Black Hole Battle Read online

  “Your friend is too small,” Commander Blap said.

  Fuzz’s eyes sparked. He leaped from Rocky’s shoulders and landed on the pilot’s chair with his flippers raised. “You may be a girl,” he warned, “but say the S-word again and I’ll turn you into chowder.”

  Commander Blap stumbled backwards in fright, bumping into her hat and knocking the pencil out of the hatband. The pencil tumbled to the ground, missing the penguins by millimetres. The Captain looked down at it thoughtfully. It was almost as long as he was.

  Fing!

  “Good to see you, Splash,” said Captain Krill, as Splash rolled through the engine-room door. He frowned. “How did you fire yourself down the corridor?”

  “It was a simple matter of unravelling a loose thread from the carpet, tying it to the trigger, climbing into the crossbow chamber and pulling,” said Splash. “Now we have approximately one and a half minutes to get out of here. Why aren’t the thrusters on yet?”

  “Don’t you start,” said Commander Blap.

  “I have a plan,” said Captain Krill.

  The penguins made a taller ladder this time, with Captain Krill on the bottom, then Splash, then Rocky. Fuzz balanced at the top, holding the pencil.

  “That pencil’s not too heavy, is it, Fuzz?” Captain Krill shouted.

  “Nothing’s too heavy for the Fuzzmeister!”

  Fuzz did a little spin with the pencil in his flippers to prove it.

  “ONE MINUTE!” Splash shouted.

  It was difficult to hear themselves think, the Superduper Startrooper was shuddering so loudly. Reaching up, Fuzz leaned the tip of the pencil on the red thruster button – and pushed.

  VVVVRRRROOOOOMMMMM!

  They all felt the thrusters kick back into life beneath them. Lights flicked on. The flight-deck instruments winked and flickered and beeped.

  “You did it!” said Commander Blap in astonishment. “You restored the power!”

  “NOW who’s small?” said Fuzz, as he slid back to the ground.

  Clank. Clank. Clank.

  What was left of Marin-8 stood in the engine-room door. His flickering eyes burned deep and red and vengeful.

  “DESTRUG!” he crackled.

  “We have no time for this,” said Splash. “There’s only twenty-five seconds left to turn the engines to full throttle!”

  “Leave him to me,” said Fuzz. “Ninja JAVELIN!”

  He hurled the pencil.

  PRANGGGG!

  The pencil hit what was left of the robot chef’s circuit board. There was a crackle of electricity, and a sigh, before Marin-8’s eyes flickered into darkness.

  “A loud Oomthrod hurrah for my pencil!” cheered Commander Blap, waving her tentacles with excitement.

  “The pencil is indeed mightier than the sword,” said Captain Krill.

  “The pen,” Splash corrected.

  “The pencil is totally mightier than the pen,” Rocky agreed. “Because you can rub stuff out.”

  “Is your missing tail fin going to be a problem, Commander?” said Rocky.

  “Not at all,” said Commander Blap. “It was only there for decoration.”

  “Ten seconds left. Where is the full-throttle button?” Splash said urgently.

  “Next to the thruster button!” the Commander replied.

  Captain Krill smoothed his ear patches. “Time to make the ladder again, team. Now, Fuzz, fetch me that pencil!”

  Ten thousand light years away from the black hole, and the passengers aboard the Superduper Startrooper were back to their correct size and a party was in full swing. The ballroom was still in a terrible mess, but Hoovertrons were the last things any of the Superduper Startrooper passengers wanted to see just now. Besides, there weren’t many left.

  The Peabos had avoided the explosion and freed the other passengers from the library cupboard. Bright pink Jimjams and pale green Wardles were now taking turns at dancing their national dances of celebration, which both involved headstands and quite a lot of arm waving.

  The huge Peabos towered over Fuzz as he ladled fresh green gazpacho into bowls.

  “This soup’s way better than the last batch,” said the bigger Peabo. “What’s in it?”

  “I downloaded the top-secret recipe from Marin-8’s circuit boards, cut the salt and added my own special touch,” said Fuzz. “A handful of rainbow fish from what was left of the aquarium.”

  Splash was sitting in a corner of the dining hall, tinkering with a pile of robot wiring, while Rocky was in the middle, surrounded by a crowd of Ullabullas.

  “So I climbed into the crossbow chamber, even though I knew it would probably mean my doom,” Rocky was saying to his admirers.

  Over on the dance floor, Captain Krill was looking as if someone had just bowled him over with a walrus.

  “You!” he said to a four-legged alien in a bright red suit covered in glittering crystals. “You’re Veezli Measly!”

  The red-suited alien pushed his sunglasses up both noses. “I am.”

  Captain Krill’s knees felt weak. “I’m your biggest fan,” he said, holding out a flipper. “Captain Krill of the Tunafish.”

  Veezli Measly beamed. “I’m your biggest fan too. What was your name again?”

  “Trustworthy Krill,” the Captain gasped.

  “Can I call you Trusty?” said Veezli Measly.

  “Only if you want us to laugh for the rest of our lives, Mr Measly,” said Fuzz, as he waddled past with two bowls of galactic gazpacho in his flippers.

  “You’re Veezli Measly,” said Captain Krill again. “I can’t believe you were aboard the Superduper Startrooper all along. You wrote my favourite song. You wrote ‘Starstruck’!”

  Veezli Measly winked and started singing: “Starstruck, bad luck, being hit by a star can really suck…”

  “Feet on fire, ears ablaze,” Captain Krill sang back happily. “Dazzled by your burning gaze… It’s a wonderful song, sir!”

  “Please, call me Veezli,” said Veezli Measly. He tapped Captain Krill on the belly. “If it hadn’t been for you, Trusty, I would have succumbed to Marin-8’s dastardly plan. I ran as fast as I could from the library when I realized I was shrinking.”

  Captain Krill looked at Veezli Measly’s four feet. “They were your footprints in the coffee!” he gasped again. “Where did you run to?”

  Veezli Measly patted his quiff. “The beauty parlour, of course, before I got rounded up with the others. If you are going to meet your end, you should do so looking as gorgeous as possible. If you had arrived any later, the universe would have lost my music forever.”

  Captain Krill clasped his flippers together to stop them shaking. “Thank haddock we reached the Superduper Startrooper in time to prevent such a tragedy.”

  “I’m going to write another song, Trusty,” Veezli Measly said. “I shall sing about how you and your brave crew rescued me and all the other passengers aboard this cruiseliner from that terrible black hole. I think I’ll call it ‘Black Hole Battle’.”

  Captain Krill blushed again, even brighter than before. “You’ll write a song about us?”

  Veezli Measly was already humming and tapping three of his feet. “Black Hole Battle, shake and rattle. It’ll blow you all awaaaaay… Black Hole Battle, not just prattle, saved by penguins, yaaaay… Yes, I like that.”

  “Black Hole Battle,” echoed the Wardles in booming bass voices, “shake and rattle. It’ll blow you all awaaaay…”

  “Black Hole Battle,” sang the Jimjams in high, bell-like voices, “not just prattle, saved by penguins, yaaaay…”

  The whole room started dancing.

  ‘They’re dancing for you, Trusty,” said Veezli Measly. And he winked.

  It was Captain Krill’s happiest moment ever.

  The Tunafish jetted away from the Superduper Startrooper. Completing missions was hungry work, so the penguins were having an early supper.

  “Delicious rainbow-fish stew, Fuzz,” said Captain Krill.

  Fuzz n
arrowed his eyes at the Captain’s plate. “You haven’t finished it,” he said.

  Captain Krill hurriedly scraped up the last spoonful of stew.

  “Whose turn is it to wash up?” said Rocky, resting his flippers on his full belly.

  Splash smiled. “Marin-9 will do it.”

  Marin-9 looked almost the same as Marin-8, but instead of cleavers and whisks for hands, he had mops and brushes and polishing cloths. He stood quietly beside the table, his eyes flashing green.

  “You’ve done a fine job reprogramming that robot, Splash,” said Captain Krill.

  “He looks as good as new.”

  “CLEAN. TIDY,” said Marin-9 in a friendly voice. “PUT AWAY.”

  “Atta robot,” said Splash, and patted Marin-9 on his shiny red back.

  About the Author

  Copyright

  STRIPES PUBLISHING

  An imprint of Little Tiger Press

  1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,

  London SW6 6AW

  First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2014

  Text copyright © Lucy Courtenay, 2014

  Illustrations copyright © James Davies, 2014

  Cover illustration copyright © Antony Evans, 2014

  eISBN: 978–1–84715–577–1

  The right of Lucy Courtenay and James Davies to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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