wicked_west | Escape [PSL]

Elphie had been asleep without Ford or the Chistery. Once she'd disappeared from him that one day, she stayed away. But today of all days, he was banging on her door. Him and the monkey. And he was hollering something about a ship and if she wasn't the witch anymore to follow him.

Elphie threw on the nearest dress... her flowered one... and grabbed all her scarves. She left the broom behind.

"What do you mean a ship?" the former witch asked as she opened the door.

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Ford got to his feet and looked around. Cargo bay. He went looking for a computer terminal so he could work out just what kind of ship it was.

Elphie turned a slow circle. There were... pipes... but so many of them. More than she'd ever seen in Oz or the Hotel. And the thing Ford was standing at. "What is that?" she asked. It didn't really look like her laptop from the Hotel. She didn't know what it was.

"It's a computer," he told her. "Well, a terminal that accesses the computer." He looked at her. "And not a Vogon computer terminal, which always bodes better than if one finds oneself in a cargo bay that has a Vogon computer terminal," he explained, before turning his attention back to moving his hands across the terminal in vague criss-cross patterns.

"But it..." Elphie paused. Ford was crazy and quite obnoxious most times, but she had no reason not to trust him. Instead she walked over to him and looked over his shoulder. Until Chistery decided he was bored and snaked his way out of her grip. "No, Chistery!! We don't know where we are? Chistery!" Elphie hissed, following the monkey out a door.

Ford turned when he heard the whispering stop.

"... Hello?" He frowned and then went back to the terminal.

Oh, there they were. Oh. Oh. Well. That wasn't good. He ran out the door after them.

"Chistery we need to get back to... oh!" There was a... thing... coming down the hall and pointing... another thing at her. Chistery immediately flew back into her arms as Elphie tried to come up with an excuse that would explain why she was on this... ship. But then the creature spoke in an unknown language of grunts and growls. Oh dear.

Right it was time to go. Elphie began backing away.

As he emerged into the hallway behind them, Ford spoke to the creature, just in - what would sound to Elphie - like normal English, they way he usually spoke. The creature lowered the weapon and gestured to a door.

"Oh. Right. Thank you very much," Ford told him, ushering Elphie and the monkey through the door.

The room was dark.

"Right. We're the technicians they've been waiting for, if we want to live. See if you can find the light switch."

"Oh..." Elphie answered shakily as Chistery peeked out and started flying again. "But... how did you understand him? And he you. You spoke... normally..."

But then Ford was moving forward into a dark room and asking her to find a light switch. The witch groped along the wall. "Would it be like the switches at the hotel?"

"Yeah, don't worry. We'll put a fish in your ear, sort everything out," he assured her, fumbling around for the lights. "The switch is sort of a groove that you have to stick three fingers into."

"A fish!" she asked, slack-jawed for once. "Why would we put a fish in my ear?"

But Did continue searching for a switch... a grooved switch for three fingers. Light flooded the chamber when she finally found it and Chistery was up and flying again. Very little phased him for long.

Ford blinked as light filled the room.

"So you can understand people," he answered. "It won't do you much good traveling around space if you can't tell what people are saying."

"But how does a fish make me understand people... no, better yet, how does a fish fit in my ear?" Elphie asked, completely confused.

"I don't know how. It just does. It's called a Babelfish." He glanced over. "I don't know if it'll work for the monkey. We could try."

Elphie covered an ear. It sounded like magic to her. "What sort of ship are we on?" she asked when she finally opened her mouth again.

"A cargo ship," Ford said helpfully. "Tremeans. Not the most hostile race in the galaxy, but we should probably find a way out of here before they realize we can't fix their hyperdrive," he explained casually as he poked around the consoles.

A cargo ship. In space. And there were no windows for her to look out.

"But Ford? How are we to leave this thing if there are no other ships around? I thought we couldn't last out there without protection. Can the next ship we go on have windows?"

"Sure," Ford said cheerfully. "If we get off this one alive."

He fiddled with a machine in the corner. "And you never know when other ships will be around," he pointed out, continuing to fiddle.

"Right Alive." She wandered over to the big machine in the middle of the room. Chistery followed her. "No Little One. We don't touch things that aren't ours," she told Chistery, but she didn't grab in time to keep him from flipping a BIG lever.

"Uh Oh!" he chittered and immediately flew to Elphie cowering. "Now... I think now would be a great time to get off this ship..." she replied to Ford.

"Well, I was kind of planning on doing it when there was a ship around." He glanced around. "Maybe there's an escape pod..." He went back to the computer terminal to check.

The machine Chistery had touch was beginning to smoke and make very not good noises.

"Right when there's another ship around... um Ford? Is it supposed to be doing that?" Elphie asked as she backed away from the thing. "Because it doesn't sound good...."

"Not so much," Ford told her, rooting around in some equipment. "But it probably won't explode right away."

Elphie glanced at the machine again which had started to make a grumbling sound that resembled the Time Dragon and a thousand angry lions at once. "OK... Let's hope a ship comes soon..." She also made her way to a computer monitor and began looking through the screens. Just to see if she could find an escape pod. That sounded like a good thing.

"Or that I work out how to release the escape pods," Ford pointed out. "Because that'll keep us alive a little bit longer to look for a ship. But we have to do it before they realize they'll need them."

"Of course, that would be ideal," Elphie snarked as she began to realize just how bad the situation was. The door opened and one of the creatures came in, yelling at all of them. "I think he's figured out we don't know what we're doing," she called to Ford.

"Oh." He pressed some buttons and a forcefield came up between them and the aliens. "Excuse me!" he called to them. "We're in the middle of very dangerous work here. Off-limits to civilians."

He poked at some more buttons and glanced over his shoulder now and then at the aliens.