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

Ancient lights flicker to life in the old, long out of service hangar#20. An Atari-style console lights up and starts blickering figures into the cold, stagnant empty space. Slowly, the machinery powers up, charges its hydraulic pumps, winds up slack, and turns on pilot lights. After a few long minutes, a klaxen sounds throughout the unpopulated hangar, the floor of which has pieces of old, decommisioned ships and vehicles that were never repaired strewn all over it. Slowly, the huge hangar doors grind open, revealing a vast panorama of twinkling stars.

Suddenly, gliding in with movements precise down to a millimeter, piloted automatically by the hangar computers, an ancient and outdated USCM military dropship glides in and ponderously sets down on battered landing struts. The ship is dark green in colour, and shaped purely functionarily; it is an aerodynamically sound tube, with short stubby wings loaded with weaponry on the side. The perspex window has been deformed and cracked, deep gouges run down the sides and underbelly, and numerous pockmarks and dents litter the damaged skin. The ship is armed with twenty or so ancient missiles, an extremely fast-firing depleted uranium cannon, and a huge battery of rockets. As it noisily sets down, the hatch opens and lights flicker on. An equally badly damaged APC rolls out; the hatch has been ripped open and the tyre tracks damaged, but the large-bore gun on top swivels around, automatically searching for targets.

Both of the old war-machines are instantly tended to by modern repair droids and service arms, refuelled, and have their various munitions restocked. At the other end of the hangar, the vastly thick metal security door slowly rolls open, and Giguschild walks in. He regards the ship and APC and recalls how very difficult it was for him to...obtain it. As the security door clangs shut behind him, he watches as the hangar repairs or replaces any damaged or seriously outdated equipment in the two machines. He then stalks over to the security monitor to wait for any CHOPPERS members, in order to admit them in to the hangar.

*walks by*

*Outside the hangar, Uncle Heavy tries to engage the ancient retina scaning device, still functional on the access treminal. It bleeps and says*
'Aorrrrthorizzzeddd axxxxessss U-U-U-U-Uncleheaveeeeeeee'

*Ancient hydrolics spur into life, and the door opens, jerkily. UH steps inside*

The door grinds shut behind him and the two heros watch as the dropship is upgraded with modern weaponry and shielding, as well as a bi-parallel displacement unit for almost infinetly precise handling. The main weapon installed is the expanding particle projector: a twenty tonne tube surrounded by pipes and cables which hangs in the cargo hold of the dropship and can be lowered out of the hatch.

The EPP uses a looped quantum-string field to give a single electron a dimensional spin of -1, thus converting it into a wave of zero mass. This means that with the energy gained by burning one fairy cake, the electron can be propelled infinitely fast down the tube. Once it leaves the string-field, the electron reverts to being a particle with mass, and it therefore has an infinite force behind it. This breach of physics creates a field around the particle, usually about an inch wide, which the universe ignores. Any matter through which the particle and the field pass is annihilated and, indeed, ceases ever to have existed.

Which is nice.

Yowsas, as I think it goes

*cough*

sorry mate...gigus abandonned us long ago to go and be a quasi cyber goth somewhere

you don't think I'd come here unless it wuz safe

*a fly-like device on the wall silently beams converstion to the serial comsat uplink, which goes on to the hotel and CV's office*