CHAPTER THREE:
THE JOURNEY

It took two full days of final preparations, but finally Sirod was ready. She thanked all her friends for their assistance, and said farewell to her Mommy, who was not without reservations about Sirod's "Journey of Discovery." There had been some discussion and concern on Mom's part about Sirod's quest for the unknown, but finally Mom had relented, giving Sirod her blessings for a safe and speedy trip.

Mommy figured that the only way to truly hold on to Sirod was to let her spread her wings. Mom figured that philosophy had worked with Zira, and would probably work with Sirod. Mom hoped and prayed that the mission would go smoothly, as she cherished Sirod as much as she did any of her more Anormal-looking babies.

The mission was slated to begin at midnight that very evening, with a full moon to guide Sirod swiftly on her way. Sirod double checked her provisions of fruit and twinkies, and found them to be adequate for the estimated journey's distance. Sirod figured with hyper speed turbo power, she would make it to Tierra Spectral in about two days, using solar power by day, and twinkie fusion by moonlight.

When Mom had seen Sirod packing numerous twinkies into the rocket, she was glad to hear that the twinkies were for propulsion and not provisions. The fruit would sustain Sirod until she could get back to Mom's good eats.

But before blast-off could commence, there was one more important task at hand, the loading and implementation of Sooz-bot, the shipboard navigational unit that Zira had graciously lent to Sirod for the trip. Sooz-bot was a good egg but was known in the past to cause trouble, landing her prior space traveling employers on the wrong planet, in the wrong space-time continuum, but Sirod believed in giving trouble-makers a second chance. This was to be Sooz-bot's "voyage of redemption."

After Sirod and Sooz argued for a good five minutes about which way they were going to plot the voyage, a course was tentatively agreed on (after some mediation intervention was implemented by other more cool headed Baby Face in the gang.) Sooz had fiercely insisted the fastest way was to go straight down the closest volcano to the other side and then upwards, but Sirod didn't think the ship's heat shields could take that, so a more direct "up and away" course was ultimately decided on.

Finally, midnight had arrived, and Sirod clamored up into the rocket with Sooz-bot, after kissing everyone farewell. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 ... 1!!!!!!! With a mighty thrust, Sirod's craft blasted off toward the moon, narrowly missing several spy satellites just passing by in the earth's outer atmosphere. After these narrow misses, it looked like it would be smooth sailing all the way to Tierra Spectral.

Hopefully, Sooz-bot's asteroid forecasts were correct, and Sirod would have no further mishaps on the first leg of her journey. Furthermore, she hoped that Sooz-bot would navigate true, and not land the mission on Uranus or Mars, which would just delay the project for months and guarantee multiple heated discussions between the two Argue-nauts.

Sirod settled back, and was just about to activate the auto pilot, when out in the Event Horizon appeared a tiny fireball. Sirod decided to check it out, against the advise of that know-it-all Sooz-bot, and piloted her craft toward the blip on her radar screen.

As she drew near, she was astounded to find another of her kind! This little Baby Face was not quite like Sirod, she was PINK, and was not prepared for space travel at all, in her snappy pink outfit. To make matters worse, this pink Baby Face was in a HEAP of trouble, what with her space craft almost fully engulfed in flames! Thinking fast, Sirod pulled her rocket up parallel to the burning craft, and offered to take this kindred spirit aboard. The pink Baby Face was more than happy to see Sirod, and quickly jumped on board.

"Greetings there fellow space traveler, my name is So Surprised Lauren, and thank you, you have just saved me in the lick of time! "

It turns out Lauren was traveling to Tierra Spectral too, in search of her own answers to the universe. Sirod offered to take Lauren with her and she gratefully accepted. Sooz-bot was a little disgruntled with this extra baggage and having to share space, but she came around when Sirod suggested that if it was a problem, well, Sirod could always chuck the navigational unit over the side to lighten things up.

With that decided, the intrepid trio again set off for their destination, hoping for no more surprises along the way, and a minimum of "discussions" between the parties on board.

To be continued...