Review Responses
To Ovni: I think you're overestimating today's technology. What I described, a system that can perfectly target and wipe out a volley of torpedoes, missiles, planes, subs, or ships from a distance of one quarter the length of the pacific ocean, is so far beyond anything we have today that there's no way anyone could possibly hope to beat something like that anywhere within the next fifty years.
To Bluefox Gantu's Lover and Mate: You haven't reviewed the last four items I submitted. Are you dead? I'm just wondering.
Outside the bonfire still raged on. Outside the crowd still cheered blindly for their heroes, those the emperor had chosen to be his ambassadors to the public, Gantu, and his chosen children. Outside they were keeping the crowd as loud as they could with stereotypical nationalistic speeches written on the fly by Emperor 626 earlier in the week.
Inside was far quieter. Inside, Emperor 626 could hear the roaring of the crowd and the speeches of his put ups as only a faint undertone, easily drowned out by the automatic piano on the other side of the bathroom playing Beethoven's Sonatina in G major.
The bathroom looked more superfluously expensive than most presidential suits at five star hotels. It was all a huge dome what must've been forty feet across and twenty five feet high. The floors were slabs of a sold black rock polished to a mirror surface and inlaid with gold floral designs the likes of which you may find on the back of a dollar bill. The walls were no less ornate. The polished black stone with its gold inlays rose from wooden floor trimmings five feet before stopping at another wooden trimming. Beyond that was white ceramic beams extending to the tip of the dome. Carved into them were all depictions of Emperor 626 himself as a four-winged angel in flowing white robes wielding swords, reading books, and cradling children. Between these beams were what looked to be stained glass, once again depicting the emperor, but this time in gold robes, using gold paint, as some kind of middle-eastish messiah, but leading the oppressed masses of pacific islanders in their traditional grassy and twine cloth garbs, none of which were truly accurate representations of any traditional outfit of any pacific island. What they really were, were three inch thick diamond manufactured from within Pyramid Labs.
Only the central twenty feet of the bathroom was usable, as only the central twenty feet was paved in the walkable black stone. Ten feet out from the wall was a hilly garden of all kinds of Hawaiian plants from big leafy bushes, to water plants in tiny ponds and streams, to mosses covering small boulders, to extra small, but not quite bonzaid versions of a dozen Hawaiian trees, and bamboo.
There were only three things in the usable portion of the bathroom. There was the automatic baby grand piano of stained red cherry. A three tiered clay fountain opposite the piano could be used for washing hands of getting a drink as the water was filtered. Finally, opposite the stone bridge to the door, there was the huge walk in tub line on the inside with the polished black rock of the floor, but without any gold, so as to make it as smooth as possible.
Emperor 626 stood up unclothed in the tub with one foot of warm water upon his two and a half feet of height. His eyes closed in total relaxation and his top right hand waves about slowly to the music of the automatic piano. This would've been a curiosity only to Lilo and Stitch, as only they knew Stitch detested being wet, but the emperor seemed to be completely at ease with it. Though one might understand it, being what the emperor currently looked like couldn't be pleasant.
Surrounding the tub were three of the emperor's blue skinned, pointy eared soldiers. These ones were dressed in plain white gees and matching pants, and had braided pony tails flowing half way down their shoulders.
On their knees and just barely able to lean over the tub, they busily scrubbed and rinsed away at the emperor's blackened fur to get off all the suit stained within.
The third sat on the rim of the tub and lowered down a silver platter to the emperor whenever the emperor looked at him. Upon the servant's removing the lid of the platter, Emperor 626 would find mounds of coconut strips, cored, sliced, and then toasted pineapple, and strips of Hawaiian beef brisket for him to pick as finger food.
The automatic door slid open and a fourth servant entered carrying a second silver platter. He sat down on the rim of the tub opposite the servant with the platter of finger food, opened the platter and set the lid on the floor.
This platter was much less decorated than the first. It only had two items on it. They were two bamboo cups, one had a diagonally cut top and was the size of a pitcher, the other was like a shot glass. From the larger cup, the servant poured steaming Sake into the smaller, and handed it to the emperor, who downed it in less than a second, and came to shivering his back only slightly at the feeling of the Sake running down his throat, slowly giving back the voice that was taken from him in his display of permanence against fire.
Emperor 626 handed his cup back to the servant, who swiftly refilled it and handed it back. The emperor inhaled deeply the scent of the Sake before putting the cup to his lips, but before he could turn the cup to pour it down his throat, the automatic door opened again, and two more of his blue minions walked into the room.
This was a bit startling to Emperor 626, and a bit confusing as well. These ones were soldiers, he could tell because they were bald, and dressed in the black skin found beneath a soldier's armor.
They both knelt before him as they approached. One rose and spoke.
"Your highness. Communications observations within Pyramid Labs has found that your facsimile and an infant human girl have penetrated Pyramid Labs defense and are freely roaming about inside. Comparisons show this to be the same girl we found in during our raid of the rebel hideout on Kauai a little under a month ago."
Emperor 626 stared at the soldier blankly for a few seconds. The soldier stared right back. The emperor blinked twice before regaining his composure.
In his hoarse and raspy voice, Emperor 626 replied in only a whisper. "Why didn't the biometrics detect this earlier?"
"It would seem your highness, that your facsimile has your biometric signatures on top of your appearance."
The emperor drank his second cup of Sake and turned his head away deep in thought. His servants continued their washing and feeding as if oblivious to what was happening.
"With your permission your highness," the soldier asked, "we would like clearance for eight squads to enter Pyramid Labs and look for them."
Emperor 626 handed his cup back to the servant on his left and turned toward the soldier smiling.
"Lower your face to mine." The emperor ordered.
The soldier did as he was told.
With the flash of a movement, the emperor drove his hand, claws extended, straight through the throat of the soldier in front of him. It was done so quickly that not a movement or a sound was made by the soldier except for the vhirscht of the hand chopping through muscle, bone, and spinal cord.
The soldier dropped to the floor when the emperor pulled his hand back out, and the servants were quick to take the hand and wash away the blood.
The second soldier, seeing the first one dead on the floor from the corner of his eye, at last rose to speak to the emperor himself.
"See to it that the flaw in that one is found." The emperor whispered without looking at the second soldier. "And see to it that all others who carry that flaw are destroyed."
"Yes your highness." The soldier responded with a slight bow. "About the intrusion at Pyramid Labs."
"Place three squads at every exit and wait for them."
"Yes your highness." The soldier said with another bow.
He then left, carrying the dead soldier on his back.
The servants continued washing Emperor 626. He was handed another cup of Sake and drank it a bit more slowly than the last two times. The automatic piano finished playing its song and paused for a few seconds before starting up on Tchaikovsky's the Seasons, January.
The plain hallway was much like the last one, which was much like the one before that, and so on. Always square, ten feet on a side, with a single rail of full spectrum track lighting on the ceiling. At every intersection of four hallways, Lilo and Stitch would find a camera panning around in the gap in the track lighting directly in the center of the intersection.
"We've been wondering forever." Lilo whispered.
Stitch gave no reaction.
They haven't really been wondering forever, but close enough. They'd been at this, trying to find a way out for at least a half hour, maybe forty five minutes. It was hart to tell even for Stitch, not even he was built to be a living clock. Though he could if he tried, he gave up at twenty four minutes, seventeen point six one seconds.
For a time they tried their luck in the air shafts. No luck there, the ventilation systems inside the Great Pyramid were at least five times as complicated as the hallways.
Another defense against air vent intruders, thought Stitch.
The change of steel to copper color in the shape of an eight foot vertical rectangle with curved edges was the only thing giving away the presence of a door. There wasn't even a line; it was built that perfectly.
Lilo stopped to look at the door, though Stitch kept going.
"Let's try this one!" Lilo shouted out.
"Naga open." Stitch replied as he continued along, not even looking back at Lilo.
"How do you know!"
Stitch stopped and sighed. "Naga open. No other door open."
"Well just try it OK?"
Stitch took a deep breath and quickly tensed and relaxed his shoulders. "Okeytaka." He said with the feeling of tedium.
Stitch turned around and walked up to the door. Nothing happened.
"See." Stitch said in kind of a grumble. "Naga open. Let's go."
"Well maybe you could break it."
Break it? Break it! Why the hell didn't I think of that before!
Stitch slapped his face at his stupidity and dragged his claw down till it fell off his chin.
As soon as he recovered, Stitch did not hesitate to plunge his claws into the doorway and tear it off. It took quite a while, as tearing off a door so much bigger than you were took that long no matter how strong you were, or else you might simply tear a small hole in it.
The noise was horrific. It was like a combination of a tree splintering and a rake being dragged across a chalkboard, the volume magnified ten fold. Lilo dropped to the floor and held her ears as soon as she began to hear this. Even through her fingers, it was painful enough to make her grit her teeth.
To Stitch's ears this was even worse. He swore that blood would drip from his ears at any moment of he kept it up, but he kept it up. He kept it up until the door was held above his head and ready to be thrown across the room, and it was.
Lilo slowly lifted herself to her feet and stumbled her way to Stitch, finally catching his attention when she fell over his shoulder.
"Soka…" Stitch whispered with his ears hanging down.
Lilo at last regained her composure and shook her head. They walked into the room side by side.
It was identical, at least in blueprints, to the organic alkaline lab that they had found Jumba in. In the center was four large black boxes, almost as tall as the ceiling, with grooves, slots and plugs to be found almost everywhere in them, and indeed wires littered the floor connecting them to each other, and to more of these boxes along the walls, and to tables with monitors and keyboards of some strange design. This must've been a computer lab.
They walked inside slowly, as if expecting something to attack them at any moment, even though they knew nothing would. For a few minutes they stood there doing nothing, just staring.
Lilo sneezed.
It seemed only to take only that to give them the impetus to go further into the computer lab. Stitch took the route sideways and explored along the edg of the room while Lilo simply kept walking along slowly. She turned around and walked backward thinking she would get a better view of the room, but ended up tripping over a bundle of wire taped to the floor.
As soon as Lilo opened her eyes, Stitch was right beside her. She flashed him a faint smile before getting back up and turning around to see what kind of hard thing it was that she landed against.
It was round, it was steel, it was about the size of a basketball, it had a circular plate cut out where tinted glass was fit in, it was floating about a foot off the ground, and it wasn't there a minute ago.
"It's another one of those… things." Lilo whispered, and then louder, "Tell it to lead us out of here."
Stitch quickly got between Lilo and the orb and faced it. Stitch cleared his throat briefly.
"Kawani miki boocha."
The orb made a whirring sound and then several clicks and then, nothing.
Stitch lowered he ears at that, but remembered then the last one of these things they encountered spoke English.
"Me and Lilo want out."
Again, the whirring and then clicking, and then nothing.
"What's wrong with it?" Lilo asked.
"Naga nota." Stitch responded, shaking his head.
"Let's just go this isn't the way out."
"Ih."
Lilo and Stitch tuned around and walked out of the lab, but a strange feeling made them turn back around. The floating orb was still behind them. It was following them.
"Stitch, make it go away." Lilo said in a slightly nagging voice, though anyone perceptive enough would realize it was mainly a voice of fear.
"Leave us alone!" Stitch barked out at the orb.
The orb whirred, and then clicked, and then it still floated there looking at them.
"Why is it doing this!" Lilo almost shouted, now sounding on the brink of a very mild panic.
Stitch looked down the hallway in wonder. A camera placed at an intersection caught his eye. It was strange since all the other cameras they found had been panning around. This one, on the other hand, had its lens focused strictly on him.
Stitch walked down the hallway, toward the camera. Lilo seemed a bit confused by this, but it didn't take her long to run right up behind him.
His suspicions were confirmed. As Stitch walked closer to the camera, it lowered to keep him in its view. Stitch wondered what the person on the other end might've been thinking, staring at him. And suddenly he knew what that person was thinking.
Stitch's whole body tensed up, his hairs stood on end and his ears stuck straight up in the air.
"What's wrong?" Lilo asked, tugging at his shoulder.
"Kawani waka ingatta!"
"We've been caught?"
"Ih."
"Let's get out of here… fast!"
In a display of absolute contrast to their sudden panic and hurried state, Lilo and Stitch inched backwards from the floating orb, only to find that it was still following them. About to turn and run, Stitch heard something that stopped him dead still.
"Little girl, Stitch, are you two hearing me?"
The voice came from the orb, and that voice was unmistakable.
"Jumba?" Lilo and Stitch said simultaneously.
"Oh good! You are hearing me." The orb continued. "Be listening carefully, all access privileges of mine have been disabled. This is meaning that security alarm has been triggered."
"Miga nota." Stitch replied.
"Wait!" Lilo interrupted. "How are you talking through this thing?"
"I have hack-ed into security broadcastation system. Be listening, you can no longer be escaping quietly. Only way you are to be escaping now is by force."
"Gaba Jumba help?" Stitch asked.
"Of course I will be helping! I would not have been hacking brodcastation system if I was not intending for to be helping."
Something then happened that surprised Stitch even more than first hearing Jumba's voice coming out of the orb. He looked over at Lilo, and she seemed to be relaxed, even smiling.
"Thanks again Jumba." Lilo said. "You're the best."
The door here was bigger than any they had previously seen in this place. It had to be twenty feet tall and ten feet wide. The hallway here was only one foot wider and taller than the door was. Even so, Lilo and Stitch could barely see it, as there was only one dim light at the front of the hallway to illuminate the door with.
Lilo stood with her jaw slightly open at this door. She seemed almost frightened by its presence. Something that huge should have an equally great noise to accompany it. The door was silent though. Everything was silent.
The first noise finally emitted caused Lilo to fall over backward. Thankfully, Stitch was right there to catch her.
A small buzzing red light two feet above the ground, just to the left of the door shut down, and an equivalent green light to the right of the door turned on. Two loud clicked sounded soon after that.
"I believe I have finally manag-ed for to reactivate access systems to this room." Jumba's voice came from the floating steel orb behind Lilo and Stitch, who in this hallway had almost forgotten was there. "Stitch, be placing hand on door for to be opening it."
Stitch pulled his hands out from Lilo's armpits and turned around to face the orb. For a split second, his gaze turned down to his breath fogging the air in front of him.
"Where on door?" Stitch asked.
"Anwhere's is being fine." The orb responded.
"Okeytaka."
Stitch turned around and walked up to the door. Lilo's eyes followed him the entire way. He was walking just a bit too casually for her comfort.
Stitch put his hand on the door. The green light to the right turned off, and a white light turned on just above it. One more loud click and the door slid smoothly open, allowing Lilo, Stitch, and the small steel orb inside.
The wind rushed outside from the pressure in the room beyond the door. It was bitterly cold. Everything was dark. It was impossible to tell how large the room was, but from the echoes of Stitch's claws clicking against the concrete floor, it must've been massive. The place was even colder than the hallway. Lilo wrapped her arms around herself in response to the cold. Stitch's attention was drawn to the darkness, so he didn't notice this. The place reeked of burning metal, industrial lubricants and stale air. The only sounds were the nonstop belching and occasional whistling of the circulation systems, the distant rattling of chains, and water dripping everywhere from condensation.
Had Jumba really taken them to a place where they could find a way to escape?
"Miki light!" Stitch barked out at the orb in front of him. His voice echoed several times.
"Be holding on." Jumba responded. "I am getting with the illuminationings."
Like that, the lights turned on. One by one, like a row of dominoes, bringing light on this room, and at last making Lilo and Stitch feel more at ease here.
The room was massive! It was square. It must've been at least four football fields in length. Everything in it was massive. Most of the room was taken up by conveyor belts with bizarre machinery trailing along both sides. Everything shined of chrome, except the black conveyor belts and the concrete floor. This whole room was an assembly line, but for what. Lilo looked off to the far end of the room and the answer became clear.
"Skyboats!" Lilo shouted, and instantly dashed toward the sight.
Stitch knew she wouldn't be able to run that far, and even if she could it would take well over ten minutes. Stitch darted after Lilo. About to collide with Lilo, he instead tossed her up onto his back and sprang over to the far end of the room like a gazelle. They were there in less than a minute.
Looking straight up, there they were, fresh, unpainted skyboats hanging from the ceiling on chains, shining like polished chrome. They hung in rows of ten, and there were eight rows. There were eighty skyboats in all.
"Mega bootifa." Stitch said to himself.
"Let's steal one!" Lilo shouted exuberantly.
"That is being a negative." Interrupted a third voice.
Lilo and Stitch turned to face the voice and found Jumba's orb next to the wall, next to another door just as large as the entrance to the assembly line.
"You will not be stealing any ordinary skyboat, you will be stealing what it behind this door."
Lilo and Stitch looked at each other briefly. Lilo blinked. The two walked side by side up to the door and Stitch put his hand on it. The door slid open revealing a hexagonal room about eighty feet across.
The room was filled with machines and computers. They were similar to the machines that lined the conveyor belts, only smaller, and vastly more fragile looking. They looked like they were built entirely custom and meant solely for precision rather than mass production.
In the center of the room was another skyboat, but it was different from the others. It was only slightly smaller than the others. It was also much sleeker. It didn't even look like a boat at all, as it was a flat bottom with a mass of curves on top. The most distinctive thing about this though, was it's matte navy blue finish, as opposed to the other skyboats which were all stealth black.
"What is it?" Llo asked in awe.
"Is prototype of new skyboat I have been designing for Emperor 626." Jumba replied. "It is being faster, more stable, more heavily arm-ed and armored, and better in every way that normal skyboat. I am calling it, Skyboat Blue."
"Awesome." Lilo responded.
"Moorcheeba." Stitch added in.
Lilo only had a few seconds to gawk at Skyboat Blue before the hairs on her arm suddenly stood on end. Her heart raced and she felt a cold-sweat from what she just realized.
"Jumba?" Lilo asked softly.
"Yes little girl?" Jumba's orb responded.
"What will happen to you when the emperor finds out about you helping us?"
For almost a minute, Lilo and the steel orb stood there staring at each other before Jumba finally answered.
"Do not be worrying little girl. I will be seeing to it that 626 can no longer be punishing me in any way for my transgressions."
Lilo didn't know what to make of this, so she stared blankly at the orb. Stitch however, knew exactly what Jumba was talking about. He lowered his ears and pressed them against the side of his head. Not knowing what else to do, Stitch closed his camcorder and retracted his lower arms, hiding it inside his body, not to bring it out again until the two of them would be safely back at the resistance base.
"I must be going now." The orb said.
"Why?" Lilo asked.
"For to be ensuring that 626 can no longer be punishing me for my transgressions."
"Jumba?"
"Yes little girl?"
"Thanks Jumba. We all owe you big. The whole world owes you big."
A feint glow ceased from the window of the orb, only noticeable because it was now gone. The orb fell to the ground with a loud screeching clank that made Stitch cringe his ears in pain.
"Let's do this Stitch." Lilo said.
"Ih!"
With that, Stitch Lifted Lilo onto his shoulders and climbed up the wall. He climbed across the ceiling and down the chains holding Skyboat Blue, and finally onto the machine itself.
Skyboat Blue must've been equipped with the same sensors that were on the doors to and from the assembly line, for as soon as Stitch crawled onto it, a door on the side pushed itself out and slid sideways, much like doors on allot of minivans.
Stitch, with Lilo still on his back, crawled inside and the door shut itself behind them. It was just bright enough to see with perfect clarity inside Skyboat Blue. Lilo and Stitch were in a square chamber where the walls were lined with the armored suits of of the Emperor's soldiers, and plasma carbines to match.
Lilo and Stitch ran into the front cockpit and jumped in their seats. Restraints automatically wrapped around them and the control panel in front lit up, along with a 3d holographic map of where they were right in front of them and between the seats.
The controls seemed little more than a slightly more stylish version of those on a standard Federation deep space shuttle. This was good. The controls would be intuitive to Stitch.
Stitch looked at the 3d hologram in front of him. According to the map, they were one floor underground in a room that extended about two hundred feet beyond the edges of the base of the pyramid. Stitch could easily blast his way out and simply fly up from the hole in the street.
Stitch activated Skyboat Blue, the chains dislodged themselves and and the skyboat hovered in the air softly.
"Tooki ba-waba!" Stitch shouted out.
Outside the great pyramid, the grand was a copper colored triangular door built perfectly into the side about ten feet tall. Twelve of the emperor's soldiers stood with their carbines poised at the door, waiting for any sign of activity. There was nothing.
For a long time there was nothing.
Then, a slight rumbling sound. The soldier's stared at each other in confusion. The rumbling got louder. The ground began to shake. It began to shake violently. Some of the soldiers now had a difficult time standing their ground.
And then…
The pavement beneath the feet of the soldiers flew up with an incredible crashing and crunching and showers of sparks and plasma. The soldiers flew about the air and at last landed on the ground.
When the smoke cleared, the soldiers who had survived the explosion saw themselves face to face with Skyboat Blue.
Two, small one yard circles in the bottom of the skyboat opened to reveal turrets, and the soldiers were met with a volley of pure white plasma. Each soldier hit by a shot caused a flash of white so bright that for an instant it seemed like day. What was left of them afterwards was greenish bits of charcoal that flew about in all directions along with green smoke that drifted upward.
Skyboat Blue took off into the night as more soldiers ran out from their hiding places and tried in vain shooting at it with their carbines.
Inside the bathroom of Emperor 626. His bath was long since finished. The automatic piano had a while ago run out of songs to play. Of the four servants in the room before, only two were now left. One was fitting him with his once prison uniform, now royal garment. The other was busily folding a wine red napkin into the style of a bishop's spire.
When at last the napkin was placed ontop of the Emperor's head. The door to the bathroom slid open again and two soldiers entered.
The emperor sighed with tedium. "What is it this time."
The soldiers walked up to Emperor 626 in perfect synchronicity and knelt before him. A quick wave of the hand signaled them to stand back up.
"Your highness." They both spoke in synchronicity. Only the one on the right continued. "Your facsimile and the human girl have escaped."
"What?" Emperor 626 screamed hard enough to knock his napkin hat off his head. "How?"
"They… uh… They stole Skyboat Blue."
"They stole… Skyboat Blue? I thought the access privileges were shut off!"
"It was Jumba sir. He betrayed us. He led them right to it."
"Jumba." Emperor 626 growled and grit his teeth. He clenched his fists so hard that his claws dug into his paws, drawing blood. "Discipline him! This time, make it level ten."
"I'm afraid we can't do that your highness."
"And why the hell not?"
"Well your highness… Jumba, he uh… he committed suicide not less than five minutes ago."
With that, Emperor 626 dropped to his knees and let out a scream which caused his servants and soldiers to double over in pain.
"Shoot it down! Use the island point defense systems!" the emperor shrieked out at the soldiers just now getting back up to a standing position.
"We can't sir." The soldier on the left replied. "Skyboat Blue is stealth equipped, we can't target it."
Emperors 626 made what was a combination of a growl and a scream, raking his claws down his face. After that, in one leap he was at his piano. He picked it up by the front legs and hurled it at the wall, shattering it.
"Send a wing of skyboats after them!" The emperor snapped at his soldiers. "Tail it with a Skyboat Carrier. Gantu and I will pilot that ourselves. We can't loose visual on it."