‘Argh! That was not a donation! I wanted that yummy-looking Multipotent-Chinese-newspaper doughnut!’ shouted Stuart and pounded the vending machine. The Multipotent-Chinese-newspaper doughnuts started to slide away and be replaced by Gorbu-chews.
‘We at J2LC are, of course, very grateful for your charitable donation,’ the machine went on, completely ignoring Stuart. ‘We are not like the greedy, money-driven pigs of ML and reward those who help us. Please accept a free copy of the latest version of our Guide.’ A free copy of the latest version of their Guide popped out.
‘Hey, what’s this?’ wondered Stuart.
‘Hey, what’s THAT?!’ wondered Unigma as he witnessed two simultaneous events: the sudden demise of most of the hangar wall and the arrival of the long-awaited spaceship.
The wall shuddered, shrank and crashed down in a heap of rubble and dust. The chaos and mayhem revealed a giant white rabbit, which was violently gulping down various bits of concrete and steel. Its action-movie entrance made the T-Rex scene of Jurassic Park look like a puppy dog show but Unigma didn’t have time to muse over that.
The ceiling cracked, creating an upside-down earthquake and collapsed over the landing area. Sunlight burst in with the force of a cavalry charge and revealed a green-black spaceship. It was much bigger than the turquoise one and had a pair of Arjan’s Allurnothing-ship-pincers hanging on its underside.
‘What’s it doing?’ asked Stuart as he put the Guide into his satchel.
‘Towing our ship.’
‘What?! Oh. Oh! Er…? Our ship?’
‘Well, it’s not legally ours but it should be, if we want to escape from this place without getting eaten,’ answered Unigma.
The giant white rabbit swallowed the central computer, which made a feeble protest and claimed that a team of lawyers was being sent here in order to sue the white rabbit. The green-black ship opened its pincers and descended upon the turquoise ship.
Stuart looked at the ship, then at the rabbit. He looked up, then right. He noticed that his ship was still connected to a minor docking computer, specifically designed to minimize hassle for spaceships that did not belong to ML, ran up to its control panel and opened his ship’s main hatchway.
Unigma was almost halfway up the hatch by the time Stuart finished marvelling at his ingenuity under pressure. With a startled look at his surroundings, he hurried aboard as well. The hatch closed itself when the big, green-black ship tightened its pincers and started its ascent. The white rabbit, having eaten the whole hangar, looked at the rising spaceship and made a very clear, very simple calculation in its head., It decided that the closer something was, the quicker it could be eaten. It made a titanic effort, jumped up and put its teeth into the turquoise spaceship. Stuart and Unigma got knocked out at this stage. Fortunately, the ship wasn’t constructed by ML and was smooth and slippery enough to not give the giant rabbit a proper hold. Frustrated, the white rabbit moved on eating the rest of the spaceport and unintentionally handed J2LC quite a fat insurance compensation.

(Chapter 9 will come later!)