Years ago, I was a part of a group of friends I'm pleased to still keep in touch with to this day. We were members of the University of Minnesota Gaming Society and the Fantasy Role Playing Games Association ... or "UMGS" and "FRPGA" for short. We would meet twice weekly to talk, socialize and play games of all types. Then, one day while mowing my mother's lawn, an idea came to me. Actually, it was a sentence ... and it needed fleshing out. But from those few words, "The Mad Penguin sat in the darkened cockpit of the Dreamer's Folly..." sprung an idea that I've adored ever since. I would put forth a story -written by members of UMGS and FRPGA- that starred those self-same members in a semi-alternate-Universe setting of Science Fiction. I began by writing the first installment, followed by other members who quickly warmed to the surreal idea. We ranged from serious SF to pulp fiction to comic books to Anime to comedy and back again. It was a great amount of fun... And, for the first time on the web, here it is...

In The Dreamstate: Part Five
by Jim Felling

Jason woke to pain, a strange burning in His lungs. He opened His eyes. A planet was beneath Him, floating blue-white in the void.

He thought to himself, "That's Epsilon Gamma Omicron Prime, no wait, it's CoMann's World. I need a spaceship. They have one. It's guarded by an army, no, make that two armies. I'll steal it. No problem for one as godly as I." He corrected his course slightly and steeled Himself for reentry.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, an event that would have shocking consequences to the small blue world, to the Empire, and ultimately the entirety of the Universe was happening. The Empire had finally approved the Empire-wide holiday, Imperial Suction Cup Appreciation Day. The leverage that Widerski had upon the Emperor had managed to allow him to ramrod it through the senate, but that was over now, and that was not the event. The event was a small rider attached to the bill, one cutting the funding to all civilian, military, and mercenary operations in the vicinity of CoMann's world. This small rider attached by Senator Scrimp of Klah's World to Senator Widerski's "Holidays We Really Need Bill" would have great influence on many lives.

One of the people whose lives would be so influenced, Senator (and if everything went as planned, Emperor) Comeau sat confidently at his desk trimming the Bonsai pine that grew from his desk. He was happy because as Emperor he could have a window with a southern facing this giving his plant enough light to grow properly. He had felt disturbed when earlier that day an impudent artificial personality had dared threaten him. He had captured it, interrogated it, and when he was finished, turned it into a half- decent bridge program. It was too bad that that was all it was good for, as he didn't particularly care for bridge. The door of his office chirped quietly and he pressed the button on his desk, opening it.

General Taylor swept into the room. "Paul, have you heard the news? Our funding's been cut."

"Calm down Paula. I was expecting this. Everything is going as planned. Want some scotch? It's Glenfiddich from Terra." He poured a glass from the tumbler upon his desk.

"No thanks. How can you be so calm? We can't support them without funding and if you don't pay mercenaries, well, you know what happened to Rome."

"Paula, it's going to be funded, Widerski arranged it for me. I'm going to pay it out of the 'Give Me Money - I'm A Senator Day' fund. I really liked that bill."

At about this time, the Mad Penguin was finally completing repairs to his ship. The elevator was just about fixed, the Comm system was under control, and he finally had the computer able to do something other than fill reams of paper with the letter Q. Just then, a seemingly human figure flashed by, cutting through both bulkheads and leaving a rather large human-shaped silhouette where it had passed. He sighed and resumed repairing the ship.

"What was THAT?" Jason thought to Himself as He passed quickly through an unexpected piece of metallic debris in orbit. It had looked like a space station, but had flashed by so fast that He was well below it before He even realized it was there. He corrected course to land near the capitol city and adjusted His 3-armed (they never seemed to get that right) hospital gown in preparation for reentry.

On the planet, the rebel forces were not faring well. They had retaken the city, but the tenacious Imperial forces of Penguin's P.Y.V. and the newly arrived D.O.A. unit reinforcements were holding the spaceport in an iron grip. This presented problems, for, after all, the only real sources of food on this planet were a bitter-tasting plankton and a natural fungus that resembled tofu. These would suffice in a pinch, but over an extended time such a diet would lead to nutritional deficiencies and potentially deadly concentrations of toxic chemicals within the body. All seemed lost, but Evan Peterson had a plan...

"A canal?" Steve (Juggler) Birmingham exclaimed, puzzled.

"Of course a canal," Evan replied, clearing two lizards and a large spider that had skittered onto the map. "It is a little known fact that a subsurface canal had been planned to ferry cargoes to and from the city. It failed due to lack of funding and is not included on any of the modern maps. The only reason that I know about it was my time as head grounds keeper for CoMann Central. We can enter it here," he said, pointing to a small caffinated beverage stain, "and proceed to take over the spaceport through the primary maintenance tunnels located here, here, and here," he finished, indicating three points upon the map. "Any questions?"

"Are you sure that they won't intercept us? I couldn't take another injury. After all, I only have so many limbs," Yuk Ki Lau asked, fingering his newly-installed cyberarm.

"Absolutely sure. Nothing can go wrong. Any other questions?" replied Evan. He paused. "Very well, you know your jobs, let's show them what we're made of."

Evan's prediction would have been correct, but he could hardly be expected to know about the godling that was just now landing on the fringes of CoMann City.

"Yech!" thought Jason as He brushed off the pieces of plant, animal, and mineral matter off His body. "The one problem I have with reentry is that I, in My infinite wisdom, have not yet figured out how to avoid that jarring stop at the end. Well, now, how to get to the spaceport? Oh yes, that way." He adjusted what remained of his hospital gown and strode off toward the spaceport.

In the spaceport at this time were two of the Penguin's best units, P.Y.V. and D.O.A. and little did they expect what lay in store for them. At P.Y.V. H.Q., a strategic planning meeting was going on between the respective heads of the two mercenary units.

D.O.A.'s head, a ruthless, and somewhat mercenary commander who went by the nom de guerre of Lycon, was not a happy man. He stood umbrella in hand and straw hat on his head. His tall, muscular, gray fur-coated body radiated extreme tension. He had arrived at the city not three days ago in response to F.R.P. and P.Y.V.'s all signal hail and his troops had since been involved in preventing the retreat of the Penguin's forces from the city from becoming a full-fledged rout. "We need to hold this spaceport for three days or quite frankly we will have lost this planet," he said with a worried look, gesturing with his umbrella for emphasis.

His assistant, a Captain Tschimperle, was an eye of calm in the raging storm of confusion. He was at present planning several schemes to keep the spaceport firmly in the Penguin's grasp and allow the arrival of reinforcements. At present he was busily scribbling notes and planning yet another defensive measure to allow them to hold the port for an extra day or two. He was not worried. He knew that if everyone pulled together, there was no force that could penetrate the defensive cordon he had set up. Unfortunately, fate would prove him wrong.

The leaders of P.Y.V. were not so confident, as they had faced the canny generalship of the rebel leaders and seen the fearsome achievements that they had pulled off with their poorly equipped but determined forces. Jim, feeling well, but still confined to a sealed environment to prevent the release of the bio-engineered organisms that the unfortunate Mr. Rust had so regrettably set free. Steve was leaning tiredly in the corner with his wolf curled at his feet. Pietro was sitting back on his chair making adjustments to his cyberarm which he hoped would repair the annoying white that it made every time he attempted to move it. Steve spoke. "That's all well and good, but as you all know as of 18:36 hours today all communication with orbital command and points beyond have gone down. We are attempting to resume contact, but preliminary indications are that the problem is in orbit rather than on planet. If this is true, we can only assume that rebel forces have somehow managed to obtain control of spaceborne vessels and prepare for the worst. Gentlemen, we must hold this spaceport at all costs."

Pietro's response was less than enthusiastic. "Yeah, right, I'll bet that we've already lost if they took out the station as quickly as they did."

Lycon's response came quickly. "We can hold this planet. All we have to do is be willing to work. I for one have more important things to do than sit here..." he was unable to finish his sentence before the perimeter alert Claxons sounded drowning out the end of his utterance.

The cause of the Claxons, one Jason Theis by His name, wads presently striding down the front drive of the spaceport through the perimeter minefields, across the laser defense cordons, through the barbed wide fences. Frankly, as of this moment, He was bored. Where was the challenge, the spirit, the strife of man versus man, the clanging and ringing of swords, the testing of oneself against a superior foe? These antlike foes who were daring to attack Him, He was in His infinite compassion, merely killing as opposed to torturing to death. He was, after all, infinitely merciful.

Evan was very confused. His forces had been doing well, ambushing the mercenaries and taking ground. He had been, needless to day, surprised when one figure in a battered hospital gown began first slowing and then halting fully his advance. To make matters worse, he saw D.O.A. mercenaries beginning to mass across the courtyard. He took a lizard out of his fatigue's pocket and petted it, preparing in his head the safest way to pass this figure.

The D.O.A. forces, on the other hand, were surprised by the fearsomely armed (cybered? mentally powered?) rebel who was resisting their efforts to halt his advance and in fact gaining ground on them. The rebel forces would drive them off the planet if they could bring this awesome fighting machine to bear on other critical Imperial strong points.

"Now this is more fun," Jason thought to Himself. "Finally some resistance." He paused briefly in His thoughts to remove that nasty obstructing Imperial unit from His way. He was nearly to His goal. There was only four Imperial squads and that small rebel tactical laser unit that were in his way. He gestured and suddenly the way was clear. He felt justified that in His infinite compassion these small losses were acceptable in His plan to save the universe for Himself. Shortly afterward he boarded the one spaceship in the whole port and removed Himself from these petty mortal's affairs. He was going to Disney's World.

Evan replaced the lizard in his pocket and looked around. He was surrounded by an admittedly beaten up Imperial force and their primary goal, the acquisition of a spaceship, had irrevocably failed. He knew that this had pretty well crushed the rebellion and tendered his surrender to D.O.A.'s commanders.

On the mercenaries part there was much rejoicing as the rebellion had been crushed. However, theirs was a dark cloud, as they were still incommunicado and perilously short on supplies. They imprisoned the rebel leaders and awaited communication from orbit.

The Penguin was extremely angry when he was handed the Imperial communication stating that they would neither be paid or reimbursed for their losses. He had spent the past 36 hours repairing the huge hole and damage to the communication array and even found that his spacedrive had been rendered inoperable, and now this. Unless he could resupply from a friendly planet, he would spend the rest of his life, short as it may be, orbiting this backwater planet. The Penguin would have his revenge. Even now a plan was forming. He turned to Communications Officer Bonser and said, "Give me a direct line to the rebel leader. It has come time to talk alliance."

Continue to Part Six...