Rescue Mission Saves Other Planetoid; Mysteries Abound

A rescue mission was mounted early on Saturday to help land another planetoid, which had almost rammed SpinDizzy during the approach with the refueling planet Centripedus. Radio contact with them revealed that the only people at the controls were a group of young children, all adults having been incapacitated by spindizzy field fluctuations not unlike those that have affected our own world some time ago.

The team, formed of Zeta (albino squirrel), Skyler and Jimun (cartoon bunny and bat, respectively), Wolverine (plush), Tanooki (raccoon), Azure (electrical fox), Claude (cat) and Casandro (winged lion) took off aboard the latter’s starship, the Trashcan. After some disagreement with Centripedus Traffic Control, the flight was given clearance, and the Trashcan landed uneventfully in the central square of the alien planetoid’s only city.

The local situation turned out to be severe, with most inhabitants having been badly hurt — indeed, even killed — while fighting each other. The team initially suspected that the locals had brought that fate upon themselves, as they had obviously tapped the main drive to power their own clockwork- and compressed air-based machinery. There was a central power plant and communications hub built right above the main drive, with a locked door and an armed guardian (thankfully unconscious) barring the way to the control room. Turns out, that was all meant to protect the aforementioned children; solving a simple substitution cypher allowed the team to reach the controls. While the toons-in-charge calmed down the scared kids (who had apparently never seen such a creature before), and they in turn showed Casandro how to operate the holographic command system, the others were faced with a conundrum.

On the one hand, there was a huge discrepancy between the technology of the alien spindizzy itself, which is far more advanced than our own, and that of the inhabitants, who by all appearances didn’t even have electricity. On the other hand, their engineering was flawless; the disturbance in the field was not due to their tap. Further investigation by Zeta revealed that it was generated by a parasite signal emitted from outside the city, and the children confirmed that a number of foreign, coyote-like creatures had showed up not long ago and tried to wrestle control of the main drive from the residents, only to be captured, tried and for the most part executed. Their description matched that of the so-called Order that has been active on our own world as of late. It was subsequently confirmed that they had kept the people on the other spindizzy completely ignorant, going so far as to make their field display a giant planetarium instead of a fake sky, let alone the real space around the planetoid.

Thanks to Casandro’s steady hand, Soil — as the locals call it — has landed safely on Centripedus, and the field was deactivated in order to negate its influence. Unfortunately, this had the secondary effect of waking up everyone who was still alive and able-bodied, and the populace was highly suspicious of foreigners after the Order’s antics. Our team had to evacuate in a hurry, though not before kidnapping the last surviving coyote. In their defense, that saved his life for sure.

Concerns linger regarding the Order’s apparent presence on Centripedus, as well as our future relationships with the citizens of Soil, who may be grateful for our intervention, but not so much for our methods.