The Baroness

Ozoga Bazoga, otherwise known as the Baroness Thelma Volt, had been making terrific progress with a new hovercraft.

Her genius for invention distinguished her from her peers (on Earth, and certainly on Zog).

Her stock and trade was wowing audiences with marvellous shows of thrust, movement and powerful rockets.

While her mind was still in her original body, she in fact preferred to spend most of her time on Mars and Saturn, having built the first rocket capable of landing on these planets and coming back in one piece. So it was only natural that she yearned to take to the skies again with a new invention.

On Earth she’d been knighted, which was odd for a woman - but she insisted that it be that way, and the more that you know about the Baroness Thelma Volt, the more that will make sense. She in fact started a trend for women preferring to be known as ‘Sir’ rather than ‘Dame,’ simply because it had a nice ring to it, and confused the sexists.

Now, her first contraption as a Zoggite was really rather thrown together - but considering what she had to work with, she was very excited.

She’d managed to construct a flat-bed hovercraft that she thought might even work as a space ship with the right fuel. And what’s more, she’d built it solely from twigs, bark and tree resin - a singular feat, since rockets generally required combustion of some degree - and trees were generally highly combustible. But she had managed to find a rather unique tree that was in almost every other way like a tree, but curiously inflammable.

Upward thrust had been achieved - and she’d even managed to make it work with a full-sized Zoggite as a passenger, which was particularly encouraging considering the Zoggite in question was 13 feet 10 inches tall with about 600 pounds of rippling muscle.

The Zoggite in the vehicle wasn’t the original Zoggite that she had started with, however. The first had exploded, and the second had imploded (rather confusingly).

Both of which were rather tragic, but acceptable losses to the Baroness, in the context scientific progress. In fact, the Baroness was notorious on Earth for her callous use of primates in experiments with a new type of brain implant, but on the whole forgiven by the public because well - they couldn’t directly empathise with the primate - not truly - and most were quite enchanted by the ability to play video games and watch pornography with their minds.

The third test-pilot (and it’s quite remarkable that she was able to find a third, considering what happened to the previous two) was shaking like a blender filled with ball bearings during the maiden flight, but was ultimately entirely unharmed. Which pleased the test pilot, who was able to keep all of her limbs in the right places.

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Absent of any safety guidelines or approvals process prior to launching a product to market, the Baroness was emboldened to begin commercialising her invention, turning them into planet-based travel pods for the rich. Planet-based, in that they didn’t quite have the power (or the inclination) to breach the atmosphere into space. For that, she would need to create a quantum leap in her engineering, or find a more powerful type of fuel than the resin she’d been using so far. Something with a bit of kick to it. Something explosive. Luckily, such a fuel existed, and it was urgently wanting for a market to sell itself into.

Her more urgent need, however, was a workforce to roll out her contraptions, and she’d heard encouraging things across the Zog-vine (an indigenous variety of climbing Ivy that conducts sound remarkably well) about Gloam’s new innovations in slavery. And while it would be going against her better instincts to reach out to such a loathsome individual known to steal any new inventions for himself (and the proceeds from selling them), she made a cunning plan to make herself indispensable by always having a pipeline of ‘future innovations’ that only she could conceive of, so as to force Gloam to keep her around long enough to see them actualise. Which, as long as the Baroness kept having new and profitable ideas, would presumably be forever, or as long as she managed to keep her marbles. That, and she had also invented a rather nifty gun, which she was undecided on whether to commercialise (for surely it would instantly become a ‘must have’ for all the fashionable young murderers and scoundrels of the valley), or simply keep it up her sleeve as insurance if Gloam got any ideas.

And so it was with great annoyance (the Baroness wouldn’t ever freely admit to having to be beholden to anyone, much more so a witless savage like Gloam) that the she again reached for the hapless squid-like creature that had been drying out on her workbench, and put it again to painful use by penning a letter to her old friend Inghurr, otherwise known as Z-Pop, as the Baroness had heard that Z-Pop now had the ear of Gloam, and might be biddable to bending it in the Baroness’ direction, and she thought that that would potentially be rather useful, given her current ambitions. It read something like the following:

The Office of the Baroness Volt

7 Chifley Mews

Rancid Gardens

PO BOX 8452

To the esteemed Mr. Gloam,

I am writing to seek a partnership in business. I have, as of today, proven that flight is possible, through my proprietary device, which I am naming the Baronet, after my dear uncle Cyril.

I believe it to have vast applications with regards to transport, both personal, industrial and military. I also have plans to execute a design which will breach the barrier into space, and allow us to visit the 17 moons in our orbit.

With the scalable economic solution you have devised known as ‘slavery,’ I feel that we will be able to commercialise this product, and create a business that is not only profitable, but will alter the course of history for our humble planet.

For the glory of Zog,

The Baroness Thelma Volt

Once she had finished, she sealed the envelope, and gave it to an awkward Dodo bird-like creature who had inherited the mind of a mail carrier, and couldn’t work out why it wanted to deliver small rectangles of paper all day long, but it felt immense satisfaction in doing so, so it didn’t stop to question it. She popped the letter in the mouth of the silly-looking bird, and it waddled off at a surprising clip, considering its awkward pear-shaped body and oversized beak that looked like it weighed the same as a samsonite suitcase.

Now all the Baroness needed to do was wait.