Starship Bloopers

by John Kloepfer

  Tara and TJ stepped up behind the wheelchair and examined the Sfinks’ contraption.

  “This ain’t gonna be easy,” TJ said, shaking his head. “Looks complicated.”

  “You guys sure you can handle this?” Kevin asked.

  “Are you kidding me?” Tara said. “Did you forget who we are? We’re the Extraordinary Terrestrials. . . .”

  TJ shrugged at Kevin, then looked at Tara. “If you say so. . . .”

  Kevin nodded and Tara and TJ went to work on detaching the telepathy helmet without frying Max’s brain. Kevin walked over to Warner, who was flipping through the sketchbooks.

  “Check these out, man,” Warner said. “This stuff is awesome.”

  Kevin was about to go check out the sketches when Tara called from behind him.

  “All done!” she said. “Good going, Teej!”

  She high-fived TJ after he pulled the telepathy helmet off Max. Their helmet still dangled from the machine overhead.

  Kevin and Warner walked over to meet the man behind the crazy future-telling comic books.

  Max’s eyes rolled out from the back of his head, and his face looked normal once again. He stretched his neck as the kids gathered around him. “I knew you would find me.”

  “Did you know we’d be in big freakin’ trouble right now?” Tara asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I knew that, too.”

  “Mr. Greyson,” said Warner. “You’ve got to be my all-time favorite author of, like, anything ever written. . . .”

  “That’s nice of you to say,” Max said, his voice sounding very weak before turning into a cough.

  “Cool,” Warner said. “I have, like, a billion questions I have to ask you.”

  “Sorry, guys,” Kevin butted in. “No time for chitchat. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “Good idea,” said Tara. “This place is giving me the creeps.”

  “Don’t forget our telepathy helmet.” TJ pointed up to the high-tech headgear hanging down from the ceiling.

  Tara reached up on her tippy-toes and unplugged the alien helmet. As soon as she disconnected the helmet, a security alarm activated and the room started to blink and flash with red emergency lights.

  The Sfinks’ alarm system rang out, blaring and whooping throughout the ship. Kevin’s stomach flashed to a bright orange.

  “We have to get out of here!” TJ cried.

  “Come on!” Kevin yelled, and took off down the hall with his friends close behind.

  Kevin led the way, racing out of the alien hospital. TJ and Tara stayed close behind, and Max vroomed after them in his electric wheelchair. “Wait up!” Warner yelled over the blare of the alarm. His arms were full of Max’s sketchbooks.

  “Warner, what are you doing?”

  “Do you have any clue how much I could get for these on eBay?”

  “Warner!” Tara yelled at him. “Come on!”

  The four kids and the comic book author skidded around the corner into another hallway that blinked with the red emergency lights.

  NYuRP! NYuRP! NYuRP! Three blasts from a Sfink ray gun streaked at them down the hall.

  “Duck!” Kevin shouted, and they all hit the deck. Everyone except for Warner. As he caught up with the rest of them, the photon blasts hit the stack of Max Greyson sketchbooks he held in his arms. Warner fell back on his rear end, totally unharmed. The sketchbooks, on the other hand, were burned to a crisp, completely ruined. Warner stared at the charred remains of his precious comic book bounty and looked like he wanted to cry.

  But there was no time for tears.

  A pair of Sfinks appeared at the end of the hallway, firing their photon blasters again. NYuRP! NYuRP!

  “Everybody stay down!” Tara shouted. She was next to Kevin, lying flat on her stomach. They both had their freeze rays out, aiming them down the hallway. But they couldn’t get off a clean shot.

  NYuRP! NYuRP! NYuRP!

  The photon blasts kept on coming. “Max, look out!” Warner shouted. The enemy fire was headed straight for the comic book author.

  A quick flash of bright white lit up the hall and Max vanished. The photons hit the wall of the spaceship and singed the metal, leaving a sooty black mark.

  “Nooooo!” Warner howled, thinking that Max had just been vaporized.

  “Relax, Warner!” TJ said, looking up at him. He was holding the shrink ray, aiming it where Max had just been. The comic book author was now a miniature man in a tiny wheelchair.

  “Max, are you okay?” Warner reached down to scoop up Max.

  Max Greyson looked at Warner and gave him a thumbs-up.

  ZAP! ZAP!

  Kevin and Tara each fired a round of freeze-ray shots down the hall and nailed the two Sfinks, freezing them in place.

  The kids scrambled to their feet and broke into a sprint, when suddenly Kevin’s stomach glowed orange, and he put on the brakes. At the end of the corridor, a huge team of Sfink soldiers knocked over the freeze-rayed Sfinks.

  Kevin backed away from the aliens, and his belly turned blue as they passed a door in the middle of the hallway.

  “Everybody in!” Kevin called, throwing the door open as the Sfinks started firing.

  The four of them dove in, and Kevin slammed the door shut. Tara fired her freeze ray at the door and sealed them all in the room.

  Kevin spun around, looking for another exit, but they were now in a storage room with no way out.

  Outside the freeze-rayed door, they could hear the clippity-clop of the Sfinks’ feet clattering to a stop in the hallway.

  “Open!” a snarling feline voice commanded.

  “No way!” TJ said, then turned to Kevin. “Why’d you lead us in here?”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” said Kevin. “I just followed my gut.” He pointed to his blue-glowing belly. “Literally.”

  “Why would the crystal lead us in here?” Warner asked. He looked down at Max Greyson in the palm of his hand. “Any thoughts, Max?”

  “It has been my experience that the crystals can be very fickle,” he said in a tiny, high-pitched voice. “You cannot control them or expect them to save you. They do what they must, just as we all must do.”

  Really? Kevin thought to himself. That’s all you got?

  “Open!” the Sfink yelled on the other side of the door. “No escape for you! Open!”

  Tara turned toward the door and shouted. “Shut up, will you? We’re trying to have a conversation in here!” She turned back to the boys. “Okay, seriously, what are we going to do?”

  Kevin shrugged. He had no idea. His stomach was glowing blue, but he had a hard time believing that they were in the right spot.

  BAM! BAM!

  The Sfinks started to pound outside the door, scratching with their claws. The metallic door started to bend and dent, but then the banging stopped.

  An eerie quiet filled the storage chamber, and all the kids could hear was the huff and puff of their own breath.

  A few moments passed and TJ started to freak out, twitching like he was trapped in a video game glitch. He ran up to Kevin, grabbed him by his sides, and started yelling at the crystal in Kevin’s stomach.

  “Why are you glowing blue, you stupid crystal?” he shouted. “We’re not safe in here! This is not good!”

  Warner pulled TJ away from Kevin and held him by the arms. “Chill, dude, everything is okay.”

  “No, it’s not okay, Warner, all right? This is totally not okay!” TJ yelled at him. “We’re about to get caught by these Sfink things, and who knows what they’re going to do to us! I just want to go home! We never should have come to outer space!”

  “That’s not true,” Kevin said. “We didn’t have a choice!”

  “Yeah we did, man! We could’ve stayed back on Earth and by this time I would have been at home, all snuggled up on my couch, nice and cozy, watching the science channel . . . I mean, we already saved Earth twice now. Why is it our job to save the galaxy?”

  “TJ, if the Sfinks win
and take over planet Glomm, then none of us are safe . . . do you get that? We’re fighting for our freedom here! Our freedom to eat junk food and watch TV whenever we want!”

  “I do get it, I do.” TJ started to calm down. “I’m just really scared right now, that’s all.”

  “Us, too, man,” Kevin said, patting him on the back. “Us, too.”

  “Shhhhhhhh . . .” Tara held up her hand. “Did you hear that?”

  Kevin and the boys went silent and listened closely. A noise like a buzz saw sounded beneath their feet and they all jumped back.

  Sparks flew up at them as something cut out a rectangular piece from the steel floor. The kids aimed their weapons at the hole as the metal rectangle lifted up and slid across the floor.

  “Freeze!” Tara yelled.

  “Don’t shoot!” Drooq’s gruff, raspy voice hollered up from below. “It’s just us!”

  Relief washed over Kevin as Phirf and Klyk stuck their heads up out of the floor, too.

  “How the heck did you know that we’d be here?”

  “We didn’t,” Klyk said. “But after we broke out, and the alarm went off in this sector, we figured it must have been you guys.”

  “We also disabled their tractor beam,” Phirf said. “In case we ever get off this ship.”

  KABOOM!

  There was a huge explosion and the freeze-rayed door imploded. Kevin felt himself fly off his feet. His back hit the wall and knocked the wind out of him.

  The smoke cleared and the Sfinks piled in the doorway.

  PYOO! PYOO! PYOO!

  Klyk opened fire on the Sfinks and they jumped back into the hallway.

  “Get down here!” Klyk yelled at the kids.

  Kevin dropped down through the hole in the floor and counted his friends in the underground passageway. Everyone was there in one piece.

  “Come on, Klyk!” Warner shouted. “We have to get back to the ship!”

  “What about Max?” Klyk shouted, still firing up through the rectangular hole in the floor, keeping the Sfinks at bay. “We have to find Max or the mission’s a bust!”

  “We got Max already!” Warner said, holding out the miniaturized comic book genius for them to see.

  Mini Max Greyson waved at them in his wheelchair. “Hello, fellas!”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” Klyk said. “Let’s get out of here!”

  The kids sprinted through the underground vent back to the loading dock, where their spaceship awaited their return.

  Klyk fired a photon ray toward a large metal grate at the end of the tunnel, and the grate exploded out of the wall.

  As they all jumped aboard the ship, the full force of the Sfinks’ guard filed into the room on both levels. There were at least a hundred Sfinks.

  “They’re going to shoot!” Tara shrieked as the armed guard aimed at their cruiser.

  Kevin leaped into action, bounding through the cabin of the spaceship. He jumped toward the main control panel as the Sfinks opened fire. Flying in the air, Kevin extended his arm and smacked the button to activate the force field.

  The ship hummed as the force field charged up. PING! PING! ZING! ZING!

  The alien gunfire pelted the force field and bounced off at crazy angles, whizzing back toward the army of Sfinks. The alien army dove for cover.

  Klyk hit the engine thrusters and their spaceship propelled into hyperdrive. They shot out of the Sfinks’ loading dock and back into the black void of outer space, leaving their alien nemeses in the exhaust fumes behind them.

  “Quick thinking, Kevin!” TJ yelled.

  Drooq and Phirf cheered and each gave him a high-five.

  “Take that, you feline freaks!” Kevin pumped his fist and let out a victorious whoop.

  Kevin caught his breath as he glanced back at the Sfinks’ mother ship. The massive sphere rotated ninety degrees on its axis and began to move toward the battle still raging around planet Glomm.

  Mini Max Greyson stood up from his miniaturized wheelchair. He struggled to keep his balance and coughed violently into his fist. Kevin went over to the comic book creator and crouched down next to him.

  Tara, Warner, and TJ gathered around the man as well.

  “Mr. Greyson, are you okay?” Kevin asked gently.

  Max coughed again and then locked eyes with Kevin. “Please,” he said, “call me Max.”

  “Okay, Max . . . ,” Kevin said, slightly hesitant. He wasn’t used to calling adults by their first names.

  “Thank you all for rescuing me,” Max said.

  “You’re welcome, Max, but first things first,” TJ said, fiddling with the shrink ray’s settings. “Let’s get you back up to size.” TJ lined up Max Greyson on the viewfinder of the shrink ray and fired the laser. The shrink ray zapped and the comic book author grew back to normal human size. “Now for your wheelchair.” TJ aimed the shrink ray again, but Max stopped him.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I’ll be all right without it.”

  Klyk pulled back on the accelerator for a moment so they could regroup and figure some things out. They had Max Greyson, but they needed a plan.

  “Good job, everyone,” said Klyk. “Now we just need to tell the Glomms that we have Max and help them fight off the Sfinks.”

  Just then the ship’s hologram projector buzzed and crackled before the image became crystal clear. It was a Sfink, a real mean-looking ugly one, too.

  “What is this?” Drooq said.

  “I am Miaow, overlord and ruler of the Sfinks!” the revolting alien intoned. “You made a clever escape and rescued your precious Max Greyson, and for that I applaud you.” The Sfinks’ overlord made a deadpan face and slow-clapped his six hands together as if he was mocking them.

  Kevin didn’t like the way the Sfink was talking to them. He seemed smug—as if he knew something they didn’t.

  “The jig is up, Miaow! We beat you!” Tara yelled. “So cut to the chase or buzz off!”

  “You will not take that tone with Miaow, little girl!” shouted the Sfink leader. “But it matters little what you say, and even less what you do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Kevin asked. “We have Max and you don’t!”

  “That might have counted for something if I still needed him,” Miaow cackled, and a wry smile curled up his hideous face. “I have a feeling we’ll be seeing each other sometime in the future.”

  Then Miaow’s image blipped out and vanished.

  “What’s he talking about?” Warner said.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Kevin said. “He’s just trying to get into our heads.”

  “Not without the telepathy helmet,” TJ said, and patted the device with his hand.

  “What else can you tell us about the crystals and the Sfinks?” Tara asked Max.

  “Yeah,” Warner said. “And how do you know the future?”

  “Are you part Glomm or something?” TJ asked.

  “No, I’m not part Glomm.” Max shook his head.

  “Then why do you see the same future as their crystals?” Tara asked.

  “Yeah,” Warner said. “How’d you get like this?”

  Max shuddered a little, remembering his past. “I was the unfortunate and unwilling participant of an experimental testing procedure when I was just an everyday citizen of our home planet Earth. I was a simple law enforcement officer, responding to a call about some bright lights in the sky over a local farm, when I was abducted.

  “The one who abducted me . . . it was a disgusting creature. An evil creature. Some kind of insectoid. He had no emotions, no compassion, but he knew his science.

  “He must have gotten his hands on some of the Glommian crystals. I do not know how. . . . He injected me with a serum made from the crystalline substance. I wasn’t supposed to survive. I was just a test subject for his evil experiment, but I managed to escape. The alien came after me, tried to hunt me down. It was a nightmare. He was going to kill me, but I beat him to the punch.” Max lowered his eyes to the f
loor and massaged his brow. “That was the first of the visions.”

  “All due respect, Max,” Klyk spoke up. “But we don’t really have time to hear your life story right now . . . unless it has something to do with the Sfinks.”

  “The Sfinks found me and hooked me up to some kind of supercomputer. It amplified my mind and body’s new capabilities. But it wasn’t a perfect system. They needed the missing piece—a telepathy helmet. As soon as they hooked me up to that, they could use my powers to mess with the crystals. I was basically a human signal to jam the frequency and accuracy of the crystals’ predictions. They used me to launch their attack on planet Glomm so they could take over the cache of crystals and become the dominant force in the galaxy.” Upon finishing his tale, Max took a deep breath and sighed.

  “But how are they going to see the future without the Glomms?” Kevin asked.

  “They have a device,” Max said. “A device that mimics the light the Glomms create to see the visions.”

  “Okay, kids,” Drooq called back from the control panel. “Story time’s over . . . get your gear ready.”

  Kevin looked out the viewport and took in the scene. The battle for Glomm was still raging. The planet was under heavy fire from the Sfinks’ battle cruisers. The Glommian fleets zipped and whizzed in the aerial firefight, defending their turf, but they were getting shot out of the sky left and right.

  The Sfinks’ massive spaceship hung above the planet like a giant apocalyptic moon, casting a large shadow over the surface of Glomm. Suddenly, it opened all its loading ports and launched a hundred more battle cruisers. Kevin watched with horror as the Sfinks unleashed a colossal attack.

  High up in the atmosphere of planet Glomm, the fleets of alien warships clashed in supersonic battle. Photon missiles flashed and shrieked through space. Explosions of green and electric-blue plasma zapped and banged all around the planet like a laser light show’s grand finale.

  “Okay, listen up,” Klyk said. “We have to get down to the surface. If we make it through the dogfight, we have to get to Narbok and tell him to call his troops back to the mountains to protect the crystal cave. We have to do everything we can to fight off the Sfinks.”