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

"I can't tell-" he starts to say-"hell!" and banks hard to dodge a rock the size of a sixteen-wheeled earth hauler, rolled in a tight spin, and peeled off with a flurry of missiles that twist and smash into the offending boulder. He doesn't turn to see the results.

He looks out the canopy and freezes an image as he dives, banks, dodges, and swerves to avoid hits. Khar Siid, shaking and leaking atmosphere in places, its once-impeccable obsidian hull shattered and scored by huge jagged rock chunks. In the freeze-frame he sees several others, rising from Siid like fleas moving from a big dog to a small one - him.

"Evasive! Heavy evasive!" he says, as he spins past two, laser cannons blazing.

[Quicksilver] They're alive! Peel! Peel!
*The squadron brakes into disarray. Sergeant Dante is struck with an electrical pulse from one of the rocks as he dived, guns blazing, to attack the creatures. His screaming joined that of his weapon as he smashed into the rock like a comet, annihilating it in a blast of super-heated plasma. Corporal Jekkers scores three good hits with his plasma cannons until another energy bolt detonates his Motion Missiles and blows Katana 2 into space debris. Rapier 3 cracks one rock in half under sustained fire with the help of Quicksilver and Danko. Unfortunately, his canopy is smashed by an impact by a fourth rock, and his fighter drifts off to join the mass of hulks in the Starship Graveyard.*
[Quicksilver] Rapier Leader to Khar Siid! We're dying out here! Help us! Please! Are you receaving!? KHAR SIID!!!!!

Major Danko peeled back as a great stream of jagged powerd shot past, swerved, and dodged between three converging rocks. To his horror, he sees the damage they inflicted amount to nothing, as fragments, whole halves of the things, come back together and continue hounding them.

He must- He must-

"Mr. Quicksilver," he spoke, icy calm, into a comm system alive with screams and battle orders, "in case I do not survive, you are in command."

Then two great rocks close in and smash his fighter between them.

*Quicksilver banked hard, barely escaping two of the rocks. Only one of his wingmen remained alive now, and that was about to change...*
[Quicksilver] Katana 1! Arland, respond!
[Arland] Frag! .... Here Leader!
[Quicksilver] Arland! Make for the starship Graveyard! We can't stay here! C'mon!
*As one, the two fighters rocket away, persued by three rocks. As they jink into the drifting hulks, one collides with a long forgotten Chimache Chi'kren Class Cruiser, and is vapourised by the impact. A second glances Arland, before plummeting into a forgotten Vengeance Class Grand Cruiser and disappears from sensors.
The Third impacts into Arland's keel, and is immolated in plasma fire along with the Katana.*
[Quicksilver] ARLAND!!!!!
*Quicksilver coasts around. Nothing else is following now. All is quiet.*
[Quicksilver] Arland... Jekkers... Dante... Danko... Danko! Major, are you there!?
*The comm bleeds white noise."
[Quicksilver] Danko... Khar Siid... I'm sorry.

It is over.

Khar Siid, that massive metal flower, so beautiful, so besieged, scored and flaming in so many places, a desperate battle going on in the space around it, tiny fighters engaging and failing, deadly rocks prevailing. For a moment it stands stark, still.

The starship graveyard is silent.

----

WHOOOOOM!!

Light like nothing else is released! Crackling thrumming energy and jagged flowing flames envelope the scene for a picosecond as everything, everything for an earth-radius is annihilated. Vaporized.

Rotated out of existence.

Then everything is quiet and peaceful again. Distant stars twinkle through the space where before there was - there was - what was there? This part of space has been as empty for as long as it's been.

"Wait! Wait! This is screwed up!"

"This is wacked!" That same voice again.

They stood on on the bridge of a starship that seemed to be more space than ship. Glittering golden spires and humming crystal pylons seemingly tied together with cables of energy and transparent bulkheads. A slight distortion of starlight showed a graceful, muscular shape, with powerful taloned wings, long neck and round disk-shaped bridge.

"Aren't you overdoing this emotionality?" a second voice behind the first.

She whirled to face the newcomer.

"Get a life Mik. Doesn't what we're seeing bother you, an entire starship, wiped off reality's surface?"
"I too feel for it, though not like you do. The destruction of said vessel makes a terrible wase to the artistic feel of this universe."
"Art? Are we getting into your art again? The universe as living art?"
"Better than assuming that creation has a moral quality, Kim."
"Really-"
"Ahem." Throat-clearing noise behind the other two.

He stode onto the command bridge.

"Regardless of either of your motives, we are going to do something about it. I've just read our orders, fresh from their million-year-old time capsule. We're to try and reverse this program error at a critical point."

"So what are we waiting around for? Activate the wayback time-tinkering machine! I'm tired of sucking vacuum."

The leader-type coughed again, then drank chicken soup from a mug. "It's not that simple. We're Storyline Benders, not Twisters, or Breakers. We interfere as little as we can."

"Meaning," Mik cut, "Max effect for minimum effort."
"Whatever." Kim.
"And you're not eating void. The duralium hull is almost perfectly clear, but that doesn't mean it's not there."
"Whatever," she sighed. "Okay, let's get to work then."
"I thought I was supposed to say that." Mik and Leader.

*It's over.

Looking out at the blasted cosmos, Quicksilver sits back, and waits for death to claim him. That giant thing was coming now. Hunting him down...

A blip on the sensors brought Quicksilver back to reality. A captial ship of immense size popped out of warp not far from the meteoric monster. It was huge, believed destroyed out in the Omega Nova. A ship that could absorb the power of a sun and turn it against its foes. A Minion ship, codename: Armageddon.

It moved slowly, energy lathes focussing on the abundance of energy within the meteor. This would be it... One of the galaxies greatest evils was about to die. Armageddon, or the Meteor... And Quicksilver had the best view in the galaxy...*


How's /this/ for a solution!? Now your weird guys just get Khar Siid back...

Leader hacked and coughed a bit more, and took another gulp of his chicken soup. He produced a hip flask and ours something into the soup mug, then drink again.

"Okay, that's better."

He moves closr to the observation area in the fore of the bridge, what would be the prow in a more primitive vessel. He turns to face the other two, then clears his throat:

"Ahem."
"Computer, replay the last few minutes."

Then WHOOOM! the point of nothingess was filled again with screams and dying. Khar Siid stood, stark and majestic, unyieling under enormous enemy pounding. Quicksilver weaved-

"Pause."

Boom. The scene was silent again. A meteorite was frozen, mid-launch, its vapor trail still and solid. An outgassing on Siid's hull, bright and flaming, was like a yellow flower, umoving. Quicksilver was caught in mid-strafe.

"As you can see, these are Siid's last moments in existence."

Mik sat on deck eating popcorn. Kim took a running start and kicked him into the air, then triggered the gravity overrides to leave him tumbling about the ceiling, bouncing from wall to transparent wall, popcorn orbiting him.

"As I was saying," Leader stated again, bringing up a control bar out of thin air and waving it back and forth in his hands, to rewind or flash forward the tableu as much as he liked, "where shall we interfere?"

Tongues of fire blossom throughout Khar Siid, shrouding it like a tattered phoenix. The rocks are pushed back, but the thrusters die too soon and the parasitic rocks only turn back and impact once more.

Quicksilver's focus shifts from the Minion vessel to the Captain's face suddenly in his heads-up display. He jumps back appropriately and the Captain smiles.

"Hello, Mr. Quicksilver. Halt all firing with energy-based weapons. We've figured that those things absorb our weapons fire."

He looks uneasy.

"From here I can see several larger massers closing on your position. I'd ask you to get out of there, but we need a rock sample for analysis. Switch to mass cannon and net a piece. You'll find the necessary programs in your craft's computer."

[Quicksilver] Cap'n!! Damn I... Yessir. Sir, permission to call into the Medical bay upon recovery of sample, sir... I'm a little shaken up here...
*Quicksilver banks hard, pumping heavy fire into the rocks. Nothing happens, until it clips a burned out ship hull and explodes into fragments. Quicksilver locks onto one with a Tractor Beam, and heads for home, mourning his lost comrades.*

*The Minion vessel turns, sensors probing for an unseen force...*
[Matrix Beta] Hmm... Chronological readings at 6.04813 above Temporal Standard... Dimensional Allignment at 0.529 Degrees to right of Realspace Tangent... An anomaly. A Temporal anomaly. Scanning... Scanning... Ah. "Matrix Beta to Master Slave Node E/145. I have found what appears to be a vessel out of Temporal Sync. However, I do not believe it has reached there by any known means. I believe it is... Detached from reality, and they may have interviened with history in some unknown way... Orders Requested and Returned to Matrix Bata MB/001."

Quicksilver eases his battered craft into full burn, powering for a full burn to safety. The captain has given his okay to transfer to Sickbay; Sci.Officer Lizzy will take care of the sample.

Something makes him look up.

For a moment, the slightest moment, he thinks he sees the silhouette of a great avian form in the space above him, rising out of the spatial plane, receding…
Then it is gone.

“Whoo-boy,” he mutters. “Better get some antipsychotics when I arrive.”

*The reply comes to Matrix Beta in an eye blink. He feels a moment's suprise, but the BETA unit over-rides it in an instant. It has come from the Master himself.
"MASTER to Matrix Beta MB/001. Vessel confirmed to be 'Storyline Benders'. Matrix Beta; you are to persue and observe this unit until further notice. Unit to be given Species Reference Code SP/000-T. Species SP/000-T are not to be destroyed, compromised or assimilated until information gathered is sufficient to decide on a new course of action. Now, Matrix Epsilon, respond."
"Matrix Epsilon. Responding."
"Matrix Epsilon, you are to proceed on board Khar Siid to examine Matrix Alpha, and if possible, recover him and restore his program. Remember, Matrix Epsilon, Khar Siid is /not/ to be intefered with! Understood?"
"Yes, Master."
*Matrix Epsilon fades away in a green energy glow.*

A desperate situations somehow gets hotter. Khar Siid, a titan under siege, with the great rocks still slamming home but mostly deflected by Wesker's clever on-site thruster activation, throwing them back before they can connect. The leviathan rock looms closer, closer, till it can almost engulf Siid itself. And the Minion vessel moves to battle stations.

"Now... Matrix Beta... Fire!"
*A Massive energy spike is detected from the Minion ship. Ion Cannons the size of cities flare into life. Plasma batteries charge. Laser systems power up. Then, in one cataclysmic blast, Armageddon fires.
The shot vapourises three small hulks, as well as an ancient Kilrathi Cruiser, before hitting the Meteor. The shot wasn't perfect, but about a quater of the asteroid is vapourised in a searing blast of pure, planet-crushing power.*
"Matrix Beta. Recharge and prepare to fire again. This entity will perish..."

The asteroid slowed, seeming to think things over as great tides of energy washed over it, modulated and absorbed in a flash. Then it accelerated for Siid.

"Hmm... It can absorb energy? Matrix Beta, rotate Ion Cannon frequency and interlace with Warp-Rift energy lances. It will not be able to absorb that."

A curious thing happened. As bright streaks of plasma raced away from Siid and toward the huge Minion vessel, Siids lights went out. Engines, auto-repair. All weapons. The imbedded rocks launch themselves off the ships's suddenly inert skin.

Very curious indeed. The rock seemed to ponder it. Then slowly, unstoppably, began following the plasma trail toward the other alien ship.

Like fleas from a big dog to a bigger dog, its smaller parts followed.

"Matrix Beta to Master. Entity is moving toward us. Suggest procedure.
Master to Matrix Beta. Engage Hyper-Jump Generator. We need more time to plan..."
*In a flash of energy, the Minions disappear, leaving the Meteor a safe distance from Khar Siid.*

Khar Siid flashes. In the span between seconds, it seems to grow longer and thinner as though being sucked toward a shuttle decompression, grows to near-infinite length and infinite thinness - and vanishes.

The rock stops. Suddenly all the tasty energy sources have gone in that abrupt way they sometimes have. It lingers a moment in the derelict field, then starts up again for the nearest energy source - the Viper Shrineworld.