Space: The Comic

Next up in the prose adventures of SPACE: The Comic is the first draft for (most of) an early chapter in a book I’d like to write about the characters. I’ll post it in pieces during the next few updates. Please note that the names of any LEGO-specific things (like the ship names) have been changed:

Commander Galanos jumped in his chair as the inside of his cockpit suddenly lit up with fluctuating red and blue lights. Before he could even turn around to see where it was coming from, a booming voice echoed over the spacewaves and into his helmet’s headphones: “Space Agency vessel, this is Galaxy P.D.! Pull over!”

“Oh, great,” Galanos moaned to himself. “What did I do?!” As the police lights confused his vision, his brain began juggling his memories like explosive torches, flitting past the last few moments to determine what he had done wrong. He had been well within the light speed limit for the Debulan planetary system and had made sure to exit stringspace within an acceptable distance. He always did! Galanos was practically in a leisurely cruise around Debulan II. Was his spaceship inspection up-to-date? Certainly, updated with months to spare. Could the cops be pulling him over because his ship, the Luna-Dart, was new and looked too fast? When he had chosen the coupe, the catalogue has assured him it was compact and sensible, yet fun and sporty. The pictures had presented the ship as landed in a sunset-hued field of red and violet Gliesian pinwheel flowers, while a family of four frolicked and enjoyed a picnic on their weekend cosmic outing in the constellation Libra. The Luna-Dart was shaped like a lozenge with flip-back wings, pearly white and smooth with a vibrant blue canopy. Sure, it had received upgrades to make it suitable for everyday Space Agency business, but that was all under the hood. It had to be the spoiler! Why had he opted for the spoiler?? Galanos knew he should have avoided temptation. This was his work vehicle, after all! The worst part about being pulled over was that he was on duty. Just because he was a member of Earth’s Space Agency didn’t mean the police would cut him any slack. The report on whatever he had done would go straight to his superiors, and be notated on his performance record permanently!

“Pull over, I said, pull over!” the officer’s voice crackled over Galanos’ helmet. Oh no, he thought, how long had he hesitated while lost in thought? Split seconds, not whole seconds, right?

From behind Galanos, the tinny voice of his service robot dryly commented, “I think you’re in trouble now, Commander.”

Galanos spun quickly toward the back seat where the smooth and nearly featureless blue robot sat watching the events unfold. “I know, S-Bot, I know!” Galanos insisted. “I’m on it!” The robot shook its head and shrugged.

Not wanting to add “Evading Arrest” to the list of charges that were growing in his head, Galanos slammed his right boot down onto the button on the floor that drained the power from his ship’s modest thrusters. As he did so, he saw the nose of the police vessel pull along his ship’s starboard side. It was hard to see the vessel well through the disconcerting lights emanating from above its cockpit canopy, but the shape was extremely familiar. The cockpit of the light gray ship beside Galanos was stylishly tapered forward from an electric blue canopy that ended in a coiled, pointed laser rod that glowed orange. It was unconventional starcraft design, and certainly not something you’d expect to see among the fairly conservative Galaxy P.D.

The other ship pulled forward a bit more and Galanos saw that the police lights were of the portable variety, a contraption slapped haphazardly and unfittingly onto the other vessel. Even more telling, the swooping nose of the ship was decorated with an emblem depicting a fiery Thunderbird snatching a sun in its beak – the same design tampographed onto each wing of Galanos’ ship and somewhere on the surface of every Space Agency ship. Galanos peered into the other cockpit and, even through the flashing lights, could see the pilot grinning devilishly at him.

“Zis is dee long arm of dee law,” the other pilot announced into Galanos’s helmetphone. “Pull over now or I make zee strip search even more humiliating!”

Galanos both sighed and exclaimed, “Dammit, Schwartz! You scared the crap out of me! What are you doing?! It’s a crime to impersonate a police officer!”

“Crime, schmime,” Commander Schwartz snickered. “Seriously, pull on down planetside. I’ve got beer in my cargo hold that isn’t getting any cooler.”

“Schwartz,” Galanos protested, “I’m on duty and so are you!”

“Come on, man, who’s watching?” Schwartz argued. “The meteors you have to catalogue aren’t going anywhere. They’ve been in the same orbit for like a trillion years.”

Galanos sighed and looked back at S-Bot, who was of course eyeing him expressionlessly as always. “You know I don’t really care what you do,” the robot said. “As long as you leave me out of any brilliant ideas of his that include me.”

Galanos turned back to look at Schwartz’s ship, the UV-9, and got blinded again by the police lights. “Will you turn those off? Geez!” he protested.

“Oh, sorry,” Schwartz said, having forgotten about the lights. He flicked them off and Galanos’ eyes continued struggling to adjust. Schwartz still appeared as a blurry shadow across from him. “We could sit here and argue about this for an hour, or you could just follow me down right now because we both know that’s what you always do anyhow,” Schwartz stated.

Galanos shrugged, well aware he was a slave to old routines. “Fine, I’ll see you down below,” he caved.

“Ha, ha!” said Schwartz and immediately rocketed away.

“But no hard liquor! Just a beer! Maybe two!” Galanos warned as he flipped out the Luna-Dart’s wings and chased the UV-9 down to the rocky orb of Debulon II.

***

– This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. Nor is it related to Best-Lock.
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