Wordforge: The Freaking Frontier, Conclusion

Cut To: Nick lying on floor, staring around woozily. TheLurker is looking down at him.

Nick: Wha' happened?
TheLurker: You were knocked out.
Nick: How?
TheLurker: Looks like you beat your head against the wall as opposed to facing certain death.
Nick: Oh. Right. (struggles to get up) I should get around to sabotaging the engines so that Shepherd guy can't take us to the center of cyberspace.
TheLurker: But he's a nice guy!
Nick: Shepherd?
TheLurker: I didn't think so at first, but after the fifth time he hit me in the head I started thinking in whole new ways. (starts stroking Nick's face)
Nick: Uh...this isn't some cheap gratuitous fanboy scene where the writer, who has no clue about the history of the series, decides to start a relationship between two of the characters even though there wasn't a trace of affection before?
TheLurker: Like Seven and Chakotay?
Nick: Yeah.
TheLurker (beams): Yep. C'mere, big boy.
Nick: That's what I was afraid of. (runs)

Cut To: The Geekforge Room, which, as usual, is dark and empty. Elwood, Cass and Rucker come in, and Elwood hits a button. The Emergency PM system pops out of the wall and Elwood starts talking into it.
Elwood: To all users...the USS Wordforge has been hijacked by religious fundamentalists...
Cass (mutters): Like that is news...
Elwood: and we're on our way to the center of cyberspace and the Great Firewall. Request immediate assistance.
Emergency PMS System: We hear you, Wordforge. State your course.
Elwood: I SAID, we're heading for the Great Firewall and the Center of Cyberspace.
Emergency PMS System: Oh. Yeah. Is that Baba guy with you?
Elwood: No, he died two movies ago.
Emergency PMS System: Just making sure before we head out.

Cut To: TBBS Battlecruiser.
Kass (turns away from communicator): They appear to be screwed over this time.
Reaperman: Ha! Elwood will be mine at last! Set course for the Great Firewall!

Cut To: The Geekforge Room
Elwood: Well, at least help is on the way.
Shepherd: It won't help you to have help on the way, Captain. (Steps into room, with Flashlight and starkt, guns drawn)
Elwood: Release my ship!
Shepherd: No.
Elwood (nonplussed): Er...please?
Shepherd: Still no.
Elwood: Oh. But you realize nobody's ever managed to slip through the Great Firewall. We'll all be killed, or reported to our ISP.
Shepherd: One must have faith, Captain. They used to say that the sound barrier would never be broken....it was broken. They said that any thread involving PBM could never grow beyond ten pages...it went twelve! Nothing is impossible.
Elwood: You're mad.
Shepherd: No, actually I'm in a good mood. (looks at Rucker) Everyone has a secret pain...share yours with me.
Rucker: I ain't got no secret gorram pains...
Shepherd (closes his eyes): I think you're mistaken.
(Hologram appears on wall. We see Storm Rucker, sitting in an alley, dirty and drunk, staring into a hologram of Janeane Garofalo)
Janeane hologram: I'm sorry, Storm. It's wrong. It was never meant to be. I'll never forget those nights when we stayed up all night playing Ride the Mustache, but you have your life and I have mine...
(Holographic Rucker bursts into tears)
Storm: That's....that's...
Shepherd: You still miss her sometimes, don't you?
Storm: I...I...yes, damn you! (goes over to the corner, starts beating head against the wall)
Shepherd (turns to Cassandra): And you?
Elwood: Stop this!
Cassandra: No, it's all right. (straightens) Do your worst. I am an Austrian; we can control our pain.
(Shepherd closes eyes. Hologram appears on wall. Cassandra is running joyfully across a field. She meets a big, fat, balding guy. They collide and go down in a heap. Only then do we see that fat balding guy is Rush Limbaugh)
Cassandra: Urgh. We can control everything but that. (falls to the floor, weeping hysterically)
Shepherd (turns to Elwood): Show me your secret pain, Captain.
Elwood: I KNOW my secret pain! It's part of me! It makes me who I am! And everyone's heard about what happened in that locker room anyway!
Shepherd: Oh. So a secret pain isn't a secret pain if everyone knows about it.
Elwood: That's right, bubba. (raises head triumphantly)
Shepherd (sighs): I guess you can't be broken, then. Come on, boys...Mr. Rucker, Commander Cassandra, are you coming?
Rucker:
Cassandra:
Shepherd: I'll take that as a no...

Cut to: Wordforge bridge. Ship is shaking as it drives through the Great Firewall. Flames and pockets of molten hot lava ooze across the viewscreen. Everyone looks afraid. Then, suddenly, the screen clears and framed within is a beautiful, golden globe.

Shepherd: I knew it! The Center of Cyberspace!
Borgminister (reverently): The Great Warning!
Chris: The Ultimate White Room!
MissManners: The Great Troll!
Flashlight: The Winnable Argument!
(Elwood comes onto bridge, followed by Cass and Rucker, both looking very pale)
Elwood: Okay, so...you got us through the Great Firewall.
Shepherd: Yep. And a ship needs its captain.
Elwood: No tricks?
Shepherd: No.
Elwood: So what's to prevent me from taking the ship right out of here?
Shepherd: I'll just hijack it again with the same ridiculous ease?
Elwood: Er...m'kay. So long as we're clear on that. Alrighty, let's do this by the book...
TheLurker, Lanzman, Diacanu: Uh, no books, please, sir...
Elwood: Cass, Storm, Shepherd, you're with me. We'll go down and check this place out.

Cut To: The planet. Shuttle lands and Elwood, Shepherd, Cass and Storm step out and start walking.

Storm: I don't like this place.
Shepherd: Beautiful, isn't it?
Storm: Well...other'n the dead trees, the dying cactuses...
Cass: Cacti...and the insipid background music...
Elwood: And the skeletons arranged to spell out, "YOU'LL BE SORRY"...
Shepherd: Faith! You must have Faith!
VOICE: YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH!
(earth shakes. Lightning crashes. A huge holographic head of George Michael appears before them)
Shepherd: Are you...God?
Entity: Yes...but perhaps you don't recognize this face. (shifts to George Bush) How y'all like this?
Cass: Ick.
Entity (shifts to Micheal Moore): This?
Storm: Ick.
Entity (shifts to Joss Whedon): How about this?
(Shepherd, Storm, Elwood, Cass, all look at each other, nod)
Entity: Hokay. You've done the impossible, and that makes you mighty.
Shepherd: We've traveled far! Through the Great Firewall! To gain paradise!
Entity: Right. Well, you're welcome to it...but you have to take me off this rock and transport me where there's lots of souls to be eat...er, saved.
Shepherd: Of course! We will show the galaxy that you exist, and you will have many believers!
Entity: yeah, yeah....so bring your ship down and we'll be off.
Elwood: Er, excuse me...
Entity: What?
Elwood: What does Joss need with a starship? Don't you have limos and stuff?
Entity: Don't get cheap on me, Elwood. (Eyes flash, knocks Elwood down)
Shepherd: Hey! God would not do this! Even Joss would not do this!
Entity: You sassin' me?
Cassandra (studies her PDA): Captain...I suspect this entity is not God at all. Or even Joss Whedon. It appears to be a...a dual!
Shepherd: A dual? Then...this isn't God at all?
Entity: Of course I'm God! Don't make me go Gomorrah on your asses.
Shepherd: God would not act this way...maybe you've got a secret pain you'd like to share...(hefts Bible, charges Entity, starts whapping him across the head and shoulders)
Entity: Ow! Cut it out! That tickles! I'm warning you....
Cass: Perhaps now would be a good time, as the Americans say, to "bug out?"
Storm: Absofuckinglutely!
(They run. Behind them the Entity's glow gets brighter and the thwapping sounds grow louder)
Entity: Okay, that's it...
(Huge explosion)

Cut to: Wordforge bridge. Ship rocks.
Lanzman: What the...
Order2Chaos: We're being shot at! TBBS Battlecruiser!
Lanzman: Well, shoot back!
Diacanu: Can't! Main power failing!

Cut To: the shuttle. Storm, Elwood and Cass arrive, panting. Sappy music has been replaced by menacing moaning.
Elwood: Great...we've pissed off God's dual.
Cass: Worse news, sir...the explosion has damaged part of the shuttle. We can only take two people.
Storm: One of us will have to make a heroic stand.
Elwood: Okay...draw straws or...?
Cass: You have to stay, Captain.
Elwood: Huh?
Cass: It's the movie rules. How can you be the hero if you leave whilst your helpless subordinates die defending your back?
Elwood: Storm, is that right?
Storm: Yup.
Elwood:
Storm (claps Elwood on the shoulder): Good man.

Cut to: Wordforge bridge. Cassandra and Storm come in.
Cass: Report.
Lanzman: Shields are failing, we can't shoot back, and where the fuck is the boss anyway?
Cass: Down on the planet. Try to beam him up.
Diacanu: We can't. They shot that off too, and they're coming around for another pass.
Cass (turns on Borgminister): Those are your people shooting at us. Tell them to stop.
Borgminister: I...am just a helpless old mod.
Cass (grabs Borgminister in a sensitive place): Damn you, sir, you WILL try, or I'll tighten the Austrian Bobbit Grip.
Borgminister (in high-pitched voice): Okey-dokey...

Cut To: planet. Elwood is being chased by hundreds of ten-foot-tall Joshua Chamberlain duals.

Entity: Give me your ship!
Elwood: Never! (slugs one Chamberlain, then another, but is punched by the third and the fourth. He loses his shirt and is looking dusty and tired. ) C'mon, is that the best you can do? Throw some Shermans at me whilst you're at it, motherfu...
(Entity yelps as massive ray guns fire; duals are blown to bits. Elwood looks up into the guns of the TBBS Battlecruiser)
Elwood: Okay. Fine. This is not my best day ever. (puts up fists) Take your best sho...
(Elwood disappears, materializes in TBBS Battlecruiser bridge)
Elwood:
Borgminister: Warning for look.
Elwood: Why did you save me?
Borgminister: Warning for questioning. Take it to new gunnery officer.
(Chair turns. Cassandra is sitting there)
Elwood: Cass! (starts to hug her)
Cass: Don't even fucking think about it, sir.
Elwood: Right.

Cut To: Party aboard the Wordforge
Diacanu (eyeing Kass): She has wonderful...wonderful...
Order2Chaos: Underwear?
Diacanu: That's the ticket.
Borgminister: Elwood!
Elwood: Eh?
Borgminister: Reaperman has something to say.
Reaperman: Yeah, next time I'm shooting at you.
Elwood: Fine. (turns away, goes over to Cassandra, who's staring down at the planet) Something wrong, Cassandra?
Cassandra: I've lost a brother.
Storm: No you didn't. Pablo's just fine...damn him.
Cassandra: No, the other brother.
Elwood: well...um...he did die saving us.
Cassandra: Yes, but he died saving us from Joss Whedon.
Storm: That was just Whedon's dual.
Elwood: Yeah, I'm sure "Serenity" will still come out in a couple of months.
Cassandra: Are you sure?
Elwood: Just gotta have faith, Commander...

THE END

shep gets resurrected, I'm still a dead red shirt :wah:

Howcome the mother of all duals wasn't polarslam? I saw it coming but it never turned up!

Turk, I'd rather have had you as one of my flunkies than Flashlight, if that helps.

I nominate Spaceturkey for a role no smaller than the Worf part in ST6!

So is there going to be a Wordforge 6?

Eventually.