*Action* "Citadellia"

**Action post**
“Citadellia, Knight time”
The small planet of Citadellia shines a dark green from space. Large
blue/purple oceans cover roughly half of the planet, the other is green with
forest and woodland. From space, the planet has no signs which would
indicate any life lives there, not civilised life anyway. There are no large
cities visible, or any areas cleared for industry. It all looks very
unspoilt and natural.
But a space traveller would have to be very close to see the planet at all,
as it is hidden very comfortably in a thick red nebula cloud. The density of
the nebula decreases around the planet, but from the surface all that can be
seen of the sky are shades of deep red.
Although unseen from space, there are people living on Citadellia. They go
about their lives unknowing and uninterested in what was beyond the nebula
that surrounded their world. In fact they lacked any kind of technological
developments which would have told them that they were living in a nebula.
In fact they didn’t even know that their world was round.
The Citadellians hadn’t made any technological advances in years, hundreds
of years. Humans had been making new discoveries for centuries, continually
making a new gadget which did something new, then inventing one that did
something a lot better. But the Citadellians were unable to make new gadgets
even if they wanted to (and they had long since given up), their world was
devoid of anything which could be used as fuel, and the nebula around the
planet had a strange electromagnetic field which prevented anything
electrical or mechanical from working.
Sir Tim Cullus rode on his Twon’Ha steed back towards his home castle. A
huge tower of smoke came from behind him and his party of fellow knights,
indicating their victory against their enemy. With them they brought gold
and food they had pillaged.
Sir Tim rode his two legged beast over the opened drawbridge of his home
castle and into the courtyard. Hundreds of peasants and servants gathered
around to hear him speak. Even Duke Von-Velcro, the ruler of the castle and
the land which surrounded it leaned out of the window of his tall tower to
hear the hero.
“We have victory over our enemies!” The mounted knight bellowed proudly,
while trying to stand up and balance on his Twon’Ha. He gripped its reigns
tightly as the animal’s emu-like head turned to try and escape the close
crowd.
Sir Tim pointed to the smoke in the distance over the castle walls “Our
neighbours have attacked us too many times, they hast stolen from us, killed
without reason, taken our land, taken our girls….”
There was a huge cheer as three young girls got out of a Twon’Ha drawn
carriage and were reunited with their families. Stolen food was distributed
among the crowd.
“But they will do so no more! As they all lay dead!”
There was a shocked silence from the crowd.
Tim noticed that his audience didn’t share the need for drastic action like
him.
“Yes friends, it may sound extreme. But it was necessary…”
But his voice was cut off as everyone looked up in the air, a great ball of
flame streaked down from the red heavens. It cut through the red sky,
seeming to burn the air itself.
The villagers fled in fear, while Sir Tim Cullus steadied his steed. It
threw him off in panic and he fell in the mud.
Amongst cries of “The sky be falling upon our heads!” Tim looked up and saw
the object crash through the roof of the castle Keep and embed itself into
the wet mud inside the courtyard.
Sir Tim, being the brave soul he thought he was, approached the object. It
was green and glowed slightly with continually varying shades. Everyone else
gathered around, as the immediate danger had gone. Now they were just
curious.
The object vibrated slightly. Sir Tim bit his lip, but knew everyone
expected him to investigate. He was the bravest knight in the Duke’s
patronage. Even the Duke himself looked out of the castle tower and watched
with interest at the object that had knocked his roof off.
The green round object looked scaly and slimy, and Tim was certain he saw
something move under the skin, like a newborn bird within a transparent egg.
He drew his sword and urged everyone back. The egg started to crack slightly
and thick green goo oozed out of the cracks.
Sir Tim realised people were not moving back as he had ordered. He turned
around.
“Everybody back now, it could be dan- Aaaaaaaaaaargh!”
As he spoke a sharp long spike had smashed its ay out of the egg and stabbed
him in the upper leg, he could feel it hit the bone.
Striking with his sword, he sliced the spike clean away. The rest of the
beast now crawled out of the shell.
“A dragon!” Screamed a villager.
In fact it was a large insect, covered in green slime. It had large pincers
on its head and a big smooth body, held up with five and a half spiny legs.
It was obviously not full size, but was growing fast.
Sir Tim had never seen anything like it in his life, a giant insect. But had
a duty to protect his people. He lunged at the creature and sliced one of
its pincers off. Another knight tried the same, but the creature was ready
this time, it knocked him to the floor and raised a leg, spearing the
unlucky knight through the back.
Sir Tim held his distance, sword raised in defence he took out his boot
dagger and threw it into the bug’s head. Distracted, he swung his sword and
chopped its legs off. The creature fell to the ground. Having grown to
bigger than two men now, Sir Tim jumped on top of it and plunged his long
sword through its still soft infant shell.
Silence fell over the shocked crowd.
Until the ground shook again, with the force of many more eggs hitting the
ground.
In the thick red soupy nebula above Citadellia, a giant spider shaped ship
hovered silently. Silently unless you were one of the same species, in which
case you would have heard high-pitched screams of telepathic communication.
But only if you were an insect, or slightly mad. It fired glowing eggs out
of a gaping mouth in the centre of its tendrils, which were spread out like
a dangerous rose.
These
On the Blue Dwarf Efof Yuwan’kar heard high-pitched screams. He’d been
hearing them every night on and off since he saw the insects on New Ibiza,
WW called them ‘Hymenoptera’. He knew they were the insects that wiped his
planet out. Every single Ffionian aside from him, what if they had developed
a taste for his species? They might try and hunt him down! He curled up into
a ball and squeezed into the corner of his room, pulling his blanket around
him for protection.
***Back on Citadellia***
Near Duke Von-Velcro’s castle
The eggs fell to the ground like meteors. The ones which didn’t burn up on
entry cracked and unleashed infant “Planet Killer” monsters. They started
devouring everything, plants, trees and animals to get enough protein to
grow to their gargantuan size.
One sprayed a huge tree with its digestive acids and sucked up the broken
down proteins. Now it was full size, the size of two London busses it
stomped off to cause some terror and destruction, ready for the main
Hymenoptera mission to succeed.
***Castle Finningstein***
Castle Finningstein was near Duke Von-Velsro’s castle, the two neighbours
had never been on bad terms, only a few disputes about farmland. But they
had never exactly been friendly neighbours.
Murdock was a wizard.
When I say wizard, I mean people think he is a wizard, people think he can
perform miracles like heal people, or predict it will rain. In fact he just
used science to fool people he had magical powers.
Sitting on the roof of the tallest tower in the castle, the wizard could see
the insect coming, but it was too late. The huge monster didn’t quite have
long enough legs to step over the tall stone castle wall, so it crashed
through. Dry stones and rubble scattered everywhere, smashing the heads of
some practising courtroom jesters underneath.
The monster turned around, as if it didn’t know what to do next. Just
crashing through the outer wall into the castle courtyard has already caused
everyone to drop things and run to the nearest exit. But the drawbridge over
the outside moat was shut, the hundreds of screaming villagers waited for
the drawbridge to be lowered to escape.
The insect turned around, looking down below at the small people, they must
have been like ants, so small compared to the giant. As it turned, a leg
caught the thatched market overhang, and knocked it down. Walking forward
the monster deliberately stepped on a knight, and then started stomping the
villagers with its spiny legs.
Spinning around once more, its bulbous back end caught the drawbridge tower
which smashed like pottery. The drawbridge fell, but so did the tower
rubble, blocking the only escape. The well defended castle which was built
to keep people out now trapped them in.
Murdock the wizard watched from his vantage point in alarm, unable to do
anything. Then suddenly, the monster turned towards him. On the tall tower
he was about eye-level with the fierce beast. It looked at him intently with
its multiple shining eyes.
Murdock gulped. But the Hymenoptera’s plan for him was far different that
that of the dying villagers. Murdock was an intelligent man, and they needed
his brain.
A flying mosquito Hymenoptera that he had not seen grabbed the wizard from
behind, and flew him down to the ground. Holding him down with its insect
arms, the mosquito injected a tongue into the base of his neck. He screamed
in pain and fright.
Hundreds of smaller ant-like Hymenoptera which didn’t look as threatening as
the ones the BD crew had encountered on New Ibiza swarmed through the hole
in the castle wall.
They began spitting out proteins around the wizard and large mosquito until
they had built a ship. Murdock was the core of the ship, he understood now.
He could hear the voices of the rest of the hive much the way that Seymour
Niples had. But he was a part of it. He flew the small Hymenoptera fighter
ship out of the planet and through the nebula. He could move so freely.
As his ship wasn’t electrical then the nebula had no effect. He flew out, he
knew his mission, to scout the area.
But what was this? Passing a few hundred miles from the red nebula and the
planet Citadellia was a blue oblong.
He called for backup and soon 50 or more Hymenoptera fighter ships swarmed
out of the large hive ship and joined by his side.
They went to attack the Blue Dwarf.
<Ok, sorry this was a bit late- I spend too much time at work! Can all the
pilots, and people who think they can fly a Starbug or Blue Midget scramble
and we’ll have a space battle. Kara, you and Efof can use the Space Eagle.
Shoot them all down!>
David "Onion" Ball
Captain Seymour Niples, JMC Blue Dwarf
WWW.BlueDwarf.co.uk
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Londo: "Stop eating that, you don't even know what it is."
G'Kar: "Its called 'rice'."
Londo: "Yes, and if it were that good do you think they'd be throwing it at
each other?"
(Babylon 5)
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