A crazy-harebrained rescue, just for the hell of it :)

<SNIP>
Johnny walked to the entrance of the bar, where some of the crew were
dodging a stinger that had just been fired. Johnny could hear someone
crying, and then being reassured by someone else. The person who was
crying just couldn't understand why the bar kept on getting destroyed.
</SNIP>
Where: Parrotts
Who: Johnny, Phil, Jay etc
When: Continuing from my last post.
"I asked for re-inforcements, dammit, not some jumped-up pilot!" Phil
yelled at Johnny. "And what the hell on Planet Smeg are you going to
fight the thing with? Two needles?"
"Science Department wants a DNA sample, and unless you want to wear
some gloves, this is the easiest way to do it." Johnny replied.
At that moment, Trisees' voice came over the intercom. "Attention all,
these phasing aliens can be defeated. If you strike with electricity,
they cannot phase and will quickly die from electrocution. I have just
single-handedly defeated one of these aliens myself and captured a DNA
sample."
'Noooo!' Johnny screamed in his mind. 'Now what can I do to prove
myself to these guys. They'll never take me seriously.'
"However, it would be nice if you guys could capture one alive for me,
Thanks for your co-operation with my master plan."
Johnny put the needles away and grabbed a tranquiliser gun and prepared
to join in the fight.
* * * * * *
Meanwhile, back in the drive room, they received Lawrence Trisees and
the Science Department's detailed medical report on the aliens. Eric
gave Alota a questioning look.
"Does that give you enough data to go down on a dangerous, inhospitable
planet filled with crazy aliens?"
"Sure, why not? As long as we can do it without alerting the aliens to
our presence, it should go fine. The signal came from a part of the
planet far away from where the aliens signals are coming from."
"I've picked a team for you - they've all studied your maps. You've got
a pilot, three security team members, a geologist, a med team and last
year's annual Blue Dwarf Orienteering Champion."
"Mini Phil?"
"We were all surprised when we found out he didn't cheat. Eric, your
team will be assembled in the flight deck in twenty minutes - I'm sure
they would feel more confident in you if you weren't late."
Eighteen minutes later, Eric paused just outside the entrance to where
his team was assembling to catch his breath so he didn't look shagged
out when he met them. He walked in to inspect the people Alota picked
for him. He was surprised by how proud Mini Phil looked in his uniform,
holding his compass and map.
"Er, Mini Phil, has that been calibrated to the magnetic field of this
planet?" Eric asked.
MP let out a long shriek with only a few short pauses. Eric gave one of
the security members a questioning look.
"Er, he says 'Of course it has been, what kind of moron do you take me
for, smeg for brains. And your hat looks worse than Efof's, so you also
must wear one for the same reason he does.' Sir, it just goes on like
this and gets less pleasant." The security officer translated.
"Well, lets get into the Starbug and plot a course to this chunk of
rock and hope we don't have to be too long."
They all buckled up as Dean warmed the engines up. The hangar bay doors
opened with an unhealthy creak as the green craft accelerated out away
from the Blue Dwarf towards the planet.
After a short flight, Dean landed the craft on a rocky ridge, and the
team filed out.
Along with Eric, Dean and MP were the geologist Victoria de Felice, the
security team, headed by Dante, and the medical team.
"Dean, keep her warmed up, just in case we need to leave in a hurry. If
we need you to help carry survivors, I'll let you know." Eric ordered.
With MP and Eric in the lead, the team walked for twenty minutes before
they came to the top of another hill. Before them, lay a gigantic hole
in the rock. Fortunately, it wasn't too steep, so they were able to
comfortably walk down to the bottom of the hole.
They were now quite a few feet down, but because of the width of the
crater, they still had good sunlight. MP saw what looked like a cave in
the side of the hole twenty feet away and pointed to it, shrieking.
Eric glanced at his communicator. "The signal is getting quite strong,
it must be not far inside. Thanks, MP."
They came to the entrance of the cave, and they group switched on their
lights. They realised that this was a tunnel, with metal walls, ceiling
and floors. After walking for two minutes, they could make out a large
shape in the distance.
"That must be it!" Eric exclaimed.
Shortly, they were standing in a huge metal room, with many screens
that appeared to be computer monitors. There were drills and other
equipment in the room, as well as about the bodies of four very dead
Hymenoptera.
"This must be a lab or something - they must have been trying to open
this thing before they were attacked." Victoria mused.
"Yeah, these things were notorious for being impossible to break into."
Dante said. "They weren't though, you just needed to know how to do it,
and we never publicised that you could."
Dante walked up to the light blue EC Class ship, which was about three
times the size of a Starbug. He pressed a few keys on the keypad next
to the door, and another keypad appeared next to it. Dante entered
another combination on this one, and then kicked the bottom of the
door. It opened.
A weak light emanated from the inside of the craft. Eric walked in
first, calling out if anyone was there, letting them know he was coming
to rescue them and take them back to Earth.
An old man hobbled towards him from an entrance in the back of the
room. The metal floor clanged as it came into contact with what
appeared to be a metal leg. "Don't worry about me," the old man said
through black teeth, "but save those who I managed to put into stasis
before they towed our ship through space to here."
The man hobbled back out the doorway through which he came, beckoning
Eric and his team to follow.
"Don't worry," Eric said, "but hostilities with the Hymenoptra have
ceased for the time being."
"You have desroyed them, then?" The old man's eyes lit up. "I heard
explosions a while ago, two months back if the ship's clock is correct."
"Not exactly - they were attacked by someone else, and our two races
have patched up our differences." Eric informed the man.
They went into a large room with five stasis booths. "I put the five
youngest and healthiest survivors in here - in fact, all of them aside
from Jones and myself, but he was much older than me and died awhile
ago. But be careful about booth number five - his mind is not as
healthy as his body. He may need some sedative. We had to put him in
stasis first."
"Thankyou sir, how about we open his last, then?"
"Good idea." The old man replied, pressing some buttons on the control
panel.
Door one opened, and out walked a man of about 19. "Dr Livingstone, is
that you?" The young man asked.
"Yes, and good news, we have been rescued."
The medical team checked him out, and gave him a clean bill of health.
Next was a young woman, also 19, with just a few bruises.
After her were a couple of twins, age 23. The older one, Callum had a
black eye and the younger one, Caitlyn, had a fat lip.
"Ready?" Dr Livingstone asked. "If you've got tranquilisers or
stunners, now would be a good time, because we couldn't restrain him
before getting him in his booth."
"Why didn't you go into stasis instead?" Eric asked.
"And let him operate the booths? He would have killed us."
"Good point."
By this time, Dante was holding the largest stun rifle Eric had seen,
and he had seen alot. "I'm ready." Dante said. "This guy sounds as if a
session with our esteemed Psychiatrists would actually make him less
crazy."
Everyone was ready as the old man flicked a switch. Eric saw a flash of
red, and then he fell back two feet, with a massive headache. He heard
someone scream "Ye mother were a sober trout!", shortly followed by
Dante firing three times.
Next, he heard the man scream "Is that all ye got, ya bunch o' sissies?"
Dante stepped to his left and fired three more times, while MP ran up
and head-butted him in the groin.
Eric tried to shake the pain away, as his vision started to return and
Dante cuffed the man's hands and feet. One of the medical team injected
something into the man, who Eric noticed to be distinctly Irish with
flaming red hair and a half empty bottle of Jamesons in his left hand.
One of the medical team came over to Eric and checked him for
concussion and giving him a mild pain reliever. "That was one almighty
punch that felled you, sir. However, you should be fine in a minute."
"Thanks." Eric said, holding his head as he slowly stood up.
Eric couldn't believe that the guy had managed to get him like that -
usually he had great reflexes suited for brawls such as this. He just
felt lucky that the man had been restrained before hitting him again.
Two of the medical team carried the Irish man out on a stretcher as
they headed back to the Starbug.
A hundred metres from the Starbug, the Irishman started to stir. Dante
connected his fist to the man's temple and one of the medical staff
gave him another injection. Eric had already contacted Dean and Alota
that they were successful and were on their way back.
"Shane joined our exploration team to escape from his problems. He kept
to himself, drinking enough to keep ten normal men on dialysis. But
when we were attacked, he went crazy."
Dean's voice crackled through on his communicator. "Guys, there's a
vehicle on the radar, I think it's hostile - it's disappeared from
radar a few times for five seconds - it must have been from phasing. It
must be a scout, cos there's nothing else around."
"Thanks for the head's up Dean." Eric responded. "I can see it now.
It's coming in fast!"
"Not to worry," Dante said as he and the other security officers
started to assemble a large cannon, "this is a tesla cannon. The R&D
gave it to us just before we left. It fires a large zap of electricity.
We have enough for five shots." Dante waved five power packs in front
of Eric. "We have to reload the power pack each time."
They quickly had it assembled, and 'cannon' was a good word for it - it
looked big.
Dante aimed it at the incoming vehicle while one of the security
officers fired a bazookoid at it, but missed. On his third shot, it
would've hit if the vehicle hadn't phased out.
"Why shoot at it with a bazookoid if it can just phase out?" Eric asked.
"They can't shoot until they phase back in!" Dante replied with a grin.
"Good plan."
Dante counted the time until the vehicle phased back in and ordered the
security officer to fire again. The vehicle phased out again. Dante
counted again and fired the tesla cannon. The third security officer
quickly replaced the power pack, but didn't need to. Just as the
vehicle phased back in, it was hit by Dante's shot and promptly
exploded.
Everybody cheered and MP gave everybody high-fives before they walked
the last distance to the Starbug. Dean was waiting for them with a
smile and congratulated Dante on his awesome shot before flying the
Starbug back to the Blue Dwarf.
Just as they got permission to land in the flight deck, they saw a
Hymenoptera ship flying fast towards them. Dean was about to lock on to
the ship out of habit, before realising that the bugs were on their
side now.
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