So now he was here, transported to the Alpha Moon via a superstring transfer — not to be confused with a DATT. His trip was smooth and instantaneous. One moment he was in his barracks back on Earth, at the secret base out in the middle of the western desert — the next he was standing on the faux wood front porch of the first ticket booth, armed with his password and all the instructions he needed to work the ancient PC inside.
He went through the procedure of booting up the old computer and getting through its security procedures. When it came time to fill in his hobby, he laughed and typed, "Watching people squirm."
Highly satisfied with himself, he straightened his uniform, wiped the dust from his sleeves… and pushed the Enter button.
"Quick… jump on!"
Commander X was immediately confused. A moment before he was inside the railroad station ticket booth, not really knowing what to expect, simply following the instructions given to him by his two advance men, and now, suddenly he was… well, where the hell was he?
His vision cleared, and he found himself standing on a cliff. Not in the middle of it, but right on the edge. Below him was a very deep ravine, at least five hundred feet down. Not twenty feet behind him were three armies of soldiers in skirts and carrying spears charging toward him. There were explosions going off all around him. The air smelled awful. And it was dawning on him that he was about to either get skewered by a thousand spears or fall to his death.
He was certainly the one squirming now.
"Quick… jump on!"
Finally CX looked right in front of him. Here, he saw the most confusing sight yet. There was an insane-looking spaceship of some kind hovering — sort of — just a few feet off the tip of the cliff. Its hatch was open, its tailpipe was smoking heavily, and damn it if he couldn't see three sets of near invisible strings coming out of the top of it. A man was standing in the hatchway, hand extended, pleading for him to leap to safety.
Commander X didn't really jump as much as he was pushed. Three flaming spears nailed him in the buttocks all at once. This and the screams of the soldiers in skirts gave him the impetus to leap toward the spaceship. It was his only means of escape.
It was about a six-foot leap, but again the flaming spears propelled him forward. Still, he just barely managed to grab on to the bottom of the hatch, very nearly falling into the chasm. He let out a scream in a voice he'd never heard come out of himself before. It was very womanly. The man in the open doorway tried to help him on board, but the spaceship started vibrating madly, and then the bottom of the hatch began tearing away from its body. Commander X couldn't believe it. This damn thing seemed made of cardboard!
He pulled off a chunk of it with his right hand — and here came that scream again — as now he was hanging on by just four fingers of his left hand. The spacecraft was shaking mightily now. The tin soldiers were throwing their flaming spears at him, and he was about two seconds away from plunging to his death.
As it turned out, the only reason he didn't fall at that moment was that the spacecraft did an incredible sideways flip, literally turning on its side ninety degrees. So now Commander X, instead of hanging off of the ship, was suddenly on top of it, looking down. He hung there for a second before dropping through the hatch, smashing his head and shoulder as he fell, then cracking his skull a second time as he hit the cabin's interior far wall.
Dazed, bleeding, and stunned, CX felt the ship right itself and slowly, very slowly, start moving away from the cliff.
He opened his eyes to see two people looking down at him: an old man with bad teeth and a beard that looked fake, and a young girl, pretty but dumb-looking. They were alternately trying to help him up and stepping on him. He was blubbering, trying to speak, trying to assess his wounds, trying to keep his bladder from bursting involuntarily.
Finally he was able to shout, "Where the hell am I?"
The reply from the old man was maddeningly simple: "You're with us."
"But who the hell are you!"
"I am Dr. Zoloff. This is my daughter, Annie."
CX struggled to get up, but the ship was gyrating so wildly, it proved impossible.
He began sputtering again. "Do you know who I am?" he screamed at them.
"Yes, of course," the old man said. "You're Flash Rogers! And you've come to help us!"
CX finally got to his feet and was hit with a sudden attack of motion sickness. If this was flying, he had to get his legs back on the ground as quickly as possible. But the flimsy ship was swaying so violently, he was lucky he could stay upright.
He cleared his eyes again and saw the old man was now at the controls of the craft, but they looked too simple to actually control anything. Commander X's first instinct was to shoot the both of them, but then who would fly this claptrap? He did make his way over to the control panel, intent upon at least seeing how this thing was able to stay in the air. By the time he stumbled to the front of the craft, the old man had turned it around by using the huge steering wheel, and they had picked up speed. A'little anyway.
"Where are we going? What are you doing?" CX demanded of the old man.
The old man turned and looked at him with scary eyes. "We are going to Ping's Palace, of course!" he bellowed at him. "We must rescue Buck!"
CX's response was predictable. "Who the fuck is Buck?"
But before he could get half of it out, the young girl yelled, "The Wingmen!"
The next thing CX knew, twenty spears were suddenly sticking through the skin of the craft, half of them burning him in the ass again. As he was pulling their tips out, the craft suddenly shook from one end to the other. He fell to this rump again, only to see a huge burning arrow was now sticking out of the front of the spacecraft.
Suddenly the interior of the cabin was filled with smoke. Before CX could get to his feet, the craft severely pitched downward, causing the SSG officer to slam his battered head once again.
The craft crashed into something very hard a moment later. It came apart all around him. Cardboard pieces flying in every direction, it disintegrated into nothingness. CX was thrown to the ground, landing on his bad shoulder. He got to his knees only to see another small army of soldiers in huge buckethead helmets advancing on him.
His first instinct was to reach for his ray gun, but it was already too late for that. A tidal wave of tin soldiers fell on him and began beating him severely. The sheer weight of their armor was cracking his bones. Any time he tried to throw a punch, he hit one of their iron heads, further smashing his fingers, his knuckles. Meanwhile, the girl was led away by a couple of the soldiers, with the old man following close behind.
It went on like this for what seemed like an eternity, the soldiers pummeling CX with their fists and kicking him with their shod feet. There were so many on top of him, the SSG officer thought he would suffocate. Only when he started screaming like a girl again did the tin soldiers back off. One soldier ended the lopsided fray with a powerhouse kick to CX's groin. The SSG officer doubled over, falling on top of his flattened ray gun, and was finally dragged away.