Crane stood on one side of his new ship. Which was a good job, as there was a 1000 foot drop on the other side. He smiled. He’d finally made it. He’d finally become a Science Research spaceship pilot. To ‘boldly go’ and all that. He would prove the doubters wrong. Those that thought he wasn’t good enough, not strong enough, not quite the full shilling, with a brain whose lift didn’t go all the way to the top floor. He took one more look, drank it all in, and stepped forward towards the airlock door and pressed the button……..

Only, the button didn’t work. He pressed it again. Nothing moved. He stared at the button. It didn’t seem real, as if someone had……..and then he heard the sniggering from behind. He spun round to find his crew, some bent double, stifling bags of laughter in their socks and bellies. He turned back to the ‘door’. It took a few seconds, a few touches and a couple of licks of fingers, before it dawned on him. The sods had drawn a full size replica of the airlock door on the side of the ship and covered up the real door with camouflage tape*.

*camouflage tape – a chameleonesque material, made from graphene, dosed with heavy Xerium*, capable of changing colour and shape to match its surroundings.

*Xerium – one of the first ‘superelements’ first found on the planet Voris, one of the first inhabited planets found during Earths early voyages into deep space.

Crane had realised early on that there were people who wanted him to fail, and, as a result, they’d given him, what looked like on grapheneplus* © 😎, the worst crew of reprobates ever assembled. He would prove them wrong and transform the idiots they’d given him into the best space crew ever, even if it drove him to spend all his time on SpaceTwitter.

‘Ha ha, very funny, good jibe, never saw it coming…..get it, never saw….it …coming….oh never mind’

More sniggers……..

* GraphenePlus – GraphenePlus had been discovered in the early 21st century. Thin, flexible and tough, it and it’s variants now had many uses, including flexible display screens, and the Google Eye

‘Ok. Enough. If someone could show me where the real door is and we can get this show on the road. We’ve got less than 48hrs to get this ship ready to launch and I need you lot to start behaving like adults……’

Even more sniggers……

Behind the still chortling crew from hell, a door slid open. Three more members of his new crew walked out onto the loading bay. With twenty ships leaving Earth, all with the same mission, there had been a mad rush to choose a crew. However, by the time Crane had received his email, he discovered all the other ship pilots had long since had theirs, leaving Crane with no choice but to take what was left.

So, what stood in front of him was the planet Voris’s leftovers. The other pilots had obviously chosen all human crews leaving Crane, with Bloorp, Exar and Trest, three of the planet Voris’s indigenous species, who’d been brought back to Earth, because they were the only ones scientists had been unable to work out what on earth they could do. Five years on, their skills and purpose were still a mystery. Crane had been well and truly stitched up. Here he was, on what should have been the pinnacle of his scientific career, exploring the far flung corners of the galaxy to better humankind, with a human crew of childish pranksters and the planet Voris”s most useless aliens. Crane groaned, sighed, shrugged, sighed some more and then, broke wind. He was about to turn round, admit defeat, call the whole thing off, tell the crew to go home, when Bloorp said……

‘It’s over there….’

Crane turned around…….Bloorp was a Bloorper from Voris. Squat, always looking as if he was wearing a lifebelt under his uniform, and, with what could only be described as a large magnifying glass for a head, he had apparently never spoken a word in all the 5 years scientists had studied him……….

‘What did you say?’

‘The door…..it’s over there’ …..pointing his little fat finger at the ship.

‘Show me’ said Crane, still shocked at hearing Bloorp speak, wondering whether he was as daft as the rest of the crew.

Bloorp, waddled over to the ship, and held out his hand. Suddenly a tiny ball of light floated from Bloorp’s finger*, towards the hull. Crane watched as the camouflage tape, appeared, glowing, before becoming transparent, revealing the entrance to the ship.

* Bloorp had, what appeard to be, only one finger on each hand, which had been slightly misconstrued on several occasions, leading to minor altercations with members of staff and the public

‘Oh Bloorp, they told me you were the most useless alien the planet Voris has ever seen…..well….apart from your two friends…….but that was genius’

For the first time in a while, the crew had stopped laughing, mesmerised at what Bloorp had just done. They muttered, staring at Bloorp as they trudged past him, through the now open hatch, into the ship.

Once Crane and the crew had disappeared through the doorway, Bloorp turned towards Exar and Trest, revealing his real face on his magnifier, started to glow, shot thirty foot in the air, pirouetted and landed next to his Vorisian friends.

Bloorps magnifier changed colour and some weird shapes appeared, floating in space in Bloorps ‘head’.

Exar and Trest smiled. Bloorps hieroglyphics simply said…

‘This is going to be fun……..’ ☺️

Crane Intergalactic Hero – The Voyage of Ineptitude. Episode 1 ‘Bloorp and the Camouflage Door’ was brought to you by @qosfc1919 and Dodo Productions © 2014