So this episode of Blathering is another "back and forth" story.
Until someone gives me a better name - that's what I'm calling 'em.

So Megan started this one...and as usual it was nice and serious until I took over.....my contributions will be in blue.

WARNING!!!
This story uses profane language!
Those of the more gentle persuasion might want to skip this one.

Breathing was still a struggle. After the automatic respirator had turned off, and he had woken to the silence of deep space, he felt like he was breathing in liquefied air. They said this was just a side effect of deep sleep; his lungs needed a little time to remember how to breathe on their own again, that's all. His other crewmates were having their own introductions into life in space. Carey, their biologist, was throwing up, which in itself, was a chore. Kevin, their veteran pilot, looked at home, but Thomas could see he was trying to walk off the narcotics that held them in sleep for the past 3 months. The other 7 members of the Interstellar Exploration Gova III were each trying to acclimate. Thomas, colonization expert, took a deep breath and looked out into the blackness. From here, they had only two weeks until they would land on the planet Jung, named for the Chinese astronomer who had discovered it only 20 years ago.

Thomas turned to Greg, the navigator. "How far out are we, Greg?" Greg turned from his nav computer. "Well, according to DINC we're still about a month out. We still have a lot of work to do to get the landers and all the colonization stuff ready." DINC was Greg's best friend on the ship. DINC stood for Deep Intergalactic Nav Computer and told Greg everything he ever wanted to know. Greg worried about what this Jung planet held for them after the disaster on...

Kinteron IV, the last colonization attempt made in this solar system. Nothing much was said, especially by the higher-ups. "We lost communication. We assume they crashed upon entry." Everyone knew that was a bunch of BS. No one was allowed to hear the final transmissions from that crew. The whole thing smelled of something bad. Nothing was said on board here about the Kinteron IV incident. This was a whole new game on a whole new planet with the best in the fields of biology, geology, military, anthropology and the rest who were colonizers. "So we are just three weeks out, then," Thomas verified, knowing that they would spend a week inside the planet's atmosphere, circling the terrain and gathering important data about the chemical makeup of the air and planet. Greg nodded and a beep echoed from DINC. Thomas could see the words on the screen, it read,

"Unknown object in orbit around planet Jung" "Huh,” Thomas said, "DINC says there's an unknown object around Jung" "What??" Greg said, whirling his head around and pushing Thomas out of the way. "DINC, what unknown object?" "There is a large planetoid roughly 24,000 miles in diameter in a far orbit around the planet Jung, Greg." "Oh what the hell is this,” Greg sighed and then grabbed the intercom. "Toshiro, you had better get up to Nav right pronto." The captain was just finishing up in the toilet when he heard the page. "Oh man, what have they found now." He zipped up his flight suit and used the handholds to pull himself out of the zero-G toilet. He was in such a hurry he forgot to flush the waste containment field. Waiting in line was Maria, the team's geologist. She looked in and said "....

"There’s such a thing as manners, Toshiro!" She could hear him chuckle as she closed the door. Greg was asking for stat readings when the captain swung through the portal opening. "What now?" he grumbled. "DINC has spotted a planetoid object in the atmosphere." Toshiro, being more of a hardcore ship captain than scientist rolled his eyes impatiently. "So what? Is it a moon, another ship, a meteor, what?" Greg took another look at the stats and said

"Holy Guacamole! It's a Moon!" "That’s no moon" said Toshiro, "it's a space station. Full reverse." All of a sudden the ship started to shudder. "The space station is emitting some kind of a beam at us! It's drawing us closer to it as if we were a plow being pulled by a tractor! This beam that works like a tractor is like nothing I've seen before...I wish I knew what it was called!" Toshiro said, "I know what this is called - I've seen a beam that works like a tractor before. It's called a ....

Tractobeam!" "Ah, yes, I think I have heard of that before," said Greg. Toshiro cried, "Full thrusters!" "I'm givin her all I can, captain," said Greg. The whole crew was in alarm at the sudden shaking of the ship. The intercom buzzed, and the captain's voice said, "

"All hail our Alien Superiors! They will rule us now!" Greg promptly put a uranium slug into the captain's brain pan. "OK, so much for him. I am the captain now! Worship me!" Thomas yelled over the klaxons, "Bite me, you pukeface! I should be the captain! You play with space weasels!" Greg redirected the slug thrower onto Thomas. Thomas backtracked, "Um what I meant, sir, is that.....

we await your orders." Thomas knew that they needed Greg to navigate this ship if they had any hopes of escape. "I can't get the ship out of their beam. we are going to be captured. Either we fight or we see what happens." All the colonizers hoorahed for the chance at fighting, but the scientists were for a peaceful meeting. "Everyone raise your hands," said Greg. He counted hands, "Um, the I's have it, we

"RUN LIKE BLOODY HELL!" Greg then did his best Curly imitation. "Woo-woo-woo!" Thomas slapped him hard on the face. "Alright you - knock it off." They decided to wait and see what the aliens wanted. They let the aliens Tractobeam © them onto the alien ship. Greg looked out the window, "What a strange and wonderful ship, “It's almost like they have a more advanced civilization than us. They're so....’Alien-ey'" "You are a grade-a ignoramus, Greg." Maria replied. "I've got an idea" Greg said with a malicious grin on his greasy face. (He had been eating space Gyros) "What say - since I'm the captain - we all get the prom queen/geologist IMpregnated??" Thomas had had it with Greg losing it so soon. "You're a dirtball Greg and I'm going to....

shove that last gyros right down your throat so you can't talk anymore if you don't shut up!" As they argued, the large ship grew nearer. Thomas, being trained for combat with his colonization skills, took charge of the situation. "Javiar, unlock the weapons and give me stats on what heavy fire power we have. Matt, gather all the fire arms and distribute to each crew member. make sure to show them how to use it." The two military officials scrambled out of the room to the storage area and slipped. Green goo covered the floor. The refirgidation system had shut down and their food had spoiled with melted jello all over the floor. Matt licked his sticky fingers and said

"Nice. Remind me never to buy from the Chinese again. 'REFIRGIDATION'?!? No wonder it doesn't work worth a damn." "Well,” said Javiar, "we had better get away from this alien ship and land on that planet and get some food otherwise we're goners." Javiar looked wistfully out at the planet Jung, "Have you noticed how ethnically diverse we are? Isn't that totally groovy?" Just then the rest of the colonists came running up to help secure the weapons. "OK, Ling-Chua, you take the rifles; Running Bear, you've got the grenades; Vladimir, you're on vodka duty; Morty, you're on penny-pinching duty; Tyrone, we need you to drink 40's and listen to rap music - everyone got me?" Back on the bridge, Toshiro was desperately trying to hatch a plan. "

"Come on little plan, come on," he cooed into the incubator at the still shelled egg-plan. The incubator warmed the egg and it shook. Finally, the plan hatched and Toshiro pulled it from the shell. It read: "He who seeks shall find." "Cursed Confucian plans! Who ordered these? I wanted…

'Kill the aliens - and here's how...' - how the hell does ‘He who seeks shall find.’ help me?" All of a sudden everyone remembered that Greg shot Toshiro in the head a full ten minutes ago, right after Toshiro pledged fealty to their alien masters. Toshiro fell over dead - a victim of Wile E. Coyote-itis - where the victim does not feel any pain until after he realizes his predicament. Now it was Greg's turn to try to hatch a plan. He picked out a black egg from the plan nest and placed it in the Plan-cubator? and turned it up to maximum. "Aha, this should be a good one”,

knowing that black was NOT Confucian, but could not remember what brand it was, he waited impatiently for the master plan. Ding. The plan was hatched. He pulled a long piece of paper out of the shell. "Damn! This is a binary code plan!" Sun Kim, their female computer expert grabbed the plan from him. The little 1’s and 0’s unraveling in her mind into translatable English. "It says, 'To conquer unknown foes, use," she paused and reread it several times. "Well, what does it say?!" shouted Greg. "I, I don't know, I think there must be some virus in this part. It doesn't make sense. It is just jibberish," Sun apologized. "That’s okay," said Thomas, "I have a plan...

did we try pledging loyalty to our alien overlords?" Greg waved the rail gun in his direction. "OK then - just checking. Well, we have all the colonists gathering weapons, what kind of weapons do we have on this ship?" N'Gbebbe, the ship weapons expert came over. "click click cluck cluck click" Unfortunately, N'Gbebbe only spoke Bushman Clicky language. "FUCK!!!!" screamed Thomas, "How the FUCK did we get this fucking ship off the Earth? We are the biggest bunch of fucking morons to ever get a ship halfway across the galaxy!!! *wheeze-wheeze*" Just then the aliens patched into their PA system and gave the following ultimatum, "

"screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesdf xliuiiiiir floooox basuooefa." The people looked at each other in confusion. Greg blushed and switched the translator to “ON” and replayed the announcement. "Give us your jello or die." Just then, Javiar burst in, armed to the tooth and yelled, "They can take our lives, but they'll never take our jello!!!" At which point Greg aimed the gun and

fired into the large bullseye with the sign above it that read "Shoot here to release all jello into the cold hard nasty vacuum of space" With a loud *squirt!* all of the jello cargo was explosively released into space - right at the oncoming space cruiser! The cruiser opened it's cargo bay door and sucked it all in, and then shot away at Warp Light Space Speed Factor 12 and a 1/3.
"Hoorah!" yelled the crew.
"Yippee!" yelled the colonists.
"Poooooooop!" yelled the Space Toilet.
Greg turned to Thomas and said, "Geepers, I really am sorry about putting the railgun to your head." "No problemo dude. THIS is how I pay you back!" and proceeded to

do an Irish jig, much to the dismay of all. "I could have sworn he was German," whispered Sun to Matt. All shrugged and clapped in beat to the quickly clogging Thomas. Greg laughed and thanked Thomas for this gesture. "Can we get out of the tractobeam now?" asked Thomas. Greg grabbed the controls and

aimed them at the planet. Unfortunately, Greg was the navigator, not the pilot. Interstellar Exploration Gova III burned up in the atmosphere.

THE END