The Planet Fight

Captain Nathaniel’s cross-ship speeds away from the uninhabited planet he just finished exploring. Haticat and Fred drive while he and Doctor Bill measure and label the wrinkled, silvery animals they collected from the limestone caves near the shore. Some resemble koalas. Others resemble starfish. Many resemble salamanders. “Captain, another ship is approaching us,” Fred announces. Nathaniel rushes to the bridge.

The other ship sends a message. “Bang, bang, bang, we got you.”

“What game is this?” Nathaniel replies.

“We’re The Bad Guys. We’re space pirates.”

“Okay,” Nathaniel says. “You broke my engines, but I’m shooting back. Pew, pew, pew, pew.”

“We have plasma-cooled shielding; you didn’t hurt us at all.”

“Well, then I made an ultrastrong magnetic field to halt your plasma flow and shot you again,” Nathaniel says.

“But you took too long and we’re already on board.”

“You can’t be that fast,” Nathaniel says. Just then, there is a knock at the door. Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill walk to the airlock and open the door. In walks a robot, in slithers a snake, and in oozes a blob. They each carry a balloon sword. The robot has large eyes and multiple jointed arms in multiple sockets. The gigantic snake has a short horn on its snout curving up and a long horn on each side of its head curving down. It carries its sword in its tail. The blob vaguely resembles a black garbage bag with a balloon sword imbedded in it.

“We’re The Bad Guys. Give us all your money,” the robot says.

“We don’t have any money,” Nathaniel says.

“Oh, well we’ll just take some of your stuff then,” the robot says, holding the explorers against the wall with his balloon sword while the snake and blob move along. Nathaniel simply ducks under the sword and follows after them. “Hey, not so fast; I’m supposed to capture you,” the robot says.

The entire group of players walk around the ship. The “pirates” take some clothes, food, and lab equipment. The robot picks up one of the silver animals. “This looks valuable.”

“My name is Fred. What’s yours,” the snake asks.

“Hey! My name is Fred!” Fred says.

“Well, there are only so many possible names. We were bound to run out eventually,” Nathaniel says.

“My name is Arko,” the robot declares.

“My name is Marv,” the blob adds in a gurgling voice.

“I’m Nathaniel, and this is Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill,” Nathaniel says.

“Hey, I met another Bill once, but he wasn’t a doctor,” Arko comments.

They all continue to play together until snake Fred sees the time machine and tries to take out a time crystal. “No, don’t touch that!” Nathaniel yells. The snake plucks out a crystal with his mouth, upsetting the delicate balance of time flow and causing time to run faster in his head than his heart can keep up with. He faints. Nathaniel runs over and replaces the crystal. “This is a very dangerous and complicated machine.”

“Wow, how did you move that fast?” Arko asks.

“I have many powers,” Nathaniel says. “Don’t touch these.”

“Okay,” Arko agrees.

The “pirates” ignore all machinery from then on and return to their ship. Haticat asks them if they ever go exploring in natural areas. “No, we’ve never gone exploring before. We usually just play pirates or cops and robbers,” Arko answers.

“You can come with us and we’ll show you how to use that lab equipment and where to find those animals,” Haticat says.

“Maybe after lunch,” Arko says. “I need a recharge.”

“Okay,” Haticat says.

“Good idea. I’ll eat lunch, too. Then you can follow us in your ship,” Nathaniel says.

The visitors close the airlock door and detach their ship from Nathaniel’s. Nathaniel grabs two candy bars, a carton of milk, and a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and eats them on the bridge. He sees the other ship on his viewscreen begin to move away faster and faster and faster. “Where are they going?” The other ship is soon speeding away faster than light. “Hey! They took my stuff!”

The cross-ship pursues while Nathaniel calls them again and again. Then the pirate ship fires real lasers, this time disabling his engines for real. They fly away at top speed.

It takes weeks of detective work to deduce their probable market habits, but eventually the explorers figure out that they make periodic visits to Nilea market on Pendar to sell their stolen goods. One day, they see them. “Where’s my stuff?” Nathaniel demands, emerging from the crowd.
Arko jumps backwards. “How did you find us?”

“I told you I have many powers,” Nathaniel states.

Snake Fred speaks loudly so the crowd will hear. “We don’t know you or what you want.”

“Then why did Arko ask how I found him?” Nathaniel loudly asks. He grabs Arko by the metal breastplate. “Give me my stuff back!” Haticat, Fred, Doctor Bill, snake Fred, and Marv eye each other warily.

“We already sold it,” Arko says.

“Then you’re going to buy me some new stuff,” Nathaniel says.

“Stop that! There’s no fighting in the market!” a bystander shouts.

“This robot stole from me,” Nathaniel says.

“You can settle your differences on planet Fight,” the bystander responds.

Set up by the diplomacy directive one thousand years after Nathaniel’s creation, the planet Fight is where people go to express their anger at each other. It is what replaces the criminal and civil courts over much of the galaxy when they become corrupt. In the end, they are not given a choice. The authorities take them all to the planet and drop them in two separate capsules. The surface is sand, glass, and scorched rock, forming a mottled tan, white, and orange vista. Spacecraft battles and aircraft battles surround the capsules as they fall. Some visitors to the planet never reach the ground.

The first capsule lands. Out steps Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill. Aircraft in the distance drop bombs on a caravan of tanks. “Where are they?” Nathaniel asks.

“Look!” Haticat points at the second capsule falling on the other side of a row of rocky hills. The explorers run to meet it. By the time it enters their view, the enemy has already emerged.

The rules are simple. Whoever can reach one of the twelve space elevators can leave the planet. Outside the fences surrounding these elevators is anarchy. The idea of planet Fight is to end one’s troubles on the planet so they are not taken back into society.

The two groups shoot at each other, but they are too fast and too well-armored to be hurt. Nathaniel quickly closes the distance and pulls out his vibrating sword, slicing into Marv, but Marv oozes back together and flips a switch on his balloon sword. It glows brightly and then erupts into flames. The two take defensive stances. Haticat approaches Arko, but Arko starts pulling his own arms out of their sockets with his other arms, stringing them together into one long arm to extend his reach. He also has a fiery balloon sword. Fred and Doctor Bill outmaneuver and disarm snake Fred, but he still has his horns to stab with.

Arko chases Haticat between two large boulders. His fiery sword glances off the stone, splashing tiny drops of lava. Haticat starts to climb up the sides of the boulders, out of range of the swinging sword. “We used to be friends; what happened?”

“We were play-friends,” Arko says.

“But we had real fun,” Haticat says.

“Yes…” Arko responds.

“Then why are we fighting?” Haticat asks, angrily slicing a chunk of stone off and letting it tumble downward.

Meanwhile, Nathaniel snatches Marv’s sword away and bites him. Marv twists around and bites Nathaniel in the back. They wrestle and tumble down a hill into a pile of stones. Snake Fred stabs Fred with one horn, tossing him away, and then hits Doctor Bill with his tail.

“We could play-fight instead,” Arko says.

“Yeah, we could do that,” Haticat says.

Snake Fred rescues Marv by grabbing Nathaniel in his mouth and throwing him against a boulder. Then he is tackled from behind by Fred, who grabs his horns and pulls on them. Nathaniel grabs Marv’s fire sword and runs toward the distracted snake, but is tackled by Marv, who pins him to the ground. Doctor Bill runs over and picks up the sword, but stops when he hears laughing.

Everybody stops fighting to look toward Arko, giving Haticat a ride. The two of them laugh. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to destroy him,” Nathaniel says.

“I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend,” Haticat states.

Over the next several minutes, the two groups talk things out. They eventually leave the planet together and stay friends for the next three years, visiting many planets and collecting specimens and playing games.

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