The space pirates part five;

John e. sterling.

Leaving maroon baloon.

AND SO HERE WE ARE PILGRIMS, THE EPISODE NOBODY HAS BEEN TALKING ABOUT.

IT IS TIME FOR THE INEPT SPACE PIRATES TO FINALLY PUT THEIR TENn.UOS PLANS INTO ACTION AND JUMP INTO THE EPISODE WHICH WILL ALWAYS BE KNOWN AS;

LEAVING MAROON BALOON,
YES.

BY JOHN E. STERLING.

The Captain sat in the big Captains chair.
He stared intensely with his intense blue eyes.
He stared at the groovy view screen, he looked, and he waited.

He was of course waiting for the much ballyhooed meteor storm that would be hitting the planet in an approximate number of minutes.

The meteor storm that would finally free them from this monstrously boring planet, the Purple Maroon Maloon.

The Captain was jolted from his staring.

“Captain, Captain, can you here me?”

It was first mate Firsty.

“Come in Firsty, how is the situation?” asked the Captain.

“Er, well the situation is that I have constructed the space tow rope, including the springy part, I had some trouble with the grappling hook, it was…”

“Yes yes Firsty, that’s great,” the captain interrupted.
“I hate to be boring, but the storm is nearly here, what about the robots?”

“The robots that I could find you mean, I don’t know where they all are do I?” said Firsty.
“Anyway I instructed them to find some big guns, which by the way would be in the ships armory, and if we do survive somehow, that might be worth checking out, so I also told them to find as many friends as possible and spread themselves around the outside of the ship, fore, aft, port and starboard.”

The Captain rubbed his hands together.

“Excellent Firsty, you know, I think we have just one shot at this, the next storm is due in some amount of years, not that it will matter of course because we will no doubt be destroyed by this particular storm, anyway, the space tow rope is ready for launch, yes?”

“A, firmative, Captain, I found the torpedo launch room, I modified a torp and the thing is loaded and ready to rock.”

Captain Sterling could sense the excitement in the first mates voice. Solving problems, rigging things, they were his best attributes, plus they would either die or get off this rock, at least one of those things was worth some degree of excitement.

The Captain gripped the green control helm with both hands and it came online. ‘Manual flight system online, and highly un recommended,’ said the helm.

“Yeah well, you don’t know me very well, do you little green steering wheel?”
He picked up his communicator.

“Firsty, come in, as soon as I choose the rock and you fire that rope I want you to rock and roll to the bridge splickety quick, and don’t forget to bring those robots online too.”

“Will do Captain,” answered Firsty.

A rumble, a deep roaring noise, the ship began to vibrate.
The ship was bathed in a green glow which poured into the bridge like water on a sinking liner.
The Captain sat forward and gripped the helm even tighter. The vibrations grew stronger.
Then he could see them, ‘Oh moley.’

“Firsty, this is it, here it comes, get ready to fire on my order.”
The vibration from the storm was bad enough that Firsty had to lean on the bulkhead. He felt in his trouser pocket for the trig that would bring the droids online and made his way to the control panel.

“Aye aye Captain, just say the word and a thrown together mile long space tow rope, with springy bit for shock comfort built in, and an improvised grappling hook will be a hurtling towards a large space rock in the hopes of dragging us out of here.”

“Excellent Firsty, I think I see a customer now.”

The Captain was looking at a large meteor that was definitely too big to be dragged in the pathetic planets atmosphere.
The storm started to hit. Small rocks began to smash the Starboard side, then bigger, and bigger until it was percussion time on the good ship Candy.
Firsty looked around the torpedo room at the sound, he gripped his final solution holding point and poised his finger over the green launch button.

The captain sat vibrating but calm, the ship was being pelted with increasingly larger rocks, but no panic.
Bathed now in a deep foreboding Green light, he was stoic. He focused on the large tumbling rock.

‘Wait for it, wait for it, waaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiitttt.’

“Okay Firsty, go go go, launch that fucker!” shouted the Captain.

With gritted teeth Firsty pressed the launch button. There was a smooth whoosh, the launch light lit up, and it was gone, sailing away towards its target.

“SPACE TOW ROPE AWAY CAPTAIN,” Firsty shouted.

“GREAT SHOT McGREGSON, ACTIVATE THE ROBOTS AND GET UP HERE.”

“Aye aye sk…….”
An unseen rock slammed into the side of the ship sending shockwaves through the hull and into the decks. Firsty went flying, the robot activation button flying out of his pocket.

Captain Sterling absorbed the shockwave in his big Captains chair. He was focused on the trajectory of the rope.
Firstys improvised grapple hook slammed into the side of the rock and gripped with green dust exploding out of the collision.
The first part had worked the rope was one being pulled by the huge rock. The Captain saw the remaining slack looping away, soon the ship would be part of this crazy tow scene.

Firsty hit the deck and was reaching for the act button. Just then, the slack in the rope was taken up and the ship began to shift in the purple sand The actibutton rolled out of Firstys reach and rolled under a control unit. ”Gah!” he exclaimed.

Another couple of rocks slammed into the ships skin, these ones causing large dents.
’wish we had some deflector shields,’ wished the Captain.

Soon the integrity of the hull would weaken and tears would appear and then, well, real tears.

“Gregson, ACK TEE VATE those bots.”

‘ I’m trying captain,’ The first Mate said to himself.
He was reaching under the control unit, feeling for the acti button, there it was, he had it.

The springy part of the tow rope had reached its optimum springiness.
Now the ship began to slide along the purple sand, pelted with rocks as it went.
The actibutton of course rolled way from Firsty fingers as the ship moved. “UltraGah!”
The Captain held onto the controls as the ship moved along the purple surface. “Prepare for take off,“ he shouted.

Soon the rock they were attached to would leave the planets’ locale and roll into open space.
Unluckily enough, their radical route coincided with a large rocks planet fall. The large rock smashed into the ships’ side.
This caused all sorts of weird alarms and sirens to go off.

“Firsty, if you are alive, activate those robots, or we are both definitely dead.”
Firsty had managed to acquire the button, he positioned his thumb above the glowing Green button and pressed, nearly. Just at that moment the amazing shape shifting, Platinum, stolen and unworking space ship left the surface of Maroon Baloon and was now hurtling through the Purple sky towards space.
Firsty was slammed into a bulkhead and with blood streaming from his forehead he fell to the floor unconscious.

The Captain was an excellent pilot unparalleled in this Galaxy.
But even he had never had the privilege of being dragged by an unpredictable meteorite.
He did the best he could keeping the ship steady. An unforeseen bonus, the springy bit in the rope also acted as a tumbler which meant that the ship didn’t tumble with the flying rock.
’I’ll have to thank Firsty for that one,’ he said to himself. The hooray party didn’t last long.
Through, the view finder the Captain saw that a rock easily twice the size of the one carrying them was headed to a head to head collision with them.
The rock grew bigger every second.
’Come on Firsty, come on.’
Captain Sterling could not maneuver the ship to any effective degree, certainly not enough to avoid this thing.

Now only a few hundred space yards away the Captain braced for the impact, if only he could get a message to Frina.

The rock was so close He could see the pits and cracks on it’s surface.
Impact in very few seconds.
He did not close his eyes, he gripped the helm and pushed it forward as though he had engine impulse, which of course he didn’t.
It was a just a last ditch, fuck you big space rock, thing.

’Goodbye Frina’

The green rock enveloped the view screen.
Then In the midst of all the green, there were sudden flashes of sliver.

Intense beams of energized mercury hit the tumbling rock pointblank.
It exploded into a thousand fragments.

“Robots online Captain,” Shouted Firsty.

“NICE ONE FIRSTY,” EXCLAIMED A SMILING CAPTAIN.”
“Now get up here double bubble.”
“Aye aye skip, on my way.”

‘I hope he remembered to secure that bloody rope.’

‘Thank the stars I remembered to secure that bloody rope.’

The door to the bridge slid open. First mate Gregson came tumbling through. He stopped screaming and secured himself onto the conn railing.
He saw the Captain gripping the helm in deep sweaty concentration.
He was witnessing one of the best pilots ever navigating a dead ship being towed by a random space rock through a deadly meteor storm.

And they were still alive, ‘This Captain.’

The collisions and percussion became unbearable.
Firsty tried to decide between holding on to the rail or covering his ears. He decided holding on was preferable to having no ears.

Outside the ship droids were being lost at an alarming rate, and of course the less robots, the less firing power.

One robot, Gwark the tenacious, was firing at a particularly nasty rock, very pointy, and very hard to destroy, and headed straight for the bridge.
He kept firing his mercury beams until the rock was destroyed. Thus saving the ship, but it was too late for the robot, fragments of the destroyed rock ripped into him. His systems went offline, poor gwark the tenacious.

Sweat ran down the captains face, he joked the helm this way and that.
The thunderous roar threatened to over come them, the ship, everything.

THEN SILENCE.

They did not move for a few seconds.

There were no more rocks, no more Green light, just stars and black before them.

“Release that rope Firsty, we are space borne and clear of the storm,” shouted the Captain triumphantly.

“Aye aye Captain,” replied a smiling Gregson.”

Firsty pressed his last button.

For a while they both sat their panting like dogs.
They watched as the huge rock with their space tow rope still attached tumbled into another rock and exploded.

“Firsty, damage report,” said the Captain, “apart from your head of course.”

“The view screen is broken,” Firsty said pointing at the shattered viewscreen.

The Captain rolled his eyes. “Well, apart from the obvious.”

Still pointing at the broken view screen Firsty added, “And there is that to consider.”

The Captains eyes widened, he gripped his Captains chairs’ armrest and sat forward.

Uncloaking dead ahead of them was a Tag patrol ship.

“Oh, space crap,” Stated the Captain.

NOW WHAT, WHO ARE THE TAGS? WHO IS FRINA? WHO ARE YOU? WHY ARE YOU HERE? WHY DON’T YOU TUNE IN NEXT WEEK AND FIND OUT.

IN AN UN BEING ON MAROON BALOON EPISODE CALLED,

‘REMEMBERING GWARK’ OR EVEN; ‘FIRSTY WHERE’S YOUR JACKET?’ PART TWO.