Astra Zartraxx: Humorous Space Adventurer

Escape Plan

Astra surfed the hoverboard he'd 'acquired' from a not so obliging rioter. The streets were falling into chaos faster than a Zolturian Hyper-Turtle could encircle Zolturia, prompting riots as survivors formed gangs for, well, survival. That's why they were survivors. They survived. This meant doing things dead people hadn't.

Zolturia is an interesting planet to consider, as it's surface is entirely covered in water. In amongst the waves and frolicking dolphins (Earth dolphins, for some reason. None of the Zolturian creatures were bothered though, because the dolphins had some great musical numbers, particularly their hit single: So Long) there were exceptionally fast ocean currents, one in particular being The Grand Current. The Grand Current had such extreme forces that any creature entering it would instantly be crushed by the forces involved, forced to whizz around as a gruesome, high-speed reminder to others of the planet just how silly it would be to enter the flow.

 Life had co-evolved amongst these currents to produce some of the fastest aquatic creatures in the galaxy. As predators got faster, so too had their prey. Then the predators sped up even more, prompting the same response from their prey, and so on.

The Zolturian Hyper-Turtle had happily bypassed this speedy arms race when it decided that everything was just too much effort. To this end, the creatures had actively changed the course of their biological evolution through sheer willpower and laziness. This had led to the near extinction of the creatures as they developed specialised organs and shells, rather than increasing their speed. The Zolturian Hyper-Shark particularly enjoyed their succulent, juicy flesh, and would often go out of its way to catch the turtles.

Their numbers dwindled ever lower throughout the ages, as the turtles were driven to ever more remote places. Eventually, in the nearly inhospitable hinterwaters (an aquatic world's hinterlands) of the planet, a few surviving pockets of turtles around the globe reached their evolutionary pinnacle.

En masse, in response to some planet-wide organic based beacon, every surviving member of the race had left their erstwhile hiding places and entered The Grand Current. Their shells and organs were sufficiently evolved to withstand the extreme forces, and the turtles had finally found peace, able to live away from predators and enjoy their lazy days as they were whizzed around the planet, only occasionally barrelling out to hit passing Zolturian Hyper-Sharks like supersonic cannonballs. The turtles would go out of their way to do this.

Sienna scanned the approaching security complex, finding exactly what she wanted.

'Seventh floor Astra,' she calmly stated.

Astra hitched his trademark grin onto his face, rocketing forwards on his hoverboard. He headed for a nearby doomsday device, its bulk brashly burning in brilliant colours. Speeding up its broken flank, Astra reached down and wrenched off a power pack as he kick-flipped his board off the end of a laser emitter. In mid-air, he posed for a group of terrified survivors, attaching the power pack to the hoverboard as he did so.

'So, teleporter pads,' Astra said, 'I don't get it Sen, you said there's some kind of energy net around the planet? How are the old "on three, one, two, aaargh, my insides!" going to help us out if they're blocked?'

Sienna frowned slightly, 'well, I think that whoever is hackingthis planet has kept an uplink to the main computer terminals, to ensure that the insertion point of their data packets can be switched when the digital entry ports are...' she stopped, watching Astra pretend to be asleep as he narrowly avoided braining himself on some broken debris.

'Well, I can hack the energy net,' she said, irritably.

Astra smiled, 'That's all I needed, baby.'