Kowalski returned to the zoo HQ in a timely manner. Though the sun was setting now and he had been gone all day, traffic was light and meant he arrived faster than he had anticipated.
Once inside the HQ, Skipper didn't look too pleased to see Kowalski. He had a cup of fish coffee in one flipper and another fisted on his hip. Kowalski could imagine why he looked peeved. He had been gone all day when he had only said he was going to retrieve some supplies. Kowalski needed to be more careful in the future and actually think about his excuses. Kowalski nervously chuckled as he dragged his bag across the floor avoiding eye contact with anyone.
"Supplies? Grabbing a few supplies? You're not sneaking off and meeting Doris without giving me prior notice, right Lieutenant?"
Kowalski felt flustered for a second, then composed himself enough to try and distract Skipper with his new and improved boots.
"I found a lab in Brooklyn with state of the art supplies and just set up shop there. I've fully completed and reworked my hover boots. Skipper, care to try them out?" He said, excited to show everyone his work.
Private looked intrigued, as he looked away from the TV and waddled over.
Skipper simply raised a sceptical brow and grabbed Rico from across the room.
"Rico, flamethrower. These boots make one wrong move and their remains will be ashes. Just like Manfredi and Johnson."
Rico gave a gut wrenching chuckle before hacking up the flamethrower. Kowalski looked slightly worried but he knew his boots worked so he let his heart calm down.
Private looked eager and hopped on his toes for a moment before he waddled up to Kowalski.
"Can I try them? I want to fly."
Kowalski looked over to Skipper. Usually Skipper kept Private away from Kowalski's inventions, acting on those fathering instincts that he didn't want the boy hurt. It was just as well, Kowalski had to admit that his inventions went up in electrical flames more often than he would have liked.
Skipper stayed stood back with Rico, not wanting to get too close. These boots had failed twice already, what's to stop them failing a third time?
"Don't crush his dreams, soldier." Was all Skipper said.
Kowalski couldn't help but sigh. What little expectations everyone had of him. He strapped the boots to Private's feet and helped put the gloves on, all while explaining how to take off then walk evenly.
Skipper stood the whole time with the flamethrower in his flippers. He had a smirk on his face, like he was hoping the boots would fail again so he could get a chance at using the device. Kowalski smirked back though, with the knowledge that he was about to get blown away.
And just like in Blowhole's lab, Private rose off the floor and stood proudly in the air. It took a moment for Skipper to lower the flamethrower and mask the astonishment on his face. An invention of Kowalski's that actually worked? It was a miracle!
As Private waddled around in the air, Skipper waddled over to Kowalski and patted him firmly on the back.
"Well done, Kowalski."
Kowalski blushed and twiddled his flippers for a moment.
"Thank you, Sir."
Kowalski felt pride upon impressing Skipper. That didn't happen often and even with the knowledge that this was half of Blowhole's work, he basked in as much of Skipper's acceptance as he could.
Private refused to come down since he was having too much fun and began trying to perform various moves of acrobatics. It didn't look too graceful but the boy was having fun and none of the others could bring themselves to force him down.
Skipper seemed especially happy. It wasn't too often that Skipper was actually proud of one of Kowalski's creations.
After an hour or so Skipper convinced Private to come down but only so he could have a go. Rico called dibs after Skipper and the whole team was content and happy. Until the shoes refused to lift off for Skipper.
"What gives? Kowalski your shoes are broken! I knew this would happen sooner or later."
Kowalski rolled his eyes and pulled the boots off Skipper's feet. They were just out of juice, not broken. An easy fix and it wasn't even a fix since they weren't broken!
"They just need charging up. I'll charge them up over night and you can have another go tomorrow," Kowalski said as he waddled to his lab.
Through the still open door he could hear the others talking. All good things, which was a change. It made Kowalski smile and feel accomplished.
"We should take them out for a field test," Skipper stated. "See how they'll fair in an operation."
Private suddenly lit up and jumped on the spot for a moment before he could get his excited words out.
"How about a snow cone retrieval mission? To congratulate Kowalski."
Rico nodded along too and nudged Skipper, urging him to agree that this would be the perfect test.
"S-now cones!" Rico sang.
Kowalski chuckled, seeing them all eagerly fanning over his invention. Snow cones did sound nice too. And as Skipper said, it would be interesting to see them put to the test in a field test.
"Of course, I'll man the mission, be the one to use the shoes and retrieve the snow cones. Private, Rico, you'll act as backup incase anything happens and Kowalski I need you on the side incase anything happens with the shoes," Skipper ordered.
Kowalski nodded from his stance in his lab as Skipper looked in.
"Aye, Sir."
So things were going back to normal once again. Kowalski felt a little ashamed still and couldn't quite look the others in the eyes. Perhaps his upcoming date with Doris would help ease his worries and calm him down. Doris always managed to make him forget about all his insecurities and just let go. Perhaps dreaming about her would make the mission tomorrow go easier too.
The next day rolled around faster than Kowalski would have hoped. Sleep hadn't come easy, just like the first nights the last times he had been with Blowhole. His mind was tormenting him, telling him how bad he was for his treasonous actions against the team. But it was unwilling! He would give his life for the safety of team! Or apparently not since he was abiding to Blowhole's every whim. But what's wrong with wanting to live?
The team of penguins had breakfast and did an hour of combat drills. Skipper had always said the best time to practice was first thing, when everyone was rested and eager to get the day started. The drills today, however, were slightly more aggressive. Skipper wanted to make sure the team were well prepared for the snow cone heist. Why combat would be needed for getting snow cones, none of the others knew. What they did know was not to disobey Skipper, so they didn't and adhered to his word.
The team of 4 found themselves in the park. It was mid morning and the snow cone cart was parked on a bank of grass below a tree. The server, giving a red cone to a young girl who was practically pulling her mother's arm off in excitement.
Up in the tree above, Skipper stood on a branch, boots on and gloves fastened on his flippers. Private and Rico sat hidden in a bush a few meters away and Kowalski was under a park bench, watching the operation unfold.
As the child and mother began to walk away, Skipper made a break for it and jumped down from the tree, the boots detecting the cart below and stopping 5 feet above, out of the servers sight. As the server ducked down, opening a panel on the side of the cart, most likely a storage compartment for extra cones and ice, Skipper dialed down the settings and landed. Quickly grabbing their share of cones and tossing them to the team he fiddled with the settings again and floated right back up into the tree with the biggest smirk on his face.
Kowalski felt proud as Rico slid over and passed him a snow cone. The boots worked better than he could have ever imagined. Rico seemed especially pleased too, as he gave Kowalski a whack on the back.
"Gud job bud."
The team met up under a tree a good couple of yards away from the cart and did high 5's.
"Mission accomplished. Kowalski, gold star," Skipper said as he dug into his snow cone.
"Thank you, Sir," Kowalski said bashfully.
So far the day was going great. It was one of the best days Kowalski had had in a while. Getting praised by his team and snow cones was a match made in heaven.
The team began slowly waddling back to the zoo, taking their time to take in the beautiful scenery of Central Park. Pigeons were out feasting on seed that visitors had left for them, Fred was up in the trees making what looked like a lawn gnome, except it was made of acorns and it didn't resemble a person or a squirrel at all.
Skipper began chirping away at Rico's ear. Nothing of which Kowalski was interested about. Private waddled along side Skipper and Kowalski began to fall behind, just getting lost in his own thoughts like usual. His thoughts were much the same as they usually were. Science, how he could improve their central heating system and a slight static buzz in the back of his head. Wait... static buzz? That meant the communication connection between his leg and Blowhole was live. Blowhole was watching and waiting to say something.
Kowalski dropped back another couple of paces, lowered his head and hissed at his leg.
"Don't you dare."
There was no way he was going to let Blowhole ruin a perfect morning. What did the dolphin want anyway? It had only been 12 hours since they were last in each other's company.
Though, to Kowalski's dismay, Skipper caught wind of what he had said and suddenly spun around.
"What was that, soldier?"
Kowalski fumbled for words for a moment and rushed to catch up with the others.
"Ah, don't you dare think about hopping over the zoo wall when we can test the high range setting! You can hover straight over it."
Skipper suddenly smiled and nodded as he placed a flipper under his chin in humble thought.
"That sounds fun but we'll have zoo visitors. Stealth is what we need."
Kowalski nodded along, not wanting to dig himself a deeper hole. It appeared that Skipper had ears in the back of his head as well as every other part of his body.
But still, the buzz unrelentingly persisted, giving Kowalski the sense of a fuzzy head and even made him physically cringe a few times. Whatever Blowhole wanted, he was not going to give up until he could say it. But as long as Kowalski was with the others, he made it impossible for the dolphin to speak up. It was just going to be a game of who could outlast who.