Interlude
“Dump the garbage overboard and set course for GTS-345.” Captain Sherwood cried.
“Beg your pardon Captain but were receiving a message from Mr. G himself.”
“What does he say Dora?”
“He’s getting reports of illegal dumping of garbage bags and other materials. He wishes to remind all ships to please confine their dumps to uninhabited systems or better yet recycle.”
“Do you wish to tell those GTS-Goddess in the hold to recycle?”
“No.”
“Change of orders, warp to the nearest black hole, dump the garbage, then head for world GTS-345.”
End interlude
Eric Bust life since meeting Michelle and Veronica has been an never ending nightmare.
First Michelle, dropped him from a mile off the ground. To his amazement he didn’t die on impact. Then a whole bunch of goddess stepped on him. Their foot odour was overwhelming. Not to mention their weight. He could feel his bones being crushed to power, yet his body refused to die. Currently he was being used as a ball in a game of pet toss. Back and forth, he went. First the redhead, then blond. He was being thrown to the redhead, when she suddenly turned. Eric shot right pass her, crashing to the ground.
“See that flash in the distance blank. Nuclear war has begun. It’s tme to zap these Humans into oblivion.”
“Wait Bubla. The pet catching contest is this mourning. Wait Until the kissers have had their fun.. Then you can zap to your heart’s content.”
“Very well. I will spare these people for now. In the meantime, I’m going to do some target practice.” She then zapped the moon, giving it a big new crater.
“Good shooting.”
“That’s nothing watch me zap Jessica between the eyes.” And she did.
“Ow, Who did that?” Jessica demanded.
“I did. What are you going to do about it?”
“If I ever get the ability to move through space, I’m going to make you pay Bubla.” Jessica vowed.
As dawn came over the eastern seaboard of North America Janice was watching the mourning news with her mother.
“World leaders are disappointed, with the results of their nuclear attack last night. As far as we know, no GTS-Goddess have died in the attacks. Although we did manage to destroy the dancers bomb box and turn the golfers golf clubs into radioactive slag. Unfortunately this comes at the cost of two million Human lives. Three hundred thousand of those lives were here in new America. The cities of New Hudson and Hartford were targets.”
The reporter paused as she was told sometime off camera.
“We just received word of a large gathering of Goddess at Albany. We go live to our reporter on the scene.”
“This is Radford, reporting to you live several miles outside Albany. As you can see off in the distance is a gathering of several goddess. One of them, a pretty brunette, looks like she has a mike in her hand. All of these ladies are huge, all of them are hundreds or thousands of feet tall, by our estimates. Only from a distance of several miles can you get a good look at these ladies.”
“Any idea what there up to Radford?”
“We heard rumours of some sort of contest. The earth is shaking slightly from their movements. Wait a moment, the one with the mike is starting to speak.”
“Good mourning all, As you know I’m goddess Cymbeline. I’m here to welcome you to the Pet Catching contest. Which is being broadcast by multiuniverse TV. Before we get started, why don’t you introduce yourselves to the media and you’re soon to be pets.
Wendy: “Hi I’m Wendy. I rule GTS-780.”
Michelle: “Michelle here. GTS-720 better known as Michelle world is my home domain.”
Pamela: “Pamela is the name. Ruling GTS-799 is my game.”
Sonya: “I am called Sonya. The people of GTS-300 worship me as their goddess.”
Jill: “My name is Jill. I don’t rule a world. I am a drifter.”
Kristen: “I am Goddess Kristen, but please call me Kristen. My home world is called Earth.”
Cymbelline: “Can you be more exact?”
Kristen: “It’s Mr. G’s home world.”
All the other goddess stared at Kristen. They had never met anyone who claimed to be from Mr. G’s home world. Kristen a little embarrassed by the attention said;
“Can we please get on with it. I want to catch some pets.”
Cymbelline: “Very well, get in line goddess. Once Eric starts the clock you have one hour to catch and kiss as many people as you can. Good luck you all. Anytime Eric.”
Eric thought about disobeying orders, but with so many goddesses around, what chance did he have of resistance? Sadly he started the clock, and six GTS-Goddesses headed for the nearest towns.
Radford observed the goddess, with alarm. How dare they treat Humans as pets.
“Radford here, as you can see the goddess are spreading out. Already there reaching down to pick up people. It’s hard to tell from this distance. All of the goddess seem to me kissing something. Wait a sec two of them are having a shoving match. Wow, that brunette just doubled in size, she easily pushing that red head aside. One of the goddess is starting head in my direction. She good looking, has shoulder length brown hair. Nice athletic build. Wow, she just picked up the entire village of Red Deer and put it in her mouth. She spitting out the people, Oh this is awful. Oh no I think she spotted me.”
Radford then tried to run, but Goddess Kristen picked him up with ease. Radford watched as her lips got closer and closer, then he was forced inside her mouth. After be tossed around for a few seconds, he was spit out. As he fell to the ground he saw her pick up a whole bunch of people. He expected to die when he hit the ground, but he didn’t.
“We seem to have lost contact with our camera person. We hope to get someone else on the scene shortly. Please stand by.”
Janice turned off the TV she had seen enough.
The pet catching contest was proving to be full of surprises. Goddess Kristen assumed at first, when you kissed a person you hung on to him or her. But she quickly noticed the other goddess kissing and dropping. When she though about it. It made sense, for pets were made to take all kinds of abuse, and they do come when called. Besides it was just too hard to hang on to large numbers of people, while grabbing for more.
It was a beautiful day on Xiticoum. The fairy like inhabitants went about their normal business. Not realizing their lives were about to end, for their world was heading for Goddess Susan’s forehead, at faster than light speeds.
Without warning the world beneath their feet was crushed to dust. Their sun exploded on contact with Susan’s skin.
Goddess Susan: “I’m bored. I’m going to create some galaxy sculptures. What to join me?”
Goddess Brandi: “You want to quit because were creaming you.”
Goddess Evylinn: “She does have a point. This is getting old. But creating shapes with galaxies? Well evil goddesses don’t do things like that.”
Goddess Brandi: “What do you have in mind?”
Goddess Evylinn looked at the galaxies around her, then said;
“All around us, there are millions upon millions of alien civilizations. It’s time they paid tribute to me.”
“What about me?” Goddess Brandi asked.
“Find your own civilizations. Now if you excuse me, I got subjects to meet.” She then headed for the nearest spiral galaxy. She then shrank down to a trillion miles in length, so she could actually see the planets.
Goddess Brandi tried to shrink down , but found she was stuck.
“Damn. Why didn’t I put down a size range on that form. Being one size all the time is boring.” Then she had an idea.
“Maybe the Sizechangers can help me. They can enlarge objects. With luck I can get them, to enlarge a planet or two. Some food would be nice as well. But where can I find them?”
As Goddess Brandi started her search for the Sizechangers Goddess Susan was having a semi good time shaping galaxies. She tried making square galaxies and galaxies that had a human shape. But they keep falling apart. It seemed that galaxies resisted unnatural shapes.
“I wonder if Kristen is having a good time at that pet catching contest?” she said aloud.
Goddess Kristen was getting worried. She was running out of towns. She considered getting bigger so she could kiss entire countries, but before she could do so, the clock bell rang.
“Time up goddess, please herd your pets, to the counting area.” Goddess Cymbelline told the other goddess.
Eric looked at his fellow pets. There were thousands of them. They consisted of men, woman and children, in some cases entire families. It was a slice of new America.
“At least I got company.” He thought.
All the pets(expect for Eric) were gathered into different groups, all the people who were kissed by Wendy were in one group, all of Michelle’s pets in another group and so on.
After a few minutes of counting, the results were announced.
“In sixth place is Wendy with 8,000 pets, fifth place is Jill with 12,000, fourth place is Sonya with 28,000 pets, third place goes to Kristen with 30,000…”
“Darn.” Kristen said
“Second place goes to Michelle with 40,000 and the winner is Pamela with 60,000 pets.”
All the Goddess then cheered, and congratulated Pamela. Some of them latter went to Kristen and told her, that 30,000 pets was very good for a first timer. One goddess even told her “How many pet’s does a goddess need?”
All the goddess put their pets in big bags marked ‘Bag-of-Pets’. Most of the goddess went home, but Goddess Kristen wanted to see how Susan was doing. After altering her pets so they could survive in the vacuum of Extragalactic space. She began to enlarge herself. While she was doing this, Kristen launched herself into space, pet bag in tow.
Goddess Geralidine and Rose, watched Kristen leave Earth, for a growing goddess makes quite a sight. Rose sighed.
“Something wrong?” Geralidine asked.
“I was just thinking. Most goddesses are assigned to rule worlds or help keep worlds under GTS-Goddess rule. I wonder what their role will be.”
“That’s what bothering you?”
“No, I’m afraid I’m the one who will be the one to give them their marching orders.”
“You know Rose. I have a feeling that besides from Mr. G himself, nobody will giving those newcomers orders of any kind.”
Bubla waited until all the other GTS-Goddess were gone from Jessica World. Then she started zapping. To the people of Jessica’s world she looked like a 10,000 foot flame thrower. As she sent streams of flame to the cites of New America. City after city went up in smoke, people died by the millions as Bubla toured the world leaving death and destruction in her wake.
After she visited all the populated continents, Bubla went home, with the satisfaction that she had punished a race that dared to challenge the GTS-Goddess race.
Janice and Colleen looked down at the remains of their home town. Thank God, Jessica warned them of Bula intentions. As they and the other survivors huddled in the woods, they all wondered “What do we do now?”
The end