Undertow

The ray of eldritch energy sizzled through the air to strike a glimmer of a stalactite after it climbed the laser warped sluice of red waterfall. It zinged and zanged and even penguin reflexes could not track it. Skipper froze in Routine Six: Play Statue as he waited for its force to dim, diminish, or dissipate. What would make it disappear? He needed Kowalski to spout some physics at him, but then the ray struck that which was not a reflective surface.

It hit Private square in the back, making his coat phosphoresce for a second. "Private! Nooooo!"

"Wot just happened? Is this bad glowin'? I don't feel anythin' different!"

Frances Alberta cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West. "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little friend, too!"

What happened next would forever remain a blur. After the two humans shouted at each other, the mecha's door slammed shut after the Ruler of the Mole Men grabbed Frances Alberta about the waist to haul her inside. The mecha idled out a thunder as more lethal stalactites spiked downwards. Grinding like a giant pepper grinder must have occurred in the aft tunneler mechanism that they couldn't see, because the chassis disappeared backwards down its hole to be followed by the swirling blades, one of which appeared out of sync. Water seethed around the vehicle, purple reactive foam bubbled and splped and the laser light bending vanished although it left imprints on penguin retinas. Skipper blinked rapidly.

"Evasive, Private!" The hole's edges blazed purple for a light source as pippopps issued among bubbling stuff that resembled lavender soan papdi, which was good because their Maglite was nowhere to be seen. Finding that came first even before checking on Private's condition. Skipper slowed his waddle, got to his knees and groped for the flashlight. The purple glow faded faster than Skipper thought it ought. The diminishing rumble of the tunneler's retreat plummeted three more razor-like stalactites to add to the danger. The commander stood firm after discovering the Maglite.

"Private! Sound off!"

"Over here. I'm okay, Skippa." A click, a shake of the Maglite in patented effective Skipper style and then his love's face appeared as a floating head in complete darkness. "Crikey, she's a complete nutter and I don't know wot to say about him."

Skipper hunkered down to the gravel and looked about ruefully. "A vacation. You want a lousy vacation and what you get is Cray Cray Lady and her Zombie Friend." All right, all right, so the guy wasn't a real zombie, but the term fit close enough. Let Kowalski come up with a better description when they got back home.

Private squatted beside him. "Do - Do you see anythin' strange about me?"

Skipper played the beam all over his love's back, front and sides. He lifted each foot and flipper, bent the head forward and backward and checked between the legs. "All clear."

"Phew. I guess even evil zookeeper ladies can have weapon malfunctions, right, Skippa?"

Skipper maintained hope that his senses played him straight. "Yeah. Yeah." His grip shook and the beam bobbled. "By Patton's slaps, I've got a bad case of the gollywobbles."

"M-Me, too."

They trembled in concert until Skipper turned his thoughts into words. "Frances Alberta and her boyfriend sounded less like they planned an attack on animals and more like a couple out on a joyride."

"I agree. Usin' a noisy machine like theirs on an attack on our HQ, Skippa, we'd know it if Mole Men used our tunnels, like you thought one time."

Their shared dangers all in one day made Skipper break some commanderly reserve. "True, that idea proved a non-starter." He gathered his wits. "The upside is that Becky and Stacy got to date Carlos, Kendall, and those other two beavers."

Of course, Private recalled their names perfectly. "James and Logan."

Justice demanded that Skipper present the whole picture. "But Blowhole used our tunnels and breached security in the nastiest way possible. I mean, what could be worse than a crazoid dolphin in our very home?"

"Alice knowin' about our operation," Private answered readily.

"Point. That's a horror floor scenario I hope we'll never see."

Private twitched at the sound of a stalactite falling tardily someplace near what was left of the cave's natural opening. He grabbed Skipper's flipper and held on tight. "We're alive. That's enough, for now."

Joy at being alive coursed through them and they turned to each other, their glow of love rivaling that of the effervescent purple soan papdi-like bubbles.

"Hiatus endin' soon, Skippa?"

"Later, babe, a little later. There's no better reason to have sex than after a victory." Skipper stood.

Private scouted ahead at the signal for Routine Four: Scout Ahead, I'll Catch Up Later. "Look, Skippa, here's another hole and some stuff they left behind."

The water level in the stream sank further but such was the volume of the flow that the waters settled into two inches depth rather than three. Ten minutes after the tunneler's departure, the sucking sound quieted to the usual gurgle. Skipper shook off his battle nerves to recon the area where the tunneler tunneled sometime previously. No sign remained of foamy purple residue around the lip of the hole so the problem with their mecha began when Frances Alberta piloted the vehicle. Interesting.

Skipper waddled to the couple's blankets spread over grit that couldn't have been comfortable for humans and near-humans. He upped his estimation of their toughness as he surveyed the opening to the outside quarry twenty feet up and twenty-five feet off. The round shape resembled the palest moon seen through dense fog as light filtered in from some distance through what he assumed was a tunnel through solid rock. It was likely around four p.m. As he watched, cloud cover must have blown in because the light dimmed even more.

Skipper tsked as he appropriated a discarded Maglite. "Litterbug zombies, the worst kind. Millard Fillmore's muffler, look, two belts and a pair of shoes!" He sniffed. "And a pair of dirty socks, ew."

Private kicked at empty plastic baggies, candles, a whisk and other mysterious bits of human garbage. "Wot is all this?"

"The less we know about humans, the better, so let's burn what we can when we get that fire started." He waggled an empty bottle, sniffed it and put it back down. "Eh, the red stuff. I like rosé better and white wine best."

Private looked skeptical after a knowing nod. "You purist, you. Not doubtin' your leadership, Skippa, but oughtn't we make a strategic withdrawal towards home? Wot if they return? Wot then?"

Uh oh, it was time to come on from strength. "We'll deal. Numero uno, their tunneler makes noise up the wazoo giving plenty of notice now that we know what the racket is. Numero dos, we came to enjoy a vacation and we'll do that or my name isn't - "

"Honey."

"Yeah, something like that, guv'na." Skipper sobered. "Look, we did okay facing them down with Routine Seventy-One: Zombie Apocalypse, right?"

Private quivered more than usual as Skipper took note of it. "Let's never use it again!"

"Somehow I don't think we'll need to. That Moley guy got her away from battling penguin commandos, good on him."

"She was a right nutter." Private had stated this before. He was jittery enough to harp on what had frightened him, well it had scared the both of them. Skipper registered that fact before continuing.

"I don't understand what she did, either. I mean, I understood what she said except for the mumbo jumbo language, but what stood out is that she has a mad on against me as bad as Blowhole's."

Private sought to smooth the waters, the darling. "She's from Hoboken originally even though she works in Manhattan, and you've always said that nothin' good ever comes out of Hoboken, Skippa, like Gacy - "

"I will die happy if I never hear that name again."

"Sorry sorry! I forgot!"

"Mmmm. Let's build that fire."