🚀 go-pugleaf

CONTINUED FROM PART ONE...

     "Do you think he's ok?!" Burnout asked, concerned.
     "It's a trick." the Bandit said, flicking the safety off the
blaster she had found. They were both looking at Marcus, their Invid
prisoner, who continued to stare off into space and mutter
unintelligible somethings at odd intervals. He had even yelled something
once -- but none of this had disturbed Admiral Morgan, who was still off
by herself, staring out the armorplexiglass window of the bridge.
     "They're going to find us eventually." Burnout sighed, "We'd better
figure out what we're going to do."
     The Bandit nodded, looking out the main viewer at the edges of the
small meteor crater in which they had concealed the ship. The city
modules were pocked with them -- apparently Ultima didn't waste energy
on defense lasers. "I say we just go for the straight attack -- it's a
suicide run, but we're dead anyway. Either that or head out of the
gravity well, see if we can find some corner of the universe that
Ultima's goons haven't searched out yet."
     "You're right... If we stay, we're just dooming more people to
destruction."
     "There'sh another way.."
     The two of them turned to Admiral Morgan, who was now set and
determined, or as much so as her semi-drunken state allowed. "You two
were gated here from the pasht, righ'?"
     "Errr... we think so..." Burnout nodded.
     "Then tha' point in the time/space continuum should be weak enough
tha' we can send you back through, if we blasted that point with an
energy burst..."
     "If we can go back in time, and change all this..." the Bandit
thought. "Yes! It's worth a try!"
     "We'd better hurry -- the longer we wait, the more the continuum
will have repaired itself." Morgan said, popping a handfull of Buzz-B-
Gone(tm) pills. "But we don't have anything small, with a heavy energy
weapon..."
     "yeah we do..."
     The three turned to Marcus. The Invid refused to look at them,
instead studying the now-repaired control consoles. "The ship has two
Shadow Fighters mated to it, in the aft section. Each of those has a
Destabilizer Cannon on it, which should do the job."
     "Don't trust him!" Morgan and the Bandit chorused.
     Marcus shrugged as much as his glued-to-the-wall position allowed.
"Fine. It doesn't matter anymore... My absence from Ultima's direct
mind-control let...made... me remember... Gods... All these people,
dead, because Ultima was... was able to.. _control_ me."
     "You're probably still lying..." the Bandit said, "Morgan, do Invid
ships of this class carry fighters?"
     "How th' Hell(tm) should _I_ know..." Morgan muttered, wandering
over to a control console and pressing some buttons. "Huh... Looks like
this one does, at least. Kewl..."
     Burnout smiled, grimly. "We might have a chance, after all."

<----->

     "GARTH!" Ultima snapped, appearing on the main monitor of Garth's
flagship.
     "Ultima!" Garth exclaimed, hiding his copy of Playinvid(tm) under
his console.
     "An Armored Scout just located the ship -- I am transmitting co-
ordinates to you. Engage and eliminate it."
     "Righty-o." Garth nodded, signalling his Nav Officer. "One group of
baked enemies of the Empire, coming up..."

<----->

     "Aren't you coming?" Burnout asked as she and the Bandit prepped
one of the two Shadow Fighters. Admiral Morgan shook her head, sadly.
     "There's nothing for me in the past... I'm washed up. I mean, being
evil is all I know how to do, really. I only came with you because I
thought it would enable me to take Ultima's position for myself..."
Morgan shook her head. "Then... Grounder and Lauri... I... I forgot that
not everyone's invulnerable, like me."
     "Invulnerable?" Burnout blinked.
     "Don't ask." Morgan and the Bandit chorused.
     "Anyway, I started cursing the Invid... and drinking... when I
realized that if I had won those battles we used to fight, the Empire
_I_ built would be the just the same.. Having seen it from this side,
there's no way I can go back to how I was... And without that desire for
Universal Conquest, I'm nothing..."
     "Oh, come on, don't kill yourself just 'cos you're depressed -- we
could use your help!"
     Morgan snorted. "You're the heroes. Do your job -- I'll draw their
fire, you use the Shadow Cloak on the fighter to escape. Just let me
die, Alicia -- please?"
     "Fighter prepped and ready!" the Bandit called from the background.
     "Alicia..." Burnout pondered the name. "That was who I was, in
another time..."
     "For old times, then."
     "Goodbye, 'sandra."
     "G'bye, 'leesh."
     "Ooh, touching." the Bandit grumbled. "Look, this ain't the movies,
and we'd better get going."
     <<WARNING! Incoming fire detected! All crew to battle stations!>>
complained a computerized voice on the ship's intercom.
     "Go!" Morgan shouted, turning and running for the bridge. Burnout
paused, considering stunning her old enemy and taking her along, but
then dived for the cockpit of the Shadow Fighter.

<----->

     <<Fighter 2 Away.>> the computer said.
     "Good thing we found the pseudo-AI control system..." Morgan
muttered. "Activate point-defense and shields."
     "You'll want to avoid the big gun on that Icazuchi-Wannabe." Marcus
commented.
     "Hm. Thanks." Morgan said, grabbing the controls and dodging the
ship desperately as the I-W's main gun fired, a mile-wide beam of raw
energy tearing through space.
     "And those fighters -- they're going for a standard globe
encirclement tactic."
     "Back-seat driver..." Morgan grumbled, instructing the computer
accordingly. "Status on Fighter 2?"
     <<Unable to detect unit -- theorize cloaking device active.>>
     "They're off.." Marcus said, smiling, "Ultima's end is near..."
     "If I set you free..." Morgan said, "Will you help fight these
buggers?"
     Marcus paused for a moment. "Yes. My involvement with Ultima's
forces was all because of her mind control -- I have no problem with
fighting 'em."
     "Good." Morgan said, grabbing some Glue Remover off one of the
consoles. The ship shook under plasma cannon fire as she hurried over.
"Because the computer just told me there are no weapons of consequence
on this thing, and I'm 18 years out of practice with flying a
starfighter..."

<----->

     "Can our sensors detect a space/time distortion?" Burnout asked.
Her helmet display was showing a lot of information -- a part of her
knew they were tactical displays and weapons readouts, but another part
of her was just as equally clueless.
     "I... think so. Yeah, I'm getting something. Hey! See that tower,
with the room at the top! I'll bet that's where we came through, 'cos
I'm reading all kinds of weird radiation..."
     Burnout figured out, through trial and error, which button
controlled the massive Destabilizer Cannon slung under the Shadow
Fighter. Her finger rested on the trigger as they roared above the
surface of the massive city modules.

<----->

     Garth put another plasma cannon round into the bridge of Marcus's
old flagship, laughing evilly. Doubtless that idiot was in there, and
the plasma must be doing all sorts of fun things to him. Garth fired
again, adding some missiles for good measure, and the ship shuddered and
lost power.
     Garth turned, preparing to call in victory, when a humanoid mech
decloaked in front of him.
     "Marcus..." he growled, as several of his followers dove to the
attack. The mech reached down, pulling two rifle-like Destabilizers from
'holsters' and twirling them like six-guns, before blowing away the
attacking Invid. "It has to be him... Everyone: He's MINE!"

<----->

     Morgan chuckled as Marcus distracted the Invid fighters' attention
away from her and the critically damaged ship. The Icazuchi-Wannabe
class cruiser loomed huge in the viewscreen as she directed the last of
her ship's power to the thrusters.
     "Activate self-destruct sequence." she ordered.
     They were going to pay. Pay for all they had done... If it was one
thing that Morgan never, ever, forgot, it was how to exact _revenge_.

<----->

     "Hello, Garth." Marcus said cheerfully.
     "Hello, traitor." Garth growled in response. "DIEEE!!"
     Marcus dodged his mech, Garth's missiles unable to lock on through
the thick ECM field. "Can't you come up with some new lines?"
     *gARTH.* Ultima said, in his mind, *hE hAS bROKEN tHE cONTROLS. I
cANNOT rE-eSTABLISH. dESTROY hIM!*
     "NOW YOU DIE!" Garth shouted, triple streams of plasma discs
launching at Marcus.
     "BZZT! Still not origional! That's the problem with all of you full
Invid!" Marcus shouted, dodging easily. "No imagination! No new ideas --
you can't even do the old standbys well! I realized this when those
heroines trashed my Tornado troops so easily! It wasn't that the
heroines were skilled, it was just that my troops' armor _sucked_! The
Empire's going down, Garth! Nothing you can do will stop that!"

     "Closing..." the Bandit said, quietly, "Speed at maximum. Fire on
my mark. One... Two... _Wait_ for it... FIRE!"

     Garth blinked as his sensors suddenly redlined -- radiation across
the spectrum!! He and Marcus whirled to see the incoming explosion from
the vaporizing Icazuchi-Wannabe.. The shock-wave was headed straight for
them.
     It stopped.
     Everything stopped. There was a long pause.
     Everything started again.

     Blackness. All around Burnout/Devran/whoever she was at the moment.
     No wonder she had passed out on the way forward through time.
     It.
     HURT.
     The Shadow Fighter sat, quietly, in a grassy meadow.
     "Activate... Radio..." she heard the Bandit -- Admiral Morgan,
croak.
     "HELLO, yes and it's another fine May morning here in St. Louis --
we've just got a copy of the Bulletproof tape.. You know- >fzzrk!<"
     "May." Burnout whispered. "1994. We're two months early..."

KEEP READIN', CHUMMERS, AS WE CLOSE IN ON THE END OF THE TONN
CONSPIRACY, ONLY ON... SUPERGUY!