THIS MEANS WAR! The 5th 2000ad Online Short Story Competition.

[Colin MacNeil]

Sorry! Pushed the wrong button. I'll try that again.

After all, everyone knows that the English love their mummies...

Ouch!! You're not wrong.
Nice "Fiends" interlude though.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

The Meknificent Seven


The red sun blazed down upon the seven mechanised warriors. Stealthily they moved out of the rockcrete building, towards the marble monolith near the perimeter wall, the long wet grass hiding them from any prying eyes.

Seventeen hours straight they had been tracking this beast, after it's initial rampage bringing death and destruction upon the local populace. How many dead was still being calculated, what with the bodies being ripped apart, limbs half eaten and the rest strewn over a wide area. It was this action that had finally made the humans employ this specialist squad.

Sarge signalled his troops forward, heading across open ground towards the perimeter wall. They had been following this beast quite easily due to its deep tracks but its speed was incredible. Numerous times the warrior's proximity alarms had set off, only for the beast to vanish before they could make contact.

This time it would be different, the captain and sergeant had been ever so slowly forcing the beast into a corner. The trap would be sprung very soon.

'Enemy front. Enemy front!'

Within a split second of the proximity alarms sounding the beast emerged through the grass and was in amongst them. "Flambo, burn it!" Sarge yelled. She was already adjusting her aim before the order had even finished. Her metallic finger squeezed the trigger, producing a fine jet of napalm from the nozzle, sweeping through the air. The creature looked back and saw the fame arc towards it, increasing its speed and at the last possible moment turning away from the space where it would have been roasted, had it not.

Before Big D could react the creature was upon him, it pinned him onto the damp earth. It's black beady eyes staring at him as its claws raked his protective armour. The weight of the beast started to buckle his chest cavity sending system failure alerts to his electronic brain. This was not good!

Captain Stomper signalled Able, Baker and Charlie to attack the target from its blind side while he and Sarge moved in to rescue D.

Sustained firepower slammed into the creatures exposed flanks, turning its head sharply it saw the new adversaries advancing towards it. With a flick of its mighty tail the three troopers were smashed into the marble monolith.

This was all the time Flambo needed to adjust her aim and target the monstrosities head. Molten death spewed towards its target. This time it wouldn't escape but it ducked its head and the bowler hat perched upon it took the full brunt of the heat.
With its hat on fire it ran towards the perimeter wall and scuttled up and over the top.

Captain Stomper quickly initiated the perimeter defences from a subroutine in his circuitry and the electronic grid hummed into activity. That rat wouldn't be attacking anything in this garden again. Well until the defences malfunction again!

Mission Accomplished!

[Paul faplad Finch]

Another brilliant entry from CF there. Nice reveal at the end  too. Cracking.

Must finish my 3rd entry too,wasn't that happy with my last one. Hope I can finish it off before the deadline.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Thanks faplad, that took me ages to condense into the 500 words.

[Colin MacNeil]

There's only one word for that one CF.

SMOKIN'!

[Alski]

Nicely written CF.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I've just been back through the posts and we've already had 23 entries, Jesus this is going to be bloody hard to judge.

[Paul faplad Finch]

Place your bets. My money is on a landslide win for Roger. That was some twisted genius right there.

[Alski]

Place your bets. My money is on a landslide win for Roger. That was some twisted genius right there.

noooo... it was just mental.

[locustsofdeath!]

23 entries is great...glad to see this contest growing. Now it's the votes we need to generate.

[Dounreay]

Might as well make it a dirty two dozen (though I've my doubts over how well this will work)

OUR WAR

Welcome to Rabigh, a charmless shithole that makes up for it by being made mostly of stategic materials. It's not Nu-Earth but the locals have been fighting each other since forever, so mostly we just need to give them encouragement now and again.

Today's operation Captain, is to escort two ho's to ground zero insertion point. Your particular talents are suited to this kind of thing. Sargeant Chavez will accompany you. That is all.

Yeah, everybody loves us newts cos we're so fast and strong and smart. That's why we get all these creamy jobs.

The two ho's turn out to be brother and sister. He's fifteen and scared. She's seventeen and cold as a stone. Human Ordnance - you gotta love this army. The target is a busy market, no military value, lots of colateral. It's that kind of war. We get them within 500 metres, they walk in with all those weird chemicals slopping around their blood stream, the Mil-Sat beams in the detonate signal and we (hopefully) have sprinted to minimum safe radius. Job done.

10 kays from the target, we stop to rest. Chavez is standing with her hands on her hips, ragging on the boy, stripped down to a vest top. I don't think what she is proposing to do to him is actually possible between a man and a woman but you never know.

I'm laid in the dirt, taking in the view. Chavez could just about get a rise out of a newt like me. Just about but not quite. The girl spits in the dust and whispers. Neutered I might be but I'm very, very far from deaf and that was not a nice thing to say about the people who are trying to keep you safe and free.

And because I'm focussed on the girl, I manage to get Chavez killed. A black shape whips through the air. I should have seen it coming. There is a meaty slap and Chavez stares in amazement at the ovoid sticking out of her side before she explodes.

The girl and I are fine. The boy isn't. One of Chavez's ribs is stuck in his thigh and he's bleeding badly. I turn to the girl. "MOVE...NOW." Remote kill drones will sniff the blood and be on us in minutes. For the first time I see her crack. "But what about...", I shrug, "Sorry".

Before we crest a rise, I look back and he is crawling along about 100 metres behind us. Then we are over the rise and he is gone. A metallic insect shape zips over our heads, zeroing in. Really gone.

We stop again before the insertion point. I make a great play of checking my sidearm, so I can ask her about all these people who are about to die. "What of them? Thay are nothing." she says. "Thought so" I answer as I shoot her neatly in the face.

So Captain, only you survived this attacked? Yessir. And how was that, Captain? You've read the brochure, sir. Combat Enhanced Infantry, sir. Bred for higher surface battlespace survivability, sir. Get out of my sight Captain. Sir!

I liked Chavez.       

[Kerrin]

I thought that worked well Dounreay. Good job of wittling it down.

This comp is currently for stories of 500 words or less, which is intentionally constrictive, but that doesn't mean that the only fan fiction on the board should be entries here. If someone writes a story they're pleased with and they'd like to share it with the rest of the board, why not just post it. We could have a fan fiction thread with some sort of witty title or just post them in a new thread each time, Blah de blah, a short story, or something like that.  In 'Creative Common' or here in 'General' would be the best bets I guess. After all, it's your board.

[Mike Gloady]

Great stuff as ever, everyone!

Regarding your idea Kerrin - maybe a thred for all non-competition Fan fiction would work best.  That way we'd all know where to go?

[Paul faplad Finch]

Okay, this is my 3rd and final story. There would have been a fourth but I'm crap at puns and a gang war in Downlode not full of puns just felt wrong. That and, you know, I just culdn't get the bugger into 500 pages. This one was a struggle to make fit as well but I got there in the end.

FRIENDLY FIRE


It was 06:37 when the world exploded.

Little Benny and Big Joe, inseparable to the last, disintegrated into the same cloud of pink mist. It's what they would have wanted.

Tony was doing his morning pull ups so he was saved from the blast. Above the waist. He put what time he had left to good use. Screaming.

Mark was lucky. As usual when he had no duties in the morning he was still asleep. He didn't feel the sleeping bag melt itself to his flesh or he'd have been right there in tune with Tony.  

************************************************************************

Sgt Jacob Marcus crested the rise and looked down at the camp. "What the fu... Leroy, Ump, up here. You're on point. Jeff and Titsup, on me. Whatevers  happened down there, whoever's responsible could still be around. Eyes peeled."
"Sarge", came the mumbled responses, his men too shocked to offer more. The tension broke quickly though, training reasserting itself, and they began the slow, measured approach to what had been, when they left last night , a thriving base.  

Ump was first. Making steady progress towards the edge of camp, he stopped, hunkered, signalled a pause. He stared  at a pile of debris just inside the perimeter, gestured to Leroy to keep an cover it, stood, and disintegrated.
"Christ" yelled Leroy. He raised his weapon, began laying fire into the debris pile as Marcus and the others moved up.  

Marcus arrived at Leroy's side as Jeff and Titsup took up positions 15m either side of them, finding what cover they could. "What was that?" he asked. "I didn't see anything."
"Me neither Sarge. Ump was wary of that pile of rubbish but if there was anyone there I've done for them. You want me to move up?"
"It's the only way to be sure. We'll cover yo..."  He didn't get the words out before Jeffs position erupted in a cloud of muck and flesh. "Jesu..." he cried, turning to Titsups position to see the same thing, a geyser of rock and dirt mixed with the young soldiers gore. "To hell with this, we go, now."    
"Thats a negative Sgt."  
The voice had come from the radio. The one that hadn't been working since 06:37, which failure had prompted the return to camp. It was working now though.
"Withdraw, you'll not be fired upon"  

**************************************************************************

The Major looked down at the bodies of Sgt Jacob Marcus and PFC Leroy Vance, and shook his head. "Was that really neccesary, they hadn't seen the prototype."
"Things are bad enough. There can't be any risk of this malfunction getting to your superiors. Think of the project."
"Yes, but..."
" A lot of my money's tied up in this, and your civilian career once this war is over."
"I suppose so. What about that thing down there?"
"I can shut it down remotely. We'll sabotage the mini nuke generator, the camp disintegrates, one big accident. Trust me, it'll all come up roses, or my name isn't Howard Quartz."

[Alski]

One more for the road...

Teenage Rampage

"Arse!" said Norman, snarling like he'd been taught in basic, both tusks pointing to the sky and shining like deadly pointy toothy things, which they were. He pulled his knife from the guts of the Betelgeusian guard, wiping the sticky green blood on his combat fatigues. "Balls" he said quietly, reminding himself to cut off the guard's testicles and put them in his pocket as collateral at the barracks card game later. He had no doubt that there was going to be a later, as he was a G.R.U.N.T.

Genetically Reconditioned Undesirable Neutered Teenagers were the backbone of Terra's space corps. Any time some little scrote fucked up back on Earth or the colonies, they were snapped up by the corps and bludgeoned into ass kicking shape. They also had their bollocks removed, which may explain their morbid fascination with other peoples. Norman was pretty new, having been taken away after he farted too loudly in a library without owning up. He was due for bollock removal in two days, but a shortage of troops meant he had been picked to go on a mission first, rescuing some diplomat from Betelgeusian scumbags.

"Cumbiscuits!" he shouted as he burst into the guardroom, totally surprising the seven guards inside, six of whom were  indulging in homoerotic fantasies to amuse the seventh, who was slightly higher in rank and not afraid to abuse it. It didn't take long to massacre them, and Norman whistled a happy tune as he sliced through them and pocketed their nads. As a result of the surgery, his brain wasn't quite what it had been (and even them he'd been a right dimbo), and his vocabulary had slipped somewhat. Norman didn't mind, mainly because the part of him that objected to anything at all had been burned out by Doctor Proctor, a man who delighted in causing pain and suffering (he was a lawyer on the side).

"Cocknuggets!" came Norman's war cry, making the guards outside the diplomat's room shit themselves as this large tusked, purple skinned maniac descended on them. They were the best of the Betelgeusian best, but were nothing against Norman, who blew raspberries at them as he cut off their Rosettes Of Sirius before heading southwards. He safely stored his testicular treasure and opened the door.

"Shitbadger!" he exclaimed when he spied the diplomat. She was a stunner, something obvious even to a lobotomized man with kick arse tusks and purple skin. He felt a swelling that would soon be impossible once Doctor Proctor got him back under the red hot tongs.

"Oh!" exclaimed the diplomat. "Are you here to rescue me?" Norman nodded, flexing muscles that had once belonged to a lioness. "That's wonderful!" the diplomat gushed. "Is there anything I can do to thank you?" Norman considered his options, as well as his highly limited vocabulary.

"Fuck!", he said simply, and they lived happily ever after...