Butt Vader's Story

Swirling around the gaseous clouds of Uranus is a small moon called Sphincter by its inhabitants. These inhabitants are the Sphincterian peacekeepers of the cosmos, ensuring that intergalactic bullies don’t give the system a premature swirly.

This is NOT their story.

This story is about me, B’uttocrepmeyeshohrtsn’VadUranus. Call me Butt ‘Vader, for short. Because I wasn’t as sharp as some of the other hatchlings, and due to repeatedly failing examinations administered by my posteriors, not to mention having numerous accidents during training (not my fault, by the way), I have been assigned my true calling in life. I am an Enforcer of the Intergalactic Signal Corp, or a meter maid if you want to be a twat about it.

Anyways, this morning started out pretty normal. I had my Claggy Crispies for brekkie, said good-morning to mum and wheeled her back into the deep freezer, and set off on my beat. During a routine patrol, writing tickets for Venusians illegally parking in the Outer `Roidbelt, my vessel’s “CHECK FUEL THRUSTER COUPLING” light came on. I cursed in Sphincterian and Uranalian, I just had the babbed thing serviced. I should also point out that Uranal mechaniks are cheats and frauds, the lot of them, so I ignored it. As I approached the uninhabited 3rd planet, more red lights winked on, and this time I heard a knocking sound under the bonnet. I knew I was in trouble. If I could flip a U-turn and hightail it back to the Red Planet I could get tow service, but today was not my day. The last thing I remembered before blacking out was seeing blue.

When I came to I realized I was in the backside of beyond: the third planet in the Solar System, classified by our scientists as a crummy uninhabitable planet. An on-board diagnosis to my ship indicated that the kleb-brained idiot who performed the service forgot to re-couple the fuel lines to the main thruster. I was out of fuel. And at least 156 parsecs from the nearest methane station. And, to make matters worse, there wasn’t even the slightest hint of fuel in the air of this savage planet. I mean, what sort of backwards planet doesn’t even have methane in the air?

Then a miracle occurred, it was as if the great Eh-Nus Himself came up from the Cosmic Bowel to serve me some brown nuggets of salvation. My ship’s scanner indicated a scattered but solid signal showing that there was indeed fuel on this planet. According to the scanner, the crude hairy bipedal inhabitants of this plant excrete methane waste in solid log form! Who would have thought? Now all that remains is to gather up enough of this waste, or “Poop” as the inhabitants call it, and I can be back on my way. And maybe stop by a body shop to buff out the scratches on the ship before mum escapes from the freezer.