Attack of the Evil Space Turtle

[Scottish Ninja]

Grim Thantos was a busy man. Busy enough, in fact, to decide to pass up free coffee at the near-empty McDonald’s at this end of the station. He figured it wasn’t much of a loss; after all, though it did provide such necessary elements for the survival of life as caffeine, it tasted like the shavings from the pencil sharpener.

Stepping carefully around puddles of leaking stardrive fuel and exposed, sparking wires, he slowly picked his way towards the hangar control room. Making what he later decided was “a foolish tactical error,â€

[Narsil]

Everyone else at the concert had died already, he was the only one clinging to some strain of life after that... whatever the hell it was... it was hard to call it a woman, had stripped nude onstage. Half of the audience had died of fright and shock within little more than five seconds, the rest hadn't lasted too much longer than that. He crawled into his tall blue box before collapsing in a heap against the console. A grim realisation dawned on his features.

"Oh no, I think I'm going to..." he didn't manage to finish that sentence before his white-haired and old-aged form was consumed in a flash of yellow light. As the light subsided, his hair had become an unkempt black curly style, and his features had changed entirely.

[Narsil]

THAT WAS QUITE A NARROW ESCAPE, said a voice which echoed in his skull as he recovered slightly from his sudden change in features. EVEN FOR YOU, DOCTOR.

"Oh shut up," the Doctor replied with a groan, setting the controls of the TARDIS for the most distant place he could think of. "Don't you have a train accident or something to oversee?"

NO, replied Death, OR AT LEAST NOT AT THIS MOMENT. The skeletal figure shrugged.

"Low death-rate on the Disc?" the Doctor asked as the console's large cylindrical time-rotor began moving up and down to signify the fact that the TARDIS was moving through time and space.

YES.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you," the Doctor said with a sigh of relief as the TARDIS left the concert far behind, "but Janeway's naked dancing on stage didn't kill me today, and I escaped with my life... sort of."

OH WELL, Death chuckled, THERE'S ALWAYS NEXT TIME, IF YOU HONESTLY DO BELIEVE IN THAT PERSECUTION FANTASY OF YOURS. Death made his way towards the door of the TARDIS, as more of a symbolic gesture than anything else. SEE YOU LATER, DOCTOR.

"I don't have a persecution fantasy, that man hammering on the rooftop did call me a paranoid little man in morse code!" the Doctor shouted into nothingness.

[Scottish Ninja]

Grim was the first to be scrambling back out the door. Distant crashes echoed through the halls, now mostly clear after the unscheduled vent only a few minutes before. Hugh followed him until they both stopped in front of the McDonald's.

"Free coffee?" said Hugh, "Why didn't I know about this before?"

"Shut up," replied Grim, "There's a giant murderous turtle loose on the station, if you haven't noticed... and it probably tastes like crap anyway."

"So what are we supposed to do about it? It's fairly far away; the odds it'll come this way are pretty unlikely. And I do need some caffeine." Hugh looked nonchalant. Perhaps he hadn't seen the station paper's horoscopes yet.

"Forget caffeine, we have to fight it! Somehow."

"Grim, we're a pair of hangar control officers, not security. They can handle it."

"Who's 'they'? Forget security; it'd just piss off half the people who come through here anyway. We don't have any."

"Uhh... well, we probably have some pirates, mercenaries, smugglers who are good with guns here."

"And if they recognize the threat that a giant marauding space turtle presents, you think they'll stay to fight it? They'll just take off as soon as possible and run."

"No, but I'm sure it'll corner one who'll kill it."

"That's pretty optimistic. In fact, you're very optimistic today, even though you were the first one to see the turtle."

"Go fuck yourself."

"You can do that. I'm going to try and stay away from that turtle, and barring that, we do have lots of illegal weapons shipments to play with."

[Narsil]

To call the inside of the station 'run-down' would be far too kind to the station, and rather cruel to things which genuinely are run-down. As such, it was the perfect place for a bright flash of light to pierce the air and cause a tall blue box to appear out of nowhere. Its appearance startled the immensely drunk homeless person muttering something in the corner, for a split-second, and then he forgot all about it and took a long drink of his flask.

With a click, the doors to the box opened inwards, and the Doctor, wearing his most ridiculous outfit yet, stepped out. His new outfit included a long jacket, ridiculously long scarf which looked as if he'd trip over it, and a simple hat on the top of his curly-haired head. But something about the outfit looked like it fit. Mostly because there was an overtly-eccentric glint in the Doctor's eye which seemingly dared you to say that the outfit was stupid.

He turned around to the homeless man and kneeled down, taking out a small brown paper bag. "Would you like a jellybaby?"

[Scottish Ninja]

There were no alarms on the station to speak of. There was a barely functioning PA system, through which Station Control would play a warning klaxon sound every so often to keep the residents and passersby on their toes, or tentacles, or whatever means they used to support themselves. But this never happened during any sort of actual emergency, and so far, though an enormous turtle might be construed as a major incident by some, those on the station would only consider such an attacking turtle as a minor emergency.

What Station Control was slightly more concerned with was the blue... something that had just appeared in the rear corridors of the cargo transfer zone, one of two places where the cameras actually worked, the other being in the solitary women's bathroom on the entire three kilometer station. All others had long since failed through neglect of maintenance and/or shooting.

Station Control, in fact, had few worries except for how he was going to get cat food way out here, and how he was going to get off this dump. He was a solitary man, being the only one necessary to keep watch over the entire station. Well, perhaps not the only one "necessary", in a sense, but the only one wanted to keep an eye on the populace... by which it was meant to not keep an eye on the populace.

And there was only one thing distracting him: a dirty, beat-up old grey telephone, which looked several hundred years old but still had the loudest, most annoying ring anyone could imagine. Station Control reached over and unplugged it, then, having a second thought, plugged it back in and smashed it with the crowbar he kept on hand to break into the bathroom, which was always locked.

He wouldn't have cared about what the caller was saying anyways.

Sighing, Grim put the phone away. "Station Control's not picking up," he said, to an ever more disgusted-looking Hugh, "They must have bigger problems on their hands right now."

"Like free coffee," Hugh said.

"Eh... probably not," said Grim.

Meanwhile, back in a messy, grimy room near the top of the station, Station Control saw an ad for free coffee at the station McDonald's, and diverted all other thought from his mind for a minute, until he realized that the lifts never worked and that there was no way he was walking all the way down there.

"So whadda we do know?" Hugh said, "Wait here for that turtle to come and eat us?"

"That's what you'd think," Grim said, "But no! If it comes, we run away!"

"What if it can run faster than we can?"

"It's a giant space turtle," Grim said, "Turtles can't move fast."

"Yes," said Hugh, "And there are no such things as space turtles, mothers use them to scare their kids into eating their broccoli."

"Really? My mom used to try and use giant meteors."

"You're definitely missing the point here. I do think I here smashing and screaming coming closer, so we're going to hide in this used bookstore."

"Why a used bookstore?"

"Because no one in their right mind would go into a used bookstore on this kind of station."

"Fair enough."

[Narsil]

The homeless man merely hiccuped and ignored the Doctor. Well wasn't that damn polite of him, not even a 'no thanks' or a 'yes please' but a hiccup, what kind of manners were they?! The Doctor didn't let the homeless man get to him, he merely turned around, pocketed the bag of jellybabies and made his way down the corridor, searching for the inevitably destructive and evil thing that he'd encounter in the space station. Not that he was looking for trouble, but trouble was looking for him and he hated to be inconsiderate.

[Scottish Ninja]

"I just recognized a fatal flaw in your plans," said Grim, pushing through a dense crowd of people.

"What's that?" Hugh asked.

"Well... we've got two possibilities here. One, either a number of other people have thought exactly the same way you did..."

"And?"

"...Or this station has an extremely high density of people not in their right minds."

"People aren't that stupid."

"Occam's Razor," Grim said.

"Yeah, right," said Hugh, pushing through one last wall of people into an opening. In front of him were three tables, with three lines; above, a large banner reading, "Welcome to the Karen Traviss / Kevin J. Anderson / Ann Coulter Book Signing."

"Occam's Razor," Hugh breathed.

[Narsil]

As the Doctor continued walking, he noticed a flyer stuck to the bottom of his boot which he promptly examined: Kevin J. Anderson, Ann Coulter and Karen Traviss to do booksignings on deck twelve.

"This might end up being worse than Janeway's imitation of Deepthroat."

TICK, TOCK, TICK, TOCK... Death's voice rang out in the back of his mind.

"Shut up," the Doctor said promptly.

[Scottish Ninja]

"This isn't good," moaned Grim, "I'd rather face that damned turtle than stay here!"

A terrific crash stopped him from saying any more. Hugh pulled Grim to the ground as chunks of twisted steel and plaster flew over their heads. The brand-new hole was obscured by a massive cloud of white smoke.

"What the hell? A crucial internal bulkhead has plaster in it?" said Grim, "How many corners were cut when they built this station?"

The cloud dissipated with a stentorian bellow from its occupant.

"Your wish is granted, sire," Hugh said.

"I said rather than stay here! Now I've got to deal with both!"

Indeed, no one else in the room had had cause for alarm, apparently, too overjoyed to be in the presence of their favorite authors all at once.

"You'd think the authors at least would want to save their own asses," Hugh whispered, as the enormous turtle dominated the scene in front of them.

"Well, if we go down... they just liberally apply their fans as a living wall while they escape."

"I didn't think Ann Coulter could liberally apply anything," Hugh said.

"No jokes, Hugh, there's a giant turtle five meters in front of us that's likely to, if not eat, at the very least shred the living fuck out of us."

"You know what I think? We scramble forward and go under it."

"I don't think it's that stupid. It'll just sit down."

"Great idea. Now how do we get out of here? If we wait too long those fans will trample us in their eager desire to be martyrs for their..."

"Yeah, I can't come up with a title for them either."

"Okay, back to the turtle: what if we jump on top of it? Can it get us there?"

"I don't think its head can reach, so as long as it doesn't crush us against the ceiling... dear God, Hugh, I think you've just found us the safest seats in the house. If you're good at Rodeo," Grim said.

"Yeah, I was the Rodeo Queen back in high school."

"Rodeo... Queen?"

"Don't ask. Look, I can see it's starting to tense up. Our several minutes of tense silence are up. On three... two... one... go!"

And a very confused and hungry turtle found its two supposed next victims on top of its shell, hanging on for dear life. Of course, it twisted around in a desperate attempt to remove the offending organisms, but due to an unfortunate accident in physiology whereby a turtle cannot eat things that are on its back, it could do nothing. The authors took notice of this, left their chairs, and began pressing back through the crowd.

Hugh made a snap decision to take as much advantage of the situation as he could, and slid down to a straddling position on its neck.

"Forward, Comrade Turtle!" he cried, "Forward against the legions of stupidity! Forward for justice! Forward for victoly!"

It could be interpreted at that point that the turtle, imbued with great intellect, had heard what Hugh was saying, and charged forward with the full intent to eviscerate the authors and their rabid fans, who were even now pressing forward to confront the turtle.

Or, of course, the turtle had simply realized it wasn't going to rid itself of Grim and Hugh any time soon, and decided upon the crowd as its next source of massive bloodshed.

One recalls the pair's "Occam's Razor" quote previously.

In any case, the turtle lumbered forward, battering aside with ease hastily formed infantry groups of people dressed in crude cardboard Mandalorian armor, desperately trying to activate their nonfunctional wrist-rockets. They had taken charge of the situation with fake knowledge of the military, but as the blood ran freely, many others began to doubt.

But doubt of things they believed was not a strong suit in the mass of people ahead of them, and a second wave charged forward to replace the massacred Fandos, waving ancient copies of WEG publications. The turtle was quickly swarmed, and though was easily able to chop those in front of it to pieces, had only Grim kicking people off the shell to help it on those fronts.

But even still, it had had enough, and reared up onto its hind legs before crashing down through the floor into the hardware store on Deck Thirteen.

"Maybe not so good of a move!" yelled Grim. The turtle ignored him, and tramped forwards through racks and shelves full of various tools. Grim saw, out of the corner of his eye, something drop through the hole behind them.

The turtle saw it too, and spun around.

"What-" said Hugh, completely confused.

"It's a... moose," Grim said, "I though moose only existed in legends!"

"I don't think their mortal enemies were turtles, though," Hugh said.

"Then why does it have a rocket launcher?" screamed Grim, sliding off the back of the turtle. Hugh moved just fast enough as well, diving off into a crate of drill bits several meters to the left.

There was a sudden explosion and the turtle disappeared in a cloud of dust and smoke. Somehow, the aging ventilation kicked in, blind luck perhaps, to do what it was originally built to do, and sucked away the smoke.

Revealing a hulking turtle, which was, if anything, now slightly more enraged. If a moose could show puzzlement, the one standing at the other end of the room certainly did. Hugh ducked down into his crate, wincing, as the turtle leapt past him, bounding straight for the moose.

"Damn, that thing's fast," he said, mostly to himself. Grim was already running in the opposite direction, but then paused, his eyes attracted by morbid curiosity. Just at that time, the turtle took a final leap in the air, shrugging off yet another rocket fired by the moose, turned sideways, and flicked a single, tree-trunk-like leg out towards the moose.

Grim winced. "Ouch, right in the nutsack." The injured moose flew backwards through a wall, releasing yet another cloud of debris, while Grim ran back up to help Hugh out of his crate and to pick drill bits out of his legs. But as soon as both men were back on the tiled floor, the turtle turned around.

Just before it leapt, though, a crowd of people, most of them brandishing plastic swastikas, though of course a efw clinging to their precious armor or WEG manuals, and all soaked in blood of all colors, began dropping through the hole from Deck Twelve. At first seeing nothing more than Grim and Hugh, they charged towards them.

They were rudely interrupted by an angry turtle smashing into them from the rear.

"Score!" said Grim, "They're both coming after us - but combined they bought us some time! Let's get the hell out of here!"

They ran into the stairwell, climbing up four decks before hearing voices up ahead.

"Those damned dirty fascist liberal communists!" said one, "they got blood all over my hair!"

"They're all misogynist losers," cried another, "We can't let them get away with this hate speech!"

"Talifans!" shouted a third.

"Don't worry, we'll find the people who did this and bring them to justice," said the last, "They can't get away."

With a sudden clanking, Grim perceived someone was coming down. Three someones. With submachine guns. "There they are!" shouted one of them, "Open fire!"

"Shitfuck!" yelled Hugh, jumping over the railing with enough force to land on the other side of the stairwell, putting some distance between him and his pursuers. Grim followed him, dashing around the corner and farther down. Two pursued them the conventional way, after the first undercompensated and fell all the way down the shaft, knocking his (her? (its?)) head on every railing.

Grim slammed the Deck Eleven door behind him and locked it with his Control-assigned key. Reinforced to withstand missiles, people weren't likely to break through it.

But running through the food court, eliciting a few stares, the substandard and shoddily made door, which would have trouble stopping a wet paper bag, broke open.

"Quick, this way! We'll lose them in the Cargo Transfer Room!" Grim yelled, and turned left into a whizzing mystery of chutes, conveyor belts, and small tunnels that somehow, magic, it was assumed, delivered the correct cargo to the correct ship.

[Narsil]

"Oh hello there," the Doctor said as two officers ran out of the dense maze of the seemingly infinite cargo transfer room, which stretched on for hundreds of miles despite the station only measuring roughly two and a half miles across. Rather odd, really.

The Doctor was then suddenly bedazzled by the sight of a giant space turtle slamming into the room behind him, not scratching the TARDIS, but the rude bum was now a dead rude bum at any rate. The turtle itself was covered with the bloodstained and bludgeoned remains of several Fandolorians in cardboard Mandalorian armour. That and a few Swastikas and bloodstained WEG manuals completed the appearance of this killer space turtle. Around the turtle were some still-living fandalorians and neonazis running for their lives or running after the two officers with a glint of murder in their eyes.

"Thanks," the Doctor said sarcastically, "I was hoping to avoid this lot."

[Scottish Ninja]

Grim stumbled for a second, caught himself, and said, "Who the fuck are you? And how did that damned turtle get up onto Deck Eleven so fast from Deck Thirteen?"

[Narsil]

"Why, I'm the Doctor, of course," he replied, "and you are?"

[Scottish Ninja]

"What?" Grim said, still looking at the blood-encrusted turtle lurking in the background, if something so large could be said to "lurk", "Oh, I'm Grim... Thantos, me 'n Hugh here are the main hangar traffic controllers."

[Narsil]

"Nice to meet you," the Doctor said, pulling out the familiar brown paper sack, "now would you like a jellybaby?"

[Scottish Ninja]

"Uh..." said Grim, "I... don't think... we have the time for that... right now."

Hugh was slowly edging away from the scene as well, eyeing the turtle in the background, and the odd man talking to Grim.

I really should have called in sick today, thought Hugh, imagining lying in bed and watching TV and ignoring all the screams. And the blood, though surprisingly he hadn't gotten any of it on him. Yet.

In the meantime, Grim was watching the turtle intently, as it bit a pursuing Nazi in half and flung both pieces against the wall.

"...I think the turtle's done chewing its way through the last of those people," Grim said, "and I'm getting out of here."

The turtle bellowed, and Grim jumped onto a conveyor belt leading back towards the food court.

[Narsil]

"Oh, suit yourself then," the Doctor said, following Grim, "the TARDIS will be fine without me."

[Scottish Ninja]

Grim was one of only a few people who participated in the sport of cargo transfer runs, and so he knew the fastest routes through the entire maze-like complex. Hugh had enough skills to follow him, and apparently so did this odd Doctor character (Doctor who?) who mentioned something that sounded like "retards". He couldn't figure out who that was pointed at.

Unfortunately, for all his skill in running up and down and leaping to and from conveyor belts, sliding down and climbing up cargo chutes, and dodging crates, barrels, and packages of all kinds, Grim certainly could not elude a certain large, high-velocity turtle.

He turned around, ducked instinctively to avoid a cooling pipe he'd known was there, and swung off onto the side of the conveyor belt, and dropped onto the one directly below, and started traveling in the opposite direction. Without looking to see if anyone was still behind him, he ducked into a narrow drop tunnel that he knew had an exit right behind the kitchen of a Thai restaurant in the food court.

It was with an altogether sudden crash that he slid into said kitchen, only somewhat surprising those inside.

"Ahh, we thought there were no races today, Mr. Thantos," one said.

"Unless you count running from a giant, angry, murderous turtle racing," he said, and dashed out the front.

"That might be why there was so much more gunfire and screaming today," said one of the cooks.

[Narsil]

The Doctor watched grimly as Grim and the turtle escaped into the rest of the station. He sighed and raised the TARDIS key, calling said police box to him, "Looks like I'm going to be heading them off... where are they headed?" He glanced up at a helpful signpost. "Sub-junction fourty-two."

He hopped into the TARDIS, and it promptly vanished.

[Scottish Ninja]

Hugh stumbled for a moment, and fell from the conveyor belt he was running along. Quite by chance he landed on a crate sliding down a circular chute, then suddenly realized that he was alone.

Grim had disappeared into some tunnel, the turtle had split off on a different path to try and catch him, and the odd man with the curly hair had gone from his sight as well. There was no sound now but the rumble and clank of machinery and sliding crates.

Perhaps he could just ride this crate to its destination, if it was being loaded on a small craft rather than a bulk freighter. It would be a calm day; he would simply call in sick to Station Control and the phone wouldn't be answered. Then he'd have no other troubles for the day.

Growing suddenly curious about the contents of the box he was riding, Hugh jumped off the back and steadied himself carefully on the swiftly moving belt. The top was unsealed; that was odd in itself.

Hugh paused for a moment. This was a generally lawless station; there was the major possibility that whatever was in the box, he didn't want to know.

He opened the box anyway.

Elsewhere, Grim was still running. Everyone was running in this area. Of course, the turtle wasn't there; everyone in this section of the station, except those with little experience of the area, ran, because everyone else ran.

And if one didn't run, the line at the McDonald's would be even longer when the poor soul go there. In that line, of course, there were constant fights breaking out, simply to gain one place in line. It was regarded as the galaxy's premier fighting arena. Near the counter deaths were frequent, and even, in some cases, people, the greatest heroes of combat, were able to order.

But this, then, meant holding off crowds of people behind him or her, who would turn as one and destroy the fool long before food arrived from the kitchen. This process often took ten to twenty seconds.

Grim thought for a moment about how he could perhaps defeat the turtle were he to rally those at the front of the line against it; however, he soon realized that getting to the front of the line meant nothing more than getting to the front of the line. It was clearly impossible, so he turned to the Cinnabon behind him.

Pathetically empty, he thought, and walked up to the counter.

If I am to be without a grand fighting force, Grim thought, I might as well have a cinnamon bun and some coffee.

Rounding a corner, he spotted a sign, saying nothing more than "Subjunction 42". Rather cryptic, he figured, but not as much as the station's favorite graffiti artist spray-painting "Bad Wolf" on the other side of the corridor.

Then he turned to his right and saw a giant turtle battering through people towards him.

[Narsil]

The Police Box materialised just besides the sign and the Doctor stepped out, a look of irritation on his features. 'This thing is moving awfully slow, I thought Kwik-Fit fixed it.' He turned suddenly, 'Ah, yes, you, Grim, was it?'

[Scottish Ninja]

"What?" Grim shouted, jumping back like a startled rabbit, "Where did you come from?"

[Narsil]

'Gallifrey, in a dozen or so years,' the Doctor replied. 'Or was that twenty years ago... I'm not quite sure after nine hundred years.' He shrugged and glanced at the giant turtle. 'Either way, getting in the TARDIS might be conductive for your survival in the next five or so minutes.'

[Scottish Ninja]

Hugh peered inside. Nestled in a casing of packing peanuts, he saw nothing more than another box. This one was made out of black metal; titanium with a coaled surface, he guessed. He plucked it out of the wooden crate, ate two of the peanuts - fresh, he thought, and grabbed a passing rail as it shot by.

It came with a terrific jerk, but his arm wasn't dislocated; Hugh thought he was at least that lucky. He stopped at a platform, located a set of stairs, and proceeded downwards.

Taking a look out the doorway, he realized where he was - the main docking bay. Inside the hangar the turtle first entered by.

Bodies were scattered all around, and the wreckage of at least three fighters. Hugh took careful steps past the engine coolant, over a puddle of blood, through a tangled mess of wires, and then neatly around a pile of intestines.

"Feels like Hell," Hugh said, wondering if there was anything to hear him.

[Scottish Ninja]

Grim took one more look at the turtle charging towards them, and decided to follow the Doctor.

"What is this thing?" he asked, "Some kind of teleporting box? It'll be a bit tight, but it's better in there than out here..."