Elio was picking up a strange transmission. It was his turn to monitor the communication channels - boring - and he was amusing himself by drawing up new mutiny plans, ready to hide where the Captain would find them. Most of the plans were deeply flawed, so this was the best use for them. He was writing in crayon. Crayons were shockingly easy to acquire in space.

Whenever he got bored of his crayon drawings (Selena’s eyes would roll out of her head if she were here), he would amuse himself by typing random words into the communications monitor: ‘Boring boring boring eeny meeny miny moe brouhaha hullabaloo crayon Popsicle…’

He’d had a hit. ‘Crayon.’ Someone was talking about crayons… on a disused channel? That was weird. He hadn’t realised that channel was even accessible. Cautiously, he tuned in to hear what was being said.

“...and then they discontinued it. Discontinued it! The Dandelion crayon was my favourite one!” (It was Elio’s favourite too. A fellow Dandelion lover!) “It’s the only one you can use to draw the sun properly, and then they-”

“Uh…” someone said tentatively, “I can see that this is really upsetting for you, but we were talking about your other evil revenge plan, remember?”

“Against my old principal?”

“No…”

“Douglas Adams? He ruined a perfectly good series with ‘So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.’”

“No.”

“That girl Tina from high school?”

“No!”

“I have many revenge plans! Can you give me a hint?”

There was more than a little frustration in their voice as whoever it was responded. “The plan to stop that no-good human who ruined our mutiny! It’s all her fault that we’re here, floating around in the middle of space when we could be ruling the universe!”

Elio paused. Elaborate jokes were his specialty, and mutiny was one of the things he found funniest. However, some instinct was telling him that this was not meant to be humorous. Sighing, he stood up (he hated doing that) and went to inform the Captain.

* * *

Asani was a rebel, and he liked to make that very clear. He wore a leather vest with four jaggedly ripped holes for his claws. He wore approximately twelve silver chains around his neck (he had never paid much attention in school so he didn’t know the exact number) and wore copious amounts of black eyeliner on his eyestalks. His carapace was etched with pictures of human skulls and xanthid exoskeletons. One particularly large skull was there to commemorate that girl Tina from high school who had once called him a crab.

Xanthidae were not crabs. They walked upright on six legs, could talk, and had bigger brains than humans. That-girl-Tina-from-high-school was going to pay one day, right after the so-called actually-officially-called ‘Captain’ did.

When Asani realised the Captain was in the area, he had begun formulating his plan. (It wasn’t really a plan. Anarchists don’t need plans.) His not-plan was very simple: find the Captain and make her pay for all she had done to him. This not-plan had so far been difficult to enact, considering that his crew ate only junk food and went to bed at 3 am, making them prone to fatigue and laziness. However, Asani had the element of surprise on his side.

Also, his ship had twenty-seven lasers strapped onto it. And a gigantic cannon.

The lasers and the cannon were connected to glass tubes which passed through the fishbowl which floated around his ship, a first-rate man-of-war. The fishbowl was very important, because it kept the air from escaping, which would be problematic. It unfortunately did give his enemies more ammunition for their ‘crab’ comments.

Anyway, the point was that he was ready to take over the Captain’s research station and steal her treasure. There was a corner of his booty room all ready.
And if she resisted… well, that was where the lasers came in.

* * *

“So, wait,” said Elio. He had produced a small notebook from somewhere and sat with pen poised. “How did they pull off this mutiny again?”

Selena, meanwhile, looked like she was going to faint. “A… a boat? In a fishbowl? That’s mathematically impossible!”

The Captain chose to glare at Elio first. “They didn’t ‘pull off’ anything. I wasn’t about to let a bunch of scumbags like those mutiny on my first mission as a space cadet! So we showed them!”

“But they escaped.”

She glowered at him. This was her usual expression when it came to Elio so he wasn’t especially intimidated. “Yes, they escaped. In that rotten fishbowl contraption I told you about -” Selena looked woozy “- and good riddance, I say!” Then her eyes narrowed. “But are you absolutely sure it’s them?”

Elio paused. “Well, they said something about an ‘evil revenge plan,’ and stopping ‘that no-good human who ruined our mutiny,’ (and even considering everyone in the universe they still probably meant you,) and also something about ‘ruling the universe.’”

The Captain grimaced. She was really pulling out all the stops on angry expressions today. “That sounds like Asani. We have to stop him.” The Captain, Elio and Selena exchanged determined expressions. They were ready to come up with a heroic plan to save the universe.

Then the Captain ruined the moment. “I meant,” she growled, “that I have to come up with a plan to stop him that you schmucks will then enact.”

And with that, she stormed away.