Spaced Out is a Children's Science Fiction Mystery novel by Stuart Gibbs. It is the second book in the Moon Base Alpha series, and thus the sequel to Space Case.
Life goes on in Moon Base Alpha following Dr. Holtz's death. The major difference is that Dashiell now finds himself telepathically communicating with an alien named Zan Parfonic, who appears to him as an olive-skinned woman with very strange blue eyes. They hope to one day have the people of Earth and the people of Zan's planet establish First Contact, but for now they must keep it secret.
This secret gets Dash targeted by Patton and Lily Sjoberg one night, however, who think he was talking to Rodrigo "Roddy" Marquez. They chase him into the communal bathroom, where Dash defends himself with the urine vacuum. It does, however, get him some time with commander Nina in her office.
Then Nina is reported missing the next day.
There's no sign she left, as her spacesuit is still in its place, and everyone has combed every inch of the base with no sign of her. Having solved a mystery already, Dash finds he's thrust into another one. He'll have to be quick, though, as Zan senses that Nina doesn't have much time.
The book was published on April the 5th, 2016.
Spaced Out contains examples of:
- Almost Out of Oxygen: While looking for Nina after the space junk shower, Dash finds his oxygen levels are dropping at an alarming rate. He barely makes it back to Moon Base Alpha before they drop to zero.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Patton Sjoberg pees his pants when he sees the giant snake monster that bursts out of the floor of the base, which was actually an illusion Zan cooked up to save Dash from getting beat up by Patton.
- Broken Faceplate: When Dash sees Lily's space helmet on the floor of the old Moon Base Alpha Operations pod, he sees a long cracked zig-zagged across the visor.
- Chase Scene: With his mother's blessing, Patton chases Dash with the intent to beat him up as revenge for what happened with the urinator. Luckily, Zan comes to Dash's rescue.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Spoiled bully Lily Sjoberg is concerned for her brother when Dash sticks his face to a suction device during a fight and stops to make sure her brother is O.K. rather than chase Dash afterward.
- Flowery Elizabethan English: Dash and Roddy hear this in a VR Romeo and Juliet game, when Juliet starts making her balcony speech to Romeo. Roddy doesn't understand a word she says.
- In-Universe Factoid Failure: Roddy thinks William Shakespeare was a video game designer, even insisting upon it when Dash corrects him that Shakespeare was just a play writer. Video Games Roddy lists Shakespeare as making include "Macbeth's Battle For Scotland", "Revenge of Hamlet", and "Shrew-Tamer".
- Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: In-Universe example. When Dash shows Zan a Star Wars movie, she starts laughing at how absurd the designs for all the alien characters are. Dash assumes he made a mistake in showing her the movies, but she clarifies she's really enjoying them.
- Not Now, Kiddo: During the first half of the book, people ignore Dash's sister Violet's repeated suggestion about where Nina disappeared to. When they finally tell her why they think she's wrong, it becomes clear that Violet is right, and they got confused by Ambiguous Syntax. Specifically, she said maybe Nina left without taking her spacesuit (which is still in its locker). Rather than suggesting Nina is able to breathe in the vacuum, Violet means maybe she didn't take her suit, but borrowed someone else's.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Dr. Goldstein. She set up a fake account to have Nina smuggle moon rocks to Earth so she could rat her out and get her kicked off the base. She never intended for Nina to almost die from oxygen deprivation.
- There's also Cesar Marquez and the Sjoberg siblings. They decided to play football one night and used the space helmets as football helmets, leaving them slightly damaged, which caused them to crack on the moon's surface and endanger the lives of everyone using them, Nina included.
- Weapons That Suck: While it's not a weapon Dash defends himself from being attacked by Patton Sjoberg by sticking the Urinator to his face. For context's sake, the Urinator is a vacuum-powered part of Moon Base Alpha's toilets used to collect urine so the water can be recycled out of it for reuse.
