Where the hamster overindulges...

White Wolf and Candice were lying on a couple of Chaise lounges beneath a pair of tanning lamps in one the Blue Dwarf's rarely stocked supply rooms, located just a short ways from the arboretum and it's Huzzard population, who were gladly leaving the two of them alone for a time - probably because the last time one of the Huzzards threw a spear at White Wolf, Candice overreacted while going into her companion protection mode and nearly leveled one of their villages, or maybe it was because they knew that oversized Hamster had (accidentally) caused two of their villages to sink underground with all his digging & tunneling inside the arboretum's grounds.

Candice sipped leisurely on a mock Pina Colada while gesturing towards several boxes marked 'Emergency Carbohydrate Supplement', "Well, the pineapple flavored candy pieces that you found go pretty well with these drinks Honey."

As he set down on his chest a heavy instruction manual entitled 'Installation and Maintenance of the JMC issue Q ration manufactuary', The huge hamster shook his head and said, "I still think this is a better find. All the parts are in boxes, so we just have to find out how we're supposed to set it up and may help solve their food problems here on the Dwarf."

"I still think you got a better shot with that secret stash of Curries we found earlier." Remarked Candice.

"If you tried one like I did," Started White Wolf as he paused to thump his chest and let out a loud >BURP<, "You'd know that's not a very good idea!"

"Curries always give you gas. You know that." Said Candice while carefully smoothing her blue bikini mini skirt, politely ignoring his burp.

"Not like this!" Remarked the rotund Hamster shifting uncomfortably on the chaise lounge and grimacing before letting out a embarrassing loud fart.

<Snip>
A claxon sounded. "ALERT ALERT REACTOR CORE BREACH ALERT ALERT! OVERLOAD IMMINENT!"
</Snip>

"Calm down Holly! There's no need to get that excited, that was just one of my farts from eating one of Phil's special curries we found..." Exclaimed the Six foot, one inch hamster while waving a paw casually.

Candice giggled.

Holly appeared on a nearby wall and tried to explain, "Emergency flux dampers are inoperable! In Engineering! The core is flown the coop! We can't vent the STCP onboard with all the plasma! Jaxx needs to die!"

Both Candice and White Wolf quickly sat up.

"What?!?" Demanded Candice.

The outsized hamster was about to inquire as well, when he spotted the four armed STCP agents suddenly appear at the supply rooms door, with inhuman speed he reacted - grabbing Candice and diving for cover behind the Carbohydrate Supplement boxes. Mere milliseconds later, several of them exploded as STCP agents fired upon them.

"Smeg! I knew shoulda wore my pink outfit this morning..." Grumbled Candice.

"How can you worry about fashion choices at a time like this?" Yelled White Wolf while pulling out of one his cheek pouches several of the parts to a gun he was rapidly assembling.

"A young woman always has to consider her good looks for her lover you know. Besides, they appear to have tech level 13 weapons - Hardly worth getting excited about, the most they'll do is a lot of collateral damage to the Dwarf." remarked Candy as a couple of the boxes behind them were blown apart spilling their contents, Spinach & Carrot puree pouches, onto the floor by them.

The bustling hamster paused to pick up one of the opened pouches and experimentally licked at it's contents, "This is pretty tasty stuff!", and suddenly noticing Candice was getting ready to return fire with a Advanced Death & Destruction series heavy assualt rifle, asked "Where did you get that from?"

"You don't want to know!" Replied Candice glaring at him for moment while quickly adjusting her blue bikini mini skirt once again.

"Right." Said White Wolf a bit sheepishly, then clicking the final piece of his weapon into place, "I'm ready whenever you are."

"On three, You take the two on the left, and I'll take the two on the right. " Replied Candice, "One, two, THREE!"

As one, they both popped up from behind the remains of the boxes and fired a massive barrage of weapons fire, which not only atomized the four STCP agents, but cut through the metal bulk head behind them, continuing on into the arboretum and into a nearby Huzzard village reducing several of it's buildings to smouldering remains.

Both Candice and the large Hamster ceased shooting almost immediately. Candice smiled, "Take that STCP!"

Then they heard a rumbling sound and felt the deckplates beneath their feet vibrate. Candice glanced at White Wolf rather questioningly, "Is that the..."

"No." Replied White Wolf grabbing both guns in one of his paws and her hand in the other, "I think we've just started a rebellion. Time to exit - Stage LEEEEFFFFFTTT!"

"What?!?" Said a confused Candice, then saw a large mob of angry Huzzards wielding spears come dashing out of the jungle in the arboretum, "I don't suppose they'll take a WHOOPSIE?"

"You think?!?" Replied the mammoth hamster running down the hallway with her in tow.

<Several moments and several decks later, successfully evading the Huzzard lynch mob...>

White Wolf & Candice crash into Boyd and all three go sprawling. Boyd stands first, helping up Candice, while dusting her off and apologizing about being in such a hurry to find someone to disable the FACS.

"Whats wrong with the FACS?" Demanded the Whopping hamster, as he stood up.

"Artemis says we need someone who knows computers and can defuse bombs, otherwise his lab will be incinerated and the Blue Dwarf will get destroyed." Explained Boyd.

White Wolf Clicked one of his claws, "Oh! I remember reading something about this back when I was Captain of the dwarf. Something about the lab having some kind a explosive in case of intruders or something like that."

"Thermobaric Charges." Supplied Boyd.

"Thermobaric Charges?!?" Said Candice incredulously.

"Uh huh. Their all set to go off by the lab computers timer in about 45 minutes." Finished Boyd smiling rather happily to himself glancing at his watch.

White Wolf took off at a run toward the lab and yelled back to Candice, "You disable the lab computer trigger, and I'll defuse the Thermobaric Charges!"

Candice gave a shrug as she quickly followed, "I *definitely* should have wore my hot pink outfit."

Once inside Artemis's lab, Candice undid a wire from her right wrist and jammed it into the nearest computer terminal, "I'm jacking in, I'll be able to interface much faster through with a direct connection."

White Wolf pulled a Swiss army knife out of one of his cheek pouches and popped a deckplate and dove into the cramped crawl space below.

Candice closed her eyes and gave a ongoing progress report, "The lab computers firewall is attempting to reject me. I'm setting up a multi source denial of service attack to overwhelm it. It's attempting to redirect. I'm routing around it. Made it. Searching out security subroutines."

A few minutes pass, "Still searching... Aha! There they are. Their encrypted! No biggie. Initiating Decryption."

A few more minutes pass, "Successfully Decrypted. Reading the routines."

Several more minutes pass, "Bypassing the main security protocols."

"Almost there!" Calls the muffled voice of White Wolf somewhere below in the deckplating.

Candice frowned, "Wait! FACS isn't controlled by these security protocols - The idiot programmers kludged it in with a whole bunch of clumsy branching goto's. It'll take too long to go through all that spaghetti code and find the correct disabling function!"

She paused. "Hold it! I've got admin privileges. I can just set the computers clock & timer back to another epoch. There, it's done!"

Several of the deckplates exploded upwards.

Candice let out a shriek.

A brief plume of smoke filled the lab from below.

"Oh my god - I must have triggered it!" Cried Candy.

"But... we're alive!" Said Artemis & Boyd.

"I accidentally bit the last Thermobaric Charge instead of swallowing it whole..." Remarked a very blackened and battered Hamster crawling out of the ruins of the deckplating and folding up the fork and knife attachment on his Swiss army knife while giving a little ~burp~, "You owe me a lot of Flayrah for saving your lab, Artemis - and I've found yet another use for Phil's secret curry recipe..."

"What's Flayrah?" Asked Boyd.

"Lettuce." Answers Candice with much relief.

"GAH!" Yells Artemis and popping another circuit in his annoyance.

{Tag}