When: A few hours later.

Where: The Tantra. Floating somewhere in the Thurman System.

It took 2hrs 52 mins, 42 seconds on the dot, before Ig’s tenure as Captain of the Tantra was in jeopardy.

At this point in time, Ig and Oook were hanging out on the Lounge Deck of the Tantra, smoking Terrellian Weed and drinking Earth Tequila listening to Pink Floyd’s, Dark Side of the Moon[1]. The music was blaring from the audio speakers built into the walls of the Lounge.

Decorated in a 1970s Barbarella-faire, the pink Tantra Lounge looked like an old, tricked-out, gold, Volkswagen mini-van that some California surfer lived in. Lava lamps and shag carpet adorned the Lounge and complimented the Tantra’s ugly on the outside and tacky on the inside look. Needless to say, the decorations matched the aptly named Tantra and Captain Johnson Jackson’s love for 20th Century Human pop culture.

Oook stoically stared at Ig, as Ig inhaled the smoke steaming from his joint, and swallowed the libations from his alien looking mug.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ig said to Oook.

Oook gargled and the British voice replied from his sleeve, “I doubt it.”

“You’re thinking, what am I doing getting all smashed when I should be figuring out how to get us home. Well you’re right, except, that’s exactly why I decided to get smashed. I need to access my inner third eye to see a perfect solution. You may have a literal third eye but us humans have a figurative one or maybe a spiritual one. Its one or the other and its only accessible when you’re smashed. Its all this perfect plan conceived of by my big brain. Its all coming together like a cosmic quark soup of ideas. I can see it all!!” Ig said to Oook.

Oook was unmoved by Ig’s grand idea, and he almost cared for his friend’s fragile confidence enough to let his charade continue. But he had taken matters into his own hands, and his plan was about to come to fruition whether Ig wanted it to or not.

Suddenly, the Tantra took another blow which lightly rattled the occupants of the Lounge. It wasn’t a massive blow like the strikes taken from the asteroids, but the feeling was akin to something heavy landing on the hull of the Tantra.

“What was that?” Ig asked Oook.

Oook didn’t respond and shrugged away the question.

“It couldn’t be an asteroid or a phaser blow. It wasn’t heavy enough. Huh, I wonder, let’s go check it out. To your stations,” Ig said to Oook.

Oook remained unmoved by Ig’s order as Captain. The British voice from Oook’s sleeve replied, “Its not that Ig, its the Space Tow Company."

Ig’s face dramatically changed from excited to stunned.

“I called them about three hours ago. Right on time, which is kind of unusual. I thought you’d get a couple more hours as Captain,” Oook’s sleeve said to Ig.

The door to the Lounge opened.

Two alien men from the Space Towing Company resembling Earth’s form of Crabs shimmied their way into the smokey lounge, coughing and moving the smoke out of the way with their big snapping crab claws. One of the alien men, the larger of the two, addressed Ig and Oook.

From the Crab’s sleeve, a voice sounded, a male American voice with a slight Boston accent, and said, “Which one of you called for a Tow?”

Another high pitched American Bostonian voice came out of the second Crab’s sleeve and said, “That is some good shit you’re smoking."

“Knock it off, we got serious work to do here,” said the first Crab’s sleeve to the second.

The Large Crab turned his attention to Ig and Oook, and continued, “Look, is it okay if we just get started? We can work out the pay and paperwork when we get to Alpha Strom. I’m pretty sure the Space Patrol will pick up the bill, if everything is as it seems. All I need is the Captain of this thing to authorize the space action.”

There was a long pause as neither Ig nor Oook responded to his request.

Finally, Oook turned to Ig with great sarcasm, and his sleeve said, “Well you’re the Captain."

Ig paused a moment to ingest the betrayal and shock he was feeling towards Oook’s call to the Space Towing Company. At the very least he could have told Ig that he called the STC. Instead, Ig felt like a fool, yet again, at the hands of Oook.

Ig gathered himself out of his womb of intoxication and gestured towards the two Crabs.

“I’m the Captain here, so I’ll be authorizing any and all space actions on the Tantra,” Ig said to the Crabs.

The Crabs laughed out of their sleeves.

The Big crab sarcastically replied, “Seriously, whose in charge here, we need to get going, we have a tight schedule."

Oook’s three red eyes stared at the Crabs, and finally made a gesture that suggested Ig was in charge.

“If you say so,” turning to face Ig, the Crab continued, “Sir, I need your vocal authorization to tow your big ugly gold ship to Alpha Strom.”

Ig, offended by the Crab’s description of the Tantra, responded, “Its not ugly, its gotta double quad helium activated gravitron and can do a thousand lightyears in thirty sol. Its a magnificent beast, like a gold egg made love to a condor and produced a gigantic gold condor love-egg-baby.”

The Crab looked at Ig impatiently unmoved by Ig’s admiration for the spacecraft.

“Fine, if you’re going to be such an insufferable crab about it,” Ig offendedly said to the Crab.

Ig then announced the transactional words which would allow the Crabs to tow the Tantra.

Ig said to the Crabs, “I, Ig Colm Conley, Captain of the Tantra, a spaceship that I may say is rather sexy, fast, impregnable beast, except for asteroids, I guess, in that sense, its not totally perfect, but hardly ugly.”

The Crabs were clearly getting impatient at this point, the smaller Crab started grabbing at a smushed weed butt from an ashtray, sniffing at its remains with his crab claw. He pocketed said butt.

Ig sensed their boredom, finished his authorization and said, “Do consent to the tow of the spaceship Tantra, alright."

“Thank Almighty Smercorn! I thought it would never end, lets get out of here Todd,” the large crab said to the smaller crab.

The Crabs sauntered out of the room.

Once the Crabs left the Lounge, Ig said to Oook, “Todd, huh, I would’ve pegged him as a Tony, or Freddo.”

From the Tantra Lounge, Ig and Oook comfortably relaxed as the Tow Ship embarked on its journey to Alpha Strom.

The ships were attached by a curious space cable that almost looked as if it were too flimsy to bear the Tantra’s enormous load. One might even say, it appeared as if a chihuahua was pulling a gigantic gold condor egg through space, and that the physics seemed impossible.

But vois a la, SCIENCE.

[1] According to, Regulations of the M.A.A.C.P., Titke 20, Subsect (a) (1), any and all Space Captains are to have sole control of the musical playlists aboard their assigned space craft. In the Distant Future, the length of space travel grates on all species, which quite often leads to some desperate cabin fever moments amongst its crew members, which at an alarming rate had been caused by inter-arguments amongst the crew as to which, “song should be played." In an effort to avoid these kind of calamities during space travel, the Space Patrol instituted the policy of Captain’s Choice, thereby explaining why Ig and Oook solely had access to 20th Century Human Music at the time.