Mars Needs Windex (Space, Comedy - IC) - Dead

[Zjaum]

Uttra peered far off into the distance to a find a man with a mopping bucket and respective appliance. He shouted loudly but slipped and fell on the floor. She patted her newfound dog friend on the head. "Sorry; I found someone else that might be better able to assist me," she stated in her naive, apathetic voice. She walked off to find the new friend on the floor.

She approached the janitor and stood over him. "You look wet. The temperature at which water freezes is 273.15 degrees Kelvin, and water covers roughly 42.35% of the planet Wlichxxik." She decided that his stomach was a reasonable and comfortable place to sit and so did so. "I wanted to acquire mops. Do you know a place with mops? I have also heard that human pinky finger contact with liquids during sleep causes the human to relieve themselves of urea mixtures. A very similar reaction occurs with Werai when their pinky toes are exposed to liquids... Oh." She looked over and noticed her toes in the mop puddle. "So, anyway, do you know where the nearest available mop is?"

[Barapam]

She soon came across an odd-looking creature [Laika] on her travels and felt the urge to scratch her belly. She did so, and in the meantime asked for directions to where they kept the mops. "My best friend and I are working on cleaning up a spill in a janitorial closet."

What was the three-eyed alien doing? Petting her like a... pet!?! This was lèse-majesté! Or at least sexual harassment! This little green being was lucky that Laika had hurt her good punching-hand, because otherwise...

WAS SHE PETTING HER ON HER HEAD NOW! THE INSOLENCE!

Laika gasped, too shocked to speak or act. It wasn't until Uttra already had left the scene that she reacted.

"Did you see that, Geria? Did you see what she did!?!" she shouted, all beside herself. That someone had DARED laying her hand on her! It was... It was... Unacceptable! Surely Geria and the bandits would agree, and help Laika get Uttra sentenced in a kangaroo dog court for this!

[Talchyon]

The hallway
Gwen

Asking Squawks and H'Vari to follow her, Gwen ran. She wasn't sure if they followed her or not. What she did know was that no one else had listened to the comm system and had come. Gwen scowled. "Piece of junk," she muttered as she ran. "Lousy Shoddian design. Of all the days for the Burger to be itself..." It had to have been the Shoddian comm system that wasn't working, and Gwen was certain of this. It couldn't be that other janitors her rank, the lowest of the low, were ignoring her. Or were too mentally insane to be even aware of different entities, or the color orange. No, this was not a case of simple ignoring her. This had to be the comms.

Though her opinion of her fellow B-Jacs members didn't improve much when she turned a corner and saw one of the new recruits had spilled his mop water.

Wade Watts

Among all of this chaos, where would our character Wade Watts be? Well, one thing was certain. Gwen was right about some of the new janitors. Wade was busy attempting to look professional by mopping the floors in the hallways, but he ended up looking like that one extra in Quantum of Solace who was cleaning the air above the floor. While Gwen probably wanted Wade to not wear his Sun Command jacket while he's working, he can't really resist it. By now, Wade should have gotten himself fired, but he needed to, at least, a decent job. While doing his work, he started to daydream about one of his favorite episodes of Sun Command with himself as the main star.

It was the sand planet of Thearo, as Captain Wade Watts and his crew arrive on the surface, armed with their laser guns to confront the evil lord of metal and trash, Screamstar. On a cliffside, Screamstar showed himself to Wade Watts, declaring his grand entrance. "We meet again, Captain Watts!" he yelled to him, as he laughed in an evil manner, which starts to go over the top into hammy acting. "Jesus...I- Uh! Ahem! Screamstar! You're in violation of attempting to eradicate parts of the universe! Surrender now, or face action!" Wade stated to Screamstar. "How can I surrender when I have the remote control for my thermonuclear death ray in my hands?" Screamstar said, holding up the remote control in his hands, as he continued to laugh as Wade was already aiming his gun to shoot at the remote control. "Hey, Screamstar! Look over there! It's Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror Volume 1 book that he postponed!" Wade pointed to literally nothing, where Screamstar took the bait.

Firing at Screamstar's hand, Wade shot at the remote, causing it to be destroyed, as Screamstar clutched his hand in pain, the remote started to spark. "I will get my revenge, Captain Watts! Just you wait!" Screamstar yelled, retreating. "Well, it looks like the day has been saved! Thanks to me, of course." Wade said, winking at the camera. It was then he-

-proceeded to accidentally fall on the floor of the Burger, having been leaning on his mop, as he was daydreaming. Straightening his glasses, he immediately attempted to look professional again, even though he spilled his own bucket.

Shaking her head, Gwen simply noticed that the clumsy janitor in the cheesy Sun Command fan jacket was alone. None of the new recruits were with him. Well, at least her theory held up.

Calling out to him, "Hey. You. What'syourname. We're looking for the new recruits. There's too much work on this ship to have to do it all ourselves. If we don't train these guys, we're going to have to do it all, and I'm not standing for that. Come and help us find them. And yes, you can tell us about your favorite Sun Command characters and storylines if you must. Sheesh..."

---

The Bridge
Captain Gruff Chary

Dealing with Junk Mail Spam stations were always precarious. Chary had attempted to do things the old-fashioned way, simply sending the Tude-dinista over in an unmarked, untraceable shuttlecraft. You never wanted Junk Mail Spam stations to take too much of a notice of you. Those who boldly made their presence known at a Junk Mail Spam station became flooded with tons of unwanted i-mail. As if the universe was really full of Nigerarian billionaires wanting to make you their heir, if you simply provide all your starbank numbers for easier transfer of funds. Chary had learned that lesson the hard way once, when he had gone along with it. Granted, he had used a fake SSN (Space Subsidiary Number). But when the Nigerarian billionaire octogenarian had learned that, he had traced Chary's coordinates and sent a gang of thugs to convince him to put his real information down. Convincing, as in, making offers he couldn't refuse. Chary had found a convenient way to deal with them. He simply told them he never remembered his numbers, and sent them on a broken down shuttlecraft with practically no fuel to the small planet of Screwieyou in the farthest reaches of the Birdflip sector.

Things were going well. So far. The shuttle was making its way to the Junk Mail Spam station. With his fingers crossed, Chary waited, and hoped that he had scrubbed and erased every kind of electronic ID that the shuttlecraft might have, so that the Junk Mail Spam station wouldn't immediately begin flooding the ship's I-mail accounts. The situation was looking up, until...

"Captain, I'm registering a massive transfer of I-mail from the Spam station. It's filling all of our accounts. Ooh. I like being filled."

Chary scowled. "Jasmine, block all incoming junk mail!"

Jasmine responded, "Sorry, Captain. It's coming too fast. It's filling me up!"

Great. Try to avoid a problem, and the problem seeks you out. Now they would have to manually go through each I-mail, piece by piece, and hoping that the junk mail spam didn't come with tracers in them. Advertisers used those. Why send out ads, unless you can see exactly where your potential customers are at all times? But the Burger crew had better things to do than stare at screens all day.

Jasmine piped in again. "Captain, I'm noticing a loss of awareness in certain areas of the ship."

Chary frowned and looked up at the screen. "On screen."

The viewscreen turned into the attractive picture of Jasmine, this time wearing a provocative historic genie outfit. Jasmine's A.I. programming had been developed by lecherous Lewdites, who seemed to want to arouse the attention of the Enbeealiens who the ship was designed for. Enbeealiens were not only notoriously tall, but also notoriously lusty. But Chary wasn't an Enbeealien, and all the provocativeness of Jasmine annoyed him sometimes. Now was one of those times. So was most other times, for that matter. 4:38 p.m. two days ago. That was a time when Jasmine had not annoyed him. Course, he hadn't been on board at that time. It was kind of a wash.

Jasmine said, "My senses are down on levels 5 and 6. Oh. Now levels 4 and 7."

The captain said, "Jasmine, are you saying this is spreading?"

Jasmine said, "Checking. Tracing times of signal loss. Alright. Captain, I hate to say it, but I came down with something apparently contagious. An S.T.D. bug." (Systematic Themed Disabling). "And my records say that this began at Cargo Bay #2 and is spreading throughout the ship."

Captain Chary responded. "Can you stop it?"

Jasmine sighed. "S.T.D. bugs aren't the easiest to deal with. This will take some time and probing. One of your techs is going to have to probe me. Actually, I like being probed. All the touching turns me on. But it won't be a quickie."

Chary shook his head. The day had hardly begun, and already getting more money was looking like a distant possibility.

---

Fonzie

The hulking alien leader of the new recruits had gathered them all together in a meeting chamber. Why the A.S.S. Burger had meeting chambers was beyond anyone. Maybe this is where the Enbeealiens whom this ship was built for worked on their contracts with their agents. Regardless, it was a large room, large enough for the gang of thugs, miscreants, and criminal scum who had come from Eis Mosley.

Fonzie spoke up. "Ayyyyyyyyy, guys. So here's the plan. In five minutes, Lefty is going to lead 20 volunteers to the bridge. Your job is cannon fodder. In case they have any cannons on the bridge, you guys get to be the first ones they hit. If there's a cannon, try to take it out. After them, the rest of youse guys will follow me about 10 minutes later. We will storm the bridge, bump off anyone in the way, kidnap the captain, and the ship will be ours!"

The cheering of the thugs was exuberant. Even from the guys designated as cannon fodder. They weren't the brightest of alien miscreants, but these guys were practically like family, and Fonzie preferred no one else to work with.

Fonzie sneered at the thought of capturing the Burger. He was trying to imagine what they could get for the ship on the black market. Ships sometimes went for boucou bucks. Not that he wanted a herd of deer, but deer could also be traded on the black market for other more valuable things.

But all of a sudden, Fonzie slapped his head. Idiotically, he had left the key part of the plan back in his room. The key part of the plan, was in fact, a key. The electronic passkey to the bridge. It would be hard to take over the bridge if you couldn't even get through the door. And Fonzie had left it in his bag, back in the room he had been assigned. What a fool he was.

Speaking up, he said, "Ok. Change of plans. We're still going to capture the ship! But now, Left leads 20 of youse guys up to the bridge first. Lefty, you gotta knock on the door and hope they let you in. Make up some reason why you need to get on the bridge. Sal, you now get to lead the rest of these guys to the bridge in my place. Now, you're all gonna be waiting on the outside, in the hallway, and hoping they're dumb enough to let you in. If they won't, you guys can try the secret knock. Maybe they'll recognize it. I'm going to go back to my room in the B-Jacs quarters, that section that was walled in by that weird green light energy field. And I'm going to get the passkey. If you get in before me, great. Go back to plan one. If you have to wait, then you wait. Got it?"

The dumb criminals all nodded, and then started talking among themselves about how many deer the ship could bring in. Fonzie knew these louts hadn't the slightest idea of what they were doing. But he didn't have time to explain it again. Time was of the essence. They would just have to wing it.

[Auphelia]

She soon came across an odd-looking creature [Laika] on her travels and felt the urge to scratch her belly. She did so, and in the meantime asked for directions to where they kept the mops. "My best friend and I are working on cleaning up a spill in a janitorial closet."

What was the three-eyed alien doing? Petting her like a... pet!?! This was lèse-majesté! Or at least sexual harassment! This little green being was lucky that Laika had hurt her good punching-hand, because otherwise...

WAS SHE PETTING HER ON HER HEAD NOW! THE INSOLENCE!

Laika gasped, too shocked to speak or act. It wasn't until Uttra already had left the scene that she reacted.

"Did you see that, Geria? Did you see what she did!?!" she shouted, all beside herself. That someone had DARED laying her hand on her! It was... It was... Unacceptable! Surely Geria and the bandits would agree, and help Laika get Uttra sentenced in a kangaroo dog court for this!

Geria Trick
Oh Dear, I've Forgotten What Goes Here

"Hey, that's showbiz, kid. You know, that reminds me of the time I was a rising starlet in the Wine Stain Star System . . . back then if you wanted a roll you had to let 'em bat your knockers, you know, to see if they would hold up on screen. Oh, those were wild times, yes. I still have my opium pipe, you know. When they needed us to go down on them, because the cocaine kept us so awake, they would give us opium to make sure we slept. Then when they needed us it was another bump of cocaine and we were ready to go! Of course, that's not even considering all of the roles I didn't get. I can't even tell you how many pickles I had to tickle, only to lose out to a more docile cow. I mean, boy, were those heffers talented, but it hurts sometimes, you know? Oh, but that's all in the past dearie. Now, what were we talking about?"

Looking around, she adjusted her hair. Hmmm . . . something about this hallway was different . . .

"Weren't there more people her a few seconds ago? Hmm . . .," she said, slightly bemused. "It's probably fine.

[Zjaum]

"Hey. You. What'syourname. We're looking for the new recruits. There's too much work on this ship to have to do it all ourselves. If we don't train these guys, we're going to have to do it all, and I'm not standing for that. Come and help us find them. And yes, you can tell us about your favorite Sun Command characters and storylines if you must. Sheesh..."

Uttra looked up at the odd-looking lady from atop the belly of Wade Watts. But, wasn't she one of the so-called "new recruits" for which this apparent superior recruited the assistance of What'syourname? She turned to the face of her seat cushion, then up to the face of the jaded lady. She decided to respond to the newcomer by standing up from the now-wet janitor and addressing the woman with one of her wide arsenal of factoids. "Studies have shown that Inattentive blindness can occur with practically any humanoid creature but only affects three out of every seventeen silicon-based blob species. Now that I think of it, I believe you might know where I can acquire mops. Where are mops? Actually, you have long strands at the top of your head. Can I use you as a mop? Not for this, I think, for another event that requires a mop."

She bowed slightly and sat back down.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

After a distressingly long time spent carefully getting all the shards of glass off the floor of the little alcove and trying to forget how close she came to just pushing Uttra out of the tiny space when she entered, plus collecting any ammonia left over, Txha resolved to mark the area as clean, congratulated herself on a janitorial task completed, and left.

Acid. Something strong to really kickstart a reaction and unleash her rudimentary gas-bomb's more dangerous components, if her vague knowledge of something-resembling-chemistry was at all accurate. That was what she needed, what Q-1 continually pestered her about, and what she figured wouldn't be easy to obtain in one limited green-zone area of a run-down spaceship. It was more likely that she'd stumble across some alien's discarded drugs under that name than actually find some kind of fluorine solution - but oh, hell, given how many safety regulations had been thrown out the proverbial airlock already, it wasn't terribly unlikely that someone had a stash of ozone-eating CFCs somewhere. It seemed to her about as likely as any of the other options at this point.

Right. Do you, uh, have any tables of chemical reactions in your memory? I could use some help with options, please.

Normally I'd say that I'd have rattled them off a couple times by the time we got to this point, but because you asked nicely, I'll read off something I've got here -

- Wait, are you saying you didn't actually have anything to begin with? Why would you -

HCl + H₂O -> H₃O⁺ + Cl^-
CH₄ + NH₃ -> HCN + 3H₂
SbF₅ + 2 HF -> SBF₆^- + H₂F^-
HCl + NaOH -> NaCl + H₂O
C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6 O₂ -> 6 H₂O + 6 CO₂
SrCl₂ + Na₂CrO₄ -> SrCrO₄ + 2 NaCl

I think you're drifting a bit.

²D + ³He -> ⁴He + p^+
1n + ²³⁵U -> ¹⁴¹Ba + ⁹²Kr + 3 ¹n
W⁺ -> e⁺ + ν_e

Those aren't even chemical reactions, Q-1. Calm down.

⁶²₂₅F^++-_-5 - 6_hat + 5 Fe -> õ^↑
%3≥4 + He₇E⁶e₅E⁴e + HJ <- 2₃¹-----

---

Txha had been hurrying down the hallway in a not-at-all-suspicious manner, her coat pockets only barely concealing the cocktail of chemicals she was now starting to accrue, right up until the moment that she clutched her head, yelled in pain, and collapsed onto the floor in a fetal position. She lay there for a moment, motionless, before slowly pushing herself back up and cursing the name of the AI hooked up to her nervous system. The worm had thought it'd be funny to improvise as many chemical reactions as possible after being asked to list them, and it had gotten up to a few thousand pages of absolute nonsense by the time Txha had lost higher functioning for a moment and forced it to stop. "AIs," she murmured, "always trying to dump as much useless output on you as they can."

She brushed herself off and kept moving. Her plans neared completion.

Remind me to never, ever hook you up to a matrioshka brain.

On the contrary - I think that'd be an excellent way to keep me out of the way, because I'd just be alternate-universe-shitposting in there all the time.

...

Yes?

... you know, the simulation hypothesis just made a lot more sense to me.

[Aeritai]

I'm starting to regret getting this job... Shelara thought as she picked up her mop and put it in a bucket of water and then putting the mop back on the floor.

It has been a few years ever since the 'Great Pizza Incident of Norun IV' happened and lost her cool mind powers after her people exiled her for a stupid reason. Honestly she didn't have to get exiled in the first place all they needed to do was send her to some type of anger management class, but the planetary government of Norun IV couldn't afford the money. So exiling Shelara was the only option and putting a microchip some where inside her body where she couldn't find it.

I really wish they didn't knock me out when implanting that annoying chip in me. Shelara thought sighing as she kept cleaning the area she was currently stuck in which was a green force field that was set up by C.H.U.C.K.I.E. she didn't know how many hours she had been stuck here cleaning the floors.

I mean its not like I was going to use my powers for evil I could've have used it for good! Like destroying an entire planet with pirates on it! Yeah, that's what heroes do right? Blow up planets with evil doers on it? Shelara kept on thinking about all the things she could be doing instead of janitor duty.

[Pax Nerdvana]

Prankbot
Prankbot continued scrubbing bulkheads when he got an idea. He would use SuperSpaceGlue to stick a coin to the floor. He would leave a motion activated camera in place to capture video pf anyone who tried to pick up the coin. He hovered down to a vending machine, and checked the coin return. He was in luck! There was a coin in there. He grabbed it, and hovered down the passage, looking for a likely spot. He found himself outside of the rec room. He zipped down close to the floor, applied the glue to one side of the coin with his multitool, and set it on the ground. The glue cured instantly. He then magnetized several motion activated micro-cameras to the walls and ceiling, so as to capture multiple angles of the unsuspecting victims.

[Talchyon]

Gwen

The Sun Command fan was falling in line. As well as he could be after being tackled and bossed into submission. Not that Gwen wanted to use violence, of course, but being that Wade Watts was a Sun Command fan, tackling him was like reaching for the low-hanging fruit, since they aren't necessarily known for their athletic prowess. Plus Gwen was sure that he was spineless and had no real backbone enough to resist her orders.

Just then, a three eyed lady started talking. It was in the Lingua Franca, the Common Tongue, and the vernacular all at once. But it made about as much sense as a senseless nothingness dissolving into oblivion.

"Hey. You. What'syourname. We're looking for the new recruits. There's too much work on this ship to have to do it all ourselves. If we don't train these guys, we're going to have to do it all, and I'm not standing for that. Come and help us find them. And yes, you can tell us about your favorite Sun Command characters and storylines if you must. Sheesh..."

Uttra looked up at the odd-looking lady from atop the belly of Wade Watts. But, wasn't she one of the so-called "new recruits" for which this apparent superior recruited the assistance of What'syourname? She turned to the face of her seat cushion, then up to the face of the jaded lady. She decided to respond to the newcomer by standing up from the now-wet janitor and addressing the woman with one of her wide arsenal of factoids. "Studies have shown that Inattentive blindness can occur with practically any humanoid creature but only affects three out of every seventeen silicon-based blob species. Now that I think of it, I believe you might know where I can acquire mops. Where are mops? Actually, you have long strands at the top of your head. Can I use you as a mop? Not for this, I think, for another event that requires a mop."

She bowed slightly and sat back down.

Gwen's jaw dropped as she tried to figure out what Uttra was meaning. "What are you talking about? We have a job to do! If you need a mop, you can get them in the nearest supply closet!" Which, as it turned out, happened to be right there. Gwen hit a button on the wall and the panel slid open, revealing a bunch of mops, and also a strong odor of spilled chemicals. "Gach!" She croaked out as the clinical stench reached her. "Of all the lousy ships in the world, I serve on the crew of this one..."

It's not like she wanted to clean chemicals. Not when she could be getting other people to find the new recruits, making less work for her. Not that she hadn't already gone to great lengths to get out of having to do extra, and in fact had put in more work trying to get out of extra work. But it all balanced in her mind. Finding new recruits to get them to clean wasn't nearly as much "work" as cleaning itself was.

Down the hallway, she spotted Prankbot messing with a coin on the floor, and down the other hallway, Shelara actually doing some cleaning. Calling to them both, Gwen yelled out, "Hey guys! Come here! We're looking for the new recruits. You seen any of them?"

---

The bridge
Captain Gruff Chary and Jasmine

The captain said, "Jasmine, send a message to engineering. See if we can get a tech to get to the bottom of this."

Jasmine responded, "Attempting. Captain, the message did not go through."

Chary put his head in his hands. "Why not?"

Jasmine said (in as seductive of a voice as she could muster), "Messaging system is down. It appears to have been worn out as it has been in steady use for a thousand space years. Affected by the Systematic Themed Disabling bugs."

Chary said, "Yellow alert."

Jasmine responded, "Attempting. Sorry, Captain, yellow alert is not possible."

Growling, Chary asked though he wasn't exactly wanting to hear the gory details, "What now?"

Jasmine said, "The same system that carries the messages also doubles to sound the yellow alert."

Un-be-lievable. Chary could not how this day was going. Could it get any worse?

Suddenly, there was a knock at the sliding hunk of wall that served as the door to the bridge. And it was a real, physical knock! Whoever did that in the 4 billionth century? Chary thought about asking Jasmine to activate the cameras and put the strange knocker on screen, but given how things were going, he wondered if his cameras would actually work now. Instead, he said a cautious, "What the hell is this?"

A voice on the other side that the captain didn't recognize said, "Hello, sir, we got an Anchovian pizza to deliver to the bridge of the A.S.S. Burger. This is the bridge of the A.S.S. Burger, right?"

Gruff Chary's face could not have been more confused as he gawked at the door. "An Anchovian pizza? An ANCHOVIAN PIZZA? FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! GO AWAY!"

The voice said, "Look, all I know is that someone ordered an Anchovian pizza to be delivered to the bridge of the A.S.S. Burger. And our slogan is, "You call. We deliver."

The captain shook his head as he said, "No one ordered anything. We don't even like Anchovian pizza." (And if anyone actually did like it, Chary had made up his mind just then to never have it on the ship again).

There was quiet. Chary went back to dealing with the problems at hand, when all of a sudden, there was another knock on the door. A strangely similar voice, though speaking in a cheesy accent, said, "Hola. I am selling Ghirl Shout cookies for a good cause. Would you be interested in buying some today and helping out starving Ludites in the Beta Nebula?"

Chary looked at the door again. What in the wide wide world of sports was going on today?! Instead of answering the question, Chary asked one of his own. "Aren't you the same person that was just here trying to deliver an Anchovian pizza?"

There was a brief pause. Then the voice said, "No, mi amigo. But I saw him, as I was coming up. Looked like a really honest guy if you ask me. So, what do you say? Buy delicious cookies for a good cause?"

Chary said, attempting to keep his short fuse from blowing up, "Get out of here! If you knock one more time, I'm going to sic my assassin drones on all of you. They don't call me Gruff 'Itchy Trigger Finger' Chary for nothing!"

Again, there was quiet. But not for long. Now, there was another polite knock, and the same voice spoke again in a different cheesy accent. "Hello, sir. Many people get annoyed at traveling salesman always interrupting them. But what if there was a product that could deal with them so you wouldn't have to?"

Chary's face reddened with fury as the person on the other side of the door spoke. He already had a way of dealing with unwanted people! He had a Beastarian on board! Only problem was, he couldn't send a message to him, thanks to the bloody ship falling to pieces.

Chary was about to yell obscenities, when all of a sudden, Jasmine's picture on screen slowly changed and she with it. Whereas before, the seductive A.I. in the historic genie costume was there hoping to entice all the males in the vicinity with her honey-dripped words and low cut outfit, now the picture was morphing into a crusty, wrinkled great grandma in a genie costume. Jasmine's voice changed from a seductive young woman's to an old, cantakerous geriatric's! She said, "Captain, something's happening. The S.T.D. bug. It's... It's... It's... Fiber. Metamucil. Bingo. Lawrence Welk. It's... It's... It's..."

And then the screen went blank. Chary looked, astonished at what he had just seen. Had the bug taken over Jasmine's central cortex? It had made her... old?

Suddenly Chary had a sinking feeling. The bugs on the ship weren't eating them, not exactly. They were rapidly aging the ship. The Burger was getting older by the second! That was why their comms were down and the problems they were having with the cameras!

But that meant...

Was the ship safe?

---

The thugs, just outside the bridge

Two tries to get in and take over the ship, and nothing. Lefty, the leader of the cannon fodder contingent, even tried speaking as someone else. But no, the captain was too smart to fall for Anchovian pizza, Ghirl Shout cookies, or traveling spacesalesmen.

They could wait for Fonzie to get back from getting the passkey from his quarters back on the servant's area. But he'd be even more impressed with them if they took care of things without him.

Lefty turned to study the door again. It looked sturdy, too sturdy to break down by force or by blast. Well-protected, heavily fortified. He was too busy trying to think if he should say something else, that he didn't notice behind him. Not that he would have had too long to notice. But the spreading disabling bugs had gotten their way up this far, aging everything and everyone in their path. The thugs who were with him were all turned immediately into grandpas, then great grandpas, then shriveled up corpses with hair, then dust.

Lefty first noticed what was happening when the sturdy door to the bridge began to change, becoming brittle and crumbling to dust. He got a glimpse inside, pleased with his awesome abilities of deception that surely must have done the job, when he also aged to death.

The disabling, aging tech bugs quickly stormed the bridge, rusting, crumbling and aging everything and everyone in sight. Chary's last thought before turning into a pile of crumbled powder that once would have been his body, was, "I knew that wasn't a salesman at the door! Never mind. So this is my end, huh? Good thing I made those preparations, especially for an emergency like this. I will be back."

And then, he crumbled to dust, along with most of the ship.

The only thing that was spared? A floating section of the ship encased in a glowing green lighted force-cleaning field, that C.H.U.C.K.I.E. the robot had activated some time ago...