First Contact

"Andy, where's Chuck and Snoop?"

"They were right behind me."

"Are they coming?"

"I don't know."

"Why not? Why aren't they getting out?"

"Red's dead. He had her. Had her hand. She just dissolved. He was pulling her out and she just dissolved right in his hands, Linus."

"You left my big brother behind?"

"You weren't there, Sally. You didn't hear it."

"Hear what?"

"His scream. I've never heard a man make a noise like that. Never seen a man look like that. Never heard a DOG2.0 howl like that."

"Go back, help him. Someone help me up. I'll go help him myself."

"I don't think he wants help, Franklin. I don't think there's anything he wants now that anyone can give him." - Fall of the Pumpkin Throne. Act III, Scene VIII

WE NOW RETURN TO THE CHARLIE THE MOO MOO POWER HOUR HOLIDAY SPECIAL, IT'S THE GREAT FESTIVE HOLIDAY GOURD, P'THOK! already in progress.

The gourd guardian's body was nothing but whipcord muscle, gristle, and bone. It was reaching forward, toward P'Thok, claws gleaming.

The idling engine roared as P'Thok pulled it from the ground and swung the Terran weapon, twisting from the waist the way he had been taught. The warsteel blade caught supernatural flesh, ripped into it, and spewed blood and gore across the grass as P'Thok sawed the first in half with a single swipe. He braced his feet, wading forward, hacking at the gourd guardians, severing pumpkinheads and arms in equal measure.

Mal'Kawp threw himself through the corn, the cans spewing clear fluid across the dried stalks. The cans were empty and he threw them behind himself as he used his bladearms to part the corn and run through it. The shotgun was empty and he reloaded it quickly as he crossed several lines of corn maze. Behind him the gourd guardians, two giants turkeys, and a handful of malevolent gourds were in hot pursuit, giving out eerie hunting cries.

On top of the burning building, J'Rad was rubbing his vestigal wings and bladearms together, the latter giving off showers of sparks, making high pitched noises that quickly moved through the music scales as he pranced and capered on the hot tin roof, his footpads making booming thudding noises in time with the squeaking and squealing of his bladearms and vestigal wings.

Through the rip in space and reality, the vast creature, a bloated, segmented, orange oval, squished from the top, with a massive green horn of severed vine on the top. It opened its square toothed jaws and bellowed out its rage as the tentacles of green pulled it forward, toward reality.

P'Thok, switching to swinging the cutting bar with one hand, reaching under his poncho to grab the pistol in the shoulder holster. He ripped apart a gourd guardian at the waist as he withdrew the ornately decorated pistol. The orange and white wheels on either side of the decorated plasma chamber began spinning with a tinkling noise.

The last two gourd guardians ran to interpose themselves between P'Thok and the tear in reality.

"NO! NO! KILL HIM!" J'Rad shouted over the din.

Two gourds spit seeds at P'Thok, who ducked and whirled out of the way.

Age and weariness had dropped away. P'Thok felt young again, as if he had yet to land on Terra, as if the years after the War of Terran Aggression had never come to pass.

The seeds missed P'Thok, suspended in orange pumpkin juice, fizzing with carbonation, and hit J'Rad in the chest. A gourd guardian spit purple fire, which P'Thok deflected with the cutting bar, sending it spinning in a tight circle, trailing sparks, to bounce off a huge metal tank full of water that had apples bobbing on the top.

The purple energy hit the gray carapaced Treana'ad in the chest, exploding and leaving him draped with sticky webs of spun sugar.

"NOT ME! THE YUTZ WITH THE CUTTING BAR!" J'Rad yelled, tearing the sticky webs off of his body.

Mal'Kawp stopped at the edge, his footpads skidding on the dirt. He whirled around with a kick and faced the cornfield maze.

The gourd guardians were running through the field, bent at the waist, their jaws and claws leading the way. The two massive turkeys, bigger even than an Elder Matron, were waddling after Mal'Kawp. They saw him and gave a great bass roar, flapping their wings, stirring up the dust from the cornfield maze. The malevolent gourds were crashing through the maze, their tentacles getting tangled on the cornstalks.

Mal'Kawp pulled out his lighter, inscribed with "FORT ERWIN JOINT SERVICES BASE" and the date of his graduation on it and thumbed the striker.

The flame was yellow at the end, blue at the wick.

"Now to make a cornfield sound like a dog," he intoned, bending down.

The turkey screeched, the gourds snarled, and the gourd guardians screamed as Mal'Kawp touched the lighter to the fuel.

The fire bloomed with a WOOF, running up the trail and into the dry cornstalks. Corncobs left began to explode, the gasoline burned with a roar, and the stalks and leaves caught instantly.

J'Rad turned and stared at the burning field.

"HOW DARE YOU?" he screeched. He held out the book, ignoring the flames.

P'Thok tossed the grenade and ran to the side.

Mal'Kawp straightened up and turned around as the burning turkeys collapsed, staring at J'Rath. He was about to run when he saw motion, circling around to approach at a different angle.

"He who dares, wins," Mal'Kawp said, still holding out the burning lighter. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his serape and used the tip of a bladearm to push up the top.

Something exploded in the cornfield and sent up a gout of orange gore and baked teardrop shaped seeds.

"Sounds like your friends are a little well done," Mal'Kawp said.

The grenade went off in the abomination's face, making it flinch back. There was a bright flash as the singularity was created and a massive sleet of x-ray radiation sleeted out. The singularity existed only for a microsecond, but it was enough.

The singularity greedily gobbled up anything not nailed down, pulling the tentacles and vines in, everything spiralling around the artificial singularity as it was ruthlessly devoured. Most of the matter vanished, ejected somewhere else in a razor thin blade of radiation and particles.

The Lanaktallan moved forward, fingering the knives, staring at the Executor Agent. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and he was blowing bloody foam. His knees trembled as he moved toward the wounded agent, who had a pair of Telkan broodcarriers and a half dozen podlings hiding behind him.

"There is nothing that can save you, and with you gone, nothing can save them," the mad Lanaktallan said. He laughed, a gurgling thing, as he moved forward.

The Executor tried to get to his feet and failed, blood loss having taken its toll through over a dozen stab wounds and slashes.

He stared defiantly at the maddened serial killer.

"Evil such as you always falls eventually," the Executor said. He looked at the podlings and broodcarriers through his rear eyes. "I will not fail you." He lifted his empty plasma pistol and coughed. "I am the shield of the Citizens."

The killer laughed, a sickly bubbling sound. With an effort the Senior Secret Agent struggled to his feet as the killer laughed, clopping steadily forward.

There was a bright flash. A tiny hole in space-time appeared, no wider than a dusting of atoms. Pieces of atoms rent apart thousands of years ago finished their journey, accompanied by the howling hard radiation that the particles had ridden on.

A bright flash appeared as a lance only a few molecules wide snapped into existence. Particle sleet and base sub-atomic particles sliced through the gap. The light was white and made the broodcarriers shield the podling's eyes even as they turned away.

The maddened Lanaktallan, responsible for dozens of murders, was bisected by the flash.

The killer's laughing stopped suddenly as the Senior Secret Agent blinked, trying to banish the after-image of the lance of energy that had appeared from nowhere.

The killer dropped the knife.

It's arm fell off.

Senior Secret Agent Ba'ahnya'ahrd stared as the killer fell into three pieces.

The singularity failed and the matter exploded outward. The huge abomination roared in rage, its breath washing over P'Thok, blowing his sarape, fluttering his abdominal wrap. P'Thok held onto his hat with one bladearm as the abomination's cheek was scoured down to the white fleshy pulp, unaware that the tips of his antenna were bleached bone white.

A single burning gourd guardian, its pumpkinhead wreathed in flames, burst from the cornfield, running at Mal'Kawp's back.

J'Rad lifted his hand, energy surrounding it, swirling into a tight glowing ball. "Shoryuken!"

The ball whipped toward Mal'Kawp.

The DOG2.0 finally got into position.

It could see the phasic shields, see how the ebb and flow of phasic energy emenating from the book and guided by J'Reth's will flowed and shifted and moved. It could smell the evil of the abomination, scent the wrongness of the gourd guardians, and it put it all out of its little doggy mind.

The targeting carats lined up.

The gourd guardian leaped.

P'Thok blocked a spit of seeds with the cutting bar, sparks showering through the air.

Mal'Kawp ducked.

The energy hit the gourd guardian square. The burning figure exploded.

Mal'Kawp stood up, tearing the filter off of the cigarette and putting the cigarette into his mouth.

The X.A.V.A. fired off flares, EM-masking mist, and smoke, vanishing in a cloud of white that had red and white flashes go off in a dizzying pattern. Smoke and countermeasures hid the DOG2.0, the microprism mist capable of nullifying lasers and stopping plasma packets.

BRRRRRT!

The snub-barrel 5.56mm tribarrel extended from the DOG2.0's back opened up, a solid shaft of tracers linking the X.A.V.A. to the shed as it ripped across the structure right below the roof.

"YOU FOOLISH FOOLS!" J'Rad bellowed out.

Mal'Kawp lit the cigarette.

P'Thok ripped the last and largest of the malevolent gourds in half with the cutting bar.

J'Rad gestured. "I WILL..."

The roof collapsed as Mal'Kawp exhaled a cloud of smoke.

J'Rad vanished.

The X.A.V.A. burst out of the cloud, running for the horse trough, its tongue hanging out as it bled off heat through rapid panting, the slowing barrels of the tribarrel glowing red at the tips.

Vines as thick as mules squirmed out of the rip in time and space, grabbing onto stumps, fences, and everything else they could reach. P'Thok danced back as the great vile beast heaved itself forward.

It was partially out of the rent in reality.

Putting the tip of the blade back into the ground and steadying it with one bladearm, P'Thok reached into his pocket, digging for something, even as he hefted the little ornate plasma pistol, staring at the creature.

The DOG2.0 stopped at the water trough, standing on its hind legs and began slurping at the water.

SLORP SLORP SLORP

Mal'Kawp walked forward, slowly, toward the burning building, stopping long enough to pick up a bucket.

The great vile beast heaved itself forward.

P'Thok pulled out a little cork with a string, taking the time to hook the string to the little hook under the ejection port of the pistol. He tapped the cork in.

Mal'Kawp slowed down, scooping water out of the trough and into the bucket.

**X.A.V.A. is goodboi** the DOG2.0 panted even as it slurped up water with a long red tongue.

"Yes, yes you are," Mal'Kawp said, puffing smoke rings out from the top of his boots.

P'Thok leveled the ornate little plasma pistol, the black and white wheels spinning up. He leveled it over one bladearm, steadying it, and closed one eyelid as he sighted through the open air sights.

The creature roared.

Mal'Kawp stopped only a few feet from the inferno, feeling the heat wash over him, taking a split second to relish the contrast of the heat from the flames consuming the burning building and the cold of the winter night on his back.

The beast screamed.

P'Thok pulled the trigger. The little wheels made fizzwheeee sounds. Little sparks curled and spiralled off the plasma chamber. A little tinkling tune sounded out.

*POP*

The cork flew out, hit the end of the string only a foot from the pistol, and dropped.

Mal'Kawp opened his mouth to suggest that P'Thok use something stronger.

The entire front of the pumpkin creature vanished.

The tear in reality got wider as a hole big enough to fly a cargo hauler appeared in it.

The ground blew apart in a widening and deeping fan in front of P'Thok, even the bedrock tearing up.

Everything in a 15 degree arc in front of P'Thok, out to five hundred feet, was suddenly turned into superheated plasma.

That exploded.

Mal'Kawp felt himself leaning back, felt the chitin on his face deform and impossibly flap.

The burning building collapsed.

The burning cornfield maze went out.

The plume of burning psuedo-matter colored green and red clawed two miles into the sky, a series of cones stacked on top of one another, getting successively smaller.

The burning rip in reality collapsed.

Red and white swirled candies wrapped in clear cellophane rained from the sky, along with the same red and white striped candy, fashioned into canes. Gumdrops and chocolate bumps showered down, along with ribbons and strips of fruit pressed into thin ribbons and rolled up. Juice boxes showered down, along with snowflakes and thin strips of shiny metallic looking plastic threads.

WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK AFTER THESE IMPORTANT MESSAGES!

CRUSADE>I WANT ONE OF THOSE! NO, I WANT TWO! NO, THREE! NO, I SHALL ARM AN ENTIRE REGIMENT OF TROOPS IN RED AND WHITE FUR TRIMMED ARMOR ARMED WITH SUCH WEAPONS!

TELKAN>