- Thursday,
September 02, 1999 at 17:38:10 (MDT)
On the back lawn of the old Lounge facility, long metal tables made
from propped up spare deck plating are jammed elbow-to-elbow with a rowdy
crowd of Savannah's troops. Most of Jadesfire's earthside crew have signed
up under her, with the rest being hired by various Earth governments to
keep the shield generators and defenses running. With great gusto, they
dig into the huge platters of Zerg barbecue being served by the Cylon waiters.
Some of them even had their metal hineys pinched by the half-drunk renegade
Imps. Next to the row of barbecue grills serving Ultralisk steak, a Rube-Goldberg
machine, obviously the product of spider-kludgery, replicates another barrel
of bloodwine. The Imps cheer!! Being cooped up in their mobile sardine-cans
for years eating nothing but dry Imperial rations, zerg steak was a choice
slice of paradise...
Narrator
<Meanwhile...>
- Thursday,
September 02, 1999 at 22:31:39 (MDT)
As the BoP sped off back to the Sol system, the scanners pick up
something on the way. The Klingons, not knowing what it was, woke one of
Duker�s crew to see if they knew what it was. They happened to wake Screwloose,
because she happened to look like someone with half a clue. Screwloose
wakes up and without given a chance to wipe her eyes, she is tossed to
the control panel. Klingon Officer: �What is that?� Screwloose looks at
the numbers that flash on the little screen and says, �what the�that�s
odd. We need to wake Duker.� The Klingons wake Duker and Screwloose informs
him of what they are seeing. �Sir, we have the Instigator on sensors. It
is just adrift in space.� Having trouble standing because he was so sore
from the bullets, Duker, with the help of Screwloose, walks to the panel.
Duker: �Bring us up next to it. Why is it out here? Why would Leroy just
leave it here, unless he meant to leave it here? Scan the Instigator for
anything unusual.� beep beep�beep beep A Klingon Officer: �I am detecting
a small amount of explosives on the ship. It is located near the antimatter
cells.� Duker: �Can we beam it out of there?� �Too risky, I would not recommend
it since it is armed.� Screwloose: �Sir, I have an idea. Remember those
little Defiants you got from the EDA, well I studied them and found out
that they really work. With the exception of warp, of course. We could
send them into the Instigator and tractor the explosive out of the ship.�
Duker: �Sounds good to me. Do it.�
Duker
- Thursday,
September 02, 1999 at 22:39:32 (MDT)
Screwloose walks over to the Klingon control panel and sets up a
direct link to the little ships she took out of her pocket and placed them
on the panel. She tapped a button and instantly the little ships started
to hover. Screwloose clapped her hands in joy that it worked, and started
to input commands into the panel but suddenly stopped to think because
she forgot what the commands were. She reaches into her pocked and pulls
out a little Chinese manual and starts to squint really hard at the words.
Not understanding what the words meant, she pulled out an English to Chinese
dictionary to understand what was being said. Duker: �Why don�t you just
look in the other section of the book that is in English?� Screwloose:
� Ohh right. WOW, this sure is easier.� After a few minutes, Screwloose
enters in all the commands and the ships start to blink rapidly downloading
the information. They are then beamed into the Instigator�s Engineering
room, and they instantly go to work. The six little ships position themselves
around the device and activate their tractor beams. Having a good hold
onto the container, they start to fly to the small shuttle bay and fly
out of the door that was conveniently left open. As soon as the ship left
the doors, and made good distance away from the ships, the container beeps
and explodes rocking the BoP but not damaging it. Duker: �Too bad, I think
I could have liked those ships. Ohh well, wake the crew and let�s get to
our ship.� A few minutes pass and the entire crew is back on the Instigator.
The ship is powered up with no trace of explosives left on the ship. Duker
orders the Instigator, under cloak, back to Earth to tell of some bad news
about their new visitors and the Vulcans.
Duker
- Thursday,
September 02, 1999 at 22:39:58 (MDT)
With the presence of the Xanarius on Earth a real menace, and their
150 warships outnumbering the defense, Leroy had to ponder the best solution
for dealing with such a problem. They were intermingled with the more-or-less
benign House Woodlouse vessels, and were already landed on Earth. This
presented both opportunity and problem. While landed, they were vulnerable.
But to ensure taking them all out would require such a magnitude of firepower
as to cause a great deal of collateral damage. innocent civilians and humans
would be caught in the crossfire and fallout. Turning back to his experiments,
Leroy waits for the gene sequencer to finish compiling the Woodlouse genetic
code. In racks beside him, test-tubes containing samples of reconstituted
Woodlouse tissues grow in nutrient solution. When they are ready, he will
subject them to a battery of chemical and biological tests. Perhaps a virus
of some kind will be effective... In the meantime, having finished his
dissection of the frozen corpse, he wonders if it will be good marinated.
Nah.. best to be certain. With that, Leroy takes out a large wok, and begins
preparations for lunch: Woodlousicus Superious Stew...
Leroy
- Friday,
September 03, 1999 at 04:37:18 (MDT)
The BoP finally lands beside the lunching Imperials. As the gangplank
drops down, a half dozen Klingons step out. At least they *look* like Klingons..
well.. maybe half Klingon and half Hell's Angels.. They march into the
Lounge. Locating TDK, they stride brisly up to him.. and kneel. "Master
TDK, we apologize for the inconvenience the theft of the Bird of Prey must
have been" TDK, with a splitting hangover, grogglily looks up.. and scowls..
"What is this?!?" TDK leans down and faces the faux-Klingon nose-to-nose..
and sees a bunch of terrified spiders cowering behind the eyes. The lead
kneeling Klingon rises up, and takes off a rubber Klingon mask, revealing
a gleaming chrome head copied from the T-800 in the Arnie Schwarzenegger
flick. "Master, we thought it would make you feel more at home..." Inside
the chromed skull, a pair of spiders feverishly pull on levers and stomp
on tiny pedals. Behind the, in a miniature duplicate of the BoP's bridge,
a spider sits on a 'captain's stool' and wonders if he's gone too far...
Chrome
Spiders
- Friday,
September 03, 1999 at 04:58:30 (MDT)