-
...chisel.
It turned out that this particular droid was of the darkside variety, and couldn't resist exhibiting his tools whenever the opportunity presented itself (or even when it didn't, come to that).
"Put that useless thing away," roared Frontbottom. "If you don't have anything useful, like an oilcan, you're wasting good bandwidth by being in this tale."
The droid shrunk into his carbon fibre exoskeleton and slunk away.
"Right," said Lance Corporal (formerly Major) Frontbottom. "now that that's sorted out, the rest of you can stop frissoning all over the place, and apply your collective intelligence, meagre though it may be, to getting us out of our present predicament, which is...."
-
"... as yet unexplained. What, for instance, is with all the shimmering?"
Frontbottom was puzzled.
"I'm ....."
-
puzzled. "well I'm not" said Roger (VC & Bar with bronze clamps(or cramps??))
"Everyone knows its showing the end of the Christmas season so back to work you lazy lot of wasted...............
-
...space."
With that, he peered down his aquiline nose at Lance Corporal (formerly Major) Frontbottom, and in his best parade ground voice, (which, mind you, was none to good) ordered...
-
.... a pepperoni pizza, family size with anchovies and extra olives!
There was a stunned silence.
Lance-Corporal (formerly Major) Frontbottom was the first to recover:
"Can I just confirm your order, sir?" he said. "That was a family-size pepperoni pizza with anchovies and extra olives? Would you prefer thin and crispy or a deep-pan base?"
Scarcely had the words left his lips when ....
-
With a shiver of her timbers, the Very Little Gravitas Indeed finally succeeded in pushing through the Rip.
At first glance, their new location didn't look vastly different to where they had been prior to Roger's prodigous fart that had opened the Rip in the first place.
They were still surrounded by a vast expanse of blue water that stretched from horizon to horizon unbroken by any feature.
However on bouard the VLGI it was immediatley apparent that more than a few changes had occured.
Lance Corporal (formerly Major) Frontbottom was amazed and not a little chuffed to find himself wearing the uniform of a Lieutenant Colonel of The Royal Marines!
"And about bloody time too" he ejaculated arrogantly "no Frontbottom has ever been brought so low as to be a mere Lance Corporal!"
Roger however had not quite fared as well. In fact, it appeared that he'd been reduced to his former position of Cabin Boy!
"Oh no" groaned Groans to Captain-Cook Bastard "you know what this means don't you? We're going to be subjected to endless puns again on the name Roger and the words cabin boy"
'Well that's as maybe" replied Cook-Bastard "but if Roger's the cabin boy, who's in command of this ship?"
"Funny you should ask that" interjected .......
-
... the lowly Roger. "I've just been down to the captain's cabin to see if he wanted a drink or something. But there's no-one there."
"He must be somewhere else then," said Groans - ever the master of the bleeding obvious.
A search of the ship was instituted to find the captain. The entire vessel was combed from bowsprit to taffrail and from bilges to burgee - with no success. The vessel appeared to be completely leaderless!
"You know what this means," said ....
-
Staines (who was still a seaman by the way) "It means that we're just like the Marie Celeste, only different"
"What?!" thundered Lieutenant Colonel Frontbottom "explain yourself man if you please!"
"We-ll " began Staines nervously "you see ......
-
However, before Seaman Staines (to give him his full title) could continue, he was shoved rudely to one side by the ever-imposing figure of the Mother Farcquar.
"Just a minute!" quoth she. "If Roger the Cabin Boy is no longer Lt Commander Roger (VC and Bar), Master and Commander, indeed, Captain of this vessel, then who is?"
"We don't know!" wailed the assembled crew.
"You don't know?" said the Mother Farcquar.
"No! We don't know!" chorused the crew.
"So who? I say - who?" said the Mother Farcquar, sounding remarkably like Foghorn Leghorn (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course). "Who were you looking for when you conducted your extensive search of the ship?"
"Well .... the captain," they all said.
"And how would you know that you had found him if you don't know who he is?"
In the face of this devastating demonstration of logic, there was ....
-
a general gobsmacking.
"I'm gobsmacked" offered Groans to absolutely nobody's surprise.
"Just a minute" interposed Frontbottom "perhaps we should have an erection?"
I'm sorry, I'll read that again.
"perhaps we should have an election?"
"Ahhh, an election" quoth the mother F. "vote for this then, and she..
-
... (very rudely, it has to be said), turned round, flicked up her skirts, bent over and hauled down her drawers to reveal her gargantuan buttocks.
A frisson of horror ran through most of the crew.
However, there was one amongst their number whose reaction to the sight of those great wobbling glutei maximus was very different.
Yes! It was ....
-
...very different indeed. The Well Known Suntan Lotion Test Pilot, Buck Naked, far from frissoning in horror like the rest of the crew, burst into tears of joy.
"Mother", he sobbed, "at last I've found you. Ever since the day of my birth, when you abandoned me in the Caymans, I've been searching for you in all the luxurious dens of iniquity on this earth. I knew that one day our paths would cross, but always feared that I wouldn't recognise you when they did. However, only one tiny gene pool could have glutei maximi like those in it, and we're both in it. If that were not enough, we also share the same...
-
But before he could reveal what characteristic it was that he thought he shared with the Mother Farcquar, he, like Seaman Staines before him, was interrupted by Herself.
Smacking him backhanded around the chops, she felled poor old Buck.
"So, it was you!," she hissed. "People have been telling me about a little brown nudist who has been following me about and asking questions about me. I'm not your mother, you twerp! I'm Farcquar's mother! Your name's not Farquar, is it? Of course it isn't. Farcquar wouldn't be so crass as to prance about with no strides on! You're a disgrace, that's what you..."
She paused to draw breath and ....
-
...pull up her knickers, which in the slight prevailing breeze, had billowed like a spinnaker on an 18' skiff.
In his foetal position on the deck, Buck whimpered and trembled. His formerly buffed, steroid-assisted torso wobbled like a blob of peanut butter flavoured jelly and the side of his face where his putative mother had thumped him had started to turn nice shade of purple.
"Well hold on a second," said Lieutenant Colonel (formerly Lance Corporal Major) Frontbottom, "there is certainly a family resemblance between you two. In fact, apart from a certain careless mis-sorting of chromosomes, you could be identical twins. Are you sure you aren't the poor sod's mother?" Seeing Mother Farquar taking a backswing and getting ready to take a swipe at him, Frontbottom took a quick step back ...
-
and bumped into Fellatio Hornblower.
"Belay that backswing madam if you please" said Fellatio
"for you see I am the one you seek. (Well not just mother F of course but the whole crew of the VLGI).
Yes, that's right I am your new master and commander and the captain of this ship!"
The crew were absolutely slack jawed at this devolpment.
Seaman Staines approached Fellatio and.....
