Jonkatta fell through the senses-mangling vortex of the portal for what seemed like an eternity, or at the very least five months. Insideoutupside downlefttorightandcrosswayskittycornertoreality...sensations that no squirrel of Earth had felt in aeons. Just when he thought he could endure no more, it was over as abruptly as it had begun. He felt a little dizziness as he looked up to the Sun, as if he were looking in the wrong direction. He looked around, and it appeared that he was in a great valley surrounded by mountains...yet the peaks were not snowcovered, and some even had...oceans? It was true, then! He was inside the Hollow Mars, where the majority of his race sought refuge when the great wars had rendered the surface uninhabitable save by the hideous mutant Greens. Any chance that the messages from Mars had been a hoax by the Greys was now vanished. But...where was the mighty city? The gleaming tribute to the glories of Red civilization which surely would be located near the entrance from the surface? For that matter, there should at least have been a sentry post, both to guard the portal and to meet him, for he was expected. Jonkatta paused and checked his vehicle. Totally out of power, any systems not damaged or depleted by the journey across Mars had been destroyed by power surges in the portal. He shucked off his pressure suit and started assembling the survival kit stored under the driver's seat. Rations, first aid kit, a few tools and a slim X-Acto blade with a bit of electrical tape wrapped around the base to give an easier grip. Looking about at the lush vegetation which started a meter or so from the portal, Jonkatta felt he might need the blade just to make headway. "Hsssst!" came a voice from the underbrush. "Who?" Jonkatta asked, looking in the direction of the voice. A Red emerged partially from cover. But unlike Jonkatta, who was merely a slightly rusty color, this Red was a brilliant, flaming crimson. Jonkatta felt a pang of self-loathing, realizing that he must have quite a bit of Grey blood in him if this is what a true Red looked like. "Hurry, you must get under cover!" the newcomer chittered, his accent archaic and strange in Jonkatta's ears. Jonkatta fought down his pride and scampered into the underbrush to join the native Red. Only then did he ask, "Why must we hide? Don't tell me the Greens are loose down here?" "Greens? Don't make me laugh. They're savages, albeit well-armed ones. No, it's not safe to be visible from the air, not with the Roquis up there. By the way, my name's Buroh, I've been sent to meet you and bring you to the city." "I am called Jonkatta. What is a Roquis?" "A genetic weapon far worse than the Greens. Look, there's one," Buroh pointed up, and Jonkatta's gaze followed. He saw a sight which chilled his soul. Leathery rather than furry, with translucent membranes to catch the wind and terrible great fangs, the Roquis soared between Jonkatta and the Sun. The mere shadow of the creature seemed to steal a portion of Jonkatta's life from him. "Roquis...the flying squirrel," Buroh added solemnly. Coherent Comics UnInc. Presents: ___ __ __ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ CRAZY GUY #26 / '/ | / | / \/ / ' / / \/ "Some Call Me The Space Cowboy" / /--' /--| / / / __ / / / copyright 1998 Dave Van Domelen `___ / | / |/__ _/ `__/ \__/ _/ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "Well, ain't'cha gonna open it?" Louie asked as Jack stared at the crisp white envelope with his address showing through a clear plastic window. "I dunno, I'm afraid of what might be in there. Maybe there's deductions for so many taxes that I'll owe them money. Maybe it'll explode in my face when I open it," he said, looking at his first paycheck. "Jack, dis is 666NASTYNASTYNASTY we're talkin' about, not 666LAMEPRANKS. It ain't gonna explode. Now open it already." Jack pulled out his staff, which was currently the size of a pencil, and inserted one end into the envelope, like a letter opener. "If you're wrong, maybe the sea-fixing pin will trigger any nasty spells prematurely," Jack muttered. He opened the envelope. Nothing happened. He pulled out the paycheck, which looked like a perfectly ordinary two-part paycheck, with receipt above the fold and check below. Still nothing happened. Except for Jack's eyes going as wide as pieplates. [Wouldn't that hurt, unless you're an anime character? - Ed.] Louie leaned over to have a look, and let out a low whistle, which sounded really weird coming from a creature without human-like lips. "That's a lotta digits ta th' left a' th' decimal point. Jack? Jack? Say sumpin, eh?" Jack shook his head and turned to Louie. "Sorry. I'm waiting for the period to get up and walk over to the left or for the first few numbers to vanish or something. And it looks like this is the *after* tax amount, too!" "Well, remember what Buddha says about bein' attached ta material things," Louie warned, his heart not seeming to be in it. "Louie, this paycheck is big enough I could be attached to it just by gravity." "Yeah, I've seen it happen before...poor sap comes into a load of money, and before you know it he's waking up in the laundry chute of a pricey hotel with five martinis in his pocket, lipstick on his fingertips, some stranger's socks over his ears and a hangover the size of an elephant's liver trying to break out of his skull from between his teeth," came a voice from behind them. "Gah!" Jack jumped. "Hans, don't *do* that!" "He's gotta point, tho, bizarre as his deliv'ry might be," Louie said while his heartrate returned to normal. "Oh?" Jack asked. "Yeah," Hans replied. "If everything else about the job makes editing a high school newspaper seem pleasurable by comparison, but the money comes through and in big numbers, there's the temptation to latch onto the money like a life preserver in a sea of tobasco sauce and razorblades. Once the cash becomes your main source of satisfaction, Jonesy'll be able to sink his claws a lot deeper into you." The dollar signs faded from Jack's eyes. "You're right. I can't let myself think of the money itself as a worthy goal. I should do something with it to advance the common good." "Mebbe dat nun you wuz workin' wit' when I metcha might have some suggestions?" Louie asked, referring to Sister Sara. Jack pondered for a moment. "Well, maybe. But I think that if I'm going to put my money into supporting a religious effort, maybe I should look to my own faith first." Pause. "Jack, ya worship old sitcoms. No one else in the entire woild, 'cept yer dad, worships old sitcoms," Louie pointed out. "Maybe not in a devotional sense," Jack admitted, "but simply accepting the Word of Fonzie into their hearts in a secular way would be a step in the right direction, yes? Maybe I can set up a foundation to provide Nickelodeon's TV Land to the disadvantaged, those whose cable services won't carry any good channels," he mused. "Doesn't Aaron Spelling already have a church devoted t' him..." Louie started, but was cut off by the ringing of Jack's Hellular Phone (TM). "Oh boy, it's Bobb wit' a Jobb," he sighed. Jack flipped the phone open and hit the receive button. "Hello?" "Hello, Jack. I trust the paycheck arrived? Good. I suggest you set up a direct deposit soon, for your convenience of course. I can suggest several good bank conglomerates," B.L.Z. Bobb purred. "I take it you're not just calling to offer financial advice?" Jack asked, his voice almost literally dripping with suspicion. "You are correct, sir. I have a job for you, involving some property of ours which has been unlawfully seized by a group of Texans." "Which property would that be?" "The starship Yesj. During our failed invasion of 000SUPERGUY some time back, a man by the name of Stetson Tyler managed somehow to gain control of it." "Wait...isn't that the ship so big it can't come near the Earth without messing up our orbit?" "Indeed." "No WAY. I am not fetching a weapon that big and handing it over to you. That definitely qualifies as *wrong* under my ethical system," Jack spat while Louie and Hans exchanged worried looks. "You misunderstand me. I don't want you to bring it back, I want you to neutralize its Hellfire (TM) systems, permanently. At the moment, the Yesj is quiescent...we suspect this is because Tyler's crew hasn't figured out how to tap the full potential of the Hellfire (TM) generators. If they do, however, the Yesj becomes a serious liability. Additionally, and here's the 'good deed' angle to motivate you, there's a strong chance that in exploring the ship's systems, the criminal Texans might accidentally destroy a large chunk of this Solar System." "Oooookay. That sounds bad," Jack admitted. "But it's been years since you lost the Yesj. Why haven't you done something before?" "We tried. Tyler has taken precautions of some sort to keep Hellish (TM) minions at bay, none of our Reposessors returned from their attempts. Thus, we finally resort to an outside agent, you. To be honest, which hurts quite a bit, we would very much rather recapture the ship. But that seems not to be an option, especially if we are to employ you. However, with the Hellfire (TM) generators destroyed, the Yesj is just a large passenger ship. THAT we can bear to let Tyler have. A courier should be arriving any moment with the rest of the details, Jack. Please call me back once you've had time to peruse them, and let me know if you'll be accepting the mission, so we can arrange a transport for you." "Well, all right. Bye," Jack hung up, just as there was a knock on the door. "That'd be the courier, I guess. Hans?" Hans nodded and opened the door, to reveal a bicycle courier carrying a mid-sized box with red crosses and the word "DIOHAZARD" stenciled on it. "Sign here," he mumbled, holding up a sweat-stained clipboard. Jack signed the invoice and accepted the box. Inside was a large envelope full of papers and what felt like a CDROM, plus a smaller box covered in several layers of protective coating, mainly HUSTLER pages and Don King interviews. A label on the top proclaimed it to be an "Anti-Hellfire Device. Diohazard Level 5: WARNING - Contains Holy Relic." "Wow, must be serious if they're trusting me with something like this," Jack said. He opened the envelope, and a stack of blueprints and a CDROM fell out. He started to open the blueprints. * * * * An hour later, with blueprints covering every surface in the apartment, Louie poked his head up through one layer and said, "THIS...is a BIG FSCKING SHIP." Jack cleared some blueprints away from the computer monitor. "According to this dossier, the device they sent me needs to be attached to any one of the main Hellfire (TM) generators, and it'll cause a cascade reaction through the entire Hellfire (TM) system, permanently knocking it out of order. Might also cause a few secondary explosions, so the instructions recommend setting the timer for enough time to get out of the ship. Timer can't be stopped, device can't be removed once planted." "Fine, just fine," Louie said. "But I've been noticing all SORTS a' Hellfire (TM) blasters on these prints...how're we gonna get within a thousand miles a' this crate, let alone inside?" Jack scrolled down the table of contents on the CDROM and clicked on the "How you'll get inside the ship without being blown to chunky bits" item. "Hmm. Says here that our transport will be provided with a jamming system that'll keep the Yesj's sensors from noticing us, provided that there's nothing demonic on board. And since there's only a handful of crewmembers, we should be able to sneak on board, plant the device and leave without being noticed...." * * * * As the two-seater shuttle span out of control after a glancing blow from the Yesj's Hellfire (TM) Defense Grid, Louie said, "Ya just HADDA invoke Murphy on this one, didn't'cha?" The Yesj swang in and out of view through the front viewport, and it was quite apparent that Stetson Tyler's crew had made at least two significant changes to the ship when they renamed it the FOHSS Alamo's Revenge's Revenge. One, they had put a flag of Texas the SIZE of Texas on the ship. Two, they had modified the scanning system so that Hellish (TM) Jamming Devices wouldn't work against it. In retrospect, Jack realized that this was the real reason none of the previous attempts to get to the ship had succeeded. "Brace yourself, Louie. I managed to stop our spinning, but that shot fused the throttle wide open. Looks like we're about to use up all our fuel in the next few minutes...and I don't have enough navigational control to point the ship at Earth. The computer says we might manage to make it to Mars, but that's not much of an improvement. I'm pretty sure there's no air on Mars. Best we can hope for is a rescue party once we crash, I guess." "Mars. Why did it have to be Mars?" Louie muttered quietly enough that Jack couldn't hear him.... WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE MARS? WHY DID THE AUTHOR FORGET THE TEASER QUESTIONS IN #25? IS "ROQUIS" PRONOUNCED LIKE I SUSPECT IT IS? IF SO, CAN I BE FIRST TO WHACK THE AUTHOR WITH A STICK? Some of these, and probably more, will be answered on the next...SUPERGUY! ============================================================================ Author's Notes: To quote from email I got from Lord Sabre: > The Yesj is now officially owned by Frank Orzechowicz, as it was taken > over by Stetson Tyler -- Space Cowboy, and renamed the FOHSS Alamo's > Revenge's Revenge. I have the license of Stetson, his ship and his > crew, for whenever I pick up the whole ALU thing again. Oh, and in case you're wondering, "fsck" is a programming term, used more as a euphemism for what you'd think it's used for than used in actual programming. It stands for "file system check."