Just then a lifering with a wet roach on it appeared...George Jackson grabbed hold and disappeared outo inner space...leaving the first mate on the starship holding 212 feet of rope...(and one Max Marvel comic book)...

"What is this?" asked Counselor Joy.

"Just a little something I had made for you at Things Remembered," said Lt. Warp, who had always had a softer side that few people knew about, unless they were all watching "Lady and the Tramp."

"Thank you, it's very nice," she replied, blushing, and holding up a long knife with the words "Courage And Death!!!!" engraved lovingly into the blade.

She enjoyed the attention she got from Lt. Warp, about half the crew, and a surprising number of fans. They were all lucky she was ever born, she reasoned, stuffing a pewter leprechaun into her bra, and smiling at the dazed checkout clerk, who had acne.

"You are wery beautiful," Checkup was telling about the twenty fifth girl in a row, but this one, a young blonde, was actually going for it.

"That is the tiredest old line," said Albert Sweatshirt, who had mastered the art of conversation over three hundred years ago, and was walking regally down the hallway, arm in arm with a brunette and a redhead, each more striking than the next, depending on which way you looked at it.

Love was in the air at the Mall of America that day, even as hordes of Emergency Rescue personnel swarmed to try to help those crushed by the ship in the parking lot.

"I need you to move this vehicle," a cop was shouting at a flummoxed Ensign Bruiser.

"I can't! For one thing, I've got orders," he shouted right back.

"I don't care about your orders, we've got people dying under there, and you need to move this vehicle, or we're going to tow it."

"Tow it?" Pugsley was stunned, and more than a little amused. "With what? One of those little trucks?"

"Besides," chimed in Scotchy, "she's had all she can take! It'll be hours until I can get the engines started!"

"What seems to be the problem?" asked the red-faced cop.

"I think it's flooded," said Scotchy.

"Well, try holding the pedal to the floor, and turning it over," suggested the cop's younger partner, who'd worked on just about everything except the Starship Blunderer.

"There's no bloody pedal," said Scotchy, condescendingly, "I suppose you'll want me to feed the gerbils, too, ya primitive bastard."

He then explained the complex system of flashing lights, and series of buttons that had to be pressed, in a completely random sequence, with enough dramatic flair to look interesting to the TV audience, while saying meaningless numbers and announcing fictional events that may or may not be actually happening.

"Sounds a bit complicated to me," said the younger cop. "I don't see why you don't just flick that switch there." He indicated a big switch that said, "Start."

"What about my orders?" whined Pugsley.

"Do you have orders to let me shoot you?" asked the older cop, running out of patience.

The Blunderer lurched mightily. Ninety three tow trucks had hooked up to the stern, and were making their best effort to drag the ship over to the Doubletree parking lot, where police had evacuated all the guests, and several Beach Boy concertgoers.

"Tell them to stop that!" shouted Scotchy, drunk as a judge.

"I'm sorry, I can't do that," said the cop.

"Maybe I can help," said Mr. Peabody, firing up his Way Way Back Machine. He gave them a little nudge backwards in time, and suddenly, they found themselves in the middle of a Twins game.

"My God, is that Tony Oliva?" said R, who had always been a fan.

"R, when did you get here?" demanded an exasperated Harrison Freud.

"Oh, I was always here," he said, smiling, "I was one of the fleas on the cartoon dog."

Suddenly, a small burst of phaser fire sent home plate umpire sailing through the air.

"What the hell was that for?" screamed Freud.

"That runner was obviously safe," said the HAL9000. "You should be thankful I only set it on 'stun.'"

"That's just great," said Freud, a little sick, "now we're going to be stuck with a sequel."

"A sequel?" said everyone on the bridge in unison.

"The Umpire Strikes Back."

The captain was beginning to sweat nervously. "What's the matter?" asked Scotchy. "I just realized this parking lot has meters. The starship takes up 97 of them, and I don't have any change."

"How in bloody hell did we get back in this parking lot, and when did Mall of America install parking meters?" Scotchy puked into a nylon bag.

"Sorry sir, the Way Way Back Machine appears to be malfunctioning," wxplained Mr. Peabody, as frantic stagehands were throwing new pages of script at him, "we went back in time, to a Twin's game, and then hiccuped back to this time, but in an alternate reality, where..."

"What?" he paused, reading the page, "this doesn't make any sense at all!"

Someone murmured something unintelligible, off camera.

"OK, fine," said Mr. Peabody, "apparantly someone erased the parking brake."

With that, he walked off, never to appear on television again, even in reruns.

"Captain, we have CRUSHED the parking meters," said Lt. Warp, who was back on the bridge, but still wearing a Twins hat, "surely the authorities here do not expect us to pay money to an opponent we have so easily destroyed."

"Sir, he's got a point," languished Pugsley, wondering if that was the beginning of a pimple on his cheek.

"Why can't we all just be friends?" sobbed Scotchy, passing out.

"Enough of this foolishness!" bellowed Warp.

"Captain, the entire Universe is in great peril. We need to rescue Hammer McGee."

"McGee?" said the Captain, horrified. As a young man, he'd worn out so many Hammer McGee records, he wasn't allowed to buy any more for twelve years. He had loved Hammer McGee with all his heart, until the day he stole the young Petard's loyal cat, "Walrus."

"Walrus!" said the Captain, his voice choked with emotion. "My God, how I loved that cat!"

"He was an Altrusian Battle Cat," said the Captain, "and they live to be over 250. Perhaps if we find Hammer, we can find Walrus as well."

"That is a wery stupid plot twist," said Checkup, whose blonde had left him for Harmon Kilebrew.

One of the three remaining Folktopeds, Blandar the Fairly Promising, broke into song. At first, they all thought it would be Peter, Paul and Mary's "If I Had a Hammer," but for some reason, after the intro he started doing the Beatles' "I Am The Walrus," playing all the instruments himself.

"He's fairly promising," observed Counselor Joy, eating a corn on the cob the size of a Linebacker's arm.

"You won't be hearing performances like that anymore if we don't rescue McGee," said Warp, who was sticking to the script better than the rest of the hams.

"He's right!" shouted the Captain, knocking several of the crewmembers over with the sheer voice of his projection, "where there is an oppressor stifling creativity, those few of us who are the brave must stand fast, and deliver! When Man's dreams are being crushed by flat-faced, unimaginative fascists, it is our obligation, no, our DUTY, to look boldly into the sun, and go carefully where no man has gone before. It is only those brave enough to face their fears who will rule the day, and only those..."

"Is there some way to stop him?" asked Freud, as Warp was lovingly stroking a big two by four in his left hand.

"There is, but it's probahly Treason," said Warp.

Dr. Bruiser grabbed the captain, and gave him a deep, long, passionate kiss. The entire crew applauded, and with her free hand, she gave the Captain a tranquilizer shot, mellowing him considerably.

"Mr Warp, you have the bridge," said the wobbly Captain, "I think I'll go have a little lie down."

"Very good, Captain," shouted Warp, almost making Blandar explode.

"Scotchy?" bellowed Warp.

"Yes?" hiccuped Scotchy, lifting his face up, and then slamming it back down on the floor.

"Can this thing get us to Planet G511?"

"No. I don't know. Yes!" he shouted, drooling a little, and going unconscious again.

"Well, that's good enough for me," said Warp, much to the relief of the police, who were back.

"Push the button," he ordered a guy in a red shirt, who did, and was promptly electrocuted.

"Oh." said Warp. "Sorry."

"How about if someone who ISN'T wearing a red shirt pushes the button?" suggested Sherman, who was searching frantically for Mr. Peabody.

Chief Engineer O'Brain, who was feeling underused this week, pushed the button, and the Starship Blunderer's mighty engines came to life with a roar, and kind of a bluegrass beat.

"Mr. Bruiser," Warp bellowed, sorry to see Commander Riper approaching, "take us to Planet G511."

"Belay that order," shouted Riper, "I am in command here."

"You always have to spoil my fun, don't you?" complained Warp, already thinking of his revenge.

"Mr. Bruiser?" said Riper.

"Yes, sir?"

"Take us to Planet G511."

"Isn't that exactly what Warp said, sir?" asked Pugsley, confused.

"Yes, but I get to say it," he said with a smirk.

And with that, the Blunderer was off, ready to save one of the Universe's most legendary folksingers.

Blandar the Fairly Promising was looking forward to meeting his idol.

"Wait 'till he hears the way I've combined all of his songs with the mating call of the Trenembular Yak," he thought, smiling to himself, and eating pizza.

Hammer McGee was locked in an empty cell, with rusty water dripping down it's empty walls, and empty rats scurrying across it's empty floor.

He had an overwhelming feeling of something, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Whenever that happened to him, the only thing he could do was write a song, and he found himself wishing for his Martin D-28, which was being held in another part of the Gulag, presumably in Solitary.

In his mind, he strummed a very pretty sounding major 7th. No one knows what key.

He wrote a moving, personal song, that shared the deepest aspects of his soul with anyone with the courage to listen.

It wasn't political.

It wasn't about saving the world, or anybody in it.

Perhaps, in the overall scheme of things, it didn't matter a damn.

But it was McGee's golden beacon of hope, in the cold, sinister, totalitarian world he'd been thrust into like a weasel in a snowbank.

It was all he had, and he mapped out lush orchestrations, scrubbed them; charted the song for a twelve piece jazz band, threw that in the trash; and finally arranged it with a stand up bass, three guitars, a flute, and a harp.

It was an ode to emptiness, although he wouldn't call it that, and really, who would? Not me, and not Hammer McGee, either, who really was a gifted songwriter, as anyone from the entire Folk Quadrant could verify, if you paid them, and cooked them a nice dinner.

Hammer wondered why there was so much sadness in the Universe, when life itself is such a rare and precious gift, and he began translating the song into the seven thousand fifty languages of the Folk Federation.

He started with Meringuelese, which was a frothy, light language, with just a hint of sweetness. It made the song a little more romantic, and took out some of the horrible melancholy that had saturated his soul much as the rancid water of that cell had saturated his pants.

He began humming yet another song, tentatively titled "How Long 'Till I Die Of Pneumonia," which was most likely in D.

Most songs about dying of Pneumonia are in D, for some unknown reason, and the closest explanation anyone has is that Pneumonia itself is in the key of D, which explains why the Eskimoes never get it.

The Prison Guard was a Yablama, which is a beast that looks all gooey, like a big grey marshmallow, with little oozing warts all over it, standing about seven feet tall, and weighing somewhere around eight hundred pounds.

Nobody liked them very much, as they smelled so bad you could die from it, and they were extremely sarcastic, and rude.

This particular Yablama, whose name was Waldo, was considered unbearably sarcastic and rude, even by Yablama standards, which explained why he hadn't been to a party in over eighteen thousand years.

"I wouldn't have showed up, anyway," he mused, "most beings are so obviously inferior to me that I would be dragging myself down by keeping their company."

He snorted, and oozed a little, and went back to torturing the rat he'd caught with a piece of filthy cheese. He loved filthy cheese. It was his favorite. He'd used it to catch the rat, but he wasn't about to let the rat have any of it. It was his, and the rat would have to be content to die slowly and painfully at his hands, which weren't really hands at all.

He was being very sarcastic to his victim, of course, and would have had it no other way. He was, beyond a doubt, the most loathsome creature in the Universe. There was no chance whatsoever of his ever being invited to the Golden Globes, or the Oscars. He would have to settle for the Emmies.

Hammer McGee had never been able to stomach seeing a small, helpless creature suffer, and all the sarcasm had really began to hurt the little rat's feelings.

McGee found a strength he'd never known he had, and bent back the bars of the cell, and with a rolling leap, grabbed the rat away from Waldo the Yamblama.

"Now I will have to kill you," said Waldo, and he looked like he really meant it.

Waldo rushed McGee, and our good Hammer saw his life flash before him, with a quadrophonic soundtrack, and digitally enhanced video. He was going to be slimed by a giant marshmallow creature, and he would probably die from the smell alone.

"If you cut me down, you'll only make me more powerful," said Alec Guinness, who had brought a fifth of Guinness.

"How did you get here?" McGee wanted to ask, but before he could, Guiness's lightsaber had hacked Waldo into slimy pieces.

"The smell is killing me!" sobbed McGee, into a handkerchief, but Guiness would have none of it.

"Use the force, Hammer," said Guinness, pouring a pint of Guinness down McGee's eager throat.

That did it. McGee and Guinness were all Guinnessed up, and ready for some more adventures.

"How did you know I was here?" asked McGee, putting his arm around Guinness's bony shoulders.

"My friend, Harrison Freud radioed me on this," he answered, holding up a limp tuna fish sandwich.

"He radioed you on a tuna fish sandwich?" asked the somewhat amazed McGee.

"The Pimento is a signal enhancer," said McGuinness, matter of factly, as if his name hadn't suddenly gone Scottish on him.

"What does the tuna fish do?" asked McGee, enraptured.

"It provides protein," said McGuinness, having another Guinness.

There was another, unanswered question hanging in the air.

"The lettuce is the receiver," said McGuinness, sighing impatiently, "are we quite finished talking about this sandwich?"

"You're awfully English for a Scotsman," said McGee, who was neither. He'd never even been to Earth, but he did enjoy some of their TV Programmes, when he had the time, especially "Benny Hill."

"Anyway, as I was saying, my good friend Harrison Freud told me you were here, being imprisoned by this nasty fascist race of nasty fascists, more or less, and it occured to me that perhaps I could just sort of 'pop in' and kill a few of them, and then, just for the sake of argument, take you with me, to meet up with the cast and crew of the Starship Blunderer," said McGuinness, feeling his oats.

"Well it sounds bloody awful," said McGee, "but I don't fancy another minute here in this rathole, so why don't we have a go?"

"You know, you're sounding a bit English yourself," observed McGuinness, and suddenly he became very suspicious.

He was about to take a bite of the sandwich, as he was quite hungry by this time, when the sandwich began to say, "Freud to McGuinness; Freud to McGuinness; Come in Our Little Margie; Over."

"Freud?" said McGuinness, a little embarrassed by their choice of code words, "why did you start out by using our real names, and only THEN use the Godawful code name?"

"I wasn't thinking. You better go back to calling me 'Funny Sue.'"

"I'll do no such thing," said McGuinness, "now what's the situation?"

"Sir, while most of the characters names are getting progressively more Scottish, it appears their choice of language is beginning to sound just a wee bit more English."

"I know that," said McGuinness, and then it struck him! "A WEE bit more English?" he barked, scaring the rats, "since when does a coarse American like yourself say anything's a wee bit anything?"

"Bloody Hell," cursed McFreud, giving the mic over to Scotchy, who had been drinking Altrusian Battle Coffee, and was almost sober.

"Look, there's no need ta get'cher knickers in a twist," said Scotchy, "there's about 50,000 troops headed fer ya, and it'll be a thistle in yer backside if they reach ya."

"A thistle in my backside?" shouted McGuinness, "don't you think you're understating the matter just a bit, my good man?"

"Enough of this," said McGee, who was feeling ill. "Scotchy?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Beam us up!"

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by mellowinman on Aug 04, 2003 ---</FONT></center>

...just as scotchy was about to beam up the lot of them with as straight a face as he could conjure, he became distracted by a red hot cauldron with handles shaped like dragons and in it were red hot embers, right in the middle of the path, on the very spot they were about to stand to ensure a proper beaming up (since when it got this complicated is anyone's guess) so, being the he-man that he is, scotchy lifts up the red hot cauldron with his forearms and gritting his teeth mightily moves it aside as it sears into his flesh a dragon print on each arm.
suddenly scotchy, with his extraordinary girth and unpredictable mood swings began to feel disproportionately wiry and blandly philosophical. his shoulders hung gracefully as he stood with his posture in perfect alignment from head to toe. the transformation was anything but subtle and the crew looked on with a general air of uncertainty and angst.
scotchy now staring mildly back at the crew uttered the words, "the obtructed path that was once chosen may now be taken by one or many."....

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by agnes on Aug 05, 2003 ---</FONT></center>

Scotchy had stumbled upon one of the greatest truths of the Universe, and in doing so, had managed to confuse and bewilder the entire rest of the crew, except for Spock, who was still eating livestock at a truly alarming rate.

"The boot that lies beneath the sea can only be filled with water," Scotchy mused, as Mr. Lulu brushed his teeth with Beefeater Gin.

"True, but the Puppy who plays with the ball no longer controls his destiny," said Harrison Freud, who wasn't quite getting it.

"That's wery stupid," said Checkup, who was in no mood for the butchering of Buddhism.

"Scotchy's sayings are deep, and mystical," added Counselor Joy, much to Lt. Warp's chagrin, "and frankly, he's just plain HOT, while your little homilies make no sense; although you are still pretty hot, for an old guy."

Harrison Freud didn't remember getting old, and wondered if perhaps the counselor's Superego had overpowered her Id, in a steel cage death match of the psyche.

Several of the other female crewmembers had noticed Scotchy's enormous biceps, and bleeding dragon tattooes, and were crowding around, asking if he needed another drink.

"A man who needs another drink is also a man with a low blood alcohol content," shuddered Scotchy, amazed at his newfound wisdom.

"And yet," he reasoned, "only a man who has another drink may taste Single Malt Scotch."

"This is one of life's deepest mysteries," grinned Chief O'Brain to a guy in a red shirt, who fell over dead.

"What happened to him?" asked a dejected Lt. Warp.

"Heart Attack," said Dr. Bruiser, and then Dr. McFly added, "he's dead, Jim."

"There's nobody named Jim here," Albert Stripper reminded him, "just some Shakesperean loon named Petard, and he's been drugged."

The crew had a brief round of applause for that.

"Is it the man who is drugged, or the drug who is manned?" Freud tried again, but nobody was listening.

"How about this," said Lulu, who'd obviously put some thought into his, "only when a man is drugged can that man find clarity."

"Hey, I really like that one," said Chong, who almost won an Emmy for not saying, "man."

"Even I can see the stupidity in that one," said Freud, glad not to be the goat, for once.

"So, are we gonna beam those guys up, or what?" asked Pugsley, falling in love with a lampshade.

"Whether they are beamed up or not will change nothing," began Scotchy.

"Uh, look at that viewscreen," cautioned Sherman, who'd given up his search for Mr. Peabody.

Enemy Troops were converging on McGee and McGuinness at such an alarming rate, McGee had to put down his Guinness. He was a Stout lad.

"What I mean to say," said Scotchy, clearing his throat, "is that one could beam them aboard, and run from danger, or one could beam the rest of us down there to fight..."

"Scotchy NO!" screamed one of Pugsley's pimples, but it was too late, and soon they were Kung Fu fighting 75,000 well-trained, well-armed stormtroopers, in full body armor.

"Fate smiles upon he who has a broken nose!" shouted Scotchy, slamming his powerful fists into the faces of two stormtroopers.

"Fortunate is the man with no thumbs," said Freud, who was finally getting the hang of it, and was popping thumbs like a kid with a 3 1/2 foot square sheet of plastic bubble wrap at Christmastime.

"He hoo dice laast, dice louwdest," said Arnold Schwartzenegger, who is no more Taoist than a roll of 2-ply toilet paper.

After six weeks of non-stop fighting, with only the occasional break for tea, and a biscuit, both sides were beginning to wear down.

In order to bring about an end to the fighting, and Scotchy's newfound machismo, Hammer McGee simultaneously wrote and performed the greatest anti-war song in the history of the Universe, and by the time he got to the third verse, most of the combatants were hugging, holding hands, and exchanging oatmeal cookie recipes like Guatemalan Fruit Bats with Monopoly money.

"That's the strangest analogy I've ever heard," said one of the Stormtroopers, who began crying, and missing his mommy.

"I never had a mommy," wailed the coffee pot, "is it OK if I start missing yours?"

"Only if you'll pour me something strong and sweet," replied the Stormtrooper, a hint of vague sadness in his voice.

"Aye, I'm all fer that," said Scotchy, drinking Kahlua straight from the bottle, "man who drink Russian Liquoer see truth in warm brown liquid, and that's bloody well right."

No one could have agreed more than three strange beings that were watching from the one tree left standing on the entire planet.

"What are these things?" asked Dennis, who was shaped like a fire hydrant.

"I don't know," replied Steve, who looked a bit like a lizard, but with snakey arms, like an octopus, "but I'll bet they taste good."

They were speaking, of course, of the crew of the Starship Blunderer, and several lucky fascists, who had become fast friends, and were ready to beam aboard.

"If we don't hurry, they'll be gone," squaked Anton, who was the most human looking of the trio, but had the trunk of an elephant for a nose.

The three slithered thoughtlessly towards our intrepid travelers, and if there was anything on their minds at all, it was murder.

Steve was rolling towards a group of men with several buzz-saw like devices whirring furiously, their teeth glinting in thw light of nine suns.

Steve had activated his spinning knives, holding three in each of his 13 tentacles. Two out of every three could be thrown, with the third lashed to what you could call his wrists. He took aim, for a great shot into Lulu's jugular vein.

Anton, on the other hand, simply loaded up a shotgun, and ran towards the largest group.

Seconds before anything could happen, they were all beamed aboard the Blunderer, and since Dennis, Steve, and Anton had weapons, they were instantly transported into the Peace Chamber.

"Dude, what is this?" oozed Anton, who was soon eating the brownies.

"I don't know, man," said Chong, who wasn't supposed to be in there, "but try these red things."

"Hey, no, don't take those," said Steve, convinced he'd seen a puppy, "just stick to the cheese balls."

"That's not a puppy, that's an evil butterfly," said Dr. Joyce Brothers, looking down at her red shirt in alarm.

And with a mighty swoop, Spock claimed another victim.

"This room's supposed to mellow us out?" panicked Anton, eyes wide, and trunk in the air.

"I say we kill and eat the butterfly," said Dennis, who was biting off more than he could chew.

"What's this crap on the TV?" asked Steve, horrified.

"I don't know, but it's really boring," complained Dennis, nervously looking for the killer puppy/butterfly.

"I didn't know they had C-SPAN up here," mused Chong, who had several ideas of his own for TV channels.

In the ship's Medical Laboratory, Checkup was sitting on a piece of paper floating in the air.

"I am ready for my checkup," said Checkup, bracing himself for Dr. Bruiser's hammers. She whacked him in the head several times, and it appeared his pupils were reacting just as they should.

"You're in pretty good shape, other than those big bumps on your head," noted the Doctor, who was thinking of pickles.

She slammed a door on his thumb, and he yelled out, "that is wery painful!"

"Reaction normal," she noted, writing on a big blackboard in Sanscrit.

"My God!" shouted Dr. McFly, furiously overacting like he never had before, "you call yourself a doctor? I've seen butchers with more sound methods."

He spat on the floor, and a Cylon Tree grew there.

He continued to grumble, "bring me down here to watch this Quack torture a man..." and something like "If she were a man I'd..." and "more gin if I'm gonna survive the night..."

On the bridge, Mr. Warp noticed the flashing red sensor.

"I've never seen that one go off before," he said, squinting at the writing on the panel.

It said, "Vaccuous TV Warning."

"What are you making those prisoners watch?" he said, with concern.

The answer was far more horrible than he'd imagined.

There, in all its horror, was the sickening sight that exceeded all known cruelty levels in the universe. The intro credits began to roll for the program, and it was soon revealed what the prisoners' fate would be. The film, "Alice's Restaurant," began to drone on in its unspeakably tedious pace to inflict major damage on all the prisoners' psyches.

"Where did they get this from?," asked nobody in particular.

..."and just what would we do without mikey's special hypnotist's quality brand of instant confusion?" thought the confused crew instantly in response while wondering simultaneously who in the wide world mikey was.

"we wouldn't be pleased none a'tall, i can tell you that much!" spoke one brave soul out of the bunch speaking for himself while thinking the same thing at the same time.

..."by the way, do you remember a thing called, 'a tuna christmas'?" another brave soul reminded them, not that there was any point to be made in that...

Three hundred light years and twenty feet from the estranged crew of the mighty Starship: Blunderer, was the city limits of Martinville, where they had been building fine instruments for twenty five centuries.

Mrs. McTavish, the late night janitor, had developed a line of 19 string guitars that could play themselves, singlehandedly wiping out creativity in over eleven quadrants.

Martinville was a dark, evil town, where the cops were on the take, and Seven Elevens were forbidden by the local Fire Marshal. She had dreamt of a vanilla slurpee, and only the fine efforts of Commander Senseless had gotten her anywhere near it.

Senseless had climbed one of the stoney peaks outside the Hog Rendering plant, gathered up the snow, and forced it through the plumbing of a Plastic Crucifix factory at 200 psi, mixing it with ground vanilla beans.

The result tasted a lot like sludge, with a hint of slime, but it was better than what they were serving at A & W.

Mrs. McTavish leaned back, hoping for a glimpse of the night sky, when suddenly, millions of spotted peacocks descended, and ripped her to shreds.

This was all documented in the overly long document, "The Story of the Peacocks," which hadn't been read by anybody in over six days. Mrs. McTavish was assumed dead, but in truth, she was on the mend at Martinsville General.

The doctor, who was not a member of any extremist organizations, as far as you know, thought she had a pretty good outlook, and sentenced himself to twenty five rounds of golf, also being the local magistrate.

He sweated his way through the first 1/3 of his sentence, and then retired to the local country club, drinking Margaritas by the sea, and sneaking in a game of power poker.

Power poker is not what you think, involving nuclear powered cards that can kill you in the wink of an eye, if you don't get a pretty good grip on them.

He was winning by snakes and bounds, and wondering where that saying originated.

Luckily, Timothy Roundbottom, a local janitor, had the complete Encyclopedia of British Dentistry, and managed to bore three of the better players within an inch of their lives, and forcing them into a catatonic state that enabled them to better understand Celebrity Gossip.

In doing so, he unleashed a force that made it's way all the way across the galaxy, to where the hungry Blunderer crew was just sitting down to tea and biscuits.

"Why don't we kill a Grablox?" screamed Commander Riper, as Lt. Warp banged on the table with a broken gong, in encouragement.

"That would be wrong," said Mr. Checkup scoldingly, wondering if he'd ever see that particular adverb again, "there's only three of them left, and one's gay."

A murmur went up and down the table, as some disapproved of the Grablox's lifestyle, and others pointed out it was his business. In the end, the crew agreed to disagree, and passed a few laws that would have imposed strict curfews, but with the provision that no such curfews were ever actually enforced, unless they wanted to, which they probably wouldn't.

"My head," complained the Captain, who had been drugged earlier, and didn't care if he never saw Nirvana again. It was a boring place, and not nearly as colorful as those posters implied, not to mention the brochure. Most of the time, people just kind of sat around in blissful harmony, and how can you have any good wars in an environment like that?

The Captain didn't know, and he was damned sure never going to find out, either. No, he packed his bags with the first light, which probably looked about like the second light, and went his merry way, riding the rainbows of his dreams until he slammed into the cold stone floor of an imagined cell.

There, he'd sold pictures of puppies for less than half what you'd pay for a good whipping, to half-eaten Buwana Plants with excellent credit.

He'd never imagined doing such a thing before, especially back in military school, where they frowned upon dealing with non-animal life forms. It was rank discrimination, to be sure, but then again, no one at the academy ever suffered from root rot, either.

Except for Cadet Palmtree, of course, who turned out not to be so animal, after all. Tryone Burgwee, the local MP, had never liked that name to begin with, and had followed Palmtree day and night, and discovered his disgusting secret after a dance that went late.

It could've happened to anyone, I suppose, but probably not, and it's best of we don't dwell on it.

"Captain, you're wandering awfully far from the storyline," warned Checkup, who still wondered what had happened to Jim.

"Terribly sorry," said the Captain, going back to slurping his soup, and trying not to stare at his navel.

Suddenly, a terrible racket went up, all along the thirty yard table.

"Listen up, everybody," shouted Lt. Warp, "I have an important announcement to make."

"Will the owner of the brown Miata please get in contact with the maintenance workers on Deck 12?" said Warp's commanding voice, "you're parked in front of a Heelox Distributor."

"What in blazes is Heelox Distributor?" asked an enraged Scotchy, having trouble discerning just which Lt. Warp he was being presently annoyed by.

"I think it's the middle one," he slurred, holding up a finger to be sure, and closing one eye.

"Now, I have some other announcements," continued what may or may not have been the middle Lt Warp, in a set of three, "Ensign Bruiser has been promoted to Kitchen Commander, and will have an entire staff of half wits and robots under his command, much like myself."

Lt. Warp winked at Dr. Bruiser. He thought he'd been particularly clever with that remark, and hoped he could schedule a personal checkup soon.

"I resent that," protested Checkup, who had just had his, and couldn't have another for at least six days.

"Ensign Bruiser is no more fit to command a crew of half wits and robots than that chair is qualified to hold up your stale Klingon ass."

"I don't understand," groused Warp, "that chair could easily hold my ass, even if I had the lovely Dr. Bruiser on my lap, and she was holding an anvil. It's a good chair."

"Well, that wasn't a wery good analogy," said Checkup, a little ashamed, "I meant to see that Ensign Bruiser is no more qualified to command a group of robots and half wits than you are qualified to kiss my... Wait, no that wasn't it either. Can I think about it for awhile?"

"If you'll do it QUIETLY," shouted Warp, losing just a tiny bit of patience for a second.

"I also need to make the entire crew aware that the microwave oven is an obsolete technology, and the only reason there are any on board is because we were taking that shipment to Ridus XXIVCXXI. They are NOT to be used for drying socks."

A murmur of disappointment went through the crew, and several cameramen.

"And finally, at least 9/10 of you are going to die tomorrow, when we pass through the Radioactive Reggae Quadrant. We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience."

"Ta bloody Hell with that," said Scotchy, slowly rising to his feet, "isn't anybody gonta help me subdue the Klingon, and take over the ship?"

"Wessel," corrected Walter Koenig, as Checkup helped keep Warp's attention on a picture of some bunny rabbits.

"I'll help, if I can be in more scenes," offered Riper, wondering how it ever came to this.

"Yes, me too," said Lulu, who hadn't even thought he'd been wanting for attention, but now felt strangely hollow inside. This was probably more due to the Alien Worms that were eating most of his stomach and pancreas, replacing them with a nice wooly cardigan, that wouldn't shrink, and less due to any actual emotion, but Lulu wouldn't find out the horrible truth until the 9th sequel.

"Hit him with this," shouted Harrison Freud, throwing a hammer onto the deck from above, and very nearly killing Spock.

He soon wished he had, as Spock began divebombing everybody in the Dining Room, trying hungrily to decapitate anyone he could catch.

"Whatever happened to the little girl who wrought this horrible creature upon us?" asked Riper, kind of surprised he'd used the word "wrought," and kind of wondering what the hell it meant.

"I think she's breeding more of them in Cargo Hold 85," answered Gilligan, who hadn't been in many scenes himself.

"Go find her," laughed Dr. McFly, grinning foolishly, "and bring her back here. We've got something to say to that little girl."

"Yes sir," said Gilligan, stabbing himself in the eye with the scissors he was holding, as he saluted the Doctor.

"Man, that had to hurt!" said Warp, who usually wasn't sympathetic to pain, but had to admit, that was going to smart for awhile. Lucky for Gilligan, he reasoned, that there were probably hundreds of those Spock/Butterfly things where he was going, and he'd probably be torn into a million pieces.

"Oh, and I have one more announce..mmmmmm..." he said, as Checkup stuffed a ball of wadded up Duct Tape into his mouth.

Two guys in Olive Drab WWII uniforms leaned out of the adjoining Bar, and started taking pot shots at the evil butterfly named Spock. They were laughing, and drinking beer, and Mr. Checkup couldn't help but believe that all was right with the world, and who wouldn't?

"I am wery tired," he announced, "let's call it a day, what?"

His sudden English accent wasn't fooling anybody. They all knew where he was from, and it wasn't a little island in the North Atlantic, where popsicles grow on evergreen trees.

He was a Russian, and no matter how many years passed, everybody still knew a Russian can be very dangerous, especially when you don't take the time to smell the roses.

"That's the worst pun of the story so far," complained grampa, and I stopped reading for just a moment.

"Don't trouble yourself, grampa, nobody reads this web page anyway."

He seemed to feel better, which was good, because I was just getting to the part about Riper's connection to Aztec technology, and how cotton is really made from pigs, and has been since those Iron Workers had that violent and frightening strike.

If it hadn't been for the poetic song lyrics of Travis McGee, ten billion people would've died every five seconds, but instead, only nine billion people died every six seconds, which is really much better when you think about it, and I don't recommend that at all.

"If your neighbor is a moron," sang McGee, in F/G minor, "and genetically inferior to you in every way,"

"you don't have to kill him
or turn him in to the roving bands of police
that now dominate our sick culture"

McGee had such a way with a song,

"and if you feel like using mutation drugs
to change him into a form of radioactive slug
you'd be better off taking all his money
and having him vanquished to the Death Zone
where he'd at least have a chance."

the words were soothing to the Iron workers, and for just a moment, they stopped bleeding and disemboweling members of upper management, to listen.

Travis McGee was a genius, and the most peaceful man in the Universe, although I wouldn't trust him with my girlfriend, if I were you.

The first mate pops up and says; " Hmm, mutation drugs...Has anyone seen my 45' of rope?"

Blunderer lurched, like a wave of Ethiopian warriors, surprising the Italian army with sharp, pointy sticks.

"What was that?" belched Warp, briefly tasting his breakfast for the third time that day.

"We are being approached by another wessel," said Checkup quickly, so no one could steal his favorite word.

"It's a ship!" said a startled Pugsley Bruiser.

"Or a wessel..." Checkup never understood why so many of the crew didn't use the right name.

"Whatever it is, we're being boarded for about the tenth time in this story," noted Commander Riper, "and frankly I'm tired of it. Security isn't what it used to be around here."

"Sorry sir," said Warp, "but we have been traveling in Time, making it very difficult to stay on top of things."

"Excuses, excuses," shouted Riper, "I'm relieving you of your command, ah, right after you kill these guys that are storming the bridge!"

And with that, forty two 8 foot tall Stromboblian soldiers minced daintily out onto the main platform of the bridge, making it very crowded.

"Their walk is wery effeminate," noted Checkup, who wasn't one to judge.

One of the Stromboblians slapped him across the face.

"Take that," he said, giving Riper a quick once-over with his eyes.

"Nice pants," he smiled, not really meaning it. In truth, he thought the color was all wrong; they were far too tight for a man Riper's age; and that material was just horrid. What was it, Spanducron VI? That was so 23rd Century.

"Why would you comment about my pants?" demanded Riper, feeling a bit defensive.

"Sir, I would've thought you were more secure in your sexuality than that," scolded O'Hara, losing interest in Riper, and thinking Checkup was kind of cute, after all.

"I am also wery loyal, like a puppy," said Checkup softly, reading her perfectly.

"That's quite the flurry of adverbs," noted a rather ugly and stupid critic that pokes his nose in my work from time to time, "I hope there's a reason to be using them so frequently."

Using a supply of White Out and old correction tape, I managed to make his existence little more than a rumor, much to the relief of Admiral Halsey, who was trying to get through on the Com Screen.

"Admiral Halsey, reporting from the nineteenth century." he flickered majestically, "come in Blunderer crew, and guillable TV viewers who don't notice continuity errors, for the most part."

"What is it, Admiral?" saluted Captain Petard, who was still quite foggy in the head.

"Captain, the Spanish Armada is all around us, and we're out of ammunition. I fear all is lost. What do you suggest?"

"Do you have any Proton Torpedoes?" asked the Captain, looking slightly confused.

"No."

"Well, fire a phasar burst at their helm. Or don't you have phasar banks?"

"Nope. We don't have those."

"Well..." mulled the Captain, "say you really ARE in a pickle, aren't you?"

"It would seem so."

"Then why are you bothering me? I'm up to my armpits, well my knees, well, OK I'm quite over my head in Stromboblian soldiers, and I think they mean to kill us."

"Do you have a Proton Torpedo?" asked Admiral Halsey, with a smug grin.

"Yes. Yes I do. But it's of no use in this situation," shouted the Captain in abject frustration.

"Just wanted to know if you had one. Admiral Halsey out."

"It's no wonder the English lost so many battles," stormed the Captain, "that man is insufferable."

"Captain, it's worse than we thought," wept Counselor Joy, openly.

"What? What do you mean?" asked the Captain, in a voice that made Stellar Pools form in the echo fields of Cramopolis XZ-11.

"The cleaning women are here."

"My God!" overacted the Captain, "with that many people drawing oxygen in this room, the life support system will fail! We'll all be killed."

"Not me," said R, lighting a cigar the size of a French Poodle.

"R!" shouted the Captain, "put a stop to this at once!"

"Oh, you'd like something like this?" asked R, snapping his fingers. The Stromboblian soldiers began forming lines and dancing, playing "Devil Woman" on kazoos that were surgically implanted in their larynxes.

"Isn't that an old Shadows song?" asked Lamar Sanford, who was glad to be working again.

"No," replied Sherman, who had long since given up his search for Mr. Peabody, "but it was a minor hit for Cliff Richards, who had once BEEN in the Shadows."

"Enough of this foolishness," bellowed the Captain, "everyone knows that the only good English bands were the Stones and the Who."

"Who?" asked Lulu, anxious to start his nightclub act back up.

"Commander Warp, you are not relieved of duty after all," shouted the Captain over the din of the Stromboblian kazoos, "take this man out and shoot him."

"Isn't that a little harsh?" asked Warp, surprised.

"Not as harsh as constantly re-hashing Abbot and Costello routines," the Captain shot back, with a look to match.

"And another thing, R," he said commandingly, whirling around to look R straight in the eye, "you will do something about this damned butterfly roaming around picking off members of my crew from time to time!"

R waved his arm.

"There. I've given it Cancer. Is that good enough for you?"

"No," said the dejected Captain, "but it'll have to do."

"It's really bad Cancer," said R, reassuringly, "it starts in the liver, and works it's way through the brain, and it's very painful."

"R, it's not the amount of suffering I care about; I simply want the butterfly to stop killing crewmembers and livestock. Couldn't you just turn it into a vegetarian, or something?"

"Geez, you ARE cruel," said R, disappointed once again in the Human Race.

"What about us?" asked a Stromboblian soldier, whose name was Bob, "are we really IN this scene anymore?"

"Be patient, my slightly effeminate friend," said R, "I'm not through with you yet. I believe you were about to take over this ship, and imprison the crew, possibly torturing them."

"Well, we were," said Bob, "but then we got on this Cliff Richards kick, and we all got a little sad about the way popular music became so commercialized."

"And?" said R, impatiently.

"Well, we really don't feel like invading anybody now."

"Yes, the whole thing does seem a bit pointless," said R, looking down at his shoes. He'd never noticed what excellent feet he had before. They were perfect, he reasoned.

"Well, what should we do?" asked Bob.

"Let's dance," answered R, and with the snap of his fingers, they were right back in the heart of the Disco Quadrant again!