"Lucky Charms" by Lobacca Varss

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Farpoint: Gateroom

"Chevron Four encoded" a male voice spoke emotionlessly through the speakers.

"In about two minutes I will finally be on vacation. Hopefully they spoke the truth about those lakes, I've really had it with this swimming pools. I don't actually have any place to swim in those. I really don't see how the Tau'ri can consider swimming in those a sport. Oh, wait, did I bring my lucky charms with me?" Lobacca thought, and quickly checked his pockets, and realized he actually left them in his room. "Oh well, not like I will need them, anyway." Lobacca thought.

Lobacca was planning to visit the lakes and not the beaches as most were planning to, because he heard that swimming too deep into those was dangerous because of really nasty predators. And since swimming was about the only thing he was planning to do his entire vacation, he was left with almost no choice.

"Last chevron encoded." The male voice spoke through the speakers. "All have a nice trip."

The male voice spoke further and started to sum up what was and what wasn't allowed, what the typical greetings were and so on. No one was actually listening, because it was about the fifteenth time they were being told. Lobacca stepped through the Stargate a bit scared mainly because it was his first time.

Arriving at his destination, Lobacca was surprised. He thought he would end up in an other military base where they would be rechecked to see if they were carrying anything that was forbidden. But no, he ended up in a park. The people in the park didn't seem to care about much about the new arrivals, so Lobacca checked his data pad for the route to the airport, where he would take a zeppelin to Gent followed by a train trip to Melle, a small village next to one of the lakes - a lake that was just what Lobacca wanted: it wasn't polluted nor was it well known.

Arriving at Melle, Lobacca walked toward the hotel where he had booked a room. After leaving his luggage at his room and a small chat with the receptionist, Lobacca went to the place that he came here for: the lakes. The lake was wonderful, the water was just perfect - not to warm nor to cold. The fishes didn't seem to fear Lobacca, in fact they even came to look, curiously, at their new visitor. In the next few days Lobacca would learn to know them much better.

A couple of days later, Lobacca's chamber

Still sleepy, Lobacca grabbed for his comlink, and switched it on. After Lobacca heard what was going on, he quickly began to pack. He walked down the stairs with his luggage packed and started to chat with the receptionist, to get more information about the impact of the civil war.

"Hello Sir Varss, leaving so soon?" the receptionist asked.

"Well HQ called me back Mister L'Huimmier. There goes my vacation and I just wanted to start with taking pictures of the fishes. They finally started to trust me .. stupid civil war!" Lobacca answered.

"Well everyone here suspected that something would go wrong, most people don't like…, this isn't personal, but they don't trust offworlders." confided Mister L'Huimmier.

"But we didn't do anything." Lobacca stated.

"Yes but some rather… fanatic groups claim that you want to conquer our planet and that the government is under your control. Others claim that our government, who isn't supported by every ethnic groups equally, have hired to do the well... dirty work. There are also other rumors but those a rather silly. I personally feel sorry for this misunderstanding." Mister L'Huimmier said.

"That doesn't look too good but I can tell you nothing of this is true. I suppose train and zeppelin travels aren't a safe way of transportation for me and I guess I should also better try to stay out of crowed places, am I correct ?" Lobacca asked.

"Yes Sir Varss, I'm terribly sorry for this but there is nothing I can do about this… mess" Mister L'Huimmier spoke rather quietly.

"Of course I understand but could I ask the troops still loyal to the government for help?" Lobacca responded.

"I wouldn't hope for that, on both sides there are different views. On both sides there are people who would shoot you on sight blaming you for all the trouble. Some have an opposite view and would treat you as an ordinary civilian. And others, and I feel deep regrets for this, would try to trade you for the High-Tech weaponry your people posses." Mister L'Huimmier said rather sadly.

"Oh crap that doesn't …" then suddenly Lobacca realized what Mister L'Huimmier was trying to tell him along, but couldn't say directly, namely that they wanted to trade Lobacca for weaponry.

"Well good bye mister L'Huimmier, and hopefully we will meet again." Lobacca said while walking fast to the door.

"Not so fast fishy !!" someone yelled and out of nowhere five highly armed troops moved in to take Lobacca prisoner.

"I'm colonel Bazz of the Royal Raccoon commando's, supporters of the Lucretz faction, who have sworn to clean our planet of scum as you and our puppet government. But this seems to be your lucky day because just like our friend said, you will be traded for weapons." the colonel spoke.

"And one other thing there will be no… witnesses of this event" Bazz said while nodding toward one of his men.

"No please, I won't say anything!!" poor Mister L'Huimmier yelled in fear.

But there was no compassion. One of the colonels men took something out his backpack looking like a standard NR vibrosword. Not understanding what was unfolding before his eyes Lobacca looked shocked at the colonel.

"You murderer, we should shoot you for this" the colonel laughed looking at Lobacca while one of his men stabbed poor Mister L'Huimmier in the heart.

"Ok move out!" colonel Bazz yelled "And be silent, we don't want to wake anyone up, do we ?"

Some troopers laughed, and they closed formation around Lobacca while moving up to some kind of vehicle.

"What in god's name is that ?" Lobacca yelled in surprise.

One trooper stomped Lobacca in his stomach and whispered: "Be silent fish and that thing is a new, all terrain steam engine ground vehicle, in short ALSEGV."

Once in the vehicle, a couple of troopers handcuffed Lobacca and strapped him into a seat, making sure Lobacca couldn't get away.

After 2 hours of traveling

"Where we heading to?" Lobacca asked to colonel Bazz, who was sitting next to him.

"Hmm, I'm disappointed in you, I thought you would have figured out we are heading toward the capital, which is the only place we can actually swap you for guns remember?" the colonel said.

"Now is it my turn to ask a question, what is this thing ?" the colonel asked while holding Lobaccas camera upward.

"A weapon of mass-destruction, one click on the button at the left and you blow up everything in a radius of 3 kilometers." Lobacca responded.

"Very funny fishy,… corporal we are too heavy! Throw out fishy's backpack will you?" The colonel ordered.

"On it sir." The corporal responded while throwing Lobaccas backpack out of the car.

The colonel looked at Lobacca, waiting for his response. But Lobacca didn't gave a response so the colonel spoke again.

"Still acting tough, fishy?"

When Lobacca still didn't respond, the colonel continued.

"Oh too bad, I thought we could hold a conversation since the trip will take another three hours. Most of my men are wondering if you are a fish or a lizard. I personally think it is fish although I can understand that someone would think you are a lizard. Now tell me, which one of the two are you?" Bazz asked.

But Lobacca didn't responded so the colonel went on.

"To show I'm not so evil, I'm giving you this jewel, which seems to have great sentimental value for you, back." The colonel said and he placed Lobacca's comlink around Lobacca's neck.

"Still not speaking?" the colonel asked.

"Um sir." A trooper asked

"Yes, lieutenant?" Bazz responded.

"He is sleeping, sir." The lieutenant spoke while pointing toward Lobacca.

"What!!! Typical offworlders." the colonel responded.

About three hours later, two km away from the capital

"Sir we are almost there, in fact we are crossing the bridge of the Schelde." the driver yelled.

"Keep your eyes open, Private! We are as good as in hostile territory, it should be crawling with government loyal troops up here." The colonel yelled back.

"What is that sound, it hurts my ears!!!" Lobacca yelled.

"Which sound? Crap, incoming artillery! Everyone out of the vehicle. Corporal get our fish out of his seat." The colonel ordered.

The corporal got Lobacca's handcuffs off and got him out of his seat. Once out of the vehicle, Lobacca ran toward the colonel.

"Well colonel, you were right, I'm a fish." Lobacca yelled into the colonel's ears while he vaulted over the railing and jumped into the river.

"Open fire on that fish, he is getting away!!!" the colonel ordered and emptied his handgun in Lobacca's direction.

"Freaking fish! There go our guns!!!" the colonel yelled, reloading, but it was to late. Lobacca was already out of the range and luckily he wasn't wounded. Lobacca kept following the river into the city and eventually he came up to a familiar place, namely the park where he arrived on this planet. Silently Lobacca came out of the river and switched his comlink on.

But he didn't hear HQ. In fact he didn't hear anything on his comlink.

"Weren't these things supposed to be waterproof? Hey, what in the galaxies name??? Who messed up the frequencies??" Lobacca thought while trying to get in touch with HQ.

When searching through channels, Lobacca accidently found the Lucretz faction channel.

"This is… of the Royal Rac… mando's.. runner… river… not armed… worth 10 guns… looks like a lizard… fish… Over."

Lobacca listened to the comlink because he figured out that it was going about him. He hoped that thanks to the jamming stations of government loyal troops, no-one of the Lucretz faction would have understand the message but Lobacca was unlucky.

"This Cobra… squad…near park.. lot of hostiles… silent… moving. Over."

Lobacca realized he had to move toward the gate as fast as he could. He also realized that what/who ever was this Cobra, they would supposedly be pretty good, seeing they were operating behind enemy lines.

Although Lobacca had a good memory and a good sense of direction, he didn't immediately realize where he actually was. The main reason was that the park wasn't looking very nice anymore, in fact the park was looking like it was shelled different times. When Lobacca finally realized where he was he started moving toward the Stargate. He also took a gun, ammo and something between a knife and a mace from the remains of a soldier who seemed to have ended up on the wrong side of the shell. After a fifteen minute walk, Lobacca was coming close to the Stargate. Lobacca was starting to feel happy, he maybe wouldn't be swapped for weapons after all.

"Put the gun down, fish." Someone whispered behind Lobacca.

"While putting his gun on the ground, Lobacca also switched his comlink on, which was
standing on the NR-channel.

"No moves or sound fish, or I'll pull the trigger." The whispering person continued.

"Who are you?" Lobacca asked.

"That doesn't matter. But I'll tell you one thing, you won't escape my team as fast as you escaped Bazz and his team." The person continued.

"Just wondering, how far is the Stargate still?" Lobacca asked.

"Why would you want to know that?" The person responded.

"I have a really bad sense of direction and my memory isn't to great ether. And I'm wondering if I ran into the right direction." Lobacca said.

"Well it seems your sense of direction isn't that bad, it is 200m west of here" the person said.

"Really I thought it was to the east." Lobacca responded.

"Oh bastard…" but the person didn't got any farther, cause Lobacca smashed his looted melee weapon onto the head of his enemy, instant killing him. Lobacca realized that there were more of them looking for him so he started running toward the Stargate. After he had run about 100m Lobacca heard bullets screaming around him but luckily for him NR troops who had heard the comlink-call were covering Lobacca in his attempt to rush to the Stargate. Coming very close to the Stargate, Lobacca jumped over a barricade of some sort that must have been put down by NR troops earlier that day.

"It is private Lobacca Varss right?" a Farpoint commando asked.

"Yes, um thanks for the covering fire." Lobacca responded.

"It was a pleasure, but tell me how did you free yourself?" the commando asked.

"With this." Lobacca said while holding his melee weapon upward.

"Nice. Well you're safe now but tell me why did they wanted to kill you?" the commando asked.

"They didn't want to kill me but swap me for guns." Lobacca responded.

"Oh that explains it. Ok it is silent now. We will open up the Stargate. Once open, run for it. And one more thing, tell HQ about the weapon swapping thing in your debriefing, I think they will find it rather interesting." the commando said.

"Good luck with the defending of the Stargate." Lobacca called to the commandos, while he was getting ready for his 'run'. The Stargate activated and in the rush towards it Lobacca could only think but one thing: Next time I will not forget my lucky charms!