Zippy Zip-A-Long

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 

Mehrunes Dagon, once a powerful Daedra God, sat in a Washington DC movie theatre watching a newsreel. It showed propaganda now about the war against new enemies being a deformed Hitler and his monsters, the invading daedra and the monsters invading Japan. It was fascinating how the big screen showing black-white movies could project so many grand half truths and, he suspected, falsehoods. He gulped down some more popcorn even as the newsreel showed new improved V1A1 flying-bombs being launched from England towards special targets deep with in France. He had doubts about how really effective such weapons miight be.

 

The woman figure, beautiful and lovely, slipped into a chair next to his and cozied up to him. She was not, of course, a human woman at all but a shapepari, a shapeshifter and a lesser daedra as used by various greater daedra though not himself. She smiled at him in the mixture of darkness and flickering movie light. Then she spoke. "Sheerunes Dagon sends her dutiful love as your daughter and loyalt follower."

 

Mehrunes Dagon sighed. Sheerunes Dagon was beautiful, charming, brilliant, cunning, powerful and manipulative but she feared her father and would have had to have good reason even to contact him indirectly. Recently his power was regrowing but in a new form that was taking him by surprise. Now there was this contact. He responded. "Has it been agents of my daughter who have been following me since I got here, to this bizarre human city?"

 

The shapepari shook her head. "No, my lord! With me are two more of my kind and we only arrived in the city late yesterday evening. We sensed nothing but we, of course, lack your abilities. A loose alliance has formed amongst fifteen greater daedra who are concerned about Jaghrunes Dagon's growing power. He has been expanding his territories in the Oblivion realms by conquering weaker territories bordering his but too soon he will be confronting another greater daedra's estates. None wishe for another civil war in Oblivion so the alliance has been formed to pressure him to halt this madness."

 

Mehrunes Dagon frowned softly. "My followers seem to have begun to serve him."

 

She shook her head in a demure fashion lest he take offense. "My lord, not all have done so. Herec'Na-Ze of the dremora has led a large force of many kinds of lesser daedra to the Skullbore Caverns to escape the followership of Jaghrunes Dagon. Jaghrunes Dagon is enraged but what can he do? The Skullbore Caverns are in a No-Dominant Zone (where no greater daedra is allowed to rule and where many lesser daedra trade, work and dwell in peace (by Oblivion standards). Yet his armies grow and many wonder where his lesser daedra reinforcements actually come from, especially kinds of lesser daedra that did not serve yourself, my lord."

 

There was a bit coming up about a trio of women singers. He shushed the shapepari and quietly listened to the women and the big band behind them. They were in a big Army Airforce aeroplane hanger with some two engined bombers. Yet even as he watched and listened, his mind was racing. He offered some popcorn to the lesser daedra and, surprised, she took some and then ate it. She smiled with pleasure though he sensed she did not like it much and this bemused him.

 

He would make personal contact with his daughter, one of too many, and find out what she was really after. Or was she really telling the truth? Were the greater daedra so worried about his son, one of three, that they would do what they rarely did and form an actual working alliance? Was this more than the normal daedric political manipulating, point scoring and diplomatic stupidity? That was a most interesting idea.

 

He reached out absently and stroked he smooth knee of his companion and when she smiled with pleasure this time, it was real.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

“If we are going to teach creation science as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction.”

Judith Hayes

 

The reason why the universe is eternal is that it does not live for itself; it gives life to others as it transforms”

Lao Tzu

 

“Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there’s nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone.”

Terry Pratchett [/color]

 

“The evolution of the brain not only overshot the needs of prehistoric man, it is the only example of evolution providing a species with an organ which it does not know how to use”

Arthur Koestler

 

“While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.”

Mark Twain

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

The New United Nations expedition moved through DC-Wastelands in swift moving Puma hover vehicles of varied kinds. There were six AFVs with both roboremote gun turrets and troops inside who could fire secondary gun turrets or their own weapons through gunports. Animals shared space with troopers but with special facilities for them. Yet there was also one amublance vehicle, one armoured recovery vehicle, four armoured logistics vehicles full of extra equipment and even more supplies along with one armoured 90mm hyper-velocity gun vehicle, two armoured 50zz quad-gun vehicles and two armoured AA-gun vehicles. The last had two a pair of upgraded 40mm autocannons that could be used on air or ground targets at different cyclic rates of fire. All the Pumas had special extras.

 

There were also four big robotic gunmotes, well armoured vehicles bristling with guns and other handy devices. There were fast moving scoutbots being sleeker, faster, better armed and armoured than eyebots.

 

Out ahead of the main convoy were three faster, sleeker but less well armed Puma armoured scout vehicles. They panned out so only one was on the actual road. They slowed when they came upon the refugee column moving slowly on the road. There were some armed refugees who looked wary and exhausted, who aimed their mixture of basic rifles, crossbows, shotguns, pistols and bows with a kind of heroic defeatism. There were at least a hundred people, most on foot, and they were mostly unarmed.

 

Half an hour later the NUN expedition was parked in a defensive position while soldiers handed out what supplies they could spare. Medics tended to wounded refugees as best they could. Techs repaired some guns and created some ammo and other items using a portable replicator machine. Such replicators had strict limitations but were very good within those limits.

 

The strange young man created rolls of butter cheese and large blocks of meatic, vegic and fruitic, a kind of refined and very nutritional but dull flavoured vatfood. Yet he also brought forth some dozen-packs of very nutritional, very flavourism foodballs, each about twenty centimetres across that was best slowly eaten and enjoyed. There were even troopers using portable sonic washers to clean clothes, others doing small mending jobs on clothes and footwear while refugees took sonic showers in three inflato-domes.

 

This lightly tired him out and he sat with his back to a parked Puma quietly observing the acitivity. It was good to know that very early on they had made a relatively small but positive impact on the DC-Wastelands and its people. The refugees were being given a second lease on life.

 

Fighting between the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel was going on in the distance as they fought to gain access to and domination of a newly found bunker complex full of goodies. Backing up the Enclave were treacherous mercenaries and cyborg-mutants, a kind of super-mutants, along with controlled deathclaws. Backing up the brotherhood were other Orders of Steal and Columbian Union Guards along with a loose alliance of tribals, survivalists, mercenaries taking lower pay, independent Wastelanders, Followers of Atom and others. The Enclave threatened everbody and even the Brotherhood Exiles were sending forces despite the schism between them and the Brotherhood of Steel.

 

The NUN had met the Enclave on two occasions and both times had ended in savage fighting instigated by the Enclave but won by the NUNDF. The first time, taken by surprise, the NUNDF unit had almost lost. The second time the better prepared NUNDF troopers had thrashed the Enclave forces that attacked them with out provocation.

 

But could the NUN afford to fight the Enclave? Or was a better question, could they afford not to do so?

 

Graham Maharg sighed and stretched. Then he picked up a half drank bottle of nutripop (nutritional sodapop) and gulped some of it down. Not bad, the Wild Cherry flavour but he preferred the Spicy Apple flavour or even Grape Surprise. The drink had no sugar in it and did not give one a quick high while making one more thirsty for water.

 

He slept for a while and when he woke a molemouse was curled up on his lap sleeping comfortably. It was a lost molemouseling, its parents most likely devoured by killclaws, and he scratched it on the head. When it awoke he fed it, gave it some water and cleaned it with a handy pocket sonic-washer device. He was already tuning in with it on a psychic level which was something that took him by surprise. Such things were normally not so simple. He wondered if he and the new-humans could tune in easily with these and other creatures of the DC-Wastelands.

 

Somehow it did not surprise him when he began sensing new humans amongst the younger refugees, a sprinkling of a minority but they were already tuning into the NUN shared mentality.

 

Things were going to be interesting in the DC-Wastelands.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/441px-Da_Vinci_Vitruve_Luc_Viatour-1-1.jpg

Edited August 28, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

The thing that used to be Hitler, dictator of Germany and the German Reich, giggled insanely for a moment and then rubbed some bloody spittle from his deformed face. Berlin was engulfed now with a great alien growth of glistening shell and bone like subtance forming warped, exotic appearing and yet useable buildings. Still, the stink was wonderfully awful. Vampire women, seminaked in bizarre outfits, served all of his needs including the more personal ones. His big throne room was dotted with wonderful things representing his wondrous achievements. A WV people's car, also known as a 'VW Beetlecar', a V2 rocket with out fuel or warhead, some lovely clocks from the Black Forest, artworks of a wide range taken from many countries, including Germany, and much else indeed. The Mona Lisa, found hidden in a deep cave somewhere in France, smiled at him from one hanging wall.

 

New monsters, he wanted new monsters. Vampires, zombies and werewolves were fine enough, as were the fanatically insane cyborgs even now becoming less human, but he ws bored. More than that he wanted to rule the very cosmos and to bring terror to all. He had been promised a following of millions of adoring clones and he could hardly wait to dominate them. Many of them would be women, of course. He chuckled with a horrible hungry sound to his voice. The noise echoed a little in the monster chamber and the vampire woman lay flat upon the floor in awful beautiful seminudity and adoration of their great master.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[species5478]

So when can I read the novel?

:teehee:

[Maharg67]

As soon as I write it, species5478! Actually I have many notes from old efforts including characters. More info to come. Edited March 29, 2010 by Maharg67

[Blue Morphos]

continues to be a very good read.

[Maharg67]

continues to be a very good read.

 

Thank you, Blue Morphos.

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

 

Daedric stingerbugs spread death through out parts of New Mexico though citizens began fighting back with all sorts of tricks. It was soon learned that the stingerbugs had a terrible venom, that they drank blood and that they were daedric demonic in nature. Holy water and garlic water burned them. Garlic kept them at a distance. Priests and emerging magefolk found they could shield towns or other places and destroy the stingerbugs.

 

Yet it was at the site of a small stingerbug attacked town, no more than a highway stop-over with a diner, gas station, motel, a pub and a cluster of other buildings, including some houses, that the strange young man tried to conjure up some military vehicles. Why not? The mage power was growing in him, he was flushed with energies and wanted to purge himself of some of them. The survivors of the stingerbug attack were tiredly watching him from one side. American GIs were watching him from another side including an American Captain who did not seem much convinced by what he was seeing.

 

He stood inside a circle drawn in the dirt surrounded by barely understood holy and mage symbols of various kinds. In front of him was a much bigger drawn circle, He had a very excellent knowledge of the current military vehicles of the USA and other powers along with some odd devices, some of which he figured came from possible alternate developments. A local priest did not look happy as the strange young man focused on bringing forth one or more copies of the M6A1 heavy tank. Each had a 3 inch adapted antiaircraft gun as the main weapon, one medium machinegun on top and three heavy machineguns, one in the turret and two in the front of the body. He had seen one displayed on a newsreel and he was impressed; it had been shown crushing an old bomb of a car, rolling over it with amazing power.

 

He focused and tried to bring into existence one M6A1 heavy tank.

 

There was a great sparkling shimmer across the whole area and then they were all standing in a big chamber, an alien vastness stretching out in all directions of metallic grey stone lit by great verical cylinders of glowing stone that went from floor to ceiling. Nobody seemed very happy even though a great spiral rampway a fairly short distance away went up to an big circular opening tha showed bright blue New Mexico type sky.

 

Everything conjured was on a great big disk shaped platform with sloping ramp like edges. Five brand new M1A1 heavy battletanks stood in a neat row all ready to go into action. Next to them, though, were five big semi-trailer rigs each with a mobile cafe trailer, according to the signs on the side of the trailers. Oddest of all, perhaps, were five brightly multiple coloured children's bicycles with training wheels and five adult racing bicycles with extras.

 

The GI captain marched over and stood admiring the stuff with an iron look at the bicycles. Then he spoke. "Good stuff but you can keep the children's bicycles."

 

The strange young man shook his head. "I am keeping all of the bicycles. The mobile cafes will best serve the soldiers fighting the daedra as will the battletanks. If you remove all the items from the platform, copies of everything will start to generate. You haven't seen what is on the other side of the big round platform hidden by those semitrailer trucks and those big battletanks."

 

The platform was slowly spinning, turning, but the group went around it to find four battletank crews, young women and men GIs in combat fatigues and metal helmets armed with M1 carbines and Colt .45 semiautopistols. Each crew had three women and two men. The same ratios were apparent for five sets of five civilian volunteers in yellow fatigues, five young bicycling adults and five young children.

 

Strangest of all, though, were five blue squat saucers that floated just above the floor as if they were very stable balloons but they were clearly made of metallic armour of some kind. Next to each were five young women in tight blue power armour and with exotic looking weapons. Then there were the five red metallic graceful dart machines, also floating, each with five young men in front of it with tight red power armour and exotic weapons.

 

Captain Gregor grinned. "The United States Army will take delivery of everything."

 

The strange young man adjusted his wide brimmed fishing hat, complete with fishing lures and a big yellow feather, and he sighed. "No. The offer is no longer on the table. You will take nothing. Those are clones under my protection."

 

The officer frowned at him. "You are in US territory and you will do as you are told."

 

The young man shook his head. "No, this is not US territory. We are in a transdimensional hub between thirteen worlds including Nirn where the continent of Tamriel lies and the Alternate Earth where the DC Wastelands can be found. Of course one of the worlds is yours as is mine. In the distance you can see twelve other big spiral rampways, in different directions from here, and each leads up to another world."

 

The captain was a big blunt man who had no real regard, no real understanding of, the strange young man who wore coveralls, the fishing hat and gumboots. The tall man gripped the butt of his Colt .45 semiautopistol. It was a mistake. He and the other GIs all vanished.

 

The survivors of the stingerbug attack on the New Mexican town were still there. He went to them and spoke to the apparent leader, a strong willed matron who worked at the stop-over diner. She had lost her husband and some friends to the stingerbugs but she was making herself deal with the situation.

 

She spoke. "What did you do with the soldiers?"

 

He smiled. "I returned them safely to the town above. This chamber has special properties of refreshing, regeneration and rejuvenation. Bring what you can down here and I will take you to a big cavern lit with suncrystal and with a river. It is fertile and you can live there."

 

The grey haired matron sighed. "I sense you are genuine and some of us may come down here but not all will. We would miss New Mexico."

 

The strange young man grinned. "I never said you couldn't visit up top or those up there could not visit you but you will be safer down here from the daedra. The suncavern is very large and can take thousands of people, perhaps a hundred thousand at most. Yes I want something. It is one of my duties to preserve what I can of life from your world, including human life. Bring your livestock and pets, they will be welcome. Bring your belongings. I will help you with your shifting. We can even break down houses and bring parts from them though this is not nessary. I will give you resources."

 

And so the transmigrations began with the first people to move into that amazing HubWorld from the Thirteen Worlds that it linked together.

 

The strange young man knew he would have to deal with the US Army and the US Federal Government but was already forming plans to do just that. It helped that he was more than one and that he was in more than one place at once.

 

There was much to do.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67