Chapter Twenty-Five

Spaceberg!

Harvey hauled Maxie out of her seat and into the captain’s chair. Then he radioed Yargal and ordered her to come to the bridge – immediately.

(Good luck with that, Captain!

With a top speed of a JelloNovian Racing Snail, you might not want to hold your breath until she gets there.)

Harvey was desperately worried about his crew, but he had to focus on saving the ship. He took over the pilot’s seat, forced himself to stay calm, and scanned the flight controls.

(Why? He’s no idea what any of them do!)

‘Computer, help!’ he ordered.

‘Well, this is fun!’ announced the computer chirpily. ‘Thundering towards a humungous spaceberg at a thrilling Cosmic Speed 8! Wheeeee! Unfortunately, there will be a tremendous explosion blowing the ship into a gazillion little pieces.

‘But, on the upside, it will

a) be spectacular,

b) all be over very quickly, and

c) you won’t feel a thing!’

Battling to keep his temper, Harvey asked the computer if it could actually do anything to help, like maybe fly the ship.

‘I am a galaxy-class 75b SpaceCorp computer with a CosmicCore processor and 215 megatronbyte boogle memory – not an AutoAstronaut!’ it snapped, huffily.

‘Then search the Outernet and find out how to do it!’ ordered Harvey.

‘Oh, good idea!’ said the computer, brightly. ‘It’s when you come up with clever ideas like that I see why they made you captain. Now, what shall I type in the little search box?’

‘I don’t know!’ yelled Harvey, finally losing it. ‘Try: “How-to-stop-a-spaceship-thundering-towards-a-humungous-spaceberg-at-a-thrilling-Cosmic-Speed-8.com!”’

‘Righty ho! Will do! Don’t go away!’ it joked.

SCHWOOOSH …

The bridge doors slid open and Yargal slurped in. She stared open-mouthed at the spaceberg, which was now terrifyingly close. Then, still with her mouth open she screamed, ‘Aaaaaaaargh!’

‘Yargal, calm down and help Maxie,’ commanded Harvey briskly.

‘Shouldn’t I help Gizmo first – he is senior and I’m sure he’d say that according to the Intergalactic Travel and Transport Pact rules …’

‘Can Gizmo fly the ship?’ cut in Harvey.

‘No.’ said Yargal.

‘Then start with Maxie!’

DO NOT PRESS!

While Yargal slurped her way slowly over to the Pilot Officer who was still slumped in Harvey’s chair, the computer suddenly bleeped on happily.

‘Captain,’ it said excitedly, ‘you’ll be delighted to hear I’ve found an excellent step-by-step SpaceChat guide on how to pilot spaceships! So just listen carefully and follow the instructions.

Step 1: Add lots of GasoLime goo to the fuel tank.

Step 2: Turn the starter key to the ON position.

Step 3: Hold up trigger (A).

Step 4: Turn wheel (B) to where you want to go …’

‘This isn’t helping at all!’ spluttered Harvey at the flight controls, as the monumentally colossal spaceberg loomed menacingly nearer and nearer.

‘Wait … there’s a bit about doing an Emergency Stop! Apparently you hit the big red button marked DO NOT PRESS.’

Urgently, Harvey scanned the flight desk for a button marked DO NOT PRESS. He found it, in between one labelled DON’T TOUCH and another one that read DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.

‘Seriously?’ said Harvey, his hand hovering over the Emergency Stop control button.

‘Yup!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yup!’

‘Completely and totally, 100 per cent, sure?’

‘Yup!’

Closing his eyes and crossing his fingers, Harvey’s hand smacked down hard on the big red button.

KA-POW THWACK!

An enormous airbag, like a giant blow-up duvet, erupted out of the flight desk, knocking him clean off his feet and smothering him.

‘Captain,’ cried Yargal. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Weff, I’m fwine!’ came Harvey’s muffled voice from under the mound of material.

Desperately he battled with the mountain of bloated cloth, but it was impossible to grab and he couldn’t see what he was doing. It would have been a lot easier to wrestle his way out of a bouncy castle, blindfolded and in the dark.

And all the while the ship jumped and juddered violently, and a horrible screeching noise came from the booster engines, and another even more horrible screeching noise came from Yargal.

‘Aaaaaargh!!!!’

Oooops!

Harvey just managed to clamber out from under the enormous airbag in time to see the Toxic Spew finally, wonderfully, marvellously and totally – come to a shuddering, jolting stop!

‘Oh, well done!’ said the computer, and Harvey let out a huge sigh of relief.

‘I really didn’t think you were going to manage to stop the ship!’ chattered the computer cheerfully. ‘Of course the enormous spaceberg is still rocketing towards us fatally fast, and spewing out mega-terrifying, blubblering-blue, ice-cold, freeze-exterminating lava balls and we’re going to smash into it anyhow,’ it continued heartlessly. ‘But it was a nice try. Now, how about a quick game before you die?

‘Captain,’ wailed Yargal. ‘I don’t want a quick game before I die. I don’t want to die at all!’

But Harvey wasn’t listening. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in Yargal’s tragically pathetic last wish. It was more that Harvey didn’t want to die either and was too busy

a) trying not to, by

b) having a brilliant idea.

‘A game – that’s it!’ thought Harvey. At home he’d completed both Fly Galactic Ships NOW (Volume 1) and Fly More Galactic Ships NOW (Volume 2). A real spaceship couldn’t be that different, surely. Desperately he dragged the airbag off the flight controls.

Er … yes it could.

The games flight controls weren’t anything like those in the real flight desk front of him. Hang on, what about Helicopter Havoc? wondered Harvey, desperately. That’s based on a real flight desk. He sat back down in the pilot’s seat.

If he could just work out how to turn left … or right … or go up … or down … or anything other than hanging around doing nothing and waiting for ‘Sudden Death By Spaceberg’!

Frantically, he started switching switches, pounding buttons and hauling levers. And, to his enormous relief, and even greater surprise the Toxic Spew began to move. Unfortunately, it went forwards – bringing the head-on collision with the spaceberg even closer! Oooops.