Back to the Archive.
In a debris field of wrecked spaceship, a small powerless emergency escape vehicle tumbled over and over, scraping against the wreckage of the slave vessel it had come from. Gradually its momentum spun it down towards the timespace blasphemy that was the elder god Yog-Frothoth, which twisted and boiled as a blind multi-tentacled creature of planetary proportions less than ten light minutes away.
"This is bad," admitted CrazySugarFreakBoy!
"What, stranded in the middle of deep space in a crowded lifepod without enough power to make it to a habitable world and drifting into a loathsome elder thingie because we crashed our captured slavership into the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad’s craft to save Aunt Sally and then drifted off amidst the debris without anyone noticing we’d survived?" Goldeneyed answered in one breath. "You think?"
"Nah, not that," CSFB! shrugged dismissively. "Being trapped on a tiny lifeboat with all these green-skinned slave girls wanting to personally thank us for rescuing them from shameful captivity and both of us have steady girlfriends!"
"Oh yeah," agreed G-Eyed. "That is bad."
On of the green-skinned slave girls adjusted her tattered gauzy nightgown and asked something earnestly of the heroes.
"What’d she say?" G-Eyed asked Dr Blargelslarch, who was likewise trapped with them in the dying lifepod.
"You really don’t want to know," the scientist advised him. "It wouldn’t cheer you up to hear what you’re turning down."
"But I gotta try that with April," CrazySugarFreakBoy! considered, "If we can find the equipment."
"At least we stopped the Lovetoad from destroying your team and your vessel," Dr Blargelslarch consoled them. "That is worth dying for, is it not?"
"Pfagh!" spat Pigeonwarrior Shazara Pel. "We are not dead yet! A Thonnagarian is never beaten! I refuse to surrender and die like a suffocated flarkh! Let us devise a plan to survive and wreak vengeance on all who oppose us!"
"Go ahead," G-Eyed agreed. "My problem is I can’t teleport blind. I can’t survive in a vacuum."
Shazara Pel looked uncertain. "There… may be a way, although it is against the code of my people. The Z-Alloy that allows our people to fly with artificial wings grants us the ability to survive in space. If… if you wore the sacred bands instead of me, you could teleport outside this craft and direct it from the debris field where we may be able to signal for help."
"That’s a plan!" CSFB! enthused. "Former enemies teaming up to overcome insurmountable odds! It’s bound to work! And one we’re clear of the debris I can maybe use my Wowie-Zowie Walkie-Talkie to call up some help!"
Shazara Pel had not blushed or flinched when the slavers had stripped her naked but she hesitated now before doffing her Z-Alloy armbands of her own volition. "If you abuse them I will slaughter you," she told G-Eyed.
And the plan began.
Goldeneyed teleported back inside the lifepod and handed the Z-Alloy back to an anxious Shazara Pel. "I’ve diverted our course away from Yog-Frothoth," he reported, "and we’re spinning out of the debris field. But unless someone comes looking we won’t be getting anywhere before our food and power run out."
"You have performed acceptably," adjudged the Thonnagarian warrioress.
"Unfortunately, we crashed the Frammistat Eight support ship into the Frammistat Eight competition ship," Dr Blargelslarch pointed out. "That means we wrecked the vessel that would normally come to the rescue."
CSFB! had one hand in his ear like a bad folk singer. "Don’t worry folks. Now we’re clear of the weird radiations I’m sending out a distress call so that any Federation ships nearby can drop out of warp and beam us to safety."
The lifepod shook and there was a scraping of metal. The green-skinned slave girls screamed.
"We’re under attack!" Shazara Pel warned.
Goldeneyed was about to say that was a premature judgement, that perhaps it was rescue, when the first heat blooms reddened the walls of the helpless vessel.
"They’re cutting through the hull!" Dr Blargelslarch worried.
"Who is?" G-Eyed demanded.
"Scavengers," CrazySugarFreakBoy! reported. "Picking over the wreckage. I’ve got their transmissions and I’m decoding them with my eerie earring. They know there’s slaves in here to take."
"I will never be a slave!" declared Shazara Pel, strapping on her wings again despite the cramped conditions.
"Hey, they’re expecting a bunch of helpless prisoners," CSFB! pointed out. "Not some groovy butt-kicking galactic g-men!"
Then it all went quiet.
"What are they saying?" G-Eyed demanded anxiously.
"Nothing," answered CSFB! "There was one sudden pulse of comms traffic then it all went dead."
"That," came a calm voice over the LL radio frequency, "is because there are rules of silence in a library."
"L!" grinned CrazySugarFreakBoy! "We’re saved!"
"That’s Librarian, if you wish to be rescued," came back the prim voice.
Another, more mechanical speaker chimed in. "The download of Windows 98 seems to have completely buggered all these scavengers’ ship’s computers, boss, but I still say I should rip all of their heads off as a deterrent."
"Thank you A.L.F.RED, but I wonder what you would be deterring them from doing since they would all be dead."
"Prevents reoffending," suggested the Lunar Public Library’s major domo and primary defence system. "It’s tough love."
Then it was just a matter of transferring the refugees into the Galactibus and getting away.
"But don’t say we’re back right away," Goldeneyed suggested to the Librarian as they began the long journey to the Gamesship. "Here’s how we need to play it…"
...And although I don't usually archive the poster responses, I suspect that this exchange was rather central to what happened next.
