**Action** New Allies and Enemies - Part 1/3

**Action** New Allies and Enemies - Part 1
Who: Jay, Phil, CK, Mk6, Seymour, Wowbagger, Harris
Where: The destroyed Hymenoptera planet
When: now
Seymour drove the RAID stupidly fast over the rough sandy terrain of
the planet. He'd insisted to take over from MK6 almost immediately
after Dean's Raven had taken off again.
The RAID speeded around a craggy rock and skidded, spraying dry sand
up into the cab.
"Pffft!" Said Jay, spitting sand out of his mouth. "Seymour please,
do you have to drive so smegging fast?"
Seymour said nothing, instead calmly removed a pair of sunglasses
from the glove compartment and casually put them on with a grin.
Jay sighed and held onto the RAID's chassis as Seymour skidded
around the rotting corpse of a large beetle.
"Woah wait stop!" Said Jay.
Seymour reluctantly did a handbrake turn and did a 360degree turn
before coming to a stop. The rear wheel stopped on a crushed
Hymenoptera skull.
Jay, Wowbagger, Harris and CK got out of the car, while MK6 and
Seymour stayed in and tried to tune the radio to Jazz FM.
Harris, Phil and CK checked the area for live Hymenoptera or any
other enemies. Phil ventured to the boot of the jeep, where he
pulled out a specially modified beer-gun.
"What's that?" Asked CK.
"its an alcohol gun. We know that Hymenoptera are as intolerant to
alcohol as seagulls are to antacid, so this baby was designed to
spray them with it."
Harris grinned. "Ah right, and also good to use at a party!"
Phil grinned. "Exactly! I've got it filled with Parrott's best!"
Jay walked over to the large beetle corpse, it was surrounded by
many smaller but equally as dead Hymenoptera soldiers. "What could
do this?" asked Jay. "Yeah, I thought the Hymenoptera are rock
hard!" said Harris.
Jay investigated the corpses. He walked around the beetle, which was
the size of an elephant. Although they had seen much bigger. Blood
was leaking out of the large beetle from a wound. Jay investigated
closer, covering his mouth from the terrible smell.
There was a long thin spike embedded into the large insect's thick
skin. It was almost as long and as thick as his arm.
"Come and look at this!" He called, and CK and Wowbagger came to
investigate.
"It's been stabbed!" Said Wowbagger.
"Well done Wowbagger!" Said Jay sarcastically. "I'm glad to see it
still requires a certain level of intellect to be the Chief Science
officer on the Blue Dwarf!"
Wowbagger bit his lip and probed further. He touched the spike and
tried to pull it out.
As he did, something started to move. He dropped the spike in
fright. It wriggled around on the floor and everyone took a step
back. Phil aimed the beer gun at it, then when he realised it wasn't
a threat, sprayed some in his mouth.
Wowbagger looked closely at the spike on the floor. It was half a
metre long and had a pulsating organ at one end. "It looks organic…"
He said. "It's covered in skin, and this fleshy thing at one end
seems to be… pumping something."
The `fleshy thing' he described was beating almost like a heart.
"Its…. It's a sting." He announced. "Like a giant wasp sting."
"Why's it still moving?" Asked Harris.
"When a wasp stings you, the sting detaches and stays in your skin,
and a small muscle carries on pumping more and more poison into your
body." Explained Wowbagger.
"The Hymenoptera are all insects, but I don't think I've ever seen
one with a stinger." Said Phil.
"But there has been so many different genetic variations of
Hymenoptera, that maybe some DO have stingers?" Said Jay.
Wowbagger looked further at the wound on the large beetle. "It was
embedded pretty deep. It must have been stabbed in very hard, or
projected with a lot of force!"
Jay shuddered. "But it doesn't make sense. Hymenoptera don't kill
each other. Why would they? They have a hive mind don't they?"
"Maybe there's a new faction in town." Said Phil.
"By the looks of that stinger. I don't really want to stay around
and find out" said Harris.
"We need to find out what's been happening, we'll probably find out
sooner or later. And I'd rather it be sooner so we prepare ourselves
for the worst."
Phil nodded in agreement.
Just at that moment a large roaring noise came from above. Asteroids
and fragments of the nearby Hymenoptera planetoid had been raining
down all day, but this one was much louder and larger. The sky lit
up.
The wreckage of the Endymion crashed into a mountain behind them,
getting everyone's attention.
"What the hell's going on up there?!" Shouted Jay and darted back to
the car.
"Seymour, can we radio the `Dwarf?"
"Sorry dude…" Said Seymour in his supposed `cool' personality,
chewing some gum. "I can't even get Jazz FM, there must be some kind
of interference in the atmosphere."
Phil pressed a few buttons on the RAID's onboard computer and
scanner. "A jamming signal has been set up, its coming from
underground tunnel that we're heading for."
"Well, that's another reason to go there!" Said Jay. "Jump in
everyone! ….and Phil, stop drinking from your gun!!!"
<to be continued>