The three draftees walked into the ship, armed with whatever martial arts they knew, a hammer that appeared to have uses other than the normal function due to its size being well over the specifications for car body work, and a small Galactic Police-issue laser. They would have gone farther, but it just didn't look safe for some odd reason. Perhaps it was the electricity in the air...literally. Or, maybe it could be attributed to the whistling and clanging swords swinging all around the ship. It could also possibly be due to the assorted explosions that just went off, blowing a large hole in a genetic waste tube. It could even be a combination of some of the aforementioned idiosyncrasies, which may or may not have been combined with a good dose of common sense. At any rate, something kept them from immediately going inside.

The draftors decided therefore that a friendly nudge was in order, and a moderately oversized spatula offered the propulsion necessary to get the trio far enough into the ship to close the door and wait for success.

After Ranma extricated himself from the confinement of a dented wall, Akane, and Mihoshi, he made a mental note to ask Ukyo why she used more than the necessary propulsion, and looked at the surrounding mayhem.

Sailor Jupiter was apparently convinced that Lum was a "youma", and the battle betweem the two would have been sufficient to power a small village. Some blond guy in the corner was having a pleasant conversation with a lady with long blond hair over a swordfight. A lady with red hair nearby was shouting something about stealing her food and a fireball at some guy with a beard and old clothes.

Akane decided to try sticking her wooden mallet into the swordfight, while Ranma chose to see what could be done about getting the two fire-slinging spellcasters away from each other. That left Mihoshi alone to go for the lever and the electric catfight well enough alone - the equipment around them was shorted out by now, and hence no need to do something completely stupid.

Akane dodged a slash nimbly and realized the problem of dealing with metal weapons without metal to protect oneself with. With the mallet obviously useless, she threw it away, which happened to be a direction towards the dueling duo and, in fact, right between their clashing swords. This caused both swords to be instantly imbedded in the block of wood that was the head of the mallet, proving to be the perfect method in getting the two to quit fighting and that the old saying, "Don't argue with success," has applications even today.

As for Locke and Lina, it appeared that Locke was trying to avoid Lina more than fight the lady. He probably has the same honor I do, Ranma thought. He doesn't want to fight the lady. Of course, I don't want to hit her...so now what? Then, Ranma noticed the pile of food. Now, we could have Ranma be smart and announce that there's a ton of food in the house topside if she'd just stop pounding on Locke. But, what happened instead was Ranma showing that he had learned nothing from the last time he just started eating a pile of food that happened to be sitting there. As it was, it worked. Locke was let go as Lina turned her attention to the new idiot who appeared to be just begging for a fireball. A few moments of running around and dodging flames later, and Akane preserved Ranma's cowardly self with a swing of a leaking genetic waste disposal unit.

While this mess was going on, Mihoshi headed over to the proper lever (she got lucky) and attempted to turn the machine off. After Ranma and Akane had finished calming down the natives, she notified the two that she was having a slight bit of trouble with the lever. Apparently, that spot of the ship, combined with a nasty amount of electric current, was slightly magnetized, and the resulting field was holding the lever towards the on position.

Ranma and Akane looked at the mess left from the other four, looked at Sailor Jupiter and Lum still sending lightning bolts in all directions, and then looked at each other. Managing the feat of simultaneous speech, they gave a terse, two-word answer: "We'll wait."

We'll give them some loading time to cool down; they should be done by the time this next page is done loading up.