[mvisconte]

IMPACT!!!


Darkness.


Pretty much... but some sparks. A little bit of acrid smoke. Soft whimpering from the captains chair. Then some flashy lights and a disembodied robotic female voice intoning "Brace for impact." Very calmly. "Brace for impact." Repeatedly. "Brace for impact." Then, an electronic hick-up -- or burp, I am not sure which -- followed by an equally calm "An impact has occurred. An impact has occurred. An impact has ..."

The sobbing from the captains chair resolved into a sigh.

I stepped from the pool of darkness into a puddle of light... wiped my nose, and immediately lept into action. "Can someone check th-"

"LIGHTS", said KK, "On it."

"Good. I need someone to patrol ou-"

"Outside, got it!" Deb was on her way. She snatched up a sleeping WD(E) from his perch above the bar. I don't think he was knocked up or out, so he must have stopped for a nap and forgot to start again. It's always good to have backup who's senses are 20 to 20,000 times better than yours. Which is why I employed Deb as my, er, body-guard.

"DS, can I get you to..."

"I'm on my way... I'll see what we hit and how bad it is."

Great. I only had a couple items and then I could rest. And wait.

"Geoff, can I--"

"Sandwedge, coming up. Tuna, pickles. Want Miracle Whip on that?"

Of course. And, "Pshrynk, can I get a--"

"No. Not until you pay for the last round."

I tossed him a package of toothpicks. "Keep the change." I received, in turn, particularly potent martini -- in a clean glass.

"Sir, you might want to see this..." DSVick, on external monitors.

I hadn't even gotten my sandwich yet... I gulped my drink and headed down the steep incline towards the aft loading dock. A captain's work is never done.




It was pitch black outside, as I clambered out of the aft access port. Normally below the rear ailerons, the extreme angle of our impact put me a good 10-15 feet above the lower lobe of the tail. I braced myself and dropped to the ground. I landed on something reasonably soft, and bushy. "Hell getting back up," I thought. I could see DSVick some distance away, back-lit by one of our battery torches, his features limned in yellows and grays and ghostly reflections from metal and plant silhouettes. I had evidently landed on some kind of crop soft enough to break my fall without breaking my neck. Lucky again.

As I carefully felt my way through the plants, I noticed the change in air temperature. Cool and damp, with an earthy smell. As I approached the impact site, I started to call out to DS when an eerie shape materialized beside him.

"Hey you."

DS spin about, and threw a wild punch. I would have done the same. And my results would probably been even less effective. I heard him grunt and a solid thud as DS connected. Then, in the darkness, I saw his silhouette rise up with a jerk.

"You're a might bit on the delicate side, ain't yuh? Well, don't worry none, you din do no harm. Now, what you doin' out here in my patch. You ain't a revinoor, are ye?"

The shadow grabbed DS by the scruff of the neck and shook him, lifting him off the ground in the process. "What chu doin' in my garden, 'n what'n hell is this thing doing here?"






Now, DSVick is about 6' tall. If he's "a might bit on the delicate side", then I'm "a might bit non-existent," but, as usual, view changes with vantage point. I could very well exist, but if I wanted to maintain that status, I thought I'd better be a bit cautious.

"Hi there! How are you doing? Nice field you have here... filled with nice... whate-... what are you growing here?"

Whatever it was spun around at the sound of my voice. Just then, the moon drifted out from behind the clouds, and shed a cold light on the situation. There, in the midst of I don't know how many acres of ... stuff, was a large dirigible stuck tail first into the ground, like it had been planted there. In pieces all around the smashed aileron, were largish, mechanical chickens, some lying on their sides, some pecking at the ground, some swaying slightly to-and-fro with their eyes closed. A huge shadow stood in front of me, and depending from a dark limb, hung DS.

It moved again in the moon light, and I got a better look at what we'd encountered. "Holy -- " I said, to no one in particular, "Call the zoo... I think I found some of their escaped DNA."

The thing cuffed DS upside the head and dropped him into an untidy heap. It looked back at me and grinned and took one small step for a man and one giant step for mutant-kind, rapidly closing the distance between us.

"Heh heh, " it laughed, "Now I caught me TWO'm!" and it jumped towards me again.

Right about then, an un-Godly wailing pierced the air... "KI YI YI Yi Yi Yi YI!!!!!" -- startling me as well as the unfriendly giant, as a black-clad figure -- darker than the shadows around us, detached itself from the gloom and launched itself towards the giant's head.