| Author |
the last Friday |
tagar
Cadet
Joined: July 02, 2004
Posts: 64
|  Posted: 2005-07-27 17:25
PART 1
John Friday was happy and relaxed, after a full two years of working without a vacation he finally had a full two weeks off, which he planned on spending doing exactly what he was doing right now, fishing.
Even more contenting was the fact that John's little inflatable boat was alone on the water, the steep heavily wooded shoreline made it difficult for canoers and kayakers to access, which was exactly the reason why he had bought the inflatable.
If one didn't know better one would assume that this secluded spot was somewhere in northern Ontario, or perhaps picturesque British Colombia; however, it wouldn't take long to realise there error once they heard any of the weekend fisherman speaking the Canadian version of French. Nor would it take them long to discover the small logging town a mile down river.
Actually truth be told, John wasn't much of a fisherman, his cheap rod and half epmty tackle box were rarely used and often left at home in favor of his real passion, the camera. Today ;however, he had already taken numerous pictures of the area, beautifully catching the serenity of the local. But now there was little else to photograph, any wildlife must be laying low in whatever shelter it had to wait out the rather toasty July day. So reluctantly John had put down the camera and started to fish.
Not surprisingly to John, the fish were not biting, he was never sure whether it was his poor choice in bait, bad technique, of just plain bad luck which led to him rarely bagging a fish.
As the afternoon began to turn into early evening and after even the most dedicated shoreline fisherman had left, presumably to a luckier spot on a nearby stream, John to decided to call it quits for the day. After carefully packing up his fishing gear and insuring that there were no stray hooks left on the boat bottom the tall awkward man began to carefully row back to shore noting that the sky had rather suddenly darkened.
Quiet suddenly a loud peal of thunder snapped directly overhead, causing the hard to startle John to jump, almost capsizing the small boat. As he looked up to see the approaching thunderheads he heard a rather strange woosh come from the sky.
Now what John saw next was so extraordinary that in one split instant it changed his life forever. High in the sky above him was not a thunderhead he had expected, but a huge reddish ship, or creature of some sort, John could not tell for sure.
From what seemed to be the rear it emitted an eary blue glow which pulsed slowly, which made it seem spaceship like to john; however further up, on the underside it moved in and out, as if it were alive.
John was not a coward, but nor was he stupid so he began to row as fast as his skinny little arms would allow, which was actually rather fast with that much adrenaline pumping to them.
As john reached the shore there came another woosh from the sky above, this time he was able to see what caused the noise. From the underside of the ship, a roughly round, caccoon-like membrane was ejected and heading right toward him. John had no idea what it was, but he sure didn't want to find out with anything less than a bazooka in his hands.
Just as the scared human landed on shore, so did the strangely pulsing cocoon, which instantly split open and spit out what looked like a giant, red lobster (sorry sea food fans not the restaurant).
Seeing an easy and fresh meal, the creature immediately starter toward John. Rest assured that John did not want to fight this creature but it was between him and his only escape rout, so John turned and grabbed the first thing that seemed vaguely weapon like, his oar.
The creature was on him a bit quicker than he anticipated; however John was in decent physically condition and a quick downswing caught the creature on the snout with a deafening thwack.
The creature, which easily outweighed John by 150 pounds, reared back in screeched in anger or pain, John had no idea which, but he had figured out one thing, these creatures did have weaknesses.
Hoping that the creature had lost interest in him John ran past it and up the stairs which led to his white Buick, the whole time making a conscious effort not to make a mess in his favorite shorts. As he reached the top of the stairs, and what he hoped was safety, a sudden and strong suction stopped him dead in his tracks.
No matter how fiercely he struggled, it made no difference to the force that effortlessly lifted him off the ground. For several long seconds he was just held there, suspended 15 feet above the ground until a strange slimy substance enveloped him, instantly rendering him unconscious.
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shadey
Cadet
Joined: November 13, 2004
Posts: 40
| Posted: 2005-08-17 12:24
Part 2
“My head,” John mumbled groggily, his eyes still tightly shut.
“Sir he's coming too.” The voice sounded official, doctor-like.
“I can see that, lets hope he takes this news better than most,” an older voice answered, sounding more than a little tired.
Now John was still not fully conscious, but he vaguely understood what was being said, which strangely enough calmed him slightly. All the crazy happenings at the river were explainable, he had fallen out of the boat, hit his head and hallucinated the whole thing before some fisher had pulled him out and taken him to a hospital.
“Well sir the kluth must have kept taken him for a reason.”
“Doctor, is there any way you can wake him up faster?”
“Aye sir that I can do,” the one with the doctor voice responded as he reached over to gently shake John, “Wake up, wake up earthling.”
John was more awake now, but he wasn't convinced he was entirely lucid. Did one of them just call him earthling? And what the hell was a Kluth? Besides that what kind of doctor shakes a patient awake.
“Thats not working, slap him or something, we don't have all day,” the older man was starting to sound impatient.
“I'm awake,” John mumbled before he could stop himself.
“See it worked,” the doctor sounded more than a little triumphant.
“I see that,” the older man was obviously annoyed. “Why were you on the Kluth transport ship when we intercepted it?”
“What on earth is a Kluth?.... and were am I?” John's voice rose in alarm, his eyes finally focusing on the two other men in the room.
“HHMmm you mean to tell me you've never heard of the kluth species?” the older man asked in disbelief.
“No, are they those lobsters on steroids?” John was now close to the brink of utter panic.
“What is your name and rank?” The grey haired man demanded with a strange rage in his eyes.
Terrified that his ignorance would get him killed, John decided to play along, I'm an errr captain, ya thats it and my name is John.
“Slightly subdued the older man scoffed, “ Not your civ name, your pilot codename”
John was sure he was caught now, he had no idea of a proper alias to use but inspired by the writing on an overhead duct, he quickly responded, “Vapor, and who would you be?”
“Lieutenant Dark,” the man responded with some hesitation.
“Assuming that the rank of captain was in fact higher than lieutenant, John decided to push his luck, “And why are you questioning a higher ranking officer? I am on a secret mission to spy on kluth activities in this area, and now you've ruined everything. I demand transportation, maybe i can fix this mess.”
“But sir I can't provide you with a ship without the server confirmation of your identity,” The lieutenants was obviously uncomfortable now.
“My name isn't likely to be in the server, what kind of spy would i make if everyone knew who I was?” John now knew that his lie would be caught but he was desperate so pressed on. “I must leave here, every kluth around must be searching for me.”
As if on queue the small infirmary was violently rocked, as if it had been hit by something. The two men in uniform exchanged a worried glance before lieutenant Dark dashed out of the room.
“Whats going on?” John asked anxiously.
Well since we're in ICC space, is say it likely that they've discovered us and are politely asking us to leave.” The doctor replied with a sardonic smile.
It wasn't long when some sort of communication device buzzed from the wall beside the vacuum operated door. When the doctor pressed the small orange button it was Darks voice on the other end.
“Get the captain to that icc scout we captured as fast as you can. The kluth followed us through the jump gates. Hopefully they'll chase him so we can save ourselves.”
“Aye sir,” the doctor replied as cheerily as ever.
Even before the doctor had pressed the button which John assumed hung up, the resilient John was on unsteady feet, he definitely did not want to give them the time to change thier mind
“This way to freedom Captain Vapor,” the doctor chuckled slightly as he hurried down the hull, John rushing unsteadily behind.
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GothThug {C?}
Fleet Admiral
Joined: June 29, 2005
Posts: 2932
| Posted: 2005-08-17 16:36
nice
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tagar
Cadet
Joined: July 02, 2004
Posts: 64
| Posted: 2005-09-08 10:10
Part 3
John had no idea what to expect next, but frankly these strange humans scared him almost as much as the other creatures had, but hopefully this “scout” they were giving him was fast. Hopefully he could find a safe cave somewhere to hide until all this insanity went away.
After what seemed like hours, the doctor pressed a button on a overly large red door, which instantly swooshed open. “Your chariot awaits” the doctor smiled, obviously happy to be rid of him.
John was totally unprepared for the sight on the other side of the door; however, he did recover too quickly for the other man to notice. Now there was no doubt in John,s mind that he was no longer on earth. The door opened into a long clear tube which extended out for roughly 20 feet, where it ended at another ship. John was forced to use the word ship by the fact that through the clear tube, he could see nothing but distant stars and an deep, inky blackness. “Hhmmm I'm not very familiar with this model. Do you have something else?” John was hopeing for at least something big, if nothing else hopefully he could ram any obstacles.
“Nooo, thats it. Do you see a ship yard around here?” The doctor was more than a little snide.
“Nnnoo, I suppose not,” John said lamely as he hurried into the tube, deciding it was definitely time to leave before they caught on to his charade.
The tube was much more solid than he anticipated, the clear floor had little or no give, and the sides didn't wobble at all when he pressed them with his slightly trembling hands. That is not to say that he didn't breath a quiet sigh of releaf when he reached the door of the docked ship. The black open space was rather unnerving for the Earth raised human.
John immediately saw that this door did not open the same way as the others. Whereas the others all shared a simple button to open then, this one had a number pad in is place.
“Whats the code?” John yelled across the space bridge.
“ Oh I forgot to tell you, no need for a code, just hit right above the number pad,” his snooty little escort yelled back. “And hurry up, that kluth ship could be anywhere”
John quickly rapped the metal wall above the number pad, and after several seconds of hesitation, the door slid open with a series of crunches and creeks.
As soon as he was inside the small death trap ship, John slammed his fist into the number pad on the interior of the ship, breaking it, and cutting his hand, but at least the door closed.
Now for the next small obstacle, he had no idea where the drivers seat was, let alone how to fly the contraption. Luckily the drivers seat was not hard to find in the cramped little ship, in fact it was one of only two small rooms on the ship. The first room, which open up directly from the exterior door, took up most of the ship and was totally devoid of any control, save for one lever that John assumed opened the huge door on the far side of the room, obviously a cargo hold of some sort.
Immediately to his left there was a small, half opened door which led toward the front of the ship. Pressing the open button John was not at all surprised when the door made a loud grinding noise, but did not open, this couldn't bode well for the condition of the rest of the ship.
After squeezing through the small opening John was rewarded with what was obviously the drivers seat, although he supposed pilots seat was more fitting. The room was small, in fact one had to squeeze in between the only chair and the wall in order to reach the front, but John quickly discovered that the chair swiveled, making it much easier to sit. Sitting in the chair made it rather obvious that this ship was designed to be flown by a single person. There were numerous gages and buttons surrounding the pilots chair, all within easy reach; however, this was of little use to the earthling since he had no idea what any of them did.
After moderate searching, the unwitting pilot found two things that seemed recognizable, a steering wheel from a 1969 Chevy Impala, and a throttle that looked like it belonged on a lawnboy lawnmower.
“Naw it can't be,” John though out loud, but when he pushed the lawnboy throttle lever towards the top, the little ship leaped ahead, ripping the clear space bridge to shreds.
Turning the steering wheel did in fact cause the ship to veer in the corresponding direction, and with amazing responsiveness. John was soon zipping around at full speed wooping and hollering with boyish excitement, he was still frightened but at this moment that was overshadowed by the feeling that he could do anything, the galaxy was his and his alone.
In all his excitement, it was no wonder that he did not notice the other ship which had appeared to his rear, nor did he hear the warning beep which came from the console.
The other ship was much larger, and slower than the nimble little scout, but it had decloaked well within missile rang so it quickly fired a salvo of missiles at the speeding craft.
This time John heard the warning beeps and turn his attention to the view screen which dominated the front of the ship. To John, nothing seemed overly out of the ordinary, except perhaps the 10 or so red triangles at the bottom. Upon close inspection, john noticed an object that he had missed on his first search, at the bottom of the screen lay an old, black computer mouse, Moving this mouse caused the view on the screen to pan around, quickly revealing that the red triangles represented nine fast approaching missiles, and one rather large and scary ship, to make matters worse the ship quickly faded from view, apparently rendering itself invisible to sensors.
John desperately hoped that he had a speed advantage over the larger ship, he was sure that if that thing got close it would unleash some horrible weapon that would incinerate him or something, but for now his most immediate concern was those steadily approaching missiles. So far they seemed to be a fair distance away, giving the adrenaline pumped human a little time to search for some sort of turbo or nitrous that would give him a boost of speed.
First he started to push the buttons on the mouse, which seemed to allow him to target specific points on the view screen, good but of little help in his current situation. Leaving a distant cloud-like object selected, he moved on to the many buttons on the ships steering wheel. Avoiding the oversized red button marked “J” John frantically pressed random buttons. Things shot out of his ship, there was a strange ping noise that wasn't present before, and a piping hot coffee suddenly appeared on the floor(strange no cup holder) but the ship did not go any faster.
Finally as a last resort, John pressed the “J” button. Immediately the ships automated guidance system started to turn the ship, and the message “Jump alignment” was displayed on the screen. Finally something was happening, hopefully the little ship was preparing itself to go into warp speed or something. It wasn't long before John saw what this “jump” thing was all about. As soon as the ship was facing that distant cloud-like object, then ship leaded forward at incredible speed, spilling his coffee in the process.
An instant later John's little ship was roughly in the center of the cloud, thankfully he seemed to be alone, so brought the ship to a full stop, intending to learn more about how to fly the darned thing.
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