"Captain, should I ready weapons?" Lorf asked.
"No!" Shouted Grug. "If we fire on them we'll wind up with Bunt flambé."
"Let's just go get them!" Gwildiana demanded. "They can't blow us up."
Grug ground his teeth. A crisis situation was no time for short-term thinking. "No they can't blow us up, but look at them! They're packed in there. There must be fifty of them. And nine of us, not counting your uncle and the zen score."
Marimba Athens stood up. "Captain!" she said. "I'm sensing they're preparing to attack."
As if she couldn't see that with her eyes.
Beta spoke up. "Our chances of survival are approximately one in two; chances of overtaking them, one in six."
"I'm placing my money on the trolls," said First Officer Biker.
"I'll take you up on that offer," said Doctor Pulverizer. She took out a wad of WorldCorp currency.
This was not a good situation. "Put that away! We're the greatest ship on Earth," Grug said. "We have the best crew. Somebody think of something!"
"I'm sensing that these trolls are not too bright," said Counsellor Athens. "Their minds are similar to those of small children."
Lorf grunted. "She is correct, Captain. Most, ah, other trolls are exceptionally stupid. I have an idea that just may give us some time."
Lorf whispered something in Grug's ear. It was crazy, but it just might work. "Hail them," Grug said.
Lorf nodded, then ran to the bow and waved his hands madly. "Hey, Risky Business! Listen!"
Grug followed him and yelled, "This is captain Jean-Grug Picaro of the Bunt Corporation Airship, Profit." He held one hand skyward, and the other on top of it, so as to make a T. "Time out!" he yelled.
Instantly, the trolls on the other ship stopped what they were doing and sat down.
"Excellent," said Grug. "Let's move in."
"Wait a minute," said Gwildiana. "The minute we move, we'll be calling time in as far as they're concerned. Weren't you ever a kid?"
"She's right," said Georgie.
Grug shook his fist. "Conference!" he yelled.
Lorf and Beta ran below deck and returned with a long table. Another trip got them some chairs. Grug motioned for everyone to sit down.
"Ideas?" he said.
Dexter, who had somehow managed to sit despite his appearance as a large rabbit, scratched his long ears and spoke up. "What if we sent a psychic blast from the onboard computer to wipe out their zenhead propulsion system?"
Grug smiled and turned to his Engineer. "How long would that take?"
Georgie McFord shook his head. "An hour or so, but no can do, Captain. A psychic blast like that could lead to a buildup of psychion particles in the immediate area, causing a zen score breach and tearing apart our own ship."
Dexter frowned. "Oh. Don't I feel stupid."
"Although..." said Georgie. "Jasmine, how long would it take to enslave their onboard computer so as to gain control of their navigation systems?"
A female computer voice crackled to life. "Estimated time, four point three minutes."
Georgie smiled. "We could bring them back to Bage without ever boarding the ship."
"The question is," said Edna Pulverizer, "Do we really want to bring a ship full of angry trolls right into our own backyard?"
Biker waved his hand. "If nothing else we could hold them up there until they run out of food and surrender."
"Except that they have Bunt," Gwildiana reminded.
Edna Pulverizer suddenly grinned. "I've got it! Dexter, how fast can a holomorph droid move?"
He shrugged, quite a difficult maneuver for a jellyfish. "About as fast as you can run."
She shook her head. "That's not good enough. Georgie, could you make him faster?"
He pushed his glasses up and shrugged. "Sure, I could hook up another psychic battery or two to his propulsion system. What are you getting at?"
"Rex," she said, "don't we still have some of those huge fishing nets from when this was a sea vessel?"
Biker nodded. "Are you thinking of going troll-fishing, Doctor?"
"Why, that's exactly what I had in mind. We can simply use the nets to tie them all up! If we do it fast enough, they won't be able to react."
Beta's mechanical eyes extended from he head, as he focused on the not-so distant Risky Business. "Most of the trolls are abovedeck on the stern. Herbert Bunt, Princess Frockeneller, and one female troll are on the bridge. She appears to be unarmed. We will have to deal with her separately."
"Agreed," said Rex Biker. "How fast can we do this?"
"Two minutes?" said Georgie.
"Excellent," said Grug. "We wait till dawn. Then we thread this needle and make it sew."
Everyone looked at him.
"Uh, dismissed," he added.
They dispersed to put the plan into action. Yes, he certainly had the finest crew in the universe.
---------
The next morning, Gwildiana watched as Georgie McFord stuck his hand through Dexter's holographic skin. There was a click and suddenly Dexter was a small round sphere the size of a cantaloupe.
Georgie opened up a small panel on it's surface and duct-taped three psychic flashlight batteries and some wires to it. There were some sparks, and then Dexter reappeared, this time as a huge snail.
Lorf, Biker, and Beta appeared from belowdeck with the net. Dexter picked it up in his teeth (he was by that time a small tiger) and saluted.
"Time in!" Grug called, and before the trolls on the other ship could stand up, Dexter had entrapped every one of them.
He returned almost instantly, and Edna Pulverizer leapt astride him. He whisked her back to the Risky Business, where she sprayed the entire catch with sleeping gas from the Profit's medical supplies.
They returned.
"My turn!" Gwildiana said. She'd demanded that she be the one to rescue the princess. Captain Grug had agreed, reluctantly, when she pointed out that the Profit needed a full crew. Besides, she wasn't about to run out on her still sleeping Uncle Molk.
She took the doctor's place, and closed her eyes. Though Dexter looked and felt like a real camel, she couldn't forget the fact that the what she was really sitting on was a white ball that was far too small. There was a jerk as he took off, and suddenly it was over.
She opened her eyes, and found herself stranded between the two airships. Her eyes locked shut. "Dexter?" she whispered, terrified.
"Look!" he said. "You gotta see this."
Slowly she opened her eyes and glanced down. Just ten or so feet below them was an ocean of floating zenheads, their white robes blinding in the morning sun.
"What is it?" Captain Grug called from the Profit. Gwildiana pointed down, no longer worried about falling.
"I'll have Georgie take a look," Grug called. "Get over to the Risky Business!"
Dexter nodded from beneath her, and took off, bringing her down gently on the stolen ship's bridge.
She surveyed the three passengers. Herbert Bunt was unconscious and floating on the deck, as zenned as Molk and Frockeneller or the sea of zenheads below them. A pretty troll girl was staring quietly at Gwildiana through teary eyes.
Princess Vob, daughter of The Man, was everything Gwildiana had ever dreamed of and more. She was dressed in black leather and smoking a joint. Gwildiana approached her.
---------
The universe shifted as Vob became the viewpoint character. It was an odd thought, and she wondered again if perhaps Big Eddie had added a little something extra to the grass this time.
"I've come to rescue you, fair maiden," said a gallant knight in armor. He shimmered a bit, and became a beautiful young red-haired woman in black.
A name came to her from somewhere. "Gwildiana!" she said.
"You know me?" the Goddess asked.
"God told me I'd like you," she said.
Gwildiana had never spoken with God. Dregs were without organized religion, but quite a majority went in for a religious experience with their drug of choice now and again.
Vob thought this was incredibly funny, and began laughing.
This was far too weird for her. The Resistance was so firmly based in reality. There was none of this flirting with chemical substances. She'd get a job, and do it. Black and white. No questions asked.
But where was the fun in that? Gwildiana was hardly her idea of a dreg.
On the other hand, Vob was hardly her idea of a biot. Where was she going to get in her world, doing drugs and looking like a human?
She suddenly wondered which one of them was doing the thinking.
"Don't worry about it," said God, materializing with an arm around both of them, pulling them together, "You two are a perfect match. You know, psychically. Yin and Yang - all that. It's fate or karma or the plot or something. Trust me, I'm in the business."
What a cool guy, that God.
They smiled. The girl was so beautiful, and so was she.
"I told you," He went on. "Anyway, good luck. Drop Me a line sometime, okay? Meanwhile, I've got work to do. Catch ya' later."
He vanished, leaving them alone with each other's thoughts.
---------
Goopa was glad that that terrible Vob girl had found someone else to lust after, but then she remembered she was terrified and all alone since that other ship knocked her crew out. Any moment now they'd probably kill her, and then make her go back to her job in Little Keltarr. She knew her fears weren't quite on the mark there, but she was shaken and didn't care.
The small, adorable sheep looked around, well, sheepishly. It turned into a cute little bear and she suddenly wanted to hug it. She did.
"Um, hello," said the little bear. "Are you okay?"
"I let everybody down," she said. "Now I'll have to go back to my job dumping water on trolls and chemical fires, and all the other trolls will hate me."
"But why did you do all this?" the little bear asked. "Did the bio.. Did the humans put you up to it?"
"No!" she said. "We don't work for them no more. But we probably will have to again since I messed everything up."
The bear gave her a small hug. "Don't cry. You don't have to work for the humans if you don't want to."
She didn't? "I-I don't?"
"No," said the bear. It actually looked more like a sweet little kitty-cat, now that she thought about it. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to. No one does. Most people just don't realize it."
"That's what Ralphie says, but then he tells us what to do, too."
"Then smack him," said the kitten.
---------
(And back on the Profit...)
"Captain!" Georgie McFord cried. "The zenheads are moving! So are the Risky's. In fact, our zenheads are moving. Captain, we've lost control of the ship!"
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