Challenge 2, written
by Lunasparkle
 
Getting to the mountain summit on this harsh planet was a
challenge and completely exhausting. After gathering a few potatoes along the
way and then building a rudimentary campfire, using my small knife to create a
spark with a flint rock I found to ignite the brush and dead fall branches, I
create a satisfactory spit using branches and spear the potatoes and rotate
them above the fire.
 
After Wendla and I eat to regain our strength, we decide
that we must create some sort of shelter. Unfortunately, supplies are limited.
I suggest digging out a hole bug enough for the two of us to sleep side by side
for warmth. We will need to sharpen several long tree branches and sharpen
their edges to points and surround our dug out hole in a great big circle of
angled spikes and torches around us, we drop the pillow and supplies down in
the hole and we use the flag to cover the hole up like a cloth roof. We secure
the flag down with heavy rocks, leaving one small area open, just big enough to
crawl down into the hole. Once we get in there, it’s cramped, but we share the
pillow and finally fall asleep, despite the tight quarters, out of sheer
exhaustion.
 
During the night while we were sleeping, the Zenirix egg we
brought with us, incubates between us due to the warmth of being between our
two warm bodies, and just before we wake the next morning, a new life comes
into the world in the form of a hyperactive little baby zenirix. We will end up
naming him “Lucky” because let’s face it, we are going to need all the luck we can
get!!
 
Challenge 3, Part 1,
written by Lunasparkle
 
The next morning when Wendla and I woke, things started off
with a metaphorical bang! First we were alarmed that some kind of animal was
yipping and moving around between us which caused our eyes to spring open
suddenly as we didn't know what it was at first. Once we jumped back into our
skins we realized that our zenerix egg must have hatched in the night, and we
were now the proud parents (so to speak) of a cute, hyper, and somewhat noisy
baby. After taking turns holding it in our arms and staring into the cute
little face we finally decided to call him "Lucky," as we could
really use a good luck charm after the craziness of the past few days. 
 
We climbed out of our shelter and started scanning the area
for any sign of something we might eat for breakfast, when suddenly we heard
voices. The good news was the voices were familiar. We were certain when we saw
two figures in the distance heading our way. When we left our home world to go
on our exploratory science mission, there were two space crafts. We thought
that only one of the crafts had crash-landed, but we were wrong. Just when
Wendla and I thought we would never see another familiar face again, we saw
two! Trent and Sondra, our missions' top biological scientists. Of course, we
were very happy to see them; Wendla maybe a bit more cause she took off running
at a clip toward them, tripped on a rock and slammed her face pretty darn hard
right into a boulder. The crack we heard when it happened was enough to make
your stomach turn, so I was pretty glad I hadn't had breakfast yet. I was a bit
stunned but Trent had the presence of mind to stay calm, go over to her and
check it out.
Sondra and I stood by waiting for Trent's evaluation.
Finally he said, "Yep, it's broken," and he sent me to go find some
clean-ish cloth to help stop the bleeding.
 
I ran to the shelter, pulled the pillowcase off of the
pillow as it was the only thing I could think of under this kind of pressure. I
ran back and Trent instructed me to cut the fabric into some small strips. I
got out the small knife and did just that. Then he told me and Sondra to each
hold Wendla steady because he was going to have to reset the bone and it was
going to hurt, A LOT. We both held Wendla in place on each side and then Trent
snapped her nose back into place. I have heard many disturbing sounds in my
life but this was probably the worst sound I have ever heard and I swear, I was
that close to just fainting on the spot. Then Trent put some very small wads of
the torn pillow case up her nose to stop the bleeding. Geez, what a way to
start the day!!! We had Wendla go lay down for a bit, with her head propped up
by the pillow, to rest until the bleeding completely stopped.
 
Challenge 3, Part 2,
written by Lunasparkle
 
After our little "medical emergency," we had quite
a bit of nervous energy. No doubt due to an adrenaline rush. Trent was sitting
on the offensive boulder from earlier, tapping his foot like crazy. Finally he
said, "I've got to do something productive for a while; anyone want to
come exploring with me?" I volunteered to go and suggested we could
observe the wild life and collect plant and soil specimens. I asked Sondra if
she would mind staying behind and keeping an eye on Wendla. She was all for
that and said she would try to make us all some sort of dinner while we were
away.
Trent and I decided to head east as that seemed to have the
most obvious plant life and tree cover. I brought an apple, the only food
salvaged from the wreck of the ship I was on, just in case someone developed a
low blood sugar episode.
After about a half hour or so we came to a meadow with some
low-laying, weather-eroded hills on one side. Over near one of the smaller
hills we saw something interesting in the form of what looked similar to the
Paors we have on our own home planet. When it saw us, it quickly scurried into
a rather large burrow.
We headed over that way to investigate. Trent said,
"Hey, let me see that apple."
I handed it to him and he went to the opening of the burrow
and started talking in a soothing voice, saying, "I've got this delicious
juicy red apple for you," while he held it out in offering. The mutated
paor peeked out ever so slightly and tilted its head to one side, as if not
quite sure it could trust us. Trent took a bite of the apple to show it was ok
and then put his arm out again, offering the apple. I guess the mutant paor
thought it was alright if Trent could eat it without anything terrible
happening, so it came over and started eating the juicy red apple right out of
his hand.
After a while we decided we better start heading back to
camp, as we had spent more time than we meant to being charmed by our new
friend. As we started walking off, the mutant paor started following us. We
tried to get the message across that it should probably stay but it just
wouldn't listen. So, on our journey back to camp we started trying to figure
out what we should name it. Trent was pretty sure it was a girl because it
colors were a little more drab than the colors you would typically see on a
male paor.
Just then I saw a really interesting carnivorous plant that
I thought would make a great specimen. As I tried to approach it, our new
friend started making enough noise to wake the dead and placed itself between
me and the plant. It was then that we saw the plant start to bend over, and a
huge, and I mean huge snake started to emerge. We realized that our friend
was protecting and warning us because she knew if we went any closer we would
most certainly be hurt or maybe even killed.
So scratch that idea of a plant specimen. We decide to just
head back and try collecting stuff tomorrow.
When we got back to camp, Wendla was sitting up by the fire
looking much better, and Sondra was serving up some Zenerix bread slices she
had salvaged from the second craft's wreckage. They both looked pretty
surprised by our new guest and Lucky just started yipping and jumping in the
air with glee. Sondra asked what we should call the newest member of our clan,
when Trent had a sudden inspiration. "Her name is Warda--it means
guardian," and then he proceeded to tell Wendla and Sondra how Warda had
saved our lives from the killer snake.  
 
Challenge 4, written
by Trenthepunkid (me!)
 
After a somewhat restful sleep, our group decided to explore
some more in the hope that we’d find something that could help us get back
home.
 
We brought some raw potatoes in our pockets in case we got
desperately hungry, or were out so long that we’d have to make a fire and eat
dinner away from camp. Lucky and Warda ate a little of the raw potato but Lucky
didn’t seem to like it. We assumed it was because Warda was native to this
planet and had easy access to the potatoes since she lived underground.
 
We walked for a while across the rocky ground until we found
some scrub brush that had dark purple berries on it. Since they were foreign,
we couldn’t tell if they were edible so we held one out to Warda, our
mutated-paor friend and she took the berry and jumped up and down. She then
proceeded to pop it in her mouth, crunch it and swallow happily. Naturally, we
assumed we could eat them, but I told the others the fact that she could eat
the berries didn’t prove they were safe for us, because if the berries were in
fact poisonous, Warda might have built up an immunity from eating them before.
Nevertheless, we filled our pockets and Sondra was brave enough to test-taste
one of the berries. She said it tasted good enough, kind of like a raspberry
but darker, somehow…she said she couldn’t explain it. We kept on hiking and
told her to tell us if she felt strange at all.
 
All of a sudden, Lucky started howling and barking at
something. We looked where he was looking and saw shadows of humanoid beings,
just talking with each other, but we couldn’t really tell. We had to
investigate, but we also had to be careful in case the people turned out to be
violent. We didn’t have much to arm ourselves with, other than the small knife
and little Lucky and Warda, who could at least warn us of danger if they sensed
it. We crawled behind a natural rock wall and peeked out at our new companions.
It was then that we realized—they were from one of the
planets in our system! We shouted in surprise and joy and tried to calm down
the other party when they freaked out when they realized we were spying on
them. We learned that they had come from Reiflem and were also looking for a
way back home. We decided to team up, as we were all Rescreatuians, after all,
and that was enough for us to trust one another. They also had a zenirix pup
with them, and a young roditore as well. We filled each other in on what we had
accomplished so far, and realized it wasn’t all that much. At least we had
survived this far…. We settled down and talked about what we might do if we
could get someone to rescue us. We shared the berries we got, as they seemed
completely safe and tasted delicious.
 
It seemed like we were sitting there for a while, and then I
started to hear voices. I couldn’t tell where they were coming from but I could
hear some of what they were saying. They were talking about us! All of us
started freaking out and asking who was talking. Nobody was talking, but all of
us heard these inexplicable voices in our heads. For a moment we all thought we
were going crazy, then we realized—we were hearing each others’ thoughts! We
tried to think of what was going on—was it alien mind-control? How come we
couldn’t do this before? It was really awkward at first, as we heard a few
rather personal things—not to be mentioned in this account—but then we
remembered the berries. We came to the conclusion that the berries had
something to do with our newfound powers. Sondra remembered something she’d
read before about humans’ innate but dormant telepathic powers…well it seemed
we had unleashed them now! Water said we should try to focus them on people
other than ourselves, so we might be rescued, but we didn’t hear anything at
all. This planet really was barren.
 
 
We were really disappointed that our telepathy couldn’t help
us, but we didn’t give up hope. Lovergirl suggested that we draw an SOS in the
desert on the other side of the mountains, in case someone saw it and was able
to help. We all agreed it was worth a shot, so we hiked the rest of the way
down that side and dug with sticks and rocks in the hot sand. We decided to
fill the letters up with rocks so they’d be more visible from up in space.
 
When we were finally done, it was evening. At least there
was no way anyone could miss those giant letters from above, or so we thought.
There was no way of knowing for sure. We ate more berries; seeing as we already
had telepathy, we didn’t think more berries could make the effect any more
intense.
 
We were just about to drift off to sleep, when Evenbay and
Sondra heard new voices. They shook the rest of us back to full consciousness
and Dragon pointed at a bright light in the sky.
 
“They’re here to rescue us!” Lovergirl shouted.
 
We greeted the strangers and they said they were from a
nearby planet, come here to scope out the land for future colonization. They
seemed happy to help us, but there wasn’t enough room in their ship for us all
to go. We explained to them that our ships were too damaged for repair, but
that we were trying to build a transmitter so we could contact people from our
home planets to rescue us.
 
The strangers looked very similar to us, except that all of
their eyes were dark, with very large pupils and thick eyelashes. Their skin
had a greenish tinge to it, instead of pink like ours, and it seemed rougher
than ours, but they looked the same as we did in all other respects.
 
___, the technical engineer on Reiflem’s ship, knew how to
make a basic radio, but our group agreed that we needed a high-powered machine
to be able to reach back to our home planets. Luckily we were able to salvage a
few tools from the engineering areas of our ships: pliers, vice-grips; and some
tweezers left over from an otherwise empty first aid kit. The people who had
landed started to draw out plans for us on how to make a more sophisticated
transmitter. Of course, they had many more supplies than us, which was a great
relief. There was no way we could accomplish this task alone.
 
Over the next few days, we pieced together the transmitter.
It was tiring work, and it seemed like just making a simple piece for the whole
took too much effort to be worth it. We took turns assuring ourselves
otherwise, and continued our work, with direction from the locals, so-to-speak.
 
One day we woke up to find that the incomplete transmitter,
which we had worked so hard on, had been smashed against a rock in the night.
It was all battered, and crooked, and would take hours to repair. Immediately
our friends who had been helping us all this time jumped on us for not having
carefully guarded our machine. They said that it was probably a wild animal
that had done it, and we should have known not to leave it in the open like
that. Upon further investigation, we noted that there was a green substance on
the broken transmitter. We asked the aliens what it was, and they said it was
vegetable juice, probably from while we were working on building together and
they didn’t tidy up their hands after snack as well as they should have. Lucky
sniffed the juice, and trotted over to the aliens. He sniffed at their hands
and started barking loudly. One of the people had a cut on his hand, and from
it was oozing green blood! We recalled that that alien had not touched the
transmitter while we were building it, and mostly just lazed on a rock while we
worked, eating so kind of fruit. The aliens had sabotaged our project!
 
They denied everything, but the blood was proof enough for
us. We had a private meeting, just us without the aliens, deciding what we
should do. We could just have them go back to our planet, but then where would
we be. Then Dragon had the genius idea of hijacking their spacecraft. We didn’t
know if it could fit all of us, even without the other aliens, but it was
definitely worth a shot. We told the aliens that we had changed our minds, and
decided to trust them after all, and that it probably was just some wild
creature, like an eviler Warda, that had destroyed our work.
 
Late that night, we grabbed our tools and the broken
transmitter, along with as many potatoes and berries as we could carry, and
snuck into the alien ship. The controls were somewhat confusing, but between
Evenbay and I, we managed to get the ship off the ground. Through one of the small
windows we saw that the aliens had woken up when we took off, but they couldn’t
do anything about it.
 
Warda decided to come along with us. After all, we didn’t
want to leave her marooned with those backstabbing aliens any more than she
would like to stay on that barren planet.
 
We had been flying for a while, when we heard a loud thud
against the hull of the ship. We looked out the windows and saw a few dozen
asteroids coming right for us. We hoped the ship would hold, and it did, until
we heard a beeping noise and a blinking yellow light on the control panel. The
ship started going more slowly and we realized that it was the fuel light. An
asteroid had knocked into the fuel tank and we had to land soon if we were
going to survive. Luckily, we were approaching Uldavi—we had made it that
far—but there wasn’t enough fuel to land on the planet, so we thought we were
done for. Then Lovergirl remembered a story she was told about Uldavians
settling on a moon orbiting their planet. If we could land there, it might save
our lives. Sure enough, the rocky curve of Uldavi’s moon rose from behind the
planet, so we set a course to land. 
 
We expected to see some Uldavians when we landed, but the
site was abandoned. There were a few small, industrial-looking buildings there,
but not much else. Not even any creatu to be seen. We lifted the heavy door of
one of the buildings and peeked inside. We couldn’t believe it—it was an entire
warehouse full of Uldavian technology! If some of it still worked, we could use
it to repair the transmitter, or better yet, a new device that would take a
shorter amount of time to build. After all, we were so close, and that very
fact was driving us crazy.
 
In the two other warehouses, we found more tools, and lots
of lights, batteries, and astronomical equipment. Among some of this equipment
was a giant laser, its original purpose unknown, but it was exactly what we
needed. Since there weren’t any Uldavians here, we had to have some way to
communicate that we were on Uldavi’s moon. It didn’t matter who saw the beam,
as long as they were from our planet system and could bring us back home.
 
We took the laser and aimed it off into space. We had to
make sure it didn’t hit any of the planets; we didn’t know how harmful the beam
might be. Then we discovered that we could change the length of the laser, so
we could just point it at one of the planets and it would look like a giant
star. It was only when we turned the laser on and aimed it that we realized
that no one back home would know what the laser meant. For all they knew it
could be some sort of Uldavian celebration they just hadn’t seen before. We
brainstormed ideas for how to tell people we needed rescuing. Eventually we
settled on the coolest idea of all: making a stencil for the laser so it would
shine out symbols for Reiflem and Relcore. The symbols were simple; a flame and
a little plant, but were sure to be recognizable by our friends back home. To
do this, we found a huge sheet of dark plastic, that wouldn’t let any light
through, even the laser’s powerful beam. We drew on the plastic filter with a
drafting pencil we found and cut it with our trusty knife.
 
When our augmented filter was ready, we slipped it over the
end of the laser and turned it on, aiming straight for Relcore. We figured that
Reiflem’s lava would reflect and make the beam harder to see, and also, no one
lived in the he lava lakes on Reiflem, so if the beam hit somewhere there,
nobody would see the pattern on it.
 
We waited and waited. We knew it would take a long time, but
I think we all hoped secretly for an instant reply.
 
 
Challenge 5, written
by Lunasparkle, with some basic plot from Trenthepunkid
After days of
isolation on the Uldavian moon, our enthusiasm died away when it became clear
that nobody was coming to rescue us. As you can imagine, resources are scarce
on a class A moon. In other words, there was not a lot of food on this hunk of
rock floating in space! Our hunger was starting to get so great that I think
some of us were considering gnawing our own arms off soon. That of course was
the bad news, along with complete and total boredom.
 
The good news was
that because we were so bored and hungry, we had nothing better to do than
search every inch of the alien warehouses, which lead to us finding some rocket
fuel. It wasn't a lot of fuel but it was probably enough to get us to the
nearest planet.
 
We decided to split
up into two teams—one team outside fueling up the craft and checking for any
obvious damage to the craft and the other team inside making minor repairs and
doing system checks. Our friends from Reiflem volunteered to take on the tasks
outside the spacecraft and so our team from Relcore took the tasks inside the spacecraft.
Both respective teams kept their animals with them.
This was the game
plan before everything got crazy and went horribly wrong.
 
Just as the Reiflem
team had finished re-fueling and while we were doing routine system checks, the
hatch door suddenly closed and locked and we heard the engine start up. It was
then that we noticed a red blinking light on the control panel. The ship
started to take off with us inside and the Reiflem team outside on the moon.
For a few seconds we were all stunned and then for another minute or so we all
played the blame game and started pointing fingers at each other. That is until
Trent noticed a symbol below the blinking light that he recognized. It was the
symbol for "auto-pilot". 
Omg! We were in
serious trouble because we were headed back to the planet where we had left
some very, very unhappy, hostile aliens who were going to be none too happy
with us when we arrived.
 
On the flight back we
beat ourselves up a bit for not having considered the possibility that the
autopilot could be activated remotely, made solemn promises to send help for
the Reiflem team on the moon if we somehow managed to survive and make it back
home again, and finally about a half hour before landing, mass panic started to
set in. I don't know if you have ever experienced an anxiety attack but it
feels similar to a mild heart attack and is completely unpleasant.
 
When the ship landed
we backed up against the far wall with whatever we could find to use as a
weapon, which sadly added up to one corded soldering iron, a pair of tweezers,
a screwdriver and I myself brandished my steel toed boot.
 
As the hatch door
opened and the aliens stepped into the ship we could tell that
"un-happy" just didn't do the looks on their faces justice. On an
anger scale of 1 through 10 these guys had a mad level equal to Pi (3.14159265)
x infinity.
 
It turns out we never
had to utilize our motley collection of ridiculous weaponry, as they shot us
with stun guns and dragged our sorry selves off to the containment room and
activated an electrical force field to keep us trapped in there.
 
Now the next thing
that happened was really quite remarkable. Warda went all Kamikaze on them and
attacked them with a ferocity we didn't even know she was capable of and then
our zenerix pup, Lucky, jumped up on a box and pushed the release button on the
force field and let us out. I swear, anyone who thinks animals aren't smart
doesn't know what they are talking about!
 
We didn't need the
door of opportunity to open twice for us, so we took off running at a clip. We
jumped out of the alien craft and took off running toward the mountain like our
pants were on fire.
 
We ran like our lives
depended on it and then we ran some more. I would calculate a distance of at
least 2 miles, maybe closer to 3. We finally slowed down to a walk when we saw
that we were approaching some ancient ruins. As we got closer we saw that there
was a giant mound of black, flat obsidian stones with what looked like a temple
emerging out of them. When we got to the temple we all walked inside and saw a
statue of a beautiful lady carved in white marble. On the walls of the temple
were pictographs and Hieroglyphs. Trent being the ever-convenient genius among
us stated that he had taken a course in ancient hieroglyphs in college before
he was sure what career path he wanted to pursue. We cleared out of the way so
that he could approach the wall and read the glyphs out loud. The glyphs said
the following: "Welcome to those who honor the all powerful, elemental
earth spirit Boomboom. Please leave an offering worthy of Boomboom and thou
mayest ask a favor. If the earth spirit that resides in the heart of our world
is pleased, she shall answer. If she is displeased, a most unpleasant fate
awaits you.”
 
Well, nothing like
extreme pressure to make the moment special!! We all started going through our
pockets and trying to find something, anything, to use as an offering. None of
us wanted to experience a most unpleasant fate! We were all on the verge of
either crying or hysterical laughing when I noticed a glint, a sparkle coming
off of the outside of Trent's nostril. Thank heaven for small miracles!! I had
forgotten that Trent had his nose pierced! We had a diamond to offer. A little
ittie bittie diamond, but hey a diamond is a diamond. Trent took it out and
placed it at the feet of Boomboom's statue.
 
Suddenly a loud
echoing voice filled every corner of the chamber with a sound as sweet as a
song. She said, "I accept your worthy offering; ask what you will of
me." We, at this point, nudged Trent forward. Trent asked Boomboom if she
could please help us to return to our home world—direct and to the point.
Boomboom was silent for a second, and then answered. She told us that she would
help us to return home, but first we must travel deep into the planet to the
very heart where she resides. She told us that after about a mile down we would
not be able to breathe the air, so if we could overcome that obstacle, she
would be waiting to greet us and would send us home. 
 
Before leaving the temple, Trent examined the pictographs on
the walls for any sign of the entrance that would lead us into the depths of
the planet. After about 15 minutes he finally found what he was looking for. In
one of the more faded images, you could just barely make out a cave entrance on
the most prominent mountain peak on the planet. In the opening of the cave you
could make out a woman with long flowing hair and rays of light coming off of
her. Trent instinctively knew this was where we would enter. 
We then traveled outside again where we were overjoyed to
see Warda and Lucky. They had managed to track us. No sign of the aliens
though, so we figured Warda had incapacitated them. We decided to search
the bushes for more berries and take a little break before starting off for the
mountain. We were able to find a decent amount of berries, not the ones we had
previously eaten but some berries that were more closely related to
blueberries. After eating and gathering our strength, we decide to set
off. 
 
Trent pointed out that we would need to go by the wreckage
of our crashed spacecraft and collect the portable oxygen tanks he had brought
with because he had planned to do some deep sea diving to collect plant
specimens from the ocean floor. We were all relieved that he had a solution for
the little breathing problem we were facing when we got deep down into the
earth. 
 
When we got to the wreckage, it looked as though the
aliens might have scavenged the craft at some point, but luckily they did
not find the oxygen tanks as they were hidden in a secret
compartment in the floor.
After gathering up the tanks and strapping them
onto our backs, we headed off for the mountain. We knew exactly which mountain
it was because it had that classic volcano-type look about it and it was the
only one we had seen that had that type of look. 
 
It took us hours of climbing with heavy cold wind beating
upon us the whole way. It was a difficult hike because there was no distinct
path and the rock was loose and made us slip constantly. Warda and lucky had no
problems with the climb and I found myself envious of their agility.
 
After the tree line ended, and we had gotten to a point
where we were so high up that even small vegetation didn't grow anymore, we saw
the cave entrance. 
 
We entered and were instantly happy to be out of the
freezing cold wind. 
 
As we traveled down we started to notice some beautiful
aquamarine crystals embedded in the cave walls. I suggested we
dig a few pieces out to offer to Boomboom when we arrived. The others agreed
and we dug out two large beautiful specimens. Sondra put them in her pocket as
she had the largest pockets.
 
After venturing down the tunnel systems for about a mile, we
noticed the air quality diminishing so we put the breathing apparatuses on
and flipped the tanks of oxygen on. We also flipped the little mini
flashlight-type gadgets on that were attached to the outside edges of the
tanks. It wasn't much light, but it was enough to see by as we went deeper and
deeper into the earth.
We had oxygen attached to Warda and Lucky also, but because
they are animals and the oxygen apparatuses were designed for humans,
we were constantly having to stop and adjust their tanks and masks. It got
to be a real drag pretty quickly.
 
After about 2 hours of endless walking, we finally saw some
light in the distance and what looked like a glowing figure of a woman.
 
When we finally reached Boomboom, we were blown away by the
perfection of her beauty. Her long blonde hair sparkled like gold in the light
of the planet’s core. We realized the marble statue back at the temple didn't
do her justice.
 
She greeted us with a radiant smile and welcomed us with
genuine enthusiasm. She said it had been ages since she had interacted with
humans and we were the most fun she'd had in a millennium!
 
We offered her the aquamarine, which pleased her and then we
asked about sending us home. 
For a moment she had a sad distant look on her face but then
she said, “I will send you home on one condition, you must return someday to
this planet and visit me again." We totally understood
the loneliness she had and agreed to her terms. 
 
Boomboom then walked over to what looked like a silver
cauldron and scooped out some black sparkling powder. She walked over to the
cavern wall and said something in an ancient language that none of us
understood and then she blew the sparkling black powder out of her hand onto
the wall and presto, a portal opened revealing Space Command’s launching pad
back on our home world.
 
She told us to hurry up because the portal would only stay
open for a few seconds. We didn't need to be told twice so we hurried through
as fast as we could. The initial feeling of instantly jumping from one point in
space to another is very unsettling. The best way to describe it is like being
launched from a slingshot at million miles per hour and then suddenly stopping.
Wendla threw up immediately and the animals rolled around on their backs
moaning for a minute and Trent, Sondra and I just bent over holding our knees
for a moment taking deep breaths.
 
After a couple of minutes we saw Doctor von Dinkinstein, the
head hauncho of space command, coming toward us. 
 
We explained everything that had happened to us to
Dr. von Dinkinstein and we also told him about the Refleim team being
stranded on the Uldavian moon. He said he would send a rescue team out to get
them and told us to report to medical in the morning to get checked out. We
told him we would and then we all decided to go out and celebrate, PIZZA
STYLE!!!!