Parry's Last Stand

Cap Parry swept past Tango, the orange moon of the Groan system. He widened the visiscreen to gaze at the blood red rivers snaking across it like the cracked capillaries of his desolate face. Blood-shot he turned and gunned the warp, slicing time but stalling. He had to put some clicks between him and Earth. S.W.O.R.D Probes would be after him, a renegade, a damn traitor. He had committed the ultimate crime killing a Moon Base Guard, who had mercilessly slain his illicit love Mortar Lasers, rebel Femja of the Casuals. His punishment would be the Ionian Seasoning, an excruciating death reserved solely for treachery amongst S.W.O.R.D's elite, to dessicate and blister slowly like a common slug on the salted wastes of lethal Io. Ugh! Parry grimaced and thought back to the time he was last with Mortar. They had kissed heavilly and spoken softly of a life together light years away from the curse of the S.W.O.R.D war. Bastards! He hoped the Casuals would gut them all and seize the hard-fought freedom so many brave rebels had died for. So many who had died at his own blood soaked hands. Victory would be theirs, he could feel it! It had to be!

But for now he must focus and evade the swine Probe posse scrambled from Mars Base, who he knew wouldn't back down until the turncoat Captain was 'seasoned' for good. His Soar could out-fight them on the dogs but not for long, as those damn Probes carried a ton more Corona. His only chance was to hole up right under their noses, somewhere they'd never look, in the dead calderra of Olympus Mons, towering 17 miles above Mars Base and out of range of all S.W.O.R.D bio and mecha-scans. He had fuel rods and food to last a month when hopefully the 'pack' would back off and he'd sneak away to Boiler City on Grime, get a new ID and fade. "No time like now boy as my sweet Mom would say!". Parry grazed the glider round Tango, set a course for Mars, lay back and switched the zikdrive to Mortar's favourite song from the Twennieth, Tangerine. A tear formed in his blood-shot eye.

This slice of fan-fiction is dedicated to Ingrid Pitt RIP, the undisputed Hammer Scream Queen of my youth.