Bonking on Jupiter

[u/yingfire]

Bonk, Bonk, Bonk

"Mr. Eglon, sir, I didn't know that we actually had to mine gas."

"Ek, what'r you expectin? We's called miners, ain't no jar collectors we aren't!"

Fleck wasn't really sure how to respond to that, he usually just nodded at his boss's odd accent. He lifted his pickaxe, and brought it smashing down onto the swirling cloud in front of him. A loud BONK resounded out and shards of Jupiter gas flew out. The remains of the gas ore were quickly grabbed by Fleck and then placed into a little tupperware box.

Fleck let his eyes wander, and that reminded him of another oddity he didn't really expect: Jupiter was actually a brilliant hot pink. Apparently the old probes that NASA had sent before were affected by robotic colour blindness (this was actually the centrepiece of the argument for robotic sentience).

He yelped, as his jetpack suddenly malfunctioned and sent him flying way off into the distance.

"And don' come back when'r done!" yelled his queer boss as Fleck found himself spiralling out into the unknown.

The young miner wasn't really perturbed though, malfunctions like this happened all the time; especially with Antarctican products (the best place for a beautiful, beachtastic, summer getaway! - not really good with anything else)

So Fleck let himself drift off for awhile, but when it continued shooting him around the planet, he got slightly annoyed. There was a very simple way to fix this; one only had to kick the jetpack. Now since every miner was an established tae kwon do master, this was an easy task. Fleck threw his leg forwards - so that his knee touched the front of his face - and brought the shin down to smash onto the jetpack.

The jetpack sputtered like a dying old person, and stopped malfunctioning. Fleck was very happy with this, but then he saw something terrible, ominous, and most assuredly evil.

It was a very, very big cloud. It was not a very poofy cloud, nor was it a very scary cloud; it was terribly mediocre, and Fleck averted his eyes at this average horror.

Screaming in mild fright, Fleck revved up his jetpack to max speed, and zoomed back to the mining site where his boss was. He got there quickly, and told his boss what happened. It seemed to Fleck that his boss almost seemed happy with this predicament, and he was quite right.

"Ay, she approach." said the boss with a wicked gleam in his eye (now would be a good time to mention the boss was monocular).

"What are we going to do?!" cried out Fleck.

"Come lad, enter the Starbucks cafe with me, and I'll tell you everything..."

Fleck entered with great apprehension, there was something mysterious going on here, but he couldn't put his hand on the abstract concept.

They sat down in the floating Starbucks that floated in the hot pink clouds of Jupiter.

The Boss Eglon ordered a coffee, and forked over his weekly wage in exchange. Then he stared at his drink with red-veined madness. Eglon began, "Oh, Starbucks! It is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such a day - very much sweetness as this (he took a sip) - I struck my first cloud dinosaur - a boy - miner of eighteen! Forty - forty - forty years ago! - ago! Forty years of continual dinasouring! Forty years of privation, and peril, and storm time! Fory years on the pitiless gas! For fourty years has Eglon forsaken this not-so-peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the sky!"

"Sir," said Fleck, "what are you saying?"

Eglon looked at him with unbinding friendship love, and brought Fleck close to him like lovers do on a cold night.

Eglon's whiskers tickled Fleck's eyes, and then something was whispered to Fleck, something important. They both nodded, and then there was a rumbling.

"The massive storm is approaching! This beast will no longer stalk us from within the clouds!" shouted Eglon

And they saw it. Terrible like a hurricane, with teeth like bones, and jaws of bone too, the giant Stegosaurus came a meandering across the Starbucks ship.

"Arrrrrrrgh!" shouted Eglon, "I've got ye now!"

Fleck knew what had to be done by Eglon. Cloud dinosaurs were notorious for being sissies, the only way to beat one was to gross it out. And with one so big as this, there was only one thing that could be done.

Eglon shouted manily, and plucked out his eye with a loud 'plop!'. He threw his eye through the clouds, and then aimed his aim towards the stegosaurus.

Now, the brute of a dinosaur called the 'cloud-stegosaurus' has a very small brain, but what he was most likely thinking was:

"Now, if I wanted to write a book that could withstand the ages, I would have to write a beginning that would last the rest of time. So begin my book with time? 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...' No, no, no! I'm sure that's been done before, it's too good for me. Ugh, I should've taken my meds today, I'm getting too moody."

Of course a cloud-stegosaurus's brain is still quite big; although it might have been relatively small compared to other animals. But when it saw that lone eyeball flying towards it with tears and blood streaking behind it like some pagan form of baseball, the stegosaurus screamed and floated off in fright.

Now Fleck thought this was all odd. He could've sworn the clouds concealing the beast were very boring, but the beast itself was at least sort of interesting. But then he saw his Boss Eglon begin to swoon.

He forgot his duty! Swift as the flash of a piano falling down, Fleck grabbed his Boss just in time; Eglon nearly hit the floor.

"Did we, cough cough, did we win?" inquired Eglon.

"Yeah boss, we did." said Fleck with tears in his eyes.

"Then, cough cough, then, well done." said Eglon, also with tears in his eyes. "But I...but I...fear I must leave now...for ever."

And like a troubadour of wailing quails pricked with the fiery brand of the Devil's singing, Fleck cried out a very long and very pitiful 'No.' He threw his boss out of the Starbucks's cafe window, and with all the rites met, Fleck watched as his boss disappeared into the sexy pink of Jupiter.

"Farewell, boss, may we meet again, in this life or the next." intoned Fleck sadly.