The Trip to Grebotrab

In the far off reaches of a distant galaxy, a small spaceship soared among the stars. On this spaceship was Captain Finnian, the famous intergalactic photographer, and his trusty co-captain Quixly.

The ship was in autopilot as they headed towards a distant star formation to photograph, and thus Captain Finnian was taking a short nap in his captain’s chair. He awoke suddenly when Quixly gasped loudly.

“Captain!” Quixly yelled, even though they were sitting right next to each other. “Come here! Quick!” He was pointing frantically at his navigation screen.

Captain Finnian jumped out of his seat and turned to look at the screen, afraid that some dangerous obstacle had appeared in their path. Rather than a danger though, he saw a message on the screen from Quixly’s girlfriend, Xankandria.

Captain Finnian burst out laughing. “Goodness, Quixly! I thought we were about to die, don’t scare me like that! What did she say?”

Quixly chuckled. “Sorry, captain! Didn’t mean to frighten ya! I was just excited! Xankandria invited me to meet her parents! Wahooie!”

As he often did when excited, Quixly started to do a happy dance in his seat. “Wow, that’s a big deal!” Captain Finnian said, excited for his friend. “When does she want you to meet them?”

Quixly looked at his screen again to finish reading the message. Xankandria texted him in their native language of Grebotrabish, so he had to translate the message into the Universal Common Language for Captain Finnian.

“Let’s see,” he said as he read the text. “Wowza! She wants me to meet them tonight! They invited us to dinner at their place on my home planet Grebotrab, and they want us there in five hours!”

“Five hours!?” Captain Finnian said in surprise. “Isn’t Grebotrab on the other side of this galaxy? Can we make it in time?”

Quixly’s excitement suddenly turned to worry. “Oh no! Can we make it in time!?” He pulled out a couple large star charts and looked over them with incredible speed. Quixly was the best navigator Captain Finnian had ever met, so he was sure he’d find a way to get there by dinner.

After about 30 seconds of looking, Quixly looked over at Captain Finnian with anxiety all over his face. “Well, um, there is a way to get there in time…”

“Great!” Captain Finnian responded. “How do we do it?”

Quixly gulped audibly. “We have to go through wormhole 23j90ar7kl. It shoots us out only a few hours from Grebotrab, but we’ll be in the middle of a giant asteroid field. Authorities usually recommend avoiding it except for the most dire of circumstances.”

Captain Finnian smiled. “Well, you need to meet Xankandria’s parents, and you need to meet them tonight. Don’t you think this is pretty dire?”

Quixly thought about it for a moment, and then gave Captain Finnian a determined look. “You’re right. I’ve got to do this. Let’s go before I can change my mind!” He then plugged some coordinate information into their navigation system and slammed his hand down on the hyper speed button. “Hi-dee ho let’s go!”

Captain Finnian barely jumped back to his seat in time for the quick acceleration, and before he knew it they were in front of a massive wormhole. Once the ship slowed down, he took over the controls to drive them through.

“This was a bad idea!” Quixly said, his fear rising again as they approached the giant wormhole.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine!” Captain Finnian replied with confidence. He always loved a good challenging flight.

“I don’t like this!” Quixly yelled as they got closer.

“We’ve got this!” 

“I’m scared!”

“I’m excited!”

“Why are we doing this!?”

“Why not!?”

“I can’t look!”

Captain Finnian would have replied again, but at that moment they entered the wormhole, and he wanted to make sure he was completely focused on their flight. He was an exceptional pilot, but he knew he’d have to be zoned in to get through the asteroids safely.

And asteroids there were. As soon as they came out the other side they were surrounded by thousands of asteroids. Some were the size of their spaceship, some were several sizes larger. They all moved in different speeds and directions. Captain Finnian instinctively broke out into a grin and pushed forwards on the thrusters. 

“Quixly!” He yelled. “Open your eyes, turn on your blasters, and help me out!”

Quixly forced himself to look ahead of them, immediately closed his eyes in a panic, and then opened them again so he could shoot down the more difficult obstacles to avoid.

As Captain Finnian had expected, Quixly’s fear soon melted away as he got into the shooting. From previous adventures, they’d learned that Quixly could go a little gun crazy on asteroids.

“Die, space rocks, die!” Quixly yelled as he shot the giant asteroids in front of them. Meanwhile, Captain Finnian continued to fly with expertise, dodging obstacles that would have demolished less skilled captains.

The time went by quickly, and before they knew it, they came out of the asteroid field. “Yeehaawie!” Quixly yelled. “We did it!”

“With time to spare, too!” Captain Finnian replied. “Punch in the coordinates for Grebotrab, we’ve got a dinner to get to!”

Quixly put in the coordinates and put them back into hyper speed, putting them on schedule to get there over half an hour early.

The two friends spent the next few hours laughing about their crazy adventure and talking about the type of food they hoped they’d get for dinner. However, when their ship pulled out of hyper speed in front of Grebotrab, they were met with another surprise.

“What is that!?” Captain Finnian yelled.

“Uh oh. I think it’s rush hour traffic.” Quixly replied, looking at the long line of spaceships slowly moving towards the planet.

“Rush hour traffic!? What on planet ZX-30 is that!?”

Quixly chucked sheepishly. “Well, my people are very organized. That’s part of what makes me a great navigator and what makes Xankandria a great sports strategist. But it also means we have a lot of rules. You can only enter the planet from a few places, and it gets pretty crowded when everyone come home from work.”

Captain Finnian’s jaw dropped. He’d never heard of such a thing. “So, we can’t just fly around them all?”

“Nope. We’ve gotta wait.”

“Well, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.” Captain Finnian grumbled as he slowly turned the ship towards the back of the line. “We can travel across the entire galaxy, jumping through wormholes and dodging asteroids, and it’s a stupid line that stops us?”

Quixly shrugged. He didn’t like it either, but he was more used to it from growing up there. “On the bright side, what do ya think of my planet?”

For the first time since arriving, Captain Finnian looked down at Grebotrab, and the view took his breath away. The planet was covered with the most beautiful, vibrant colors of green and orange he had ever seen. The textures and patterns of mountains and oceans made it even more spectacular.

“Wow! I need to take some pictures! This is amazing!” Captain Finnian rushed to grab his best camera to get some shots of the planet. That kept them occupied and happy until they finally got through the traffic.

Once they were in the atmosphere, Captain Finnian looked at his clock and smiled. “We’ve still got two minutes! Where do they live?”

Quixly looked at his messages with Xankandria and frowned. “I’m not actually sure, I’ve never been to her city before.”

Captain Finnian stared at his friend in shock. Quixly had successfully navigated the most obscure, distant places in the universe. But he didn’t know how to get to a city on his own planet? 

“Wowza, Captain! Ya really thought I was serious, didn’t ya!?” Quixly laughed and plugged some coordinates into his screen. “Of course I know how to get there! Although it is true that I’ve never been to her city.”

Captain Finnian had already pushed forward on the thrusters by the time Quixly finished talking, and he speedily followed the route to their destination. With seconds to spare he parked the ship in front of Xankandria’s parents’ house, they jumped out, and ran to the front door.

“We made it!” Captain Finnian yelled as they got to the front door right on time. 

“Wahooie!” Quixly replied, doing another happy dance. While dancing he pushed a large button by the door that signaled their presence to those inside. They waited for a minute, and then he pushed it again.

Suddenly, his communication watch buzzed, and he looked down to see a message from Xankandria. He read it silently to himself, and then burst out laughing.

“What? What is it?” Captain Finnian said.

“Turns out they’re running late, we hurried for nothing!” Quixly replied, still laughing. “Anyway, she said they’ll be here in just under an hour. That gives us time for me to show ya where I grew up! C’mon! We can make it there and back in time!” Quixly rushed back to the spaceship.

Captain Finnian laughed and ran to catch up to his friend. He was always ready for another adventure with him.