Episode 01x26 - Gravity Sucks

Nobody:

The hall was dark and empty. Nothing disturbed the silent gloom of the cheap apartment building, save the normal sounds of families engaged in various lively interactions.

One lone figure emerged, looked around, and approached a door. Or, rather, she approached a hole in the wall where a door had once been.

She looked inside. Instead of the normal wreckage and debris of Malex’s and Icepunk’s room, there was nothing. Even large sections of floor tile and drywall were gone without a trace, as if the whole room had been spirited away.

Being confronted with a paradox too large for her unnaturally small mind to cope with, Echofly fainted.

Malex:

We were dead. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind. When you fall a mile or two before hitting the ground, the deceleration trauma normally kills you.

I closed my eyes - wincing before the impact. I kept wincing. I cringed until my face muscles hurt from cringing.

“What the crap is taking so long?!” Icepunk yelled.

I timidly opened my eyes, and noticed Icepunk bracing for impact as well. He was right of course, the ground had been only a second or two away several seconds ago.

I peeked over the edge. Yup, the ground was still there. Except, it was a mile or two away again.

“To answer your question, Icepunk,” I said, “we’ve started over.”

“WHY?!” Zilly screamed as he verified the situation from his vantage point perched atop the high back of his command chair. “WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?!”

“I’d give you a bullet list,” I said sarcastically, “but I don’t have a century to prepare it. Although,” I noted dryly, “I might have another couple of days if we can’t even hit the ground properly.”

We were about to hit the ground again. This time, I kept my eyes open. There was a minor fading transition, and we were a mile or two up in the air again.

My cell phone rang. I answered it.

“Hello?” MuffinsAreYummy said through the connection. “Sorry about the confusion.”

“What?!” I yelled. “Are you doing this? Just transport us out of here quick!”

“Well, see, that’s somewhat the problem,” MuffinsAreYummy said. “You’ve already accelerated well beyond safety thresholds for your species.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I bellowed, “and quickly before we almost die again.”

“Well, we can move you around with the transporter, but that’s not going to help,” MuffinsAreYummy said apologetically. “See, it doesn’t matter what bit of ground we transport you over. If you hit it as fast as you’re moving, you’ll die.”

“WHAT?!” I yelled. “Can’t you do something?”

“It should be possible,” MuffinsAreYummy pondered aloud, “but none of us here can remember how to slow you down gradually while you’re in the transporter buffer. So, for now, we’re just trying to keep you from hitting the ground while Darth_bunny reads the manual. Unfortunately, someone...” he hesitated as if glancing pointedly at one of his compatriots, “keeps spilling diet soda on the pages.”

“Hey!” I heard someone say. “You know as well as I do how hard it is to hold a soda can with tentacles!”

“Whoa!” I screamed as another transition bought us some time. “Stay on the ball! That one was way too close!”

“Oh, by the by,” MuffinsAreYummy continued casually, “did you notice all the transporter field activity just before you sent the majority of their ship into the sea?”

“Uh, I noticed the lights dimming a lot, why?” I asked.

“Oh nothing important, just curious.” MuffinsAreYummy responded.

“Why...?”

“Well, a battle-cruiser grade transporter is a dangerous tool. I hope you used it wisely...”

I glared at Icepunk, who had somehow procured a sandwich. “Well, we can only hope that nothing too bad happened.”

Icepunk:

Just before we hit the ground yet again, I call down to Thubthub, who seems to have been transported back to where all of our stuff is, which by odd coincidence, is right below me. “Hey, Thubthub, toss me up that bag of chips.”

Instead, however, several things happen at once. First, Zilly, who was only a moment ago blubbering and whining, is now gone. Next, we slow down a whole bunch and hit the ground rather painfully, although thankfully not violently enough to cause any permanent damage.

I stand shakily and demand of Thubthub, “Where are my chips?”

Malex:

Thankfully, the Squids managed to use the transporter’s matter buffer to slow us down. Unfortunately, they neglected to ensure that the destination coordinates were flush with the ground. Thus, we all took a nice ten-foot drop to the surprisingly hard sand below.

“There you go,” MuffinsAreYummy told me through my cell phone. “Thanks for saving our ship from the Dumbbutts. We’ve taken Zilly prisoner. He’ll be safe with us for now. We’ll send you and your stuff back home now.”

“Uh-” I began, but was cut off as the screwed up remains of our apartment were transported back into the building from whence they came.

As the dust - and sand - settled, I noted that it was going to take quite a while for things to return to normal after that little excursion.

Icepunk surveyed the damage, and began to weep bitterly. “My mold collection is gone!”

Thubthub - who had donned some middle-eastern headgear - was playing another game of chess with Linus.

I went over to examine the odds of reattaching the door to the wall without buying parts, and noticed Echofly on the ground in the hall.

She began to stir, so I went and helped her to her feet.

“Hi!” I said cheerily. “Sorry we didn’t make it in to work this morning, we were preoccupied.”

She shakily surveyed the room, taking in its recent, and drastic, transformation. “Wasn’t the room gone a moment ago?” she asked slowly. “Where did all the sand come from?”

As if in reply, Thubthub grabbed a paw-full of sand and pointed at it, chattering annoyedly.

As I wrestled with the door, I heard a dull ‘thud’, and turned around to observe that Echofly had fainted again.