OpDk: Spoof: When Kristy Wailed --- THE TRAGIC AND HILARIOUS SAGA OF THE DARK OPERATION OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EARTH AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE PLANET MENDELLIA ... AND STUFF. ...OR... THE TALE OF SEVERED HEADS By Durandir and Sylvana Lorrdain Yarg twirled his lightsaber, careful not to slice off his back the Vong armor that he had taken from his newest victim. Not careful enough, judging from the slight crisped stench emerging. He looked over his shoulder at the pile of friend and foe behind him, shaking his head and yubbing disconsolately. The pile of bodies suddenly shifted, an answering yub coming from a very non-Ewok voice beneath the pile. "Yub!" Yarg yelled. "Yub yourself! Get these things off of me, mate!" cried the voice. "Yerdle," Yarg replied. "Oh stuff it!" Bodies shifted more as a very tousled Australian emerged, spitting pieces of vonduun crab armor out of his mouth. "Did anyone else survive? Or am I stuck with the Vongwok?" "Datguyswize." Yarg replied. "Yub." Crispy blinked. "What is that smell?" Yarg pointed at the pile of severed heads beside him. "Oh, is that all?" the Australian replied, pushing Nick's body out of the way as he climbed out of the pile. He looked around at the carnage and muttered, "Please...let somebody else be alive! I cannot live on a planet with only Yarg to talk to." Yarg gestured wildly with his lightsaber, yubbing as he did so. There was quite a surprised look on Josh's face as his severed head joined the pile. "Oops," Yarg said. ... The Ghost Of Sci (hereby known as G.O.S.) scighed. "Thayer, I have bad news and I have good news." "There's good news?" Thayer gasped. "Brad got eaten by a vornskyr," G.O.S. continued, unfazed. "I don't know if I want to hear the bad news," Thayer said. G.O.S. ghostblinked and continued again. "Right. Yarg chopped Crispy's head off, and a few dozen more for good measure. Mike and Noreh were caught by the Vong in, shall we say, a compromising position. The Vong compromised them...terminally. Syl and Fes spontaneously combusted, along with the rest of the Elenari population, into a gorgeous field of flowers. Which the Vong have since reterraformed. Upon the sight of the entire Elenari population turning into floral matter, we dispatched Becki and Josh to the Caldera refuge. They got there safely, but thanks to the Vongbomb dropped down its throat, Mount Atner has since erupted. So much for the refuge." Thayer blinked. "The...good...news?" "Oh. Kristy's still here. In fact, I should go help her look for Nick. You take the survivors and get the Home ready. We will be there as soon as we can. Set departure for fifteen minutes-- that's all we can afford before this place goes up in magma. Not a moment more." G.O.S. ghostdisappeared and Thayer shook his head as he set out to search for survivors. ... Eti gasped at her good fortune. Naira, Sunev, Sisi, Ardna, Lenka, and the other ladies in waiting lay in random pieces all about the Queen's chambers, but Eti's quick thinking had saved her. It looked like the coast was clear now. She sighed with relief and crept out from beneath the bed. Footsteps echoed down the hall. Eti gasped and scuttled back under the bed. "Good grace!" she heard a voice at the door. "Not here, too? By Darwin's beard, if I see one more stack of severed heads, I'm going to..." Eti gasped again, escaping hyperventilation from this excessive gasping by only a Darwinbeard- hair's breadth. It didn't sound like a Vong voice. Then too, she hadn't heard any Vong saying "Good grace" or "Darwin's beard" as they made mincemeat of her colleagues. "Who's there?" she called, peeking out from under the bed. "What, d'you think I'm the Vong? It's me, Thayer!" he answered between gasping for breath after running up the castle's endless flights of stairs. "Where are you?" Eti scuttled out from under the bed again, brushing cobwebs out of her hair. Thayer grabbed her wrist and dragged her along. "The mountain's erupting. Help me look for survivors. We leave from the Batcave in ten minutes." Then he took off again, huffing back down the stairs. Eti started to gasp, caught herself in time, and finally set off after him. ... "I think I've found him!" Kristy cried out, running toward a pile of severed heads and other flotsam and jetsam. "No need to shout," G.O.S. reminded her. For the twenty-third time in the past ten minutes. Kristy fell on the spare-parts pile and started flinging heads to and fro, uncovering the unmistakeable ponytail she'd spotted. Lucky for Nick, there was more to the ponytail than just a severed head. Unlucky for Nick, all of him was dead anyway. More than mostly dead. "The whole world's gone wonky, Nick!" Kristy groaned, falling on his body. "Why aren't you looking at me?" G.O.S. shook his head. "He's dead, Kristy. We have a plane to catch." Kristy moaned, "You have to help me carry him to the plane! We can't leave Nick behind! Oh my poor Nicky! My sweet Nickums!" "I'm a ghost, not a repulsorsled," the ghost pointed out. "What's life without Nick?" Kristy sobbed. "Alive," the not-quite-alive G.O.S. suggested. He looked over her shoulder at her watch. "Two minutes. Let's go, Captain." ... Thayer dashed up the Red Home's ramp with minutes to spare. He dashed all the quicker at the impetus of Yarg's creative lightsaber-waving behind him. Not another soul had he found alive in the Palace. At least he'd been able to dissuade Yarg about that crazy idea of bringing his collection of trophy heads with him on the voyage. Eti stood near the cockpit, Macavity purring in her arms as the world disintegrated all around them. "Did you find anybody else?" Thayer asked urgently. Eti showed him the cat. "I found...Macavity?" Thayer groaned. "That's the best you could do?" Macavity meowed indignantly. Thayer looked at the ship's chrono. "No matter. We have to leave now. Where are Kristy and Sci?" ... Nick's body moved. Because Kristy was shaking it in desperation. "Wake up! Wake up!" G.O.S. got tired of scighing, since it wasn't having any effect on Kristy anyway. Nor on Nick, for that matter. "Leave him! It's time to go. The Red Home is leaving in one minute, with or without you." "Not without Nick!" Kristy wailed. "You'll be dead too if you stay here any longer." Kristy brightened at that thought. "And then I can be with my Nickers!" G.O.S. opened his mouth, blinked, and then shook his head. "I don't want to know." The sound of the Red Home blazing out of the Batcave was barely audible over the roar of the lava, but G.O.S. had superenhanced ghostsenses and he noted the departure. G.O.S. scighed. ... "Something's blinking," Eti pointed out to Thayer from the copilot's seat. "Probably another systems failure. Ignore it," Thayer muttered. "I think it's the comm," Eti ventured. ... Molten rock poured down and around the pile crowned by Nick and Kristy, but it had no effect on the Ghost That Was Sci (hereafter to be renamed the G.T.W.S. for variety's sake). "What have I told you people," G.T.W.S. shook his head, "about romantic attachments on the field?" The only answer was Kristy's unearthly scream as she disappeared beneath the lava flow. ... The Red Home sped away from the cataclysmic planet. Thayer pounced on the comm a split second before Macavity pounced for Yarg's lightsaber. Thayer was mildly surprised to hear a yelp not from the cat but from the Ewok. "Home here, come in!" A voice crackled through the speakers: "Thank God somebody's out there!" "Who is this?" Thayer cried as he desperately steered the ship away from the quickly disintegrating planet while Eti oohed and ahhed at the spectacular view. The comm continued: "It's Arrek! The Vong have me prisoner in the second ship to your right!" Near miss of an Earth-born asteroid speeding past the ship. "Can you--" Static. Eti pointed tentatively to a Vong ship that had just lost its battle with one rather large chunk of ex-Earth. "Wasn't that the second from the right?" Thayer groaned. ... One week later, far away from their homeworld's grave, Thayer stood alone on an outcrop of rock on the only habitable continent on the first habitable planet they'd found before the Red Home ran out of gas. It didn't look like he'd be able to keep the Alone part long, but at least he'd given Eti the slip long enough for this. He planted the pole firmly and ran up the emergency Mendellian flag that was always kept on board the Red Home. Striking a pose, one fist to his hip, the other on the pole, he shouted so his voice rang from the alien mountains in echoing splendor: "I'm King of the World!" Then Eti caught up with him, wrapped her arms around his waist and joined the echoes: "And I'm Queen of it!" "Such as it is," Thayer sighed under his breath. ... Meanwhile, in that place in the heavens where once Earth orbited the sun that now gave way to yet more funky Vongtech, the Ghost That Was Sci scighed. the end (This spoof was brought to you by Alien Pasties - the Mendellian Treat)