The Castaway.

Dragging himself up the beach, John spat out a mouthful of sand, his head still reeling from the whirlwind of events that had led to him finding himself stranded, naked on a small island in the South Pacific. What had started as a quiet and romantic cruise ended in disaster as the ship struck first a reef, then the wreckage of a battleship that had last seen the light of day in 1943, then sunk straight down with a loss of all hands – except John. Having swum for nearly six hours, his joints screaming at him, he pulled himself onto dry land and passed out.
The next morning (it had to be morning, the sun never usually looked that mercilessly cheerful any other time of day), John sat up, looking round. There seemed to be some flotsam washed up further down the beach, so he scrambled to his feet to see if he could find anything of use. Several empty suitcases, they’d suffice as the basis for a shelter of some kind. A rather large embroidery box, all sorts of needles and threads for all occasions. Which would be great if he had anything to sew. Finally, a small loom; his loom to be precise. Well, that was a start. As a professional tailor, John could quite easily manufacture himself a suit to keep the sun’s relentless rays at bay, and his hobby of weaving would also come in handy. If only he could find something to weave. . .
Then he saw it – a small patch of some native grass which, upon further inspection seemed to have just the right tensile strength and attributes to weave into a rudimentary cloth. Gathering up great handsful of the grass, he set up his loom and started to work.
The loom clickety-clacked into the morning, the odd native grass turning into a surprisingly good cloth which John, after having cut to size and shape, turned into a rather fetching two-piece suit; comfortable, protective and stylish to boot. Folding the two lapels of the jacket together, he noticed the suit’s one downfall – a distinct lack of buttons. Another quick beachcombing exercise came up with the solution: three small stones, each with a small hole which would be perfect for the purpose. And so, seated on a nearby rock, he started stitching his makeshift buttons onto the jacket.
So intent, so focused on the task, John never noticed the tiny sparks jumping from the needle as it struck the stone. The light was starting to fade, so he sewed faster. Without his even noticing, his trousers had started to smoulder and soon, his lap was ablaze. Gripped with a haze of panic, John first tried to take off the trousers, then made a last-ditch attempt to leap into the nearby sea, but it was no good. The fire had taken hold. He died in a fury of flames, the needle still threaded held in his outstretched hand.
It was three days later when a search and rescue ship showed up. The lifeboat slid ashore with a muffled crump, Captain Bright stepping off first. Surveying the scene, Bright motioned to his first officer, a haggard-faced old seadog named Carl. “What do you make of it?”
Carl studied the tableaux – a body burnt to a crisp amidst the ashes of his improvised clothing, the needle, the ersatz buttons. He nodded grimly. “Seems like people in grass trousers shouldn’t sew stones.”

Future-Past-Present History of the Russian Empire (Space Captain Flight)

As I have stated previously, the world Space Captain Duncan Flight inhabits is not like our current world. For those of you who may be interested, here is what happened to Russia…
1948 – As Hitler kept to his side of the bargain, so did Stalin. Not getting involved in the war the Russian economy stagnates.Eventually Stalin is ousted by the Slavograd Independent Beetroot and Borscht Combine in the Capitalist Revolution.
1956 – The Russian Capitalist Empire is overthrown by fascists in the Fascist Revolution. This lasts for two years until:
1958 – The fascists are overthrown by anarchists, who accidentally overthrow themselves twice in the space of one week with the Anarchist Decemberist Revolution Trilogy.
1959 – Just six months into anarchist rule, they are overthrown during another Revolution by the Surrealists. Moscow is renamed Bwah, which leads to enormous arguments as to how it is spelled, and for two weeks everyone is required under punishment of death by tickling to wear a fish. This ends when -
1959, two weeks later – Rodney Stiles, a taxi driver from Islington arrives in Bwah with documents proclaiming him to be a long-lost distant relative of Tsar Nicolas II. As the whole fish thing is starting to get a bit tired, the people embrace him and the surrealists are kicked out. Bwah becomes Moscow again and the Russian Empire is reborn. Tsar Rodney creates impressive policies which help the floundering Russian economy and gets the country back on its feet.
1987 – Tsar Rodney dies peacefully in his sleep. He is buried in Moscow with full state honours. His son, Tsar Rodney the second takes control amidst wide public approval.
Today – Tsar Rodney the Second is still in charge of a Russian Space Empire which extends over many star systems.

The Warrior's Lament

If you should choose to follow me,
Know that I am bound for Hell.
For the gates of Hades open’d wide,
As we all march’d on side by side,
Into the flames eternal.
Left for the shores of Bloody Hell,
Ten thousands strong and true.
But when we reached upon the scene,
Not one sole man stood whole nor clean,
Cast into flames eternal.
We fought the throng of daemon souls,
Two thousand still survived.
But still the daemons forth they came,
They bore Old Sinister’s evil name,
The Horde of flames eternal.
Then Sinister himself did rise,
He stood unholy ground.
His hordes, their spirit out had run,
And then at last Our will be done,
Down in the flames eternal.
Our mission spent, we turned to face,
The dawn of morning’s eye.
But morning’s sun it would not face,
The visage of Our bloodied race,
Back to the flames eternal.
For forty nights we fought and died,
The Sun did crack a frown.
And shed her tears not lightly,
Forever we battled nightly,
To quench the flames eternal.
And now men talk of deeds and words,
Forever from that day.
We are those who they call the damned,
Those souls that ever were condemned,
Unto the flames eternal.

Personal Journal of Space Captain Damien Drake, R.S.N.

Captain’s Blog, Stardate 12…29…add 6, carry the three…take away the first…erm… Tuesday.
Space Captain Damien Drake here, I know you’re probably expecting something from that Flight fellow, but never mind. It’s my show right now, not his.
Right, where was I? Ah yes, Stardate Tuesday… and a bit. Headed off to the Epistule Diem system to do a bit of morale boosting amongst the peoples, thought we’d drop by and give them a show they’d never forget. So we arrived in system, deployed our escorts (give ‘em a bit of show of force to show ‘em how well protected they are) and headed straight for the system’s capital, New Lymington, ignoring (as was our wont) the usual calls for identification – for heaven’s sake, we’re Royal Space Navy! We shouldn’t even have to identify ourselves!
Anyway, thought we’d start off our visit with a bang, so sent out a squadron of stealth Spacefires to drop pyrotechnic charges in the upper atmosphere: nothing like a good old fireworks show to get the ball rolling. I was watching from my unusually comfy command chair on the bridge, by Jupiter you should have seen those locals down in the city centre; running round cheering and jumping for joy, diving into the air-raid shelters (presumably to drag out the bunting and decorations in honour of our arrival), screaming like maniacs they were. Well, after about half an hour of this, they decided to join in, firing their old anti-spacecraft guns in celebration. Must say though, they really ought to watch where they’re pointing those things, nearly hit us a couple of times.
After a couple of hours of fireworks, I beamed down to the planet’s surface to talk face-to-face with the Mayor of New Lymington and present him with a memento of our visit; so I got our entire Marine contingent, all dressed up in their new uniforms (ones I’d designed myself. I was particularly proud of the new H.M.S.S. Pelican Mobile Ground Force insignia – a red armband with a bold black swastika on it, with a big black cross through the swastika – shows everyone what we think of the damned space Nazis.
We beamed down, all two hundred and fifty of us at once. I can tell you, the Mayor was so pleased to see me I swear he actually lost control of his bladder and genuinely wet himself. And he kept on gibbering in some strange sort of language that our universal translators couldn’t understand. At first I thought he was talking in Italian – something about ‘Viva Zrendra’ or something.  Fortunately mister Savage, my number One took him to one side and gave him a little help and he returned after an hour or so in a much more coherent state.
Quick cup of tea with the Mayor and his councillors later and we left for the stars once more, with the praises of the locals still ringing  in our ears – I was particularly fond of their cries of “Don’t Come Back!”, obviously wanting us to refrain from wasting time on such small trivialities until we’ve actually won the war. Ah, the simple lives of simple folk. There’s nothing quite like it.
(This log was recovered from the databanks of the H.M.S.S. Pelican,  June 15th 2016. It has been unaltered in any way. Copyright is held by Her Majesty’s Royal Space Navy. Any views and opinions in this log are those of Captain Drake and do not represent those of the Royal Space Navy or any associated organisations.)

Jinxx The Time Cat

One day, Jinxx found a hole in time, through which she could travel to any point, and any place in the whole of history.

So she went back to last Thursday tea time, when she had salmon.

Jinxx loved salmon.

A little parody song I put together a few years ago...

(To the tune of the Tom Jones hit Delilah, originally written by Les Reed and Barry Mason. - Credit where it's due and all that.)

I won't forget oh that night that I had that erection,

Waited for it to go down for ten hours or more.

It was amazing,

I jumped on the bed and I polevaulted out through the door.

My, my, my Viagra (He's only gone and took the bloody lot.)

Why, why, why Viagra? (Did I have to take the bloody lot?)

I could tell,

Those pills could do me no well,

But I took twenty and now I am going through hell.

Then the next day in a permanent way it was flaccid.

It slept like a log and then, all the side effects start.

First came the sneezing,

And God only knows what would happen if I tried to fart.

  

My, my, my Viagra (He's only gone and took the bloody lot.)

Why, why, why Viagra? (Did I have to take the bloody lot?)

I could tell,

Those pills could do me no well,

But I took twenty and now I am going through hell.

 Woke the next morn from a dream about porn I was turgid.

Stood to attention like a soldier saluting the brass.

Tripped on my slippers,

My knob broke in half and the end it went right up my... nose.

My, my, my Viagra (He's only gone and took the bloody lot.)

Why, why, why Viagra? (Did I have to take the bloody lot?)

I could tell,

Those pills could do me no well,

But I took twenty and now I am going through hell.

Time Cop Tales. T.I.P3 (Temporally Important Person Protection Program). Second draft version, Work In Progress.

You'd think that safeguarding Hitler against time-travelling assassins would be the high point of any Time Cop's career.

You'd be wrong.

Any Time Cop can guard Hitler.

The real Time Cops guard David Tennant.

The thing most people – most uninitiated people - don't understand is that, without time-travel science fiction, there would be no time-travel real life. Hence there are always positions for those who fancy a real challenge, to guard any one of the several hundred influential people whose works inspired science to stick two fingers up at Einstein and say 'Back to the future we go!'.

The Grand-daddy, Herbert George Wells, has his own squad of covert officers watching his every move – or rather watching the every move of everyone around him. The same goes for the Whovian trinity – Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert and Terry Nation. With all the security those three have, only a complete craze-pot would go after the creators of Doctor Who. Those in the know, the real sneaky sons-of-bitches go after the actors, especially the high-profile ones like Pertwee, Capaldi or, in this case, Tennant.

Anyway, I digress. I was on Tennant duty in the middle of London, A.D. two thousand and five. David had just been to a meeting with some BBC producers and seemed in pretty fine fettle, he walked with a slight spring in his step and the vaguest hint of a smile on his face. I watched as he popped into a coffee shop and emerged five minutes later with a small paper bag and a tall latte. Then my warning bells started ringing. Someone approached from the east, a face that didn't quite fit the time.

Allow me to explain – you can always tell someone from the future as they tend to be a little paler, a little taller and a lot more psychotic. Something to do with living in an age of limitless information, limitless opinion and very little way to tell one from the other. The guy had a shambling gait, nervously shuffling his way through the crowd toward Tennant.

My training kicked in. He seemed to be favouring one leg over the other, occasionally pausing to readjust something – a gun probably – in his pocket. Classic stalker-killer profile. He closed in on Tennant.

“Excuse me, mister Tennant?” the man said, nervously brushing the back of his left hand against his nose.

“Yes?” Tennant seemed surprised to be recognised under his acting name – this was when he was still making the transition between stage and screen, so he wasn't used to being spotted in the streets.

“I'm... I'm a fan of yours, big fan, and I wanted to know if...” his right hand, still dug tightly in his pocket started to come up. I made my move.

Now, a Wade A. Newton Device is a wonderful thing. It's one of the few pieces of 42^nd century technology that was allowed to be issued to Time Cops on account of it being so damned useful. A slim metallic rod, only twenty centimetres long, it could do anything from stun someone to obliterate them totally in a heartbeat. I pulled mine and swiftly tapped the potential assailant on the small of his back with it, lightly enough that the device issued a stun charge that dropped him like a stone. Within moments, my backup had taken the man into custody, bundling him into the back of a passing 'ambulance' where he would wake up in a cell. Tennant looked at me, confused.

“Sorry about that,” I said, “he gave his carer the slip, good job I managed to find him before he had another fit. Well, he did – that's why the ambulance thing.” Sensing that my explanation was not going down too well, I reset my W.A.N.D. and tapped Tennant on the forehead with it. The 'memory wipe' setting can also be very useful in that it saves on trying to explain awkward situations.

A moment later, mister Tennant regained clarity, shook his head and smiled at me. “Hello.” He said.

“David Tennant?” Improvisation was never the best of my talents. “You were in the RSC a few years ago, I saw you in Stratford and thought 'that boy's going to go far'.”

“Very nice of you,” Tennant smiled. I asked him for an autograph (technically against the rules, but what else are you going to do?), which he signed dutifully, if still a little confused.

As I walked away, I turned. “By the way, I loved you in 'Casanova'.”

“Thanks very much,” he smiled again as I turned to go. I'd got three steps down the road when I realised exactly what I had just said.

“Hang on a minute,” I heard his voice tinged with a note of confusion, “we've only just finished filming, it's not on for another six weeks.”

THE END.