🚀 go-pugleaf

[Continued From Part Two]

     Doug watched the final moments of Task Force Aurora in the way that he
chose to face all such things in his life: arm around his wife Deb, fine
Canadian beer in his hand, and stone, blind drunk beyond hope of
comprehension. Behind him, Master Po'boy's inebriated and disembodied head
amused itself by floating after several small children, making hideous
faces at them as it stoned them with its beery breath-fumes.
     "Sure is sad, in't?" asked Deb, watching the proceedings.
     "Yup," replied Doug, belching in memory of the good times he'd had
with the organisation.
     "Wish 't wasn' hap'ning," she said.
     "Yup," replied Doug, belching in honour of the comrades with whom he'd
served.
     "Wish y'could get 'nother job 'fore I have't go back t' beat'n up pro
wrestlers fer cash."
     "Yup," replied Doug, belching in relief as eight cases of Molson ran
its course through his system.
     The entire able-bodied contingent of STOP assembled for one last time
on the organisation's parade grounds, as the last rays of the sun dipped
below the horizon bathing the Beanstalk in a fading ruddy-red glow. They
waited, frozen like crimson statues as the day's light died a natural
death.
     "Company!" shouted Sergeant Graham, raising an armoured hand. The
troopers stood poised as darkness covered them, wreathing the Beanstalk in
shadow. "FIRE!"
     An uncountable number of modified missiles sprang from the suits,
corkscrewing into the air above the parade grounds. Together they ascended
like divine fireflies, reaching for the endless depths of heaven. On cue,
the fireflies blossomed into a bright, beautiful incendiary death, painting
the sky a brilliant collage of colours. The sparks flew, illuminating the
darkened Beanstalk with a brief fiery glow as the diverse pyrotechnics
resolved themselves into their preprogrammed shape: a single, enormous
maple leaf which shone above the crowd for an endless moment before fading
back, overwhelmed by the darkness.
     Graham bowed his head and was silent for a moment. When he spoke, it
was in a low, commanding voice. "Company, surrender arms. Dismissed."
     The troopers filed reluctantly into the Beanstalk as the crowd buzzed
and slowly dispersed. The Beanstalk would not watch over them that night.
     "Tha's it," said Deb, watching sadly. Doug fought for the words to sum
up the depths of emotion that he felt in the passing of a place that was so
much more than a job to him. In a burst of poetry he managed to surround
the English language and pluck from it the four words that truly expressed
his feelings.
     "I need 'nother beer."
***
Epilogue One

     The woman took her time slipping from Dow's home, her unhurried
attitude bolstered by his presence at Task Force Aurora's impromptu
dissolution ceremony. A few moments in the washroom and the disguise of
Tierra Gerard vanished out of sight. Brown hair returned to its natural
blond under the ministration of certain easy to find chemicals and the
woman resolved to pick up a hair relaxer sometime soon. A little cold cream
removed most of what disguise there was left. Posing as the fourth most
respected assassin in the world had been ridiculously easy; truth be told,
this woman was neither from the world nor outclassed by any killer that it
had spawned. Letting Dow 'take' her by surprise had allowed her to plant
important information which the real Gerard - no doubt long since escaped
from the motel room where the woman had left her - had been carrying.
     She wasn't entirely sure how, but she knew that the remains of Task
Force Aurora would be vital to her mission on this world, and the woman had
long since learned to trust her instincts. Blowing a kiss to her restored
image in the mirror, she walked to the front door of Dow's house and left
without a backwards glance. Dow and Kent had enough together to accomplish
something, she knew. The shape of what would come was a mystery, and she
was quite glad that it was. To know one's future was the worst sort of
curse.
***
Epilogue Two

     Silently, the 'Arterial Sever'-class Destroyer _Whoathat'sgottahurt_
slipped through the depths of Glid space, its dilithispam engines ticking
over as it homed in on a plaintive cry for help that sounded on the Invader
ship's distress channel.
     "There!" shouted the Invader manning the _Whoathat'sgottahurt_'s
scanning suite. "I see the _Eyowch!_ on radar now."
     "What's it doing on radar?" asked the Invader Captain, crinkling his
massive and sloping brow. "I was told that it would be found in space."
     "It isn't _in_ the radar, sir," explained the sensor operator
patiently, as though to a six-year-old, which might have been pitching
things slightly too high. "We're picking it up _with_ radar. It's there, in
space, just ahead of us."
     "Oh, of course," nodded the captain in perfect lack of understanding,
grimacing his best command grimace. The captain had spent years perfecting
that facial gesture - most of that time being taken from study periods -
and he had managed to base his entire military career around it. Those who
had been ready to deny him promotions based on lack of merit, expertise or
a dangerously low intellect took one look at the almost legendary grimace
which the now-captain commanded and stamped 'APPROVED' on his form without
hesitation. His philosophy was that one could grimace at anyone during a
crisis, and if the grimace was perfect enough, the target of the look would
snap to finding a solution immediately. The _Whoathat'sgottahurt_'s tour of
duty was living testimony to the veracity of this theory.
     "Are we close enough to the _Eyowch!_ to download their logs?" asked
the captain's XO, whose grimace had yet to fully blossom into captaincy
material. He tried to compensate for this severe lack through competence,
but unfortunately it wasn't always enough. The sensor operator nodded,
frowning. "What is it?"
     "By the Homeworld--" began the operator.
     "--wherever it is!" chimed in the rest of the crew.
     "--the _Eyowch!_ is dead in space. Completely. Not just a little bit,
but all the way dead! Life support's off, engines are down, the coffee
maker's off-line, power's barely reaching the computer and homing beacon...
downloading's going to be tricky."
     "How long has it been like this?" asked the XO, moving behind the
operator's chair and flashing his best grimace.
     "Sixteen cycles, possibly more."
     The captain jumped up. "Mount a rescue operation at once!"
     Sighing, the XO turned. "The ship has been without atmosphere for more
than two weeks."
     The captain rubbed his chin, considering. "So what are the chances
that someone's still alive?" he asked.
     "Zero," replied the XO.
     "So there's a _slight_ million-to-one chance?"
     "No."
     The captain frowned, considering grimacing a rescue operation into
effect anyway. Somehow though, his low cunning told him that this was one
problem that a facial expression - no matter how impressive - could not
eliminate. He nodded, grimacing a good work to his XO and sat back down on
his chair to ponder grooming his scowl.
     "I've... got the tail of the logs," said the sensor operator after a
few moments. "We'll have to go over and manually retrieve the rest; this
took all of the ship's remaining power."
     "Review them and give me the highlights," said the XO, sitting in his
chair which was to the left of and behind the captain, as well as the
captain's pet Dhakeese's food dish, as befitted his position. Quite
coincidentally it was immediately in front of the lifeboat's entrance,
though no one commented on this fact, nor on the rather sizable bribes paid
to the ship's contractor during the vessel's construction.
     The operator nodded and spent several minutes frowning over the log
playback from the _Eyowch!_. Reaching the end, he gave a sharp gasp and
turned pale.
     "What? What is it?" asked the Captain, jumping to his feet. "Raise
screens! Shunt power to weapons! Sound general readiness and stand by to
fire!"
     "We're not being attacked," sighed the XO. "The Sensory Operator saw
something distressing in the logs."
     "Open fire on the logs!"
     "We're not being attacked by the logs either, sir!"
     "Oh, stand down then," smiled the captain, returning to the seat. Once
more he had dealt with a crisis quickly and with great efficiency.
     "Your findings?" asked the XO, turning to the operator.
     "I... cannot believe the savagery..." gasped the operator, turning to
the XO. "Owchie cruisers one through four of this ship's fleet encountered
a planet ripe for conquest, and obeying Invader mandate, invaded it. As
expected, the natives put up resistance and somehow overwhelmed the four
vessels."
     The XO nodded. "We'll have to invade with an even bigger fleet then."
     "But... that isn't the end of it," said the operator. "The inhabitants
of this world - Earth - took two of our craft, destroying the third. The
_Eyowch!_ executed an emergency Glid-shot, burning out its crystalline spam
reserves less than halfway to Invader space. They sent surrender terms to
the planet Earth, asking for rescue in return for their craft and
obedience."
     "As is proper," nodded the XO. "The result?"
     "They... were... _ignored_."
     An electric chill ran through the bridge as three words were spoken.
Finally, the XO's quivering mouth found purchase and spoke.
     "IGNORED?" he bellowed in disbelief. "They... ignored... terms of rescue?"
     The sensory operator nodded, his face white. "Maybe... maybe they
didn't know that the _Eyowch!_ was broadcasting a distress call?"
     "The devil they didn't," hissed the XO. "Any civilisation advanced
enough that they can neutralise three Owchie-class vessels would be able to
hear a distress call. This was... deliberate."
     The captain nodded sadly, the gravity of this situation piercing his
comfortable armour of complete ignorance. He grimaced in concentration,
commanding an awed hush from his crew which turned to admire the severity
of his expression.
     "Comm-worker," he said, turning to the navigator who pointed to the
communications officer. The captain missed the significance of the gesture
and continued to address the navigator. "I need you to send a report...
include the gory details that we've just heard. Request..."
     "Yes?"
     "Request that all available ships of war be diverted to my command for
purposes of exacting revenge upon an advanced race gone savage."
     "The order, sir?" asked the comm-worker. "Assembling a force that
large will take many, many cycles of time..."
     "Sterilisation," replied the captain. "The memory of Earth will be
wiped from the galaxy if I have to grimace at every 'Accidental
Decapitation'-battle cruiser and 'Papercut'-shuttle in the entire Invader
fleet to do it!"
***
As usual, this story is trademarked, all rights reserved 1996 to
Frobozz/Chris Angelini (email:cangelin@uoguelph.ca, homepage:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~cangelin). Everything alluded to is intended as
satire, and no trademark infringement is intended nor implied. Merry
X-thing everyone and have a Happy thing that comes after that.