*ACTION* Gatecrashers

<SNIP>
Harris took a deep breath of satisfaction, but it didn't last long.
Jay banked the massive ship hard to the left to avoid a building.
There was nothing on the roof to hold onto so Harris tumbled over,
sliding all the way to the edge of the roof...
<end snip>
"DANTE!!!" Chris cried out as he reached the edge, and slipped past
the ships horizon and out of the Morgonians sight.
"MAN OVERBOARD!!!" Dante yelled, scrambling to the edge of the hull.
Jay, heard Dante's voice over the radio, and banked hard
simultaneously sending the ship into a nosedive, with Dante holding
on to a service hatch handle for dear life. The ship suddenly
lurched sideways and moved beneath the falling security cheif, who
landed hard on the metal of the ships hull. He went into an
involuntary roll, and tumbled back toward the edge from which he had
just fallen, only this time, he was caught by Dante.
"Oof.." Chris said, the air, pushed out of his lungs by the force of
the fall. "Thanks man, NICE FLYING JAY!"
"Anytime" came Jay's voice over Chris's headset. "Now get back below
deck, before you cause any more hassle!"
Dante took a step back as the ship levelled off and helped Chris
back onto his feet, something caught his eye.
"JAY!!!" He yelled "WHY ARE SPACE EAGLES ATTACKING US?!"
A blast from the 'Eagle's foward cannon rocked the ships hull,
knocking both Dante and Chris off their feet.
They scrambled on all fours toward the service hatch that led below
decks.
"They don't realise it's us!" Came Jay's reply. He then opened a
channel to the Blue Dwarf fleet.
"CHRYSLER TO ALL SHIPS, DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT ATTACK THE SHELLITE
SHIP! We have commandeered it for our escape, however, as for the
choppers chasing us, FIRE AT WILL!!"
The radio hissed again, and the voice of Jayne Chrysler, piloting
the Phoenix came through.
"Jay, it's me" she said
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING FLYING MY SHIP?!" Jay snapped back.
"...ok, let's for a second pretend you're not an idiot..." Jayne
replied. "We need to get off this planet, but none of the shuttles
have enough fuel, we can barely keep them in the air now.."
"I know, this is why I ordered you to stay put!"
"We didn't have a choice but to take off, the Shellite's found our
hideout. So...we need to find a way to get those choppers off your
tail, and get all the shuttles aboard that ship
you've....borrowed..."
"No way they're all gonna fit..." Jay said "This ship's hold is no
where near the size it needs to be, we can get one third, maybe half
the ships aboard..."
"Soo….we need to transfer crew from the shuttles, to your ship,
while in motion, and fighting the Shellites at the same time…"
"Easy…" Jay said, trailing off. "Chris, Dante, get to the ventral
docking bay, Mk., get on the gun's…I need you on the ball…"
"Roger.." came the response of three voices in unison.
"Jayne, I want you to lead the Eagle's and half the midget's to fend
off the Shellites while I work some magic with the Raven and the
Starbugs…they carry the most people, and take up the most space, so
we need to get the crew off those, and sacrifice the ships."
"Got it…"
"Ok, Chrysler to Raven, you're first…."
The Raven, the largest of the Blue Dwarf's support craft, and so the
one with the most crew capacity, and sadly, largest fuel consumption
meant that this was the one that needed to shed it's load the
fastest.
It's pilot carefully lined the ship up beneath the Shellite ship and
tried his best to match the speed and course of the larger craft,
Dante and Chris opened the docking hatch on the bottom of the ships
hull, as the Raven's pilot opened the dorsal hatch on the Raven.
Looking down, Dante and Chris guessed that there was about 6 feet
between the two craft.
"Jay!" said the Raven's pilot over the radio "I can't get any closer
at this speed…"
"Got it, Dante, Chris help people up!"
.."Jay…" came Jayne's voice. "Do you want the good news, or the bad
news?"
"The good!"
"Well...the Shellite's are leaving us alone.."
"What, why?"
"Looks like they have bigger fish to fry, some weird ships just
turned up, and started attacking them.."
"What's the bad news?"
"They're attacking US too…"
Mk.10 looked up from his console "Jay…you're not gonna believe this
but…these new ships match the engine and weapons signatures of the
aliens that attacked that derelict we found a few weeks back, the
ones that destroyed the space corp. warship…"
"You've got to be kidding me…could this day get any WORSE?!"
"Raven's crew are clear Jay!" Came Chris' voice over the comm. "The
auto-pilot's landed it safely and we're just unloading the first
Starbug..
Jay said nothing, he was focused on the squadron of mysterious alien
ships coming into formation in front of the escape craft, blocking
his path.
"Vasquez!" he said into the comm., addressing the Starbug's'
pilot. "How much fuel do you have left"
"Not much" came the reply "About…five minutes flight time…"
"Set the auto pilot to these coordinates…" he tapped the
keyboard, "And set it to detonate the fuel when it gets there…"
"Roger…"
Seconds later, Vasquez clambered into the Shellite ship assisted by
Dante and Chris, the now empty Starbug rocketing away from under his
feet as he was lifted off by the security team. The green ship
hurtled toward the oncoming alien ships, and as it made contact with
them, it exploded, taking out the small squadron as it did so,
clearing a path for Jays' ship.
"A few more `bugs to go Jay, then we need to start landing the
shuttles in the hangar bay…."
*** An hour later***
Jayne touched down, with her engines hot in the aft shuttle bay of
the Shellite ship. The hangar doors slammed shut before she'd even
fully come to a stop and Jay pulled the larger ship high into the
air, now fully laden with the Blue Dwarf's crew and less than one-
third of it's support craft. The alien latecomers were still coming
fast, and it was only due to some brilliant piloting by Jay that the
stolen ship had managed to stay in the air.
A lot of Blue Midgets and Space Eagles had been lost, while still
fully crewed, forgetting the destroyed Starbugs that had been sent
crashing into attacking aliens, and the Raven, which lay abandoned
on the planet below.
The aliens were laying waste to the Shellite homeworld, if you could
call them aliens, the ships hadn't shown up a single lifesign.
Harris and Dante joined Jay and MK on the bridge, as Jay broke
through the atmosphere and took the ship into hyperdrive, breaking
away from the Shellite homeworld, and out of reach of it's attackers.
"Jay.." Chris said "We've still got a bunch of Shellite guards
aboard….and…well…seeing what those aliens did to their planet, they
don't have anywhere to go…"
"Let them go.." Jay said.."They can come with us…."
<back to the Dwarf we go! Excuse the random attacking aliens at the
end there…it's *still* all part of a bigger plot…>
--- In JMC_Blue_Dwarf@yahoogroups.com, "Onion" <theonion770@...>
wrote:
>
> Who: Jay, Dante, Harris, Mk10 and Seymour
> Where: Shellite ship
> When: Now
>
> <snip>
> "Jay we're taking damage." Said Mk10.
> "Look, I can't help it. This thing's controls are rubbish."
> "No... I mean, we're being attacked."
> Jay raised his eyes and he could see more of the helicopter
gunships
> buzzing around above them, firing missiles down at them.
>
> "Don't worry." Said Harris, finding a rocket launcher under a
desk. "I
> saw a hatch onto the top deck earlier." Dante grabbed another
rocket
> launcher and followed.
> <end snip>
>
> The hatch onto the top hull of the ship swung open and Chris Harris
> pounced out like a tiger onto the deck. He crouched to keep his
centre
> of gravity low, as the motion of the ship created a strong wind
that
> could easily blow him from off the moving vehicle.
>
> Dante joined him and pointed upwards. A black helicopter was firing
> down at them.
>
> Harris got down onto one knee and fired his missile launcher
upwards,
> the propellant swirled around like a corkscrew until it hit the
> vehicle dead in the centre. The windscreen shattered and the pilot
> hurtled to his death.
>
> The helicopter lurched forward and plummeted towards them, the
> spinning blades coming closer to carving up the Blue Dwarf
security duo.
>
> Harris took a step back, careful not to slip off the smooth outer
hull
> of their ship. The remains of the helicopter crashed right next to
> him, the spinning blade embedding itself fully into the metal hull.
>
> Harris took a deep breath of satisfaction, but it didn't last long.
> Jay banked the massive ship hard to the left to avoid a building.
> There was nothing on the roof to hold onto so Harris tumbled over,
> sliding all the way to the edge of the roof...
>
> ----------------------------------------------
> Who: Dr Keto and Vanessa Chrysler
> Where: The underground carpark where the rest of the crew were
hiding
> When: Same time
>
> "Doctor!" yelled Vanessa. "We've got wounded coming in!"
> Keto rushed over to the door which Vanessa was holding open and
helped
> several injured crewmembers inside. It was a team of seven people
who
> had been send out to find food for the hiding crew. Only four had
made
> it back.
>
> Keto sat the most injured down onto a surgery bed. He had a
> complicated chest wound to which Keto put a clean towel to stop the
> bleeding. He called Vanessa over. "Nurse! Put that baby down and
apply
> pressure here." he demanded.
>
> Vanessa put baby Alota with her comatose mother and did as the
doctor
> asked.
> Keto made the other patients comfortable, and then threw several
small
> pots of potions to other crewmembers. "Use these on these wounded
> people." he commanded.
>
> Keto then walked quickly to the first man, who was screaming in
pain
> from his chest wound. Keto realised he had no time for
pleasantries.
>
> "Were you followed?" He asked the man.
> The man just screamed in pain. Only Keto seemed to realise the
> importance of his question. Right now he was thinking as a Doctor,
and
> as the person in charge of the entire Blue Dwarf's hiding crew.
> He slapped the man. "Were you followed?" he repeated.
> The man swallowed. Keto could see that there was blood in his
mouth.
>
> "Yes." he said. "There was nowhere else we could go but here."
>
> The doctor stepped back. He took a shallow breath and then shouted
as
> loud as he could to the rest of the crew who were in adjoining
rooms.
> "Prepare to defend yourselves, we're under attack!"
>
> He was impressed at the speed people could reach for their weapons
and
> ready themselves. Many of them rushed through the exit, preparing
to
> fight the attacking Shellites before they reached the entrance, and
> some lined up with their weapons covering the door.
>
> Keto could hear fighting outside.
>
> He looked around. They were in an underground carpark with only one
> way out. Only now he realised the stupidity of hiding here. He
thought
> it would be an advantage, with only one entrance to worry about
> guarding. Now it meant they couldn't escape.
>
> "Prepare the Starbugs." he shouted at some pilots and technicians.
> "And get everyone inside. The entire crew." They looked at each
other,
> then back at him in confusion.
>
> "Where can we go sir? It' daylight outside. We'd be seen. We have
> nowhere to go, we don't even have enough fuel to break orbit."
>
> Keto stabbed a finger at them. "Just do it!" He barked.
>
> He pressed a large red button on the wall that set a complicated
array
> of machinery into motion. A long, thin beam of sunlight cut into
the
> dreary underground cavern. The beam got wider as the large doors
> directly above them started to slide open.
>
> This was where they had flown the Starbugs, Space Eagles and Blue
> Midgets into when they had first arrived on this planet. The
cacophony
> of almost a hundred shuttles revving up at once in the underground
> cavern almost deafened him. One by one, they all flew up into the
city
> above.
>
>
> <Tag! Theres only one place to go!>
>