by Cas Lester
WHINGE, WHINGE! WHIMPER, WHIMPER!
SupaCool captain
‘Calm down, Officer Yargal,’ said Harvey reassuringly. He wanted to pat her on the tentacle to sooth her jangling nerves, but she really was disgustingly slimy. ‘We’ve just lost a few … er … bits and pieces off the back of the ship. Nothing to worry about.’
The crew were well impressed. No, make that gobstoppered. In all their multiple intergalactic missions they had never seen a captain take so much disaster so calmly.
At this point the back booster ramscoop plate and the rubber counter gravity bumper drifted across the front vision screen. But Harvey just ignored them.
From the flight desk, Maxie grinned at Harvey. ‘That’s the spirit, Captain,’ she said. ‘So again, what are we going to do?’
‘If I were Captain … ’ said Gizmo.
‘Well, you’re not,’ interrupted Scrummage. ‘And since I’m the Chief Rubbish Officer, it’s my decision. I say we just transport onto the cargo container, grab the Techno-tium, come back and leave the container to drift harmlessly in space.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Maxie.
But Gizmo was outraged. ‘We’re not pirates!’ he spluttered. ‘And since you’re the chief Bin Man … ’
‘Chief Rubbish Officer!’ snapped Scrummage.
Gizmo ignored him and carried on sternly. ‘Then I shouldn’t have to remind you of the Intergalactic Travel and Transport Pact rules and regulations regarding rubbish retrieval. Captain, what Scrummage is suggesting is highly irregular, irresponsible and downright illegal.’
(To be fair to Gizmo, I should point out that he’s absolutely right.
Nothing the size of a SupaCosmicCargo Company container can just ‘drift harmlessly’ in space.
It‘s far more likely to ‘drift’ onto a SuperSpaceWay in the rush hour or into a pangalactic tourist cruiser carrying hundreds of beings to popular holiday planets all over Galaxy 43b.
Ouch, that would be messy.)
‘Oh, Captain,’ cried Yargal, her tentacles writhing anxiously. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Yes, Captain,’ said Maxie, her bright turquoise eyes challenging him from beneath her long straight fringe, and her elbows on the flight desk. ‘Yet again, what are we going to do?’
Chapter Eleven
Team spirit
In all honesty Harvey didn’t know what to do. But he did know that the crew would turn into a bunch of bickering intergalactic bin men if he let them know that. You can’t let a crew lose confidence in the captain. It’s bad for team spirit.
So he said in a confident tone, ‘Officer Gizmo is right. We’re responsible for that cargo container and … ’
‘Um, technically we’re not,’ cut in Gizmo. ‘You are. You’re the captain.’
‘And you signed the digiforms,’ said Scrummage.
‘Yup, you’re on your own on this one,’ said Maxie.
Thanks a bunch, thought Harvey, so much for team spirit.
‘Computer, do you have any suggestions?’ he asked.
‘Of course I do,’ snapped the computer, bleeping importantly. ‘But first can I just check how much space travel insurance you have?’
‘Er … none,’ said Harvey.
Gizmo gasped softly and Scrummage whistled in his teeth.
‘Blimey, you’re braver than you look,’ said Maxie.
‘Yes,’ said the computer, its lights flickering on and off smugly. ‘I wouldn’t want to be in your space boots if the Intergalactic Traffic Police find out!
‘Well, in that case, given:
a) the size of the container and
b) the damage and deaths it could cause,
c) the fact that you personally signed for it and
d) that you have no space travel insurance and last but not least
e) the danger of a murderous bunch of space pirates pitching up and slitting your gizzards …
then I suggest we do a runner.’
Team panic
Maxie swung round back to the flight desk. ‘Right, let’s get out of here. Standing by for cosmic speed, Captain,’ she said, frantically punching buttons and taking the supersonic handbrake off.
‘Nooooo!’ cried Scrummage, desperate at losing the Techno-tium.
‘Yes!’ cried Yargal, who didn’t fancy hanging around and waiting for a bunch of space pirates to do the gizzard-splitting thing.
‘No!’ cried Gizmo, who didn’t want to abandon the cargo container.
‘Again, standing by for cosmic speed, Captain,’ reminded Maxie urgently.
There was a tiny nanobeat before Harvey spoke and four faces and nine eyes turned to stare at him in disbelief.
‘Stand down Maxie,’ he said calmly.
You didn’t get chosen to captain the Highford All Stars for two years if you gave up and ran away when things got tough. Harvey had been picked, not just because he was talented, but because he knew all the other players’ skills. He knew their strengths and their weaknesses. And he never let them give up.
So he stood his ground, and chose his words carefully.
Team talk
‘We’re not going to abandon the cargo container and run away.’ Turning to Gizmo he said, ‘One, putting others at risk is irresponsible.’
And then he looked at Yargal. ‘Two, running away to save ourselves and leaving others in danger is cowardly.’
‘Three, running away before there’s anything to run away from is pointless,’ he said to Maxie.
Finally, looking at Scrummage he said: ‘And four, leaving the Techno-tium for another team … er, space crew to grab is stupid.
‘We can do this. And in fact we have to do this – because we’re the crew of the Toxic Spew, and we’re the only bin men in Galaxy 43b. So the only question is how?’
Chapter Twelve
A big problem
If you’d slapped the crew round the face with a wet muddy football sock, they couldn’t have been more surprised. They looked at Harvey with great respect. He might only be eleven, and from a planet no one had ever heard of, but in all their multiple intergalactic missions, Harvey was turning out to be the best captain the Toxic Spew had ever had.
Gizmo spoke for them all when he said quietly, ‘Well said, sir.’
So the crew sat and pondered how to fix the cargo container to the Toxic Spew. It was a big problem – but then it was a big container.
(It might surprise you to learn that although the Toxic Spew is the tattiest, grubbiest and least space-worthy ship in the whole of Galaxy 43b it does have some really snazzy, top-of-the-range, rubbish collection equipment.
And it will definitely surprise you to learn that Scrummage actually knows how to use it.
It certainly surprises me.)
Some rubbish suggestions
‘Could we use the magnet beam thingy?’ asked Harvey.
Scrummage raised one white eyebrow and looked at him witheringly. ‘Do you mean the Zenith Mark 4 Magno Beam?’
Stuck on the front of the ship, this enormous magnet can pull massive chunks of junk metal towards the Toxic Spew.
‘Negative,’ said Gizmo. ‘The cargo container’s made of carbi-fibre, so it’s not magnetic.’
‘How about the rubbish net?’ said Maxie, winding Scrummage up.
Scrummage flinched. ‘Do you mean the Nebula 30X-1 multi-stranded meteorite-proof mesh mechanism?’
‘Yeah, the rubbish net,’ said Maxie, grinning at Harvey, who tried to keep a straight face.
Scrummage shook his head. ‘The container’s way too big.’ He leant over the garbage controls desk, drumming his grubby fingers on the grimy surface. ‘That only leaves the Ultrawave 3.2 Vac Tube … ’
‘What, the sucky-up thing?’ said Maxie mischievously.
‘The sucky-up thing!’ spluttered Scrummage.
(Scrummage was enormously proud of the Toxic Spew’s Ultrawave 3.2 Vac Tube.
To be fair, it is a pretty classy piece of kit. It’s made of 100% pure
bonded Stainless Bond-ite and has three hose attachments: Nova Nozzle, Super Nova Nozzle and Super Nova Nozzle Plus.
And it’s gobsplutteringly powerful.
You probably can’t even begin to imagine how strong it is. The vacuum cleaners on your planet are puny little machines that can only pick up tiny things like biscuit crumbs, dog hairs, and small plastic toy building bricks.
I mean be honest, there’s no way they could pick up, say, a child-sized bike or a fridge freezer, is there? Let alone an enormous freight container.)
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ cried Yargal. ‘You can’t vacuum up the container, it’s enormous! It won’t go up the nozzle!’
‘Candy-coloured upchuck!’ said Scrummage. ‘That’s it!’
Supernova nozzle plus
Feverishly he flicked switches, punched buttons and hauled levers on the garbage control desk. ‘I’ll put it onto Super Nova Nozzle Plus suction power … ’
‘Ooooh,’ said Maxie, ‘super suck!’
Scrummage ignored her. ‘The container will get sucked, er, I mean vacuumed onto the end of the nozzle and if I keep the suction power on FULL we can tow it to an interstellar scrapyard on the end of the hose.’
Harvey slapped Scrummage on the back. ‘Brilliant! Well done, Rubbish Officer Scrummage.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Scrummage, trying to look modest.
Maxie looked for the nearest interstellar scrapyard on the 3D digital star map. It was Quasar Quick Fix and Quality Parts, about 3.4 zillion cosmic kilometres away on the other side of the Green Gallipian roundabout.
Harvey ordered the computer to plot the best route. He said ‘best’ rather than ‘quickest’ because the computer would blissfully send them hurtling into certain death traps like meteorite belts, toxic gas clouds and molten lava pools just to save a few seconds.
Harvey got Maxie to check the computer’s sums, and then they plotted the route again.
It was going to take several hours to get to the scrapyard, and since it was already late, Harvey ordered everyone to go their quarters to get some rest. Yargal headed off saying she’d bring them all some pizza for supper.
‘And please, can I just have cheese and tomato? With absolutely no rocket fuel sauce!’ Harvey called after her.
‘Wimp!’ laughed Maxie.
Chapter Thirteen
Captain’s quarters
The captain’s quarters of the Toxic Spew are a bit basic. There’s a metal bunk screwed to the floor with roll-out drawers underneath, and a large monitor with SpaceTime connection mounted on the wall. And, er … that’s it.
When Harvey had first seen his quarters, they were utterly trashed. The bedclothes were thrown in a tangled heap on the floor, and the whole room was strewn with empty drinks cartons, chocolate bar wrappers, empty crisp packets, dirty underwear, and a very smelly old pair of space boots. But Yargal had kindly helped him clean it out a bit. And now it was astonishingly tidy.
It’s amazing how much you can do in thirty seconds when you have six tentacles and a large bin liner.
It’s also amazing how tidy you can keep things if you don’t have any things. (Technically of course, Harvey has plenty of stuff – but it’s all in his bedroom, which is several gazillion light years away on the other side of the universe.)
Captain’s kit
Harvey had arrived on the Toxic Spew in his school uniform and with absolutely nothing else. But the crew had managed to get the bare essentials for him:
a uniform (several sizes too large)
a toothbrush
toothpaste
spare underpants and socks
a games console with a stack of games
a hot chocolate machine
a handheld 3V VidiScreen with full Outernet connection
a jelly bean dispenser
two build your own model spaceships with moving parts, and
some tatty old dog-eared spaceship manuals.
Harvey put a plastic cup in the hot chocolate machine and pressed the button. It was great having it in his quarters, but he missed his mum’s hot chocolate. She did it with a swirl of squirty cream sprinkled with mini marshmallows and topped off with crumbly chocolate. The stuff from the machine wasn’t nearly as good.
Then he curled up on the bunk. Snuffles leapt up, dug around at the duvet for a bit, until he’d pulled most of it off Harvey and under his huge shaggy belly, and then plonked himself heavily down against Harvey’s legs.
Harvey could have sent Snuffles to sleep in his basket, but he liked the hound – even if it was difficult to sleep with him taking up so much more than his fair share of the bed, and snoring more loudly than a subsonic booster engine with a dodgy silencer.
As Harvey zzz’d off, the Toxic Spew slipped silently through the utter blackness of deep space – a brave little ship dwarfed by the absolute and incredible enormity of the universe all around her.
Very, very long lists
At the engineering desk, Gizmo drew up a list of spare parts needed to repair, or replace the broken bits on the ship. With a bit of luck they could pick some up from the interstellar scrapyard. It was a very, very long list.
(If you don’t like lists, or you’re not mechanically minded, you can skip this bit. Since you’re from Earth, none of it will mean very much to you anyway.
But if you are interested in spaceship design you might like to know his list included:
rear subatomic tow bar
rubber counter gravity bumper
reactor-driven heat shield
back booster ramscoop plate
reversing camera and
2 wing mirrors.
And that was just the stuff needed on the outside of the ship.)
Scrummage sat with his grimy space boots up on the garbage control desk, his grubby hands folded on his huge belly, keeping his eye on the controls of the Ultrawave 3.2 Vac Tube. He drew up a mental list of all the things he could buy once they’d flogged the Techno-tium. It was a very, very long list. Much longer than Gizmo’s.
(You probably really don’t want to read another list here, do you? So maybe I’ll just say it started modestly enough with a personal pizza dispenser and unlimited supplies of mozzarella, chocolate, banana custard and chilli sauce.
Then it got rather more ambitious, by which I mean, downright greedy, until it ended with:
a small planet with sandy white beaches and a heated sea.)
An ominously large ship
While the Toxic Spew zoomed along, with a cargo of the most valuable metal in the entire Known Universe, and Beyond, an ominously large spaceship loomed out the blackness of deep space. It seemed to be following them.
Scrummage and Gizmo didn’t notice. Partly because they were busy making lists, but mostly because the Toxic Spew didn’t have a reversing camera or any wing mirrors.
And the computer didn’t mention it either.
(This might have been because the computer was sulking. It had been in a snippy mood all day.
Or it might have been because it didn’t think the ominously large ship was anything to worry about.
Or it might have been because it was so busy playing itself at MeteoriteMaze 3 that it just hadn’t noticed.
Look, I don’t want to make a huge dramatic moment here. It might be perfectly innocent.
On the other hand, it might not.)
Chapter Fourteen
Harvey oversleeps
BLEEP!
BLEEP!
BLEEP!
A few hours later, Harvey was woken by an urgent bleeping. It was Maxie at the flight control desk, trying to raise him on intership SpaceTime.
Sleepily Harvey shoved Snuffles off his legs and then scrambled over the giant hound to the monitor in the wall and clicked Connect.
‘Sorry to wake you, Captain, but I thought you might like to know we’ll be at Quasar Quick Fix and Quality Parts in a few minutes.’ And before Harvey could reply, or even smarm down his unruly mop of curly hair, she bleeped off.
‘Gizmo, you were meant to wake me!’ said Harvey crossly as he strode onto the command bridge.
‘There was no need, sir, I was quite competently in command,’ replied Gizmo casually, still sitting in the captain’s chair.
‘Thank you,’ said Harvey dryly, ‘but I’ll take command now.’
‘Are you sure, sir? I mean, have you had any breakfast yet?’ said Gizmo, making no effort to get up.
Harvey gave him a pointed stare and Gizmo reluctantly left his seat. ‘Officer Scrummage, give me a status report, please,’ said Harvey.
Scrummage yawned, scratched his huge belly and assured Harvey the container cargo was still safely attached to the nozzle of the Ultrawave 3.2 Vac Tube.
A few moments later Yargal brought Harvey a banana and chocolate breakfast pizza. Which should have been great. But she hadn’t been able to resist adding some tuna and chilli cheese melt to jazz it up. Oh, yuk.
Could have been worse, thought Harvey, taking a bite. At least there’s no rocket fuel sauce.
The big scrapyard in the sky
Tucked away in a quiet corner of Galaxy 43b, Quasar Quick Fix and Quality Parts is one of the biggest spaceship scrapyards in outer space. Hundreds of broken down and abandoned spacecraft of all different types just hang there. From a distance it looks like a small asteroid belt. But as you get closer you can see the shapes of the various spacecraft. And as you get closer still you see the state of them – tatty and decrepit.
(Not as tatty and decrepit as the Toxic Spew of course. You know, the more I think about it the more I realise how brave the crew are just to go in it.
It’s a miracle it’s still flying, it really is.)
As the little garbage ship neared the yard, Maxie cut the engines back and expertly slid the ship into orbital drive and they slowly circled the scrapyard, looking for the best route in between the ships.
