A large silvery vulture-like bird with razor sharp talons swooped down and missed. Captain Argus, ship engineer of Spaceforce Forge, had been stuck on this stinking, unknown planet for who knows how long. With hardly any shelter except his wrecked spaceship, which was falling apart on the count of the severe hot weather conditions on this unknown planet. This planet was inhabitable, but hot as hell and must be fairly close to the sun.
Even worse, the food situation was becoming dire. He had found a few small lizard like creatures that seemed edible, and with some trial, could capture and roast them, and a small plant which, after analyzing in the plant safety space analyzer, seemed edible. Well, edible is a kind word for it, but the plants didn’t poison him too much. Yes, those two things were keeping him alive. Although in one cave, he found a crate full of Taco Bell gift cards. Oh yeah, there was a Taco Bell just a half mile away.
Finally, tired of eating roast lizards and glowing purple plants, Captain Argus gave in, looked at the Taco Bell gift cards and decided survival was most important. After he filled his belly, he had to admit that gift card stew wasn’t too bad.
His survival routine included daily explorations for ship parts. He was a ship engineer and knew everything about maintaining and fixing ships, but knowledge didn’t help when he didn’t have the needed tools and parts. Perhaps he could find something to repair his ship and get off this godforsaken hellscape. But after days of searching, all he found was an abandoned metal temple, now converted to a Spirit Halloween. “It must be October,” Captain Argus thought, and pined for fall and Halloween on his home planet.
Back in his ship, the isolation and despair was getting to him. Is this all there is to his life? Eating Taco Bell gift cards all alone while wearing a “Nightmare Blade Hand Guy” costume? Then he heard the whirr and thud of another spaceship. It was landing! Capatain Argus rushed outside. It was definitely a ship of the Zambur legion. He let out a whoop of cheer and relief. The Zambur legion were allies. He ran outside and hailed the large ship.
Its main door opened, and a ramp slid out. Three astronauts walked down the ramp. They were lizardoids, or lizard people. Captain Argus grew up with a lizardoid family next door. They have an unfair reputation for being cold and indifferent, but that is not true once you got to know them. With the treatment they endured after the Tail Snip Wars, would you blame them for being a bit off standish?
Argus laughed, maybe a bit on the maniacal side, but he had been on this mostly abandoned planet for a very long time. “Oh, thank the gods! I thought I would be trapped here forever!”
“Ahoy there! We were passing by, admiring the view out of our port windows, when we saw you.” Said the first lizardoid astronaut whose name patch read “DeVoe.”
The second astronaut, named “Belle”, said “Yes. Why, we almost missed you!”
The third astronaut, named “Biv,” said “Yes. Had we not had sparkly clean windows with the new and improved ‘Window Wash’, why you would have been stranded here for who knows how long?”
“Thank you so much!” Captain Argus raised his hand and suddenly all three lizardoids aimed their Plasmer pistols at him! He still wore his “Nightmare Blade Hand Guy” costume and held what looked like a bladed glove up in the air! “No-no-no-no! This is just a costume. Hold on.” He took off the costume and the mask. “I got this costume from a Spirit Halloween. That is all I could find on this desolate rock, that and a Taco Bell.” At the words “Taco Bell” two lizardoids gagged and Biv spewed bile.
DeVoe, the senior officer, put his clawed hands on Argus’ shoulder. “Well, go hungry no more. We are here to rescue you. Let’s get your things and get out of here. I suspect angry space monsters could attack at any moment!” Captain Argus had seen no angry space monsters, but wasn’t about to argue with his rescuers.
The crew helped Argus load up his essentials; his Captain’s journals, mission reports, hair dryer, and collection of Ska records. “What’s this?” Belle asked, pointing to a lizard roasting on a spit above the fire.
“Ummm. It was like that when I got here. Poor thing must have fallen onto the spit.” Said Argus. Belle’s shoulders sagged, and she said, “that’s so sad.”
With all the necessities loaded, the ship took off. The inside of their ship was warm, very warm, which Argus attributed to the lizardoids, but even for them the interior seemed hot. However, it was much nicer than Argus’ ship, even before the crash. Everything was sparkling and new and smelled of lavender. He patted Biv on the shoulder and said, “Wow, you keep your ship clean.”
Biv’s eyes gleamed as he held up a canister. “It’s easy to keep your favorite ship clean with lavenday. The all-purpose cleaner that leaves a fresh lavender scent all day. That’s lavenday. Find it at your local market.”
“Okay.” Said Argus. Once airborne, Argus realized he hadn’t asked where they were going.
DeVoe waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, around. You know. We don’t have to worry about that, now that we have ‘NaviGone.’ With NaviGone, the ship’s navigation and flight are all taken care of, so you can relax with activities you enjoy instead of pesky flight details. That’s NagiGone, make all your navigation worries be gone. Navigon is available at Bestest Buy and wherever you buy N7943-rated S-series cleared navigation equipment.”
Argus cleared his throat and asked, “you don’t know your destination? Didn’t you program the system?”
DeVoe shuffled off to the mess hall. “Oh, I maybe put something in, but can’t remember. If there is a problem, the system will alert us. Now. Let’s get some actual food into you.” The meal pod choices were exemplary. Meal pods were sort of like dehydrated meals back in the day. They were about the size of a soda can and you put them into a machine that looked like a microwave and printer’s love child. It took the ingredients from inside the pod, added water, oil, salt, etc. to construct a meal.
Belle went through the list of choices, and Argus chose ‘split spice stew.’ Belle put the meal pod into the machine, and after a few minutes, a piping bowl of split spice stew with two biscuits was ready. It was thick and just spicy enough to leave a little tingle. Argus leaned back in his chair and gave a content stretch. “That was delicious. What meal pods are these?”
Belle held up an OneMeal pod and smiled. “OneMeal. OneMeal is the next generation of meal pods, with all natural synthetic ingredients and that homemade taste like grandma used to print. Not only are they delicious, but they are nutritious too, providing your daily supply of lead and mercury. That’s OneMeal, available wherever – “ Her eyes blinked a few times but she didn’t move.
Argus leaned forward. “Are you okay?”
Biv walked over. “Oh, she gets stuck like that sometimes. I think it’s a glitch in her genetic code. I’m sure they’ll fix it when we get back home.” He gently rested his hands on her delicate shoulders, then shook her violently and yelled, “Stop it!”
Belle, startled, yelped out, “available wherever you buy your meal pods. Ouch, Biv, you scratched me with your claw. How do you keep your claws in such good shape? I can never get my claws that strong.” They both look at Biv’s shining black claws admiringly.
Biv extended his fingers to show everyone. “Why I use ClawCare. It’s the only veterinarian recommended claw strengthener and conditioner. ClawCare keeps my claws strong as iron, and with a beautiful lustre, like iron. I simply put it on every night at bedtime, and ClawCare does the rest. ClawCare may cause headaches, throat spasms, diarrhea, or urinary implosion. Ask your veterinarian if ClawCare is right for you.”
Argus watched the two and rubbed his chin. Something was definitely amiss. DeVoe walked in to the mess hall. “Well, it’s been a long day for everyone, and I think we’re all wiped out.” Argus stretched and yawned. He had been running on adrenaline since the ship landed, and now his eyes were getting heavy. Biv and Belle said, “yup. We know what that means.”
Argus was about to say “sleep” when all three lizardoids yelled “board games!”
DeVoe opened a cabinet crammed with boxes and boxes and boxes of board games. “Argus, since you are our guest, which one do you want to start with? We have Proberation, Mystery Abduction, Don’t feed the Wendigo, Splat..”
“Don’t Feed the Wendigo, I guess.”
“Excellent choice, my friend. Don’t Feed the Wendigo is fun for the whole…”
Argus held up his hand. “Wait. Stop. Why are you all doing that?”
DeVoe asked, “Doing what?”
“With the advertising. Always talking like you are in commercials or something.”
“Oh. That’s how we were created. We are the next generation of lizardoids.”
All three Lizardoids said in unison: “ Tired of not knowing what to purchase? Sick of having to too little product information? Then let the next generation of Lizardoids light your path.”
DeVoe continued, “Advertising is our people’s primary source of revenue, so it’s important to get as much product placement in as possible. Advertisements already take up 99.8% of all website traffic and phone app usage. Clicking to close adds far exceeds whatever the app is supposed to do. So scientists had to find a way of making product endorsements more efficient. And what better way to do that than to literally incorporate advertisements into our genetic code? So whenever we see something, we HAVE to advertise it. It really takes the hassle out of thinking of something to say and we have increased our revenue by 0.002%, simply by altering who we are as a species!”
Argus’ jaw went slack. “But all you do is spew advertisements. I mean no offense.”
DeVoe patted Argus’s shoulder. “None taken, my friend. It is our pleasure to provide valuable advertising to everyone. And we are the first test cases of this new process. It’s not all of us by any means. That would be insane. Nope. We hatched in a laboratory and scientists are studying our health, well-being, and most of all, return on investment. We are helping our species and couldn’t be more proud.”
“I see,” said Argus, but something didn’t set right. They listened to Ska records and played board games and he got an earful about the wonders of everything from a bag of Cheese Snaps to a bottle of Diet Drinkle. But he enjoyed the company of the three good natured lizardoids.
As exhausted as Argus was, he couldn’t get to sleep that night. Partly because his room was hot and stuffy. Just from the time he boarded the ship to now, it felt like he was in a sauna. Something wasn’t right. When he was sure the crew was sleeping, he crept to the flight deck. Sure enough, everything was on auto-pilot. But they had changed course enough to rescue him, so at least one of them knew how to pilot a ship.
He found the navigation panel and searched through the data files. No flight plan had been posted with the local authorities. Typically, detailed flight plans weren’t required unless you were carrying potentially hazardous materials like nuclear waste or Arby’s sauce. But each inhabited planet did unofficially ask for those traveling nearby to provide a general heads up as a courtesy.
Argus didn’t like this, not one bit. Then he found it, buried under a pile of data about ratings, streaming services, click-throughs, and market share. What he found made his blood freeze. It was a news article of DeVoe, Belle, and Biv smiling as they entered the ship. The headline was “Three Idiots Fired at the Sun!”
The article read: “In an astounding feat of advertising genius. Crate Studios partnered with the streaming platform MaxFlix to bring a live broadcast of three hapless idiots flown directly into the sun. Watch the crew until they turn into fiery ash.”
The Sun? This ship is to crash into the Sun? Argus’s throat tightened. How could they do that? And who is sick enough to watch? Okay, that part didn’t surprise him and now milking ad revenue made sense. Argus went to the escape pod bay and found three escape pods. But again, after a career or fixing ships, something didn’t seem right. He opened one pod and put his foot through. Literally through. They made the escape pods out of paper mache. Dammit!
Argus was at first furious with the three dimwits, but then remembered they were engineered for this. They didn’t cause this to happen. But they picked him up, and now he is stuck on this death ride. Then he realized the flight wasn’t fully automatic. They had altered course, at least a little bit, to rescue him. So there was at least a little give in the flight path. Maybe enough to avoid the sun?
Argus went back to the flight deck and tried to adjust the ship’s path. DeVoe, who must have awoken from the rustling, entered. “Argus, what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to save our lives, DeVoe. Do you know where this ship is going?”
“Nope. But I know all about savings and where my finances are going. With an account at Galaxy Credit Union you can save up to 3% with no hidden fees. And…”
“-the sun. DeVoe. Your ship is being flown straight into the sun!”
DeVoe laughed. “That’s ridiculous, Argus. Where did you hear that?” Argus showed him the flight information. DeVoe blinked slowly and said, “that explains why they said we have a sunny future ahead of us.”
“Can we change course? How did you override the autopilot?”
DeVoe scrunched his eye ridges. “What do you mean?”
“When you overrode the autopilot, landed and rescued me. How did you do that?”
“I didn’t. The ship saw you and picked you up. We aren’t pilots. “
“So, it saw me… it saw me…” Argus thought for a minute. “If the course is pre-programmed and you aren’t pilots, why have ship controls?” Argus checked the control panel. It had the standard layout, but something was off. The indicator lights flashed way too much. More like for show than function. He sat down and pulled at the yoke. Nothing. He pulled harder, and the Yoke broke off in his hands. It was also made of paper mache and cardboard tubes. “Seriously?”
“I don’t think it’s supposed to do that.” DeVoe said helpfully.
“Which means it is all controlled by the navigation system. But how does it…?” Argus noticed multiple cameras pointing at them. A quick tour of the craft showed cameras everywhere. Which made sense. This is how the audience would watch them fly into the sun. Certainly, there are exterior cameras as well. There was no way they could take all the cameras out. And certainly there had to be audio. Argus waved DeVoe over and wrote on a legal pad. “Don’t say anything. They can hear everything. Wake up the others and quietly tell them to meet me in the engine room. I have a plan.”
DeVoe took the pen from Argus and wrote. “Feel how naturally the PenMate 36Y feels in your hand with smooth silky ink to make your writing a breeze. Why it practically writes your love letter and/or breakup note and/or death threats for you! Find all the PenMate lines at your local office supply store.” DeVoe then gave a thumbs up.
The noisy engine room hopefully blocked out their speech. Argus explained to Belle and Biv the situation. He was heartbroken to see their usually cheery faces droop at their impending doom, and that others would find entertainment in their suffering. He gained information about their ship knowledge, which was more than he expected. DeVoe was knowledgeable about ship navigation. Belle was good at electronics and circuitry, and Biv was handy with mechanical repairs. After all, if something went wrong on the ship, the Studio would want the crew to fix it.
The first priority was taking away the studio’s control of the ship. Argus assumed there would be multiple points for ingoing and outgoing transmissions, and he wanted control of both. So Argus and Biv traced back all wiring and controls focused on any reception. Belle and DeVoe searched for everything that could be an outgoing feed. As they searched, the equipment grew hotter and hotter. At times, the crew needed oven mitts to touch some control panels. It took close to a day to get it all, and the ship was sweltering.
Belle asked Argus, “How do we know we got them all?”
“The incoming is the most important for the next part. Cutting off the feed loses the Studio their audience and revenue, teach them to hurt my friends.” At that, all three lizardoids smiled.
“What is the next part?” asked Biv
Argus sighed. “This part is a gamble.” He pointed to a series of wires in front of him. “When I cut these wires, the ship will no longer be receiving instructions from the Studio. I’m assuming we can program coordinates manually?”
DeVoe said, “I can’t guarantee, but I’m almost certain I can manually reprogram the navigation coordinates away from the sun. I’ve been studying our flight path on what map data I could find and think I can reverse course.”
Argus cut the wires and DeVoe got to work with the new navigation coordinates. After a while, he called the crew. “Okay. When I flip this switch, the ship should turn away from the sun.” They held their breath as DeVoe flipped the switch.
Nothing.
They waited. With every minute, the air felt hotter.
Nothing
As if fate was flipping them off, bright sunlight flooded in. “We’re doomed!” cried Biv.
But Belle shook his arm. “No. No. Look. The light is coming from the stern porthole behind us. It’s behind us. We turned around!” Everyone cheered.
“Where did you set our destination?” asked Argus
EPILOGUE
A large silvery vulture-like bird with razor sharp talons swooped down and missed. Four figures sat around the fire between the lizardoids crashed ship and Argus’ crashed ship. Argus was back in his “Nightmare Blade Hand Guy” costume. Belle had bought a “Dungeon Princess” costume, Biv a blue “Cookie Savage” costume, and DeVoe a green “Plumber Brother” costume.
They listened to Ska records and roasted Taco Bell Gift Cards. They then put the gift cards on graham crackers with chocolate. Oh yeah, they had found a mine with graham cracker and chocolate veins. They ate and laughed and talked about their day.
Argus was sure they could salvage parts from the lizardoids ship to repair his ship, but it would take some time. That was fine with him because he was enjoying time with his new friends.