Chapter 16: The Asteroid
Jimmy woke up early the next morning. His sleep had been plagued with nightmares of last night's argument. We have got to stop the fighting, he told himself while rolling out of his bed. For the sake of saving our parents, if nothing else, he scolded himself while slipping out of his pajamas and into his normal clothes.
He looked at the clock on his nightstand. "Five thirty in the morning," he told himself while walking over to his mirror and adjusting his hair. "She should still be asleep." He paused for a moment to look around his room. "And I'm talking to myself. Peachy."
Jimmy took a deep breath before leaving his room. It was a beautiful morning, the house bathed in orange as the sun slowly rose up past the horizon. "I'm sorry, I should have listened to your opinion," Jimmy rehearsed as he went across the hall to his parents' room, where Libby and Cindy had slept since the adults were abducted.
He was about to knock when he saw a note taped to the door. He pulled it off and stared at it. Dear Jimmy. I went to Retroland to set up the supplies and go over our progress with the rockets. Be back around eight. Bye.
Jimmy took the note downstairs and poured himself a cup of orange juice. He sat down at the kitchen table and took a sip while pondering the note. Is she mad at me? She seems…he thought before spitting out the orange juice. "God, that's gross!" he shouted as quietly as he could before looking at the mess on the table. He checked the expiration date on the carton and saw that the juice had gone bad three days ago. "Yeah, mom and dad usually do the grocery shopping," he reminiscently whispered to himself. He tossed the carton into the overflowing garbage can.
Jimmy grabbed a paper towel and wiped up the orange juice on the table. "She doesn't seem mad," he whispered to himself. He tossed the paper towel into the trash and shook his head. "What do I care anyway? There are more important things to worry about," he tried to convince himself, although he could hear the doubt in his voice.
At any rate, Jimmy knew that he still had a job to do. He walked into the living room and gently shook Nick awake. "Nick, we have to get to work," he whispered.
Nick moaned for a moment before opening his eyes to see Jimmy standing over him. "Oh, every guy's dream come true," he muttered while rubbing his eyes and standing up. "What is it?"
Jimmy pulled Nick off of the couch and led him out of the house. Nick slowly followed him. "We've got the guns, now we've got to figure out how to use them."
Nick moved the few strands of hair covering his face behind his ear. "Can we stop at Dunkin Donuts?" he sarcastically pleaded.
Jimmy ignored him as he came up to his lab. He plucked a hair from his head and held it in front of the DNA scanner. "Welcome, Mr. Neutron," Vox's seductive voice welcomed Jimmy as he and Nick stepped into the lab.
"Why do you always have to start so early in the morning?" Nick complained while sitting on a couch in the lab. He allowed his eyes to close and his head to fall.
"Heads up!" Jimmy shouted while tossing an apple at Nick. Nick woke up just in time to reach out with his right hand and catch it.
"Yeah, this is as good as a donut," Nick grumbled while taking a bite out of it. Jimmy pulled a pear out of his lab's small fridge and took a seat beside Nick.
"What's on schedule for today?" Nick asked, finally waking up.
Jimmy took a bite out of his pear and thought for a moment. "We are going to go over a battle strategy for taking out those alien bastards," Jimmy explained with a smile. "And while you are going to figure out who should get a gun, I'm going to work on disabling that force field."
"All right," Nick said while finishing off his modest breakfast.
"I'll get to work on the force field," Jimmy told him while walking off to another room. "We'll meet around twelve to discuss a battle strategy."
And so that's what happened for the next several hours. Nick went over the guns and recounted all of the ammo. He went over a list of the kids and tried to figure out who should get a gun. Once that was done around noon, Jimmy caught up with Nick.
"Alright, it's time we plan a battle strategy," Jimmy told him while leading Goddard into the lab's main room.
Nick sat down on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table. "Alright, enlighten me."
Jimmy nodded as he turned to Goddard. "Goddard, please tap into the main system computer and display chart 4A." Goddard ran up to the lab's giant computer monitor and stuck a small device into its hard drive. Within a few seconds the image Jimmy had asked for came on screen. It listed the number of guns, kids, and supplies that they had.
"Alright, as you can see, we have 151 guns for three hundred and fifty-two kids," Jimmy began while pointing at the screen with his metal pointer. "That means that less than half of the kids will have a gun. Those kids will be involved in major combat operations. The others will be piloting the ships, keeping up with repairs and communication details, and some will stay on Earth to monitor our ships' positions and act as a control center."
Nick nodded while taking a sip from his purple flurp. "Sounds good. But what exactly is the battle plan?"
Jimmy cleared his throat while tugging on his collar. "Goddard, show slide 5Q." A moment later a picture of a large asteroid came on the screen. Jimmy turned back to Nick.
"This is an unnamed asteroid I discovered several days before the abduction took place. This asteroid is on the border of our solar system," he began to explain, but a loud buzzing sound cut him off.
"Gosh darn it," he sputtered while walking over to his surveillance cameras. Cindy stood outside. "What is it, Cindy?"
Cindy looked into the camera outside the lab. "I need to get some blueprints for the kids at Retroland."
Jimmy buzzed her in and waited for her to enter the lab. She eventually walked in and stared at Nick and Jimmy. "Am I interrupting something?"
"Actually, Jimmy was just about to explain his battle plan," Nick told her.
Cindy smiled while leaning against the wall. "Oh, good. I've been wanting to hear this."
Jimmy stared curiously at her for a moment, trying to judge the tone of her voice before turning back to the monitor. "Um, anyway, the asteroid is on the border of our solar system. We will ride our rockets normally until we reach this asteroid. We will then set up camp on this asteroid and ride it. The asteroid is heading towards the Yolkian planet. While we are camping on this giant rock, Nick will train the kids in the art of guns," he said while staring at Cindy.
"While Nick does this, Cindy, myself, and the other pilots will use our rockets' thrusters to slightly alter the course of the asteroid. This will allow it to be overtaken by the Yolkians' planet's gravitational field."
Cindy shook her head in amazement. "You're going to crash the asteroid into the Yolkian's planet?"
Jimmy nodded excitedly. "Let me explain further. After we alter the asteroid's path enough, we will abandon the rock on our rockets. The asteroid will be pulled into the planet."
"Won't that kill our parents?" Nick asked.
Jimmy shook his head. "I've done some simulations. The Yolkian planet is huge. Part of the asteroid should disintegrate in the Yolkian's atmosphere. The remainder of the asteroid will be large enough to cause major damage and chaos, but not enough to destroy the planet or anything. As soon as we get on the asteroid, the team on Earth will be close enough to the Yolkian planet to get a signal on our parent's DNA. We'll maneuver the asteroid so that it won't hit anywhere near our parents."
Nick nodded his head in partial understanding. "Ok, so the asteroid does some damage to the planet. How does that help us?"
"May I?" Cindy asked. Jimmy nodded. "I believe that Jimmy is hoping that the asteroid will cause a pandemic throughout the Yolkian's world. This will hopefully allow us to sneak in and get our parents back."
"Well said," Jimmy agreed while putting his pointer down and turning off the monitor. "And even if it doesn't successfully distract the Yolkians, the damage the asteroid will produce will be a nice reminder of why they shouldn
't mess with carbon-based life forms," he said with an evil grin. "Our team will then sneak onto the planet. The Yolkians will be too busy examining the asteroid to keep up good defenses. We'll send a small fleet of ships in, and then infiltrate the base that holds parents. We'll rescue them, hijack a Yolkian ship or something, and fly back home."
Cindy and Nick thought over Jimmy's plan for a moment. "That seems pretty good," Cindy excitedly told him. "Damn good."
Nick shook his head. "Hold on. The way I see it, the Yolkians took our parents for one of two reasons. Either they plan on sacrificing our parents to Poultra or they want to use them as bait to lure Jimmy so that they can get revenge on him. Right?"
Jimmy nodded. "Yeah, I've thought of that. Personally, I think it's the second one, considering their only motive was revenge last time we encountered them."
"Ok. But in both of those cases, they'll know that we're coming to save our parents," Nick explained. "If they know that we're coming, doesn't a sneak attack seem kind of foolish?"
"What do you suggest?" Jimmy asked.
"A full on assault," Nick offered. We smash that asteroid as close as we can to our parents' location without killing them. We perform an aerial assault with our ships while deploying ground troops. We burst in, shoot anyone in our way, and get our parents out."
"No, that wouldn't work," Jimmy immediately rebutted. "We've got three hundred kids and a hundred fifty guns. That's not enough to go up against an advanced alien race."
Nick laughed. "I'm getting pretty sick of you calling them advanced. They worship a chicken!"
Cindy held up her hands and the boys instantly stopped fighting. "Nick, I see your point. But Jimmy's right. It makes no sense to do a full on assault against a force that is literally millions of times larger than our own."
Nick stood up and took a breath. "Alright, whatever. Jimmy, I made the list. Can I go to Retroland and get back to work on the rockets?"
"Sure, go ahead," Jimmy told him while bending down to pet Goddard.
"I'll give you a lift in the hover car," Cindy said while walking over to Jimmy. "I'll meet you out there in a minute."
Nick nodded and left the lab. Cindy walked over to Jimmy and knelt down beside him. She gave Goddard a pat on the head, who gave a small bark in appreciation. "About those blueprints?" she sweetly asked.
Jimmy pulled the floppy disk back out of his pocket and handed it to her. "No hidden motives, I promise. Here you go."
Cindy smiled and took it out of his hand. "Thanks." She twisted her hair and mumbled, "I'm sorry."
Jimmy patted Goddard on the rump, and the mechanical canine left the room. "What was that?" he asked while standing up.
Jimmy let out a deep sigh. "I overreacted yesterday. It's just that seeing Libby shot out there, you know?"
Jimmy grabbed her shoulder and gave her a look of understanding. "I know. But we can't go and rescue our parents unarmed. It's suicide."
Cindy nodded. "I just don't want to be giving guns out all willy-nilly. Not everyone's as responsible as us. Can you imagine Butch walking around town with a gun?"
They both shuddered at the thought. Jimmy gave her a comforting smile. "You don't have to worry. Nick is carefully evaluating each kid's skill and deciding who gets a gun. And we're going to train them with paintball guns before we give them real ones. Everything's covered."
Cindy nodded and gripped her fist. "Well then, um, I better get going. Are you going to get back to work on the force field?" Jimmy nodded. "Good. We'll all be back around seven or eight. Good luck."
"You too," Jimmy told her as she walked out of the lab.