Heroes
Sorry for the late update and all, but I was working on Targets and it took up a large chunk of my spare time. Combine that with trying to win those fixed morphology challenges for Darkspore, and suddenly I have no time anymore! But this is a Christmas present to all you readers out there. Look out for Christmastide references and cunning puns! (or should I say punning puns.)
0
The screen that dominated one wall of the cockpit of the Striker of Yggarf flickered into life, displaying the visage of none other than Admiral Vega, the commander-in-chief of Sector B, the second largest chunk of Yggdoffl-space.
"Jim! Get your lazy beak over here!" he ordered, jolting the Commodore from dreams about evil refrigerators and into the cockpit, his third eye still gummed shut with sleep. When he realised who he was in the presence of (a good minute later), he sunk to his knees and performed the ritual of respect, which ended in passing his left arm-blade over his head, narrowly missing his nightcap.
"Sir, what brings you here?" he asked, apprehensive.
Vega sighed and closed his middle eye, a gesture of annoyance in their culture. "It is with little to no regret that I hereby declare you demoted from the position of Commodore. You are now returned to the status of a Captain, and must therefore be given a mission to assert your new position." Here he paused, possibly to analyse Jim's reaction and expression. The ex-Commodore was squeezing all three of his eyes shut, as if wishing that it was all a terrible nightmare and that he would wake up very soon. "As the only member of the Galactic Alliance in this area, not counting the crews of six surveillance drones in orbit around Marshgaff, I charge you with the official task of convincing the Earl of Grentle Marsh to enrol his son in the Orbital Academy of Orlaker. I will be sending directives to you immediately. The Earl will know of your arrival. Mission accepted?"
Jim let out a noise not unlike the sound of a rapidly deflating balloon. "I suppose I'll have to," he sighed.
0
From an outsider's point of view, the slightly battered entry craft tearing through the atmosphere of Marshgaff was completely fine, if a little slow. The creatures inside it, however, had something very rude to say to the engineer who had designed the thing.
"Remind me why we're doing this again," shouted Zero over the roar of the thrusters and the incessant rattling of the loose metal grille that was supposed to allow fumes from the interior engine to escape the craft. All it really did was provide a skull-shattering headache to whoever was next to it, in this case Zero. Jim didn't bother answering, occupied as he was with the computer in control of the whole machine.
"Setting course to vectors two thousand and ten – twelve – twenty-five," intoned the headset jammed backwards on the Yggdoffl's beaked head.
"What? No! That's the location of Typhlo!"
"Setting course to vectors one-hundred-and-twenty-six – forty-three – eighteen," replied the ancient LV-34 make of entry craft. This took Jim a minute to figure out, but before it could complete the operation, he hastily denied it, which was just as well, considering that one-hundred-and-twenty-six-forty-three-eighteen was located within Schendulan space. A spot of turbulence, caused by a gigantic storm in the upper troposphere of the planet, sent the craft corkscrewing in the general direction of Marshgaff's smaller moon, Giizus. According to official Alliance estimates, Giizus was home to some twelve thousand venomous creatures, including the feared Swamp Dragon that the solar system in general was known for. There were only twelve thousand species of animal and plant life on the moon in the first place.
"Zero, reverse thrusters! I do not want to have to deal with Rak'monga on an empty stomach!" screeched the Captain. With no small degree of trepidation, the Nerbian twisted the lever in command of the thrusters, which in turn swivelled the twin exterior engines a hundred and eighty degrees, to face the moon that they were unwillingly heading towards. This generated a creaking, scraping sound, causing both beings inside the compartment to clap limbs over their ears and pray to the gods of Ygg and Trevor for their lives to end less painfully.
0
Back on the Striker, Orven noted the absence of a bottle of Burlik Juice in the fridge. The stuff was poisonous to a wide variety of races, although most species from Urth and other Zone Three planets found it highly nutritious and tasty, in the same way the mangoes killed anything that did not come from the third rock from Sol. Ambiguous and Terrahawk, both having come from a Zone Three planet themselves, would have been the prime suspects of thievery, except that they hated Burliks with passion.
"Okay guys, who took it?" asked the general, turning to face the crew. In an ordinary absence of captain, the leader of the crew would have been the deputy captain, Jack. But on this ship, the de facto deputy was Orven, a fact largely attributed to the point-blanc refusal of the Zorg brothers to accept Jack as the leader, temporarily or not.
None of them would face the Urthclan exile, choosing to examine the floor tiling or the backs of their hands. Finally Ambiguous spoke up. "I haven't stolen anything in the past..." He did a quick calculation. "Thirty-six hours," he announced proudly. "If it was there yesterday, I had nothin' to do with it."
"Thirty-" Terrahawk grabbed his brother roughly by the shoulders and twisted him so that they were nose to nose, and Big was on his toes. "Where did you put my comics?"
0
Almost as soon as the thrusters had settled into their new positions, the entry craft rocketed downwards at a trajectory of precisely sixty-three angles from their current position to the planet surface, at a speed of maybe five thousand and eighty miles per hour. Steel and aluminium plating was starting to peel off of the nose of the craft, and the ends of the thrusters were shrivelling up from the green flames that had mysteriously appeared all over the back of the machine. All the while, the computer, having somehow gotten stuck on the intergalactic stock exchange channel, was droning on about the dropping prices on Dionon, some distant outpost of the Yggdoffl Empire. Exciting as it was, there was considerable relief when the computer engine exploded violently at the back of the craft.
But now a high-pitched whine was making itself known, causing the travellers' eyes to water, and their ears to attempt to commit suicide with several pounds of trinitrotoluene. Though they did not know it, the whine was coming from the rapidly melting radar equipment, which also happened to be giving off a similarly destructive noise on the infrared frequency, which essentially screwed up every single infrared receiver in a fifty-five mile radius. That would have been fine, if a little bit of a headache to any androids around, but a certain greeting committee in a certain aircraft designed to welcome a certain diplomacy mission also used a certain infrared receiver not only to navigate, but to communicate too. This is what caused not just a spectacular crash some five miles south of the self-destructing craft (where they had intended to land) but also more white noise inside the entry craft, adding to the likelihood of critical ear and cranial damage.
The worst part was that they couldn't even hear their own last words.
0
Quite oblivious to the plight of their captain and main technician, the five crewmembers left on board were partaking in a violent slaughter-fest, really just Barsnark and Terrahawk attempting to strangle Big while Orven looked on, slightly amused but still frustrated. Jack was nowhere to be seen, although that was most likely better than the alternative. Just as the Tezzok Bear was wrapping his victim in reinforced titanium chains manufactured in a factory down on Bizznik, Ferna, the refrigerator began to tremble. As one furious-turned-scared alien, the four tipped over a steel table and garrisoned themselves behind it, turning it to face the fridge and then pulling it back against a steel wall.
"What do we do?" asked Ambiguous, teeth chattering and safely sandwiched between two reflective materials.
Orven thought it over. "We need to send someone to the weapons store and get us some pulsers," he decided.
"And just who do we send?" he continued, afraid that he already knew the answer.
"You," answered the other three instantly.
"I was afraid of that."
0
Just as the younger Zorg left the room, reluctance rolling off of him in almost physical waves, the fridge door swung open, and the monster ran after him. It was unlike anything they had ever seen, covered in a strange white substance they supposed was it's skin. It had no visible heads, mouths, or even eyes, and strange sounds tore from it every few seconds. It was half a metre tall. All of this added up to unadulterated terror.
"Run, Big, run!" yelled his older brother. "Run for your bleeding life!"
"I wonder if he'll escape," the general mused after a while, earning a searing glare from Terrahawk. For all of their disagreements, they were still brothers. In less than six sectons (one secton is about a hundred Earth seconds), the three hiding behind the table observed sounds of pulser fire and several tinny impacts, like the kind you get when someone slips on floor polish and slides into an inconveniently placed wall at a high speed. In less than a tenth of a secton, Ambiguous bounded into the room, one arm grasping a couple of pulsers and the other one spewing a continuous stream of oil- floor grease. It didn't seem to be aimed anywhere, but in time it took for Ambiguous to land just in front of the table, the entire floor was completely covered in grease. Naturally, the Zorg slipped and somersaulted through the air once again, his finger still pressing down on the release trigger of the bottle. By the time the others had managed to prise his hand from the bottle, the entire room was covered in the grease. The cleaning droids used it as floor polish. The walls were very reflective.
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Jack extracted himself from the soot-covered wreck of the entry pod, cursing under his breath in his native tongue. Zero had already escaped from the mess of half-melted metal and plastic, and was busy rummaging in the safe that had somehow survived three explosions and the same amount of noise pollution that a huge metropolis like Fira or Kllon could expect in a particularly noisy century. With a large degree of shock and awe, the technician found the combination lock almost completely intact, and when he tore the door off it's hinges with a small bomb, he was even more surprised to find all of the hydrogen and carbon dioxide tanks safe and secure.
"Jack, here's your tank, and here's the mouthpiece," mumbled Zero, holding out the two apparatus with a hand while donning his own. Although the air of Marshgaff was somewhat breathable, the planet was home to all too many parasites and bacteria, for some reason unfathomable to even the most educated scientist. Until they got to civilisation (which could take some time, considering current circumstances), they would have to rely on bottled air.
0
"Hey, Big?"
"Yeah?" Ambiguous was attempting to reload his pulser, with little by way of success.
"There are only three pulsers here."
The younger Zorg glanced up. "No kidding?"
"No joke," replied his brother. "Are you sure that you-"
"Oh, crezax!" Ambiguous jumped to his feet. "I must have dropped one of them!"
In another situation, like, say, hiding behind a table with all four deadly weapons that had been removed from the weapons cupboard safely in their hands, maybe Terrahawk would have told Big off for swearing. As it was, Terrahawk merely joined in.
"Crezax! Why, Big, why? Why in the name of Mias did you do that?" he moaned, before dissolving into mad laughter. Brasnark, who'd been inspecting the power cell of his own pulser a little way off on his own, glanced up. "What's going on?"
"The bloody shrugger actually dropped one of the pulsers," explained Orven, as Terrahawk was having hysterics and Big was futilely trying to calm him down.
"So?"
"The monster probably has it by now." Realisation dawned on the bear as the sound of weaponised light rebounding off walls and floors reached his ears, before flying before his very eyes in some terrifying parody of pyrotechnics. Then again, most species would probably never have even considered shooting coloured fire into the air, let alone put it into practice, so maybe that's not the best simile. To the point, the monster had a pulser. The floors and walls- and parts of the ceiling, too- were coated in a copious amount of floor polish. The metal the ship was made out of was very reflective.
0
The Yggdoffl and his Nerbian subordinate were very lucky, in that they were able to hitch a ride on a crawler that was heading to Old Grentle, where the Earl was supposed to be for his summer holidays, before heading down to Hidsk for his autumn holidays. The two diplomats were unlucky in that the driver of the crawler was charging ridiculous prices.
"A hundred sporebucks? For a five mile journey? You kid me." Jim was shaking his head in denial, hand clamped firmly shut on his wallet.
"Well, sir, it would seem very- how you say- awful if you were left to rot on this road. As it is, my fee is remarkable low," said the Horcurnid in his shabby Marshian, hand clamped equally firmly on his crawler door.
"How about fifty?" suggested Zero.
"Eighty."
"Forty."
"Sixty."
"Thirty."
"Fifty."
"Done," said Jim. "Done, done and done."
"Very good. You may enter. Old Grentle you wanted?" The crawler door swung open to admit the two travellers. "Old Grentle you'll get."