Return to Throneworld

Finally, the Danger Sled peeled out of warp. It had been a long, uncomfortable ride with Queen Galacta giving Private Hudson and me an icy stare the entire trip. I tried my best to concentrate merely on flying, but it was not easy with her onboard.

Hudson, for once, tried to keep his mouth shut. Occasionally he would look over at me and almost try to say something, but then give up or find himself unable to speak just as quickly.

As we decanted out of warp, something felt unusual. I had a difficult time putting my finger on it, and I wasn’t sure if I could describe it. I looked over at Hudson who may have also felt the effect.

“Did you just feel that?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he replied. “It was as if I just ate a whole can of Easy Cheese and someone smacked me in the gut.”

“Gentlemen…” the Queen said sternly.

“Your Highness, there may have been an anomaly as we dropped out of warp,” I stated to her. “I am checking the readings now. Odd, I don’t detect anything unusual at all. No energy readings or sensor data showing anything out of the ordinary.”

“Let me see,” Hudson started punching buttons from the copilot’s seat. Of course, they probably didn’t show him anything except for pretty blinking colors as I had disabled the control panel on his side. “Yeah, I, uh, don’t see anything either.”

“Something does not feel right,” Galacta affirmed. “I can feel it now. Throneworld is not as we left it.”

I checked my readings again. “The chronometer shows that we are within the correct timeframe from when we departed. We are coming into range of Throneworld, there seems to be a lot of something down there. Can’t tell what, though.”

“All is not right on Throneworld,” the Queen strained to look through the cockpit’s windshield. “Where is the traffic? There are no spacecraft in orbit. There aren’t even any satellites in orbit.”

As I plunged my spaceplane into the atmosphere, I scanned a whole spectrum of frequencies on the communicator. I was, however, unable to find any transmissions coming from the planet.

“Oh man…” Hudson mumbled to himself.

“I’m not getting anything,” I said in disbelief. “No communications, no infrared patterns that would match mechanical power sources – wait, something coming in on radar.”

“What is that?” Galacta pressed her hand against the side view port and looked out. “It looks like some sort of flying worm.”

“Flying worm?” Hudson asked. “Yuck.”

“Whatever it is, I have no way of communicating with it.” I snapped a few buttons and activated the copilot’s controls. “Hudson, keep your hands on the guns, this may get rough.”

“You got it!”

With a tremendous crash, something slammed into my ship. It was followed by several more somethings. From the direction opposite of the flying worm, several small creatures were flying straight at us.

“It’s a Kamikaze run!” I shouted. “They’re deliberately crashing into us to bring us down!”

As I attempted to maneuver my ship away from this assault, Hudson fired the turret at the enemy. Using sharp turns and rolls, I was able to outmaneuver the suicide creatures, but the flying worm then began its attack.

“He’s spitting some sort of exploding something at us!” Hudson bawled. “Oh man, game over!”

“Not yet it isn’t,” I gritted through my teeth. I continued my evasive maneuvers and Hudson continued firing the blaster cannon. The exploding creatures took their toll on the Danger Sled, though, and power levels soon began to fall.

“Come on!” yelled Hudson. “Come get some!” His shots took out wave after wave of the exploding monsters.

“We’re gonna hit dirt!” I yelled. Through the windshield, the ground loomed towards us. The flying worm was joined by several more of his kind, all firing down at my smoking ship. I pulled with all my might and the Danger Sled turned and shot parallel to the ground.

“Look out! Canyons!” Hudson pointed and his jaw dropped.

“I see ‘em!” I flipped the plane on its side and flew into the narrow passageway. The flying worms ascended higher to attempt to rein fire down on us, but they were forced to pull up even higher when a huge explosion erupted from within the canyon.

Satisfied that their prey had been destroyed, the creatures flew away.