Spiff woke up violently when his head hit a wall and his body hit a floor. His vision was mostly splotches and shapes, there was a terrible ringing in his ears, and he had yet to remember what he'd been doing or what had happened, but he still made an attempt to assess the area:

He saw, through his muddied vision, that he was in a small square room with pour perfectly smooth walls, three of which were dark purple and one of which was glowing bright pink. He felt around aimlessly and called out various mumbles, like "uuwu?" and "bwahh?" He heard no response. He got on his hands and knees and started crawling about the cell, quite slowly since he still couldn't see a thing.

After a few moments, he suddenly found his hands reaching around something big and warm, and before he even realized it, he'd fallen on top of it and off the other side. The thing screamed, "OW!", and Spiff's vision had cleared enough for him to realize that it was Fargle.

"Fuh-Fuh-Fargle?" Spiff mumbled. "Are you there?"

Fargle was still lying in a heap on the floor. "Oh… W-w-what... happened?"

With some difficulty, Spiff managed to get up on his knees. He tried to stand up, but that made him fall over, so he gave up on that. "I… uh… I think I see Mort and Rolf here too…?" Two other bodies were, indeed, lying down near them.

"Yah," called Rolf's voice. Then another voice, one distinctly crackly and quiet, asked, "come in, Blue Lightning! Blue Lightning, come in, this is Arpenholl!"

Nobody moved. Everyone was still in some terrible pain, and no one was entirely sure that they'd heard anything.

"Blue Lightning, this is Arpenholl! Blue Lightning!"

Mort's leg twitched. Spiff put his head between his legs while Fargle made a soft moaning sound.

"B…Blue Lightning! Come in! …O-O-Over?"

Rolf managed to gather up his strength and reach for Mort's belt, where the voice was coming from. He found the radio, pressed the button, and tried to respond- "Yah! Yah! Here! Here!" was all he managed.

The voice came back. "Thank the stars! You guys just cut out, we thought you got eaten or something!" Spiff was now sentient enough to recognize the voice as Paulo's.

Rolf responded with another "Yah… here…" Mort crawled toward the radio with one hand, intending to take it, but he kept stopping to hold his breath every few feet. Spiff finally regained enough sanity to take the radio himself and say, "We're trapped, Paulo! No idea where we are!"

"Trapped?! Where?"

"I just said, we have no idea where we are! GOSH!"

Fargle tapped his leg. "It's a jail cell," he said.

Spiff nodded and repeated into the radio, "It's a jail cell! …Wait, it's a jail cell?" He turned to Fargle and asked, "How do you know that?"

Fargle gestured to the walls surrounding them. On closer look, it certainly did look like a jail cell: the dark purple walls were bare and ugly, and covered with scratchy writing. The glowing pink wall, Spiff realized, was in fact a high-tech energy barrier that covered the entire width and height of the cell. Spiff guessed that it would shock him if he got close.

He turned to Mort's radio. "Yeah, it's definitely a jail cell."

"An… alien jail cell…!" Mort muttered from nearby. Spiff gave him a little "be-quiet" kick.

Paulo responded: "Well. We'll, uh, try to trace your location, I guess. Where were you- hey! Sergeant, I-" The radio crackled and muffled. Paulo could be heard struggling with someone else on the other side. They evidently managed to get the receiver away from in him, because a moment later, Awol's voice sounded:

"Blue Lightning! What in Jupiter's name is going on? You haven't made any scheduled reports! And what's this about a jail cell?"

Spiff couldn't help smirking, even though Awol couldn't see it. "You seem awful concerned about us, Migget!"

"W-what?! No, I- I'm just- this is protocol! I- you're out of line asking something like that!" He grumbled indistinctly.

"Whatever you say!" Spiff said, still smirking. "Say, uh, do you know about any aliens in this area?"

"There are no aliens in this area," Awol said without any hesitation.

Spiff's smile dropped. His eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that the entire Q sector is barren. We've explored all of them except 13. There is no animal life on any of them."

"But the Zorg!" shouted Fargle. Everyone else looked at him in surprise. He covered his mouth and lowered his head.

"Uh, yes, the Zorg," said Spiff. "There was a Zorg in the cave we stayed in. It chased us out and it would have eaten us if the aliens hadn't come and shot it down."

Awol took an uncomfortably long time to chime back in. "There's something funny going on," he said at last. "Zorg aren't native to this sector. They're practically on the opposite end of the system. There's no way one could naturally exist on- wait, what do you mean the aliens?"

"Uh, the aliens that captured us?" Spiff said with a roll of the eyes. "Whose jail cell do you think this is, the Klingons'?"

Awol grumbled. "Whatever, whatever, shut up! Fact is, there shouldn't be intelligent life around either. We've checked with every allied planet and empire, even some enemies, and Q-13 is almost definitely unexplored. We wouldn't have sent you if… if…" He trailed off and repeated, "Something funny is going on."

"Unt here iss somesink else!" cried Rolf.

The team all glanced at him, and then at the pink barrier, where he was pointing. On the other side were two of those same aliens. In a flash, the barrier disappeared, the creatures said something unintelligible, and they each grabbed two boys in either arm.

Spiff was being held very tightly and he felt short of breath. He called, "C-c-catch you later, Migget!" and, to his dismay, dropped the radio on the ground, leaving it behind.

"Th-the valiant Spaceman Spiff has been captured!" he said to himself. This had turned into a habit, narrating his own life. "Where are these dastardly aliens taking him?!"