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TPOM Week 2018 Day Seven: Operation F.I.S.H.

****Tweaking this bit from a longer story because I always wondered if Private’s First Prize was caught before or after it was stuffed :) ... ****

Working backwards from the Trans-Dimensional Toothbrush and the Watch That Stops Time, Kowalski’s first invention of any note he painted red and named the Floribunda. It debuted on Lake Atitlán in a lull of the undercover action when Private asked to go fishing. Since the youngest penguin did a ride-along in the tradition of all commando units, Skipper earnestly wanted to give the tween slack time to digest all he had learned thus far.

Of course, Manfredi and Johnson joshed the commander with the sauce of veterans unworried about living long enough to collect their pensions. They’d teased that Skipper coddled the boy, so they’d been left behind in Panajachel along with Rico and Xochi, Rico’s current flame. Skipper didn’t quite believe Manfredi and Johnson when they said they planned to sightsee at the Maya Traditions Medicine Garden today. They had already enjoyed enough herbs on this mission.

Xochi and Rico would be doing what they had been doing every free hour since twenty-four hours after they met. Skipper mentally applauded their stamina when they appeared each morning, eager and fresh-eyed for the day. They were awfully cute together even at six a.m. reveille, sort of like Rico’s stuffed bear playing Rico and the latest penguin Beanie Baby playing Xochi. Thinking about their size difference gave him a headache, so he didn’t think about it much.

To give the youngest team member a chance to gawk at majestic volcanoes ringing the lake, Skipper and Kowalski had rowed to the middle of the watery expanse. Kowalski muttered something about ‘test driving Floribunda under optimal 1,115.37 feet deep water conditions, no shallows for this baby’. The mission stalled with nothing they could do today to further its success, the sun shone brightly, and life was copacetic.

When Private’s head broke water by the bow, Skipper swam to the present. He tilted his officer’s cover back on his head so it wouldn’t slip into the lake when he bent over the side.

“Skippa, oodles of fish down there! Come down for a looksee?”

Skipper smiled. “Your exploration, your first time sit rep, it’s all your bag. Report when you’ve done enough eyeballing the Wonders of the Deep. Oh, and don’t eat any of the fish. Kowalski’s not yet done a water quality test.”

Private’s lower beak quivered. “But I need my fish! I’m a growin’ penguin!”

Eh, Private could beg just like Rico, but Skipper held firm. “You heard me. Catch and release only.”

Private upended after acing a by-the-regs salute. Skipper glimpsed his black shape sound deeper and deeper and shook off the gollywobbles regarding the young bird’s safety. He caught Kowalski’s affectionate stroke of the enameled gloss of the motor housing out of the corner of his eye.

“Kowalski, we’ve not begun to set up your lab in Central Park HQ, so how did you upgrade this gizmo when we rented it only ninety minutes ago?” The current eddied around their becalmed vessel as they slewed towards the center of Lake Atitlán. Skipper assessed the streamlined outboard motor that looked like any other outboard motor.

Kowalski shipped his oar to lay it by his commander’s on the bottom of the boat. “Sir, wait till we drift to the precise middle of the lake and I’ll show you. The customized parts I added to this rental are ordinary things anyone has around the house: rocket fuel, C-4, five five inch lengths of zinc-coated platinum tubing — ”

“Five five inch lengths of — how did you bring them out of the Ewe Ess of Ay? I ordered strict necessities only for baggage. Did you bully Rico into carrying them for you in his wonder gut?”

Kowalski bled science, when he wasn’t kicking tail kung-fuing along with his team. “It was simple with my shrink ray. Did I mention I am working on a shrink ray?”

“No, you did not. Is it perfected?”

“Um, not quite. The C-4 gave me problems.” After fiddling nervously with his dixie cup cap, Kowalski brightened. “I’m sure I know what I did wrong!”

“So that’s why you’ve got a featherless left kneecap. I don’t want to hear about a shrink ray until it’s mission ready, soldier.”

“Will do, sir. In the meantime, Private wants your attention.” Skipper followed Kowalski’s point to a squirming, laughing youngster bobbing near the stern, one flipper on the gunwale.

“What’s so funny, Private?”

“Skippa, the minnows are nibblin’ on my toes. It tickles.” Private’s face was open and happy as he giggled and Skipper memorized that expression for when his own nights blackened with dark memories.

Kowalski was so deep in science mode he forgot the effect of his words on an imaginative tween. “Not to worry about sharks being in this lake, but if you swam in Lake Nicaragua, boy howdy!”

“Sh-Sharks? In a lake? Are you sure none swim in Lake Atittylán?” Private looked like he couldn’t bear to show fear on this, his first ride-along. He drew up his feet to stick them out of the water while his eyes grew round and a wave lapped over his chest. He placed both flippers on the gunwale as if to haul himself over the edge and back into the safety zone. “Really, really, really sure, K’walski?”

At a pointed look from his commander, Kowalski glommed onto his misstep. “Yes, one hundred and thirty point nine percent positive! No doubt! None whatsoever! Completely sure!”

“Private, we’ll not let anything bad happen to you in Guatemala, Nicaragua or on the planet Venus. Rest easy in your mind and complete your sit rep.”

“O-Okay.” Private still looked spooked and then braved the depths with a fierce expression that stabbed any penguin’s heart who had seen him mature from a seconds-old hatchling to now. Skipper shoved Kowalski hard and made their watercraft rock.

“Watch the mouth, bucko. He’s young enough to believe every word you say.”

“You know I can’t resist over-explaining” — Skipper gave him the stink eye — “but I’ll work on that, aye, sir.”

“I expect a progress report when we get back to Central Park Zoo.”

“Of course, sir. Uh, in the meantime, we’ve reached the middle of the lake. Check this out.” Kowalski opened the top casing of the Evinrude with a triple tap and showmanlike flourish. A flick to right and left casings bared the interior. A device made of bright red tubing in pentagram form snugged the motor proper and looked secured by Dubble Bubble chewing gum. It glowed even under the tropical noontime sun. Skipper could have sworn it strobed, too.

“What am I looking at?”

“The Floribunda is a cutting edge power converter. Isn’t it sweet?” Kowalski patted it fondly. “I named it after the Star Wars power converter because it converts regular outboard motor power into hyperspace power via a positron linear activator composed of gneiss.”

“I don’t care how nice the activator is, we don’t risk braving outer space with Private along, much less hyperspace.” Skipper did a double take. “Hyperspace? Will we stay on Mama Earth when we activate it? You’ve watched that movie too many times, compadre.”

“Only twenty-four times, sir, and yes. It’ll seem like we fly, but we don’t even though the boat may skim like a flying fish over short distances.” Kowalski stroked his beak as he expanded on the genesis of his precious thingamabob. “I considered constructing the device in ball screw form and instead of using gneiss, using the less-compressed schist — ”

“Kowalski! Language! Private might hear!”

Kowalski joined Skipper as the commander peered over the starboard side of the boat. “Skipper, Private could not possibly be corrupted by ball screw and schist because they’re mechanical and geologic terms respectively — ”

Skipper switched to squinting over the boat’s port side. “Doesn’t matter!”

There was a pppppt sound that Skipper ignored. “Yeah, see, he’s still submerged and it’s only been eight and one third minutes, so lighten up. Pay attention to my accomplishment because it’ll come in handy for high speed escapes.” Kowalski activated his admittedly poor sense of personal power leverage. “We may need to escape with Private if danger arises, sheesh.”

After a moment, Skipper came off high alert and straightened his spine. “Just, just watch it. It’s his first ride-along and all of us need to protect him, not only me.”

Kowalski looked disgusted as he secured the motor casings once more. He snorted and then stared at the gap between Volcán Tolimán and Volcán Atitlán. “My invention can aid chases, too, you know.”

Uh oh, Kowalski’s sensitivity rivaled Private’s sometimes. “Hmm, point taken. If Hans sticks to swimming rather than cheating by flying and if uh, what’s his name, that dolphin, help me out here, Kowalski — ”

“Dr. Blowhole.” Kowalski tightened his flippers over his chest and regarded Volcán San Pedro miles away.

” — yeah, Blowhole, that we slammed last year shows up again, we could scoot right after them. Damn, we have a natural chance to overtake Hans in the water but Blowhole’s twenty-five miles per hour drowns us in his wake if he vamooses.” Skipper removed his cover to rub its scrambled eggs absently. “When and if you get your lab mojo, brainstorm construction of a sub for us or, or a subskimmer.”

It didn’t take much to set Kowalski’s mind humming as he stood down from his pout. “A subskimmer for the four of us? By Yablonski’s ideals, I’ve got a precedent, the Fantastic Four uses a vehicle they call the Flying Bathtub, teehee, also known as the Fantasti-Car, I’ll design similar subskimmer blueprints — ”

“You know I don’t sanction looking at comic books.” Skipper replaced his cover and stepped firmly into officer space. “Since we’re focusing on your current gimcrack today, you can explain your comic book knowledge at the same time you update that other issue’s progress back at New York HQ. Fair enough?”

Kowalski’s voice was calm but Skipper knew better. “As you wish.” Skipper jerked as he tried to think where he’d heard that phrase before.

“Uh, all right. I, I do appreciate your brainpower on behalf of our team.” Kowalski went back to viewing the volcanoes as the pout resurfaced. “Really.”

Kowalski’s face worked as he appeared to wrestle with something as difficult as Hulk Hogan Atomic Leg Dropping André The Giant. Oh crap, he wasn’t going to go emo, was he? Not out here in the middle of nowhere without a retreat for his commander except to jump overboard? Time for damage control.

Skipper channeled Officer’s Mentoring Manual Statute Three Sixteen: Treat Those Under You As Over You Because Without Them What Are You. He took a deep breath. “I believe in you.”

Kowalski’s feathers fluffed and he trembled as if he needed that extra bit of insulation from the cold, only this was the tropics. The only other time penguins did this was in abject agitation in the presence of something overwhelming, such as a leopard seal. Skipper could see it took an act of will to subdue the automatic reaction, whatever the hell caused it. “Th-Thanks, sir. I try.”

“You’re welcome okay let’s get with the program — hey, where’s Private?” The two birds leaned shoulder to shoulder over far enough to unbalance the boat and slosh the gunwales. They peered into the lake but the waters weren’t very clear. It was likely the towns surrounding the lake dumped effluence into it.

“It’s been fifteen point two minutes, sir. Judging by my research into our body’s capabilities and in my duly considered opinion, we need to — ”

” — move out! I’ll search portside, you take starboard!” Skipper and Kowalski dove in and began a circular search pattern automatically, spiraling like a two-pointed shuriken fifty feet apart, moving down the water column to a depth of fifty feet as they each scouted a semicircle. After their expert breath control ended eighteen minutes later, they surfaced for a gulp and then went back down. Another eighteen minutes later, they rose to catch their breath one hundred feet apart.

“It’s impossible he — not so young — ” Skipper forced himself to shout when his guts tried to crawl up into his lungs to squeeze his voice to nothing.

“Skipper, look!” Skipper spun in the water, not believing his eyes.

The two commandos heard a faint woohoo from a football field length away. The volcanoes watched mutely as a large fish bucked out of the water with a small penguin clinging to its caudal fin.

“We’re coming, Private! Hold on, kid!” Skipper bellowed as he took off, but Kowalski called him back.

“My invention can help! Come on, sir, this way!”

Faith in the scientist battled faith in his own swimming ability. Private’s need for speed won out. “Okay, okay!” Without wasting more breath, the two shot for the boat and clambered aboard.

“Go go go! We don’t know what kind of fish it is, piranha or, or dorado I’ve heard they have ferocious tempers — ”

Rather than correcting his leader’s options of fish not native to this area, Kowalski concentrated on starting the motor. “In neutral? Yes. Screw in water? Yes. Choke out? Yes. Arrow on motor grip at correct position? Yes. Go go go!” He pulled the cord taut per protocol and then gave the biggest yank he could summon.

Skipper would always remember the way the Evinrude gut punched him as it propelled him backwards.

Kowalski would always remember the shower of splinters as the enhanced outboard demolished the keel of their rental boat.

They would always share the memory of seeing Skipper’s brand new cover and Kowalski’s dixie cup cap fly off to parts unknown.

It took one second for the boat to become flotsam and two seconds for Kowalski’s legs to splay against his leader’s back in the position that his mama always said was indecorous.

The outboard and Kowalski formed a Skipper sandwich as Skipper balanced their combined weight over the powerful motor. Since any outboard was designed to push rather than support weight, the Evinrude sank its propellers until Skipper and Kowalski dragged tail and feet into the water to slow their progress.

“Asses up! Feet up!” Skipper roared. He hunched further over as his chest labored. “Ugh! Can’t breathe!”

Kowalski leaned up, wavering as he allowed an inch for his commander’s ribs to expand. For a moment, he feared overbalancing backwards which would queer the whole deal and then he righted the two of them into a stasis. With the hyperspace screws churning below the surface, the two progressed backwards towards Private’s last known position.

Kowalski spread his longer body over the one beneath his, anchoring it to the motor with his longer flipper spread. An admiring cry broke from him in spite of everything. “Starts on a dime, doesn’t it, sir?”

“Yeehaw!” Private’s voice strengthened as they drew near. “I’m havin’ fun!”

“Where away is the private?” Skipper couldn’t chance a look backward.

“Two points starboard!” Kowalski amended their trajectory after a moment. “Three points!”

Skipper slewed their joined weight to port in the dizzying way of navigation that was second nature to him. Their course corrected as water slopped up into his beak. He swallowed to rehydrate himself and then wished he hadn’t. It tasted funky.

“Where away now?”

Kowalski cranked his head around. “Skipper, they’re heading towards us!”

“Balaclava’s Brigade! We can’t hit Private! Kowalski, strip out the converter!”

“Aye!” Kowalski’s chest squashed Skipper’s head to the metal and he closed his eyes. He felt Kowalski’s tug as the budding inventor thrust his left flipper into the slot between the two hinged housings.

“Can’t! The water pressure from our momentum forces the casing tight! Skipper, help!”

It took all he had to move under Kowalski’s imprisoning weight, but he slid his flipper into the slot an inch above Kowalski’s and heaved. He broke a small bone in the appendage but would not notice it for two hours.

“Together, Kowalski! Uno dos tres!”

“Eins zwei drei!”

“One two three!”

At last the housing opened a crack. Kowalski squeezed in to jerk the Floribunda off the Dubble Bubble. At that moment, the gasoline in the tank combusted to fumes and then nothing was left. The housing pinched Kowalski’s flipper as he extracted Floribunda and he dropped his invention inside the housing as Lake Atitlán claimed the Evinrude, too. He forgot about his painstaking work sliding downwards 1,115.37 feet as he joined Skipper in recon.

“Private! Sound off!” they shouted together.

The boy appeared cheerful enough twenty feet away. “Hey, guys, have a dekko at wot I caught!”

Skipper felt gratified that Private used the drownproofing technique he had taught him, relaxing in the water with energy-saving bobbing of the head only to sneak a breath when necessary. Private likely was as tuckered as the fish after a tussle close to an hour.

The fish waggled its tail as Private grasped its top fin. It appeared exhausted.

Now that the fish floundered in their sight, it looked beautiful in bright greenish gold scales with neon blue fins. Private clung to its long sail of a dorsal fin. “Private reportin’, Skippa. I dove down to fifty whole feet under the boat and counted three hundred twelve fishes, from six inchers all the way to two feet long basseses. I tasted the water and it was sort of swampy, so I spit it out. And just as I was finishin’ my sit rep, whammo, this gorgeous beastie swam near and it was a right doddle to glom onto its fin.” He hugged its tail section. “Up and down over the waves we went, woohoo!”

Skipper couldn’t speak from relief. It took a full minute to absorb the happy ending to their day on the lake. Kowalski examined the fish without touching it.

“High forehead profile, bright colors, averaging fifty pounds, I’d say. Private, you’ve caught an oceanic bull dorado. How could it have gotten in this lake? Catch and release means release it near where an angler catches it. I don’t understand. There’s no outlet to Lake Atitlán to either the Atlantic or Pacific for it to swim up. Some human must have caught it at sea and not wanted to eat it, the more fool he or she, so it got turned loose.” He paddled nearer. “Uh oh.”

The fish waved a weak fin in Private’s embrace as its gills flapped twice. While the young penguin continued to hug the fish’s body, its colors so bright they almost glowed faded rapidly. Starting with the head, hues leached from the green, gold and blue until all was a dappled olive green. The scales dulled along with the eyes. Kowalski and Skipper exchanged glances.

Private chirped, “I’ll release it now. I’m eco-responsible, I am!” He gave it a final hug and let go.

Skipper nodded at Kowalski to explain as he dove to catch the dorado, his battle mind working at top speed. He caught the expired fish by one gill and hauled it topside.

“Private, the fish has died,” he surfaced to hear. “It’s not your fault. It would have been stressed by the fresh water sooner or later.”

Skipper found his voice. “Kiddo, I saved it for you as a souvenir. You had a grand time, didn’t you?”

There followed a silence as profound as any Skipper ever endured. Kowalski’s shoulders drooped as Private didn’t answer above a squeak.

“I didn’t mean to kill it.”

“Your penguin brothers know you didn’t, chico.”

“I didn’t. I promise.”

Dammit, that putrid taste of lake water must have affected his voice. Skipper cleared his throat after swallowing hard. Buck up, Leader Man, you can turn this around. “Come on, I’ll ask Rico to store it in his usual way and when we get back” — he expounded on an idea that had hit him underwater — “he’ll taxidermify it. You’ll be the first to hang art on our HQ wall, what do you say?”

Kowalski appeared to read more Private-speak than Skipper did this time. “You don’t need to answer right away. Wait until we reach shore and tell us what you think, okay, buddy? Your first ride-along, your first sit rep, your decision.”

Private nodded soberly. “A-All right.” He stretched out his flippers to Kowalski. “I’m tired.”

Without further words, Kowalski held Private in a grip that wasn’t quite a cuddle as he headed them both ashore. Skipper towed the fish and forty-five minutes later, Private gave his answer.

#tpomweek2018