Authors: Jared Martin
Sorog got up quickly from his weapon console and dashed to the centre of the command deck. Once again he activated his wrist device and directed the column of red light on the glass column right up to the ceiling, which in turn caused the ceiling light to turn red completely.
"Full power, commander," Sorog replied and walked back to his weapon console.
The Death Wheel went into full power and shot out deadly beams from both sides! Omegaton-1 put up its radiation shield and went on defence.
BURGER123 arrived on the scene of the battle.
"Wow! Everybody come and look, there's fighting going on out there!" Samuel called out to the rest of the crew.
"Where's the fighting?" Antonio pricked up his ears on hearing the word 'fighting'. He loved excitement and was not going to miss out on this one. He rushed to where Samuel was standing. Very soon, everybody joined him at the cockpit window.
"Over there, look!" Samuel pointed his finger in the direction of the battle.
"Captain, a distress signal is received," DATA reported.
"Hail spaceship commander, I am Kohn, commander of the Vokon convoy. We are under attack by big monsters. We need help," Kohn pleaded.
"I am Captain Baldwin, star-ship commander. I have seen the trouble you are in. We will do all we can to help." Before the Vokon could reply, his image on the Big Screen in BURGER123 faded away with some unintelligible sounds.
Onboard the Vokon main battleship.
"Commander, we are out of fire power," Sorog informed.
"Activate force field, maximum power!"
"Done. Those big monsters are trying to cut through us. Our force field can't hold long, Commander!" Sorog warned.
From the cockpit window of BURGER123, everybody could see the Vokon main battleship being protected by a green pulsating, spherical force field. Omegaton-1 and Omegaton-2 were using their drills and chain-saws to slice through this force field together at close proximity.
"DATA, locate targets and fire polarity gun, maximum voltage!" Captain Baldwin ordered.
"Affirmative."
The polarity gun popped out from the topsides of BURGER123, it had two spiral tubes attached to a rectangular plate supported by a firm metal rod. On activation, two spiral beams shot out at once. One spiral proton beam was aimed at Omegaton-1. Another spiral electron beam was aimed at Omegaton-2. After a brief instant, Omegaton-1 became positively charged while Omegaton-2 had turned negatively charged. Out of a sudden, these two big monsters flew towards each other and got stuck together, unable to move a single bit! Omegaton-1 transformed its conical drills into hands, and tried to push Omegaton-2 away. It managed to push a short distance before the two robots got stuck together again with a loud clang.
"DATA, fire anti-matter beam!" Captain Baldwin ordered.
"Affirmative."
A long rod was dropped from the undersides of BURGER123. Once this weapon took up position, it quickly opened up forming eight spokes, very much like an umbrella’s metal frame. Each spoke then went on to elongate until it reached a length of hundreds of kilometres. The firing mechanism at its centre sprang into action. Anti-matter beam radiated from the apertures along the entire length of each of the eight spokes of the weapon. After a short while, this weapon began to spin about its axis of rotation, increasing speed greatly within seconds. The resultant beam took the form of a solid anti-matter cylinder aimed at the pair of Omegatons!
Omegaton-1 put up its radiation shield immediately once it detected the oncoming anti-matter beam. Once the anti-matter beam struck the radiation shield, it bore through easily. The anti-matter beam hit the two big monsters squarely in the body. Numerous electrical charges flickered throughout the two monsters. In a matter of seconds, the monsters disintegrated into emptiness, leaving behind no trace. It was awesome.
At this juncture, another super-scale object came onto the scene. It was a spaceship built like a blue-whale and was one thousand times bigger than a real specimen. This colossal spaceship opened its mouth and fired a tractor beam at the Scorpion and towed it in. Soon this monster disappeared into the mouth of the spaceship. One of the extra-ordinary looking creatures inside this spaceship then broadcasted a transmission signal to all the spaceships in the vicinity.
"Greetings to all. We, Centorians, come from Sombrero Galaxy, at the edge of the Universe. We apologise for the damage our robots had caused. This was due to a programming error on our part. We had accidentally modified the robots' mission to 'search and destroy all life-forms'. The original mission was to 'search and destroy all pernicious life-forms'. We are very sorry."
"Oooo, Centorian has three round eyes hanging from its body like light-bulbs," Antonio was thoroughly amused. He was hoping to see more of such interesting aliens. Nikita and Melissa giggled helplessly.
"Your robots have done great damage," Kohn was fuming. Both his gills were flapping rapidly.
"Indeed, we have followed a trail of destruction to track them down. We have seen whole planet being wiped out and the Bosoonian civilisation destroyed," the Centorian said in a matter-of-fact voice. No emotion was forthcoming.
After apologising once again for the Omegatons' attack, the Centorians drove their spaceship away at warp speed.
"Thank you Captain Baldwin. We are grateful for your help," Kohn said.
"My pleasure," Captain Baldwin smiled.
"If you could help us in clearing up this mess, we will be most grateful to you. This territory is under our jurisdiction and we have failed in our duty," Kohn was apologetic.
“No problem at all,” Captain Baldwin said.
The surviving Vokon battleships together with BURGER123 landed on planet Goron on a flat plain near the disaster site. Planet Goron had earth-like atmospheric conditions and the percentage of oxygen was even higher than earth, at 25 percent of atmospheric composition. Captain Baldwin led the entire space team and trooped out of BURGER123. They were met by the Vokon commander, Kohn, and a few other junior commanders. After the military formalities were done away with by both parties, Kohn immediately went about giving orders to his subordinates. Captain Baldwin and our space team members waited quietly by the side for further instructions. Little Antonio was fascinated by the Vokons and being able to stare at them at close range, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He was particularly interested in their flapping fins, which kept on flapping, very much like fish fins.
Lieutenant Sorog pressed a few buttons on his wrist device and aimed his hand at the main battleship. A trapdoor opened slowly by the side and a strange-looking device floated out and up into the Goron sky. Sorog pressed another button and shot a laser beam at this device. It gave out a whining sound. Slowly, the surrounding debris and broken walls floated up into the air. All the casualties lay on the ground, waiting to be rescued. Goron buildings used a large amount of steel as reinforcements. As such, the electro-magnetic force generated by Sorog’s device was able to lift up all the debris and broken walls into the air.
Thor pressed a button on his wrist device and scanned the surrounding areas. He was looking for a building, a building suitable as a temporary hospital!
“900 kilometres north-east from here. The Proxy Radio Station. Evacuate the casualties there!” Thor commanded.
At this moment, Vokons and Earthlings needed no instructions to proceed with rescue work. They helped all the casualties into their spaceships and flew towards Proxy Radio Station. Lieutenant Sorog retrieved his electromagnetism generator before flying off. All the debris dropped onto the ground with a loud rumbling sound.
After travelling for about two minutes, the entire rescue convoy arrived at their destination, Proxy Radio Station. Working hand in hand, all the casualties were brought inside this temporary hospital. Many of them were young aliens and they were badly wounded. Some were suffering from shock and others from dehydration.
“Lieutenant Sorog, check the water and food supply!” Kohn ordered.
“Yes sir.”
“Doctor Spik, get the medical supply from our ship. You have work to do.”
“Yes commander.” Doctor Spik was the Vokon chief medical doctor.
Shortly after, Lieutenant Sorog returned and reported to Kohn that water supply is available but food supply can only last for three days.
“Calling Andromeda mission control, this is Kohn, Vokon commander 8651. Request for evacuation fleet. Planet Goron. We have 569 casualties and three days’ food supply. This is an emergency! Over,” Kohn spoke into his wrist communicator. His fins were flapping rapidly.
A short while passed before a distorted reply was received.
“This is Andromeda ... mission control. Request granted. Fleet ... arrive in three days’ ... Over.”
The Vokon medical team went to work immediately. One of these medical doctors stood out from the rest. He was slightly plump and walked in a way that resembled a penguin. He was the chief medical doctor, Doctor Spik. Antonio could not take his eyes away from him. Antonio was giggling most of the time and tugging at Samuel and whispering into his ears.
Suddenly, this doctor looked at one patient’s medical record and was very angry.
“This patient is suffering from shock and dehydration. You classified him as code blue while that one had bruises and you classified him as code red. Are you out of your mind?” He stormed. Suddenly, he adjusted his wrist device and shot a stun-ray at this junior medical doctor. Immediately, this doctor started laughing. He went on and on and could not stop. According to inter-galactic medical protocols, casualty classification used the following colour, red for serious, yellow for moderate, blue for light and black for dead. Many of the other Vokon medical doctors turned their heads and looked in this direction. Doctor Spik glared at them. They turned their heads away quickly, afraid to land up in the same fate as their compatriot. The stun-ray stimulated the Vokon nerves and its effect would last for half an hour.
Captain Jessie finally had a chance to demonstrate her superb medical skills at this moment. She treated one patient after another for nearly two hours non-stop. Captain Baldwin, Chen Wei and Mrs. Andersen helped to bring in the casualties and lay them on beds. The rest of the other kids helped around inside this temporary hospital, running errands, bringing medical supplies to doctors, cheering up patients. All except Samuel!
Captain Jessie was attending to Veah’s father. She placed her medical scanner above her patient’s chest. Before long, a detailed anatomy map was projected above the patient’s chest. It was a green three-dimensional hologram showing the internal organ structure. Every now and then, this hologram would rotate a small angle to present a different perspective to the viewer. In addition, this medical scanner had the capability to pinpoint the wounded area and direct the viewer’s attention to it by having the wounded part coloured red. At this moment, a large part of the patient’s lung was coloured red as well as a few rib-bones.
“Mmmm…, punctured lungs and fractured ribs. Going to be tough, but not without hope..,” muttered Captain Jessie under her breath.
She set herself to work in healing. First, she put the patient under general anaesthesia, after which she used a big syringe with needle and filled this syringe with some kind of organic gel. She inserted the horrific needle into the punctured lungs and set about gluing up the broken tissue. When this was done, she pumped out the excess blood to prevent the patient from suffocation. Next, she used a kind of laser-gun to mend the broken rib-bones. The laser penetrated the patient’s chest. All this while, Veah’s father was unconscious.
Veah’s bed was just beside his father’s. Veah looked on as his father was attended to by the renowned Captain Jessie, who held a doctorate degree in neural surgery! Time ticked by slowly. When Captain Jessie shut off the laser-gun and put it aside, she saw a flickering red thumb hefore her eyes!
“Samuel, I’m busy, don’t make me laugh,” Captain Jessie chided him. Samuel wore a rubbery skin over his thumb and this toy had tiny electrical circuits inside which flickered when turned on. He loved to play pranks on others. Captain Jessie proceeded to put her patient under intravenous drip. After this was done properly, she walked off to attend to the next patient.
Samuel and Antonio turned their heads and looked at Veah. Veah stretched out his hand towards his father. He wanted to hold his father's hand, but however hard he tried, he could not reach the hand that he longed to hold.
"You push that side, I push this side," said Antonio. He was standing at the foot of Veah’s bed and directed Samuel to the other end of the bed. Together, the two tiny fellows pushed with all their might. The bed hardly moved an inch. It was too heavy. Chen Wei came in at this time carrying a casualty on his back. He laid the casualty down on an empty bed and rushed over to help. The three fellows huffed and puffed and finally managed to push Veah's bed close to his father's. Veah held his father's hand tight. He shook his father’s hand but there was no response. His eyes were red and he had no more tears left.
Meanwhile, all our space team members had gathered around Veah’s bed. Looking at Veah at this moment, Nikita who was soft-hearted by nature, could not control her tears. Chen Wei was standing next to her. She turned her head and buried her face in his shoulder. Chen Wei lifted his other hand wanting to comfort her, but let it fall before touching her shoulder. Before long, Chen Wei's shoulder area was totally wet. Even Mrs. Andersen could not restrain a tear when she saw this sad scene. She had to use a tissue paper to wipe away a tear welling from the corner of her eye. She walked over to Veah and comforted him by holding his other hand.
"It's all right. Your father is sleeping. It's all right," she soothed him.
“Mrs. Andersen, Samuel make me,” Antonio complained.
“What did he make?” she turned her head to look at Samuel.
“Samuel! Stop pinching Antonio, for goodness sake,” she scolded him.
At this point in time, Chen Wei walked to the front of Veah’s bed. Out of everyone’s expectations, he began to sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars’ to Veah. Everybody in this makeshift hospital looked up from their tasks and stared at him. Seeing Chen Wei behaving in this way, Nikita thought to herself, “how charming.” Chen Wei stretched and brought his fingers together on both hands, imitating the twinkling stars. He opened his eyes wide and looked at Veah. Looking at Chen Wei’s funny expression, Veah managed a tiny smile. When Chen Wei was about to finish singing, out of a sudden, Samuel nudged Antonio. Antonio stared at Samuel and Samuel winked at him. Samuel also started to sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars’ with Antonio joining him. Both boys sang at a high-pitch and imitated Chen Wei’s actions. It was wonderful to hear them. Veah looked at these two little fellows and smiled widely. When the song ended, Veah slowly drifted to sleep holding his father’s hand. He was tired out from his ordeal.