Warrigal assured me this really happened.

Worms and Music by Hung One On

We’re heading for the teleport station as fast as we can go. The Zogarian officials herd us into an isolated cabin on the perimeter, probably they don’t want to see us get killed by the ICCB. See, Zog has an unsteady relationship with the ICCB, they pay their fees but that’s about it.

“We fight to the death and die heroes” says Helvi. “Helvi, can you cut the die bit, you know I’m a born coward” I reply meekly. “But Sandy, unless the defrag finishes soon the only thing we can do is fight” grins Helvi as she breaks out the laser cannons. “Yeah, let’s fight” says Belinda. Belinda has that look in her eye that says ‘Don’t zark with me man’. Wow, these women are scary stuff.

One side of the room has some windows looking out over the fence where our navcom has said that the troops will come from. The crew line out and occupy a window space just like you see in all of those war movies. I try to think of something stupid so I can use the farce to get us outta here but my mind is blank. I’m so scarred that I wanna shit myself.

Suddenly there is a big bang and all of the windows explode and we are all knocked to the ground. My ears are ringing and I throw up. That lobster salad I had for lunch with the cricket coaches tastes different on the way out I can tell ya.

Warrigal says “That’s the sonic boom they send in just to unsettle you, won’t kill you though, the troops like to do that personally.” Gee, thanks Dingo, I think to myself. We open fire as the troops approach and as usual Helvi is taking them out left right and centre. The fire fight escalates and chaos reigns around us.

Dave the guitar droid comes over to me “Sandy, I found a TIME machine, come and have a look.” Dave and I crawl over to the corner of the room on our hands and knees. “So we can travel in time Dave?” I ask naively. “No, not until the next book Sandy. See this is a Temporal Intermittent Music Emitter. You plug in music here and it will transmit it into the headsets that the ICCB troops wear. So you plug in something really awful and the troops will run for it. Only catch is, someone needs to take out the Field Unit Control Kapsule.” Acronyms, they will be the death of me.

Helvi bursts out the door firing laser cannons from each hand and races up to the ridge. Hey, there’s always a ridge in war movies. The crew are backing her with continuous rounds of fire. Helvi uses a rocket launcher from behind the ridge and as usual hits the Kapsule first shot. I sing out to Dave “Put on the Beatles, She Loves You that would scare the shit out of anyone.” Immediately the troops start wrestling with their headsets and start running away.

Michael grabs my arm “Sandy come quick, the Kipper’s been hit” I race over to the Kipper who has a large wound to his chest and is lying on the ground. “Don’t worry Kipper” I reassure “We’ll take back to the regen station” “Sorry Sandy, I can no longer be regenerated I’m finished” the Kipper relates as he struggles in immense pain. “But Kipper” I blurt nervously “You are part of the story. I mean I need to take the mickey out of a 60’s American sit-com.” “Well” suggests the Kipper “How about Petticoat Junction or Greenacres perhaps?” The Kipper stops moving. Jilligan closes the Kippers eyes. I cry, zark, this wasn’t supposed to happened, what would Mr Douglas do I wonder.

My phone rings, its Henry the navcom, “Hi guys defrags finished, beam on up”

[Authors Note: The End of Zog you ask? If we time travel into the future of Zog we find that the cricket teams start sledging each other which leads to conflicts of their culture. These conflicts lead to skirmishes then onto wars. Each regional cricket council tries to annihilate the other until one dark day a scientist arises called Say Tin. Say Tin is an evil nasty little creature with an attitude problem. Say Tin invents a bomb that kills everything on the plant, hence the end of Zog. Scary but true, well sort of.]