"How many Are there?" Zan gasped. The two were gazing into a room full of the creatures. It was too dim to see clearly.The room itself seemed to be a lounge of some kind. There wasn't a creature close enough for them to hear, but they could see them waving their tentacles around at each other over plates of food and drink.

"What do you see?" Moriah asked softly from Mark's feet, where Zan had set her. Zan's back was starting to get sore, and she decided to let Mark carry Moriah for a while while she carried their pack.

"Aliens," Zan said slowly.

The background thrumming increased in volume suddenly, and the ramp lowered again. They turned quickly and ducked back behind the console. The big machines filed back onto the ship, the ramp beginning to close even before the last was safely on board. The thrumming increased to a rumble, and they felt as though they were being pressed into the floor. The pressure increased until they were having trouble breathing, then let up abruptly.

"What was that?" Zan gasped, trying to catch her breath. Mark just shook his head.

"Do you suppose.... We got on a spaceship just prior to liftoff?" he asked breathlessly.

"That would explain the pressure, and the noise. It would be necessary for engines as big as the ones for this ship must be. And an alien habitat would account for the increase in temperature and humidity, and the dim light, as well," the computer broke in thoughtfully.

Zan's eyes widened. She was a little startled at the rate Moriah was learning.

"I suggest we get out of here," Mark said, bending to retreive Moriah.

"How and to where? We're not on Earth if we've just taken off in an alien Spaceship," Moriah pointed out.

Mark straightened, staring at Zan. She paled, and could only stare back. Before either could say anything, sirens began blaring all around them- a hideous noise that was just as alien as the environment.

All along the length of the right wall, the strip of black panel began to blinking a deep blue, casting a strange pallor over the two humans. Suddenly they heard another noise over the alarm, like a rusty machine on the verge of total collapse. Mark listened for a moment, concentrating. It almost sounded like...

"Voices," he said suddenly.

"What?" Zan asked.

"That other noise, that's the aliens speaking," he replied. "You can make out the individual syllables if you listen closely."

Zan poked her head into the room behind them. The creatures were jumping out of their chairs, leaving their meals behind, and running for the very door Zan was standing in front of.

The two took a hasty step back as the first creature burst through the open door. It stopped, and stared at them for a moment, startled. Then it made a decidedly hostile lunge for them, waving it's furry tentacles.

Logic told them plainly that they had nowhere to go, but they ducked past the tentacles and ran anyway. Zan and Mark pounded down the corridor, with no idea where they were headed.

It dead-ended.


Zan stabbed frantically at the buttons on the side of the jagged door that cut off their retreat, but they refused to open. Panting in fear, they whirled around to face the oncoming aliens.

Mark leaned up against the door, prepared to fight, when, to his surprise, the doors separated. He fell backwards, off balance, pulling Zan in with him as he tumbled into a small round room. Her flailing arm brushed against something on the wall, and a subtle click sounded. They hit the floor with a thud, and the doors snapped shut.

Mark was up instantly, and apologetically hauled Zan to her feet. "Thanks," She gasped, drawing a deep breath, waiting for her pounding heart to slow.

Zan knelt beside Moriah, who lay upside-down on the floor. She turned her so the speaker was visible through the hole in the case. "Are you OK?" she asked.

"A prompt response, "I'm alright, but..."

The door was turning a dull red; smoke began to pour in from the sides.

They're blasting through! we'd better hurry," Zan said, moving up to the panel at the side of what she assumed to be an elevator.

The door began to sizzle.

She punched a button marked ¬…, and hoped it wouldn't take them anywhere dangerous. She laughed a bit hysterically at the notion. Mark gave her a worried look.

"We are in big trouble," she told him.

The door cooled visibly as the lift started moving downward. The doors opened grudgingly, and the two stepped out, Mark still carrying Moriah.

They found themselves in yet another dimly lit corridor, stretching off in two directions, claxons blaring.

She randomly chose to run to the left, and Mark followed. They knew they were going to get caught, but some vague notion of escape compelled them to run anyway, and they obeyed.

They stopped at an entrance, though not the elevator kind with the zig-zag doors. This one was whole, like the first one thay had seen. Zan walked up to it, as that seemed to be the popular way to open a door around here, and the door slid silently up into a recess in the ceiling. They walked in, and Zan turned, curious. It slid back into place and remained there.

"Good lord," Mark whispered. Zan turned, and followed his gaze. She stared.

The thing was black, with a bright line of flame running along the belly and the sides, looking as though it was on fire.

On closer inspection, the faint scars of old battles were visible, so it was probably an older ship. Zan stared up at the ship in awe. It was beautiful!

"Kids, this is our ticket out," Moriah said, startling her out of her dazed revery. She took in the rest of the hanger bay.

From the looks of the area around the ship, it was being dismantled. Tools were lying around as though they had been hastily thrown down. There was no one in sight.

Mark had already begun a search of the ship, and now called Zan over.

As she trotted across the room, he leaned under one of the wings and touched the door. Nothing happened for a moment, then it slid haltingly upward.

Mark gently rubbed his fingertips.

"What's wrong?" Zan asked as she came up beside him. He shook his head and gestured to the now open door.

Zan sighed, wishing she were taller,then shrugged. With a boost from Mark she got her booted foot up onto the high sill of the door. Placing her hands on either side of the opening, she hauled herself in and scrambled to her feet.

Mark, who was a little taller, had an easier time getting in. They now found themselves staring down a dim, dull corridor exactly like the larger ship, down to the black panel running along the right-hand side.

They started down the corridor and heard the door grate shut behind them. "How do you suppose you fly this thing?" Zan wondered.

"Hook me up, and i'll see what i can do," Moriah spoke up.

Mark nodded. "But to where," he asked, as they came to the almost familiar jagged doors of an elevator. Though they seemed somehow smoother than the ones they had seen before, as if the edges had been worn off.

Zan took the initiative and marched up to them. They parted with a grating sound that was less than reassuring. Zan looked askance at Mark. He shrugged.

They stepped inside.

There were only two buttons available, and she hit the top one on the basis that they were an up and a down button. The doors closed and the lift rose slowly upwards, as though extremely tired...and stopped. Zan looked at the doors for a moment, then stepped forward to activate them. They creaked apart slowly, and she stepped into the room beyond.


In all the space movies and science fiction shows she had ever seen, it had always struck her that the bridges of most of the ships were annoyingly similar. Maybe it was a universal concept. This room definately resembled a bridge.

There was an odd looking chair in the center of the room with a curved row of consloes at the front, below a huge screen. Two of the odd chairs in front of it, and another near a console off to the left. To the right was a wall of computers with an overturned chair near it. Two of the four bolts that had held the chair in place stuck out of the black deck. She turned as the elevator door creaked shut behind her.

"There are aliens behind us," Moriah reminded them. Mark looked over his shoulder before it occured to him that Moriah must have been referring to the outside of the ship.

He scanned the room. "Over there, to the right of that chair," he said, pointing. They walked over and examined the area he had indicated. Between the two foremost seats was a square panel set into the console.

They pried the panel off, and Zan hastily opened the case and removed the hard cover from the computer, exposing her circuitry. Mark carefully set the computer in the vacant area, and Zan made a few connections according to suggestions from Mark and Moriah.

She'd never seen circuitry like this before, and she wasn't certain they knew what they were doing; anything could happen. But it was their only chance.

They had just barely settled Moriah in, when there was a gruff, gnawing sound from behind them. They turned in unison to see a pair of black boots. Zan followed the boots up to the owner, and bit her lip, suddenly a lot more worried than she had been a moment ago.