Selections from my Asteroids Fan Fiction

O Captain, My Captain

PLAYER 1 looked at his crew. They were a ragged bunch of misfits, from every ghetto of every planet in the galaxy. Many of them were wanted criminals, but for good crimes, like stealing bread to feed babies, or punching corrupt politicians in the face. They would follow him to Hell and back without even blinking (and some of them were aliens that had to blink a lot, because they came from moist, water-logged planets).

But this was too much.

"Look, you all heard me," Captain PLAYER 1 said, with steely resolve, to his crew. "Engineer Bok-Gloo-Vulk, you can sit this one out."

Bok-Goo-Vulk looked dejected. Had he done something to offend his captain?

"I know what you're thinking, Bok-Goo-Vulk," the captain continued, as if he had read his engineer's mind, which he almost had, because a good captain can practically read his crew's mind, "but you haven't done anything to offend me. You will be useful, and you are the best damned engineer this side of the Quasar Sector, but I've got a plan."

Second Commander Ah-mee spoke up. She was beautiful, and had a very pretty face, but she didn't take guff from anyone, man, alien, or asteroid. "But Captain, without Bok-Goo-Vulk working the forward thrusters, will be sitting ducks! Don't let our personal relationship impair your judgments." Ah-mee was referring to the fact that PLAYER 1 and Ah-mee had had sex.

"That's right," Captain PLAYER 1 continued, with confidence in his voice, "we'll be sitting ducks. So we'll be relying on Twyn and Twynn," Twyn and Twynn were two twins from the Gemini Galaxy who worked the fore and aft (left and right) engines, which caused the ship to rotate, "and Lt. Worf," Worf was a Klingon, a race notable for its combat prowess and deep-rooted sense of honor, and was in charge of firing the ship's single, massive weapon: the deadly Proton-Neutrino Cannon, "to get us through this alive."

"Rather than hunt down the asteroids, we're going to let the asteroids come to us."


From Killer Asteroids Come Death

The asteroid split into two pieces, with a mighty rupture sound that couldn't be heard, because in space you can't hear sound. But the ship's computer delivered a reasonable facsimile (copy) of the sound. Captain AAA had the computer log the kill.

This area of space would be free for space settlers in no time.

But then he noticed something really bad.

He thought he had destroyed the asteroid.

But he hadn't.

He'd actually just split it up into smaller pieces.

And those smaller pieces were moving fast.

Straight. At. His. Ship.

Captain AAA didn't have time to think. He hit the forward thrusters, expertly dodging through the little bits of left-over space flotsam into the clear space on the other side.

It was a close call, but he had made it into the clear, for now. Space Command had promised that they would build him up to 2 more ships, should he destroy the ship he was in, but he liked old reliable Century Hawk, his trusty ship, and didn't want to see her, or himself, come to harm.

As the next asteroid came into his gun's sights, this time he realized he wouldn't take any chances. He unloaded a full barrage of torpedoes, massive energy shots that pulverized the asteroid, and most of the pieces the asteroid broke up to, in milliseconds. Bright shining bits of asteroid flew across space like fireworks in an ancient Earth custom known as "4th of July." The glittering pieces of stone looked for a second like little stars.

But then, behind him, another asteroid crept up. 5 parsecs away. 4 parsecs away. 3 parsecs away!

Would he go into hyperspace, or try to evade? He had no time to think. "Better take my chances evading it here, rather than jump into hyperspace and end up in some unknown and possibly dangerous part of this quadrant," Captain AAA thought.

Jumping into hyperspace seems like it would be helpful, and many early cadets often use it quite a bit. But experienced captains, like Captain AAA, know that it can often leave your ship right in the path of another incoming asteroid, or even near the same place you were trying to avoid! Hyperspace can be useful, but really it should be saved for truly dire situations (four or more asteroids coming in at you from multiple directions). Also, as a good Captain AAA knew that he could occasionally evade detection by piloting his ship into the region of space in which it shows his current score. Due to a glitch in the space-time continuum, the flying saucer won't shoot there.

2 parsecs away.

Captain AAA suddenly realized something. By moving forward just a bit, his ship would leap across space (because space-time is curved, as Albert Einstein showed in his work) and appear on the other side of the quadrant. He accelerated forward, deftly avoiding the asteroid. He was now on the other side of the quadrant.

The asteroid, relentless and evil, was following right behind him, but now he knew it was coming. He turned around and fired, even though his ship was still moving in the direction it was moving before he turned. This tactic can be useful if you are traveling in one direction, but an asteroid is coming from another. Captain AAA knew that you didn't have to always accelerate, but that it could sometimes help to move in one direction while firing in another. It's hard to master, but if you do master it, like Captain AAA did, no asteroid is safe (but your ship is).

At 1 single parsec away from Century Hawk, the last tiny piece of the asteroid exploded. His space-bullet had hit its mark.

The computer added 100 points (like dollars, but invented by the Space Command to use instead of money) to his score.

There was no time to rest. More asteroids remained. "C'mon, Century Hawk, we've got more work to do."


My Enemy, My Lover

The alien spacecraft landed on the planet. They had chosen Neptune as a neutral planet in which to meet. Why had this flying saucer been trying to attack him for so long?

The hatch opened, and PLAYER 1 was shocked to see a hot, sexy alien woman was the captain. "A woman captain?" he thought, but not in a misogynist (woman-hating) way, but more in a "good for you," sort of way.

"Let me explain myself," the "enemy" alien captain said, in a very sultry voice with an exotic accent. "I was never trying to shoot you. I was trying to help you destroy asteroids. But my species never developed the technology to aim our weapons fire," the alien vessel used a Matter-Antimatter Laser, which was powerful but unpredictable, "so it looked like occasionally I was firing at you."

"I apologize, PLAYER 1, if I ever damaged your ship. We had the same goals, you and I."

She removed her very skimpy and sexy alien captain's uniform, revealing that her race had the same general anatomical features as human women from PLAYER 1's home planet, Earth.

That night, under the light of Neptune's 13 moons (Triton, Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Proteus, Nereid, Halimede, Sao, Laomedeia, Psamathe, and Neso), they made beautiful, wonderful love.