OF: NaNo Novel - Capture the Flag Pg-13 AA

[Yue-chan]

Because Neko said I should put this up here for everyone else to read. Have fun!

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Capture the Flag: Prologue


Sirens were going off all over the place, and bright red lights flashed in sequence to the high-pitched squeals. The screams of people and the sounds of gun-fire cut through the steady screams of the sirens. There were people running everywhere, some hurt, others trying to help those who were hurt, and others still trying to fight off the intruders who were invading the bio-lab.

Inside one of the smaller labs, a scientist dressed in a white coat hustled around the room, typing some commands into an odd looking contraption. It looked like a giant metal cylinder with several wires and tubes sticking out of it. Sitting on top of it was an egg-shaped capsule, opened and obviously waiting to have something placed inside of it.

The bald little scientist moved quickly, hearing the sounds of gun-shots getting closer by the minute. He had no doubt that it was his project that the intruders were after. Said project was currently huddled in a basket underneath a desk, its intelligent black eyes wide with fear, its little head twisting back at forth at all of the noise. The scientist paused in his typing for a moment to reach under the desk and gently rub the creature’s head, murmuring softly to reassure it.

“It’s alright, Flag,” the man said quietly. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Come here, now. I’m going to put you in something that will keep you safe.”

The little creature made a soft mewing sound and crawled out from under the desk. His multi-jewel-colored fur was bristled up as he tried to make himself look bigger than he really was. The scientist picked the creature up, continuing his soft murmuring as he placed Flag into the lower half of the egg-capsule. Flag looked at the padded casing for a moment, and then laid down in it, looking back up at his creator.

“Going?” Flag mewed.

“Yes,” the scientist said, smiling sadly. “You are going someplace safe.”

“You come?”

The scientist shook his head. “No,” he said, trying to keep the sobs in his chest from choking his words. He didn’t want his creation, the little creature he had put all of his soul and love into to create, to see him cry. “I have to stay here.”

“Come later?” Flag asked.
“Perhaps later, yes. I am sure I will see you again later. Be a good boy, Flag. Do you understand?”

The little creature nodded. “Understand.”

The scientist placed the top of the capsule onto the lower half, locking the two pieces in place, sealing Flag inside. There was a hiss of air as the cryo-lock fell into place, telling the scientist that his creation was safely frozen in the cryogenic sleep necessary for what he was about to do.

The sobs the man had been holding back were struggling to break loose now as he finished typing in the commands he had begun earlier, and with a trembling hand, he pushed a small red button located on the side of the metal cylinder.

Lights began to flash up and down the sides of the cylinder and a loud hum filled the room. For a brief moment the capsule pulsated with a bright light, and then, with a flash, it was gone. The scientist looked at the empty space where the capsule had been, a single tear falling down his face.

Shuddering for a moment, the man took a crowbar that had been lying on the desk, and began to destroy all of the equipment in the lab. He just finished destroying the teleportation machine when the door slammed open, and several people dressed all in black carrying guns ran into the room.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding, Dr. Ohta,” one of the masked gunmen sneered. “Where have you hidden the encryption codes?”

Dr. Ohta looked at the gunman with a calm expression on his face. There were no traces of fear in his eyes, something that took the gunmen by surprise. Everyone they had encountered had tried to run or beg for mercy. Considering that there were ten men with guns all pointed at the scientist, the lead gunman thought it odd that this man was so very calm. More to the point, however, was that he remained silent.

“Do not try my patience,” the gunman growled, firing off a shot that hit the wall behind Dr. Ohta, coming perilously close to the scientist’s head. The man flinched a little, but still no look of fear came to his face.

“Where are the codes, old man? I will have them!”

“They are in a place you shall never find them, Cisar,” Dr. Ohta said in a flat tone. “You can search the entire universe, and you shall not find the codes, or the container they reside in.”
“Don’t count on that, Dr. Ohta. I will have those codes. And since you have chosen to defy me, you will not be there to see what happens when I do get them.”

“Do what you must, Cisar. I won’t run away from you, nor will I beg for mercy, because I know that you have none.”

“Foolish man,” Cisar growled, pulling the trigger of his gun. Dr. Ohta fell forward and hit the ground, dead instantly. The gunman cursed loudly, and then turned to his subordinates.

“You and you, pull out whatever information you can from those computers. Even if he did bust them up, there is still a chance that some of the data is intact. The rest of you search the rest of the compound for anything that might give us any clues about where the codes are. Don’t leave anything unchecked. And if you run into any pockets of resistance, get rid of them.”

“Yes, Sir!” The other men barked, most of them leaving the room and the other two setting right to work on the destroyed computers. Cisar looked down at the body of the dead scientist and sneered.

“I don’t care where you hid those codes, dead man. I will find them, and I will control the power they possess.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The small capsule appeared suddenly out of nowhere, floating in space near the large blue-green planet. The metal of the pod flashed as it spun and reflected the light of the planet as it was drawn in by the special body’s gravitational pull.

It fell through the atmosphere, shooting closer to the ground every second, the sleeping contents completely unaware of what was going on outside, nor was the capsule damaged, since the capsule had been created for this type of abuse. Even when it hit the ground it didn’t fragment or break apart and the little creature inside didn’t even stir from its slumber. The pod simply lay where it had landed, halfway embedded in the earth, waiting for someone to come along and find it.
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"Life is like a video game; the final bosses always suck." -twinling

[Midnight]

Oh my. This is certainly quite an intriguing read.

Since this is the opener, I can forgive that you didn't go into the characters of the antagonist and little Flag yet, but for the first chapter, they seemed to be adequately done. Ohta came across as the loving fatherly figure, which is quite apt given the situation.

Oddly enough, I think I have seen some bits and pieces, or some rendition of this story in some drama...it was either a Star Trek episode or something else...anyway...this is a good read. I look forward to more.
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Today, these three players are after Big Bucks! But they'll have to avoid the Whammy, as they play the most exciting game of their lives! From Television City in Hollywood! It's time to 'Press Your Luck!'--Rod Roddy

The Kingdom of Loathing: An Adventurer is You! // I ♣ Seals

Avatar by Spork. I very much appreciate it! <3

[Yue-chan]

Capture the Flag – Chapter One

It was a rather beautiful autumn morning, that time of day where the sun wasn’t quite all the way up yet, but it wasn’t quite dark, either. The sky was an odd but lovely dusty blue-lavender color, without a cloud in sight. The street lights hadn’t gone off yet, but they didn’t really light anything up, either. The streets that the street lights did light up at night weren’t very full of people. Those people that were out were either workers on the way to their jobs, or college students on their way back to their dorms after being out all night partying, or else students going to an early morning class.

Sitting back some ways from the main street, surrounded by several twisted and gnarled old pine trees, was a very old, run down, rickety looking house. The roof was noticeably sagging in, and several shingles were missing. The wood forming the walls was dried and cracked, and the shutters just as worn looking and several of them lying half-way off of their hinges. The walk way leading from the porch to the road was made of stones embedded in the ground and growing up between and around them were scraggily clumps of weeds. More weeds grew around the house, in some places growing up as tall as the windows, which were a little over three feet off of the ground. At some point in the past some ivy had found a foothold on one of the side walls, and now covered half of that wall. The entire house and area around it had a feeling of disuse and, as some would say, it just plain looked like it was haunted.

Not that the students living inside thought it was haunted. A very mixed group of students lived in the old, rundown house. It wasn’t a sorority or fraternity house, none of those people would have ever lowered their dignity enough to live in such a house like this one. Instead it was what appeared to be a collection of bookworms, computer nerds, and science geeks, though they didn’t always look like what they were classified as. All in all, they were neither popular, nor unpopular, but didn’t quite fit in the middle, either. They were in an outside group all of their own.

One out those “outsider” students was currently awake and pacing around her room, gathering up materials from the desk or one of the several bookshelves lined up against the wall. Mainly it was camera film, batteries for the camera, the camera itself, notebooks, pens, and the like. All of it was going into a large backpack lying on the girl’s bed. Sticking out of it were also some candy bars and a box of soda crackers, and a bottle of water.

The girl stopped her pacing after a few minutes and closed the backpack, then started to get dressed. She wore simple clothes, an old t-shirt that had clearly seen better days, jeans that were faded and patched at the knees, and a pair of sneakers that looked almost as worn as the t-shirt. She pulled an army jacket off of the top of the old desk and pulled it one over her t-shirt, leaving the jacket unbuttoned. Into one of the jacket pockets she slipped a pocket knife. It wasn’t something she normally carried around campus, but she was going hiking, and one never knew when a pocket knife would come in handy up in the woods.

She then pulled a hair tie off of the desk and pulled the single part of her hair that was actually long back into a pony tail. Her hair was something that truly set her up as an odd ball among the college students. Sure, in college you would expect to find the odd Mohawk or two, or some students with their hair dyed a weird color, but this was something a bit more outlandish, or so her fellow college students seemed to think.

The majority of her black hair was cut very short, such that it was about only a centimeter long. In the back however, there was a patch of hair that was actually several inches long and usually kept tied in a braid, with different colored ribbons strung through it. This time there were no ribbons in it, and she didn’t bother tying it into a braid. Still, the entire style looked odd, and she stuck out just about anywhere because of it.

Fully dressed, the girl grabbed her backpack and headed out the door. Once outside, she turned up a narrow road that led up into the foothills and mountains that surrounded the campus and town. The street eventually went from a paved road into a dirt road, and then from a dirt road into a narrow path.

By the time the sun was fully up the girl was deep within the forests covering the large hills near the base of the mountains. The trees growing all around the path were covered in brilliantly colored leaves, from pale yellows, bright gold, startling reds and deep burgundy. Most of the leaves still clung to the branches of the trees, but already a decent about covered the forest floor as well. The scent of semi-molding leaves, the heavy odor of pine, and the sharp tang of the damp earth filled the air as the loud cawing of crows and the sharp chattering of magpies colored the background.

It was a beautiful landscape with all of the multicolored leaves, and the girl had already taken out her camera and was snapping pictures left and right as she walked along the path. The further up the path she walked the narrower it became and the wilder the forest became. Eventually the path split into two different game trails, each branching off in different directions. This part of the forest was less traveled than the part the girl had just come from.
Pausing at the splitting game trails the girl took a sip of water from her water bottle before taking a closer look at her surroundings. Turning around she could just make out the tips of the buildings on the college campus from where she stood. She had gone a good distance in the time she had been out, but she wasn’t anywhere near ready to head back, yet. She planned to spend most of her day out in the forest as it was, since it was very close to homecoming. The last thing she wanted to do was get caught up in all of the athletes and cheerleaders parading around like they were the best things to have ever walked the earth, trying to over-impress their fellow athletes and cheerleaders, and trying to lord their supposed superiority over everyone else.

For whatever reason it was the outsider group that seemed to receive the most harassment from the jocks during the homecoming season, and this year the girl planned to avoid the trouble for as long as possible. Mainly the trouble came from the cheerleaders, and the girl was a favorite target of theirs, because of her odd looks and somewhat reclusive nature. The reason she planned to stay in the forest is because she knew for certain that one of the cheerleaders would venture up here where they might get dirty.

Sighing loudly, the girl put her water bottle back into the backpack and began walking down the game trail that forked off to the left, leading off into the wilder looking of the two areas. This trail took a bit of work to get through, because the trees were heavier here, and the branches stuck out everywhere, blocking parts of the path, forcing her to either push them out of the way, which took some work, or else straying off the path all together and detouring for a bit to get around the clumps of trees and wandering for a bit before finding the trail once again.

As she walked she continued to take pictures, some of the leaves, some of birds or deer or other types of wild life that she spotted flying or moving through the shrouds of branches. She wasn’t paying much attention to where she was putting her feet save for anything really noticeable, like a large tree root or a fallen tree limbs. Perhaps it was because it wasn’t really that big, or maybe because it was hidden under a half-formed pile of fallen leaves that looked just like every other small pile of leaves littering the ground; either way, the girl didn’t spot the object half embedded in the ground until she actually tripped over it, sending her sprawling across the ground.

Groaning loudly she pushed herself up from the ground, brushing the leaves and dirt off of her shirt and arms as she sat up and looked for whatever it was that had caused her to trip. The first thing she saw was something flicker in the dappled sunlight that filtered down through the canopy. At first she thought it was a can or some other piece of trash someone had left behind, but then saw that the shape wasn’t quite right for that kind of thing. Besides that, it was still stuck in the ground, whatever it was, and if it had been a piece of trash like she was thinking of, it would have dislodged itself from the ground and gone flying as she had, at least a little bit, at any rate.

Curiosity peaked; the girl crawled over to the object, brushing the leaves away to reveal an egg shaped object the size of a watermelon half buried in the ground. It was completely smooth save for a small dial in the center of the thing. It certainly wasn’t like anything the girl had seen before, and she had no idea what it could be. She did know someone who might be able to figure out just what it was, if she could get the thing out of the ground and get it to him.

The dirt around the thing was loose enough that she could dig away at it, and though it was cold the dirt moved easy enough. It wasn’t like she was worried about getting dirty or anything, anyway. A little bit of dirt under the nails never hurt anyone, though the way the cheerleaders wailed when it happened could convince almost anyone that such a thing was nearly as bad as death. Smirking a little at that thought the girl continued to paw away at the ground until finally the object came loose.

Like the top of the thing, the bottom was just as smooth, if a bit dirty. Picking it up the girl was surprised to find that it was amazingly light for its size. She had to wonder for a moment just what the thing was made out of, for she had never lifted any metal object that size that was that light. Even if it was hollow inside she would have thought that it would be heavier. She would worry about that mystery a little bit later, when she had taken it to her friend and they both got a better look at it.

Perhaps there would be something interesting inside. She might be a college student, but she sometimes still dreamed of finding a secret treasure or something like that when she was really bored in class and had taken to day dreaming. And if this wasn’t a secret treasure of some sort, it was the closest thing to it she was likely to find in any likelihood and she wanted to know just what it was she had found. The sooner she got back to her home, the sooner she would find out. Shouldering her backpack she tucked the thing under her arms and headed back down the long game trail back to the campus.
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"Life is like a video game; the final bosses always suck." -twinling

[Yue-chan]

Capture the Flag – Chapter Two

Cody was not thrilled when the loud knocking woke him up from a very sound sleep. He had been up a better part of the previous night studying for a test, and had looked forward to the weekend as a chance to catch up on some sleep, but it seemed that someone else had other ideas. From the sound of the pounding and the occasional curse outside of the door his guess was that it was his friend Rebekah, back early from her planned hiking trip.

Growling under his breath the shaggy-haired irritated boy got out of bed and shuffled over to the door, opening it before the girl outside could begin pounding it again. Sure enough it was Rebekah who stood in the hallway, something strange looking tucked under one of her arms. She looked slightly out of breath, as if she had run part of the way back to campus. He decided that she probably had, given the number of possible tormentors running around the campus at the moment.

“What do you want? I’m trying to sleep,” Cody complained, looking down at Rebekah.

“I have something I want you to look at,” Rebekah replied. “Besides, since when do you ever sleep in?”

“Apparently never, since you don’t give me much of a chance to.”

Anyone who looked at the pair would never have guessed them to be best friends at a single glance. The two of them were such complete opposites that it would have seemed unlikely for either of them to have ever become such good friends. Cody was tall and broad, with a head full of curly chestnut colored hair that fell to his shoulders, and usually over part of his face as well. His green eyes were large and very expressive when his hair wasn’t covering them, and he was usually always seen with a smile on his face. He wasn’t what someone would picture of when talking about a science geek, but that was pretty much exactly what Cody was.

Rebekah, on the other hand, could have been considered the exact opposite of Cody. She was short, standing at only a mere 5’2”, and was thin as a weed. Her eyes were a dark navy blue in color, and were slightly slanted, a testament to the part of her heritage that was Asian, just as her caramel colored skin was to her African heritage. Whereas Cody’s emotions were often easy to read from his expression, Rebekah was always somewhat aloof in appearance. She wasn’t emotionless, far from it, in fact. It was just that she was a little bit harder to read than Cody was. They were complete opposites, and yet they were the best of friends, and could trust the other one to watch their back in any situation.
“Fine, lets see what you got,” Cody sighed, moving out of the way so that Rebekah could enter the room.

“I thought you’d see it my way,” Rebekah grinned. Cody just rolled his eyes as he closed the door.

Rebekah walked over to the table and carefully set the metal object down on the small table that was sitting in the middle of the room. Cody moved over to inspect the thing, looking at it from all angles, picking it up and shaking it. Both students were surprised when they heard something shake around inside.

“…The hell?” Cody asked. “There’s something inside?!”

“It didn’t rattle when I was carrying it, but then again, I wasn’t really paying attention because I was running, and the stuff in my backpack was rattling too. Can you open the thing so we can see what’s inside?”

“Keep your pants on,” Cody snorted. “Rome wasn’t built in a day. The only way I can think of to open it is that dial, but it looks like it needs a code of some kind, and it’ll take time to work it out.”

“Or we can get the crowbar,” Rebekah said with a grin.

“Not unless you want to damage whatever is inside of this thing,” Cody scolded.

Rebekah’s grin faded and the aloof look that normally resided there took its place back. “Oh,” was all she said, in a slightly sheepish tone as she took a seat in an empty chair.

Cody turned back to the metal container, for that was obviously what it was, and began to closely inspect the dial. There were three disks that made up the dial, and each one could move in a clock-wise circle. Each one was also engraved with several designs. In the end it turned out to be a fairly easy mechanism to open. It was a simple matter of turning each disk until all of the symbols matched up, and then pressing down on the whole thing.

With a loud click and an even louder hiss of escaping air the egg shaped container split very neatly into two halves. Rebekah leaned forward as Cody lifted the top half off of the bottom half to see just what was inside. For a moment, neither of them was quite certain of what it was they were looking at. It looked like a furry, multicolored ball resting in the center of the padded bottom half of the container.
There was a split second where nothing moved, and a second later all hell broke loose. The ‘ball’ turned out to not be a ball at all, but something that was very much alive, and the moment it looked up and saw Cody peering down at it through his shaggy hair, it let out a squeal that could have shattered glass and spilled out of the container and onto the floor.

Rebekah froze as Cody dove after the thing, but it scrambled out of the way with a lot more speed than either human would have thought possible. From the quick glimpse Rebekah had gotten of it before it had made its way under Cody’s bed, it had looked like some kind of really odd mongoose. Not that she had ever seen a mongoose with rainbow colored fur before.

“What the hell was that thing?” Cody asked, getting down on his knees to look under the bed.

There were boxes, books, and other things all shoved around under there, providing a lot of places for the creature to hide, so he couldn’t see just where it was. Rebekah got down on her knees as well and peered under the bed, but she wasn’t having much better luck than Cody was.

“Geeze, don’t you ever clean out from under your bed?” Rebekah asked.

“This coming from the girl whose room is like a black hole,” Cody snorted back, pushing a few boxes to the side.

“Try and crawl under there, Bekah. Maybe it’s in the corner.”

“Right, but if it bites me I’m going to hit you instead.”

Cody chuckled as Rebekah wriggled her way under the bed, pushing aside the various objects she ran into. All the while she was looking for the multicolored mongoose, making soothing noises so as to try and calm the thing down. And sure enough, the creature was huddled in the corner, peering at Rebekah with two very large eyes. It made a noise that sounded like a mix between a hiss and a trill, and bristled its fur as Rebekah inched her way closer.

“Its okay, little fellow,” Rebekah said softly, holding out her hand for the creature to sniff. “We’re not going to hurt you. We didn’t mean to scare you. Please come out? We’re actually really nice.”
She continued to inch forward until she was within reach of the little creature, and it tried to back further away, but the wall kept it from going any further on two sides, and a large stack of books kept it from going the other way. The only way it could run was over Rebekah, and there wasn’t enough space for the thing to squeeze through.

“Really, it’s okay. We won’t hurt you, I promise.”

The thing growled and suddenly lunged at Rebekah, seizing her hand between its jaws! Its teeth were sharp, very sharp, and they hurt a lot. But somehow Rebekah managed to keep herself from screaming, and kept her expression calm. All the while the creature’s eyes never left Rebekah’s.

“There, see? I’m not going to hurt you.”

For a moment it just continued to look at her, and then, very slowly, released her hand from its teeth. The creature sniffed at the wound and then began to lick it clean.

“Friend?” it squeaked, startling Rebekah so much that she hit her head on the bottom of the bed. The creature jumped back in surprise at the loud ‘thud’ Rebekah’s head made against the wood.

“You okay, Rebekah?” Cody asked, concerned.

“Yeah, I’m okay. That thing can talk!”

“What? Are you serious?”

“No, I’m making it up as I go. Yes, I’m serious. Give me a moment and I’ll see if I can get it out.”

Rebekah turned her attention back to the creature. “Yes, I’m a friend, and so is that other guy out there. Don’t you want to come out and meet us?”

The creature slowly eased its way towards Rebekah again until it was against her arms, and she pulled it against her body and slid out from under the bed. Sitting up, she cradled the creature gently against her body.

Now that she was able to hold it, both students were able to get a better look at the creature. For the most part it did in fact look like a mongoose, but its tail was like that of a beta fish, and there were feather tufts behind each paw. The paws were webbed as well, though Rebekah didn’t see anything in the way of gills. Its fur was beautifully colored, starting at a dark blue shading into a purple and then into a deep scarlet.

The creature twisted its head rapidly back and forth as it tried to look at everything in the room. Its head froze as its eyes landed on Cody, and the thing huddled back against Rebekah’s body, trying to hide itself again.

“Its okay, you don’t have to be afraid of Cody. He’s my friend, and yours, too,” Rebekah said softly.

“Hey little guy,” Cody said, reaching his hand over to pet the creature’s head gently. It froze completely when Cody touched it, though Rebekah could feel it shaking slightly against her body. “Its okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” Cody continued, trying to reassure it.

It stared up at Cody, its body still trembling. Cody stared right back, a friendly smile on his face. Slowly it crawled over Rebekah’s arm and up onto her shoulder, where it was at a slightly better position to see Cody more clearly.

Cocking its head to one side, it asked in an almost shrill voice, “Friend?”

Cody nodded, raising an eyebrow when he heard its voice. “That’s right,” he replied. “I’m a friend. I’m Cody. Can you say Cody?”

“Cody,” It replied, crawling back into Rebekah’s arm. “You?” It asked Rebekah.

“I’m Rebekah,” she said, smiling.

“Bekah?”

“Close enough. Do you have a name?”

The creature nodded. “Name is Flag.”

“Flag? That is one really weird name,” Cody said.

“Hush,” Rebekah scolded. “I think it’s a cute name. Can you tell us what you are, Flag?”

“Isn’t that kind of a dumb question, Rebekah?” Cody asked. “I mean, what else could it be other than an alien? It looks like a science project gone wrong, and it can talk. Hey, what if there’s some sort of alien invasion coming and this thing was sent as the First Wave?”

Rebekah gave Cody a withering look. “What? Aliens want to take over the Earth so they sent their pet mongoose to destroy the cobra population, which would bring the Earth to its knees? Cody, you need to stop watching so many sci-fi movies.”

“It was just a thought,” Cody muttered. “I mean, it is an alien.”

“So? Why do we have to believe that aliens are bad? Who’s to say that they’re not good? I mean, this little guy doesn’t look like he wants to hurt anyone.”

“Flag not bad!” the little creature trilled. “Flag is good! Ohta teach Flag to be good!”

“There, see?” Rebekah said. Then to Flag, “Who is Ohta?”

“Ohta good person. Ohta make Flag. Ohta teach Flag. Ohta play with Flag. But Ohta not come with Flag.” Flag sounded very sad at this statement. “Said maybe come later. When later?”

Rebekah looked at Cody, who simply shrugged. Like her, he had no idea who or what Flag was talking about.

“Was it Ohta who sent you to Earth?” Cody asked, prompting Flag to say more.

Flag nodded. “Ohta put Flag into the egg. Egg make Flag go to sleep. Flag wake up and see you.”

“What about before you were put in the egg?” Cody pressed.

Rebekah felt a shudder run through Flag’s body, and the creature noticeable drooped in her arms. In a way, it looked like it was crying, even though it didn’t shed any tears.

“Lots of noise. Lights flashing. Screams. Lots of screams. Flag not like. Ohta scared, so Flag scared. Ohta try to look not scared. Ohta put Flag in the egg. Flag go to sleep. Wake up here.”

“Poor little guy,” Rebekah said sympathetically. “It sounds like the ones being invaded was this guy’s home.”

“So that thing must have been an escape pod,” Cody said, pointing to the egg-shaped capsule. “Do you think whoever or whatever the ‘invaders’ are, might come after Flag?”

“Why would they? As far as we can tell, Flag was just this Ohta guy’s pet.”

“Maybe. But maybe not. Why go through all of the trouble of setting that pod up, programming it to come to Earth and everything, just for a pet? And why Earth, anyway? Why here?”

“Who knows? Maybe he thought it was the safest place for Flag to hide. At any rate, it’s not like we can do anything about it. Flag’s here, we’ll just have to deal with it. I’m not about to just toss him out on the street.”

“I wouldn’t, either,” Cody said firmly. “But we don’t know anything about this fellow either, other than a few sketchy details. And it’s clearly alien. We don’t even know if it can really survive here.”

“Following your previous thought that Flag might be something very important, why send him to a place he couldn’t survive in?”

“Touché. Still, we don’t know the first thing about caring for the thing.”

“I’ll worry about Flag; you try and find out anything you can from the pod. And keep this a secret. We don’t need the entire world knowing we’re harboring an alien weasel.”

“As if anyone would believe me if I did say something. Still, I see you’re point. I can just imagine what would happen if a big rumor started and people started to snoop around. If the news ever got wind of it they’d either make blow the rumors all out of proportion or make up stuff of their own, and that might draw the military in and then God only knows what would happen at that point.”

“And you’re worrying about things way to much at this time. Just keep it a secret for now and we’ll let the ball roll where it will. Who knows, maybe this Ohta person managed to escape and is on his way here right now to get Flag.”

Flag perked up when he heard that, and Rebekah couldn’t help but give him a hopeful smile. After all, it never hurt to hope, and since they didn’t really know what had happened, it might very well be true. The best they could do was wait and see what would happen.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Sir, I’ve managed to pull something off of the computer!” one of the soldiers shouted, gaining Cisar’s instant attention. The powerful looking man glared down at the soldier, his expression one of great impatience. The several scars crisscrossing his face, added to the constant scowl that was there made him look even more frightening.

“Well, spit it out! We’ve wasted more than enough time here.”

“Well, Sir, it seems that the scientist hid pieces of the codes in several special disks made from a special silicon-crystal. Nine of them, in fact. From the data I have been able to pull up he scattered them across the galaxy. I’ve been able to pull up an image of that the disks look like, but I haven’t been able to pull up just where he hid them. Most of the data has been destroyed on this computer.”

“Fine. At least now we know what they look like. I can have my men begin searching for them. As long as this search is kept quiet we shouldn’t run into any more complications.”

“Sir? Do you want me to continue sifting through the other computers?”

“Yes. But I shall be returning to base to get the search started. Report in if you find anything else.”

“Yes, Sir.”


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Somewhere in the middle of a large city on some distant planet a tiny signal began to beep on a computer. It wasn’t very loud, but it was steady enough to attract the attention of a woman sitting nearby. The woman wheeled her chair over to the computer and touched the screen, bringing up the information display that the signal had transferred. Scanning the screen through a pair of dark sunglasses the woman cursed at what she read and rose to her feet.

Closing the screen she walked over to a desk and pulled out a gun, which she put in the holster on her belt, some ammunition clips which went into the pouch next to the gun, and a small book which she put into a pocket located inside of her vest. A second later she was outside, walking down a very crowded street.

No one paid much attention to her as she purposefully strode down the street towards an area where several large space shuttles and ships of various shapes and sizes were docked. One of these, a slender, graceful looking silver-hulled ship was the one she owned, and after clearing with the docking authorities, boarded and began to start up its engines.

Running through a quick check of all of the ship’s systems and a final clearance from the launch command tower the engines roared to life sending smoke and flame everywhere as the ship fought against the planet’s gravity and won. Minutes later the ship was sailing through space, moving slowly as the area around the planet was full of traffic comprised of other ships, shuttles, cruisers, and cargo ships heading to or from the planet. Once she was clear of them, though, the woman punched in a command into the computer next to her hand and then a set of coordinates.

“Please confirm coordinates,” the computer stated in a mechanical voice.

The woman retyped the coordinates into the computer and waited for them to be processed.

“Coordinates accepted. Preparing to engage the Ether-Drive. Please stand by.”

Several lights flashed around the woman, and a few seconds later she was pushed back against her seat as the ship entered a speed that was several times faster than light speed. The woman rarely used the Ether-Drive on her ship, but for the distance she had to go, she needed to use the fastest way of transportation she could, and hope that she got to her destination before the enemy did.
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"Life is like a video game; the final bosses always suck." -twinling

[Midnight]

Interesting. This is certainly turning out to be quite the story. As for the newer characters, as this is their entrance into the fic, I cannot tell much about them yet.

Flag seems to be rather simplistic for now. For some reason, I don't really see any depth to his character just yet, but this is likely going to develop in the next few chapters. I see you based him off Trill, no?

Anyway...good work.
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Today, these three players are after Big Bucks! But they'll have to avoid the Whammy, as they play the most exciting game of their lives! From Television City in Hollywood! It's time to 'Press Your Luck!'--Rod Roddy

The Kingdom of Loathing: An Adventurer is You! // I ♣ Seals

Avatar by Spork. I very much appreciate it! <3