A distinct lack of ALTAR

OOC - First of, thanks Alex! Second, sorry if this is bad, inaccurate, or whatever but I ain't got much time and I gotta post!

Plisken and Artemis crouched down behind a pillar, watching and waiting. They had decided against using the Thumper to attract the worms, it would be conspicous and perhaps stealth was more appropriate. This dissopointed Plisken immensly, he'd been hoping for a chance to say "We have worm sign the likes of which god has never seen!" in his best impression of Stilgar but nope, the chance never came. They brought the Thumper along anyway, just in case. Plisken had ditched his disguise, feeling that it was overly flamboyant for his tastes. Instead he wore his brown hat and grey/blue coat- something he'd begun to miss much during their adventures on the ALTAR base that never happened. I know, confusing right?

"Come on Mr. Plisken," said Artemis, "Shouldn't we be helping them?"

Plisken hushed his comrade, waving away his ideas of foolish bravery. Something felt strange about all this- like there was no way they could actually help them. This was the way events would have to play out.

"I wouldn't," advised the old man as he placed his metal hand on the barrel of Artemis' rifle, lowering the muzzle to the floor, "You're more likely to hit our friends than our enemies in this mayhem.

"Why don't you do it then? You're supposed to be a great soldier!"

"Yeah, but I'm also old. Too old some would say."

"What do you mean?" asked Artemis, getting comfortable behind a strong and safe pillar as the fighting continued.

Plisken smiled, he'd been trying to think of a way to tell this story for a while. He'd hoped to tell it to Artemis on a space station far away, the moon perhaps. Maybe somewhere were it would have more context that it would here. But he didn't really care. He hadn't got the oppertunity to quote from his favourite book, he was going to tell this story whether or not it fitted.

"Well, it was a long, long time ago in a galaxy very close by..."

3 millionish years ago

Plisken stood on his ship, alone save for the lab mice in the science labs. The others, the crew, the droids, the snack dispensers (who had a much better union than the lab mice) had been evacuated on the escape pods and Starbugs. The HMS Indefatigable had been through a lot with Plisken, being the third ship he’d served on and the second he’d had command over, and Plisken felt perfectly safe behind her strong metal bulkheads. Ahead of the Indefatigable were three ships under the command of Brittany. One of the ships lay wrecked and drifting, warm plasma leaking from the engine drives. The other two were in perfectly good condition, which was much better than the Indefatigable was. Brittany, who had got command of Plisken, had order the Commodore to retrieve the Genesis Ark, a legendry device built by the ancient civilization of sentient Pepper and Salt Shakers. The Ark had been lost when the Pepper Shakers went to war with the Salt Shakers several thousand years ago. The Ark granted the gift of youth, reducing the age of the user to any desired number. Brittany wanted it for obvious reasons but it was always beyond her grasp. The captains under her direct command, although strong and brave, were unbelievably stupid. They had never been able to find the Ark. But Plisken, with his average intelligence, was able to locate the Ark easily. The only problem was that the Ark had been secured deep with the Arcadia: a city on one of Heartfall’s moons, Ulysses. Arcadia was a huge facility that housed many books and much knowledge. Plisken was order to sack the city using one of Dr. Pritchard’s latest weapons: the Q-Bomb. Of course Plisken had used the bomb before and he knew its destructive abilities. But he had little choice: he was 68 and had been serving for 51 tours. He wouldn’t be able to defend against a knife in the dark anymore. So the bomb was dropped and the Ark recovered. But Plisken couldn’t give it to Brittany, she’d live for ever. He declared that he would keep it form himself, out of reach from Brittany. She didn’t take to kindly to that. And now he was here, sailing with a Q-Bomb laden hold into the heart of the Medusa Maelstrom. The Medusa Cascade, once known as the Medusa Maelstrom, was an area of space above the Planet Heartfall. It was so call because of the violent storm of strange green vapours that resembled snakes. It was perfectly harmless and very beautiful. But unknown to everyone, the Medusa Maelstrom was a location of where the fabric of reality was weakened. Plisken fired the Q-Bomb, hoping to destroy the Brittany ships. He of course did, it’s kind of hard to miss with a bomb that can take out a large asteroid. But the bomb ripped open the Maelstrom and sucked the Indefatigable in, sending it back 300 years. The Maelstrom (sealed from the after explosion of the Q-Bomb) calmed down and became the Medusa Cascade. Plisken arrived at the sight of the Maelstrom as it was 300 years ago. It was rather docile, a simple nebula. But the ship began to malfunction and the warp drive went into over time, self destructing. Plisken had enough time to escape on the Captain’s Yacht and jettison the Ark into space. The explosion from the ship, the warp drive and several Q-Bombs, caused a rip in the fabric of reality and the space time continuum and created the Medusa Maelstrom.

Present Day

"Huh, that was an okay story," said Artemis when the story had finished, "Shame it didn't have more context.

Plisken shurgged and waved away the comment. It wasn't like he'd speant a weekend writing a post that was around 6 pages long only to find there was no way to use it. Oh no, nothing like that.

"Come on," said Plisken as he stood up, using the stock of his rifle for support, "The fighting seems to be over."

The two men walked over to the destruction, reciving some strange looks from the survivors.

"Remind me again why we couldn't join in the fighting?" asked Artemis.

"I'll explain later."

<Snip>

Seymour pulled Katrina slowly to the ground and looked down as he said, “I’m so sorry Kat.” Katrina wanted to hit him but was still in shock by what Anubis had done for her since they didn’t really get a long. Seymour looked around at the devastation that had transpired and said, “It’s finally over.”

</Snip>

"What is?" asked Plisken, lighting his pipe and begining to smoke his favourite tobacco, Quickadeath.