“It is not an incinerator,” said Clive. “It is a trash chute.”
Clive then explained that as he and Chooch were being led to the cell, he gathered fascinating data about the inner workings of Quantum’s mother ship from Lieutenant General Bomo, who also informed him that the trash was not incinerated, but loaded onto an autopiloted garbage barge and then dumped in a far-off solar system. Luno rolled his eyes.
“Not a good time for a…,” Luno said, but then was struck with an idea. He opened the trash chute and tried to climb in.
“Don’t leave me, Luno!” Chooch cried, grabbing Luno.
“Let go, Chooch!” Luno’s voice echoed. “I’m going to sneak off the ship through the trash chute and…”
Chooch pulled Luno’s feet and they fell to the floor with a thud.
Clive reminded Luno that when they first got out of the pod, Lieutenant General Bomo told them that the ship’s scanners detected sophisticated life-forms like aliens and humans. If he tried to escape he would be spotted immediately.
“Well, that’s it then,” said Luno, dropping himself onto the cot. “I didn’t save Dad, Roog betrayed my family, Vlactron will rule the galaxy, and Zorgoochi Intergalactic Pizza will be finished forever.”
Luno curled himself up into a ball. After a few moments, Clive and Chooch could see that he was crying.
“Hmmm,” said Clive. “It appears, Mr. Zorgoochi, that you have sprung a leak.”
Clunk!
Just when things couldn’t get worse, Chooch began to fall apart.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Through the Trash Chute
“Get out!” Elvina burst into the Quantum mother ship’s security surveillance center and shouted at the guards, who were well accustomed to her emotional tirades. It was her favorite place to be because she was able to see everything that went on all over the ship and could control practically everything.
“Beat it!” she shrieked. “All of you!”
“But, Miss Elvina,” Lieutenant General Bomo braved, “we’re not allowed to leave our posts!”
The guards scrambled out of the room, but Lieutenant General Bomo stayed, gripping the arms of his chair as if to stop himself from bolting out the door with the rest.
“Do you want me to tell my uncle I caught you sleeping instead of monitoring the prisoners?” she snarled.
Terrified, he got up and headed out the door.
“Wait a minute,” she said, pointing to a monitor. “Who are they?”
“New prisoners,” he replied. “There’s been talk around the ship that the human Zorgoochi handed over the Golden Anchovy to Rex Vlactron.”
Elvina looked back at the screen and watched the boy weeping on his cot as a big goofy-looking robot kept falling apart and a vegetable creature put its pieces back together. She zoomed the camera in close on the human as he wiped the tears from his eyes. Elvina gently touched the screen with her fingertips, but then spun around to see Lieutenant General Bomo still standing in the doorway.
“I said get out!” Elvina screamed, throwing a radio communicator at him, but he closed the door before it could hit him and it struck the door with a clunk.
She turned back and gazed at the screen.
* * *
Through tearful eyes, Luno watched Clive snapping Chooch’s pieces back into place, but then suddenly bolted upright and leapt off the cot.
“Hey!” Chooch shouted. “What’re you doing, Luno?”
Luno didn’t answer as he frantically pulled, yanked, and unscrewed the parts of Chooch that Clive had just put back on. Within moments, bits and pieces of Chooch were all over the cell floor.
“You guys are lower life-forms!” Luno said as he opened the door to the trash chute and dumped Chooch’s legs in.
“What do you mean?” Chooch wailed, but couldn’t cry because his head was no longer connected to his fuel line. “Why are you throwing me away, Luno?”
“Please explain your actions, Mr. Zorgoochi,” said Clive, watching Luno pick Chooch’s head up off the floor.
“Don’t you get it?” Luno asked as he thrust Chooch’s head into Clive’s hands and then continued throwing parts down the chute. “You guys won’t be detected by the scanners!”
“Find a way back to the pizzeria and tell Mom to send help!” Luno told Clive and Chooch’s head. “You two are our last chance to stop Vlactron before he takes over the universe!”
“Please furnish me with detailed step-by-step instructions as well as any diagrams and schematics that will be required to accomplish this task,” said Clive.
“Yeah!” Chooch’s head shouted. “We don’t know what to do!”
Luno pulled the chute door open. “You’re just going to have to figure it out,” he said, pushing Clive in. “Once you get to wherever the trash chute ends, reassemble Chooch, make your way back to the pizzeria, and tell Mom to send help!”
“But I don’t wanna go, Luno!” Chooch cried. “I’m scared!”
“Remember”—Luno’s voice echoed as Clive and Chooch’s head slid through the trash chute—“send help!”
* * *
It took several painful minutes for Clive and Chooch to make their way through the complex intestinal network down to the trash sector deep in the ship’s bowels.
Thunk!
Clive accidentally dropped Chooch’s head as he landed on a massive pile of discarded boxes, pizza crusts, and the remains of disobedient servants. It rolled and struck one of Chooch’s feet.
“Ouch!” he shouted.
Clive picked it up, located Chooch’s pizza oven torso, and reattached his head.
“Hey!” Chooch said, looking down. “You put my head on backward!”
“Actually, your head is attached correctly, Chooch,” said Clive. “It is your body that is backward.”
For the next few minutes, Clive scurried around, gathering Chooch’s components and putting him back together.
“It’s about time, Clive!” Chooch said, bending his reattached legs and straightening his head. “Luno said we’re supposed to find a way back home and tell Mom to send help!”
“We must first locate an exit from this trash sector before we acquire transportation to Industro12,” Clive said, switching on his device and scanning the trash hangar.
“Fascinating,” Clive said, squinting at the screen.
“Didja find a way out of here?” Chooch asked anxiously.
“According to my ultrasonic scan of the ship, there is an elevator to the upper levels directly over there,” said Clive, pointing to a door. “However, the complex plumbing system of this ship is far more intriguing and bears closer study, so I would like to further analyze its…”
Clive didn’t finish what he was saying because Chooch was dragging him toward the door.
“It appears to be locked,” said Clive, trying the knob. “This will allow me time to analyze the plumbing system, but only once I calculate how long it will take before we expire from lack of sustenance.”
“You mean die?” screamed Chooch. “I don’t wanna die!”
Chooch frantically pounded on the door, which quickly flew off its hinges and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.
“Oops,” Chooch squeaked.
They stepped over the twisted metal and headed down several dark corridors until they came to a freight elevator. They stepped in and the doors clanked shut. Clive instructed Chooch which button to press and they slowly ascended. The elevator shuddered to a stop, the doors screeched open, and they stepped out.
“Uh-oh,” said Chooch.
“Fascinating,” said Clive as he waved his device in front of him.
“DROP YOUR WEAPON AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP!”
They were surrounded by at least a hundred Arthropods wielding mops, brooms, and other cleaning tools.
“I said drop your weapon!” an Arthropod shouted, approaching Clive and Chooch, brandishing a broom.
“I think he’s talking about your thingie,” Chooch whispered, point
ing to the device in Clive’s hand.
“This is not a weapon,” Clive explained. “It is a multi-phase subatomic analytical device, which stores and evaluates…”
The Arthropod snatched the device out of Clive’s hand and examined it suspiciously.
“We don’t wanna hurt anybody,” Chooch pleaded, holding his hands above his head. “We just wanna go home!”
“I’m afraid we must turn you over to Rex Vlactron,” the Arthropod said grimly, handing Clive back his device.
“But why?” Chooch asked.
“Because,” said the Arthropod, “we are his slaves and must do his bidding.”
“Please define the word ‘slave,’” said Clive.
The Arthropod explained that, many years ago, Vlactron came to Planet Cimex, their home planet, bearing gifts of Quantum Pizza, promotional buttons and hats, and coupons for free pizza, but it didn’t take long for them to discover that Vlactron was less interested in being friendly and more interested in the Pepperonisaurus that roamed free on their planet.
Vlactron was invited as an honored guest to the Arthropods annual De-Tailing Celebration where they performed an elaborate ritual of painlessly removing the Pepperonisaurus’s edible tails, which eventually grew back, providing the Arthropods with plenty of food for the entire year.
Vlactron instead wanted to slaughter the Pepperonisauruses, remove their tails, and cast the rest aside, even though they explained that it would eventually drive the Pepperonisaurus to extinction, then ultimately the Arthropods. When they attempted to stop him, Vlactron and his troops led a full-scale attack, killing many Arthropods.
“I made the decision to surrender in order to stop the slaughter of my fellow Arthropods, and in return, Vlactron allowed us to live and serve him. I am Xoboz, their leader, or at least I used to be,” he said gravely. “So do you understand what a slave is now?”
As the Arthropods closed in on them, Chooch asked, “But don’t you want to go back home?”
The insects looked to one another and bleakly muttered in agreement. When Chooch explained to Xoboz that they were trying to save Luno Zorgoochi, a hush fell over the crowd.
“Is he a descendant of the legendary human pizza chef Solaro Zorgoochi?” Xoboz asked.
“Why, yes, he is,” Clive replied.
The Arthropods excitedly muttered to one another.
“We have all heard of that most honorable human Solaro Zorgoochi,” Xoboz said, immediately straightening up and slamming the floor with his broom. “It would be our honor to be of service to his kin.”
Chooch explained that if they helped him and Clive get back to the pizzeria, they would return with forces to defeat Vlactron and his troops.
“And then you guys can go home!” said Chooch.
The Arthropods cheered!
“What’s going on down there?”
Everyone scrambled about at the guard’s approaching boot steps. Xoboz quickly instructed one of his workers to hide their new friends, and Clive and Chooch were hustled away.
“Get in!” an Arthropod whispered, as he opened the top of a dirty dumpster. “Hurry!”
“Ewww!” said Chooch.
“I do not understand. This receptacle is designated for trash,” said Clive, pointing at the lettering on the side of the bin. “And I am not trash.”
The Arthropod ignored their protests and shoved them in, then told them to keep quiet.
Clive and Chooch heard the sharp footsteps of a guard grow closer, stop right outside the dumpster, and then a muffled conversation. Chooch held his breath as the guard drummed his fingers on the lid and gasped when he heard him shout, followed by Xoboz’s indecipherable reply.
The muted voices erupted into an argument and the guard pounded the top of the dumpster to punctuate his point. Chooch shivered with terror and held on to Clive, which made Clive’s glasses fall off with a clunk.
The voices stopped. Chooch tried to make himself as small as possible, which wasn’t easy.
“Did I hear something coming from inside here?” the guard asked, as the lid creaked open slightly.
“Most likely, sir,” Xoboz said. “We’ve had a major pest problem, but I believe we have it under control.”
The lid lifted a bit more.
“I wouldn’t do that, sir,” said Xoboz. “One of my workers was attacked by a pack of raveenos that live in the trash sector and was entirely consumed in ten seconds.”
The lid slammed shut.
There was more muffled conversation, then footsteps, then nothing.
Chooch didn’t move. The lid squeaked open again and the light flooding in blinded him and Clive.
“Get out!”
They looked up and saw that it was Xoboz, who then assured them. “It’s all clear.”
Chooch let go of Clive and they climbed out of the dumpster.
“There’s only one way off the ship without being detected,” Xoboz said, leading Clive and Chooch down a narrow hallway and up a flight of rickety stairs.
The narrow stairway opened up to an impossibly huge loading dock, the size of five spaceball fields, with a colossal trash barge docked in its port, just as Lieutenant General Bomo told Clive. They walked past dozens of Arthropods scurrying about, supervising the loading of the trash into the hold.
“The barge will be autopiloted to the Nuga System, where its contents will be released into space, and then it will return to the Quantum mother ship,” said Xoboz, as he led Clive and Chooch up the steps of the barge.
“But we wish to go to Industro12 in the spiral arm of the Mezzaluna Galaxy,” said Clive. “The barge’s trajectory must be altered.”
Xoboz explained to Clive that the ship’s course was preprogrammed, unless overridden by someone in the control center on the mother ship, which was well guarded.
They entered a small room.
“The only other way to change the course of the barge would be to reprogram the autopilot inside this,” Xoboz said, pointing to a large titanium-encased box. “But it is impossible to open it.”
Fortunately, Chooch didn’t know the meaning of the word “impossible,” along with a lot of other words, so before Xoboz could tell them they would have to find another way, Chooch was yanking the 1,000 galactic-pound, 10-inch-thick titanium box off the floor. After a few seconds, the thick arm-size rivets attaching the unit began to creak and loosen, then ricochet around the room.
Within minutes, Clive disabled the autopilot’s receiver and was reprogramming the barge’s flight plan to Industro12.
“We may leave now,” Clive said to Chooch, as he punched in the last few coordinates.
“Zorgoochi Intergalactic Pizza, here we come!” Chooch gleefully shouted, hopping up and down.
“Good luck,” said Xoboz, shaking Clive’s and Chooch’s hands. “It has been a privilege to be of service to two brave and noble warriors in the fight against the oppression of a barbaric tyrant in order to bring about peace and freedom throughout the galaxy!”
“Let’s go!” said Chooch.
“Please define the word ‘luck,’” said Clive.
* * *
The grainy image of the trash barge leaving the dock flickered on a monitor in the Quantum mother ship’s surveillance center.
A red light illuminated on the control board, indicating that communication with a service vehicle had been terminated and that it was leaving without proper clearance. Elvina quickly switched it off before the alarm sounded. She smiled as the barge slowly moved out into space.
As she ignored Lieutenant General Bomo pounding on the door, asking her to open it, Elvina turned to another monitor and watched the human boy nervously pace his cell and placed her hand on the screen.
“Zorgoochi.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Back to the Mother Ship
“What have you two idiots done with my baby?!” Connie Zorgoochi shrieked, springing out of her chair as Clive and Chooch entered the pizzeria kitchen. She furiously pounded on Chooch’s
chest and shook Clive, making his glasses fall off.
“Where’s my Luno?” she shouted. “And don’t try to tell me that’s him!”
She angrily kicked the Luno Bot crumpled in the corner.
“I’m fine, Mom,” Luno Bot droned. “Um, no thank you. I just want to sleep. I love you.”
Exhausted from sleepless nights of worry, Connie collapsed back into her seat. She wearily explained that after a few days of Luno refusing food, she decided enough was enough and brought him his favorite meal, her special eggplant Parmesan.
“And when he refused that, it didn’t take me long to figure out he was a robot, so if you two don’t tell me where my boy is, I’m going to turn you into a garbage disposal”—then she turned to Clive—“and chop you up and put you in a pot of sauce! Now where’s my son?”
“You look like you could use a hug,” Chooch said, smiling, arms open wide.
“Tell me where my son is,” growled Connie. “Now.”
Chooch immediately hid behind Clive, who delivered a thoroughly informative account of everything that had transpired since Luno left the pizzeria several days ago. He was sure not to leave out the multitude of technical details of the Quantum mother ship, the velocity at which they traveled, and the more interesting aspects of the plumbing system. He could not comprehend why Connie didn’t share his fascination with these riveting details and was more interested in Luno, who was far less intriguing from a scientific standpoint.
Chooch fearfully clutched the Luno Bot to his chest as Connie sat in stony silence with her head in her hands. After a few moments, she drew a deep breath, steeled herself, and stood up.
“Geo told me this day would come, but I never believed him,” she said, making her way to the walk-in freezer. “Come on, you two. We have a galaxy to save.”
Clive and Chooch followed Connie over the debris, through the freezer, and into the Pyramid Room. They stood by watching her search the crumbling walls, shaking her head and muttering to herself.
Her eyes rested on a golden pizza cutter mounted on a wall and she climbed over a fallen ceiling beam to get to it. She squinted at the words engraved on the circular blade and turned it like a dial from mild to medium to spicy to extra spicy and then finally to super hot.
Zorgoochi Intergalactic Pizza : Delivery of Doom (9781250008459) Page 13
