If there was one thing that Shishimato had come to really like about this little blue green planet somewhere on the western spiral arm of the galaxy, it had to be the information streaming service that ran virtually all hours of the day. It was fascinating to see how Earthlings learned about key events of their planet and he was majorly impressed by the way that information got beamed directly to the strange boxes that he knew for a fact Dada had gotten a hold of and was in the process of trying to get to work.

Today there was not an awful lot going on in the ship, they had been on the planet for around four months now and had not been detected so it was pretty safe to assume that everything was generally fine.

Plus Tats had decided to have a tidy up day since the ship had pretty much gone to wrack and ruin over the last week so he had managed to enrol Dada and Keke into helping him out in regards to that. Joko had promptly disappeared into the bowls of the ship when he had learned that Tats was one a tidy up, in order as he described to give the engines a quick check over and make sure that his other little projects were perfectly fine and safe. Shishi thought it best not to ask what projects their ‘genius’ inventor was working on and had instead tactfully gone to get the report that he needed from the system relay and have a quick scan of the terrestrial channels to ensure that they had not been spotted in the slightest.

The only other member of their group, their baby Toto, was busily sorting out his little garden and was humming a jaunty little tune as he went about planting his fruit plants. Shishi couldn’t help but smile just a little bit at that thought, the youngster was always up to something but his garden had to be his pride and joy and from the first day of the plants just poking their heads out of the soil, the small blue bunny had been fascinated by it all and took care of everything.

Gah, that little critter was far too cute for his own good but Shishi secretly wouldn’t have it any other way.

His musings were cut off abruptly by a slightly startling blare from the current news stream that he was watching and he turned, guessing that just maybe there was something really extra important about to be revealed to the human beings.

“BREAKING NEWS: UFO SPOTTED!” the headline read and right underneath was a live streaming picture of a familiar looking green ship which had only been half buried in the dirt.

A sudden panic gripped Shishi and he hurried quickly to the nearest window, not stopping to realise that he had just knocked Toto over.

Dada had previously been in the process of cleaning the windows but the green matoki had naturally come to a stop. Almost as if he sensed that the commander was approaching, Dada half turned his head towards the grey matoki, “Er...sir, what’s going on?”

Shishi clambered up quickly to the window, not really paying attention to the fact that Toto had followed him and was copying the others move. There were literally hundreds of humans standing outside, a good couple of hundred feet away granted, and some of them had banners. Shishi blinked as he read ‘Welcome to Earth’, “We <3 you” and one which was presumably written in some kind of unique language because he couldn’t understand it in the slightest.

There was a man in a bright suit standing in front of a strange black box with a glass front and he seemed to be talking rapidly to it. Leaning back a little, the grey matoki confirmed that the images matched with what he was seeing outside and he almost banged his head against the glass panel in front of him.

Dada lightly prodded him, “Shishi?”

Sighing, Shishi pulled back, grabbed Toto who was waving out of the window at the human beings like he would do at times and plonked him carefully down on the floor, “We’ve been spotted.”

With Toto safe on the ground, the leader ran over to the computer bank and battered Dada’s hands out of the way, “We must leave!! See where we can warp to.”

“Oh not good, not good!” Dada said, scanning the options, “We don’t know where any of these will lead us. We could end up in trouble.”

“Ohhh look, the humans are coming closer,” Toto said cheerily, having like most youngsters, immediately gone back to doing what he had been before and looking out of the window and cheerily waving out of it, “Do you think we shall make some friends.

Tats moved quickly to grab the youngster and pull him down from the window, noting that Keke must have gone to grab Joko before they moved off, “Toto secure, Joko and Keke should be back in a matter of seconds.”

“Present and accounted for, sir!” the pink and yellow matoki replied in unison.

Dada glanced out of the window again, “Wah! They’re getting closer! Hurry and choose somewhere!”

Taking a look at the list, Shishi scanned it and then thought the better of the situation. They needed to find somewhere quick, regroup and get themselves sorted before the humans got there.

“Shishi!” Tats yelled, having joined Dada at the window after shoving Toto into Keke’s protective arms.

The leader made a brash and quick choice, choosing ‘Random’ from the list and hitting the activate button. There was a pause for maybe a second and then a rumble as the engines kicked in.

“Oh wait,” Keke said, “The hostage!”

Dada and Joko moved quick, grabbing the old plastic man from the corner he had been thrown into and shoved him out of the nearest window just before the warp drive kicked in and there was a big whoosh.

For a few seconds everything was just a shuddering blur across everyone’s vision and then with a small pop the six matoki found themselves back in reality. Shishi let out a long sigh, “Wow that was close, now next question, where are we?”

The other five matoki crowded around their leader as he opened the viewing screens to see if the location that they had landed on was far from civilisation and if it was safe.