Chapter IV

Maraharishi was not having a good day.

Maraharishi Veda was a door-to-door seller of vacuum-cleaners...in Katmandu, Nepal. He hadn’t sold a single vacuum cleaner all day. He hadn’t sold one in the past three years.

Maraharishi looked up and muttered a curse. To top it all off, it was raining.

It was at this point that his vacuum cleaner began to glow green.

Maraharishi wasn’t surprised; he had always been a magnet for strange phenomena; after all, he had been the only one at the Hindu temple to see Shiva in his bowl of rice pudding, who had commanded him to see the movie Shaft for some inexplicable reason. So it was no wonder to him when the glowing household appliance began to speak to him in an eerie, hollow voice.

"Hello Maraharishi. My name is Gyro. I am an astral body who has come to save your Earth from the forces of the evil Imperial Roach Empire, which has come yet again to enslave your world."

"Roach Empire?" asked Maraharishi in a confused voice. "What Roach Empire?"

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Gyro. "I was told you were debriefed. Well, sit down and I will explain to you what is going on." Gyro then told the following tale to Maraharishi.

Mankind is not alone in this universe. Indeed, Mankind is more like the 352nd extra in a Cecil B. DeMille production. You know, that guy waaaaay in the back with the spitoon on his head.

Anyway, given the fact that the Earth is on the corner of two one the most largest Space Lanes (Galactic Boulevard and the Andromedan Parkway), it was inevitable that sooner or later an alien race would come to eat, get some gas, use the bathroom, or just simply ask for directions.

Unfortunately, not all alien races are that simple. Some have complex religions that govern many of their actions. The Vuuins of Deneb, for example, must eat the soles of their shoes when they see the great goddess Lucy’s hair turn from white to red in the sky (This phenomena is caused by the refractive properties of the Denebian atmosphere, its ability to pick up television reception, and Ted Turner’s colorization of I Love Lucy). On the other hand, there is the Imperial Roach Empire of the planet Neptune, right in Earth’s back yard. They believe that any planet that believes in the pagan god Gharan-tzu and that has had the gall to invent liquid soap should be destroyed. Unfortunately for Earth, Gharan-tzu bears an uncanny resemblance to Gharan-tzu, who gallivanted around for a few decades on Earth under the gaudy name ‘Elvis Presley’. This did not bode well for the human race, for the Imperial Roach Empire landed in the United States at what they believed to be was the center of culture for the world--Graceland.

The first thing they saw a souvenir stand.

The first thing they did was declare war.

It’s hard to fight a war against six-foot cockroaches, because a humans first impulse is to scream "Uugghhhhh!" and then roll up a newspaper and swat it. Newspapers are not that effective against 10-gigawatt plasma/particle beam cannons, not to mention dermal plating that makes these insects as durable as a ’56 Packard. In fact, the U.S. Army worked with a program developing giant shoes to squash the enemy; unfortunately, no one could fit in them. Instead, the leaders of the world put aside their differences

and for the first time in the history of man, worked towards a common goal; the destruction of the alien roaches that were infesting the globe. Thanks to the hard work of the correspondents of CNN, the general public was kept unaware of the cockroach menace that was sitting right there with them in the living room on their couch.

The Imperial Roach Empire was finally expelled from Earth at the decisive Battle of Kalamazoo, where llamas, strapped with tactical nuclear weapons, were stampeded towards the insect legions. The resultant explosions were unnoticed by the general public, as no one really cares about Kalamazoo.

The llama attack, known as Operation Podunk, was the brainchild of a team of professionals from around the world known as Burbank Five. Dr. Chet DeGana, a famous Portuguese scientist and computer specialist, and Dr. Igmar Anderson, a not-so-well-known Swedish xenobiologist and nuclear physicist, made up the core of the operation. These two, after meeting one another while trying to attain universal harmony as Buddhist priests in Tibet, became blood brothers, joined an Aborigine tribe in Australia, and finally became respectable scientists in Lizard Lick, North Carolina. Master spies Yolanda Win and Uiop Povashanko (who were the basis for the characters Boris Badanov and Natasha Fetale of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show) and the retired naval adventurer Admiral Desmond "Skip" Lymon rounded out the Burbank Five.

Now 6 years later, the Great Secondary Invasion Fleet of the Imperial Roach Empire arrived on earth. Disguised at giant rutabagas, the invasion fleet set up a geo-stationary orbit over a Seven-Eleven in downtown Pittsburgh. The Great Voton Plasmoid Cannon, as the roaches liked to call their genocide weapon, was primed and aimed. Mankind would be dead before they knew what hit them.

There were three things that saved the Earth from destruction that day.

A small package was lost an by Alpha Centauri Express courier while using the bathroom in Cleveland, Ohio. It was picked up by a drunk postal clerk and placed in the mailbox of one Clyde Millers.

An alien named Theodore Lind, having just spent one helluva time in Hugh’s Hedonistic Pleasure Palace on Jaconda 5, had a sudden craving for cream cheese.

A roach named Kopra left the headlights of the Imperial Roach flagship Plague on all night. This of course, drained the battery and left the Great Voton Plasmoid Cannon completely useless.

"Individually, these events mean nothing," stated Gyro. "But together, they mean many things. Something’s going to happen."

"What’s going to happen?" asked Maraharishi.

"Something wonderful," answered Gyro.

Somewhere in the universe, a monolith groaned, and it continued to rain.

In Atlantic City, however, Clyde had other things on his mind besides the rain. He was currently involved in an impromptu "conference" with Miss Moo Chang. The conversation was getting rather heated, Clyde decided, as Miss Chang unbuttoned his pants.

"So", whispered Miss Chang seductively, "have you received any packages in the mail lately?"

Clyde sensed something peculiar about that last statement. He grabbed her head and pulled it back sharply so he could gaze into her eyes. To his horror, the skin ripped apart two reveal a set of antennae and two very large compound eyes.

"EWWWHHH!" he screamed. "I almost made love to a roach!"

At that moment the door behind him slammed shut. Clyde turned and saw Lord Hollander standing there with a particularly nasty gun in his hands.

"So, you have uncovered our true identities! You will not be living much longer, I guarantee you that." Lord Hollander raised the gun toward Clyde’s head.

Suddenly, the window smashed into a thousand tiny shards as Yolanda Win swung through on a titanium steel cable. "The game’s up, Roach!" she spat venomously. "I just realized that we don’t know ANY Lord Hollander or Moo Chang. Now it’s time to pay the piper."

It was at this time that the entire group disappeared in a blinding flash of shimmering light.

Two seconds later, a disheveled Alpha Centauri Express courier ran into the room.

"Missed them by that much," he complained.