Chapter Sixteen

SuperStain and SuperSting

Three enormous security drones zoomed up from out of nowhere, zapping their Stop’n’Spray SuperStain Paintballs at anything and anyone that moved. Which, just at that moment, happened to be Yargal and her trolleys and Maxie at the service docking bay.

ZAP! ZAP! ZAP-ZAP!

They might be called SuperStain Paintballs, but SuperSting Pain-Balls is probably a better name for them.

SPLAT!

‘YEEEOWCH!’ Maxie yelped as a yellow pellet thwacked her in the leg! She gave up trying to service the ship and made a dive for the ship’s exit pod and the safety of the Toxic Spew.

SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLATTER, SPLAT!

‘OUCH! OWWW!’ wailed Yargal as an orange paintball walloped onto her soft green body, quickly followed by a candyfloss-pink one, and two pale blue ones.

(I’m sorry to butt in at this thrilling moment, but I have an important information announcement for you.

I know it’s not likely, but if you do go to an intergalactic super store anywhere in Galaxy 43b – don’t do anything to upset the security drones.

Because not only do they have six extra-long extending arms – each ending in a powerful metal claw, but two of those claws have guns, and two hold handcuffs. And you don’t have to be a maths genius to know that that leaves two claws spare for grabbing hold of you. Painfully hard.

They whizz around incredibly fast on a single wheel. A blindingly bright red light flashes furiously on top of their cube-shaped heads. They have laser eyes with supersonic sight and X-ray glasses. (Which actually makes them look mega cool.)

They are also ENORMOUS. At least 9 feet 7 inches tall. It’s almost impossible to escape them.

They come in three colours. Red, blue and green – which is all very pretty, but frankly who cares? Because if you’re close enough to see what colour they are, you’re close enough to be in terrible trouble – and even more pain.)

Ducking madly and swatting wildly at the volley of paintballs, Yargal grabbed the first missiles she could reach from the nearest trolley and hurled them at the droids with all her might, letting rip with all six tentacles at once.

‘Take that!’ she cried furiously, hurling half a dozen bright blue bananas at them.

But the flying fruits just bounced straight off the metal droids without even leaving a dent or a nasty blue graze.

BOING!

BOING!

BOINGaBOING!

BOING!

ZAP! ZAP-ZAP!

‘OW, OUCH!’ squealed Yargal as the droids carried on firing mercilessly at her. Dragging her trolleys along with her as she went, she raced to the ship as fast as she could. In other words, very slowly.

KER-SPLAT!

‘OWWWW!!!!’

Actually, make that agonisingly slowly.

Fluttering upchuck!

Harvey and Scrummage arrived at the entrance just in time to see Yargal slither up to the exit pod of the Toxic Spew with three enormous security droids taking pot shots at her. Hurriedly she hurled the shopping inside and then grasping the doorway with all six tentacles, she hauled her quivering slimy body in afterwards.

‘Fluttering upchuck!’ yelled Scrummage.

Which wasn’t wise. Because up until that moment, the droids hadn’t noticed Harvey and Scrummage, but now, to their horror, the security droids turned their supersonic laser eyes directly on to them and trundled towards them – menacingly.

(You know, in that ominous, threatening, robotic way that only robots can really do well.

Except of course you don’t know, do you? Because you’ve hardly invented any droids in your distant corner of the universe, have you?

Honestly, it’s a lot less tricky than you think. I mean obviously, it’s harder than making the perfect pepperoni, pineapple and parsnip pizza with a three chilli cheese and marmalade chutney crust stuffing, but it’s much easier than rocket science.)

‘What are we going to do?’ wailed Scrummage, as the enormous droids zoomed towards them.

Harvey thought about making a run for it. But his Rubbish Officer was a much slower runner – and a much bigger target. And you didn’t leave your teammate … er crew member, exposed like that.

But then Scrummage had a brilliant idea. He radioed the Toxic Spew: ‘Gizmo! The security droids are metal. You can use the Magno Beam to capture them!’

It was a brilliant plan. Except that Gizmo didn’t know how. In fact, only Scrummage knew how to operate the Magno Beam – or any of the garbage collection devices on the Toxic Spew. And let’s face it, this was hardly the time for Scrummage to stop everything and give Gizmo a basic step-by-step lesson.

Well, not with three enormous security droids bearing down on them, it wasn’t.

Then Harvey had another, equally brilliant idea.

‘Scrummage, grab hold of something!’ he ordered and grasping the artificial gravity lever he yanked it to ‘OFF’!

It was a brilliant plan. Except security droid wheels are magnetic so the robots stayed firmly on the deck while Harvey’s and Scrummage’s legs floated upwards until they were floating upside down, the blood rushing to their heads. Harvey promptly yanked the gravity control back to ‘ON’.

But by now, one of the droids (the blue one, actually) was dangerously close.

‘RUN!’ yelped Scrummage, sprinting off, leaving Harvey to race after him.

Fat chance. Within seconds they’d both been grabbed in the robot’s powerful claws.

‘AAAAAARGH!’ they screamed as the droid zoomed off across the deck with its metal extending arms wrapped firmly round them!

Clamped in the painfully tight grip of the merciless machine, Harvey’s mind raced frantically.

Scrummage’s mind, on the other hand, and under the other arm, panicked frantically. ‘Waaaaah!’ he shrieked.

Suddenly, to his utter horror, Harvey realised they were heading for the Toxic Spew – and Yargal hadn’t closed the exit pod! The entire ship and crew would be at risk if the robot got onto the ship. He had to get the crew to shut the door! He struggled to reach his radio – but his arms were held in a vice-like grip. He couldn’t move.

‘Scrummage!’ Harvey yelled desperately. ‘Can you reach your radio?’

‘Waaaaaaaah!’ continued Scrummage.

Harvey took that as a ‘No’.

Outclassed and outpaced

As a football captain, Harvey always says ‘the game isn’t over until it’s over’. Even if you’re six goals down at half-time, outclassed and outpaced, you don’t give up. So Harvey went for a change of tactics, and started wriggling wildly and violently kicking his legs. He was determined to get free and protect his crew!

(For the record – can I just say how amazed and impressed I am by Harvey’s courage and doggedness?

No, seriously. If I had to choose one word to describe him right now it would be:

Heroic.

Or Valiant.

Or Fearless.

Or maybe Bold?

Or … oh, I dunno … you pick one.)

But the robot only tightened its grip and raced up to the Toxic Spew! Flinging Harvey and Scrummage roughly in through the exit pod, the droid hauled itself up after them. Then, to their astonishment, it slammed the door behind them all!

‘Save me!’ it begged, in a metallic, rusty voice.

Harvey and Gizmo stared at it open-mouthed, way too stunned to speak.

‘I’m not a security droid! I’m a NerdBot 1000! I was sent here by mistake!’ explained the robot. ‘My programmed functions are: cleaning, tidying and making galaxy-class galactic coffee – with soft brown sugar, cream and caramel topping. Not chasing, handcuffing and shooting shoplifters! I did try to tell the manager,’ it complained miserably, ‘but honestly, you humanoids are all the same. You think that just because we robots all look the same we are all the same. Take me with you!’ it rasped, clasping its claws together pleadingly.

Harvey made an instant, but brilliant command decision. Partly because the NerdBot 1000 had just rescued them from a horrible fate, but mostly because the Toxic Spew seriously, desperately and urgently needed a cleaner. He said: ‘Fine by me!’

Then he sprinted to the bridge, with Scrummage and the droid following.

Don’t panic!

SCHWOOOOSH

The bridge doors opened and Harvey raced through. He was relieved to see Maxie and Yargal were safe. Oddly rainbow-coloured, but safe. They looked liked they’d survived an explosion in the decorating department of a DIY store.

Peering through the grimy, paint-splattered vision screens round the three sides of the bridge, the crew watched the other two security droids trundling away. They’d clearly lost interest now that the crew were safely locked inside the Toxic Spew.

A few moments later Scrummage and the NerdBot 1000 arrived on the bridge.

‘Aaaaaargh!’ panicked Yargal, waggling her tentacles hysterically. Gizmo gulped and scrambled under his seat.

‘Harvey, look out!’ yelled Maxie, leaping clean over the flight desk and ducking down behind it.

‘Don’t panic!’ cried Harvey. ‘It’s OK! This is er … a NerdBot and um …’ Harvey suddenly realised he didn’t know whether a NerdBot was a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ so he said, ‘and, it’s joining the crew!’

‘What?’ demanded Maxie promptly standing up and glaring at him challengingly from under her fringe.

‘Captain!’ exclaimed Gizmo pompously (well, as pompously as he could since he was scrabbling out from under his chair at the time). ‘You can’t go around taking on crew members without even consulting us.’

‘Yes he can, he’s the captain,’ retorted Maxie, clambering back over the flight desk.

‘I’m Nerdie,’ creaked the robot, rumbling forward. Then it stopped and scanned the bridge with its supersonic laser eyes and the entire crew winced with embarrassment. As usual, the bridge was utterly gross and even worse, splattered with puddles of Gordon’s wee.

‘It’s filthy!’ croaked Nerdie rustily, and using one claw to detach its VoltaVacuum attachment, and the others to produce a mop and bucket, a dustpan and brush and a bin liner, it started cleaning up.

The crew were gobsmacked. If you’d slapped them round face with a damp duster and a soggy squeezy mop they couldn’t have been more surprised. Not even if you’d followed that by bashing them with the bucket.

‘Good luck with that!’ snorted Maxie to Nerdie, sarcastically.

‘Oh good decision, sir!’ exclaimed Gizmo.

Scrummage pretended to vomit in disgust at the sight of Gizmo creeping up to Harvey.

Yargal scooped up Gordon. ‘You need a nappy!’ she announced and slurped off to the galley to make one out of some kitchen roll and goo-proof plasters.

Big mistake

Then, much to the bridge crew’s annoyance, Harvey insisted they finish collecting the garbage from Waitless. Which, as a matter of fact, was all very noble of him, but turned out to be a big mistake.

(If you’re one of those readers who hates being given hints like that and you want to know why it was a big mistake, then you can turn to page 146 and find out.

But then you’d skip pages 130 to 145 wouldn’t you, and you might miss something important, mightn’t you?

Of course you might not.

I’m not telling.)

Sighing meaningfully and rolling her eyes pointedly, Maxie positioned the Toxic Spew near the garbage exit pipe of the intergalactic super store. Then, muttering mightily and darkly, Scrummage hurriedly placed the Ultrawave 3.2 Vacuum Pump over the garbage outlet and set the controls to Super Nova Nozzle Plus. And very quickly, the rubbish was sucked into the pump bin in the hold and Scrummage detached the pipe.

‘Now can we go?’ said Maxie rudely, her hands poised impatiently over the flight controls. Harvey nodded and the Pilot Officer expertly flew the ship off the deck, out of the giant hangar doors of the intergalactic super store, and away into space.

But three seconds later

WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!

all the alarms on the garbage control desk went off. Again.