Hail Potato!
        Now for more of the exciting exploits of those intrepid heros
who are endearing to all, the NEW ADVENTURES OF THE STUPENDOUS SPACE
SEVEN!!!!!!  Unfortunately, the lobying group advocating the afore
mentioned title was unaware of the vast implications of meddling with the
Space-Time continuum, as one of the evil minions of the DARK ONE was in
the process of doing at this exact moment.  Or was it a while ago?  Or has
it even happened yet?
        You see, that's the problem with screwing around with time.
Things that are or were or might have been are changed, deformed, or
simply cease to exist.  THE NEW ADVENTURES OF THE STUPENDOUS SPACE SEVEN
might actually turn out to be THE OLD ADVENTURES OF THE STUPENDOUS SPACE
SEVEN, or maybe even the EXTREMELY WIERD ADVENTURES OF THE STUPENDOUS
SPACE SEVEN.  The possibilities are endless, as are the consequences.
        But all those deep and ominous warnings asside, it was a pretty
darn nice day, if today it really was, on a sun baked beach on the planet
Siesta.  Krauslich the Woodlesnatchit from planet Chisholm and Buckaneer
Weiler, Pirate Scourge of the Dark Segment, were both daintily sipping
foreign liquers beneath the refreshing shade of their parasals.  The
brawny man-slaves were panting contentedly at their sides.  The Telecom
beeped contentedly.
        "Yellow?" asked Buckaneer Weiler as she activated the Telecom.
        "Mistress, I report?" asked the staticky image of a contorted
piece of metal that slowly resolved itself into the worried looking
serving droid, who Buckaneer Weiler called Number One.
        "Oh, what is it Number One?" she asked.
        "The 1000% profits of your Pog manufacturing company, Madame?
With them I bought up every Salt mine in the Beta Quadrant?"  This was a
peculiar game that Buckaneer Weiler insisted on playing: there were, under
no conditions whatsoever, to be any certainties in life, lest it become
dull.  Therefore the worried looking serving droid was under strictest
orders to only talk in questions.  Another peculiar thing was that she had
also left strict, if drunken, orders to invest only in peculiar things.
Salt to her seemed rather mundane.  Still, it was almost mundane enough to
be peculiar, so she supposed she approved after all.  She took another
swig at her Ortegan Drambuee, and promptly shot a couple fireballs out of
her nose as a consequence.  She giggled.  Then engaged one of the brawny
man-slaves in a rousing game of Dodge the Fire Ball, until he lost and
went scurrying beneath her chair, yiping all the way.
        A couple minutes later she noticed the Telecom was still on, and
that the worried looking serving droid was still staring at her.  "Yes?"
she asked, giggling again.
        "Well, Mistress?  It appears as if some morons have crashed into a
Giant Space Slug in the Voorblox system, and have managed to set it on a
collision course for Voorblox 4, th square planet?  Well, it turns out the
natives have made an incredible fortune manufacturing bricks for almost
every construction project....ever?  Actually, they just find them laying
about, but they are still fabulously wealthy?"
        Buckaneer Weiler wondered if this was taking entirely too long or
not.  Still, appointing the worried looking serving droid as chief
executive officer of her corporate conglomerate had turned out pretty darn
well, except for the fact that she had had to invest in a new serving
droid to take care of providing her with every little whimsical wish she
expressed.  She turned her head to leer at the silly little garbage canish
shaped droid that struggled under a heavy tray laden with more liqueurs
with its wheels turning hopelessly in the sand.  The silly little thing
actually seemed to have an addiction to alcohol, and had to be watched
constantly.  It beeped frantically as it sank deeper into the lush beech
-you just couldn't get good help these days.  That's what happened, she
supposed, when one bought serving droids from the Discount Bin at Radio
Shock electronic supliers.... She had jokingly named it Lil' Arbourbot.
        "Madame?" asked the worried looking serving droid, still somehow
on the screen.  Weiler told it curtly to get to the point.  "Well, the
only way to get rid of a Giant Space Slug once it latches on to a planet
is to pour vast quantities of salt onto it?"  Weiler's intoxicated mind
tried to make the connection, tried to bridge that final gap with one last
leap of intuition, but instead managed to crash land awkwardly and sprain
a lobe.  
        "So?" she took another drink, watching another creature of the
Discount Bin out of the corner of her eye.  Baby Brother Bot trudged 
stupidly along the beach in her direction. It made honking noises and was
covered except for its mechanical legs by a cardboard box.  Unknowingly,
it was almost directly behind the incredibly flammable liqueurs on Lil'
Arbourbot's tray.  If it walked just a bit more to the right... 
        "So they are willing to pay all their money for salt?  All of it?
Your status was before just really really rich?" Just a bit more....  
"They have offered to buy you a dietyship: you are now a god?"  The
implication of this almost broke her concentration.  Almost.  Baby Brother
Bot took that fateful step, and the fire balls lept from Buckaneer
Weiler's nose.  They shot through the air to ignite the bottles of liqueur
on Lil'Arbourbot's tray, which then consumed Baby Brother Bot in a blanket
of flame.  It honked a screem.  Weiler giggled again.
        "A God?  Cool!" she said, reflecting how indeed there was at least
one certainty in life.  She turned to tell Krauslich, who was curled up
sleeping contentedly on her own beach chair, and had been for the last
four days (The sun always shines on the planet Siesta).  No use.  She
instructed Number One to make the necessary bussiness arrangements and
dismissed him with a contented sigh.  The Telecom beeped off.  Too bad she
had destroyed her liqueur: it would take Lil'Arbourbot forever to get
another tray full, clumsy thing.  She looked again at burning
Baby-Brother-Bot and giggled fitfully once more.  She saw a third droid
beyond it that she'd never seen before, but paid it little mind.  Perhaps
it could fetch some more liqueurs.
        It came closer, red visual sensory implements squinting in the
bright sunlight.  A massive steel clad boot came down to put burning Baby
Brother Bot out of his honking misery.  The toe of the boot twisted, as if
putting out a cigarette.  Lil'Arbourbot beeped happilly as she spun out of
the rut she had dug herself.  The new droid's mammoth steel clad legs both
opened up at the outer thigh, and it removed from them a Semi-Automatic
Tissue Disruption Rifle and a High Polarity Vaporization Cannon, one for
each steel clad gauntlet of a hand.  It smiled a steel toothed grin.
        Weiler moved.  She sprinted across the beach in the eratic pattern
of someone who has had entirely too much to drink, or someone who was
trying successfully to dodge the laser pulses of a Semi-Automatic Tissue
Disruption Rifle and a High Polarity Vaporization Cannon, or both at the
same time which is most likely the case.  Krauslich gave a bit of a
surprised shout as her chair was shot out from under her, disolving into
an array of degenerated molecules.  She lept after Weiler, who had made it
to the cover of the tropical forest beyond the beach.  They stumbled over
roots and through forest gunk and emerged haphazardly onto the well kempt
lawn of their mansion/palace, which rose to imperious heights above the
canopy of the Palm trees which spotted their lawn.  Their novelty hedge
maze extended off to their right, and the double olympic sized swimming
pool surrounded by imported greek ruins to their left.  A queer looking
purple fellow was standing on a fractured column, pointing a standard, run
of the muck Zapomatic at them.
        "Oh, what have we here!  A WOODLESNATCHIT!  Did I ever tell you
guys just how much I loathe WOODLESNATCHITS!  Filthy, parasitical bastards
that they are, always stealing the livelihoods of good honest
Woodlemakers.  Well, it's pay back time Baby!"  Oshmijosh waved his arm in
some sort of signal and managed to unballance himself.  Some Twenty Dark
Guards, those grey clad, black helmeted troops employed by the Dark Side
as their goons, emerged from concealment behind the greek ruins as the
purple blur that was Oshmijosh fell to hit the ground with a wicked smack.
        They turned to run back into the forest, but were deterred by the
emergence of the steel clad droid armed beyond relief.  It looked sort of
familiar... "Did I say you could go?" asked Oshmijosh's muck muffled voice
as he attempted to disgorge his face from the ground that was trying to
swallow the rest of his head.  He popped out.  "Did anyone say you could
leave?" he asked.  "Who said that?  Was it you?!" he rounded on one of the
Dark Guard with one of his six fingers protruding in an accusative manner.
        "Silence, Purple One," commanded the steel clad droid, "You serve
me.  Obey!"  Oshmijosh shut his word hole.  "I'm going to enjoy this,"
said the steel clad droid as it raised its arsenal to point wickedly at
Buckaneer Weiler's head.  
        "Oh my god!" she gasped, referring of course to herself.  "It's
that stupid llama!"  Llamatron's steel clad fingers squeezed slowly on the
triggers as it savoured the moment.  Lil'Arbourbot came tearing through
the forest in search of more liqueur and ran into it's steel clad leg,
causing it's massive arsenal to be unloaded upon a few unfortunate Dark
Guards, who were reduced to charred slime.  Krauslich and Weiler ran:
Krauslich to the maze, and Weiler to the ruins.  Lil'Arbourbot went to the
palace to find more liqueur.  Llamatron cursed and pegged Lil'Arbourbot
off.  Oshmijosh ran to the maze: "She's mine!  The Woodlesnatchit's mine!
Guards, guards, follow me!"  Llamatron let the purple Woodlemaker from
dimension Q lead the guards off into the maze.  It needed no audience to
settle its score once and for all, mano a mano; or llamo to womano; or
however those kind of things worked.
        And so the hunt began...

Stay tuned next time for more suspense building action!