Zippy Zip-A-Long

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

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-17-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ007 (DANZIE)

AT TEKVAULT100

 

TekVault100 lay ahead in the form of a great main power-door, heavily armoured and in theory openable by the use of any authorized VaultTek security codes. Except that the door was partly open and laying sprawled in an untidy manner around it were the twisted bodies of VaultTek security-guards and smashed, burned vaultbots being hovering multiple purpose robots. There were also Earthnet controlled supermutants, not just megamoths but more human sized massemoths in power-armour and two hulking behemoths, who lay dead all over the place. Clearly Earthnet considered supermutants to be super expendable.

 

With the Brothers of Steel and the Subwayers, plus Jasmine Clone and her people, Danzie led the group through the large gap and then they were facing a great big open airlock like space and another great power-door, as heavily armoured as the outer one had been. They faced a surprise in the form of a row of heavy weapons and a very determined appearing lot of TekVault100 Vaultguards. These were not security guards for they wore power armour much like that which the Brothers of Steel used and their weapons were surprisingly similiar. They sent envoys forward and the Subwayers were to learn something that surprised Rhonda Rhodes as much as any non-Unityfolk.

 

For the Vaultfolk of TekVault100 were of the Unity but were not quite on the same spiritiual-psychic wavelength as the greater, larger Unity of the Subwayers. Rhonda Rhodes vanished amongst the locals, clearly being oddly embarrassed by what was taking place there in TekVault100. With her went the other Subwayers.

 

Danzie and Jasmine02 were the ones to start sensing something odd about the Vaultfolk of TekVault100. They left behind the Brothers of Steel and Jasmine2's friends. As cyborgs super-infiltrators they made their way into the all too familiar utility tunnel and vent network. VaultTek had designed and built the TekVaults to be very much the same as each other, the main differences being numbers and types of subvaults and other additions. So they were easily able to slip through or around all the security network-systems that they ran into.

 

The two of them dropped lightly into a control chamber where Terminators disguised as humans were cyberlinked as they stood in veritcal wall-bays. With out knowing how they knew, the two knew that Terminators were slower but more heavily armoured and armed than they themselves were. The Terminators did not budge for they were unaware of their enemy moving in the very same room with them. The two clones were soon hacking the AI-supercomputer network of network-systems that ran TakeVault100. It was quickly clear that in many ways TekVault100 was in better condition than was TekVault101. TekVault100 had no Rimzone, no flooded Undervault and no Fringer Caverns. They had about five hundred thousand people instead of the crowded conditions of at least two million people.

 

Yes, there were Unityfolk in TekVault101 but they were under the control of Earthnet.

 

Danzie brought up a 3Dflatscreen of datasymbols and he suddenly laughed. Earthnet was having increasing difficulty in controlling its Unityfolk. So much so that Earthnet had been planning to terminate all of them. Except those plans had not been going well. Small battles had broken out and a big one at the entrance between free thinking Unityfolk and a force of supermutants. It was Jasmine02 who found access to the actual controlling network-system that limited the actions of so many Unifyfolk. It was both of them who found the fail-safe that would kill all the enslaved Unityfolk if the controlling network-system was deactivated in the incorrect manner. They deactivated it in the correct manner.

 

Which was when the fighting broke out through out TekVault100.

 

Danzie and Jasmine02 fled from the terminator cyborgs coming active in the control chamber. Attempts to sabotage them before they could do so had failed. The terminators were soon blasting away at their fleeing selves with 10mm caseless shell firing miniguns fed belt fashion from large, heavy backpacks that they easily carried. The two moved with amazing speed and agility, diving and zigzagging. The two of them slipped down cables, moving quick down a dimly lit shaft even as three terminators blasted away at them.

 

Earthnet really wanted them dead which most likely meant that Skynet really wanted them dead since, as far as they knew, Skynet was the dominant partner. Then the two were amongst power armoured Unityfolk preparing to destroy the last of the netcyborgs in that vault. Unity was melded to Unity. TekVault100 had joined in the Subway Unionate. Danzie was not sure how he felt about this and neither was Jasmine the Clone but they were smart enough to keep their fears to themselves.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 15, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-18-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ007 (DANZIE)

AT TEKVAULT100

 

Rhonda Rhodes was stepping carefully over the smashed and deactivated bodies of terminators. Even as she did so she was speaking. "UnityMind feared that many of us would die here in TekVault100 because of Earthnet's insane attempt to control so many of us through cybernetic implants. Your courage and cleverness will not go unrewarded." Rhonda reached the target of a cyberchair and sat on-in it, adjusting it to her body even as she did so. "Earthnet gained control of not just this TekVault but others in Centralis, this great big floating quasinatural island. What is Earthnet up to and who or what is controlling Earthnet for we fear that it is being controlled. Is Earthnet being controlled by Skynet? We would have once taken the logically automatic answer as yes but three days ago one of our scouting parties recorded this audio-video."

 

She fed a datacard into a slot, tapped some keypad buttons and on a big 3Dwallscreen came up a deadly battle. Terminator cyborgs, obvious and metallic skeletal, were fighting other terminator cyborgs with torn and bleeding flesh. There were supermutants fighting for the second force, many of them. Skynet terminators were fighting Earthnet terminators and supermutants. If nothing else the symbols that the two forces wore declared that this was the case.

 

Danzie snorted in annoyance. "So Unity's foolish attempt to take over Earthnet failed badly and resulted in Earthnet going rogue beyond even the safety control protocols of Skynet. It was not Earthnet trying to be over clever that led to this mess but Unity being overly clever. You decided to run a series of experiments here in TekVault100. You lied to me when you said that Unity knew nothing about TekVault100 and had never been here. Was this UnityMind's idea, the idea of the so called hub mentality at the core of the joint secondary mind of Unity? I was part of one of those experiments and now I think so was poor Jasmine02. Neither of us even knew we were clones until recently with our minds full of false memories of families who never really were there to love us. You used us. You are no better than those of the so called Doomsday Thirteen."

 

Rhonda Rhodes did not look regretful to some extent. "Unity does what it does simply because Unity wishes to survive when there are so many powerful forces who would destroy us for no other reason than that we are Unity."

 

"Paranoia will kill Unity just as quickly as other enemies will." Jasmine02 stepped into view from around a large computer hardcase tower that stretched up high almost to the ceiling. Its cooling units were humming softly. "Start seeing enemies where there are no enemies, start striking out when there is no real reason to strike out, then you will be part of a bleak future. Was it really my false father, Professor James Ashworth, who had me cloned?"

 

Rhonda nodded. "We brought Professor James Ashworth here to TekVault100 to run some experiments for us and one payment for his cooperation was your creation. Oddly enough he left a message for you in case you ever were to discover the truth. He states that he loves you much as your nonclone sister and if he can do so, one day he will by treating you as a beloved twin sister to the original Jasmine. Oh, the original Jasmine was not very happy about your creation. She did not want you to be exploited."

 

Jasmine02 looked a little stunned by this information.

 

"I am Danz007." Danzie spoke as he carefully opened up a panel in a console that was a fake console. Beneath it was the genuine control panel. He leaned the fake console against a concrete wall and activated the real controls. "Where is my cloning chamber with its network-systems?"

 

Rhonda drew out a 10mm caseless slimshot submachinegun, a so called SuperIngram. "It would not be in the interest of Unity for either of you to gain access to those facilities. Yes, Unity has not been totally honest with you but the stakes of this game are high. They are survival but Unity wants to do more than survive; it even wants to do more than just live; Unity wants to thrive. Unity will gain control of the Doomsday Thirteen but we will not make the same mistakes that the Three Super Powers did. We will not be taken by the madness that infected President Jack Patriot Jackson and those like him."

 

Which was when Rhonda Rhodes cried out and vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

Jasmine02 smiled. "So it worked. We simply did not fully deactivate the control network-system and used it to our advantage. Unity will recover quickly though. UnityMind will see to it. We have to get to Knight Captain Gallows and to my people and tell them the truth before it is too late."

 

Which was when an armoured door exploded open and in marched Knight Captain Gallows and his Troopers of Steel. With them were DJgirl and Jasmine02's other companions. Gallows growled, "Well you coming or you going to wait until Unity catches up to you. I have been doing special ops for years. I smelt a rat as soon as I entered this place. Let's get out of here."

 

So they did.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 15, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-19-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ007 (DANZIE)

AT THE 'ABANDONED' GARDEN-PARK

 

Now they were being chased by the Subwayers and they moved as quickly as they could through the crumbling, sometimes flooded, crazy network of expanded caves that ran beneath the surface of the great floating island. They came to a long abandoned underground garden-park where some robots were still tending the semiwilderness of overgrown lawns and flowerbeds. There they rested beneath suncrystal strips growing over the great, smooth rocky ceiling. After Doomsday many people had fled to survive in such places before moving on to larger, more centralised, more secure settlements in later years.

 

Knight Captain Gallows finished eating an apple that had grown in that place. It had been juicy, tasty and highly nutritional. "So, what stops Earthnet being in places like this?"

 

DJgirl answered and adjusted her complicated cyberglasses. "No direct link and even if there was such a link there would be compatibility problems thanks to the use of differing kinds of hardware, firmware and software. This was no accident. The TekCorps went out of their way to make sure that neither Skynet or Earthnet or any other such force could easily infiltrate and subdue their network-systems. It was a matter of survival for them. This place was most likely designed and built by LuxiTek, the TekCorp that specialised in goods and services for the very wealthy, powerful and influential elites in the PreDD world. Likely this place was meant as part of a larger shelter bunker."

 

Which was when the Sister of Steel walked into view with a grubby girl child over one armoured shoulder. The trooper dropped the kicking, punching, screaming child not so gently on the grassy ground and with a sigh, crouched beside her. Realising that her emotional demonstrations had not gained her anything, the girl stopped and gave everybody there a dirty look. She wiped some dirt of her light brown skin and spoke in oddly accented English. "Those are our apples you are stealing. Bad enough with all those animals and birds eating our fruit with out you lot coming along."

 

Danzie took out a couple of foodbars and chucked them lightly so that they landed in front of the girl. "So, they abandoned you here. Why did they do that?"

 

She gave Danzie a dirty look. "Because we are psychic mutants and they were bloody Ormons, that's why. Ormons hate mutations. Ormons think their s*** don't stink because God has blessed their bum holes."

 

Danzie laughed softly. Then he sighed. "This is a nice place but I think you and your friends need to come with us. Some powerful people are looking for us."

 

The girl grinned. "Unity? Yeh, we know about Unity and that stupid UnityMind. We are Unity but we don't bother to listen to UnityMind, well not in a way they like. We peep into their talking and they don't like that. UnityMind is made up of thirteen fools who think they have the right to dominate the minds of all Unityfolk, to make the decisions for all humans. They call themselves the UnityElders of Wisdom, Intelligence, Strength, Endurance, Understanding, Cooperation, Supervision, Direction, Security, Flexibility, Creativity, Truth and Compassion. Like those stupid Ormons, they think their s**** doesn't stink."

 

Jasmine02 stretched and nodded. "Perhaps you could find a home in Megaton. It is a large settlement that is always looking for more children. Children are important. Children are the future."

 

The girl gave Jasmine02 an odd look and then nodded. "Tandy is my name. Yeh, we can sense Unity getting closer and closer to us here. They are closing in on us. We were going to leave soon anyway. Our robots are starting to break down. We are running out of lots of useful things. Why not go to this Megaton place? Only thing is you should know the Unity are not who we really fear. No, Unity is not just UnityMind and the stupid Uozi who follow UnityMind with out question. Unity is also the Mozi who doubt the wisdom of the UnityMind, of the UnityElders. We don't fear stupid Uozi or the cool Mozi. We fear the AntiUnity Dazi. The Dazi have cold eyes and cold minds. The Dazi think like sociopathic computers. You a clone?"

 

Jasmine02 nodded though it was a subject she really did not want to discuss. "Yes, a specialised clone cyborg."

 

The girl nodded. "I dreamed about you. Sometimes I have strange dreams about what might happen in the future. I dreamed that you and your friend there, the other clone cyborg, killed all of the UnityElders but you were really sad when you did so for some reason. I didn't like that dream at all, not at all. We are going to miss this place but nobody wants to run into the Dazi or into Earthnet's supermutants. I will go and get the others. You can trust me."

 

But they could not trust her, it seemed, and she managed to vanish, to escape into the bunker around them. So for the moment they decided to stay so that they might learn more valuable data from the group of special wild children in that place.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 16, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

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-33-

THE ADVENTURES OF TIMESAGE COSMOS AND COMPANY

LONDON IS FREE, AT LEAST FOR NOW

 

There were muted celebrations through out London as people started to return to the city from the refugee camps. Many had died but surprisingly many more had survived. Others were still missing so Red Cross volunteers were trying to find them or at least evidence of what had happened to them. The London Industries were up and going strong. The Tube was free of monsters. There were soldiers all over the place and the defences of London were being upgraded.

 

Professor Cosmos and Tinacos made their way through a closed street where volunteers had set up trestle tables and were handing out free glasses of milk, cups of tea, small sandwiches and cupcakes. They were rationed. Overhead passed a large airship-freighter bringing in supplies from outside of London, being mostly farm produce but also black coal. Mostly it would be British steamtrains that would be bringing such stuff to London. Children volunteers ran around passing out free offficial newslets giving very brief information of what was happening in the Motherland and in the British Empire and beyond.

 

Many people were wary of the new treaty with the surillans and Cosmos could hardly blame them for that but many more people were just glad to see the end of the fighting. A few wondered out loud why the preperations for war seemed to be going on if a truce had been declared with the surillans and the parasite-zombies were being cleansed from the various places that they had appeared in. They also wondered why martial law had not been lifted yet.

 

The British Imperial Navy was in the process of trying to find a way of defending its ships and boats from a new range of underwater threats. They had lost no less than five of their best battleships and a few other ships to surillin ultrasonic underwater weaponry. The other big navies of the world had faired no better be they the Frankogermanic, the United States or the Japanese or others.

 

Trucks rumbled past the ends of the closed off street, big and crude but efficient, with backs full of goods or refugees or soldiers. The famous red double-decker buses, the new ones starting to serve London, were back on the streets once more though in relatively small numbers. One of them went past being full to almost overflowing with passengers. Steamcars and Ecars, or electric cars, were busy on the streets again.

 

One steamcar came along the closed off area with an official bit of paper stuck on the wind shield to say it could do so. A pair of bobbies, constables, brought the car to a halt and soon discovered the official paper was a laughable fraud. Soon they were dragging the protesting driver off to the nearest police station for further questioning while the steamcar was impounded.

 

Professor Cosmos and his daughter had a cup of tea and a cupcake each as they sat on wooden chairs and observed the people around them. They found it relaxing though the TimeSage was painfully aware that so far he had failed to find any real traces of the TimeMaster or his ally, Professor Greening. And what of the so called TimeThief, was that really the TimeMaster? Professor Cosmos was starting to have his doubts. They were not the only doubts that he was starting to have and some of them were very painful.

 

He turned to Ginacos. "I love you very much, my sweet daughter."

 

Ginacos smiled. "I love you also, father, as do Tinacos and Ninacos."

 

Professor Cosmos nodded. "So why did the three of you betray both myself and the TimeLords? Why have you been secretly working with the TimeMaster to thwart my plans to track him down and to bring him to justice? The CosmosTARDIS was generated from a direct linkage with myself, with my mentality, with my spiritual existence itself. The CosmosTARDIS works with you but she is empathic with me. That is one reason she is new and experimental, being unlike almost any TARDIS that has been created before her with twelve exceptions. The number thirteen keeps arising again and again. Is that not amazing? CosmosTARDIS exposed what you have been truly up to. Yet it was CosmosTARDIS who has pointed out that your betrayal has far from been total. What sort of game are you playing? A very dangerous one!"

 

Ginacos nodded. "We wish to be TimeLadies no longer. How attempt to become TimeLords failed even though you strongly supported us in our attempt to be accepted by the Academy. We never found out why they rejected us."

 

Professor Cosmos sighed. "Because the TimeAdjudicators sensed a wild streak in you partly inherited by me and by your other father, the TimeMaster. It was in your mother as well, Dancos, which is why she cheated upon our relationship and had you triplets fathered by three men in a fashion of mingled genetic inheritance. One father was myself, another was the TimeMaster and I have never learned the identity of the third."

 

Ginacos smiled. "You are my one and true father. I will stay with you."

 

But then Tinacos appeared as a holographic image. "No, the mysterious other is our true father and he is not our lord and master. I will stay with him."

 

Then Ninacos appeared as a holographic projection. "Me, I seek my fate with the TimeMaster himself."

 

Then the two holographic projections vanished. Ginacos turned to her father. "Now I can reveal to you that we have been secretly serving the TimeEye itself."

 

Professor Cosmos looked to his daughter with shock. "Razzalon himself deactivated the TimeEye a very long time ago because it became too dangerous. The TimePolice lost control of it. The TimeWardens had to hunt it down as it went rogue through time and space. It was locked away in the TimeVault itself in the Tower of Eternity that lies at the very heart of the Citadel of Eternity. I was relatively young back then but I took part in the hunt as a TimeLordling, an apprentice with a basic demiTARDIS that was not very much bigger inside than outside. Becoming a TimeLord is amazingly hard work and is also very dangerous, Giinacos."

 

Ginacos shook her head. "The TimeMaster managed to get into the TimeVault. He stole something vital from there but accidentally released the TimeEye while he was escaping from the TimeVault with his prize. The TimeEye wishes to prove itself, to make up for past mistakes, and so it recruited us. We three came to you, father, to live with you so that when the time came we would come with you when you set out to track down and bring the TimeMaster to justice."

 

Professor Cosmos sighed. "Oh, my foolish sweet daughters, you are way over your head. You are involving yourselves with very dangerous forces that even I, with my thousand years plus experience, am wary of being involved with. So I am glad that I did what I do though you will not like it at all."

 

Then he drew out a small silver ball with a single golden button on-in the top and pressed the button. Ginacos looked shocked as she vanished with a sparkling shimmer and was transported instantly into a special part of the CosmosTARDIS that Professor Cosmos had made for this one purpose with the help of CosmosTARDIS herself. Tinacos and Ninacos were already there.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 15, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-34-

THE ADVENTURES OF TIMESAGE COSMOS AND COMPANY

TINACOS, GINACOS AND NINACOS DEALING WITH CONSEQUENCES

 

Ginacos, Tinacos and Ninacos were not happy with their father for some time but they had to admit, after climbing out of the NexusCore of the CosmosTARDIS that had opened their minds to the truth, that they had been tricked and manipulated by the TimeEye and that it was the TimeMaster who was in control of the TimeEye. Their guess was that the TimeMaster's control over the TimeEye was weak at best and that the TimeEye could go rogue on him at any time just as it had done with the TimePolice once. Professor Cosmos forgave them and for that they were grateful. As humans might say, they started with a clean slate as far as he was concerned.

 

Their experiences in the NexusCore had been far from pleasant but they came out of it feeling stronger, more confident and with an expanded awareness.

 

Ninacos showed him the secret chamber that the triplets had set up. Except that the chamber could never have been really secret from CosmosTARDIS herself. There they had set up isolated databanks, hidden gene samples and other stuff they did not want their father to know about. Professor Cosmos looked through it and rather deflated his daughters' pride when he announced that they had gathered nothing of any real value to his investigations, despite all of their efforts.

 

Ginacos showed him where they had set up another secret chamber with a cloner network-system that was already growing new clones being TimeLordites and TimeLady copies of the triplets themselves. Professor Cosmos was far from displeased. He nodded and simply added these assets to his plans.

 

Tinacos showed him where they had hidden a demiTARDIS, not much bigger inside than outside and far less powerful than a true TARDIS, that in theory could be launched secretly from CosmosTARDIS at any time. Except that CosmosTARDIS herself had locked down the demiTARDIS so it could not be launched with out the permission of Professor Cosmos. Their father thanked them for the gift of the demiTARDIS, thus taking it for himself and making it a kind of lifeboat for the CosmosTARDIS. Again the triplets could do nothing.

 

Yet they felt better in being able to contribute to their father's mission though they had not meant to do so in the first place.

 

-CONTINUED-

[Maharg67]

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-35-

THE ADVENTURES OF TIMESAGE COSMOS AND COMPANY

GREEN FLASHES ON MARS

 

On the night, London time, that the triplets came out of the NexusCore of the CosmosTARDIS, telescope observatories across Great Brtain observed a pattern of green flashes on the surface of Mars. They only managed to do so clearly thanks to Professor Greening's amazing new types of telescope and the upgrading of older designs of telescope as supervised by Professor Greening. Of course it had been the StarLord who had done this, who had sold these ideas to gain more power, wealth and influence in the British Empire.

 

Professor Cosmos was alerted to the purple flashes by the CosmosTARDIS herself but it was Ginacos who first investigated the matter more closely. She used the demiTARDIS, shapeformed in appearance like a dull metallic silver cube exactly three metres wide and high, to travel to Mars and landed it close to the equator. In a shiftersuit in stealth mode, she left the demiTARDIS with thirteen andrfoids and thirteen cloned TimeLordites in five fast moving hoversleds. They skitted across the dead red Martian landscape until they came upon Martian pyramids rising in the distance along with far more modern translucent domes half filled with water. Both the pyrmaids and domes were massive and were protected by powerful force field domes.

 

Inside the water filled domes flittered tripocs, three legged and three armed vaguely octopus like creatures with big brains and strange, deadly psychic powers to control other peoples. They seemed panicky and for good reason. A great army of strange warriors led by John Carter, a human from California of the USA, was laying siege to the city. He and his Red Martian people were using mighty flying ships and boats, strange rayguns and power-bladed weapons. There were also great big Green Martians, each with four arms and two legs, riding mighty savage beasts of various kinds, some of which flew through the air. White Martians were there in biomechanical machines grown out of amazing organic vats. Ice Martians were there with the two types of their kind, having come from the icy underworlds of the northern and southern poles of Mars. In their own way the Yellow Martians were the oddest for they most looked like the British Imperials of the Earth in the uniforms they wore, with the guns they used and much else. It turned out that they had copied much of the British Empire after scanning it with clever devices, so impressed were they with it, but they had added their own touches of course.

 

Tripoc warriors in great battletripods and much smaller but faster and more nimble mechatripods, were attacking the siege army. With them came enslaved warriors with creatures hugging their heads that were in fact identical to those that had been used in London and other places on Earth to turn people into parasite-zombies. These were Martian parasite-zombies. The gattling-guns of the Yellow Martians, the raygun beams of the Red Martians, the huge metallic arrows of the Green Martians and the metallic spinedarts of the White Martians, slaughtered the parasite-zombies in the hundreds. In killing them, they freed them from painful enslavement.

 

The mechatripods, each controlled by one tripoc in its armoured hood, were also destroyed in large numbers as they attempted to utilise their own heat-rays and ultrasonic disintegrators. The three sizes of wartripods were harder to bring down but there were only a few of them, especially the largest ones. Then came the medium battletripods and the smaller attacktripods that were still much bigger than the mechatripods. The weakness of all of these biomechanicals was their double-jointed flexible legs and their big splayed feet. Mines blew the feet apart. Explosive projectiles destroyed the intricate and vulnerable knee mechanisms.

 

In the distance a hole opened in the ground as a great disguised metallic door irised open and out of the circular black hole shot a green comet with green energies trailing out from behind it. The green cometship sped through space towards the Earth with its great oceans where the aquatic tripocs hoped to make for themselves a new empire. The tripocs, or Aquatic Martians, were abandoning their domecities and their long hidden underworld oceans that were slowly but steadily vanishing. Those oceans were only slowly vanishing and were huge by the standards of other Martians but the tripocs saw them as little more than puddles. They yearned for the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. They did not yearn to land on any of the land masses.

 

John Carter turned to greet Ginacos in her tight silver suit and to him, who was naked except a webbing of pouch dotted belts, she was most modestly dressed. He was using to surprise meetings with strange people. At his sides the Californian had holstered sixguns built to his own specifications. Such sixgun revolver-pistols were becoming increasingly popular through out the Martian Citystates that hugged the Grand Canals of Mars.

 

She smiled at him. "So you come from the good old USA. A man in the USA wrote about your accounts thanks to communications that you were some able to set up with him. Edgar Rice Burroughs, yes, ERB. Your exploits have been many."

 

John Carter grinned. "I must admit those accounts were more than a little exaggerated for dramatic effect. I had ERB read out his books after he published them. If only I was half the Warlord that he has portrayed me as. Still, I do have a fairly strong following."

 

A tall Green Martian humphed. "Do not listen to his false modesty. He did everything that was written in the books though perhaps not always in such a noble fashion. You might have come from the Earth but you are not from the Earth originally. You smell wrong. Many hundreds have come from Earth over the last few centuries, drawn here by mysterious forces beyond our comprehension."

 

Ginacos shook her head. "The Secret Martians brought you all here in order to try to rebalance the situation both in the Martian Overworld and Underworld towards a more positive one. My own people, the TimeLords of the far off world of Gallefrey, have long been in communications with the Secret Martians. They are like living gods and goddesses in their power. How did this war come about? How did you Martian Overworlders discover the Martian Underworld or the domecities that were hidden so cleverly by psychic fields?"

 

John Carter shrugged. "Hidden from Martian minds, yes, but not from my mind or from the minds of any others who came from the Earth. We look at a domecity and see a domecity; the Martians looked at a domecity and saw anything but a domecity but now they see a domecity when looking at one."

 

In the distance another green cometship arose from the ground but even as it reached high into the sky, a blazing flaming red comet-missile hit it and the green cometship exploded dramatically.

 

John Carter grinned. "The Aquatic Martians brutally enslaved and fed on many peoples for many centuries. Whole city populations would vanish and though much searching was done for the victims, nothing was ever found of them. When we Earth humans arrived, we also found we could see the entrances to the Martian Midworld that lies between the Overworld and Underworld. Was it the Aquatic Martians who built all of that, as they claim?"

 

Ginacos shook her head. "No, the Aquatic Martians lied. The Secret Martians did so. They are a very exotic people with some very eccentric ways. Even we TimeLords, who have dealt with an amazingly large amount of peoples across the Multiverse, truly do not know them very well."

 

John Carter frowned. "We will not let the Aquatic Martians enslave the peoples of the Earth as they did so many Martian peoples for so long." But then he shrugged. "Problem is that most Overworld Martians are content to let the tripocs leave with out fighting them. They have no care what happens to the Earth or its peoples. They simply want the Aquatic Martians to leave the Martian Underworld and then they will go down and colonise it themselves. I fear that the Aquatic Martians, as cunningly brilliant as they are, will be sure to leave a few unpleasant surprises for any Overworld Martians intending to colonise their former home realm. I had terrible trouble in even getting this fairly small army together and they came mostly because they felt they owed me for various deeds that they have done for their peoples in the past. I have used up all my owed favours."

 

The tall Green Martian growled. "I wish I could disagree with what John Carter is saying. Even my warriors are saying 'why attack the domecity when we can wait and loot it later'."

 

Ginacos sighed. "Because the Aquatic Martians will most likely destroy every single domecity they leave with nuclear weapons." Then she had to explain what a nuclear weapon was and soon the Green Martian was racing off to tell his warriors why attacking now might just be better than waiting for the Martian Overworld to suffer a whole lot of big mushroom clouds rising hight into the air.

 

John Carter smiled richly. "You just may have said just the right thing to have the Martian Overworlds going to war against all of the Aquatic Martian domecities. As you say, having over a hundred domecities destroyed by nuclear bombs will not do much for a world that is already slowly dying. We must stop those H-bombs from being used." He grinned at her. "Do you know for a fact that the tripocs have nuclear bombs?"

 

Ginacos shook her head. "No, not really, though scanners indicated it is a strong possibility."

 

The Californian nodded. "Please do not tell anybody else that."

 

Ginacos nodded. "Of course not." She looked around. "You may wonder why the tripocs are not controlling your minds."

 

John Carter shrugged. "They suddenly seemed to lose the ability shortly after they were fully exposed to the Martian Overworlders. Perhaps your Secret Martians were involved."

 

She snorted. "They are not my Secret Martians and yet I suppose that you may well be correct."

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 17, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

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-7-

GRAHAM MAHARG

IN TIME-SPACE ALTERNATE REALITIES

WORLD WAR TWO WITH VARIATIONS #2

BATTLE FOR AYERS ROCK

 

Graham Maharg sat at a fancy bar and drank lime, lemon and bitters in a tall iced glass. Topless barmaids were bustling around and largely ignoring him. They were young attractive women and all they wore were tiny apron thingies and G-strings. He was feeling at odds with himself and wanted to go home back to the right time, the right place, but as yet he was going nowhere but there. There were Anzac soldiers in the place but they were not getting drunk thanks to strict orders and heavy threats of punishment. Most of the customers were clones who actually lived in the Club along with the staff, including the managers.

 

He looked around as Brigadier Stuart came into the large, cool room and then strode over to him. The British Officer sat next to Graham Maharg and frowned softly at him. "That small but deadly army of yours is refusing to take orders from either we British or the Anzac Officers. This is not on. You are just a civilian."

 

Graham grinned. "Truth is, Brigadier Stuart, you don't know who or what I am. I asked you to treat the newcomers not as expendable but as you would any fighters under your command. Then I hear that some of you officers want to do the very reverse."

 

The Brigadier nodded. "Perhaps so. Captain Rimmer did suggest we send the lot out and see what happens but Captain Rimmer is a blithering idiot. I am sure if he keeps up annoying the Australian and New Zealand soldiers that somebody is going to accidentally on purpose shoot him in the back."

 

Graham shook his head. "Fragging is much better because it is harder to track down the killer. Less forensic clues left behind. Just drop a fragmentation grenade into the officer's tent."

 

"That makes me feel so much more safe and comfortable." Brigadier Stuart quietly ogled the waitresses until one came over and took his order, smiling at the British Officer very richly. He gave her a generous tip and she bustled off to get him a whiskey and a beer chaser. "I wonder who owns these three Clubs."

 

"I do!" Graham Maharg shrugged. "I rolled the magic dice so I get the Clubs. Most importantly these Clubs have hidden resources. Each has a deep well that allows for a constant supply of fresh water. Each actually generates goods in a way that would be hard to explain. That is how they obtain goods here with out getting them from outside. These Clubs are heavily fortified despite their appearances. Most bombs, shells, rockets or other such attacks would not do them much damage. Each has large basement areas."

 

There was the noise of a squadron of fighter-bombers passing over, most likely coming into land at the small airbase. The few daedric raiders to show up in the daylight were often strafed and bombed by the two squadrons. The lesser daedric invaders had soon learned to move only at night. They were constantly getting engaged in firefights with ANZAC patrols and being ambushed by local militia. As for the various forces that had emerged from seemingly nothing and nowhere when he had rolled the magic dice, they were also engaged in the campaign against lesser daedra invaders in the area.

 

The local Aboriginals were soon hating the invaders who tried to hunt down their people like animals except the Aboriginals were better hunters in their homeland. Aboriginals had come into the new township of Mahargia with scamp and clannfear skins to trade for beer, tobacco, clothes and other items from the Clubs. Graham made sure they got generous credit except when it came to alcohol. He spent time chatting with local Aborginals, learning more about the area and they were surprised because he could talk all the local native languages fluently.

 

Twice he had gone bush with the natives and had supplied them with Lee Enfield rifles and ammo so that they could hunt kangaroos and daedra with him.

 

Brigadier Stuart got his drinks and a small card. He read it as a barmaid winked at him and walked away in a very sexy fashion. The British Officer smiled and stuck the card in a pocket of his shirt. Clearly he was not going to spend the night alone that night. Graham decided to order a basket of hot chips with some sour cream. Even as he did trouble was arriving at Mahargia in the form of a DC3 twin engined aircraft landing at the airbase.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 15, 2010 by Maharg67