October 2, 1998
Randy and Harold are back on the Bandit.
Randy stayed on the ship to make sure that at least one person was on the ship. Harold goes down to check the storage bays to see what we got from Ectica Planna. After inspecting everything in the storage bay, he goes exploring the ship.
Some of the things the heros have been experiencing that have been affecting what they do are things like caughin up blood when they're breathing the wrong atmosphere (making it one of our paranoias), not sleeping, not eating...
Harold detects an explosion from outside the ship.
Harold communicates with Billy. "Billy, what project are you
working on?"
BILLY: I'm cleaning up the mess you guys made. What are you doing?
H: I'm just wandering around the ship looking at things.
BILLY: Wandering the ship... wandering the ship...
Harold wanders into the eng. room and Billy is in a corner, wired
up to some of the computer equipment. "Bzzt! H e l l o. "
H: What's the matter, Billy? Aren't you glad to see me?
BILLY: Of course I'm glad to see you. I'm just wondering why this
is connected up this way. As far as I can tell, it's just complicated
turn signals (signals using some coded transmissions to broadcast the
turns of the Bandit.
H: How are your systems?
BILLY: My systems? You mean my internal ones or the ones in my hand?
*drops some chips out of his hand*
H: I must commend you on your scathing sarcasm.
BILLY: Thanks.
H: How old is this stuff that's been added? Was it Maze that added
it?
Billy: Could be.
H: We've landed near something that's exploded. Can your systems
detect it? I'm worried about Fred and Andy.
BILLY: I'm worried about Fred and Andy too.
H: I'm worried about their well being. Also, I'm curious about the
Baduku-dragonne. I was wondering if you'd want to tag along with
me.
BILLY: Yes, I'd love to. As long as *mutter mutter*.
Har: What?
BILLY: As long as *Mutter mutter mutter*
Harold: Randy? You've heard this, what do you think?
Captain Randy says I can't understand him.
Harold: Is it ok if your pet droid comes out with me?
Randy: Sure, it's ok.
Harold You'll be ok by yourself here? Amongst all of the killer droids?
And Baduku?
Randy: I'll stay here in the B-3 suit. You're going to find Fred and Andy?
H: Yes.
Harold and Billy go up to Charlie and get inside. As Charlie leaves, the sense of Harold's gravity flips, and Harold get's the brief rundown on the planet: CHARLIE: The atmosphere is toxic to your race after 24 hour exposure. There's some plush vegitation that's in jungles with food that you might be able to eat but it tastes like Okra.
Harold finds the clearing that Andy blew away with his boga ball. He looses contact with Captain Randy.
Then, while analyzing what Andy might've been shooting at, Harold sees a ship off in the distance - it's a Brillic ship. He tries to communicate with them and they ask if he's Cheg (the alf guys). Billy reports that they're insectic creatures.
Harold: Billy, tell them to stand down, they're getting to close.
Billy: I beleive they're going to attack us.
Just then, the Brillics attack with the hub-cap disks that fly from the ship. Charlie takes evasive action and eventually hits the ground and explode. Harold: Billy, tell them that if they continue for a while longer, then we'll have to return fire.
They continue to fire lasers at Charlie, which Charlie either evades or disperses. Then the Brillic ship opens a hatch. Harold: Charlie, shoot it.
One of the white mage-Brillics steps through the opening and Charlie blasts him. Then the Brillic ship shoots out another volley of mines. Harold has Charlie scoop 'em up using the tractor beam and drop 'em back on the ship. As the hubcap mines blow up the Brillic ship, they start bailing out.
Harold communicates back to them : Your weapons are even more efficient.
Harold observes with disgust that they look like two foot tall bugs. ("Worse than little squirrels")
Captain Randy: Harold are you still there? I could use your help.
Harold: Sure thing, captain Randy!
Harold returns to the ship to find the Bandit split in half - one side is
being towed away by these bizzare "voltron" style ships. There are five of them.
The B3 uniform is frozen in a single position on the ground.
H: Captain Randy, are you ok?
Captain Randy: FINE. Just fine. swell. And you?
H: Billy, go help your captain.
BILLY: Should I cut my way through the ship to him?
H: No, I think you should use the hatch.
Billy exits.
Suddenly, the ships attack Charlie with some weird red beam. Charlie is zapped while it destroys all the small ships towing half of the Bandit away. Har fights with the controls and is catapaulted into space. Suddenly, the hatch opens and he is ejected, orbiting helplessly, wondering how long his air is there.
Fred gives his scanner disc to the Tox. "scan around". "some good news, some Brillitz on the scanner" "that's too bad, cause I was ready to take them out!" - Fred cocks his rifle.
AS pretends he knows what it does, instructs Fred how to use the rifle. F:"Toz Captain, are there any energy sources around here or does it only scan life forms" CT: "no, it scans many things, but most of its technology is devoted to finding Brillitz, very important on this mining mission" A&F: "What is the stuff (sippin) you're looking for used for?" CT: "It has several uses, kinda the borax of space flight" Andy rocket boots up to survey the area.
Andy tests comm. It works. He sees a meteor crash to the surface. "Fred, I just saw a meteor crash a good 30 or 40 miles away." He goes to take a look. No motorcycle ride can compare to a rocketboot ride.
Fred: "I'm losing your communication." Fred rockets up to get a better visual and comm link. "How's this?"
Andy: "I guess these suits don't go very far in communications..." but it doesn't go through. He finds the remains of a small saucer ship. Another explosion really near by. He turns and sees another silver thing drop down near that, too. He flies up again to inspect anything else dropping. Nothing else for a bit.
Fred sees some fires not too far away. He drops down to the Tox dome, recommends that they stay hidden. He changes his mind and tells them to go inspect since they can communicate with him using a disk. Fred puts the plate in a buggy.
Andy flies back: "Hello hello hello."
Harold: "Why, hello"
andy: "who's this?"
H: "yes, who is this? It's Harold"
Andy: "where are you?"
Har: "you're ont he planet, right? I'm not."
Andy: "So you're in space, right?" He tries to get out into space. The rocketboot vibration changes as he leaves the atmosphere. Andy dooesn't see Har. har: "hello hello hello focus on my broadcast" Andy scans, finds a green spectrum. Andy follows it, it gives an image of a missile.
Andy: "a missile?"
The distance varies as Andy approaches it. It's not a missile but a rocketship, complete with fins. Andy scans it. Green spectrum is definitely the rocket. He does some more passes. He sees a star but suspects it. As he draws closer he sees it is Harold. Andy grabs Harold and rocketboots back to the planet. Harold has almost suffocated from lack of oxygen.
Fred is waiting for Tox report, not having heard Andy or Harold. Eventually he follows. He sees one of the smaller phallic Voltron ships (what was towing the Bandit before) spewing fire out the top as they are landed on the ground. There is a white robed Brillitz standing there. Fred can see the two Tox trapped in a cage and a bunch of skinned Tox lying about being eaten by some of the several hundred Brillitz swarming in the area.
Fred fires the floater rod at the white robe, who sees it and disperses the blast around the camp and bounces it back. Fred blocks it with the shield function ont he floater rod. The other ships start firing at Fred, too. He rocketboots into cover. An ape looking guy says: "Hey! Hey, you! come over here!"
Fred hops into the tree with the ape. "You're a Baybay . The Tox have been
very friendly to me and the Brillitz have been very mean and so I intend to
rescue those Tox over there."
"You're on the TOXS' SIDE?"
"I'm on my own side."
"You don't fear the Brilltiz? They're big bugs man!"
"No."
"Is that Brillitz technology? My master had one of those."
"You have a master?"
"No, I escaped like you did."
"I didn't escape. I'm a human."
"You mean you have slaves like the Brillitz?"
"No"
"You're more like the Tox"
"yes." Fred shows him his tools, including the flame gun.
"I understand, I have tools." He shows some of his items, though he doesn't explain what they do.
Fred gives him the flame gun "don't use it, you'll hurt yourself."
The ape drops it, screams: "THey followed you???" Hundreds of Brillitz are swarming over, beams cutting throught he air. The ape grabs Fred, who rocketboots away as they get shot. He finds it hard to control and uses the floater rod to stop at the buggy, gives the plate to the ape. The resulting blast knocks Fred back and he knows that the ape is healed but twice as strong as he is with the strength chamber. the ape runs off witht he plate "This is great! My people need these!" Fred starts to pursue and is cuaght by lasso-wielding Brillitz who were hiding in the Bandit wreck.
Andy drops Har as they see Fred get lassoed. Har notices the air is really nasty, opens his helmet and its even worse. Har notices a Good Symbol even through his nausea. He goes to Good Symbol. Andy goes to help Fred.
Fred discovers that the shield also as a repulsive effect. He starts fighting witht he shield in his left hand and attacking iwth his armored right arm. Andy notices some of the Brillitz that look different (orange eys instead of green) running in bubbles that roll over obstacles, but they die easy. Some Brillitz are running with silk pouches. One of them is towing along a really wounded Tox.
Andy shoots that Brillitz. Fred and Andy fill each other in. Fred: "There's a baybay around here, they seem to be the slaves around here. I lost my flame pistol. There's a Brillitz encampment near here. Watch out; there's a mage there."
Andy: "I brought Harold, he's gone to the good symbol."
Harold: "Where's Billy? where's Captain Randy?"
Andy: "we don't know - we thought you would know."
Har sees more of the big 2D craft (60 or so) that are tearing up the ground, bombing with mines which are caving in caverns or something under the ground.
H: Billybillybilly. OK.
Har looks for a flagship - and notices that directly overhead, blotting out
the sun, is this huge fat ship 
.
Harold swoops down, caughin up blood and losing bowel control. Then, out of
the corner of his eye, he sees an F10 Tomcat fighter with a tent-trailer behind
it zip out of there.
H: hellohellohello.
The tomcat swoops next to Har. The tentrailer gets blown up and the guy grabs Harold and puts harold in the cockpit (about as much room as a casket) they pop open har's helmet and he can breath. l He can't understand any of 'em as they're frantically talking. wasn't any room in the cockpit, so they shoved him into this metal container. (somone spraying something onto him and it's coming inthrough the suits air filters as a "sweet" smell)
Meanwhile, Andy is blowing away Brilliczs. Then he sees a red light that is growing more intense - like a cloud that he can't evade. Andy puts up the shield but it doesn't do anything. Andy looks around for a source and all of a sudden, everything is super clear and he's at his partent's house and his dad turns around as if to say "get me something to drink" and suddenly wham he's back in the sweaty, smelly suit and doesn't know what he's doing there, and Bam, hes on vacation with his family and BAM he's back and thinks he sees an insectic had and it is still really red, and it's so intense that it's enclosing him. He rocket boots up for a long ways and slowly it starts to fade. Andy just stays there and looks around and sees that one of the larger ships (like the flagship) and then surveys the area for about ten minutes, reassuring himself that this exists and he is here.
Fred's arm turns off then starts vibrating wildly. He clicks the button and it fragments. He sees that the arm has the same markings that was used on the Bandit, same sort of weapon. He's fighting Brillitz. He flies up, firing with the floater rod. Then the rod vibrates. It shuts off. There's this giant MUNCH noise and all the Brillitz stop. Fred looks around and sees a giant dragonne chewing ont he remains of a white robe in his mouth. He walks toward the fight, dragging half of the Bandit behind him. Fred flies over to the Brillitz camp and fires one of the missile darts into the middle of the camp, but Baduuku is within blast radius and the Bandit is too. He sees a Tox with his eyes gouged out but is otherwise not obviously harmed. Fred flies down, uses the broken jetrope and cuts the cage open. The Tox is freaked out.
"Don't worry, I may have the healing plate around here."
"The wooman?"
"Yeah, Okay whatever." Fred grabs him and they run along, away from the center of camp. The Brillitz are keeping away from Baduuku the hungry Dragonne. Fred takes the Tox over to one half of the Bandit, but is interrupted by a bunch of Bril with their pinchers up. Fred moves around them and stows the Tox on the part of the Bandit as Baduuku drags it along. Fred takes a moment to admire the huge force of the giant, super-creepy Baduuku dragging through the dense jungle. Baduuku has a face-off with a Brillitz with attitude, whose head explodes. Then Baduuku continues. Fred comms: "Baduuku's back." Andy half listens as he flies around the giant ship, firing darts into the big ship. He empties the magazine and then sets them all off. As the explosions begin, Fred meanwhile runs through all the hands up Brillitz with the broken jet rope and shield up. Then they break and run away.
More and mroe groups of the Bril turn and run as well. Baduuku flikps the broken piece of the Bandit around and pushes the two halves of the Bandit together. Then there's a new light from a new sun ont he other side of the planet as the enormous shock wave catches up with the light from the gigantic explosion from the mothership. Flames all over, all the Brillitz ships are gone. Fred chases after a far flung group of Brillitz who crawl underground just as Fred gets there. Fred pops another dart down the hole and flies back to Baduuku. Baduuku is raising his arms with power as he begins to meld the two halves of the ship together, electricity arcing between his hands/claws. enormous sense of uneasy power. Fred goes off to pop more darts after submerging squads of Brillitz. Andy arrives and makes sure that all the ships are gone. They are. Gigantic crater where the fleet was.
Andy: "harold, are you OK?"
Harold feels a motion stop at one point and he is waiting for someone to pull him back out of where he's at. It opens in front of him - casket-style. a huge armored, suited figure grabs him and pulls him out and says "Take that godawful helmet off." Harold takes his helmet off and still gags on the fresh air. The figure sends him off to a place where he can get refeshed and cleaned up. Suddenly, he realizes that he feels so much better. He's feeling all of his muscle aches and pains. It's a carpeted room that he enters and peels out of the stained, soiled suit, and then enters a sallon-style bathing room.
*Sudden realization that Randy is still in the B3 suit.*
Harold continues bathing and exits towards a blue rectangle on the wall. As he approaches, it opens to reveal a set of packaged food bars that he gobbles down with animal enthusiasm, not really remembering if it had any flavor at all. Then he drinks out of this tube and it's the greatest drink he's ever experienced - so blissful and the best he's ever tasted. After he drinks it down, he walks towards the softest, nicest bed he's ever been in. He's asleep as soon as he hits the pillow and is awakend by the soft touch of a beautiful woman. He thinks "huh?" and suddenly he's waking up from the dream he was having from sleeping from sheer exhaustion.
The metal casket is getting tossed about and red light is cracking through. He cuts his way out of the metal casket and he's back in orbit. He's a little less exhausted because he got a little bit of sleep, and the stuff that was sprayed on his suit is supplying oxygen.
A: Harold? You ok? I just blew up that big ship.
H: You have strange perspectives. You're back down on the ship again, and I'm not again. Suddenly harold hears a "bleep bleep bleep" and sees the red triangle in the distance. H wah's Andy "..and I'm puking and I seem to be floating towards it".
A: Double click" on it and it shows your floater rod's fuel level. I'll come up and let you use mine.
H: sees something that he wants to go towards "Hello.Hello.Hello.Hello.Hello."
A flies up into space and looses communication with him. Scans and looks for same thing. Green spectrum. He flies to the green spectrum. Harold is continuing to the object. "Hello.Hello.Hello.Hello.Hello." A sees the big rocket - H is heading towards it too. A sees H and swaps rods with him.
Fred fires another dart into a second (third?) group and flies back to Baduuku. Boy, that sounds strange. Flying BACK to Baduuku.
Andy looks at rocket and finds and entrance near a fin.
Fred notices a bright blue flash before he turns back to Baduuku. He whips around and there is a smouldering pile of something where the Dargonne once stood. The Bandit is together, fused, but with an obvious join. Fred doesn't see any b3 suit, either. Fred: "andy, harold" no contact. Fred flies to the Bandit, flies in where the front hatch seems to be ripped out. He notices that it is even more fucked up than usual. He goezs to Captain's chair. "Randy!" Just before he gets to the bridge he comes up to the hatch, which is blocking the corridor. Turns out it is an airlock to the bridge, which is airtight. The bridge is all cattywampus. The seats are all still vertical but only because the pieces they were on were twisted and bent to rest up approximately in front of each console. Fred tries to take off, viewing on the one working monitor at another station. The Bandit rises up up up. Then he tries to track the baybay by analyzing his surroundings with the side exterior view visible from the one monitor.
Fred sets it down again. Fred runs down tot he buggies, driving them into the cargo hatch. Only one is running, though. He leaves the other.
Fred comms:" Attention everyone on the planet. Prepare for detonation."
Andy: "What are you going to blow up?"
Fred: "The area below us. Are you OK?"
Andy: "yeah, and I got one Tox with me." Andy: "go ahead."
Fred sets off the darts, They blow. Fred takes the Bandit into orbit to join us.
Andy: "Harold, where's Randy?"
Har (he wah'ed them earlier):"I don't know anything more than what I told you."
The Bandit starts rocking violently, Fred hears the sound of breathing. Fred drops it down and opens the airlock. The Dragonne is there: "Hungry. Hungry. hungry. Need food. All you had was that deer there." Fred comms: "Well, we don't have the Tox anymore. It fed Baduuku." Fred flies the Baduuku down to find some Brillitz and drops off the dragonne from low altitude. Baduuku eats the vegetation with more gusto than the insectic things.
Fred lands the Bandit away from the Brillitz, hears a huge crashing noise from the cargo area. Fred runs down, checks the buggy: it's fine. But there's a curlicued piece of metal lodged up into the ceiling - it's a piece of scrap from the Ectaca Plana steak. Fred grabs it and bonds with it, his suit tears, his skin peels and his bones tear to the surface. Fred lets go and parts of the metal tears off onto his hands in curlicue patterns. It continues growing patterns down his arms, shredding the suit as it goes. Fred screams and runs around in pain, looking for something to kill.
Fred starts to run to Baduuku and then starts to think better of it as he grabs hold of him. Baduuku turns, looks and completely mentally connects with Fred. I am You are Fred I am You are Baduuku-infested Dragonne I am You are Lipsic. The lipsic is growing down to his underarms, he panics that if it reaches his underarms he will lose them and die.
Fred screams: "Make it stop! I don't wanna die!"
Baduuku picks him up in one claw "I take it back! Don't kill me!" the Lipsic grows onto BAduuku and suddenly it doesn't hurt anymore. Baduuku sets Fred back down and stares at the swirling pattern on his arm until it stops on his wrist. Then he resumes eating everything in sight. Fred feels better, but his suit is thrashed and he's sucking the bad air.
"Hey, thanks! (Mean Joe Green)" (Harold, what are you typing here? I don't understand the reference.)
Fred goes into ship, closes airlock and starts to breathe again. But the air there isn't clean, either.
Fred uses jetrope to cut open passage to weapon arm controls (the lower control panels in the bridge). Baduuku climbs back aboard. Fred mentally broadcasts: *we're leaving now*, then takes off. Every once in a while, he has flashbacks of the stuff whirling on his arms. this may be an effect of not sleeping for five days, perhaps. As an afterthought, Fred pops another dart down, takes off and sets off the dart as they leave the atmosphere. "This is radio free Bandit, talking to anyone with a full suit."
The two go through an airlock and see. four circles - like super thick glass windows that look out into space, and on the rim of the trim of the glass port is these two handles that you can press down on these buttons. There's a set of buttons on each of the four windows. They all look alike (the buttons.) After some examination, one of the wide buttons, have little golf-ball style dimples and one of the others' has little line groove dips. This area is kind of a tube with these strap things that looks like people could strap their legs into (no gravity in here, but there is noise - a soft hum). Andy toys with the buttons. WHen he depresses on of the left buttons, there's some hydraulic noises. Some buttons fire guns, some do nothing apparent. Harold sees this cushioned area in bands with three areas of strappings accross from them. It's kind of like a valve separating the two rooms? The strappings are near an airlock. where it narrows, there's four more windows. Probably controls for flying the ship postulates Andy.
They go through the last airlock. There's an area about eighteen inches high full of what looks like speakers. and some other controls which may be pilot area, navigation area, weapons area. Looks like the air is circulating as if it's been circulating for a while. Harold pops his helmet open and he hears music and muses to himself. Andy comms with Fred.
Fred runs to nav console: any radar, scanners? Yeah, but he doesn't know how to use them. He announces: "Attention, this is your Vice-captain speaking. We will be finding Harold and Andy soon. No passengers are sllowed to eat the vice captain." Andy comms with Fred: "Fred, we're over by the rocket." Andy plays with giving instructions to Fred, eventually helping out.
Harold continues to explore the funcitons of the different stations within the rocket.
AS Fred is learning the controls, his hands occasionally move with more dexterity than they should, which is somewhat disturbing if jsut for the fact that he notices it. Because he only has one side view, he has to keep rolling the Bandit to view anything. Andy sees the Bandit fast approaching: "Stop! You're coming right toward us!" His hands stop the ship almost without volition.
("Oh, and while we've been talking, I knitted this nice sweater!")
Fred tries to dock the ship. Andy sees the Dragonne lean out of the Bandit and pulls the two \craft together. har notices an extra green light turn on. Andy: "Don't worry. your ship is being docked right now." Boom! Baduuku goes down the long hallway to the front hole. Andyt alks at Har but Har doesn't have his helmet on so he doesn't understand.
Fred follows Baduuku, wondering where he's going. He finds Baduuku "just laying in the hallwway". Fred is boggled.
Fred: "..."
Fred: "Hey, Andy"
Andy: "yeah"
Fred: "the dragonne is lying down and I'm not sure..."
Andy: "is he resting?"
Baduuku turns his head and looks at Fred. Fred: "No, no he's not." Fred runs
down to the airlock and moves over to the rocketship, finds the suits and opens
one up. He gets in and the little ring expands to fit over his head. But he
only has the top half of the suit, because the suit is too short. It's like
a fun little jacket, the latest in Space Seeker fashion!
Fred thinks how he can get the suit to fit him. He clicks a button on the suit
bottom and one leg elongates enough to wear. Fred cuts off the weird pad feet
off of the suit and puts the rocketboots on over the cuffs. A green light flashes
and he realizes that it is coming from chestplate on new suit. He presses a
button and the suit shrinks to fit him tightly. Fred squeezes through the narrow
airlock, abrely fitting.
Andy goes to meet Fred, but they have no comm with each other in the different suits. Andy goes back through the airlock, but Fred grabs him and pulls him back to touch helmets. Clang! F: 'are you OK, Andy?' (barely audible) A: 'your space suit sucks! What're you doing?'
F:"Lemme show you the new short suit I discovered!' Then he removes the old suit, puts his old helmet on and can talk to Andy again. Andy thinks that the old helmet can fit inside the new ones.
Andy: "harold's suit is all messed up."
Fred: "MY suit is all messed up. See?" He shows how his arms are all tattooed with symbols and his suit is ripped along those lines.
There is a great rumbling from Baduuku (?) roaring. Fred runs back and finds the curlicued rod punched through Baduuku's chest, bright yellow beams shooting from his eyes. The end of the rod starts growing, forming a cage around Baduuku, then growing into the walls of the Bandit, piercing through anything that Fred sticks in the way. Even the force field of the floater rod doesn't work.
Harold is figuring out the rocket controls. Andy tells him that the suits will fit, by first taking off his helmet and then gagging with nausea on the stench of Har's vomit and crap wafting from his suit. Fred tries to contact the Baduuku, but he is no longer in the Dragonne. Only the Lipsic is in it now.
Baduuku communicates from the ship as Armegas: "I am going to disconnect the
airlock. The Bandit will rest on Nacelle for awhile. The rocket is enough for
now."
Fred goes back to the rocket. The Bandit takes off.
Fred thinks he's had it.