Here is the last of the story...hope you like it
Chapter 8: welcome to Sydney…or what’s left anyway
Hmmm Sydney harbour has looked better thought the captain, “Incoming message from guess who?” said the ensign at the comm. Station. “ View it” the holo screen kicked in and once again the over bearing head of Bok Zor appeared, “ Captain wanderlust, so nice to see you again, our supremely powerful weaponry has been expertly aligned and is ready to send you sinking into that fetid water system below, just say when.” The arrogant turd then smiled.
“ Telac, your boys couldn’t hit the side of a planet with a handful of lotarrium, and if you really think that I’m going to allow this little yippy shoot to continue than BOY are you ever so wrong.” While the captain was swapping retorts with the zanto’s, a familiar figure, Tor Goc, appeared on board the STAR BLAZER, somehow the sneaky bastards had worked out a way to transport humanoids that left no warning or DNA signature, he was in a cargo hold, but due to stolen schematics he knew his way around the ship better than some of the crew who lived on board.
The battle tact crew were talking and thinking out loud, “since we only have one ship we cant flank these buggers, what about smaller craft, do you have any?” asked the colonel, “We have 8 CP capable shuttles, but they wouldn’t stand a zorgans chance in far-nark, of surviving with the zanto guns aimed at them.” Said Bornus, “ shit, shit, shit was the only response the colonel could manage, Phal Dan-ark entered battle tact, what he offered got everyone’s attention, “ I have just completed calculations and some very subtle scans, it appears the zantos have mastered time travel and the compliant technology is connected to the refraction device and it is my opinion that if we can get someone aboard the killgara, and remove or destroy the unit, then they not only are incapable of hiding, they will have minimal shield power, minor weaponry and barely able to reach CP.” “ Suggestions for crew to man this mission?” said Brasco, Phal looked at Mill, “ well, the doctor for one, he is fairly indestructible as is Major Zubar, but they are known to the zanto crew for certain, so that elevates the risk somewhat.” Brasco looked at the resident super genius, “Phal, they know what they look like normally, but not with dermal upgrades, how about we conform their appearance to Zantorian, say someone who would raise no questions being in that part of the ship, remember you and the doc invented this technology here, not in 2465, the flying arseholes outside have no idea we can do this.” Phal looked at him and smiled “ but of course, DAMN why didn’t I think of that?” Zubar looked at Phal “ must be the pollution in the atmosphere buddy, nothing else clogs your brain up like a sky full of crap.”
The Barcasian home world was virtually a pollution free planet, very little non-natural waste was produced, mainly because they mostly sat around expanding their phenomenal intellects, it had become obvious that the absolutely god awful atmosphere of the 21st century was affecting the human computer just a tad. Brasco told Phal to grab the doc and zubar and proceed, as they left the tact room, the colonel yelled “ I’ve got it, Mill does this ship have any last resort weaponry?” Bornus answered in the affirmative, “ We do have what is commonly called the starburst, basically all weapons fired at once while we are performing intricate flight manoeuvres, but strictly the last response kinda thing.” The colonel enquired if the wankers floating off the port bulkhead had ever seen it done, Mill and Bornus thought about it, tapped some tech pads, looked at each other, then X’a walked into the room, read the room mentally and stated “ it is impossible that they have seen it, it has only been performed once by Captain Luther Garn of the ship STAR PHOENIX about 378 years from now”, smiled the ever helpful Dalzorian, Mill looked at his friend, “how in the name of hell do you know that?” X’a smiled and said “ Lieutenant, do you really think I spend my off hours talking to carnations, being friends with Gill does increase ones interest in the historical, mine just doesn’t go back as far as his, plus one time at UGC HQ, I mind read a security admiral, who had called me a blue gimp among other things of an unpleasant nature, so I stripped him of all his knowledge and left him a, what does the captain say, a gibbering goofball.” “Remind never to piss you off X, O.K.” “Ai sir, don’t piss me off” smiled the dalzorian with a wink of his middle eye.
The tactical staff proceeded to complete calculations for this starburst thingy, as well as informing the recently arrived captain about the subterfuge they had agreed on, all the while the best assassin in zanto history was calmly leaning against a wall waiting for his moment, unknown to him the strange blue ensign with the big mouth and three eyes was receiving what amounted to a mental smell of zantorian somewhere close, “sir I’m detecting a species that is not supposed to be here”. Said X’a, at this point Goc as good as guessed the jig was up and instantly de-refracted he raised his phasic disruption device and let fire, the tact room went mental for about a mille-second, then Lacy Dorn stepped in, grabbed the sneaky little rat by the neck and promptly reversed the direction of his head upon his shoulders, the captain enquired if everyone was alright, a lot of affirmative’s rang out, then X’a said the colonel was down, the disruptor had done its job, the left side of his body was phasing in and out of existence basically, pollution had apparently affected the beam and diluted the killer blast, but the captain knew they had about 5 minutes to start triage if the old 2k’er stood a long shot, “ captain to med suite, emergency transport NOW” the colonel disappeared in a blue flash, “X’a get down to med and assist if you can and get my wife on the way if you can” the dalzorian acknowledged and exited battle tact.
MED SUITE #1: The Doc and Nat Zubar were just about done with the dermal upgrades and to the naked eye, had the appearance of two well known Zantorian technicians that had a 98% percent chance of being aboard the KILLGARA 2, the thinking being that Bok Zor would only have the best aboard his craft, and these two were definitely no slouches, the med alarm went off and the doc saw the colonel appear on the med lounge, apparently not in very good shape, he ran over to the bench, rapidly surmised that the colonel was not going to live very long at all if something drastic was not done, he hit a panel on the wall, his schematics appeared, he told the surgery crew which components to use and proceeded to synthesise them, “ but Sir this will make him a cyborg” said the 2 I-C of Medical, the doc looked at him and said “and your point is?”
X’a and Jill ran into med, the wife of the captain let out an almighty scream upon seeing roughly 57 % of her dad laying on the table, the doc reached over and knocked her out with a slumber spray, “ Ensign xorlan, keep Mr’s Vander Zant under until the treatment on her father is complete, one way or the other.” “ Ai doctor, can I help with anything else?” “Yes, reach into the colonel’s mind and keep it from over stimulating on the shock to his systems, make him dream pleasant things or something similar.” After laying Jill on one of the remaining med lounges, X’a sat on the floor, crossed his legs, closed two of his eyes, and then something no one had ever seen happen occurred, his third eye, began to glow, a beam shot out and hit the colonel in the frontal lobe, the medical scanners almost instantly slowed down and read normal pain thresholds and REM sleep patterns, the medical crew then got to work, knowing full well that the colonel was going to feel very different if he survived. The Doc and Major Zubar went to weapons, tooled up and then went to the relocation suite, if this day was going to finish in the favour of the city 900 metres below, there part had to performed with split second accuracy.
FLIGHT DECK: Captain Vander Zant and Phal Dan-Ark were working on the computations to perform the starburst manoeuvre “ Phal do you think this can really work?” “Pete, this is our only shot, if it doesn’t work we will be dead in the water with absolutely no weaponry at our command, and when doc and Nat are successful, we will be able to go home eventually.” “Eventually” asked Pete, “ yes, although my brain is running fairly slow due to the pollution apparently, it is fairly obvious that some components of the chronal-spacial drive will not fit our systems, I will have to re-configure some of them.” “ Fair enough, captain to gill, keep a lock on our two spy’s and transport ASAP after the signal, Bornus calc’s almost done, you in the battle suite?” “Ai captain, ready to go on your mark.” A great day for a picnic thought the captain; a great day to slaughter Zantorian scumbags thought the Thalagonian battle master with the itchy trigger finger.
Chapter 9: don’t look now but we got ya gizmo. Kiss ya arse goodbye
ENGINEERING: KILLGARA 2
Doc and Zubar relocated aboard the battle-hawk without so much as an alarm warming up to go off, they found the refraction control unit and attached to it, was what apparently some brand new Barcasian technology, they knew this as any Barcasian technics had text all over it, because they just love to tell everyone how intelligent they can be, even Phal had his moments when he first came aboard, but they weaned him off his incessant boasting.
Nate looked at the doc, “we should have known that if anyone was going to break the time quandary, it would be Phal’s breed” the doc agreed most vigoursly but reminded Nate that they were here to abscond with the time unit, at that very moment two low ranking zantorians entered the chamber, “hail, my lords but did we not just see you up deck?” at that moment Nate took it upon himself to remove the two nosey zanto’s from the universal mix by blasting them with a disruptor, “well their scanners are going to pick that up so we best haul some arse doc!” the doc once again agreed vigoursly, switched on his internal tech manual and had the time unit disconnected and the refraction and shield generator in about forty pieces in roughly 53.5 seconds “Zubar to Lee, get us the fuck out of here good buddy” “Ai Major, commencing” the familiar blue glow filled engineering and the two spies were briskly aboard the STAR BLAZER .
ENGINEERING SUITE: POWER CORE : The captain walked into the power core and enquired as the result of their little soirée Zubar responded “ typical zanto slackness, nil goddamn security, consequently a complete piece of piss SIR” and the Saturnian winked at his commanding officer, “most impressive piece of equipment lads, captain to Phal” “Ai sir” “report to the power suite my old buddy, we got some Barcasian tech for you to play with” “Dan-Ark on way, oh by the way Doctor, you may want to come to med suite poste haste.” “
The doctor responded and once the basic connections were formed made his way to his home away from home. Phal Dan-Ark entered the power suite, and his red eyes glowed with joy, because apparently the inventor of this time coupling unit was his father, a spritely 1900 year old with brains to burn, Nat asked him how he knew this, “ the markings my dear Saturnian, the old one does tend to use ancient Barcasian mathematics as his calling card” “OH but of course red eyes, I knew that” and the major smiled, “do you need a hand Phal?” the Barcasian replied he would give a yell if he needed help, Zubar exited to go to battle tact and help Bornus get ready for star burst, “Pete if this can be conjoined to our power units we could be home as soon as we vanquish the zanto threat to this time period” “vanquish, who said anything about vanquish?” enquired the captain, Phal replied that logically with star burst calc’s having been performed, the zanto having now no way to get home, it made sense to spread them to the four winds with some impressive firing.
The captain winked and confirmed his friends logic, told him to get busy and that he was going to stop by med suite and then going to contact Bok Gor and rub it in somewhat just before he turned him to atoms.
MED SUITE: UNIT 1
The doc walked in to the med suite and to his everlasting bewilderment, for even though he had been around humans for what seems ages, he sometimes could not fathom the occasional bizarre responses to certain stimuli they sometimes performed, was met by Jill throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a big gooey smooch right on his bio-plastic lips, X’a slapped him on the back, the surgical staff gave him a round of applause and the colonel reached out with his brand new bio plastic arm and firmly shook his hand, “AH it appears the surgery was completely successful, my, my, colonel you make quite an handsome cyborg
“Well it wasn’t the way I was planning to spend my retirement, but what the hell, thanks bloke” answered the Colonel, The doctor enquired if all the correct procedures had been adhered too regarding the bio transplants, the surgical team confirmed, he was then told that the colonel had awoken from the procedure and gone quietly insane when he witnessed his appearance, but that X’a had delivered a mind bolt and adjusted his brain parameters to normal.
“So colonel any enquiries about your re working?” asked the doc The colonel asked for the standard reply if there was one, the doc sat down, hit the holo-screen button and proceeded to explain.
“ The zanto phasic blaster by all rights should have killed you outright, but like many things we have discovered the atmosphere being clogged with all level of mutated toxins apparently took the edge off the blast, although you were still close to death, you were rushed here, and after a scan with my optic implants, which you also now possess, the most logical conclusion was to perform bio replacement surgery, or you could be euthanised but I find that most offensive, a complete waste of tissue quite frankly, so with what nerve endings you had remaining along with whatever mass we reconstructed you into what you see before you now on the holo-screen.”
The colonel looked up and saw he was now almost 7 feet tall, weighing approximately 500 pounds, could lift upwards of 9 tonnes, and had been mentally and neurologically up graded, he had the UGC database in his head and above all, In his opinion, had retained his own personality, something even the doctor couldn’t say, he was just an amalgam of various people that he had chosen over the years, although it was a fine selection and he could hold his own in a joke telling contest with Nathan Zubar which the doc thought to be of major importance. The doc concluded the colonel question by asking X’a to remain close by just in case any of the old mans synapsis went haywire while his remaining human brain was still adjusting, X’a agreed, Jill once again thanked the doc in her own unique manner, a big gooey smooch, and then the captain requested all senior bridge staff to attend the flight deck if available, it was time for some fun with the zanto and particular the chief arsehole Bok Telac Zor.
As the captain made his way to the flight deck, he looked out the viewers and saw the absolute carnage that the pointy eared bastard had wreaked in 22 short hours, this only made him more determined to upset the arseholes lunch and then blow him clean out of existence.
He thought about it, and it occurred to him that he had been fighting these bastards since he was 17 years old, and he was just about sick of it, all he had to do was get rid of the last of the great battle hawks, that one floating above Sydney harbour, and technically, the war should be almost over, of course that remains to be seen once they get home, although now they where installing the time drive, it was tempting to go to when the zanto were just accomplishing space travel, and just blast the shit out of their first attempts , to stop them becoming raiders and terrorists, but if not them, someone else would have grabbed the mantel of universal arsehole, so now they had Bok Telac Zor just where they wanted him, helpless, they were going to fuck that arsehole up and his crew of screw looses as well and the captain smiled to himself. “Captain to battle suite, all systems fired up?” “Ai sir, just say the word”, he recognised the growl of an Barcasian with an extremely itchy trigger finger “Oh and Captain, Major Zubar requests that we get this fucking over with, so he can proceed to have a ale or two” “Very good Mr Dorn, tell Nat that beer will be flowing fairly soon, captain out.”
Chapter 10: the party’s on and the Aussie army attend
FLIGHT DECK:
“All senior bridge staff available are in attendance sir” said the communications ensign and he was right, standing behind the captain were X’a, Gill, Phal, the doc, Lacy, Zubar and Bornus were down in the battle suite locked and loaded, even the spanking new cyber-colonel came up for this little verbal attack on the things generally known to be flying arseholes floating outside the port bow.
“Sending message to KILLGARA 2, zanto response inbound” the view screen lit up and once again the arrogant head of the Zanto Bok was present, only this time he witnessed something mighty strange, the whole bridge staff were smiling and waving at him from the STAR BLAZER, “ well captain wanderlust, your little crew seem to be in jolly spirits considering the fact that at any given time I can blow you out of the sky” and he smirked the captain got up from his seat, stretched and said, “ Telac, have I ever told you that’s the god ugliest hair cut I’ve ever had the misfortune to see on a species with less than two heads, and what’s more, you really need to see a tailor about your choice of uniforms, you look like a leather coated BBQ sausage, although snags smell better, oh by the way my father in law wishes to thankyou for your little assassin expanding his life by 3 or 400 years, not quite the correct procedure for an assassin, but what can you do when your head is facing the wrong way on your shoulders and gooey purple blood is dripping into his lap.
Telac was visibly getting more annoyed as the captains words echoed though the speakers, “ENOUGH you miserable little species, how dare you talk to me, TELAC ZOR, like that, I’ll have you know that…” he was cut off by the captain, “SHUT UP you ignorant sycophantic bag of zarf guts, after what you have done to my families time period, their home and city, in general, you deserve nothing short of complete annihilation, Telac jumped in “you cannot destroy my ship Captain wanderlust, you have nowhere near enough power, fire at these UGC fools, destroy them and then we shall demolish the remains of this pile of rubble they call Sydney.”
“Oh really, very well fire away arsehole, then we shall proceed” said the captain, this stunned Telac but he ordered the fire command anyway. The Zanto ships cannons visibly heated up, and then let loose a blast hot enough to just barely singe toast, the zanto then fired the torpedos, these calmly rolled out of the barrels and splashed uselessly into Sydney harbour, Telac was without a doubt stunned, he ordered refraction, he would have had more luck hiding his head up his own arse, thought the crew of the STAR BLAZER to a one.
“ARE you done, are you finished” enquired the captain, “must be my turn then, what you reckon Telac old sport, my turn or what?” “Captain, to battle suite, remove these arseholes from existence when your ready” “Ai sir, proceeding with star burst” said Zubar. Telac watched as the Blazer started spinning clockwise, the weapons array started glowing and the last thing Telac saw before he vaporised was every single ounce of phasic energy, and every single torpedo let loose in his precise direction the crew from star blazer let out a cheer as the KILLGARA 2, the most fearsome battle hawk in history appeared to cave in on itself and vanish in a blast of glowing energy.
The flight deck erupted in a round of cheers and cat calls, crew members practised there dirt side speak with the usage of phrases such as GIT THAT UP YA ZANTO, or FAIR DINKUM I BET THAT STUNG…FOR ABOUT 2 SECONDS. The captain then invited the crew down to the rec suite for drinks and nibble’s, a peculiar little social habit he had picked up from the Australian people, Phal and the doc went back to work on the time device, the rest of the crew went about their business knowing that from here until they got home they could just about relax.
REC SUITE: DECK 8
The crew and visitors were having a fine time, drinking, laughing, when the holo screen in the rec suite went on line, “Captain we have a contingent from the Australian armed forces wishing to speak with you, “very well ensign patch them through” said the captain, on the screen appeared the face of the Major General Alan Wallace “ Umm greetings from earth, we wish to thank you for your assistance” the captain interrupted him, “ first of all General, most of this crew is from earth, admittedly from a fair distance in the future, and the crew that are off-world, in general live on earth when not on duty,
My name is Captain Van-der Zant of the United Galactic Confederation, I’m also a native Australian, although the whole pacific rim is one big mega-plexus , and believe me General, all the destruction I wish could have been avoided but our foes were not known for their compassion.” “ Well thankyou captain, you have no idea how many lives you have saved by doing what you’ve done.” X’a spoke up, “Twelve million one hundred and seventy one thousand, but who’s counting.” “General what is your location?” enquired the captain, “ I’m located at the base of the Sydney harbour… the general vanished from the screen and in a blue flash of light appeared in the rec lounge, “very sharp Mr lee, very impressive reaction time.” Gil thanked his captain, Jill got the general a reasonable facsimile of a schooner of Tooheys, the general was greeted with a handshake by Pete and was slapped on the back by the colonel, the general spun around looking at the giant cyborg, immediately recognising his former commanding officer, “Thomas? Is that you?”
“ It sure is Al, looking a bit different hey what? Comes from being blasted with off world radiation, I suppose” Pete spoke up, “General, firstly welcome aboard the STAR BLAZER, anything you require will be met with as promptly as possible, secondly, on behalf of the UGC, I wish to apologise for not stopping those turds in a more spritely fashion.” The general looked at the captain, “ Captain, I’m not here to proportion blame, I’m here to thankyou, that craft they were flying around in looked fairly impressive, and not easily subjugated.” Pete relaxed with the military formality, “ well you are right there general, but it’s just amazing what you can accomplish when you have this kind of staff working for you”.
X’a walked up to the general, and gave him the old 3 eyed stare down, the general, looked nervous, but after about 10 seconds, X’a smiled and gave the senior man in the Australian Army a big old hug, Pete spoke up “ general, meet Ensign X’a xorlan, a Dalzorian male, and a telepath, he was just checking you for psi-bugs, although I don’t know why, ENSIGN?”
“Captain, he was a complete stranger, and since Mr Dorn is not here yet, a security check needed to be performed, correct?” The general stopped Pete, “captain, if this young chap had the pre-requisite amount of eyes, I’d take him for my chief of security” X’a smiled at the general with that big grin of his, “thankyou, kind sir, but I do have the correct eye amount, its you who is one short” he then winked that third eye “thankyou X’a, now go and attend the colonel” said Pete. “Unfortunately general, there is not a whole lot more we can do to assist you, we sadly cannot turn back the clock to before this crap went down, but we are glad we could be of assistance.”
The general looked at colonel Myers, “Thom, and you, what will you do?” “Well Al, as you can imagine, I’m going to look weird walking down George street like this, so since my son-in-law is from the future, I think it best if I go check his situation out, make sure he has a nice home and such what, can’t have my daughter living on this barge for the rest of her existence. At this point, a Saturnian and a Barcasian with phenomenal thirsts walked into the suite, Major Nathan Zubar addressed the throng “ WE GOT THE BASTARDS…barkeep, cold beers and keep them coming!” Bornus joined in with a Barcasian victory chant which loosely translated to ‘the fighting’s over, lets get to fornicating’ Phal and the Doc joined the throng presently and announced that the time drive is now installed, one or two tests and some minor translation of the manual and they would be out of here, this prompted the whole crew to let out a cheer, even Jill was happy, she still had her dad, her husband, all her stuff in one of the cargo bays, hell, Pete even saved her dolphins, she would be more than happy to hit 2465 and live out her time. The general said his goodbyes and was transported back dirt side.
Chapter 11: HOMEWARD BOUND
STAR BLAZER: 3 DAYS LATER.
Phal and the doc, got the time drive up and running, they ran some simulations and announced all systems go, the captain assisted the citizens of Sydney by using the ships
Grab-beam to float the pieces of some destroyed sights back into place and Mr Dorn kept his eye in by welding the pieces into place with a laser beam which worked wonderfully. Jill and her dad got the mammals ready for time travel.
The captain let out a ship wide announcement.
ATTENTION ALL CREW, 5 MINUTES TILL GO, REPEAT 5 MINUTES TILL GO…FASTEN DOWN AND GET READY, 2465 HERE WE COME.
The senior flight crew made their way to the flight deck, got themselves ready to go, the captain made a call to the general, “ good morning sir, all repairs performed, glad we could be of help” “ thankyou Captain Van-Der Zant, and to all your staff, good trip and Thom you behave yourself.” Colonel Myers smiled to himself down in the med suites, at least he thought he smiled, he was still getting his head around this new bio face of his, the general signed off
Pete was working away thinking to himself, so that’s what my ancestor was like, nice bloke if you like senior ranking officers,
CAPTAIN TO ALL CREW, TIME TO GET GONE, HOLD ON THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN
Mr Dorn, take us into the big black and then on to home, Mr Dan-Ark, fire up the T-drive, everybody else see you on the other side of time.
Dorn took the ship into the upper reaches of earths atmosphere and then out around the moon, Dan-Ark signalled all systems go, Mr Dorn hit the gas and the ship leaped into CP drive, roughly 3 times the speed of light, ahead of them near Saturn, they saw the space around them turn white, Mr Dorn took them in, space went weird around them for what seemed an eternity to the colonel and Jill, but was in fact about 20 seconds, the STAR BLAZER popped out the other side of the wormhole, Mr Dorn backed her off and pointed her towards earth prime and then a beautiful noise met them mid-space.
UGC STATION SATURN HERE, IS THAT YOU STAR BLAZER? REPEAT IS THAT YOU STAR BLAZER, the captain confirmed with all the right codes, WELCOME HOME STAR BLAZER, YOUR STATUS HAS BEEN M.I.A FOR 31 MONTHS, 3 DAYS, 17 HOURS, then a real familiar voice chimed in, CAPTAIN VAN DER ZANT, THIS IS ADMIRAL WALLACE, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, the captain told his pop, the generals great, great so on and so forth grandson, that he would be with him shortly to de-brief. PERMISSION TO DOCK STAR BLAZER, YOU MISSED ONE HELL OF A BATTLE, oh no we didn’t thought most of the crew. The captain replied on a secure channel “grandad, you wont believe what we have been through, see you Saturn side Pete out, the captain got the STAR BLAZER docked, his crew were put on stand down he took his wife and father in law to the de-brief to introduce them. He explained everything he and the crew had done over the past couple of years in brief detail, but left the admiral with comp logs of the entire trip, introduced him to his new grand daughter in law, let two old soldiers, one way older than the other, sit down and chat, grabbed his crew, had a huge party, jumped a shuttle and headed for earth. God, what next he thought as the shuttle headed for the big blue marble…something quiet I hope.
THE END
No comments:
Post a Comment