“Hello?” spoke the bear into the phone aboard the biggest and most important ship of the remaining fleet of bear ships after their fortress and planet were wrecked by the cows of the Cow Galaxy. “Who is this?”

  “It’s me, DeBear,” said D. Bear D. Stroy Er, former leader of the Bearmy until his untimely death.

  “DeBear??” spoke the bear on the other end with great shock. “As in, D. Bear D. Stroy Er? Former leader of the Bearmy until his untimely death?”

  “Yes. Well, his robot clone, at least.”

  “Ahhh, that makes a lot more sense.”

  “This is the Bear President, yes?”

  “Yearyo, Bear President, at your service! How did you escape the cows? And where are you now?”

  “It’s a long story. But I’ve gained control of one of their ships, and it is currently stationed directly next to yours, hmmm?”

  “Hmmm…” said Yearyo, looking at the radar scan of the surrounding area of space. “How odd. I see it on the radar, but--”

  “Yes, yes, the ship is cloaked, Yearyo. You can’t see it in-bearson.”

  “Cloaked!” squealed Yearyo, Bear President. “But we don’t have that advanced technology yet!!”

  “Yearyo.”

  “Yes, DeBear II?”

  “I just told you. I hijacked a Cow Galaxy ship.”

  “And how is that relevant?”

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  “They have that technology.”

  “What technology, DeBear?”

  “Mmmm, forget it,” said DeBear II. “I am going to uncloak the ship now, and I want you to let me in so we may have a meeting.”

  “Very well,” said Yearyo. “I will alert the bear in charge of letting people in. Which is, mmmm, me.”

  DeBear II hung up the phone, Yearyo alerted himself that he was to let DeBear in, and the following meeting determined the fate of a whole lot of stuff.

  Meanwhile, in the squirrel’s ship, events were also occurring. It would have been surprising if they weren’t, actually. They had just finished flying to Chris the capybara’s home planet.

  “So what’s this place called, yo?” asked Bird.

  “Earth,” said Chris. “It kinda sucks, but it’s home.”

  “Earth… why does that name sound familiar?”

  “It sounds familiar to me, too!” said Mushpuff. “But I can’t recall where I’ve heard it before.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a place,” said Snorter.

  “Me neither,” said Klumpkrump, performing dangerous tricks with her new dagger. Everyone else aboard the ship was asleep and therefore could not comment on whether or not the name “Earth” was familiar to them.

  Bird brought the ship down to the surface where Chris told him to. The doors opened and Chris was free to leave.

  “Ay, would you like a gift?” the capybara asked Bird.

  “That would be nice, yo,” said the bird named Bird.

  “Take this laser gun, mate. I don’t have any use for it anymore.”

  Chris, with a bit of difficulty, removed the laser gun strapped to his back and left it behind before unboarding the ship. Now there was only one artifact left to get, from one more planet. They had already acquired the Fire Gem, the Barrel Gun, the Yalmton and Balongus bracelets, and the Boomerang Blade (Klumpkrump’s dagger).

  “Say, all this adventuring is quite tiring,” said Mushpuff. “We haven’t had any breaks in a while.”

  “What are you suggesting, yo?” asked Bird.

  “A break.”

  Everyone else (those who were awake, at least) thought that was a marvelous idea. And so, instead of setting off towards the fifth and final planet, the Spacebar is where they went. What is the Spacebar, you ask? The Spacebar is a very popular place for space travelers to come and rest. It is a bar… in space. Not only that, it also has rooms where one may stay the night (although, considering it’s a bar in space, “night” doesn’t really exist).