Chapter 1: The Yellow Armor Blues

The Insane Space Hunter bombed through space in his YT-1300, the Quest of Insanity, with little or no objective in mind. He'd once been known as Insano, once been known as the tenth Mjolnir Mark IX cyborg (at which point he'd adventured about parts of the unknown heart of the galaxy with a deranged artificial intelligence that had an infinitely expanding mind and got kicks blowing things up), but decided to be always known in third person as the Insane Space Hunter (which fit his relatively random-outburst-prone personality). It was just easier that way, especially after his head had been impaled on the tail of the Eternal Dragon of the MDb World and he'd been blown into interdimensional limbo by another Mjolnir cyborg. But, since none of that relates to where he was going, that won't be mentioned here any more than it already has.

He was actually flying a test run for an intergalaxial conglomerate, the fuel company Fill Up, Pay Up, and Get Out--the objective was to haul a load of Tibanna gas across the untold light-years of the galaxy, then haul it back again; thus, Fill Up, Pay Up, and Get Out could run tests on the load he'd run to check for long-term degradation. The trip had been majorly uneventful, aside from the fact that he'd picked up two hitchhikers near La Calabaza (the Latino squash world) and dropped them off on Squornshellous Zeta, where they could take a nap for a couple of years on the indigenous mattresses. Other than that, nothing had happened--no princesses on gigantic battle stations needing rescue, no evil battle lords trying to take over the galaxy with large laser weapons or even weapons that just hurt things a lot... not even a cameo appearance from Rick Moranis in the role of Dark Helmet. But, this was the life of a wandering wanderer, no matter how glorious Hollywood makes it out to be.

Not since Sir Wobblin' of Knocknees had led his Melancholy Men through Firwood Forest completely ineptly had anyone been as bored as the Hunter was now. You see, Sir Wobblin' (formerly taking residence in Da Hood) had attempted to rob the rich and give to the poor, but, leading his men boldly through the forest shouting "All for one and one for all," he gave his position away and was promptly sued by the descendants of Alexandre Dumas for plagiarism. His men, embarrassed by their leader's lack of creativity, went back to being itinerate serfs. In any case, they, as the Melancholy Men, were as bored as the Hunter was now.

As all stories worth telling go, however, at the most unexpected moment, something completely unexpected happens, and there is an unexpected turn of subsequent events that leads to an entirely unexpected outcome. Some go as far as to tell each other expect the unexpected, which, aside from being ludicrously impossible, takes absolutely all the fun out of life. To this, the Hunter himself always replies that if you look first, you may not leap. In such a case, you wouldn't change position to where you are, which is leaping, where you wouldn't be; therefore, not being where you are, but instead being where you were, you would be lost, or just confused before you finally ended up where you weren't because you never got to where you were going. Then, where would you be?

Regarding this aforementioned randomly unexpected event, the Hunter popped himself out of hyperspace immediately after receiving a distress signal from the other aforementioned captured princess awaiting rescue on a gigantic battle station.

Figuring that every semi-well-known interstellar hero has to save a princess at least once, he hailed the gigantic battle station and attempted to explain the situation. He got to the part with Sir Wobblin' of Knocknees by the time he was in the docking bay with yellow-armor-clad troops of some kind surrounding his ship. Their armor was actually the yellow color that may have been white at one point, but too much scrubbing of toilets between court martials for fighting and too much time drying in the piercing light of fluorescent lamps had turned them the new color. A lovely situation. Since, of course, there were undoubtedly untold millions of troops aboard the station, later to be known as the Big Big Gun Emplacement In Space, or BB-GEIS, the Hunter decided to make his escape by ejecting himself from the ship in an escape pod. He did exactly that, knocking his way through the docking bay wall and promptly falling down a large shaft, still protected by the little pod. Quickly abandoning it, he jumped into a small indent halfway down the shaft (having forgotten the grappling beam he always forgets aboard the ship before ejecting, or just getting off at all) and ran like a scared chicken for a weapons and armor locker (somehow, his blue-and-white Hawaiian shirt didn't seem like it would quite blend in with the yellowed trooper armor), where he quickly changed from semi-well-known interstellar hero to semi-well-known affiliation of combat trooper wearing yellow combat armor. Soon, he was following what was undoubtedly a platoon of troops in yellowed armor heading toward a large, seemingly useless shaft that some idiot had evidently ejected an emergency escape pod down, followed by what was undoubtedly a bunch of semi-well-known interstellar heroes dressed up as troops in yellowed armor in hopes of saving the princess they'd all been pulled off of whatever boring-as-following-Sir-Wobblin'-Of-Knocknees job they had been doing previously to save.

The Hunter's suspicion as to such was confirmed as about seven of the platoon suddenly broke off from the main group, headed in the direction of one of the prison facilities built into the station, and rather suspiciously started blasting everything in sight. The platoon of real troops that immediately entered the room behind them, doubtlessly coming in to reinforce the contingent of troops that was already there, engaged the group of hopeful rescuers in a firefight to end all firefights. During this time, the Hunter colored outside the lines, blasted a hole in the grating over a trash chute, jumped in, then crawled back out another chute within the prison complex and exited through the corresponding grate. Now inside the cell block, he began opening doors at random in hopes of finding the princess. The first held an 80s-era rock band led b a young man named Delinquent Dan with glitter-rimmed eyes and a British accent. Letting them go, he went on to the next, which happened to have the princess in it.

"A little preoccupied with rescuing princesses and rock bands to be a blast trooper, aren't you?" she asked, realizing the whole scheme of events leading up to this hopeful rescue by a semi-well-known interstellar hero (except, of course, the Sir Wobblin' of Knocknees bit which the Hunter had to hastily explain as they knocked out a trooper, got her into the armor, and waltzed out the front door. Actually, they did a tango, as if to say "Hah hah, I found the princess before you" to the other hopeful heroes and "We're just a couple of blast troopers in yellow armor mysteriously doing the tango to avoid the crossfire in a prison block, have a nice day" to the blast troopers in the outside hallway.

The story could end here, but it doesn't, because that just wouldn't be right.

Back in the hangar, the yellow-armored blast troopers were still clustered around the gaping hole in the side of the bay, leaving the ship relatively unguarded. Well, not so much relatively unguarded as COMPLETELY unguarded. Accordingly, the Insane Space Hunter and the princess (who for now shall remain nameless, as she hasn't introduced herself yet) climbed aboard the Quest of Insanity and blasted off through the open hangar door.

Unfortunately, having forgotten not only his grappling beam he always forgets, the Hunter had forgotten one crucial thing-he needed to disable the station's tractor beam in order to successfully escape the BB-GEIS. Due to the fact that he'd forgotten and hadn't had a handy old Jedi to do it for him, the aforementioned tractor beam latched onto the ship and dragged it back into the hangar. Nothing had changed; the blast troopers were still staring at the large hole in the wall, evidently having been unable to hear the ship blasting off and landing again because of the uniquely bad design of their helmets and their general tendency not to listen to anything not broadcast over their helmet comms from their superiors in the first place. Hopping off the once-again-grounded starship with the princess, the Hunter (now carrying his previously forgotten grappling beam) hastily beat it (still wearing his yellow armor) in the direction of the tractor beam control room. Of course, one would wonder how he knew exactly where the tractor room was, but, during his following of the semi-well-known interstellar heroes following the real yellow-armored troops, he'd simply looked it up on the map directory sign located right outside the docking bay (much akin to those in shopping malls). At least, he'd found out the general area of the docking bay control room, since it's absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to find out where anything actually is on one of those signs. All you can really do is find out what major clothing retailer it's next to and which direction it's in. The tractor control room was next to Dillard's, so that's the way they headed.

Passing several Jedi escorting a golden droid and a completely different princess in the opposite direction, they rounded a corner and came to a fountain guarded by several gray-clad blast troopers. Now, while the yellow combat armor of the normal troops had once been white, the armor of these troops was the sort of gray that may once have been black, but had faded to gray for much the same reasons the yellow armor had turned its own color. Their really unnecessarily large guns spoke differently, however, as they guarded the semi-fancy tile fountain from any and all intruders who might venture into the station (leaving, of course, the docking bay and the ship in it completely devoid of any sort of protection whatsoever). Saluting the soldiers with their own not-quite-so-unnecessarily large weapons, the Hunter and the princess continued on as furtively as possible.

Now, sneaking along the bluish walls of a gigantic space station is an interesting feat to accomplish in yellow armor, as the intrepid duo soon found out. It's also an interesting sight to see. Well, the Hunter and the princess, who by this point had introduced herself as Elsa, managed to accomplish the latter attribute of such sneaking-meaning that they were indeed a sight to see. However, they did NOT accomplish the former attribute of such sneaking; accordingly, the interesting feat not accomplished, they were stopped by a passing gray-armor-clad ranking trooper. Bald and covered with medals to the point where they could only guess as to whether he was a trooper or just some passing idiot with a bunch of stupid-looking medals, he also had an annoying and overbearing disposition to boot.

"And where are you two sneaking off to?" he asked them in an annoying nasal voice.

"Uh..." replied the princess, unaccustomed to explaining exactly why she was sneaking down a bluish hallway aboard a gigantic space station named the BB-GEIS. The Hunter, on the other hand, had done this twice previously; once to retrieve a can of Cheez Whiz that the Imperious Galaxial Order for Order and Chaos (the owners of the station and superior officers of Dark Lurking Guy, the evil Dark Lord of the Silt, who was doubtlessly around somewhere) had confiscated from his bar table while the Hunter was off ordering his chili cheese fries, and once as an initiation prank for a fraternity he'd done for a buddy of his.

"We're heading to Cell Block 6 furtively, hoping to hold off any attacks made there in hopes of rescuing the princess who's held there." was the Hunter's reply.

"Well, my good man, cell block 6 has already been attacked, and the princess has been rescued. Cell block 8 on the other hand, has not been attacked yet. Why don't you go stop anyone from rescuing the princess held THERE?" queried the officer.

"All righty then, sir. Golly whiz gee, maybe there's a medal in it for me!" the Hunter exclaimed in a sudden bout of first-year-cadet-turned-yellow-armored-combat-trooper-isms. This line, actually, is an excerpt from a poem that the Hunter had never heard of, the princess had never wanted to hear of, and the nasal, medal-covered officer had written to describe himself.

"There might be, sonny! I got three of these medals for holding off the rescuers of a princess for two and a half hours, once! I got another for that poem you just quoted that I wrote. Good luck, sonny!" replied the annoying officer.

"Golly, thanks, sir!" replied the princess, catching on and once again quoting the poem they'd already (and accidentally) quoted.

"You're quite welcome. Now, get thee off, and go forth to win the medals bequeathed thee by me!" the nasal officer replied, quoting the last line of his ridiculously grating poem. The poem is slightly more annoying than his voice is, so we shall continue on without listing the entire poem, which he proceeded to recite to himself as he left.

Leaving the badly-written-poetry-spouting officer behind, the Insane Space Hunter and Elsa (the princess) continued on down the hallway, and, passing the now-under-attack cell block 8, stopped at the Dillard's outlet and went left into the tractor control room. Once they were in, they hit the large red button marked "OFF," disengaging the tractor beam power circuit, and very, VERY non-furtively began to blast the tar out of every piece of equipment in the room. To their dismay, however, the door leading to the hallway suddenly shut behind them, and another door opened up in front of them with a hole in it directly across from their current location-a hole that looked almost as if it had been blasted out by a nearby escape pod ejection. The blast troopers still clustered around the hole on the other side of the shaft, having been trained to indiscriminately shoot at anything they ever saw across from them in a shaft, opened fire on the figures standing in the smoldering docking control room (the Hunter and Elsa), who proceeded to duck quickly and return fire.

"Well," said Elsa, "I'd suggest using that grappling beam you brought along with you this time to allow us to swing across the shaft and escape in your ship."

"Okay." The Hunter replied, removing the used grappling beam from the Intergalactic Salvation Army bag he'd been carrying it in. A £5 price tag attached to it read "as is." The Hunter raised it and pulled the trigger...

Now, as a general rule, when you use a grappling beam, you point it at a wall you want to attach yourself to with a coherent energy beam and pull the trigger. Then the beam... grapples... the wall... and you swing on it. But this is not always the case. Some off-brand grappling beams have been known to backfire and harm the user; others have been known to simply blow up; still others just don't work. The latter choice was the case with the Hunter's grappling beam, which he always forgot or simply never used. The battery was missing, as was the battery door; it is theorized that this is because any item donated to the Salvation Army (on Earth or any other planet) has its battery door ripped off by whoever puts the price tags on the merchandise, then sold on the side for large amounts of money through the black market (which leads to the doors being a hot commodity there, as all secondhand merchandise, which is such a great price that you can't pass it up, never has a battery door).

"The battery's not in it for some reason." explained the Hunter, seeing the princess' crestfallen look when the grappling beam failed to perform its primary function.

"Now what do we do?" she asked, firing several rounds from her blaster and driving the yellow-armored troops back a few steps backward, away from the hole. "Do you have any spare batteries, perchance?"

"No, I don't usually even carry the stupid thing. However, I might be able to improvise something."

"How? We don't have any batteries; nothing has ever been proven safe to use in the place of one! It's always fatal to the user, too!"

"Quoth the Queen of all Venus, 'We've no Reese's Pieces, so you'll just have to do fine without.'" replied the Hunter, plugging the power cell from his blaster into the malfunctioning grappling beam, causing it to short circuit and blow up immediately following the grappling action and the swinging action that brought the two across the shaft to where most of the blast troopers had already inexplicably pitched off the edge into the unfathomable depths below. THEN the grappling beam blew up.

That didn't matter, though, because the Hunter had handed it to an unlucky trooper on his way out to the Quest of Insanity where he and Elsa boarded and immediately blasted off in the general direction of somewhere else.

Chapter 2: Perchance To Scheme