Skipper stared down at the chessboard before him. It took him a minute, perhaps less, when he finally made a move and placed his black, marble knight on E4. He felt pleased with himself and smirked at Marlene. She kept her paw under her chin and tapped it with her forefinger, obviously trying to compute her next move. She finally zapped her paw and moved her white pawn on A5. She looked up at Skipper, she wasn't about to be drawn out so easily! However she was surprised to receive a cocky expression from him as he raised a brow and he quickly sent his knight for the kill and quickly took out her pawn and bishop! How could she have missed that!
"Darn!" she snapped her fingers in defeat.
She was so protective of her king, which wasn't far behind and was at risk of being drawn out by his own bishop. Now she lost quite a few pieces that now there's little chance for her to protect her queen! It was over.
Skipper laughed, "You need to be more alert, Marlene. Make sure you read your opponents' moves carefully. You'll never know what kind of traps may be lurking."
"Well I'm no mind reader, Skipper," growled Marlene a she folded her arms. "That's pretty much all you need to be to beat you."
"Perhaps, but you don't have to be." Marlene lowered her eyelids and raised her brows in sarcasm as Skipper continued. "You just need to be more alert about your surroundings, even if you're protective over the most important piece. They'll get to the objective in any way they can. You know what they say, 'if you can't go through the front door, you gotta go through the back.'"
Marlene rolled her eyes, "All right whatever, Mr. Know-it-all. Let's have another round, and we'll see who's more alert with their surroundings."
Skipper chuckled, "We'll see if you've learned anything today."
They stared down at each other with competitive stares and were just about to set up for the next round, when suddenly Kowalski, Private, and Rico burst through the hatch above and rushed. They screeched in their tracks as they halted just inches before they crashed into the chessboard on the table. They looked out of breath.
"Skipper!" cried Private in panic.
"At ease, man! Spit it out!" replied Skipper in surprise. "Can't you see Marlene and I are in the middle of a game?"
"Sorry, Skipper," apologized Kowalski as he lifted a clipboard that contained zoo papers. "But I felt it was important to inform you that I've uncovered some documents regarding a zoo transfer to here."
"And?" asked Marlene. "Zoo transfers happen all the time. This just means we'll be meeting new neighbors."
"But it appears that whatever is coming here is also planned to move here in our habitat," he added.
"What? New recruits?" exclaimed Skipper. "That's a negative, Kowalski. We are not accepting any new recruits at this time."
"We don't seem to have many options, Skipper."
"It's already set, Skipper!" piped up Private. "It's already on its way and the keepers seem to have decided that it should be sent here."
"Well that's where we draw the line, men," said Skipper as he hopped off his seat. "This is our HQ, so it should be run the way we see fit. Not even the keepers themselves have the right to decide who should stay here and who shouldn't. So we'll go to their computers and change its location back to wherever it came from. It wouldn't even pass the rigorous screening anyway. Now when does this "new guest" of ours show up?"
According to these documents," Kowalski glanced at his papers.
BOOM! Suddenly their HQ shook and everyone nearly lost their balance for a moment there. Kowalski peered through the papers again.
"Right about now, Skipper," he whined.
Rico whined in unison as he tried to regain his composure.