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Humpday 15

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Artwork by: :iconshimmering-sword:

Written by: :iconryat66: and :iconatomskmaster6:

The overall setting: :iconangel-fallsda:


General Bardak, Ultrawoman
and Walkiria are owned by and
used with the permission of:

:iconatomskmaster6:, :iconu1trawoman:, :iconteri-minx:

Story concept by: :iconandrewr255:

<The story takes place just prior to the Trial of Genocide>
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BOOK TWO: NO HOLDING BACK, SSW VS. UW

Angel Falls Time, 2:15 pm, Wednesday



In a world as amazing as Earth, with all of its mad scientists, supervillains, superheroes, bizarre mutants, monsters, fantastical magicians and all sorts of other exceptional happenings, the threat of extraterrestrial conflict could not be ignored. They could be traders, explorers, and they could even be invaders. Or they could be more singular threats, like Ultrawoman, crashing into the planet to cause their own little pockets of infamous mayhem.

This was why he was out here, in the void. Alvaro Bardak’s ship’s sensors were the most advanced on the planet, and not without reason. He and his ship were from an alternate future, one in which humanity had fended off an invading alien species and harvested their technology, then created the United Republic of Earth. Circumstances had led to his being here, however, on a different Earth, in a different time.

As part of his agreement to joining the Guardians, he was contracted to run patrols outside Earth’s atmosphere, patrolling the regions above the U.S. Often, this assignment caused the General to sigh in frustration. It was inefficient and a waste of his resources. Still, it couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t fathom the sort of destruction that would be brought if he were to introduce his advanced technology to this chaotic world.

Sometimes, he wondered if it was even worth the trouble. He’d seen the experiments Polygirl had been conducting and had helped raid a few of the labs of various mad scientists. He’d even heard of a few geniuses employed by the militaries of the world developing technologies akin to his own, though considerably less advanced, without the need of extraterrestrial salvage.

So far, however, they had been remiss to look to the heavens. This Earth was so centered on what was happening on the ground, under it, and in the sea, they paid little concern to what was happening between the stars. Why should they? The distance between stars was far longer than any one of them could survive traveling. They may as well just work on stabilizing their own world and forget about interplanetary and interstellar flight.

Bardak sighed. ..He wondered if this world was slated for invasion by the Teraisians as well, not to mention all the other hostile extraterrestrials out there, too, all hungry for a resource-rich planet full of viable slave labor. Though, things didn’t seem so grim, knowing that there are other alien races that have faced similar problems as humans did and lived by a similar code of ethics.

He gripped the rail next to the helm and felt his knuckles turning white. Such disregard for anything with sentience always irked him. Everybody who displayed a penchant for independent thought deserved a chance to live, he reasoned, so long as they weren’t obviously being a threat to everybody else.

He was musing these thoughts when his sensors picked up an energy spike on the lunar surface. He was already curious about the moon after detecting a fading trail heading for Earth, but by the time it hit the atmosphere, it had been jumbled up in the mix of everything else and he lost it. Whatever it had been, it looked like it was heading to Angel Falls. He’d sent a signal back to the Guardians, telling them to stay on full alert, and resumed his patrol.

Now, something near where he figured that trail had originated was causing his sensors to beep and get his attention. He punched a few buttons into the helm console and brought up the readings from the scanners.

Whatever it was, it was big. The general was a little aggravated that his sensors hadn’t picked it up before. He’d have to recalibrate them, perhaps even try to get them adjusted. He already didn’t like the thought of finding a trustworthy engineer to help him.

He brought the ship into low orbit over the moon and approached the anomaly. The signal was getting stronger as he approached, but much more than it should have. Something was charging up, and he had a few thoughts as to what it could be. He keyed the sensors to provide a more in-depth analysis of the energy readings to give him a readout of the makeup of what was activating.

When he crested the crater that was masking the presence of Ultrawoman’s base, he almost wished he hadn’t. The readings came back to him in a flood. The crater had been shielding most of the radiating fields from the super weapon lifting out of the ground and aiming for the planet’s surface, the base itself looked like a pile of boulders and natural rock formations. He didn’t need the readouts anymore; he knew this was bad news.

The cannon’s muzzle brightened and he knew something bad was happening. No ransom demands had been made, no announcements to the surface; the Guardians would have sent a message to him to let him know of the trouble.

No, this was a demonstration. Lives were at risk.

Alvaro brought up weapons control and armed a full array of torpedoes. Running a calculation, he picked a target and fired a volley, praying that he was on target.

As the missiles hurtled toward the cannon, it fired. The beam slammed right into the lead missile and detonated it. A massive, brilliant explosion engulfed the other missiles and detonated them as well. The eruption was a bright cascade of light as an unexpected chain reaction blasted across the void in a great wave of burning plasma.

It shouldn’t have been that epic. A beam of that size and intensity should have just engulfed the torpedoes and moved on to its target. Something was in the beam that caused it to react violently to the sudden intrusion.

When Bardak’s blast shield finally receded, he saw that a hole had been scorched into the crater. The scanners were indicating something strange in the blast zone as well. As he saw the readouts, his brow furrowed as he tried to place where he’d heard of such a transmuting process.

Lifeless rock was now showing signs of a complete compositional overhaul, as if it were now made of organic parts as well as its original minerals. However, it was all wrong, broken apart and incomplete. It was decaying at an exponential rate and turning into little pools of dead black mass that just settled like death.

He was glad the wave hadn’t come close to his ship, fading as its energy was sucked into the void of outer space. Realizing that it was part of a process known as terraforming, he understood that even his ship wouldn’t have been able to withstand the altering of the hull’s composition.

“Unknown lunar base!” he announced through his communications system on all channels he could broadcast, “This is General Alvaro Bardak, of the Guardians. You have committed an unprovoked assault on Earth! Power down your main gun and surrender or you will be fired upon.”

“General?” he heard a hard feminine voice reply, “Who promoted you? I’m certain I would have remembered the fanfare for that!”

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Ultrawoman couldn’t believe it. Her opening volley was obliterated because some speck of a ship had tried to destroy her cannon. She checked the readout on her monitor and saw that the weapon had sustained some superficial heat damage, but was otherwise functioning properly. She would have to check on it.

“Ultrawoman, you should look at this as a chance to give up this mad scheme!” Walkiria gasped, “Please!”

“I’m going to settle this,” the villainess replied sourly as she hovered over to the security console and started typing, “Whoever that bastard is, I’m going to show them what happens when they mess with MY dominion…”

That was when Bardak’s announcement came in over the communications channel. Ultrawoman turned to Walkiria, arching her eyebrow a little in confusion. She responded and waited a moment for his flabbergasted return.

“Ultrawoman?” his voice came back through, full of surprise, but also disdain; not the fear she was accustomed to, “What do you think you’re doing? Do you know what a weapon like that will do to Earth? I thought you were a conqueror, not a destroyer!”

“I am a conqueror, Bardak,” she said sternly, purposely leaving out his title, “And this is me, conquering. Earth needs a queen to protect it from all those hostile species that view this planet as a harvest. These humans could not survive for a minute against the horrors of the galaxy. You of all people know what’s out there and you know this planet is ripe for the taking in the eyes of hostile species. I am going to reform the Earth into a suitable planet that can defend itself then establish my Dominion with me has its Empress. You’re little ship is the only thing standing in my way, General, and I’m not going to tolerate it anymore.”

“I knew you were crazy but I didn’t think you would be this insane. I’ve seen what it’s like in the galaxy and you couldn’t be any more wrong. There are other species that live by ethics and moral code, just like humans live by. Your cannon will not shape the Earth, it will destroy it and you will rule over a vast amount of debris. I will not allow this to happen…You will be stopped.”

“.”

Vyr-Na couldn’t help herself and she started chuckling. While they’d been talking, she’d been keying up the base’s defenses. Across the perimeter of the base, turrets pushed out of the ground. Like the base, they were constructed to blend in with the surface, appearing to be nothing more than boulders.

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General Bardak targeted the cannon again and prepared another volley of torpedoes. The energy levels inside the weapon were dramatically lower than they were when he detected it, he figured it would take a great amount of time for it to recharge.

An alert came up and he saw that the base was not defenseless. Cursing to himself, he redirected his targeting, sighting in on the cannons that suddenly popped up below the cannon and triggered them to fire.

The torpedoes hurtled toward their targets and were shot down in a barrage of energy blasts. The pilot wasn’t settling with just that assault, however, and had followed up the volley with a series of blasts from his own cannons. Energy beams crisscrossed through the sky and he felt his ship shudder with the impact.

He struck one of the turrets with an ion pulse and it shut down. However, his ship was struck many more times and the hull was breached. He could hear Ultrawoman’s laughter over the communication system and he shut it down.

The beams were so intense from those cannons; they were chewing right through his deflector screens. Gritting his teeth, he fired a last volley at the remaining turrets and took control of the helm. He swung the vessel around and pushed the throttle, lurching the ship to the other side of the crater’s wall.

The ship was rocked with another blast and alarm klaxons sounded again. He looked up to the monitor and his heart sank. The engines were failing, the ship was shutting down. The good news, however, was that he had crested the lip of the crater and now the defensive cannons couldn’t strike him anymore.

All that was left was to use the last of the ship’s failing power to slow his descent. If he didn’t, it would be torn to pieces in the resulting crash, which was now a foregone conclusion.

He diverted power to the landing thrusters and ignited them. He could feel the vessel shudder around him as portions of the hull strained against the sudden shift in force.

The next minute and a half was tense. He watched the lunar surface approaching and his power levels dropping. His speed was still worrying; it never seemed to decrease only accelerate.

Finally, the vessel struck the surface and he was rattled inside his seat. The straps that held him broke and he crashed into his helm control. Everything went black and the motion suddenly stopped.

Alvaro, while quietly groaning in pain, blinked in the darkness, wondering if this was the end.

Red lights flicked on as the emergency back-up system came to life. Basic systems fired up, such as life support and communications, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He pulled himself out of his helm controls and slowly rose.

He didn’t know what was happening, but he was the only person in a position to stop it. He made his way first to the communications array and keyed up the emergency signals. He queued the distress beacon and prayed the Guardians would receive it. He tried to send a message to the headquarters, telling them what happened, but all he got was static in response. He didn’t know if anybody could hear him.

From there, he went into the armory and retrieved his sword and his blaster. He also took a few extra energy packs and extra air capsules. The oxygen readout showed that the atmospheric and pressurization systems were still functioning fine in his outfit and he would be able to make the trek to the base.

“Alright, Ultrawoman,” Alvaro sighed as he adjusted his helmet and waited for the seals to sync up, finally finishing with a tinny stereo voice through the helmet’s voice emitters, “I’m not finished with you yet…”
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Continued:
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AppleCottie's avatar
Awesome! Pure awesomeness. I liked your photo so much I am using as background for my version of the inside of an reptilian /alien space ship.