"Oh no!" Skroob groaned, seeing flashing red lights and warning sirens blaring all around him in the chapel area, "Don't tell me it's back to Paris again!?"
"Thank you for destroying Hockeygol's core. This planet will self-destruct in two minutes and fifteen seconds," the intercom gave another update.
"Oh well," Skroob shrugged his shoulders in resignation. "You know the procedure by now, Sandurz, hit it," he informed the colonel. Sandurz reached for the public address system, but stopped as the Spaceballs theme song started too soon. "Uh, you're supposed to wait until I give the abandon ship command!" he shouted upwards, annoyed. The music obligingly stopped. "Thank you," Sandurz commended whoever was in charge. "Attention, this is Colonel Sandurz in the master control building. Stand by for the following professional announcement: GET OUT OF HERE!" he shrieked in terror, prompting the music to re-start at the proper time. A sea of panicked technicians-as well as numerous non-essential personnel such as jugglers, mimes, and window washers-ran through the chapel in a blind panic. "Two minute warning for everyone; this planet will self-destruct in two minutes," the intercom gave another update.
"Hey guys," a dazed Helmet staggered into the chapel, "I think Lone Starr and the others are...bbbbbbbbbbbbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!" he vibrated from an electrical aftershock before continuing, "...getting away!"
"Are you all right, sir?" a concerned Sandurz approached him, "You look like an elephant stampede ran you over."
"No, Sandurz, not that bad, thankfully," Helmet told him. It was then, though, that there came a loud trumpeting from behind them. Helmet and Sandurz turned and shrieked as a large stampede of elephants randomly charged through the chapel, running them-and the frozen in place Skroob-over. "Ow!" the colonel groaned when it was over, "Who wrote this into the script!?"
"This planet will self-destruct in one minute and thirty seconds. I'd get moving if I were you," the intercom warned them.
"All right, all right, no need to rub it in!" Skroob shouted up at it. "There's still one chance, men," he told his underlings, crawling limply across the floor, "Crawl to Spaceball 6 as fast as you can!"
"There he is; Yogurt!" Vespa frantically waved to the Schwartz master aboard the Eagle 5-A above them. A ladder quickly dropped down to ground level. "Dink dink dink!" one of the Dinks shouted down to the heroes, waving his hand wildly at them.
"You go on; my cab's parked right over there!" Roe raced through a crowd of Spaceball clowns running pell-mell in every direction to his taxi nearby. "Ladies first," Lone Starr waved his bride and Mary Sue-still covered with a blanket-up the ladder first. "And everyone else next!" he shouted, activating his Schwartz blade and assuming a defensive posture against a squad of the remaining Knights of Wenn coming right at him. Like their cohorts, however, they seized up and fell down dead. "On second thought, never mind," the hero declared, retracting the Schwartz blade. He grabbed hold of the ladder and started climbing up himself. "This planet will self-destruct in exactly one minute," came the latest warning, loud enough to be heard all over Hockeygol, from which swarms of ships of every size and shape-including, visibly, Spaceball 6 to their right, was flying away from as fast as they could. Lone Starr raced for the cockpit once he was aboard. "I'm flying, Yogurt," he gently pushed his mentor out of the driver's seat. "Barf, give me hyperactive speed now!" he commanded the mawg, sliding back into the front passenger seat.
"Giving you hyperactive speed now!" Barf pressed the necessary button on the control panel-right as a loud bang rocked the Winnebago from behind. Thus, the hyper jets gave only a low sputtering when Barf pushed the button. "Oh no, don't tell me the hyper jets got damaged now!" the mawg moaned.
"Hate to tell you this, guys," Dot stuck her head through the curtain, "but the hyper jets just got damaged by ground fire!"
"I asked you not to tell me that!" Barf whimpered. "Now what?" he looked Lone Starr worriedly in the face, "We'll never get out of here in time without hyperactive speed!"
"This planet will self-destruct in exactly thirty seconds," came the loud warning from below on the planetary intercom. A determined look crossed Lone Starr's face. "I'm going out there," he said firmly, jumped up and opening the driver's side door, "The moment I've got it fixed, Barf, punch the hyper jets."
"But what if you don't survive, Prince!?" Dot grilled him worriedly.
"The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the...no, wait, it's the needs of the one outweighs...ah, you know what I mean. Just go when I yell for you to!" Lone Starr climbed outside and quickly inched towards the rear of the Winnebago. "Yeah, that's bad," he mused, noticing the severe damage the anti-aircraft blast had caused to the hyper jet engines, "I hope there's enough of the Schwartz in me to fix it in time...!"
"This planet will self-destruct in exactly fifteen seconds, counting down: fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve..." the intercom started the final countdown. Lone start gripped the rear of the Winnebago with one hand and pointed his Schwartz ring at the engines, willing them to be repaired as fast as possible. And sure enough, the engines started glowing orange and returning to their original state. "That's got to do," he mumbled with the count at four seconds, even though the engines weren't fully repaired. "GO!" he screamed up at Barf in the driver's side window and grabbed onto the back for dear life. The hyper jet engines started with a roar, and the Eagle 5-A rocketed out of sight at hyperactive speed. And not a moment too soon, as two seconds later, the countdown reached zero, and Hockeygol exploded, sending fragments all over the galaxy, including the retreating Spaceball 6...
"President Skroob, salute!" the commanding officer on Spaceball 6's bridge declared as the bridge door slid open, and the exhausted Skroob, as well as Helmet and Sandurz, crawled on their hands and knees up the aisle towards the command railing.
"HAIL SKROOB!" the troops gave the response again. Skroob weakly raised a hand and waved at them. "Well boys," he gasped at his two main underlings behind him, "I don't know about you, but I'm all for a week of rest and relaxation back on Spaceball City after all this."
"Fine by me, Mr. President, sir," a winded Sandurz gasped.
"OK, let's get back to Planet Spaceball and take a break. We can cook up another evil scheme against Druidia after a good long rest," Helmet pulled himself up against the command railing and slapped his hand down on it in exhaustion. Immediately more red lights started flashing and sirens wailing. "Thank you for triggering this ship's manual self-destruct button," the ship's intercom droned, "This ship will self-destruct in five seconds."
"OOOOOOOOOOHHH NOOOOOOOOOOO!" the evil leaders screamed in horror. They frantically pressed every button on the command rail in the hopes one would be a cancellation button, but the countdown went on mercilessly: "...three, two, one, mazel tav." With that, Spaceball 6, like the majority of its predecessors, exploded in a colossal fireball, sending wreckage spiraling all through the cosmos. And in the shattered segments of the bridge, Helmet's dazed voice could be heard saying, "How about next time, guys, we get someone else to attack Druidia for us…!?"
"Are we far enough away, Barf!?" Vespa worriedly stuck her head through the curtain.
"Should be," Barf glanced nervously out the driver's side window, "I sure hope that..."
"Well, take us out of hyperactive so we can...aaahhh!" Vespa cried out as Barf yanked the throttle returning the Winnebago to normal cruising speed too fast, sending her slamming against the windshield. The princess quickly recovered, though, and frantically rolled down the driver's side window. "Darling!?" she called desperately back towards the rear of the Eagle 5-A. There was no response. "LONE STARR!" she cried out in anguish.
"No need to shout, honey; I'm right here," Lone Starr, his clothes having been burned off except for the underwear by the hyper jets-but otherwise unharmed-slid down the windshield. Laughing in delight, Barf threw the Winnebago into park and opened the driver's side door for his boss to climb in. "You had us all worried for a moment there, Boss!" he hugged the hero.
"Well, what can I say, the Schwartz was with me when I needed it," Lone Starr shrugged. "My dear, glad you're all right," he hugged his bride.
"So am I," the princess said, giving him a kiss, "I mean, I'm glad you're not dead. Listen, sorry I was out of character earlier, but, well, finding a seemingly perfect character to play off of..."
"Speaking of which, how's she doing?" Lone Starr raced back through the curtain. He came to an abrupt stop, seeing Dr. Shipps pull the blanket off his daughter. Mary Sue was alive and physically unharmed, but the mass expenditure of Schwartz power to stop the doomsday ray had significantly altered her: she was now much squatter and fatter, her eyes were now both a dull gray, her hair now a short, normal brown, and, when she stood up, she walked with a limp. "What, what happened?" she whimpered fearfully, her voice more grating as well.
"I'm afraid, my dear, it appears you've expended all your Schwartz powers saving Druidia," Yogurt shook his head grimly, "You are now fully normal, and no longer perfect."
"No, it can't be...!" panicked, Mary Sue pointed her fingers at the refrigerator. Nothing happened at all. Whimpering in terror, she raced towards it-tripping over a chair and falling flat on her face on the floor. "No, no, no!" she started sobbing, "I can't be normal! I've been perfect my whole life; I'm the Knickknack Paddywhack! I'm supposed to be the ultimate force for good in the galaxy...!"
"Mary Sue," Dr. Shipps put an arm around her, "It doesn't matter. You're my girl, and I don't care if you were an invalid. You're still the most important person in the universe to me."
"Really?" she looked up at her father.
"Really. I love you so much, Mary Sue," he hugged her close. Mary Sue sniffed happily, "I love you so much, Daddy," she sobbed, "Please stay with me while I try to adapt to being normal..."
"I will, sweetheart, I will, I promise. I missed too much with Skroob holding me prisoner; I'm not missing this."
"And besides, being the Knickknack Paddywhack's more responsibility than it's worth, to be honest," Yogurt admitted, "I only went through the whole training drill just to see what happened, and I think, to be honest, Miss Cometrider, what we have now's for the best for you. And it's not the end of the world; the Dinks and I could use lots of help with our merchandising. After all, once this hits theaters, there's going to be lots of stuff to sell, and we could use all the help we can get."
"OK, then, Yogurt, I guess we'll take it," Dr. Shipps shook his hand.
"Great, great, you and your daughter can start immediately. Lone Starr, the Moon of Vega if you will," Yogurt asked him.
"Thanks again for everything, Yogurt," Lone Starr shook his hand an hour later back in front of the Schwartz master's subterranean layer on the Moon of Vega.
"Thank YOU," Yogurt commended him, "I sense you were about to give up at one point or another; suffice to say, I'm glad you didn't. For while some heroes may grow old, they never grow obsolete, even for a new generation. As I'm sure you learned too, Roeschel," he turned to Roe, standing nearby alongside his cab.
"It's Roe, Yogurt, Roe Boatz," Roe sighed in resignation.
"Well like I said, we can change our names, but we can't change who we are-in your case, a hero who more than redeemed himself from past mistakes."
"Yeah, I feel a lot better now, Yogurt; I feel like a hero again," Roe grinned. "Well," he checked his watch, "Might as well take the hack back in; I'm about ninety-five hours past when I was supposed to report in. Good working with you, Captain Lone Starr," he shook the prince's hand.
"Prince Lone Starr now, Roe Boatz. May the Schwartz be with you," Lone Starr thanked him. "I'd better get going too, Yogurt," he told his mentor, "Now that all this is out of the way," he turned back to the Winnebago, where everyone aboard waved at Yogurt, "we have our vacation on Saturn 5 to get back to..."
"And don't let me stand in your way, Lone Starr," Yogurt said. Lone Starr started to walk off, then turned. "Is this the actual end, Yogurt? Will we meet again after this?" he asked.
"If there's even a dime to be made off the franchise, probably. But if not, it was great knowing you," Yogurt said, saluting his prize pupil. Lone Starr smiled and waved goodbye. He climbed into the Winnebago. Its engines started, and it soon rocketed up into the starts along with Roe's taxi. Yogurt waved farewell to them both. "Well boys, what did you think of the story?" he asked the Dinks behind him.
"Dink dink dink, dink dink dink dink, dink dink dink dink dink dink dink," the nearest Dink said.
"My thoughts exactly, Rinky: a little haphazard, too many characters, and plot points that got lost in the shuffle. But since that all got a lot of complaints with the original material," Yogurt turned sideways and winked, "I think they'll let that slide. Well, let's go teach Mary Sue and Dr. Shipps the fine points of merchandising, boys."
Dink dink dink dink dink dink dink!" the Dinks raced for the entrance to Yogurt's layer. Yogurt trudged after them, then stopped and turned around. "And oh yeah, one last thing for all of you," he said with a smile: MAY THE SCHWARTZ BE WITH YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUU!"
THE END