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Post by Norris on Feb 11, 2005 2:35:48 GMT -5
Corporal looks over to a door marked with the words "MALE RESTROOM" on it. "You're standing in front of it," Corporal remarks. "I'll wait for you before we get going."
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Post by Kooshmeister on Feb 11, 2005 5:19:56 GMT -5
"Thank you," Renfield says and then quickly goes inside. Once he's alone, he finally opens his tightly-shut eye, which, without the special contact lens, looks nothing like a hare's eye. His real pupil is tiny, beady, and black, and the white of the eye itself is more of a jaundice yellow than white. "I'm gonna have to tell Wartmon to get me some new lenses."
After taking a moment to carefully replace the lens into the eye to make it resemble a hare's again, and thanking his lucky stars that no one caught a glimpse of his uncovered eye, he washes his hands out of habit and then returns to Corporal in the hall. "All right," he says, addressing the Captain, "let's go. Chairman Warner said he wanted me back as soon as possible."
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Post by Norris on Feb 12, 2005 3:49:08 GMT -5
"Very well," Corporal leads Renfield to a cobwebbed docking bay not used in years. "What I am about to show you, you must never reveal to anyone." Corporal whispers as he steps inside.
Standing inside the decaying bay is a large grey spacecraft, roughly 450ft in length. The body is mainly cylindrical, with a detachable bullet-shaped cockpit at one end, and a tailfin above the massive rocket engine. On the two wings are enormous fuel tanks painted red and yellow, with ensigna depicting the ships' number "XL6".
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Post by Kooshmeister on Feb 12, 2005 7:09:55 GMT -5
Following Corporal, Renfield beholds the strange-looking vessel. "I've never seen a ship like this one before, Captain," he says, then eyes him suspiciously, but gives a good-natured chuckle. "Something you've been hiding from us in the Security Council?"
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Post by Norris on Feb 12, 2005 13:49:56 GMT -5
"More or less, yes," Corporal sighs heavily. "This is what I was contemplating about in the bar. This is a vintage 2059 World Space Patrol "Fireball" vessel. I was once it's pilot." Corporal takes a deep breath as he tells his life-story.
"I'm from the 21st Century of Planet Earth, and after a lengthy career between Railway Museums and the Galactic Police, I joined the WSP at the rank of Sub-Lieutenant, or Ensign if you will. I was assigned to Fireball XL6, but after her sister ship, the XL13, caught fire, XL6 was grounded after they thought I'd opened fire on her. With nowhere else to go, I left Earth in XL6 and have no intention of returning, especially as anyone will do anything to recieve $500,000 (£277,777) reward money. I was soon caught in a black hole and ended up in the Aniverse. That's when I met Captain O' Hare, who commisioned Fireball XL6 as a Rescue Ship, but she's never flown since that day. After that, I was assigned here, starting from Ensign and I worked my way up to Captain, but the thought of never being able to see your own planet again is painful."
Corporal tries to hold back his tears a bit, and then turns to Renfield. "Speaking of secrets, Lieutenant, what happened to your eye to make it turn yellowish like that? Did you get caught in an ultramagnetic beam, or were you born with it?"
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Post by Kooshmeister on Feb 12, 2005 18:24:31 GMT -5
The young hare listened intently to everything Corporal had to say, although not without a hint of impatience and a barely-contained urge to suggest they get underway, which shouldn't strike Corporal as too surprising considering the Lieutenant's homeworld was currently being threatened by the toads.
"I'm sorry to hear," he said. Chewing his lower lip and leaning with one hand against the hull of the "Fireball", he added, against his better judgement, "And believe it or not, I know how you feel, Captain. I mean, that feeling of belonging and yet not belonging and all that."
The question about his eye caught him off guard. He hadn't thought Corporal had noticed it in the split second it was open when the contact lens had popped out, but obviously the hairless baboon had sharper eyes than Renfield had first anticipated, and this worried him. Still, he kept his cool. "Oh, that. I was... born with it," he told him, and it wasn't a lie. "I don't really like to talk about it, though, you understand."
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Post by Norris on Feb 13, 2005 3:58:32 GMT -5
"I understand indeed, and I'm sorry," Corporal replied. "Shall we get underway?"
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Post by Kooshmeister on Feb 13, 2005 10:33:50 GMT -5
"Yes, let's," Renfield responded with a smile.
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Post by Norris on Feb 14, 2005 2:45:10 GMT -5
Corporal heaves something out of the darkness, and they appear to be a pair of jet-propelled machines in the shapes of motorbikes. As Corporal dusts of the cobwebs, he points to an open hatch atop of the XL6's hull.
"These are Jetmobiles," Corporal chokes on some dust. "They'll fly us inside the ship and we can get going."
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Post by Kooshmeister on Feb 14, 2005 8:57:04 GMT -5
"I see," Renfield says, taking mental note of all of all of this as he, rather unsteadily, climbs onto one of the Jetmobiles.
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Post by Norris on Feb 15, 2005 2:38:33 GMT -5
The jetmobiles hover into the shaft and into the ship. As the titanic vessel has not been used in a long time, much of the interior is dusty and heavily laden with cobwebs. Discarding the Jetmobiles, Corporal slams the shaft firmly shut, and moves into the one-seater cockpit, with another chair lying in the background for passengers.
Clearing the seat of any dust, Corporal sits down and speaks into a small microphone next to him. "Andrew Norris". he speaks, and the radio suddenly crackles. "Voiceprint positive, Sub-Lieutenant Andrew Norris, XL6 online." At once, the machinery on board the craft comes to life, and Corporal looks over to Renfield. "Hold on tight!"
With a roar and whine of age-old rocket engines, the mighty XL6 picks up speed and moves out of Orwell doing top speed (Half that of hyperdrive).
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Post by Kooshmeister on Feb 15, 2005 12:50:20 GMT -5
Renfield seats himself in the passenger's seat, and, if there are any restraints, he certainly makes sure to buckle himself in, for the moss-green hare has an uneasiness about space travel that is quite uncommon and, in fact, downright bizarre in a culture where intergalactic travel is the norm.
Regardless, he has since accepted that his job as a representative of the Security Council, not to mention his frequent moonlighting that only he and a select few non-Council members are aware of, requires him to travel often.
Thus, he grits his teeth and bears it as Corporal fires the engines, Renfield gripping the armrests of his seat as the ship leaves the space station; it's takeoffs that unnerve the hare the most, and once they're actually in motion he'll he alright.
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Post by Norris on Feb 16, 2005 2:39:36 GMT -5
Once out of the station, the XL6 seems to be fine when suddenly...
"Calling any UAC ship, this is Captain LaFleur," a desperate vocie calls out. "There's Toads skulking about on the Genus Military Railway. They keep talking about someone called Renfield Billings. Whether it's an assassination plot I don't know, but can any ship in the vicinity please respond?"
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Post by Kooshmeister on Feb 16, 2005 8:44:20 GMT -5
Renfield was just beginning to relax when he suddenly heard that transmission, and he suddenly sat forward, wide-eyed, forgetting that Corporal was even there, and said, "WHAAAAT?!?!"
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Post by Norris on Feb 17, 2005 2:32:20 GMT -5
"Jumping Jupiter, these Toads are certainly a queer lot." Corporal mumbles to himself, until he notices Renfield shouting in the background. "Are you alright, Lieutenant?" he asks.
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