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Danville, We Have a Problem	By : GeorgeGlass Category: +M through R > Phineas and Ferb Views: 17199 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I received no payment for writing this story. Also, I do not own Phineas and Ferb or its characters. Perhaps that's best, for the kids' sake.

Chapter List
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- 4
- 5
Chapter 4: Desperate Measures
Katie and Milly ignored Irving and spent the next several minutes on their hands and knees, pawing through the collection of parts.
"Maybe we could build something simpler," Katie said anxiously. "Something that won't take as long."
"We don't have time to design a brand-new spacecraft and then build it," Milly replied.
"Well, what about...um..." Katie said, then looked desperately at Milly. "I've got nothing."
"Me neither," Milly said, pulling at her curly brown hair. "If we just had more time!"
"What if you had some help?" said a female teenage voice. Katie and Milly looked up to see Candace, flanked by Stacy and Jeremy.
"Correction," said Irving's older brother Albert in his usual superior tone as he came through the back gate. "What if you had LOTS of help?"
Behind Albert, kids flooded through the gate. There must have been at least a hundred of them.
"Phineas and Ferb made this the best summer ever," said a husky blonde boy near the front of the group. "We're not gonna let 'em get burned up in outer space!"
"Yeah!" "Darn right!" "You said it bro!" the crowd behind him clamored.
"Just tell us what to do!" shouted a girl in a blue dress.
"I'll be darned," said Irving. "SPF actually worked!"
"What the heck is SPF?" Katie demanded.
"It's a program I wrote that texts and emails every kid in Danville in case of an emergency."
"But what does SPF stand for?" Milly asked.
The entire crowd answered, "SAVE PHINEAS AND FERB!"
Candace looked at Irving. "Not bad, kid. Let's build a space shuttle."
***
With the help of Holly and Django, Isabella was trying to patch up one of the space suits. Holly and Django cut pieces of the other suit to fit each hole that Isabella identified, and she was gluing the patches on. Ferb, whose suit they were trying to fix, was wearing it to fill it out. With the helmet on, he couldn't hear much of anything, so he was excluded from the conversation the other three were having—not that he would have had much to contribute, anyway. Gretchen was with Adyson over by the damaged portion of the hull; from a spare Mylar bag of sparkling cider, they squeezed a few drops at a time into the air to search for any holes they might have missed.
"Give me a circular piece, about three inches wide," said Isabella, eying a particularly large hole in the suit.
"Got it," Django replied.
“Why does it always take so much longer to fix something than to build it from scratch?” Holly asked.
“One of the great mysteries of life with Phineas,” Isabella answered. “And Ferb,” she added, glancing at the green-haired boy in the spacesuit.
Then, knowing that Ferb couldn’t hear, Isabella said, “Can I ask you guys something?”
“Sure,” said Holly.
"What do you do when the other person does something that bothers you?"
"What, like slurping loudly whenever they drink a soda?" Django said. He turned to Holly and quickly added, "Not that you do that."
"It's okay, I know I do it," Holly said with a sigh as she pointed at her mouth. "It's this stupid gap between my front teeth. I'm probably the only one here who's looking forward to getting braces. You know, if we live."
"Ohhhhh," said Django. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you couldn't help it."
"No biggie."
"Huh," said Isabella. "I think I get where I went wrong. I should have let Phineas explain why he was doing what he was doing, instead of just blowing up at him. Oh, and give me a rectangular piece, about two inches by one.”
"On it," said Holly.
***
Three hours after their horde of helpers started work, Irving, Candace, and the others found themselves staring up at their fully finished space shuttle. Attached to its two solid rocket boosters and its big main booster tank, the shuttle looked huge.
“Great job, everybody!” Irving shouted. “Let’s all move back now so we can light this candle!” The crowd, as one, backed away to a safe distance.
“All right,” said Katie as she started to climb the ladder up to the cockpit door. “All aboard who’s going aboard.” Milly followed close behind Katie.
Candace turned to Jeremy and Stacy. “Thank you guys for everything. I’ve got to go save my annoying brothers now.”
“Um, helloooo?” said Stacy. “My sister is up there, too. I’m coming along.”
“Me too,” said Jeremy. “My aunt Hazel is a pilot, and she taught me some navigation. Maybe I can help.”
Candace blinked back a tear. “Then let’s do this.”
She climbed the ladder and entered the cockpit hatch. Katie was in the pilot’s seat.
“Okay, shove over,” Candace said as she climbed into the cockpit and put on a headset. “If we’re going up there to rescue my brothers, then I’m doing the flying.”
“Candace,” said Katie, grudgingly moving out of the way, “do you even know what you’re do-“
“Irving!” Candace barked into her mic as she sat down and looked at a screen in front of her. “I’ve got green lights on all electrical systems. Fuel pressure is nominal. Batteries and oxygen are at full. Pitch angle is one-seven-nine. In-flight meal is vegetable lasagna and- oooh, freeze-dried ice cream. I need go or no-go for launch!”
“Hold on,” said Milly. “You actually DO know what you’re doing?”
“I’ve spent a lot of this summer in cockpits,” Candace replied. “I was bound to start picking this stuff up sooner or later.”
“Candace, you are good to go!” Irving shouted through the radio. Candace watched him retreat behind the house as he began to recite, “Ignition in ten, nine, eight-“
Candace flipped up the cover over the big red ignition button and mashed the button down. The engines began to roar.
“Or now!” Irving shouted over the noise. “Now’s good!”
***
The five members of the shuttle crew gasped for breath as the G forces of takeoff squashed them into their seat backs. For two full minutes, the roar of the engines filled their ears as they took sipping breaths. Then the shuttle shuddered, and Jeremy looked at his screen.
"Solid rocket boosters are away!" he shouted as the two SRBs detached from the sides of the main booster tank and fell back toward Earth.
***
Somewhere in the rural portion of the Tri-State Area, a tall woman was standing in a wheat field and shouting at her rather shorter husband.
"I can't believe you bought a wheat farm that doesn't have any place to store the wheat!" she groused. "What did you think, a couple of grain silos were just going to fall out of the sky?"
Suddenly, the two SRBs landed at the edge of the field, neatly planting themselves tailfins-first in the ground.
"Yes, yes I did," said the husband.
"Fair enough," the wife sighed.
***
Irving and the other kids looked up at the trail of smoke left behind by their creation as it blasted into the sky.
“Best of luck, you guys,” he murmured to himself. “Bring Phineas and Ferb home safe and sound.”
“And Isabella and the others, too,” said the girl in the blue dress said absently, standing next to Irving and gazing upward. “Phineas and Isabella only just got together—I’d hate to have counted up all those hugs and handholds for nothing.”
Irving gasped. “You! You’re P&I4eva!”
The girl went wide-eyed, not having intended to give herself away. “What!? No, I’m- okay, yes,” she confessed, hanging her head.
Irving, feeling an uncharacteristic rush of courage, cupped her chin in his hand and brought her face up to his.
“That’s awesome,” he said earnestly. “Would you like to see my Phineas and Ferb scrapbook? I’ve got pictures of all their adventures, and I’m sure there are some good Phineas-and-Isabella pics in there.”
“Oh, yes,” the girl said, entranced. Then she grabbed Irving and kissed him long and hard.
“Yeeeeaaaah,” said Albert uncomfortably. “I’m going home now.”
***
Seven minutes after the SRB separation, the main external tank burned up the last of its fuel and separated from the shuttle. The main engines fired for a couple minutes longer, then cut off. Now the shuttle was in orbit, moving silently toward its destination.
“So here’s the plan,” said Milly from her second-row seat between Katie and Stacy. “We don’t know what’s wrong with their ship, but from what Irving said about the size of their rocket, it should be able to fit in our cargo bay. So when we get to it, we’ll just grab it with our robot arm, bring it into the shuttle, and take it back to Earth.”
"Sounds good," Jeremy said, glancing at the navigation info on his right-hand screen. "Looks like we've got fifty-seven minutes until we rendezvous with them."
"Fifty-seven minutes?!" Candace cried. "What the heck are we supposed to do for fifty-seven minutes? I can't just sit here for-"
"Candace, it's okay," said Jeremy. "Let's take a break and go back to the cargo area for a bit. I think I, um, might know a way to...take your mind off things."
"Fine," Candace grumbled.
"Stacy," Jeremy said, turning to look back at her, "you mind taking over the pilot's seat for a while? All you really need to do is keep it on autopilot and shout out if anything goes wrong."
"Sure, whatever," said Stacy, clearly not excited about being left in the cockpit with only two of her little sister's friends for company.
Jeremy and Candace unbuckled themselves, floated over Stacy's head, and passed through a hatch at the back of the cockpit.
Stacy moved up into the pilot’s seat, then addressed the two Fireside Girls sitting behind her.
"So," she said awkwardly, "is this your first time in spa-"
"Oh, sorry, Stacy," said Katie, "I just remembered that Milly and I need to go to the cargo bay to, ah, check the controls for the robot arm."
"Oh, yeah, right!" said Milly, unbuckling herself. "Gotta make sure they, um, didn't get miscalibrated during launch. We'll be back in a while."
As the two girls floated out through the hatch, Stacy saw them take each other's hands.
"Great," she said to no one as she moved forward into the pilot's chair, "I've been promoted from third wheel to fifth wheel."
She glanced over at Jeremy's left-hand screen, on which the cargo manifest was open, showing the location of every item on the ship. Noting one item in particular, Stacy opened a locker to her left. Inside was a neat stack of Mylar-wrapped packages, each a little smaller than Stacy's hand.
"Helloooo, freeze-dried ice cream," she said.
END CHAPTER 4
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Danville, We Have a Problem