Pontas Pilot

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This article, Pontas Pilot, contains the following: Graphic Language. Reader discretion is advised.

Xikal, second moon of Planet Xii, January 17, Age 780

Monaka tipped his hat to the pinkish, caped Prince Beelzebub, who alone had come to greet him on the dark landing pad outside the Starchasers’ moonbase. “Thank you for choosing us for all your shipping needs, and please consider using us again in the future.”

“Thanks, man. I can’t get enough of The Yardratian,” he said, thumbing through the magazine. “What a bunch of pretentious snobs. Their narcissism sustains me.”

The demon glaring at him, Monaka retreated to his ship and hastily left Xikal, swearing he’d never return until the next shipment brought him back. The solar system vanished in a bending ripple in space-time, and as he propped his feet up on the dashboard, he was thankful to be away from that cheeky guy. He changed channels to the ‘Opie & Space Anthony Show’, and while he had missed a few minutes of the opening, he cared not, for they never read listener emails this early anyway.

“Speaking of which,” Opie burped into the mic (three seconds of dead silence followed), “let’s go to Great Pontas for—”

Space Anthony scoffed. “Nooo! I will not suffer any listeners today. It’s… I can’t explain to you how I hate the fans. Especially the ones who write in.”

“All kiddin’ aside, let’s read a good letter from a fan. Let’s not—let’s stop fudging around (excuse my Space French),” said Space Chippah.

“I would rather succumb to a decades-long bout with penile cancer than hear what that asinine ‘Great Pontas’ has to say. But that’s just me,” Space Anthony replied.

“Hey Anthony, all kiddin’ aside, there’s no reason to call yourself an ass,” he snorted, clapping. “Fuckin’ home-run Chipperson. Go to break, Erock.”

The show did, leaving Monaka to stew. He had written something funny, something worthy of being read on the air for millions of fans. Space Anthony had ruined everything. In that case, he’d get them, and he’d get them good. Nobody did that to him. He would not be silenced. His chest bristled. They had crossed a line; now they would learn what it meant to mess with him. He couldn’t wait until his shift was over.

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Forty-six days later, Monaka journeyed to the asteroid Space Sirius XM’s skyscraper had been built upon with a shipment of thirty-two frozen space pizzas for a pig called Nagel. Afterward, he hung around the delivery parking lot, for almost every space Wednesday, Opie & Space Anthony ordered space sushi for lunch. This would be his ticket in.

The vacant, artificially-lit lot was bitterly cold, so he remained in his ship until the delivery boy arrived. Throwing open the door, he ran to the juvenile space-badger, wiping sweat from his brow. ₩1500 was all it took to convince the kid to swap his bag of sushi with Monaka’s, which had been laced with a substance not unlike denatonium benzoate.

If there was one thing Monaka had learned in his travels through the galaxy, it was that there was a sucker born every second. The delivery boy vanished behind the black front doors, while he felt a groan of hunger rattle his bones. This was too perfect. Returning to his ship, he punched in the coordinates for the next destination: Faeri. Some woman there had ordered a discounted three-piece bathing suit two-pack at a steep discount.

Leaving the asteroid belt, Monaka broke open the bag of space sushi and changed the channel to Space Scorch’s show (live in Space Syracuse).

“And, uh, a reminder that the color of the day is verdigris. Number of the day… uh, let’s see what we got for ya… yeah, that’s gonna be fifty-seven. Fifty-seven. Heh. Well, alright, how about that? Now, let’s look inside Scorch’s Huge Mailbag.”

“Scorch’s Huge Mailbag!” a woman sang in falsetto as a jingle played, which was soon drowned out by synthetic applause.

“Yes, heheh, it’s the mailbag. Let’s see… first up: Mr. Great Pontas. Heh, weird name. I mean, whatever works for you. That’s what I say. Live and let live. Anywho, Mr. Great Pontas writes, ‘I work for a Cosmic Shipping company, and sometimes, when I get a package with a ‘DO NOT BEND’ message on it, I practice my space origami on it.’. Heh, well, would you look at that. We have a jokester on the loose. Alert the Galactic Patrol. Heh, sorry about that, folks. Anyway, moving on, let’s get started with the ‘Wheel of Meat’…”

Without a ship or planet in sight, the little rusting delivery truck pressed onwards through the void. Biting his lip, holding back just in case (for he was still on the clock), tickled by that old familiar chafing feeling, Monaka thought to himself, Got ‘em again.