Slowly relief washed over her frantic mind as she realized the battery was no longer a threat. Fishing around in her seemingly leaded brain, she finally found a thread of vigil and pulled and pulled. Immediately she knew she had made a grave mistake, achieving the ability to comprehend did not improve her position at all. The first sight that met her eyes when she turned them painfully in their sockets was the prone figure of Mike, trying to sit up. She definitely was not at that stage yet, her limbs felt as though she had been chained by the wrists from a forty foot ledge with weights tied on her ankles. That, she decided was where she was going to stay.

Mike was floundering, grappling with his consciousness, the battle was not in his favor. Trying to achieve a semi-vertical position was difficult but after several minutes of concentration, he found himself propped unsteadily up against a wall blinking in consternation at the sight now meeting his eyes. Aara was lying in the center of a perfectly circular room, the dregs of the ship, probably the last floor above the hold. The room seemed to be dripping slime and covered in spikes, bones of various humanoid and non-humanoid prisoners littered the cold, dank wooden flooring. A door melded into the wall, being slightly curved to match. It was, if anything, the most depressing part of the whole decor - a large, computerized padlock adorned the handle. There was no way they were getting out. No way at all. He decided that since misery loved company, he would bestow the curse of awareness upon Aara and went over and pretended to trip, jabbing her violently in the side. Unpredictably she began to laugh uncontrollably, gasping for breath hysterical, for five or more minutes.Eventually her breathing became more normal and she lay face-down on the imitation stone floor, tears streaming from her eyes too weak to even move. Mike was worried, this couldn’t be natural, he for one couldn’t find anything that was in even the least bit funny. He did not know that there are times when everything is just so amazingly bad that the only thing for it is to have a good, hysterical laugh.

Aara, slowly rose to her feet, refreshed by her invigorating fit, and started strolling casually around their prison cell, picking up bones that appeared to be made of a sort of latex and running her fingers along the high tech paint job which perfected the grotesqueness of the place to a certain tea. She looked over to see that mike was still huddled in the corner and, that in the last three or so minutes he had fallen fast asleep. She envied him sometimes. Everything seemed to be locked solid but she wondered if a physical weight on the door would break it open, it seemed that everything was built to be controlled electronically and perhaps the door wouldn’t know what it was to have someone pushing on it. She paced the room a bit then woke Mike up and offered a suggestion “Why don’t we just see if the door opens?” Mike took it as a sarcastic joke but when Aara seemed to be serious he went over to the door that had ominous looking spikes adorning it began looking for a button to press or a switch to flick that would open the door, there was nothing. She groaned and began to use the stone aged method of letting oneself into or out of a confined space, she found a less sharp area of the door and pushed as hard as she could. The door groaned and stuck fast, 2 inches from where it had been before, it was obviously not used to this kind of abuse. Mike finally got the clue and joined the effort and with the two of them working for about 10 minutes, the heavy door gave up and fell into an easy swing. Aara could have sworn that is sighed dejectedly but she couldn’t be sure. Where they found themselves at that moment was not only far from desirable it was about the worst place anyone could ever end up on a hostile alien spacecraft- the HEAD GUARD’S QUARTERS!!!

“ Uh well here we are” Mike said for some unknown reason.

The guard cleared his throat, looked them over, looked them over again, then once more before saying, "You look like you could use a drink."

Mikes’s sigh of relief could have been audible from across a football stadium while a game is being played and Aara turned a slightly lighter shade of green. They watched, awe stricken, at the first non-hostile and non-intellectually challenged alien they had encountered since leaving Earth and certainly the first to offer them a drink after they had just terrorized the door outside his quarters and burst in without welcome. Not saying anything about the fact that they happened to be the ship’s hostages at the moment. But this not so Awful Being was actually mixing three of some strange kind of drink that was, as strange as it appeared, welcome enough.

“You should be awarded top guard of the month...... the year......no the CENTURY!!!” exclaimed Mike after taking a few swigs of the blue-green liquid that had been handed to him. Aara was, after the same, trying to figure out why she had never noticed Mike to have a siamese twin, it seemed to be one of those things people noticed....."

“Well, I hate my boss so much that I decided to let you two get out as you chose,” he sniggered to himself, “I thought that the earthling would figure out how to leave. They’re so primitive that sometimes they see much clearer.” This remark was followed by a little chorkle..

Aara tried to say something but it came out as an unrecognized and ,in fact, unnoticed slurred blurble.

“I’m gonna get you guys a ship WITH AUTO PILOT!!! You can’t drive as you told me before and it doesn’t look like the earthling is going to.” He made a gesture at Aara who was sprawled dizzily halfway on and halfway off the couch.

“That would be the best, man” said Mike seriously before breaking into a fit of hysterical laughing.

The guard sighed and gestured for Mike to follow him, he picked up Aara and proceeded. They ended up at a large docking bay that had a beautiful ship in it. Mike ran up to it and stroked it with his finger tips, “No this one” said the guard pointing to a heap of rubble that had a door. Actually it wasn’t that bad but compared to the sleek luxury liner beside it, it was worse.

The interior of the pile of crap was actually quite nice, not luxurious by any means but was pleasantly furnished with large sofas that didn’t feel like they had steak knives sticking out of them. As soon as the Head Guard had set the autopilot and deposited Aara on a purple couch leaving Mike instructions to stay out of further trouble, he left and the ship began to lift off the docking plate. Mike promptly found the stash of food and made a pot of coffee and started exploring the vessel. It was not big but it had all the necessary things to make it a good ship to have, an Advil dispenser, a large coffee pot, tons of comfy crashing places and a computer full of auto pilot settings. HE WAS FREE!! At long last he could explore the galaxy at will without Mulanian laws to worry about, he vowed never to get trapped on Earth again. With this pleasantly dizzy thought he went to sleep.