Chapter 2: The Ralphaysian Ship
In the introduction to the Exiled Ruler's Guide to the Galaxy it states:
The reason you are reading this book is because awhile ago you were one the most powerful richest people in the universe and now you're nothing but a poor pathetic nobody wandering the galaxy without a home. Whether or not you deserved this fate is not up to us, but history itself.
Therefore this book does not intend to judge you on your actions. It doesn't matter to us if you have slaughtered thousands, got yourself impeach because you're an idiot or you're just a slefish col-hearted bitch, we believe that you deserve a second chance. That and letting you waste away in the cold dark universe would mean we are just as callous and cold hearted as you. By the off chance you're actually a nice guy, well then that suits us fine.
Hopefully in either case your travels through the galaxy will get you a better understanding of the world around you and perhaps make you a better person. We're not guarateening that however cause we do not want to be sued for false advertising.
This open and neutral additude towards any exiled and thrown out planetary ruler be they king or dictator is a rather new concept and seen as very open minded. Coincidentally, Blackfire of Tamaran who just an hour ago escaped from the planet Refus 12 in a Rocket ship behind a booth is about to have a run in with a race of beings who are completely the opposite of the Guide's philosophy.
They are closed minded, bias and completely irrational beyond any doubt. But then again so is any race to a certain degree so why do we bother explaining this. In any case Blackfire is about to learn one of the first hard lessons of being a Galactic refugee and in fact life, stay away from weirdos.
"Stupid sister of mine." Blackfire grumbled as her ship moved through the endless blackness of space. "If it weren't for her I wouldn't be stuck in this stupid rocket ship in the first place. I'd go back to Tamaran and give her a piece of my mind...well if the whole Exile thing didn't mean if I returned to Tamaran I'd get my head chopped off. Still there has to be something I can do."
Blackfire pondered her own querry. How was she ever going to solve this problem. at the moment she was travelling in the middle of nowhere, with a rocket ship that she had no idea how far it would actually get her and of course no idea of where to go.
When she asked the guide most of the planets listed on it were rather undesirable for her tastes, that and the guide cautioned against going to them. the onyl place she could think of travelling to now was Earth.
"Of course!" she said "Earth! My sister didn't banish me from Earth did she? I can always go there and start a new life or something. Now if I just knew where it was from here precisely."
Unfortunately Blackfire had absolutely no idea where to go from her present position to arrive on Earth and so she was completely lost. She decided to ask the guide on Earth hoping she'd get a map of some kind, what she got instead was this explanation.
Harmless and rather primative. Comprised of a main species of Hairless Apes, some bits of the population however seem to have a problem admiting this however.
"Well that sure helps me find the Earth from here faster." Blackfire sarcastically complained "I need to find someone with better directions."
It took a few mere seconds to look around and of course find someone to possibly give her directions. She eventually did however spot something on the rocket ship's radar. Peering off into the distance at the position it apparently was located at she soon saw a purple dot grow larger and larger as it past her by.
It was a huge ship, shaped like that of a sleek Battleship with wings and rocket boosters to make it apparently look more like it belonged in space. It was compeltely covered in purple and immedietly reminded Blackfire of some of the cheesy Space movies that her Sister's friends had talked about while she was on Earth.
"Well its my only choice at the moment." Blackfire shrugged
She quickly patched into the intercom and contacted the ship.
"Hail large purple space craft this is Blackfire of Tamaran." she spoke "I need directions to the blue ball planet known as Earth. I'm a bit lost and I need to-"
Suddenly the ship shot out a large purple beam and sucked Blackfire into its docking bay.
"HEY!" she shouted "What the hell are you people doing? Release me at once you assholes! you're dealing with Royalty here!"
Her pleads over the intercom went unheard and Blackfire's ship was pulled up into the docking bay. Quickly, saw blades ripped apart the back of her cockpit cabin and two large metal arms shook her out of her ship. She found herself on the cold hard floor of the ship docking bay and surrounded by incredibly hairy guards with proton rifles all pointing at her.
"Resistance is useless." One of them announced
Picking her up of the floor the hairy aliens dragged her away and out of the docking bay.
"Who are you?" She demanded as she struggled to free herself "What the hell do you people think you're doing? Let me go!"
"Resistance is useless." The same guard muttered
"I demanded to know why you are holding me? What intergalactic law have I possibly violated by asking directions?"
Blackfire's question was answered swiftly as she was thrown into the large cell.
"You are now a Prisoner of the Ralphaysian Republic for Illegal Immigaration and wishing to travel to the planet of Sodomites." The guard said
"What?" Blackfire shouted in confusion "What are you talkiing about?"
"Resistance is useless." The Guard said shutting the door and locking it behind him
At least blackfire knew who these people were, and thanks to her new Guide friend she soon would know more about them. Opening it up she said to the book.
"Ralphaysian."
Instantly the screen flickered and up came a picture of the same hair species that had thrown her into this dismal cell. The book then recited the information.
Ralphaysians are a cruel, close-minded and completely stubborn race. Believing themselves to know all the right answers they've attempted to spread these answers to the Universe through force and assimilation. They are completely covered in dense hair from head to toe, not because they are born that way but because they never shave at all in their lives.
Ralphaysians have never once admitted that they could perhaps be wrong, it has been theorized that if a Ralphaysian ever once even entertained the idea of being wrong about something their brain would explode at once and send a chain reaction through the entire species that would cause them all to die off within seconds.
The reason for their unwavering stubborness of insisting that they are never wrong is the fact that they have no system of education on their planet. Instead all Ralphaysian children when they are born are stuck into a machine called 'The Great Answerer' that pre-programs all of its already organized and pre-programed "Facts" into the child's brain. These "Facts" lead them to eventually come up with opinions of course, but the way the facts are scewed all opinions are essentially the same, unwavering, bias, undisputable by law and unconfrontational in any sense.
In line with the Ralphaysian train of thought, 'The Great Answerer' has never been updated since its creation over a thousand some odd years ago. Changes or new information would account as heresy in Ralphaysian society and would be punishable by death, hence no one has ever tried to update the machine ever. among the core beliefs of the Ralphaysians are, all other Religions are wrong, People who have different opinions then there own are idiots, Illegal Immigrants crossing their borders have no rights and are all Drug Dealers or Terrorists, Evolution is a fraud and the main principal belief of their entire race, Homosexuals must all die.
In fact the Ralphaysians have made it their mission to seek out and either fix homosexuals into becoming straight or destroy them. They do not believe them to be human beings but rather Parasites feeding on the fabric of society and others. Naturally the rest of the galaxy finds them loathsome and not just because of their beliefs, but because they are always begging other nations for money so they may continue to fund this ideological war. Needless to say they have very few allies.
If you are ever to come across a Ralphaysian warship in your travels, do not attempt to make contact and simply get away from it as fast as you can. Mainly because they will consider you an illegal alien and capture you. If you DO find yourself captured by a Ralphaysian be sure to just nod your head and go with everything they say and remember to never, ever mention the planet Earth. If you do you will most likely never manage to escape their clutches.
In case all of this advice is now no longer void cause you have both contacted them and mentioned Earth we suggest reading further into Ralphaysian history and ship design to plan your escape. Otherwise you will be subject to their pretentious self-rightous ranting. If you can, cover your ears, it helps somewhat.
While this did not strengthen her resolve against these aliens, Blackfire at least now took comfort in the fact she knew who they were. Hopefully she could find a way off of this ship before anything serious happened to her. Of course her ship was destroyed and she didn't know anyway else off the ship.
Perhaps if she got one of the Aliens to admit they were long they would all die and she'd be able to escape, like the guide mentioned. Unfortunately she didn't have time to answer her question because the metal suddenly opened up and she was grabbed by two Ralphaysians and dragged away towards the ship's bridge.
The Bridge itself looked similar to something out of Star Trek, another show Blackfire had become aware of thanks to her sister's Earthling friends. The Captain's chair swivelled around and revealed a large red haired Ralphaysian with a huge beard. Pulling himself out of the chair the hairy alien walked right over to Blackfire and stared her in the face.
"So this is the one that wishes to travel to Planet of Sodomites then." The captain said "Lucky we found you and stopped your pilgramage to that wretched planet. Going there is bad enough but actually travelling through our borders! Well to say the least I don't think you're very smart."
Blackfire decided to explain herself, perhaps she'd be able to appeal to their sense of reason...if they had any at all that is.
"Look," she began "I didn't know I was crossing through your controlled space okay. I have just escaped from Refus 12 and I'm now in a part of the Galaxy I've never even travelled to. So you can see its an honest mistake really."
The hairy alien only laughed at her statement.
"You expect me to believe that story that you're trying to find a better life?" He said "The only people who dare cross our borders are terrorists and Drug Dealers, crinimals all of them."
Blackfire tried once more to reason with this person.
"Look I know illegal immigration is a problem, Tamaran's been suffering with it for years." She explained "But really, I'm not a terrorist and I have no drugs. I just wanted to leave my crappy existance on another planet and find a better one somewhere else. What I did was wrong and I'm sorry. So you can just dropp me off at the nearest little planetoid and I'll be on my way. Out of your hair forever."
The Ralphaysian captain was still unmoved.
"If I just let you go what kind of message would I be sending to other planets? Crossing our borders its okay, we'll just drop off somewhere? No way in hell. I'm not going to allow people like you to sell drugs to our children, endanger our security and take away our good jobs. Like Fry Cooking, Taxi Driving and picking fruit at the farm stations."
"Those sound like pretty crappy jobs actually." said Blackfire
"Hey whose giving the lecture here?" The captain "Shut up and listen illegal."
"Why don't you listen?" Blackfire told him "I didn't even know I was crossing into your border. A sign probably would've helped, a marker, hell even a Toll Booth Asteroid Station. How is anyone suppose to know if they've crossed into your border?"
"Because the twenty mile radius around our ship is the border of our space." The captain confirmed
At that point it donned on Blackfire that appealing to their sense of reasoning was a bad idea. Considering they thought fry cooking was a good job was absurd enough, but if they actually thought their warships were an extention of their border they were definetly not thinking straight.
"I still don't know why you're detaining me for wanting to go to Earth." She said
"Because Earth is a planet sodomites and homosexuals." The captain said "To allow someone to join such a festering ball of decay and diesease is insane. It is our job to decrease the amount of homosexual parasites in this galaxy. If we allowed every species to visit that planet we'd have a billion more gays in no time!"
"What the hell is wrong with gay people?" Blackfire asked
"They're an ill, a diesease, worse then any junkie or parasite in existance and must be destroyed!" The Captain bellowed
It was at this point Blackfire said somethign that pretty much doomed her in the eyes of the homophobic aliens, she could've kept it quiet and just went back to her cell, but unfortunate asking her to not speak her mind about something was foolish.
Tamaranians have always been a vocal race on their opinions, that was the only thing that Blackfire and her sister seemed to share in common and it was about to get Blackfire into some serious hot water. For she is about to say something that the rest of us will deem rather foolish to say in front of a pack of homophobic aliens who all have laser weapons.
"Have you ever considered that Gays are people too?" She asked
This immedietly let out a collective gasp from all Ralphaysians present and completely angered the captain beyond all ends.
"Take her to the execution chamber!" The captain demanded with a loud commnading voice.
Blackfire was grabbed by her shoulders and led out of the bridge. Of course not being one to actually like the idea of being executed and Blackfire immedietely stopped beating around the bush and used her powers to escape her captors. U
sing her super strength she lifted the two hairy guards holding off the ground and slammed them together. They dropped in a heap and Blackfire flew over them and down the hall. A platoon of Ralphaysians saw her and pointed their spears at her as she flew at them. Blackfire lauched a starbolt at them and sent them flying. Passing through the corridors and punching her way through the walls, she eventually found herself in the ship wasteroom.
Panting to herself heavily and proud that she had actually escaped she began to think of way to escape from this place before it was too late and she was found once again. She could simply breakout of the ship and find her way to Earth from there, but even though she could survive in space she probably wouldn't get far enough away from these jerks on just her powers alone. Plus with all that heavy artillery on this ship she'd never get far enough away with out being blasted to smithereans.
"I need to find some sort of fighter bay and make way to the nearest planet as fast as I can." she said "Only chance I got. Maybe the guide can tell me on how to reach it from here."
Blackfire reopened the guide, which was still on the Ralphaysian information page. pressing on the link that led her to the map of their warships she found that the figther hanger was all the way down in the aft of the ship.
"If I can just get down there I'll be home free." She thought to herself aloud "But I'm going to need an edge against these hairy assholes. I wonder if they have some kind of weakness or chink in that hairy armour of theirs."
Of course the answer was right in front of her, ask the guide about their weakness. Turning towards the book she said:
"Ralphaysian Weaknesses."
Within an instant a video file began to play that illustrated the following.
The only known weakness of the Ralphaysians was discovered during the Ralphaysian-Transvestian war. The Transvestians were a race of beings that periodically changed their gender from female to male and back again every five years automatically. Seeing their existance as an abomination, The Ralphaysians declared war on the Transvestians so they could purge the galaxy of their ilk.
Unfortunately for them, the Transvestians had been changing their genders for so long now they were in touch with both their feminine and masculine sides. They possessed both the brawn and brains of women and men combined and therefore were able to easily last out in a war of attrition by the Ralphaysians by instituting coordinated attacks while the Hairy aliens that they now faced just ran all over the place idiotically in berserker charges that never really worked. Eventually the Transvestians noticed a biological weakness in the Ralphaysians genetic make-up from examining their dead.
It appeared that all Ralphaysians had severely delicate colons. If something, like a pole, was stuck up their rear ends they would instantly convuse and die of shock. This may be the explanation of the Ralphaysians fear of Homosexuals, but the Transvestians suggested that it was probably still the fact they were total assholes. With this new information in hand the Transvestians went on to win the war against the Ralphaysians and repel the entire invasion force. Since then Ralphaysians have vowed to eliminate all who practice anal sex whether they be Straight relationships or Homosexual ones.
With this information in mind, Blackfire grinned.
"Heh," she said "should've guessed that on my own I suppose."
Ripping off a large pipe from the wall, Blackfire made her way down to the fighter bay. She encountered a guard on her way out of the washroom and punched him to the ground as he attack. She then plugged the pipe into his butt and, while it didn't go far enough to kill him, he guard ran as fast as he could away from her in terror shouting.
"She has a weiner! She has a weiner!"
Blackfire only chuckled
"Idiot." She said "This pipe isn't even proper size to stick up anyone's arse...but they're so afraid of the thought that even I were to just touch them there they will go nuts. Reaching the fighter bay will be easy."
Blackfire continued her way down to the fighter bay. Hitting Ralphaysians in the butt and sending them crying away. It was the most embarrasing sight she had ever seen and couldn't help but laugh as she reached the fighter bay doors. There however she was met with a terrifying sight. A dozen Ralphaysians stood in front of her...all wearing a large metal block over their butts.
"Damn." She thought throwing away the pipe "Time to get back to basics then."
"There's no way out now." The lead Ralphaysian said "Your attempted sodomizing days are over."
"I don't need a pipe to send you homophobic jerks to their maker." She announced "I'm Blackfire of Tamaran and I'll kick all your asses to high heaven."
The Ralphaysians charged, rather all over the place and uncoordinated and stupidly, and Blackfire began launching her Starbolts at them. They were either knocked back or thrown several feet into the air. When they got close enough Blackfire began to punch them away. She ripped off a wing of a nearby fighter and threw it at three of the guards sending flying away.
She began firing her starbolts at the other fightercraft and causing them to explode. It sent a mass panic throughout the whole bay and gave Blackfire enough time to commandeer one of the ships. She fired a starbolt at the bay's control panel at the far end of the bay and within an instant the shield of the docking bay doors vanished.
Waving a hearty goodbye to her captors she launched herself out of the ship and made her way for the back of it. She fired a missile at its rocket boosters and watched as it exploded right in the middle of it. It sent a chain reaction throughout the ship and soon the boosters powered down, the engine had died.
"Now they won't be able to follow me for awhile." She said "With taht Blackfire flew away from the ship and looked on the controls for the hyperdrive. She found it as large red button and pressed it sending her flying off into space.
"Well that was the worst visit to a spaceship ever." She said to herself "I'm going to need to find a planet that will be way more friendly, or at least not full of assholes like those hairy freaks. Lets see what the ship's computer has to say about my present whereabouts."
Blackfire flipped a switch and a small computer screen popped up revealing map of the galaxy. Eventually it focused inward and small arrow appeared on the screen that said "You are here."
"Good to know." Blackfire responded to no one as she looked at the arrow "Now I need to know where I should go. Where's the nearest planet"
Computer beeped and following her request located her the small planet of Polis 4 only a few hundred lightyears away of she kept her present coordinates in hyperspace she would reach it in no time.
"Maybe there I can actually get some decent directions instead of being called an illegal and sentenced to death for wanting to visit Earth or soemthing." She thought
Suddenly a sound began to play on the ship's communicator, it was weird, sketchy and irrcomprehensible at the time. Wanting to udnerstand what the hell it was Blackfire adjusted the frequency and soon heard a tune.
Incense and Peppermints,
Meaningless Nouns,
Turn on, tune in,
Turn your eyes around!
"What the hell is this?" Blackfire said confused "And why the hell do I suddenly feel hungry?"
Why exactly is an Earth hippie song playing on Blackfire's communication line of her ship? Does it have anything to do with this planet she's visiting? What of the Ralphaysians and their ship? Will they float aimless in space and fall into a star and disintergrate before they can fix the engines? And what of the Intergalactic Bureaucracy? Have they managed to get all the proper papers signed so they may pursue Blackfire? Or are they still being inefficent and unessecarily complicated so much so that they can't really get anything done? Perhaps these questions will be answered in the next chapter of 'The Exiled Ruler's Guide to the Galaxy.'