Young Writers Society

Ochon stared straight up at Chip with all eight of his eyes. Then the eyes all rolled simultaneously and looked around at Ochon’s companions. Chip had gathered them all in his office, near the centre of the ship. Now they were all stood on his desk, glaring at him. But Ochon’s glare was the fiercest. And Ochon was the one Chip would have to convince.

“Look, sir.” Ochon snarled and Chip’s stomach tensed. Which was absurd, of course. Chip had eaten hundreds of spiders in his life before all this space stuff. Why was he so scared of this little speck? He wasn’t sure, but he knew it would help if the spider would stop talking back at him. Ochon went on, “I care about this crew as much as the next member, but do you realise what you’re asking us to do?”

Chip frowned. “Yes, I do, Ochon. I just told you. If you think there’s some flaw in my plan, please do enlighten me.”

Chip was starting to tremble. It was probably just from nerves, he told himself. This could extremely easily end up being a massive crisis if he didn’t get these spiders to co-operate. But there was a voice not quite at the back of his mind nagging at him. Sooner or later the trembling was going to be shivering, the change in temperature was going to be enough to affect him how it had affected Bassila Glace. And before long it would be the same for the whole crew.

“How about the fact that whatever this is has already knocked out a fully grown toucan, which you literally just told us … sir?” Ochon folded his front two arms.

Chip frowned further, and the tension in him relaxed a little. This he had an answer to. He tensed again, but this time in anger as he leaned forward and said, “So it’s danger you’re worried about, eh? How about the danger of Bassila Glace, who’s about to melt in twenty minutes or so?”

“And what gives you the right to decide which of us is in danger?” Ochon’s reply came with the lightning reflexes of a master deuler. Chip supposed that was how you fought most of your battles when you were two centimetres long.

Chip shook his sympathy out of his head and focussed, curling his fingers round the edge of his desk. “I’m your captain.”

One of the other spiders scoffed. “Only because the humans said so!”

“Deni, shh,” Ochon hissed. Then he looked from the spider who had spoken back up at Chip. “She’s right though. You’re at the top of the chain of command because the humans put you there. You have opposable thumbs, so they trust you.”

Chip shook his head. “Whatever, man, just be glad I’m at the top of the chain of command and not the bloody food chain.”

Ochon was silent. Chip could feel his heartbeat like it was clinging to the back of his throat.

“Yeah, you prefer this chain, don’t you?” Chip forced himself to go on, seeing he’d struck a nerve. “So, unless you’d like me to stop taking my diet adapter pills for a couple of days, why don’t you go see what you can do about this mess we’re in, eh?”

Chip could see Ochon’s entire body heave up and down as he breathed anger in and out. Eventually he shoved the word “Fine” out of his mouth and led his arachnid squadron in single file out of the office.

Chip leaned back in his wing-backed spinny chair and gazed around his office at the empty white walls. He wondered if human captains would have pictures of their families pinned up. Or maybe they’d have mission outlines, rather than just wandering around the galaxy. And what sort of mission statement was ‘exploration’? He spun round to look behind him at the - mostly empty - map they’d built up so far. Truthfully, this disaster was the second most interesting thing to happen to them in almost a year, the first being the contact with the other ship. His pulse hadn’t been racing so hard in ages.

Then he sprang forward with a gasp, just catching himself before his face smashed into his desk. What had he just done? He wasn't at the top of the food chain! What if an eagle heard about this particular conversation? God, he was a moron.

He shook his head. He'd done what he'd needed to do to get the spiders to co-operate. They could be mad at him later. Right now he needed to find something else useful to do. Who to show his face to next?

Ryerson! He had never felt so excited about a visit to Ryerson in his life. Maybe he'd have something to tell him about the contact, some information about the species the captain belonged to… He grabbed his uniform jacket off the back of his chair and sprinted out of the room on all fours.

***

“I'm a little busy at the moment, sir,” Ryserson said without turning round. He was staring at a black screen with white writing zooming down it. He reached forward for a keyboard, having to strain his wings so he didn't end up smacking his bill against the glass.

“Of course,” Chip mumbled. From what he could see by screwing up his eyes, the words were all the names of patients. It seemed the temperature problem was getting worse. Chip forced himself not to think about it so he wouldn't accidentally activate his faulty Thermal Regulator. Hold on…

“We should send out some sort of message to the crew to tell them not to think about how hot or cold they are!” Chip exclaimed, “In fact, why don't we just deactivate the Thermal Regulators?”

Ryserson was silent for a second and Chip was fairly sure he saw his shoulders tense and rise up. What had he said wrong now…?

Ryerson swivelled round and said, “What, and leave all the crew to cope with default human room temperature?”

“Well that's better than polar bears melting to death.” Chip was breathing hard but he couldn't stop himself hedging and adding, “Surely.”

Ryserson sighed. “Well, regardless, none of the engineers know how. It's built into the ship in ways the humans didn't teach them to understand.”

Chip stared at the wheels of Ryerson’s chair. He didn’t have any energy left to argue, and he was barely concentrating. Any moment now there would be a call from the chief pilot, Alexandria Flicktail, saying that the helm was ready to open a video call with the other ship. He just wanted to curl up in a storage cupboard until he got that signal. There was nothing useful he could really do about any of this.

His comms hub beeped.

He looked up at Ryerson, who rolled his eyes and swivelled back round. Chip stared at the blinking light on his wrist. It was time.

“Hello?”he said.

Get down to the helm, Captain! The chief pilot was also a monkey, and did not have a naturally shrill voice, but right now she sounded like a panicking hyena.

“What’s wrong, Officer?” Chip asked. He was still staring at his wrist but he could hear the squeak of Ryerson’s chair’s wheels as he swivelled back around.

As soon as we opened the video call, the message from one of their pilots came straight through – The pilot stopped to take a breath, then several more breaths. Please just get here, Captain. It’s them!

“Them who?”Chip groaned as he gave Ryerson a half-hearted salute and left the room.

The crew on the ship that’s contacted us. The pilot paused. They’re the ones causing the problem with the temperature.