RE: [JMC_Blue_Dwarf] Dysart, Lester - \'Set soakers to \'beer\'!\'

Joint post goodness continues! Weeeeee!
<snip>Lester's fist slammed on the 'open doors' button.Just beyond the corriders outside the entrance of flight bay 01 was a small army of hympenoptera. The bugs where
undoubtably an advance party but there was still enough of them to waste about a quarter of their supplies.
A long grin slowly crawled it's way across Lester's face. He pumped his supersoaker like it was a steam engine
piston then strolled out of the elevator. "Drink and be merry." 'Id' quoted.
Dysart's holographic form mirrored his expression and followed him.
Today he was going to kill giant bugs with alcohol. This wouldn't have been the most awesome moment of his non-life
but damn it was going to be close. <snip>
 
For a guy who had just shot him in the back of the head, Dysart wasn't all bad. Come to think of it, Lester's two
most recent friends were pretty much defined as "people who shot me".
 
The Hymenoptera were huge, massing in so many numbers, it was frightening. But that was all they were: lots and big.
They didn't appear to have tactics except the zerg rush.
 
("What the hell's a Zerg?" Lester asked himself angrily. "J-just a thing f-from a game," he quivered in reply. "Did
you waste EVERY minute of your stolen exsitence?")
 
"We'll start with a grenade," Lester told Dysart quietly. The creatures watched them, mandibles chittering and
clicking. He reached behind him, pulled up a can of Kestral Super-strength and began to shake. The bugs quivered and
started to move forwards and Lester put something from his pocket onto the can. He tossed it lightly forwards and
grabbed Dysart, pulling him behind the wreck of a Blue Midget.
 
Riding the spinning can, SNIDE gave a whoop of delight, then he landed and bounced once, twice, three times, and
slid to a halt in the middle of the biggest group of ugly, drooling, chitinous creatures he had ever encountered.
SNIDE looked up into the many eyes of something hideous and raising a leg, giving him "the finger". Then the little
robot stuck all four spiky legs into the body of the can of lager.
 
The noises that was followed were: "Ksssss", then: "fwwooooossh", then "plip, plip" as the beer dripped off chitin
hides and onto the deck.
Then it sort of went: "gggrarrrgkkkknnnnnkkkkffffflllllppppppaaarrrlllllggggreeekkkkkktsssssasshak!"
Finally a satisfying noise exactly like a chorus of people going: "fwooommmlllp!" and it started raining bits of insect.
Silence descended and Lester risked a glance over their cover. A wide ring of empty space surrounded a very happy
little robot that was now industriously kicking the squiggly remnants.
 
Lester and Dysart leapt from behind their cover, firing wildy. Lester moved easily, lightly, his face a grim line of
determination. That startled Dysart. He'd come to think of the Id Lester as a sadistic and mean bastard, but this
guy was clearly dealing with the fight as a problem, a challenge to be dealt with in a calm and efficient manner.
There was something cold about him that somehow chilled Dysart's imagined heart.
 
He didn't have long to think about it though, as one of the smaller creatures had latched onto his leg. He took a
bottle of Coors, held it by the neck and smashed it hard on the thing's head. It's multiple jaws whirred and gnashed
angrily, then it gagged, swung its head left, right, tilted its head (reminding Dysart of a dog Andy once saw that
kept bringing him things to play fetch with), then it exploded, splattering his endo-skeletal structure with gunk.
 
He was moving well, whatever Lester had done certainly sped things up a bit. He dove to the floor, under the very
belly of something huge and with far too many legs and kicked upwards, punching a hole in its soft underside. He
then squirted a mixture into its innards that was normally only drunk by Rugby players on a stag night. It caused
the giant Hymenoptera creature to start thrashing and its dying shudders caused it to flop its gargantuan weight
straight onto Dysart. It writhed and threw itself about, pounding his skeleton into the steel, leaving his
hologramatic body half embedded in the deck. Then all was darkness as it stopped moving. Dysart tried to lift his
arms. Nothing doing. He was stuck with his arms by his side. Then the bug-giant exploded. Dysart dragged himself up
and shooting alcohol around him in a wide arc, ran for one of the intact looking Starbugs.
 
Lester stepped down hard on the mandibles that tried to chomp him in half and ran up the spiny body of the giant ant
that was trying to eat him. It bucked and kicked, trying to throw him off but somehow Lester held on, flat against
the thing's back, fingers in the gap between plates of armour. He held out a free hand and SNIDE somersaulted
through the air to his palm. SNIDE formed a shape: pointing his legs straight down and Lester used SNIDE to etch
a circular shape in the ant-thing's armour. Then he put SNIDE safely on his shoulder and punched the weakened spot they
had just made. The armour cracked and Lester lifted the flap of insect-skin as the ant-thing moved closer to its
fellows so that another thing with big claws could rake Lester off its back. SNIDE flipped the lid off another
bottle and Lester jammed it neck first into the hole.
 
He let go of the ant thing and was thrown high into the air by its convulsions. He smacked hard on the bulkhead and
slid down, his head lolling at a ghastly angle.
 
Dysart saw Lester riding the bug like a bucking bronco, then something happened almost too fast to see and Lester
was thrown against the wall. He hit hard and fell down and Dysart knew that no person's head should flop like that.
He charged over, spraying every side with a pistol in each hand until he reached the prone body. Without stopping he
dropped a pistol, grabbed Lester's grubby lab-coat collar and dragged him along the floor, firing behind him without
looking.
 
Dysart dragged Lester bodily up the ramp of one of the few remaining Starbugs. The Hymenoptera seemed to have
learned how deadly their weapons were and circled angrily below them. A few of the flying ones buzzed overhead as he
sealed shut the hatch.
 
Then the really disgusting thing happened. Lester's dead hand waved around spasmodically, searching blindly. It
grabbed Lester's head by the hair and lifted. GRRRRKKKKKNNNNKKKKK CRUCK CRACK SPACK GGGG, went his bones and
Lester's eyes snapped open.
 
"That is... I can't... yuck," Dysart told him. "I want to be able to hurl."
 
"H-hello?" Lester blinked.
 
"Erm... hi," Dysart replied uneasily. "We...uh... I'll get the ship prepped."
 
"H-hello? Is anybody there?"
 
"Yes. I'm here. Listen, lots of big nasty beasts outside- can we hurry this up?"
 
"It's all gone quiet," Lester looked up at Dysart with panic in his eyes, "he's not there."
 
"...Who...?"
 
"The brave one! The stupid one with the anger... he's not there! I can't find him!"
 
"Right, well... er..." since Lester wasn't moving out of the airlock and there was the sound of Hymenoptera climbing
over the hull, Dysart realised that there was only him left to take action. "I wish he'd told us what he had
planned." He moved through to the Cockpit where a gibbering thing was clamped to the front windscreen. Dysart's
hologrammatic eyes narrowed, he sat on the pilot's seat, reached down and pulled up a bottle of beer, he popped the
cap and raised it in salute to the bug thing, which promptly leapt from the viewport and buzzed away.
 
"N-no plan," said a voice behind him.
 
"What?"
 
"H-he h-had n-no plan," Lester told Dysart, "I think I'm going to be sick."
 
"Look, just sit down. We need to clear the bay, we won't get very far before they- damn it!! They've already
started!" Dysart said. Already there came the sounds of steel being torn aside as they began destroying the Starbug.
 
"T-take off. I've got an idea." Lester trudged away, SNIDE bouncing gently on his shoulder. Dysart thought he looked
like hell, but it was basically how Lester Seventeen-Dot-Phelps always looked.
 
"Take off?! Between those things outside and the drunk mess that counts for our regular engineering team- I'm not
sure if this thing is still space worthy!!" Dysart yelled in shock.
 
"Just do it!!" Lester snapped, fighting with all his will not to vomit there and then, "p-please?"
 
Back in the mid-section, Lester tapped the override code for the waste-disposal system, then routed it through the
emergency flood venting used to basically bilge-pump a Starbug when it crashed in aquatic environments. Then he
lifted the keg of beer. Or at least that was the theory. He struggled, he strained, he heaved. In the end he
whimpered for help from Dysart.
 
"Not now Lester!" Dysart repiled between grit teeth, "I'm having enough trouble as it is getting this thing
airborne!"
 
"Pleeeeease," Lester hissed, his skinny arms cracking with the effort. SNIDE was at the bottom of the keg also
attempting to lift it.
 
"Didn't you lift that thing onboard?!" Dysart yelled, giving into his frustation and slamming the 'Autopilot'
button.
 
"No... he did..." Lester groaned between his teeth. Dysart's metal feet clunked over to him, grabbing the other end
of the barrell, "into... the toilet!"
 
"*What*?" was Dysart's high-pitched reply.
 
"Quick-NOW!!" Lester gave a heave of relief as he pulled it over the dunny.
 
Together they dumped the contents of the keg into the loo, it hurt something in Dysart and he realised that Andy was
somewhere inside, whimpering. Not trusting the autopilot for a second Dysart returned to the cockpit. While Lester
was left with the honours, with a trembling hand he hit the final lever: the flush. Then he ran to the cockpit.
 
There was a churning gurgle, rumbling then side vents under the belly of Starbug began disgorging amber liquid in
all directions. The little green ship moved towards the landing bay doors and burst out of it, still spilling
alcohol which then froze forming razor sharp beer crystals in space. The remains of the doors spun out into space as
well, hammering into an unsuspecting Hymenoptera fighter and spattering it across the cosmos.
Lester and Dysart marvelled at the still vast number of Blue Dwarf's filling the sky, then they saw the hive ship.
 
"Would you, um, could you let go of me," Dysart asked and blushing deeply Lester let go of the android.
 
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