THE NEON LITES:

The Search for Alternative Fuel Sources

A general scrambled ensued, during which Bruce was swept backwards into the space ship and onto the freshly decorated bridge. Adept for once, Mollie got the hatch shut behind them, just as a large troop of men in military-type uniform massed in the doorway.

"Aaaaah-chooo!" Snerdly exploded.

"Bless you," Tasha said, absently, checking her makeup in the mirror over the bar. Snerdly glared.

"That was insane!" he hollered, stamping an unfashionably shod foot. "If you MUST insist on these foolhardy courses of action, then I-I-Aaaaa-chooo!"

"Bless you," Mollie interrupted.

"…I will not be held responsible for the -the-aaaa-choo!"

Hamish glared at Snerdly, hands on hips. "What's wrong wi' ye lad, apart frae the obvious?"

Snerdly glared. Up. "I am allergic to dogs! Aaa-choo! Aaa-choo!"

Sparki shook her head. "Bogus, Snerd-dud…er...dude. Here. Try this." Pinching Snerdly's nose shut with one hand, Sparki used the other to empty a small vial of liquid into his open and protesting mouth. Snerdly gulped and coughed, flailing wildly, but swallowed nonetheless.

"That - I - you -" he raged, then stopped in surprise. "My sneezing! It stopped!"

Sparki grinned. "Totally cool organic remedy," she agreed. "Like it opens the nasal passages and drains the sinuses WAY primo fast…triumphant, eh?"

Hamish stared, confused.

"Mostly alcohol," Craig translated, carefully reading the label. "But good for what ails ye."
Mollie stamped her foot. "What is WRONG with you! We have military killers after us outside the ship, and FBI agents after us inside the ship and you people are discussing cures for hayfever!"

Sparki patted her shoulder. "Way true, dudette, we're like, totally homeopathic, but no way copasetic. But hey, like don’t worry about those guys from the federal bureau of like total investigation, you know? `Cause Fiddleman and the Pipe Dude like radically beamed them someplace totally else, for sure."

Mollie stared at the Scotsmen. "You BEAMED them? Where?!"

Craig grinned hopefully. "Through time."

Snerdly leaped to his feet, denting the arch of the low doorway with his head. "Those were FBI agents!" he squawked, "The GOOD GUYS!"

Craig looked crestfallen. "Oooops….we thought they were from Immigration."

Snerdly clapped a hand to his forehead. "WHERE did you send them?"
Hamish shrugged guiltily. "No' far laddie…just over to Sunday nights at 6:00."

"Bogus," Sparki rolled her eyes in sympathy. "Ratings hell."

Tasha perked up, understanding part of the conversation at last. "Beamed them? Can we really BEAM places? I wonder if there is a Neiman Marcus nearby…"

Mollie sank into a chair. "Well, at least we're all here," she said after counting noses. "Let's get out while we can. Snerdly?"

Snerdly glared. "We are NOT going anywhere. We are FINALLY safe back on earth and on American soil, and we are STAYING RIGHT HERE!"

Sighing, Hamish picked him up by the belt. "Laddie," he opined, "You're startin' to wear on the nerves a wee bit."

Five feet off the floor, Snerdly finally snapped. "As for YOU!" he bellowed, nose to nose with Hamish, "Nobody ASKED you, you bagpipe toting, hairy kneed, kilt wearing, Haggis eating…aaaaarrrrggghhhhh!
A crash followed shortly thereafter, and Snerdly landed abruptly in the midst of a silk fichus tree cunningly lit by track lighting. ("Watch the silk, sweetheart!" Bruce called out.)

Craig grinned. "Hamish wins the caber toss at the Highland Games every year," he explained. "Yon throw was hardly a warm up."

"Let's go!" Mollie glared, and without further ado, the ship burst through the wall and into the stars.

After the takeoff (and in the temporary absence of Snerdly) there was silence on the bridge for all of three seconds.

"Hamish, honey," Bruce exclaimed, reaching suddenly for a loose thread, "Let me get that for you…"

A second take off echoed through the ship, as Scot and Hairdresser actually looked at each other for the first time.

"AAAaaiiii!" said Hamish succinctly, and fled down the hall, the other end of an ever lengthening piece of wool still held in the manicured fingers of Bruce.

Craig's eyes opened wide. "Hamish!" he cried, as Bruce raised startled eyebrows. "Stop running man, stop running."

Tasha shrugged. "Mini kilts," she offered helpfully, "are a definite fashion statement."

"Totally modern multi-cultural…" Sparki agreed, but Bruce only whistled.

"Whoa," Sparki observed, as Hamish flew unobstructed down the hallway. "Like those kilts unravel TOTALLY fast!"

Craig snatched the thread from Bruce's fingers and set out in pursuit of his friend. "Aye," he replied over his shoulder as her ran, "but they dinnae unravel half as fast as Hamish!"

************************************

Sometime later, with Hamish pieced together and diligently knotted by Tasha ("Bitch…" Bruce said sulkily) the humans and Mew sat down to determine their next course of action.

"What we need is a star map…" Mollie suggested, as Bruce passed around hors d'eouvres on space shock resistant Tiffany china.

"Hold on," Hamish said, digging in his sporran. "Had one a wee while back. Let me look." Further rummaging produced a tin whistle, a kilt pin, a Silly Wizard cassette and the top tier of a wedding cake. Hamish shrugged. "Not there…I suppose I dropped it when I was leapin' aboard." He glared at Bruce. "Or when I was fleein' in self-defense."

Mew shuddered. "Please don't mention fleas, there's a good chap," he pleaded.

Bruce smiled. "Two snaps up for fast recovery," he flirted. "But who said you had to run?"
Hamish edged away, drawing a six-foot claymore out of the small pouch and setting it handily nearby. "What noo?"
A sudden lurch of the ship threw Craig flat onto the top tier of the wedding cake, as smoke began suddenly to billow from under the newly slip covered console. A moment later, Snerdly staggered through the hatchway, soot-streaked and rumpled, clutching a set of spark plugs.

Bruce eyed him distastefully. "Ruin my whole party why don't you?"
Snerdly sputtered. "I was trying to adjust the transmotivational combustion nebulizer triographical tapogromorpher…" he groaned, his pocket protector melting from the stress. "And it broke."

"BROKE?" echoed Mollie.

"Like okay, that's mondo bad news, right?" Sparki queried.

"FUTHERMORE!" Snerdly bawled, on the cutting edge of hysteria, "WE ARE OUT OF GAS!!!!"

Craig offered him a plate. "Try the curry - it'll only be a matter o' time…"

Snerdly dashed the plate to the floor, where it bounced up and smacked him in the nose, saving Craig the trouble. "WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DOOOOOOOO?!?!"

The ship lurched once, twice, sputtering and coughing (rather like Snerdly) before dropping through space like a stone.

Tasha screamed as her perm went completely flat, and Bruce fainted outright as the finger sandwiches met abrupt death against the bulkhead.

Struggling against the G-force, Hamish and Sparki staggered across the floor (in a manner Hamish was not unused to) and tumbled off down the hallway in a blur of tartan and sequins. Mollie and Mew buried their heads under Bruce's artistically scattered throw pillows (now in danger of being artistically scattered across the cosmos) while Craig fiddled a defiant strathspey against the roar of the hurtling space ship. (A bold and brave effort, for which Snerdly should not have smacked him.)

The roaring grew louder and the lurches more frequent, as the ship plummeted, helpless, through a belt of asteroids and Florida Highway road construction. Tasha had broken two nails and was about to lose another when a deafening silence suddenly filled the ship. A moment later, the freefall ended abruptly, and they all crashed to the floor.

The hatch to the hallway opened.

"Like, way cool use of natural resources, Pipe-Dude!" Sparki enthused at Hamish.

Snerdly removed the fiddle bow from his left ear and glared at Craig accusingly. "What have you done?" he demanded, switching his glare over to Hamish.

Sparki grinned. "Like, okay, the ignition system was totally way gone forget it, you know? And the tank dry as a virtual bone (no offense, Dog-Dude) SO we figured we needed to, like, spark some bogus combustion and fill the tank with an alternative liquid or we'd all be in the history books as way totally dead dudes. As if! All we needed was fire and fuel, you know? So that's what we did!"

Snerdly boggled. "WHAT?!!"

Hamish staggered into a chair. "We used curry and whiskey…now somebody pour me a drink!" Craig appeared at his elbow, pouring from a flask ingeniously hidden in his fiddle.

"Don't waste that!" Snerdly protested, as Hamish lifted a glass. "It's a valuable fuel source!"

"Aye," the Scotsman growled over the rim of the glass, "And it's MINE!"

Snerdly was about to argue further when the view screen on the console blipped on, and a tinny voice blared from the speakers, rousing Bruce from his faint.

"Whoa…" complained Sparki, "like we totally need surround sound."

"You have entered a restricted planetary area…" the figure on the screen informed them, "we have your ship in a tractor beam. You cannot escape. Prepare to be boarded."

The screen went blank and Bruce snapped his fingers. "How rude!"

Craig drew his fiddle bow and went to stand beside Hamish, who stood by the door, claymore at the ready. Drawing his trusty nail file, Bruce joined them, followed by Tasha, with a can of ultra-hold hairspray and Mew with a sharp set of government inspected teeth.

Grabbing the coffee table edition of "Politically Correct Space Stories", Mollie followed as Snerdly glared resentfully.

"Another fine mess you've gotten us into!" he complained, until Sparki tested her zap gun earrings on his butt. Tense and waiting, the friends stood in breathless silence, as the hatch slid open…