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Chapter 9
A/N: I've only been waiting for months for the day where I could finish writing this chapter. Thanks to Hylianodst who favourited this story when I was halfway through with writing this chapter. It really helped motivate me to finish writing it as fast as possible. It's a short one, sorry. Read & Review!
Thanks to the wonders of Babelfish and the electronic stand-ins for said fish Private had managed to decipher the instruction manual and read what the computer's GPS system said about the trip to Ursa minor Beta. The computer claimed that it would take them 90 years to get to Ursa minor Beta, but that was mostly because they would run out of gas halfway there and would have to wait around for the next big Swalsbybuggler migration in 36 years. Rico claimed that he could make the trip in 18 hours. Of course any responsible soldier would trust his fellow penguin over a suspicious alien computer which didn't even speak in a nice female monotone.
Two hours into the trip Private started to talk about light sabers. And he did not stop. When Skipper as mercifully as possible wrestled the conversation out of Private's flippers and turned it towards the planet that they were going to visit Private welcomed the new topic with open flippers. "Just think of it! We're going to another planet! No penguin has ever done that before!" he exclaimed in excitement. "As far as anyone knows," skipper thought to himself. In that one thoughtful moment he missed the sight of a tear forming in Private's left eye. The young penguin managed to wipe it away and put on an excited face for the sake of his fellow penguins. He never gave up trying to raise the spirit of the group and was quite oblivious to the fact that they were getting pretty tired of his constant talking. Rico was the one who made it through the trip in the best shape. He concentrated every single brain cell on flying the ship and was quite close to passing out at one point because he had forgotten to dedicate any brain power to breathing. Kowalski started working on light sabers, mostly so Private would not want to bother him. Skipper tried to make radio contact to his top spy, codenamed Quintin the Cuddlefish. No success there.
After 18 hours of not much happening the shuttle arrived at a parking lot on Ursa minor Beta. By "nothing much" is of course meant nothing much by Penguin standards. Skipper had around the 15th hour become so hypnotised by the yucky campyness of their stay in the shuttle that he had fallen into a trance, which had been misinterpreted by the other penguins as an infection caused by a brain eating space slug. Brain eating space slugs are the first suspects in a surprisingly large amount of cases involving inexplicable trances while on road trips. During the 16th hour Skipper had regained his senses and told the others how stupid their theory about slugs had been. Their leader had of course bought insurance including brain eating space slugs and if there is something you can trust it is your insurance company. As they landed in the parking lot (or more accurately crashed) Private had confided in Skipper that he though brain eating space slugs were imaginary. Skipper answered him with a cocky pat on the back, "Only on bank holidays."
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To the reassuring sound of some poor alien screaming "My hovercraft!" the penguins crashed the shuttle across three spaces, some of them already full. In the distance someone was being told off by a very upset woman for having misplaced their time machine. The penguins left their shuttle just as the unlucky time traveller remembered that he had parked the time machine next Tuesday. The woman remained unimpressed.
As parking lots go this one was one of the more interesting. After walking in one direction for 10 minutes the penguins bumped into what seemed like a force field and they had to change their direction. Then the same happened again. And again. After 5 meetings with the force field Rico decided to karate chop it. Surprisingly it worked. The penguins could freely pass through where there had a moment ago been an unseen force in the way. And then the unseen force introduced itself as Florian Tullibow, traffic warden of Parking Sector Right-Left-North-A-Bit-Further-Away-and-Closer-To- The-Green-Trash-Can, also known as Right-Left-North-A-Bit-Further-North . Skipper asked the obvious question of why the traffic warden was invisible. Private asked the baffling question of why he had not made his presence known sooner. Florian explained in an overly polite and friendly manner that his species were permanently invisible and that they believed in a strict code of being polite to everyone, all of the time. Part of being polite was to stay quiet until your presence has been acknowledge and someone shakes your hand. Or chops you down. Kowalski almost scratched a hole in his notes when he jutted down a holistic theory on politeness and then used his optionsboard to knock the traffic warden down. They had after all kind of parked the shuttle illegally.
Out of all the penguins Rico was most puzzled by Florian Tullibow. He could have sworn that the alien had a Canadian accent. (1)
The climate of the planet proved to be just as lovely as Eddie had promised. The only thing missing was the smell of old popcorns. All four penguins felt homesickness gnaw at them when they passed a sign that said: "Intergalactic Zoo (Of carnivorous beings not bent on destroying and devouring all that moves)". Below it was another sign with tiny red letters on a purple background: "Children enter at their own risk". Private felt the sting of homesickness as he read the signs and told his fellow penguins what they said. Personally he felt more than just homesick and for just a short moment wondered if Kowalski really could recreate Earth. And would it be the same? What if he could not? Were there penguins other places in the galaxy, on planets far from home with violet seas and yellow ice? That question gave him an idea. He asked the first relatively friendly looking alien they met while walking down the peach coloured brick road. He had a trunk and an impressive emerald cape but wore a yellow and red straw-hat so inviting that some alien culture's version of Santa Claus could easily be pictured in it. Of course there is only one Santa Clause, but Private did not know this. The thought of Santa being gone, like the rest of Earth, made Private sniff and force back tears. Unwarranted tears. Private tried holding back tears while he asked the alien, "Excuse me, have you seen any dolphins, or perhaps other penguins?" Rico instantly got the gist of what Private was up to (which was impressive, given his tendency to not understand subtlety) and decided to spit up a WANTED poster of Dr. Blowhole. In his haste he however spit up something quite different. Meanwhile the alien had bent down and in a thoughtful manner studied the four penguins before him.
"I do not know what dolphins are, but of course I've seen penguins. Absolutely wonderful. All the rave on the Sub-Etha network, mascots of The Fried Fish Waffles Empire." (2) The penguins could hardly contain their joy. Then Rico spoiled everything by spitting up a photograph of Skipper, Julian, Hans and Dr. Blowhole instead of the WANTED poster. It was set in one of those frames that you get a Disney World which said in big yellow letter "Best Friends Forever" and below it "Greetings from Disney World". Skipper acted quickly, in a flash he had pulled out his emergency vile of acid, his baseball bat, a knife, several other weapons from his personal emergency arsenal and transformed the picture to a few flakes of ash. "THAT'S CLASSIFIED!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.
The alien with the trunk handled this relatively well and slowly backed away from the penguins while he said, "penguins are meant to be extinct. I can see why." Four penguins stared at him in indignation. He offered them a sandwich, as the laws of his people dictated. Rico spit up a picnic basket to prove a point. The alien did not know what the point was but decided that the penguin had proved it and hastily made his way to the nearest grocery store. (3)
Then four penguins were left standing on the sidewalk with a picnic basket. Luckily Rico's little trick with the picnic basket had been noticed by the owner of a local upgrading service, known as Perplex of Aluminiumheights. He instantaneously offered Rico to have renovations and upgrades done to his insides and gladly accepted the picnic basket as payment. Perplex was after all a Gu-glub. (4)
Once the renovations were done Rico had had the elevator replaced by a teleportation system and a drinks dispenser had been installed as well. Said drinks dispenser provided the penguins with the best lemonade in existence. Perplex advertised it as "tastiness in a cup". Kowalski ecstatically tested the lemonade as well as recorded the brain waves of anyone who had ingested it. And then he sneakily took a few blood samples with the same discretion as a ninja plucking flowers. (5) However, even the tastiest of lemonades could not distract the penguins from their mission and just as they were looking for a trashcan to throw their used paper cups in Skipper caught something out of the corner of his eye. A shadow of a familiar shape. It took him less than a moment to react. He gave his men the signal that meant "Enemy sighted. Follow the target". Private fruitlessly tried to locate a trashcan, tripped around on the spot for two seconds, let out a soft "Oh..." and threw his cup on the ground before he followed what had definitely been a dolphin shaped figure disappearing around a corner.
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(1) He did not. But he had watched a pirated stray signal sent from the Canadian parliament on the day of the Earth's destruction and had deemed it the most spectacular reality show in existence. Of course we know that is not true, this honour belongs to Moose Gone Wild. If Florian had been able to watch the whole transmission he would surely have been right about it being the best reality show in existence, since the following happened: The Canadian government had a secret super laser weapon which managed to shoot down one of the Vogon ships. Only a few knew about this, so in all records of the Earth's destruction one ship was described as having "technical difficulties" and the heroics of the Canadian Government remain unknown to all since the whole Canadian Government was lost with the Earth. It is estimated that 90% of all heroics go unnoticed by any sentient beings. 8% are just publicity stunts and the last 2% end up on early morning talk shows, the heroes responsible regretting dearly that they saved anyone.
(2) What the alien failed to tell them was that most inhabitants of the galaxy are only familiar with penguins because of how successful the Earth book Atlanta Nights is in the semi hip layers of the Eastern part of the galaxy. Said book claims that "Apparently, penguins are vicious, burrowing predators that live in the Sahara and howl at the moon."
Further readings: Tea, Travis. "Atlanta Nights"
(3) This was indeed a feat since there are only five grocery stores on the whole planet and three of them are cloaked so as to avoid food inspectors. The lucky alien actually won a medal from his local community center.
(4) The Gu-glub like to eat a lot. Not only a lot, a great big fat lot. They are the definition of eating a lot. If you look up the Gu-glub in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there will be a picture of the Gu-glub, a gallery the size of a brown dwarf star of the amount of food one can devour in a day, and a phone number for the "Intergalactic overeaters anonymous golf club".
The Jazzdancing Wranglolangerlers invited the Gu-glub over for dinner. This dinner completely ruined the empire of Jazzdancing Wranglolangerlers as the restaurant bill amounted to more than the value of the whole empire. The two parties still remained on friendly terms afterwards, though a law was passed which forbid all sentient beings in the galaxy from ever inviting a Gu-glub out to dinner ever again.
It was later discovered that the Gu-glubs' stomachs were actually connected to a black hole which, because of the connection to the Gu-glub, did not expand to swallow up the whole galaxy. Since this was published in the Scientific Journal of dry, cold hard facts of the time span we call "life" it was completely ignored by the greater part of all sentient species.
(5) Why would a ninja be plucking flowers during working hours?