Category Archives: satire

Canto 119 – The Debate on the Bridge

The control panel on the bridge of the Super Rooster was made up mostly of the remnants of Dr. Naylund Smith’s old space ship, the one he had crashed and eventually junked a mere two hundred twelve years before.  But it was like riding a bicycle to sit in front of the familiar controls.  That, Naylund supposed was why Ged had asked him to be the pilot, taking over the role that Ged would’ve much preferred had gone to his brother Ham, but he would not take for himself.

“Thank you for organizing this mission, Naylund-sensei.  I am not used to doing the job of a space captain myself.”

“It is nothing, Ged-dono.  Sitting in front of these controls is a little like arriving home again.  And this is the first time in the history of Gaijin that the planet can mount a response to an incoming possible threat.”

“Have we learned anything more from the scanners?”

“Not much.  It is coming up on the viewscreen now.  It is still 5,000 miles away.  Computer, enhance viewscreen 500 percent.”

The image enlarged in the holo-digital viewscreen.

“That looks like a big piece of driftwood with a flower on its side,” said Sara, looking over her father’s shoulder.

“The sensors indicate the whole thing is alive,” said Junior Aero, sitting behind Ged.  “It functions as a space ship, though.  It maneuvers.  And it orients itself to the gravity well of the planet like an incoming spaceship.  It has to be something like the living space-whale ships of my people.”

Junior was born a Nebulon, blue-skinned and red-cheeked, and later adopted by the Aero Brothers.

Naylund looked at the plant-like thing and squinted.  Hoping to see… what exactly?

“I don’t think it’s connected to your terrorist, Ged.  It’s like some sort of seed pod.”

Ged looked at Naylund skeptically.  “It seems almost impossible that it would be a coincidence, Naylund.”

But Jai Chang, the ninja under the Avenger helmet, was a native-born Gaijinese who had never been off planet and never known to have any off-world contacts.  If there was a connection, it was not an obvious one.

“Sara, can you tell anything about it with your telepathy?” he asked his daughter.

“I hear voices, but it’s confusing,” she answered.  “Could the whole thing be a disguise?  I can read alien minds there… but it’s all garbled.  I can usually understand anything the mind I read understands.”

Junior suddenly also looked quite confused.  “I can’t read any computers on board, A-I or otherwise.  How can they navigate?”

“They can’t.  No starship we know of can operate without a computerized brain of some sort.  Anything less than Tech-level Nine wouldn’t be able to find its way through jump space.”  Naylund could only guess at the weird alien technology behind this interstellar seed-pod.

“There is a breathable oxygen-nitrogen-carbon dioxide atmosphere inside,” said Ged, reading the latest sensor scan.  “We will have to go inside.  Time to use your antique vacc suits, Naylund.”

“Be my guest.  I will fly the Super Rooster and wait for your return in the ship.”

“You and the robot-boy, Tiki Astro.  That should be enough problem-solving help to leave on this end.  I will take Sara, Junior, Billy, and Gyro with me.  We have five usable suits.”

“Don’t take any unnecessary risks, Ged-dono.  I am trusting you with my daughter, after all.  Something I would only do with the one true White Spider.” “I promise, Naylund-sensei.  On my life, I promise.”

Canto 117 – The Bogey… and Probably Not Humphrey Bogart

Ged and Shen Ming walked slowly back to the Administrative Offices in Shen Ming’s Tower. 

“You really can’t tell me anything more about this whole Avenger thing?”

“Ah, Ged-sensei, you know how it is for old men… especially really old men more than five hundred.  You forget stuff… you have hair growing out of your ears… you fart more often than you would really like…”

“No, I really don’t know about that yet.  I am older than I look, but I have not yet experienced aging as you have.”

“And you will not.  If I know anything at all about Psion shape-changers… and I probably don’t know anything, you will not age because your cells refresh themselves constantly with your ability.”

Ged nodded.  He wasn’t sure how much he believed it, but he knew it was a possibility that he had even sensed within himself.

“How old is Bres the Black Spider?”

“Him?  This I do not know.  He appeared in Kiro five years ago, having possibly come here from space in response to the White Spider Prophecy.”

“He thought he was the White Spider?”

“No.  He wanted to see the White Spider killed and the Prophecy defeated.”

“I see.”

“I hope so, Ged-dono.  At least as well as I see.”

Suddenly, Hassan Parker was running towards them at full speed, completely naked except for his red fez hat and his red courtesy towel.

“Ah, so… the naked child approaches,” said Shen Ming with an Alfred E. Neuman grin.

“Ged Aero-sensei!  You must come quickly!  There is a bogey in orbit!”

“Humphrey Bogart is in orbit?” asked Shen Ming.

“No, no… an unidentified…” Hassan had to stop and catch his breath.  He dropped the towel as he panted.

“Ah, a very beautiful child.  But not so very smart, I think.  He never seems to remember to wear pants.”

“Take your time, Hassan-kun.  Tell us what this is about.”

“…an unidentified space craft of strange design… in orbit… maybe connected to… the intruder.”

“Ah, connected to the Avenger it is not…” said Shen Ming.  “Master Jai Chang has never been off this planet.”

“Who spotted the intruder?” Ged asked.

“I was sent to tell you by Naylund Smith-sama.  He’s in the newly built spaceport, at the Super-Rooster on landing pad seventeen.”

“We have seventeen landing pads already?” Ged gaped.

“The Ancient Hammer of God builds things very fast,” said Shen Ming.  “We borrowed it from your planet Don’t Go Here, you know.”

“Ah… Ancient artifacts again.  I worry sometimes…”

“Ged you must go and investigate.  This lovely little Space Nudist is a good telepath, is he not?”

“Yes.  Only Sara Smith is better on this planet.”

“Very good.  I will take Hassan to help me find out why Master Jai Chang put on the helmet and where it came from.  You go defend the planet from terrible intruding space creatures.”

Ged hesitated momentarily.  There was something concerning about what Shen Ming had recently said and done.  But what he should do about it, and what it might have to do with the White Spider Prophecy… well, he was afraid to ask.

Canto 116 – On the Rooftops

Tempi, one of Shen Ming’s messenger boys, spotted the intruder first.  He was riding on a PZ-27 anti-grav sled more commonly known as a pregnant penguin.  He was wearing a golden helmet with three spiked horns, just as Shen Ming had warned Tempi to look for.

“Master Shen!  Master Shen!  Your old enemy has come, like you thought he would!  What do we do?”

“Oh, my!  What, me, worry?  No, this is a job for the White Spider and his charges.  Run, Tempi, and warn young Master Shu or young Master Phoenix… or both!”

Tempi ran as fast as short legs could manage.

Shu Kwai was the first notified and the first to respond.  He found the helmeted intruder menacing a crowd of people in the courtyard with a pair of strange ray pistols. 

“Die, ugly, worthless Gaijin! In the name of the traitor Shen Ming, I slay thee!”

Shu immediately grabbed at the guns with his telekinesis powers, and though he couldn’t take the weapons away, he could pull the shots off target.  The rays splashed harmlessly on the palace walls and on the ground.  In fact, surprisingly damaging or burning nothing at all.

Swiftly Sara Smith was at Shu’s side.

“Can you grab his mind and put him out?” Shu said.

“No, I can’t.  His mind is shielded from my power in some strange way.  But I sense that as he fires, he doesn’t even try to hit his targets.  He’s… missing on purpose.”

Jadalaqstbr teleported into a group of children that were in danger in the middle of the courtyard.  She grabbed two boys by the arms and let a small girl wrap her arms around her neck.  Then she teleported them all to safety.

Shu and Sara gave chase as the intruder leaped up to the roof of the library.  Shu shielded them from the shots he took at the two of them, but they seemed to be incredibly weak shots.

Taffy King lifted herself up to the library roof and used her telekinesis to make a barrier that forced the helmeted stranger directly towards the trap that Phoenix had planned.

It was Phoenix and Rocket Rogers that stood at the end of the intruder’s path.

“Rocket!  The fire bubble to burn his oxygen!”

Rocket, at Phoenix’s command, sealed an air-tight dome of flaming air over the man and absorbed his ray-gun shots.

“Now, I drop him with heat…”

Phoenix’s temperature-spiking bolt took him down.

“You didn’t kill him, I hope?” asked Ged-sensei as he arrived at the scene.

Shen Ming arrived in time for the unmasking.

“Your messenger said this was some kind of old enemy, Shen-sensei,” said Ged.

“Ah, yes… yes.  Every three hundred years he comes around to threaten and maybe kill people seeking vengeance for something he imagines I did to wrong him.”

Of course, everybody present knew that Shen-sensei was more than nine hundred years old.  A vendetta that old was not surprising.

“So, you’ve never caught him before?” Ged asked.

“Oh, no… not quite like this…  This one is too old to remember his evil self, but he is called the Avenger.”

Phoenix pulled off the horned helmet.

“It’s Jai Chang our archery master!” said Ged in confusion.

“Hmm… now, that seems so unlikely.  I recall Master Jai is only thirty Earth years old.  A mystery this is…”

Shu noticed that the old man had a suspiciously jovial smile for the circumstances.

“We will take him to the infirmary and strap him down.  When he comes to we will learn more about what caused our faithful teacher to do this thing.”

Shu and Taffy picked Jai Chang up with telekinesis and floated him down from the roof and to the infirmary. Ged and his students looked at the inscrutable Shen-sensei and shook their heads in wonder.

Canto 114 – Desperate Men, Desperate Measures

Several system-defense boats, the so-called Atmospheric Police Force of the planet Coventry rose to surround the wrecked but recovering hulk of the First Half Century.

“Enemy craft!  Stand down with your weapons.  Prepare to be boarded by the Coventry Air Guard.”

Dana Cole turned to her beleaguered crew.  “Any chance we can escape or fight our way out of this?”

“Not without using that… that THING!” said a horrified junior officer whom she didn’t know.

“Yeah, that is definitely out of the question.”  She turned to the reanimated thing that was now her beloved Trav.  “We have to surrender now, lover.  I expect we will be facing trial.”

“Ah, a primitive justice system.  That sort of illogical display will prove most enlightening in these times of our intellectual progeny.”

“I’m not talking to the mind of Trav Dalgoda am I?”

“Decidedly not.  Tyrrix ManSel wishes to observe for the next decade or so.”  The dead eyes were lit from behind with a yellow luminescence.

“Yep, that can’t be good.”

“There is a possibility of incarceration and even execution, isn’t there,” said Tyrrix with Trav’s mouth.

“Yes.  If they don’t kill us as soon as they come aboard.”

“Well, if my database on the Xandar future is accurate, our ride should be showing up at any moment.”

“Our ride?”

Outside the viewport, two Blackhawk Corsairs, both in rather battle-worn condition popped out of jump space.

“We need the Coventry forces to back off for now.  By proxy orders of the White Duke.”  Dana easily recognized the voice of Razor Conn.

Through the viewport, the crew could see the system defense forces backing down.

One of the Blackhawks sent a half dozen air rafts out through its blast-blackened docking bay towards the First Half Century.

In moments, the leader of the Blackhawks, Razor Conn, stood on the bridge looking at Dana through mirrored sunglasses.  He was wearing a white, wide-brimmed cowboy hat like so many veterans of the Pan Galactican Border War.

“I take it this incident was mostly the fault of the evil Tesserah thing?” Razor said simply.

“Yes.  It seems to have a mind of its own.  An evil mind.”

“We are going to tell the Coventry government that we have the rogue warriors in custody and we will give this starship to them as compensation.”

“So, you’re not going to hand us over to be executed?”

“No, of course not.  We already know it wasn’t the fault of you or your crew.  Our own ranks are a bit depleted now too, so we will be taking you aboard to work for us.  We will only claim to have executed the war criminals.  Once the emergency is over, any necessary investigations can happen in a few years.  We have more pressing things to worry about now.”

“Oh?  Like what for instance?”

“That evil Ancient thing wants to kill us all.  Maybe the whole universe.  We have to find a more effective way to deal with it than just doing what it tells us to do.”

Dana looked at Trav.  “Are you telling them what to do?”

“Not I,” answered Tyrrix.  “Your friend speaks of the evil inherent in the Tesserah.  It is, after all, an ultimate Ancient doomsday sort of device.”

“Do you know how to get rid of it?” she asked Razor.

“No, but we have to figure something out.  In the meantime, I would ask for everybody’s company aboard Blackhawk One.  We really have a lot of work to do.”