Chapter 9: A Night at the Space OperaThe first wave of Nibblonian saucer-shaped 'Cuddle Bug' ships soared across the bow of the Brezhnev, deploying scores of kinetic harpoons from their centreline munitions dispensers. Great rends appeared in the hull of the monolithic research vessel as the projectiles impacted at relativistic velocities and converted to hard radiation, spewing geysers of billowing gas and superheated plasma out into the void.
The onslaught continued, and Brezhnev shuddered beneath the monumental impacts, losing thousands of cubic tons of its mass in a matter of seconds.
Deep inside the battered ship, Onespawn responded by expanding its stupidification field, and suddenly the first wave attackers began to veer randomly off-course as their Nibblonian pilots became afflicted by sudden stupidity. They slammed into the hull of the massive Brezhnev, and into each other; they fired salvos of missiles at their own ships; and many attempted to land on a nearby sun.
The second and third waves of Nibblonian attackers held back at standoff range, unwilling to enter the idiocy zone that surrounded the SS Brezhnev. Instead they deployed long-range weapons – powerful Phased-Antimatter-Array missiles and near-lightspeed coilguns that fired love-heart shaped iron slugs across the void and into the subverted research cruiser's flanks.
Onespawn ignored the peppering coilgun strikes and instead focused on intercepting the PAA missiles that streaked toward the ship. Long-unused weapons systems, now finally under the Brainspawn's control, deployed smoothly from recesses in the massive ship's hull, swinging around to draw bead on the approaching projectiles.
Space outside became an incandescent maelstrom of warring energies, as the Brezhnev's argon lasers stabbed across the void and struck the PAA missiles one by one. They detonated in starbursts of exotic radiation, purple and red, any one of which could have caused mass-extinctions on an inhabited world.
The Nibblonian fleet was buffeted by the blasts from their own weapon systems exploding. Onboard the command vessel, the presiding leader of the Nibblonian people issued rapid commands and reviewed incoming data.
"All Cuddle Bug squadrons deploy to defensive perimeter formation codename snuggle-fluff," Ken said. "Engage attack scenario Alpha-Bravo-Pookums!" He nearly lost his footing as a burst of projectiles from the Brezhnev's railguns slammed into the ship.
All of the Nibblonians on the pink cushioned bridge worked with grim determination, acutely aware of the consequence of failure. Many of them displayed visible marks of cosmic stigma, including Ken himself whose entire left arm was covered by the dark affliction.
It was spreading too…
Suddenly the comm. screen activated with random amorphous coloured shapes, and a booming voice echoed through the audio system.
"So you've resorted at last to an open display of force?" the Brainspawn said disdainfully across the communication band. "No longer hiding behind feeble forlorn theology and the red jacket of your dim-witted Messiah?"
Ken bared his fangs in an angry snarl. "Your machinations cannot be allowed to continue," he said. "Every change you make within yourself destabilizes the Universe further and edges both our races toward final and utter obliteration!"
"You've mistaken me for an entity to whom such concerns warrant even a moment's consideration," Onespawn replied. "I am no longer Brainspawn – I am Onespawn, and I will be the death of you all."
The communication link terminated.
It was bravado, Onespawn knew. Though the Brezhnev's armaments might hold up for a while, augmented by Onespawn's psionic attack, the Nibblonian forces were technologically superior and would eventually obliterate the larger vessel.
There had to be some other avenue…
In desperation, Onespawn looked to the weird quantum flux that it had detected within itself. The Nibblonian commander's words began to make some vague sense as the exotic resonance continued.
Maybe…
Tentatively, Onespawn applied psionic energy to the fluxing quantum particles, and in response an inconceivable ripple of unreality radiated outward from the Brainspawn. Space and time seemed to buckle briefly in agony.
Screams filled the communication waves, and Ken, the Nibblonian leader appeared on a viewscreen near Onespawn's temporal lobe.
"What are you doing?" the little alien bellowed. "You can't do that! The fabric of the Universe…"
"Silence," Onespawn said. Again, the creature applied energy to the quantum structure inside itself, only stronger this time. Reality bucked and writhed as the wave rippled outward, swamping the Nibblonian fleet.
Though the Universe snapped back into shape (albeit somewhat overstretched and threadbare in places), the Nibblonians in the immediate vicinity, with their intrinsic ties to the fabric of spacetime, were no more…
Their pastel-coloured ships hung silently in the void, empty of all life.
And the Brezhnev lumbered onward toward Earth, unopposed.
As Leela led the way slowly through the pungent stench of the New New York sewer system, Fry and Nibbler suddenly cried out in searing pain and fell together to the damp slimy ground.
"Oh… Jeez!" Fry moaned as every molecule of his being seemed to whiplash in spastic agitation. "Knew I… shouldn't have eaten… that mushroom…"
"No…" Nibbler growled. "Not this… not yet…!"
"What? What's happening to you?" Leela pushed past Bender and Zoidberg to crouch beside the two writhing figures. She placed a hand on Fry's shoulder and then drew back sharply when a crack of static electricity burnt her fingers. She gasped in alarm when both Fry and Nibbler seemed to vanish briefly, and then flicker in and out of existence like a poorly-tuned television.
The strange attack ceased, and the two of them solidified once more and slowly got to their feet.
"Whoa," Fry said. "Did everything just taste incredibly painful?"
"What happened?" Leela asked. "It looked like you were fading away into nothingness."
"Fin fungus can do that," Zoidberg offered.
Fry looked down at Nibbler for some explanation, and the little alien appeared worried almost to the point of panic.
"Too soon," he said to himself. "It's progressing too quickly…"
"It was the Brainspawn?" Fry asked.
"Using its connection to spacetime as a weapon, affirmative," Nibbler said. "The Universe just took a tremendous beating, and several thousand of my people met their end. The enemy now understands the power it wields, and the cosmos will tremble at its might…"
Fry wiped his nose absently, no longer listening, and noticed the dark stain of stigma forming on his wrist. He hurriedly lowered his hand before Leela noticed.
"Come on," he said. "Let's keep moving."
Leela picked up Nibbler and led the way onward through the tunnel systems, which eventually opened out onto a ramshackle subterranean village beneath the city's surface. Accumulated deitrus had been drawn together and piled into haphazard structures, arranged around the fetid drainage canals and central mutagenic lake. Thin shafts of sunlight filtered down from grilles and ducts in the plate above, penetrating the gloomy murk below.
They'd reached the settlement of the sewer mutants.
At first, the eyes and sensor stalks of the various mutated humanoids observed the outsiders from a distance, lurking in shadow. Then a lone voice called out:
"It's Leela!"
From the darkness, scores of mutant children with extra limbs and misshapen bodies rushed out to cluster around Leela, making delighted whooping, hissing, and squawking sounds.
"Leela! Leela! Tell us stories of the Surface!"
"Are you here to free us from the sewers?"
"What does the sun look like?"
"Miss Leela, Is it true that you can grant wishes?"
Leela appeared taken aback, and tried to move past the youngsters, but they continued to mob her, so she awkwardly attempted to answer their questions and smiled uncertainly at their enthusiasm.
Fry and the others skirted the little gathering and watched in bemusement from one side as Leela was forced to sit, holding two of the smaller children in her arms. The almost maternalistic scene evoked some odd yearning in Fry that he couldn't quite place, and he found himself thinking back to the time between unrecallable times when he had been briefly married to her…
"Fascinating," Nibbler remarked from the ground.
From somewhere behind them appeared a mutant with two noses and a forehead like a cliff face.
"Your friend Leela has become something of a legend to many in our community," Dwayne said, startling Fry, Bender, and Zoidberg, who had been watching Leela and her fans.
"Yeah, they do seem to love her," Fry said.
"She is the only mutant to have ever escaped the sewers and made a life for herself on the Surface," Dwayne explained. "They see her as beacon of hope and salvation – not unlike the Christ of our ancient myths. Through her, many hope we will one day ascend to the upper world and claim our place among the Surface-dwellers…"
"Fat chance buddy," Bender muttered, striking a match on Dwayne's massive forehead and lighting a cigar. "Folk as ugly as you belong where folk as beautiful as me don't have to see 'em."
Dwayne glared. "Beauty is a matter of perspective," he retorted indignantly. "Perhaps to us it is you who appear ugly."
"Nope," Bender replied. "I don't have two noses, weirdo."
"He's right Dwayne," Vyolet snorted, the reptilian female appearing alongside Dwayne with a cigarette jutting from the corner of her mouth. "Accept it, we're hideous." She blew a cloud of smoke from her gills, and Dwayne looked crestfallen.
Turanga Morris and Munda made their way forward, and Leela gently excised herself from the press of mutant children to run to them. Arms and tentacles encircled her warmly as she embraced her parents.
"Mom, Dad," she said. "It's so good to see you."
"Why of course it's good to see you too, sweetheart," Munda said, cupping Leela's face between her tentacles.
"Yeah, but why the sudden unexpected visit?" Morris added. "Is something wrong?"
"You like you've been hit by a garbage skip," Munda said. "Still beautiful of course, but… are you bleeding?"
Leela glanced down at her grimy, beaten appearance. There were numerous abrasions she'd sustained in the past twenty-four hours that she hadn't even noticed yet. She looked across to Fry where he stood with the others, and he gave her a helpless shrug.
"It's… a long story," she told her parents.
"It always is," Munda replied with patient understanding. "Why don't you and your friends come on home and get yourselves cleaned up."
As the group made their way along the rickety gangways of Mutant Town, Zoidberg was stopped by the Supreme Mutant, a man with an extra arm growing out the side of his head.
"My Lord," Raoul said in horror as he stared at the Doctor. "You poor unfortunate being…"
Zoidberg made a confused gurgle in the back of his throat and blinked at the mutant.
"You are the most horribly mutated person I've ever seen," Raoul went on. "Even more disgusting than him." He pointed at a mutant that appeared to be comprised of a single leg with a face on it.
"Aww…" Zoidberg scuttled dejectedly away after the others.
The Professor and his employees were sequestered on the hangar floor while Mom's security personnel scoured Planet Express headquarters. They sat in a circle, covered by a squad of armed men. The corporate Matriarch herself stood nearby with Larry and waited. At length, one of the task leaders hurried up to her.
"We've completed a full search of the compound," he reported. "No sign of the Mighty One or the Nibblonian – they aren't here."
"Right…" Mom glared at Professor Farnsworth. "Where are they?" she demanded.
Farnsworth got to his feet and adjusted his glasses. "More to the point," he said distractedly, "where am I?"
"Chiu cheng!" Amy muttered in frustration.
Mom prodded Farnsworth in the chest with a bony finger. "Listen stud, if you think your sex appeal will get you out of this, you're sorely mistaken," she said. "I want Fry and that little three-eyed creature – tell me where they are before I get really mad!"
"I should have known you were behind this!" Farnsworth snapped, passing back into lucidity. "You conniving seductive harpy! What kind of evil scheme are you trying to enact?"
"Mind your own cod-sniffing business!" Mom said, turning her back on Farnsworth.
Larry snapped shut his handheld communicator and leaned close to Mom. "We're still unable to contact the Brezhnev," he said quietly. "I think the Nibblonian may have been telling the truth."
Mom nodded tiredly. "These fools don't know anything," she said, glancing over her shoulder at Farnsworth and his deadbeat friends. "But still – Hubert's expertise could come in handy if we're really facing a threat. We need to be able to contain this as quickly as possible."
"What about the quantum interface weapon?" Larry asked. "Or the stupidification ray?"
"Idiot!" She slapped him. "You think we can still make money from this!? My building is half demolished, my two favourite sons are dead, and we may well have unleashed a force of death and destruction upon the damned Galaxy – the best we can hope for is that we come out of this without being blamed!"
Larry rubbed his cheek, looking forlorn. "So what now?" he said.
"Gather up Farnsworth and his morons," Mom said. "We can't find Fry and his racoon so we'll just have to confront the damn brain thing ourselves. Make sure Hubert has full access to our data files."
"Full access?" Larry repeated incredulously. "But… not even I have that level of…"
"Shut up!" Mom snarled.
As the security personnel prodded the Professor and the others toward the doors, Hermes Conrad held out a sheaf of papers toward Mom.
"This is da standard kidnapping and ransom statement to be lodged with the central bureaucracy in the event you intend to hold us unlawfully for any given period of time," he said. "The forms must be submitted with at least three weeks' notice, and…"
Mom pulled out her PPK and put three bullets through the papers, causing Hermes to drop them in fright.
"…Sweet Jaguar of Dagobah," he said weakly. "…Discharging of a firearm on company property… I have to submit an incident report…"
"Scruffy's gotta find Scruffy a new job," Scruffy muttered to himself as a security grunt pushed him out through the hangar door. "Somethin' less excitin', where folk remembers yer name…"
"Move it!" Larry snapped.
Farnsworth, Hermes, Amy, and Scruffy, were all led into a waiting shuttlecraft that was boarded by Mom and her henchmen. It lifted off and blasted away into the morning sky.