The air felt thick and his leg muscles felt like mush.

As Raygun sped out of the asteroid field with Nebula X sitting beside him, he thought of ways to make money. Everything from stealing at gunpoint to space station maintenance crossed his mind. Legitimate employment of the droid would mean background checks, and Raygun had no idea what that would uncover, so the more underhanded schemes seemed safer – and more profitable.

Raygun had had a fairly rough life, so it was easy for him to justify anything he could get for himself – by any means.

MEANWHILE…

Sgt. Snowpants was busy selling Raygun’s equipment to eager buyers who were willing to pay top dollar for it. Everything was reconditioned by Nebula X and in perfect working order. As the wad of money in Snowpants’ pocket grew, he began to come up with a plan of his own.

That sneaky Raygun had cheated him time and time again in the past, and Snowpants owed him no favors! At the end of the day, the stuff was all gone. So was Snowpants. So was the money.

MEANWHILE…

Bertha played the game the best she could, talking to Flash [or whoever he really was] as though he actually WERE a spaceman approaching Earth. Fantasies like this took Bertha away from her normal, boring life. All day long, she sat at her desk processing Government forms. Work was backing up, and her ham radio was an escape. From her own basement, she could talk with people all over the world without the stress of meeting them face to face. The only people Bertha knew were from work, and they only talked in an official capacity.

In order to sound believable, she used landmarks near her home rather than the Cocoa Beach area, with which she was unfamiliar.

Flash descended toward Washington D.C. as night fell over the East Coast. With a visual fix on the Washington Monument, Bertha directed Flash to the street that ran by her house.

Flash reported seeing a fork in the road which surprised Bertha. She figured this guy was looking at a map of the city. When he described the neighbors’ in-ground pool and the park on the corner, Bertha dropped the microphone and ran out the front door. She looked up to see a space ship preparing to land.

Bertha only stared in shock and realized that the conversation had been real. The TNI touched down and came to a halt in front of Bertha’s home.

The ship steamed beneath a streetlight and the hatch opened. Flash stepped out onto the pavement. Earth’s gravity felt strange after so many months in space. The air felt thick and his leg muscles felt like mush.

Whoa! Bertha gasped.