Young Writers Society

As soon as the words left her mouth, the day tubai forced Ellipse’s arms up. She yelped and bent forward to keep her shoulders from dislocating, and one of her boots slipped from the cement.

“Stop that,” the tubai rumbled.

She ignored them. “Focci! Tejal!” she shouted. “Help me out!”

A few saur noticed her, took in the way the day tubai had her arms pinned behind her back, and chittered in alarm. At least, Ellipse figured it was alarm; she suddenly regretted not learning any of the many saur languages or watching enough of their movies to figure out their emotive patterns.

A bright orange saur hopped towards her and chattered a bit.

“Go away,” the day tubai said, jerking Ellipse to one side. She glanced backwards and saw that the earthling man was only steps away now. He walked, casual, though something about his gait seemed lopsided. Maybe crashing into the shelves had done actual damage.

Ellipse squirmed in the day tubai’s grasp. She wished Universal Biology had talked a little more about alien physiology. Or maybe she should have asked Tejal to give her some combat tips.

The orange saur hopped closer, head tilting like a bird’s, and kept chittering. And then, for some reason, Ellipse heard the chittering grow exponentially louder. Even under the whir of machinery all around her, she heard the alarmed-flock roar of several saur clicking in alarm, and then the little raptor-like aliens dispersed, diving out of the way of a very fast-moving vehicle.

Ellipse barely had time to move. She tugged herself out of the vehicle’s path, and the hunk of metal-and-body collided with the day tubai. In the corner of her eyes, Ellipse caught a sprinkle of electric sparks, and then suddenly saw Tejal flailing in the air.

What. The. Heck.

She dove to cushion his fall, landing hard on her torso, and then winced when Tejal, wheelchairless and waving his taser-stick haphazardly, landed on top of her.

“Ow!” she yelped.

“Sorry!” Tejal rolled off of her, awkward with his stubs, and plopped on the ground, tasing stick poised like a spear.

Hauling herself to her knees, Ellipse immediately turned to where the earthling bounty hunter was. “What in the name of the big bang are you doing?” she asked Tejal.

“You called for help, so I came!”

She glanced back at the day tubai. They laid sprawled on the ground, limbs seizing a little, and Tejal’s wheelchair was overturned nearby. The front axle looked bent beyond repair.

“Your wheelchair is done for! How are we supposed to fight now?”

“I literally have a taser.”

Ellipse stood up and tried to strike a fighting stance. “You are all of three feet tall right now, but sure, a taser will save us! Now how do I take that guy out fast?” She waved at the earthling bounty hunter, who limped towards them, slow and steady.

Tejal scooted closer to her and peer around her legs. Then he nudged against the inside of her left calf. “Wider stance. As soon as he’s within arm’s length, you grab his uh… you know. Right near the base. And pull like you’re going to tear it off.”

“Gross! Also there is another tubai around here somewhere.”

“I’ll take care of them, or Focci will when he gets here.”

Ellipse decided it was best not to ask how her crew planned on fighting.

“If you’re comfortable getting extremely close, you can kick or knee him instead. Make sure to get a lot of upward force. And I’d suggest you make the first move.”

The saur had mostly cleared out, wary of speeding wheelchairs and projectile earthlings. Hopefully none of them had called station police yet, because avian officers could probably get here pretty quickly. Ellipse sent Tejal one last look—a you-better-be-right look—and rushed the earthling bounty hunter.

He almost took a step back. Ellipse would too, if a small angry girl had started running straight at her. She reached the man in seconds, dove in close, and grabbed for his shirt collar. Then she shoved her knee up, and the man turned absolutely green.

He howled, and for a short second, Ellipse felt bad for him. She let go of him, let him crumple to the ground, and turned back to Tejal for approval.

And because the universe just could not give her a stroke of good luck that day, she came face-to-face with the second tubai.

Their white exoskeleton towered over her, arms already extended to grab her neck. For a moment, she made eye contact. Then, before the tubai could close their fingers around her neck, she dropped to the floor. On her hands and knees, she scrambled through the tubai’s legs. Tejal lay on the ground a few meters away, taking a breather from trying to army-crawl towards her.

He looked up, lit up, and then raised the arm holding the taser and hurled the weapon at her.

It clattered to the ground just within arm’s reach, and Ellipse snatched it up. She spun around to face the tubai and shouted over her shoulder. “Tejal, where do I stab a day tubai?”

“Joints are good,” he offered.

Ellipse should have thought of that. The joints were the only places where she could wedge something under the tubai’s exoskeleton. She dove for the the tubai’s shin and hugged it tight.

“Get off me!” the day tubai shouted. They kicked out, and Ellipse hugged their leg tighter. She pried one arm off the ceramic skeleton and tried to maneuver Tejal’s taser to hit the back of the tubai’s knee.

“Let go, earthling!” The tubai stomped, hard, and Ellipse felt something slosh in her gut. She felt the taser-spear’s point catch on something and jerked the weapon towards her.

Immediately, a spray of static electricity flew from the tubai’s knee, and they fell to the ground, stiff with clenching muscles. Ellipse extricated herself and Tejal’s weapon and looked back at him.

“Thanks,” she said. She adjusted her grip on the taser, feeling awkward and exposed, now that the fight was over. “We should probably get out of here.”

“Yeah,” Tejal agreed. He sent his wheelchair a forlorn glance and then held out one hand.

Ellipse gave him back his taser-spear, and he flicked a switch on the not-pointy end and then looked up at her, an uncertain grimace twisting his face.

“I’m so glad Focci and I took everything out of my wheelchair before I came over here. It’s ruined.”

“Yep,” Ellipse replied. “I will carry you, I guess.” She huffed and squatted, hands stretched backwards, and waited several moments while Tejal pulled himself onto her back. Right as Ellipse stood, careful to keep hold of Tejal’s stubs, she noticed Focci flopping across the hall, a metal stick in one hand.

She met him a little more than halfway and gestured for him to follow her back to the Conics.

“What happened?” Focci asked. “Also, why are all of those saur giving us weird looks?”

As the trio hustled back across the hall, Ellipse looked around. Sure enough, the crew of saur had started to peek back out of hiding, and their beady black eyes were all trained on Ellipse and the boys. She picked up her pace a little.

“We have to get out of here,” she sang under her breath, just loud enough for Focci to hear.

“What? Why? I thought we were going to search for Ami here.”

Tejal tightened his grip on Ellipse’s shoulders. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Why we cannot look for Ami,” she told him. Then she switched back to Trade Siren and looked down at Focci. “The bounty hunters from tubai found me again, and we have to leave before the station police try to ask me questions about maybe disturbing the peace.”

Focci sniffled, his gills flattening against his neck. “Oh.”

“Sorry,” Ellipse hummed.

They crossed into the Conics’s dock and pressed the button to close the hall doors, and Ellipse felt her steps grow heavy with more than just Tejal’s added weight. She felt guilty, she realized. As she trudged up the ramp into the ship, and Focci flopped off to finish a few exterior flight preparations, she reasoned with herself.

It was not her fault that they could not search Nestor Station for Ami. After all, she could not control when and where bounty hunters would pop up. But at the same time, she felt as though she had not done enough. Ellipse had never learned to fight, how to properly evade hunters, or made a significant effort to change her appearance. Becoming a fugitive had not been her choice, but she hated that her status as one was so detrimental to the boys’ goal.

She set Tejal on the ground of the cargo bay, noticed the troubled way he bit his lips, and then peeked out of the bay opening and saw Focci with his sharp teeth gritted in half-hearted frustration.

Ellipse knew the boys would not blame her; she had brought the two together and found the first two Impending survivors. But if they were willing to save her from bounty hunters, despite knowing only half of her story, then she could at least invest a little more into their miniature fold generator.

Setting her jaw, Ellipse climbed on top of the crates in the hull and hauled herself into the ship’s living space. Ami could still be in Triune. She would strive to be more helpful there.