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

Right I'll see what I can do about gravity ballet

Great to hear about your heels Oh and could you send that cupid over in my direction - could do with some love after having a bit of an odd time of it of late

I got it! I know how to "kill" Daltmooreby!

Daltmooreby charges the batteries to full capacity in order to destroy the agency. Arthur shouts a warning - the diamond is defective, a fake.

"Nonsense" Sean says sneering and presses the button.

The laser explodes!!



Can I write it? Can I, Can I?

Sounds good! DO IT! DO IT!

ST3 penultimate finale Pt. 1



Arthur and Daltmooreby fought over the gun. Arthur got the upper-hand and wrestled the laser pistol away and brandished it.

Daltmooreby may be old, and zero-gravity makes everything dawdle like wading through water but he is still fast.

He snaped down Arthur's golden sun-visor, blinding him

Arthur feels a chop to the neck.

The gun is smacked away out of is grip

Daltmooreby magnetises a girder from the shattered housing and delivers a kick to Arthur's chest - the extra mass pushes him out over the carriage of the shuttle, he nearly flies off into space manages to grab hold of something.

Daltmooreby is on him in seconds - and then Arthur hears the most terrible sound in all imagination. His suit being torn open and his atmosphere escaping into the vacuum of space.

In a second's panic he friezes and someone grabs his hand and places it over the hole and begins to bind it in place. Possibly with duct tape.

"Hold still. I don't want you dead." Daltmooreby raised Arthur's visor. The two men locked stares. "I want you to watch."

Arthur couldn't move - if he did, he'd be dead. 14 seconds that's all he'd have and then - nothing.

Daltmooreby gave a small cackle and kicked back floating back across the loading bay, with the laser arm extending up out of it back to the control pedestal.

"Poor Arthur." "There at the end. Everything is as it should be."

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


Meanwhile on Earth, Guy The Agency Chief was holding court in a room full with more epaulettes and shoulder pips with the senior staff of several armed branches of the military, and was just about the launch into a detailed exegesis based on his years of experience of why the second shot never misses in highly-charged finale sequences, when the door opened and a panicked underling with a messy crop of ill-fitting hair entered carrying several rolled up charts under one arm and gripping a pencil in his teeth. He signalled to Guy with a finger brushing up against his temple, and Guy waved him in. "Gentlemen, we have updated intelligence."

"Hah sorry for interrupting - it's ..er...um he said spreading out the star charts on the large glass table and pointing to several points - we found something." "Something that doesn't belong. It might be connected t that radar blip - we aren't certain."

"Go on. said guy inclining a palm towards the junior researcher.

So we asked Langley to use to spy cameras that definitely aren't on board the Hubble to get a closer look - and they sent us this:

He tapped into the touch-sensitive screen embedded in the table-top some instructions and on the wall loaded an image. It was a space platform. There was a space shuttle docked to one side and emerging from the rear of the loading bay was what looked like a giant cannon.

"We think this he said pointing with the pencil was what was launched from Antarctica about an hour ago. We're not sure what that is, he said pointing to the space laser, but we're betting it's a weapon of some kind." he concluded scratching the back of his neck anxiously.

""How long has that been there?" bellowed one of the generals.

"We don't know."

"Space hasn't been much of a security priority, not since the cold war." interjected Guy. "This is old-school thinking. "

A horrible though occurred. "Does that thing have power?" he asked urgently.

"We don't know." said the research, we only just found it - we're looking into it."


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

"Power." said Daltmooreby cooly. "Some people have it, some don't. those that generally don't want to take it from those that do. And that's where we come into it isn't it Robinson? The Agency adjudicators, arbiters, assassins: always on the border, at the juxtaposition of one possible future and another. Deciding who will live and who must die."

"I am sorry about Yelena, Sean."

"DON'T SAY HER NAME! - I'll show you power." and he pressed the firing button with Arthur watching, helpless.

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

"Energy spike!" someone shouted across the agency control room.

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


there was a burst of turquoise light and the beam sliced away from the station, down through the atmosphere and slashed randomly across what from up here looked the South Pacific...

---

It was a beautiful day in the Polynesian Islands , Bob had decided, and it was *the* day. The sun was beaming down, the breeze was fragrant with the tang of salt and tropical flowers and, well, if he couldn't declare his undying love for Jill here he was unlikely to be able to do it anywhere.
She was basking on the beach, utterly oblivious, and as Bob floated a hundred yards off-shore he swallowed, looked to the sky and said:

"Well God, I know you said this wasn't Meant To Be, but...well...here I go..."

He had barely begun to swim back when there was a blinding flash and burst of heated air, driving him backwards.

When he recovered, spitting saltwater, the sea between him and the shore was a boiling cauldron of superheated water. He blinked, and knuckled his eyes. A few palm trees by the shore had caught fire, and what appeared to be a luminous spear of blue-ish light from the Heavens was zooming south.
Bob coughed nervously, and cast another look to the skies.

"...okay , okay Forget I said anything , I can take a hint, sheesh..."

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

"Shut it off!" cried Arthur. "In sanity's name, Daltmooreby, if that beam hits a population centre millions will die!"

"No - they won't." said Daltmooreby releasing the switch and disengaging the laser.

"Always you misjudged what is before you, Robinson."

"Yelena was a double-agent - I'm sorry. I had to. I was under orders."

"WE were BOTH double agents."

"What?"

"Ozymandias."

"Who?"

"He was the first. So says the legend. The first to betray The Cult of The Pilchard, working for the Pharaoh. They aren't nearly as secure as they think. Down through the ages there has always been one like me, a covert operative. I was selected by Boutros himself for this mission fresh from the Academy. Yelena, my wife, my love - my target. She was working for the Russian.

"The Red Leicester."

"Yes." Sean smiled a pencil-thin smile.

"We've met."

"But of course. Where I lead you have always followed."

Arthur grit his teeth.

"It's almost time." Daltmooreby said wistfully.

"Time for what, Sean?"

"I'm going to kill a lot of people, you are right - but they aren't innocent.

"First I'm going to destroy the cult. Turn their own weapon against them. he announced laughing - Can you taste the irony?" He entered some co-ordinates, the laser re-angled itself.

"And just like that: death from above." and he fired the laser.

h2g2 storytime 3 penultimate conclusion part 2.

Alpha Complex: the heart of The Cult of The Dying Pilchard was in the tradition of all truly great super-villans nestled inside the dormant upper chambers of the Volcano Mount Terror, in The South Pole.

They lived by harvesting the heat from the magma chamber beneath their feet. This powered the hydroponic gardens, drove the mono-rail, ran the generators that in turn ran the air-conditioning units and made life at the south pole not merely possible but quiet pleasant.

This miracle of engineering in theory could run like this until the Earth itself cooled.

The high-energy beam from the orbital space platform entered through the side of the cone raining rock and dust over the startled populous who fled from the
w h u m w h u m w h u m w h u m sound of that dreadful spear of light as it began slicing through several levels of the base, cleaving through bedrooms, schools, bridges and power-stations. At the deepest point it punctured through the volumes heat shields and exposed the magma core.

The careful equilibrium that had kept the base safe and secure was undone in an instant, several lower levels were melted. Many died in moments.

People fled down darkened corridors - adapted lava-tubes - and were met by advancing tides of magma coming in both direction, they would hold their children close and be consumed in an instant.

Molten rock began to spill through out the base screams and anguished cries rung out and grew steadily less as the magma began to fill up the central chamber exterminating the Cult in a generational holocaust.

The laser stopped firing.

Out across the snowy wastes, Mt Terror gave a deep and terrible roar - followed by a series of cracking explosions and erupted into life orange fine descending down the mountain side.



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

Ody and Jamilla had finished prepping the train. When then was a thud, and Ody was knocked off balance.

"That was odd."

The lights in the ceiling flickered and went out.

"Somethings wrong" he said. "Get on the train."

Jamilla boarded, Ody took out his pistol and held it out in front of him into the dark - was someone there?

There was a strange ethereal light that seemed to be radiating from somewhere. It was dim but growing steadily.

"Show yourself!" he cried out. "I Demand .... Sssssss

There was a sulphurous smell Ody examined his pistol. The barrel had melted with something sticky and orange that had dripped from the...ceiling.


Ody looked up.


The roof of the station had partially melted and was buckling in ominously.

He heard Jamilla power up the engine. And he fled from that accursed spot. As he ran on board the girders in the ceiling dissolved and the roof collapsed dumping a a mass of liquid magma into the room, the temperature rose instantly searing Ody's face, his clothes began to smoke. He retreated inside as the train pulled away. The lave was flowing into the room now like a waterfall.

The train picked up speed from the searing heat and entered a tunnel - the lava pursuing them every inch of the way.

"Families." said Arthur wretchedly. "You're killing families, Sean."

"No, I'm exterminating evil." Daltmooreby said, head inclined, apparently barely listening.

"My final act of cleansing. - I'm going to destroy The Agency."

"NO!" Arthur was wide-eyed and pleading.

"Call it karma, balance, revenge, call me crazy. But it has to be done. "They taken everything Robinson, every shred of decency, every hope."

"You've lost sight of what we are, what our purpose is."

"And what is that?" "Stop the bad-guys hmmm?" "What if we are the real enemy Robinson? Look how easily people close to us die. Yelena. Sreka told me what he did to Anna. She seemed such a sweet girl. Pity. I imagine you could have been very happy together. Free from all of this. But we never escape. and there'll always be another. That's how it goes isn't it? Always someone else. Always another victim. It ends. Now."

Arthur hated to admit it, but there was a cruel calculated logic to Daltmooreby's agenda.

"Are you still going to tell me that I mustn't."

Arthur was silent and grim.

I'm charging the capacitor to full, draining the batteries, these final shot will be this station's last: I promise you that."



Then Arthur saw it: the laser pistol.

He could take out Daltmooreby - but there was another way.


"It's a fake."

"What is?"

"The diamond." "It's a poor copy."

"Who told you that?"

"Your son."

"Oh you met Ohio."

"Twice."

But the laser if you fire the beam through that diamond at full power it'll melt or explode or something. I won't work."

Daltmooreby paused and then smiling wagged a finger at Arthur. "Nice try."

Arthur once again eyed the pistol. He could reach it if.....

"I'm going to blast a crater so deep you'll be able to see clear through to China."

A digital read-out indicated the mechanism was charged.

Daltmooreby entered the co-ordinates of The Agency HQ.

Arthur took a breath and reached for the gun - with a tearing sound his suit was once again open to space, he floated down to the floor and grabbed the weapon.

Across from him Daltmooreby prepared to fire.

Arthur got off a shot, a dart of purple light shot across the gap missing Daltmooreby by mere inches.

Furious Daltmooreby slammed his hand down on the firing button.

The laser exploded - blooming outward like a brief symmetrical flame; the manoeuvring arm buckled, the entire structure toppled backwards.

Arthur fired of a second shot, this caught Daltmooreby on the knee, the old spy pitched forwards. The burning wreckage of the space laser threatening to come down on top of him.

13.....14 and Arthur exhaled

The last thing Arthur felt was the saliva boiling on the tip of his tongue.

And then he blacked out.

Right - that's everything. I'm dashing out to my cousin's wedding.

But that's Daltmooreby dead - or is he?

Jamila and Ody (and Sreka) on the train fleeing the lava - a la temple of doom.

Arthur get's revived by X

and you can pick it up from there T.



Back on Monday!

How did I do - any thoughts Terran?

Well I'm trying to piece together bits of things I read years ago! (had a bit of a chuckle remembering Sean Daltmoorby was the combined names of the first four Bonds lol) But very good stuff.

Erm so I was looking for the Legion bit and I couldn't find it. Where do you want to tie this all in now?

I had Legion's bit in a bit's n pieces folder. so I stuck it in above - it's the part where Bob goes to propose to Jill.

Tell you what, let me finish wrapping up Arthur and X 'cos I've got a pretty clear picture where I am going with that.

Where I could use another helping mind is: I've got nothing more in mind for the final showdown between a deranged Andre Sreka (twice betrayed, and with a broken arm) and Ohio Daltmooreby, (son of the man who just betrayed him) and his partner / archaeologist Jamila. Their scenes take place on board an atomic-powered victorian era styled underground train, being pursued by a wall of lava from an erupting volcano.

That's a hell of a set-up to get your teeth into! See what you can make of it.

Basically Ody and Jamilla have to survive and it'd be good if Sreka can too but within those parameters do what you like and make it as throw down, drag out, inventive and perilous a duel as you like.

*nudge*

Sorry craziness reigns at the moment... normal... erm... abnormal service will resume shortly...

why what's up?

no worries. After all this time

Work/Madness/Interviews/Family/Man-Flu...

Two or more of those should be finished shortly!