Galaxy Race Read online

  “No!” screamed Skyporker. He felt like he had an angry space sprongle inside his head. “No one ate the food! That means… That means…”

  “You’ll have to race twenty-two other pilots to win the Golden Galaxy Goblet, Your Imperial Pigness,” said General Baycon. “Including the Space Penguins’ late entry.”

  “NOOO!” Anadin Skyporker had the loudest tantrum the planet of Sossij had ever heard. The Golden Galaxy Goblet shook in its glass case. The guards at the doors of the Imperial balcony covered their ears. General Baycon stood up straight because, with the Emperor yelling on the floor, the height thing didn’t matter.

  “We should have made them all crash like normal!” Anadin Skyporker screeched. “And now there’s no time to tamper with the raceships and make them crash! I’m VERY, VERY CROSS!”

  “Don’t worry, Your Ham-Sandwichness,” said Dark Wader, gliding on to the Imperial balcony. “Everything is under control. I sent Crabba to plant space mines around the race course. I’ll give you a map of where they are. The Space Penguins are the ones that wrecked your banquet, by the way. I told you they were tricky.”

  As if by magic, Skyporker’s tantrum stopped.

  “You’ve planted space mines! You’re a marvel, Wader!” he said in delight. “How can I reward you? I’ll give you anything! What about General Baycon’s job?”

  “What?” said General Baycon.

  Dark Wader brushed a little dust off his winking electronic chest. “I want to enter the race,” he said smoothly.

  “But then I’ll have to race against twenty–THREE pilots!” wailed Skyporker.

  “They’ll all blow up in the heats,” said Wader. “We’ll be the only two ships in the final, Skyporker. You and me. One against one. What do you say?”

  Wader’s just a big metal penguin, Anadin Skyporker thought cunningly. I could probably chuck a glass of water at his chest and he’d go bang…

  “It’s a deal, Wader,” Skyporker said with a snouty smile.

  Down at the race course, it was time for the heats to begin.

  Anadin Skyporker stroked the nose of his Imperial red raceship, the Krakling. He glared at the twenty-three other raceships lined up along the Superchase Space Race starting line. He glared especially hard at the Flashaway, gleaming brightly nearby. He buckled himself into his golden racesuit and climbed into the Krakling’s jewelled cabin. As he settled himself down at the controls, he pressed his communications button.

  “You’d better be right about blowing up everyone else, Wader,” he pouted. “And it being just you and me in the final.”

  “Trust me, Skyporker,” said Dark Wader, flashing an evil smile from the shiny silver cabin of the Squid-G parked beside the Krakling. “We’ll destroy everyone. And there will be penguin-shaped fireworks today.”

  The loudspeaker crackled to life.

  “We have six heats, with four raceships competing in each heat,” said Streeki Baycon. “Anyone who completes their heat goes through to the Superchase Space Race final tomorrow morning. If everyone explodes— I mean, crashes, there won’t be a Superchase Space Race final and the Emperor Anadin Skyporker will keep the Golden Galaxy Goblet for another year. Long live His Imperial Pigness! Heat One, start your engines!”

  The Superchase Space Race course went straight up through the atmospheric layer of Sossij. When it reached outer space, it rocketed round the moon of Rynd and through the asteroid field of Salami, zoomed past the Black Hole of Pudyng, then whipped back through the meteor shower of Meatior. The whole loop ended back at the starting line in Bangerz. It was a tricky course, even without the space mines that Dark Wader had planted along the way.

  The sixteen raceships in Heats One to Four had already zoomed away. No one had made it back to the finishing line yet. Plumes of smoke drifted ominously through the sky.

  Anadin Skyporker hummed aboard the Krakling, winking at Dark Wader in the Squid-G next to him. Rocky was scheduled for Heat Five, and the Emperor and Dark Wader Heat Six.

  The Space Penguins had glimpsed Dark Wader on the starting line a little earlier. The pengbot had ignored them, which was strange.

  “Heat Five, start your engines,” said Streeki Baycon over the loudspeaker.

  Rocky waved at the cheering spectators in the stands beside the race runway and climbed aboard the Flashaway.

  “For the last time, Rocky, you have to LISTEN to us,” Captain Krill called up to him. “No one has finished a heat yet. Doesn’t that make you suspicious?”

  “They’re all rubbish pilots,” said Rocky. “I knew that already.”

  “The Emperor is up to something!” Splash insisted. “Those plumes of smoke coming out of the sky smell like dynamite.”

  “La-la-la, I’m not listening,” Rocky said, buckling himself into the Flashaway.

  “You idiotic iceberg!” shouted Fuzz. “You pickled herring! You fish finger! We’re trying to HELP you!”

  “Tell it to the flipper, coz the beak ain’t listening,” said Rocky, and closed the door.

  BANG!

  The starting pistol cracked through the air. The Flashaway zoomed down the runway, followed by three other ships: the Zoom Baby, the Buzzer and the Whizzer. Within a few seconds, they had rocketed up, up, up … and out of sight.

  Rocky loved being at the controls of the Flashaway. Every button he pressed did something exciting. The racing engines purred away underneath him as he streaked upwards. He was ahead of the other ships already and the race had hardly started.

  The sky started to change from blue to black as Rocky hit the stratosphere.

  Lights winked brightly on the Flashaway’s dashboard.

  “I’m in SPACE, winning a RACE, it’s totally ACE,” sang Rocky, whizzing round the moon of Rynd.

  The planet Sossij looked tiny by now. Rocky studied the star map on the dashboard. Where was he? The asteroid field of Salami was supposed to be right here. But it wasn’t. There weren’t any space spectators up here watching the race ships, either. He thought there’d be loads.

  What was the point of winning a race if no one was watching?

  Rocky saw some asteroids bobbing away on the great black horizon. They looked a bit like the asteroid field on his map. Maybe not exactly, but…

  “Close enough,” Rocky decided.

  He gunned the Flashaway’s engines and headed that way. It was bound to be right. How many asteroid fields could hang around one planet, for kipper’s sake?

  The other Space Penguins waited tensely by the finishing line for Rocky to return. Not one single raceship had made it back yet. Would Rocky do it?

  “Tra-la-la,” sang Anadin Skyporker, sitting at the starting line behind the controls of the Krakling.

  “Everything’s going to plan, Crabba,” Dark Wader told his small, crabby pilot aboard the Squid-G. “Any minute now, and the Space Penguins will be no more.”

  “You do realize Rocky Waddle’s the only penguin aboard the Flashaway, don’t you, boss?” said Crabba.

  Dark Wader waved a metal flipper at his little sidekick. “Of course I do. But when Rocky goes bang, the others won’t have a pilot any more. They’ll be history. They’ll have to stay on Sossij forever. No more space hero stuff for them. HAHAHAHA— Oh, poo! My sides just split again.”

  BANG. The Space Penguins heard the distant sound of an explosion high above them. Two more quickly followed. BANG. BANG.

  “Nineteen explosions so far,” said Captain Krill grimly. “Rocky could be number twenty.”

  There was a gasp from the crowd as a raceship suddenly shot out of the clouds towards them. It was moving so quickly that it was difficult to tell at first what colour it was. Then the penguins saw it. It was white. It was fast.

  It was the Flashaway.

  The crowd was roaring as the Flashaway got closer to the finishing line.

  “Anchovies away!” yelled Splash as Captain Krill waved his flippers in the air in an un-Captainly way. “Rocky’s through to the Superchase Space Race final!”


  “Rocky the Rockmeister ROCKS!” screamed Fuzz.

  A different sort of screaming was going on aboard the Krakling, where Dark Wader and Crabba had joined the Emperor and General Baycon to watch the conclusion of Heat Five.

  “HOW DID HE DO IT?” howled Anadin Skyporker. “How did he get past the space mines in the asteroid field of Salami? How did he avoid the pull of the Black Hole of Pudyng and the fiery meteors of Meatior? You’re fired, General Baycon! You’re fired, Wader! EVERYONE ON THIS ENTIRE PLANET IS TOTALLY FIRED!”

  “There’s a well-known expression among penguins, Your Imperial Pigness,” said Dark Wader as the Flashaway approached. He smiled, his metal beak flashing in the sunlight that poured through the windscreen of the Krakling. “Don’t count your icebergs until they’ve melted.”

  BANG!

  As its nose crossed the finishing line, the Flashaway exploded.

  The Flashaway broke in two. The front end somersaulted once, twice, and landed upside down.

  “OOH!” gasped the crowd.

  “I planted the last space mine on the finishing line itself,” Dark Wader said. “Just in case.”

  “You really are seriously evil, boss,” said Crabba, clicking his claws together.

  “I’m sorry I ever doubted you, Wader!” beamed Anadin Skyporker. “Are you sure you don’t want General Baycon’s job?”

  “I just want you to fly fair in our heat, Skyporker,” said Wader. He raised his metal eyebrows. “You are going to fly fair, aren’t you?”

  “Of COURSE I’m going to fly fair!” Skyporker spluttered. “I’m going to fly fair and win!”

  Dark Wader left the Krakling and clanked aboard his Squid-G. “Watch Skyporker, Crabba,” he ordered. “I don’t trust him.”

  As he shut the Squid-G door, a large glass of water, which had been balancing on top, tipped over and landed on his head.

  “Oh, and Crabba? Fetch me a towel.”

  “There has been a change to the line-up for Heat Six,” said Streeki Baycon over the loudspeaker. “The Breakneck and the Speedolite have decided they don’t want to race any more and are going home to their mummies. What’s left of Heat Six, start your engines. Long live the Emperor!”

  As the Krakling and the Squid-G zoomed away on the final heat, Captain Krill waddled over to the smoking wreckage of the Flashaway. Splash and Fuzz waddled after him, imagining the worst.

  Rocky’s seatbelt was holding him upside-down in the pilot’s chair in the crumpled nose of the spaceship, his eyebrows dangling. Amazingly, he had hardly dented a feather.

  “Did I do it?” asked Rocky weakly as they dragged him out. “Did I make the final?”

  “Great beluga buttocks, of course you did!” said Fuzz. “You’re the Rockmeister!”

  “The damage doesn’t look too bad,” Splash said. “I should be able to put those two halves back together in time for the final, as long as it doesn’t—”

  KABOOOOM!

  Both parts of the Flashaway went up in two spectacular balls of flame.

  “—completely explode,” finished Splash.

  “It just completely exploded!” Rocky said in dismay.

  Race officials scurried on to the runway with dustpans and brushes to sweep up the remains of the mighty Megabux Model 12.

  Rocky’s eyebrows drooped. “How am I going to win the final without the Flashaway?”

  “You’re not,” said Fuzz. “Hard herrings, mate.”

  “I’m sorry, guys,” Rocky said miserably. “I should have listened when you told me the Emperor was a cheat. He and Dark Wader must have planted space mines all over the course. I’m as selfish as a shellfish and I don’t deserve a team like you.”

  “Apology accepted, Rocky,” said Captain Krill.

  “How come you didn’t blow up earlier like everyone else?” Splash asked.

  “I went the wrong way. I only found the course again right at the end.”

  “That explains a lot,” said Fuzz.

  “This isn’t over yet, Rocky,” Captain Krill said.

  “But I can’t race in the final without a ship!”

  Captain Krill looked at the rusty Tunafish, standing in the space-park beside the race runway. “We can’t let Skyporker and Wader get away with this,” he said. “You’ll have to use the Tunafish instead.”

  The others gasped.

  “But what if I mess things up?” asked Rocky. “We won’t have a spaceship!”

  “It’s a risk worth taking,” said Captain Krill. “The honour of the Space Penguins is at stake!”

  The Squid-G raced over the finishing line moments before the Krakling.

  “And the winner of Heat Six is … the squid-like ship with tentacles!” shouted Streeki Baycon down the loudspeaker.

  The crowd went nuts.

  “I HATE losing!” shouted Anadin Skyporker, unbuckling himself from the Krakling in a rage. His head thumped like a rock concert. “What happened to that glass of water I balanced on the door of Wader’s spaceship?”

  “It seems that Dark Wader is waterproof, Your Imperialness,” said General Baycon. He bent his knees a little more than normal. “This race was only the qualifying heat, though. The main thing is that you’re through to the final.”

  “Make sure my swill guns on the moon of Rynd are primed for the final and pointing at Wader,” Skyporker hissed. “That metal penguin is getting up my snout. Nothing will give me more pleasure than blasting him out of the sky with a ball of old dribblebog guts.”

  “This is officially the most exciting Superchase Space Race ever!” said Streeki Baycon over the loudspeaker as the crowd cheered wildly. “Three raceships are through to the final, folks! That’s more raceships than ever before!”

  “THREE?” yelled the Emperor.

  “The third ship belongs to the penguins, sir,” said General Baycon.

  Skyporker boggled at his General. “But their ship blew up! I saw it!”

  “Apparently they’re going to race the Tunafish instead,” said Baycon.

  Skyporker relaxed. “I saw that pathetic ship in the space-park before the race,” he giggled, rubbing his trotters together. “Nothing to worry us, eh, Baycon?”

  “Nothing at all, sir,” he agreed.

  It was a long night for the Space Penguins as Splash worked on the Tunafish, turning her from a rusty old bucket to a slightly less rusty old raceship. Rocky kept to himself, polishing the nose of the Tunafish until it gleamed.

  “Rocky’s very quiet,” said Captain Krill as Splash hammered and screwed and soldered extra bits of the Tunafish together in the bright Sossij moonlight.

  Splash pulled up his goggles.

  “He’s learned an important lesson, Captain,” he said. “The Space Penguins work best as a team.”

  “Do you think we can win this race in the Tunafish?” Captain Krill asked.

  “I’d like to say yes,” said Splash. “But it’s unlikely.”

  “ICEcube?” said the Captain.

  “My database says: fat FZZWZZ,” said ICEcube.

  “Fish soup!” Fuzz announced. He waddled out of the Tunafish, carrying four soup bowls along his flippers. “It’s my special recipe.”

  After their dinner, the penguins went back to work. There was still a lot to do, and sunrise was only a few hours away.

  The morning of the final dawned. The crowds were larger and louder than ever. Pennants fluttered. Sossij traders trotted around, selling swill snacks and mud massages as the Tunafish, the Krakling and the Squid-G lined up on the starting line.

  “Welcome to the Superchase Space Race Final!” said Streeki Baycon over the loudspeaker.

  “Here goes, team,” said Rocky. “I can’t do this without you. One for all…”

  “And all for FISH!” cheered the others.

  “On your marks,” said Streeki Baycon.

  “Swill Wader at the first opportunity, General Baycon!” hissed Skyporker into his communications button as he revved the Krakling’s engines.

&n
bsp; “Get set,” said Streeki Baycon.

  “I’ve sent out two mechanical mega-meteors to the meteor shower of Meatior, Crabba,” said Dark Wader as Crabba flipped a couple of switches. “And there’s a space mine by the finishing line again, just in case. If we don’t win this race, I shall be extremely surprised.”

  “GO!” shouted Streeki Baycon.

  VROOOOOM!

  The Squid-G leaped into the air. The Krakling gave chase. Rocky pressed hard on the thruster and the Tunafish took off. The penguins leaned back in their seats as it rocketed through the stratosphere, the mesosphere and, finally, into the black emptiness of space itself.

  Strings of spaceships lined the route, with flags attached for the competitors to see. Aliens cheered from inside their cabins. If sound could travel in space, it would have been extremely noisy.

  “Head for the asteroid field of Salami, Rocky,” Captain Krill ordered, as they whizzed round the moon of Rynd. “We want the second field, not the first.”

  “That’s where I went wrong!” exclaimed Rocky. “Well, there and a couple of other places.”

  “Snacks, anyone?” said Fuzz from the kitchen.

  The asteroid field of Salami was scary. Some of the asteroids were tiny, while others were the size of mountains. All of them were moving extremely fast.

  “Dodging space rocks is so refreshing,” said Dark Wader, leading the race. “Don’t you agree, Crabba?”

  Crabba heaved the joystick of the Squid-G, narrowly missing a pointy-looking asteroid. “Whatever you say, boss,” he panted.