Category Archives: satire

Canto 135 – Applying Weed Killer

With Gyro driving, a rather unnerving prospect for those riding with him, the first pink Cadillacko swooped down on the planet Cornucopea out of the clouds.  They were supposed to be establishing a base camp on the planet.

Besides Gyro, the Nebulon boy who gave the first Cadillacko its air bubble field and its silly Nebulonin nickname, the grav speeder held Billy Iowa, wearing his cowboy sombrero and leather moccasins, Luigi the Onion Guy, for whom they had no workable space suit, and Mai Ling, scantily dressed in form-fitting battle armor and wearing the ring-sleeve device that could amplify her telekinetic throwing arm.

The second Cadillacko carried Hassan Parker, who had to wear a full space suit instead of being nude like usual, Taffy King and Shu Kwai, all suited and combat ready.

The third grav speeder carried Ged Aero-sensei, Junior Aero, his adopted Nebulon nephew, and Sara Smith, the strongest telepath and healer of the group.

The drop zone looked like a field of flowers undulating in a high wind.  But as they zoomed closer, you could see the large daisy-heads and thistle-heads were all ripping into and damaging the other plants.

“What do we do, Sensei?” Billy radioed through the comm dot on his neck.

“Clear the landing zone.  Weed-killer weapons and mowers!  We have to cut the weeds down to size.”

Gyro, being Gyro, nose-dived the pink-and-white Space Cadillac into the soft dirt of the field of fighting flowers.  It plowed a deep furrow in a semi-circle in the middle of the large open space.   Shu-Kwai landed his gray-and-white Space Cadillac much more gently beside it.

The telekinetics, Shu and Taffy King, leaped out of their vehicle with weapons that were more like chainsaws than the lawnmowers they were supposed to be.  Each had two, one controlled by each hand.  So, four flying blades whirled through the air, slicing and dicing, turning Throckpods into salad.

Mai-ling leaped out with a razor pistol in her hand.  She fired round throwing-star-like objects in groups of five, then whipped the blades through the air sawing thorns neatly off of every violent flower-person she saw.

Hassan manned the spray-gun with the toxic weed-killer in it, spraying withering death upon Throckpods to a range of fifty feet.

Soon an army of violent flowers was reduced to smoking piles of flower-chips and salad-squares.

By the time Ged-sensei and Sara and Junior disembarked from their pink-and-white Cadillac, the battle was already over.

Luigi the Onion Guy came bouncing furiously across the field to confront Ged.

“nO!  Oh, nO!  You muSt nOt spILl, ChloroPhyll!” he shouted in his weird little Onion-guy accent.

“But you wanted help in driving away to evil Throckpods and their master, did you not?”

Luigi just stank out a lot of foul smells that the translator couldn’t begin to translate.  It is well known that bad words are more a matter of disgustingly figurative language that does not translate well to beings who have no reference for flower emotions, flower body parts, flower behavior, or flower-based bad thoughts.

“Luigi is swearing at you, Sensei,” Gyro tried to explain while adjusting the translator’s many translation-equivalents adjustment bars.

“We need to understand him better.  Can anyone read his mind?”

Sara looked at Ged with a sorrowful expression on her face.  “I am beginning to sense some of the stronger emotions coming from plant-minds.  He is upset because to them, all flower-life is sacred, including the Throckpods.  That’s what he wants us to cure about the Throckpods.  Their leader makes them render and kill other plant-life sacrilegiously.”

“Very well, then.  We will set up base-camp in this cleared field and try hard to understand these flower-people better.”

“Yes, we need to study them and do some research,” said Hassan Parker.  “I can get out of this space suit and start research immediately as the rest of you set up the camp.”

“I think I have seen enough of your naked body.  And you really should join us in the physical labor before doing the mental work.”  Shu Kwai was not making suggestions.  He was issuing commands.  “And while we are here, everybody wears protective body coverings.  There are many unknown plant-based dangers here, and we want no one to be at risk.”

So, eight student ninjas, their ninja sensei, and one irate Onion began building a base camp.

Nocturne 12 – The Flower Planet Rising

While Ged Aero-sensei and Naylund Smith-sensei were busy flying the Super Rooster towards the planet Cornucopea, the White Spider students gathered in the recreation room with the forward view on the holoscreen.   

Mai Ling and Taffy King sat together on the floor, missing their third since Jadalaqstbr hadn’t returned from her mission until after they had collectively left.

Shu Kwai, wearing his white vest and white pants stood on the starboard side of the viewing screen.  Hassan Parker, nude except for the goofy red fez on his head (since he was dedicated to the goofy nudity notions of the Classical Worlds, also known as Space Nudists,) stood next to him.

Gyro Sinjarac, the blue-skinned Nebulon, and his best friend Billy Iowa both wore their cowboy hats, boots, and space-cowboy clothes sitting in the middle of the floor.

Junior Aero, blue-skinned Nebulon, and his beloved young lady friend, Sara Smith.  Stood together at the back of the group holding hands.

The planet kept looming larger and larger in the viewing screen.  It was amazingly green compared to similar planets where life wasn’t merely thriving, but exploding with life.  Most such planets were blue from immense bodies of water.

“So, this is a dangerous planet, huh?” asked Mai Ling.

“Yes, those Throckpods were trying to rip my head off and drink my blood,” said Sara.

Taffy King shivered.  “I hate the idea of plants that can move and talk… and eat you.”

“Yeah, and it will be worse for us than it was for you, Sara,” Mai Ling said.

“Oh, how so?”

“You had your boyfriend there to protect you,” she said.  “Our boyfriends… Taffy’s and mine, are not along to protect us.”

“You two have boyfriends?”

“Taffy loves Rocket,” Gyro blurted out with accompanying giggles.

“But… you, Mai Ling?”

Mai Ling blushed deeply.  “Yeah, um…  Phoenix says of all the girls he’s met before, I’m the one he likes the most.”

Everyone laughed awkwardly, more from embarrassment than anything else.  But no one argued either.  They all instantly realized that Phoenix did treat Mai Ling differently. He wasn’t cruel to her.

“So, what about Billy, Gyro, Shu, and Hassan?” Junior asked.  “Who are they supposed to protect.”

“Well, it’s rather obvious that Gyro and Billy are in love,” said Taffy with a cruel grin.  “And Shu Kwai is more of a monk than a man.  And who’s even gonna get near the naked kid?”

Shu Kwai frowned at the teasing, and Hassan looked quite sad for reasons unknown.

“Well, my clairvoyance is pinging right now with answers to all of it,” said Billy Iowa.  “I see Gyro with an Earther wife and ten blue kids of varying ages.  And Junior and Sara will marry and have a pair of blue twins, a boy and girl… Robert and Valerie, I think.”

“Oh, what about Phoenix and me?” squeaked Mai Ling.

“Well… you do get married… but…”

“Oh, no!  What?”

“You can’t have kids of your own.  You have to adopt… I think.”

“And what about Rocket and me?” Taffy asked.

“One son, Alfred Einstein Rogers.  He’s such a handful you both decide never to have any more.”

“What about Shu?”

“Well, he’s going to be a great teacher, and first among all the White Spider Disciples.”

“Of course he is,” scoffed Taffy.

“And Hassan?”

Suddenly Billy’s face grew pale and the look on his face was the kind of horrified you associate with seeing ghosts.

“No!  Don’t say it.  I don’t want to know.”  Hassan folded his arms across his chest and glared at Billy.

“Do… do you already know it?”

“The curse?  It isn’t really any of your business.  Take your time-snooping nose out of my future.  Don’t you dare tell anyone.”

“Okay.  Okay… I wish I could forget it… myself.”

“I’ll take care of it for you,” Hassan said, putting his first two fingers of his right hand to Billy’s temple and pouring blueish telepathic energy into the side of Billy’s head. That, of course, left everyone so stunned about Hassan’s terrible secret that all the romance and future-children stuff was promptly forgotten.

Canto 134 – Meanwhile, the Rebound…

King Killer stared out the main viewport of his Flagship, the Sherman Hemsley, looking intently at Grand Admiral Cloudstalker’s new flagship, the Giant Leaf-eater.

“It seems like such an insult for legendary pirates like Arkin Cloudstalker to be flying a dinosaur-shaped space ship. Certainly, the brains behind this new fleet coulda come up with something more respectful. It’s so silly… and green!”

“You are complaining for Cloudstalker?  Or f0r yourself?” asked Wicked Wanda.

“Yeah, yeah…  I’m not happy for me either.  His just has to sit there like some kinda brontosaurus, and he don’t have to charge about like a bison in a stampede.”

“You didn’t have to accept a triceratops ship, you know.  And that thing Cloudstalker has is a brachiosaurus.  There never was such a thing as a brontosaurus.  It was actually an apatosaurus.”

“So, you are now the ship’s dinosaur expert?”

“You know I’m not.  I’m your fleet communications officer… and paramour.”

“Yeah, I know it.”

King glared around the bridge at all of the snickering crewmen.  All seven of them on the bridge of the Hemsley.

“What?  You subordinates have opinions?” He growled menacingly.  Everyone ceased laughing instantly.

And then a gray and black trash dumpster materialized on the bridge of Admiral Killer’s flagship as if some gigantic material synthesizer pieced it together from random atoms there.

“What’s this on my bridge?”

“Um… a dumpster?” a timid crewman ventured.

They all heard the familiar snap-hiss of a sealed airlock opening, and then the thing morphed into a 1950s telephone booth.  It was almost a familiar sight to Admiral Killer.

“Dr. Hooey?”

The character who stepped out of the time-ship Star Wars was completely unrecognizable to King.

“Yes, it’s me.  I ran into some difficulties in Outpost’s near future.  I had to be reborn again, as Galagoans do, but at least I get to be younger in this body.”

“Um, why are you different from the old Hooey?”

“I understand perfectly,” Wicked Wanda said.  “Having been a holovid star myself, I definitely understand the need to change faces as you start a new season.”

“So glad you get it, old girl.  Forgive me if I turn out to be a bit cheekier than the old me.”

“So, why is the new you even here?” demanded King.

“Ah, yes!  To make sure you, Admiral King Killer, don’t give up in the coming battle of Outpost.  All you have to do to win it and establish the New Star League, is do what you intended to do before you started to have second thoughts.  If you just do the things you were supposed to do all along, the plan Ham Aero carries out will work and you all will be victorious.”

“Um, ah… what?”

But not even Wicked Wanda could interpret that one for him.  Because when did the second thoughts he was not supposed to have actually begin?  Were these old second thoughts?  Were they second thoughts that happened after the present time?  And what the heck were the first thoughts he actually had to do to win?

“Oh, never mind.  You’ll figure it out when the time is right.”

“And if I don’t figure it out?”

“Well, I guess, then, that the universe we know dies this time… once again.” King Killer glared at this new Hooey.  Yes, it really was a new Hooey.  Just like the old Hooey, only dumber.

Canto 132 – Comeuppance

 Phoenix dissipated his fire-sword and turned towards the Black Spider leaders and their fire-fighting crew.  There was an ironic smile on his face.

“You may have noticed that this entire place is now on fire.  We, the three of us have decimated your ranks already.  And we did not come alone.  We brought Jai Chang and the army of Shen Ming.  Jai-sensei needed a chance to prove himself faithful to the White Spider.”

Instantly Jai Chaing swooped down from the rafters, shooting his arrows as he leapt.  Fangwoman, still wearing the helmet, took the first one through the heart.  Three more fell to his arrows before the other warriors took their first shots.

Reacting as quickly as he could, the Green Phantom dropped himself through a trap door in the stage floor.

“Now you must kill me.  I was your sensei, and I deserve an honorable death at your hands.  Let the student now become the master.”  Bone Daddy lowered his head, ready for the final blow.

“What is that?  Some kind of old movie reference?  You may not like it, but I choose to honor you with love and forgiveness.  We will take you as our guest in a lead-lined cell.  We will heal you, and give you the chance to redeem yourself among the White Spiders.”

“Phoenix, no.  You dishonor me.”

“I do not.  You just don’t understand… yet.”

Bone Daddy slumped unconscious to the floor.  Fortunately, a wraith cannot phase while unconscious.

“I have the boy Freddy,” said Jai Chang, holding the unconscious child in his arms.  Of the three White Spider commandoes, he was the only one that needed attention from a healer.

Rocket, Jackie, and Alec were all roused and led safely out of the burning building.  Two soldiers carried the limp form of Bone Daddy out too.

Shen Ming himself retrieved the Avenger Helmet.

“Ah, I must be careful with this thing now.”

“Am I right in thinking you are the reason the Avenger helmet turned up on Jai Chang’s head, Shen Ming-sensei?” Phoenix asked.

“What?  Me, guilty?  Although I am admitting that it all worked out rather nicely for our worst enemies.  Fangwoman is discovering new dimensions.  Bone Daddy is now our permanent guest.  And Green Phantom is now in hiding, needing to recruit many new evil ninjas to his stupid way of thinking. 

“And, ah, so… we have cleaned out the Black Spider Organization in Kiro pretty well.” Shen Ming’s crooked smirk told Phoenix it was all true, but he was not unhappy about it.