Out the window, with the tip pointed down, all we could see was the deep dark blackness of the crushing depths below. No sea floor in sight.

  "How many atmospheres is this ship rated for?"

  "Well, it's a space ship, so between zero and a few."

  "We weren't designed to explore the deep sea, as well, by chance, were we?

  "Even Mother could not have predicted this outcome."

  Ohh... yeah, I'd made a couple mistakes leading up to this point. Mostly recently. Not sure getting in the ZipDrive in the first place was a mistake... but most decisions since then feel like mistakes. Nyany may be the main exception.

  "I'm sorry everyone. I... this is all my fault."

  "I'll take a small amount of blame," Nyany said, "I did aim this thing."

  "Passing ten atmospheres." the computer reported.

  "Where is the most pressure-secure room in the ship?" I asked.

  "The orgyrium doubles as a panic room, but without knowing how deep we're going, there is no way of know if it'll hold."

  "Let's get everyone in there there, and seal up."

  "Now passing thirty atmospheres."

  "What happened to twenty?

  "We were talking, sir."

  "Right."

  I unbuckled and walked to the galley while the artificial gravity held. Terra and Nyany came with. Tiph and T-Neigh met us there.

  "Well, I'd say let's have a beer, but I think we're fresh out."

  There was an audible thunk as something clanged onto the hull.

  "There are a few bottles left," Beccas voice chimed in, "Got a deep sea probe attached. You are going down all the way to the hadal zone of this ocean. The sea floor where you're likely to land is going to be more than 1200 atmospheres. If the room you're in survives, It'll be a couple days before we can rescue you down there. Start printing food before everything shuts down."

  "Passing fifty atmospheres."

  "That's enough reporting, the atmospheres, just warn us before we hit the bottom if we're still here when we get that deep." We all set to work ordering as much food as we could from the food printers, and the ship groaned, and sang, and made weird whale songs as we dropped ever lower.

  There was a rumble and a shake, and what sounded like explosions to me. The power suddenly flickered. For a moment, down was down, not sideways, because of the gravity plates. Backup power kicked in, and the floor was the floor again.

  "Hey, computer... Still with us?"

  "Nah," Becca said, "Your balls imploded, took out her main cpu. Got her all backed up though, installing her in your new ship, she'll be ready for you if you don't die in the next few minutes."

  There were more, implosions. First the bridge, through the window, I'm sure. Then the rooms down the hall of mistresses popped, imploding my entire shaft. Then we hit rock bottom, and I'm pretty sure my whole shaft broke off before we started to settle to the seabed... only we didn't settle.

  "Oh, that's unfortunate." Becca said, before a new rumble started, "You are caught in an actively upheaved deep-ocean current. Maybe the current wouldn't be quite so strong and wild if the planet you were on didn't have such a recently exploded moon."

  "Maybe, we'll never know."

  "Dave's doing his best to rebliterate the moon. Hopefully he can stop a full blown mass extinction event. There's still a chance that the moon will fully explode. The reaction inside hasn't yet stopped. Still a slow burning nuclear fire under the crust, and there are even larger deposits than what you blew up that could go if a mouse fart of nuclear fire gets to them."

  "Speaking of the mouse, how is Disney?"

  "Litigious and violent li-" She was cut off. There was a crunching scraping noise, and the power went out. We must have lost the probe she was attached to us with.

  Plunged into darkness, we were slammed forward, and then aft, and then the whole room started to roll, but down stayed down, like bastard. How dare down obey the standard laws of gravity again. This was an advanced space penis, dammit, down should be sideways!

  At least the soft red emergency lights kicked on a little while after we lost power.

  Our printed food spilled everywhere, all over the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the floor again... ohhh we were spinning real good now; pinned to the walls, like we were inside a dryer. Hay mixed with jellyfish, and deer haunch, and mash potato smeared all over everything and everyone one. Possibly the least sexy food to lick off...

  I'm not sure how long we tumbled, but we were all battered to hell by time we stopped. We finally hit a calm, steady, rising current, and when we had a consistent down again We cracked the emergency life support packs to freshen the air, and used the emergency medical supplies to tend our cuts and bruises.

  We drifted through the calmer currents in whatever bit of my once mighty Hammer was left. Ohh... my poor, flaccid, imploded hammer.

  We seemed to hit solid ground again, and our little safe space full of breathable air groaned to a halt.

  "Pressure scope on the wall makes me think we're pretty shallow. Only five atmospheres of pressure outside." Terra said. She had just pulled inside her shell and weathered the rolling far better than the rest of us. Never really wished I was a turtle before.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Tiphanie walked over to the door that used to lead down the hall of mistresses, and placed her hand on it. There was a loud ping from her, and she stood there a moment thinking as it echoed back to us.

  "Ow, loud." Nyany said, putting her hands over her hears, "So she's a sonar system too, wonderful."

  "We have struck land," Tiphanie reported. She pointed, "A few hundred meters up that way, there is surface land. A rocky beach, I think."

  "Do... we want to evacuate the panic room?" I asked. "Or do we want to risk the current changing and dislodging us? We could end up back in the deeps?"

  "Fucking LOVE to not be in the ocean." Nyany said, and started walking toward the door.

  "Abstain," Terra said. "Either way is fine with me. I'll follow the group."

  "I'd like out of this room," T-Neigh said, "Even if I have to go for a bit of a swim."

  T-neigh followed Nyany's lead. Despite being taller than her by two whole heads, T-neigh still looked smaller, somehow, trailing behind my bottom bitch.

  "In the event of an emergency shallow-water landing, my ass can be used as a flotation device. The same compressed gas that inflates it can be sucked my exhaust tubing, in space, if you needed it, for breathing." Tiphanie informed us.

  "Well that settles it for me. We're all riding Tiphanie's inflatable ass up to the surface, and taking as many emergency rations as we can carry."

  There was no grumbling about the plan. Every Tiffany filled her arms with rations, and emergency supply kits.

  "Okay, so..."Nyany took charge. "When we open the door, it is going to flood in here before we can leave. I doubt we'll be able to swim past the incoming water. Every body stay calm as the water rushes in. When it's almost full in here, we'll all take a nice deep breath, and as soon as we step outside, everyone holding on to Tiph, we can trigger her ass."

  "I don't need some robot to help me swim," Terraphiny said, then joked, "My great-uncle was a sea turtle."

  "Great!" I said, "Everyone riding the ass, take a hold of her, and someone else, too for good measure."

  Nyany grabbed me by the shoulder, hard. T-neigh grabbed the other, not so hard. Both of them grabbed ahold of Tiph. I wrapped a hand around Nyany's waist, and Tiph's with my other.

  "Everyone ready?" Tiphanie asked, her hand on the door, her magnetic boot feet, firmly affixed to the floor. Everyone nodded and she used her mighty robot strength to crack the door opened enough to start letting the water in.

  Nyany screamed, or maybe snarled is a better word. It was a noise alright, and one that I didn't enjoy hearing from my wife.

  She was clearly in distress. I knew this by the way her her claws were digging into my shoulder.

  "Dear, your nails." I winced, as the salty water soaked us midway to our shins.

  "Sorry... This is what you get for WATER PLANET!"

  "I'm sorry!"

  "AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" T-neigh screamed, as the water hit my knees. "A sea creature just got in here with us!"

  Nyany climbed onto me, screaming unintelligible cat noises. Panicked, scrambling for a less wet spot to be, all reason lost.

  "Nyany, no!" I did my best to pin her to myself, but she was a person sized cat, she was way stronger than me, so much to my chagrin, I grabbed her by the scruff to stop her clawing her way up to the ceiling.

  T-neigh was also, doing a bit of a panic, but Terra was laughing. After a moment, she managed to get out, "It's just some sea plants." She snatched them and lifted the seaweed above the water line.

  Everyone took it down a notch. Nyany lowered her feet back into the water, which was cold, and approaching crotch height.

  "Everyone just breathe." I said. "We're halfway there. I know relax might be a bit much, but try to stay calm."

  "I-hey-choo, I-hey-choo, I-hey-choo, I-hey-choo..." Nyany was muttering something, that I surely couldn't understand. Must have been speaking some sort of Felidian prayer.

  T-neigh started clacking her teeth, shivering. I was a bit cold, too. This wasn't a nice tropical island we were going to, was it?

  The water rose up to my bellybutton, and the cold was such a shock it nearly knocked the wind out of me.

  The water continued to come, and soon Nyany was floating off the floor. I had lifted her to keep her head above water. We still had a bit to go until the current in would fade enough for us to get out.

  Another large piece of seaweed brushed past us, eliciting a yelp and a tighter grip from everyone.

  "I'm afraid to report..." Tiphanie said, as the water passed my shoulders, "... that something alive, did just slip inside. Something non-plant in nature."

  Panic resumed... very poorly timed panic.

  "Okay Deep breaths everyone!" Tiphanie continued with the plan, undaunted by mysterious sea life.

  I took a deep breath, Nyany took a deep breath that was half sea water, and T-Neigh jumped slamming her head into the ceiling and knocking herself unconscious in an instant.

  Great.

  I used my legs to grab hold of T-neigh as best I could, Monkey ancestors aid me! Tiph helped out with one of her hands and we made our way out of what remained of my hammer. One mag booted step at a time until we were clear of the wreckage. One we stepped clear, Tiph activated her inflatable ass. We started to rocket upward, and I looked down, where saw Terra wrapped in tentacles by some oceanic horror below.

  By time we hit the surface, Tiph was the center of our Boat. Nyany was hacking and coughing out water, and T-neigh was still out, I was afraid she'd drowned a little.

  "Start cpr on her," I said. "I gotta go help Terra!"

  I couldn't just leave an old lady to battle a sea monster, and it was only a few meters down. I wasn't an incapable swimmer, the sun was out, and there was plenty of light to see down there.

  What I saw below was... not what I was expecting. Terra was swimming up my way, her hand holding one of the tentacles from the mer-octo-maid!? On the bottom was very much an octopus, but the top, the top half was a woman... well, sorta... kinda... mostly a woman? Womanish? Femininesque? Her two arms up top were tentacles too, and she had eight... of a few things, legs weren't all.

  The two of them looked to be smiling and laughing, so I guess my rescue mission was a complete success?

  I swam back to the massively inflated robot ass, and climbed aboard just in time to see Nyany take her mouth away from T-neigh's. Hot.

  Nyany barfed over the side of our Boat, and T-neigh coughed up water and gasped for air.

  Oh, not hot. Not hot at all. Choking, not my kink, confirmed.

  Terra brought her new friend over, and they started pushing us away from the catbarf.

  "Who is our new friend?" I asked.

  "No idea." Terraphiny said. "Can't understand a word of her, but I thought you'd like her, she's got eight great big-"

  "Bleewweoouuebewbwehtotywbjgbsdikgyywggoowu," she burbled, with a cheerful smile.

  "I see," Tiphanie said. Her top half spun around, all creepy robot-like, and pointed an arm at our new friend. Her hand folded up at the wrist and she fired a dart at the... Mermaidctopus?

  It stuck her in the neck and unfolded into a little mechanical spider that raced up onto her face, whereupon it promptly plunged itself into her brain. Right through her eye socket.

  "AAAAAAAhhhhoooowch..." She said, as the sudden shock of the linguistic mind spider hitting her synapses faded. "What the FUCK!?"

  "Apologies." Tiphanie spoke without emotion, like a prerecorded message. "Galactic Law Dictates: All beings should be able to communicate freely. I have implanted a universal translator into your brain, It has updated ours with your language which will be added to the galactipedia at our earliest access."

  "Do you understand me?" I asked.

  "I do?." It was a questions and an answer, a chance for the rare, interofullstop, punctuation mark.

  "Great!" I said, "I appreciate the help, truly."

  "Not every day a space alien washes up on your mountain. Much less an air breather! I knew they could exist. I have so many questions."

  "I'll answer what I can when my feet are on land."

  "Land! What a word. Is that what you call seabed above the water? Land." She let the word be a wonder in her mouth... or wherever it was she was making the sounds she was making, sounded like it was coming from her middle, not her head.

  "I'm Captain Davis." I extended a hand toward her. "What's your name?"

  She hit with me a thick powerful arm tentacle, grabbing me by the forearm all the way up to my elbow. It was split in eight branches, like fingers. Each finger felt dexterous and nimble, yet powerful enough to unscrew even the most stubborn of nuts or bolts.

  "My name is Tiffffffffany..."