The P.I.G and the Space Pirates
The PIG shot upwards, and flipped onto its side as it tried to outrun the larger ship behind it. The pirate guns started shooting, and the PIG turned and twisted as it tried to escape the enemy fire.
"ADAM! They're going to hit us. Do something!"
Until that morning Sarah had thought her brother was a normal thirteen year old boy. He hated school and vegetables, loved sports and computer games, and constantly argued with her about what to watch on TV. But, this morning she had found out that he was an intergalactic space agent, who spent his spare time zapping around the Universe saving aliens and planets. Now they were flying along sideways in a spaceship called a PIG (which stood for Pyrogytating Inter-stellar Grundlygig), being chased and shot at by some space pirates.
Suddenly there was a loud crash from the back of the ship, and the entire cockpit started juddering and flashing red.
Sarah looked at Adam in panic.
"ADAM! WHAT HAPPENED?"
"We've been hit! We're going to have to try and land before we crash."
As thick black smoke billowed into the cockpit, the spaceship plunged into a nose dive and zoomed towards a Smokey yellow planet.
Sarah screamed.
"AAAADDDDAAAMM!"
He struggled with the steering stick, pulling hard upwards until the ship finally leveled out only meters from the ground. Seconds later the ship crashed onto its belly in a cloud of dust and smoke, and skidded the length of a football field before coming to a stop.
"Quick! Let's get out of here!"
They struggled through the cockpit, but outside they could hardly see each other through the smoke and dust.
There was a large chunk missing from the side of the spaceship.
"Can we fix it?"
Adam looked at it and shook his head.
"Uh-oh, we have company."
Several large black shadows appeared through the smoke.
"Oh no! They're Zigots, from Planet Grunt. They steal spaceships and take the prisoners back for their experiments, or worse...for their feasts. They're the worst kind of space pirates."
"Adam, what can we do?" She whispered frantically as the hideous creatures surrounded them.
"Nothing. For now, do exactly what they say. They'll kill us if we resist. Don't worry we'll find a way to escape later."
There were five Zigots pushing them back against the side of the PIG. They had three legs each. They were black and hairy, with big red eyes, fangs and claws, and they were covered in big red boils that were dripping a yellowy white pus all over their fur and onto the ground.
One of the Zigots only had one eye. The other was covered by a patch. He also had a tiny alien on his shoulder which looked almost exactly like a rat, except that it was green and yellow, and had two antennae coming out of its head, and no tail. The one-eyed Zigot stepped towards them, and gestured angrily.
"Grggggg grrarggggg grugggg gruggggg grag!"
"Sarah, put your hands up." Adam whispered.
"Grggggggagagaga grggg grggagagag." Adam replied to the pirate leader.
"Gargggggggg grrrrrrrrr garrr gar grrr."
The head Zigot grabbed Adam and dragged him off. A second one pulled Sarah under its arm. She was nearly sick. It smelt revolting, like dead animals and rotten vegetables. Its fur was matted with white pus that had oozed out and dried. She prayed that none of the pus was dripping onto her.
The Zigots tied Adam and Sarah's hands behind their backs, threw them into a metal holding cell in the Zigot spaceship, and slammed the door shut.
Adam looked carefully at his younger sister. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I guess....I'm...I'm just scared. Wh..what are they going to do to us?"
"It's okay. We're going to escape. We just have to wait till we're flying."
"Adam, how come you can speak their language?"
"That language is Grunt. I had to do a mission there once, so I learned the code for the language before I went."
"The code?"
"Yes, most alien languages have a code that you can use to translate it into English. Once you know the code, it's easy."
There was a faint hum, and then the floor started vibrating gently.
"Looks like we're taking off. We'll let them get under way and then we'll escape."
"Adam, we're tied up and locked in an empty metal room, with absolutely nothing inside. How do you expect to escape?"
And it was true. The room they were in had nothing on the walls, nothing on the ceiling, and nothing on the floor. It was completely empty. There were no windows, no decorations, and no furniture. Even the door was simply another metal wall, with no buttons, keyholes, or locks. It was like being in a giant metal safe.
"Don't worry. I can do it, but I'm going to need your help."
"....um...uh...okay." She looked close to tears. "Wh...what do you want me to do?"
"Pretend to be sick. Just complain and groan like you are really ill, and I'll get the guard in here and take his keys and gun. Okay?"
"But...why would they care if I'm sick, if they're just going to...um...well eat us anyway?"
"To the Zigots it would be just like eating bread covered in mold, or like meat covered in flies or something. They don't want to eat any bad food, or anything that might make them sick. Okay, you ready?"
Sarah nodded, and started complaining and groaning as Adam shouted and kicked the door. It suddenly flew open, and a Zigot holding a strange looking gun filled the doorway and growled at him angrily.
"My sister's sick. You have to help her, please," said Adam, only he said it in Grunt so it actually came out more like, "Grrr, garg grrrg gar gar grrr."
The Zigot bent over to look down at Sarah, and was caught on the side of his head by Adam's foot. The high kick stunned the alien long enough for Adam to grab the gun from its hands and shoot it in the head. It collapsed on top of Sarah in a pile of smelly black fur. She wriggled out from underneath it.
"Wow, how did you do that?"
"Just something we learned in basic training. Hey, turn around."
He'd already found a knife on the guard's belt and cut himself free. Now he cut the rope from around her wrists, and she rubbed them to get the feeling back. He grabbed the gun, and a key card from the belt.
"Let's go!"
In the corridor he swiped the card into the slot, pushed a button, and the door slammed shut locking the guard into the holding cell.
They ran off down the corridor.
"Shhhhh, someone's coming." He pulled her into a doorway, and another Zigot pirate stomped past.
"Wait here." Adam ordered, and slipped out of the doorway
"Whe....?"
But he had already gone.
He slunk back into the doorway a few minutes later, carrying a second gun.
"Where did you go?"
"Just showing that guy where his friend was."
"What?"
"I put him in the cell with the other one. So, two pirates down and three to go. Come on. The cockpit's this way."
There were several small rooms off the corridor, but they were just more holding cells, and they were all empty. At the front of the ship they found a locked metal door.
"Okay, this is the cockpit." He whispered. "There should be three Zigots in here so I'm going to need your help. I'll take out two of them, but can you knock out the third one? You just point that gun at its head and shoot."
"What will happen to it?"
"This is a stun gun so it'll be unconscious for several hours, and then just wake up with a headache. Nothing much considering they were probably going to eat us! Ready?"
She nodded.
He slipped the key card that he'd taken from the guard into the slot by the door, held the gun out in front of him and pushed the button.
Before either of the Zigots could get over their surprise and reach for their weapons they were both zapped in the head with stun guns, and then they collapsed into black furry pus balls on the floor of the cockpit.
"There are only two, which means one is still around the ship somewhere, so be careful. We'd better find him and knock him out, before we drag these two to a holding cell. That way when they wake up they can't do any damage."
"...Um...Adam...who is flying the plane?"
"Ship...Sarah...it's a spaceship, not an airplane."
"Okay...but who is flying it?"
"No one. It's on autopilot. We only really fly spaceships ourselves when we are taking off, or landing, or trying to do some evasive techniques to escape space pirates. I'll just change the setting, so that we head back towards Planet Meemoosa, which is where my intergalactic space agency is based."
He climbed over the unconscious Zigots and fiddled with some buttons on the spaceship console.
"....okay...sorted."
He turned around only to find that the head Zigot, with its eye patch and greeny yellow rat, had Sarah under its arm with a knife at her throat, and it was pointing the stun gun at him. It had an evil smile full of fangs.
"Grag goor grrrrgrrrzt."
"Grrrrzt"
Adam half raised his hands, and leaned back against the console.
As his bottom pushed down on the button that turned off the auto-pilot, he shouted to Sarah, "Quick. Hold on!". And she just managed to grab the door frame before the spaceship tilted forward dramatically. The Zigot lost its footing and fell over, dropping Sarah, the gun and the knife in its surprise.
"Sarah! Shoot him!" Adam shouted whilst throwing his gun at her.
"I have to get control of the ship before we crash!"
Sarah caught the gun one handed as she was still clinging on to the door frame for life. The tilting, sliding cockpit made it difficult to aim, but she managed to focus on the Zigot and hit it in the head, only narrowly missing Adam, who was trying to reach the correct buttons on the console whilst fighting off the furry black thing at his feet.
A warning alarm started screeching, and the cockpit began flashing red.
"Ahhhhhhhhhdddaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!"
The ship slowly righted itself. He'd hit the right button and was now pulling hard upwards on the flying stick.
He smiled at Sarah.
"Phew. That was close. Hey, you nearly hit me with that stun gun. Then you'd really have been in trouble. Do you know how to fly a spaceship?" He teased.
"Um...yeah...sorry about that."
"No, just kidding. Well done."
He gestured at the floor which was completely taken up by the three large Zigot bodies.
"Okay, let's fly this thing back to Meemoosa." He started fiddling with buttons and levers.
"Hey, watch those pirates. If they show any sign that they're waking up give them another zap with the gun. I'll just radio Meemoosa and let them know we are coming."
Adam pushed a button, "Mee mee moo meee muu me mo mooo."
A voice came back over the speaker. "Me mo mo mee ma moo."
"Ma me mooo." He released the button.
"Ma mo"
Sarah was fascinated. "Adam, what was that?"
"That was Meemoosan. The language they speak on Planet Meemoosa. The agency is based there, so we'll take these things there, lock them up, and then maybe we can grab a pizza or something. I'm starving."
"Adam, how come you know so much? Before today, I just though you were like...normal."
He laughed.
"Well, I am normal most of the time. I still have to go to school, do my homework, and eat my vegetables. It's just that sometimes I zap into other galaxies and save a few aliens and planets and things.The agency gives me the training, and it's a lot more fun than school."
"Yeah, I bet it is."
"So, are you interested?"
"Really? I could be an agent?"
"It was kind of why I brought you with me today, so you could take some tests and see if you were up to it."
"Those horrible creatures and that ship crash were TESTS?"
"Well, no. We haven't actually made it to the tests yet. We were on our way to Meemoosa so you could take them when the space pirates attacked the PIG and took us hostage...you know.... but, don't worry. After those guys the tests will be easy."
She knew the tests probably wouldn't be easy, and she probably wouldn't pass them. But, there was a small thought that maybe she could do it. Maybe, she could pass the tests, and maybe she could become an intergalactic space agent like her brother.