Conics Unfortunately: 58

Flying back to the earthling system from Planet Five had taken too long. The Ink was by no means a large ship, but it was heavier cargo than the Conics was built for, and Focci had reprogrammed the piloting assistance to prevent Ellipse from flying as fast as she usually did, which was absolutely unnecessary. And then on top of that, Focci had taken over landing duty. Admittedly, landing with exterior cargo was a little different from the usual, but Ellipse figured she could have handled it.

And then she laid eyes on Earth.

Earth was gorgeous. People who regularly left and returned tended to be of the opinion that Sirena was the prettiest planet from space, but Ellipse found herself drawn to the sparkling nighttime cities, the blooms of different blues in the ocean, and the great swathes of white and brown and green that curled and sprawled over the globe. She floated in the cockpit, just over Focci’s head, one hand stretched out towards the window, with the dim lights of the controls lighting her from below, and was immensely glad that she never had to see this planet from space without knowing she would go planetside.

“You look enthralled,” Tejal commented.

Mouthbot’s translation resulted in an innuendo regarding romantic siren poetry, and Focci looked up to Ellipse for a proper translation, a tinge of green brushing his snout.

“He means I look fascinated,” she sang. “Nothing bad.”

Focci just hummed in response and focused again on landing.

The International Space Station was a mess. It was tube-shaped, with a particularly large interior circle, and old ISS iterations had been welded to the outside with gigantic spray-painted summaries next to each old structure, so that passersby could read through the whole history of earthling space habitation from the comfort of their ships. Giant solar panels stuck out like old Dutch windmill blades, reminiscent of the days before nuclear fusion generators, and all the cement had been painted a solid white, which was by this point grubby from little collisions with debris and ships.

The Conics dived for the interior of the tube, and Earth’s gentle curve disappeared from view.

“Tejal, I put my Titan passport in the lead safe, right?”

“You’ve asked me this like five times,” Tejal replied from the back of the cockpit. “Yes. You did it before the last time you went to sleep.”

Ellipse pulled her mouth into a straight line and thought, watching the entrance to the ISS draw closer. Yes, Tejal was right. She had definitely put away her Titan papers.

They flew through the opening, and Ellipse floated closer to the window, searching the walls for a door with S-342 spray painted on. She spotted it a few hundred meters away, on the top side of the station. “Right up there,” she told Focci, pointing it out.

The ship slowed, and Ellipse pressed the dashboard button for the landing control radio. “This is Captain Tibot from the Conics,” she said, trying to lengthen her vowels to sound like Tejal’s American drawl, “requesting that the doors to dock S-342 be opened. Over.”

“We still need a moment for the security scans to come in,” landing control said. The officer in contact sounded about twelve, for some reason. “And… you’re clear. We’ll open the door in a moment.”

Focci slowed the ship to a stop and put on a bit of spin, rotating so that the Conic’s hull faced the door, and a moment later, the great metal dock doors split down the middle and slid open. He unbuckled the seatbelt over his chest and floated out of the pilot’s chair.

“Your turn,” Focci told Ellipse, with a quick pat on her shoulder. “Tejal and I will move into the cargo hold for landing.”

Taking hold of the joystick, Ellipse drifted into the pilot’s chair and listened as the boys threw aside the curtain. A few long moments later, Focci sang out an ‘all clear,’ and Ellipse angled the engines up. The Conics and its exterior cargo dropped through the extra-wide opening to the dock, and then clamped onto the floor of the dock in a disorienting clunk.

“Ah, right,” Ellipse muttered, rubbing her tailbone. “That way is down now.” She stood and leaned foward to peer out the window, watching as the dock doors slid shut, and keeping her ears peeled for the distinct hiss of the airlock closing.

Then her watch buzzed, jolting her and lighting up with a message from someone she had never heard of. Ellipse brought up her wrist and squinted. “Mi Na Park? Who the heck is that?” She bit her lip and tapped the message, ignoring the airlock’s loud hiss.

Then her watch buzzed again, with another message from this Mi Na Park, and then came another and another. Suddenly she had twenty messages from her, all with the same subject line as the recent messages Ellipse had exchanged with Randi.

She almost grinned. Maybe Mi Na Park had money for the boys’ project. But then she read over the first few lines, all typed out in careful, professional serifs, and grimaced. This was just legalese, most of which flew over Ellipse’s head. She knew laws by their intent, not by their wording.

“Ellipse!” Tejal shouted. “Get down here! We’re lowering the ramp, and you need to get into the Ink and get my backup wheelchair out.”

Ellipse switched her watch screen off and crossed out of the cockpit. Her legs felt heavy suddenly. She had known nothing about this other person in contact with Randi, not until she arrived on Earth, where the messages must have originated. And if Ellipse was being completely honest with herself, she knew very little about what Randi had planned. She knew a bit, shared their vague hatred of Andra-Media, but had no idea what was going down.

Slowly, Ellipse climbed down the central ladder, taking in the little vertical garden that splashed the acrylic walls with with green and red and yellow. Then she stopped three rungs from the floor and brought up her watch again. She needed to read these messages before she landed on Earth, especially if the sender was there.