Cosmic Crash Read online

  Fuzz Allgrin, Chef and Security Officer, taught the planet Kungfu-BBQ the difference between a lamb chop and a karate chop.

  Splash Gordon, the Ship’s Engineer and inventor, introduced power showers to the pongy aliens on the Planet Smelibot.

  And the Tunafish’s pilot Rocky Waddle got lost on the planet Strait-Ahed, which everyone thought was impossible.

  Now the Space Penguins just want to find a friendly planet where they can settle down and fish for FZZWZZ and slide around on the ice. The trouble is, they keep getting distracted. One minute they’re fighting their mortal enemy Dark Wader – an evil penguin robot with plans to rule the universe. The next they’re landing on wet planets, nearly drowning me and making me say FZZWZZ all the time.

  Uh oh. What’s this?

  An enormous ball of rotting food, floating among the stars! And it’s right in the Tunafish’s path.

  I ought to inform Captain Krill before we crash right into it. But he’s busy just now, giving Rocky Waddle some bad news. And Rocky’s not looking happy…

  “The answer is NO, Rocky,” said Captain Krill as the Spaceship Tunafish cruised through Section F of the Universe at around three hundred thousand light years an hour. “You CAN’T enter the Superchase Space Race this year.”

  “That’s what you said last year, Captain!” complained Rocky Waddle. “And the year before. And the year before that!”

  “The Superchase Space Race is the most dangerous race in the Universe,” said Captain Krill, looking down at his pilot. As an emperor penguin, the captain stood head and flippers above the rest of his crew. “Spaceships get smashed to bits every year. We can’t risk losing the Tunafish that way. She’s the only spaceship we’ve got.”

  “And the Emperor of Sossij wins every year anyway, doesn’t he?” said Splash. He lifted his inventor’s goggles to join in the conversation. Oil and grime streaked his face, hiding his orange ear patches. “I don’t know why anyone else bothers.”

  “But—” began Rocky.

  “Make like a sardine and can it, Rocky,” said Fuzz Allgrin. He folded his little blue penguin flippers across his even littler blue penguin tummy. “When Captain Krill says no, he means no.”

  “Thank you, Fuzz,” said Captain Krill.

  Rocky slid off his pilot’s chair and glared at the other Space Penguins. He flicked his long yellow eyebrows off his face. “You know what your problem is?” he said. “None of you have any imagination. The winner of the Superchase Space Race wins the Golden Galaxy Goblet, and fame and glory for ever! I could win the Superchase Space Race with my eyes closed and my flippers tied behind my back. Everyone knows that I’m the best pilot in Outer Space—”

  CRASH!

  The Tunafish shuddered in mid-air as something smashed into it. Fuzz fell over. Rocky rushed back to his pilot’s chair.

  “The best pilot in Outer Space?” said Fuzz, struggling to his feet. “Then how come we just CRASHED?”

  “What did we hit, Rocky?” asked Captain Krill.

  “I don’t know,” Rocky admitted, peering through the windscreen of the Tunafish. “It’s gone dark out there.”

  “We’re in Outer Space, trout brains,” said Fuzz. “It’s always dark out there.”

  “Darker than normal, I mean.” Rocky pointed with one flipper. “What in the name of cod is this stuff?”

  Something gloopy was covering the windscreen of the Tunafish, making it impossible to see out.

  “It looks like a thousand mouldy squelchglub cores,” said Splash.

  “So it does, by halibut!” said Fuzz. He stood on his tiptoes to get a better view. “There’s lots of old splattergunk peelings as well. And look! Dribblebog guts!”

  The squelchglub cores were brown and mouldy. The splattergunk peelings were nearly black and the dribblebog guts were green. There was lots of other nameless mess too, smeared across the glass. It smelled terrible.

  “Why have we crashed into a cosmic compost heap, ICEcube?” asked Captain Krill.

  “It’s not a compost heap, Captain,” said ICEcube. “It’s space-pig swill.”

  “Yuck!” gasped the Space Penguins.

  “The dribblebog guts look great,” said Fuzz. “I could turn them into fritters.”

  “Do you know why there’s space-pig swill floating around here, ICEcube?” asked the captain.

  “My database doesn’t have that information, Captain,” said ICEcube.

  Captain Krill smoothed his yellow eye patches. “Rocky? Move slowly,” he said. “And turn on the windscreen wipers. Best flippers forward, crew. And – go.”

  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 2013.

  Text copyright © Lucy Courtenay, 2013

  Illustrations copyright © James Davies, 2013

  Cover illustration copyright © Antony Evans, 2013

  eISBN: 978-1-84715-492-7

  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.

  www.littletiger.co.uk