Space Dumplins
Space Dumplins by Craig Thompson
Violet puts all of her sixty pounds behind the controls of her dad's space tug. She’s doing loops and tricks, a natural her father says, when something starts beeping loudly. It’s nothing Violet has done, it’s Mr. Tinder from dispatch. There has been a feeding, which is great because that means lumber for her dad's business, unfortunately the thing that was eaten was Violet’s school. “Unfortunately” is subjective, Violet is not upset at all.
While Violet has the zoomies, her mom, Cera, and dad, Gar, are trying to be practical and figure out what the heck they’re going to do with no school. They need the money from their jobs, but taking a kid isn't really practical. In the end, Violet goes with Cera, her job doesn’t involve lightning strikes and whales attacking.
To occupy herself at the fashion factory, Violet is drawing, her stick figure attempts are labeled “amateurish” by Adam, Cera’s boss. He’s come to give Cera a work permit to his official studio at the space station. He doesn’t want his most promising designer getting eaten by whales. After some negotiation, Violet is allowed to accompany her mom. Meanwhile, Gar is hauling what is left of Violet’s school to the mill. He’s not overly happy about Cera’s promotion, he doesn’t like the idea of her surrounded by the pretentious people at the station, but they can’t turn down the money.
The transport to the station is very fancy and has snacks, and soon Cera and Violet are at SHELL•TAR The Ultimate in Astral Comfort and Security. It’s clean, it’s colorful, it’s bright and spacious. Adam greets them and shows them to his studio in his fancy transport. On the way, Cera asks if it’s possible to enroll Violet in the school here. Adam is unimpressed with “the offspring” but doesn't say no.
As Cera works, Violet explores the studio and the vast clothes storage. Inside she finds a chicken boy, Elliot Marcel Opgenorth, and he’s writing in a book made of actual paper. He’s filling it with his dreams and hopes for the future!! Adam and Cera interrupt his dramatics, Elliot is the button runner. That evening Gar brings home a taxidermy alien head, he fought them the previous day when they still had a body. Anyway, Violet mentions attending the station school, and though convenient given Cera works there, Gar doesn’t want his daughter going to school with the “prissy elitists” but the other options they explore are all hard nos, so the station school it is.
After Cera puts Violet's application in the fancy station school, they arrive at the studio. Violet goes to find Elliot in the closet and learns he’s no free range chicken as he doesn’t care for adventures. A little while later Cera finds out Violet wasn’t accepted to the station school. Gar thinks it’s just as well, but Violet is lonely and even a call with her friend doesn’t help because it turns out they’re a judgy jerk. Gar takes Violet to the scrapyard to cheer her up and see Radcliffe the big fluffy yellow alien with two talking eyeballs with two very different personalities. Together, Violet and Radcliffe go and see Zacchaeus, a potato looking alien. He’s currently on demolition duty aka breaking stuff! Zacchaeus nearly smashes a space trike until Violet stops him, instantly falls in love with it, and begs her dad to get it. Gar does, on the pretense that Violet can learn mechanics as they rebuild it so Cera won’t see it as a total waste of money but a sound investment. Cera does in fact believe it’s a total waste of money.
Gar is on a job that lasts a few days when their trailer is attacked by Jirglebytes which Cera and Violet thankfully fight off with a nitro-load. Cera finds out Gar has his own bigger problems when she calls but the line is lost. Cera and Violet continue on going to the station, Cera working, Violet bothering Elliot who is watching the news. The worst environmental disaster is being reported: whale diarrhea that is destroying homes across the asteroid with eighty percent being covered by it. It’s a genuine tragedy displacing so many people, and yes, destroying Adam’s summer line in the fashion factory. The tidal wave of tragedy is heading toward the space stations.
Violet runs off to find her mom who is trying to find Gar via the missing persons registry. The HR department of Gar’s employer claims no knowledge of him, and the military at the station won’t help day laborers. Cera refuses to listen to Violet despite her shouting about whale poo nor does she see her daughter run off in frustration at being ignored. Now Cera is being escorted off the space station as she’s passed her work permit time allowance for the day. Violet meanwhile has stolen a transport, gone back to the Studio, promised Adam the scrapyard has unsoiled cloth for his fashion and is now on her way to the scrapyard with a very reluctant Elliot and his Chaperdrone robot in a space ship shaped like a hamburger.
Soon Violet, Elliot and the Chaperdrone arrive at the scrapyard. Radcliffe attacks the Chaperdrone as its disciplining Zacchaeus for his “prohibited language.” He said “what the fudge” then called it “devil contraptionary.” This is after Violet used “poo,” “turds,” and “this sucks.” The plan, now the Chaperdrone is out of the way, Elliot can find the last piece they need to fix the space trike. Zacchaeus will hotwire the burger and then they can go and find Violet’s dad. While Elliot and Zacchaeus bicker, Violet finds the piece and they’re off.
Violet’s home is cold and empty and it looks like the Jirglebytes have been back and eaten all the snacks. Zacchaeus is impressed with the space trike’s restoration and upgrades including its cool antlers to ward off bad guys. Suddenly it’s all too much for Elliot and he has an existential panic attack. Violet puts him in bed and offers to take him back to the station though they’re all tired and need sleep. Tomorrow they will drop Elliot off then save Violet’s dad.
Cera has spent the night in a transport circling the space station and assumed Violet was locked down on the station. Obviously she’s wrong and rages at Adam when he tells her he let Violet leave with Elliot to get fabric. Meanwhile, Elliot has woken from his nightmare / weird vision and tells Violet about it while they board the space trike and fly to Shell-tarr station. It’s the story of Jonah and the whale. At the end, Elliot tells Violet and Zacchaeus he wants to go with them on the mission.
Back at Shell-tarr station, Cera is having no luck trying to track down Violet and Adam is reluctantly helping. Unfortunately because Cera is just a day laborer, she meets roadblock after roadblock, even so far as her permit being revoked. In the space trike, the intrepid gang are making a list of essentials: oxygen, fuel, candy and chips, blank journals and dental floss, and possibly helmets and weapons, when they come across the poo-covered asteroids. It’s gross. And very green. They land and try to gather their essentials but the place has been looted so they have to make do with some things and be unconventional with others.
In her desperation to get any help, Cera contacts Mr. Tinder. When she tells him Gar is missing while on a contract and Violet ran away to find her dad, Tinder spits his drink out and says he will round up the ol’ gang and help Violet. Back at the trike, another, much taller, member of Zacchaeus’s species and his brother, Zucchinus, is looting the space trike and he brought a full team of short, blue, hairy, sharp toothed, football helmet wearing goons. When Violet returns with her red kart full of goodies, Zacchaeus is in a full blown brawl. Zucchinus creeps on Violet, is massively inappropriate and disgusting but Violet has barrels of whale poo (the fuel) and kicks it over Zucchinus and his goons. Then they get in a nunchuck (Zucchinus) and dental floss (Violet) fight. Of course Violet triumphs with her cinnamon flavored string and they’re back on their rescue mission.
Tinder and the ol’ gang reminisce about their days raising hell across the galaxy in their glory days as Buttlestar Pain-tallica. They may not have their trikes anymore, but they have a sweet tackle shack they can fly off in. Back in an actual space trike, Violet finds out they don’t have enough fuel to reach the sawmill unless they can refuel with the raw whale poo. To add to the stress of the situation, Elliot pecks away at Zacchaeus and his relationship to the creep Zucchinus. Zacchaeus needs some space to wallow in misery after he makes the necessary adjustments to the space trike for the raw poo. After a restorative hug, they reach the sawmill.
The sawmill is HUGE but they manage to find the Boss Man’s office. Violet confronts the Boss Man and he spouts some corporate rubbish before kicking them off the sawmill. Violet, Elliot and Zacchaeus are able to escape the Boss Man’s goons and hide in a bunyan. It’s chaotic but they manage to get the bunyan to go... sort of. They only lose one arm of the hydronic walker to its own saw blade. More by good luck than good management, they manage to escape the goons and get to where the space trike should be, but someone has stolen it!
Just as Violet, Elliot and Zacchaeus are crying in a heap and being attacked by goons, Tinder appears and beats the snot out of their attackers before throwing the three into the shack. Violet asks if they will help find her dad, but Tinder refuses to help find Gar, they are on strict offspring location and delivery duty. When Tinder contacts Shell-tar to report they have Violet, Cera is disposed, no INdisposed at the moment. Not sketchy at all. Tinder leaves a message and they start on their long route around the whale diarrhea to the station.
On the way, Tinder admits he knows what the super secret mission Gar was on - to kidnap a baby whale. Elliot thinks his father, who essentially abandoned him to perform science, was involved in the whale digestive research program which is related to energy renewal and would need a baby whale. Using the high tech Fish Finder machine, they locate a single whale - a dangerous loner or was Gar successful as Boss Man said? They’ll find out soon because it’s just outside the window, and it looks like it has a tummy ache.
Gwumpky screams that it’s a full grown mother and Gerome points out it’s the source of all the diarrhea. Violet realizes her dad must be inside the whale, he went missing then the whale got sick. She grabs the CB radio and is able to make contact. While Gar tells them to get away, Gwumpky readies the shack to act as bait. Gar’s tug isn’t going to hold and as it gets really frantic with acid leaks, heartfelt messages, a tsunami of poo, a thrashing giant space whale tail, and screams of DADDDDY! They lose signal with Gar and end up crashing into a giant garbage pile.
After all that, the hits keep coming. The radio isn’t working, they’re out of fuel, covered in whale poo, Elliot is winding up Zacchaeus, and Gwumpky has eaten all the food. Then everyone but Zacchaeus passes out, he realizes they’re running out of oxygen so he puts on a space mask to breathe. Zacchaeus is hugely resourceful and uses loads of spare parts to build a lure to hook a sanitation ship to drag the shack out of the whale poo and crash down onto the sanitation ship's hull. Zacchaeus then screams at everyone to wake up. They all put on masks as the shack is falling apart around them and deep space is notorious for not having breathable air. Together they go into the sanitation ship which is unfortunately crewed by Zucchinus and his little blue furry goons.
Tinder and the ol’ gang start fighting immediately, Violet and her crew sneak away, they’ve spotted their space trike outside and just need to go down the correct chute to get to it. Zacchaeus and Elliot argue about the correct chute, Violet picks the actual one that leads to the trike and tells them she wants to free the baby whale from the laboratory and reunite the whale pod. She needs one family to be reunited and made whole! Zacchaeus is not for this plan, the space whales ate his entire species but he and his brother and Elliot have unresolved abandonment issues. Violet is persuasive though and they agree to help. Disengaging the head of the space trike from the back unit because it’s locked to the sanitation ship, the three friends fly off to save the whale baby.
After passing through a massive garbage field, this is the Muky Way after all, they nearly hit a pod of massive space whales. The whales aren’t interested in them; they're eating through the trash trying to get to the lonely baby at Lab Star. It’s now a race against the whales as they’ll eat the laboratory and kill everyone inside. Meanwhile, back on Shell-tar station, Adam is watching the news. Diarrhea clean up efforts are underway, day laborers are being held in detention and will soon be let out to the refugee camps. Something comes over Adam and he races to the detention bulbs and demands Cera be released.
Violet, Elliot and Zacchaeus finally reach Lab Star. It is a giant red lobster-shaped space ship. As Zacchaeus eloquently put it, “that has to be the stupidest gimmick name EVER.” The lab is loaded with weapons and laser gun wielding sentry robots but they make it inside in one piece. They exit the space trike and it’s a race to reach Elliot’s father, who doesn’t recognize nor have any interest in his son. He is in fact a large rooster jerk. It gets worse, they have the baby whale, it’s sedated and cut open, you can literally see all of its insides.
Elliot’s father, who shall be henceforth referred to as Dr. Jerk-Chicken, is taking samples of the space whale’s potent digestive fluids. This is only the start of the Bad Guy™ monologue because the whale pod is nearly upon them and they need to sound the alarm and defense systems and Dr. Jerk-chicken needs Violet, Elliot and Zacchaeus restrained before continuing his Bad Guy™ monologue. Here is the short, very poo-oriented version. Space whales eat places and people, this creates poo fuel but outer space people and space stations are forced to flee from space whales with the munchies using the same poo fuel. By creating artificial fuel and killing all the space whales, outer space people will stay in one place and be poor, subservient, and at the peck beck and call of those in the space stations.
The whale pod attacks the station, the evacuation is sounded with Dr. Jerk-Chicken fleeing and leaving the children behind. Elliot has one of his seizures/visions, hitherto mostly ignored in the summary as they don’t really add anything to the narrative, but this time it helps free Elliot and his friends from the literal clutches of the sentry bots. His vision tells him “you will disown me three times.” Free of the vision, the three friends need to get to business and free the baby whale, meanwhile the pod is eating Lab Star.
Violet uses a stitch tractor to close up the baby whale's gaping incision while Elliot moves the clamps, extractors and whatever else the mad scientists were poking and prodding the baby whale with out of the way and then uses a giant defibrillator to shock the poor creature to life. Meanwhile, Zacchaeus has made it back to the space trike and flies it to his friends. He makes it just in time as the space whales have munched through the lab and are reuniting with the now stitched-closed and awake baby whale. Once in space, the friends head through the convenient hole made by the space whales through the garbage pile. The space whales follow as it leads to the baby space whale's mom. She’s still in pain but happy to see her baby. All the space whales’ attention turns to the three friends. Yikes.
#86C6E5The mother space whale’s stomach gurgles so loudly they mistake it for a growl at first. Then there is a huge belch and the mother space whale belches out Violet’s father in his extremely beat up tug. Thankfully Gar is in a lumberjack bunyan suit which he uses to explode out of the wreckage and grabs on to the trike. “It’s a miracle of regurgitation.” While Gar dangles from the trike and the three friends huddle inside, the fuel alarm goes off… and Elliot needs to use the bathroom… and they get sucked up by a sanitation ship with very familiar looking plunderage.
The sanitation ship is being operated by Tinder and the ol’ gang AND Zucchinus and the little blue aliens. They stopped fighting when they got tired and made friends. They ran into Cera and Adam who left Shell-tar on the first transport. Adam has found his new muse/model in Zucchinus because he’s so elongated, androgynous, and otherworldly. Violet asks her dad if Elliot and Zacchaeus can come live with them, they being orphans, and he agrees. With that happy ending they go home to watch cartoons.
Not so fast, there is an epilogue! Violet, Elliott and Zacchaeus have been enrolled in school. Yay! The home is now a bundle of chaos though and they miss the space school bus. Boo! Gar drops them off on his way to work. Gar doesn’t work for a big corporation anymore, he’s gone into business with Tinder and his friends. They’re still lumberjacks, but they’re honest hardworking ones who surf giant space whale logs of poo.
