h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*checks for pulse*

I've been on a bit of a hiatus myself since last posting, if anyone else is still around - are we ready for the big finalé?

Hmm... thought I'd try start by exploring a forgotten tangent....


-------------------------

As the siren's wailed and the red emergency lights swirled, Annabel marched with furious deliberation down a corridor and threw open a door with a bang.

Inside, laying down on a pallet, was Sister Mary.

"We need to talk." Annabell said and closed the door firmy to behind her.

"Yes. I think we do." Mary said coldly.

"What was that charade with Vandeveer supposed to prove?"

"Nothing at all. You'd been comprimised." Annabel said smartly.

"Comprimised? How dare - "

"How dare I?" You come before the council, before me - a hostage of an overly ambitous and careless criminal? The cult was very nearly disgraced, and infiltrated by - by an outsider!"

"Now see here!" Mary raged and stepped up so she was level with Annabel. "Vandeveer was clever and he caught me with my guard down. But don't lecture me on bringing in outside help *Miss* Smittington. Some of our families have been members of the cult longer than others!"

The air was chilly even for a subterranean base in the antartic.

Annabel said nothing.

"I did what was necessary to complete my mission which was to locate thew Turqoise Moon. I assume, since you are now in charge, that you have it in safe-keeping?" Mary resumed.

"No." Annabel confessed.

Mary scoffed slightly.

"We can't find your friend, the spy." Annabel said.

"Sean? He survived?"

"He came back up from the tunnel with Von Trapp. He was last seen with The Cossak."

"I find that hard to believe; Andrei was in league with Vandeveer."

"The Russian works for me, as I might remind you, do you; I therefore expect and am biterly dissapointed that you have not felt able to share all your knowledge openly."

"What do you mean?"

"This alarm" Annabel indicated the noise outside in the corridor with an outstretched arm, "was triggered only moments ago, there are intruders in the base! I think they used the blizzard as cover to get inside."

"Who could survive out there? It's impossible.!"

"There were agents on board The Moriarty."

"They are resourceful but not immortal. They could not have survived." Mary said repeating the phrase almost as an article of faith. "They simpyl could not." "They were in the rear carriage, I made sure it crashed."

"So The Agency *does* know of our operation. They may have sent others."

"No...I er...no I don't think so."

"Robinson he has a past with Sean."

"I am aware."

"This was personal. Sean and Andrei, they took a girl that Robinson was close to."

"and where is this girl now?"

"Andrei said he killed her. While we in Cairo. That was where the moon was located in Egypt. Sean has contacts that were able to get us the diamond. I suspected Vandeveer, so we kept the diamond hidden from him and his personal assassin, but on board the train, Sean had it last. Wherever he is, The Diamond is there too. I am sure of it. and Robinson won't be far away."

Annabel opened the door to leave and turned back towards Mary, the sound of the alarm outside carried into the room.

"If Robinson is one of the agents, he'll be looking for Daltmooreby. We can use that to our advantage."

and she left.

Mary considered this for a moment and then followed.
-------------------------

Daltmooreby woke up groggily and detacthed his face, painfuly, off the cold floor by lifting himself up on his arms.

"Urrrgh." he mumbled incoherently. His temple felt sore and bruised. The egyptian archeologist. Damn.

Suddenly a cultist underling appeared at the doorway, just as Daltmooreby cluthched at his skull to prevent the sensation that his head was coming off at the shoulder.

"He's in here!" The young man called excitedly and a gruff siberian growl replied.

Sreka appeared and pushing the monk abruptly aside entered the room, grabbed Daltmooreby by the crook of his elbow and hoisted him upright and vertical.

"Owww." Daltmooreby said.

"They are here then?" Sreka bristled.

"Yes. for gods sake. Yes they are here they hit me on the ead with that." He pointed with loathing at the dicarded metal pipe.

Sreka considered this. "Excellent" he announced to Daltmooreby's astonishment.

"Now you will be angry." Sreka completed his daring psychoanalysis.

"Angry? Are you kidding. I'm going to flay Robinson alive." and he stalked out of the storeroom into the corridor stoping only to scream as loudly as he could:

"DO YOU HEAR ME ARTHUR? - YOU'RE DEAD!"

That got everyone's attetion.

"Split into teams and search every crevice of this base until they are found and then bring them to me." Daltmooreby barked orders at the assembled cultists.

"Now!"

Hurridly they all did what he asked and set of down the different corridors.

Behind him Daltmooreby heard someone arrive he spun round and was surprised to see Mary leanign nonchelantly against the wall.

"M - mary." Sreka stuttered.

"Hello boys. Good to see things are firmly under control."

"Don't patronise me." Daltmooreby seethed.

"Andrei is right Sean, you are useful when you are angry but we need to play this one smart...."

--------------------------

Arthur turned around you're dead wandered down the corridor.

"We'd better hurry we can't stay here. Now what is it that's so important?"

"It's right here, just round this corner." Jamilla said. Go see for yourselves."

Arthur took a peek and couldn't believe his eyes.

"That's a ...er a..um.."

X peered round his partner's shoulders. "Bloody Nora! They stolen a space shuttle!"

Arthur blinked trying to absorb this new information.

"Could they use that as a platform to focus a beam through that diamond?" Arthur asked X.

"Theoretically yes."

Ody volunteered a new question. "How?"

"I...I...I don't know." Arthur stammered. A distant memeory wandered forth. Soemthing Sfret had said to him underneath the Lauterbrunnen golf course in Vandeveer's secret base. How he'd been in charge of building a machine. Sfret had struck Arthur at the time as being something of an engineer. but who could have thought he'd been building a space shuttle? "I have a shrewd idea." He said finally.

"Probably been stealing spare parts for decades you don't assemble something like this just overnight."

"What can you do?" Jamilla said asking Arthur directly.

"Us?" X said with disarming honesty.

"Well yeah." Ody said, "You're the good guys right?"

X and Arthur exchanged glances then X said. "Do you still have those radios Bert gave us in Gibralter?"

"X! Brilliant!" Arthru exclaimed and produced the two minature communication devices from the recesses of his suit.

"Oh but those won't work underground." X said "Remember?"

"No, you're right we'll have to get back to the surface again if we are going to warn The Agency about the cult's plans.

Then, suddenly, voices from just round the corner were the group were crouched.

"Quickly Hide!" Arthur hissed as X, Jamilla and Ody scrambled for cover...

extra bit:

....

"Could they use that as a platform to focus a beam through that diamond?" Arthur asked X.

"Theoretically yes."

"But the diamond is a dud right?" Arthur said looking to Jamilla. If they are expecting it to focus the beam centrally it won't, have I understood you right doctor?

Jamila was slightly taken aback by the formal address.
"well..er..no, not exactly. If that diamond behaves as it did in the Turqoise Moon chamber then it will focus the beam in a particular drection but we have no way of telling now, which direction it will focus in. They won't be able to control it. The most likely thing is that the beam will miss-fire completly into space.

"but what if this miss-fireing beam happens to pass through a major city or into the shuttle itself, blowing it up and raining down flaming debris onto civilian areas?" Arthur though out-loud, weighing up some unenviable options.

"I..er....I didn't think of that." Jamila said glumly.

"no, no, you did good. but we need to stop them...er launching that thing I've a feeling it's going to be soon. Assuming of course they know how fly one, but then after all they've built it so I suppose it's reasonable to expect they've been training pilots for it too."

Ody volunteered a new question. "How?"

"I...I...I don't know." Arthur stammered. A distant memeory wandered forth. Soemthing Sfret had said to him underneath the Lauterbrunnen golf course in Vandeveer's secret base. How he'd been in charge of building a machine. Sfret had struck Arthur at the time as being something of an engineer. but who could have thought he'd been building a space shuttle? " But I have a shrewd idea." He said finally.


.... etc

Finally we arrive at the oft-mooted 'last scene from ST2' - and no replies at all. Hello??? Anybodeeee?

I'm only checking in every so often and I think Vercingeterran has left the building, Clive.

And Legion goes without saying.

HPB

Hullo.

Terran said in an email to me that he doesn't post here any more but he still wants to finish commitments he started, like projects for and ST3.

So we can still jerry-rig a method by which I can collect submissions from each of us at like say an email address where we can send to each other our ideas if people are no longer coming to h2g2. ::thinks::

I've not seen Legion about much either, guess he must be busy with Trinity finals by now.


so...er....is that a 'yes, I may write some more'?
because if I come to h2g2 for nothing else, I'd love to just get this finished.

I was thinking about ST3 some more today I reckon we can get to the end fairly swiftly so I'm going to (*try*) to start posting more regularly now as I can generate some more ideas and plot.

Goodgood. I'm still stalking about here, though college and essays and dissertations are quite...distracting...at the moment. As they should be, I suppose.

(that's not an echo....!)






Okay well I had an idea about the radio scene but figured I might be writing it all and wasn't giving everyone a fair shout at it.

It's good to know you're still hovering and watching here even if, I realise fully, that time is precious, and there's ample reasons not to post anything

Good luck the with dissertating (I should probably go do some maths homework. Damn you made me feel guilty. ))

Okay... I thought I'd post... what the hell I thought... I've already broken my self imposed ban on posting a couple of times, so why not here at twenty to two in the morning, not completely sober...

Weeelll... just read a lot of stuff I didn't have a chance to read before, and interesting stuff about Vanderveer's cremation... and something jarrs a little... the speed of Vanderveers death and the sudden turn of Sreka... I know my intervention didn't help, but I don't know theres something that reads a little oddly...

Anyway thats just a random thought. To be honest I think we've got most of this wrapped up its just a matter of writing it. To be brutally honest, without me adding more of my infamous "tweaks", I think Clive is the man to do it as he's got the best grasp of the plot line and where he wants it to go...

My only thought was maybe giving Vanderveer's death a little less certainty (e.g. all the good villains), but I don't know... maybe he could just fry in hell

I thought Vandeveer's death was in many ways over-due but as I've been editing it together for the post there is a great sense of a simmering resentment that burts out at the end. Practically it thins the field of villans just a tad, and it makes those that remain more villainous by comparrison.

There is a sort of Tsunami effect at the end of one of these stories. I remeber at the end of ST2 we knew we were going to have Bob confront Rasputin and we knew we were going to have God and The Devil take turns in punishing him: it was, as you say, a matter of writing it.

I'm not really saying Vanderveer shouldn't die... I was thinking much the same that it makes the likes of Sreka a bit more villainous... its just it felt a bit jarring when I re-read it on the forum... but I've not read it through on your edits, so if you feel it makes more sense in the edit then thats fine

Hopefully I've smoothed things out in the edits. If you want to check on my progress - everything I've done up to now is here: A13303991 and I'll be appending the remainder of the story there and here as soon as I find time to sit down and write it.

I've been a bit busy since my last post because my computer crashed and deleted part of a file I was working on for a friend that I've been working on re-typing and I've been busy (passing) my driving test! ()

but I'll be trying to get my mind back onto ST3 asap...

NOOOO They're not using Roman numerals in the Post.

I'm still lurking every so often but for the most part I'md one with Who-Too (which is why I've been using this name instead of the other one), still loyal to the ST3 duties though just need to sit and read where we are etc etc.

HPB

I could ask EMR use the roman if you want, I confess I kinda wished she'd kept them as typed (for style and reasons of public edification ) but after the first few came up as numbers I'd requested a couple of other stylistic chaanges and whinging about the numbers I thought was pushing it - but like Isaid , *if* it's important...

The numerals are re-instated.

Tried sitting down and writing some more yesterday but got sidetracked. Since it's pouring it down and I'm unlikely to go out for a run I'll try again....

Okay this is going completely out of order.

I was struggling to think how to get Arthur and co., out of the room where Jamila took them to see the shuttle. I've got an idea but I'm still struggling to write it. so I've jumped ahead of myself and have caught up with them having already escaped and making their way outdoors for the radio message back home that marks the end of ST2.

I've written that bit - and this is what follows below. Compare and contrast with A1061966 .

All I now have to do is write myself up to that point at which this bit starts which I will try to do, now that I've got an idea of where I want to end up.



------------

With the door wedged open, Arthur and X broke cover and ran out into the driving wind. Arthur was nearly blown backwards by the strength of it but X grabbed his arm and pulled him along.

"We've not got long. Find some shelter!" Arthru shouted to make himself heard.

"Right. how about behid those crates?" X said pointing to soem abandoned boxes that ahd been stacked aginst the cliff-face by the storm.

"Wimbledon! Strawberries and cream calling Wimbledon. Call back. Over."

There was an agonising pause, during which the wind appeared to creep up a few extra knotts.

Suddenly a cheerful voice perked up on the other end "Service on Centre court!"

"Strawberries and Cream!" hissed Arthur.

"We've been expecting you two to get in touch. Transferring..."

There was a hiss of static - the storm was interrupting the signal. Arthur shook the handset in frusration, his hands already vibrating from the cold.

Suddenly a familiar voice eeked it's way through the static.

"Strawberries and cream, Strawberries and cream are you receiving? Over."

There was a loud noise followed by some more static.

"X" go check over there - see if they are still following us!"

X skulked off and was quickly hidden from sight by the blizzard.

"STRAW BERRIES AND CREAM ARE YOU - " the satelite receiver buzzed loudly.

"We're....here..Guy." Arthur said, struggling to catch his breath as the wind tore it away from him. He was feelign his age for certain, running away from Sreka had taken it's toll.

The wind picked up one of the tarpaulins and it flapped about madly - the crates underneath it shifted and several crashed onto the ice with a splintering thud.

"Is it safe?" Guy's voice asked.

"Not for long."

"Fine get yourselves out of there and we'll re-establish communications in 48 hours."

"We are being tracked so that might be a little tricky but we'll see what we can do."

"Did you find it?"Guy asked.

"Oh we found something all right. A whole lot of something!"

----


A way from Arthur X scanned the open cargo dock, where they had ridden in on horse back only hours ago.

X saw Mary, dressed thick protective clothing, emerge from the open door holding a pistol and scanning the white-out for them. She saw the barest trace of footprints and began to head in X's direction.

X shouted to Arthur as loud as he could "They're coming!"

Arthur heard his partner's desperate cry against the wind, He started to shout into the handset "They've got a rocket!" but he was seized from behind by Andrei Sreka, who gripped him by the throat "chockign his words. Sreka yanked him backwards and and pulling him in close whispered menacingly, "Got you." Sreka did not see it, but the handset fell useless onto the floor and was quickly covered by snow.

Sreka hauled Arthur upright and spun him around. Arthur started disbelievingly and saw that there was a second door into the complex open behind him, light pouring out and someone was stood in the doorway.

As snow collected on his brow and caked into his eyes, Arthur struggled to wipe it away.

Daltmooreby, folded his arms and watched his nemesis's distress from the doorway with great satisfaction and smiled.

Mary appeared alongside Sreka holding X at gun point. "I've had enough of running around in the snow. Let's get them inside.

Mary looked down at Arthur who had been forced to his knees by Sreka; and addressing him with a callous concern said, "You should have stayed on the train."

So what's the order?

HPB

I've ideas. Christmas sort of got in the way, plus I've had a university interview to prepare for and in the new year - and A Level exam to contend with, but I've mentally got the basics worked out I think and I'll come back tomorrow when I more awake and set down what I've got in mind.

Regarding the above: I was a little stuck writing the what-happened-next when Arthur and co., were about to be discovered on the platform overlooking the space shuttle launchpad so I basically jumped ahead, assumed they escaped and caught up with them having already made it past all the guards and to the outside of Alpha Complex (where the ST2 crossover finally takes place.)

I'll try and explain it all a bit clearer tomorrow...