"Otherspace" by Rob Dalton (daltonator@hotmail.com) The ISD Eyeessdee glided easily through the dark expanse of night, it's lights blazing a trail through the blackness of space. When, all of a sudden, something...silly happened. "There's an anomaly straight ahead of us, Captain," reported a sensor officer. Captain Dalton looked out the front of the mighty ship at the oddly shaped anomaly. "It looks just like a giant..." "Weenie! Get your weenie!" came the call of a fat, mustached vendor as he made his way around the crew pits. The starboard turbolaser commander dug a credit chip out of his pocket and took one. "Hurry up and eat that," ordered Captain Dalton. "They may be hostile." The commander nodded and shoved the entire hot dog into his mouth. "Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted..." Dalton glanced at the vendor. "It looks just like a giant..." The vendor opened his mouth again. With a flick of his hand, Dalton called a stormtrooper over, who began to kick the living shit out of the vendor. "Penis!" Indeed, the disturbance was shaped like a giant dink, and out of the tip came an odd ship at very high velocity. It rapidly slowed to a halt. "We are being hailed, sir," said a comm officer. "Put it on overhead. Who are you?" Dalton asked. There was a crackle of static, which suddenly resolved into the chatter of many voices. One of them, seemingly closer to the pickup, hushed them. Then he spoke. "We are the knights who say...NI!" "NI! NI! NI! NI!" came the cry from the others. Everyone on the bridge of the Eyeessdee began to writhe in agony. Captain Dalton screamed. "Not the Knights who say Ni!" "The same!" came the reply. "Who are they?" Commander McGravin asked. The Knight responded before Dalton could say anything. "We are the keepers of the sacred words: Ni, Peng, and Nee-wom!" Several others shouted Nee-wom over the speaker and were promptly hushed. "Those who hear them seldom live to tell the tale," explained Dalton. "They'll want a sacrifice, no doubt." "The Knights who say Ni demand a sacrifice!" "Told you so," said Dalton. "Oh Knights of Ni, we are but simple warriors who seek to conquer the worlds that lie beyond these energies." "NI! NI! NI! NI!" The bridge crew erupted in chaos as they began to writhe in agony. "We shall say Ni again to you if you do not appease us." "I think we should do what they want," said McGravin. "What do you want?" asked Dalton. "We want..." he paused. "A TREKKIE!" There was deathly silence on the bridge before Dalton spoke up. "A what?" "NI! NI! NI! NI!" Again, the crew fell over themselves in agony, the starboard turbolaser commander choking on his hot dog. "Sick bay," Dalton ordered, pointing to a stormtrooper. He turned back to address the aliens. "Please, spare us. We'll find you a trekkie." "You must return here with a trekkie or else you will never pass through this wormhole...alive!" "Oh Knights of Ni, you are just and fair. We will return with a trekkie." "One that looks nice." "Of course." "And not too fanatical!" "Yes." "Now, go!" With that, the ISD Eyeessdee turned tail and shot into hyperspace. "Where do you think we can find a trekkie?" asked McGravin. "I have no idea," replied Dalton. "What is a trekkie?" Part II Private Trekkie of the Imperial Army sat in his room in the Imperial Base Jujube. It wasn't a typical sitting position though, as he was sitting atop his table with his toe in his nostril, a finger in his right ear and his right thumb up his butt. He was sitting in this manner when the door suddenly disappeared. The odd thing about the door disappearing, aside from the fact that the door disppeared, was the bright flash of light and billowing smoke that had replaced it. The flash of light disappeared too. Private Trekkie dismissed it and returned to his meditation as he was suddenly lifted up. Looking around, he quickly discovered that he was being taken. He did not know where though, so he asked where he was being taken. "Where am I being taken?" he asked. "Where do you think?" came the response. "I don't know. That's why I'm asking." "Nosy bugger, ain't ya?" "Well, you're the ones who broke in and abducted me!" "Oh, calm down. This isn't an abduction, it's a forced kidnapping." "Still! It is against my wishes--" "Sometimes wishes can't be granted. We're not genies." "LET ME GO!" "No." "Why not?!" "You didn't say the magic word." "Please?" "Nope." "Umm...cheese?" "Damn." "Ha ha! You have to let me go!" "Well, we can't now," the stormtrooper said as Private Trekkie was deposited in front of Captain Dalton on the ISD Eyeessdee. "That was quick," Private Trekkie said. Captain Dalton gestured, and the stormtrooper threw him to the ground. "We found him picking his nose with his foot, sir." "Hmm. Now, what is your name, fool?" "Private Trekkie, sir." "Private Truckie, eh?" "No, no. Trekkie." The stormtrooper smacked him upside the head. "Hah. The scum has spirit," said Dalton. "Prepare him for the transfer." "The what?" The stormtrooper smacked him again. "Shall I throw him to the floor, too?" he asked. "Sure." There was a thud as Trekkie's head hit the floor, and then blackness. "What's going on?!" Dalton demanded. "The chef must have run his blender again," commented Seifert. "I think we blew a fuse." "Well, go and fix it," ordered Dalton. "I have a load of laundry to do." Emergency lighting came on. "Ah. Commander, take Private Trekkie to the mess hall and feed him." The trooper saluted and dragged Private Trekkie to the turbolift. *** It was dark, not at all surprising from the current status of the illumination situation. But what was odd about the mess hall was that it was always dark, for one simple reason: To prevent anyone from seeing their food. For if they did, it would be the worst case of shipwide panic since the great gerbil laundry scare three years ago. Turned out some of the crew were just practicing some obscure sexual oddities and forgot to count the rodents. The perpetrators were swiftly slain with rather large, blunt objects from the armory. Anyway, the food was amazing, plain and simple, but the chef looked like a day-dead dianoga. Cook Spyda, a large, burly man with an extraordinary amount of bodily hair, wearing filthy whites and an apron with stains that nobody could ascertain the origins of, scratched his ass, then flicked a booger into the large pot currently bubbling over on the huge, blackened stove. Several bubbles popped, releasing a vile smelling gas into the air. Spyda dipped a large wooden spoon in and stirred it, when suddenly a squealing lobster-like creature tried to leap out. Spyda beat it back with the spoon, then spit in the pot as the creature succumbed. The door to the mess hall opened, and in came a pair of figures. Belching, Spyda went to the service window. "What do ya want?" Spyda said as he picked up a fat, smoldering cigar and stuck it between two obscenely swollen, slimy lips. "What do ya got?" the stormtrooper asked, keeping a grip on the pathetically thin officer beside him. "We got nashtah tongues, dagg's brains, nerf nipple chips, still hot and lovely. And a nice big pot o' calamari blanc goin', or maybe some wookiee testicle soup." The stormtrooper looked absolutely revolted. "Soup? I hate soup." He snorted. "Two bowls of calamari blanc, extra eyeballs." Private Trekkie looked downright frightened as they took their food and went to a dark, quiet booth out of sight of the main hall... [A while later] "Knights of Ni, we have brought you your trekkie. May we go now?" Dalton asked as the odd ship farted along through space. Behind him sat a man playing Spanish guitar as a peanut vendor made his rounds. "It is a good trekkie. I like his earlobes particularly. But there is one small problem," the knight warned. "Nuts!" said the vendor. "What is that?" "We are now... no longer the Knights Who Say Ni." Several knights started to go into cavalcades of "ni" until silenced by the big one. "We are now the Knights Who Say Ecky-ecky-ecky-ecky-pikang-zoom-boing-mumble-mumble. Therefore, we must give you a test." "Nuts!" came the cry again. Dalton looked concerned. "What is this test, O Knights of-- Knights Who 'Til Recently Said Ni?" "Firstly, you must find...another trekkie!" "Nuts!" came a third cry. The entire bridge crew froze in shock, the guitar player playing a dramatic chord. "Shut up with the nuts already!" Dalton yelled at the vendor. "I know this is nuts!" He turned back. "Not another trekkie!" "Then, when you have found the trekkie, you must place it here beside this trekkie, only slightly higher so you get a two-level effect with a little path running down the middle. Then, when you have found the trekkie, you must cut down the mightiest ship in the navy... with... a herring!" "Nuts!" "Commander Seifert," Dalton addressed. "Kill that man." As Seifert chased the peanut vendor down the crew pit with a pair of scissors, Dalton turned back to the speaker. "Fuck off!" he said, then cut the transmission. "All guns free and hot. Blow the shit out of them." Dalton smiled as the daily slaughter was carried out. "Anything left?" he asked after a fifteen minute bombardment. "Sir!" someone spoke up. "A blue can with yellow lettering!" "What does it say?" "It says...SPAM, sir, and by all accounts it's their reactor core!" "Tractor it in, and see if we can't use it on the Eyeessdee." "Aye, sir." [Hours later] A band of Vikings roamed the corridors of the Eyeessdee for no good reason. "Sir, the SPAM reactor is producing energy at about 235% over baseline. She's a marvel! But the side effect is random acts of silliness," came the report from the Main Engineer Chuck Sonnenburg as a pot of noodles emptied itself on his head. "I can live with that," Dalton said, brushing several small replicas of dog excrement off of his boots. He sat in his fluffy pink armchair and stuck a bubble pipe in his mouth. "Make way for the tip of the portal - and don't look back!" Dalton shouted over the din of several large 16-ton weights falling on various useless crewers. A small dragon took flight and began nipping at everyone's knees as the ISD Eyeessdee went forth into oblivion...and silliness. Otherspace, Chapter 3 --------------------- Splat! “HIGHER!” Splat! “MORE POWER!” SPLAT! “PERFECT! FIRE AT WILL!” SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT! Will (not Robertson) screamed as he was torn apart by high-speed flying processed lunchmeat. Captain Dalton grinned, an evil, malicious and not at all nice smile, one that spoke of stealing candy from nude sunbathing women in skimpy summer dresses. A bit of a paradox, but it nevertheless made most officers wet ‘em. The new spam cannon was working wonders: at the same time, it dissolved enemy lines, folded laundry and removed waxy buildup. Avoiding the golden streams of bat piss, Dalton exited the weapons test room-turned-ancient delicatessen and headed off at a brisk walk. The brisk walk promptly moved to one side to allow Dalton to pass, then made its way again to visit its cousin, the fast trot. Dalton walked onto the bridge, passing around a large woman hanging flattened ensigns out to dry, wading through a putrid-smelling pool of snot- flavored fudge to his command stool, pausing to remove the long pole stuck through a hole in the middle of it before sitting down. Chief Engineer Sonnenburg stood there waiting, garbed in the clothes of some ancient military commander. “What the hell is that?” asked Dalton, pinching the fabric while deftly avoiding the sudden rain of Twinkies. “Not sure, sir,” he replied, adjusting the odd cap he was wearing as a frog attempted to climb into his nose. He removed it and flung the creature at the nearest ensign, whose head promptly exploded as the frog turned into a bottle of nitroglycerine. “I found it in my closet this morning along with two leprechauns, an elf and a Gamorrean whore.” “What were they doing?” “Do you really want the details?” “I guess not,” Dalton huffed, promptly clearing his mind of all resultant images as a four-foot-long fake penis labeled “Mister Dildo” beat Ensign Polinger to death, several gerbils escaping from his pants at their sudden release. Dalton looked at the medals on the other’s chest, noting the name engraved on one of them. “Well, Napoleon, do you have a report for me?” “Well, sir,” Sonnenburg said, absently swatting at the cheese nips flying about his head. “The Spam Drive is functioning marvelously, but the reactor has turned into a unbelievably flashy and amazingly destructive disco ball. Several primates apparently in heat have materialized on six of the major catwalks and we’re trying to devise a way to avoid flying jets of ape sperm without having to duck.” Dalton nodded. “Anything else?” he asked. “Yes, sir. We’ve grown legs.” “Yes, and?” “They’re too hairy.” “So detail two men to go out there and shave them.” “Aye, sir.” “Carry on, Chief. Dismissed.” Sonnenburg tripped his way over various small dinosaurs to the nearest turbochair and hurled himself down to Engineering. Suddenly, a cream-filled cake burst: the signal for a red alarm. “What the hell is going on?!” shouted Dalton over the din of exploding pastries. A sensor officer made a valiant attempt to communicate the problem via a game of charades before giving up. The sensor officer instead started a quick game of telephone, and Dalton swiftly learned that there was a small Italian bistro off the starboard bow, barely three kilometers away from the bright red ribbon. The cakes spent, Dalton nodded towards a comm officer who was slowly turning into a small orange man with green hair, who opened a channel. “This is the Imperial Star Destroyer _Eyeessdee_,” he declared as his uniform suddenly turned into a frilly pink tutu. Ignoring it, he went on. “I claim this space in the name of the Galactic Empire. State your name and purpose or you will be destroyed.” A tired and quite irritated voice returned his hail: “Zark off.” Dalton’s jaw dropped. He picked it up and reattached it to his skull. “We are a very large and powerful warship of the Galactic Empire. I said give up or die!” he ordered. “And I said zark off,” came the response. “You’re a jerk, Dalton. A complete kneebiter.” Dalton reeled for a moment. “Starboard turbolasers: open fire!” he shouted. A quick-thinking officer rushed over with a fire extinguisher and put out the flame that was currently barbecuing a few hamburgers along with Lt. Whimpee. After that, bright green flashes started to lance out at the bistro before it disappeared and reappeared straight in front of the bridge. Dalton gasped before the comm crackled again. This time, a more serious and far older voice came over. “This is the starship _Bistromath_. We are currently on a mission to save the Universe.” “And who is this?” asked Dalton, even more bewildered than before. Swiftly, he stepped away from a growing puddle of yellow liquid. “My name is Slartibartfast, and if you don’t mind, I’m trying to prevent the evil white robots of Krikkit from opening the Slo-Time envelope and freeing their evil masters,” the old man said, a sense of urgency in his voice. There was a scuffle, and a new voice came over. “You wouldn’t happen to have a party going on, would you?” the new voice asked, almost cut off by a third man demanding to know something about whelks. Dalton scratched his head, eliciting a few pink, foamy bubbles. This was not the typical response of the typical ship threatened by the typical might of a typical Imperial Star Destroyer, especially if said typical Imperial Star Destroyer came equipped with typical long, hairy appendages. Most people just demanded to see their mommies and ran off to hide under a bed. “Sorry, we really must dash,” came the voice of the old man again. “Ta ta!” With that, the Italian bistro disappeared in a flurry of math, leaving behind a few half-eaten breadsticks. Dalton stared at the viewer for a few moments longer, eliciting an angry response of “What the hell are YOU looking at?!” from it before heading off to his quarters for a nap. On the way down, he passed by a bloodied Commander Seifert, whom he ordered to take the bridge. After giving Seifert a shot in the jaw after he replied “Where should I take it?”, Dalton headed off to main engineering to check on Sonnenburg’s progress. “How’s it going?” Dalton asked as he crawled into the room, avoiding a puddle of white, viscous ooze. Above him, Major Reid attempted to get the sexually frustrated gorillas under some kind of illusion of control. Sonnenburg was crouched under an engine output monitor rigged with a lean-to and he beckoned to Dalton, holding one of the flaps open. Dalton ran over in what can only be described as a leaning crouch, getting under the protective tarp as a powerful stream of seminal fluid doused a backup comm station. “Could be better,” replied Sonnenburg with a sort of shrug. Dalton took the shrug and threw it out. “Any progress besides sending Major Reid on a futile mission to calm down male silverbacks in heat?” he asked. “Well, I’ve developed a low-level force field to try and deflect the sperm towards other non-vital locations, but there is a problem.” “What sort of problem?” Dalton inquired. “Well, in short, the problem is not the sperm. The problem is that it is a half-assed piece of crap,” Sonnenburg confirmed. “Fascinating. So, we now have a limitless source of power surrounded by the icon of a faded dance craze and a half dozen gorillas trying to hump sublight control stations. Anything else I need to know about?” “Whop.” “What?” “What? I didn’t say anything.” “I thought you said ‘whop’ to me just now.” “Funny, I thought YOU said ‘whop’ to me just now.” They were thankfully wrenched out of their confusion by a bunch of maniacally xenophobic white robots.