A/N: I'm not a scientist, astronomer, visionary or God knows who. I'm just a writer who gets catastrophic dreams. It's not an essay on science but a simple fic, so I'm sorry that things probably won't make sense, just enjoy the story. It won't be long and not so very intense as it may appear.

Evil Science (prologue)

Private brushed his toy, impatiently glancing towards the clock on the wall in the penguins' headquarters. 2300 hours, or in other words 11 p.m, was coming closer, thanks heaven. Turning the pink plastic horse around, the young soldier looked into its eyes which showed no emotions whatsoever - no pity, no sparkle of hope, no understanding. He didn't search for them anyway. It was about the colour of the glassy eyes. Green. What a nice colour. He couldn't recall when was the last time he had seen it on a flower. Or when was the last time he had seen a plant on that matter. Fungi in the corridors didn't count. Their colour didn't even resemble green. So slimy and so ugh, unappetizing. The small penguin almost gagged at that thought, really hoping that the team wouldn't be forced to eat those. On the other hand, they couldn't be so bad. Probably not worse than the imitation fish cakes they were forced to eat since all fish were gone.

"Ah, Princess Self-Respectra, few more minutes and we can go outside. Alice will bring us some water." Although the avian tried to say it in a sing-alike tone, his words turned out harsh, so he cleaned his throat but that didn't help much either. The bird simply needed water. Just like the rest of the penguin commando. "Tasty water...and some awful fish cakes."
Hearing the magic word 'water', Rico sat up right and threw his long tongue out of his beak. The Pavlov Effect caused that the weapon expert's saliva dropped down. It landed on miss Percy's dress but the penguin didn't mind the misfortune, still having the mentioned liquid on his mind. Tasty water...

"Nah, Private. Weight what you're saying, we don't need another of Rico's psycho fits." Skipper glared towards the younger soldier, absent-mindedly placing his white king back on the chessboard. The flat-headed penguin's move options were limited due to the fact that the most important piece got cornered. Still, the bird refused to give up voluntary. If only he could concentrate on the play but recently his mind was flooded with more important thoughts and even worries.

"Checkmate, Skipper. Fourth time in a row, if I were you, I would try to come up with a strategy. Maybe you need some suggestions?" Kowalski smugly folded flippers on his chest as the leader growled, watching the analyst's black queen in front of his fallen king. "That's nonsense, Kowalski! And you know what you can do with your lousy chess suggestions?!"
"Aww, Skippah. I'm sure you will win the next match." Private giggled under his breath, he knew he shouldn't make fun of their commanding officer but at some point during the recent events, Skipper's authority lost its power. Probably because of how vulnerable he became in the face of the approaching doom and how helpless he seemed in comparison with human army forces.

Sensing that his cheer up speech irritated the leader even more, Private tried to track Skipper's anger towards something or better said someone else: "Last time you were so angry with K'walski when you two discussed the cause behind the huge Sun."
"It was Blowhole. It's stated black and white in the files." The commander pointed out as he got reminded of that topic. The second-in-command immediately shook his head and corrected the older penguin: "Which were written by your flipper. It's the Sun itself."
"Blowwww-hooooole." Stubborn, Skipper spelt out slowly and added: "That tricky dolphin teamed up with the Space Squids. Those monsters didn't allow humans on Mars, killing each and every expedition. So, we're trapped here on this planet with sauna at day and day at night."
"It wouldn't solve the problem." Kowalski took out his clipboard and drew a quick diagram of the Solar System but with two differences – Mercury was gone and the Sun came dangerously close to Venus. "Because Mars will be 'absorbed' by the Sun too, just like in the case of Mercury." With a thick line, the scientist separated Mars from Jupiter. "Getting smaller in mass but larger in size, our star will expand even more to the point that all the inner planets will be incinerated. The process will stop right here, before the Asteroid Belt and then the Sun will decrease and finally fade out." Drawing arrows while explaining, Kowalski finished by crossing Earth out.

"I have heard that theory five times already, Kowalski. At least five times! I thought that by now you would invent something to prevent it, soldier." Skipper put the tips of flippers on his temples. He had never paid attention to those weird cosmic theories of destruction, as if Earth wasn't a part of something bigger. He used to take care of things he had an influence on. The abysmal situation ticked him off.
"We would need long distance spaceships which could be able to travel faster than light. Or a time travel device. Theoretically, we could also launch a rocket towards the Sun but the possibility that it would explode instantly is too great and the impact on Earth would be fatal. Unfortunately, neither me nor the humans have the high-technology developed to such extend to invent those items so they would prove to be successful." Flipping over the page, the smart penguin continued to doodle.

Skipper tried really hard to wait until Kowalski would be done with his scientific babble but enough was enough. Finally snapping, he threw the clipboard out of the taller penguin's flipper. The pages with drawings of Chronotron, their 'vintage' space rocket and a missile landed on the clean floor. Kowalski sent him an annoyed look, sure the vision of doom didn't seem enjoyable but it wasn't a reason to react so nervously towards his works. "We can't win with science, sir."

"Science is evil." Skipper turned around to cut the pointless conversation and waddled towards a strangely looking half-electronic thermometer. Actually, it looked like a normal thermometer but it reached above the ceiling of the HQ to the surface. Instead of mercury the device was filled up with liquid gold, tungsten replaced glass and it had a digital display. "Let's call it a night, boys. Up the ladder to the fresh air." The leader pointed at the entrance.
"Watha!" Rico cried out and left his girlfriend behind, in no time climbing up the ladder. He was followed by Kowalski and Skipper. Private clapped his flippers but before he joined his friends, the young soldier patted his old lunacorn friend on the head. "You will go too, after all everyone deserves fresh air and tasty water."