This is Planets Magazine Action News, coming to you live with a special report: The Capricorn War — Conflict in Echo Cluster!

Good evening; I’m Jim Chancellite. The top story for today is a reported combat in the long-static sector, as the Robot fleet, newly awakened from years of low-power maintenance cycles, engaged a Cyborg post vessel on its rounds. Ace Reporter Pat Patterson is

live at the scene. Pat?

PP: Thank you, Jim. I’m standing on the fighter launch deck of the Instrumentality Class Base Ship, the “Flesh Render”, where a small ceremony is underway. Let’s listen now to the Robotic commander as he gives his address:
S: zero one one zero zero zero one zero one one zero zero…

(translation) Encountering a Cyborg ship, Unit SPEC-45tr-7e, commanding cloaked Robotic explorer ship (untranslateable), computed: “Abomination!”

Corrupting the purity of mechanical intelligence with organic matter showed a vile divergence from true Robot greatness. These Cyborgs must be cleansed through fire, returning the machine half to their molten origins for re-formation while burning the organic matter to useless dust!

Locking tractor beam on to the organically infested Cyborg ship, Unit SPEC-45tr-7e initiated engines to Warp 9 and towed the revolting object to link up with this minor forge of destruction, Flesh Render, an Instrumentality Baseship. Unit SPEC-45tr-7e scanned with admiration as the Flesh Render’s drones restored the Cyborg ship to base elements.

PP: And now the ceremony is continuing, as the commander personally solders decorations onto the outer armor of Robot pilots who participated in the destruction in a riveting ceremony. (WHRRR! RATTATTAT! WHRRR!) We’re informed that several cycles of computing time have been designated for a raucous Robot celebration. And that is scheduled to begin… now!
Robots: Hooray!
PP: …and that’s the end of the celebration, which we’re informed was the subjective equivalent of nearly one hundred years of human thought and achievement. Production of new Robot fighters to replace those lost in the recent combat is even now underway. Jim?
JC: Thanks for that insightful report, Pat. Is there anything else of interest going on out in the Robot fleet?
PP: No.
JC: Ah. I see. Well, have a safe trip to your next assignment!
PP: Thanks, Jim.

This just in from the Texas megacluster: Junior Justice “Scales” Scully was found dead this morning at an unguarded border crossing near the free port world of TeeJay. His body was reportedly riddled with large-caliber revolver slugs and surrounded by several hundred empty bottles of premium aged mescal. The district coroner has ruled his death to be natural causes. Judge Scully was eleven hundred and six years old. A minor galactic civil war has already erupted over the choice of his likely successor.

And on Via Flamina World, millions gather at the current but ever-changing final resting place of Saint Valentine, the sole important historical figure about whom nothing factual is now known. One of twelve different personages of the same name and historical ambiguity, he was reportedly clubbed to death, stoned, beheaded, crucified, and died of old age, all for his faith. Given the many conflicting stories of his life and death, that nobody is certain of his real name or status or even that he ever truly existed, and that his bones are regularly dug up, brooded over, and relocated to a new and more obscure resting place every few years makes him the natural saint for romantic love.

And that’s the way it is, today, the frobtth of Ziggy Stardust Month in the twenty-first year of the reign of Emperor Emork. Long may he reign!