Mission Two: A Ship in the Hot Tub

"I can't!" Sylar cried. He fell to his knees and tugged at my pants leg. "You know how I feel about....bridges," he said with a shudder.

"Think of the children," I said, trying to inspire some confidence in the weeping semi-man.

"I don't like children," he replied sniffing. "They throw rocks at me and call me names."

Children and some paraplegics are mean like that. I'd have to convince him that this bridge was not like other bridges he had encountered. "Relax," I put a hand on his shoulder, "this bridge isn't like other bridges you have encountered."

"It isn't?" The tears stopped flowing as he looked up at me with hopeful eyes.

"Not at all. On most bridges you die by falling when a crazed archaeologist cuts the ropes. This bridge has a battalion of soldiers waiting to kills us. There's no falling involved whatsoever!"

"Oh, yay!" he jumped to his feet. "I was, like, so totally scared and for nothing, huh?"

I was just about to open the door and enter the bridge when I heard a shrill and nerdy voice. "Not so fast, Mr. Bennet."

I turned and saw the man on a large display screen.


"Bill Gates?" I was stunned. "Shouldn't you be attacking Apple, not Hacknor?"

"Oh, I'm not attacking anyone. Galactor is. I just provide the software for his battle droids, battle computers and various battle peripherals."

"Oh, no! Battle peripherals!" Sylar screamed.

"Listen, Gates, we're taking this bridge. No giant head on a screen is going to stop me, not even yours."

"Ah, defiance. Good!" He smiled, "I needed to beta-test my Battle Droid Vista OS with Microsoft Office on some life...volunteers."

Ball-shaped robots rolled out from nowhere. They sprung open, encased with a force field of some sort.

Sylar threw his rifle at them. It hit the force field and fell to the floor. "Oops, I thought it was my pointy stick thingy," he said. Then, he grabbed my sabre and said, "this will work!" as he threw it at them. It also hit the force field and fell to the floor. "Hmm...I really thought that would work. It's all pointy and everything."

More battle droids of every make and model began marching into the corridor. "We're doomed!" a shiny gold protocol droid said from behind us as it ducked behind Sylar.

"I have a bad feeling about this," I said.

Bill Gates spoke from his giant screen, "Give my regards to Netscape."

"Quick!" I yelled at Sylar. "Use that gay robot as a shield with your telekinesis!"

"West?" he asked.

"No, the cowering gold thing behind you."

The battle droids began firing at us. Sylar quickly lifted the timid android into the air in front of us. "Oh, my! This is highly uncalled for!" it whined as it absorbed the blasts.

"Keep blocking their fire while I hack into this console!" I began typing away at a nearby computer. Once inside the network, I downloaded and installed Google Pack.

Override Microsoft default settings with Google products?

I hit the enter key.

The battle droids stopped firing at us. They began chanting "Do no evil."

"Wow! Like, you totally saved us, Mr. Glasses!"

A gold pile of wires and debris said, "Speak for yourself. All my parts are ruined!"

The battle droids offered to show us ads relevant to broke protocol droid parts, but there was no time. The only thing we were searching for was behind the next door.

"You may have defeated those droids," Bill Gates said. "But you'll never get past General Stonewall Jackson!"

"Oh, no!" Sylar screamed. "Is that a bridge?"

"No, you fool," Gates replied. "It's a person. Look." He began typing away at controls. "You see...let me just bring up his Wikipedia entry...one second."

DING

"Umm..." he went red. "Hold on, just a second." More dings followed. Then suddenly the entire screen went blue. The audio was still coming through with words that would make Koma blush.



"Uh, oh....I think he just blue himself," Sylar giggled.

I turned to the bridge door and hit the access pad. The door slid open.

I immediately could tell which one was the infamous Stonewall. He would be the one on the horse. He didn't seem to be expecting us.


"What in the tarnation?" he gasped. "You isn't supposed to be in here, fella."

"That's Mrs. Fella to you!" Sylar snapped back with a hand on his hip.

The man charged us on horseback with his sword in hand. "Now would be a good time to have my pointy stick thingy," I glared at Sylar.

"Sorry," he winced.

I whistled, and my faithful jet-powered horsie, uh, I mean, horse came running. "Grab on to something!" I said and flipped on the horse's jet pack.

It shot forward, right into the windshield. The charging Confederate general and his horse were quickly sucked out into space. I held on tight to railing, as did Sylar. He was screaming like my supposed son, Lyle.

Inside the bridge, some Japanese fish was calling out orders. Many battle droids were sucked out into space before an emergency blast door closed off the windshield.

The inside atmosphere stabilized, and Sylar and I let go. We walked triumphantly over to the Japanese fish. "Anatawa makeinu desu," I said.

"I don't speak Japanese; it's just an accent because I'm part fish," it replied.

"Oh."

Suddenly the entire ship shook. "We've been hit!" the fish shouted.

I looked on the console. The Executive was firing at us. Did the other team fail in their mission? That ship should have been disabled by now! Either the other team was cheating or Galactor discovered our mission.

"You have to get us landed safely," I told the fish.

"No, thank you. I run for escape pod now." He and the battle droids ran out of the bridge in a panic.


"Strap yourself in!" I told Sylar.

"You promised no falling!" he screamed, jumping into the nearest chair.

"Extend all flaps and drag things!" I commanded. Sylar began clicking away at his console.

The ship must have been badly damaged as it began to fall rapidly into Hacknor's atmosphere. I pulled at the controls, doing my best to steer it in for a somewhat safe landing. It would have been much easier to do with working engines. The ship, or at least the half left of it, crashed softly into the barracks hot tub.

"Well, we made it," I slapped Sylar on the back. "Let's go."

"Hold on," he replied. "I'm almost done with my game."


I looked down at his console. "You're playing solitaire?"

I walked up to Jon who apparently didn't notice the falling spaceship. He and Henchman 432 were standing around talking about tennis.

Jon said, "We should hurry and play if we're going to play. It's getting late. They'll be done with the challenge soon, and we'll have to judge them."

Henchman replied, "Yeah, I kinda lost track of the time, and then it was like quarter to 6, and I thought, "Oh crap, I need to play tennis." And then "Oh crap, I'm hungry, I'll die if I play tennis." And then I ate, and now I say, "Oh crap, I'll crap if I play tennis."

I tossed the keys to the disabled half-ship at Jon. "She's all yours, interglockenspiel."