Cycles Go ‘Round [Chapter 13]

I had just finalized filling out the forms with a little science vessel of three, the clients being Espinoids, seemingly nice green-tinged humanoids. Contact was made in deep space, my own ship docked in the top bay their own. They were ready to open up for me as soon as I was sealed inside and had waved my hand at the man behind the control window. Before I could start my flight engines, I noticed the notification of a missed communication from dispatch waiting on my heads-up screen.

I tuned into Grep’s frequency while the engine warmed up. “Hey Grep, you called?”

“Anna, do you know where you are?” His tone was uncharacteristically like an owner upon finding a long-lost pet.

“Right now, I’m aboard a client’s ship. I better lift off before they get annoyed that I’m running my engine inside their bay.” With a gesture out the window, the Espinoid opened their ship’s hatch for me to lift off into space once more. “Okay, there we go. Is something the matter, Grep?”

“How long were you on that ship for?” His voice was harsh.

“About a half hexiturn.” I glanced at the time readout. “Not too long. And I got them signed up for a policy.”

“Save it,” Dispatch huffed. “I’ll take the upload in a bit. Just get on a move, here are the next coordinates.”

I transferred the directions to my autonav, causing my ship to take a sharp turn away from the Espinoid vessel. “Okay, all set. You’re freaking me out, though, Grep.”

There was a sigh on the other side of the line. “Sorry, it’s just that you were getting close to the DMZ.”

“Oh, sorry… I’m not sure what that is.”

“The demilitarized zone, Anna.”

“… how about you pretend I don’t know what that means?”

“It’s a neutral area, essentially. But there has been some conflict in this area in the past. There are rival factions on either side and an intrusion into the DMZ can be seen as provocation.”

I glanced out into the darkness of the space, imagining some sort of invisible barrier. “That sort of concept would have been great when I had this terrible roommate in college. I totally would have burned some of her dirty clothes that somehow crossed over to my side of the dorm without a second thought.”

Grep’s voice returned to his normal calm, slow plodding. “Yes, well, it could end up like that.”

“Sure, but would they give a care about a single little vessel like mine being in that area?”

I heard what I assumed was a shrug on the other side of the line. “If you were to run across an official patrol, they might give you a slap on the wrist for being ignorant. They want you to cross through their checkpoints, officially. And if they determined, through the company records, that we were serving someone from the other faction, they might do you worse.”

“Well, I can tell you that I am good at… acting… ignorant enough so they wouldn’t think to look so deep into my actions.”

Grep seemed to ignore my words. “Strange though that folks would choose to meet with you out here, too. What origin were they?”

“Espinoids.”

“I don’t recall such a people.”

I sat up and glanced out the corners of the window, attempting to see if I could get one last look at their ship. “Strange. They were nice enough. Hold on now, that’s not them.”

My eyes came across a pale saucer whipping across the black void, only slowing when they were certainly in range for their presence to be unmistakable. I took the controls to shake the ship out of autopilot in hopes of better respond to whatever was going to come next.

A red light focused on its hull. In the blink of an eye, a laser launched from the saucer, impacting upon the Espinoid ship that was barely visible. Shrapnel flooded the space, sparkling like a solar flair. “Oh stars.”

“What is it Anna?”

“This… saucer craft just exploded them.”

“The Espinoids? A saucer? Wait, Anna, stay put.”

My hands turned white on the controls. “I’d very much like not to stay here.”

“You need to open a channel with them right now. Drop me, and explain to them who you are and what’s going on.”

“Well, you’ve never steered me wrong have you?” I nodded, mashing on the comms panel, attempting to forward something that would reach them. “Hi, this is Anna, uh, from Cycles Go ‘Round, that’s like Around, but with an apostrophe instead of an A, look us up and, uh… please don’t blow up my ship.”

There was a jerking motion upon my craft and I closed my eyes for what I imagined to be the last time. The controls let out a warning siren to signal a loss of control. The comms chirped on as I barely managed to open my eyes.

“This is Captain Malark from the DSSS Earl Grey. Rest assured we will not fire upon a weaponless Drifter. But we do have a tractor beam latched to you, so you will find escaping not an option.”

I wanted to say, ‘but you just did fire upon a weaponless vessel,’ but decided against it. “What do you want with me?”

“Come aboard and we will discuss it. Your options are to make an immediate path for our shuttle bay, or we will energize you directly from your ship to our brig.”

“Don’t you dare energize me. I’ve read about what those things can do.”

“Then your option is narrowed down to one, Anna. Someone will be there to meet you.”

I had never piloted more precisely in my career, save the moments when one of my hands was tuning back into dispatch’s frequency. “Grep, I’ve got… a situation update. No, wait. First, a question.”

“I’m listening…”

“What is the DSSS?”

“Them, huh?” He sounded deflated. “Well, we’ve opened a bag of phleps, haven’t we? The Deep Space Systems Security. Kind of like a mostly neutral oversight agency. Decentralized. For the people they represent, most on this side of the DMZ, they do a lot of nose-sticking-where-it-doesn’t-belonging.”

“They’ve asked me to come aboard.”

A groan came to my ears. “See what I mean?”

“And… what should I do?” I said, creeping ever closer to the massive saucer’s shuttle bay.

“Just tell them the truth. We’ve done nothing wrong, or if we have, you’ve been misled. Do that feigning ignorance play you mentioned before. Overall, you just want to cooperate.”

“I couldn’t imagine another way out of this,” I gulped, glancing out at the debris field. “I’d better get off the transponder.”

“Luck be to you.”

Passing through their fancy airtight landing port, I was met with a small battalion of crew members, pointing at me with laser weaponry through every step of the landing procedure. I had never been faced with the opportunity before, so I decided to hold my hands up in the air as I exited, just for good measure.

Someone with a similar uniform but slightly more flashy lines across his chest and shoulders waved at the others. “You can put the weapons down. It’s not one of them, as you all can see. Anna was it?”

I almost forgot my name for a moment. “Uh… yes! That is what I said over the waves, didn’t I?”

The man’s heavy brow leaned forward like a glacier ready to drop into a freezing ocean. “Well, Anna, the Captain of this vessel would like to have a word with you and get this figured out. Anyone not on a duty shift, have a look at this ship of hers.”

“Aye, sir.”

I glanced back, almost offering them a warning to not go through my underwear or something, but I figured I had already said enough stupid things. They’re going to think I made the name Anna up, aren’t they, I thought to myself, watching the security officer’s back. In a lift to another deck, I tried my hardest to focus on anything but the man, but the circular, pale, windowless walls picked up on my suddenly resurfaced claustrophobia. By the time the space was closing in on me, the doors opened for the both of us.

“The bridge,” the security officer declared in as close to a single syllable as the language allowed.

I jerked myself about, ready to feign my every ounce of ignorance and likely a little more. The man with the most pronounced uniform embellishments was looking at me intently, arms crossed behind his back.

“Captain Malark, the sole pilot of the drifter, Anna, or so she says.”

“Welcome aboard, Anna. Come with me.”

I found myself following yet another wide back. The captain was older, blue-skinned, with tall, pointed ears. His pale uniform was not too different from the others aboard, prim, pressed, and possibly a pinch too taught, presumable on purpose. We moved from the bridge and entered a viewing deck, the vastness of space as heavy as my discomfort.

Malark finally swiveled back around, planting his feet down before taking a seat at a circular, wooden table. He gestured in a way I imagined to mean ‘sit down.’

“I have one of my officers researching this ‘Cycles Go ‘Round.”

“We have good reviews. I don’t know if the DSS…SS…S has any need of insurance, but we certainly can do—“

I found silence in the palm of his raised hand. “I’ll need to know what sort of business you were doing with that ship.”

“Insurance business, of course. And to be honest, I’m not sure if my employer will be miffed that we missed out on a sale from them, or happy that I was yet to submit their application to the central office and force us to pay out a claim already. But was it necessary to… kill them?”

Malark crumpled his lips. “They are not dead. We transported them across to our brig before we completed our attack.”

My hand jittered against the smooth wood of the table. “I had just left their docking port, you know! What if I had been caught up in the attack?”

“Rest assured, we made sure to transport every last life sign across to us.”

“Well, I’m glad I was out of there, then. I don’t trust that transporter technology, you know. I’ve heard the stories.”

Malark made a face that either told me he was realizing my innocence, or that he was going to enjoy interrogating me further. “I don’t assume you can tell me more about the crew of that ship. Perhaps how many there were?”

“There were three,” I answered, nodding my head before I could think of any more incriminating details, be it from myself or the Espinoids.

“Good. And what about their ship?”

“What about it?”

The captain nodded slowly. “What were you led to believe about its purpose?”

“A science vessel?”

His face twisted up, eyes narrow. “You don’t sound sure.”

“There are lots of scientific fields. I didn’t ask about the exact thing they were sciencing. It could be social science for all I know. Well, it could have, but… you know. Why destroy it?”

Malark stood up, his unimpressive, past-prime mass struggling against the tight uniform. “That’s for me to know, and for you to find you.”

I looked at the table, nearly rolling my eyes. “Okay, dad,” I murmured.

The captain tensed himself as if he had heard, then jerked himself up out of the seat.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” I replied meekly.

“Well, if you don’t already know, then you most likely will not. And until we find out more about you and your company, you won’t be going anywhere.”

“Sure, I’ll be fine here,” I said leaning back in the relatively comfortable slightly padded chair.

“In the brig.”

The seat squeaked as I jerked up. “The where?”

Malark shuffled, turning his back to me, possibly looking at me in the reflection of the viewing windows, while the security officers he buzzed in took me away. I offered up a slight bit of resistance, simply to force them to earn their paycheck or whatever, but not enough that they would treat me like they did the Espinoid’s ship.

Soon enough, I found myself several levels down behind the heavily tinted glass of the brig’s cell. As soon as the shadows of the security officers disappeared from the hall, I heard a knocking.

“Well, so it ended up like this, insurance girl?” The voice I recognized clearly, belonging to the one who was once in command of the craft-turned-space-dust.

“Commander Kale…” I sighed and grunted, lamely pounding at the wall between our holding cells. “You must have pissed them off big time. And it goes without saying that they’ve decided I was a part of it too.”

“A shame,” Kale said, his voice hollow and uncaring beyond the reinforced wall.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, twirling a finger in the air. “How about you tell me about your relationship with the DMZ? Or the fact that my people don’t seem to know a thing about you people.”

I heard a low chuckle coming through the wall. “Oh, is that how it is? Did Malark bring you aboard so you could pretend to be guilty as well, and through commiseration, get more information out of me?”

I sent a kick to the wall, certainly dealing more damage to myself than the metal structure. “Like hell! I can barely remember what I eat for breakfast, and the only thing I have to eat on board my ship right now is nearly expired energy bars! Like I’d be able to remember anything you tell me.”

The chuckle returned. “Fine, fine, understood. So, how’s about you tell me if our insurance deal went through? That would be really great, seeing as how… you know.”

I jumped back as the glass gate holding me captive shifted suddenly. Captain Malark and his security officer were there to greet me beyond the cell. “Oh, Mr. Kale, no doubt you know about how much red tape goes on with things like that,” the Captain shrugged. “Come on out, Anna.”

I paused on the threshold of the freshly opened cell. “So you know I was telling the truth, eh?”

Malark folded his arms behind his back and paced about between the front of the two cells. “Well, we determined that Cycles Go ‘Round is legitimate, and with decent reviews from its clients. But you won’t be getting any stars from our Espinoids friends here.”

Kale clicked his tongue, hand pressed against the glass, green eyes glaring angrily. “Do what you will with me.”

Malark turned and winked at me. “I lied, Miss Anna. I will allow you to find out. About why their craft was to be destroyed.”

“That’s nice, but can I just get back to—“

“Take it as some insider information, for the industry. These folks are from deep beyond the DMZ. Not a species we see very much of in these parts. Our scans just before they engaged us revealed that there was a positron explosive cache aboard. If we hadn’t taken them out, they would have engaged us head-to-head with that devilish warhead. Dealing to us a non-insignificant amount of damage, and certainly destroying themselves in the process.”

I shook my head, processing the information. “That’s crazy talk. What is that, like a suicide mission?”

Malark nodded. “Likely, also that they did not know that themselves.”

“No, no, no, you can stop right there,” I held up a hand in Malark’s face before turning on my heel to Kale’s cell. “I’ve heard plenty. You— Kale! You mean to tell me you wanted to take out an insurance policy on a vessel that, by design, is destined to be destroyed! That is fraud of… the highest caliber! And, on top of that, you were a single step away from taking me with you on your little… explosion quest! That gall of… of… this is unimaginable! What were you… what did you say, Captain?”

Kale huffed and pounded on his glass enclosure. “We were told to get the insurance! Our commander said it couldn’t be handled anywhere else. Nobody said that the bomb was going to take us out too if we used it! Malark, get this crazy chick out of here and we’ll tell you anything you want!”

Malak took me by my shoulders, pulling me back. “Okay, okay, that’s good enough. We will send you on your way, Ms. Anna of Cycles Go Around. Perhaps take heed around the border of the DMZ from now on, you and the other agents, huh.”

<– Previous Chapter | Next Chapter –>

Cycles Go ‘Round [Chapter 12]

In our company handbook, which I totally have read more than just a few paragraphs of, it tells us to respond to any distress calls we come into range of on our journeys doing business. The people who I trained under say it’s for the sake of community building, but when it comes down to it, we cover an area so vast that running into any one person more than once outside of business is terribly unlikely. In actuality, when dealing with folks sending out these distress calls, we are instructed to ask them about their insurance status, assuring that they would be covered if they were to find themselves in a predicament another time. I would fathom to guess that tactic drives away any community we could wish to build.

I had never encountered a real one before, but it was clear the transmission I was hearing across several public channels. The frequency was meant to reach far, delivering three short tones, three long, then three more short ones. The computer in the ship was programmed to latch onto the frequency, but it was my choice to engage my navigation to head toward the signal. Company handbook or not, I was going to do something good for somebody and forgo my previous assignment of a cold call to a less-than-forgiving planetoid. I suppose that work was just going to have to wait.

The signal originated along a trade path between two inhabited systems. As I came into reach, I summed up the courage to reach out to dispatch. “Dispatch— Grep, are you there?”

There was a pause followed by a yawn on the other side of the line. “Like always.”

“Sorry if it’s a bad time, Grep,” I replied, feeling slightly bad. “You should have your own vacation some time. Some time I’ll tell you about the place I went on my last break.”

He cleared his voice and smacked his lips. “No, no problem, just wasn’t expecting a call. Was getting my weekly nap in.”

“Weekly?” I thought I mouthed, but apparently, it was enough for him to hear.

“I’ve discovered my rhythm is quite different than yours, a Terran’s,” he chuckled. “Guess that’s why I’m suited for this job pretty well. And I think I do pretty fine for myself, you know, Anna. Between you and me, I don’t actually do a lot of work, physical or mental. Just a little bit of planning for you and the other field agents, that and waiting on calls from you lot and the main branch to sort out assignments.”

“And I take it sleeping isn’t taking up a ton of your downtime? Lucky,” I sighed. “I don’t know about now, but back when I was still in school, I would have killed for the extra time like that. What do you even do with yourself?”

“Do you know what a video game is?”

“Duh, of course.”

“We have something like that, an interactive story, that my people invented. Feeds directly into your brain. Fun for sponging up the downtime.”

“Why have I never heard of this? Could it be fitted into the ship?”

Grep clicked his tongue. “Seems if species besides my own use it, their brains literally turn to mush. So that’s a no-go.”

“Wow, so our brain structures are really that different,” I said, taken aback.

“No so much that we can’t make a good joke,” his voice wavered with a laugh.

“Dang it, Grep. So there is no video game like that, then?”

“Nah,” his chuckling died out. “Instead, I read a lot, I write too. Just as a hobby. Whoa, you’re way off course, girl!”

I snapped out of the comfort that hearing another voice offered out there in the depths of space. “Oh crap! Yeah, I’m responding to a distress call.”

“I see,” Dispatch hummed, finding his professional tone again. “Well, you’ve read the handbook, so you know the drill.”

“Right…”

“Some no-good folks may set up a beacon to lure in the trusting kind, only to steal everything but the shirt off their backs.”

I shrugged. “Not much they can steal from me here.”

“True, but something like that may just make them angry. Especially if they notice you’ve a company ship with a tracker.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve dealt with the unpleasant sort plenty. But it could be someone in actual trouble, too.”

“Which is why we go out of our way,” Grep said with an official-sounding sigh. “Guess I’ll be up for a bit while you get down to whoever it may be.”

The beacon’s frequency crept closer until I was upon a dwarf star system with a few desolate, rocky planets. The second furthest planetoid was where the signal was coming from, and after a few passing scans across the nonexistent atmosphere, I made visual contact with the craft.

The ship was a civilian class carrier, with likely just enough room for a pilot and passenger and a bit of cargo. I offered up a vague greeting over the short band in hopes of finding out whether or not I was going to be robbed or hassled. “Distress beacon, I’m within your vicinity and landing. Anything I can do to help?”

A crackling response came to me a moment later, a breathy, deep voice with whining and near-screams in the background. “Oh, thank the stars! Yes, we could use some help,” he said, voice jerking away from the microphone. “I’m right here still, hold tight!”

I set down just a short way from where I had made visual contact with them and readied myself in the environ suit. I was able to get to the craft on foot, carefully looking about for any possible signs of danger. Their landing seemed slightly haphazard, with a few skid marks from trying to settle down on the uneven, rocky ground. Apart from that, I saw no visible damage, but any smoke would have long disappeared in the void of the planet’s surface.

I sneaked around to the front of the craft to look into the cockpit first, just to get a first look at the inhabitants in the case they wanted something other than to be saved. The sheen of the sunlight made it hard to immediately tell, but as my eyes adjusted, I could see none other than the flailing of tentacles against the glass. I nearly toppled over myself stepping back, but before I could distance myself enough, a face was peering at me from the same area. A mostly normal appendage pointed at me to the side where I assumed there was a hatch.

Despite what I had seen inside, I accessed the sealed door. The airlock was tight but allowed me in nonetheless. Just as soon as I had removed my helmet, to present myself properly, of course, the pilot grabbed at my hand.

“Oh, once again, the stars, thank them!” He was a primate-like man with hairy features, down to his wide hands which were currently shaking my own up and down. “Please tell me you’re a doctor, or if you have one on your ship.”

There was a loud groan and restrained shriek from the neighboring compartment, the cockpit. “I, uh, sorry. I’m, afraid I’m the only one on my ship. I’m with… well, it doesn’t matter who I’m with, does it? Is everything alright here?”

The primate pulled away, shaking his head and pursing his wide lips. “Better than nothing, I assume. But my wife… Squellatelle, is about to give birth!”

I steadied myself, repeating the words in my head to make sure I understood. “And you… chose to go traveling when you were so close?”

He shook his head ashamedly. “You might need to see to understand.”

The wife was in the cockpit, laid out across the pilot’s and copilot’s seats. She was quite different from the husband, with smooth skin, a bulbous orange head, and tentacle-like limbs that were in the process of constricting every hand-hold and lever in sight.

“You’re not a doctor?” Squellatelle hissed, writhing. “Patch, what are we going to do? Augh, the contractions!”

The husband rubbed at the back of his head. “We had an… incident leading to her pulling on one of the levers too hard during a strong contraction.”

“I said I was sorry!” The wife huffed with heavy breaths, still arching her back.

“And they’re… your children?” I asked despite my hesitation, looking between the couple.

Patch pulled me away back into the doorway. “We are… compatible. As strange as it might seem. We live on my planet. As for the whole… process, the doctor said there may be birthing complications. A doctor on her planet said it could be handled there, and we were on our way, and…”

“Patch!!!” The wife yelled the loudest I had heard.

“We’ll manage, Squell!” He shouted back, the color draining from his face, eyes fixed on me with a pleading look. “You don’t look like the motherly type, either, darn.”

“Thanks…“ I muttered.

“And since you’re on the only one on your ship, I don’t suppose there would be room to get us out of here and to her planet.”

I held up a hand to stall his panic attack while my mind settled on something. “I can… I can call someone maybe. My ship has good range.”

Patch bit at his knuckles, glancing back between me and his wife as I tethered my tablet to my ship’s transponder, hoping I was just close enough. “Grep. Grep? Please respond.”

“Whoa, whoa, Anna.” His voice came through a little bit fuzzy and a little bit surprised. “Everything okay?”

“Uh, hi. Yeah! With me, yes. Maybe a personal question. You have kids?”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t happen to… be involved in the birthing process at all?”

“What sort of—?” Grep shuffled his words. “I was in the room, but I didn’t do much but allow my hand to be crushed under my wife’s grip. And also that was fifty sun cycles or more ago. What’s going on, Anna?”

“The distress call—“ I explained in as few words as possible. “A couple… having a baby. Babies? I don’t know. Patch?”

The primate man glanced at me. “Last we had it checked, there were seven in total. Squell’s kind has quite the litter.”

“Seven,” I repeated to Grep. “Wait, seven?” I couldn’t help but peer around the corner at the tentacled woman’s unremarkable stomach. “Uh, yeah, so Grep, any chance you could offer me… at this point, anything at all?”

Dispatch hummed lowly. “I’m going to fathom a guess that you’ve already tried to get them to somewhere that isn’t… that desolate place you’re at right now. Boy, I don’t even know what species they are. Let’s see, what sort of… exit are we talking? Something all-in-one, thinking like a cloaca, or something… more… traditional?”

Patch jerked toward me and yanked the tablet out of my hands before I could shout ‘that’s company property.’

“Listen here,” he said at the screen with a rising voice. “We’re expecting a live birth here. Does that help?”

Grep stifled a groan. “Hello? Are you the father?”

“Who else would I be?” Patch huffed, accepting a deep breath just as his excitement had seemed to reach its max. “Here, girl, take it back. I’ll listen to whatever you think I need to do.”

I took back the tablet as it was offered to me, making sure the call was still active. “Anything at all, Grep?”

“Well, first thing’s first. How does the mother look, Anna?”

I dared to glance in the cockpit. “As uncomfortable and upset as when I arrived.”

“Ahhhh! It’s coming! Something… is coming…” Squellatelle hissed through her beaked lips, tentacles strung out and latched onto any convenient surface.

“Not that, Anna,” Grep said above the fruitless complaints. “If there are seven… offspring, how big is she, like, physically?”

“A little round, but not like the ready-to-burst women I see with my kind.”

“That’s a boon, at least. It sounds like… maybe she might need to relax.”

“Me, relax? You relax! You— you— ahhhh!” The wife shrieked from the cockpit.

I crept to the back of the compartment and leaned into my tablet. “I dunno, Grep, they might come at any moment. The husband said there might be complications. I have no idea what that could mean, or if I could even do anything.”

“Let’s just think clearly, Anna. Let’s assume the… offspring come out nice and easy. Make sure they’re breathing, and get them clean and warm. Uh, unless the mother is cold-blooded. Well, use your best judgment Water! Does the couple have water?”

I turned back. “Patch! Water?”

“Water? No! We left in a hurry.”

“Grep, no water,” I informed him. “And you know my ship…”

Dispatch huffed. “Actually, I do know a thing about your ship. But you’ll have to be quick.”

“Yeah?”

“The ship’s hydrogen reactor can spare some.”

“Reactor?” I coughed. “Listen, I don’t know a whole lot, but a reactor doesn’t sound like something I want to get my hands on. And like… don’t I need it too, for getting… anywhere?”

“Don’t worry, I used to repair ships like yours… for one summer before I found a proper job. It’s safe, I promise! Just go, I can pull up a manual while you go back to your ship. By the sound of it, I don’t think we have the luxury of taking our time.”

I rushed out, barely offering the couple a word. Under Grep’s guidance, I got my prerequisite in spacecraft maintenance before I was allowed to become a proper midwife. With the engine hatch of my ship left hanging open, I returned back inside of the stranded ship with the metal containers of spare water in my suited hands.

Squellatelle was still writhing in the cockpit as I transferred the comms link back to the tablet. “Ok, back inside, Grep. What should I do with this water?”

“I’m guessing the water reservoir isn’t terribly wide. You may need a bigger container.”

I glanced up at Patch. “You got something like that? Like a tub, maybe?”

The husband shrugged. “I’m afraid not.”

“Anything water-tight and wide enough to get the children in and out of.”

I glanced about, seeing the only other viable vessel being the helmet from my environ suit. “Grep, before I tell you what I’m about to do, can you promise me that the company will cover any broken or soiled gear from this trip?”

“If they won’t, I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket, Anna,” He said proudly.

“Something’s coming!” The wife yelled breathily again from the front.

I joined Patch in the doorway to look upon Squellatelle, tentacles tangled about the cockpit. “I’m no expert,” Grep said from his side of the line, “but you better be ready. Let’s see… when my wife was giving birth, her feet were way up in the air, spread to the wind. Mr. Husband, can I count on you for that?”

Patch glanced between my tablet and his wife. “Sure, but I’m not sure if I have enough hands.”

“Hands?” Dispatch puzzled. “Whatever, just do your best. And our lovely baby mama, perhaps, if something truly is coming, this would be a time to push.”

I ducked back to the other compartment to fill up my helmet-turned bath and readied myself. “Push what?!” Squellatelle screamed.

With Patch’s forearms tangled about his wife’s lower tentacles, I focused myself. For the sake of the mother’s privacy, I will not describe what I saw, apart from the sudden popping and exiting of one, then two, then a flood of the rest of the tiny creatures. In their little membranes, they began flopping immediately. Operating on adrenaline alone, I barely was able to catch them one by one into my sloshing helmet where they began to flop, pushing themselves out of the thin covering.

“Oh god, I didn’t even think about the umbilical cords!” Grep fretted loudly from the speakers of the tablet that had ended up on the floor. “Please tell me you have something sharp.”

“It’s okay, Grep,” I shouted back before taking count. “One, two… seven. That’s all of them.”

Patch pulled himself away from his wive’s tentacles, leaning back on the wall with a sigh. Squellatelle pulled herself up in the chair, weakly leaning forward to the makeshift basin. Inside the murky water squirmed the hairy, multi-legged things, bumping into the padded walls. “They have your coat,”

“And your spots,” Patch added.

I shakily offered the helmet toward the wife who was already assuming the role presented to her. “No complications.”

I sat back and picked up the tablet to lay on my lap. “All green, Grep. Thanks for the pep-talk.”

“It was certainly the least I could do.”

Patch turned my way, head down. “Thank you… Anna, was it? We forgot to ask your name, but your… friend said it a few times.”

“Not… a problem,” I forced out the line.

“We’ll name one of the girls after you, for this. And one of the boys will be called Grape.”

“That’s… an honor,” I sighed, pulling myself up. Squellatelle was focused on her children, peeping with low sounds, from the cockpit chair. “Will you be able to fly off this rock on your own, you think?”

Patch nodded. “Now that things have calmed down, I can have a look at the control that got pulled. Thank you again, we won’t force you to stay behind and put yourself out. Oh, but that helmet of yours.”

I waived a hand. “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. I can… hold my breath for just enough time.”

That statement was just barely the truth. I sucked in a huge breath as I lunged back into my ship, flopping down as the remainder of the adrenaline was flushed from my system.

“Way to keep your head, Anna.”

I pepped myself up as much as my shot nerves could manage. “Yeah. That was… something.”

“One thing though.”

“Huh?”

“You forgot to offer them any one of our policies.”

“You’re kidding me!”

Dispatch chuckled. “I most certainly am. How about you stop at the nearest system and get yourself fueled and fixed up.”

<– Previous Chapter | Next Chapter –>

Cycles Go ‘Round [ Chapter 11]

In our universe here, there are many, many things that could be considered unexplainable. Things that defy explanation and would take more than the lifespan of most sentient lifeforms to fully examine or even get close to understanding. That’s not even mentioning that some— if not most— of these anomalies are potentially hazardous, even malevolent by certain definitions of the word. The people out there daring to study such things are a lot smarter than me and certainly more brave. The claim I was issued to deal with had me headed to one such person.

The research station was free-floating, in distant orbit about the outer reaches of a young star. I had heard from Grep in dispatch that the area was known for the apparition of what might have been classified as a wormhole. I was assured that the chances of running across its path and getting entangled with its forces were low. Nevertheless, I made a beeline to the station the moment it came into sensor range.

The computerized voice of the automated docking system guided me into the bay, one obviously built for a supply craft, and not a one-seater. Apart from my little old self, the bay was empty, save for a few supply crates in the corner. When nobody appeared to greet me I went on my own, tablet in hand, to seek out anyone knowing about the nature of the insurance claim.

I knew that the automatically opening doors were just simple systems for the convenience of the station’s inhabitants, but I couldn’t help but feel as if I was being goaded into continuing deeper. From the space dock, I traversed a long, dim hallway, with several more sets of sealed doors, and finally into a larger room at the very end. I stood frozen as several sets of eyes turned my way, only to unhesitatingly focus back on their work as if I was the least interesting thing they had seen that cycle. The circular room had a domed glass ceiling to look out upon the cosmos, but everyone was glued to their screens and readouts and holographic displays.

I approached the least intimidating-seeming of the scientists, dressed in a white lab coat like the rest. The aged woman was pouring over a waveform of some sort of audio, scanning back and forth over certain segments. I paused for a moment to judge whether or not she would engage me first.

“Uh,” I finally spoke up, trying my best not to startle her. “Could you direct me to Dr. Caspian? Please?”

The woman jerked her head up and squinted at me like I was one of her objects of research. “The doctor? He’s quite busy with the discovery.”

“I see,” I said, bouncing on my heels disarmingly. “Well, he did make an appointment with me, so if you simply point me in the right direction, I can be on my way very quickly.”

She nudged her head in the direction of the back of the room. “Up the stairs, in the drone bay,” she directed, barely looking my way again.

“Drone bay,” I repeated, nodding and leaving the less-than-interested scientist behind. At the spot denoted by her vague head movement, I found the sole set of stairs and climbed, reaching the area foretold. The doors to the bay opened freely for me, leading me to the person who was likely the client.

The floor of the room had a set of wide, mechanical hatch doors that had been opened wide, revealing a lift supporting a spacecraft even smaller than the one issued to me by the company. A man of white, wild hair jerked up from behind the craft, making immediate eye contact with me.

“Who are you?” He said with a gruff, aged voice.

“I’m from—“

“Ah, Cycles Go ‘Round,” he finished.

I held myself high and rounded the craft, ready to offer my free hand out for a shake. “That’s correct. Dr. Caspian, I presume?”

He glanced at my hand but left me hanging. “Yes. I almost forgot I had called you out. Our… problem has… evolved. Of course, that hopefully won’t change our dealings with your company. It’s this drone here, you see.”

I pulled out my tablet and glanced at the screen, reciting the details I had already memorized. “Yes, right here; an autonomous remotely-controlled spacecraft working in a potentially hazardous environment. Can I assume it’s become inoperable?”

“If you mean, we, ourselves, can’t operate it, that’s correct.”

“Perfect. Err, for insurance purposes, of course. So, what I’ll need to do is make a record of the ways it has been damaged, how that came about, and finally take some images of the damage suffered. From there, we can—“

“Erm,” Caspian cleared his throat, interrupting me. “I’ll tell you now, it’ll take more than a few pictures and a report to explain to your employers what’s going on here.”

“I promise, I’m very thorough, sir.” I leaned into the customer service voice. “How about you tell me what happened and I’ll put the details down in my notes?”

Capsian sighed and rounded the drone, dragging his feet. “Have you ever heard the term, A Ghost in the Machine?”

I shrugged. “I suppose I’ve heard the phrase once or twice. So, is it like an electrical fault somewhere? Something like a manufacturing error?”

“Something like that. Uh, the first. If that’s enough to put on the claim form, go right ahead.”

I sighed. “I’m afraid I need a little more than that. Specifically in making sure that my employers are happy. I just need to confirm that it is inoperable, that’s company policy before we reimburse something of a value this high.”

Caspian sighed with an energy that rivaled my own. “Listen, kindly of course. There’s a lot to explain here that an… untrained observer wouldn’t be able to process. Would you really let a little policy get in the way of scientific progress?”

I forced myself to look into his eyes. “If there actually is something wrong getting in the way of that progress, you’re free to give me the details.”

“A ghost in the machine,” he repeated, squinting at me. “What if I told you, it was more than just a figure of speech? An actual ghost. What do you think when you hear that word, girl?”

I pulled my jaw up from its slack state and nodded as if thinking deeply. “Ghost? Well, scientifically, nobody anywhere has been able to find any evidence regarding a life after death, at least in this reality. Unless… this is your breakthrough?”

Caspian approached excitedly, wagging a finger my way. “I like your optimism. How did you end up as such a rule-following drone in an insurance company?”

“That’s also beyond scientific understanding.”

The old man paced, borderline ignoring me in favor of the sound of his own voice. “Here’s the thing about our ghost here, girl. There is certainly something that has come to inhabit our little drone here. And while the supernatural is not something we can fool ourselves into believing, I beg you to think about a being… a consciousness… that is simply too different for us to notice it with just eyes and ears, any of our senses.”

I nodded as if I was understanding his train of thought. “Even taste? No, forget I said that. Does this have to do with your wormhole? What… sort of… activity has this ghost demonstrated?”

“The wormhole, yes!” The scientist hummed, turning to the window of the bay. “Is it one, though? That’s what we are out here to find out. We’ve been able to foretell when it is to appear by fluctuations in the tachyon particles in this sector. During its last appearance, we sent this fellow through.”

I glanced down at the tachyon… whatever that meant… soaked machine laying bare on the lift before me. Stepping back, I responded. “And then?”

Caspian jerked about and mashed at a computer console, sending a picture to the screen. The view, I assumed, was from the drone itself, creeping forward to a dark orifice that seemed both flat and fluid at the same time, devoid of any of the stars of space. “At this moment,” the doctor explained, “is exactly where it crossed over.”

“Crossed over to where?” I began to ask when fuzz overtook the camera before the entirety of the feed went completely, solidly, white. “How convenient, that the camera would fail right at that moment, huh?”

“Aha, so it appears!” He exclaimed, leaning still on the control panel. “To the uneducated eye, it would seem so. But, in fact, the bitrate of the camera was maxed out at that moment, and in that blink of an eye, every single one and zero of the drone’s local memory was maxed out with video and audio data.”

“I assume that’s not intended.”

Caspian shrugged and turned back. “We couldn’t even fetch any sensor data from there on out. Miraculously, it was able to be turned right around and brought back on visual guidance alone. And while we were able to extract the memory modules, all the electronics refuse to respond, despite all the circuits being intact.”

I blinked at the machine. “And so here it sits.”

“Like a coffer of secrets! But ones that we are encroaching upon.”

I pressed my tablet to my chest, scratching the back of my head. “May I recommend that you reach out to us once more after these secrets are unfurled?”

I saw a glint in his eye, combined with a tugging on his twisty beard. “Are you so interested in these secrets?”

“I—“

He didn’t take any pause in beginning another explanation. “The video, we have yet to find an answer in it, but the audio, oh, the waves and ripples of sound!”

The computer screen changed to another readout, a waveform from a recording it seemed. “Such a high pitch, barely audible by the microphones. But slowed to a frequency able to be heard by our ears? I will let you have a listen.”

What I heard was somewhere between the digestion of a high-fiber meal and the din of a warp engine while you’re trying to sleep, all mashed into a vague rhyme. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“But no doubt there’s a noticeable cadence there, no?” He swooned, eyes mostly closed. “You meet many species out there, traveling and working across the galaxy?”

“Of course.”

“And you may hear many different languages, dialects. Even without knowing a word, you can hear the syllables, the rising and falling of intonation. Do you not hear the same thing?”

I nodded to appease him. “Sure. Have you tried translating it?”

Caspian planted his hands together and began striding about the bay. “It is unlike any language in any database.”

“If it is even a language.”

“Language or not, I believe it has meaning. The station’s computers and a couple of my colleagues are working to pick it apart.”

“To see if you… ghost is trying to communicate?”

“Precisely.”

I slumped my shoulders, holding my tablet like a shield to my chest. “This is some fine, proper science you’re performing, but I’m not quite seeing something that could be covered under your insurance policy.”

The doors behind us slid open with a gassy whoosh. “Doctor, I’m sorry to intrude, but I think you should see this.” It was the sour researcher from before, cowering against the door frame. I noticed the blinking of the ceiling lights outside.

Caspian strutted out past me in a hurry. I followed, not daring to be left with the machine and the so-called ghost inside of it. The rest of the researchers were stood up from their desks, glancing about at each other, view-screens and monitors all turned to white.

“What’s going on?” The doctor fussed, moving from workstation to workstation.

“It just started like this,” the woman returned.

The lights on the nearby controls lit up in a random fashion, flickering on and off, before slithering like a hungry serpent across to the neighboring panels. The researchers jumped back as the electrical anomaly crossed their paths. The ceiling lights flickered once more. A sudden alarm split my ears, and the room suddenly illuminated periodically by a strobing red light.

“What’s that alarm for, exactly?” I said, covering one ear with my free hand.

Caspian held his own ears, hidden behind the white tufts of hair. “That’s the decompression alarm! Don’t worry, it’s a false alarm. Because if it were truly going on this long, we wouldn’t be talking right now!”

“That’s comforting!” I shouted through the clamor. “But your ghost… looks like he’s invaded—“ My last word echoed loudly through the space as the siren suddenly cut off, followed by the mass extinguishing of the lights. “Your ghost has invaded the systems here too.”

Caspian tensed his neck and glanced about the dim space, wary of the siren returning. “Power? The power now!? Someone get to the emergency hatch, get out the air masks. What’s going on here?”

The sour woman held her forehead. “I don’t know, doctor. If I had to guess… in decoding the anomaly into something we could make sense of, it… made sense of us in return.”

The doctor stomped his foot. “If you had to guess? We are scientists! We do not guess!”

“I’m more than happy to guess, not being a scientist or anything” I spoke up, hand slightly raised. “And my guess is to try and figure out what this thing wants.”

“Doctor,” another researcher jumped up. “If it does what it did to the drone, we’ll likely only have a short amount of time before the vital systems shut down with nothing we can do.”

Just as my eyes had adjusted to the dark, the lights returned, brighter than ever. As the computer stations returned to life, their screens rained with a cascade of senseless errors and the accompanying minute clanging sounds. Some of the scientists dashed back to the room with air tanks and environ suits. I began to creep towards the door I had come through to get in.

“Where do you think you’re going!” Caspian shouted at me.

I froze in place. “I don’t know, just thinking of how I can make myself useful, I guess,” I lied poorly.

“Does none of this constitute something that you people cover? An anomaly from deep space, a wormhole, technological or not, must be covered!”

“I understand that, sir,” I loudly attempted to appease him, “but if neither you nor I are around, there will be no payout.”

“Doctor!” A younger woman called out, tugging a male researcher along with her to confront Caspian. “I believe this isn’t the anomaly you think it is.”

The doctor folded his arms expectantly. “Present me with your evidence.”

The young man stood himself up, his lab coat free from the woman’s grasp. “I perhaps have an explanation. I’ve… seen this before.”

“Where? Spit it out,” Caspian huffed, trying and failing to ignore the cacophony from the surrounding computers.

“It’s because his own personal computer was doing this same thing just the other day,” the woman explained, hands at her sides.

“That’s right, sir,” said the man, cradling the back of his head. “I, uh… downloaded something off the data stream. Something for my own… personal use. Perhaps one that was not from a reliable source.”

“Tell him what happened after that,” the woman shoved at his back.

“Uh, well,” he said, refusing to look the doctor in the eye. “Well, I disconnected the memory module from the computer and hid it away. Doctor, do you perhaps remember when the drone needed its own memory replaced?”

Caspian folded his arms. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me the one sitting in the drone now…”

“Is the infected one sir. And we hooked it all back up to the main server with all the data from the camera.”

The woman shoved him once again. “And now look what you’ve allowed to happen. Keeping your mouth shut like that.”

Caspian held his brow in his finger, shaking his head. “But the strange video and audio? We captured that from the wormhole, did we not?”

“I believe,” the woman began, “when the drone switched to its autonomous systems, the virus was able to gain control. Is spread from there, I guess.”

“Oh, I’ve heard about ones like that,” I spoke up proudly for once. “It just copies a bunch of junk data to fill space and jam up things.”

Caspian pursed his lips. “So… we have yet to see anything from the other side. I see. Let’s get things restarted in safe mode or something. You lot know better than me. Insurance lass!”

I straightened myself up as the others began to scramble back to the various computer stations. “Yes?”

The doctor’s eyes met mine. “I’ll… walk you out.”

I pondered what to say as I followed a few steps behind him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do much here, but I can recommend a good informational security company that may be able to handle things.”

Caspian opened the door to the bay for me, waving a hand forward. “Oh, thank you, but the people here are quite adept, if they’re thinking with the right head, that is.”

“So be it,” I wanted to conclude it there. I stopped, one last question entering my mind. “If this was the scientific breakthrough that it could have been, why not just reach out to the people funding you, rather than claim it on your insurance?”

Caspian clicked his tongue. “Because they’re stingy with grant money. You only get more money once you produce results. But in the case of insurance, you get money when things go the opposite way. We’ll just have to hope we don’t actually run across something actually devious in our future ventures.”

<– Previous Chapter | Next Chapter –>

Cycles Go ‘Round [Chapter 10]

So I never got to use the pool on my vacation, but I’ll get over it. Regardless, I certainly prefer swimming in a pool to any other body of water. Why? Because you can see the bottom of a pool; there’s no mystery of what could be beneath the surface. Unrelated, my next assignment was taking me to an ocean planet.

Omizumaru was a small planet in a system with two others colonized and thriving, but of course, I had no business in either of those places. I was headed down into the atmosphere of the blue sphere, with nothing but water visible from every angle. On top of the lack of any landmarks, I was given only a vague set of coordinates where the client was expected to be.

“Grep?” I said after tuning into dispatch’s frequency.

“Howdy, Anna. Problems with the assignment?”

“Yeah, I’m just… cruising along here above Omizumaru. Is there… really no land here?”

Dispatch hummed. “Well, let’s pull up the galactic guide… now this is just me talkin’ out loud, but I don’t think the gravitational forces of the universe would be so kind to allow just a big old ball of water to be floating about, but I’m sure there are stranger things too. Hmm, yeah, Omizumaru, it has a solid core in the center. Could that be called land, even if it is submerged?”

“I don’t really know…” I puzzled along with him.

“Me neither. Just another bout of talking out loud. But no, Anna, there is no dirt, rock, or otherwise out there. I don’t take it you’ve considered a water landing?”

I held my breath. “Uh…”

“That’s a joke, don’t do that, even if the ship would… probably… do just fine. The client has some sort of floating platform. That bein’ why there’s no set coordinates.”

“Great.”

“You’ve got this, Anna. But you know where to find me.”

Sure enough, after a little while of flying circles around the designated area, the endless waters revealed a geometric platform gently being tugged along the aimless waves. I slowed to a hover while looking for a spot among the service buildings and collections of solar panels. The waiving of a flapped appendage caught my eyes next, which I hoped to understand as a gesture to ‘land here’.

The wind blew like the sighs of a less-than-satisfied client as I opened the front hatch. The person I had seen guiding me down stepped up to the front of my craft. He was a Penkwhen— a feathered type, puffy and round in a way I imagined the cold gusts would have no effect upon him. “Lookie here, the one from Cycles Go ‘Round,” he chirped.

As I made contact with the platform, my stomach immediately shifted. He reached out a flipper and I couldn’t help but take it up to steady myself. I must have grasped too hard during the brief contact, because as soon as I had let go, he pulled it back to his stomach, stroking it with the other.

“Uh, sorry, getting my… sea legs,” I said wavily, glancing down at a pair of webbed feet sticking out from beneath his outer layers. “And yes, I am from Cycles. Anna is my name.”

“Well, welcome to you Anna. We’ve been in contact with your company for a little while now, I’m sure you know. We hope you can give us your little inspection here and, uh, plop some insurance on us.”

I glanced about the platform, mostly plain apart from the few necessary installations I had noticed from the air. “This seems to be a nice spot. A… good start to… your ventures.”

The client cawed with a few short laughs. “Funny, funny. There is plenty to see. Here, our safety inspector, he comes. Squill is his name. Ack! And I am Poli.”

My eyes caught another of the bird folks plopping out of the water onto the deck, shaking his feathers down before busily approaching us. “Insurance inspector is arrived!”

“Greetings,” I nodded, glancing at his moist flipper. “You may call me Anna. Going for a… swim?”

He tilted his feathered head at me. “Anna! Inspecting, myself. Not myself! No, the construction, yes! To make sure everything looks good from below.”

I chuckled purposefully. “Right until the last moment, huh? Well, I don’t think I’ll be needing to go down below to see anything from the bottom side. As long as this structure is built to code and I get your stamp of approval.”

The inspector looked at Poli and shrugged. “Ah,” the client nodded. “No, you will not have to wet yourself in the water. We will take the ferry submersible.”

“Submersible as in… underwater?”

“Yes. To the restaurant!”

My head spun, trying to deflect. “Ah, no need, I am not hungry, thank you very much.”

“But,” Squill flapped his arms. “That is the reason you have come, no? The underwater restaurant is to be insured by Cycles Go ‘Round. My inspections reveal no issues, but there is insurance required for our guests to arrive first, you see? The documents are down there as well.”

“Of course, of course,” I nodded, glancing around for the sign of their submersible or any rogue waves. “Lead on, then.”

The sub itself was nice from the outside, at least the part above the water line. The plank leading to its hatch moved even more than the rest of the floating platform, but focusing on the destination kept my feet moving one after the other until I was down the slick ladder. The dark sucked us up as the top latch was shut. That darkness was replaced by operating lights and the hum of various ominous sounds. I felt a sinking feeling, which I assumed was more than just my stomach.

There was plenty of space to move around in, but my feet decided to stick in the same spot behind the workers while holding onto a handhold just above my head. I avoided looking at the portholes to the outside, dancing with light bubbles against the watery vastness all around us. “So, this is an unexpected place for a restaurant, huh?”

“The first of its kind!” Poli nodded, turning back from the controls. “Our fishermen spend much time on this planet to bring food back to our homes. But fresh is… more fresh! So we decided that our people would come here to eat, instead of the opposite. Do you like fish food, Miss Anna?” He asked.

The inspector tapped him on the shoulder before I could respond. “That is not the word! I think he means, Miss Anna, food of the sea. Are there oceans where you are from?”

I forced out a motion that was halfway between a nod and a shrug. “Actually no. I lived in a few different places when I was young, the last one being a pretty dry planet. So seafood of any sort is something I kind of missed out on. To be honest, I don’t really even know how to swim that well.”

Both Poli and Squill looked my way before engaging in a bout of whispering. “Don’t know how?”

The inspector shook his head. “Like don’t know how to breathe? Or don’t know how to chew food?”

“She has no beak, either, just the little bony parts.”

“What do those have to do with swimming?”

Squill turned back to me finally. “Excuse our rudeness. There are few of your kind to come to our system.”

I smiled and nodded, still holding stiffly to the rod above my head. “No offense taken, I find myself in plenty of… learning experiences, too.”

Poli leaned back from the controls. “If you cannot swim… what happens to you in water?”

“Oh,” I shrugged, trying to keep my peripheral vision from tracking the movement of the water outside. “If I couldn’t plant my feet anywhere, I would have to try and splash around to keep my head above. There was a time when I was a kid in the deep end of a pool…”

“So your outside covering does not soak up water?” Squill looked me up and down.

I shrugged. “My… clothes might weigh me down if they got soaked, but my skin is quite good at keeping water out. In fact, if I don’t moisturize, it’s more likely to let water out than in. The air on my little ship is so dry.”

The two workers exchanged more glances. “I see, featherless skin is like that.”

“Sounds inconvenient,” Poli nodded in agreement. “Miss Anna, we are almost ready to dock below the restaurant.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Well, that wasn’t too long a ways. For some reason, I thought this place of yours was going to be at the bottom of the—“

The hard, sudden jostling of the sub interrupted my relief and nearly took me down to the ground. The handhold just above me suddenly snapped against my weight, releasing a loud hiss. The other two wobbled back and forth on their shorts legs, leaning up on the controls as they began to whir with emergency warnings.

“Oh crap, what did I do?” I said, jumping back.

“It is compromised,” Squill said, looking up to the ceiling and the broken pipe. “What system is it for, Poli?”

“The ballast.”

“The ballast. And what does that do?” I asked hurriedly, leaning over the feathered navigator.

“The ballast takes on water to help us go down, Miss Anna,” Squill spoke up, “Hmm, is that why you cannot swim? Because you are so full of water like a ballast?”

“Because of her… moisturization,” Poli tacked on.

“Uh, sure,” I dodged the implication. “So I messed up… the ballast is broken. What does that mean for us? We were just about to dock, right?”

“We were releasing water to rise and make contact. But we can no longer release water, it seems. And so we are descending once more.”

My chest tightened, and I backed myself away. “Oh. I don’t… suppose there’s anyone you can call from here?”

“We cannot call from here,” Squill said plainly. “But I can promise it is safe.”

“Not safe from grabby, fingered hands,” Poli hummed, looking my way.

“I’m sorry!” I huffed.

Squill stepped up to me and took up my hand, examining my fingers and the open spaces between them. “I see, Poli! This kind cannot swim because there are no webs between their fingers. Look, it is all smooth and disconnected.”

“I see as well,” The architect nodded, leaning in uncomfortably close to my appendage.

I jerked my hand back. “It’s just me! Terrans can swim, webs or not! Not as well as you lot, but just enough. As for me, well, there’s a bit of childhood trauma and a large lack of trying. Story of my life, to be honest. Can we focus on the present, though? How do we get… anywhere besides here?”

Poli was at one of the port holes, staring out into the distance. “It is no problem, Miss Anna. We can swim up to the restaurant and get a tool for fixing the pipe. Not a problem. The submersible is made for staying underwater, after all.”

Squill tapped on the other’s back before engaging in more attempted whispering. “We will fall behind schedule if we do not go back up soon, though.”

“No time to fix?”

“No time to fix, I highly doubt.”

“We shall get the second sub.”

Poli waddled around and looked me up and down, then up at the round, sealed door to the outside. “Miss Anna, if we are to leave out the hatch, I must ask that you stay to close it behind us. There will be much water, but it should not damage the electronics if it is kept to a minimum. If you cannot swim… it is possible for you to hold your breath?”

I stomped loudly, causing a reverberation through the metal and forcing both of them to jerk back. “I can tell you, whatever plan you thought up with just now isn’t going to work for me!”

Poli and Squill scuttled to the other side of the already compact compartment and huddled side by side. “Oh my feathers! I believe that she may be one of those telepathics.”

“Reading your brains?”

“And yours too!”

“Guys,” I said with a huff. “I’m certainly no mind reader, you’re just… frankly, not very good at whispering. I’m sure your plans would work fine if it were just your kind, but there’s no way I’m getting out of this submarine unless it’s to some dry space. The platform, or even the restaurant of yours, whatever is fine. If there is a delay in your work because of that, then I shall have my company reimburse you. Heck, I’ll pay out of pocket if I can convince my boss that I need hazard pay for stuff like this. So I hope you’re going to tell me that there’s another way out of this situation. Tell me about that other sub.”

Poli bowed his head and nodded. “Yes. To take turns bringing down people and supplies to the restaurant.”

“Great! But the problem is,” I sighed, daring to glance at the porthole window for a few blinks of the eye, “Is that there is no way to call to the other workers? I’d dare to say that’s a safety issue on its own, Mr. Inspector.”

Squill blinked at me. “Is that so? Poli?”

“I have not heard of such a requirement. We would never have the need for such a machine. These subs made not in this system, special ordered to accompany some of our workers, and also future guests that are not our kind.”

“When we get out of this, you’ll have to tell me the name of the company so I can remember to never recommend their products to anyone.” I said, slumping my shoulders, “And you might take note of a few things to add and change before they end up getting used by your guests,” I concluded, glancing up at the broken pipe.

“Technically, you are our first guest,” Poli noted. “It was going to be a surprise, but we expected to serve you a taste of our upcoming menu. To oil you up.”

“Butter you up,” Squill whispered.

“Butter you up.”

I surrendered myself to sitting down in a cramped corner against the curved wall. “That’s very nice. I’m not sitting on anything important here, I hope.”

The two whispered a bit more. “Ah yes, she does not like fish food… err, sea food.”

“It was a folly, yes,” Poli slumped down.

A tinge of guilt appeared in the pit of my stomach. “Hey, if we get out of here, I’ll try anything. Maybe your seafood here is different enough from the vile things I’ve been forced to try other places. But… wait, if someone is making food for us… up there in the restaurant, wouldn’t they be waiting for us? Be worried that we are not making it on time?”

“We have not hired a full-time chef, yet,” Poli said with an air of guilt, bowing his head.

“And that means?”

“Well, I was going to be the one to make the food today. It is my restaurant, my design, and my menu after all.”

Squill nodded vigorously. “I have tried his food. It is very well made. Which is why I came here to ensure the restaurant would find completion.”

“He is a good friend, no?” Poli added, patting the inspector on the shoulder.

I glanced between them. “Am I detecting some nepotism going on here?”

“That means?”

“Not to make any accusations, but it sounds to me like your inspections might be quite lax since you’re doing it for your friend and all.”

“Is that not what friends are for?”

I held myself back from continuing the line of questioning, fearing I might strike a nerve before being able to get myself rescued. “Never mind. I’ll shut my mouth so you two might have a chance to figure something better out.”

The two Penkwhens nodded and turned back to the control panels, not making another sound. I curled up, feeling the cold air of the compartment against my still sun-kissed skin. The longer the silence went on, I realized it was not silent at all. The metal hull creaked and popped ever so slightly. The slight rocking motion of the submarine reminded me that we were at the mercy of the water. After some time, I couldn’t help but notice my breath becoming heavier, exiting my mouth with a slight fog. My hands shook next, followed by my legs.

Ignoring the dark porthole window, I laid eyes upon the less-than-helpful crew, still huddled in place in the corner, shifting slightly, but otherwise making no sound. “Damn it!” I exclaimed, jerking myself up. “You two piss me off. We’re going to run out of air in here, aren’t we? What are you even doing there?”

I shoved myself between them. They were busy tapping away messages in a search bar on one of the control screens. “We are sorry, Miss Anna. You said our whispering was too loud. We are thinking of ways.”

Squill held his flaps in front of him. “And yes, the air will run out. Eventually. I do not know when. We do not need much air. But your lungs must be different. You perhaps… breathe more?”

“I can’t help that!” I stomped. “But if we run out before the second sub gets around to us… yeah, that’s no good. Does your other sub even have a way to find this one? It’s impossibly dark out there.”

Poli held his head in his hands. “Too many questions, Miss Anna.”

Squill flapped about. “We can get out of here, insurance girl! You just must… be brave. Brave of water and against drowning!”

“No amount of bravery is going to save me from needing fresh oxygen in my lungs every thirty seconds. A minute. At the very least!”

“Understood, but the fresh oxygen in this submersible…”

I huffed lowly. “Just tell me what you want to do.”

Poli straightened himself up and began with a formal tone. “A bubble will be released when the hatch opens. If you cannot float, it will float for you. It is also air for breathing. Then you may hold us to be pulled up to the restaurant.”

I convinced myself that I had not heard or understood any of the preceding nonsense. “Fine. At least I will meet my end doing what I do best.”

“Not being able to breathe?”

“No, actually, I haven’t had an asthma attack since I was a teen,” I said, rapping at my chest. “So you just want me to shove that hatch open, yeah? How cold is the water? You know what, I don’t want to know.”

I saw the Penkwhens motion to stop me as I mounted the ladder. I ignored them, grasping the cold, slick metal of the hatch’s round handle. I felt them grab at my feet as I gave it a twist.

I felt the immediate spray of salty water, which turned to a waterfall, entering my mouth and interrupting what I had intended to be my final breath. My sinuses burned as the water took the place of the air in my respiratory system. I felt myself being pushed up from the hatch, bubbles tickling me all over, but I refused to open my eyes. I couldn’t help but smack and kick at the two clients as they swam under me, hopefully guiding me to any place other than the water.

My head bounced off something hard. I lurched back, causing me to surface, albeit unintentionally, to the outside. My hands found the edge next, and I pulled myself out, coughing and sputtering. When my feet had exited, I tossed what I found to be feathers from my grip and wiped my face down.

“We have reached the restaurant.”

I let out a laugh against my will, drippingly propping myself against the nearby wall. “Oh, was that it? No, not a… not a problem.”

“We are anchored to a reef,” Squill explained. “It is so the restaurant will not float around. Alas, it is not very deep here.”

I blinked the stinging water from my eyes and glanced at the place we had climbed out of. Not far below the hatch was the vague shape and murky lights of the submersible, bubbling gently as it let out the last of its air.

Slinging the wet hair from my face, I shook my head. “Is the submersible really necessary then? Why not a tunnel to get down here? Does your planet not have the concept of stairs?”

Poli balanced with me on the edge of the platform with me. “It is an entertainment form, Miss Anna. The submersible is part of the experience.”

“And what an experience it is,” I said, finding my feet beneath me once again.

The lobby space was much more roomy and well-lit than the sub. I straightened my dipping clothes in a nearby mirror, only to realize that it wasn’t a mirror, but a wide window looking out into the ocean itself.

“It is quite thick material,” Squill noted. “Do not worry.”

“Oh, I’m not. It’s better than the sub.”

The inspector clapped his flippers together and nodded. “Indeed. No matter how hungry the things are out there, it is us who will be eating them.”

Poli held his flippers out and began something of a rehearsed-sounding speech. “That is what the Deep Blue will bring to our guests! Our nearby home planet has long fished these waters for the delicacies of the deep, shipping them far across our little system here to consume. But now, for a price… people can come to the source.”

Despite my desire to distract myself from the window, I couldn’t help but notice the shadows of more than a few things swimming in the murkiness beyond the clear material. “Oh, so there are just giant things out there swimming, ready to eat whatever might be smaller than them?”

“That is nature, Miss Anna,” Poli nodded.

“Well, I am not interested in becoming one with it. So you better get the second sub here to bring us back up to the surface. We’ll talk about what’s necessary before any policies get thrown into the mix.”

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