Space Team: Planet of the Japes

by Barry J. Hutchison

  Two blobs of yellow goo spluttered and oozed out from within his clogged-up arm cannons. He stared at them in disbelief. “Aw, son of a—” he managed, before he was buried beneath a thrashing mound of arms, legs, claws and teeth.

  The ground shook again, more violently this time. Cal and Loren pulled each other to their feet, then helped Miz up, too. The rumbling grew louder, faster, more intense. Not an earthquake, Cal thought. More like what he imagined a volcano might sound like right before it erupted.

  Something was rushing up the elevator shaft. Something big. Something fast.

  And then it emerged – an enormous brown mass that seemed to expand as it stretched out from within the narrow lift-shaft.

  A foot – no, not a foot, Cal realized, a paw, slammed down on the ground beside them with enough force to shake even the monster-things several inches into the air.

  “What the fonk is that?” Loren cried.

  Cal’s grin lit up his whole face. Tears sprung to his eyes for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.

  “What’s that?” he said, in a whisper of awe. “Scooooby-Dooby-Dooooo!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Cal wished he had popcorn.

  Despite the fact that Dave had likely now escaped, despite the fact they had – just as he’d predicted – been instrumental in freeing Space Hitler, and despite the fact that they were surrounded by either very violent or very horny giant clown-monsters, he wished he had popcorn. It wasn’t every day you got to see giant Scooby-Doo fighting a smiling dinosaur, after all.

  Had he been watching this on TV, he’d consider it up there with one of the greatest episodes of Scooby-Doo ever. Darker than most other episodes, granted – what with all the violence and killing and screaming – but still awesome.

  “Guess he stayed behind to take out the dampening field,” said Loren, sidling up to Cal. They watched as the Scooby-shaped Splurt bit the head off another grinning monster, reducing it to goo.

  “Looks like it,” Cal agreed.

  Something huge and ape-like leaped towards Splurt’s tail. A second Scooby-Doo head bloomed from the end of it, and swallowed the thing whole.

  “You know, we probably don’t give him enough credit,” Loren said.

  Cal nodded. “You’re probably right,” he agreed.

  Behind them, Mech spoke into his communicator. “Kevin. You there?”

  “Where?” came the somewhat startled reply. “Oh! Yes. Yes, I’m here. Hello, sir.”

  Cal rushed over to Mech’s side. “Great! Kevin, we need you to get down here and pick us up. If you can’t find us, just look for the fifty foot high animated Great Dane. Chances are we’re near that.”

  “What about the planetary shielding, sir?” Kevin asked. “I’m afraid getting through it is quite impossible.”

  “Can you blow it up?” Cal asked.

  “Oh, yes. Yes, I suppose I could do that,” Kevin admitted.

  Loren arrived at Mech’s other side. “Has anyone left recently?” she asked.

  “No, not that I’ve noticed,” said Kevin.

  “Thank God,” said Cal. “Then they might still be around.”

  “Unless you mean that other ship,” Kevin continued.

  Cal clenched a fist and raised it threateningly in the direction of the speaker. “Yes, we mean the other ship. Has it gone?”

  “Just, sir,” said Kevin.

  “Did anyone get aboard?” Mech asked. “You know, like some nine-fingered dude with a big metal ball?”

  Kevin hesitated. “A big metal what, sir?”

  Miz leaned over Mech’s shoulder. “Just, like, anyone,” she barked. “Did anyone get on the ship, or whatever?”

  “I wasn’t really paying too much attention,” Kevin confessed. “I was playing Hide and Seek.”

  “On your own?” Cal asked.

  “Well… how else would one play Hide and Seek, sir?”

  Everyone exchanged glances. Behind them, Scooby-Doo murdered a two-headed dino-clown.

  “Forget it, we don’t want to know,” said Cal. “Just get down here.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  The voice was cut off by the sound of the Untitled’s engines igniting. Cal immediately looked up, searching for some sign of the ship.

  “He probably teleported aboard, or whatever that was,” Loren said.

  “Beamed,” said Cal. “Where I come from, we call that ‘beaming up’.”

  “Bullshizz,” Mech snorted. “You ain’t got technology anything like that.”

  “Tell that to the crew of the Starship Enterprise,” said Cal, in what he thought was a suitably vague and mysterious way.

  “It’s from some stupid TV show, isn’t it?” Miz asked.

  Damn it.

  “Oh look,” said Cal, pointing up and deliberately changing the subject. Something exploded over near the horizon. The sky flickered as the planetary shield fizzled out. “Kevin’s coming.”

  He turned, raising his voice. “Scooby-Doo, where are…?”

  Splurt sat on the ground behind him, pulsing gently, his wide eyes gazing up through his gloopy green ball of a body. Behind him, the terrain was thick with yellow gunge, but noticeably clear of monster-clowns.

  “Good to have you back, buddy,” Cal said, then he ducked as the Currently Untitled swooped past just above everyone’s heads, fired its landing thrusters, and lowered to the ground in a cloud of dust and a spray of gloopy monster parts.

  Cal turned and addressed the planet at large. “Funworld, it’s been… Not ‘fun’ exactly, but—”

  Mech grabbed him by the neck and bundled him towards the landing ramp. “Shut up and get on the fonking ship!”

  * * *

  “Hurry along now, everyone,” Kevin intoned, as the crew entered the bridge. “I suspect the operators of Funworld may take issue with me blowing their expensive shield generator to pieces.”

  “I doubt that,” said Cal, dropping into his chair. “Pretty sure this place doesn’t have any operators left.”

  “Really, sir?” Kevin asked. A small square window appeared overlaid on the main screen. “Then who are this lot?”

  Five ships approached, their paint jobs bright and colorful, their hulls amusingly fat and rounded.

  “I don’t know,” Cal admitted. “Maybe they’ve come to help.”

  The ground around the Untitled erupted in a hail of cannon-fire. The thack-thack-thack of the blasts striking the shield echoed around the bridge.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say maybe they haven’t,” Kevin replied.

  “Shizz. Loren, take us out of here,” Cal barked.

  “On it,” said Loren, her control panel locking into place around her.

  “Oh, she’s flying now, is she?” Kevin asked. “Suddenly, I’m not good enough.”

  “Loren flies the ship. That’s just how it works,” Cal explained. “If she wasn’t the pilot, we’d have to get rid of her, and nobody wants that.”

  Miz opened her mouth.

  “Almost nobody wants that,” Cal corrected, cutting her off. “Now get us airborne before—”

  More cannon-fire rained down, rocking the ship.

  “That happens!”

  Loren’s fingers flew across the controls. The Untitled lurched into the air just as the ground where it had been standing was obliterated by another series of blasts.

  “Mech, can you talk to these guys? Tell them who you are?”

  “Who is he?” Kevin asked.

  “Long story,” said Cal, dragging his seat belt across his chest as the ship suddenly dropped several dozen feet to avoid a scything stream of scorching energy from one of the attacking ships. “Jethus! I jutht bit my tongue!” Cal yelped.

  “Can’t be done,” Mech said.

  “Yeth it can,” Cal said, pointing to his mouth. “Of courthe it can.”

  “Not your tongue, shizznod! I mean I can’t talk to those ships. They’re automated defense drones. Ain’t no-one to talk to.”
r />   “They’re faster than they look,” Loren warned, rolling the Untitled out of a torpedo lock.

  “That’s not exactly saying much,” Miz said.

  “Should I return fire, sir?” Kevin ask.

  “Yurth!” said Cal, then he stopped rubbing his tongue and tried again. “Yes! Of course! Shoot back!”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Splurt hopped into Cal’s lap and snuggled in. On screen, five approaching drones became four, then three, then two.

  Cal missed the guns. The guns were fun. He had to admit, though, that Kevin was by far the better shot. Personally, Cal preferred a more seat-of-the-pants, frantic battle for survival type shootout, but given the circumstances, there was something to be said for the cold, clinical efficiency with which Kevin was destroying the attacking ships.

  “They don’t even appear to be shielded,” Kevin announced, locking onto the final ship. “I almost feel guilty.”

  The cannons flared. The last colorful, jolly-looking drone became debris. Cal watched it fall until it hit the ground, then gave a nod of satisfaction.

  “Nice shooting, Tex,” he said. “Now get scanning. Find that ship.”

  “Which ship?” Kevin asked.

  “The ship. The other ship,” Cal said. “On the landing platform. The ship we asked you about.”

  “The ship,” said Loren, as if that would somehow clear everything up.

  “The one that flew away,” Cal continued. “The one that was on the landing platform with you. We asked you about it, and you said it flew away.”

  “Oh! The ship,” said Kevin. “What about it?”

  “We need you to find it,” Cal said.

  “Aha! Right. Got you, sir. That’s an easy one,” Kevin replied.

  “Great!” Cal cheered. “Where is it?”

  “It’s behind us.”

  The Untitled shuddered violently. Alarms screamed. Lights flickered, then returned in shades of stark, worrying red as reams of damage report data rolled up the screen.

  “We’re under attack!” Loren warned.

  Miz tutted. “Seriously? Like, we totally hadn’t noticed.”

  “We’re being hailed,” Mech announced.

  “On screen!” said Cal, but a box showing Dave’s smirking face had already appeared.

  “Wow. ‘On screen’?” he sniggered. “You really do fancy yourself as quite the Captain Kirk, don’t you?”

  “Beam this up, Scotty,” Cal retorted, giving Dave the finger. “Now, give us back the big ball of evil, or we’ll blow you out of the sky.”

  “I was content to let you live, you know? I was being serious about all that stuff,” Dave said. “But you had to go and spoil it.”

  “That’s what we do,” said Cal. “Spoil things.”

  He narrowed his eyes, considering his last statement. “I mean, not everything. Just, you know, bad guy stuff, or whatever. It’s not like we spoil… Know what? Forget it.”

  “All I wanted was a head start,” Dave explained. “But you couldn’t even give me that. I assume your weird fat child took the Fritzer. Clever. I’m actually impressed.”

  “I aim to please,” said Cal.

  “Yeah. It’s not you I’m impressed with,” Dave said. “You just lay there dribbling down your chin.”

  “Or did I?” said Cal, raising one eyebrow.

  “Yes. Yes, you did.”

  Cal hesitated, then conceded with a nod. “Touché.”

  “Anyway, as a result, I’m going to have to kill you sooner, rather than later, which is all a bit disappointing.”

  Dave sighed, and began adjusting controls on a panel just below the camera’s field of view. “Goodbye, Cal.”

  “Wait!” Cal said, the note of desperation in his voice taking him by surprise. “Don’t go. Not… not yet.”

  Dave paused, and raised his eyes to the screen again. Cal shifted in his seat, like he couldn’t quite get comfortable. Splurt gazed up at him, wide-eyed.

  “Are we the last?” Cal asked.

  Something passed, just fleetingly, behind Dave’s eyes. “By now, I assume so, yes.”

  Cal nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he said. “And you’re OK with this? Us killing each other?”

  “No. No, I’m not OK with that,” Dave replied. “Fortunately, we won’t be killing each other. I’ll be killing you. That’s quite different.”

  “You know what I mean,” Cal said. “You’re OK with killing the only other Earthman in the universe?”

  Dave looked up, as if in thought. “Yep. Yep, I think I’m fine with that,” he said.

  “Good. Just checking. Me, too,” said Cal. “Kevin, fire!”

  Nothing happened.

  Several awkward moments passed.

  “Hmm? Sorry, sir, were you talking to me? I was miles away.”

  “Oh, for the love of—”

  A torpedo slammed into the shielding, sending the Untitled into a downwards list. Mech jabbed a finger towards the screen. Dave’s face had gone, and the view was now of nothing but uninterrupted land mass in all directions.

  “Ground, ground, ground!” Mech shouted.

  “I see it!” Loren cried.

  “Like, I should fonking hope so,” Miz chipped in. “It’s covering the whole screen.”

  “Loren, you need to pull up!” Cal bellowed.

  “I know!”

  Heaving on the stick, Loren punched the front take-off and landing thrusters, nudging the nose upwards until the horizon came into view. It was a horizon that quite prominently featured Dave’s ship, and even more prominently featured a large number of torpedoes.

  “Oh… shizz,” Loren mumbled. “Brace, brace, brace!”

  The sound was incredible. It exploded from all directions in rapid succession – bang, boom, crack – shaking and shuddering the ship until Cal felt like his brain was turning to mush inside his skull.

  “Shields at twenty per cent,” Mech announced, once the onslaught had stopped.

  “Kevin, fonking shoot that guy!” Cal commanded.

  “He’s coming back around. Everyone hold on!” Loren yelped, pulling the ship into a steep upwards climb that almost made Cal choke on his own tongue. Cannon-fire scorched the air. The shield flickered, then Dave’s ship whistled past beneath them, already looping into a figure of eight pattern designed to bring the Untitled back into its firing line.

  “Sixteen per cent,” Mech said. “We can’t take much more.”

  “Kevin! I do not hear any shooting from our guns! Are you going to return fire, or do I have to do it myself?”

  “Firing now, sir,” said Kevin. A swarm of small white rocket-like projectiles appeared briefly at both sides of the view screen, then sharply banked off in the direction of Dave’s ship, which was rapidly coming up behind them again. “Ooh, that was a new one,” Kevin said. “I didn’t know we had those.”

  “Show me,” Cal ordered. An overlay appeared showing the rockets closing on Dave’s ship. He zig-zagged through them, and while one or two ricocheted off his shielding, most of them exploded against the ground.

  “Damn it. Fire again!”

  “Very good, sir,” said Kevin.

  “Wait!” Loren cried. She stole a glance back over her shoulder. “Is this wise? If we blow him up, won’t we free Krone?”

  “He’s in an indestructible bubble,” Cal reminded her.

  “Indestructium isn’t actually indestructible.”

  “It isn’t?” said Cal. He threw up his hands. “Then why the fonk is it called Indestructium?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Kevin, hold our fire for now.”

  “Hmm? Oh, sorry, sir. The missile’s already away. I shot it ages ago.”

  “Ah well, fonk it,” said Cal. “It’s not like we’ve got a whole lot of options. If Dave gets away, then Space Hitler will be free, anyway. If we take the ship down, at least we’ll be alive to stop him. Or run away. One of those.”

  “It missed, incidentally,” Kevin said.
“He’s an exceptional pilot. Much better than ours.”

  “Hey!” Loren protested, jamming the ship into a dive as she tried to shake off another torpedo lock.

  “Just my little joke, ma’am,” said Kevin. His voice lowered to a whisper as he addressed Cal. “You can’t see it, sir, but I was winking when I said that.”

  “I can still hear you!” Loren said.

  The Untitled skimmed above some treetops, staying low. Something large and scaly reared up from within the foliage, then was instantly decapitated by a tailfin. A warning alarm chimed as Dave’s ship bore down on them from above.

  “Fonk this guy!” Cal said. “We need to take him down now! Let’s hit him with everything we’ve got.”

  “He’s only going to dodge it,” Miz said. “What’s the point?”

  “Uh, the point is not to die,” Mech said. “But she’s right. We’ll need to hit him a whole lot of times to even get through his shields.”

  Mech straightened with a whirr. “Unless…”

  “Unless what?” Cal asked, then he flopped wildly as the Untitled corkscrewed, turned upside down, then spun into a climb. “Christ,” he wheezed, as Splurt detached himself from the ceiling and dropped into his lap again. “Was that necessary?”

  “Yes!”

  “OK, then. Carry on,” Cal said.

  “Oh man. Oh man!” Mech boomed. “The connection’s still open.”

  Cal spun his chair towards him. “Connection? What connection?”

  “When he hacked us. When he accessed our databanks and stole all our fonking money, he had to connect wirelessly to our ship.”

  “If you’ve got a point, Mech, make it quickly. I’m about to vomit myself inside out.”

  “I can track back along the connection and bring down his shield!”

  Cal sat forward in his seat. “You can?”

  “Yeah. I mean, maybe. I mean… it’s a long shot, but at this stage it’s worth a try.”

  Miz shrugged. “I mean, unless I’m missing something, all you do is stand there reading stuff off the screen that we can all read for ourselves anyway,” she said. “You might as well give it a shot.”

  “Do it,” Cal said, holding onto Splurt as the Untitled banked sharply to avoid a screaming torpedo. Mech cranked his dial to his left and immediately toppled backwards.