Cosmic Crash

by Lucy Courtenay

  They waited. And waited. And waited.

  “Where is he?” said Captain Krill, as they zoomed up to the surface for a much-needed breath.

  “The squid monster must have caught him,” said Fuzz.

  “The baby could have been in there too,” Splash said. “Why didn’t we think of that? That would mean two monsters for Rocky to battle!”

  “No way could those two jelly parachutes catch our Rocky Waddle!” said Fuzz. “He’s much too quick.”

  “But what other explanation could there be?” said Splash.

  “I’m going in to find out!” declared Fuzz.

  “No,” said Captain Krill before his feisty Chef and Security Officer could dip under the water again. “I’ll go. It’s a captain’s job to look after his crew. Both of you must stay outside the cave mouth. And that’s an order.”

  “Bo-ring,” said Fuzz crossly.

  Captain Krill swam as fast as a flippered torpedo to the cave, with Fuzz and Splash following behind. Clusters of alien fish glided around him, their blue eyes bright and curious. Even when he reached the cave, the fish didn’t leave. They seemed to have lost their fear of the yawning black mouth. It was as if they knew the monsters might not be bothering them for much longer. Captain Krill ate a few to give himself strength.

  He nodded firmly at Fuzz and Splash and turned to face the cave. It wasn’t looking as black as before. Instead, it glowed with a pulsing green light. It was huge and very, very quiet. Where was Rocky? Should he go in? Or was this a stupid thing to do? He had no idea what to expect.

  But then he thought of his pilot, trapped and helpless inside the cave, and he dived inside.

  The water in the cave was cold. Enjoying the sudden change in temperature, Captain Krill swam as close to the walls as he could. If the monster saw him, both he and Rocky would be finished.

  If Rocky wasn’t finished already.

  The cave floor was littered with piles of fish bones. Hundreds, thousands, MILLIONS of fish bones. No wonder the little fish had been scared. The place was a huge fish cemetery. Everything shone with the same eerie green light.

  Captain Krill stopped. There, at the back of the cave, sat the young squid with its back against the cave wall, glowing gently and looking at something in its tentacles. Something black and white with yellow eyebrows. A penguin! Rocky!

  The slimy monster passed Rocky from one tentacle to the next. It turned him upside down. It shook him. It played with him like a penguin rattle.

  Its enormous mother rested on the cave floor behind it, watching.

  Rocky’s eyes widened at the sight of Captain Krill. The captain gave him a stealthy flippers-up. If he did this right, they’d be out of the cave and back on the surface in no time. If he did it wrong…

  The mother squid closed its watchful eyes. Captain Krill prepared to swim at the youngster and kick it in the nose again.

  But suddenly, everything changed.

  TICK. TICK. TICK.

  A mechanical fish with blue marble eyes had swum into the cave. It was ticking loudly.

  Oh no!

  Splash had released the fish bomb too early. They were ALL going to be blown sky-high!

  This was a disaster!

  TICK. TICK. TICK.

  The mother squid still had its eyes shut. It hadn’t noticed Captain Krill. But the youngster looked puzzled, twisting its blobby head back and forth. The captain could almost hear it thinking. What’s that ticking noise? Where is it coming from?

  Rocky struggled. The young squid tightened its grip and shook him a few more times. Its glowing eyes swept the cave curiously. The little fish bomb swam closer. Its metal scales gleamed in the cave’s green light. Its blue marble eyes shone.

  TICK. TICK. TICK.

  Maybe Splash and Fuzz would be able to winch up the Tunafish by themselves and relaunch it? Captain Krill thought. Two Space Penguins zooming around the galaxy aboard the Tunafish was better than no Space Penguins at all.

  TICK. TICK. TICK.

  It was now or never. Captain Krill rocketed out of the shadows feet-first. If the two squid saw him before he kapowed the youngster, he was toast. If the bomb went off before he kapowed the youngster, they were ALL toast.

  The young squid suddenly spotted the fish bomb. Its tiny eyes nearly popped out of its head. They glowed extra bright and it made a snuffling sound of excitement. Rocky fell from its tentacles and bounced on the ground as the baby monster pounced after the shiny new toy that had swum into its cave.

  Captain Krill raced down to Rocky and grabbed him under the flippers. Rocky moved feebly. He badly needed air. It looked like the captain would have to do most of the swimming. He kicked with all his might and dragged his pilot towards the cave mouth. It was a long swim – and it wasn’t a moment too soon.

  Rocks cascaded from the cave roof. The walls shuddered. The water boiled and surged. The current swept up the captain and Rocky and threw them out of the cave mouth as it crumbled.

  “WAWAWA!”

  “WAWAWA!”

  The two squid monsters roared with rage and surprise. Their cave was collapsing! Everything was falling! Rocks were piling higher in the cave… The cave mouth was getting smaller…

  Within moments, the cave was completely blocked. The plan had worked! The penguins had trapped the squid monsters! Would they have time to raise the Tunafish safely?

  Fuzz and Splash grabbed Rocky and helped the captain to drag him upwards.

  “WHEW!” gasped Rocky, breaking the surface and breathing for the first time in way too long. “I never thought air could taste so good! Thanks for getting me out, Captain. The small squid grabbed me as soon as I went in. It couldn’t decide if I was a snack or a toy or both!”

  “Why did you release the fish bomb so early, Splash?” demanded Captain Krill.

  Splash blushed. “One of the alien fish got too close,” he said. “Its tail brushed my feet and I dropped the bomb. What can I say? I’m ticklish!”

  “There’s a time and place for being ticklish, Splash,” said Captain Krill sternly. “We were nearly roasted in there. Now get to work, crew! We have to hook up the Tunafish and winch her to the surface before those monsters work their way free!”

  The penguins swam to the floe and scrambled aboard. Paddling it above the Tunafish’s latest position, they unrolled the winch’s steel rope and hook.

  BOOM! BOOM!

  “That was one heck of a bomb, Splash,” said Rocky, listening as he fed the steel rope and hook down into the water. “Things are still blowing up down there.”

  BOOM! BOOOM! BOOOOM!

  “Impossible,” said Splash. “Something else must be making that booming noise.”

  Something else was.

  Beside the blocked-up cave mouth, the ridge was rippling up and down like someone was shaking it. BOOM! An explosion of boiling water shot out of a vent. Then another, and another.

  “An earthquake!” gasped Rocky.

  “It’s more of a waterquake, really,” said Splash.

  “The fish bomb must have triggered it off!” said Captain Krill.

  BOOOOM!

  A huge explosion from a nearby hot water vent nearly boiled the Space Penguins’ tails off. The ridge squirmed like an enormous stone snake beneath them. Shaken from its resting place, the Tunafish started sliding and bumping down the slope of the ridge.

  BOOM! BOOOM! BOOOOOM!

  The Tunafish was shaken up into the air. It was heading towards the abyss! And to make matters worse, three tentacles – one big and two even bigger – had started squirming out of the blocked cave mouth, furiously trying to break free.

  What could they do?

  “This is not good,” said Captain Krill as the Space Penguins jumped back on to the ice floe again. “It’s bad. Very bad.”

  “We worked that out already, Captain!” said Rocky.

  “Can you invent something else to get us out of this mess, Splash?” said Captain Krill.

  “Sorry,” said Splash.
Water dripped from his orange ear markings. “I’m a genius at inventing stuff, but even I can’t stop earthquakes.”

  BOOM! BOOOM!

  With all the boiling water explosions, the sea was warming up. The edges of the ice floe started melting. Drip. Drip. Drip.

  “It’s over,” said Rocky. “We’re barbecued.” His eyebrows drooped as he clutched his head with his flippers. “This floe will melt, and when it does we’ll end up in the sea and be eaten by the monsters.”

  “It’s over,” Splash agreed. “Drip, plop, crunch.”

  BOOM! went the earthquake. BOOM! went the hot water vents. The quivering sea was starting to feel like a hot bath. The ice floe melted a little more.

  Fuzz stood up. “You’re a bunch of fish-livered wobble bottoms and you should be ashamed of yourselves!” he said.

  Captain Krill frowned.

  “Not you, Captain,” said Fuzz. He turned back to Rocky and Splash. “It’s only an earthquake, guys! A poxy bit of awe-inspiring nature! And what are two hideous squiddy space monsters to intergalactic penguin heroes like us?”

  “Two hideous squiddy space monsters too many,” said Rocky. “Face it, Fuzz. This is the end.”

  “Not so fast!” said Fuzz. “Not while the Tunafish is still down there.”

  He leaped off the ice floe and vanished beneath the bubbling waves.

  “He’s right,” said Captain Krill to the others. “We have to bring up our spaceship or die trying. What are we waiting for, crew?”

  The Space Penguins high-flippered each other and dived after Fuzz.

  Below the surface, it felt like they were in a large purple saucepan that was reaching boiling point. They dodged from side to side as the hot water vents exploded around them.

  As they neared the cave, they could see that the squid monsters had wiggled two more tentacles out of the blocked cave mouth and were lashing out at the hot sea. The penguins hopped about like flies in front of two massive rolled-up newspapers. They couldn’t let themselves be beaten. Or indeed eaten. Not now. Not when they were so close to escaping!

  A hundred metres from the blocked cave, the Tunafish see-sawed from side to side, teetering way down on the very brink of the ridge. One minute it pointed at the penguins. The next, it tipped away from them. They had to stop it from falling away to the bottom of the ocean. It was impossible to watch without gasping with terror. If it tipped over the edge, everything was well and truly lost.

  The steel winch hook dangled down into the water beside the penguins. It swayed gently as the squid monsters stirred up the current. The Tunafish see-sawed even more violently.

  Fuzz seized the hook with both flippers. Then he let go and sprang away, bringing his flippers up to his beak. The hook was burning hot.

  The Space Penguins realized the awful truth.

  Not only was the hook now too hot to touch, the steel rope wasn’t long enough to reach the nose of the Tunafish any more.

  At that moment…

  BOOOOOOM!

  A vent underneath the Tunafish suddenly exploded in a fountain of boiling water. The penguins somersaulted backwards. Struggling round the right way again, they stared as their ship lifted and took off through the water like – like what else? A space rocket!

  The Tunafish flew towards the surface, nose-first, carried on a boiling head of steam. The Space Penguins chased after it. The seawater was nearly scalding.

  “Wahoo!” shouted Fuzz, rocketing on to the surface alongside the others on a tide of hot bubbles. “My backside is barbecued like a beefburger, but who cares? We didn’t need the winch after all! Here it comes!”

  The Tunafish exploded into the air beside them.

  SPLOOOOOOOSH!

  It spun like a big silver ballerina on the jet of boiling water – and crash-landed on what was left of the ice-floe.

  “We’ve got it!” cheered Rocky as boiling water splattered down and the steaming sea rocked around them. “Let’s get inside. We’re outta here!”

  But the Tunafish was so hot that it was cutting through the ice floe like a silver sword. At this rate, it was going to sink all over again!

  “The ice ray, Splash!” shouted Captain Krill. “Blast the Tunafish to cool it down!”

  Splash dived for the ice ray, which had slid off the floe into the water, and fired it at the Tunafish. The boiling spacecraft crackled with ice for a few seconds, but showed no signs of slowing down as it sliced through the floe.

  “It’s not enough, Captain!” said Splash.

  “All penguins on board, NOW!” Captain Krill bawled. “Your lives depend on it!”

  “Dave!” shouted Rocky, grabbing his hot, wet teddy as it floated past him. “You’re coming with me!”

  The Space Penguins leaped on to the floe. The melting ice was lovely and cold under their feet. Splash blasted the door of the Tunafish with the ice ray and Fuzz grabbed the cooling door handle.

  BANG! The door flew open. Purple water and lots of blue-eyed fish tumbled out. The penguins jumped inside, sloshing through the steaming water.

  “OW!” roared Fuzz, hopping from foot to foot. “How hot is this floor?”

  “Great to see you again, ICEcube,” said Captain Krill. “Is everything operational?”

  “Welcome back, Captain,” said ICEcube in a soggy-sounding voice. “Engines are wet but working. I am emptying the water as quickly as I can. We have exactly 4.1 seconds before this ice floe melts and we sink again. All I can suggest is that you cross your flippers.”

  As the penguins buckled themselves into their uncomfortably hot seats, they heard the ice floe cracking and creaking underneath the Tunafish.

  Crack… Creak…

  CRASH!

  The mother squid had broken free from the cave. It leaped out of the water with its tentacles flailing. It was so enormous that its body blotted out both yellow suns. Its eyes were bigger than the rapidly melting ice floe.

  “What are you waiting for?” shouted Captain Krill urgently. “Fly, Rocky. Fly!”

  Rocky pushed in the throttle as the squid monster lunged at them. It missed. With a roar and a blast of steam, the Tunafish lifted off … just as the ice gave a final creak and fizzed away to nothing.

  They rocketed away, leaving the squid monster far behind them. They were free!

  “We did it!” cheered Fuzz as they zoomed back into space. “We totally rock!”

  “Head for Section F of the Universe, Rocky,” said Captain Krill. “Dark Wader won’t think of looking for us there. If I ever meet him again, I’ll have something to say about his attack on us. But for now we need to find a nice penguin-friendly planet and settle down. I’ve had enough adventures for a while.”

  “I have a fish in my circuit boards,” ICEcube said as Rocky flipped a few switches and programmed in the coordinates for Section F.

  “No problem, ICEcube,” said Splash. “Leave it to the Space Penguins!”

  P.S.

  The tiny jellyfish-shaped spy camera clinging to the bottom of the spaceship Tunafish coughed and woke up. Since sending information about the whereabouts of the Tunafish to Dark Wader for the Squid-G attack, it had been half-drowned and half-boiled, but it was still working. It started to send a new message. Back on his space station, the Death Starfish, Dark Wader was celebrating.

  “Read me the Squid-G report again, Crabba,” he chortled.

  “Spaceship Tunafish terminated,” read Crabba, Dark Wader’s crusty, crab-like alien sidekick. “Your Squid-Gs blew it out of the sky. That’s all the report says, boss. I’ve read it to you ten times already.”

  “Ha ha! I expect the Tunafish went up in a blaze of flames,” Dark Wader said happily. “Those penguins must have been frazzled to cinders. I only wish I’d been there to see it! That’s shown them – they should never have meddled with Dark Wader! Victory is mine!”

  The jellycam’s message popped up on a screen by Crabba’s head.

  TUNAFISH BACK IN ACTION. REPEAT, TUNAFISH BACK IN ACTION.

  �
�What?” Dark Wader cried as he stared at the screen in rage and horror. “That’s IMPOSSIBLE!”

  But the message continued.

  SPACE PENGUINS HEADING FOR SECTION F OF THE UNIVERSE. MORE MESSAGES SHORTLY.

  Dark Wader thumped his armoured flippers down on the arms of his chair.

  “No one attacks me and my Death Starfish and gets away with it,” he said in a dangerous voice. “I’m going to finish those Space Penguins off once and for all. Fetch me a Squid-G, Crabba. Those blubber bandits have eaten their last fish!”

  Take a peek at the Space Penguins’

  next adventure:

  Welcome aboard the Spaceship Tunafish. I am ICECube, the cleverest on-board computer you will ever meet. I guide my ship and my space crew through the universe and get them out of FZZWZZ.

  I mean: trouble.

  My circuit boards got wet on our last mission and are still damp. I keep saying FZZWZZ for no reason. You have been warned.

  You will be surprised to learn that the crew on board the Tunafish are FZZWZZ.

  I mean: PENGUINS.

  NASA sent me plus five penguins on a top secret space mission five years ago, aboard a special fish-shaped spaceship called the Tunafish. Then they lost us. My database says: epic fail.

  Oh well. Things could be worse. The Space Penguins have kept busy during their time up here. They are now famous across the Universe for their intergalactic exploits.

  The planet Koffi changed its name to Planet T after Captain T. Krill’s bravery in the famous space battle of Boyling Ketl.