**Action** - "The Main Course" pt2

Who: The Apophallationmaster
Where: Mollopod homeworld
On the Mollopod homeworld, the hundreds of thousands of slugs that
flocked around the marketplace in the capitol city to be fed on tasty
human snacks were dying horribly.
From the window in his palace throne room, the Apophallationmaster
looked out in horror. The people who trusted him as leader were
melting into watery pools of slime. The Apophallationmaster continued
to watch, even though it was incredibly hard. He was not normally a
creature to be saddened by the loss of life, but with the vast loss
his planet had now taken because of his decisions he was now worried
for his own future as their leader.
He thought back over the events that had lead to it, it was all
planned out. From the part where they paid Jayne Chrysler to lead an
insurgence of rabid dogs on the Blue Dwarf, to the part where they
were to use the Blue Dwarf's wormhole drive to ferry their own ships
to Earth, and the part where his people were to eat like kings, and to
praise him as the glorious leader who fed them so well. It all seemed
to be a flawless plan on paper.
"How?" he asked himself out loud. "How has it come to this?"
A voice behind him answered. "Y'all chose the wrong folk to be messin'
with." It was the infinitely cocky voice of Captain Jed Calvert, who
had managed to light up a fat filthy looking cigar despite his hands
being chained behind his back.
The Apophallationmaster turned and faced the stubbly man, who despite
being in chains, looked quite calm and annoyingly confident, as if he
was absolutely sure he wouldn't be in them for long.
"You say the wrong people, but we chose the Blue Dwarf because it has
a crew of morons and cretins! You shouldn't have been able to do this!"
Jed shrugged.
The Apophallationmaster was extremely aggravated by Jed's lack of
answers. He stepped closer dramatically, as if expecting Jed to cower
or cringe. He did not.
"We didn't eat you because you look tough and stringy... and you smell
bad." said the slug, towering over the Blue Dwarf's Captain. "But now
I realise we should have just killed you anyway, you've been planning
this – telling your crew exactly what to do to escape, and to foil out
plans, and to ... kill us."
Jed shrugged again. "Nope." he let the word linger there, followed by
a long silence because he knew it aggravated the Apophallationmaster
so much. "I just sat in the cell you put me in, smokin'."
The Apophallationmaster let out a grunt of annoyance.
"Kill him."
A guard walked over, it was a bulbous slug that looked a bit like an
aubergine. He was carrying a spear which he put as Jed's neck. Jed
didn't look like he was bothered, then he looked at the guard. He
looked right into the guard's eyes, and just for a split second the
guard saw something. Something raging inside the scrawny human that
made him step back in fright.
"What are you doing? Kill him I said!" Said the Apophallationmaster.
"Then I hope his insides are more tasty-looking than the outside."
The guard gulped and moved closer. Jed looked at him again. The guard
wasn't sure what it was, it could have been the extreme confidence
that the grizzled human was emitting that stopped him, or it could
have been something deep in his eyes that just for a second the guard
thought he could see himself being choked to death by the Captain, who
seemed to be enjoying it immensely.
The guard dropped his spear and sludged away in fright.
Jed's dry, tanned skin cracked into a smile. He turned to the
Apophallationmaster. "The beauty of a ship full of morons an' cretins
is that you don't have to tell them anything. Well, if ya did, they'd
do the opposite, but if ya don't... they'll do what they want." The
Apophallationmaster's eye twitched. "And that... is bad for people
like you."
-------------------------------------------------------------
Who: Jay and Sulcar
Where: Drive Room
Jay watched in horror as a wormhole opened in front of them and the
Mollopod ships moved towards it. He had to do something to stop them.
Sulcar Regente was in the way. With the gravity still offline, Jay
couldn't predict how any fight would go, but he still wanted to try.
He pushed himself off a desk, aiming headfirst at the Mollopod. Sulcar
saw him coming and grasped a chair out of the air, spun and swung the
chair straight at jay, catching him on the side of the head. Jay
spiralled and flew towards the plaxiglass window. For a split second
Jay felt like he was floating amongst the stars as the window occupied
his entire view.
He pushed off the window and grabbed a keyboard and mouse from a
nearby computer. He threw the keyboard at the giant slug, which he
dodged, but the mouse caught him squarely between the eyes. This
moment of distraction was all Jay needed to get closer to Sulcar and
pull the jamming device from his pocket. Jay smashed the device and
immediately pulled out his own walkie-talkie. "Dante. Shut that
wormhole down!"
--------------------------------------------------------------
Who: Dante
Where: In the shadows of the Wormhole Drive room
Dante saw Jayne get surrounded and the Mollopod pull the lever. He
would have done something sooner, but a trained soldier knows when to
strike and when not to strike. Dante waited for the correct moment.
Electricity was bouncing off the top of the large metal column known
as the Wormhole Drive, Dante had never been in this room when the
device was activated so assumed it must be normal. The sparks weren't
damaging anything, but Dante did wonder what would happen if a parson
got too close. Or perhaps an object?
He picked up a spanner from the ground and flung it upwards. The
sparks of electricity caught the metal object and suspended it in
mid-air for a few moments. Then it was flung downwards at incredible
speed where it pierced the chest of the blue haired wolf. It had
killed him before he even realised it.
There was a moment of confusion in the room, and this is when Dante
jumped out of the shadows. Moving like a bear, he flattened several of
the Bloodhound Gang just by barging into them. He stood alongside
Jayne and together they fought the rest.
Dante turned his attention to the Mollopod, which used it's dart gun
to teleport to another part of the room every time Dante was going to
hit it. Dante was getting dizzy and also very aggravated at the
Mollopod's vanishing act.
Then the Mollopod made a mistake. It teleported next to Jayne, who
quickly pulled the gun off it, allowing Dante to pummel the slug to
the ground.
"I have a better idea." Said Jayne, pointing up to the sparks atop the
Wormhole Drive. She thrust the gun in the slug's hands and aimed
upwards. The Mollopod vanished and appeared directly above them,
suspended by the bolts of electricity. If the Mollopods had a skeleton
inside their squishy bodies, they would have definitely seen it.
The charred remains of the alien dropped to the ground.
Dante wiped his hands, then suddenly remembered what he had to do. He
bounded over to the Wormhole Drive and yanked on the lever.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who: Jay and Sulcar
Where: Drive Room
Sulcar had wrapped an enthernet cable around Jays throat and was
strangling him to death with it. Jay really wished someone had
listened to him last year when he wanted wireless internet.
Out of the corner of his eye Jay could see the Mollopod ships just
entering the wormhole. "D-Dante!" he choked.
Then the wormhole closed. It collapsed in on itself, sucking the ships
on it's event horizon into the epicentre then crashing them all
together. They exploded in a fireball that was only partly visible.
Jay guessed that the rest of the fireball was in the Earth sector.
The sight of the fireball made Sulcar more furious and squeezed
tighter around Jay's neck. "You do realise I'll not get paid now." he
said angrily.
Just as it was about to get dark, Sulcar was hit on the head by a
falling chair. Jay hit the ground and was hit by datasticks and
several packs of post-it notes.
"Gravity's back then?" he asked anyone who was on the comms.
The voice of Rufus came back. "Yes Sir. And we've figured out how to
use the Mollopod transporter to beam our crew back, and to beam the
Mollopods back to their planet."
Jay grinned. "Do it." he said.
Sulcar disappeared, and only a few seconds later the Drive Room was
full of people. Officers who looked confused, but glad to be back
somewhere familiar.
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Who: Captain Calvert
Where: Captain's Office
When: 2 days later
Jed puffed on a large sweaty-looking cigar and put his feet up on the
desk, knocking paperwork all over the floor. But he didn't care. He
held in his hand a printed email from the Spacecorps.
Jed reached over and picked up the microphone from the table and held
it up to his mouth.
"Attention folk, this is yer Captain speaking." he wet his dry lips.
"I just here got a message from Spacecorps that is the closest thing
we'll get to an official thank you for saving that sorry ass planet we
all call Earth. They're putting the Mollopods on the list of
'dangerous' species to avoid and tellin' most folk to steer clear of
the planet. They also gave every single member of crew a $£500 bonus
for their troubles and helpin' out, an' prolly to stop you from suing
their asses for damages."
Jed took a deep breath. "Also whilst ahm in a good mood, I'm giving
everyone the rest of the day off and putting some money behind the bar
in Parrotts. Lets go have a shindig!"
As soon as he put the microphone down, he could hear the cheers and
chairs scooting as people left their desks to head down to Parrotts.
Jay remained there for a while looking at some papers. The Spacecorps
had actually paid quite a handsome sum in reward for them saving the
Earth, plenty more than Jed had awarded to everyone. But Jed had plans
for that money.
His thoughts were interrupted by the lights going off and the air
going stale. The booming voice of Holly could be heard around the
ship. "Life support offline. Temperature dropping. Oxygen depletion in
48 seconds... 47... 46..."
Jed picked up the microphone again with a sigh. "I meant everyone
except life support goddamit!"