"Well?"
A low hum echoed throughout the ship. It was otherwise relatively silent in the room, except for the insistent voice.
"Well??"
It became more and more anxious the more it was ignored. He didn't know how to get rid of it, he just knew he wanted to, no matter what.
"Well?!"
He couldn't take it anymore; he gripped his head in pain as his eyes bulged in frustration.
"Fine! There!" the man moved his rook across the board near his opponent's king.
"Not a good move." The child 'tsked' at the older man and made her move.
"Checkmate! Edward wins!" The young girl jumped up gleefully and bounced around the room. Jet moaned in frustration, turning to look at an equally gleeful Faye and Spike, who seemed just as nearly amused.
"I told you so…" Faye had a very malicious grin across her face as she stared at Jet. She motioned with her hand for him to pay her.
"Three moves, like I said." She giggled uncontrollably as he dug into his pocket and reluctantly gave her the money.
"You're a real pain, you know that?" He growled and avoided looking at her. He then slowly gathered himself from his place beside the table and left them all behind in the room. Sighing very heavily, he let his shoulders sag, never having liked the taste of defeat. He trotted slowly through the halls until he reached his door. Opening it he looked in for a moment at all of his banzai.
"At least you don't try and screw me out of money…" He trotted slowly in and dropped into a seat by all the little trees. He reached out for the watering can at the end of the table. Before he could grasp it the ship shook suddenly with a thunderous crash, throwing him against the table and the can onto the floor.
"What the hell was that?!" Jet hollered out and tried to get to his feet. As he jumped up the ground seemed to agree with the action too much and he floated quickly into the air along with many other things in his room.
Meanwhile, Edward floated close to the ceiling with her computer in her lap. She punched away at the keys while also trying to fend Ein away as he swam through the air.
Faye thrashed, trying to get to the cockpit, screaming all the way about being attacked and being too young to die.
"Put a sock in it Faye, we're not gonna die…Edward, why is the gravity out?" Spike was floating upside down, holding onto the couch to keep him anchored, while trying to look up to Edward at the same time.
"Its another ship, but it seems dead…don't know where it came from either." As Faye answered Spike, he pulled himself along towards the cockpit.
"When the ship hit the gravity broke, but…" Edward hit a few keys, the shouted in triumph as everything went crashing to the floor. Spike head-butted the table, then fell and crumpled down beside it. In the cockpit Faye screamed and fell onto the console. Edward jumped up, rubbing her butt after her own fall.
"Edward fixed it!" She danced around suddenly with Ein in her arms.
"What in God's name are you people doing out here?" Jet stumbled in from the hall, a big bump forming on his forehead.
Spike climbed up from the floor, propping himself on the table.
"Some ship ran into us…least that's what Faye says…" he groaned and stood, rubbing his head. A half grin formed on his face when he saw the knot on Jet's head. "…You look about as bad as I feel…"
"Shut up…" Jet muttered at Spike, feeling the bump, and pushed past him. He had decided to find out for himself what had happened.
Jet entered the cockpit and went straight to the main controls, which Faye lay hunched over, moaning. Grinning happily, he looked her over for a moment before finding what he was looking for. He dug his hand into her back pocket, not wanting to touch her butt, and snatched the money she'd 'won' from him. As he did so she moaned weakly in protest, but he simply ignored it and pushed her off the console.
"That's for letting my ship get hurt." He dropped himself into the chair and looked over the damage. 'Not too bad', he thought, 'Lucky for them it's nothing that can't be fixed easily…' He looked out the front viewer for the other ship, 'Now where's the bastard that hit us…' He brought the Bebop around until the other ship was fully visible.
"What the…" Jet sat staring at it, dumbfounded.
"That's what hit us?" Faye groaned as she slowly pulled herself up, on the chair's arm, from the floor.
Outside the window, the object came slowly into view. Its hull was stark white and seemed, as a whole, a bit larger than the Bebop.
Jet hit a few buttons on the console. Spike came slowly into the room with Ed bouncing behind him, and an equally eager Ein running in behind her. Faye leaned against the chair, peeking over Jet's shoulder and rubbing her side.
"What is it?" Jet brought the ship back, trying to get a good look.
"Um…it…it looks like a sneaker…" Faye had stepped closer to the window and tilted her head to the side in wonder.
Outside the Bebop a stunningly beautiful stark white ship, which did in fact have a shape much like a sleek running shoe, floated lifelessly away. All its outside lights were out and it made no attempt to right itself from its odd angle in reference to the Bebop. Though the ship was only a rough 8 meters longer than the Bebop, its shape made it appear far larger than the cowboy's fishing boat.
"Wait a second…isn't that…" Jet stared at the ship for a moment and decided to look it up to make sure. It was about that time that all hell broke loose.
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"What happened?" Arthur questioned no one in particular, but looked at them all expecting an answer.
Not too far from him, Trillian poked about feverishly at the console, but seemed to get nothing but sore fingers.
"The computer's not responding…but wait…" She leaned over close to the Improbability flightpath scanner, looking at the scrolling bar of numbers. "Seems Eddie kicked on the improbability drive…two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against and falling…"
Out of seemingly nowhere, much like a pesky fly on your sandwich, a group of seemingly average chickens scurried around the bridge until something that was seemingly much like a bell went off. At which point they all turned to Zaphod and explained that it was teatime and they were all quite famished. Zaphod, not being one who normally talks to animals, points them in the direction of Zarniwoop, who still seems to be trying to recover from the nasty thrashing Zaphod gave him earlier. Noticing the crowd of chickens at his feet getting more and more insistent, Zarniwoop turns and runs off, screaming in a 'why me?' sort of way, with the chickens close behind.
"Two to the power of fifty thousand to one against…that was quite mild for the high improbability factor…" Trillian watched Zarniwoop and the chickens exit and didn't seem entirely impressed with the scene.
Ford left his sprawled spot on the floor and joined Trillian at the back part of the room, as if two people could bring the computer back to life.
"Great…I ask for food and get chickens…I need a drink…" Zaphod's right head whined, his left seeming more interested in fixing the problem.
"Earthman…be a pal and go get us some drinks…" Zaphod's left head demanded in a slight sort of whining way, turning to find Arthur amidst the weirdness that began to drown the bridge. But instead he found an oddity in Arthur's place. Oddity as in, odd how Arthur now more closely resembled a small chimp, rather than his usual human-like self. As Zaphod's left head realized what happened he grinned and that grin spread from one head to the other as his right one caught on to the amusing occurrence nearest him.
"How fitting…" His right muttered as his left turned back to the group, "Hey guys! The Earthman has turned into a monkey!" His left head had a good laugh while his right seemed perplexed at it for a moment before speaking, "Hey…er…Trillian…I didn't think this weird junk was supposed to happen up in here…just…like…er…in the Drive Room…"
Monkey-Arthur looked himself over, not understanding what Zaphod was rambling on about, and screamed a loud monkey scream and ran over to Ford, jumping onto his shoulder. He grabbed at his hair and continued to scream on something about not wanting to be flea infested and only 2 ft tall. Ford and Trillian were too occupied in the computer to be bothered with either of their ranting and raving, so Zaphod simply shrugged and left the bridge in search of the Improbability Drive Room.
None of them seemed to notice as the bridge took on the form of a Larion Space Camp (a small cave like structure that closely resembles a cross between earth's catholic monastery and a bordello). Instead, being tired of having his hair pulled, Ford, who now more closely resembled a Icpian (a tall, rump humanoid species which very nearly resembles earth's circus clowns), swatted Monkey-Arthur from his shoulder. Trillian finally looked up from her work for Zaphod, being now quite a while since he left, but not finding him ignored that he'd said anything and went back to the console.
"Two to the power of eight hundred sixty-five to one against… hey Bonzo…any luck with the computer?"" She turned to Ford and had to strain herself from laughing at them both, as she too began to change.
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"FREEZE EARTH FEMALE!…or…I'LL REDUCE YOU TO PLUTON PARTICLES!" A chunky, animorphic penguin, with an overly large nose, stood thrusting a toy ray gun at Faye.