E03: An Old Friend and a New Ally (April 28, 2016)

FreeBuild

   {Space, Orbiting Fuyoria}

{Mid March, 2096}

Jerry awoke to a steady beeping sound emanating from the Javelin's console. He fumbled about for a bit, trying to shut off the incessant noise, but he was still a bit groggy and couldn't make out much of what was going on. Presently Ron's voice piped up:

"Statement: Sir, we have reached Fuyoria. Worried: Fuel reserves are nearly depleted."

Jerry groaned and stretched his arms. "Ron," he yawned, "transfer control of the ship to the touch terminal…And shut that blasted noise off!"

Ron said nothing but presently the beeping stopped and Jerry smiled.

   Jerry's smile soon turned upside down as the beeping resumed, seemingly louder than before.

"Ron, I told you to shut that thing off," he barked.

"Defensive: I did turn it off. Frantic: Fuel reserves are depleted. We are going to crash," Ron said.

"Hold on tight, this landing might get a little rough!" Jerry said, doing his best to keep the ship upright as Fuyoria's gravitational pull went into effect.

"Informative: Sir, may I remind you of the definition of the word 'crash' according to the Galactic Imperium Standard Issue Lexicon?" Ron paused as a courtesy but continued before Jerry could get a word in: "'A violent collision, typically of one vehicle with another, or with an obstacle'. A landing, however, is the level area between two flights of stairs. Confused: Wait. Error."

Jerry said nothing but rolled his eyes. The ship was speeding up, and burst into flame as it entered the atmosphere of the jungle moon. "Brace for impact!" Jerry shouted as the ground got closer and closer to the front of the ship; though there was no one on the ship besides him who needed to do any bracing.

    The beeping grew steadily faster, sweat pouring from Jerry's forehead. The noise suddenly stopped, Jerry screamed and heard a cracking noise as his body was flung through the ship's cockpit screen. He grunted, trying to spit as dirt filled his mouth and then he remembered no more…

    Smoke filled his nostrils as Jerry awoke for the second time that day. He sat up and ran his hand through his hair a few times, spitting out dirt and rocks. He could feel blood and dirt caked on the side of his face. He realized he was in a wooden cage of some sort, and could see a tower of smoke somewhere in the distance.
He started piecing together what had happened, concluding that he must have been flung from the Javelin when it crashed on Fuyoria's jungle-covered surface. He slapped the pockets of his prison jumpsuit, searching for his pistol, but they were all empty. Ron was likely still in the cockpit, assuming he hadn't been burned by now.

    As he sat pondering, Jerry felt the touch of cold steel at his neck. Looking up, he saw a man, a bit shorter than average and clothed in simple leather garments. Jerry didn't move, figuring it was probably best not to scare the man with any sudden movements; after all, he was holding a rather large sword.

    The man said something in a strange language and Jerry heard the door of his wooden cage creak open. He stayed still as another tribe-member grabbed his arms from behind. The tribesman hauled Jerry to his feet and the two escorted him down a path through the middle of a village.
At the end of the path was a throne and on it sat a woman easily distinguishable from the others by her makeup and bright clothing as their queen. The two tribesmen forced Jerry down onto one knee before joining him in paying homage to the Queen.

    The Queen spoke something in the native tongue and the two tribesmen left.

"So, uh, who talks first? You talk first?" Jerry said after a long silence.

"Why have you trespassed in my domain?" the Queen asked, angrily.

"I assure you, your Grace, it is entirely by accident that I am even in your territory at all," he said.

"So you might say!" She said, the anger in her voice obvious. "Your magic bird set fire to two of the houses of my people! Four families were killed when you came to my world!"

    The Queen rose from her seat, her eyes glowing with rage. "*MY* family was killed!" she roared, punching Jerry across the jaw.

    The Queen's eyes still glowing, she produced a sword from somewhere. Jerry's eyes widened as the Queen swung her sword.

    The Queen swung again, Jerry rolling to the side and scrambling to his feet. Despite her slender figure, the Queen was very strong and the swing would have easily hewn his arm off. Jerry dashed down the path, the Queen close behind.

    The smoke of the Javelin wreck still rose above the trees, Jerry heading directly toward it. He looked back to see whether the Queen was still after him but what he saw only made him run faster...

    ...nearly every member of the village was in pursuit.

    Jerry burst through the trees and into the clearing of the Javelin's crash site. The ship was completely un-flyable, and still on fire. Jerry searched around the crash site for his gun but it was nowhere to be found, and he could hear the screams of the natives getting closer.
Frantically he tried to find anything that could be used as a weapon, finally settling on a sharp piece of metal. He wouldn't last long with such a weapon, but at least he would go down fighting.

    The screams grew closer and closer until finally, several tribesmen burst through the trees, armed with swords and spears. Jerry trembled a bit and took a step back. The tribesmen smiled mischievously and slowly walked toward him

    Jerry gripped his piece of metal tighter until it cut into his hands. *This is the end,* he thought. Suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, Jerry heard a roar and what sounded like metal spinning and grinding against itself.
A large, white creature jumped out of the trees and landed on the top of the Javelin's remains. He was holding a Gatling gun as large as himself. The natives knew what that meant and turned to run, but the creature's gun had finally warmed up and he let loose a barrage of lead. Trees, brush, and tribesmen alike were cut down by the hail of bullets.

    When the natives had been thoroughly butchered, the creature grabbed Jerry by the collar of his jumpsuit and dragged him away from the crash site. When they were a reasonable distance from the crash site, the creature pulled Jerry to his feet.

"You got a lot of nerve coming back to Fuyoria," the white creature said.

"Wait," Jerry began, and rubbed his eyes, "Satch? Satchel is that you?"

    The white alien only smiled and laughed before wrapping his immense and furry arms around Jerry. Jerry returned the embrace with his much smaller and less furry arms.

"Jerry!" Satchel exclaimed, "Good to see you!"

"Good to see you too, Satch," Jerry said as Satchel squeezed the breath out of him. "You're---choking me---"

    Satchel let go and Jerry coughed and gasped for breath.

"Sorry, mate," Satchel said, "Let's get back to my house, we'll be safe and you can tell me what you're doing here."

"Sounds----good. Yeah. Real good," Jerry coughed.

    Jerry followed Satchel through the jungle until they came to a small house. It was Satchel's house, and he had lived there for quite some time.

"So," Satchel began, pouring a drink into a mug, "looks like you've been back to Orris."

Jerry looked down at his prison jumpsuit. "Yeah," he began, "but I got out."

    "I told you not to take that job alone, Jerry," Satchel said, taking a seat at the low table.

"I didn't have a choice, Satch," Jerry said defensively. "You know what I do, and why I do it. It's not that I want to work alone, I have to."

"You don't have to, Jerry," Satchel said, smiling a bit. Jerry sighed. "Anyway," the white alien began again, "what are you doing on Fuyoria?"

Jerry took a deep breath and began to recount his tale: "A few weeks after I got locked up, Aurelia made a bombing campaign against the prison, I was able to escape in the confusion but not without taking some damage. My mission was to get that ship to Zarus and deliver the technology into the hands of 'True Aurelia'. Anyway, like I said, we took some damage and didn't have enough fuel to make it to Zarus. I thought we could make it to Fuyoria and you'd be able to help us. As you can see, that didn't turn out so well."

"I don't suppose delivering a destroyed ship would be of much use, would it?" Satchel asked sarcastically. Jerry grinned a bit.

    "By the way," Satchel said, standing up and reaching for something in a box of spare parts, "I found Ron amongst the wreckage of your ship. He's a bit scuffed up, but I imagine he'll work just fine."

"You found him!" Jerry exclaimed, taking the robot from Satchel. "I was worried he'd been burned to a crisp."

Jerry flipped the switch to power Ron.

"Statement:" the voice emanated from the robot, "Greetings--fzzzt--, I am Rock, your--fzzzt-- of--fzzzt---and murderous capabilities. Fzzzt---Error. Systems have--fzzzt--damaged. Please reboot your robot."

Jerry entered the manual reset on Ron's interface and set him down on the table.

    After a few moments of silence, Jerry turned to Satchel. "Do you have a comm device?" He asked.

Satchel said nothing but grabbed a commlink out of his pocket and passed it to Jerry. Jerry dialed in a few digits and a few seconds later someone answered: "Who is this?" the voice said.

"Goldilocks to Papa Bear," Jerry said.

"This is Papa Bear," the voice said, "What's the status, Jerry?"

"Critical mission failure," Jerry sighed, "the Javelin has been destroyed in an emergency crash landing on Fuyoria."

Papa Bear remained silent for a few seconds before saying: "We need to speak in person. Meet me on Qoter."

"I'm stranded on Fuyoria, how am I supposed to get to Qoter?" Jerry asked, obviously vexed.

"You're resourceful," Papa Bear said, "You'll find a way." And with that the call ended.

    Jerry handed the comm back to Satchel.

"You don't have to work for him, you know," Satchel said, placing a hand on Jerry's shoulder.

"Yes I do," Jerry said softly. "This is the only way. I can't let what happened to me happen to everyone else."

"That wasn't your fault, Jerry," Satchel said.

"Let's talk about this some other time," Jerry said. "I need to get to Qoter."

    "Don't worry," Satchel said, smiling, "I have a plan."

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Author's Note:

Yay, finally posted this episode. A few times I tried and thought the uploader was screwed up but turns out my pics were just too big, lol. Anyway, I wanted to try something new with the outdoor pics. It seems to have worked pretty well for the effect I wanted (Can't recommend it though, it's a real pain to keep the minifigs from falling over and stuff. Plus mosquitos...). I also played around with editing some of the faces, inspired by Kermunklin . Anyway, let me know what you think of the episode!