by Jim Ladd
He was a tall, flamboyant-looking character, with a bottle-green coat and huge frilly shirt cuffs. He had a long moustache which was waxed into extravagant curls at the ends and he had three eyes, two of which were covered with eye patches.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Calamity Comet,” Black-Hole Beard sneered.
“That’s Captain Comet, if you don’t mind,” Comet replied, twirling his moustache. Although he was trying to sound brave, Sam saw him flinch when Black-Hole Beard scowled at him. Captain Comet was just as scared of the huge pirate as everyone else. Comet’s crew, which included the two-headed alien and the Kraken, hurried over to stand behind him.
“And what a surprise,” Black-Hole Beard continued. “You’ve missed the fight again. So what was it this time? Hiding, or could ye not find your way? I wouldn’t trust you to navigate your way out of bed without getting lost!”
The crowd around Sam burst into laughter.
“Hiding?” Comet blustered. “Lost? I have travelled to the furthest reaches of the galaxy! And I’ve found my way back!”
Black-Hole Beard snorted in disgust.
“You call me a coward,” Comet continued, “yet I have weathered cosmic storms, cheated certain death in asteroid fields and evaded evil aliens.”
“You tell him, Cap’n!” cried one of his crew.
Comet seemed to be growing in confidence. He pointed a finger in the air and declared, “Nothing scares Captain Joseph Hercules Invictus Comet!”
The crowd gave an encouraging round of applause.
“Is that a fact, me hearty?” asked Black-Hole Beard. The clapping stopped immediately. Sam watched as Black-Hole Beard slowly walked over to Comet. His crew took a step back, leaving Comet on his own. Black-Hole Beard leaned down until his face was so close that his beard looked like it was tickling Comet’s nose. He glared into Comet’s one good eye. A thin trickle of sweat ran down the side of Comet’s face. Everything was quiet and tense, and Sam realised that he was holding his breath.
“BOO!” shouted Black-Hole Beard, sending Comet springing backwards in fright. At the same time Black-Hole Beard flicked his laser-cutlass through Comet’s belt. Comet’s trousers promptly dropped to his ankles, displaying his bright, flowery underpants for the world to see.
Black-Hole Beard threw back his head and roared with laughter, his gold teeth glinting in the starlight.
“Nice bloomers, Comet!” mocked Black-Hole Beard. The crowd howled with delight. Comet, red-faced, hauled his trousers back up.
“Actually,” muttered Comet, “these were part of some booty I seized.”
Black-Hole Beard let out a deafening guffaw. “Would this be the booty you then lost?” he sneered.
“Yes… regrettably so,” said Captain Comet. “We were attacked while we were all eating dinner – which, as you know, is totally against the pirate code.”
“Bah!” spat Black-Hole Beard. “The pirate code! As I sees it, the pirate code only applies to pirates. You and yer crew are a bunch of mummy’s boys.”
Black-Hole Beard grinned as the crowd laughed at Comet. Then he held up his arms for silence. “You’re a lily-livered planet-lubber, Comet,” he snarled, his eyes bright pinpricks of hate. “Crumbling cuttlefish, I’ve seen space slugs with more backbone than you! You’re no pirate – you’re just a waste of a good eye patch.”
That was an insult too many for Comet.
“I’ll show you!” he cried. “I’ll show you all that I’m no planet-lubber!”
“Oh, will you now?” Black-Hole Beard replied, his voice a low, menacing whisper. “And how are you planning to do that?”
“Well, I’m, I’m, I’m…” Comet seemed to be floundering a bit. “I’m going to…”
The crowd leaned forward in expectation – as did the crew from the Jolly Apollo.
“I’m going to… find Planet X!”
This caused gasps from the crowd, and, Sam noticed, from the Jolly Apollo’s crew. Sam’s heart jumped in delight. This was perfect!
An evil sneer slipped across Black-Hole Beard’s face like a slash from a sword. “Planet X? You can barely find your own poop deck,” he snarled. He turned to his crew. “Avast, me hearties, back to the Gravity’s Revenge – it’s time for pirating, not gossiping.”
With Black-Hole Beard gone, the entertainment was over, so the crowd seeped away too. Comet’s shoulders slumped.
“Planet X,” he wailed. “What was I thinking of?”
“Captain, are we really going to find Planet X?” asked the Kraken eagerly.
Comet dragged a hand slowly down his face. Even his moustache had drooped.
“Back to the ship,” he muttered.
“Er, excuse me!” yelled Sam as the pirates trudged back to their ship. Of all the ships in the port it had to be the Jolly Apollo, he thought as he raced after Comet and his crew.
“Hey!” Sam called again as Comet walked up the gangplank. Comet whirled round to see who was talking, his bottle-green coat twirling through the air behind him.
“Um, Captain Comet,” Sam started, suddenly finding himself tongue-tied at talking to a real, live space pirate. “I, um…”
“Spit it out, boy!” Comet commanded.
Sam gave up. “Can I come with you to Planet X?” he asked.
Comet looked at him for a moment, then sauntered back down the gangplank.
“Tell me – does this look like a cruise ship to you?” he asked.
Sam shook his head. It didn’t look like much of a ship at all, but he wasn’t about to say that.
“Indeed, that’s because it’s not. So sorry, sonny – we don’t take passengers.” Comet started back up the gangplank.
Sam put his hand in his pocket and held on to the map. “But I could be useful,” he called.
Comet spun round again and arched an eyebrow.
“Useful? You could be useful? Pray tell how. Can you tie a Pangorian bow-switch knot, for example?”
“No,” Sam replied.
“Then perhaps you can hit a Lupillian dust rat with a hand blaster from a cable’s length away?” asked Comet.
“Errmm, no,” replied Sam, who had never held a hand blaster or even heard of a Lupillian dust rat.
“Ah, I see. Then can you operate a pan-dimensional compass and reverse magnetic stellar binnacle?” asked Comet.
“Err, no,” Sam replied meekly. “But—”
“Then you’re no use to me!” Comet exclaimed. “I’ll make this very clear. I don’t have planet-lubbers on my crew – and even if I did I wouldn’t take a scrawny runt like you. Now, be quiet or you’ll get a taste of my sword.”
Comet went to grab the hilt of his sword for emphasis, but there was no sword there. He patted a couple more times then frantically searched all round his waist.
“Oh brilliant!” shouted Comet. “Just brilliant! Now someone’s gone and thieved my sword. You can’t trust anybody round here!”
And with that he whirled away and stomped up the gangplank and on to the Jolly Apollo, leaving Sam alone on the dockside.
Sam stood there, stunned. His only hope of rescuing his parents had just disappeared up the gangplank with Comet. He hadn’t even had a chance to mention the map. Sam had to get on that ship. If Captain Comet didn’t want him on board, then he would just have to make sure Comet didn’t know he was there. If he couldn’t be a passenger, he’d have to be a stowaway…
Sam sat down on a barrel of grum and watched as the Jolly Apollo crew started hauling cargo aboard, singing a lively space shanty about a haunted bowling alley. The only way on to the ship was up the gangplank, but Sam knew there was no chance of sneaking up there without being spotted.
Suddenly a deafening roar engulfed the dock. Gravity’s Revenge was setting sail and its rocket boosters had just blasted into life. The ship spun slowly from its berth until it was pointing in the opposite direction, then rose majestically into the sky, its great sails billowing as they caught the solar wind. Two loud BAZOOMS rattled across Pirate Por
t as the Revenge fired a laser-cannon salute. Then, with a low rumble from the ship’s boosters, it was gone.
On the dock, everyone continued about their business, used to seeing ships come and go, but Sam was amazed – this was so much better than watching the ships from his bedroom window! He watched until the Gravity’s Revenge was little more than a speck in the distance, then he looked back at Apollo’s crew carrying their supplies on board.
That was it!
If he could hide himself in one of those crates he would get carried right on to the ship! All he needed to do was wait until the coast was clear.
Sam watched as the crew of the Jolly Apollo went up and down the gangplank. As well as the Kraken and the two-headed first mate, there was a small jelly-bodied pirate who left a slimy trail behind him, a fearsome-looking Snippernaut with gigantic lobster-like claws, picking up three crates at a time, and a furry creature with more mouths than Sam could count. More pirates worked below deck, and deep inside the ship Sam could hear the muffled kerthunk of bowling balls hitting pins.
Then came the moment he was waiting for – all the crew were below deck at the same time. Sam knew he wouldn’t have long, so he took his chance and sprinted across the deck and dived behind the pile of crates. Just in time! As Sam peered around the crate, the huge Kraken swung into view, its metal-tipped peg legs clanking down the gangplank. To Sam’s horror it stopped right in front of the box he was hiding behind. Sam jumped back as one of the Kraken’s thick tentacles snaked past him and around the bottom of the box. But instead of picking it up, the Kraken lifted the lid and plunged a tentacle inside. There was a disgusting smell and the sound of a tentacle being pushed into something squelchy. Then a satisfied slurping and guzzling.
Sam carefully peered around the box and saw the Kraken pull a slimy ball of glugspawn out of it. The pirate tossed the foul blob into its beaky mouth and noisily chomped it down. Then it gave a huge belch, looked over its shoulder guiltily and let the lid fall shut. The tentacle slid away, and the Kraken picked up another box and clattered back up the gangplank.
Sam hoped that glugspawn wasn’t the only food on board. But there was no time to worry about that – he needed to get into one of the crates before the Kraken came back. With all his strength he pulled on the lid of a big metal box to the side of him, but it was locked. So was the lid on the next box, and the next.
All the lids were nailed tight. He began to panic – if he couldn’t get into one of these crates he’d never get aboard. But he knew there was one that was open…
Groaning, Sam lifted the lid a crack and was almost knocked backwards by the terrible stench of the glugspawn. It was like someone had mushed rotten fish into a cat’s litter tray. Could he really hide in there? The sound of pirates shouting on board the Jolly Apollo made his mind up for him. He quickly climbed into the crate and slid into the stinking, slimy, jelly-like eggs. The smell was overpowering and the gloopy mess soaked into his clothes and slid down the back of his neck.
“Where’s Barney gone?” came a hoarse-sounding voice from outside the box. “I thought he said he would load these crates on board?”
“Said he had dinner to cook,” another voice replied.
“Dinner! Is that what he calls it?” the gruff pirate snorted. “I wouldn’t feed it to my Tangorian Desert Hound.”
Suddenly Sam felt his box move jerkily into the air. The gloop slopped around, washing over Sam’s head as he was carried along, then dropped with a thud. Sam was drenched in glugspawn goo but he held his nose and kept quiet. No way was he going to be found now. There were more thumps as other boxes were dropped nearby, then came the unmistakable sound of Captain Comet’s voice.
“Everything on board?” he asked.
“Aye aye, Captain,” came the reply.
“Excellent – then raise the anchor!” shouted Comet.
“Aye aye, Captain,” repeated the crew.
There was a grinding clunk as the gravity anchor was raised.
“Set the main sails,” ordered Comet. “Rocket boosters on standby.”
Sam felt the Jolly Apollo shudder as a low, rumbling sound reverberated from below.
“Mr Pegg, Mr Legg, fire the salute!” shouted Comet. Sam remembered the two-headed alien from earlier on. Sure enough, two voices replied, one sounding grumpy, the other seeming nicer.
“Aye aye, Captain,” they called.
BAZOOM!
Sam waited for another shot, but it didn’t come.
“It’s two shots, you zoodle-brains!” shouted Comet.
“The blasted laser cannon has jammed again!” complained Pegg.
“What? I thought I told you to get it fixed!” exclaimed Comet.
“You told that useless barnacle, not me,” snapped Pegg, nodding towards his other head.
“Now, now, me hearty, we both know the captain told you, not me,” said Legg.
“You’re both the same person!” shouted Comet in absolute exasperation. “Whoever said two heads were better than one obviously hadn’t met you!”
Sam heard the sound of someone stomping up to the laser cannon.
“Right, let me have a look,” Comet huffed. “There! I’ve told you a hundred times, you’ve got to check the firing mechanism is free of obstructions. You… just… need… to… pull… this… there! Right, now the trigger just needs a light press and…”
BAZOOM! BAZOOM! BAZOOM! BAZOOM! BAZOOM!
“Help! Make it stop! Make it stop!” shouted Comet.
BAZOOM! BAZOOM! BAZOOM! BAZOOM! BAZOOM!
There was a loud clunk as something heavy landed on the deck near Sam’s hiding place, shaking up the spawn and releasing a new load of stomach-churning stink.
“Captain – I think you’ve blown up the Yo Ho Bowl,” one of the pirates whispered.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Comet.
Even from inside the crate, Sam could hear shouts and cries from Pirate Port.
“Oh. Oh dear,” Comet muttered. “Ermmm, right. OK. Rocket boosters to maximum, please. Get us out of here. And someone fix that bit of mast back on.”
Footsteps disappeared across deck followed by the slam of a cabin door. The deep rumble from somewhere down below changed pitch as the rocket boosters cranked into action, only to be followed immediately by a loud backfire. Then the engines spluttered into life and Sam felt the Jolly Apollo lurch upwards and away.
Buried deep in a box full of stinking glugspawn, Sam smiled to himself – he was on his way to Planet X!
Sam had to get out of the crate! He was desperate to see what was going on and the glugspawn was getting everywhere – up his nose and in his ears. Breathing was tricky, but he didn’t dare open his mouth in case he swallowed some of the eggs. If they smelled this bad, Sam couldn’t imagine how horrible they’d taste. Soon he couldn’t take it any longer – he opened the lid a crack and took a gulp of air. Through the gap Sam could see the crew of the Jolly Apollo, squabbling and fighting as they worked on the deck.
“Hey, you moon-headed numbskull – watch what you’re doing with that mop!”
“Put your back into it, you four-legged shirker!”
The pirate with two heads was even arguing with himself. “Call that a knot? Me granny knits stronger knots that that!” said Pegg.
“Your granny? I think you’ll find she’s my granny!” Legg replied.
Something hit Sam’s box with a dull thunk as the pirates started throwing things. Sam raised the lid a little higher to get a better look, but as he did the box lid gave a loud CREEAAAKKKK. The fearsome-looking Snippernaut who was working on deck immediately spun round. Sam dropped back into the slime in a flash.
Did he see me? Sam wondered in a panic.
A second later the box lid was flung open and light flooded in. I guess he saw me, Sam thought as a large claw descended and grabbed him by the shirt. Sam hung in the air, dripping glugspawn on to the deck. The Snippernaut’s face loomed in front of him, his antennae twitching.
�
�So what’s this then?” snarled the Snippernaut. “A stowaway, is it? Well, I’m sure the captain will be interested to meet you. CAPTAIN! CAPTAIN! There’s something here you should see.”
“What’s wrong now?” demanded Comet as he burst from his cabin. “Can’t a man have a nap – I mean, plot a course – without being disturbed every two minutes?”
“Stowaway, Captain!” the Snippernaut replied, holding Sam at claws’ length. “A stinky one.”
“A stowaway, eh?” said Comet.
The Snippernaut let Sam go and he fell to the deck with a bump. Sam could feel the eyes of the crew watching as Comet loomed over him. It seemed like Comet could too, because he bellowed so that everyone could hear.
“You again, eh? Well, let me tell you, Captain Joseph Hercules Invictus Comet does not tolerate stowaways! Do I, me hearties?”
The crew roared in response.
“There’s only one punishment fit for stowaways, isn’t there, me hearties?” Comet continued.
The crew yelled their approval. Sam swallowed.
“That’s right – hang him from the ship-shape!”
A confused silence settled over the Apollo.
“No, that’s not right,” Comet muttered. “A-ha! I mean hang him from the yardleg!”
“Do you mean the yardarm, Captain?” asked Sam.
Comet looked wide-eyed for a moment.
“That’s right, me hearty – I see you didn’t fall for my trick. Well done!” Comet blustered. “Well, let’s get on with it!”
“Sorry, Captain, but we’ve not had a chance to fix it since you shot it off earlier,” shouted the Snippernaut, pointing at the tangled mess of shattered pole and rigging heaped on the deck.
“Oh good grief,” sighed Comet. “Why is nothing straightforward? Right then, we’ll go old school. Boys, let’s make him walk the plank!”
The crew cheered and parted, leaving a route from Sam to the side of the ship, where a plank jutted out from the edge of the ship into the emptiness of space. Sam thought quickly.