And so it was that the aetheric detectulators and mantenna arrays of the trireme did PICK UP the cries of the hapless humanoid-alienoids.
"NYAAAH! HELLLP!"
TO ARMS! AND TENTACLES!
Elysian Hero-Trireme Far-Go
Harkening to the Cry of NYAAAH!*
The Month of Augustus, 4153 AUC**
*Sector B-26
**GODDAMN SURREAL TIME
When last we discussed the deeds and adventuresome tales of the mighty sons of fair Elysium, these noble and bemuscled heroes had harkened to a mysterious subetheric PLEA, strange in form yet unambiguous of meaning: "NYAAAH! HEELLLP!"
Swiftly did the Elysians tune their sensoriadetective-systems and direction-finders to learn from where this plea came, for they knew that wherever someone was crying for help, there they would find glorious battle, as might be found in the sagas of old! Little did they know what adventures awaited them, but much did they wish to find out!
Soon, the heroes had DISCERNED from which of the nine vectors the desperate signal came, and did SET FORTH, the drummers beating double-time as the manly rowers plied the trireme's hyper-oars with might and vigor. Onward they flew, at speeds immeasurable, through dimensions inconceivable, towards a destination ineffable. As yet, they saw not the cause of the distress so plainly set forth before them, and perhaps well they did not, for the THING, the abomination, the blasphority which awaited them was such as to chill even the hot-burning hyperthermic heart of humanitarian heroes such as themselves! What awaited them in orbit about the giant gas-planet toward which they sped was nothing less than... a KRAKEN!
Nor were the hapless scouts, in their quest to determine what damage the great cannonball splash of the massive MEHstars had wrought upon the fabric of time and space in these constellations, able to resist such a terrible beast. For the armamentations of the scoutship were not COPIOUS, as would bedeck a mighty vessel of war!
Consider, if you will, the ferocious offensive might of the fabled Britannian ships of the line, the motherships of the Homeworlders, the mobile fortress-monitrons which serve the whims of the immortal sorcerer-kings of celestial Khitai in the uttermost east, or the behemothic megadromons of the Constantinopo-Chrestians, in which great mobs of press-ganged SLAVES do labor mightily to load supercannons with hyperrocketbullets the size of BUILDINGS, in preparation for the waste-laying and devastation of planetoids in their endless purges! Contemplate the massive munitions wielded by the great dreadnoughts which do the bidding of the Tyrants of Centrum, the mobile starcarriers of Shinra- or even of the Spacemericans who dwell in the fabled United Sectors, of which perhaps you, gentle listener, have not heard.
But nay, the weapons of this scouting vessel and its crew of exploratorians, pseudonatural philosophers, and meteorologists- who had so recently been making happy study of the nearby meteors- were hardly even significant! They lacked even the hundredth part of the armamentations of a great ship of war, yea, perhaps even the
thousandth part! Indeed, what handful of puny weapons they possessed were fit only for deterring the tiniest and most feeble of menaces, such as random meteoritic menaces, or primitive and skulking banditoids in their rocketcanoes and orbitorafts.
To fire such weapons at the terrible KRAKEN would merely serve to annoy it, as the child's shotsling might annoy the rampaging, slavering gaoogabeast! For the gaoogabeast is properly sought after only by the boldest and mightiest of huntsmen, preferably when backed by numerous loyal porters, guides, loaders, and a reinforced mechanized battalion. And even this would be inadequate to slay a kraken, with its polytentaculous bulk which does BLOT OUT the suns!
Wisely, prudently, like the tiny meepfish hiding amid the shoals of a great reef of Constantinopo-spikeskullcoral from the predations of some larger maritime beast, so did the threatened scoutship seek a place to conceal itself. This it had done, among the copious chondritic conglomerations and ever-rolling, racing RINGS of the giant planet by which they lay! The kraken, confused and hungering, did not seek to prey upon the many asteroids, spacedustbunnies, and snowballs of the rings, but instead did SEIZE these useless fragments of debris and HURL them aside, seeking to clear a path by which it might PIERCE the rings without being battered by meteors! Only thus could the beast find the ship concealed within, with its nutritious metalliferous shell and tasty organic center.
Lo, did the monstrous creature search, howling to the stars in hunger by unknown means that did curdle the subether for myriamegaleagues in all directions. And yet before it could find and devour the helpless denizens of the scoutship, the creature was found out by the mighty hero-astronauticalists of ELYSIUM!
ROCK STRONGGO, son of IRONBEEF, stood upon the prow of the hero-trireme and pointed, spotting the horror with his own eyes before even the lookout-boy perched atop the trireme's great mast had seen it! Instantly did he make his decision, doubtlessly and dauntlessly did he decide on a daring course of derring-do!
"BEHOLD THE KRAKEN! NOW WE KILL IT!"
And yet did Polydamas the Kind of Annoying cry out in DISMAY at the sight of the dread thing. For he saw its mighty bulk, so much larger than his own, and was struck with a moment of unbecoming WOMANLY FEAR!
"How are we to fight such a creature? It is many times the size of our ship, mountainous in bulk and ancient like the red paleodwarves of Asvesthe, which are said to predate the very universe itself!"
Then did Manius of the robust health UPBRAID his faint-hearted comrade. "Nonsense, Polydamas! We shall comport ourselves with manly STRENGTH and HONOR! We will triumph, for we are fit and ready!"
ROCK STRONGGO took up the cry, drowning out the voice of valiant Manius with his own, far louder and still more valiant voice. "AYE! WE RAM AND BOARD THE KRAKEN! ONWARD, ASTROGONAUTS OF THE NAUTIKON, FOR TONIGHT WE DINE... ON CALAMARI!"
And with this cry, great Mares, lover of slaughter, BOLSTERED the courage of the Elysians. Like the mightiest of wrestlers grappling for some magnificent prize of wealth and glory, so did every Elysian warrior from the greatest of captains to the lowliest of spear-carriers ply his oar with might and main. Only ROCK STRONGGO and a handful of picked men stood aloof, waiting for the moment when their prowess would be needed. Nor was that moment long in coming, for the dread monstrosity of the vasty spacedeep did HARKEN to the war-cry of the sons of fair Elysium! As the snarling Byzantine turns his attention away from the purging of the tiny Bragulan cub towards the enraged Mama Bragulan with her rending fangs, furious claws, and rocketbullet-spewing K-bolter, so did the kraken of space turn its blasphoritous gaze and innumerable tentacles from the hapless scoutship towards the oncoming trireme!
Now it was that ROCK STRONGGO and his dozen picked men displayed their might! The mighty general and his warriors, clothed in valor as if in a garment, SPRINTED to the railings and did ply their formidable weapons against the grasping tentacles of the Thing That Should Not Be. The stalwart dozen manned the missileballistas and hydrotomic cannon of the covered ship, smiting the dread kraken's toothed, suckered, suckertoothed, and tooth-besuckered appendages in their myriads. Like a Crevenian megagoat set upon by a pack of spacewolves, even so did the terrible creature SQUEAL in rage and dismay!
And yet the most dire woundings it was to suffer at the rock-steady hands of Elysium were yet to come! In the bow of the pitching, ether-tossed ship stood STRONGGO son of IRONBEEF, all alone. Behold how the son of IRONBEEF did DISDAIN the use of his vessel's missileballistas and slaughter cannons. Such womanly accessories were neither desired nor needed by the mighty ROCK STRONGGO, peer of murderous Mares, beloved of Heliopollo. Nay, the adamantine-clad hero stood undaunted and ERECT at the prow of his trireme, and his hand found one of the harpoons left there for him by his faithful servant-boy. He judged his moment, and as the bow rose under the buffets of a mighty magnetopsychogravitic wave, so did he HURL his spear at the hideosity that sprawled across the sky before him, blotting out constellations uncountable with its terrible bulk, so vast as to daunt even the whale-like MEHmen.
Nor was his mighty DART cast in vain, for even as the dread kraken reached forth with its suckered quasipseudopedopod, ROCK STRONGGO's harpoon did PENETRATE the creature's unnatural hide. The kraken's squeals of pain and dismay rose to mighty bellows; even as a NenAltKik brontosaurianoid with its tail caught in a rock crusher might shout its thunderous agony and confusion to an uncaring cosmos, so did the kraken's cries set the very subether to terrible shaking, like an earthquake of space, as ROCK STRONGGO's swift-flying spear did PLUNGE into the core of the SINEW animating the great tentacle. Armed with the keen knowledge of MUSCULATURE of an Elysian hero, the harpoon did thus PARALYZE the tentacle, defeating its attempt to crush the hero-trireme's bows!
But these wounds were mere PINPRICKS compared to the dread kraken's obscene bulk, and valiant STRONGGO knew this. Thus did he turn to his crew and BELLOW to be heard over the shrieks of the hundred-armed monstrosity and the spray of ethereal waves dashing against the hardy flanks of his ship!
"RAMMING SPEED! AIM THERE!"
And mighty STRONGGO, son of IRONBEEF, did gesture with his spear at a point in the core body of the kraken!
The oarsmen STRAINED, piling on all possible speed to dart inside the reach of the beast's remaining tentacles, like a smaller yet more artful WRESTLER eluding the clumsy grapplitudinous embraces of his mighty-thewed and oxlike opponent. And yet as the visage of the massive monstrous megametamollusc loomed over the bowsprit did the most noble FREE ELYSIAN WARRIORS reveal that in addition to their omnicornicopious reserves of brawn, they possessed formidable resources of skill and cunning, the fruits of learned MATHENERVA'S many blessings upon their people. For they did not ram MINDLESSLY, in the manner of berserk beridged-foreheaded barbarians or suicidal Shofixti spacehamsters. NAY, at the last moments did they BACK OARS, reducing their speed that their noble hero-barque might not be CRUSHED into SPLINTERS by the impact!
And so did the Elysian vessel strike ROCK STRONGGO'S chosen target at the TRUE and proper ramming speed: neither top speed, as might be used by fools who craved the firm and inescapable embrace of THANAMORTOS, nor bottom speed, as might be used by womanly cowards who lacked the forthright formidable forcefulness of true heroes, but at MEDIUM SPEED! For this was the province of seasoned Elysian warriors worthy to war in the company of ROCK STRONGGO! Warriors such as Manius the Fit, Stentor of the loud warcry, Quadroptolemus the arch-farmer, Astrometrius the Navigator, Ajaxalon the Greater of the wall-like bullshield, Pyrophilus the Disturbing, Phylonctetes the Archer in his corselet of linen, Ajaxalon the Lesser, swiftest of spear-tossers, Euryalysis, wealthy peer of murderous Mares, Adonemo the clean-limbed and fair-visaged, and Crispus the, um, Boring Son of Petrus. Never mind.
Anyway, the RAMMING! The indefatigably rigid adamantine-shod ram which curved forth from the hero-trireme's bow did SMITE the kraken, at a point chosen by ROCK STRONGGO from his extensive knowledge of squidoid anatomy, obtained not to make him a more effective killer (as that would be difficult to imagine), but BECAUSE he was a more effective killer, who had devoured countless tentacled creatures, feasting on their chewy yet delicious flesh, during his many victory-feasts!
At ROCK STRONGGO'S gesture, the oarsmen had already hauled their oars inside the ship, as the mighty general leapt down from the bow after his heavily-harrowing harpoon cast. The beast's unnatural tissues, struck cruelly by the Elysian vessel's full force, RIPPED apart! There was a terrible squelch, a hideous crunch, nay, a sound never heard before or since: a SQÜNCH, of such proportions that the very planetoids did reel in horrified disgust. But the brave sons of Elysium were UNDISMAYED as their vessel drove deep into the kraken's innards!
When the sqünch subsided, the Elysians found that they had been plunged into darkness, in some vast and cavernous tubule of the monstrosity's innards. At this, ROCK STRONGGO let out a mighty shout of triumph! Though he was but second-loudest of the Elysian band, being marginally less loud than the brass-lunged and titanomachian-throated herald Stentor, his voice was nonetheless of commendable manly might, and did ECHO through the tubule for many leagues, drowning out the rhythmic squelches, dripping, and pumping noises around them.
"FETCH ELYSIAN FIRE!"
Obediently did Pyrophilus the Disturbing SEIZE a prized weapon from the hero-trireme's armormentarium. The secret of ELYSIAN FIRE was little known. Some said the titanoboa Promethehissssss had STOLEN it from almighty ZEUPITER and passed it down to men. Others claimed that the secret of the all-inflammatory and blessed promethium had been WRESTLED out of the sinister clutches of Elysium's remote, rumored, warped and warp-haunted cousins, the Constantinopo-Chrestians. Still others maintained that any idiot who knew how to read a chemistry book could make the stuff, but they were commonly bludgeoned and sandfacekicked into womanly submission for their annoying geekery.
Whatever the truth was, the gout of ELYSIAN FIRE which streamed forth from Pyrophilus's beloved flamer did light their surroundings most acceptably. The innards of their loathsome hundred-armed foe were indeed hideous beyond belief, and streams of unnamed ichors flowed across the floor of the great tubule.
"What do we do now, general?" the men chorused, like the chorus of some pseudohistorical martial-comedy. And the invincible son of IRONBEEF was swift to reply.
"ARM YOURSELVES! WE MARCH THAT WAY!"
Again did ROCK STRONGGO point the way with his spear. Again did his men obey, burdening themselves with sword, rocketjavelin, bombdiscus, and all the other armamentations fit to grace the forms of Elysian heroes. Also did they clad themselves in high-crested helms and gleaming armor like unto that of the gods on Olympus. Against mortal men, the heroic astrogonauts would present their bare and manly forms as is proper, but they knew not what horrors the beast they hunted might contain. At last, when all was ready, they removed their most noble SHIELDS from the frames used to guard the hero-ship's rowers, and did strap these nigh-impenetrable slabs of hardened metal to their brawny arms.
Armed for war, clad in rattling armor, the Elysians did LEAP from their trireme, iron-shod boots striking the tubule and raising further flows and oozes of monstrous ichor. Thus did the hero-sailors of the indomitable Nautikon form up to MARCH, with only mighty STRONGGO knowing where. They lit their path with gouts of ELYSIAN FIRE, forded rivers of unnatural fluid, hacked passages through gelatinous jungloids with their spathachetes of adamantine, and drove DEEPER into the monstrous beast. Soon they came upon another great tubule, but here they at last met foes worthy of their steel!
For the kraken's IMMUNE SYSTEM had sensed their passing as they brutalized the beast's innards, and RALLIED to defend its mighty organic citadel. Arrayed before the Elysians was a seemingly endless HORDE of peasantoid-celles, hastily mustered to delay them, the gibbering, grotesque, gelatinous GREEN BLOOD CELLS!
"FORM UP!
ATTACK!"
At ROCK STRONGGO'S formidable warcry did the Elysians form a PHALANX, interlocking their shields. Taking their spears in their hand, the astrogonauts began a measured advance, and the green blood cells did QUAVER and edge back in spineless FEAR, as the ambulatory slime molds of Delta Lyncis II might ooze away into their hiding-places when the ravening beastie-monster comes near! But despite rightly fearing the heroes' wrath, the dread command of their god-king- the KRAKEN- urged them to stand their ground. And so did they OBEY their tyrannical master, even as the numberless hordes of PERSIA might follow their pointy-helmed and mustachioed CHANCELLEMPEROR!
But the plight of these poor downtrodden celluloids was infinitely worse than that of any mere PERSIAN garritrooper. Before hurling his vast legions against his many foes, THEIR tyrant would at least ARM them with weapons from his copious Kruppenmausergesellschaftwerken factories, that they might have some hope of slaying their foes before the eunuchly cowardice of his satraps and generals got them all killed. Green blood cells had not even this pathetic minimum of strength and hope. Nay, their blasphoritous master conscripted them from their endless toil in his meat-fields and drove them to ENGLOBULATE their enemies with their own bodies, ENTANGLING the intruders at the cost of their own lives so as to stall them until other, more potent cells could arrive.
To achieve this against the valiant and fair-countenanced sons of Elysium, the green blood cells would have to close and GRAPPLE with the mighty hero-astrogonauts in their full manly glory. Pity these quivering minions of the vile kraken!
For now the Elysian phalanx fell upon their foes! Loud was the sound of keen-edged mithril smiting the green blood cells, and mightily did the heroes thrust with their heavy spears, laying waste to all in their path. The lunges and rushes made by the foul slimes FAILED, for while Elysian darts did pierce all which stood in their way, they themselves were guarded by their IMPENETRABLE wall of glittering shields! Those of the lesser abominations which pressed the attack found it hard indeed to overcome the mighty arms of the warriors holding them. Indeed, for every three of their foes which they slew by the blows of their potent weapons, the Elysians crushed two more to death by standing FIRM and RIGID against the press of the green tide, while creatures to the rear ranks smashed the front line against adamantine resistance. And one more was destroyed by the stamping, hobnailed SANDALS of Elysium as the peerless company of champions MARCHED towards their goal over a foul, reeking carpet of their bleeding foes- for yea, such was the kraken's enormity that even its blood cells had blood!
Now and again, the pressure of some scores of bubbling creatures finally proved TOO MUCH for the Elysians, and one or two warriors fell beneath the hordes. But even after shoving a gap in the phalanx, the green blood cells learned to their decadent deliquescent DISMAY that to GRAPPLE with Elysian heroes is easier said than done, even for a pile of goo! Even so did Manius of the robust health, momentarily overborne, SEIZE one of the cells bodily and cause it to BURST with a mighty wrench of his arms, while his comrades moved their shields to COVER HIS REAR lest others pile upon him from behind. Even so did Astrometrius the Navigator display his cunning by successfully THROWING one of the cells over his hip with a cunning ROLL, tossing it onto the spear of a comrade where it was impaled through its very nucleus.
Ultimately, even these mindless mobs of 'moebic monstrosities learned that their assault against the front of the Elysian ranks was to no avail. They tried to flow AROUND, but here they encountered the dreaded Elysian FLAMERS- terrible gouts of fiery promethium that sprayed forth from the deadly weapons of Pyrophilus the Disturbing and his comrades! This too failed, and the green blood cells faced the terrible choice of dying with HONOR to the spears, shields, arms and feet of the Elysians, or dying with FIERY AGONY under the copious streams of their flamers!
After some THOUSANDS of the cells had been slaughtered in these ways, the ignoble creatures took a third option, and did OOZE away with great and unexpected speed! The Elysians let up a mighty bellow of triumph as their foes fled from them, waving their spears and taunting the mutagoopoids. Then did Stentor the Loud, herald of Elysium, bellow in his voice like that of fifty men: "Silence in the ranks!" And STRONGGO, mighty STRONGGO son of IRONBEEF, did bellow as loudly:
"ONWARD!"
Thus did the sons of Elysium, blessed by all gods, continue their MARCH! Onward strode the heroic astrogonauts, clad in valor and armed with righteous manly might, trampling the quivering innards of the kraken beneath their hobnailed sandals. The gods were with them, and they drove forward, deeper into the monstrosity's interior, on their fantastic voyage of conquest.
At last they came upon a tubule wider and more capacious than any they had yet seen, one which pulsed with a veritable TORRENT of unholy anti-ichors. Noble STRONGGO did call for a halt, that his men might rest their mighty lances and take a moment for calisthenics to stretch the kinks out of their muscles, weary from ascending, descending, marching, countermarching, and hacking their way through miscellaneous capillorganoids with fire and spathachete! Meanwhile, consulting with wily Astrometrius the helmsman and diverse other sages of the expedition, Stronggo did check to be sure that his bearings were PROPER- for the treacherous tentacular tenebrosity did seem to stretch into UNKNOWN dimensional curlicues and perversities. Yea, such was the confusion of the beast's innards that there was no shame in this; even the most manliest of men might ask for directions in such a monstrous maze. But STRONGGO, heroic STRONGGO of the loud warcry and rock-crushing biceps, had gauged the path ARIGHT, and none could find fault with his guidance. Then did Euryalysis, peer of murderous Mares, let up a cry of alarm.
"Look! Warriors!"
And the astrogonauts did look, and they did BEHOLD peculiar forms emerging from a side passage, like unto themselves in appearance and armamentation. Stentor the herald did call out to them: "Hail, fellow-travelers! We are a company of Elysians, astrogonautical venturers of the Nautikon! Be ye friends, or be ye foes?"
But the strangers made no answer. Euryalysis, first to spot them, did shout in his massive-aggressive ways and CHARGE at one of them, raising his spear to deliver a crushing, killing kerstab to the kisser. The strange warrior did mirror the ferocitous one's actions, raising his own weapon and launching his own onslaught, meeting Euryalysis half way between the lines of the blessed Elysians and the mysterious strangers. When the two did meet, and their brazen weapons did collide, there was a terrible EXPLOSION! All were hurled onto their backs, half-stunned by the blast, save only mighty ROCK STRONGGO son of IRONBEEF, who weathered the mighty concussive force with his shield and squinted to behold, out of the smoke, what could be seen of the two warriors. Naught but two pair of smoldering boots remained.
Then did wily Astrometrius, of the head full of numbers and ink-covered fingers, beloved of Mathenerva, cry "Nay! Touch them not, for they are anti-bodies!"
All were confused, save again only mighty STRONGGO, for he was undismayed at this turn of events.
"HURL YOUR PILAJAVELINS!"
In obedience did the Elysians cast their wicked-edged and weighty darts at the unknown foes, using the great expertise of their long practice at spear-hurling in the Colympicomicossal games and other such sports. Foremost among them in this feat of arms were Ajaxalon the Lesser, whose arrow-swift casts sought out GAPS in the durable corselets and helms of the anti-bodies, slaying them be they ever so burdened with the pseudosteel gifted them by the kraken, and Manius of the Robust Health, whose brawny arms did drive his darts THROUGH the armor, even as the razor-beaked grawk bites through the shell of the goopa tortoisoid!
Many foes were slain in this way, and did not EXPLODERIZE, for they had not come into contact with the Elysian warriors themselves! The survivors from the ranks of the anti-bodies were pelted with great gizzardoid STONES, seized from the ground and hurled into their ranks, with less gracefully thrown casts of the Elysian warriors' main stabbing LANCES, and with diverse other weapons of far-flying ferocity! Soon had every Elysian man defeated his nemesis, and thus proved his WORTH to go on.
Quietly did Manius the Robust say to his hero-comrades, "let us gather up the boots of Euryalysis, and what bits of his armor remain, that we may give him the proper rites in due time." And some of the astrogonauts did harken, and say sadly, "Indeeds." For they were not savages, and did MOURN the loss of one of their valiant brethren, all the more when he had died of sheer excess of valiancy, from the glorious and aggressive courageosity flowing through his veins, literally causing him to be so brave he exploded!
After Manius and the others had done this thing, the mighty son of IRONBEEF restored them to order once more.
"ONWARD TO VICTORY!"