Chapter 1
The soft soles of her shoes made little sound as she carefully moved down the corridor. Jakes heavier boots made a small thump with each step, but still they managed to remain unnoticed as they moved through the ship. They were near the dining room now, it was the most dangerous part of the mission, but the timing was set, everyone should be either eating or at their work stations.
The central spine corridor went the length of the ship, broken in a number of points by airlock doors and monitored by cameras all the way through, people were continuously moving through. Staying out of it had been difficult to plan, they had used the basic design layout, but after spending a few days on the ship, it was obvious that this craft had been altered significantly since it first left the build dock. It took another week of wandering around to figure out the new plan, and they were still uncertain about the secure area and the escape pods.
“Last turn” Jake whispered.
For the 5th time Marle sighed in frustration and slightly shook her head, Jake just didn’t understand that things that might have worked in jungles and urban battles would just make them seem more obvious here. They couldn’t creep around looking suspicious, they needed to look like they belonged, and they did. They both had valid tickets and cabins, they just weren’t here for a holiday like their passports said, it was about business, all business.
Glancing around the corner Marle spotted a camera above the hatch she reached into her bag for her PDA with which she took an image of the camera. Selecting the cameras lense on the image she then beamed a design for a sticky aerofoil onto the film with its target imprinted, it only took seconds for the nano film to transform, and she flicked it into the air where it flew directly to the lense which it folded over. They waited 3 minutes for an image to be absorbed then Marle beamed an instruction up to the film. It began to display for the lense an empty corridor as Marle and Jake walked up to the hatch unobserved. Setting her PDA against the controls of the door, it’s lock pick program ran and there was a quiet click as the door unlocked.
Moving into the room, Jake headed straight for the white boxes with the large Red Cross on them. He quickly checked the item number against the one he’d been given and began to fit them into his back pack. Marle moved around looking at the other goods in the secure area. There was a case marked with the Diamond Merchants Seal, and another with the Technology Group Seal, she quickly tucked those into her bag and Jake was ready to go.
“Are you right?” she asked
“Yeah” Jake grunted as he set the bulging back pack more firmly on his shoulders, “but let’s not take too long, I want this out of here”
Marle led the way out the hatch relocking the door behind them, when they had turned the corner she beamed back with her PDA, and the nano film slipped off the lense then dissolved into the atmosphere as it fell toward the ground.
Back through the ship they went, carefully moving through the outer corridors until they came to the nearest escape pod. Marle opened the hatch and slipped in, Jake quickly following. Moving to the controls Marle connected her PDA to the AI control and started altering the commands to let the capsule drop out of hyperspace so it could be picked up by their own ship the “Goanna”.
“Right, that should be it, time for dinner” she sighed and they moved back to the hatch, only to find it closed and locked.
A solid clunking sounded and they felt the pod lurch as it was released by the ship.
“Aaargh” Jake cried “Belt in, I have been through this before, it is going to hurt when the boosters kick in”
Strapping in, Marle tried to work out what had gone wrong; she knew that she had set the timer for the launch to go off in 3 hours time, while Jake and her were to be dancing in the lounge with a very obvious alibi. This didn’t make sense. The escape pod lurched then stopped. Marle and Jake looked at each other; Jakes left eyebrow rising as he waited for her to explain what was going on.
“ATTENTION THE ESCAPE POD” a voice boomed out of the speaker. “you have no reason to be in that pod, and we will not be recovering you back to the ship, until we dock. You are under arrest for piracy and theft. We have been following you since you broke the seal on the secure area. Clever bit of work that, we wouldn’t have known you were there but for our backup systems”.
Marle and Jake looked at each other and started to unbuckle, “Aaargh,” she cried, I think I am having a fit, and my medicine is in my cabin, you have to get me back or I will die”
“Oh my gods” Jake said urgently, “she is turning purple, quick bring us back, quick”
“We have a video feed inside that capsule” the voice said with a trace of amusement, “you will be remaining there”
Saturday 20 October 2007
Saturday 6 October 2007
Tick Tock Hobbit Universe
This is my little play with the Dragon page Tick Tock Hobbit Universe. http://www.dragonpage.com/2007/09/14/dragon-page-challenge-the-tick-tock-hobbit-universe/
Go Mike, Mike and Summer!!!!!! You are all sweeties, (M&M’S I guess)
It isn’t fully developed and far too broad. But I am going to play there, I think I left myself enough leeway to go all sorts of places.
Enjoy.
“Granpa, tell us why we can’t go outside.”
“Oh now come on Freddo, you know the answer to that” the old man said as he sat next to the glow basket and looked at the group of children surrounding him.
“But Granpa it is a neat story” they cried.
“It is more than a story little ones” he said “it is a legend that is real and it affects you...”
“Ooohh” the children said and wriggled nearer
“Back when I was your age, we lived outside, I used to catch tadpoles and we would collect the sweetest crispest apples that grew on trees taller than the biggest cave is high. We kept so many pigs that we had bacon and eggs for breakfast, ham for lunch and pork for dinner. “
The old man paused and looked at the children, they were poor malnourished things. There just wasn’t enough food in the caves to feed everyone. He could hear his own stomach growl just thinking about the old times.
“but Granpa, that was a Hundred Eleven years ago, when you were young, that was forever ago”
“Don’t be cheeky; I am only a Hundred and eleven now. The Tic Tocs were tools that we made to help us live better lives. My dad had a boat with a tic toc paddler, which moved it through the water. He carved all the parts by hand from the strongest wood he could find. It was his pride and joy. My mother had a Tic Toc she carved when she first got married that would spin in a bowl and mix cakes. It was a wonderful time and we lived a lovely life.
One day there was an enormous boom from the sky” the old man’s hands darted out and up emphasising the sound” clouds, flame and noise came screaming at us. We lived in the swamp on the edge of the great forest and this cloud and flame came over the forest toward us, where it passed over the forest it knocked over trees, and as it came closer to us the trees began to spark and burn until a great fire followed it along the ground.
We all ducked, I was knocked out of my father’s boat as the flaming object passed overhead and splashed down into the mud. The steam and heat was incredible and I watched the water boil and the object which we later learned was a spaceship baked the mud that surrounded it as it cooled. There was a new island in the deep swamp and the sound of boiling water and cooling cracking clay suddenly replaced the roar that had deafened us.
My dad hauled me back into the boat and we watched for the rest of the day until eventually a small part of the hill began to cave away and the tallest people you could ever imagine came out of the hole. They were a shiny metal colour with glass faces, I had never seen anything like it in my life. There were two of them and they walked across the water, you children would be amazed, I certainly was.
But it got more strange, when they got to my Dads boat, the tallest one took a box off his waist and looked at it, he waved his hands, then took his head off!”
The children gasped in awe as the old granpa twisted his head around like he was removing it. Little Freddo watched with a thoughtful expression.
“And they had a second head underneath, and they had a box that changed our words to theirs and their words to ours. It was very strange. We brought them back to our village, and fed them, they didn’t eat much and were obviously a couple. They were fascinated by our tic Tocs and wanted to know how we powered them. Over the weeks we explained to them the great mysteries of the magic inside us and how we tapped into it. They were able to tap into the power too and even made some very simple Tic Tocs. Then one day, they disappeared. We couldn’t find them and my father’s boat had disappeared as well.”
The children crept even closer and the shadows on the walls of the cave seemed to flicker ominously.
“We found them eventually they were pale and dying at the island, they had tried to reanimate their ship with the magic from within but had drawn too much. They told us they had succeeded and their ships brain was now working, and it should be able to heal the ship so they could get home. But the power they had drained was too great and they died.
We hadn’t told them the full story though, that the magic as all connected. Slowly the ship seemed to become more self aware, we heard sounds from within. Some of us would venture inside and speak to the machine and it told us that it was trying to get home. Then one day there was an enormous roaring and the ship tried to lift up and go, but it couldn’t, it was baked too deeply in the clay to get out and it was stuck there forever. We visited again and the ship seemed to be crying, it was lonely. We tried to be friends with it, but it was mechanical too, and thought that we were being cruel to the Tic Tocs. It started to hate us. I think it was because we could travel around our world. Slowly our Tic Tocs began to behave strangely in the swamp near the ship. So we stopped going there, then Tic Tocs disappeared, my father’s boat wasn’t there one morning, but it was seen from time to time ferrying Tic Tocs deeper into the swamp. The ship had reached through the magic and was beginning to control the Tic Tocs. It’s power began to spread until it started to attack the villages, driving us deep underground where we can hide away from the attacks.
We are lucky little ones, it can’t make other Tic Tocs, and eventually our attacks will destroy all the Tic Tocs and you will all be able to play outside, won’t that be wonderful?”
“Yes, Yes, Yes” they little ones cried as they jumped out and raced down the tunnel leaping and flying as if they were outside.
The old man stared into the glow basket, and thought to himself, but what about the criminals that were broken free, the ships tame Hobbit tribe?
Go Mike, Mike and Summer!!!!!! You are all sweeties, (M&M’S I guess)
It isn’t fully developed and far too broad. But I am going to play there, I think I left myself enough leeway to go all sorts of places.
Enjoy.
“Granpa, tell us why we can’t go outside.”
“Oh now come on Freddo, you know the answer to that” the old man said as he sat next to the glow basket and looked at the group of children surrounding him.
“But Granpa it is a neat story” they cried.
“It is more than a story little ones” he said “it is a legend that is real and it affects you...”
“Ooohh” the children said and wriggled nearer
“Back when I was your age, we lived outside, I used to catch tadpoles and we would collect the sweetest crispest apples that grew on trees taller than the biggest cave is high. We kept so many pigs that we had bacon and eggs for breakfast, ham for lunch and pork for dinner. “
The old man paused and looked at the children, they were poor malnourished things. There just wasn’t enough food in the caves to feed everyone. He could hear his own stomach growl just thinking about the old times.
“but Granpa, that was a Hundred Eleven years ago, when you were young, that was forever ago”
“Don’t be cheeky; I am only a Hundred and eleven now. The Tic Tocs were tools that we made to help us live better lives. My dad had a boat with a tic toc paddler, which moved it through the water. He carved all the parts by hand from the strongest wood he could find. It was his pride and joy. My mother had a Tic Toc she carved when she first got married that would spin in a bowl and mix cakes. It was a wonderful time and we lived a lovely life.
One day there was an enormous boom from the sky” the old man’s hands darted out and up emphasising the sound” clouds, flame and noise came screaming at us. We lived in the swamp on the edge of the great forest and this cloud and flame came over the forest toward us, where it passed over the forest it knocked over trees, and as it came closer to us the trees began to spark and burn until a great fire followed it along the ground.
We all ducked, I was knocked out of my father’s boat as the flaming object passed overhead and splashed down into the mud. The steam and heat was incredible and I watched the water boil and the object which we later learned was a spaceship baked the mud that surrounded it as it cooled. There was a new island in the deep swamp and the sound of boiling water and cooling cracking clay suddenly replaced the roar that had deafened us.
My dad hauled me back into the boat and we watched for the rest of the day until eventually a small part of the hill began to cave away and the tallest people you could ever imagine came out of the hole. They were a shiny metal colour with glass faces, I had never seen anything like it in my life. There were two of them and they walked across the water, you children would be amazed, I certainly was.
But it got more strange, when they got to my Dads boat, the tallest one took a box off his waist and looked at it, he waved his hands, then took his head off!”
The children gasped in awe as the old granpa twisted his head around like he was removing it. Little Freddo watched with a thoughtful expression.
“And they had a second head underneath, and they had a box that changed our words to theirs and their words to ours. It was very strange. We brought them back to our village, and fed them, they didn’t eat much and were obviously a couple. They were fascinated by our tic Tocs and wanted to know how we powered them. Over the weeks we explained to them the great mysteries of the magic inside us and how we tapped into it. They were able to tap into the power too and even made some very simple Tic Tocs. Then one day, they disappeared. We couldn’t find them and my father’s boat had disappeared as well.”
The children crept even closer and the shadows on the walls of the cave seemed to flicker ominously.
“We found them eventually they were pale and dying at the island, they had tried to reanimate their ship with the magic from within but had drawn too much. They told us they had succeeded and their ships brain was now working, and it should be able to heal the ship so they could get home. But the power they had drained was too great and they died.
We hadn’t told them the full story though, that the magic as all connected. Slowly the ship seemed to become more self aware, we heard sounds from within. Some of us would venture inside and speak to the machine and it told us that it was trying to get home. Then one day there was an enormous roaring and the ship tried to lift up and go, but it couldn’t, it was baked too deeply in the clay to get out and it was stuck there forever. We visited again and the ship seemed to be crying, it was lonely. We tried to be friends with it, but it was mechanical too, and thought that we were being cruel to the Tic Tocs. It started to hate us. I think it was because we could travel around our world. Slowly our Tic Tocs began to behave strangely in the swamp near the ship. So we stopped going there, then Tic Tocs disappeared, my father’s boat wasn’t there one morning, but it was seen from time to time ferrying Tic Tocs deeper into the swamp. The ship had reached through the magic and was beginning to control the Tic Tocs. It’s power began to spread until it started to attack the villages, driving us deep underground where we can hide away from the attacks.
We are lucky little ones, it can’t make other Tic Tocs, and eventually our attacks will destroy all the Tic Tocs and you will all be able to play outside, won’t that be wonderful?”
“Yes, Yes, Yes” they little ones cried as they jumped out and raced down the tunnel leaping and flying as if they were outside.
The old man stared into the glow basket, and thought to himself, but what about the criminals that were broken free, the ships tame Hobbit tribe?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)