Young Writers Society

As the last of the planet five food shipment crates sailed down the loading ramp, Ellipse twiddled her thumbs and tried to be casual. She stood next to Focci, who had flopped onto his back and was snoring up a hurricane, watching as Captain Maj checked boxes on a purple plastic clipboard. The whole crew faced a duo of lithe, red-cheeked earthlings with white-blonde hair, who smiled like a pair of school children hearing an announcement about a snow day.

Ellipse had heard things about what the weather on planet five could do to someone’s disposition. She grimaced at the tan skin on her forearms and tried to decide if she was at risk of heavy seasonal depression. Hopefully she could finagle her way into Sirena or another system before someone pressed her into a job here.

Captain Maj handed the clipboard back to the earthlings and gestured for Ellipse to step forward. “Ask how you can get to the surface,” they flashed.

Pursing her lips, Ellipse slid her hands into her pockets. “Uhh…”

The earthling duo turned to her, and Ellipse thought she might go blind. They beamed with sparkly white teeth and too-light eyes, and under the docking bay’s fluorescent lights, the pair might as well have been wearing reflective fabric. Also, they were way too cheery.

“Yes?” asked the taller one. She shook a long blonde tress out of her face, like a shampoo commercial model. “You speak English?”

Ellipse bit back a comment about English being mandatory in basically every earthling country. “Of course. Are there any work-for-transport ships here, or would I have to pay in order to get to a different system?”

Both earthlings balked. The shorter one raised on dramatic eyebrow and fingered his widow’s peak. “No earthling ship will do work-for-transport. Not after that giant hullaballoo over all the Titan development contracts.”

“It does not have to be an earthling ship, and I do not have to go back to Earth.”

The girl sniffed. “I guess you are a little dark to be working on Aquilo. You’d get storm blues like nobody’s business.” She drummed her fingers on her lips and shut her eyes. “You understand any gato languages?”

The gato only had one language; the introduction of specifus tech had gone down during the gato’s tribal stage, and most of the languages did not survive the sudden globalization. Trying not to quirk her lips, Ellipse nodded. “I understand sixteen languages total and can communicate in eight of them.”

That little tidbit earned Ellipse a pair of long, very impressed whistles. As she allowed a smug grin to creep onto her face, the boy scratched the back of his neck and bit his lip.

“In that case, I would try the dignitary ships in block D, the bounty hunter ships in block B, or the other supply ships in this block.”

Eww. All bad choices. Granted, boarding another cargo ship was not necessarily unwise, but Ellipse’s one experience thus far encouraged the exploration of other options. “Alright, thank you” she said, turning to leave and bid the Conics’s crew goodbye. “ I will be sure to check those places.”

The earthling pair scurried off, calling for assistance over their headsets, and Ellipse flashed a round of stiff thank-yous and goodbyes to Min and the captain. Both were just as polite back. Wrecktrix attempted a hug, which nearly ended with Ellipse bruising a rib, and Focci waved his tail—sort of. He mostly just wriggled on the floor.

As Ellipse hoisted up her luggage, Captain Maj flashed a slow, single-color pattern at Focci, eliciting a groan that sounded like a broken baritone saxophone. He flopped onto his stomach and sang out for Ellipse to wait.

“Uh, why?” Ellipse asked, watching as Focci dragged himself towards her.

Shrugging, he fanned out his dorsal fin and peered up to look for signage. “The captain wants me to make sure you get to wherever you are going. You are staying on this planet, right?”

Heck no. Ellipse snorted and adjusted her grip on her duffel bag. “Not if I can help it. Other earthlings may think planet five is the perfect, ah… powdered ice sport location, but I have no intention of doing terraform work for what little pay I would get.” Unlike the pioneer situation within the earthling solar system, planet five’s workers had no homestead incentive; the whole place had been bought up by Andra-Media and other companies like it, and multi-trillion-dollar companies loved to pay minimum wage.

“Then where will you go?” Focci sniffed the air as the two passed a line of fishy-smelling crates. “And why not stay on the Conics?”

“I do not think Captain Maj likes having an earthling on board,” Ellipse answered. She peered at a sign with scrolling dots and wondered if any hydrogen floaters needed a translator. “And I guess I will just go wherever.”

Wrinkling his snout, Focci let out a short trill of dissatisfaction. “You do you.”

“And what would you suggest, oh wise and brilliant one?”

“I say you beat up those bounty hunters and make sure they know you are not their target.”

That would totally work, if Ellipse knew how to beat people up. Tossing her chin, she let out a haughty harrumph and lengthened her stride.

“The way you act, I am tempted to think you are a criminal.” Focci was lagging behind now, still flopping along at the same leisurely pace from before. He raised his voice so that Ellipse (and everyone else) could hear him. “Maybe you are not specifically the gato pair’s target, but you did do something, no? What kind of crime-

Ellipse lunged for the siren, her luggage abandoned. She clamped her hands around his jaw and snarled. “I did nothing wrong. You hear me? Nothing. I am not a criminal. Law enforcement does not have any warrant out for my arrest. This is just a trio of stupid bounty hunters hunting down a nonexistent girl wanted by a private company.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about this,” Focci hummed, mouth still very much closed. His eyes gleamed, smug as a cat about to knock over a vase.

“Yes, and you are never going to see me again after today,” Ellipse spat, “so leave me alone.” She shoved Focci away and stormed back to her bags, face feeling hot and tense. She wanted to punch something, even though she would probably just end up injuring herself.

After that, Focci kept quiet. He trailed after her still, following his captain’s orders, but occupied himself by sniffing at all the supplies being shipped in. Eventually, the pair passed into a new block, one with grand, floor-to-ceiling windows offering impressive views of the white, snowy peaks and dark grey clouds that smothered planet five. Business people and blue collar workers mulled about, clustering around gates marked with earthling signage. Perhaps this was the block with all the planet-bound shuttles.

Not five minutes later, Ellipse and Focci passed into the food court. At the entrance stood a map of the station, complete with color coding and a short list of every dining establishment available. Thank goodness Ellipse had brought some cash.

She stopped at the map and poured over it, scratching absentmindedly at her neck. There were two whole blocks between the food court and the bounty hunter block. Stopping to eat some real earthling food would be safe enough. She looked down at Focci and pointed at a fried chicken joint right by the entrance. “I am going to eat. You should go back to the ship.”

“I will stay with you.”

Ellipse frowned and hefted one duffel bag over her shoulder. “I thought you had a schedule or something you had to follow.”

“Eh,” Focci grunted. “Wrecktrix has to pick up a small shipment before we can leave.”

Wrong tactic. “What if I just walk all over the station to make you get tired of following me.”

“I followed you all over the earthling fold terminal,” Focci scoffed. “You cannot get rid of me so easily.”

Scowling, Ellipse ignored her salivating mouth and tromped through the food court. Focci did not seem the type to purposefully tip people off on her whereabouts, but she would feel safer if she lost him before hunting down her next job. His habit of making rude comments would not be helpful, and what he did not know could not be used against her.

And so Ellipse walked. She sped her way past the wide windows of the dignitary block and the ski resort advertisements littering the passenger block, and even picked up to a jog when she reached the one giant dock meant for space barges. As she passed row upon row of lumber pallets, she mused over how easy it was to lose a siren on land.

Then she hit the B block, swore cleanly and vehemently, and turned back around. Before she knew it, Focci was tailing her again, so Ellipse gave up and bought herself lunch. Or dinner, or whatever meal it was.

The duo made it back to the C block while Ellipse still had the spicy aroma of pepper lingering in her nose and the texture of crunchy fried flour stuck to her tongue.

“I do not understand why earthlings like food that smells so… hot,” Focci mused.

“Well I do not understand how you manage to taste every little thing your fish ate, so there.”

Focci gasped, pausing to highlight his horror. “What? How are you still alive? You have to know what your prey has eaten so that you know if it is good to eat more or not.”

“Earthlings are not strict carnivores, you know,” Ellipse replied. She inspected her fingers for grease and proceeded to lick off the remaining crumbs and spices.

“But you still eat meat.”

“Yes.” She read a few signs to see who was docked where. “But I do not rely solely on- hey, is that Wrecktrix?”

Focci snapped his gaze forward. “Where?”

“Over there, near that Saurus sign. See the red plumage?” Ellipse pointed further down the hall, where a spot of red writhed between the many grey crates cluttering the space.

“Ohh, I see. Yes, I think that is Wrecktrix. Why is he grappling with a pair of gato?”

Those were gato climbing all over him? Ellipse squinted and leaned forward, taking note of the stark white and black fur. If she was not mistaken, Min and Captain Maj seemed to be fighting too. They were stationed on either side of the tyran, vines whipping out to try and dislodge their crew member’s assailants. They both flashed constantly, angry and confused and calling for a translator.

“I feel like we ought to help,” Focci said, flopping ahead.

Ellipse felt like they should not. Or at the very least, she should not help. Those gato looked too similar to the bounty hunting pair from the fold terminal, and Ellipse did not feel a lick of guilt at leaving the Conics’s crew to handle her problems.

Fine, watching Focci wriggle across the floor might have inspired a smidgen of guilt. Grumbling under her breath, Ellipse hefted both bags over her shoulders and tried to think of a plan. Presumably, Wrecktrix was almost finished fetching the Conics’s next shipment, which meant that if she finished the hauling for him while the older crew members held off the gato, then the entire crew could make it out without too much trouble. That or Ellipse could lure the bounty hunters onto a planet-bound shuttle, thereby cutting them off from their means of returning her to the Milky Way.

She passed Focci, who was warbling some sort of war cry, when the answer to everyone’s problems hit her. Ellipse had her ID on her right now. All she had to do was whip it out and shove it in the bounty hunters’ faces.