THIRTEEN
"Alf, stop this thing!" Willie shrieked over the roar of the engines. He was now being pushed so far back into the control room door by the incredible G-forces that he was practically on the other side of it.
"I don't think we want to do that, Willie," Alf had to shout as loud as he could to answer back properly.
"Yes we do!" his host yelled, "I take back what I said earlier! You can stay with us as long as you want!"
"Is that a guarantee?" Alf raised an eyebrow.
"I swear on my uncle's grave!" Willie told him, "Now stop this confounded ship, I'm begging you! STOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP!"
"OK, but I don't think you want to know the results, as most of the readers probably do," Alf started to reach for the emergency brake lever, then turned back around and asked, "You're absolutely sure you want me to…"
"DO IIITTTTTTTTTT!"
Alf shrugged and pulled the lever. The entire ship lurched to a complete stop in half a millisecond. To be more precise, had a dime been floating in that part of space, Spaceball 2 would have stopped on it. Much as Helmet had once upon a time warp, Willie flew screaming across the control room, where he slammed hard into the windshield. "Oh God Willie, are you all right?" Kate asked, jumping to her feet and rushing to him. Stunned, Willie could only moan in pain as he slid to the floor. "Boy that was fun!" Brian announced out loud, "Can we do that again?"
Before anyone could respond, there was the sound of a loud horn in front of them. Lone Starr grabbed the steering wheel and lurched Spaceball 2 to the right just before a space truck would have hit them head on. "Great, of all the places to come out of ludicrous speed, it had to be the middle of the Ursa Minor Freeway!" he groaned. Bumper to bumper space traffic honked their ways through the cosmos.
"Worse than that," Tripley looked out the rear view mirror, "The Andromeda Highway Patrol's their usual efficient selves." A space CHiP was trailing behind them, his siren blazing. "Might as well pull over," she told her ex-fiancé.
"I've got an idea," Alf reached under the command rail and picked up a spare helmet that just happened to be underneath. Putting it on, he strolled over to the port window and turned his back as the space cop knocked on the window. "Good afternoon, officer, what seems to be the problem?" he asked in a deliberately nerdy voice.
"Tell me, how fast do you think you were going, Mr…?" the patrolman inquired gruffly.
"Helmet, Dark Helmet, and you can go to hell, cop," Alf said, winking at Lone Starr, who was too puzzled to wink back.
"Well Mr. Helmet, you were going a trillion miles an hour in a twenty-five thousand mile zone," the trooper told him, "Even during a drag race on Ratwoclean, that's definitely speeding."
"And you definitely saw me?" Alf asked him.
"Clear as night."
"Then I'm sure you noticed how slow everyone else around me was going," Alf pointed out, "Why not ticket them for going too slow?"
"OK Alf, enough with the horseplay," a revived Willie strolled over to him and lifted up the helmet, "I think the smartest thing for you to do right now is to just pay the fine and…"
"It's Gordon Shumway!" the cop exclaimed. He drew his gun. "I'm collecting that big reward. You're coming with me, Shumway."
"Very nice Willie," Alf told his friend, "I almost had him convinced I was Helmet. Would have given that guy a huge speeding ticket."
"Out of the car, Shumway," the trooper gestured. Before he could make good on his threat, though, Barf ran up to the window, apparently foaming at the mouth. He barked viciously. "That's right, we have a rabid mawg in here," Alf told the cop, "And he won't hesitate to bite you if he gets mad enough."
"Wait a minute," the trooper stared at Barf's "foam," "This is whipped cream. What are you trying to pull here?"
Lone Starr hit the acceleration button and set the speed to Ridiculous. Soon the cop was back in the dust. In the process, they triggered numerous accidents along the interstellar expressway. After about five minutes, the hero turned off the engine. "It'll take him about a month to catch up with us now," he said.
"Good, well, in that case, why don't you turn this thing around and take us back to earth?" Willie asked him.
"No can do," Lone Starr entered several directional coordinates, "I'm on a mission to save Planet Druidia. We're heading for Exodosus to stop Helmet's grandiose scheme of destruction."
"Why did I have the feeling you were going to say that?" Willie groaned.
There was a knocking on the control room door. "Gordon, are you in there?" came a sultry female voice. Alf licked his lips. "Rhonda?" Lynn asked him.
"Yep," a definitely pleased Alf said, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a little catching up to do with the brown rose of Melmac."
"Sir, we've got the first triangulation of their position," Sandurz ran into the beaming room.
"Where are they?" Helmet asked.
"They just turned onto the Cassiopeia Parkway," Sandurz informed him, "They're heading toward Exodosus."
"Well we're going to be ready for them," Helmet said, "Snotty, beam me back."
"Yes sir," Snotty pressed the switches. A warm flow overtook Helmet as he was beamed back to his military hideout. Within seconds he was there. "All right men," he told the detachment waiting there, "I want…" It was then that he noticed something disturbing: his right leg was now where his left arm had been, and vice versa! "AAAKKK!" he screamed, staring in shock at the havoc the beam had wreaked on his body, "I told them the configuration was wrong. You there, beam me back!"
"Well sir, the others are coming in right now as we speak, and…" the technician Helmet had referred to tried to say.
"I said beam me back!" Helmet ordered him. The technician shrugged and hit the beam button. There was a loud burst of static as Helmet collided with Cuckoo, who was being beamed over at that very minute. When the static cleared, a hunched over figure with a white face and clown suit but wearing a helmet and cape and glasses stood on the beaming platform. The two evil leaders had merged. "YIPE!" Helmet-Cuckoo gasped, seeing his reflection in the mirror on the far wall, "How the hell did this happen?"
Back in Spaceball City, Sandurz watched with horror at his comrades' predicaments on the monitors. "Snotty, beam them back and try to get them separate again!" he told the beamer.
"I'll do what I can, sir," Snotty pressed several switches. The two merged beings disappeared from the monitors on Exodosus. Loud crackling and unnecessary flashing lights filled the control room. "Come on, give it more power, we're losing them!" Sandurz desperately pleaded Snotty.
"I'm givin' her all she's got, Colonel!" Snotty told him, "If I push her much further, the whole thing'll blow!"
There was an explosion as Helmet and Cuckoo tumbled, separate again, to the floor. With a loud burst of flames, the beam died. "Are you all right sir?" Sandurz rushed to Helmet.
"Fine, fine, but this thing is a piece of junk!" Helmet kicked the beamer, then hopped backwards clutching his foot in pain.
Skroob entered the room. "So, what's going on in here?" the president asked.
"Oh nothing, except you wasted a million good spacebucks on this trash!" Helmet pointed at the wrecked beamer.
"Perfect," Skroob groaned, "Now how're we going to get to Exodosus before Lone Starr does?"
"Follow me," still tendering his foot, Helmet limped out the door and into the street. "Taxi," he called out, extending his thumb. A cab pulled up. "Exodosus, as fast as you can," Helmet told the driver.
"What do I look like, Southwest Airlines?" the cabbie growled, "Move it pal, I got more important things to…."
Sandurz drew his pistol and shoved it in the cabbie's face. "Let us in unless you want to star on tomorrow's Execution Tonight," he said.
"Assuming Spike's back again after tonight," Cuckoo piped up. Everyone else glared at him. Gulping, the driver opened the rear door for them. "Fare's on the house," he said pulling out into the skies over Planet Spaceball.
"There goes Palamino," Tripley pointed out the window of the massive library inside Spaceball 2, "That's practically where I was born, you know."
"Sure," Lone Starr said, not looking up from the book he'd borrowed, A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO STORMING HOSTILE PLANETS. "Is something wrong?" she asked him.
"I don't know," Lone Starr said, finally giving her the benefit of a glance, "It's just, that, well, I keep thinking about Vespa. I mean, as much as—how hard as it is living with her sometimes, I feel, uh,…"
"You still love her don't you?" Tripley inquired.
"Yeah, I guess so," Lone Starr said, "Therefore, as much as I appreciate your offer of eloping earlier, I…"
"I didn't offer to elope," Tripley informed him.
"Oh," Lone Starr frowned, "Well, I…"
"You can do whatever you want with Vespa," Tripley said, "I won't be angry."
"Right," Lone Starr said. For a good tow minutes they stared silently at each other, as if expecting there would be more to say than what they had just said. "Uh, OK, so I guess I can say I've got an idea on how we can go get them and stop the destruction of Druidia. Call everyone into the IMAX theater; I'll show them what I've got."
"Gotcha," Tripley walked off. Lone Starr put the book down and stared straight ahead. "Boy was this a pointless scene," he muttered, "We don't say anything important, really. I hate it when I get pushed into a scene with no real purpose other than to fill time. I hope the next chapter's better than this one."
