SPACEMAN SQUAD! IN: THE TROUBLE WITH SPACE-ANGELS

Starday Seven thousand, six hundred and twenty-four. The starship Jefferson is quickly approaching the Theremin Way, a galaxy roughly eight light years and ninety-six thousand dog years from our own. On a routine fly-through, Spacemans Frank and Larry have no idea the gut-churgling dangerousness that lies ahead. Forever.
“Pass me some Ice-Cream of the Present, Larry,” Frank requested, his voice full of longing, his mouth full of freeze-dried flan.
“For cry-yi, save some food for the space trek back to Spaceman Squad H Quarters,” Larry suggested tersely, with an empty mouth, but a voice full of angritude.
“Calm your jets and cool off your ponies, I’m only consuming the desserts.”
“For the love of Ghost Dad, you’re getting interstellar pastry all over your sleek silver Spaceman Squad suit.” And he was. Each member of the elite intergalactic security service Spaceman Squad was issued a highly technological space suit stuffed with a top-secret poly-fiber to prevent coldness encroaching upon their personages. Their sleek silverness commanded authority and the lasername tag informed the uninitiated who they were, in a fairly painless initiation. Spaceman Frank’s suit was currently covered in various futuristic creams and jellies. It looked like a modern art painting. In space. “You know I have a sweet tooth,” he whinnied, not unlike a horse would.
“And unlike me, you have no wisdom teeth,” Larry bit back, in a clever pun.
“That doesn’t even make sense to me,” Frank retorted, scratching his head and rubbing his tummy. Frank was, as they say deep in the stars, not the brightest laser beam in the laser gun. His often unorthodox mannerisms unsettled his partner Larry, a bona fide orthodachshund. Larry did not know it, but Frank was actually attempting to eat all of the desserts in refrigeration storage. However, he was about to find out.
“I am attempting to eat all of the desserts in refrigeration storage,” Frank explained. Larry asked him to explain, for he was unaware of the responsorial answer. But in another, more subtexticle way, he was aware. Much has been written about adventure and intrigue and adventure in deep space, but little of this writing has included the sheer boring dullishness of actual space travel. As has been clarifically and hysterolicoricely been illustrated here, civil servants in the elitist Spaceman Squad will go to great lengths to combatify the boredom which attacks their fragile interest in their occupation. Spacemans Frank and Larry would laugh as long and hard as you, the reader, currently are, if they could observe themselves right now, especially considering the life-enthreating moments right directly ahead of themselves.
As if it had been following along at home, the Navigatrix 3900 began beeping, in an effort to inform the Spacemans of the Jefferson Starship they had reached their destination, the Theremin Way. Despite taking roughly 3.86 minutes to notice the beeping, Spacemans Frank and Larry leapt to action, scrambling frantically to their seats and engaging in very, very, technologically advanced dialogue.
“Computron reading nugatory life-forms,” reported Frank.
“Atmosphomometer is stablitating,” declared Larry.
“Landing cyculation in the direction of the Moon of Rumann,” spake Frank.
“Gravitational shacklefords disengagered. And I’m floating in a most-ah pe-cul-iar wa-ay,” observed Larry, in a serviceable Bowie impersonation.
“My tummy is achey,” lamented Frank, also in a Bowie impersonation. Larry was busily readying a raspberry retort, when a shocking wave of shock struck the Jefferson directly about the nose, causing quakes throughout. The Spacemans responded by vomitation, screamulation, general confusion, denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance, and lastly comatoseness.
Larry and Frank came to in a room full to the brim with darkness. They could not see their hands in front of their faces, or any extremities in front of any faces. Larry could discern from his enheightened sense memory gland that they were no longer on the starship Jefferson, yet he was unable to put his finger on their current location. And even if he could, it wasn’t like he could see where his finger had been put. This place, he thought amongst himself, was unrecognizatory, brand-spankling new and unlike anyplace he’d been in his long and storied career in Spaceman Squad. In fact, it was safe to say that he had never not seen a place like this in his entiresome life.
Frank, meanwhile, was smelling the smell of a familiar smell. It was the unmistakable aroma of funnel cake, and it made him instantly aware of their surroundings and the danger they were facing, in any direction.
“Larry,” Frank whispered.
“Frank,” Larry whispered back.
“We have to exit here right now!” Frank whispered more urgently.
“But why, Frank? And how? And when?” Larry responded with a barrage of questions.
“Because we’re-“ Frank braced himself verbally before he revealed the rest of his statement, “-out of our jurisdiction!”
This was one of the greatest offenses and officer of Spaceman Squad could commit, second only to staining their Spaceman Squad spacesuit. The two Spacemans scrambled to find an exit, but were stopped suddenly by the presence of a loud, low growling, and the presence of a creature making a loud, low growling noise.
“What on the Moon of Rumann was that?” Larry asked to no one in particular except Frank. But before Frank could reply, the lights were illuminatarated and they saw with their own two (four collectively) eyes.
It was a hairsome creature, twelve feet tall if it were a day, with four arms for forearms and eight eyes on its chest. Its head appeared to be nothing more than a big, bushy unibrow and it hopped in place on one rotting wooden peg leg. Where a human’s navel would normally appear to be was an enormous maw with at least six dozen sets of teeth sharp enough to cut through a fistful of commemorative coins. And strangely, the smell of funnel cake was actually coming from the creature and not, as Frank had surmised the room. This meant they were not out of their jurisdiction after all. This little bit of fortunation was lost on the Spacemans, confrontated as they were by a mystiquious tall creature.
“What do we do?” asked Frank, as they had not covered this scenario in Spaceman Squad training.
“I don’t know,” Larry said, searching frantiferously for a door or window. The room was nothing more than a black box, with no discernible entrances or exits. And no sign of the Jefferson Starship. There appeared to be no escape, and as the creature hopped maddily toward them, Spacemans Larry and Frank really, really really began to panic.
WILL THEY ESCAPE? WILL THEY BE DEVOURED OR WORSE THAN DEVOURED? WATCH FOR THE NEXT EXCITEMENTING INSTALLERATION!