by Cas Lester
‘Gentlemen!’ warned Harvey. But the two officers launched into an all-out slanging match with insults bouncing round the bridge like ping-pong balls.
‘Fatso!’ yelled Gizmo.
‘Skinny Ribs!’
‘That’s enough!’ cried Harvey. They ignored him.
‘Blubber Boy!’
‘Scraggy Chops!’
‘I’m warning you …’ threatened Harvey, a dangerous edge to his voice, ‘I’m going to count to three and …’
‘Porker!’
‘Weed!’
‘Right, that’s it!’ thundered Harvey. ‘Go to your rooms. Er, I mean quarters!’
Gizmo stormed off. It’s a good job the Toxic Spew is kitted out with sliding doors, otherwise he would have slammed them all so hard they’d have snapped off their hinges.
Harvey had never been in Gizmo’s quarters – but if he had, he would have been gobsmacked. They were clean. They were tidy. They were everything the rest of the Toxic Spew wasn’t. By which I mean they weren’t a health hazard.
Gizmo got to his (spotless) quarters, flung himself onto his (creaseless) bed and stared at the (stainless) walls and ceiling. The tidy, sparse room usually had a calming effect on the Senior Engineering Officer.
He sighed and looked around. There was nothing out of place, nothing left out, but also, crucially … nothing to eat!
He tried to distract himself by memorising The Complete Guide to Intergalactic Travel and Transport Pact Rules and Regulations (Volume 1).
It didn’t work.
GROAN, GRUMBLE, GRIPE …
went Gizmo’s stomach and
GROAN, GRUMBLE, GRIPE …
went Gizmo.
Bad Snuffles!
You’ll be staggered to hear that as soon as Scrummage stomped into his (astoundingly filthy) quarters he forgot all about his hollow belly.
Because the baby Gordonzola had finally hatched!
Scrummage had slipped the egg into his underwear drawer so it would have somewhere safe to nest when it emerged.
(I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure which is the more disgusting thought: Scrummage letting a baby Gordonzola hatch in his undies, or making a baby alien sleep in a pair of Scrummage’s huge and grossly grubby boxer shorts.
Oh, yuk.)
Either way, the little alien now sat watching Scrummage with interest. Its little podgy pink body glowed with bright purple spots. Along its back, soft turquoise spines, which would grow into large spikes, lay flattened in its fluffy fur. Scrummage tickled it behind its tiny pink ears and let its green needle-sharp baby teeth gnaw gently at his fat fingers.
‘Are you hungry? Come on, ickle Gordon,’ he cooed gently, scooping up the baby alien, ‘let’s see if Aunty Yargal has something you can eat,’ and he set off for the galley.
(By the way, if you’re finding it difficult to believe that Scrummage would let Gordon eat food, or indeed anything at all, that he could eat himself, you’re dead right.
Fortunately, Gordonzolas eat curdled milk, rotten food and maggots – and even Scrummage isn’t that desperate.
Well, not yet.)
Uh oh, Hazard Hunting Hound meets Gordonzola
In the galley, Yargal fussed round the new arrival like a midwife.
‘He’s adorable!’ she cried and, scraping up a maggoty lump of soggy pizza crust from the deck with one of her tentacles, she offered it to Gordon who nibbled it cautiously.
Snuffles eyed the food jealously. Then he eyed the Gordonzola suspiciously. In all his multiple intergalactic missions, the huge Hazard Hunting Hound had never come across one before. And he wasn’t sure if he could trust it.
It looked cute enough, but in his experience you could never be too careful. He let out a soft, throaty growl and the baby Gordonzola shrank from the sound, whimpering fearfully and flicking up its little spines bravely in self-defence. (Very bravely when you come to think of it, given the size and sheer quantity of Snuffles’s teeth. It would be like trying to fight off a Great White Shark with a comb.)
‘Steady boy!’ said Scrummage to Snuffles, suddenly concerned that the hound might actually attack Gordon.
‘Relax! He’s only saying “Hello”, aren’t you?’ said Yargal patting Snuffles on the head with a spare tentacle and then adding firmly, ‘Now, play nicely!’
Suddenly two enormous grey shaggy paws walloped onto the galley worktop, one either side of Gordon, as the enormous hound stood up on his back legs and eyeballed the baby Gordonzola. Then he put his huge pink meatball of a nose up to the tiny little alien and sniffed it hard – so hard he almost inhaled it.
SNIIIIIIFFFFFF
And then he stuck out his lolloping great tongue, between his horrifically sharp white teeth and licked Gordon gently.
‘Ahhhh, look, he likes him,’ sighed Scrummage, immensely relieved.
‘Good boy,’ said Yargal proudly.
Then Snuffles opened his massive mouth and wolfed the little Gordonzola inside.
‘NO!’ cried Yargal.
Chapter Eight
Gloomy, grumpy and grouchy on the bridge
‘Bad dog!’ cried Yargal as Snuffles slunk off with his prize. ‘Spit, Snuffles, Spit!’ she ordered.
‘DROP!’ bellowed Scrummage. ‘DROP!!!’
Snuffles gently spat the little alien onto the deck. Then he tenderly nudged Gordon with his nose, and licked him again. The little Gordonzola rubbed its tiny pink and purple face against the hound’s huge hairy face.
The Hazard Hunting Hound from Canine Major thumped his tail happily and promptly adopted Gordon. He’d always wanted puppies.
Scrummage and Yargal sighed in relief.
For the next few hungry hours, everyone kept moaning about their empty bellies – except Harvey who was trying to lead by example. It wasn’t working. Eventually, he had to threaten to fine anyone for using any of the following words:
• starving,
• ravenous,
• famished,
• peckish,
• nibble,
• munch,
• crunch,
• slurp and … actually, the list was endless, but you get the picture.
Eventually, when there was absolutely no chance of anything for supper and Scrummage had resorted to licking the food-splattered walls of the galley, the crew sloped off to bed hungry and gloomy.
The next morning they woke up even more hungry and gloomy. Not to mention grumpy and grouchy, crabby and cranky, oh, and surly and snappy. They sprawled pathetically in their seats on the command bridge, groaning wretchedly.
(Since you’ve never been on a spaceship, let alone stuck on one for years on end, you probably can’t really grasp the vital importance of meals.
Breaking up the deadly boring routine of collecting intergalactic garbage, they’re the high points of the mission.
Which, given Yargal’s cooking, says a lot about how much interplanetary bin men enjoy their work.
Tragic, isn’t it?)
Dangerously close to mutiny on the bridge
As captain of the Highford All Stars, Harvey knew all about food moods. Or rather ‘lack of food’ moods as he called them. So he always kept a stash of chocolate bars in his kit bag to boost everyone at half-time. And this morning, at breakfast time, he’d handed out the last of the jellybeans from the machine in his quarters. There were five and a half jellybeans each.
There was ages still to go until they got to Waitless, and the famished bridge crew were nearly at breaking point.
Harvey knew he had to take their minds off their empty bellies. Which was a sizeable challenge – especially for Scrummage. So he got the crew to list everything they needed from Waitless.
Scrummage’s list was the longest: as in ‘it was the longest list in the history of the Entire Known Universe, and Beyond’. It was all food.
Here’s just a tiny bit of it:
• … pickles,
• mozzarella,
• garlic crisps,
<
br /> • hot dogs,
• cake with melted chocolate topping,
• BBQ sauce,
• chocolate chip cookies,
• ice cream (strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, honeycomb and toffee crunch),
• coco star pops,
• scorchios …
‘What are “scorchios”?’ asked Harvey.
‘Super-hot chilli-coated crunchy cereal,’ explained Yargal.
Yeowch! thought Harvey. Talk about a hot breakfast!
Yargal’s list was definitely the most surprising:
• kitchen roll,
• loo roll,
• goo-resistant plasters,
and
• a new broom handle.
‘The Toxic Spew has a broom?’ asked Harvey, gobsmacked. ‘And someone’s actually used it?!’
‘Don’t be silly,’ laughed Maxie. ‘Gizmo broke it whacking Scrummage,’ and grinning broadly, she handed Harvey her list.
At the top of Maxie’s list, and in big letters, was the Retro Look Flash Intergalactic 2000 Steering Wheel, followed by lots of sweets and snacks:
• supanova supasour supasucker gobstoppers,
• space raider crisps,
• double choc space munchies,
• chewy Jupiter jelly mix,
and
• fizzy alien guts (red ones).
‘Alien guts?!’ cried Harvey, disgusted.
‘Yeah, they’re slippery, gooey, gungy, rubbery, fruity strings.’
‘Yuk!’ said Harvey
‘Yup!’ grinned Maxie.
Gizmo’s list included twenty-one bits for the ship, which, to Harvey’s alarm, he said were absolutely vital to stop the Toxic Spew falling apart in mid space. And an Anger Ball for Scrummage.
‘Does Scrummage actually want an Anger Ball?’ asked Harvey.
‘I doubt it. But I’m going to throw it at him and make him angry, anyway,’ replied Gizmo.
‘No,’ said Harvey firmly. ‘You are not,’ and he deleted it.
It won’t surprise you to know that Harvey’s list was the most useful:
• protective suit for Snuffles,
• learn how to cook book for Yargal,
• basic spaceship manual,
and
• a dictionary of space illnesses.
(It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Yargal as Medical Officer to keep him healthy, it was more that he didn’t trust Yargal not to accidentally kill him – especially with her cooking.)
But Harvey couldn’t distract his hungry crew for long and by mid morning, with no proper breakfast, no chance of elevenses, and don’t even ask about lunch, they were dangerously close to mutiny!
‘Flickering spew! I can’t take this any more!’ whimpered Scrummage.
‘Neither can I!’ groaned Gizmo.
‘We’d be there by now if we’d taken the shortcut through the black hole,’ muttered Maxie darkly. ‘This is crazy!’
‘This is torture!’ growled Gizmo.
‘This is agony!’ howled Scrummage.
‘Pull yourselves together, all of you!’ snapped Harvey irritably. ‘This is ridiculous!’
‘No,’ retorted Maxie, pushing up her sleeves and glaring at him challengingly. ‘This is mutiny!’
Chapter Nine
Mutiny on the Toxic Spew!
With Gizmo and Scrummage egging her on, Maxie boldly announced she was going to defy Harvey’s orders and take the shorter route through the black hole.
‘It’s only slightly dangerous,’ she argued.
‘It’s suicidal!’ gasped Harvey. ‘What about spaghettification?’
‘Do you mean when your entire body gets pushed and pulled and squeezed and stretched, and your brains and bones and all your other important bodily parts are squidged even thinner than a single, solitary piece of spaghetti – and an uncooked piece at that?’ she asked.
‘Exactly!’ cried Harvey.
‘It’ll be fine,’ shrugged Maxie. ‘We have an Anti-Pasta Intergalactic Shield 3000!’
(You don’t actually have these on your spaceships do you? Honestly, you Earthlings are so primitive.
Here’s a quick description of one, and how it works. It’s only short, and not very technical, so please do try keep up.
The Anti-Pasta Intergalactic Shield 3000 is in two parts, one on each side of the spaceship. It’s basically two flat pieces of metal with lots of tiny holes. They look a bit like gigantic squashed spaghetti sieves, but square.
Stop me if I’m going too fast for you, won’t you?
It works by projecting a portal for the ship to fly through, which creates a powerful protective shield around the ship.
Clever, huh?
Bet you wish your poky little planet could invent stuff like that.)
Harvey didn’t really have a choice.
‘Fine,’ he sighed, ‘we’ll take the shortcut through the black hole,’ and the bridge crew cheered.
Maxie had to plot the route herself because the computer was still sulking, but that was probably just as well – the computer’s maths is well dodgy.
As they approached the black hole, Maxie confidently hit the big red button on the top of the Anti-Pasta Intergalactic Shield 3000. Through the vast front vision screen Harvey saw a kind of square gateway shimmering up ahead. As the ship passed through it a loud and distinctly disturbing thumping noise started up. It was the anti-pasta shield forming all around the ship.
Harvey gripped the arms of his captain’s chair and ordered himself not to panic as the plucky little intergalactic garbage ship headed into the terrifying, swirling vortex of nothingness of the black hole! Blimey!
Swirling vortex of nothingness!
Flying into the black hole was like being sucked into the hose of a giant vacuum cleaner and being gobbled up by one of the hungriest beings in the Entire Known Universe, and Beyond – at the same time.
And it was dark. Darker than dark. Even light struggles in a black hole. Time can give up and stop altogether. And of course once you’ve been pulled into a black hole – it’s impossible to get out.
Which was a thought that had occurred to Harvey. But he trusted Maxie and didn’t seriously think she’d do anything ridiculously risky, ludicrously lethal or foolishly fatal … would she?
(Is it just me, or does it seem a bit late for Harvey to be asking himself that?)
‘Hang on,’ said Harvey suddenly. ‘What did you mean by only “slightly dangerous”?’
‘Oh, nothing much. It’s just that in order to get out of a black hole you need cybersonic jump drive,’ replied Maxie.
‘Do we have cybersonic jump drive?’ asked Harvey.
‘No,’ said Maxie.
‘What!?’ cried Harvey.
‘Relax! If I put the hydrosonic hyperdrive lever into top gear we should be fine!’ She grinned, and her bright turquoise eyes glittered mischievously.
She reached across the flight control desk and hauled on the hydrosonic hyperdrive lever. It promptly snapped off in her hand.
‘Oops!’ she said.
‘Fluttering upchuck!’ swore Scrummage.
‘Aaaargh!’ wailed Yargal.
‘What are we going to do?’ screeched Gizmo hysterically.
‘Don’t panic!’ ordered Harvey.
‘Why not?’ screamed Gizmo.
Which was a good question because … the Toxic Spew, and all on board, was spiralling into the absolute and total nothingness of a black hole, completely out of control, and with no way of getting out of it …
and they were probably,
literally and
totally …
all going to die!
Chapter Ten
Total panic on the Toxic Spew!
Through the smudged and grimy front vision screen of the Toxic Spew the terrified crew stared in horror as they hurtled further and further into the deadly darkness of the black hole with the certain knowledge that they couldn’t get out again!
I’ll b
e honest with you – it was total panic on the bridge, with the crew sobbing and screaming and running round like headless er … well, I don’t like to be tactless, but … headless aliens.
‘Calm down!’ ordered Harvey.
‘Why should I?’ shrieked Gizmo dramatically and clutching his multi-coloured hair in a frenzy of fear.
‘Somebody slap him! He’s hysterical!’ wailed Yargal, who, frankly, was even more hysterical than Gizmo.
‘Bagsy I do it!’ begged Scrummage, leaping up eagerly.
‘NO!’ snapped Harvey. ‘Everybody QUIET!’ he bellowed.
To his enormous surprise, everyone shut up and settled down, and some sort of order returned to the bridge. Actually, for the Toxic Spew, it was impressive that any kind of order had returned at all.
‘Captain, we’re going to have to think of something, and fast!’ said Maxie at the flight controls. ‘Otherwise we’re going to get sucked so far into that black hole we won’t be able to get out and we’ll all die a terrible, agonising, and literally long-drawn-out death!’
‘Captain I’m too young to die a terrible, agonising, and literally long-drawn-out death!’ sobbed Yargal, sticky grey snot splattering onto everyone within a tentacle’s reach of her slimy slug-like body.
Harvey’s mind raced. What on Earth could he do?
(I hate to be overly critical at a time like this, but it seems a bit of a daft question.
They weren’t on Earth and when Harvey had been on Earth the only captain experience he’d had was with the Highford All Stars – and you get a lot of black holes on a football pitch, do you?)
Fighting back the panic, Harvey told himself to dig deep for an idea – any idea. The thing about the Highford All Stars is, they aren’t all that good – but their captain is. They were bottom of the league until Harvey took over two seasons ago and now they’re steadily working their way up the table. This is partly because Harvey is very good at reading a game but mostly because he has the guts to change tactics mid match.
Time to ditch the game plan