Young Writers Society

Something about Ellipse’s flying made the boys reluctant to let her have a second turn at the joystick, so when the Conics hit Tertiary Station’s grubby metal floors twenty-four hours later, she was jumpy and fidgety, full of pent up energy. The moment their dock’s air-tight doors sealed shut, Ellipse leapt down into the cargo bay and ran to untie Tejal’s wheelchair. And by the time Tejal managed to retrieve the climbing ropes and join her, she had cranked open the doors to the shipping terminal and shoved half of their cargo down the ship’s loading ramp.

Her calves burned in protest, but Ellipse’s need to be productive burned hotter.

“Ugh, what is that smell?” Tejal griped. He wheeled himself to the edge of the ramp and watched as Ellipse shoved yet another crate across the ship floor.

“What smell?” she asked. Her boots almost slipped on the metal floor, and she wondered if she ought to get a new pair. The traction in the soles was starting to wear off.

Pinching his nose, Tejal fanned the air in front of his face and grimaced. “You know. The… fart smell.”

“Are you twelve?” Ellipse stopped pushing and peered around her crate. She was only a meter or so away from the ramp now, so she bent her knees and pressed her back against the metal box and kept going. “Besides,” she gritted out, “you never eat dairy or beans, so you would not know what a fart smells like.”

Tejal spluttered. “What, are you twelve now?”

Finally, Ellipse managed to push the crate past the point of no return. With a huge thunk, the metal box fell against the ramp and slid to the ground, joining the crowd of other unloaded crates. She let out a sigh and stretched out her shoulders, already feeling sore. Then she glanced over at Tejal, who was peering down the ramp with his mouth pursed in distaste, and popped something in her back. “Need help getting down?”

“Please,” he said, wincing. “I don’t want a repeat of Sauron, and you said the gravity is even stronger here.”

Ellipse gave herself one final, upward-reaching stretch, before loping up to Tejal’s chair and taking the back handles. “Hold on,” she said, and then she eased him down the ramp at a brisk, but not death-defying pace. “You know, I almost think we should pull out Wrecktrix’s mattress and surf down. Get some fun out of the extra gravity for once.”

“As long as there’s no danger of sliding into a conveyor belt full of giant metal boxes,” Tejal grumbled.

Focci had specifically parked the ship so that if Tejal did roll down the ramp again, he would hit a wall several meters away. “I do not think you need to worry about that this time,” Ellipse said, offering an amused smile. “Now go get the crane working.”

As Tejal wheeled himself through the pile of crates, Ellipse trudged back up the ramp. She hurt all over, but she still had four more crates to shove off the ship, and they all sat in the far back corner of the cargo bay, too far away from the lights to look like anything more than big grey lumps.

“Hey Focci!” she sang. Her voice sounded breathy and tired and gross. “What if I spread olive oil all over the bay floor?” It would give her less traction, yes, but surely a bit of grease would still make it easier to move the remaining crates.

“Please do not do that,” Focci replied. He sounded tinny, but only because his voice had to travel through the ship.

“But then you could move faster!” Or he probably would, as long as Ellipse gave him a little push. She pulled herself on top of the crate under the entry hatch and craned her neck to look up into the main ship. “Which would be helpful, I think. What is taking you so long?”

Focci took a suspiciously long moment to consider his answer. “Nothing.”

“That does not sound like nothing.” Ellipse reached for the rope and gave it a tug. She could climb up and take a peek, but that would add to the strain on her arms, so she settled for jumping back to the floor and hollering again. “Focci, what are you doing?”

“You will find out when we leave here.”

A shrill beeping noise echoed through the ship, and Ellipse took hold of the rope again.

“Work a little slower,” Focci sang. “This might be harder than I thought.”

Ellipse’s best interests tended to include not rushing Focci through his projects, so she shrugged, set her palms against the next crate, and got back to work.

Thirty minutes later, she was more sore, and sweaty to boot. As she eased down the loading ramp to regroup with Tejal, she tried to ignore the burning in her legs and the smarting in her shoulders and found that the more she thought about ignoring the pain, the more she hurt.

“You look gross,” Tejal offered. He leaned over the door to the crane’s booth and rested his chin in one hand.

Ellipse winced harder and tried to massage her thighs in a way that would not look awkward. “I know.”

“Do we have to do conveyer belt unloading too, or is the next leg handling it?” He pressed a few buttons on the dashboard, and his eyes flicked to the group of crates still sitting in the dock. “I’ve heard that things work differently at this station.”

Nodding, Ellipse crossed her arms and leaned against the booth. “Mhmm. Spec Corp had to redesign Tertiary Station’s entire conveyor belt system because shipping season is particularly busy here, and it is easier to redesign conveyor belts than to change the fold monitor’s orbit.”

She pointed across the massive hallway, where a bulbous barge floated in its dock. Hundreds of massive steel freight containers slid towards it off the central conveyor belt, seemingly of their own volition, and were met by two giant, electromagnetic robot arms. A few hydrogen floaters meandered about, making sure that the loading ran smoothly.

“All crates that come through Tertiary station must be tagged with an internal system ID and tracking chip,” Ellipse explained. She had done some research when she noticed the Gant system on their shipping schedule. “That way, when the crate reaches its destination, the conveyor belt can shove the crate off, and there is no need to rely on people to retrieve their items in a timely manner.”

“Huh. Why isn’t it like this on all the stations?”

Ellipse wrinkled her nose. “Spec Corp are cheapskates, and Earthling-built stations are not usually shipping hubs.”

“Oh, right,” Tejal said. He pulled a lever on the crane’s dashboard, and one of the remaining crates lifted a tiny bit off the ground. “We usually export media and information technology.”

Media, yes. Ellipse was less sure about exporting information technology, if only because no one had yet invented solid technology for transferring information in space. Shrugging, she checked her watch for the local time. “At least it makes sense for us to export media. We are uncannily good at imitation and language-learning.”

Tejal swung the crane arm across the dock floor and pressed another button to drop the crate onto the conveyor belt, right behind a line of enormous gas tanks. “Speaking of exports, what are we picking up here?”

“Cooking alcohols for a multi-species restaurant chain.” The biggest tyran export was in heavy gases, but the Conics was not a big enough ship to be involved in that industry. Ellipse crossed her arms and walked behind the crane to peer down the main hallway. “They have two Earthling locations: one on the monitor, and one on Titan.”

The dock to the Conics’s left held a blocky, neon-painted saur ship. Its crew scampered about, examining small, wooden boxes for damage and proper content. Beyond that was a full siren crew hauling in exactly the same kind of cargo.

“Hey Tejal,” Ellipse said, still peering down the hall, “when you finish with that, you should tell Focci that there is a full siren crew nearby. There are not many around, so maybe he will be excited.”

“Why don’t you tell him?”

She turned back around and curled her lips back into something between a grimace and a sneer. “He is busy,” she said, with emphasis on the ‘busy’ part.

“Oh, right.” Tejal sent the crane arm flying back through the docks, unconcerned by the fact that one of their crew members was slacking.

And if Tejal was unconcerned, then he was probably in on this task. Narrowing her eyes, Ellipse crossed back over to the crane booth and leaned over the door to get right up into Tejal’s space. “And you would not mind telling me what exactly he is busy with, right?” she demanded.

Instead of cowering or spluttering, or acting in any way subordinate to his captain, Tejal pulled his lips into a flat line and lifted his chin. “He’s writing safety software to deal with your insane driving habits. We want time to work on the generator.”

Ellipse blinked, feeling very insulted. She was a wonderful driver, thank you very much. She opened her mouth to reprimand Tejal for his uncalled-for opinion, but was cut off by a series of reedy, high-pitched notes. Focci was frustrated, probably.

“Or,” Tejal said, looking a bit sheepish, “he could be connecting the ship to one of our prototypes. That’ll take him a while.”

Curses rain down on the universe for sticking Ellipse with the two nerdiest people alive. Throwing up her hands, she shooed Tejal back to his job and stomped off. If Focci was going to take a while, then she was going to find herself some fish, and Focci would get none of it.