“I sincerely hope that you are right, ArnTasiOsis, for your sake anyway..... Ah I hear his ship now, I have waited YEARS and YEARS for this!!!” This was ,of course, the President of the (supposedly) united Mulania speaking and he made a sad attempt at jumping excitedly to the window, he instead heaved himself out of his chair and dorpled his glutimous mass to the large window to watch the long awaited arrival of the infamous hacker FreJasmBlortle.

Aara was walking down the hall when the landing procedures began. She was thrown so badly that she flew across the hall and into the decaf machine that began whining piteously and squirting hot coffee all over her, the next jolt slammed her again into the machine finally gave up an unworthy life and broke into several jagged shards that Aara was tossed into when the final jolt came. She was discovered 20 minutes later by the salvage team (looking for any valuables that FreJasmBlortle might have left around) and was taken to the Mulanian hospital after Mike was carried away with an extemely large armed escort.

“Read him his rights,” growled the president

“You have none” said one of the armed escort

And that was it. Mike was to be kept in heavily armed solitary confinement for 2 days until his trial, armed with not a toothpick for his own defense, let alone a lawyer. So Mike sat on the floor of the 3m square room, this for a Mulanian man is pure torture in itself as Mike was almost 2.5m long himself, and thought placidly about nothing, or at least tried to. In the back of his brain, a clock was ticking, this was the time before he would physically need to get into some kind of trouble. It was just like that on Mulania which was almost certainly was why he had been kicked off of it in the first place. And as he sat int he thick murky darkness, he began to scheme.

Aara was at the time in no mood to scheme or do anything else for that matter. Things had been very comfortable for awhile, just the kind of thing that she felt she deserved after traveling with Mike for almost a week, until they realized that she was NOT MULANIAN!! A punishable offence by any means. Then they had treated her to the worst possible tests and then stuck her in a backward hospital ward that no one ever visited. They seemed to think that she was a danger to their fragile culture (Mulanians are one of the most hardy races you will find, but sadly also one of the most paranoid). That however gave her the slight loophole needed to watch Mike make a fool of himself and get punished so that is how she came to be at the trial in the front row.

Mike theatrically staggered to the accused box driven to rebel against his pigheaded race.

“FreJasmBlortle,” The hefty Mulanian judge paused partially for effect and partially to look at Mike with disgust “You have been charged with the crime of totally messing up your entire home planet,” The judge once again paused to sip at a glass of water and of course look at Mike with disgust again. “You have also been newly charged with bringing a HUMAN to our planet and possibly messing up the entire ecosystem as well” There were a number of shocked murmers from the benches. “As if this was not enough, You have also stolen a Mulanian craft from a Mother ship AND corrupted two guards!! WHAT do you have to say for yourself????”

Mike stayed silent and there was a glint of anticipation in his eyes. At that moment the lights flickered and went out and Mike seized the opportunity to act. He leapt up to the nearest amplifier and began to speak, “Hi,” he began awkwardly “right now there is a second strain of the mass virus ripping through Mulania, there is only one cure and I have it in my pocket!”(Mike had always been a natural lier) This had gone easily from nervous to decisive. “It is a single lemon honey Halls lozenge from Earth.” There was a sharp and mutual intake of breath, “If you don’t do exactly as I say I will eat it and you will suffer as you did before but worse, every ship that tries to land on this planet will crash on the planet and each ship going out of these ports will run straight into one of the five moons. Any questions?

There were of course none, only a loud outburst from the president “What the Hell do you mean??? You can’t do that this is MY TRIAL and it’s not fair!” He bellowed.

“Do you want me to eat this?” Mike asked placidly. “Cuz I will you know. All I want is to have all my charges cleared and to regain access to the Mulanian computer banks before they are destroyed.”

Now this was just a little too much, most other cultures would have been able to see the bluff and laugh but the terror of the last assalt was still in the hearts of every Mulanian, the president shifted a little in his chair and cleared his throat about 12 times “Well FreJasmBlortle I guess we will have to do what you say so here is your Mulanian Identity Card NOW GET LOST NOW AND BRING YOUR DAMN HUMAN WITH YOU.”

So Mike grabbed Aara around the wrist and they got lost (literally). Two hours later they were in the Mulanian country side, all very nice and pleasant but if one doesn’t know where one is it can be more that a little trying. Mike had lived all his life in the suburbs of GnaShA, a large city halfway across the world and Aara was not expected to know her was around. Since Mike had no pockets and the brilliant Mulanian president had actually forgotten to retrieve the Halls, he gave it to Aara for safe keeping. Wandering around the picturesque countryside with it’s thriving fields Mike felt trapped, even spending 5 years on Earth hadn’t made him feel this claustrophobic, every bunny that jumped across the pleasant gravel road made Mike want to scream.

Finally he did and Aara jumped about 20 meters “We have to get out of here!!!!!!” Mike yelled hysterically.

After Aara had worked out that they weren’t under siege of something nasty like that she replied “I feel the same way, this place feels like a blanket is tossed over it, where’s all the funky equipment and stuff that you talked about?”

“To tell the truth I don’t know” mused Mike “This whole place was a massive space settlement before the virus, I guess that’s what they meant when they said I totally messed up the planet. Anyway we have to leave as soon as possible I can’t stand it anymore. Mike voice was paranoid and his breathing rapid. Aara had never seen him so upset about anything before and felt it was her duty as a friend, reluctant but still, to try and comfort him.

“ Don’t worry,” she said with no idea why he shouldn’t “I guess we’ll find a way out of here.” This was a little forced seeing as she didn’t actually know if there was any way at all.

“This is so depressing,” Mike shrugged “It’s like I’ve single handedly reduced a thriving space going planet back to the picket fence era. Worse than that, we have no way off it.” Mike was panicking now and Aara put a tentative arm around his shoulders, he awkwardly accepted comfort.

Just then, saving us from maybe having to witness a first romantic attempt, there was a blast of wind as a sleek black spaceship with an orange stripe running horizontally across it’s side with the lettering INTERGALACTIC PIZZA across it descended about 5 meters away from Mike and Aara. Mike spun around “Wow” he said “Like really Wow!”

“Hi guys,” chirped a voice from inside the ship “Were YOU the ones who ordered that pizza 6 years ago that never got here?”