Danger amidships.

What's that, tubey? Losing pressure? Damn shame, that. And the gravity control is malfunctioning? Criminy. Oh, heck... there goes our navigation console. Reduced to molten lead. Sometimes things just don't go right in deep space.


Hi, Big Green fans. Yes, well... we've finally gotten off the ground, pulling away from the Cancri 55 solar system at 40% of light velocity. Only trouble is, those repairs that our old friend sFshzenKlyrn effected just prior to our departure are turning out to be of somewhat less than the highest quality. Damn if I didn't buy that service contract! I could have had the butt-crack guy from Sears up hear patching this decrepit ship together. Hindsight is 20:20, as they say. (What is that behind me? Looks like... an eye chart!) Feeling a bit of buyer's remorse out here in deep space, as it happens, our life-giving oxygen seeping out into the void, our hands flailing uselessly as our legs float towards the ceiling. This is just the sort of trip that almost makes you miss commercial air travel. (At least they have free air.)


Okay, so sFshzenKlyrn fucked up... so he should be held accountable, right? Well, that would be fine, except that he's not on board. Remember, now... he's a creature from the planet Zenon as well as our perennial sit-in guitarist, and his ancestors spawned in an environment quite different from that of our humble home planet (Earth, for those who don't know). He zips from solar system to solar system, galaxy to galaxy, like a mall brat on those flashing roller-sneakers (except not as noisy... and no cell phone). Once we stoked him into an inebriated state with multiple servings of flapjacks, he effected his faulty repairs and promptly flitted off into the ethers, perhaps taking in an intergalactic concert promoted by his Svengali brother, blFmondZagnitz, the Don Kirshner of the Small Magellanic Cloud. (If such a thing can be imagined...)


Whether or not it was entirely sFshzenKlyrn's fault is not the issue here. The issue is, well... how to breathe without air, how to keep your feet on the deck without gravity, how to navigate without controls. Vexing issues, indeed. Recognizing this to be the case, your friends in Big Green duly called upon the talents of all those within earshot. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was dispatched to mend the hull, in as much as he doesn't require oxygen (though he prefers an oxygen-rich environment... question of personal taste, really...). We asked Big Zamboola to arise from his slumber and lend us a little spare gravity. (In as much as he is a planet unto himself, he does have a little of that mysterious force to spare.) Lincoln - still insufferably pleased with himself over his appearance on a late-night sixties talk show - was disinclined to lend a hand, but his evil doppelganger (anti-Lincoln) - still pissed off over Lincoln's appearance on a ... well, you know - set himself to reconstructing our navigation panel using whatever was leftover from last night's dinner (which was, itself, leftovers).


So, my sweaty palms grasping the makeshift celery-stalk helm controls, I will bid you adieu for the nonce. Marvin? Man the half-eaten watermelon. Looks like turbulence ahead.

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