The Ferry Crash

Roonoo began to think about the intelligence reports of humans going towards Mars, with all its precious resources, when his ridafon (sergeant) ran into the room with a very worried expression on his face, and shouted, “Get in the ship! IT’S AN EMERGENCY!! A FERRY NEEDS HELP!!!” Roonoo ran to his battle station. He hurriedly typed in the access code, and jumped into the seat without pausing to wonder why his normally ornery ridafon had been so nervous. He heard the engines blast into action at the other end of the carrier. Several unmanned fighters tried to fight the carrier, but they were easily taken care of with a few blasts. The preceding went into the log like this:

Android fighter challenges, android fighter is destroyed.

But then they got to the ferry. Its crew was skirmishing with a large carrier. As Roonoo and the rest of the crew on his carrier came onto the scene, the enemy carrier sent out fighters. Roonoo used up his on-mother ship missile battery, and pressed the button for his station to be lowered into a fighter. His one-man man fighter attached to his battle station. He blasted off. He flew right into a fight between a few fighters from each team. He reversed his fighter, just long enough to stop, and shifted into neutral. He fired blast after blast while aiming his missiles.

“Take that!” he said as if talking to the enemy pilot he had just fired two missiles at. “Got one.”, he said into the intercom, as he watched an enemy fighter go down.

“Good work!” came the reply. “ Also, if you’re number three seven five, you’re about to be hit.”

’Oh great’ thought Roonoo ’I’m going down’. He saw a missile flying toward him. He flew up, and veered left over the ferry. The missile hit the ferry. ’Oh great’ thought Roonoo. Then he saw his sister in the window of the ferry. If he had been worried then he was ten times more than terrified now. He felt a burning heat. His fuel tanks blew up and his fighter started the long trip to the planet below. He watched as he whizzed past a moon. He thought he saw a base on it, and He didn’t like that at all. As he watched the battle raging above him, he waited, terrified, to hear the explosion that would Indefinitely kill him. Instead he heard the soft thud of a ship’s armor gently hitting a chalk field. He looked out and saw first the rocky surface of Mars, so alien and interesting, and he remembered his many childhood trips to it, and then the ferry, intact, with a survivor in the window.

He opened his fighter’s door, grabbed his heavy- duty electro gun and his Basic Repair Kit, ant set out for the ferry. After a bit of walking, he saw a blast whiz by. He whirled around and saw an enemy pilot. He fired. The enemy returned fire. He responded with his heavy-duty electro-gun. His assailant slumped over, dead. He ran over and grabbed the human’s weapons and accessories. Then he got to the ferry, and looked for a place to begin work. After a while, he found a good place. It was a door that had been weakened by the missile. He carefully fired at the armored hinges with his ring laser gun. After three Jupiterian minutes, the first hinge fell apart. Then he destroyed the second hinge. Everything was going quite fine until the third hinge crumbled to ashes. When this happened, the door fell down as Roonoo planned. But, when the door lost contact, an alarm sounded. Roonoo jumped back, quite surprised. He searched for an alarm box and saw, above the door, an armored box. The box was marked “Security”. He pulled out his heavy-duty electro gun. With one shot the box exploded. The alarm stopped. Roonoo walked in. He called out “Anybody? ANYBODY?!” .

Eventually another voice answered. “Yes? Who is it?”

“I am arrnod Roonoo Onomon of the Jupiterian Navy,” said Roonoo. “And I need your help.”

“How so?” asked the stranger.

“You see, my ridafon will not believe me when I tell him that there is a survivor of this crash. I have crashed as well. However, I have crashed in a military vehicle and my radio is meant to withstand vibrations and shocks of great intensity.” Roonoo explained. “So if you allow me to take you in my ship, I’ll radio back and have you speak to my ridafon and prove that there is at least one survivor. It would be greatly helpful.”

“OK. But first let me get my friend, Fenanon. She is very interested in what the insides of ships look like. Besides, she has a brother in the Navy,” Said the stranger as they began to walk off.

“Wait up!” cried Roonoo. “I have one question about her. Is her name Fenanon Onomon?”

“As a matter of fact, yes!” said the stranger.

“Then I must go too!” said Roonoo excitedly and began to walk after the stranger. “By the way, may I ask your name?” inquired Roonoo.

“Yes.” said the stranger. “My name is Snada. I am in her class in school”.

“Ah, yes.” said Roonoo. “I have heard about you many times,” he said. “Good friend of hers, you are.” At about this time, they reached Cabin 475, where Snada knocked and said, “Fenanon, I am here and there is someone from the Navy who claims to be called Roonoo Onomon”.

“My brother!” said Fenanon excitedly as she came rushing out.

“OK. Now for the radio call.” said Roonoo, and he led back to his fighter. He radioed back to his ridafon. While the call was being transmitted, he told the others what to say.

Soon the voice of ridafon Kilem could be heard saying “What now?” in a slightly aggravated voice.

“I am quite exasperated that I have to bother you about this twice, but there really are survivors of the ferry crash.” He held the microphone up to Snada.

“And now he has proof,” she said. Roonoo held the microphone up to Fenanon.

“Are you sure?” asked ridafon Kilem.

“Oh, we’re sure” said Fenanon

“Yeah, he has two survivors right here in this ship as proof. And I swear to whatever higher power you worship that there are more survivors than us. So send a good size transport” said Snada.

“All right, all right, if you have proof” said ridafon Kilem grudgingly. A little while afterward, a large 500-seater arrived on the scene, with its engines working and a plentiful fuel supply.

As soon as they had brought back all the survivors, Roonoo was greatly congratulated by the soldiers who were there to help get the survivors into their seats, and medics to help the injured. When they got back to Jupiter, Roonoo learned that he arrived so soon that all the injured survivors got to the medics before their injuries could complicate, or before they could die. He also learned that he would be promoted to a Kuloon (commander). About this he was very happy.

A very exciting day later, Roonoo was about to be promoted, and was in the grand hall of his base. His ridafon was pestering him about why he had to be a hero. One by one, the guests and promoters wandered in. Once all the guests had arrived, and that was quite a while, about three jupitarian hours, the first promoter came up, then the second, then the third, and so on, until he was a Kuloon.

Some only said something like this: “I hereby promote Roonoo Onomon to my rank”. Some said longer and more elaborate things. A few even made speeches.

A few years after the war, Roonoo was sitting in his office trying to think of a way of guarding the makeshift human bases he was almost positive the humans would try to re-gain and make into real bases now that the humans almost completely recovered from the damage done to then in their losing fight with the Jupiterians. Suddenly a ridafon ran into the room.

“My name is Ridafon Kilem, and I have bad news. The Humans attacked our base, which is guarding one of the humans abandoned makeshift ones on Mars. We need re-enforcements. I repeat: we need re-enforcements. I repea-”

“Shut up! Once is enough. I was just suspecting the same thing, and I know where to start.” Said Roonoo “by the way, I think that you were my ridafon, a few years back, before I was a Kuloon.” Very soon after that, a fleet of carriers was seen flying up. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a human fighter flew up to them. It exploded in about sixteen seconds. Then more and more fighters could be seen, then carriers. The fleet launched fighters. Civil patrols and even a few armed civilians joined in. Roonoo didn’t think much of civilians who pretended to be soldiers. But this time it was on their home planet. ’A new war, a new hero, an old foe’ thought Roonoo. That meant it was someone else’s turn to be promoted. Particularly when he saw a civilian craft get hit and go down and appear to blow up and be completely destroyed, but Roonoo knew much, much better than that. This was just somebody else’s big opportunity, not a majorly disturbing catastrophe that would eradicate hundreds of innocent civilians. And sure enough, an all-new mega-hero was reported to Roonoo and all the other Kuloons for the imperative verdict on their rewards and medal-awarding and promotions and other such things that a excellent, devoted, quick-to-help soldier gets for saving the lives of many vulnerable and innocent civilians whose lives are in need of being saved…

…And this time the big, important hero was not Roonoo.