Last time, our brave explorers arrived on the far side of the universe. After scanning several planets for intelligent life, they landed on a planet, expecting to meet an advanced civilization. Instead, they got more than they bargained for. And now, on with the show!
Chapter 3: Separation & Capture
26:38:19
"Quiet!" hissed Flora, "I think I hear something. There was a moment's silence, before two creatures Bloom had never seen before entered the area. They were short, with green skin, thin limbs, and large pupil-less eyes; one had red eyes, and the other had purple eyes. On their backs were strange metal devices. "Oh my god!" exclaimed Techna quietly, "Bipedal insects!" "They must have evolved over billions of years to get to where they are." Said Elise.
Carmen and Bloom stepped forward. "Greetings," Said Carmen, "We come in peace." "We're explorers," said Bloom, "We want to be friends." The creatures looked at each other before pulling out what looked like laser riffles.
"DIE HUMAN FILTH!" shouted the creatures as they fired. Two energy beams shot from their weapons. Just as the shots were about to hit Bloom and Carmen, Sky grabbed them both and pulled them out of the way. Brandon then decapitated one of the aliens with his energy sword, while Morgan blasted the other with a fury of energy bolts.
"Are you two alright?" asked Sky. "I'm fine," said Bloom. "I'll be alright," said Carmen. She then turned towards Brandon and Morgan. "What you just did was totally uncalled for." "What?" asked Morgan. "Excuse me," said Brandon, "But we just saved your lives." "No, Sky saved us," said Carmen, "You two just killed two aliens." "Hey, they were shooting at you." Said Timmy.
"It was probably a cultural misunderstanding." Said Carmen. "If you think the words 'die human filth' is a cultural misunderstanding," said Riven, "Then you're more messed up then Stella." "Hey!" exclaimed Stella.
"I'm afraid I have to agree with Carmen," said Elise, "This could have been handled differently." "Hello!" exclaimed Stella, "They were trying to kill us!" "Wait!" said Helia, "I here something!" "Is it more of those things?" asked Musa. "I'll take a look." Said Flora as she transformed into her Fairy form. She rose into the air, and came back a few seconds later.
"There's about 200 of those aliens coming this way," she said, "With several hundred robots of various sizes." "What do we do?" asked Morgan. "We've got two choices," said Bloom, "We can stay and fight, or we can run back to the ship and leave." "I say we fight." Said Riven. "Me too." Said Brandon. "I think we should just get out of here while we have the chance." Said Morgan.
I hate to agree with her," said Musa, "But we should definitely leave." Suddenly, the aliens and robots came within sight of our explorers. "That's a lot of robots." Said Brandon. "Not to make it sound like I'm a coward or something," said Riven, "But I'm changing my vote. Lets get out of here!"
They ran back towards the ship. As she ran, Bloom noticed blue energy beams blasting all around her and her friends. As they came within sight of the ship, Bloom saw to her horror that there was a group of the aliens in front of them. "Groupus Teleoprtus!" exclaimed Bloom. She and those around her were teleported aboard the ship. "Get us out of here!" exclaimed Layal as Sky engaged the ship's engines. Soon the ship was in orbit.
26:27:40
As Bloom tried to ease her rapid breathing, she noticed that not all of her friends were there on the ship. To her shock, Stella; Carmen; Morgan; Flora; Techna; Helia and Riven were missing. "What happened to them?" asked Layla. "Those blue energy blasts," said Timmy, "They must have been stun-blasts. I saw Flora and Helia get hit."
"We've got to go back for them!" exclaimed Brandon. "I know." Said Sky. "We've got to go back right now!" exclaimed Brandon "We can't just yet." Said Sky. "Why not!" asked Brandon, "Stella is still down there!" "If we go rushing back to save them without a plan," said Sky, "We'll only just get ourselves captured or killed." Brandon looked like he was about to do something stupid and reckless.
"Brandon!" exclaimed Sky, "Brandon! Look at me! Look at me, dude!"He lookedBrandon in the eye. "We'll go back for Stella and the others, I promise. But you've got to calm down first. You won't help Stella if you just get yourself killed." At this, Brandon began to calm down. "Okay man," he said, "So what now?"
"We've got 26 hours and 25 minutes before the second wormhole opens," said Elise, "We'll need at least 17 minutes to get from the planet to the wormhole. So we've got about 26 hours to come up with a plan, carry out the plan, rescue the others, get out of here, and still have time to make it back to the wormhole."
Just then, something beeped on the onboard sensors. "Sky?" asked Musa, "Is the screen supposed to be beeping?" Sky rushed over to the consol. "There're several small craft approaching us very quickly." Brandon pulled up an image of the crafts on the main screen. They were long, one-man fighter craft, with angled wings and a ventral wing at the back.
"We're getting a transmission from them." Said Timmy. He activated the communications systems. "Unidentified vessel," said a voice at the other end of the transmission, "You are to change course and follow us to a secure location. There, you shall be detained and interrogated as to your presence in this area of space. Do not resist or attempt or flee, or you shall be fired upon and destroyed. You have 60 seconds to comply."
"What now?" asked Layla. "What about the hyper-drive?" asked Bloom, "Can't we use that to get away?" "We're too close to the planet's gravity well," said Timmy, "If we try to get away they'll attack." "The best thing we can do is just go along and try to escape later." Said Sky. "But what about the others?" asked Musa. "We can't do anything about them now." Answered Elise.
25:51:11
With the fighters escorting the ship, several thoughts passed through Bloom's mind. Where are they taking us? What do they want? What's happened to Stella and the others? Her inner questions were interrupted by Brandon as he exclaimed "What is that?" On the main screen was a large capital sized ship. It was at least 1,000 feet long, divided into three sections, a head, a main body and a drive section for a very large engine. On each side was a long, out-rigger-like section connected to the main body by three connecting sections.
"I don't know," said Bloom, "But I'm afraid we're about to find out. There was another transmission from the fighters. "You are to land you ship in the starboard landing bay. From there, you are to exit your ship and be detained. Any attempt to escape will be fired upon." Sky piloted the ship to the back of the right side section of the large ship ahead of them. There he landed in a huge hanger bay. "What now?" asked Musa. "We play along for now until we get the chance to escape." Said Sky.
As Bloom and the others got out of their ship, she saw that they were surrounded by humans. The ones in front were dressed in black military uniforms, and had machineguns pointed at them. Behind them were people in all sorts of military uniforms. One of them stood forward. He was tall with a brown crew cut. He wore an impressive uniform. "I'm Major Carl Samson," he spoke, "I'll be your interrogator today. Welcome to the Colonial Battlestar Thermopylae."
25:20:01
Stella woke up with a start. "She's awake!" exclaimed Flora. "It's about time," aid Morgan, "The rest of us were up five moments ago." "Give her a break," said Carmen, "She's had a rough time." "What happened?" asked Stella before she winced in pain. "Those energy beams stunned us," said Techna, "With the result of great pain." "Where are?" asked Stella. She looked around to see that they were in a large, dimly lit chamber, with four metal walls. There was a door on one of the walls.
"I don't know," said Helia, "We all woke up here." "Where's Bloom?" asked Stella. Then with sudden alarm, she asked, "Where's Brandon!" "They must have gotten away." Said Flora. "Well let's get out of here." Said Stella. She tried to use her powers, but found that she couldn't. "Don't bother," said Flora, "I can't use my powers as well." "Those stun blasts must have done something to disrupt our Winx." Said Techan. "We're not much better off." Said Morgan. "Don't worry. If I know Sky and the others," said Riven, "They're probably planning a way to get us out of here." "If your friends are smart," said a voice from the other side on the cell, "They'd leave this star system and never come back." Stella and the others looked to see a man in his late teens. He was tall, with short brown hair. "I'm Lt. Aiden Cain, Colonial Navy."
"Well Aiden," said Stella, "Where we come from, friends don't abandon friends." "Where's that?" asked Aiden, "Because you're clearly not from any of the Twelve Colonies." "We're here on an exploration mission." Said Techna. "Well you picked a really fraking bad place to explore." Said Aiden. "What makes it so bad?" asked Helia, "Besides the killer bug aliens?" "Those bugs are what's bad," said Aiden, "This system is on the outer edge of the Irken Empire." "Who are they?' asked Carmen. "A race of bugs," said Aiden, "Bent on concurring the universe. My people, the Twelve Colonies, are at war with the bugs. A war they started."
Just then, several of the aliens, with several of the smaller robots entered the cell. They formed a protective corridor from the door to the middle of the room. They each carried a long, metal pole. In came another alien. This one was slightly shorter than the others, but walked with an air of someone used to getting his way. It stopped in the middle of the room, and looked up.
"Get off my head Gir!" exclaimed the alien. Indeed, one of the small robots was curled up on the alien's head, apparently in sleep mode. It activated, and Stella noticed that this robot's eye implants glowed blue, while the other robots had red eyes. "Morning already?" asked the robot as it got off the alien's head. "It's been morning for several hours now." Said the alien. "Let's bake biscuits!" exclaimed the robot.
"Later, Gir," said the alien, "Right now I need you to get serious so we can interrogate the prisoners." The robot came to attention, and it's eyes shifted from blue to red. "Yes master!" said the robot in a totally different tone of voice, "I'm ready to extract information from the human's brains." Suddenly, it's eyes shifted back to blue. "Yea! Brains!"
The alien looked slightly embarrassed as it turned toward Stella and the others. "My apologies," is said, "My S.I.R. unit can be somewhat eccentric."
(For those readers who have never seen the show Invader Zim, S.I.R. stands for:
Standard issued
Information
Retrieval unit.
We thank you for your time, and now return you to your regularly scheduled fan-fiction)
"I am Zim, Master of the 27th Imperial Fleet. Consider yourselves, my prisoners. Now, it is obvious to my superior intellect that you seven," he pointed at Stella and the others, "Are not from this area of the universe. So make it easy on yourselves and confess as to where you came from."
"You'll get nothing out of us you damned dirty bug!" exclaimed Riven. "Oh you'll talk," said Zim, "When I'm done with you, I'll know everything about where you come from." Meanwhile the robot known as Gir was running all over the room, up and down the walls and over the ceiling, while yelling "I'm running! I'm running!"
"I think your robot's broken." Said Helia. "It's not broken," said Zim, "It's advanced." The robot then fell to the ground, but was apparently unharmed, so to speak. "Hi floor!" it exclaimed, "Make me a sandwich!" "Yeah," said Helia, "It's really broken." "Silence human!" exclaimed one of the alien guards. It jabbed Helia with its pole. Helia then let out a yell of pain. "Helia!" exclaimed Flora. "I'm alright," said Helia, "It was just a small shock." "You'll feel worse before long." Said Zim.
"You bastards really think you're better than us don't you?" snapped Aiden. "I don't think, I know that we're superior to you humans." Said Zim. "When my aunt Nelena gets here with the rest of the fleet," said Aiden, "you're going to wish you were never hatched, or however you slime reproduce." "How my kind reproduce," said Zim, "Is irrelevant. And until your pathetic excuse of a fleet arrives, if it ever arrives, I intend to have some fun. We'll start with that one." He pointed at Flora.
"No!" yelled Helia, but he was zapped again by the guards. Flora was then grabbed by the guards and hauled out of the cell. "Don't tell them anything!" yelled Carmen, but was zapped by the guards. "We'll see how arrogant you humans feel after several hours of low-level electrocution!" Zim laughed. "Come Gir, let's go play with our new torture toys." "I like toys!" exclaimed Gir as both alien and robot strutted out of the room.
23:40:17
"They've had Flora for almost two hours," said Helia, "What are they doing to her?" Just then, the guards came back into the room, and shoved Flora in. Helia rushed to her side. "Are you alright?" he asked anxiously. Flora didn't say anything. "Your friend is stronger than she looks," said Zim, "But no matter, I'll find the information I desire sooner than later." He pointed at Riven. "You're next, human." The guards grabbed Riven. He fought them all the way out of the room, but was subdued by the shock poles.
"Why are you doing this?" exclaimed Stella. "Because it is the destiny of the Irken Empire to rule the entire universe!" boasted Zim. "All who stand before the might of our superior technology, our mighty war machine shall fall! It is only a mater of time before the enemies of the empire crumble and bow down before… Get off my head!" Indeed, Gir the crazy robot was perched on Zim's head again.
As the aliens and robots left the cell, Flora stood up. "Good, they're gone." "You're alright!" exclaimed Helia. "Compared to what Stormy did to us for the last two years," said Flora, "What I just went though was nothing." "Really?" asked Techna. "To tell the truth," said Flora sounding a little embarrassed, "the last few moments, it kind of tickled." "You really aren't from around here," said Aiden, "Are you?" "No we're not." Said Carmen. "Weather or not their torture methods are effective," said Techna while checking her watch, "We've got less than twenty-four hours to escape and find Bloom and the others."
The end of chapter 3. Next chapter, we finally learn just WTF is going on here. See you next time!