Squibby, we are Not in Kansas Anymore!
Disclaimer: The TFIW characters belong to Nelvana or anyone else but me.
A Brief Prologue
As any experienced – or at least well-read – captain of any vessel knows, every crew, no matter how well inter-connected or well-experienced, tends to develop a version of cabin fewer after being cooped up for too long with just the same familiar faces for company for an extended period of time. Sadly, the captain of the time flyer, C.G. was neither well read nor overly experienced, but between her own luck and the fact that cruising through time and planetary space over millions of years was never near routine or monotony, she and her friends managed to avoid this problem with relative ease. However, luck is always a fickle mistress, and in C.G.'s case even more so than usual, therefore it was just a matter of time, pure and simple, before something like that happened...
Chapter 1: We are off to see...
"Would you look at that? Gelatine bars! Yum!" Ethan muttered sarcastically, as he, Emily and Luis were looking glumly at somewhat convalesced kelp smoothies as prepared by the time ship's automatic cook. "Honestly, Luis, for someone who wants to keep their master fisherman status, you certainly let us down when you didn't catch any fish back at the Northern Ice!"
"It's- it's not my fault," Luis spoke back for the sake of avoiding eating the gelatine bar. "As I was catching the fish that crazy northern flightless bird came through the ice hole and snapped our fish!" He paused. "I blame the squibbon. It probably was his funky octopus smell that attracted that crazy bird in the first place!"
"Squibby doesn't smell!" Emily spoke up for the first time since the boys started to argue. "And the flightless gannetwhale is not a crazy bird either!"
"Sure it is!" Luis shook his head. "It's a bird that doesn't fly!"
"Neither does the carakiller and you don' call it a crazy bird!"
"That 'cause it goes without saying," Luis did not back down – even an argument with Emily looked better than a gelatine bar. "In fact, you may say that this whole world is weird in that sense – I mean, remember back home? I am not the world's best outdoorsman, but even I remember that it was like full of birds' especially in spring and summer! All these swallows in the sky and robins in trees and those blackbirds in marshes..."
"Stop flaunting your memory by quoting Emily back me and her, techno-boy, and get to the point," Ethan rolled his eyes.
"Right. Well, we have all these crazy flightless birds and not one ordinary flying one. We got the seal-like gannetwhale and the carakiller who even got the snow stalker on the run."
"Now that was crazy," Ethan interrupted Luis once again. "I mean, I kind of thought that if that snow stalker stood its' ground, those birds would have had it, full posse or no."
"Now you're being ridiculous," Emily spoke up, somewhat sharply than her usual manner. "The carakillers are seven feet tall – poor Snowball was less than three feet in height!"
"Ah! But I can prove my point!" Ethan said, straightening up with a twinkle in his eye that usually appeared when he talked about sports. "Let's talk carakiller first. Luis – what can you tell Emily about it?"
This cannot end well, Luis thought to himself. Apparently, Ethan somehow got into his "sports commentator" mode, and that was one thing that Emily could not really stomach: the animal-loving girl was not really into sports, especially more violent ones, like hockey or wrestling...
"Ahem! Luis! Earth to Luis! We cannot hear you – speak up!" Ethan gave the other boy a little friendly shove. "Come on, we need to get this discussion of carakiller versus snow stalker on the way!"
Luis looked at Emily, and realized, firstly, that he was right: the little red head did look rather pale now, especially considering all the tanning she and C.G. had done on their spare times. Secondly, he realized that he was right: Ethan seemed to be filling with that energy that always filled him whenever he talked about the more sports. Put together in his rather impressive memory this meant only one thing: a collision of characters, with him straight in the middle, as usual.
Ceeg, you sure picked a wrong time to practice programming the cruiser's autopilot! Luis thought miserably-
"Ahem! Luis, buddy, don't go spacing on me!" Ethan shook the other boy once again. "Speak to us, man, speak to us!"
"About what?" Luis spoke, hoping in vain that Ethan forgot about their topic.
"The carakillers man, seriously!"
"Right, the carakillers." Sorry, Ceeg, I tried. "They're the killer birds of the Amazonian grasslands, taller than a grown-up, really big heavy beaks, long legs, stumpy wings, almost like claws-"
"Whoa, slow down, Luis!" Ethan interrupted the other teen, "I'll take from here." He turned to Emily. "Now, as Luis here pointed out the obvious, the carakillers are big and strong, but they're big and strong like runners, not fighters."
Luis could not help himself. "Say what? Have you forgotten those big beaks of theirs? One of them broke the Chameleographic helmet, and if C.G. wasn't lucky enough to be wearing it-"
"Yeah, and that beak's probably the heaviest part of the carakiller," Ethan shook his head. "Posse or not, the bird still needs it to run down that basket-weaving monkey or some other lizard in those paths in the grass. To do that, it needs long strong legs, like the ostrich that it is, but a light enough body all the same. Come on, you saw professional long-distance runners on the sports news back at my place – strong muscular legs, but almost wimpy bodies? I say that the carakillers are like that, somewhat!"
"Wimpy?" Luis could not help himself. "If you'd seen-"
"I've been there, man, I've been there!" Ethan said, rather defensively. "If you haven't repaired the helmet and got it back on Ceeg, I would've probably burned down the whole grassland! However – think for a minute of that crazy giant armadillo critter we saw a couple of times in the grasslands. Unlike the monkeys, it is not very fast, but it is solid, with all the armour and spikes on its back. Obviously, if one gets an armour suit strong enough, you got nothing to worry in regards to the carakillers."
"Interesting theory, but what about Snowball?" Emily persisted.
"I am getting to it. Now, the snow stalker is some sort of an uber-weasel, right Luis?"
"The holo-deck told us that it descended from the wolverine which is a relative of the weasel, so you're probably right, somewhat," Luis said, uncomfortably. "But so what?"
"So what?! Luis, we have tangled with the uber-weasel personally, it is the near opposite of the Amazonian big bird – short legs, limited speed, but a very solid body build and a nasty set of teeth: it is like the lovechild of the weasel and the sabre-tooth tiger! And everybody knows that sabre-tooth tigers rock!"
"Yeah, they rock," Emily said, in a much drier voice than her usual sweet one, "but Snowball wasn't a tiger!"
"I'm getting to that," by now Ethan was oblivious to Emily's clearly not impressed attitude. "Now look at their 'tudes. The carakiller hunts monkeys and lizards, all much smaller and weaker than it is – so it is just a bully. The snow stalker fights shagrats and flightless sea birds, all bigger and stronger than it, so it's a really mean fighter."
"And so?"
"So, I kind of think that if back then Snowball instead of running around caught its' bearings, wet the whistle with some water, stood the ground and charged back at the original carakiller face to face, that big bird would have ended up being carakilled instead! Get it? Carakilled?" Ethan chucked, but the chuckle immediately stopped, as Emily abruptly stood up and away from the table, visibly angry. "Emily, what's wrong?"
"Ethan- Your jokes- You, you boys, you- Forget it!" Emily spat out, as she went out of the cafeteria room back into the main corridor. "I'll be having some private time; don't bother me until you really are sorry!" She left, her dramatic exit spoilt only by the lack of slammed door, and a faint "Oof! Sorry, C.G." from the main corridor.
Several moments later the cafeteria door re-opened again, and C.G., still rubbing a bump on her head, walking in. "What was that all about?" she asked the two boys in lieu of a greeting.
"I have no idea," Ethan sounded genuinely confused. C.G. looked at the other boy:
"Luis?"
Luis sighed. "It's like this-" he paused, and decided to go for the simpler explanation instead. "Ethan and I were talking about a carakiller vs. snow stalker conflict, and Ethan was saying that the snow stalker should have won over the carakiller easily enough, instead of running around the grasslands like a scared little monkey-"
"Well, maybe it was just disoriented and confused by this great new world it found itself in," C.G. said slowly. "Because otherwise, I don't know, but those great teeth... but I still don't understand – why is Emily upset? Did she think that the carakiller should win?"
"Well," Luis didn't feel really comfortable explaining to C.G. the peculiarities of Ethan and Emily's non-relationship, especially with Ethan in the same room, "it's not quite that-"
"Hey Ceeg, I'm guessing that the autopilot is fully functional?" Ethan interrupted the other boy.
"What? Oh yes, I have successfully completed the installation and activation processes of a fully-functioning autopilot of the time flyer vehicle!" C.G. replied proudly. Then her confident outlook faded somewhat, and she looked at the boys in her more usual, insecure manner. "Want to take a look?"
"Not a 'look' look, just to see what it's like in action," Ethan replied gratuitously. "How does it work, anyways?"
"Oh, I just check the coordinates system of the info-deck into the main computer and establish a connected between the two devices," C.G. said casually. Or rather, she attempted to do casual, but came on as a chattering nervous girl instead.
"That does sound simple," Luis spoke with what he hoped was a cheery smile. "I'm surprised that you didn't do it earlier, with all the back-and-forth flying we've been doing."
"The autopilot doesn't work in time vortexes, Luis," C.G. said, blushing slightly.
"Um, I was talking about us flying back and forth from Northern Ice to Amazonian grasslands," Luis said, turning red himself.
"Yeah, we do that, don't we?" Ethan spoke up thoughtfully. "We do seem to follow a pattern. Here it is the grasslands, in the further future – it is the tropical Antarctic and the Northern forest where the megasquids live. I am guessing that your father and his friends back home have already narrowed down their choices somewhat about where they do want to live in the future and are now trying to choose the best one. Am I right, Ceeg?"
C.G. blinked, obviously caught completely by surprise by this revelation of Ethan's. "I guess," she finally spoke up, clearly unsure of what to say about this new development. "Next time father calls me on the communicator, I'll ask him that. Anyways, um, you wanted to see how the autopilot works right?"
Ethan and Luis exchanged looks.
"Shall we go and ask Emily if she wants to join in?" Ethan asked, unsure of himself for the first time in this flight.
"I don't think so," Luis shook his head. "As usual, when she gets angry at you, she does hold a long grudge."
"I don't understand," C.G.'s voice quivered slightly as it usually did when she did not understand something that she supposed she should have. "Didn't you say that you three were arguing about how a snow stalker would defeat a carakiller?"
"Not exactly," Luis said with a guilty smile of his own. "We weren't so much as arguing as-"
There was just a tiny bump in the time flyer's formerly smooth flight.
"Um, did you feel it?" C.G. asked, her nervousness increasing by a substantial fracture.
"You mean that?" Luis said, attempting in vain to cheer their friend up. "But isn't it normal? I mean, air turbulence and what-not?"
"A-air turbulence?" C.G. repeated, showing clearly that Luis' attempt at cheering-up did not work at all.
"He probably means bad weather, like the one back in the Great Plateau – or is more like in front, seeing as it is still in the future and all?" Ethan explained helpfully. This attempt also backfired rather badly.
"Luis, could you please-" C.G.'s voice was growing rather desperate.
Luis just rolled his eyes at Ethan and got on his feet instead. "Come on, Ceeg, it's probably nothing. The time flyer can probably take on any bad weather short of a meteorite shower-"
There was another bump, more noticeable and substantial than the previous one. Now even Ethan looked worried. "You know, we haven't really been in any kind of seriously bad weather before, especially in the cruiser itself," he said somewhat nervously. "You guys go on to the command room; I'll go and patch things up with Emily instead, okay?"
"You do that," Luis nodded absent-mindedly, as he followed C.G. back to the cruiser's front. "Just treat like a sports-related argument and you'll make some headway at least."
Ethan blinked, as the full gravity of his situation with Emily began to sink in. "Sports-related argument?" he muttered to himself. "That's not good, that's not good at all!"
There were only a limited number of places suitable for people on the relatively small time flyer machine, and naturally, the sleeping quarters of the four friends were probably the most comfortable spot. As Ethan stared at the closed and apparently looked doors to these quarters, he belatedly realized that the arguments that were merely inconvenient back at the hometown could be much more uncomfortable in a much smaller living space instead.
"Em!" he called-out reluctantly, "listen up!"
"I'm not talking to you, Ethan!"
"Yes, I know, I'll probably make it up to you – somehow," Ethan said, feeling oddly hot and uncomfortable with the discussion. "Listen, we've hit some sort of a bad weather spot, and C.G. doesn't sound too sure about her autopilot anymore, you know? So, uh, maybe you should come to the controls room and strap-in or something..."
"Ethan, if that's your way of getting me to-" Here Emily's words were interrupted by another air bump, this one quite noticeable by all of the cruiser's passengers. "Uh, I guess not. Is Squibby all right?"
"Uh-" Ethan realized that he had no idea where the small Terasquid actually was. "I think so. Why don't you come out and check?"
There was a pause and then the door to the sleeping quarters slowly slid open. "Well?" Emily said, looking unnaturally cross for her. "Where's Squibby- oh, there he is!"
Ethan looked around only to see the Terasquid jump around in his usual manner at the opposing end of the corridor. "Come on, let's get him and strap in – I didn't like the feel of that last bump."
"Nice try, Ethan, but I am still not talking to you," Emily shot back, but she sounded more concerned than angry now.
The time flyer shuddered all over its length. Feeling scared for each other and their friends, the two teens raced through the ship's main corridor, picking up Squibby along the way.
Inside the controls room (also known as the cockpit), there was panic and pandemonium, as an increasingly frantic C.G. fought the steering controls of the cruiser.
Warning! Warning! Warning! The autopilot is being overridden. Warning! Warning! Warning! Proper password is required!
"Ceeg!" Luis yelled over the metallic voice of the cruiser's main computer. "What is the proper password?!"
"It's, uh," C.G. yelled back, "two-three-seven-N-eight- arrgh!"
The cruiser shuddered again; the teens were barely able to stay on their feet.
"Guys!! What's going on?!" Emily shouted.
"Look outside!" Luis yelled back. "Oh, snap!"
Emily, Ethan and Squibby looked – and gasped. The sky was covered in blackish-grey clouds that were approaching the flying ship with a speed that was too quick for comfort.
Warning! Warning! Warning! Incorrect password! Warning! Warning! Warning! Automatic shutdown of all the systems in ten seconds! Ten, nine, eight-
"Luis!" C.G.'s voice grew shrill enough to override all the beeping alarms in the cockpit. "I want you to flip the switch next to the blinking red light to your right!"
"What? C.G., are you sure?"
"Luis, that's an order!"
Turning oddly pale, the swarthy boy reached out and flipped the small switch in question. The time flyer shuddered one last time, knocking Emily and Ethan off their feet and Squibby down onto the InfoStation, and the whole time flyer went abruptly down, plummeting like a brick towards land.
As Emily blacked out from the bump to her head, she heard some definitely disturbing noise. She could only hope that it was neither her, nor the cruiser about to fall apart...