The Oil Leak of Doom
"He's gone," said Bill, "I guess that means we can weasel out of this and fly somewhere."
"No!" cried Ron, "We must stay here and do our duty, you heard what Truth said."
"But," explained Bill, "I didn't care what Truth said. He can go on saying all he wants."
"But we're the Galactic Defenders!" said Ron, "We must defend the part of the galaxy that needs us now!
And now that part of the galaxy is here! Right here on Grease Nine!"
"Right," said Bill, taking no notice of Ron's elaborate speech on heroism, "We're leaving, because this place
is boring, and we're going to do something interesting."
"Right!" yelled Ed, who agreed on this point.
"That settles it," said Bill, "we're off."
They all rounded themselves up, grabbed the free boat that Truth had given them, and hauled toward their
ship. Truth jumped out from behind a bush and stood in their way commanding them to stop. They barraged over
him with the boat and charged into their ship, SPM-2.
When the piled into the ship, Ron as tradition held was put in the back of the ship to sulk. They took off,
leaving Grease Nine and Truth behind them.
"Well, I'm glad to be gone from that place," said Bill, as he looked back upon Grease Nine. Then he turned
to face the future. His destiny. The Truth! He shook his head to try to get some of that stuff out of his head. He
turned his head again to face the future, and contemplate a nap. He took one. Ed sat next to him wide-awake
adjusting his nifty hat.
In the back, Ron stewed in his own misery. Ron had wanted to go after the sea demon because Truth had
told them too. Secretly Ron, but only to himself, Ron knew there wasn't really a sea demon. He had seen that Ed
was throwing those rocks and not a sea demon. Ron was deathly afraid that going off to try to find fun and
adventure in other parts of the Galaxy might result in that.
Then Ed noticed the slime dripping down the front of the cockpit window. "Ron," yelled Ed, "I think SPM-
2 is leaking lubricant oil again."
"So go outside and fix it," said Ron, "If you actually care."
"I care," said Bill, "and as the head Galactic Defender I command you to do it."
"Why me?" asked Ron.
"If you listened, it was because I am the head Galactic Defender."
"Oh," snervled Ron. So Ron wretchedly put his space-suit on, and dragged himself out of the spaceship
and crawled around on SPM-2 to see what was going on. How miserable, he thought, to have to be out here fixing a
silly oil leak. When we could have had the droids do it. Why me? I should be admired by thousands, instead I'm a
slave to a mindless idiot.
Ron kept suffering as he crawled up to the top of the ship and found that there wasn't an oil leak at all. The
non-oil-leak rotated part of its greasy mound-like self towards him. Ron stared at it, and then shouted at it,
commanding it to stop leaking oils down the windshield. The thing aimed another lump at him, and jiggled it at
him, until it popped forth and grabbed him around the neck. Ron screamed. "Eeek!"
"The slime is getting worse," muttered Bill. Bill knew that Ron was probably fiddling with some screw-
driver and had punctured a hole in some lubrication valve that had been leaking a little bit, and now it was spouting
forth. Then Ron probably tried to clog it with something, and then fell over a bunch of times and slammed himself
against the top of the ship until we could hear it in here. Then he starting making loud gurgling noises to get our
attention, while he grew a tentacle, and slipped it in front of the window. Wow, thought Bill, he really lacks talent at
getting the job done. "Go fix the roof," I say, and what does he think, "I'll go outside and grow multiple greasy
glowing tentacles." Stupid stupid stupid. Bill sat back in his chair and waited for some kind of report as to what
Ron thought he was doing out there. Delays, all there ever are is delays. Bill had just wanted a burger, but nooo.
"Bill?" asked Ed.
"Yes, what?" Bill replied, shaken out of a sort of dark day-dream about beating Ron up in a wide open
field. With crowds cheering.
"Bill?" asked Ed again, to get him back again.
"Huh? What? Oh," said Bill as he looked at the window, and noticed the tentacles again. Bill started to
get the feeling that perhaps Ron had not actually grown those things.
"Ron's flying off into space now," said Ed, as he pointed towards the shape of Ron flying away into space.
"And those tentacles are still on the window," said Bill, beginning to put some things together. He was
pretty sure that the tentacles were not Ron's now. The inconveniences of space travel, thought Bill.
"Well," said Bill, "I think we need to attack these two problems in a particular order. First, we need to do
something about the tentacled thing on our ship, then we need to do something about Ron."
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