Dreams of a better life

[Shadowe]

((Okay, so here goes with the start of some EXTREME craziness. What follows are a selection of Richard Huntington's dreams (nightmares?) involving people from the FA and Galaxy Girl. Enjoy!))

Huntington Flies Again (Part One)

Richard Huntington, Air Force ace pilot and general all-round dashing hero, feathered the rudder, hauled the stick in the other direction and almost let out a whoop of joy as his biplane tilted to the left and slid down through the air in a classic sideslip. His gaze was locked on the dark enemy plane ahead of him, and he recovered from the manoeuvre at just the right moment, falling into place. He fired a quick burst from his machine gun, and watched with satisfaction as canvas ripped and the German pilot lost control, his craft dropping in an uncontrolled spiral toward the waiting ground below.

Mission accomplished, he turned North and headed back to base.

* * * * *

As his plane slid to a stop, the ground crew whooped and hollered around him, and he pushed his goggles up from over his eyes with a grin. He dramatically pulled a piece of chalk from his thick leather jacket and leaned forward to put yet another dash on the nose of his plane. Another kill. Another German pilot consigned to hell.

He waited inside the plane until his flight engineer, Jack, had locked the bird down fully. "Everything looks good here, Ricardo!" Richard grimaced slightly at the familiar name, but said nothing. Jack pressed on. "We'll give her the once over, refuel and reload her for your sortie tomorrow. Everything'll be in tip-top shape for my old buddy!"

Unwrapping his scarf, he hopped down to the floor, then gasped. "Oh, blast and bebother!" Examining his hand, he saw a vicious cut on his palm where it had caught on a jagged shard of wood. "Ah, sorry, chaps. Going to have to go and visit the quack, get this seen to." The groans from those around him were loud and sincere. Pretty much all of the ground crew wanted to buy him a drink, and he gently pushed through the crowd, making assurances that he would drop by the mess tent later.

Making his way through the camp, tossing salutes and waves at everyone he saw, he quickly came to the medical tents. One had a hand-painted wooden sign outside that read 'The Doctor is IN'. Some wit had chalked 'sane' on the end of it. Lifting up a corner of the tentflap, he slipped inside.

The tent was large, and had been divided by an interior canvas screen, so that he found himself in a small waiting area, unable to see through to the surgery room beyond. A deucedly pretty nurse sat behind a small rickety table, making her way through a pile of paperwork, ticking off numbers on a list as she went.

"Oh! Hello, there!" Her gasp of breathless excitement sent a tiny shiver of pleasure down his spine. "You... you're Captain Huntington, aren't you?"

Richard sidled closer - difficult in the cramped quarters of the tent, and bestowed upon her his most dazzling smile. "That's right. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Nurse...?"

"Valentino, Victoria Valentino. But please, sir, call me Vicky." As he leaned close to her, he could smell the faintest hint of perfumed soap, mingled with the heady aroma that he could only describe as 'woman'.

"Well, Nurse Vicky, it's the highlight of my day so far to meet you."

She giggled quietly at his words, a tender flush deepening the colour of her skin slightly. "Well, Captain Huntington, what can we do for you?" Her words were proper, almost formal, but her tone spoke of whispered promises and secret liaisons. A hungry sigh escaped his lips, but he merely winked and smiled.

"Well, my dear Nurse Vicky, you can firstly call me Richard. Captain Huntington is a man who fights for his country. Richard is a man in need." He savoured the slight widening of her eyes before he continued. "In need of a doctor to take a look at my hand." He held it out toward her, palm upmost, and she immediately changed from breathless, flirtatious girl into a businesslike, professional nurse. He appreciated the distinction even more, and smiled as she held his hand in warm, gentle fingers, careful not to apply pressure to the wound.

"Well," she said. "It looks to me as though you'll be needing some stitches in that, Ca... Richard. I know that Doctor Veskit has nearly finished with another patient, so he'll be able to see you in a moment."

As if to punctuate her words, a manic-eyed head peered around the screen, the ruggedly handsome face looking over Richard once, then dismissing him as irrelevant.

"Nurse? Nurse, this case is more serious than I originally thought. It looks like we'll have to amputate. Where's my saw?"

Vicky smiled apologetically at Richard, and hopped off her chair. "Well, you had it for your last patient, Doctor. Perhaps it's where you left it?" Turning to face Richard again, she gestured for him to take a seat. "Won't be but a minute, Cap... Richard."

Through the screen, Richard heard a plaintive voice.

"But I only sprained my ankle!"

End of Part One

[Kitmarch]

((JJ's in it. It's a nightmare all right.))

[Shadowe]

Huntington Flies Again (Part Two)

Moments later Vicky returned, and Richard tried - with a modicum of success - to ignore the gruesome sawing sounds coming from the other side of the tent.

She turned her devastating smile on him. "So, were you out today, Richard?"

He settled as comfortably as he could in the chair and patted his lap. Vicky giggled for a moment before perching herself demurely on his knee, biting her bottom lip coquettishly when he rested his hand across her thigh.

"Indeed I was, my dear. It's peaceful up there, flying among the clouds, nothing to distract you. Until Gerry comes along, of course. But that only lasts as long as it takes to shoot him down. Take tomorrow, for example. I've got a little solo trip out to a supply dump about 50 miles from here, and I'm going to make things pretty darn hairy for the enemy while I'm there. Should be back in time for afternoon tea. What do you say to..."

His words were cut short as another pretty nurse wheeled an unconscious serviceman out from behind the curtain. There was only a bandaged stump where the lower half of his left leg should be. Doctor Veskit once again peered out.

"Aha! Another patient? Excellent. What are we going to have to chop off this one?"

* * * * *

Later that day, Nurse Vicky returned to her quarters, which she shared with the other nurses, and found herself alone for once. Moving quickly she opened the small wooden chest at the foot of her bed, reached inside and extracted a compact radio transmitter.

Minutes later the radio was was safely stored away again, and her roommates burst in to find her lying on her bed, reading.

* * * * *

The following day dawned bright, despite the thin haze of fog that fractured the sunlight. Richard was up early, as usual, watching as Jack completed the final preparations of his plane for today's mission. He wasn't nervous - he never was at this stage of the game - that would wait until the job was done and he was fighting his way back out.

He didn't have long to wait. Jack gave him the thumbs up, and Richard opened the choke. A quick push from Jack and the propeller of his plane whirred rapidly, and Richard lowered his goggles, beginning to taxi along the runway and then...

He was airborne.

* * * * *

Something had gone horribly wrong. As Richard struggled to remain conscious, German soldiers approached his downed aircraft, guns trained on him. He could barely breathe around the cracked rib, and his hands were numb from the impact. Harsh hands gripped him, and he was unable to struggle against them as they dragged him away from his plane before unceremoniously dumping him on the floor.

He managed to lift his head and saw a pair of booted feet that connected to a pair of shapely legs in tight trousers. Incongruously a purple-furred tail poked out of the back of them, and above the tightly-cut formal military jacket was a pretty, young, female face, framed by a stylish shock of purple hair. She would have been beautiful, if her face hadn't been fixed into a snarl of displeasure, and she swung her boot into his stomach.

He understood enough German to figure out her words as consciousness left him. "<Take him to the torture room!>"

End of Part Two

((Can I ask one of the admins to change the word filter? The word spelt "c o c k" needs to be freed, please - it gets very hard to write a story about aeroplanes when you keep getting the word 'thingypit'.))

[Shadowe]

Huntington Flies Again (Part Three)

Richard sat, tied to a chair, stripped to the waist, a crude bandage wrapping round his chest, making it hard to breath. She stood before him, a riding crop gripped in one hand, tapping it slowly against palm of the other. She spoke heavily accented English, not asking for information, just telling him coldly the way things were.

"Vell, Kapitan Huntington, it seems that I haf you completely at my mercy. Zis is a great surprise to me, but von vich I think you vill regret." She stalked around the chair, brushing her tail against him as she did so, and Richard winced as the fur tickled against him.

"You'll not get anything out of me!" He gasped his defiance at her, but was met with a sneer.

"I vill get vhatefer I vant out of you, Kapitan." She stopped behind him, and he couldn't see what she was doing. There were some mysterious rustles, and then he felt something soft touch his cheek. He jerked away, glancing at it, and saw that she was holding a tiny kitten next to him. She gently placed it on his bare shoulder, and he winced as it dug its tiny claws into his skin. Her lips brushed against his ear as she murmured. "So sveet. So tiny. You haf no idea vhat it is capable of, Kapitan." She gently stroked the kitten with one gloved finger, which it tried to gnaw at. "My pets vill haf you as zeir playground, und zen I vill haf you as mine!"

Terror gripped him at her words, and he grimaced as she kicked the chair over backwards, knocking the wind from him, then placed the kitten on his chest before collecting two more.

"Lots of fun, Kapitan. Teeny, tiny, sveet little kittens. Hungry little kittens."

The kittens all started mewling, and with a cruel laugh, she whipped the riding crop against his stomach, opening a cut there, and swept out of the room.

End of Part Three

((Yes, I know this is a short one))

[Shadowe]

Huntington Flies Again (Part Four)

His body weak from the attentions of the kittens, Richard lost track of the amount of time he had been held in the enemy camp. It could have been days or weeks, and no matter how hard he tried, he could see no escape. Unless there was an exchange of PoWs, he was stuck here for the duration - or until the crazy purple-haired bitch decided she'd finished playing, and chose to kill him.

At seemingly random intervals, he was released from the ropes holding him and allowed to eat. Sometimes he was given bread and water, other times huge quantities of cake were provided. It baffled him.

As he lay there, in the dark, he heard the door open, and someone came into the cell, knelt down next to him and whispered in his ear.

"Come on, Captain. Time for you to move. There's a plane waiting at the runway, and if we move now we can get you out of here." Richard did not recognise the voice, but the words sent a jolt through him, and energy coursed through him, allowing him to surge to his feet in one swift motion. He was facing a tall man in German officer's uniform, who winked at him. "You need to get out of here and tell the folks on the other side that you have a spy in your camp. They knew you were coming out. They knew where you were heading. They had a radio message that told them everything they needed to know to capture you. Now, you need to hurry!"

The man threw a uniform at Richard, waited while he quickly got dressed, hampered by the attentions of one of the tiny kittens - for some reason he wanted to call her April - and the pair of them quickly left the prison block, heading for the flattened field that served the encampment as an airstrip. Two planes were in view - one painted a lurid red, and Richard's heart leapt into his throat as he recognised the distinctive colours of the Red Commissar - the enemy's most fearsome pilot, whose only weakness was an uncontrollable fear of heights.

Richard and his rescuer headed to the other plane.

End of Part Four

[Akkarin]

((I just have to say I really enjoy reading this, do keep them coming ))

[Shadowe]

((Thanks, Fri! I think the thing that tickles me most is that this is just the first dream. I have about 10 more to write. This is going to keep me going for a LONG time.))

[Kitmarch]

chemlak said:

"Vell, Kapitan Huntington, it seems that I haf you completely at my mercy."

Fear EvilKit™!

[Shadowe]

Huntington Flies Again (Part Five)

The propeler whired to life, and Richard glanced over at the barracks building one last time, as he had been for the last few minutes while he familiarised himself with the controls of the plane. Letting out the throttle, he spurred his stolen craft along the runway and into the air, circling round to head home. As he swept around in a wide arc, he was chagrined to see a distinctive figure run toward the only other plane that was out. He knew he was about to have a fight on his hands.

He opened the throttle further, and was startled when he heard the distinctive wheet! of bullets narrowly missing him. A glance over his shoulder, and he could see the Red Commissar's aircraft barreling after him, the nose raising every few moments to allow a burst of machinegun fire at him, before the pilot levelled out once more and returned to his normal altitude of perhaps twenty feet above the surface.

Richard knew that he would have to deal with the terror of the air if he had any hope of returning safely home, and his enemy's persistent terrain-hugging flight position meant that it was extremely risky to dive at him from above. Captain Huntington would have to meet his foe on his preferred terms, risking a crash with every bank and roll.

Steeling himself for the task, Richard dove toward the ground, twisting and turning his plane, and hauling on the stick as he raced toward the onrushing surface...

And levelled out. Upside down.

Panic gripped him as he realised the risk he was taking, making a head-on rush toward the Commissar, in inverted flight. He pushed the plane harder, holding it on-course with brute force and blind luck, and waited until he saw the upper wings climb over the rising hillock that he was flying over.

A burst of gunfire made the Commissar flinch away, twitching to one side in an instant before their planes would have crashed together in a suicidal collision. Richard pushed forward on his stick, hard, and the engine whined in protest as the plan performed a half-loop, righting itself, and he dove once more toward the ground, hot on the Commissar's heels.

The two planes continued a twisting, rolling, gut-wrenching pursuit, Richard somehow managing to remain tightly on the Commissar's tail, though he had no luck hitting him. After several minutes, they were flying over an open field, racing toward a small forest.

And Richard formulated a plan.

He kept up intermittent fire to the left and right of the enemy, forcing him into the line Richard wanted him to take, and when they were a short distance from the trees, he changed his firing pattern, aiming just underneath the Commissar's craft. Predictably, the plane rose into the air, and Richard continued to send dozens of bullets screaming at it, making it rise higher and higher into the air until... He stopped firing. But only for long enough to raise the nose of his own plane and send another stream of shots at the still rising nose of the Commissar's bird. The Red Commissar, already stressed by the steadily increasing altitude, reacted like any trained pilot, and thrust his nose forward, diving toward the ground that was his normal safe haven... Straight into the first line of trees.

Richard climbed still higher, and watched the dust-cloud from the crash, smiled to himself, and headed home.

End of Part Five

[Shadowe]

Huntington Flies Again (Part Six)

As his plane rumbled to a stop on the runway back at base, Richard was already unbuckling himself from the straps and vaulting over the side. He ignored the congratulatory cheers and backslaps from the ground crew, pushing his way through the throng. On the journey back he'd done a lot of thinking, and had reached a conclusion. The only possible source that could have warned the enemy that he was coming. The only person who could have known of his mission and had the opportunity to tell anyone outside the camp about it.

He snagged a couple of infantry soldiers, ordering them to follow and bring their guns. With fury evident on his face, he strode into the medical tent and pointed at his target.

"Arrest them! For treason to the King of England, you are under arrest." A look of complete bafflement greeted his pronouncement, but he continued, relentless.

"Your days as a spy are over, Doctor Veskit."

End of Part Six

[Shadowe]

Huntington Flies Again (Epilogue)

Richard woke, startled, gazing up at the familiar ceiling of his bedroom in Huntington Manor.

"Daft dream, Huntington," he murmured as he rolled out of bed. Still, it had been quite amusing, and surprisingly vivid. Perhaps he ought to write it down, preserve the memory so that he could chuckle over it with his friends one evening.

As he stood up, the lights came on and a holographic display formed in the middle of the room. Rikti assault on Peregrine Island. Damn. Not time to sit and relax.

The dream already fading from memory, he readied himself for battle.

[Shadowe]

No Kit, Sherlock (Part One)

It was another typical day at 221b Baker Street, the street hawkers calling out, the children racing pell-mell through the crowds. As I looked out of the window, I glanced down and espied my esteemed employer, the world-renowned detective Sherlock Holmes, perched atop a rickety looking footstool, a small cask of paint at her feet, and brush in hand. Afire with curiosity, I scurried down the staircase, unlatched the sitting-room window, and presented my head outside.

"Holmes?" She looked at me, her impish face fixed with an expression of glee as she slapped yellow paint haphazardly across our door. Some of the gelatinous concoction had spattered across her tweed overcoat, and her familiar pipe was clasped between her teeth. Her purple tail peeked rakishly out from the back of the coat, twitching in the breeze that frequently stirred leaves down the thoroughfare. "What the devil are you doing, Holmes?"

She looked at me as though I had grown a second head, reaching up to brush a lock of purple hair from tickling her face with the back of her hand, inavertantly smearing paint across her forehead. "Come now, Watson. Use your powers of deduction. This should present no challenge to a man of your education."

So typical of Holmes, to present me with a puzzle that had no obvious answer, then request that I solve it. Was she not the detective? I, a humble man of science, had not the facility nor nature to deduce as she so frequently did from disparate and seemingly unrelated clues.

"I," I hesitated. It was not at all obvious. The weather was fair, the previous coat of paint neither cracked nor faded, and why yellow? "I don't know, Holmes."

She grinned childishly, and I was again struck by how lucky I was to find myself in the orbit of such a brilliant yet beautiful companion. "It's a lemon entry, my dear Watson."

End of Part One

[Akkarin]

((I just got some funny looks from my co-workers, as I loled so loudly. Thankyou.))

[Kitmarch]

((I also got some funny looks from my co-workers, on a somewhat unrelated matter that is still his fault! ))

[Shadowe]

((It was all his fault! Nothing to do with me... just because I sent him an email that had ONE WORD that got picked up by his work email filter, the IT security guys got to read an entertaining little story about Kit having Richard tied to a bed for her own nefarious purposes and... erm... well... that was about it, to be honest.))