“Fuck.”
“What?”
“Piss.”
“What?!”
“MULTIPLE CURSE WORDS!”
Arkay turned to Galyn, almost insulted by Galyn’s choice of swearing. “Did you really just say-”
“I did…” Galyn snarled, smashing his fingers into a screen. On it, several words flashed repeatedly. “This is so much shit. The damned bureaucracy around here!”
Arkay read and re-read the words on the screen. “Teleportation request denied? Is that the request to be instantly teleported to Deathven?”
Galyn nodded.
“But why?”
Galyn returned his attention to the screen and the various consoles around it, then tutted. “Oh. No. I see what has happened.”
“What?” Arkay felt like he was repeating himself a lot. “What is going on, Galyn?”
The elder Decay Lord took a deep breath, sighing loudly. “Itaviir and Vikalos made a request to be teleported to Deathven Sector Ypsilon. They put their location as “Thantir Two”. Now I am making a request for teleportation as “Thantir Two” and the request is being denied because, as far as the bureaucracy at Deathven is concerned, the Thantir Two is already AT Deathven Sector Ypsilon.”
“Can’t we just-”
Galyn started tapping on various buttons. “I am already requesting a reset and sending a bug report. But we could be stuck out here for far too many hours.”
“How many hours?”
“750 hours, at my best guess.”
“A month?”
“Approximately, yes.”
Arkay sank in his seat. He was both vaguely annoyed and vaguely pleased about this. While he didn’t want to go to Deathven, he knew everyone else did. It was an excuse for Arkay to get out of the “help” he was being forcibly given, but at the same time, he knew Retvik and Litvir were missing out, and Galyn couldn’t reunite with his friends.
“So what now?”
Galyn sighed again, resting his head in his hands. “I… I do not know… We could be waiting a long time for this mess to be sorted out. I could call up Itaviir and shout at him, but that will not help at all. All we can really do is… be patient.”
“Oh.”
Arkay frowned, not really sure what to say. Galyn continued sighing, once again turning his attention to various consoles.
“Sorry, Arkay.”
“Why are you apologising.”
“I do not know. Things should be simple but they are not.”
“Oh…” Arkay rolled his eyes. “I’m used to that shit by now. Literally nothing seems to go right for me. To be completely honest, part of me expected something like this to happen.”
“Well, I am sorry that you are correct then…” Galyn gave up on the typing and turned his attention back to Arkay. “Since we are stuck out here, I suppose I shall let you choose what we do. As long as we remain somewhat close to our teleportation anchor coordinates. Could go back to your old universe for a bit. Or we can just hang out at a local Life Oasis. I heard there is a new one being built somewhere near here…”
“Where is it?” Arkay asked.
Galyn switched to the navigation panel, bringing up a search. His annoyance though quickly changed to confusion.
“I did not know your mother was building a Life Oasis.”
“Kinisis is not my mother…” Arkay growled.
“Apologies. Either way, she appears to be building a Life Oasis. Curious.”
Arkay thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I suppose it can’t hurt going and seeing what she’s up to…”
“You want to go there?” Galyn blinked.
“We don’t have anything better to do.”
“True, true…” Galyn hesitated, before handing the ship controls to Arkay. “You sort out the coordinates, I will inform our crew mates of the new plan…”