"Shields at 40%, captain!" Mio cried. Yui, without taking her eyes off the bridge's display, pointed a finger at her engineer.
"Add five percent power to 'em, Mio-chan!" she commanded.
"Roger!" Mio chirped, pressing away at the neon buttons and spinning the knobs on the control deck.
Yui reached down and unclipped her radio from her hip, bringing it to her face.
"Ricchan, come in, over!" she spoke firmly. Her radio crackled to life, but the voice coming from the other end was drowned out by a cry from behind her, to her left.
"Captain, the enemy is charging its gamma cannon!" Mio reported.
"Azu-nyan!" Yui called to the pilot on her right. "Roll right!"
"Roger!" Azusa affirmed. Yui turned her attention back to her radio.
"Ricchan, we're rolling right, over!"
"Got it," came Ritsu's calm voice from the radio, as the crew felt the harsh g-forces of the ship spinning clockwise.
"Brace for impact!" Mio yelled in a panic.
The group grabbed onto the nearest support as the space outside their windows glowed a brilliant neon green with the blast of the gamma cannon. After a moment, the ship began to shake violently. Yui, who had been standing, lost her footing and tumbled to the floor. Eventually, the green-tinged chaos ceased, and Yui remained lying on her back on the floor of the bridge.
"Captain!" came Mugi's worried voice. "Captain, are you okay?"
"I'm good," came Yui's dazed voice. "Mio-chan, damage report."
"Shields at 5%, hull integrity is fine." Mio's exhausted report came. Yui brought her radio to her mouth once again, ready to contact Ritsu, but the weapons specialist's voice came of its own volition.
"Everyone alright down there?"
"We're good. What about you?" Yui asked, still lying on the floor.
"Been better, been worse."
"Captain," Mugi's voice came again. "They're requesting to open communications."
"Excellent. Azu-nyan, are we on a collision course with the enemy ship?" Yui asked, finally standing.
"Uh, I… no, captain," Azusa stammered. "What are you thinking?"
"There's no time," Yui lamented. "Mio, charge the warp drive."
"Captain, we're not oriented. If we warp now, we'll be flung God-knows-where, and we'll be unable to warp again for at least 24 hours!" Mio pleaded.
"If we stay here," Yui said grimly, "We'll die."
There was a silence as the weight of their dilemma sank upon them.
"Mugi, cake me." Yui said. Mugi stood quickly, shimmying over to the captain's post in the center of the bridge, a plate of cake in one hand and a fork in the other. Without opening her eyes or changing her serious expression, Yui opened her mouth expectantly and gave a small "aah." Mugi took a piece of cake with her fork and fed it to Yui, who chewed seriously. Finally, she swallowed, looking up at Mugi.
"That's some good cake. Thanks, Mugi-chan. Open communications," Yui commanded as she sat once again in her captain's chair, leaning lazily back with her hands behind her head. The large window in the front of the bridge shone brightly with the face of the enemy captain, an elderly man with a bushy, gray moustache.
"Hello, Captain Hirasawa. Hello, Houkago Space Time crew," the man greeted familiarly.
"Hello, Captain Splenda," Yui greeted, pulling a pen from her breast pocket and twirling it in her fingers.
"Now, now, Captain," the man chided, "I thought we had gotten past name-calling. My name is Captain Spinel. I suppose you don't care, though. You don't care about much. You especially don't seem to care that you've finally been cornered. You'll have to face court for your crimes now, you know."
Yui, seemingly uninterested, grabbed a notepad from the panel in front of her and began scribbling on it.
"Unfortunately, before I arrest you, I have to tell you what you're being arrested for. We may be here a while," Captain Spinel lamented.
"Uh-huh," Yui said absentmindedly, still scribbling on her notepad; she knew the details of their pastry-related crimes well.
"Firstly, six counts of resisting arrest," Spinel read from somewhere off to his left. Yui tore the piece of paper off of the notepad.
"Secondly, twelve counts of evading officers of the law." Yui began folding the piece of notebook paper into a small paper airplane, never looking up at the screen.
"That means you've only caught up to us half the times you've tried," Yui pointed out coolly.
"Thirty-eight counts," Spinel ignored her, "of possession of illegal cane-sugar in the form of cake." Yui carefully aimed her paper airplane towards Mio, who was closely watching Captain Spinel on the screen. Yui threw the airplane, which hit Mio expertly in the face. The engineer jumped in surprise, and looked embarrassedly at Yui, who was giggling to herself.
"Finally, One hundred and sixty eight counts of illegal trading of illegal cane sugar in the form of cakes." Mio, still fuming, opened the paper airplane and read the words:
Activate the warp drive when I say "thirteen."
"I think your numbers are a little off," Yui said. Mio couldn't catch her gaze, and instead resolved to follow her strange instructions.
"Oh?" Spinel prompted. "How's that?"
"The one about evading officers? You said we have twelve counts," Yui said. She suddenly looked up at the screen with a burning intensity in her eyes. "You should make that thirteen."
With the flip of a switch on Mio's control panel, the Houkago Space Time set off at light speed into the deep unknown, leaving behind a likely confused and surprised Captain Spinel. After a few hours of warping, they would be stranded in uncharted territory, at the mercy of the cosmos.
At the very least, though, they'd be free.