"Taking Potshots!" a followup to "A Real Scorcher!" [nomad (Nomad of Norad)] [Title: Here it is! ] February 1993, that is, late 2367 One evening, Nomad sat back in the indoor mini-park in the center of his house, reading a bunch of magazines that had arrived that day in the mail. "Nomad," said Joshua, "there is a long-distance call for you. Scrambled." "Scrambled?" said Nomad, putting aside STARFLIGHT TODAY magazine. "It appears to be from subspace," added Joshua. "Talk about long distance!" said Nomad. "Who is it?" "It is a representative of the Grahl-hoong," said Joshua. "Shall I project the visual here?" "Grahl-hoong?" said Nomad. "The sapient dinosaurs, remember?" said Joshua. "They are one of the races who use an organicly-based technology." Nomad sat bolt upright. "I see. In other words, one of the races who might have monkeyed with that spaceprope." "Precisely," said Joshua. "Ok, I'll take the call right here," said Nomad. "Projecting the visual," said Joshua. A flat plane appeared holographically in front of Nomad, bearing a live image of a dinosaur. "Hello there," said the Grahl-hoong. "Hello," said Nomad, with a slight bit of apprehension. "I understand that a year and a half ago some aliens tampered with a spaceprobe on your world?" "Yes, but how did you come to know that? It was kept top secret." "A cybernetic friend of yours came to us, searching for a lead." "Oh yes, Printer." "Really nice ship he has. So big and... cube shaped." "Yes, he's been watching too many episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation." Nomad grinned at the little joke. The dinosaur cocked his head to one side. "Seriously?" "No... That was a little joke." "A joke," said the dinosaur, "I see. I don't watch this Starrtrekk-thunexx-jinnurayshun, so I wouldn't know." He shrugged. Then he seemed to peer over at something behind Nomad. "And who do we have here?" Nomad turned around to look as eight-year-old Nathan arrived beside him, then Nomad did a double take. Nathan was naked! Slapping palm to forehead, Nomad exclaimed, "Oh good greif! Nathan, what are you doing!" "Joining the discussion," said Nathan. "Naked?" "I was using the bathroom when I heard the call." "Couldn't you have *finished* using the bathroom?" "I couldn't hear very well in there, besides..." He glanced towards the display. Joshua said, "You thought you might have some input with this discussion?" "Yes," said Nathan. "So," said Nomad, "you walk out of the bathroom without your pants on, and step out here naked as a jay bird in front of a Tele-Comm!" "I couldn't put my pants back on," said Nathan, "I hadn't wiped yet." Nomad closed his eyes and shook his head. "Why couldn't you have wiped?" "It would have taken too long, the call might have been over." "Nathan, go back to the bathroom." "But I'll miss the rest of the call." Nomad was now pointing. "Bathroom, Nathan." "Please, Daddy?" said Nathan. "Bathroom!" said Nomad, still pointing. The dinosaur said, "This is a modesty-related matter, is it not?" "Yes," said Nomad. "Then it does not really matter. I am not a human. Nakedness would only offend other humans." "But what if you HAD been a human? I do NOT want my kid doing this sort of thing all the time!" "But he wasn't a human," said Nathan. "Did you know that before you came out?" said Nomad. "Yes, and I wanted to look at him. I haven't seen many aliens." "But what would've happened if he'd been a human-like alien?" "Dinosaurs aren't human-like." The dinosaur said, "This whole discussion is rather pointless. I would not have noticed his nakedness had you not mentioned it, and the call was about over, anyway." "Told yah!" said Nathan, staying put. "All I needed to do," continued the Grahl-hoong, "was transfer some data to you. Are you equipped to recieve high speed packet-dumps?" "Yes," said Joshua. "Then prepare to recieve." The dinosaur reached for a control off screen. "Ready," said Joshua. "Receiving." "Nevertheless," Nomad said to Nathan, "how do you know he wouldn't have spoken of this to some other human? I do NOT want it said that I let my kids run around naked all the time!" He turned to the alien and said, "And no, I do NOT let them run around naked all the time!" "I understand," said the alien. "Received," said Joshua. "I hope this information I have sent is of help. Good luck." The alien signed off. Nomad turned back to Nathan. "I should probably spank you right now, but then I'd have to wash my hands!" Nathan pictured the scene, and laughed and giggled. It was the sort of delightful laugh that always touched Nomad in a special way, and so he too started to laugh and giggle. And then Joshua joined in in the laughter as well. Nomad hugged his adopted son. "Nathan, Nathan, what ever am I going to do with you?" * * * And then Nomad and Joshua pored over the files they'd been sent. -- nomad@tlvx or ..!uflorida!sinkhole!tlvx!nomad or tlvx!nomad@sinkhole.unf.edu Nomad of Norad -- Temporal Vortex BBS [nomad (Nomad of Norad)][Title: The next entry. Hey, MOTHERBOX! Read this! ] [This message was written with the direct input of Devastator.] (It occurs to me I should have given a description, and a propername, to that dinosaur. Both will be added to the above scene, later. It is, however, an upright two-legged critter about three meters tall, that is, about nine feet; with two arms at the front, just below the neck, and with a tail for balance.) (Anyway, let's name our dear Grahl-hoong representative, Graakh-reengh.) It was about two weeks later, and a copy of the files had been transferred to Devastator, everyone's favorite bounty hunter, and all around nice guy, with the thought that he might be able to offer his opinion and help. Trouble was, though, that Devvy was on a mission already, going after some two-bit villain in some two-bit system, so they now had to talk to him by subspace. "I dunno, Devvy," said Nomad, "I'd feel more comfortable if you were back here, these renagade Grahl-hoong sound pretty nasty." "Well, I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw a thirty-ton grawloogle, but I don't expect them to knock down your door and... rape your furniture, if you know what I mean." "Uh... yeah, right, okay." "But watch out for them to try something indirect, you know, like... thermonuclear letterbombs." "Uhm...." "Or throwing pennies off of really tall buildings to see if they really can go through people if they accelerate from that hight." "Oooooooooohhhhh-kay." "In my expert opinion, you should get to them before they get to you.... You know, do unto them... first." "Except, we don't actually know where they are now..." "Well then, try to find out what they're going to do next..." "As if I had any inkling of an idea as to that... Still, at least, we can kind of figure it would be something disquised to look like a natural occurance. Remember the solar flares." "Yeah, and on the same scale, too. But of course they wouldn't try the same trick twice." "But it WOULD be something very very dangerous and very very destructive." "You mean like... intruducing a lot of old plagues? Like, oh, cholera, bubonic plague, or pneumonic, or.... Aha! Septicemic, the red death, that was a good one. You know, blood seeping out of your pores, your life slipping away, as the pain overtakes you.... And it spreads nice, too! Not that I would know." "Uhh.... nah, somehow I doubt they'd try that one. Remember, they want to reclaim the Earth as their own, not wipe it out." "Plagues would only wipe _human_ life on the planet, for those of us who don't know quite as much about deseases. Course, they might try something also relating to astronomical occurences, like that solar flares thing." Joshua piped in. "You mean like... throwing asteroids at Earth?" "Yeah, that's a good one," said Devastator, "I hadn't thought about that. But, I was thinking more like... blowing up the Moon, or something, or dropping large pinkish blobs from outer space, which eat people, and can only be stopped by extreme cold. Hmmmm...." "Aha!" quipped Nomad. "THAT one sounds... familiar." "Or howabout... they release a huge lizard that... hangs around in water alot, and likes to eat Japanese cities." "Enough of the old science fiction movies!" said Nomad. "Or what about King Kong, for... gorrilla warfare!" Nomad laughed aloud. Joshua moaned. "But I suppose asteroids is good enough," said Nomad, trying to break the thread. Devvy said, "You think it's more likely, or something?" Joshua interrupted, "Yes, I would say it was. Here, watch this news report." And up on a screen came Tom Lockjaw of the Sol News Net. "...came within two million kilometers of Earth. That's what scientists call a near miss. The asteroid was a nickel-iron type, approximately ten to twenty meters across. There is, of course, very little chance of a second one coming this close any time soon, the chances would be--" "I'll BET there's very little chance!" said Nomad. "How do you think their doing it, Devvy?" "Probably a big kinetic-kill gun somewhere out in deep space." "So," said Joshua, "all we have to do is backtrack the course of that asteroid to find out where it came from." "Well, on another note," came the vidcaster, "we now go to Dan Blather, reporting live and direct from the brand-new space station Tequila Sunrise, where--" >Click!< Joshua shut off the screen. "Well, good luck with your bounty hunting," said Nomad. "Thank you. It should be fun!" "It always is." * * Three weeks later... * * Three more asteroids had shown up in as many weeks, each making another "near miss" of the planet Earth. Alternating from one side to the other of Earth, each new one had come nearer and nearer, as if someone were learning how to aim properly. Of course, the Coalition Space Marines would take care of any asteroid that came right AT Earth long before it hit. Oddly enough, though, no-one thought anything of the asteroids. No-one, that is, except Nomad of Norad, now standing on the bridge of Kang's lovely Bird of Prey, the _bortaS_, with a few other members of the latest Intrepid Group (tm). They were heading towards the place where the renagade Grahl-hoong apparently had their great meteor-gun. "We are just within visual range," said Maltz. "Visual," ordered Kang. And image of a tiny, oblong white-ish object appeared on the screen. "Magnify," said Kang. The object grew to fill half the screen. "Doesn't look like Grahl-hoong technology," said Nomad. "Probably originated somewhere else," said T4D. "Are we recording this?" Nomad asked Kang. Kang looked to Mara, at the science station. "We are," she said. "Naturally, we have to PROVE this is being used by the renagade Grahl-hoong," said Fredrich. "We are at weapons range," said Maltz. "Parallel the object," ordered Kang. "Maintain cloak. Began scanning." "Scanning," responded Mara. "Well," said Nomad, "we'll soon have some proof.... Knock on wood!" The scans ran the length of the object. "It is definately a meteor-gun," said Mara. "And is fully stocked with plenty of--" She stopped, looking startled. "We are being scanned!" "Through the cloaking device?" said Nomad, incredulously. "They are raising shields," added Mara. "Yellow alert!" said Kang. "They are launching small craft, organic-based structure," said Maltz. "Five vessels, they are arming blasters and disruptors." "Red alert!" said Kang. "Battle stations!" He smiled grimly in anticipation. He had been hoping for battle. -- nomad@tlvx or ..!uflorida!sinkhole!tlvx!nomad or tlvx!nomad@sinkhole.unf.edu Nomad of Norad -- Temporal Vortex BBS [kang (Mother_Box)] [Title: part six ? ] Part Six "Evasive Manuvers! Sequence Tao, speed two," ordered Kang. "Intercept time?" asked Nomad. "At current speed the enemy should be within optimum range in one minute thirteen seconds," said Mara. "Sir! They are firing at us!" said Maltz (incredulously). "Drop cloak, full scan, let them see who they are firing at." Kang grinned. The _bortaS_ seemed to materialize, the Grahl-hoong ships came on without pause. "Note in the log that the enemy can detect scanner frequency T-15," said Kang. "I was wondering why you tried to scan them with your cloak up," said T4D. "It is like trying to sneak up on someone while singing, but we had to know if they could detect our main transporter carrier," said Kang. "The enemy has locked on, " reported Maltz. "Nothing Special," said Mara . The ship vibrated as the enemy got off a lucky shot. Kang Scowled, "Perhaps you were right, Nomad. The Marines should have taken your warnings more seriously... Do you still believe this could be -bait-?" Nomad said, "That is a possibility, we have foiled at least one of their plans." Kang glanced at the chronometer, "Time to find out for sure." "One minute," stated Maltz. "Open hailing frequency!" Kang ordered. "Frequency open!" snarled Ian. On the screen, an image of a Grahl-hoong appeared. "You will be destroyed!", it threatened. "Likely", said Kang in a voice that would send shivers through a glacier. "but not by you. Surrender, and prepare to be boarded or destroyed." The image on the screen flicked back to that of five small ships approaching. "Tractor beams?" asked Kang. "Still fifteen seconds," said maltz. "Sequence little doggy," said Kang as a second shot made the ship vibrated considerably harder. "Lock disrupters on Meteor gun," ordered Kang. "Done," answered Maltz. Kang turned to the intrepid group," I will do my best to distract them, you have twelve minutes ...after that I will destroy the meteor gun". "Lets go," said Nomad. "Divert reserves to hull integrety reinforcement," ordered Kang. "Activate tractor beams, target lead ship." "Tractor beam locked and active... we have them!" said Maltz. Kang touched a switch, "Engineering, Opus, drain them!" "Heading 27, mark 21 speed 6", ordered Kang Inside, a tall blue police box with a blinking light dematerialized. Outside, four small ships fired desperately at the Klingon battleship which was now headed directly for the meteor gun, their weapons had penetrated the _bortaS_'s shields, but simply and inexplicably bounced off the hull. The ship being towed was powerless... easy prey for the Klin boarding party that beamed over... there was not even enough power left to activate the self destruct device. -- kang@tlvx or ..!uflorida!sinkhole!tlvx!kang or tlvx!kang@sinkhole.unf.edu Mother_Box -- Temporal Vortex BBS [nomad (Nomad of Norad)] [Title: The show must go on... ] In a disused side chamber somewhere aboard the meteor gun, Gary Wolfe's pseudoTARDIS materialized in gloomy dimness. Inside, the occupants quickly prepared three sets of equipment to be released out the door. Nomad had a canister cantaining a pretty large number of nanomachines, microscopic devices, that were designed to seek out the aliens aboard in a coordinated way, and attach themselves to them, one nanomachine in each one's lungs, where it would then act as a tiny subspace beacon designed to allow each and every Grahl-hoong aboard to later be tracked individually. As Gary flipped the big lever that opened the large powered doors that lead outside, Nomad carted the releasing mechanism towards these same doors. Past the doors, there was a sort of ante-chamber, with another set of doors. These weren't automatic doors, they opened manually. Countess Klara Bathory and Devil's Advicate each came rolling the other two sets of equipment through the inner doors, then came past Nomad and stood to either side of the outer doors, ready to open them when told. The little chamber was actually the inside of the London police call box replica, the "outside" of the pseudoTARDIS. "It's ready," said Nomad. Open went the doors. There was a faint hiss as the nanomachines were released within a propellant gas. Then Klara and D.A. turned to their machines and punched their respective buttons. Out of each of their devices sprang small machines which instantly went into cloak. One set of devices was a set of anti-grav camera drones that were going to split up, and watch and record the aliens as they tried to react to coming events, even follow them into their lifepods if they decided to bail out. The other set of devices was a series of machines designed to find places to patch into the alien's computers and TeleComm systems, to countermand any attempts by the aliens to erase or alter incriminating data, while at the same time copying off the data. The hissing let up as the gas ran out, and Nomad shut off the valve. The other two closed the doors, and the three carted the mechanisms back inside. "Activating the nanomachines," said T4D, throwing a switch on the comms panel of the hexagonal control console. He went around to another panel. "Closing the doors." He flipped the big red lever. They watched as the inner doors closed, and now started to feel safer. "Raising the shields," said Gary, coming to yet another panel. They all looked up at the digital display on one wall, showing the time elapsed. It had been five minutes. "We should wait out the twelve minutes," said Nomad, "to make sure all the machines got to their places." They waited till almost twelve minutes had passed. Everything seemed to go exactly as planned. The nanomachines found all the aliens, the camera drones went to the important control centers aboard the station, and the patch-in machines reported back that they'd successfully patched themselves in. "Ok," said T4D, "everything seems to have worked." "Let's go," said Nomad. "Dematerializing," said T4D, throwing the demat lever. In the center of the console, the clear cylinder with all the funky plastic shapes inside began to bob up and down. There came a sound a little like huffing and wheezing. `Twelve seconds,' thought Nomad, `twelve seconds this process will take.' The demat process was set up to closely mimic the process seen in the "Dr Who" TV show. They could have done it more quickly, in fact, they could have devised it to go almost instantly, but they wanted to be faithful to the original. As the time passed, Nomad grew more and more anxious. "This was almost too easy," said Devil's Advicate. The cylindrical column suddenly slowed, and the huffing and wheezing sound started to flutter and gronk, as if laboring against a restraining force. "Uhoh!" said Nomad. T4D quickly punched several controls. Nomad came around to that side, and stood there watching the Doctor's actions with growing apprehension. "We're in trouble," said T4D. "They've locked onto us with something." "Can we still get away?" said Countess Bathory. "Maybe..." said T4D. -- nomad@tlvx or ..!uflorida!sinkhole!tlvx!nomad or tlvx!nomad@sinkhole.unf.edu Nomad of Norad -- Temporal Vortex BBS [nomad (Nomad of Norad)] [Title: And now the conclusion... ] Punching buttons, punching buttons, T4D tried one escape sequence after another. Nothing worked. He ducked under the console and yanked open an access panel. "What can I do?" asked Nomad. "Auxiliary Power Control, ramp it up on my command." "Gotcha." Nomad went to the appropriate station on the console. Adjusting one last circuit under the console, Gary Wolfe popped back up and returned to the control he had manned before. Adjusting more buttons, he said, "That's more like it. Stand by, I'm going to attempt a high-powered micro-jump." "A *high-powered* micro-jump?" said Nomad. "Last time we tried that it shorted out the Hostile Action Displacement System, the hyperspace energy buildup damper, and the fifth-dimensional overcharging superfluxer." "Trust me on this," said Gary. "Stand by." "Right." Nomad put his hand to the control sliders. "Now!" Gary mashed three buttons simultaneously, and Nomad slid up the sliders. The lights dimmed, the pseudoTARDIS shuddered and shook a bit, and there was a feeling of movement, momentum... then suddenly the room lurched and tilted over a little. The movement stopped. "Well," said T4D, observing a readout, "that didn't work. We're being drawn back in." "Now what do we do?" said Nomad. "We've got one last trick," said T4D. He started punching more buttons. "Why isn't Kang taking out the big gun!" said Nomad. He looked up at the scanner display, showing the external video of the ongoing battle. "Looks like he's too busy," said Klara. The Grahl-hoong fighter craft were closing on all sides, but the _bortaS_ was not done-for yet! "Ready!" said T4D. He moved to another control. "Hang on! I'm going to try a time-jump!" DA and Kasha exchanged glances. "Which direction?" said Nomad. "Forward or back? And by how much?" "Forward, and I'm not certain by how much." "Well, just don't put us in the Four-hundred Twenty-eighth Century Galactic!" said Nomad. "Hang on!" Gary threw the big black lever. The pseudoTARDIS lurched once again, but then the column began to move faster once more, at normal speed. The room returned to level, and the lights resumed their normal illumination. "We've done it!" "Where are we," said Devil's Advicate, "I mean, when?" Gary read the display before him. "Hmmmm... coming to a stop in the second month of the year... 2369 Galactic." A chime sounded, and the column stopped moving and went dim. "The 17th day of the second month of the year 2369 Galactic... or, May 11th, 1994 AD." "We've jumped forward a year and a coupla months," said Nomad. "I wonder if the mission was a success," said Devil's Advicate. "Well, if it wasn't," said Nomad, "the Earth will have been captured by the renagade Grahl-hoong. Check the news channels.... No, wait a minute... on second thought, tune in one of the entertainment channels, that should be sufficient." Up on the screen came a scene from a soap opera. "John!" one of the characters was saying. "Marsha!" "John!" "Marsha!" "How could you!" "How could *YOU*!" The two characters stared at each other a moment. "Imagine, having an affair... with an *Albenarian*!" "Albenarian?" said Kasha. "They're a genetically engineered offshoot of Homo Sapiens," added Nomad. "True hermaphrodites." "Don't sound so shocked by such a notion," continued John. "You were doing so, *too*!" "But-- But-- With the *SAME* Albenarian?!?" "Oh, good greif!" said Nomad. "Shut it off!" "What are the *children* going to think?" they continued. "Well, we won't let them find out!" >CLICK!< T4D turned off the display. "What absolute rubbish!" said Nomad. "Well," said Kasha, "I guess the mission was a success. That's a *locally* produced soap opera, not one from out-system." "Still, to be on the safe side," said Nomad, "let's check in with Joshua by TeleComm." He went to the communications panel and began punching in the TeleComm number. "You think that's wise?" said Devil's Advicate. "Might generate all sorts of temporal paradox." "Oh, there you are!" said Joshua over the subspace link. "Right on time!" Nomad and Gary exchanged glances. "`Right on time?'" said Nomad. "May 11th, 1994, at 1:53pm, just like you said it would be.... That is, just as you *will* have come back and said it would be." Kasha turned to Devil's Advicate. "You were talking about a temporal paradox?" "Naturally, you need not be worried," continued Joshua. "There is nothing more you need to do about the mission. It was coming to a successful end even as you time-jumped forward." "Oh, good," said Nomad. "Thank you." Then he smiled in a funny way, and said "See you earlier!" Then he ended the call. "I guess we can return to where we left off," said T4D. "I'll take us back to the _bortaS_." * * * * * * * Back in time, on the _bortaS_, the latex-forehead-crew were finishing off the Grahl-hoong vessels. "They're launching their escape pods," said Mara. "Dishonerable," said Kang, "they should have died fighting." "The Grahl-hoong fighters are building up power to self-destruct," Mara added. "Opus," said Kang, "drain them! We need those ships as evidence." "Draining them," came the officer in engineering. "The pseudoTARDIS has just vanished!" said Mara. "Vanished?" said Kang. "The meteor-gun ship had a subspace tractorbeam on them," said Mara, "they must have time-jumped to escape it." "I thought we'd drained all power from the meteor-gun ship," said Kang. "They had a backup," said Ian, at communications, "which our boarding party has just put out of action." "Good," said Kang. "I wonder where and when the TARDIS crew went." "A little bit forward, and right back here again," said Nomad, walking onto the bridge, followed by the others. "Oh *there* you are!" said Kang, turning around to meet them. "How's the mission going?" asked Devil's Advicate. "Just about over." Kang turned to Ian. "Signal the Marines to come and have a look." "Signalling Moonbase..." said Ian. And so the Coalition Space Marines came and had a look-see at the ships and the meteor-gun, and apologies flew like rice at a wedding. The renegade Grahl-hoong were all eventually captured and tried by the others of their race, and sentenced to the prison planet Veerd. Kang and krew went off to a Star Trek convention on Troolkronnk III, Nomad and Gary went to a temporal physics seminar on Braaahhhnnkk, Devastator flushed out and subsequently conquered the two-bit villain Evil Blob Splurrrrrrbptptptptptptptptbluffff, Kasha went on to build a theater for vampires or some such, and Devils Advicate disappeared into the woodwork. Have a nice day.