleaned up by Siggs.
The posse cheered, the Yeerk looked horrified, huddled in a corner. "That's one down." Dave said solemnly.
"You can't be serious sugah." Siggs' southern accent drawled, he just looked at her, "Damn you are serious."
Moonbeam swung the ship around and went in for another pass; the Pool Ship's weren't firing, not yet, without turning his head he called to the kid, "Yeerk! This thing have like, warp drive or whatever?"
The kid seemed to get the Star Trek reference without problem; it struck Dave as strange that an alien would but now wasn't the time to give a shit.
"It-it has Z-space drive, that's what you want." The Yeerk told him.
"If you say so kid, fire it up for a quick get away." Moonbeam told him.
The Yeerk was torn, all the posse could see it, unlike his dead compadre, with her suicidal bravery to stop them, he was afraid to die and terrified of Moonbeam himself, they'd seen the same look in Richie's eyes many times before that one final spark of rebellion. "I'll, umm, I'll, where do you want the coordinates? To go, where do you want to go?"
Laser blasts started slamming the shields, rocking the Blade Ship like a rowboat in heavy seas but this was not what took Moonbeam's attention, he turned very deliberately to the Yeerk, "Gee I dunno." He remarked scathingly sarcastic, "Where's nice this time of year?"
"I'll, I'll set the cords myself." The kid replied nervously.
Rachel and Siggs started shooting, "Good decision kid." Moonbeam said and turned back to the controls.
Gaining lunatic confidence from his little experience Moonbeam pulled in terrifyingly close to the second Pool Ship, the girls scorched the surface with lasers blasts, one shot burst through and what looked like dirty water came spurting out and turning to crystal with an otherworldly beauty, Dave wondered briefly what so much water was doing in a space ship, but then it was a POOL Ship, maybe they'd just blasted through to a giant alien hot-tub.
A squadron of Bug Fighters appeared behind them, the Pool ship had given up taking shots for fear of friendly fire, the fighters didn't mind, they were causing almost as much damage to the ship as the posse was.
Dave swung around a leg of the ship and a badly piloted fighter ran into it, Rachel and Siggs concentrated their fire on the leg; another couple of Bug's got in the way and were demolished.
The leg blew apart, the Blade Ship was caught in the outskirts of the blast, the shield station started blaring warning, they spun through space, a blast from the other Pool Ship caught them sending them into even worse a spin, the station blared louder.
"Shields are down, Shields down!" Screamed the Yeerk in terror.
"Prepare for z-speed." Moonbeam told him as he righted the ship.
"The lever!" Yelled the Yeerk, "You gotta pull that lever!"
"One last pass ladies." Moonbeam said.
The Blade Ship blazed up the side of the second Pool Ship, the third, not intent with one shot kept shooting, they were getting closer but the damage went to the dying Pool Ship, blowing huge holes in their own, Moonbeam was vaguely aware that one of those laser blasts could blow them all back to Hell without the shields.
Siggs and Rachel shot burning holes all up the side of the Pool ship and as a final gesture left the top of the sphere, which they hoped was the bridge, no more than a smoking crater.
Moonbeam yanked the lever down, the relatively small planet Pluto grew huge in the main screen before the entire universe turned to white.
***To Be Continued***
Britz-Where to now folks? Well, I already know and hell so does CB, but I'll let you find out for yourselves, I'm begging for reviews here, I won't bribe cause it's kind of empty, I got so many chaps written the next will be up in days whatever I get, but I'm still begging, that should be enough.