Chip Chop Jones of the Renegade Brigade couldn’t believe the slowness of the so-called service at this greasy space diner. He’d stopped in to grab an increasingly less and less quick bite before meeting his compatriot, Zip Chuck Samson, at their “Shit’s About to Hit the Fan For Reals” rendezvous in Sector 9G of the Beep Quadrant. It was beginning to look like Chip Chop was going to be late as hell, however, as his gleep sando with skeezah sauce showed no signs of making its way to his table even as others around him who’d been seated at roughly the same time or even later were getting served. Perhaps with the aforementioned shit soon to be hitting the aforementioned fan, Chip Chop should just ignore the hunger pangs, abandon his table by the space widow, flanked by people who came in after him enjoying their meals, and make it to the rendezvous to deliver Zip Chuck the potentially life saving info he’d collected during his semi-annual Bartok Run, which was well out of Renegade Brigade territory.

But he was hungry. Damned hungry. And that gleep sandwich would really hit the spot. Where the hell was that silly malorkus waiter anyway?

To be completely honest and zamtium, Chip Chop had no business stopping off at this silly space diner on his way to deliver the exceedingly important to his beloved Renegade Brigade Intel that only he, outside of the nefarious Dub Yarkin Administration, knew. Zip Chuck and his famed B Squadron (under the command of none other than the exuberantly decorated General John) would surely be space toast without this highly guarded info Chip Chop had procured—risked his very live to procure in point of fact.

But the ship stops when there’s a rumbly in Chip Chop’s tumbly. That’s just the way Chip Chop roles, and he makes no skeeorus about it.

But for the love of Hub-Rin, where was that snarfing waiter? Everyone, seriously everyone, around Chip Chop had gotten their meals at this point. Definitely the wrong space diner to visit, especially under such dire circumstances. Hindsight 20/20 and all that. The responsible thing would be to just leave. Aside from the Sklarnek nectar, which he could easily leave a couple flim flams for and be square, no business transactions had taken place. He could just leave and be done with it.

Then his stomachs growled.

Hopefully the D.Y. Admin was running on time, erroring on the “kinda late” side – that’d give Chip Chop an opportunity to snag his gleep with skeezah and high tail it out of this skuzzy hole in the space to his pals in 9G with maybe a scarnoc to spare. Maybe.

Just as Chip Cop was about to finally give up on his space diner goodies and space jet, the farnog waiter (notoriously sassy) slithered up to him with the piping hot gleep sando slathered in that tangy skeezah sauce Chip Chop had been a sucker for even back when he was in the academy with Zip Chuck – shit! Zip Chuck! Chip Chop had to scarf down his feast toot sweet so he could make space haste and deliver the potentially Renegade Brigade saving information he’d almost died to snag. Nothing was more important than—zort damn that gleep sandwich was good!

No time to adequately savor, though. Trying to adhere to as many table manners as he could but failing miserably, Chip Cop savagely inhaled the gleep sando. Snork with the blue nosed deedos staring at him in that booth next to his table. This wasn’t the etiquette banquet of Heetok B! He was a hungry Renegade Brigade commander in a hella hurry.

Slapping down fifteen chorbloks and some loose flim flams, Chip Chop barked out, “Keep the change!” through an overly full mouth as he hightailed it out of the space diner, praying to Qui Chen he wasn’t too late to save his friend Zip Chuck and, conceivably, his entire beloved Renegade Brigade.

Intensely ignoring all the rules of “safe” space driving, Chip Cop sped through the stars in his souped up shifty cruiser, racing against time to save not only his childhood friend, but, he’d finally allowed himself to admit, maybe all hope for peace and freedom in the four known galaxies!

If only he’d gone grocery shopping and/or charged his Intergalactic Cell Phone so that he could simply call ahead with the info while having more affordable and healthier food to eat – all of this rushing could’ve been avoided.

He felt mildly sick to his fourth stomach; having eaten the gleepwhich far too quickly… indigestion can be a bitch. He’d have to pass along the coveted Intel disk and blurt out the pass codes to Zip Chuck with in a damn hurry so that he could make it to the Zab’s Room in time. Gleep just goes right through him and—

A huge, scarred piece of space wreckage almost hit his star shield, sapping him back to the business at hand. He checked his coordinates, and he was indeed in Sector 9G in the Beep Quadrant. If smell could travel through space, the stench of death would probably be flying up his nose… The entire space station was in ruins. Lasered and zoto bombed to space smithereens.

Chip Chop could barely hold down his increasingly regrettable gleep sandwich as he looked at the now worthless CD-Q full of important Dub Yarkin Admin defense info and weak spot tips. He burped a gaseous smell and taste combo of digesting gleep mixed with overripe skeezah sauce as he realized he’d never see Zip Chuck or any of the other boys in the B Squad again. Actually, this whole Renegade Brigade dealio was likely screwed.

Nope. The sando definitely wasn’t worth it, regardless of how initially tasty and fairly cheap it was. This had been a poor decision on Chip Chop’s part. He realized this as he made in his pants. Ah, who cares about the embarrassment of making in one’s pants as an adult if he was as good as dead anyway? What did clean undies matter now?

Yep… he should’ve definitely rushed to the Sector 9G or at the very least stopped at a space diner with better service on his way, not that he was sure there was one. Chip Cop decided to blame the space diner’s wait staff for all of this as his ship got stinkier and stinkier with the wretch of his own mess.

He noticed a distressingly large Dub Yarkin battle cruiser de-cloak off his starboard bough. He didn’t need to check his space scanner to know they were powering up their frontal zoto torpedoes. Time was short now. No reason to dwell on his mistakes, he decided…