Mission: Possible
by Gary D. Snyder
Chapter 11:
In the control room Shego and Beautiful had joined Drakken and Calamitous. Calamitous seemed vexed by the recent turn of events but Drakken was fuming over Kim's and Jimmy's escape and found it difficult to express himself. At last Drakken mastered his rage enough to speak.
"How could you let this happen, Shego?" he raged. "I was in the middle of a perfectly good gloat, and then this happens. Do you know just how annoying that can be?"
"Let me think," Shego answered in a bored voice. "Kim has only done this to you a couple dozen times now, so I guess I can imagine –"
A strangled growl from Drakken cut her short. "How did this happen?" he demanded when his complexion had faded from a dangerous shade of purple to its usual blue.
"Well, she's a world-class heroine –" Shego began.
"- and he's a super-genius –" Beautiful added.
"- so I guess your containment unit wasn't as up to the challenge as you'd thought," concluded Shego.
"Impossible!" Calamitous insisted. "I designed that cell myself to be escape-proof. There is no way out."
"Well, they found one," said Beautiful. "Then, after Shego got locked in the cell –"
"What a minute," Drakken interrupted. "Shego got locked in the cell? If it's escape-proof then how did she get back out?"
One of Shego's hands glowed with emerald energy and she raised one eyebrow in answer. Calamitous shook his head. "I don't believe that. I spent over one hundred man-hours designing those walls to be impervious to virtually anything."
Shego rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, next time you should spend a little more time working on the floors."
That remark made Calamitous squirm a bit. "I was planning to," he said weakly. "But I never got around to it. I mean, first it was tax-filing time, then I had some revenge to exact on Retroville, and the next thing you know it's the start of the holiday season…"
Drakken cut him off with a disgusted grunt. "Then what?" he asked.
Beautiful was happy to shift as much blame to Shego as possible. "As I was saying, after Shego got herself locked in the cell Jimmy pulled a sneak attack on me while I was finishing off Kim."
"Yeah," Shego said, happy to return Beautiful's favor, "despite my warning her about him."
"At least it took both of them to take me down instead of just one," Beautiful sneered.
"And at least the smart one thought I was better than you," Shego retorted hotly.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah!"
"Okay, green girl, let's finish this!"
"You got it, Precious!"
Once again the two squared off but Drakken and Calamitous stepped between them. "Enough of this!" Calamitous snapped. "This bickering is pointless! It doesn't matter whom they think is better. Besides, it's giving me a headache."
"Exactly! It doesn't matter who either of them think is better." In an aside to Shego Drakken asked, "Did Neutron say whether he thought I was better than Calamitous?" When she shook her head, he looked hurt and went on, "Right. Anyway, we have to find them, and fast." He flipped a switch on a control panel. "Captain of the Guard! Find Possible and Neutron and bring them to the test chamber in fifteen minutes!"
A voice from the speaker replied, "We're looking, sir, but I'm not sure we can find them that fast."
"You'd better," Drakken snarled. "Unless, of course, you're volunteering for our live subject testing."
There was the sound of the guard at the other end of the connection swallowing hard. "We'll find them, sir."
"See that you do. Drakken out." He snapped the switch back with a grunt and muttered, "What else can go wrong?"
At that moment the klaxon began to blare again and the mechanical voice said, "Intruder alert. Intruder alert. Unidentified craft passing outer marker. Defensive response advised. Intruder alert. Intruder alert. Unidentified craft passing outer marker. Defensive response advised. Intruder alert…"
"Oh, come on!" Drakken wailed to no one in particular as Calamitous shut off the alarm. "I was just asking!"
Calamitous studied the installation's tracking system and shook his head. "Whatever it is, it's coming in fast. There are only three sub-orbital vehicles that can maneuver at anywhere near that that speed."
"And those would be…?" asked Shego, who was curious in spite of the situation.
"One is the SR-71 Blackbird. The second is the top-secret Aurora experimental hypersonic vehicle. And the third is Neutron's Strato XL." He studied the screen again. "And from the Mach numbers I'm betting that it's the Strato XL."
"But Neutron is somewhere inside the complex," Beautiful protested. "How could it be his rocket?"
"It's probably his girlfriend and the buffoon." Drakken decided. "Possible's cyber-friend is probably helping them pilot the thing."
Calamitous' right index finger hovered over a red button. "We can still eliminate them before they get any closer." He chuckled evilly. "Fast as they are, there's no way they can avoid my surface-to-air missile."
Beautiful looked puzzled. "I thought that was supposed to be a surface-to-surface missile."
"It was," Calamitous admitted. "But I never got around to finishing the second half of the trajectory calculations, so…"
Drakken thought about it and shook his head. "No. Let them get here and we'll capture them. They'll make excellent test subjects for Operation X and they're no real threat."
Shego sounded unconvinced. "That's what you said about Possible and Neutron."
"Are you volunteering to be a test subject?" Drakken glared.
"Capture them it is," Shego replied with false enthusiasm.
"It appears that they'll be landing about a mile or so south of here," Calamitous announced. "Daughter dear, it is a bit chilly out. Why don't you and some of the henchmen go and prepare a warm welcome for when they arrive?"
Beautiful gave a venomous smile. "I'd be happy to."
As she left Drakken rubbed his hands in glee. "Excellent! It looks like Operation X is back on schedule. This plan will be totally off the heezie."
Shego waved her hands in protest. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just what exactly is a 'heezie'?"
"It's a…" Drakken stumbled as he pantomimed various shapes and sizes with his hands. "It's kind of like…when you take a…" He gave up and shook his head in disgust. "It's too complicated to explain now. Besides, we have work to do." He turned to a console and began adjusting knobs and flipping switches.
Shego nodded her head sardonically. "Right." She leaned back and watched as Drakken and Calamitous continued their preparations.
"Coil temperature at one-tenth Kelvin and holding," announced Calamitous.
"Generator voltages at nominal," Drakken added.
"Phasing stable at 6.28 megarads per second."
"Power curve at optimum."
"Core saturation within design parameters."
"Flux variance less than 10 microWebers per square meter."
"All systems are go and all parameters within specification," Drakken concluded in satisfaction. "Operation X is ready for final testing." He did a little victory dance. "Admit it, Shego. Who da men?"
Shego sighed but played along. "You da men," she answered, wishing that Drakken would stop using that sort of language. Calamitous at least was behaving with the professional decorum that she expected from an evil scientist bent on world domination.
"Word that." Drakken threw back his head in triumph. "Nothing can stop us now!"
Despite Drakken's enthusiasm Shego remained as impassive as ever, having reached this point in her employer's failed schemes many times before and not forgetting that Kim and Jimmy were still on the loose. Wanna bet? she thought.
End of Chapter 11
Author's Notes:
One of the great things about both the Jimmy Neutron and Kim Possible shows is how the villains can be both ominous and yet hysterically inept at the same time, and how everyone, both adversaries and assistants alike take it all in stride. It's the supporting characters like these that keep the shows fresh and hopefully move these stories along.