ZORGON-3 – Soaring far above the endless blue skies of Zorgon-3, locked in an endless and graceful orbital dance, flies Star Base Rythor X, the largest and most complex orbital office park ever dared to be dreamt by man*. But all is not well in the Star Base.
Accountants across the galaxy have been struggling with new space tax write-off requirements, but perhaps none so much as those circling the pristine world of Zorgon-3, where nature conservancy laws prohibit flights in or out of the planet. With access to the planet’s surface through traditional means extremely limited, transporters have become the only practical means of travel. However, the prohibitive costs of transporter use have millions of the planet’s off-world eco-tourists scrambling for creative ways to write off the expense.
These difficulties come at a particularly bad time for the native population of Zorgon-3, whose taxes come due in just 1 UltraSpace Month. This building workload will mean long hours and likely slowdowns on tax filing deadlines.
While local star-congress representatives have promised to draft a bill that will clear up the confusion, the 25 million-person governmental body is notoriously slow to act on tax measures, and the political friction in recent years promises to slow the process even more.
*This, of course, doesn’t include the 15,000-story office mega-structure that briefly appeared in a nightmare of Thomas V. Barrington**. The building was disqualified from the running due to the fact that a) it appeared in a nightmare rather than a dream and b) it failed to serve the hyperbolic waxing of the opening sentence.
**Thomas V. Barrington, a tax attorney of some note, conjured up the mega-office after a particularly long night of work coupled by eating a particularly potent cheese on a ham sandwich he had brought from home. The cheese, Barglonian Cheddar***, is known primarily for its ripe stench, but also for its ability to give eaters particularly vivid dreams.
***Barglonian Cheddar was first created in the Rennet-6 sector of Barglon, and in fact can’t be labeled as such unless it’s spent at least three working days in the original cheese vats the cheddar was first developed in.
