The Quest for Pluvium
After 2.7 billion galactic years of warring with each other over vital minerals and the depleting supply of Pluvium in the unknown universe, the Venusians and Martians decided that they would join forces and invade a distant black hole called Cambria.
Pluvium powered and defined all the civilisation of both the planets, without it both planets would die as their life support systems failed. One grain of Pluvium was as precious as a Venusian princess or prince. Martian prince’s and princesses were a different matter, they were worth a mine of Pluvium. No one knows why this difference persisted. Perhaps it was because Martian Prince's and Princesses had multiple breeding orifices unlike regular Martians who had to apply to the government to breed and install an orifice.
The spoils of this grand invasion would be shared equally between the two planets. They hoped that the other would stick to this compact, though neither truly believed the other would really stick to it.
The Martians being a destructive, warlike race decided that they would destroy humankind and plunder the planet for its Pluvium wealth. This was allowed under The Bash It and Mash It Guide of the League of Superior Races which was made up of the inner planets of their known universe.
The Venusians being more cerebral and, they considered a more intelligent race, lodged their invasion plans with The Plan It Before You Leap Committee as: An initial integration, A plundering of Pluvium, then total annihilation of the stupid peoples of Cambria. The PIB-YLC agreed to this plan, the planet of Cambria was considered a minor consideration in the ancient civilisations of the inhabited worlds.
The race was on to see who would win and gain the vast resources of this minor dot, this rude intruder, on the edge of their known universe.
The Venusians had hacked in to the vast amount of broadcast traffic that was being transmitted from Cambria and a small island off the continent of Europa called Anglia. They had built a superior technology that amplified the signals from all social media on Cambria in an attempt to learn the ways of the Cambrians. They knew that every race throughout the galaxy used noise to communicate with each other. This noise they would use to their advantage. To this end they began to teach themselves the language used in those radio broadcasts received and learn the ways of the people they were about to conquer. They would use humanoid names gleaned from social media to integrate with the races on Cambria.
The Martians, they knew would just invade and destroy all humanoids. That begged the question as to how they would find the Pluvium on the planet without local knowledge. Both of their planets had oceans of the clear white form of Pluvium, it was the lower form of the mineral they both needed. Cambria had vast oceans of the mineral, some underground, some just below the surface. The idiot Cambrians had no idea how to use the mineral to its full extent.
The great adventure began with the launch of two invasion craft, one from Mars and one from Venus. The Venusians took off and landed at the same time as the Martians on Cambria. Both ships were built to stand the rigours that the Cambrian planet would exact on the occupants. The craft were to be their homes for the duration of the invasion. Both craft were filled with the dense green gel that allowed them to breathe, both races called it Oxymoron. It was the one of two words they both agreed on. The word for death in Venusian was ‘nickedlife’, in Martian ‘goneaway’; invasion, however was ‘crapspread’ in both languages.
The Venusian invasion force decided that they needed local names because their names on Venus would be unpronounceable to the Cambrians. The Martians, well they were Martians, they had no plans to integrate, none at all. The Venusians carefully gleaned their names from the user profiles on social media.
Therefore, Olly Gark, Giles Brandreth, Vincent Van Rouge and Justin Joyit were now the elite avant-garde of the Venusian Earth invasion force.
“Kleep baa rama telip dara nera?” Olly Gark the ship’s commander said out loud to no one in particular. He often did things like that, it made him, in his eyes all powerful and always listened to.
“We need to speak in the local lingo Sir.” Justin Joyit the ship’s second in command said, then added, “We need to practice it.”
He liked lingo, a cockney translator had shown him that word.
He had spent hours practising in front of VenuSpeak ™ mirror so he had the Cambrian language under his belt.
“Gor blimey, aw reet, ey up lad. Appen.” He said out loud, just to show he had done his homework.
“Ma heids mince.” Vincent van Rouge was trying to upstage Justin.
“The shadow of my smile, get out damned spot.” Was all Giles could remember from all those hours in front of the VenuSpeak ™ mirror.
In fact, all the crew had tried to closely study the language in use on Twitter and Facebook and were attempting to perfect it. That was before their commanders had brought forward the invasion plans. Pluvium levels were at crisis point on both planets, they only had twenty grains left on each planet.
“Oh, Gala, erm, OK. Has anyone seen my Invisible Volume Disrupter?” Olly Gark asked again to no one in particular this time in English. He often asked questions like that, almost rhetorical in their content but really, they were a plead for some help.
“It’s where you last had it…..LOL” Justin Joyit replied with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. It was his eastern Venusian way; taciturn and often sarcastic.
“That’s a very Martian answer if I may say so, but a nice use of LOL.” Olly replied, he thought for a bit then added, “Should I have replied ROFL?” and stifled a laugh. His whole body shook and wobbled as he did so.
Justin didn’t answer; he considered it to be a stupid question and anyway he was busy studying a map on his navigation screen.
“If it’s invisible….” Vincent Van Rouge ventured; giggled and sat back in his navigation chair. He folded his six arms across his chest and waited for the inevitable comeback from Olly.
“Pluto knows how we are going to invade this planet with idiots like you on the team.” Olly spat out and flopped resignedly back into his navigation chair. His eight arms flailed around his body in mock anger then settled one by one by his side as he relaxed. Olly had eight arms because he was a leader, all the other crew had six arms. Six arms were the norm for Venusian invasion crews. However, Olly was a super elite, eight armed Venusian. All his fathers had been princesses.
Olly felt under his belt and his bulging belly hanging over it, and found the missing IVD, it was tucked in one of his fleshy folds under his utility belt. He said nothing in case the crew thought him an idiot.
Meanwhile Vincent Van Rouge was busy downloading Cambrian Google Maps on to his Big Invasion Navigation screen. The Venusian version of VenuGoogol ™ didn’t work outside the planet’s orbit. A bit of a faux pas when invading other planets, he thought. The locator pin on the map showed him exactly where they were.
“Our Planet co-ordinates show we are 4 Planet Units from a humanoid habitat called Barnsley.” he looked down at the screen again and moved the cursor across the screen,
“We are beside a Martian canal like structure called the M1. It probably accounts for the rumbling noises. The water will pass like a canal does back home.”
Olly nodded at that information and VenuToothed™ his device to Vincent’s screen.
“Hmmmm.” he uttered in an attempt to sound like he knew what he was looking at.
“Hmmm, we should be able to launch an invasion from this place.” He looked down at the screen again not really knowing where he was or what the big noisy canal meant.
Giles Brandreth sighed out loud and tapped two of his arms on the arm of his navigation chair.
“Problem Giles?” Justin Joyit the second in command spun round and faced Giles. His arms slowly fell one by one to his side. He tucked one arm under his utility belt and looked at Giles.
“It’s hardly Milton Keynes is it? You know, the centre of the island….” Giles sounded petulant. He had studied Planetary Geography at the Muntjac University in western Venus. It was an elite university and only took the very best of Venusian society; he thought he should be second in command; he had the breeding. He also knew exactly where they were: way up north. Beyond Watford and ultra-civilisation.
“Just do your job! You mange-tout of a man!” Justin spat out the words and looked down at his screen, he had no idea what he had just said.
Olly overhead the moan and decided to make a command decision to interrupt the bickering.
“We can always scatter our forces far and wide.” he said and moved four of his arms across his chest and thought for a few moments. He had no idea where Milton Keynes was or how far away it was from Barnsley, or where Watford was, or even for that matter why Giles had mentioned it.
“I suggest a pincer movement to annihilate the opposition.” he half uttered and half said. He didn’t really want to be heard in case it was stupid suggestion. It was a stupid suggestion, he knew it, they all knew it. Pincer movement? Around what? What was a pincer?
Justin looked around the capsule and mentally counted the crew, one, two, three, four. It was a ridiculous suggestion.
Giles sighed again and fiddled with his IVD, he looked at the power indicator, it was low. Trying not to raise any attention he plugged the device into the charger on his navigation chair. Justin saw what he had done and chose to ignore it; after all their supreme leader couldn’t keep track of his IVD let alone know if it was on full charge.
There was a loud clatter as Olly dropped his IVD onto the floor,
“There it is!” he exclaimed, “it must have been caught on the arm of my chair.”
Justin knew what he had done, as did Giles and Vincent. They all gave each other a sly look and nodded. Olly had hoped he’d fooled this elite crew. He hadn’t and he knew it.
Justin looked at Vincent with one of his three eyes, he did that often to show his level of command. It was trick his previous commander had taught him. One eye was better than three to look menacing and commanding. Two eyes meant he was listening, three eyes just meant he was awake.
“Have you charged the batteries on the Octagon Macerators?”
Vincent nodded and looked at Giles who shrugged and looked down at his control panel. They both knew neither of them had plugged them in since leaving Venus. Vincent slid one of his arms along the floor out of the sight of Justin and flicked the charge switch. A red light glowed and a strobe of lights showed the charge was in progress. Justin glanced at the display and judiciously ignored it; he knew what had just occurred. Giles, Vincent and Justin knew they would take 24 hours to come up to full capacity; Olly, well Olly was oblivious to the goings on around him.
They’d been on Cambria for two Planet weeks now, they knew that by the rise and set of the Heat/Light Radiator above the planet. The Heat/Light Radiator kept their Pluvium batteries fully charged. That planet was a friendly planet to Venusians, they had respect for the inhabitants of the Heat Light Planet, it was the centre of their universe, all civilisations came from The Snuu.
Giles nudged Vincent and made a drinking mime movement with his arms. Vincent nodded and both of them got up and went into the ship’s relaxation lounge. They each took a container of VenuFloo™ from the dispenser and sat close to each other so they could have a good bitch about their leaders.
“I think we are Venusians led by Martians.” Giles whispered. Vincent nodded and took another sip of VenuFloo ™.
“Justin is up himself all the time, have you this, have you that, all the time. Oooo, look at me I can talk Cambrian. Where art thou Julian balcony?”
They both forgot they had left their intercom devices on.
Justin swooped into the relaxation lounge, his arms were really shaking and his eyes were wild with anger. He stood in front of Giles,
“I heard that you imbeciles.”
Giles unrepentant looked up at his commander,
“Do you think I asked to come here?”
“You volunteered.” Justin snapped back.
“Yeah, I volunteered” he did the commas on the sky movement with two of his arms and continued, “I volunteered, as you suggest, after I got really pissed on Limbocaine™ and called the King’s wife a 16 legged Martianite slapper who opened them to any Plutovian. That was at my graduation ceremony, I got a first by the way. Then I volunteered as you call it.”
“Well you are here now and we all have an invasion to plan and execute.” Justin flounced out of the room as elegantly as his many appendages would allow him to do so. He flopped into his navigation chair and looked at the screens in front of him. He was furious now. He spun round and addressed Olly with an irate tone in his voice.
“Have we tracked the Martian invasion yet? They boasted that they were going to beat us conquering this planet. I’ve got a hundred VenuBits ™ on them failing this one.”
Olly looked flummoxed and grabbed at his command sheets and flicked through the orders one by one.
“You won’t find it there Olly, Supreme Commander sir, it should be in your head.” Justin really knew where the Martians were in relation to their ship. He was just being provocative in that eastern Venusian way that he had perfected to a tee.
Olly dropped the command sheets and looked at Justin. There was confusion in his four eyes. He closed two of them in concentration, looked down at the floor and up to the ceiling of the cockpit.
“Ah, I remember now. They are two Planet Units from us, quite close in fact, that was the plan. We really need to get this invasion started if we are to win the bet.”
“Has anyone from their craft ventured outside?” Justin asked, it was another provoking question that he thought Olly had no idea about.
“Not yet.” Olly sounded hesitant. “But then, neither have any of us done so.” he wiped his lips and started again.
“I suspect with the constant Venusquakes that occur it will be better to keep ourselves for the invasion proper.”
Giles and Vincent heard the conversation and Vincent mused,
“I wonder if the Martians call them Venusquakes too?” he asked as he folded his arms around his head and leaned back in the easy chair.
Giles sighed at Vincent’s idiocy.
“They’d call them Marshquakes surely?” his 1:1 geography degree wasn’t all wasted being on this invasion.
“Oh, like DOH! as the yellow philosopher says on Sky TV.” Vincent was testing his grasp of the language. DOH was something he had picked up off Facebook, it was an expression he quite liked. DOH! ROFL and LOL he was going to try and fit them in as much as he could. The humanoids would be impressed with his grasp of their language. Then he would destroy them.
They finished their drinks, got up and went back into the command cockpit and took up their seats.
Olly looked at his command sheets again and said out loud, trying to be a commander;
“Our intelligence shows that the humanoids of Barnsley are an underground race, we can trap them in their habitats and eliminate them that way. No nasty fighting in that then.”
Justin looked at him.
“I mean,” he stammered, “We can save our IVDs for the real battle when the over ground humanoids try and resist our might.” He had no faith in what he saying at all and all the crew knew it like he knew it. He looked down again in an attempt to avoid the crew’s eyes. All nine of them were now focussed on him.
Justin stepped in to try and save the commander’s face, if nothing he was loyal to the Commander.
“We have The Arachnids to assist us, there are 450 billion of them within two and half Planet Units of this ship. They will rally using their world wide web.”
“Who do the Martians have? I mean just to confirm the intelligence….” Olly asked hesitantly, he had no idea and was testing the water.
Justin sighed and looked at the floor and turned to Olly,
“They have The Culex Gnats, they tell us that they will swarm down from North Island, Scottingland, to help them in their plans and join them in the invasion. They may move rapidly but they have a brief life. However, their fire power is immense and irritating. They are trained in guerrilla tactics.”
Vincent had his eyes trained on the outside observer screens as he listened to the onerous task that was laid before him and the other crew. He loved a fight. He had killed three Plutonians in one fell swoop last year; they’d called him a Martian in a Limbocaine bar. The truth is he thought that they were Plutonians but it turned out to be three Venusians on a stag do dressed as Plutonians. He ‘volunteered’ to come on this invasion rather than go to the colonies on Asteroid 81.
Olly looked up from his screen and at Justin.
“Remind me why we are here.”
“To get the planet’s supply of Pluvium, Sir. Pluvium is the way forward, you said in our briefing.”
“Ah yes, it had slipped my mind.”
“You said the Cambrians had mountains of Pluvium and we will have to capture their leader of the Pluvium diggers, Arthur Scargill…”
“Ah yes, it’s coming back now. Pluvium is the way forward! Those fools who explode rocks in sealed chambers think they are the way forward! Huh! King Pluvium rules!”
Olly had started his reason for being on the planet, he wasn’t going to stop,
“These fools have seams of rich black Pluvium, one grain of it powers a city, powers this very craft! Those fools back home and their rock splitting plans, atomic power. Huh!”
Something caught Vincent’s eyes. He saw a movement on his screen. He leant into the screen and turned up the resolution.
“Olly, Sir, Justin Sir, we have a humanoid approaching the craft.” Vincent addressed the two commanding officers.
“We will eliminate him in case he warns other humanoids.” Justin replied.
“Sir……. unless my Outside Observer Port Support (OOPS ™) is poorly calibrated, we will have difficulty in doing that.”
“Why?” Justin spat back. He knew Venusians were superior to humanoids.
“Bala nee tema protec gamma! It’s…. he’s bloody gigantic….” Vincent looked into screen and twiddled a few controls, “They are giants, Crea Sir, Crea, Giants!”
“Don’t be stupid they are but the size of Venusian ants, our intelligence tells us that.”
“But….” Vincent stammered and pulled Giles over to look at the screen.
“Oh FFS. Bala nee tema!” Giles blurted out.
“What the...” Olly had seen the screen in front of him too. “They are giants!” he blurted out. “Our intelligence said they were like small Venusian ants...” He wrapped his arms around himself and closed all his eyes.
“What do we….?” he paused for thought.
“We don’t have enough fire power for them!” Justin shouted across the cockpit.
Justin stabbed over and over again at the Outside Blast Protection Power button. The craft shuddered as the weapon discharged its full force.
The inter ship communicator broke into life with a distress call from the Martian craft.
“Grappa, Grappa, Grappa! Giants, Giants, Giants attacking us! Sohlo, Sohlo Sohlo, SOS SOS SOS!” Then the line crackled, faltered and died. Their Pluvium must have run out Justin thought.
The Venusian ship suddenly violently shook and it felt like it was being lifted from the ground. Justin lost his footing in the sudden movement. He quickly checked the Gravity Dimension Accumulator; it was showing a zero reading: The ship hadn’t lifted off under its own power. Olly hadn’t instigated a lift off. No one onboard had put an emergency lift off into place.
“We are being attacked!” Justin shouted across the cabin space.
Olly Gark fainted and his uncharged IVD clattered to the floor. His arms fell by his side and went limp, his eyes closed and he gurgled into the gel.
Giles and Vincent extended an arm each and held onto each other tightly. They both closed their eyes and waited for inevitable destruction.
Outside the two craft Garry Exley and Mark Clegg were litter picking on the hard shoulder of the M1. They were approaching junction 37 having picked litter all the way from junction 36.
“Got my hundred on Red Bull cans now...” Garry shouted and picked up a red and blue container and shook it in the air towards Mark.
“Huh!” shouted Mark, “I’ve got my hundred on Lucozade!” he picked up a yellow container and shook it towards Garry.
They walked towards each other doing their ‘hundred can strut’; a bit like footballers do when they score a goal. They both got ready for the high five, bent their knees and did the walk. They both executed a spin with their pickers outstretched, getting ready to drop the two cans back on to the hard shoulder again,
“Weird looking cans ain’t they? Never seen ones like this.” Mark said as he examined the can in his gripper, then dropped it to the ground.
“Probably foreign ones.” Garry said as he dropped his yellow can on the ground next to Mark’s. They looked at them on the ground and both knew what the other was going to do. It was a hundred can ritual. They high fived each other and stamped on them in unison. A squirt of canary yellow liquid burst out from the two containers. Both men half jumped back,
“Jeez, both filled with piss too. Our fucking luck!” Garry said in disgust as he picked up the dripping cans and dropped them into his black sack.
The joint Martian and Venusian invasion had come to an instant, ignominious end.
After 2.7 billion galactic years of warring with each other over vital minerals and the depleting supply of Pluvium in the unknown universe, the Venusians and Martians decided that they would join forces and invade a distant black hole called Cambria.
Pluvium powered and defined all the civilisation of both the planets, without it both planets would die as their life support systems failed. One grain of Pluvium was as precious as a Venusian princess or prince. Martian prince’s and princesses were a different matter, they were worth a mine of Pluvium. No one knows why this difference persisted. Perhaps it was because Martian Prince's and Princesses had multiple breeding orifices unlike regular Martians who had to apply to the government to breed and install an orifice.
The spoils of this grand invasion would be shared equally between the two planets. They hoped that the other would stick to this compact, though neither truly believed the other would really stick to it.
The Martians being a destructive, warlike race decided that they would destroy humankind and plunder the planet for its Pluvium wealth. This was allowed under The Bash It and Mash It Guide of the League of Superior Races which was made up of the inner planets of their known universe.
The Venusians being more cerebral and, they considered a more intelligent race, lodged their invasion plans with The Plan It Before You Leap Committee as: An initial integration, A plundering of Pluvium, then total annihilation of the stupid peoples of Cambria. The PIB-YLC agreed to this plan, the planet of Cambria was considered a minor consideration in the ancient civilisations of the inhabited worlds.
The race was on to see who would win and gain the vast resources of this minor dot, this rude intruder, on the edge of their known universe.
The Venusians had hacked in to the vast amount of broadcast traffic that was being transmitted from Cambria and a small island off the continent of Europa called Anglia. They had built a superior technology that amplified the signals from all social media on Cambria in an attempt to learn the ways of the Cambrians. They knew that every race throughout the galaxy used noise to communicate with each other. This noise they would use to their advantage. To this end they began to teach themselves the language used in those radio broadcasts received and learn the ways of the people they were about to conquer. They would use humanoid names gleaned from social media to integrate with the races on Cambria.
The Martians, they knew would just invade and destroy all humanoids. That begged the question as to how they would find the Pluvium on the planet without local knowledge. Both of their planets had oceans of the clear white form of Pluvium, it was the lower form of the mineral they both needed. Cambria had vast oceans of the mineral, some underground, some just below the surface. The idiot Cambrians had no idea how to use the mineral to its full extent.
The great adventure began with the launch of two invasion craft, one from Mars and one from Venus. The Venusians took off and landed at the same time as the Martians on Cambria. Both ships were built to stand the rigours that the Cambrian planet would exact on the occupants. The craft were to be their homes for the duration of the invasion. Both craft were filled with the dense green gel that allowed them to breathe, both races called it Oxymoron. It was the one of two words they both agreed on. The word for death in Venusian was ‘nickedlife’, in Martian ‘goneaway’; invasion, however was ‘crapspread’ in both languages.
The Venusian invasion force decided that they needed local names because their names on Venus would be unpronounceable to the Cambrians. The Martians, well they were Martians, they had no plans to integrate, none at all. The Venusians carefully gleaned their names from the user profiles on social media.
Therefore, Olly Gark, Giles Brandreth, Vincent Van Rouge and Justin Joyit were now the elite avant-garde of the Venusian Earth invasion force.
“Kleep baa rama telip dara nera?” Olly Gark the ship’s commander said out loud to no one in particular. He often did things like that, it made him, in his eyes all powerful and always listened to.
“We need to speak in the local lingo Sir.” Justin Joyit the ship’s second in command said, then added, “We need to practice it.”
He liked lingo, a cockney translator had shown him that word.
He had spent hours practising in front of VenuSpeak ™ mirror so he had the Cambrian language under his belt.
“Gor blimey, aw reet, ey up lad. Appen.” He said out loud, just to show he had done his homework.
“Ma heids mince.” Vincent van Rouge was trying to upstage Justin.
“The shadow of my smile, get out damned spot.” Was all Giles could remember from all those hours in front of the VenuSpeak ™ mirror.
In fact, all the crew had tried to closely study the language in use on Twitter and Facebook and were attempting to perfect it. That was before their commanders had brought forward the invasion plans. Pluvium levels were at crisis point on both planets, they only had twenty grains left on each planet.
“Oh, Gala, erm, OK. Has anyone seen my Invisible Volume Disrupter?” Olly Gark asked again to no one in particular this time in English. He often asked questions like that, almost rhetorical in their content but really, they were a plead for some help.
“It’s where you last had it…..LOL” Justin Joyit replied with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. It was his eastern Venusian way; taciturn and often sarcastic.
“That’s a very Martian answer if I may say so, but a nice use of LOL.” Olly replied, he thought for a bit then added, “Should I have replied ROFL?” and stifled a laugh. His whole body shook and wobbled as he did so.
Justin didn’t answer; he considered it to be a stupid question and anyway he was busy studying a map on his navigation screen.
“If it’s invisible….” Vincent Van Rouge ventured; giggled and sat back in his navigation chair. He folded his six arms across his chest and waited for the inevitable comeback from Olly.
“Pluto knows how we are going to invade this planet with idiots like you on the team.” Olly spat out and flopped resignedly back into his navigation chair. His eight arms flailed around his body in mock anger then settled one by one by his side as he relaxed. Olly had eight arms because he was a leader, all the other crew had six arms. Six arms were the norm for Venusian invasion crews. However, Olly was a super elite, eight armed Venusian. All his fathers had been princesses.
Olly felt under his belt and his bulging belly hanging over it, and found the missing IVD, it was tucked in one of his fleshy folds under his utility belt. He said nothing in case the crew thought him an idiot.
Meanwhile Vincent Van Rouge was busy downloading Cambrian Google Maps on to his Big Invasion Navigation screen. The Venusian version of VenuGoogol ™ didn’t work outside the planet’s orbit. A bit of a faux pas when invading other planets, he thought. The locator pin on the map showed him exactly where they were.
“Our Planet co-ordinates show we are 4 Planet Units from a humanoid habitat called Barnsley.” he looked down at the screen again and moved the cursor across the screen,
“We are beside a Martian canal like structure called the M1. It probably accounts for the rumbling noises. The water will pass like a canal does back home.”
Olly nodded at that information and VenuToothed™ his device to Vincent’s screen.
“Hmmmm.” he uttered in an attempt to sound like he knew what he was looking at.
“Hmmm, we should be able to launch an invasion from this place.” He looked down at the screen again not really knowing where he was or what the big noisy canal meant.
Giles Brandreth sighed out loud and tapped two of his arms on the arm of his navigation chair.
“Problem Giles?” Justin Joyit the second in command spun round and faced Giles. His arms slowly fell one by one to his side. He tucked one arm under his utility belt and looked at Giles.
“It’s hardly Milton Keynes is it? You know, the centre of the island….” Giles sounded petulant. He had studied Planetary Geography at the Muntjac University in western Venus. It was an elite university and only took the very best of Venusian society; he thought he should be second in command; he had the breeding. He also knew exactly where they were: way up north. Beyond Watford and ultra-civilisation.
“Just do your job! You mange-tout of a man!” Justin spat out the words and looked down at his screen, he had no idea what he had just said.
Olly overhead the moan and decided to make a command decision to interrupt the bickering.
“We can always scatter our forces far and wide.” he said and moved four of his arms across his chest and thought for a few moments. He had no idea where Milton Keynes was or how far away it was from Barnsley, or where Watford was, or even for that matter why Giles had mentioned it.
“I suggest a pincer movement to annihilate the opposition.” he half uttered and half said. He didn’t really want to be heard in case it was stupid suggestion. It was a stupid suggestion, he knew it, they all knew it. Pincer movement? Around what? What was a pincer?
Justin looked around the capsule and mentally counted the crew, one, two, three, four. It was a ridiculous suggestion.
Giles sighed again and fiddled with his IVD, he looked at the power indicator, it was low. Trying not to raise any attention he plugged the device into the charger on his navigation chair. Justin saw what he had done and chose to ignore it; after all their supreme leader couldn’t keep track of his IVD let alone know if it was on full charge.
There was a loud clatter as Olly dropped his IVD onto the floor,
“There it is!” he exclaimed, “it must have been caught on the arm of my chair.”
Justin knew what he had done, as did Giles and Vincent. They all gave each other a sly look and nodded. Olly had hoped he’d fooled this elite crew. He hadn’t and he knew it.
Justin looked at Vincent with one of his three eyes, he did that often to show his level of command. It was trick his previous commander had taught him. One eye was better than three to look menacing and commanding. Two eyes meant he was listening, three eyes just meant he was awake.
“Have you charged the batteries on the Octagon Macerators?”
Vincent nodded and looked at Giles who shrugged and looked down at his control panel. They both knew neither of them had plugged them in since leaving Venus. Vincent slid one of his arms along the floor out of the sight of Justin and flicked the charge switch. A red light glowed and a strobe of lights showed the charge was in progress. Justin glanced at the display and judiciously ignored it; he knew what had just occurred. Giles, Vincent and Justin knew they would take 24 hours to come up to full capacity; Olly, well Olly was oblivious to the goings on around him.
They’d been on Cambria for two Planet weeks now, they knew that by the rise and set of the Heat/Light Radiator above the planet. The Heat/Light Radiator kept their Pluvium batteries fully charged. That planet was a friendly planet to Venusians, they had respect for the inhabitants of the Heat Light Planet, it was the centre of their universe, all civilisations came from The Snuu.
Giles nudged Vincent and made a drinking mime movement with his arms. Vincent nodded and both of them got up and went into the ship’s relaxation lounge. They each took a container of VenuFloo™ from the dispenser and sat close to each other so they could have a good bitch about their leaders.
“I think we are Venusians led by Martians.” Giles whispered. Vincent nodded and took another sip of VenuFloo ™.
“Justin is up himself all the time, have you this, have you that, all the time. Oooo, look at me I can talk Cambrian. Where art thou Julian balcony?”
They both forgot they had left their intercom devices on.
Justin swooped into the relaxation lounge, his arms were really shaking and his eyes were wild with anger. He stood in front of Giles,
“I heard that you imbeciles.”
Giles unrepentant looked up at his commander,
“Do you think I asked to come here?”
“You volunteered.” Justin snapped back.
“Yeah, I volunteered” he did the commas on the sky movement with two of his arms and continued, “I volunteered, as you suggest, after I got really pissed on Limbocaine™ and called the King’s wife a 16 legged Martianite slapper who opened them to any Plutovian. That was at my graduation ceremony, I got a first by the way. Then I volunteered as you call it.”
“Well you are here now and we all have an invasion to plan and execute.” Justin flounced out of the room as elegantly as his many appendages would allow him to do so. He flopped into his navigation chair and looked at the screens in front of him. He was furious now. He spun round and addressed Olly with an irate tone in his voice.
“Have we tracked the Martian invasion yet? They boasted that they were going to beat us conquering this planet. I’ve got a hundred VenuBits ™ on them failing this one.”
Olly looked flummoxed and grabbed at his command sheets and flicked through the orders one by one.
“You won’t find it there Olly, Supreme Commander sir, it should be in your head.” Justin really knew where the Martians were in relation to their ship. He was just being provocative in that eastern Venusian way that he had perfected to a tee.
Olly dropped the command sheets and looked at Justin. There was confusion in his four eyes. He closed two of them in concentration, looked down at the floor and up to the ceiling of the cockpit.
“Ah, I remember now. They are two Planet Units from us, quite close in fact, that was the plan. We really need to get this invasion started if we are to win the bet.”
“Has anyone from their craft ventured outside?” Justin asked, it was another provoking question that he thought Olly had no idea about.
“Not yet.” Olly sounded hesitant. “But then, neither have any of us done so.” he wiped his lips and started again.
“I suspect with the constant Venusquakes that occur it will be better to keep ourselves for the invasion proper.”
Giles and Vincent heard the conversation and Vincent mused,
“I wonder if the Martians call them Venusquakes too?” he asked as he folded his arms around his head and leaned back in the easy chair.
Giles sighed at Vincent’s idiocy.
“They’d call them Marshquakes surely?” his 1:1 geography degree wasn’t all wasted being on this invasion.
“Oh, like DOH! as the yellow philosopher says on Sky TV.” Vincent was testing his grasp of the language. DOH was something he had picked up off Facebook, it was an expression he quite liked. DOH! ROFL and LOL he was going to try and fit them in as much as he could. The humanoids would be impressed with his grasp of their language. Then he would destroy them.
They finished their drinks, got up and went back into the command cockpit and took up their seats.
Olly looked at his command sheets again and said out loud, trying to be a commander;
“Our intelligence shows that the humanoids of Barnsley are an underground race, we can trap them in their habitats and eliminate them that way. No nasty fighting in that then.”
Justin looked at him.
“I mean,” he stammered, “We can save our IVDs for the real battle when the over ground humanoids try and resist our might.” He had no faith in what he saying at all and all the crew knew it like he knew it. He looked down again in an attempt to avoid the crew’s eyes. All nine of them were now focussed on him.
Justin stepped in to try and save the commander’s face, if nothing he was loyal to the Commander.
“We have The Arachnids to assist us, there are 450 billion of them within two and half Planet Units of this ship. They will rally using their world wide web.”
“Who do the Martians have? I mean just to confirm the intelligence….” Olly asked hesitantly, he had no idea and was testing the water.
Justin sighed and looked at the floor and turned to Olly,
“They have The Culex Gnats, they tell us that they will swarm down from North Island, Scottingland, to help them in their plans and join them in the invasion. They may move rapidly but they have a brief life. However, their fire power is immense and irritating. They are trained in guerrilla tactics.”
Vincent had his eyes trained on the outside observer screens as he listened to the onerous task that was laid before him and the other crew. He loved a fight. He had killed three Plutonians in one fell swoop last year; they’d called him a Martian in a Limbocaine bar. The truth is he thought that they were Plutonians but it turned out to be three Venusians on a stag do dressed as Plutonians. He ‘volunteered’ to come on this invasion rather than go to the colonies on Asteroid 81.
Olly looked up from his screen and at Justin.
“Remind me why we are here.”
“To get the planet’s supply of Pluvium, Sir. Pluvium is the way forward, you said in our briefing.”
“Ah yes, it had slipped my mind.”
“You said the Cambrians had mountains of Pluvium and we will have to capture their leader of the Pluvium diggers, Arthur Scargill…”
“Ah yes, it’s coming back now. Pluvium is the way forward! Those fools who explode rocks in sealed chambers think they are the way forward! Huh! King Pluvium rules!”
Olly had started his reason for being on the planet, he wasn’t going to stop,
“These fools have seams of rich black Pluvium, one grain of it powers a city, powers this very craft! Those fools back home and their rock splitting plans, atomic power. Huh!”
Something caught Vincent’s eyes. He saw a movement on his screen. He leant into the screen and turned up the resolution.
“Olly, Sir, Justin Sir, we have a humanoid approaching the craft.” Vincent addressed the two commanding officers.
“We will eliminate him in case he warns other humanoids.” Justin replied.
“Sir……. unless my Outside Observer Port Support (OOPS ™) is poorly calibrated, we will have difficulty in doing that.”
“Why?” Justin spat back. He knew Venusians were superior to humanoids.
“Bala nee tema protec gamma! It’s…. he’s bloody gigantic….” Vincent looked into screen and twiddled a few controls, “They are giants, Crea Sir, Crea, Giants!”
“Don’t be stupid they are but the size of Venusian ants, our intelligence tells us that.”
“But….” Vincent stammered and pulled Giles over to look at the screen.
“Oh FFS. Bala nee tema!” Giles blurted out.
“What the...” Olly had seen the screen in front of him too. “They are giants!” he blurted out. “Our intelligence said they were like small Venusian ants...” He wrapped his arms around himself and closed all his eyes.
“What do we….?” he paused for thought.
“We don’t have enough fire power for them!” Justin shouted across the cockpit.
Justin stabbed over and over again at the Outside Blast Protection Power button. The craft shuddered as the weapon discharged its full force.
The inter ship communicator broke into life with a distress call from the Martian craft.
“Grappa, Grappa, Grappa! Giants, Giants, Giants attacking us! Sohlo, Sohlo Sohlo, SOS SOS SOS!” Then the line crackled, faltered and died. Their Pluvium must have run out Justin thought.
The Venusian ship suddenly violently shook and it felt like it was being lifted from the ground. Justin lost his footing in the sudden movement. He quickly checked the Gravity Dimension Accumulator; it was showing a zero reading: The ship hadn’t lifted off under its own power. Olly hadn’t instigated a lift off. No one onboard had put an emergency lift off into place.
“We are being attacked!” Justin shouted across the cabin space.
Olly Gark fainted and his uncharged IVD clattered to the floor. His arms fell by his side and went limp, his eyes closed and he gurgled into the gel.
Giles and Vincent extended an arm each and held onto each other tightly. They both closed their eyes and waited for inevitable destruction.
Outside the two craft Garry Exley and Mark Clegg were litter picking on the hard shoulder of the M1. They were approaching junction 37 having picked litter all the way from junction 36.
“Got my hundred on Red Bull cans now...” Garry shouted and picked up a red and blue container and shook it in the air towards Mark.
“Huh!” shouted Mark, “I’ve got my hundred on Lucozade!” he picked up a yellow container and shook it towards Garry.
They walked towards each other doing their ‘hundred can strut’; a bit like footballers do when they score a goal. They both got ready for the high five, bent their knees and did the walk. They both executed a spin with their pickers outstretched, getting ready to drop the two cans back on to the hard shoulder again,
“Weird looking cans ain’t they? Never seen ones like this.” Mark said as he examined the can in his gripper, then dropped it to the ground.
“Probably foreign ones.” Garry said as he dropped his yellow can on the ground next to Mark’s. They looked at them on the ground and both knew what the other was going to do. It was a hundred can ritual. They high fived each other and stamped on them in unison. A squirt of canary yellow liquid burst out from the two containers. Both men half jumped back,
“Jeez, both filled with piss too. Our fucking luck!” Garry said in disgust as he picked up the dripping cans and dropped them into his black sack.
The joint Martian and Venusian invasion had come to an instant, ignominious end.
Awesome Post 🧡💛🧡
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