We decide to go on what is commonly termed a "Joy Ride" in the cruiser of the space pirates we just captured, on the way to deliver them to the police of their home planet.
Amanda, Laila, Becca and I skip into Dollar Tree and stock up on chocolate, Martinelli's cider, sandwiches, and live ducks (for company). We pack Amanda's concertina, Laila's pennywhistle, and mum's violin, and once the prisoners are tied snugly in traditional rope and placed down in the hold, we set off on our journey.
Growing bored-- it is taking longer than we expected to reach the next populated galaxy-- I start sticking little star and moon glow-in-the-dark stickers to the viewing screen, mimicking the few constellations I know from Earth's night sky. Amanda is painting on the navigation console, a few drops spilling to the carpet and circling the station with colour. Becca is reading in the greenhouse. Laila's in the captain's chair, bare feet on the desk, wheedling out a seafaring tune with her pennywhistle. It's been a few days, but the peace of the voyage is nice.
As I am pondering this new peace, a star whale looms up behind Orion on the viewscreen, and bumps into the ship.
Everything and everyone is sent sprawling like those few dedicated actors who hurl themselves across the set in Star Trek, and when it all settles, we realize that the compartment in which the ducks were staying has completely separated from the ship.
Fortunately, we are all superheroes. We know how to handle this rescuing biz.
Laila and I suit up, while Amanda monitors the exit shafts from the control room, and Becca goes to check on the prisoners. We are shunted out, propelled after the fleeing duck compartment, which has miraculously sustained no damage from being so forcefully ejected. We catch it, attaching cables to draw it back in to the ship, and Amanda starts reeling it in. But then the cables stop, and to our horror, are discharged from the ship-- and the ship itself begins to pulse away from us in the deep emptiness of space...
"What's going on?!" I shout to Amanda over the tiny mic in my space suit.
"Uhhh....technical difficulties," she replies somewhat tersely. "Just who exactly tied the ropes on prisoner number three?"
"OH..." I reply, cheeks reddening. "Sorry about that..."
So, while Laila and I fiddle around and make faces at the ducks through the porthole to calm them down about the whole situation, Amanda re-subdues the burliest four-armed Hydrothican of the pirate group. Thankfully, we have our own piratical experience, and since it's well known that Earth pirates are the best there have ever been at swordsmanship, and Amanda keeps hers at her side at all times, the prisoner eventually re-surrenders, and peace is restored. By this time, however, all the commotion has shaken the fizz out of the Martinelli's.
Sigh...and we were going to have such a great intergalactic picnic/tour in this stolen spaceship...
We drop off the prisoners, spend a day on Hydrothica, and return home via a rather shorter trip in the speed-cruiser of a Hydrothican policewoman.
We take Amanda's car up to Multnomah Falls instead, free the ducks, and watch the sunset while eating the last of the chocolate. Who knew such sparse rations could last five days?
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