Disclaimer: I don't own Jimmy neutron, if I did it'd still be on. All I own are my own characters.
-Colorado Tracking Station –
The sky was blue, sunny, and empty except for a few birds above the station. The radar dishes kept track of any and all presents in the air, as was their purpose. Inside the bunker some distance away an operator was watching a monitor, checking for any anomalies, but this early that was very unlikely.
The operator almost spit out the coffee he was drinking, there in the corner of the screen was a dot, meaning something was in the air. He quickly looked over all the information he was receiving from the signal.
"Sir, you may want to look at this." The operator called to the back of the room.
From the back came general bob. Bob was an older man, pushing on 50, but was a soldier even now. Square cut gray hair, well-built chest, and a face that bore a few scars from battles that happened years ago, he was the perfect image of a veteran marine.
He looked at the screen. The dot had almost reached the middle of the screen now, moving up towards the upper right corner.
"Commercial Flight?" the general asked, not seeing anything to be concerned about.
"No sir, it's moving too fast." The operator said.
"One of our own then?" asked general bob, since that was another simple answer.
"I looked, the Air Force doesn't have anything scheduled. Also I checked the IFF code, it's from an old F/A-18 Hornet." Said the operator.
"A hornet? Almost no one still uses those anymore." Bob looked puzzled. Why would a defunct fighter be flying anywhere near here? But it really didn't matter why they were here, this was still restricted airspace." Well, looks like we've got a boogie. Get on the horn to the base, tell them to scramble interceptors. I want a visual on this thing as soon as possible, but tell them not to fire unless fired on."
"Yes Sir." The operator quickly grabbed the phone and began relaying the orders to whoever was on the other end.
Outside on the runaway four F-22 Raptors were geared up and launched, heading towards and unknown craft that had entered the airspace about 10 minutes ago.
It took about 2 minutes to close the distance between them and the target; control said that the target's speed was erratic.
"This is orange leader to delta control, anticipating visual contact…now" said the lead jet as he broke thru the cloud cover. What he saw left him speechless.
It was a rocket sailing thru the sky, like something out of a sci-fi movie.
The rocket seemed to be made out of spare parts and sewage pipe. It was about 6 feet long, the tail end was a trashcan, surrounded by what looked like fire extinguishers. The middle was made of the sewage pipe, or at least something similar, on the side where skis slotted into grooves, and there were three seats. The front was a metal cone fitted with air intake vents, it seemed to be the only thing that was created and not salvaged.
The most amazing thing was that riding in the rocket were three kids, and what seemed to be a dog made of metal.
The one in front, and piloting the ship, was a boy that looked to be about 14. He was Caucasian, had brown hair done up to look like a fudge ice cream cone. He was wearing a red shirt with a blue atom logo, blue shorts that came down to his knees.
Next was another boy, maybe 13, wearing round glasses, a plaid orange shirt, overalls and brown pants. His hair was brunette and was styled into a mop top. He held a toaster and was looking at the pursuing jets with a very worried expression.
Lastly was a girl in the back seat, she wore a black shirt with a red milky way symbol, blue jeans. Her flaming red hair was cut into a pixie cut, which somehow made her silver eyes stand out even more. She was furiously typing onto a keyboard with a scowl on her face, she glanced up quickly at the jets that were closing in on them, but quickly went back to the screen in front over her.
"Holy cow pie!" orange leader finally said as the raptors pulled alongside the speeding ship.
The pilot of the rocket finally noticed that they weren't alone in the sky, and looked over at the jets. "Hey, nice antiques. Gotta Blast!" with a smirk and a press of a button, the rocket shot past the jets and quickly climbed out of range.
"…ain't no one going to believe this back at base" said one of the pilots.
The boy controlling the rocket quickly looked over his instruments, "Fusion mix stable, engines cycling at 1 million gigajoules." Said the boy looking very pleased," Cool we didn't blow up,"
"No thanks to that last stunt you pulled. Keeping the mix stable is near impossible. Why did you have to uses 2 fuels that get along about as well as you and Cindy?" asked the girl in the back, still typing away.
"They offer the best output, and we were in a kind of a rush." answered the boy.
The brunette in the middle looked back at the planes that were quickly falling behind. "Hey jimmy, I think they want us to pull over."
"No time for that now carl." Answered the pilot, the now named jimmy.
"Yeah Carl, and besides don't you know if they can't catch us, then we can't get in trouble." The girl said as the rocket gave a lurch and fell a few feet. "Which if this thing keeps acting up they probably will, what did you use for a mixing chamber in this thing, jimmy, a blender?"
"Um..." Jimmy blushed and looked sheepish.
"UH, this is the last time I ride with you without checking over everything myself." The girl angrily said.
"Come on Sara, it's not that bad" the rocket gave another lurch," Ok so it's still got a few bugs. Anyway, carl prepare the satellite for deployment."
Sara looked at what carl was holding, and raised an eyebrow, "that's a toaster."
"No it's a satellite." Defended jimmy.
"I can see the bread in the thing, jimmy. It's a toaster" sara replied, really what was that boy thinking.
Carl looked down at the satellite in his hands, it looks like a toaster to me. "Ok jimmy I'm ready, I think. What am I supposed to do again?"
Shaking his head in exasperation, since he'd told carl twice already, jimmy explained again what he was suppose to do." You're the deployment system carl. Just… as soon as we clear the atmosphere you just throw it, ok?"
"Right" Carl said a little doubtfully.
"prepare to leave the atmosphere!" jimmy yelled with an almost giddy excitement, and hauled back on the control wheel.
The rocket began to tilt back and gained altitude quickly. The instruments showed that they were passing thru the many layers of the atmosphere, nearing the edge.
"Up, up, up" whispered jimmy keeping his eyes on the view in front of him. Reaching over he grabbed a lever," Activating pulse rockets," And pulled, "NOW".
The ship rushed forward for a second, almost eagerly, before sputtering and belching black smoke out of the air intakes on the front.
"NO" yelled jimmy, seeing that there was some kind of malfunction happening at this critical point.
"now?" carl didn't wait for an answer and throw the toaster has hard as he could, but considering he wasn't very strong it flew up about 15 feet before coming back and hitting jimmy in the head.
While all this was happening sara was trying to keep the engine going and not blow up on them.
"Dammit, the fusion mix is throwing a tantrum here. I've spun down the engines to 10 thousand kilojoules," she called." Jimmy, you got about 10 seconds before we stall out, think of something quick!"
Jimmy concentrated hard on the problems at hand," Think, Think, Think". Ideas quelled in his head at lighting speed, the ship, the satellite, lunch, soda, tape, suddenly an answer hit him. "Brain Blast!", he turned. "Carl, give me your lunch."
Carl readily handed jimmy his llama lunchbox. Jimmy opened it and grabbed the can of purple flurp from inside. Turning to his dog, Goddard, who'd opened up his mouth producing duct tape, almost seeming to have read his masters mind.
"thanks boy." Jimmy rapidly attached the soda to the side of the satellite with the tape, but he still needed something to pull the tab with. He turned and unraveled a portion of carl's shirt, tying the thread around the pull tab, and throw the satellite has far as he could. It didn't go much farther than carl's try, but at the top of it's arc jimmy pulled the thread, opening the can and releasing the pressure inside.
The toaster flew up, up, and out into space, raining down flurp on the three teens below.
After the small shower of soda jimmy turned to the others," don't try that at home."
"Sorry to ruin this great moment of pop rocketry, but…times up" as sara said this the rocket jerked one final time before it began to fall almost straight down.
The g-forces pulled them back making any movement extremely difficult. Carl began to turn green and looked like he was about to throw-up. Sara was forced to stop type and hold on to the sides of the rocket, praying that the fuel mix would hold out on exploding them into tiny bits. And jimmy was straining to flip a particular switch that seemed just out of his reach.
a switch that read "STABILIZERS".
He finally reached it, just as they were about to exit the stratosphere. The skis on the side extended out, revealing that they were attached to rudimentary wings. The rocket finally started to level out, and move horizontally more than vertically down.
After they'd leveled out sara had gone back to her screen, thanking whatever deity was looking out for them that the fuel mix hadn't gone critical. While the engine itself was no longer functional at all the fuel was still mixing, so she immediately went back to keeping them stable, but at least they weren't acting up as much since the pulse rockets had tried to fire.
Looking down they could see that they were over their hometown of retroville. A small city in the panhandle of Texas, mostly suburbs but it did have a downtown section.
Jimmy put them into a slow downward spiral, looking for their neighborhood. Finally finding it he angled towards it, "Alright now just a quick stop at my house."
"I don't know jimmy. I need to get to school on time. And you…" carl said looking at jimmy a little nervously.
"Right, gotcha." Jimmy answered and pressed a button on his console.
"Wait I didn't mean, jimmyyyyy…" carl was then jettisoned from the rocket, and started to float upside down towards the ground by his seat parachute.
"See you in homeroom!" jimmy yelled over the wind. Then he turned around and looked at sara." What about you, do you need to go?"
She glanced up at him and asked," can you keep this mixed properly, and fly this thing correctly at the same time?" shacking her head she went back to the screen." Anyways I still need to pick up my stuff from my house and you live just a few places down, so it'd be quicker to just go to your house. Also you might want to pay attention to what's going on in front of you."
Jimmy spun back around just in time for the wings to be seared off by a set of power lines. Quickly he deployed the landing gears. But they were broken off when the rocket clipped a church bell tower, nearly decapitating both him and sara. But they duck just in the nick of time.
"That was a little to close there, captain." Sara said, her voice shaking just a bit.
"better buckle up then, cause its not going to get any better." Said jimmy see that he only had one more option left to him.
Hitting one final button, a series of umbrellas deployed from the back in a last ditch effort to slow the speeding rocket down. Unfortunately they ended up ripping the engine and the back side of sara's seat right off. The fuel finally had had enough and detonated but it was well above anyone's house thanks to the umbrella parachutes.
"Well guess that I don't need to worry about the fuel mix anymore." Sara said as she quickly climbed into carl's now empty seat area.
What remained of the ship began to skip off the roofs of the houses below. Rapidly approaching thou was a chimney, a very familiar chimney.
CRASH
Down went the stack of bricks that before had been a chimney. Luckily the rocket had slowed just enough to both stay on the roof after impact and keep all the passengers safe and mostly unharmed.
"Well that wasn't so bad." Said jimmy climbing out of the wrecked rocket, goddard growled a response at him.
"As compared to what exactly?" sara commented as she too climbed out of the rocket. she was rubbing she shoulder, since she had banged against the side of the ship as they crashed.
"You ok?" jimmy asked concerned.
"yeah, yeah, nothing a couple painkillers won't fix." Sara answered.
Both of the looked down at where the chimney had landed on the lawn below, there it was laying on top of a red convertible, jimmy's dad's car.
"Opps" jimmy winced once he realized whose vehicle it was.
"Hey look at it this way. At least you got us back to your house in mostly one piece." Sara smacked him on the back, looking on the positive side.
"JAMES ISSAC NEUTRON" someone down below yelled up at the two.
Jimmy tried to hide quickly, but it was no use. His mom had seen him before she called up.
"I SEE YOU UP THERE" called judy neutron. Judy neutron was your standard housewife on the outside. Around 35 or so, average height, modestly endowed, her hairstyle on the other hand was slightly odd. Falling down until it split in two can curved back up, no one in the neighborhood had hair like judy.
She glared up at her son as he moved to where she could see him. "How many times have we told you, not to launch yourself off the roof." She shuck her head in irritation.
"Probably nine…" jimmy checked with goddard," exactly nine times."
"Technically Mrs. Neutron, we didn't launch off the roof, we just landed on it." Sara stated trying to stand up for her friend.
"Oh sara, don't tell me my son dragged you into another wild experiment?" judy asked with worry now in her voice.
"Nah, besides, he couldn't of launched this thing without my help." Sara kicked the wreck to indicate what she was talking about.
Judy didn't seem to believe her, but she left it at that. "well ok, now what on earth were you two doing?"
"Last night I got a message from space, but it was garbled in the ionosphere, so I had to launch a communications toas…" Sara nudged him,"… I mean satellite."
"Well message from space, wow." Said jimmy's dad, who'd come out to see what all the hubbub was. Hugh neutron is an odd man to anyone who looked at him, regular head, but a huge nose, glasses, brown hair. The really odd thing about him thou was his odd obsession with ducks, he just seemed to love ducks for whatever reason.
Judy scowled her husband," Don't encourage him hugh." She aimed her glare back at her son," Jimmy, we've repeatedly told you not to talk to strangers."
"But mom I'm on the verge of communication with an advanced alien civilization" whined jimmy.
Sara decided to throw in her to second at this time," Or at least we think it's an alien civilization, it could've just be a weird broadcast off an old Japanese satellite."
"I don't care how advanced they say they are, if your father and I haven't met them, then their strangers. Right hugh?" Judy said looking for her husband to agree with her.
"Right, unless their policemen. They're there to help you." Hugh agreed.
Sighing with defeat jimmy stood up and looked to goddard, who began to rotate his ears rapidly. Both jimmy and sara grabbed a leg, and goddard hovered down to the ground, getting them off the roof finally.
Hugh's eyes got big at that," Oh come on, you've got to admit that was pretty cool."
Judy just scowled at her husband. She then turned to sara," Do you need a ride back to your house, it's almost time for school you two?"
Looking at the sun to check the time, she said," no thanks I'm good, I just got to grab my bag, and I'm ready. But I'd better get going anyway." She turned and started to jog down the street. Over her shoulder she called," better get ready jimmy, the day's just begun."
Well this is proof that even a long dead corpse can still hold something good inside. After a very long time, I'm starting up a new story. Not sure yet if I'll get the others going too or not.
Anyway if you enjoyed this first chapter, send a review.