Llanparple, the section commander who was attacking the Rattegusan fleet, was hard pressed. “Eeeow,” he yelped as he pushed the press off of himself and looked at the damage to his ship. “Why did a printing press land on my ship?” he wondered as another piece of machinery landed on the port nacelle. The Rattegusan fleet was using tractor beam technology to pick up and throw space junk at the Valusians (A little like the grav guns in Half Life 2: Death Match.) Looking at the other craft in his section through the smashed hull, protected by an emergency force field, he saw they were being defeated. Then he looked across to ZZZrakkiallastic’s attempt on the Death Stare.
“This seemed a lot easier when they did it on ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’,” muttered ZZZrakkiallastic as a dustbin bounced off his ablative armoured hull.
The Rattegusan Death Stare defenders were launching all kinds of items at the Valusian attackers, anything you can think of really, chairs, hammocks, wheelie bins, pianos, industrial machinery, satellite dishes. Any type of rubbish or scrap that could damage the Valusian fleet was being launched at the attackers, leaving a trail of rubbish in their wake.
“I do hope they are going to clear that mess up at the end of the story,” said the Valusian president who was watching the action on a battle barge on a 40 foot/12 metre viewing screen with surround sound speakers. There was a wobble in the screen and the next minute he saw a ray coming from the Death Stare and hitting the planet. The surface of Valusia Prime started to crack like an egg on a bald man’s head, the interior started to liquefy then the whole planet blew up.
“Oh,” thought the President, “my homeworld has just been destroyed. The makers of this story lied to me when they said that it was just play acting and nothing would really be harmed.”
“I did not lie,” piped up the Author, “if you noticed there was a slight wobble in the view screen before the destructo ray hit the planet below. If you look out of your window you will find the planet is still there.”
The President looked out of his window, “Oh my, you are right, how did you do that?”
“CGI,” replied the Author.
“Has that got anything to do with Cary Grant’s id?”
On the planet Sid was biting his finger nails as the others were window shopping. “But we don’t need any new windows,” moaned Arthur to Arianne.
Lebil turned up, the IPP time cop from Xanadu, and spoke to Sid, “Been getting into trouble again have we?”
“It’s not our fault, the Author pulled us off the sixth book in the Arth Series to get blown up in this sci-fi smackdown,” said Sid, nervously.
“That’s why he told me to come and rescue you, he said he needed you back on the other…,”
“Novel?”
“Er…”
“Bike?”
“Mmm…”
“Wavelength?”
Lebil looked at Sid.
“Story?”
“Yes, that’s it the other story.”
“Good job you remembered before the planet blew up!!!”
Lebil tossed Sid and the others Interdimensional Wrist Transporters.
“What about me?” asked Gerald who looked quite normal and uninspiring now he was out of his suit.
“I don’t want to cause a catastrophic time event mate, haven’t you read the IPP Time Code Field Guide? Sorry,” shrugged Lebil.
“What about the ship?” asked Arthur.
“I’ll stick a relocation beacon on it,” advised Lebil as he transported up to the ship then relocated it with a relocation beacon. When he re-relocated back to Arthur and the others he said, “Are you ready to get back to ‘Romancing the Drone’ then?”
“Hang on a minute,’ said Arthur, “we haven’t done the last picture yet. Don’t we have to stay here while the planet blows up?”
“No,” replied Lebil, “I’m not really supposed to tell you this but the Author isn’t really going to blow it up, he used CGI in the post production edit to make it look like it was exploding.”
“Whew,” said Arthur, “it was really bothering me that the planet might blow up. And all for a short story.”
“Do you think the Author will get away with using the picture of the exploding planet as one of the smackdown pictures if the planet didn’t really explode?” asked Fawh.
“It did happen, if the judges go back to the President’s scene they will see it happening on his view screen. After all a picture of an exploding planet is a picture of an exploding planet.”
They all twiddled the dials on their IWT’s and vanished into the romance dimension.
YOU ARE READING
Sid and Arthur's Space Operetta
Ficțiune științifico-fantasticăSid and Arthur have decided to visit an art gallery on Valusia and things don't go too well. This is not a full size Space Opera, hence the name.
