A New Hope

"Descent from Luxceler 25 to Mach 16 in T-minus 48 seconds."  The computerized voice crackled over the command speaker as Cpt. Busy Seagull pushed a button to check his stats.  Several days ago E. Vile's drones had captured his spaceship as Seagull was trying to establish communications between Poptropica and a lost Galactic Fighter.  Now Seagull was being escorted to E. Vile's home planet.  For safety, the drones had removed his navigation system in order to deter him from escaping.  On the way to E. Vile's headquarters, Cpt. Seagull kept a vigilant eye out for a method of escape, but without his navigating system, he could not think of one.  "Descent in T-minus 15 seconds."  Grabbing his controller, he prepared to engage the Hyper Molecular Decelerator, which would slow him down from Luxceler 25 (or twenty-five times the speed of light) to Mach 16 (or sixteen times the speed of sound in dry air--the Mach unit had recently been standardized for inter-galactic use). Suddenly, a terrible explosion rocked the craft, causing an emergency warning light to begin flashing wildly!  O-Tank 2 (an oxygen tank) had been ripped apart, puncturing O-Tank 1 and destroying his rear rocket ignition system in the process!  Meanwhile, the blast caused the craft swerve from its course and head away from his destination.  Leaving his slow-witted drone guards wondering what happened, memories of stories he had heard about Apollo 13 ran through his head--miraculously, Apollo 13 had survived when one of their oxygen tanks exploded thanks to the work of the scientists at PASE, the unwavering minds of the crew, and the guiding hand of Providence--however, he only had three minutes of oxygen left, had no idea where he was headed, and was hurtling sideways through space at 25x the speed of light to who-knows-where.  At least he had achieved his wish of escaping the guards, but for what?  "Abort descent to Mach 16," Seagull told the computer.  Slowly turning the ship around from its sideways position, he slowed his breath, trying to conserve oxygen, and prayed. 

Upon opening his eyes, he noticed several specks in the distance rapidly growing larger.  Looking through his on-board telescope, he spotted several spinning planets, among which was Poptropica!  He still had a chance!  If he could just reach Poptropica before running out of oxygen, he could make it.  Using his telescope, he set his sights on his home planet as he prepared to descend from light speed.  Carefully, he made adjustments with the tiny side rockets that hadn't failed him...yet.  Hovering his finger over the button that auto-set the descent time by computing the distance to the destination, he heard a voice in his head saying, "Trust your instincts.  You only have one chance to hit it right before being sucked into the giant sun just lightminutes from your destination.  If the computer misses, it will take less than 10 seconds for you to reach that flaming fireball given your speed, and you can't change your direction.  Control the Hyper Molecular Decelerator yourself." 

"If the computer misses, it will take less than 10 seconds for you to reach that flaming fireball given your speed"

Swallowing hard, Seagull shifted the craft into manual mode and held his finger over the HMD button.  A familiar, tiny, icy blue planet whizzed passed his window.  Two more, much larger planets flew past.  A light, dusty yellow planet with tilted rings quickly grew in his window and then disappeared behind him.  Formidable looking, an immense red striped planet with a giant swirling spot towered over Busy Seagull before following the ringed planet.  Because of his super-light speed, he did not even noticed the asteroid belt.  Fortunately the asteroids had cooperated for once.  Then a small, dusty red planet approached, but it did not linger either.  Finally, his view of his destination was unobstructed.  During the last twenty-eight seconds, Cpt. Seagull had been making tiny adjustments to his direction.  In approximately T-minus five seconds, he would decelerate the voyager to sub-light speed and log his final few hundred thousand miles to safety.

As the beautiful blue marble-looking planet rapidly grew larger and larger, Seagull looked down at his oxygen tank reading.

As the beautiful blue marble-looking planet rapidly grew larger and larger, Seagull looked down at his oxygen tank reading.  It only had a little under a minute and a half's supply of oxygen left, and it was still leaking.  The timing had to be just right... 

"Hold...hold...now!" Busy Seagull thought to himself.  The decelerator engaged immediately as he pushed the button, and suddenly the spacecraft slowed down to a careful crawl at Mach 32.  Quickly, Cpt. Seagull engaged the turbo heat shield for quick entry.  Flipping a switch, Seagull sealed off the damaged section from the cabin after pumping the remaining air into the cabin; that way when the damaged section was destroyed during reentry the rest of the ship would remain intact.  The globular mass was not growing so quickly now.  Silently, the ship sped towards the planet's atmosphere.  1.2 seconds later, the craft entered the atmosphere, travelling at Mach 32 with 58 seconds of oxygen left.

.....................................................................

Landing on the airfield, Busy Seagull took a deep breath of fresh air as he opened the vent ports.  The two fighter jets that had escorted him to that particular airport also landed, and an officer with an armed company of soldiers stood ready to recieve him.

"Welcome back, Captain!  We've been wondering what happened to you.  We will fix up your craft as fast as possible, but in the meantime..."
.....................................................................

"PASE" read the sign.

"PASE" read the sign.  Finally it had happened.  Poptropica Academy of Space Exploration had been slowly decaying over the years, because no one was really interested.  Lately they weren't even able to train their astronauts sufficiently, and the one currently in the cockpit waiting for lift-off had a bad case of butterflies.  He would need to be replaced...quickly...and the captain who sailed the seas, and occasionally the stars, was the only person they could find who could step in.
"But I've never flown such a sophisticated spacecraft before!" Seagull had protested.
"Join the crowd," was the unreassuring response. Well, it was against regulations--then again, ever since the government had stopped funding PASE, regulations had been ditched--but a somewhat-unprepared pilot was going to be launched on the PASE's final mission.  Suddenly, a voice on the loudspeakers announced that the mission was cancelled for one week, because there was a dangerous fuel leak that had to be fixed.  Regulations may have been tossed out, but the PASE scientists weren't about to let their last mission blow up.
"Cpt. Seagull, we are sorry for the inconvenience, but to make up for it, you may have 52 hours leave of absence.  You are dismissed, but be sure to return on time."
"Yes, sir!" Busy Seagull replied.  Wanting to return home to Skullduggery Island, the sailor knew he wouldn't have time, because he had heard upon his arrival about the discovery of a new island, Poptropolis Island, on which athletic events were being held.  He had received word that since he was descended from the ancient Poptropican tribe of Pathfinders, he was to represent them.  Without delay, Seagull left the property of PASE to catch a passenger blimp to Poptropolis since his ship, the Leviathan, was still docked at Fort Ridley, Skullduggery Archipelago.

TO BE CONTINUED...