Kosmos

It lies open like a golden heart, springs
Orange fingers, spread out like eagles' wings.
Ong it is called, in English speech the Sun,
A star which eight planets and five dwarfs run.
Captain Yashgat sees it with goggled eyes,
Subcaptain Atsumen standing beside.
With flasks of smoky purple drinks in hand,
Their ship 'The Shandalosh' treads Space's sands,
Its name painted in letters Aetheric,
Twenty glyphs belonging to the old script:
Un, Pa, Ged, Gal, Na, Van, Kep, Grap, Gishg, Gon,
Vekh, Ur, Tal, Druts, Pam, Med, Malsh, Pal, Ger, Don.
In English sounds Ah, Ba, Ga, Da, Ha, Za,
Eh, Ta, Ka, La, Ma, Na, Sha, Oh, Pa, Tsa,
Kha, Ra. Our sounds I, J, and Y with Gon,
And our sounds U and V written with Van.
Nine hundred men on Ong have made their bet,
But the cold moons have not been settled yet.
They obey the will of Yahabomek,
Son of Tul Gulkhonash the majestic.
The lord of their race has sent them to guard
This solar system. A challenge quite hard.
Hot red light bathes them in their windowed room,
The alarm has gone off. Approaching doom.
On the Third Planet has appeared a foe,
Thought by them to be dead from long ago.
Vovin his name, stubborn like a mudstain,
Born when the universe was at the age
Of nine billion eighty-seven million;
He's four billion seven-hundred million
Years old. Their pilot Muav Bingebel
Rings on their radio, called a yishil:
'Trouble on Pudma, Ong's third planet-sphere.'
Atsumen worries, Yashgat hides his fear.
'When his name was Ormatenoda, we
Feared him. But he's long cast down as the chief
Of us Nutt-Gboyen. From us he'll flee.'
Atsumen is unsure, his courage brief.
He wonders if they can succeed again,
Their ship diving from the starry heavens.
Yashgat offers him some comforting words,
His mind filled with thoughts of their ruined world:
'I know it can be done because I know
How I failed at it.' So to Earth they go.

Part II

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A poem discussing the time some visiting aliens put in charge of Earth in Dimension XVII had to deal with a world-ending threat. The ensuing war destroyed most life on the planet.