Chapter 4
"You never said we'd be going up against the flagship of the Federation navy!" Trio yelled. They had reached the coordinates given, and before them was the Shattermaster, sluggishly drifting through space like a crocodile in a swamp.
At that moment a static voice came over the intercom. "We have you on our screen now. Identify yourself!"
"I'll handle this," Dr. Ingerman whispered as he repositioned himself. "This is Shuttle U.S.E.L.S, serial number 20101419—"
"'Useless'!" 2TH beeped indignantly.
"—requesting permission to dock in Bay B4."
"Before what?" the man on the other end asked.
"No, Docking Bay B4! Cargo is 200 cartons of rations for Lord Dagur."
"…We have no listings of such a ship or delivery."
"There must've been an oversight. The clerk for these things is brand new; he probably forgot to file the completed schedule."
Dr. Ingerman spoke very calmly and deliberately, but Trio crossed his fingers.
"…Hmm…but your ship doesn't match the design of our other supply ships."
"That's because we are trying out a new supply ship design," Dr. Ingerman replied, feigning some impatience, "a faster vessel with a greater capacity for cargo. This is its first test."
"I wasn't notified!"
"Do you expect the high command to tell you everything that goes on in the labs?" Dr. Ingerman demanded, letting his exasperation really show now. "Now look, we're on a tight schedule here, and we're also carrying some chocolate bars for Lord Dagur's private supply chest, and if the chocolate level in his bloodstream gets too low and he finds out you're responsible, he'll probably court martial you, assign you to bathroom duty for life, take away your own chocolate rations, and force you to watch Troll 2 every night before going to sleep on a bed of nails—and then he'll punish you! Is that what you want?"
"…Permission to dock is granted."
"Thank you." The Doctor switched off the radio, looking both relieved and pleased with his own abilities. "This kind of ruse works every time!"
"The Chocolate level in his bloodstream?" Trio repeated with amusement.
"Who doesn't get unhappy if they haven't had any chocolate recently? Our Ace Pilot Snot swears by the stuff. I could do with some myself, now that I think of it. Now, why don't you take us in?" He moved over to the computer terminal and began typing.
"And how are we supposed get out?" 2TH-LS asked, "They'll just activate their tractor beam!"
"Easy, Bud. I'm sure the good Doctor has a solution for that," Trio turned to said Doctor, "Right?"
"It will not be difficult, Mein Herr. At this very moment I am uploading my E.G.G. Virus, which will scramble their tractor beam signals. By the time they figure it out and fix it, it'll be too late! So far, so good. Now, once we dock, you just have to get off, find Princess Astrid, bring her on board, and then we get out of here."
"Oh sure," Trio replied sarcastically, "Find a woman I've never met or even seen and expect her to come with me because I ask her to!"
Dr. Ingerman held up his D.U.M.B-Phone and pointed to a picture on it. "That's her."
"A very pretty girl," Trio commented.
"Don't get any ideas. Now, when you find her, say to her 'the Betrothal Necklace is very noticeable',"
Trio and 2TH exchanged glances.
The Doctor groaned impatiently. "Must you question everything? We had to come up with a code phrase the Federation wouldn't think of! They're so obsessed with masculinity, the only woman in the whole government with any authority is Lady Heather, and that's mostly because she's Lord Dagur's sister! Now look, Princess Astrid won't come here because she doesn't know this ship has come to save her and won't know unless one of us tells her. I can't go myself because I'm in a wheel chair, and I don't know if she can understand your robot's dialect, so it's got to be you, Trio! I promise you, we'll pay you well, and if you move fast nobody in the Federation will know you were involved! Is that good enough for you?"
"Oh it's just fine." Trio replied, standing up and strapping on some equipment. "But are you sure she'll be in this particular docking bay?"
Dr. Ingerman could not object to this question because he was secretly worried about it himself. "It was the rendezvous point. Snot, the original pilot was supposed to land here, so unless she's decided to improvise…"
"Snot?" 2TH muttered. "What kind of name is that?"
As they discussed this, the Condor flew towards the Shattermaster. The two living creatures held their breath, but they made it to the docking bay without any incident and landed smoothly.
"Alright. Keep the engines warm, Bud. I'll be back in a jiffy."
He stepped down the gangplank and looked around anxiously. They had only a few minutes at most before they were discovered.
Thus far the only ones in this docking bay were grounds crew and maintenance workers. They were so accustomed to ships taking off and landing that they paid little attention to the Condor, and they were so used to a superior telling them what to do that they would never taken any kind of initiative themselves. Trio felt there was little to fear from them. But once a superior showed up…
And then he spotted a blond head behind a stack of crates.
.
Now Princess Astrid had been waiting anxiously for several minutes, waiting for Snot's ship to show up. Instead an odd looking ship she had never seen before had landed and a masked man had gotten out of it. She had decided something had gone wrong and that she would do better to steal a Federation ship. Her worries heightened when she saw the man approach her hiding place. For several tense seconds she crouched, waiting, and then she sprang up like a deer and ran for it down a corridor which led to a different docking bay.
Trio nearly jumped out of his suit in surprise.
"Wait!" he yelled, cursing as he tried to catch up with the fleeing Princess. They have everyone's attention now, but that could not be helped. "Wait! The Betrothal Necklace is very noticeable! It's very noticeable! Not that you're wearing one, but you get the idea! I'm H. Trio. I'm here to rescue you!"
The Princess Astrid stopped in her tracks and turned around warily. "You're who?"
"I'm here to rescue you! I've got Doctor—"
"Nice to meet you, 'I'm here to rescue you', but that's hardly your real name, is it?"
She was a very beautiful woman, Trio thought, before angrily reminding himself to focus. "The name's Trio and I've got Doctor Ingerman with me! He told me to say 'The Betrothal Necklace is very noticeable'! It's very noticeable! We've come to get you out of here!"
She decided to take a leap of faith. "Then why didn't you say so? Let's go!"
"You two aren't going anywhere! Security Officer Savage—that's me—has caught you!" The Officer who appeared was flanked by numerous soldiers, all of whom had ray guns pointed at them. "We've caught you! Now you, Princess Astrid, will be taken back to your cell, and you, whoever you are, we'll shoot you right now."
Trio put up his hands in protest. "Now hang on a minute! Don't I get to make one call?"
"No."
"A last request?"
"No."
"Make a Will?"
"No!"
"Last words?"
"NO!"
"How about a final wish?"
Security Officer Savage groaned. "Oh, fine! What is your 'final wish'? Hurry up and make it—I hate delayed executions!"
Trio drew himself up and said, dramatically, "All right. I wish I was in the land of cotton. Old times there are not forgotten—" suddenly he pointed down the corridor. "Look away!" He motioned with his arm and repeated insistently, "Look away! Look away!"
Having been trained to show obedience to orders, especially when they were given in such an authoritative tone, Officer Savage and his troopers all looked away. They saw nothing of importance. And when they looked back, Trio and the Princess were already halfway down the passage and outdistancing them with every step.
"…Dixieland!" Trio finished with a laugh.
"Where is that?" Astrid asked.
"No idea."
A soldier tried to get in their way. Astrid kicked the gun out of his hands and shoved him into a wall.
"Wow. And here I thought princesses just sat around all day sewing and waiting for some prince to come along," Trio remarked. "I'm impressed."
"Not where I come from they don't." she growled. "Take care I don't give you the same treatment!" They reached the Condor and rushed up the gangplank.
"Bud, get us out of here!"
"You really expect this piece of trash to get us out of here?" Astrid exclaimed. The interior was admittedly in a shabby condition, largely because a bachelor and a robot were its only tenants.
"She can and she will." Trio retorted, throwing himself into the pilot's chair and directing the ship towards the hanger exit. Astrid joined them in the cockpit.
"Ah, Mein Fraulein Astrid, good to see you safe and sound," Dr. Ingerman said from his corner. The cockpit was getting rather cramped now, and Astrid had some difficulty finding a seat.
She was relieved to see the Doctor, for his presence confirmed this was a rescue. "What happened? Where's Snot?"
"He more or less called in sick."
Astrid swore loudly.
"And there's no need for such foul language as that, Princess! You're Royalty, after all! But more importantly: did you get it? Were you successful?"
"Get what?" 2TH asked.
Astrid smiled. "Yes, I got it."
"Get what?"
"Never mind that now!" Trio yelled. The Condor was entering space. They knew that behind them the Shattermaster's crew was figuring out what was going on and preparing to do something about it. "Doctor, you're sure their tractor beam is down?"
"We're about to find out, aren't we?"
"I suppose we are."
.
Up in the Shattermaster's control room Lord Dagur was standing at the communications booth, impatiently waiting for someone to report the recapture of the Princess. Instead all he got were reports that she had gotten away and, even worse, a ship had somehow landed and was in the process of flying away with her in it.
"Activate the tractor beam!" he roared. "Pull them in, Mr. Larsen!"
"Um…sir?"
"What is it?" Dagur snapped.
"Look at the screen!"
Instead of presenting the power levels of the tractor beam, the computer screen showed a plate of ketchup doused eggs and these words:
"Your Signal Has Been Scrambled. (We apologize for any inconvenience)."
"Well at least they have the decency to say 'sorry'," Mr. Larsen remarked.
Lord Dagur spluttered angrily, "Shut up! Open fire on them!"
"But sir!" General So's came over. "If we do that, they'll be destroyed! I thought we—that is, the Supreme Leader—wanted the Princess alive!"
"A dead prisoner is better than an escaped one! Open fire!"
They did, but the shots all missed. The target was too small and too swift for the gunners to shoot at with any accuracy. So Lord Dagur quickly opted to change tactics and utilize guns that would not be vulnerable to human error.
"Bring the Ventral Cannons online! Target that ship and blast them out of space!" He pushed a button to communicate directly with the gun crews. "Exterminate them!"
The gun crew was delighted. "Exterminate! Exterminate!"
.
In the cockpit of the Condor, things seemed to be going well, despite the near blinding flashes of shots and the sharp turns the ship was taking to avoid them.
"Just another minute and the coordinates will be set." Trio muttered to himself.
"Why didn't you set them before?" Astrid demanded.
"Good question, but a bit late coming!" Actually, he had assumed 2TH had already done it, and 2TH had assumed he had done it.
Then 2TH suddenly exclaimed, "I'm picking up signals! They're arming their Ventral Cannons!"
The Doctor paled. "I hadn't anticipated those."
"We've got to take them out or we're not going anywhere! They'll home in on us and blow us to pieces!"
"Can't we get out of here? I thought this thing was fast!" Astrid demanded.
"Watch it, Milady, or I'll offer you up to them as a peace offering!" Trio snapped.
"What did you just call me?"
"How could I have left those cannons out of my calculations?" The Doctor asked anxiously.
"Doctor—"
"I was so careful! I was so precise!"
"Doctor!" Astrid yelled.
"I was so careful! Where did I go wrong?" the Doctor wailed.
"Doctor!"
"Bud, I'm turning the ship around. All power to the front shields." Trio ordered.
"I hope you have a plan!"
"Don't I always?" Trio replied smugly.
"Not reassuring."
"What?" Astrid shrieked, "You're going to attack them!"
The Doctor, who seemed to be near a panic attack now, whimpered, "Attack them? This is madness! The odds of successfully attacking the Shattermaster head on are exactly 22232325345 to one!"
"No, it's exactly 256654445545454 to 1." 2TH said.
"No, it's exactly—"
"I do my math correctly!"
"So do I, and the odds are—"
"Oh shut up!" Trio snapped. "Bud, you calculate where their blind spot is and steer us into it."
"Does that monstrosity even have a blind spot?" the Doctor cried.
"Every ship has a blind spot…I hope." He added under his breath.
.
Lord Dagur and his generals gazed through the windows in astonishment. "They're going into an attack position?"
"Are they out of their minds?"
"Oh well." Dagur turned to the crewmen. "Target that ship and fire when ready! Prepare the Fly Troopers to salvage the wreck."
"And while we're on the subject," General So's said, following after him, "When can they be equipped with Jet Packs? I've been requesting those for over two years now! It makes no sense calling them 'Fly' Troopers when they can't actually fly!"
Dagur scowled at him. "Are you kidding me? We don't have the budget to equip entire squads with Jet Packs!"
"Yet we have enough to install a Jacuzzi and Ice Cream Maker in every Officer's club?"
"Yeah." Dagur turned to the crew again. "Aren't those Cannons ready yet?"
"Almost, sir,"
"And what is that ship doing?"
The Centennial Condor was flying directly towards the Ventral Cannons.
"It's just outside of our range, sir."
"They can't stay that way forever!" Dagur cried gleefully. "All right, whoever you are, you want to play, do you? Fine, but I play rough! Mwahaha!"
.
Trio clenched the controls in a steel grip. "Bud, ready the Dragon's Mouth!"
"Stand by! Aiming…"
Trio grinned, "All right, Shattermaster, say hello to our little friend!"
.
Lord Dagur watched the ship get closer and closer. The guns were almost online now, and once they were ready they would have an easy target, but until then the ship could not be hit. It was gall and wormwood to him. He saw part of the Condor's nose lower, as if it were a mouth. He frowned. "What are they doing now?"
From this mouth a great jet of flames burst out and engulfed the Ventral Cannons.
The Shattermaster's crew exchanged stunned expressions as they watched the Cannons melt like butter. Over the radios came shouts from the gun crews. Lord Dagur was on the radios too, shouting commands. Most of those near him were not listening, so stunned were they by what they were seeing. When the flames died the guns were a molten twisted mass of metal, about as usable as a sunken submarine and just as horrendous in appearance.
"Can our ship do that?"
.
On the Condor Trio proudly turned the ship away from the ruined guns. "What were you saying about the odds, Doctor?"
"That was amazing!" Princess Astrid cheered, "I didn't know you could shoot fire through the vacuum of Space!"
"Scientifically speaking…" the Doctor spluttered.
"The coordinates are ready now," 2TH announced. Trio pulled on the levers and the ship shot off.
.
Everyone on the Shattermaster was terrified as they watched the Condor flee the scene. All eyes were on Lord Dagur, everyone wondering who was going to suffer first.
But strangely, he seemed quite calm. "I am going to my quarters. Pursue that ship and inform me of any developments. Oh, and start repairing those Cannons."
"Sir?"
Lord Dagur made a smug face and shook his finger. "You poor fools never think ahead! While they were taking out our Cannons, I had a Tracking Class Bug shot onto their hull! Don't look so surprised—I'm very good at improvising! We can follow them wherever they go now! Evil laughs, everyone! Soon they will lead us to all their secret bases without even realizing it!"
Everyone was very glad to laugh, if more from relief than from wickedness.
"And will you inform the Supreme Leader about this?" General So's asked Dagur.
"No. You will."
"Me?" cried the General.
"Yes. Why not? What's the matter, General So's? Scared? Are you…chicken?" Lord Dagur was in a very good mood. "Bwock-Bwock, cluck-cluck, the General's a chicken! We'll pluck him, deep fry his thighs and eat them with a Sauce Piquant! Hahaha!"
At that moment Nut 2 struck him in the head. Dagur fell to the floor stunned.
"Barbarian!"