The Wafer Gliders Strike Back

Crashtopia Dongerdoppler relished her new role as the endangered species officer in the 64th Droobtumblestark sector of the galaxy. The downside was that she no longer had much time to decorate the interstellarnet with selfies or troll the most troublesome psychiatric patients on Intergalactic Tube. How dare those suicidal centre stage lovers draw attention away from her raunchiest video clips with the chronicling of their psychosis! No doubt, the star system’s collective wellbeing would plummet as a result of Crashtopia’s dwindling social media presence. She hoped she could compensate for that by expanding her contribution to science.

The Droobtumblestark sector consisted of eleven stars, all of which were orbited by multiple habitable planets. Crashtopia Dongerdoppler was born in the narrow temperate band of Quoobstumbler, a planet which was mostly a frozen wasteland. Her assignments were usually confined to her home biosphere, but sometimes she made the 4.5 million Quoobstumbler mile journey to its nearest neighbour Huzzlegoober, the place of seven moons.

On one such occasion, Dongerdoppler was headed for Huzzlegoober’s north-western continent, otherwise known as Rigglerrockerstancher. The most intelligent species on Rigglerockerstancher are semi nomadic tribes of bipedal scorpion like creatures. These arachnidesque people call themselves Blonks and refer to their homeland as Korb.

Some view the Blonks love of monosyllabic words as a sign of primitive minds. Those who have studied them more diligently realize that they are fluent in several languages with hundreds of punctuation symbols in their written forms and polysyllabic words that make supercalifragilisticexpialidocious look like an ideal opening for a haiku.

The Blonks keep herds of creatures called gobbledoopers and the gobbledoopers keep flocks of creatures known as wafer gliders. Wafer gliders are a species of tongue like creature. They glide through the Huzzlegooban atmosphere like meaty magic carpets. Wafer gliders mostly confine themselves to Rigglerockerstancher and islands nearby. They are capable of island hopping further afield, but they rarely do. These gliding tongue-like creatures are thought to be the wrigglers that gave Rrigglerockerstancher its name approximately two million Quoobstumbler generations ago, but nobody knows for sure.

Crashtopia Dongerdoppler’s superiors told her many times that these tattoo obsessed, cloud clingers, could prove to be a distraction from her mission. What was the nature of her mission? That will be revealed shortly. First, more needs to be said about the perils of abducting wafer gliders. They have been known to wriggle their way into the tightest of tunnels, usually of the rocky variety, but occasionally of the sexual or gastrointestinal sort.

Dongerdoppler, who was more experimental than the most reckless alchemist, wasn’t worried about which orifices the wafer gliders might explore, she was just curious, intensely curious. She had read all of the scientific literature on Wafer Glider STI’s. There wasn’t a single recorded case of one jumping the species barrier, not one. The Quoobstumber Bestiality Association was one of several organisations that had spent billions researching the matter.

Crashtopia Dongerdoppler’s mission was to bring back a mating pair of the scorpion people’s gobbledoopers. They were needed to add genetic diversity to the Quoobstumbler gobbledooper breeding program. For those of you who are ignorant enough of astrozoology to not know what a gobbledooper looks like, they’re an elephantesque creature with fur like a jaguar’s. There are millions of them in the thicket bordered paddocks of the semi-nomadic scorpion people, but they’re almost extinct on Crashtopia Dongerdoppler’s home planet Quoobstumbler. The zanger bushes bordering the gobbledoopers paddocks are covered in spikes the size of Tyrannosaurus Rex teeth, so there would be no need to tranquilise those lumbering beasts to prevent them from fleeing.

Although the gobbledoopers had nowhere to run to, Dongerdoppler’s mission wasn’t fail proof. Her levitation beam wasn’t strong enough to haul a pair of mature gobbledoopers into the cargo hold, so it would be necessary to coax them in. The wafer gliders would be useful as bait. Gobbledoopers, which aren’t noted for their high jumping ability, spend half their life trying to catch wafer gliders, because they love to use them as massage and masturbation implements. When one escapes they’re so highly motivated to recapture it that they can leap a Quoobstumbler unit of height higher than they are able to, to catch food.

Crashtopia Dongerdoppler’s research vessel slowed to a barely hypersonic speed as it neared Huzzlegoober’s atmosphere. The ships computer prepared the atmospheric craft for detachment. Less than a Quoobstumbler hour later, the atmospheric craft hovered silently above one of the Wrigglerockerstancher scorpion people’s paddocks. There was only eighteen gobbledoopers residing there, but Dongerdoppler was able to quickly identify a mating pair.

All but one of the gobbledoopers in the paddock below preferred chewing on reeds to gawking at the big bird that watched them from the sky. It didn’t have talons so why worry about it? Crashtopia Dongedoppler spoke into her microphone in comically simple sentences, which were translated into the rhythmic squeals of gobbledooper speech. Giant birds that spoke their language wasn’t something they encountered every night, so they were all curious now.

Dongerdoppler asked the biggest, fattest pair of gobbledoopers to stand in the light she made on the ground and to jump as high as they could when told to because a flock of the best wafer gliders were waiting for them in her pouch. This particular herd of gobbledoopers had been bred for gullibility, so Dongerdoppler’s ploy was unlikely to fail.

There are barely any words in gobbledooper languages that can be used to discuss deceit. They have squeals that translate as “happen” and squeals that translate as “not happen.” The closest they can get to saying the word lie in any of their languages is “Said happen! Not happen?” This bunch wasn’t that articulate.

The pair of gobbledoopers that Crashtopia Dongerdoppler selected leapt on command. The combination of their jump and the pull of the levitation beam provided just enough force to haul them into the front cargo hold of Dongerdoppler’s atmospheric craft. The gobbledoopers were so relaxed that they had a snooze while waiting for their wafer glider treat. The female gobbledooper dreamt of several wafer gliders massaging her from her scalp to the interior of her uterus via her lady cave. This was all as innocent as a back scratch in her mind. Her subspecies had no concept of unladylike behaviour. The male gobbledooper dreamt of several wafer gliders giving him a forehead massage and unclogging his bowels for him. The only meaningful difference he saw between those two things was that one of them happened at a higher altitude than the other.

Gobbledoopers are a very altitude conscious genus. The swarms of stinging butterfly like creatures they like to swat to death with their ears and the ones they prefer to swat to death with their tails are extremely difficult to tell apart by sight alone. Usually, the only way to distinguish between them without a microscope is to observe them in flight. These stinging butterflies have evolved to fly at the height of the shrubs they eat. Once chewed, there is no mistaking which species is which. The ones that fly within reach of the gobbldoopers viciously whipping tails taste a lot like liquorice flavoured turkey in sewage sauce and the ones that fly within reach of the gobbledoopers violently twitching ears taste more like a kangaroo marinated in raspberry juice with lumps of mould caked cheddar cheese.

Crashtopia was feeling very satisfied with herself as her captives snoozed in the central cargo hold. A flock of wafer gliders willingly flew into the rear cargo hold as soon as they were promised an opportunity to unclog the bowels of a male gobbledooper and massage the uterus of a female. They had evolved to love the work they’d been conditioned to do for the past seventy Quoobstumbler millennia, what they hated was the unwillingness of gobbledoopers to let them choose their schedule. That’s why many of them tried to escape. Sometimes, left wing wafer gliders attempted to unionise instead. Gobbledoopers aren’t smart enough to understand the concept of a union though.

The creature waiting for the wafer gliders, in one of the big metal bird’s pouches, looked nothing like a gobbledooper. It didn’t even have the same number of limbs. But when wafer gliders are in the mood to pamper they aren’t fussy, as long as they are well fed and given access to gifted temporary tattooists. Crashtopia Dongerdoppler said she was willing to provide both, on the condition that the wafer gliders gave her the most intense multiple orgasms she’d ever experienced. The freshwater jellyfish stew and the tattoo artists that the wafer gliders craved were supposedly waiting on Quoobstumbler, in Zubmuncher Zoo, an indor facility hundreds of miles beyond the icy planet’s temperate regions.

Crashtopia gave the impression that this zoo was just a few minutes away. And she neglected to mention that the only wafer gliders and gobbledoopers ever to escape from the zoo in question had frozen to death in the stomachs of gronk slugs. The gobbledoopers and wafer gliders that already lived there were forced to watch documentaries about that every day before breakfast, lunch and dinner. If they averted their eyes, or covered their ears, they weren’t fed. Crashtopia Dongerdoppler’s kind had hundreds of television channels to choose from but their captives were only ever permitted to watch Zoological Department sanctioned documentaries.

If the robot that cleaned up the aromatic splattering from Crashtopia’s projectile orgasms had of been sentient it would probably have incinerated its own microchips before it received its first pay slip. Fortunately for it, it was an automaton. Most of Crashtopia’s homo sapien ancestors, from approximately five billion generations and several universes ago, would have been equally traumatised by the job.

Unlike her distant Earthling ancestors, Crashtopia Dongerdoppler had two hearts and three breasts. When erect, her nipples were the size of cocktail frankfurts. Unlike all but the most bacteria infested frankfurts they pulsated in a manner reminiscent of twerking. Crashtopia’s nipples were one of her erogenous zones. Another was between her thighs. The pleasure centres that she had the most difficulty climaxing with were the glands in her ear lobes. They were more prone to simmering than boiling over. The orgasmic tide that stemmed from them was almost indistinguishable from fresh sweat. This was a good thing because Crashtopia liked to climax by wiggling her ears during extremely long and boring meetings. Discretion is important for that.

Where were we? Ah yes, that’s right, Crashtopia Dongerdoppler and her wafer glider and gobbledooper cargo were bound for Zubmuncher Zoo, in the frozen wastelands of Quoobstumbler. Not even gronk slugs, which have copious amounts of anti-freeze in their blood, venture much closer to the nearest pole than Zubmuncher Zoo. After the sale of the gobbledoopers and her least favourite wafer gliders to the zoo, Dongerdoppler’s bank balance was fatter than she had ever been.

Dongerdoppler’s habit of showering quarterly, to save water, had a disturbing effect on the ecosystem in her lady cave. The resulting fungal forests caused some of her pet wafer gladers to bleed from their eyeballs and die shortly afterwards. Those who had thus far proved to be immune to the hostile environment of Dongerdoppler’s tunnel of love plotted their escape.

Crashtopia had never tried to stop the wafer gliders from scrolling through the ship’s manuals. She thought nothing of it. It never occurred to her that they were translating them rather than just having fun adjusting the font and the colour scheme. No flight simulator was necessary for the wafer gliders to master the ships navigation system. This wasn’t solely because of how advanced its self-flying mode was. Wafer gliders are better at mental simulations than most creatures in their universe.

The wafer gliders weren’t just mentally miming flying the craft, they were having lucid dreams of piloting it too. Some of these dreams were collective, enabling them to correct each other’s space travel errors mid dream. It was as though they had experienced flying Crashtopia’s ship through several star systems before they had even gotten it off the ground. Despite being imaginary, these star systems were even more fraught with danger than real ones. Space junk was more common, meteor showers were vaster and asteroids more numerous.

Crashtopia awoke one day to discover that she couldn’t unlock the door between her sleep pod and the central corridor. According to the ship’s computer it was just a few Quoobstumbler miles from Huzzlegoober’s upper atmosphere. Still only half awake, Crashtopia assumed she was dreaming and shut her eyes again. Less than a Quoobstumbler hour later, the ship landed in the same paddock that Crashtopia had stolen the gobbledoopers and wafer gliders from. It was midday and the scorpion peoples gobbledooper farmers were quick to let the warriors in the village know that the metal bird had returned.

The wafer gliders accidentally relocked the ship’s doors when they fled the scene. The wildest warriors in the valley relentlessly bombarded Crashtopia’s ship with catapults until the doors finally dented, buckled and snapped. Crashtopia wept hysterically as she was dragged to the nearest lake and thrown in to make her scent bearable. She was inconsolable as the scorpion people marched her to a stone barn and shackled her to the walls. Her secretions were highly sought after as ingredients in traditional medicine. The scorpion people couldn’t understand why she was upset. They let her roam her own private paddock for four hours a day and fed her better than their other livestock. They even shipped her off to the Utopian environment of a petting zoo, once her glands frequent torrents slowed to the occasional trickle.

By the time Crashtopia was rescued, by a crew of Quoobstumblian archaeologists, she was beginning to suffer from arthritis. The candy the scorpion people’s children fed her at the petting zoo had given her diabetes. The ale their parents put in her trough, for a laugh, had given her gout. Her mind was still intact though.

It wasn’t long before Crashtopia’s bank balance was fat again, this time courtesy of the Quoobstumblian talk show circuit. As her wealth climbed, the pit of despair she inhabited off camera grew deeper. In the depths of her being a tiny voice whispered, “maybe if you had of been kinder, you would have found something more than hedonistic pleasure in life by now.” In response to this voice, Crashtopia trashed hotel rooms and the interiors of private planes. As the repair bills mounted, her appearance fees dwindled.

Finally, during a fit of unhinged rage, Crashtopia locked herself into a wolf dolphin tank at Zubmuncher Zoo, the same facility she’d transported gobbledoopers and wafer gliders to years before. Crashtopia had always fantasized about making love to a wolf dolphin. She was attempting to do so now in the hope that the novelty of the situation would calm her down.

If Crashtopia had been thinking clearly, she would have remembered that the particular tank she’d broken into contained quarantined wolf dolphins. There had been a zomp virus outbreak. The zomp virus commandeered the brains of wolf dolphins, causing them to confuse acts of aggression with mating rituals. Instead of chewing gently on Crashtopia’s face, the wolf dolphin bull tore it from her skull like a human might peel a band aid from an arm.

Faceless and naked, Crashtopia appeared on the front page of the most shameless Quoobstumblian tabloids the next day. Her surviving relatives threatened to press charges against those ghastly publications. Settling the matter out of court led to the lavish lifestyle they’d always craved.


© Rodney Hunter, 2024

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