Golden Star immediately whips out his camera with all the grace and subtly of a 1980's paparazzi with a bleeding nostril and capers off around the ship and towards the direction the ambassador indicated. He's the first to reach the normal sized door at the other end of the hanger and bounces on his toes until everyone else catches up and walks outside with him. Beyond the door, and the blinding glare its opening causes, is an old fashion military airstrip: one of those long paths of concrete or asphalt that the military jets used to travel down to pick up speed. Its still in service, judging by the fact that it is well kept and not overgrown, but probably only for antiquated transports that hadn't been phased out yet. Around it is an expanse of grass with a control tower visible about half a mile down and dozens of other hangers lining the air strip. Beyond that are other buildings of various squat, utilitarian military designs.
There's no band stand or group of cheering fans to show off for, but there are reporters; most of them are telepresence drones with their face screens, manipulator arms and suite of camera and audio equipment, but a few are honest to goodness humans with microphones and camera men in tow. Golden Star immediately begins snapping pictures of cameras and bots and launching into impromptu speeches about his movies and his personal view on events. Despite his...personality, Golden Star attracts a good bit of attention and several reporters begin jotting down his ramblings. El Escuchador simply stands around and does various poses, waiting until someone has snapped his picture before moving on to another one. Sometimes he has to wait quite a while. Threnody and Ninja hang back with the Diplomat while HAP talks about where to get a good curry with the Soldiers. He gives one of them a very careful slap on the back; it would be very bad to smack the ribcage straight out of a random soldier in front of the cameras.
For around twenty minutes nothing much happens. The ambassador sweats and daps at his face and neck with a handkerchief; the soldiers do their normal soldiery thing of standing alert and looking series despite HAP's constant pestering about chicken tandoori and tapas restaurants. Golden Star's charisma begins to wear thin and Escuchador eventually has to stop posing to walk off a leg cramp from a particularly deep lunge. And then, out of nowhere, the saucer appears. It doesn't fly like a normal plane or spaceship, even one going very fast. It sort of dribbles in as a long streak of sliver reaching off into the horizon instantaneously appears and then shrinks in from the horizon towards where everyone is standing, finally snapping into place as the full saucer. It hovers in place above the spectators, totally silent, but causing everyone's hair to stand on end with static electricity. The ambassador launches into a long speech which is echoed by speakers placed around him in every language known to man, both terrestrial and alien. Its about halfway through this -some time around the line about "Brotherhood with all raves among the stars"- when the ship moves in that odd way it has, sliding from the sky straight to about 6 inches off the ground. Then its surface deforms, moving like liquid mercury or the membrane of an amoeba, and lashes out at the Ambassador.
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Topic: The Masked League Of Lucha Liberty: "Gentle Persuasion" (Read 79727 times)