Chat room adventures

Bella began digging through the inside compartments of the shuttle-y thing, while Alice found the trunk.

"These things have trunks?!"

"Apparently so," Alice replied. "I found a couple back pack things...they look really small though." Bella took one and began shoving the water bottles she had found into it.

"They stretch," Bella exclaimed. "And go back to normal size when you close it!!!"

"Adam must have been experimenting again...." Alice chuckled.

"Do they weigh the same after you shove something inside?" Alice asked, Bella handed her the enpty one and then one filled with water bottles, no difference, "cool, think we can get the ship into one?"

Bella looked skeptical, "why?"

"Just incase we come across a town on the oasis."

"Oh yeah good point." together they managed to squeeze the shuttle into the bag, "I think that one's full enough."

"Alright, I'll carry that one you can have the one with the water bottles and stuff thats easy on hand."

"Alright."

They started walking.

They walked....
and walked....
and walked.....

Until they found a river.

"Hey look, a river!" Bella exclaimed, pointing out the obvious.

"We should follow it," Alice commented, looking into the water.

"Which way should we follow it?"

"The way the waters flowing toward," Alice decided.

"Why?"

"I dunno. You have a better idea?" Bella shrugged.

"Besides," Alice said, "if we fall in-and you know one of us is bound to eventually," we won't lose any time, we'll just gain some."

"Good point."

They followed.
They followed some more....
They kept on following...

Alice slipped grabbed onto Bella's bag strap trying to stedy herself but just knocked them both down into the river, and unconcious.

They floated.
They floated some more...
They kept floating...

Until eventually they were found and pulled out and concious.

"When did you fall in there?" a boy who looked remarkably like Scipio asked Alice cradling her in his lap.

Bella stood up, hoping to get a better view of where they had been rescued at. She stumbled backward, into another person.

"Careful there," he said softly, holding her vertical. That voice sounded so familiar...why wasn't the name coming to mind?

"We fell in there a while back," Alice said, answering the other boys question. "I'm Alice, and that's Bella." Bella smiled up at the guy who was holding her steady.

"Where are we?" she asked, looking around curiously.

"Town or planet?" the boy holding Bella up said.

"Planet first," Alice said trying to get herself to her feet. "We're kind of VERY lost."

"Apparently," the boy holding her said and helpped her to her feet, "Arano."

"Arano?" Alice shot a glance to Bella that wasn't on Adam's star charts

We must be really far away then. Maybe why the psychik connection wasn't working.

We're screwed then.

"Where is that exactly?"

"Not twelve lightyears from Planet Smiley."

"Twelve lightyears?!" Bella and Alice exclaimed in unison.

"Yup," The boys replied, also in unison.

"B...but...that's so far away!" Bella said loudly, still in shock.

"From what?" one of the boys asked.

"Home," ALice replied, also slightly shocked.

"Home?"

"Well...Its as close to home as we've ever seen," Alice said, "its a ship with all our friends on it...We need to get back. They'll be worried about us."

"What can we do to help?" The Scipio looking boy asked.

"Do you have a ship that can do a fourm jump?"

"Forum jump?" one boy asked.

"What's that?" The other asked. Bella and Alice locked eyes, looking quite worried.

"Well, lets' start simple then. Do you have a ship?" The boy behind Bella nodded.

"Can you take it to us?" ALice asked.

"You mean us to it, Alice dear," Bella corrected, hoping the poor boys weren't too confused.

"Whatever," Alice shot back.

"Yeah we can, can't guarentee it'll work but I can show it to you." The Scipio looking boy put his arm behind her and started leading them both away.

Do you trust them? Bella's voice rang in her head.

I don't know what to make of them.

I don't trust them.

I think the only reason I have some trust for them is that mine looks like Scipio.

Did you just call him yours?

Yes I did.

...why?

Its me dear, what would you expect?

oh right.

Exactly. But lets not bolt just yet, lets wait and see if they have a ship that can get us through a form jump first.

Alright.

Bella and Alice followed the two boys to the ship.

"This is it," the one holding Bella's arm said. The other boy had reached up and pulled the tarp off of the ship. They all fell into a fit of coughs as the dust and dirt blew into their faces.

"Oh my," Alice murmured, walking toward the ship.

"It's so old," Bella commented, walking around to the front and opening the hood (yes, they have hoods).

"Can you get it to work?" one of the boys asked.

"We have two options," Bella replied, looking up at Alice. "We can remodify this one with pieces from ours, or we can modify ours with pieces from this. I think it would be easier to remodify this, but i'm not that much of an expert..." Bella let her sentence fall into silence. Alice shrugged, not knowing what to say either.

"Can we help?" the other boy offered. Bella and Alice locked eyes.

"You never told us your names," she commented, looking at them.

"I'm Jordan," the one who was closest to Bella answered. Bella's eyes widened, but she said nothing.

"And you are?" Alice asked, looking at her boy.

Adam rubbed his head, eyes shut, he sat in the captains chair of the Highwind. Annoyed and angry he wondered where Alice and Bella had gotten off to. No one had seen them which was giving Adam a very bad feeling.

"I've got something," Heather said at last. "The sensor platform at Smiley detected a small shuttle passing by. It went into the Beta sector of the Galaxy."

"What!? Are you serious. Double check those reports. Get Nate on the line at once. Crap crap crap!" Adam darted from the bridge, heading straight for his lab.

He pushed the various instruments from the cluttered table, pulled a star chart from a draw and unfolding it. The Alpha sector was well mapped with various asteroids and other spacial vents, then there was the Delta sector, void of any marks, Gamma the same, and then there was the Beta sector. Clearly marked by the red line around its boundary.

"Why weren't they stopped. How did they get past the border at all."

The comm flashed, signaling an incoming message, "What is it Adam?" Nate had responed faster than expected.

"A shuttle has gotten past the border into the Beta Sector. We need to mount a rescue at once. You know how bad this is. We need at least five ships."

"Right, I'll have them meet you at Planet Smiley."

"Roger." the comm went silent. Time for yet another rescue mission.

"I've double and tripple checked the reports Adam and I have confirmation from those over seeing the boundary."

"And what did they say?" Adam asked, directing the ship towards planet Smiley.

"That the shuttle displayed the proper authorization codes but it wasn't a standard shuttle and they'd just started running checks when I requested the report."

"See if they can get us an image or a description of the ship," Adam instructed.

"I'm on it."

"Matt, go see which shuttle they took. Rick, put the ship's defences on maximum and everybody start preparing weapons," Adam commanded.

"I'm Mitch," he said, "pleased to meet ya."

Alice reached out and grabbed his hand as he extended it to her, she knew better than to trust anyone outside her little "clique" too easily, but there wasn't anything all that trusting about a handshake.

Right?

Right.

"So where'd you guys come from anyways?"

"A ship close to the YWS outpost," Bella said vaguely, "we just kinda vanished and ended uphere."

Do we trust them Bells?

Not as far as we can throw them.

Which is how far?

Think about it Alice.

Um...not far then?

No where really.

No trust at all?

At all.

Okay as long as we have it straight.

"What were you guys doing?" Mitch asked, Alice didn't like the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice as he asked that. She shied away internally, fighting to stay in position externally.

"Doing some research," she said, "what else would we be doing?"

The two guys looked at each other, and Bella had the funny idea that they didn't know much about YWS...or they knew more than they wanted to say.

"So, shall we get started on the ships?" Alice suggested, breaking the oddly thick silence. Bella nodded in agreement. Together the two girls managed to pull the new shuttle out of the stretchy bag.

"What now?"