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Chapter 11
Unbeknownst to the Galactic Rabbits, their galaxy is just one of billions upon billions in their Universe. All kinds of worlds exist and all manner of species, creatures and civilizations can be found scattered throughout the empty depths of space. The Galactic Rabbits were at first not aware of this and thought their galaxy as the only one. When they first set foot on the moon, which turned out to be made of cheese after all, they were surprised that their world was so much larger than everyone had previously thought. When they first colonized the outer planets, they found themselves gawping at the immensity of their galaxy. When the Galactic Rabbits first ventured away from that spiral of light they called ‘Home’ and explored other neighbouring galaxies, they went back and told tales of the likes no one had ever, ever heard of; tales of marvel; tales eclipsing even the tales of the local War Tavern.
They were not welcomed, however. The Galactic Rabbits could ultimately not cope with the idea that they weren’t and couldn’t be at the centre of the universe, which is unusual for a species that have invented FOO androids and turtsandwiches, they simply started believe that they were, in fact, at the centre. Using sheer will power, the Galactic Rabbits merged every, single thing in the universe together, to create one ‘super-galaxy’. All the interesting places, all the beautiful nebulas, all of the very, very annoyed turtles were sucked inwards until they were part of the same galactic area as the rabbits. One unfortunate consequence of this kind of mass movement of stellar bodies is Orbitus.
The dark-blue, and rather cloudy with swirls of mist, planet was too unstable and fragile to be moved over long distances (i.e. exceeding 50, 000 astronomical units). The Beholders, the dominant species of the planet, weren’t particularly happy about the move because they had beheld a starry sky for millennia but it was now all jumbled up. To add insult to injury, the rabbits hadn’t even bothered to put a ‘this way up’ sign on the planet. This, Jazz Jackrabbit, should explain why those peaceful Beholders kept attacking you when you were “on visit”. Next time, apologize first, and they are sure to forgive you, because the Beholders are a naturally peaceful race.
A small, silver beholder bobbed gently in planetary orbit. He was still an undergraduate in his city’s ‘prophecy college’ and was thus inclined to take a break from his studies, even though his teachers kept telling him that he was too inexperienced when it came to beholding and that he had better pull himself together and start beholding his butt off. But everyone needs rest, especially silver Beholders.
It kept bobbing gently, but this time, it sensed that something was behind it. Probably just more stardust, it thought. It started to behold the deep-blue, misty planet in all its glory. It beheld majestic spaceports, not the ugly ones the rabbits set up but the wondrous, tasteful, architectural ones the Beholders built for themselves. Those were the ones driven by their mysterious ‘I-see-you Engine’, which was fuelled by a team of elite, purple Beholders who had special telescopes aimed at the planet’s nearest sun. The bobbing Beholder, who was now starting to drift gently now, as if something was pulling it away, beheld the Grand University of Beholders, the Oracle of the Past, with its purple-silver blended domes and concentric pillars. It, again, sensed that something was behind it. The Beholder had just taken a cup of Extra-strong-and-concentrated Future-leaf Tea and just wanted to relax and behold its girlfriend having a bath. It sensed something behind it, but this time, the feeling was strong. It spun round quickly. Nothing. Well, that’s that sorted out, it thought, and returned to beholding its girlfriend putting on extra-glistening bath oils.
As fate would have it, Nietzsche’s Shoe was actually coming from the flank, not behind, and too late did the inexperienced silver Beholder realize its mistake. Behold! My death will come right n… splat.
Orbitus is to XLM what Portsmouth was to the Royal Navy. Years of illegal casino-running, J2C-style business and selling Christmas cards had paid of for the extreme level makers, because they were finally able to buy themselves the, potentionally, largest, most productive spaceship-yard in the galaxy. Unlike all other major companies, XLM was banned from Carrotus. The reasons, causes, consequences and the post-banning flamewar (aka the Gingerbread Campaign) will not be discussed in this story because the author is fearful of a Cornbread Campaign, which is the codename for XLM’s invasion plan of Carrotus (oops, shouldn’t have mentioned that!).
Anyway, XLM is not using Orbitus to build themselves a fleet of super-carriers nor a fleet of reality-skewing laser-beam equipped destroyers. If you have to know, they’re actually using their excellent facilities to construct useless, flashy spaceships for the really rich in order to pay for their horribly well-armed star-destroying battleships (-) la those giant, flying pieces of Imperial junk in Star Wars. It would take them many years, however, before they could build up a starfleet large enough to provide a satisfactory supply of muffins for everyone in the universe, so for now, the employees of XLM were contented to call themselves the ‘most flexible trans-planetary-corporation in the galaxy’.
They were cut off from the market off Carrotus and had neither a home planet, nor a main company office building. Instead, the CEO, ChippieBW, spread his company out like a huge spider web over all of the known worlds and planets. XLM constructed ships at Orbitus, had all of its immense wealth stored on the bank planet of Crysillis, Technoir was its research and development centre, Diamondus its time-warp gem provider, Exoticus the official company holiday destination (Holidaius for winter), Scraparap for when the company was low on funds, Letni its testing and calculations facility, Lagunicus the employees’ supply planet, where they would take thousands of crabs, water and melons aboard their gigantic spaceships, and Nippius their source for cold fusion and ‘cold logic’ headquarters.
Q sent a little electric buzz across its components, which triggered the heating of a cup of bad coffee and also the accidental sealing of all fire doors in the ship.
‘Ouch! What was that?’ Stuart said. Thud. ‘Hey, stop it!’ Thud. ‘It would be helpful if you realized that an obstacle was in your way! Stupid door…’ Thud. The door was coming down harder now so Stuart took the opportunity of just putting his coffee down on the very expensive mat and walked away. Thud. Crack. Splash. Apparently, the door wasn’t afraid of giving Martin another cleaning task to do.
‘This whole ship is crazy! I only wanted some tea…’ growled Stuart as he headed off to the bridge, where Niklas was fervently negotiating with another fire door to let him in. Q, realizing that the coffee was too hot for the mat, turned on the sprinklers briefly before finally reverting the ship’s fire-control systems to normal.
‘Gah!’ shouted someone from within. The door opened and a very wet, very furious Dasel-pots stepped out.
‘Who activated the drinks machine?’ Niklas immediately pointed at Stuart.
‘Er…what’s wrong with the machine?’
‘The ship’s just a prototype. Hardly any un-essential services here work properly. Some parts of the ship’s tileset aren’t even masked properly,’ Dasel-pots said, feeling the un-even walls. ‘Just don’t touch anything until we’ve landed and the maintenance crew comes, ok?’
‘Wait, I could mask this ship.’
‘Hmm? What do you mean? Are you a tileset masker or something? I thought all tileset maskers were employed in Jazz2City, which got eaten by a giant white rabbit…’
‘Exactly. I’ve done a great deal of masking. Even changed my surname to ‘Black’ from ‘White’. I should tell you about the amazing stuff I’ve done! I’ve even won an award, but this guy bashed me on…’ Everything dawned upon Stuart,
‘What got eaten?’
‘J2C.’
‘What got eaten…?’
‘J2C.’
‘That’s impossible! How? Why? And when?! I’ve barely been away from the city for 24 hours and suddenly it gets…what happened to it?’ Stuart blurted out.
‘It got eaten.’
‘What got eaten……?’
’J2C.’
’I...’ began Stuart.
‘I honestly don’t know how you made it out but you’re certainly a very lucky person. You and your modem friend, of course.’
‘And here he comes,’ added Niklas.
‘Unigma, did you know that J2C got eaten?’
‘Why, yes. I talked to the guard and he told me everything about it. Didn’t you hear him?’
‘No, I was unconscious,’ said Stuart in a rather stupid tone.
‘Always making excuses,’ Unigma muttered. ‘Oh, yes! Right, by the way, sorry I didn’t tell you about it when clearly I should’ve realized something was wrong when you were lying on the ground sleeping peacefully when the guard was talking about the destruction of everything you’ve known and loved in your life.’
‘Everything,’ said Stuart softly. ‘Everything…’ He thought for a moment. ‘Now what?’
‘You can either follow us,’ said Niklas, ‘or try your luck hitchhiking back to Carrotus using whatever advice that guide of yours has to offer. I suggest that you stay here because you’ll most likely end up on some horrid, stinking mud-hole with names like ‘Ulaanbaatar’ or ‘Upper Honduras’.
Stuart looked out of the window and saw the Orbitus wasn’t such a bad place. But nothing, and here’s where the Galactic Rabbit’s willpower comes into play, could compare with Carrotus. Carrotus was his home. Jazz2City was his home. I want to go back, he thought.
‘Niklas is right, Stuart’, said Dasel-pots reassuringly. ‘Jazz2City wasn’t such a nice place. Believe me, you would be quite surprised at its appearance from the air.’
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