The Mashed Potato Fight

"Get them! We can't lose this one!" Sami, the captain of the turquoise team, shouted from the top of her lungs.

It was their weekly fighting practice. Every Friday afternoon for five hours two teams consisting of one flying vessel each were throwing mashed potato balls at each other. Winning or losing depended on precision, speed and throwing and dodging techniques of the players as well as the helmsman's ability to maneuver the vessel safely and nimbly right into the melee or out of harm's way.

"Stop!" the referee yelled. "You tried to ram the neon orange team again. That's a no go! One more time and I'll take twenty points off of your final score."

"Can't they wait until the competition starts before they damage and break their ships?" he grumbled. "At least I could disqualify them straight away and end the game early."

"Referee, duck!" Sasha from the neon orange team bellowed as she chucked a mashed potato ball at one of the thirteen fighting crew members of the turquoise team. She hit a leg and was immediatly awarded ten points. The score on the colossal billboard attached to the sun automatically kept track of it and it now read: 60 (neon orange team) - 90 (turquoise team)

Sasha's team desperately wanted to beat Sami's, seeing as they had lost the last two practice matches. They unleashed ball after ball but they only managed to hit legs and arms, scoring ten points each time, whereas Sami's team often hit their chests and backs, scoring twenty points every time. Sasha would be happy if no one got hit in the head today. Head hits were worth fifty points.

Sasha had no idea why Sami and her team were such excellent fighters. It could be extremely frustrating.

But today Sasha wanted to do really well because today was the first practice day for their annual competition, the Big Fall Competition, which would be held at the end of fall. Or to be precise, when the big moon had orbited Planet ZGZ3799 halfway and was completely eclipsing the small moon. It was the event of the year and drew spectators from planets, universes and galaxies far and wide. Many even risked traveling through wormholes.

The inhabitants of Planet ZGZ3799 had been playing this game for millennia and it had become famous everywhere. It was a fantastic way of hooking up with others, of meeting, getting together and making new friends.

Flying traders popped up everywhere like mushrooms and people mingled, chatted and whiled the time away, sharing stories, anecdotes and food. Race and religion did not matter, had never mattered. It had taken many lifetimes but beings had evolved and learned from the mistakes of the incorrigible human race.

The competition sometimes lasted for days, other times it was over after a few hours. It all depended on how quickly a team could win the majority of eleven rounds. The victorious team would win a new coat of paint for their vessel as well as a coupon that would cover the maintenance costs of and new equipment for each pirate vessel and jerseys for each team member for the duration of an entire year.

"Hey, using stars as a shield is forbidden," Sami roared.

"Then stop trying to distract us with shooting stars!" Sasha fired back.

The referee kept turning around in circles, attempting to catch the cheaters, but he was too slow. What a shame! He would have loved to disqualify them and end the practice session. He had weekend plans and was eager to wrap things up for the day.

"Faster, faster!" Sasha screamed. "Left, turn left, more still, now straight!"

In a brave maneuver  they snuck behind Sami's vessel and secured them 250 points, bringing their score up to 370, whereas Sami's team counted only 300 points now.

"We can win this baby," Sasha hollered at her crew. "150 points until victory is nothing!"

They threw mashed potato balls at Sami's crew with renewed energy, getting them another forty points in rapid succession.

"Get them, for crying out loud!" Sami yelled again at her crew. "Did you forget to screw on your pitching arm? Swerve to the right and then cut in at a sharp angle – now!"

The helmsman, Pete, did but before he could end the maneuver it grew pitch dark around them, so dark that they could not see anything. Nothing at all. It was eerily quiet, too. There was not even the sound of a light breeze. They were suddenly extended between space and time, hovering. Or maybe floating through space and time.

"Hold on to what you can," Sami's voice was loud in the silence that enveloped them and she lowered it quickly. It carried a long way, even when she whispered. "Looks like we got sucked into a black hole."

It had happened before. Not to them or anyone they knew, but there were tales from long ago that spoke of such incidents. One moment the vessels were there, the next they had vanished. Literally into thin air. Or black air, depending. Some of the lost ones had returned to talk about what it was like on the inside or whether there was a way out, but it had been different for everyone each time. Black holes were unpredictable. There was no way of knowing whether Sami and her crew would come back, or when.

"Pete, can you make light, please?" Sami asked.

"I already have," came the helmsman's disembodied voice. "It should be right above my head but I don't see a thing."

"In that case we'll just have to wait and see. Or rather not."

Someone chuckled even though Sami had not intended to make a joke. She did not feel much like joking right now. She thought they drifted along, sometimes faster but most of the time at a very leisurely pace. Every time their ship changed speed her stomach gave a little lurch. After a while she felt queasy and she wished she had a piece of dry bread to nibble on but their vessel carried neither food nor drink.

"Crap it! This hasn't happened in like forever," she swore to herself. "Why do we have to get sucked into a black hole?"

"It totally sucks," Elijah agreed. "We were having such a great winning streak; I'm sure we could've still turned that match around! And now this."

Initially, the crew were whispering, wondering how they had ended up in a black hole and speculating what was going to happen to them but they fell silent one after the other. It was spooky conversing with someone you could not see. An intense feeling of loneliness and even despair descended upon them the longer they traveled. After what seemed like hours someone suddenly said, "I believe there's a source of light ahead!"

True enough! It was diffuse but discernible and they were approaching it steadily; there was no turning around anyway because the helm did not react to a single command. Whether they wanted to or not, this was the way they were heading.

Very slowly the contours of the vessel and her crew became visible once more but they remained blurred. The light did not get brighter. If anything, it had a noticeable tinge of blue.

"Hang on tight!" Sami called out right before they transitioned from the black hole into the bluish light but her crew did not need telling. However, there was no bump, no shake – they effortlessly glided from one sphere into the other.

Water! They had slid into water! The ship simply continued to float along. It was like slicing through soft butter. When Sami's eyes had adjusted to the light she realized that she was completely dry, despite being surrounded by water. She suddenly noticed a terrible itch in her fingers. Scratching herself, she saw that she was growing webs!

"I'm turning into a frog!" she shouted but the only audible sound was little bubbles rising from her mouth. She instinctively took a deep breath, expecting with a shock of fear to swallow water instead and drown but to her surprise she was able to breathe. She gingerly touched her throat. 

<Gills!> she thought. <How's that even possible? We don't possess any magic whatsoever. We should all be dead by now.>

Then she decided not to overthink it and just be glad about her automatically adjusting body. Sami looked around to check how her crew was faring. She registered the same mixture of fear, shock and surprise on each of their faces. To lift their spirits, she gave them the thumbs-up and smiled. After all, they had made it through the black hole unharmed and alive!

Sami signaled her crew to stow away the mashed potatoes and everything else that was loose and in danger of getting lost, if it had not been lost already. When she saw the mashed potatoes she realized that they would have had food after all.

<How could I have forgotten?> she chided herself.

Grabbing a handful of mashed potatoes she stuffed them into her mouth and swallowed, but now that she was sort of like a fish she did not feel queasy anymore. Shaking her head she stopped eating and gave her crew a hand securing everything that was still floating around.

They avoided swimming because they were afraid that an unexpected current could sweep them away. Instead, they moved around by holding on to the rail and anything else that they could find.

When they were done they gathered around the helm. Sami registered with relief that the entire crew was accounted for and unhurt. Unfortunately, none of them could change the situation they were in. The only thing they were able to do was pay attention to their environment to be prepared for possible danger. Although what precisely they should defend themselves with apart from their bare hands remained a mystery to all of them. There were no weapons aboard and throwing mashed potato balls under water....well. Good luck trying.

The longer they were drifting along, the more they became aware of the astonishing underwater world surrounding them.

"Check out how huge some of these creatures are!" Pete bubbled in wonderment. The vast majority was as big or even bigger than the ZGZers. Some indeed as big as the vessel! All of them were colorful, sporting scintillating, fluorescent scales or skin. Luckily, they seemed good-natured. At least none attacked them, even though they eyed them curiously and took their time sniffing them up and down and exploring the ship.

"Most of these animals remind me of ours at home," Elijah said.

"Well, kinda," Mara conceded, "but they all look somewhat grotesque. Take that fish over there: its giant head is attached to a miniscule body so that it's stooping and its fins are so tiny that they can barely propel the body forward. What purpose does that serve?"

Elijah shrugged. "Who cares, it's still a fish, isn't it?"

"What about those furry creatures?" Phil pointed out. "Or those lumpy ones? I don't see any resemblance to our underwater creatures."

"We are in a different world or even universe after all," Sami reminded them, but whether they looked similar or entirely different, everyone was mesmerized by them.

Until they suddenly noticed that bit by bit, all of the activity, the nudging and pushing, the playing and bickering, the eyeing and ogling, around them had ceased and all of the creatures had disappeared as though they had never existed in the first place. It was spooky. The sea that had been full of activity only moments before was suddenly devoid of all life.

The ZGZers became more and more nervous by the second, they were apprehensive and on edge. Something was coming, looming somewhere in the murky shadows. Something they could not quite make out.

First it was only an indistinct shape that quickly took on the form of a rubber boot. With a sheep head sticking out of the leg. Enormous in size and scary as hell. If they could have, the ZGZers would have scattered into all directions and fled for their lives. But they did nothing of the sort. They did the only thing they could do: wait. And hoped for the best.

It looked like the sheep was grazing: the mouth was a gaping hole and slowly, almost leisurely, swinging its head from side to side it sucked up everything. Plant, rock, sand, creature, it did not make a difference, it all vanished in its mouth. And was gone. Swallowed whole.

Sami looked at her crew in panic.

"Hold on!" she screamed, although only bubbles sprang from her mouth.

They were clinging on for dear life when their vessel was caught in the pull of the gigantic open mouth. It only lasted for a few seconds, then they were inside and tossed and swirled around at breakneck speed, up and down, left and right, bouncing against the sheep's teeth, tongue and palate, and finally they were washed down its throat and into the stomach. For a moment things quieted but then a wave so enormous that it nearly capsized their ship came crushing down on them.

"Steer us away from the gullet!" Sami shouted from the top of her lungs but the helmsman was already working on it. A couple of attempts and evasive maneuvers later they had managed to escape to relative safety for the time being.

Heaving a deep sigh of relief, Sami took stock. One of the smaller masts was broken, the main sail was torn and parts of the rail were gone. They had also lost one man who fell overboard when they were being hurtled down the gullet.

"Pull in what's left of the sail," she commanded of two crew members, noticing with a start that her gills were gone again. "Store it away. It may come in handy at some point, you never know."

Then she and four others pulled off the broken mast and tied it to the bottom of the main one. Any extra materials, even if they were broken, might be of use later. They were in a very strange situation and they had to at least try to be somewhat prepared for all sorts of eventualities. They sat down, exhausted. Emotionally exhausted more than anything else.

Inside the sheep's stomach wood and plants were bobbing on the surface of the water. No one knew what was hidden in the depth and no one cared to imagine or find out either. It was too terrifying to think about and their minds recoiled from it.

They had no idea how long they had been sitting there for. It did not matter. If they did not perish inside the sheep's stomach, they would eventually die of dehydration. Their predicament was hopeless.

After a while Mara became aware of small waves lapping against the ship.

"Did we move closer to the gullet again?" she asked, a trace of fear in her voice.

"No, we're anchored," Pete replied.

It was true, however. Waves were lapping against the hull and they were growing bigger. Bigger and faster and faster, until the anchor tore loose and the vessel was tossed around once more like a tiny ping pong ball. There was nothing to do for her crew but to hang on for dear life once more.

Then they heard a loud rumble and they surged forward, pulled along by an incredible force. A powerful and violent gust of wind catapulted them up and spewed them back out of the sheep's mouth, hurtling them through the water but with such incredible propulsion that they were pushed further and further up until they broke through the water's surface into the atmosphere.

Looking back from afar, all they could see was a vast, endless body of water. 

"I can't believe we made it," Phil said, his voice shaking.

"We're so darned lucky," Sami agreed.

They were finally back out in space and able to breathe normal again.

"Look at this!" Fuze exclaimed. Everyone peered down the side of the vessel and the sight left them awestruck. It seemed like all of the planets in this galaxy were connected by waterways, and they were now floating weightlessly above them. Everything was shimmering, shifting and moving constantly, displaying the most stunning hues of blue, green, yellow and purple.

"Amazing!" Sami said and took a deep breath.

"Did everyone make it?" she then asked, afraid that they had lost another crew member but feeling a flood of relief wash over her when they were all accounted for.

"I didn't know that sheep regurgitate," Pete remarked.

"Clearly in this universe they do," Fuze answered. "What now?"

"Now we wait until we get either sucked into another black hole," Sami replied and shuddered at the thought of it, "or we get pulled into the gravitational field of a planet. Unless you do have any control over where we go?"

But Pete only shook his head.

"We're at the mercy of space."

"Thank goodness! And here I already feared that it was something worse," Sami said sarcastically.

Time passed slowly. As fascinating as it was, after a while they grew tired of watching stars blink out of life, shooting stars whoosh by, moons orbit and meteorites smash into planets. They amused themselves with finger games, stories and riddles for a bit but finally dozed of. This trip was taking its toll.

One after the other they woke up again but there was no way of telling how much later. It had got noticeably cooler and also darker. The air was crisp and they could see their breath. Then the cool air became freezing. It was so cold that every surface was instantly covered with a thick layer of ice.

Soon it was snowing, lightly at first but it did not take long for the flurries to turn into a raging storm. The wind was lashing the snow into their faces so hard that it hurt and there was zero visibility. In order to keep warm they started exercising. They did anything that they could perform remaining in one spot because every step they took made them slip.

At some point Pete realized that there was a rhythm to their movement and that they were flying in concentric circles instead of just floating aimlessly through space. 

Nudging Sami he said into her ear, "We must've finally been pulled into the gravitational field of a planet! We stopped floating."

Sami nodded. She had noticed it, too.

Since communication was impossible due to the howling wind Sami could not tell anyone else about Pete's observation. On the other hand, it was not that great of an observation anyway, considering that there was no way of telling how long they would be circling this planet for before being pulled in close enough to land.

As time went by their vessel picked up speed. Initially, it was barely noticeable because the wind was so strong but as their velocity increased steadily it became undeniable. The ship creaked and groaned and cracked and the snow blurred past and the wind screamed when they suddenly broke free of their rotation and hurled through the white darkness at breakneck speed.

Thump! They touched ground. It was such a forcecful impact that it rattled their bones and jarred their teeth. The ship continued to slide over the ice for a few hundred meters before it came to a stop.

It was still bitter cold but the snow and wind had lessened so that they could at least make out the apparitional contours of tall, rounded, windowless buildings and big, sturdy vehicles moving around.

Suddenly an enormous head peeked over the side of their vessel.

"Hello!" The voice booming from the sizeable mouth made them jump out of their skin. "You're blocking traffic in our busiest intersection. If you don't remove your ship immediately, I'll have to give you a ticket for obstruction and I'll have to have her towed."

Sami, her teeth chattering from the cold, shouted back,"Our vessel normally flies but the snow is too heavy. It's keeping us rooted to the ground. Even if we wanted to, we couldn't move her. She doesn't possess an engine of any kind either."

"She has wheels," the voice objected.

"She has what?" Sami asked, incredulous.

"Wheels," the voice replied patiently. "She's therefore subject to our traffic laws. Hang on, let's have a closer look at these wheels."

The head disappeared, presumably bending down to inspect the aforementioned vehicle components. When it poked back up a couple of seconds later it was waving a ticket into Sami's face.

"No winter tires, how irresponsible." Reproachful. "I'm having you towed to the next car dealer where you'll be required to purchase proper winter tires. Afterward you can go wherever. That's 75 gashi for blocking traffic and 499 gashi for driving without winter tires."

"I'm sorry, we don't have any money, especially not in your currency. We come from Planet ZGZ3799," Sami explained. "We don't even know where we currently are."

"You're on Planet PP-Gashi-5," the voice that was beginning to look like a giant snowman said. "We're a lesser planet in the 8244 lunar galaxy and we're on the dark side of the moon, that's why it never stops snowing."

Sami shook her head regretfully.

"I'm awfully sorry, but I've never heard of your galaxy. We must live very far apart indeed. We don't even have a currency any more in our galaxy, we "pay" by trading knowledge, stories, food or manual labor. So the only way we can pay you is by offering to share our knowledge, stories and manual labor, seeing as we don't even have any proper food on us."

And strangely enough, she had not felt hungry or thirsty at all this entire time, only nauseous. Either the laws of the universes worked in their own special, magical ways or they simply had not been gone for long, although it certainly felt like eternity.

"Alright," the voice sighed, took the ticket back and tore it up. "I'll let it slide this time. However, winter tires are mandatory. I'll ascertain that the car dealer puts them on and gets reimbursed by the City."

"Do you have any idea how we might get back into space?" Pete called out before the understanding traffic officer could leave.

"I'll ask around and get word to you. Stay put at the car dealer's."

The snowman lumbered off.

Shortly after a tow truck arrived, hooked them up and dropped them at the car dealer's who had thankfully already received precise instructions.

The boss of the dealership provided them with a hot beverage but other than that left them to their own devices. Nothing on Planet PP-Gashi-5 was heated – not surprising, considering that its inhabitants seemed to be snowpeople. Unfortunately, they could not provide winter clothes either; those would have been welcome.

At least they were inside a huge garage now and no longer exposed to the biting wind and incessantly falling snow.

Mechanics changed their tires and occasionally, someone came and brought more hot beverages and sandwiches. At some point the traffic snowman returned, accompanied by about twenty other tall and quite imposing snowpeople.

"We've thought about your situation long and hard," he said. "We've cleared a wide stretch of road where we'll take you now. Then we'll blow. Our combined forces should send you flying once more."

Sami seriously doubted the success of this endeavor but for lack of a better idea she consented and thanked them for their efforts.

"We're very grateful to you."

The snowpeople pushed their vessel out of the garage along various streets until they were at the edge of the city where others were still busy keeping the road plowed. Positioning the ship in the middle of the road, they formed a narrow circle around her. At a sign from the traffic snowman everyone began blowing.

The vessel began rolling forward slowly but gathered speed rapidly thanks to the snowpeople that were blowing with all their might. In a whiff they were airborne and hurtling upward into the sky, higher and higher until they left the shadow of the moon of Planet PP-Gashi-5 and were floating through space again. The crew breathed an audible sigh of relief.

"I never thought this would work!" Mara remarked and everyone muttered agreement. It was simply too absurd. On the other hand, everything that had happened to them ever since they were sucked into the black hole was absurd and mind-blowing. Mara sure hoped she would live to tell the tale.

"I really just wanna go home!" Elijah sighed.

"Tell me about it! I've had enough adventures to last me for the rest of my hopefully boring life," Fuze said. "But now what?"

"Now we'll wait again," Sami replied. "There's nothing else we can do, and I hate it just as much as you."

They were drifting along once more. This part of the universe was indeed fascinating. Tiny things – it was anyone's guess what they were – were filling the space around them. They hovered in thick clouds, sometimes so thick that there was barely room to breathe, or whizzed around. There was constant movement and the air was filled with little whooshing and swishing sounds and the most iridescent colors imaginable.

It was very different from the space surrounding Planet ZGZ3799 because it was empty, entirely devoid of everything. There weren't even dust particles or bacteria. Those only reappeared once one reached the outer rim of the Ghost Galaxy but within it there was no life, apart from life on the inhabited planets, of which there were six out of more than one hundred.

"I should've become an explorer," Pete said, a hint of regret audible in his voice. Instead he had decided to become a helmsman and spend most of his time practicing for the Big Fall Competition. It was a pleasant life but rather uneventful.

All of a sudden they felt a strong pull that gave their vessel direction. Forward and slightly sideways.

"Hold on!" Sami shouted. "It's a wormhole!"

Its tunnel was looming in front of them, daunting and inescapable. There was no way of knowing whether they would be traveling a billion light years or only a few meters, to different universes or even different points in time. At least their chances of surviving passage through a wormhole were much higher than through a dark hole.

They were sucked in and tossed back out in less than the blink of an eye – right back into their mashed potato fight!

"What the hell!" Pete roared but Sami and her crew were still too dumbstruck to react. They were right back where they started from, it was incredible! And to judge by the non-reaction of Sasha's crew they had not even noticed their absence. Gone and returned in nanoseconds. In the blink of an eye.

Shrugging off her bewilderment Sami turned to her crew.

"Get ready and give it all you got! We survived this trip so we can still win this bitch!"