wards 7 the hunt

Just when you thought it was all over, here comes another ‘exciting’ instalment of Ward’s 7. Despite having already written ‘The End’ at the end of the previous chapter, suddenly I remembered there were supposed to be seven members of the crew and wrote this piece focusing on the whereabouts of ‘great clown’ Aaron Ross who, other than his obvious clowning ability, we know very little about. There’s also a nod to Simon Jackson, proving I hadn’t forgotten about him either and signalling my intention to rediscover him too. (SPOILER: I never mention him again.) Sadly, we learn very little about Aaron here either. He’s clearly quite handy in a fight - he escapes from prison merely by ‘lashing out’ at the guards. A bit more like a circus strongman might do, rather than a clown, but none of that matters - by the end of the story he’s right back where he started. “Yes, caught again!” Supreme Commander Tor must be very paranoid, to be surrounded by so many guards. But maybe he (and it was a he) needs to be, when circus clowns can take them out so easily. He must be quite hungry too, surrounded by thousands of guards, but not a waitress in sight. The picture at the bottom should probably be of Tor’s battle cruiser (presumably named after the Micronauts battle cruiser I got for Christmas), since the story’s almost exclusively set there, but it’s actually of the Mother Ship. If you enlarge the picture and zoom in, you’ll be able to see the words ‘Mother Ship’ written on the side in tiny letters. This is almost the same ship design we saw illustrating the previous chapter. It’s also pretty much the same picture I drew on the front cover - in the same black pen, so I probably drew that the same day. Whether I had permission to scribble all over my English book like that, I’ve no idea, but it wasn’t the last time I tried.