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Photo by John Fowler on Unsplash

The Excellent Adventure of Spaceman, Johnny Black

He pivoted sharply left, as he fired the laser canons to the right. The spaceship’s hull groaned in protest, but held strong.

“Holy Bjork, that was close! I love you, Baby,” he growled to his old, creaky spaceship — biting on the unlit cigar in his mouth.

“I love you too, Johnny,” replied the ship. Somehow, a long, long time ago, in a galaxy next door, the wires had got crossed on the voice module and Baby’s soothing female voice now sounded like Jackie Mason.

“One of the dustworms is still on your tail,” warned Baby. “Should I deploy the escape shuttle?”

“I’ve only got one shuttle left. I hate to lose it,” Johnny said, furiously working the cigar to the other side of his mouth.

“Then throw a wormhole generator. There’s your perfect get-away plan,” Baby suggested.

“All right, but I also have got one of those left, too. … Here goes nothing,” Johnny pulled down a lever, and pushed a button on the console. Somewhere from below came a sound like a door refusing to open.

“Sorry, Johnny, one of the worms dented me. Let me fix that. … Oooh, that tickled,” Baby said, and a wormhole opened up to the right of them. The last pursuing dustworm turned towards the glowing, spiraling hole.

“It’s working!” Johnny whooped, as he turned his ship towards the worm and gave chase. He used the laser cannon to slice the head cleanly off the dustworm’s body, and used his hypermegawarpdrive to punch the ship through the wormhole before it closed.

Once on the other side of this galaxy, Johnny came to a stop, and looked around.

“Baby?” Johnny asked his ship, “What do you think my aunt meant when she said that I was ‘special’ as she laid there, dying?”

“I’m pretty sure she meant that you were special, Johnny,” said Baby.

“Yeah, but what exactly do you think she meant? I mean, I’ve always been her favorite lovable rogue of a nephew.”

“Yes, you’ve always been a bit of a rebel and a lone wolf,” Baby replied. “Uh, I’m getting a distress hail from that fourth planet from the second sun. Would you like to check that…