The Kid Kingdom (2 page)

Through the windscreen, Kip saw his dad look up from the camping gear. His expression quickly went from surprised to mega-cranky.

‘I'll look after it, Dad,' Kip called. ‘Space Scout's honour!'

The Space Stream's powerful engine throbbed as Kip hit the throttle. He understood why his dad loved flying it! It wasn't long before Kip left the moon far behind. And only a short time later, he arrived at the Intergalactic Hoverport.

All intergalactic space flights left from the Hoverport. That's why Kip's starship, MoNa 4000, was docked there. MoNa was a huge, glossy black ship, with a pointed nose cone and extra noisy thrusters, specially designed for extreme long-distance space travel. She was the ideal starship, apart from her bossy personality.

Kip expertly piloted the Space Stream into the massive landing bay on MoNa's lowest level.

MoNa had a team of maintenance robots aboard. Straight away, the bots began refuelling the Space Stream so it could return itself to the moon.

WorldCorp Maintenancebot

Kip punched the co-ordinates for the moon into the Space Stream's control panel, then leapt out.

The Space Stream took off and MoNa's voice came over the loudspeaker. ‘Airlock closed. Now stop wasting time and get to the bridge.'

Kip raced to MoNa's command centre, where a familiar furry figure was waiting for him. It was Finbar, Kip's second-incommand. Walking on two legs and covered in white fur, Finbar was half-human, halfarctic wolf.

‘Welcome back,' said Finbar.

Kip couldn't help noticing that he sounded stressed. ‘Is the wormhole opening already?' he asked, looking out the giant windows into space.

Space Scouts used wormholes to travel quickly between different galaxies.

‘By the time you've downloaded your mission brief, it'll probably be closed,' grumbled MoNa. She was an intelligent starship and could hear everything Kip and Finbar said.

Kip and Finbar exchanged glances. MoNa could be so crabby sometimes! She was busy flying them from the Hoverport into deep space and she hated interruptions when she was concentrating.

The bridge was packed with bleeping gadgets, but best of all was Kip's holographic console. He waved his hand above his head to activate it. It formed a cylinder of blue light around him. Kip hit the button that downloaded his mission brief.

Awesome!
Kip thought. Friendly aliens were always a bonus.

‘The wormhole's up ahead,' said Finbar. ‘But we don't have much time.'

Kip saw the wormhole, a clump of glowing, electric blue cloud. ‘Let's go, Finb–' he began. ‘Wait…what's THAT?'

A ginormous rubbery blob, nearly as big as MoNa, was hurtling out of the wormhole. It was heading straight for them.

‘Call me crazy, but that looks like the universe's biggest water bomb!' Kip yelled.

CHAPTER 3

Back on Earth, Kip had seen a water bomb in a museum. It was a small balloon that kids used to fill with water and throw at each other for fun. Of course, in the year 2354, no-one on Earth had water to waste.

MoNa's system confirmed it. The blobby object was definitely a water bomb. But it was enormous! And the sub-zero temperatures of deep space had completely frozen the water inside. Now the bomb was full of solid ice!

An ice chunk that big would destroy MoNa if they collided.

‘Do something, Kip!' Finbar howled, ears flat against his head. Although Finbar had many wolfish qualities, he was still prone to panicking.

There wasn't time to pilot MoNa out of the way. Kip would have to destroy the water bomb – fast! Desperately, Kip flicked through MoNa's range of guns on his holographic console.

Foam gun… No, that was fun, but only really useful for cleaning dirty starships.

Ray gun…That would explode the ice, but the debris would still smash into MoNa.

The emergency light in the bridge turned red. The giant bomb filled MoNa's windscreen. Finbar covered his eyes with his paws. Kip was almost out of time!

Then suddenly, Kip found just what he needed. MoNa's SunGuns!

A double-barrelled SunGun was mounted on each side of the starship. As soon as Kip stabbed the ‘Engage SunGun' button, the bright yellow guns powered up.Kip squinted through the gunsights and aimed at the giant water bomb.

‘Cover your ears!' he yelled to Finbar.

SunGun

Then...

KA-BOOOOM!

The SunGuns fired, and in a nanosecond, a wave of 6000-degree heat hit the water bomb.

The water balloon exploded in red, rubbery shreds. Steam hissed everywhere. The SunGuns had melted the ice on impact. The water inside was now boiling hot!

There was a roar as millions of litres of boiling water slammed into MoNa. For a moment, the world went white.

The full force of all that boiling water sent MoNa plunging off-course. Away from the wormhole!

At once, Kip grabbed the controls and switched them from auto-pilot mode. Bashing his holographic steering controls, Kip spun MoNa back towards the wormhole.

‘It's about to close!' yelled Finbar.

The swirling clouds were getting thinner and thinner. The wormhole had shrunk to practically nothing.

‘We'll make it!' said Kip.

With a determined stomp of his space boot, Kip engaged warp speed. MoNa jumped forwards so fast that he almost lost his lunch of powdered pepperoni pizza.

The wormhole sucked them inside like a vacuum cleaner. Kip piloted MoNa safely through until they popped out the other side, where everything was calm.

Kip wiped his sweaty face with the sleeve of his spacesuit.
Phew,
he thought to himself.
Made it
.

Ahead of them lay the planet Yufe. Comets streaked across the sky around MoNa. Kip wasn't worried, though. He switched MoNa back to auto-pilot. Her hazard perception systems would detect and avoid the comets.

Kip and Finbar went down to the landing bay. There, MoNa would transport their particles to the surface of Yufe using her Scrambler Beams.

The beams worked by splitting their bodies into tiny particles, sending these through space, and putting them back together on the surface of Yufe.

As Kip ran, his mind ticked over.

Did the aliens on Yufe send that water bomb into space? If they did, there must be a lot of water on their planet. That could mean it had Earth-like conditions.

But why would the aliens be throwing water
bombs through wormholes
? thought Kip.
Either
that was an accident, or they're not as friendly
as they seemed!

CHAPTER 4

Kip and Finbar's particles whizzed through space and reformed on the surface of Yufe.

When Kip was in one piece again, he looked around and noticed it was early in the evening. Above them comets shot past, more common than stars in the Earth sky. And although it was getting dark, Yufe hummed with life. Everywhere Kip looked, he saw alien kids running around, but not a single grown-up.

Those kids look about my age!
Kip thought.
Shouldn't they be home having dinner?

The other thing that struck Kip was how much the kids of Yufe looked like him. They wore sporty shorts and T-shirts, just like Kip did at home. They walked like him, talked like him…they even rode hoverboards like him!

The big difference was that these kids had bright green skin and three eyes waving on long stalks on top of their heads.

Kip checked his SpaceCuff 's Air Analyser. He wasn't surprised that the air on Yufe was safe for humans to breathe.In fact, when Kip took off his helmet and had a good look around, he saw Yufe was a lot like Earth in other ways too.

Kip and Finbar were standing on a busy city street, lined with massive skyscrapers. The sky teemed with single-person light spacecraft. There were buildings, roads and even a fountain nearby – just like there were in cities on Earth. Of course, not everything was the same. When Kip looked through a gap between two buildings, he saw a field full of awesome-looking rides.