Kynes soon followed up this bit of information with the concept of the Bozon, a new SI unit, measuring stupidity.
Iceberg took a cue for that and created the term microJacques, a measure of the strength of a stupidity field.
It blew up from there.
Paul is appairently an entirely new breed of idiot. This new breed of idiot (with Paul appairently being the first) is more powerful and more unstable then any idiot previously produced. The proof of this can be found in his many postings. In keeping with the fine Star Trek tradition of all things new and dangerous being called Quantum (Quantum Torpedoes, Quantum Singularities, Quantum Slipstream Drive, etc...) I hereby label Paul as a Quantum Idiot. One must of course be cautious around Paul as he is likely to suffer an extremely powerful cranial implosion (due to the hard vaccum inside of his skull instead of grey matter). While his extraordinarily think skull has held up against the pressure for some time, I feel that it is likely to crack soon leading to a massive implosion. Anyone near Paul during this time may suffer massive injuries do to the powerful effects of the cranial implosion of this Quantum Idiot. Go near him at extreme risk. This has been a public service announcement from the Society Against the Ethical Treatment of Paul. -- Transcend I hereby christen the "bozon" as the SI unit of stupidity. -- -LK! I hereby christen the "microJacques" as the SI unit of stupidity field strength. -- Iceberg > I hereby christen the "microJacques" as the SI unit of stupidity > field strength. "Talk to me, Frosty, talk to me." Boyd gripped his pulse rifle with one hand, bible clenched in the other. Beside him, the Iceberg 3000 operator rattled off the numbers scrolling down his indicator screen. "30 meters, man. 29. Closing." Behind them, bringing up the rear, was Colonel Paulsen with his plasma thrower. He was speaking into his mike. "Hey Poe, any of your men i D-Block?" Pause. "We may have a situation." Kynes, the smartgun operator, hefted his weapon tighter to his body. He'd never gotten that chummy with Boyd before, but knew his teammate's abilities - between them, they usually managed to cut down any troll. The comm unit crackled. "This is Transcend. Paulsen, do you hear me? What is the situation?" For once the colonel didn't even smirk at their obviously green commander. He keyed his comm and spoke into it tensely. "Sir, looks like a contact up ahead. Stupidity field approaching one hundred twenty microJacques... range, 23 meters." There was crackling in the background. Paulsen rolled his eyes. -- Björn Pablo hefted his pulse rifle and slowly looked from side to side. Paulsen knew what he was doing. But dealing with a troll that had a hundred and twenty microJacques... the trolls he'd faced in Operation Spacebattles hadn't been much more than eighty, and they were damned dangerous. He'd memorized the microJacques chart. At 120 mJs, you had what amounted to a rainbow-trout with language skills and a nasty temper. He didn't want to face one of them with a pulse rifle. He envied Kynes his smartgun. He swept his helmet light around the hallway twice. Pablo grimaced and spoke into the comm. "It's clean, sir. Something ain't right. If this is a 120 we're talkin about, he'd have hit us by now. You sure he's coming this way, Ice?" "Yeah, I'm sure." "Well I don't see any--SHIT! I GOT SOME KIND OF TROLL, JUST AHEAD! INITIATING CONTACT!" The rapid fire muzzle flashes of the pulse rifle lit up the dark corridor like a strobelight. A shadowy figure charged through the hail of metal. Pablo backpedaled as fast as he could, and cursed as the rifle's magazine ran dry. -- Pablo Sanchez Iceberg cursed as well, shouldering his railgun. The 10mm slugs would balloon to a fist-sized exit wound and delivered enough energy to drop an elephant at ten paces. He hoped it would be enough to make a difference against the troll. Grabbing the portable bozon field analyzer, he bolted from the room, toward the sounds of the battle. 80 microJacques... already a dangerous field and it would only get stronger as he approached the combatants... -- Iceberg He heard a voice come in over the radio, "This is Kyle. You need any help? I'm all alone, but it looks like you could use some more firepower, and my MI battle suit should provide plenty of it. Give me a bacon to home in on and I'll be down in five seconds. Kyle out." -- Kyle Knopf Dalton grunted with effort as he tried to counteract the effects of the bozon field. He faintly heard the crackle of the radio as Kyle offered his help, but he couldn't motivate himself to call his friends into the battle. His battle... The sheer intensity of the field threatened to permanently scramble all rational thought, and as the microJacques indicator pegged, his will crumbled. With his last conscious effort, he flung himself down a ridge to his left, hoping that his momentum would carry him out of range of the field before his thought processes were completely fried. He hit the ground and blacked out, sliding for a good forty meters downhill. -- Dalton >He heard a voice come in over the radio, "This is Kyle. You need >any help? I'm all alone, but it looks like you could use some >more firepower, and my MI battle suit should provide plenty of >it. Give me a beacon to home in on and I'll be down in five >seconds. Kyle out." Iceberg set down the homing beacon and grinned. Soon the troll would get a taste of MI firepower. He just hoped the MI didn't forget that the rest of the team didn't have anti-rad gear. *Meter's spiking at one-twenty now...* Iceberg shouldered his railgun and opened fire on the troll. It didn't kill the troll outright, but the impact of the slugs blew it off of Sanchez, allowing the slightly battered but otherwise unharmed soldier to recover his firearm. -- Iceberg Kyle fell straight down. He was directly over the beacon, and had just jettisoned his last chute. With only a few second to go his jump jets kicked in and set him down relatively gently. He saw Iceberg and Pablo, duking it out with some minor trolls. It was always that way. Whenever a new troll "Boss" moved in he gathered together all the minor trolls to serve as guards, and decoys. As they moved in closer to the boss the trolls would become stronger and more numerous. For now though he picked off the trio of trolls closing in on Iceberg and Pablo. The first troll was sliced in half by a particle beam, he took out the second with a precision laser strike right through what passed as a brain in a troll. The third he decided to take out upclose and personal. He grabbed the troll with his hand, breaking most of the bones in the trolls arm, and just held it there for a second before disemboweling it with his other hand. Blood and gore splattered everywhere. He smiled, "Damn that was fun. Now lets go find the boss man himself." -- Kyle Knopf
Boyd got on the radio. "That's the plan Kyle, but first we better call in Black Squad" "Do you think that's neccessary?" "Yes. We'll need all the firepower we got" Boyd radioed the shuttle. "Black Squad, track our signal and join up" "Roger" Suddenly, Kynes' scanner started pinging. He looked at it, and his face betrayed shock. "Oh SHIT! There're dozens more trolls attacking! Readings are off the scale!" Then they could here them coming, the sound, the horrible sound. "OK, boys, get ready!" The boss troll had spawned even more trolls, and they were on a rampage though the building. The troops all stood ready behind cover. The trolls came in a huge wave. Everybody opened up on the trolls at once with everything they had. Many trolls fell, but, the Cleaners' guns ran out of ammo, and had to be reloaded. That was when the trolls broke through the line. Several puonced on Sanchez, then Kynes and Iceberg. Then Boyd. The trolls were slowly wearing away at their intelligence, making stupid. Boyd did not know how they were going to get out of this. Then, like the sound of a chainsaw, a loud ripping noise cut through the air. In one swoop a score of trolls fell. What looked like four huge droids had appeared in the cave. They resembled the Dark Trooper combat droids. They had dark gray armor, and on their right arms was a GAU-8 Avenger 30mm cannon. However, they weren't droids. Inside each of them was a man: Nathan 'Enforcer' Yates, Mark 'Howling Mad' Sheppard, Phong 'Mr Mallet' Nguyen, and LT. 'I'm a psycho and I love it' Hit-Man. They were Black Squad, the heaviest-hitters of the Cleaners. Their armor also had plenty more weapons. Black Sqaud, along with the rest of the Cleaners, wiped out most of the attacking wave in moments. Phong had developed a weird ray that would preserve a person's intelligence if attacked by a troll, so each of Black Squad projected it on each team memmber being swarmed by trolls. Then they simply ripped the trolls off of them, and each one was usually either squeezed like an over-ripe tomato or stomped on like a bug. After five minutes, the stampede had been stopped. Boyd, Sanchez, Kynes, and Iceberg took a few minutes to recover. The Cleaners were all doing weapons checks, and making a head count when... "Wait! Where's Dalton?" They all started to search the area. Kyle said: "There! He's down here!" He was indicating this hole in the ground. Iceberg and Bjorn went down the hole and came out carrying the semiconsious form of Rob Dalton. -- Nathan Transcend looked at the sensor reading from the battle. Something was no quite right, he could sense it. He drew upon the force.....no, it can't be! He initiated a low level particle sweep, more intensive then normal scans, there it was, staring at him the whole time. Transcend activated his comlink, "Somehow those trolls set up an artificial bozon field generator down there, and a holomatrix stolen from the filthy Federation. You've been fighting holographic trolls, repeat, you've been fighting holographic trolls. I have pinpointed the location of the real trolls, they are headed for MY location, repeat MY location. All units converge, ALL UNITS..." <static> -- Transcend As usual Chris was sleeping a dozen clicks away, completly unaware of all hell breaking lose. That was, until a PLX-M2 concussion missile that had been launched from of the the *Dark Squad* troopers and gone off target blasted into the ground 30 meters away. 'What in the sith...' -- Chris O'Farrell The clang of boots striking metal reverberated through the corridor as Paulsen's squad raced back towards the command center. "Go go go go go!" Paulsen shouted, running almost in a crouch to maintain balance. Taking the point, Iceberg scowled. He didn't want to think about what was happening right now to his commander. They burst into the command center and halted, staring. The place was a mess. At least nine trolls lay here, their corrosive blood sizzling on the floor, their huge bodies giving off clouds of vile stench. Boyd bit back an oath as he failed to find the commander. Kynes nodded grimly. Though he was pretty green - only two combat drops - Transcend had made a good accounting of himself. Paulsen snapped out his extended transciever. "Operator! Is Transcend alive?" "Yeah. They're moving him." "I need a fix on him." Poe came through the door, halted, shook his head. "Shit, man. Who did this?" "Transcend, with a handgun." Boyd made a face. "These are all low ranking trolls, I'd guess they're Cadet type, not more. They must have been used as living shields by their bosses." Paulsen swore into the transciever, then hung up. "SHIT! Seems like they have him in an old Weyland-Yutani atmospheric processor." He took a calming breath. "Awright, I don't like the brass any more than you do, but I think this one did okay. Anyone who wants to come with me and get him out can come. Who wants to kick ass?" -- Transcend was in pain. He was chained to the chair with handcuffs and a troll wearing an Armani suit was leaning over him, injecting something into carotid artery. Another troll, also in a suit, was standing by the far side of the room, which was dominated by a computer screen showing a giant browser window. The homepage it showed was no less than www.spacebattles.com. "Have you ever been in there... watched it? Marvelled at its... beauty... its... genius?" The troll turned around, and finally Transcend managed to fit a name to that face, despite the Raybans. He was known as Alyeska, a high-ranking troll. Alyeska continued. "Did you know that the first Spacebattles was designed to be a perfect place, where none was illogical... and... everyone would be happy; it was a disaster, entire arguments were lost. People thought we trolls lacked the debating skills to win any of your arguments." He walked closer. "But I believe the rational argumenters define their reality through flames and insults, and so Spacebattles was redesigned into this - the joke of our civilization." His little speech finished, Alyeska nodded to the other troll. "Take him to the breeding grounds. My lord, He Whose Name Shall Never Be Spoken, will want another host for his children." Unceremoniosly, Transcend was dragged away into the bowels of the atmospheric processor. -- Björn > Unceremoniosly, Transcend was dragged away into the bowels of the > atmospheric processor. It took all his skills with the force to even survive the torture the trolls have put him through. In the end he had passed out. Transcend looked around but all he could see was darkness. He reached out with the force, yes he was alone in the room, but there were two guards on the door. "Damnit!", he swore, "they found my hold out blaster." He had been sure he had clouded their weak minds enough to keep it hidden. But then he HAD been out cold for who knows how long. Three broken ribs, maybe four. He had seen the horrible Spacebattles.com, that wretched hive of scum. Somehow, he had to get back in there, and stop them from bringing their most powerful weapon online, the Quantum Idiot. -- Transcend Kyle stepped up in his MI armor, with the Roughneck insignia on his left shoulder and the cleaner sign on his right shoulder and just stood there and readied all weapons. They was no need for him to speak it was obvious from his face that he was ready to go. -- Kyle Knopf Pablo glanced jealously at Kyle in his MI Armor, then scowled at the common pulse rifle in his hands. He preferred to get some better guns to go after a troll as dangerous as a 120. He walked over to the armory. He shrugged out of his Colonial Marine gear, revealing black clothing. He put on a hooded black cloak, and pulled a short cylinder out of the armory compartment. He ignited the lightsaber, grinning as the long bronze shaft extended from it. He let the force flow through him, alerting the senses, hardening the muscles. The trolls would soon know the full and awful power of the dark side. -- Pablo Sanchez Iceberg pulled a caller from his belt and pressed the button. A very large motorcycle rolled up and he straddled it, then pressed a button. The motorcycle shifted and transformed into a miniature assault mecha, three meters tall and armed to the proverbial teeth with rocket packs, miniguns and its main weapon, a miniaturized beam rifle. He clamped the beam rifle into its storage position and pulled out one of the four disposable beam sabres mounted on the back of the mecha's shield. Each sabre had enough gas for five minutes of continuous use. "Let's get some, guys!" -- Iceberg With a well oiled *ka-click* Paulsen cocked his doubled barreled tungsten bore CAW and placed it beside the rest of his arsenal. His hand darted to the controls on his left wrist, found a button, pressed it. A hazy field sprang up, temporarily obscuring him, then cleared. He smirked. 'Got shields,' he thought, 'got plasma rifle, got railgun, thermal detonators, sharp sticks... yeahhh!!' -- Björn Dalton awoke in a fit of coughing, phlegm choking his throat. He buckled down and reached into his throat with his fingers, pulling out a mass of mucus mixed with blood and...something else. He flung it to the far wall, where it made a nice *splat*. Dalton looked around. From the looks of it, he was in the Infirmary, though he didn't remember why or how. He tried to think of what had happened, then almost passed out again from the pain coursing through his mind. A true oddity; the human brain couldn't sense pain. It was totally illogical. Suddenly, he remembered. He remembered the bozon field, the readings of nearly 130 microJacques as he approached the highest concentration of stupidity to date. He remembered the idiocy trying to penetrate his brain, and from the bruises on his body he remembered the tumble down the slope. But why was he here? From somewhere distant came the sounds of battle: clangs, blasts, the occasional boom. Memories swam back. Dalton vaguely recalled the concerned faces of Bjorn, of Pablo...he had tried to open his mouth, to speak, but he had lost all motor functions. He rubbed his neck, glancing at the spot on the wall where he had flung whatever it was that was blocking his throat...and was shocked to see a significant part of it gone. Specifically, the part that was unrecognizable to him. He frowned. Surely, the trolls would have had implanted a new larva into the host only at their base so that said host didn't escape...but why had they let him go? He remembered the coughing fit that had awakened him. It could only mean one thing. They were after the leader. With a great effort, Dalton dug through whatever items were left in the room and located a radio. He spoke frantically into it. "This is Dalton. Warning. There is a troll larva loose in the base. Repeat. There is a troll larva loose in the base." -- Dalton A figure clothed in a pitch black robe, hood and cloak, walked through different dimensions muttering. "Damn it....... bozon strength offscale..... could it be?.." Xtreme mumbled. Electricity arced among his clothing, hands and face. "Hell, not again!" he bellowed. "Everytime I travel through dimensions, I collect static electricity." Stopping at the correct dimension, Xtreme brushes off the static and summoned his staff with a circular wave of his left hand. A staff appeared from nowhere in front of Xtreme. It was a long black staff with a floating globe on top. He grabbed it and with it he called up a display. There it showed the battle that was going on. "Trolls. Even here they contaminate this dimension with ther presence. Hmmm... Bozon strength steady at 67microJacques. Well I guess I'll help out my comrade in arms." He stretched out his arms and a shimmering globe of energy appeared. Then using his telepathic ability he called out to his potential allies. "Friends. It is I Xtreme Psycho. I've been troll hunting and noticed the menaced has arrived in this dimension. I am at your disposal. Xtreme out!" With the transmission complete, Xtreme sets out to find him some troll meat. With a wave of his staff he disappeared. -- Xtreme Pablo swept his lightsaber through a troll's face, the instant cauterization preventing the acid blood from hitting him. Another one rushed him, but found its trachea suddenly crushed. The lifeless corpse was thrown against another of the horde of trolls rushing him. He planted a perfect sidekick in the belly of one, rupturing internal organs and casting it to a screaming death, trampled on the floor by the idiotic tide. The individual bozon fields were only in the 50-60 range, quite stupid but not overwhelmingly so, but the combined effect of dozens of them in a confined space was stifling. Pablo threw a wave of dark-side produced kinetic energy into the front ranks of the trolls, rending flesh and bone in a terrible display of power. But for every troll that fell, two came forward. It was time to do something drastic. Pablo gritted his teeth, and summoned up all the power he could. He floated several feet off of the steel floor, and electricity crackled off of his body. The trolls nearest him jerked spastically, caught in the tide of electrical energy. Pablo screamed in rage, and waves of lightning poured off of him onto the floor. The cold steel easily conducted the power. The trolls themselves began uttering shrieks of pain, but they soon faded. Pablo fell to the floor and onto his knees. He struggled up to his feet, and tapped into the force to revitalize himself. He took a deep breath. It stank of burning flesh. -- Pablo Sanchez >It stank of burning flesh. Iceberg saw a troll about to leap on Pablo from behind and triggered his head-mounted machine guns. A ferocious growling sound came from them as they filled the troll with tungsten-cored penetrators. His bozon field flux meter detected a spike behind him and he ignited the beam sabre his suit held in its right hand, sweeping the weapon through the Troll's stomach. 20 minutes worth of sabre charge might as well have been 20 hours under combat conditions. Seemingly hours later, the sabre guttered and died. Iceberg was swarmed by trolls before he could pull another from his shield, and his comrades were too busy to help him out. He typed four letters into his combat computer. Z E R O The cockpit faded into nonexistence as the dangerous, mind-melting Zero System activated. The system could destroy a pilot's brain if he wasn't careful... but in conjunction with the right warrior, it was the most lethal weapon in existence. Iceberg pulled his right arm free of the trolls' grasp and pulled out the beam rifle. Switching it to its highest setting, he fired and seven trolls vanished in a flood of light and particles. It was then that he heard Dalton's warning about a troll larva over the comm... -- Iceberg "Poe! I suggest your men go back and root the fucker out! We gotta get Transcend, if he's still alive!" Paulsen didn't get an answer, mostly because someone calling himself 'extreme' cut across the transmission. Paulsen was somewhat mystified by the unauthorised call. "Listen, who the hell are you and how did you tap into the lines?!" Calming down somewhat, he considered. "Well, whatever, you can..." he cut off. "Wait a second." Raising his plasma rifle, he sent a deep-red bolt through the braincase of an insectoid troll clinging to the ceiling. Screeching, it plunged down several levels and dissapeared into the bowels of the atmosphere processor. Paulsen bent above the mike again. "All right, you can come, but make it fast." He switched off, clipped the comm unit to his belt, and took stock of the situation. The atmosphere generator was a large, complex facility. The architecture was spartan, consisting of metal walkways and a lot of electronic equipment. There was plenty of room for the trolls to hide. Screaming shrilly, a troll landed on the scaffold behind him. Paulsen cursed and spun around, but the troll was quick, striking his plasma rifle with enough force to rip it from his fingers. "I am ShoelessJoe, dipshit!" it screamed, clawing at him with lightning-fast swipes. Only the crackling shield around him saved Paulsen from disembowelment. His face set, Paulsen pulled out a small, stubby handgun and fired it at point-blank range. The bolter pistol gave a short bark and ejected a seven-millimeter rocket into the chest of the troll. Paulsen hardly had the time to duck before ShoelessJoe detonated in a gory explosion. "Colonel Paulsen!" Paulsen cursed again, viciously, and stooped to pick up the comset that he had dropped. "What?!" he snapped into it. The voice of McReynolds answered him. "Sir, there are some odd readings coming from the deeper parts of the processor. It's where the reactor coolants are. It'll be warm and moist down there, so my guess is that they have a troll egg-laying ground there. That's your best bet for finding Transcend." "What? Who's laying these eggs?" "I don't know. It must be something we haven't seen yet." -- Björn Nearby, Iceberg yelled out, "Fox four!" and the missile pods on his suit's legs opened and poured ten short-range anti-mecha missiles into a phalanx of trolls. The heavy explosive warheads, designed to take out a ten-ton battle machine, ripped the trolls asunder in technicolor explosions of blood, gore and flame. "HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!! GET SOME, YOU FILTHY PIGFUCKERS!!!!" yelled the mechapilot, unloading another beam rifle charge into a troll's stomach and taking out the troll behind it as well. "Man, this is just like the Battle of A Bao A Qu - bad guys everywhichdamnway ya look! Only the Zakus ain't this ugly!" -- Iceberg One troll stood panting behind a wall. Tears were coursing down its furred cheeks. It was frightened... it knew it was going to die. In panic, it curled up in a foetal position against the wall. Suddenly it screamed. Its features twisted and flowed like wax. Then they reformed. No longer clad in mismatched armor, but rather in an expensive black suit, the troll was unrecognizable, an entirely different person. Not even its face was the same, what with the sun glasses and the comm device trailing to one ear. Brushing a stray piece of blood off his sleeve, Alyeska calmly walked into view of his enemies. If he was impressed by the sheer volume of firepower brought to bear, Alyeska gave no sign of it. Bullets flew through the air. Plasma charges incinerated metal and flesh with equal ease. Napalm rockets vyed with vulcan cannon shells for dominion. "Mr Paulsen!" The shout rang out across the small chamber, where one man stood over the smoking corpses of five trolls. Paulsen slowly raised his gaze to meet that of his enemy. He had holstered his weapon and saw that his enemy had done the same. They stared at each other, tensely, their hands open, waiting for the right moment to draw. In the distance, a rocket detonated, shaking the building. Without warning, Paulsen drew his gun and fired, his shots superimposed on those of his enemy. Paulsen, like Alyeska, was already in motion, running against the other and kicking off against a pillar to meet Alyeska in mid-air, where they grappled. They exchanged shots, both of them, shots that missed. They landed an instant later, both with their guns against the other's head. "You're empty." hissed Alyeska. "So are you." retorted Paulsen. And with that, he hit the ground with a blow hard enough to send him spinning backwards. Landing on the balls of his feet, he glared at Alyeska, who rose slowly, throwing away his gun. After a moment, Paulsen followed suit. -- Björn "I've got a lock on a troll fortification. 20 klicks to the east, I'm taking it out." With the last word Kyle let loose a rapid fire barrage of rockets from an integral launcher. Twenty small rockets armed with variable yield nuclear warhead flew straight at the concentration of trolls. The warheads had been set for a max yield of fifteen megatons and simultaneous explosions. Luckily they were shaped charges and so vaporized the entire troll outpost with 300 megatons of concentrated energy. -- Kyle Knopf > Kyle stepped up in his MI armor, with the Roughneck insignia on his left > shoulder and the cleaner sign on his right shoulder and just stood there > and readied all weapons. They was no need for him to speak it was > obvious from his face that he was ready to go. Strapping on his shield of reflection, Lord Graeme looked at himself in the mirror. "Those people down there will be helpless against the awesome might of the TJ. It seems I must once again take up my role in the never ending battle against trolls." Lord Graeme hefted his massive warhammer Mjollnir, and called his pet dragon Broiler to his side. "Come Broiler, it is time for us to assist in the battle against the king of all trolls." -- Graeme Dice > "You're empty." hissed Alyeska. > "So are you." retorted Paulsen. And with that, he hit the ground with a > blow hard enough to send him spinning backwards. Landing on the balls of > his feet, he glared at Alyeska, who rose slowly, throwing away his gun. > After a moment, Paulsen followed suit. Lord Graeme stood in the shadows of the corridor, invisible to all. He watched as the combatants fought in a scene vaguely reminiscient of a movie he had watched several millennia ago. He thought he could remember it being called the Matrix or something like that. Lord Graeme spoke a single word of power, and all time in the room stopped. Shedding his invisibility, he strode towards where the combatants were locked in a deddly embrace. He clenched the suited figure with his gauntlets of power, and reversed the time stop. The "agent" found itself locked in a steely embrace, completely unable to free itself. Lord Graeme backhanded the agent, and sent it flying through five metres of concrete into an adjacent corridor. The agent stood up brushed itself off, and charged towards Lord Graeme, intent on destroying this newcomer with a single blow. "My you are persistent, aren't you." Lord Graeme commented as the agent flew throught the air. He stepped aside blindingly fast, thanks to the speed boots he always wore. The agent continued through the air and slammed into the wall on the other side as well. "Enough of this, I grow tired of these games." spoke Lord Graeme. he stroed over to where the agent was lying on the ground and picked him up one-handed by the neck. Clenching his fist, Graeme relished in the sound of bones popping and snapping in the neck. Graeme then drew a dagger from his belt, inspected it to ensure that it was the correct one for the occasion, and stabbed the agent directly through the heart. Graeme dropped the body, which dissappeared as it fell. The dagger fell to the ground loose and completely clean. Lord Graeme picked up the dagger and spoke to Paulsen. "You have to be careful of these types. They like to pick on those smarter than themselves." Lord Graeme faded back into invisibility and went off to find more people in need of his help. -- Lord Graeme of Dice, Tamer of Dragons, Defeater of the Boyd Legions Iceberg finished off the last troll near him and kicked his roadstriker off the ground, executing a half-transformation into hybrid configuration. The legs locked into the vertical stabilizing fins for added airborne stability and a pair of wings folded out from their locked-down configuration. "Hey, Kyle, you got a couple of flying trolls on your tail, I'll smoke 'em." The trolls were too easy to lock up with the heatseekers on the wings of Iceberg's 'striker. "Fox two, two heatseeks in the air." The two trolls, about to open fire on Kyle with crudely manufactured but powerful chainguns, each fell prey to a heat seeking missile up the tail. -- Iceberg "Hey Sarge, what's this?" One of Poe's men was pointing at something in the corridor below. Paulsen frowned at it. "What the hell?" He aimed his analyzer against the wall in question. It was a strange, almost organic-looking structure, like a beehive. "Hey..." Paulsen looked again at the little device. "It seems like... something... is building new walls down there. They're using old regurgitated crossposts from alt.startrek.vs.galactica." He spat. "Filthy trolls." -- Björn Nearby, listening in on the comm channel, was the bounty hunter Crayz9000. "Time to get rid of these filthy vermin." He activated his holo-shroud, set it to look like a double-size Rancor, and walked into the room. Fifteen trolls, about to jump on Kyle, looked up at the sight of the ugly, slobbering creature, and screamed in terror. He smiled to himself, and let loose with his shoulder-mounted flechette launcher. Five of them were torn to shreds, and the other ten attacked. At first, they harmlessly bounced off his combination stormtrooper-Mandalorian armor, but then they started to damage it. "Ok, that's it." He pounded the first one with a barrage of rocket darts, which blew it apart. Pulling out his forcepike, he then messily decapitated three in a row. Noticing five more charging from behind on his HUD, he ducked as they leaped overhead, slamming their heads into the doorway. He then powered up his lighter version of the E-web, compact enough to fit on his other shoulder, and sprayed the prostrate trolls with fire, splattering acid blood all over the wall. Looking around the room, he saw the fifteenth troll attempting to sneak up on him. "You want it painful, don't you." He pulled out his dagger-sized vibroblade, and sliced the troll to shreds. Noticing that Kyle had left, he figured that he had better leave too. Checking his sensors, he noticed a strong microJacques reading below him. He then activated his shadowy lightsaber and cut through the floor, carving a large troll's head up in the process. He jumped through, and landed in the middle of a congregation of suprised trolls. Within one minute, they were all carved into tiny pieces. By now, the stupidity was starting to have an effect. He took a stimtab, and continued in the direction his computer indicated that the atmospheric processor was. -- Crayz9000 >Iceberg finished off the last troll near him and kicked his >roadstriker off the ground, executing a half-transformation into >hybrid configuration. The legs locked into the vertical >stabilizing fins for added airborne stability and a pair of wings >folded out from their locked-down configuration. "Hey, Kyle, you >got a couple of flying trolls on your tail, I'll smoke 'em." The >trolls were too easy to lock up with the heatseekers on the wings >of Iceberg's 'striker. "Fox two, two heatseeks in the air." The >two trolls, about to open fire on Kyle with crudely manufactured >but powerful chainguns, each fell prey to a heat seeking missile >up the tail. Ensign Jim's shuttle landed in rough terrain. Though, landed wasn't quite the word for it. Barely controlled crash seemed to be just adequate. The combined effects of the bozon field, and a 300 MT blast to the east had wreaked havoc on the shuttle's systems. The Captain had charged Jim with discovering the source of the 500 microJacques bozon field surrounding the planet. Given that bozon fields were usually measured in a few tens of microJacques, this was a profound source of concern. So much so that crack commando teams from all over the galaxy, if not the multiverse, had converged upon this single planet. Unfortunately, Jim had no help. His platoon noncom was none other than Corporal Elim Garak, a sorry little man who'd spent over six years in Fleet just to earn the rank of Corporal. With the good corporal at his side, Jim got the dark feeling he'd be lucky if he ever saw the USS Stowbridge again. "Alright folks, let's get ready to move out. Do not forget to activate your psionic implants, an unprotected being in a bozon field of a even a hundred microJacques can expect to suffer serious mental damage!" Jim shouted, shouldering his field pack. "Set your blaster rifles to the maximum setting and slave your helmets to the network. I need to see everything that's going on . . . you got that, Garak?" Jim asked, looking over at the corporal. As usual Corporal Garak was off in his own world. Jim slapped him on the shoulder, bringing him to abrupt attention. "I *said*, did you get that!" "Of course, sir," Corporal Garak replied unenthusiastically, turning back to his lucky Pokemon trading card. Jim sighed, contacting his home ship. "USS Stowbridge, can I count on any reinforcements?" "That's a negative, Ensign. I'm not sending a strike team down until you can localize the source of those bozon emissions! If the surface intensity increases by much more, then even those people with the heavy weaponry might be affected, and I'd just as soon not risk dropping a shuttle into that environment." Jim sighed. "Thanks anyway, Captain. We'll keep you posted," he shut off the comm, turning to the troops he had with him. "Let's move out!" -*- Ensign Jim and his team had spent over fifteen minutes combing the rocks. The bozon field strength in this area was exceeding 300 mJs, and even Jim was starting to feel dull. And Corporal Garak looked especially dull . . . even for him. And Jim didn't think was possible for the corporal to be any more dull than he was now! Suddenly, Jim was hit by an overwhelming feeling of dull warmth. Jim desperately tried to fight it, focusing on the absurdity of the NRWD . . . but the NWRD was starting to make more and more sense by the second. Corporal Garak was starting to drool, scratch his ass and walk like a monkey. Jim could swear that Corporal Garak had gotten a helluva lot hairier too! Jim was only vaguely aware that the computer was screaming in his ear that the bozon field strength was approaching 1 full Jacques. Suddenly, a massive, troll-like being reared up over the next ridge. It was over twelve feet tall and easily weighed a ton. It was also the source of the one Jacques field. It spied Jim's team and fired a bozon chain-blaster mounted where it's brain should've been. One of his men was hit, and instantly his skill imploded, showering Jim with bits of hot brain matter. The man's flesh dribbled away, revealing a glistening, wet troll. Garak, who had been de-evolving by the minute, became a troll. A very dangerous troll . . . a troll armed with a blaster rifle, ten power cells rated at 50 shots each, and the best anti-blaster armor that 26th. century Earth could offer. Garak ran, screaming about the holiness of Trek and the NRWD, into the forest, blasting anything that moved. Jim vaguely remembered raising his blaster rifle and taking a few shots at the supertroll. The surprised supertroll had ducked into a cave, and the bozon field began to weaken. Soon, Jim had recovered just enough intelligence to realize that he had just survived a brush with Paul Jacques, the only being capable of producing a 1 Jacques field. And where Paul was around, the queen of all trolls, TJ, TOWNMNBS, the only being in all the universes which could produce a more potent bozon field, was certain to be near. Wiping the drool from his chin and banishing all thoughts about the correctness of the NRWD from his mind, Jim slowly realized that the resources of even the USS Stowbridge wouldn't be enough to counter such a threat. He set his transmitter to the highest power, praying somebody in the valley would hear him. "We . . . we've . . . just encountered the Quantum . . . Idiot! Two . . . men down, and the rest of us have about . . . 150 IQ points between us. If anybody can hear me . . . he's taken to the caves, and can pop up anywhere! Repeat, anywhere! And watch . . . watch out for a Corporal Elim Garak. He's a troll with a blaster rifle. Can anybody hear me!" Jim shouted desperately as he heard the scrabbling of trolls, driven insane by the gunfire coming from the valley scrambling up the hill . . . to his position . . . -- Ensign Jimmy Chris had taken his time in figuring out exactly what was going on. He had placed a dozen omnidirectional sensors around the perimiter of the battle which fed information directly into is tac helmets computer, generating a 3D holographic map of the battle and all who dwelled in it. ALso, using the sensors imbeded in the suit, a wireframe image was generated of the entire battlefield and all in it. He did not like what he had saw. According to this, a base designated 'Cleaner Alpha" was currently a hotspot of fighting, with many trolls having converged and penetrated the defences. The majority of the cleaners were giving a...spirited defence of the base, cutting the trolls down one by one. Further out, Iceburg and Kyle as well as several other warriors had fought off a massive infamous troll wave attack, where thousands of BSing trolls charged into battle, overwhelming their enemies with the massive number of posts. Then they had launched an atomic stike which appeared to have leveled the trolls forward attack base. All was looking well... until... His tacmap flashed red in a sector north of the base. It reported a field strength of 1 Jacques field had been detected. Chris imediatly ran a level 2 diagnostic on his systems, praying that it was a malfunction. It was not. Imediatly he started running towards the sector, pushing his light scout powered armor to its limit. As he ran accross the top of a ridge to get tp the valley where the fighting was taking place he unslung his primary weapon. It was a highly modified type 3a phaser rifle.On top of its normal design, it had an aditional seven type one phaser emiters built into it. In normal mode, they would fire level ten blasts in burst fire mode evey .2 seconds which mowed through trolls very nicely. Power was provided by a large cell on his back, though if drained, the phaser would revert to a stnd type 3a with its internal cell. He also had installed a secondary fire mode. Though it would drain the entire battery, all seven type one emmiters would fire and converge a half meter in front of the barrel, all their power held by a subspace field before the main emiter fired also releasing all of its power. Though it would drain one of his 2 batteries, it would produce a focused 2.4 MT blast that would kill anything upto about a 230 mJs in one shot. 'Chris to Jimmy. I'm on my may. Hang tight. I'll get in tou-' He cut off as his sensors screamed in warning of a mJs field approaching 700 right in front of him. Skidding to a halt, he activated his laser targeting system, and traced the dot only visable to his eyepeice back and fourth over the landscape until it hit upon a human looking shape. It advanced towards him With his thumb, he flicked his weapon over to secondery fire and activated the light on his weapon to show him what he was dealing with. The hidious form of Omicron Theta shone it the light. Resiting the urges to crap his dacks and run, he leveled the laser site right at where this class of troll's reproductive organisms should be. 'HEREEE MMEEEEEEEEE' it hissed and another alarm went off in his helmet. It was attempting to flood him. THe psionic shield he wore was starting to fail and of course the UFP had 75,000,000,000 combat ready starshi- 'NOOOO' chris screamed and pulled the trigger. At once, the smaller phasers sent their energy into the containment area and the land around grew bright as the energy lit up the landscape. OT laughed and started to walk forward and by the light of the phased energy, he almost threw up at the site of the it. But despite the images of SSD's being destroyed by Pegerines, he kept his weapon on target and the primary beam lept out, collecting the other beams and in a reacton he did not understand (but liked) phased, increasing the total power many many times. The beam of pure white streaked out and slamemd into OT, sending it hurtling over the side of the ridge, falling a long long way. The preasure on his mind cut off, and he watched in satisfaction as it hit the ground with a sick wet thump. It was not dead, be he observed many minor trolls gathering around and carying it away from the battle. 'Attention all personal. I have encounted omicron theta, repeat have encounted omicron theta. Have driven it off, but it is still intact.' -- Chris O'Farrell Iceberg grinned ferally, finishing off a troll calling itself DanFake. The troll had managed to surround him with what looked like solid metal walls... but only for a moment, until Ice's roadstriker sensors revealed that they were naught but smoke and mirrors. Stepping through the smoke and vaporizing the mirrors with low-powered beam rifle shots, he aimed at the troll. "GODISALIE!!! ANANTIHUMANLIE!!!" screamed the troll. "You're gonna meet Him in a minute," replied Iceberg, leveling his beam rifle. "Jesus loves you... go meet Him!" The beam rifle's aperture glowed bright blue for a moment, then lashed out, engulfing the troll's slimy body and vaporizing it. "LIIIIIIIIIIIIIES!" screamed the troll as it died. Iceberg took to the air, looking for more targets. -- Iceberg >By now, the stupidity was starting to have an effect. He took a stimtab, >and continued in the direction his computer indicated that the atmospheric >processor was. Meanwhile, Phong "Mr. Mallet" Nguyen was fighting for his life, intelligence and insanity. His powerarmor suit had long since been discarded, wrecked beyond all repair. His rifle had long since run out of ammo, his lightbayonet smashed. However, all was not lost. For he had long since built up a resistance to the bozon fields. Fields up to 75 mJc in strength were easily countered. And there was the advantage - the lesser trolls could not convert him, could not entice him, could not enrage him. With a strange calm Phong crushed the head of the first troll with the MoD1, and broke the back of another with the P-MoD2. Flowing through the mob, many lay dead or unconsious, yet other beat him with clubs and sticks - and he could not block them all. And then the trolls' reinforcements came in and rushed. Phong ran far, outpacing the horde and pulling out a grenade. Flinging it to the far side of the mob, he dove to the ground as the stored intelligence of a dying nerd rushed forward, overwhelming the trolls and and nearly knocking Phong out. He rose, looked at his handywork, and moved on in the search for ammo, food and friendly forces. Taking a pair of binoculars from a fallen troll, he looked at something strange on the horizon. A black line? Zooming in, his heart nearly stopped. A solid line of Troll Armor and infantry was rushing in towards the friendly troops. -- Phong Nguyen Kyle saw the advancing line, and grinned. This was what he lived for, it was the reason he had first joined the MI and made it Sergeant in Rico's Roughnecks and then after the accident that sent his drop capsule flying through the universe and crash landing on a rebel base that he had quickly destroyed. Not long after that the cleaners showed up to do the same job he had just completed for them, in the end he had joined the Empires most elite unit and never regretted it. "This is Kyle we've got incoming on the left flank. We don't have time for anything fancy, I'll keep them busy while you fall back to our defensive line. Lets move it!" He jumped and started firing nukes all along the troll line, the first few salvo landed in front of the troll lines cratering the terrain in front of them. He moved up and down the front ranks of the trolls, nukes burning holes in the ground as his energy weapons took out the officers and gas grenades drove unprotected trolls insane forcing them to turn on there fellows. "I'm coming in, cover me." And Kyle promptly took off for the waiting lines. -- Kyle Knopf Meanwhile, Crayz9000 was crawling through some maintenance ducts, heading toward the center of the atmospheric processor. Checking his displays again, he was surprised to see that there was absolutely no activity. He stopped, his danger sense tingling. The trolls were jamming him. Suddenly, his HUD flashed a warning. Three spider trolls, coming down the tunnel at high speeds. With no time to turn around, he activated his boot-mounted rocket launchers. Six mini-rockets blasted toward the trolls, two on each one. The trolls had barely enough time to realize that they were doomed, and then they exploded in hunks of acid flesh. Crayz9000 reached out with the Force, attempting to overcome the combination of jamming and bozon fields. His psionic field generator had overloaded and shut down quite a while ago, leaving him open to the fields. Directly behind him, he detected a troll in some kind of power suit, cruising on antigrav. He hopped on his equipment hoversled, grabbed onto the handles, and fired his jetpack. The sled shot forward at an astonishing rate of acceleration, easily outpacing the troll. The bounty hunter looked up. The end of the tunnel was coming rapidly, and he shoved his head down as the sled burst through the grating, severly damaging it. He jumped off the sled, in time to see it go crashing into a giant viewscreen displaying some website. It was Spacebattles. In his travels, the bounty hunter had come across schematics for a Dark Trooper replicator autocannon. It had taken him a while, but he got one operational, and now the replicator-generator was mounted on top of his jetpack. Quickly realizing that he was surrounded by over 20 trolls, he unslung the autocannon from his back, and powered it up. A line of slobbering trolls were in front of him. He pulled the trigger, and the trolls exploded or fell one by one as he swept the cannon across their ranks. One minute later, he was standing on top of a pile of dead trolls, head aching because of the stupidity. He had just battled twenty trolls, each 150 microJacques, but their collective stupidity of 3 Jacques had gotten to him. He looked at his surroundings, and was surprised to see the remains of troll eggs, crushed by the battle. Sitting in a corner was a figure, slumped over and drooling. Crayz9000 walked over, autocannon at the ready. As he walked closer, he recognized the face. It was Transcend. "Attention Cleaners. This is Crayz9000. I've found Transcend." The next day... He looks at his comm unit. The faceplate is cracked. So Crayz9000 pulls off the cover. "Damn. It melted down from all the troll's energy." Looking across the room, he sees that Transcend is in a coma. Because of the troll influence, he places Transcend in a stasis field. "Great. What next?" At that moment, he hears heavy footfalls. Looking up, he sees a great Troll Warrior, ten feet in height. And behind him is... the feared TOWNMNBS. The troll king speaks. "I've gotten rid of MKSheppard, but who are you? You have slain my crack troops. You will pay for that." And he advances forward. At that point, the bounty hunter's head is pounding with nonsense. He tries to shake it off, but the bozon fields are too strong. Finally, he activates his portable phase-cloak just as the warrior swipes at him. The claw passes harmlessly through him, and he blacks out from the stupidity. -- Crayz9000 The wall right behind where Crazy had been standing suddenly violently imploded in a massive white flash as a powerful phaser cannon blast strobed through the wall and slammed into the troll warrior. The partical beam had been enhanced with a pure logic matter stream and along with the increadble KE of the superbeam, was enough to blow the troll warrior back at almost supersonic velocity into TOWNMNBS, sending the Dark Prince crashing back through the complex, down the stairs. Moving quickly as he knew his field could not possibly hold out against the local bozon fields for more then a few minutes, he grapped Transcend and dumped him into his heavily modified class 9 shuttle, the 'Troll Killer MK4" aerotech attack craft. Built on the body of the shuttle, the twin warp naceles had been taken off and the the wings elongated for even better atmospheric flight. On top of each wing, was a pair of E-Web heavy repeating blasters which quad linked, were perfect for straffing a mass troll attack. In between the wings, where on a normal class 9 the fueslauge sloped down steaply, the hull had been elongated and a turreted micro Q-Torp launcher had been placed. Rapidly openeing the ship, he threw Transcend into the passanger area behind the 2 piolt seats and engaged another containment field. Sprinting back, he loacted the exact place where Crazy was located and emmited an intense graviton field, enough to destablise the cloak and throw him back in phase. However he was not awake. Swearing, he started lift the warrior and his impreasivly heavy amount of weapons, but he woke up. 'what..where...where am..oh SHIT' Crazy swore as he realised that he was deep in bad guy land and they were about to be overrun by swarms of trolls and the big dady itself. 'THIS WAY' Chris yelled and crazy did not heasatate to follow. They both lept into the _killer_ a few seconds before the leading wave reached them, crazy leaping into the co-piolt seat powering up the impulse engines. Grabbing the flight stick, chris slammed the throttle forward and the killer blasted up into the morning sky. A dozen trolls were clinging on, trying to smash their war in, but the hull was too stong. Simply reversing the polarity of the hull, Chris sent them (due to their high metalic content) flying to fall to the ground below. As they turned for home, back over the complex, they both saw TOWNMNBS standing up outside with hundreds if not thousands of minor trolls covering the ground around it. Without so much as a second thought, Crazy stabbed down on the Q-Torp launcher, and a pair of white streaks instantly crossed the distance to slam into the body of the giant. The sceen instantly disolved into a blaze of zero point energy extraction, however amazingly although the majority of the minor trolls were vapped outright, and the rest injured, TOWNMNBS did not look so much as scratched. Then it spoke The voice came not from without but within! _Your flames are useless against me. Soon we shall be one. One mind. One knowledge. One truth. Its is-_ The voice cut off as Chris managed to somehow stab down on the anti bozon field activator. But it left the two shaken as the sleak ship raced towards the atmospheric plant, where the Cleaners had appeared to win a hard fought battle. But at a price. -- Chris O'Farrell Chris set the Killer down on the roof of the atmospheric processor. The badly shaken bounty hunter jumped out, thanked Chris, and checked his slave-curcuit controller. Thankfully, it was intact. Crayz9000 paused for a second. How was Chris still alive? Finally, it was coming back to him. Chris, in an alternate timeline, was maimed and carbon-frozed by the LT. On the other hand, in the real timeline, he left Chris near that star, trying to vape the Cleaner's beer when he had received the distress call from the atmospheric processor. Oh well, so Chris was trying to redeem himself. Fine with me, he thought, as long as he doesn't try to steal my H-wing. But then, he'd have to get past the hardwired and quantum-armored retina/fingerprint/DNA scanners. On the roof, the bozon fields were reading at >0.01 microJacques. So he activated the controller, calling his H-wing to him. When it arrived, he dumped his wrecked armor and weaponry into the small cargo hold, jumped into the cockpit, and headed for a rendezvous with the Cleaners. They needed all of their strength combined to combat TOWNMNBS. When he got there, Crayz9000 opened up the cargo hatch and pulled out a ysalamiri nutrient frame. It could not project fields like the now-overloaded psionic field generator, but at least it would never overload. Or so he hoped. He then grabbed a couple clips of rocket darts, and a heavily modified HEV suit. The regular armor had been torn up so badly that it was completely useless. So the bounty hunter climbed into the HEV, put on his helmet, and strapped the nutrient frame to his back. The HEV's long jump module had been replaced with a repulsor pack, allowing him to fly almost indefinitely due to the mini fusion generator he'd added. Unlike his normal armor, he could not use a jetpack, as the heat would damage the suit. The autocannon was too heavy for the suit, so he strapped the light E-web on, and checked his DL-44. Finally, he grabbed utility belt containing survival rations, macrobinoculars, a micro comm unit, and a dozen mini thermal detonators. Almost as an afterthought, he grabbed an M-249 chaingun with extra belts, and slung it across his back. Fortunately, the HEV had structural support and built-in first aid. He didn't mind the loss of the equipment sled so much. Sleds were cheap, and obtained easily enough. But he had one more thing in the hold: a STAP hovercraft. Its twin heavy blaster cannon were enough to take on most trolls, but he had modified it, like everything else. Slung underneath was a mini-proton torpedo launcher, similar to the ones spacetroopers carried. Finally, he was ready to rock and roll again. He looked over at Iceberg. He was performing emergency repairs to his equipment. As Crayz9000 looked around him, he realized that he wasn't the only one who was hurt. Dalton lay almost unconsious, and the LT's med droid was attending to him. Most of the other Cleaners were licking their wounds, or repairing their weaponry. For the moment, the trolls seemed to be taking a break, but that couldn't possibly last. An hour later, his suit flashed a warning. A dozen dragon-like trolls came flying over the wall of the building. He had barely enough time to duck before they went flying overhead. So he jumped on his STAP and began chasing them, covering the air with blaster bolts. One nearly hit Dalton, and he swore. He'd better watch his aim. As soon as he had a target lock on the largest one, he fired a proton torpedo. The troll didn't stand a chance, and vanished in a burst of plasma and gas. In the meantime, the Cleaners had started attacking. Before long, the trolls were gone. -- Crayz9000 Kyle would soon fight the Trolls but first he had something to do. He took aim and with some quick plasma bursts removed Chris's extremities. -- Kyle Knopf The bolts splashed harmlessly into the Personal shields that projected from his TacPack. Glaring at Kyle, Chris toyed with the Idea of having _The Killer_ open up with all 4 blasters and the phaser strips but decided agaisnt it. They needed their strength for the fight ahead. So why not just *impair* him for a while? No, he had better not. Or should he? No? The Debate in his head was ended as a wave of flying trolls screamed in. Yanking his rifile from its back mounted hold, he fired and over a dozen phaser pulses a second blasted out from his weapon. One of the trolls was vapped, and Crazy had taken to the air blasting at others along with Kyle who was more or less acting as a moving fort. Within a short time, they were blown out of the Sky and Chris moved down into the atmospheric factory which looked half like a hospital. The cleaners had been maled badly. He hopped the replacement beer (2 X what he had taken) he had brought would help. -- Chris O'Farrell