From: Richard D. Sanford Jr. (maigret@ix.netcom.com) Subject: The Cruise of the _Lydia_, Part II Newsgroups: alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die, alt.tv.the-jihad Date: 1997/09/30 The Cruise of the _Lydia_, Part II Sorry that this took so long to get out, regards, Capt. Sanford. ********************************************************************** Captain Sanford lead Ironman and Shardik deep into the bowels of the badly mauled _Lydia_. There was less evidence of damage as they went deeper, but it was obvious none of the ship was ready for pressure yet. "Where are we going, Captain," Shardik asked, trying hard not to imagine just what had made those reddish-brown stains all over the corridor. "The one place aboard that I know is still pressurized, sir. Ah!" Captain Sanford gestured them into what was obviously an airlock, closed the door, and slapped a button. A loud Whoosh! announced the arrival of air in the small chamber. "You can take off your helmets, now gentles," Captain Sanford announced once a green telltale lit up. All three of them did so, and Captain Sanford opened the inner door. "Aaarrgghhh!" came a loud scream from inside, startling all three. They rushed into a room to find three people trying to strap a fourth onto a bed. The man being strapped down was fighting them off well, despite having no right arm. Captain Sanford rushed to help. "Give him 20cc of pentathol, and call me when he's under," ordered a woman who was obviously the doctor. She turned to Captain Sanford and asked, "What are you doing here, sir? I really don't need more crowding." "Need to be debriefed," Captain Sanford waved his hand towards the Legion Commander. The doctor looked at them, "All right, use my office. It's sound- proofed, and I'm not going to need it for a while." *** After turning off the sound monitors and darkening the windows, Ironman, Shardik, and Sanford sat down. "Now where have you been, Captain?" Ironman demanded, "I sent you on a three-month patrol; you've been gone for six. It upset my concert schedule to have one of my better subordinates missing for three months." "Couldn't be helped, sir. I've been chasing this thing for about that long. It was who was commanding that fleet we just tangled with, and I think you'll agree that taking him out was top priority." Shardik shuddered, "That was scary: a sponge fleet that could actually work together. What was commanding it, by the way?" "Sir, it was a *very* powerfully telepathic spongie. He was so strong that he could partially take over the minds of all the spongies in that fleet. That's why they were so well coordinated: there was only one mind at work there." Captain Sanford paused, "I've been chasing that thing from the breeding center where it was raised-which is toast now, sir-for the past three months, but it was only now that he left his back open enough for me to strike." "That sounds like a tale, Captain, and I'd like to hear it." "Sit back, Commander," he said and launched into the tale... ********************************************************************** It had begun about three months beforehand, when the _Lydia_ came out of hyperspace to check out one of the last of the star systems Legion HQ had assigned as a patrol/scouting run. "Normalspace transition complete, Captain," the Quartermaster announced. Captain Sanford looked round his bridge. The ship was at Battle Stations, all crewmembers in pressure suits, and the ship depressur- ized, while the sensors checked for nearby enemies. Captain Sanford took a sip from his facemask tube and made a face. The special solu- tion was supposed to keep you alive on nothing else for a couple of months, but taste had not been part of the design. He got out of his command chair and walked over to the main bridge sensor panel. "Anything?" "Nothing on passive sensors, sir." Captain Sanford said nothing else. He just went back to his com- mand chair and settled down for a long wait. This sort of long range scouting/exploration was one of the things the _Lydia_ had been de- signed for, but popping into an unknown system was always tedious. Well, not always, he corrected himself. Which is why my whole crew will be sitting in their pressure suits for at least two hours with nothing to do, while I try and satisfy myself that nothing is going to blow us out of the sky with no warning. Two hours later, Captain Sanford was satisfied that there were no ships in the immediate vicinity, so he secured from battle stations and called in the survey team. They set to work trying to make a decent map of the system from scratch. **** Captain Sanford groaned and thumbed the intercom whose buzzing had woke him. "Captain." "Sir, this is Lieutenant Forbes. We've found an inhabited planet, about 1.2 AU from the star." "You picked up signals, I presume," the Captain said, swinging his feet to the floor and rubbing his eyes. They were too far away to see any kind of planetary detail. "Yes, sir. It's a strange signal. Regular as a metronome." "Okay, I'll be up after I've had breakfast." **** About an hour later, Captain Sanford walked into the main sensor room, which doubled as the ship's surveying facility, to find the nav- igator, the intelligence officer, and the operations officer pouring over the data. The large scale chart already showed six planets. Once they had found one planet, finding the rest was relatively easy, since planetary orbits followed certain rules. Still, the second planet was getting the most attention. "What have you got?" Captain Sanford asked. "Sir, it's really strange," said the intel officer. "We have a complex signal that repeats itself exactly eighteen times per revolu- tion of the planet, and it appears to be broadcast from all over that world simultaneously." "A time signal?" "That's what we thought at first, but it doesn't change. If it's a time signal, why is it so complex? It could be encoding a full date and time, but then why doesn't it change from broadcast to broadcast? It's really strange. We think it's a song, but a song that's repeated to the whole planet eighteen times a day is weird." Captain Sanford pursed his lips and whistled, "That is weird. What does this...'song,' sound like?" "We'll put it on the speakers, sir." The operations officer touched a button... The melody was slow, disharmonious-but that could just be the alien musical scale-and vaguely sweet-sounding. It also sounded some- what familiar, but Captain Sanford couldn't put his finger on it...and the more he listened, the less he wanted to. "Turn it off," he ordered. "Sir, you haven't even hear-" "I said TURN IT OFF!" Captain Sanford reached for his sidearm. "Or do I have to call Major Strusser's marines?" Ops, punched the button that silenced the speakers. He looked puzzled. "Sir, what's wrong with that signal?" "I don't know, but I don't like it...and maybe you've spent a bit too much time here." Ops did look a bit haggard. "Go rack out for the next watch." Ops shrugged, said, "Aye aye, sir," and left. Captain Sanford relaxed as Ops left the compartment, but something was definately wrong with this system. **** A day later, the _Lydia_ made a short hyperspace hop to one of the planet's Trojan Points. Now they were close enough to start mapping the planet itself, and Captain Sanford was contemplating the feed from the ship's telescope on the briefing room monitor. LT Forbes, the Intelligence Officer, was giving details. "The planet rotates once every 21 hours and 14 minutes, but from those strange broadcasts, we've concluded their 'day' has 18 'hours'. We estimate surface gravity at 2.1 g's. Spectroscopy says an oxygen- nitrogen atmosphere, with a surface pressure of about 1.8 atmospheres standard. We won't know for sure if it's not poisonous until we get a sample, of course, but-" He was rudely interrupted when that strange, disharmonious music started blasting out of the PA system. "What the-? Who's playing that crap?" Captain Sanford leapt out of his chair, sidearm out. "Number one, go to the bridge and find out where that's coming from." Lieutenant Commander Holden, the First Officer, raced away. "LT Forbes, go get Major Strusser and tell him to put his troops on alert." The intercom whistled, "Captain, First Officer here, it seems to be coming from the main sensor room." "Good work, Number One. Call Major Strusser and tell him to meet me there with a squad." Captain Sanford ran out of the room. Several crewmembers tried to ask him what was going on, but took one look at his drawn sidearm and decided against it. Captain Sanford got to the sensor room only to find the door locked. Gleeful laughter seemed to come from inside. "Hello? can you here me in there? It's the Captain." A giggle, "Hi there Mr. Captain, sir. Do you like my music?" "Menchikov, is that you?" Captain Sanford made a face. It sounded like one of his best linguistic analysts had gone bye-bye. "I might like it better if you let me in." "No! not until you appologize for shutting it off two days ago." "It was yesterday." "It was?" Now the voice sounded confused, "You're just being mean! You're trying to confuse me! but I know that there's something wonderful for us all down on that planet, and I'm going to play this music until we go there." Major Strusser came up with a door ram and several well armed marines. Captain Sanford holstered his sidearm and said, "Nightsticks only, I don't think he's dangerous." Major Strusser nodded, his troops drew their billy club, and two of them grasped the ram. Major Strusser said, "On the count of three. Ready? One...two...THREE!" The door burst open when the ram struck. Three marines rushed in. Menchikov didn't even fight. He just gig- gled until LT Forbes came in and shut off the music. Then he started to cry. "What in Grimace's Name has gotten into him?" asked the surgeon, who had followed the Major's troops up. "You're the doctor. You tell me, unless..." Captain Sanford trailed off as an unpleasant thought struck. "LT Forbes, pipe that song from the planet into some headphones." LT Forbes looked at his Captain as if he'd gone crazy, but did as asked. Captain Sanford listened for a full minute, his face getting more and more purple with rage, before ripping off the headset. "Doc- tor, confine Petty Officer Menchikov to a small room. Have Good Music (tm) piped into the room continuously. Start with my Areosmith tapes and move on to Metalica and Beetoven. Menchikov is on a diet of Jolt and Doritos until I say otherwise." "Sir, that's not a very good medical decision." "It's not a medical decision. It's a despongification decision. Would you like to hear a translation of that song? The first line is, 'I luv you.'" An uncomfortable silence settled on the sensor room. ********************************************************************** To be continued. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Captain Rick Sanford, Legion of Doom, Despongification Division "Hit hard. Hit fast. Hit often." Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz ----------------------------------------------------------------------