"Tell me," said President Colbert, "what exactly did they say again?"
"They said that they were mercenaries hired by the Queen Goddess to wage war on the wizard world, Mr. President." the aid repeated.
Colbert sat at his desk, rubbing his chin, then his forehead, trying to make sense of this. Then he snapped his finger indicating he'd realized something.
"Of course!" Colbert said, slamming his hand down on the table. "There is no way in hell a sober mind could come up with an explanation like that. Therefore… The Starcrushers are actually drug smugglers!"
"But sir," the aide said, "they've got a spaceship."
"Drug smugglers build submarines all the time! Building a spaceship with plasma cannons is only a few steps away! Therefore… I, PRESIDENT STEPHEN COLBERT, AM HEREBY EXPANDING THE WAR ON DRUGS!" He was now standing atop his desk, Captain Morgan-style, pointing at the ceiling.
Meanwhile, the wizards were hiring their own mercenaries.
"You guys really don't like the Starcrushers very much, do you?" Ben Henry BenZoltar asked Captain Nightshade, leader of the Skullsquishers, the Starcrushers' arch enemies. Nightshade grunted loudly, a negative tone in his voice, and shook his head.
"And you guys really wanna find the ultimate guitar solo, don't you?" BenZoltar continued. Nightshade grunted loudly, a positive tone in his voice, and nodded his head.
"You guys also really like fighting and violence and chances to, well… squish peoples' skulls, don't you?" BenZoltar continued. At this, Captain Nightshade grunted very loudly, very positively, nodding his head.
"So what if I were to tell you that you can get rid of the Starcrushers, squish a whole lotta skulls, and get the ultimate guitar solo?" BenZoltar proposed. At this, Captain Nightshade nodded wildly, grunting joyously, visibly pleased at the idea.
"Well, if you want that," BenZoltar said, "all you gotta do is help us fight against the gods and the Starcrushers. Deal?" Captain Nightshade nodded approvingly, grunted happily, and shook BenZoltar's hand, nearly squishing.
BenZoltar pulled his hand away, flexed it, and also discovered it covered in something the Wizard Councilman decided he'd really rather not know what it was.
Captain Nightshade, a massive, eight-foot six-inch tall, scraggly figure who looked half warthog and dressed like a space-Viking, headed back toward the Skullsquishers' ship, a large, clunky, evil-looking vessel, that was rusty, beat up, and had horns, fangs, and two red-tinted windshields designed to look like eyes.
The ship's massive, warn out engines belched several times, releasing foul smelling exhaust into the air, then finally fired, and the ship clumsily lifted off the ground and shot into the sky, leaving a trail of brownish-blackish smoke behind it.
"God, who the hell did we just hire?" BenZoltar asked one of his assistants.
"The Starcrushers' arch rivals, sir." Said his assistant.
"I know that, stupid!" BenZoltar said, slapping his assistant. "But I mean what kind of…are they even human?"
"I honestly do not know, sir." The assistant said.
"Ah, it doesn't matter," BenZoltar said, "just as long as they do their job."
"But what about the ultimate guitar solo, sir? We haven't the vaguest ghost of an idea where it could possibly be?" the assistant pointed out.
"It doesn't matter," BenZoltar said coolly, "once the war is over, we either tell 'em they've failed us and execute them, or tell them they've done well and give them the coordinates to a black hole so they'll kill themselves flying into it. You gotta understand politics, kid."
"Whatever you say, sir." The assistant said.