Miserable Pile Of Words

“Now Lou,” the voice crackled over the radio, “explain to me again how this thing is gonna work?”

Light from the sun mingled with the glow from the welding arc, both winding down as she kicked herself off from the wall towards the next point of welding. “Jay,” she spoke incredulously back into her radio, “if I began trying to explain this dumb thing to you again, your eyes would glaze over the first time I said quantum, and you’d ask me to explain it again in another ten minutes. Y’know, like last time.”

“Now you don’t know that.” Jay sounded a bit hurt, but Lucille scoffed. She knew that.

Fastening herself in place, she began once again to weld the large thruster in place.

“All you need to know,” she said through gritting teeth, “is that if my calculations are correct, this thing will make me the first human to travel beyond the speed of light..”

“And if your calculations are NOT correct?”

“I get atomized,” she shrugged, pulling the arcwelder away to view her work. Clean work.

“Y’know, it’s a little rude that you even consider it an option here.”

“I’m a practical guy, Lou, always have been. You know that.” She decided the welding was
sufficient and scooted herself to the last section of the engine that needed to be welded to the hull. “Look, you’re a shipcracker in the asscrack of space, not some… big head cushy scientist in Harvard.”

“Momma always told me I had a big head,” she sassed, one eye closed and her tongue sticking out as the light reflected off her helmet. “Also, pretty sure Harvard is just for law and stuff, Jay.” Finishing the job, she gave the engine a solid smack, sending her floating backward a bit, but the thruster didn’t budge an inch. Perfect. “I dunno why you think a mechanic who works on ships for a living won’t know how to make ‘em run. I’m probably better at it than any of those ‘cushy scientists’ you’re talking about.”

“You’re one of the best, Lou, no question. I’m just worried, y’know? After all, you know I… I-”

“Nuh-uh-uh!” Lucille snapped, poking her helmet in a huff, “No! I don’t want to turn you down again, Jay. And radio chatter is not the place to ask someone out.”

“Sorry,” Jay whined, as she kicked her way away from her ship, giving it one last look.

The Shelley sat connected to the dock at portstation Piazzi, by Ceres. The light of the sun cast a beautiful glow off her hul, and the hull of the nearby station, that it nearly brought a tear to her eye. It was her pride and joy. She was built together from scraps of parts from other ships that Lucille had, ahem, ‘acquired’, after breaking them down to sell for scrap. A mishmash of ship parts here and there, and now with a big ol’ thruster glued to its ass, it was ready to take her away.

Or atomize her, as she said earlier. But that wasn’t REALLY an option.

“I’m heading back into the Shelley, Jay, so I’m going to cut off comms. I’ll bring you back a souvenir from Quasi-Space, okay?”

“You better stay safe, Lou. Let me know as soon as you get back. Jay out.”

She clicked her radio off and activated her thrusters, gently gliding over the top of her ship and towards the backside airlock. Jay was a good guy. When she showed up at Piazzi a decade ago, he basically took her under his wing. It had been a good ten years. But her heart was calling for a change.

The airlock cycled around her, filling the room with air, as she began to unbuckle her suit. It was getting hot in there, she couldn’t wait to be back on her ship. With a little gasp she pulled her helmet off, as her fluffy black curls exploded outwards. They didn’t like to be cooped up in there. She understood the feeling.

She walked into the ship proper, stripping herself of her suit and hanging it in the closet by the airlock. With a stretch she glanced across the bridge of the ship. It was small, quiet, and dignified. Completely unlike her. Well, she was small, but she knew better than anyone she was loud and annoying. But it was her home, and she loved it. Everyone needs their quiet time, right?

People like Jay were always doting on her, and the Shelley was her escape, her quiet hiding place where she could recharge before returning back to the crowds and the busy and hot shipcracking work, laughing and sassing with the rest of her friends over radio chatter. And really, all she was doing now was giving her even more of a way to escape and recharge.

She’d be back soon.

Walking into her bathroom, she ran the faucet and splashed some water on her face, staring into her reflection. Her reflection stared back, tense, sharp brown eyes watching her. She was a small woman, early thirties, with dark brown skin and a mouth often curled into a smirk. She was hot shit, she knew it.

“You’ll make it back,” her reflection said, “Jay’s a worry wart. He’d be afraid if all you were doing was flying to Europa for a weekend vacation. You’ve gone over the calculations over and over again, it’s sound. This is what humans have dreamed of for centuries. And you’re living it, girl.”

After years of working on engines and thrusters, she had designed a prototype thruster with the capacity to, theoretically, travel beyond the speed of light. The details were complex, but her quasi-drive could open whole new avenues for society. And, let’s be real, for her. Life had gotten maybe the tiniest bit stagnant.

Giving her sink a slap of excitement she bounced off it and back onto the bridge, diving into her pilot’s chair. Nearly vibrating from excitement, she sent in the order to central command of Piazzi Station: she was leaving the station.

“Roger that, Shelley, you're green and good to go. Good luck out there,” came the radio, and the bridge to the station disconnected. She was free to go.

“Impulse,” she spoke to no one, moving thrusters to impulse and breaking away from the station. If things went bad and she missed a zero somewhere in her calculations, it would probably be better if she didn’t cause a giant explosion next to the station.

Flicking on some music to calm her nerves, she bit her lip and went over everything. She had enough food for months. She had enough fuel to take her from here to Pluto and back four times, the drive wasn’t a huge guzzler anyway. Letting out a breath she checked her location, and found herself sufficiently far from anyone or anything worth harming.

“Lucille Belmont,” she hissed to herself, “you’re about to make history. Don’t let it get to your head.”

With a flick of a few switches and a simple button press the engine behind her started to purr. The ship jittered as it worked its magic, turning from a purr to a roar, as the ship started to move forward at an incredible speed, faster, and faster, until Lucille flipped another switch, and two beams of light shot out from her ship.

A shimmering portal opened in front of her where the beams intersected, ripping through space, a portal into Quasi-Space, just as she had predicted. With a whoop and a yell, Lucille and the Shelley burst forward and through the portal, which zipped closed behind them.

The ship rocked from the force of the engine, and Lucille grabbed the armrests of her captain’s chair forcefully, leaning forward. Step one, break through the walls of our dimension. Sure, easy enough, been there done that. Step two was traveling between those dimensions, and step three would be breaking into Quasi-Space.

She really didn’t know what she’d find once she was there. Quasi-Space was really more of a theory than a concrete science. Like Jay said, she wasn’t a scientist. Her science was a bit more… messy, filled with grease and the occasional explosion.

She glanced out the front visor of her ship at the barrier between dimensions. It was very blue, a swirling vortex of Nothing that held the dimensions apart, but also together.

The end of the tunnel was in sight, another shimmering portal like the one she had come in from. Holding steady, and with no problems, the Shelley burst forward and into Quasi-Space for the first time.

Quasi-Space was green. Why that was, Lucille certainly couldn’t explain, but it sure was pretty. The green hue cast an eerie glow through the visor of her ship, bathing her in an otherworldly light. And that wasn’t the only thing she saw.

There were other portals, small blue holes that led… who knows where. Swirling vortexes that led down below, back into TrueSpace through the barriers between dimensions. Lucille grinned excitedly, rubbing her hands together, just imagining what could be on the other side of all those portals.

It was almost as if she were in a bubble with a thousand doors. Where any of those doors led, no one could say, but she was excited to find out. Slowing to impulse, she marked the one she came through on her ship’s navigational log and made for one close by.
As she did, the computer picked up a reading. Something else was nearby. An object, moving towards her, and fast. Eyes going wide in alarm, Lucille quickly scanned the nearby area, and she saw it.

A ship was flying out of one of the portals.

There were two wolves inside Lucille at this moment, and both were freaking the hell out. On the one hand, there’s no way that was a human, right? Even now, in the 2100s, there had been no contact with aliens. A hundred years in the stars, Human civilization stretched from one end of the solar system to the other, and yet the aliens that had existed in their literature never came to say hello. They were truly alone. But here was one, possibly, coming to finally say hi..

On the other hand, there had been no contact with aliens. Holy shit, she might be making first contact. Was this a thing? Did aliens use Quasi-Space like a roadway? Would she see even more? Or maybe she’d be immediately blown the hell up. She didn’t have very many weapons on the ship, it was a simple civilian class vessel. If she died here, it certainly wouldn’t have been the way she expected to die today.

Gripping her chair, she watched in fascination as the ship flew out of the portals and slowed to a stop. It was only slightly larger than her ship, which was a pretty tiny one to two person vessel itself. It went for a winged approach, similar to the Shelley but with two wings, and was long and thin, unlike the Shelley’s more bulky frame. It was black and sleek, with green markings running across its hull. It slowed and stopped in front of her, as if watching her every move.

Shaking slightly, Lucille rushed through procedures. What the hell do you do during first contact? Uh, try and contact, probably. She used every form of communication her ship had to send out a simple message: “Hello”. Hyperwave Radio, even her old traditional Radio, in multiple frequencies. Then she waited, very impatiently, to see how the ship would react.

Lucille could feel herself sweat. Well, she didn’t notice any obvious weapons. There wasn’t any kind of giant laser cannon or something. The alloy seemed to be a simple metal alloy like her ship, so they weren’t some super advanced alien race or something that could melt her ship with brain waves. Maybe. It was all speculation by this point.

Still nothing. There was nothing obvious on the electromagnetic spectrum, nothing actually physical being released. It was just… silent.

And then, suddenly, the ship began to blink. One after another, lights came on slowly all over the hull, reaching from one wing tip to another, before slowly dimming. Then they lit up once more, before dimming to nothing again.

What did that… mean? Was it a message? Grabbing her console’s microphone, she spoke clearly and sent out another radio wave. “I… come… in… peace.” Then, leaning away from the console, she slapped her forehead. Why would this alien understand English? What the hell was wrong with her?

More lights came on. Lucille studied them, but there seemed to be no real pattern she could tell. They began blinking, too fast for her to even keep up with, lights from tip to tip flashing some kind of code. Then, as suddenly as they started, they stopped, before resuming, much slower than before.

“What are you trying to say to me,” Lucille mumbled under her breath, grabbing her console and typing in some calculations. Was it math? Math was probably universal, right?

Lucille glanced back up at the ship, ready to mark down the flashing, but it was already done. Glancing frantically at the ship, she found herself increasingly concerned. Was that… a good thing? Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. A hatch on the side of the ship popped open, and a figure began to float out.

It was not humanoid, it was positioned more like… a canine? Maybe? Something on all fours, with a long face protected by a helmet and suit, holding a small pad of some kind. Lucille watched in alarm as more and more of the creature floated out of the ship, a long and thick tail that had to be… fifteen feet, at least? Nearly two times the length of the rest of the creature. It coiled and wiggled, moving almost like a snake, as thrusters on the sides of the creature’s limbs propelled it forward to the front of its ship, giving Lucille a good clean look at it.

It, in turn, glanced in at Lucille’s ship. You can’t quite see through the visor of the Shelley on a bad day, with the sun glare bouncing off the protective glass, but there was no sun here. There was no glare, just a low dim glow. Lucille found her lips and throat dry, and she licked them nervously as she slowly stood from her seat and waved awkwardly at the alien.

The alien’s head cocked slowly to the side, watching her, before raising its own arm and glancing at it, giving it a short stilted wave. Then it glanced down at its pad and began pressing something on it, hands moving fast, shaking. Perhaps with… excitement? Lucille could only hope so.

Then it put its pad back at its side and kept level, its tail slowly curling into a circle around it. Whatever that means Lucille had absolutely no idea. The tail curled again, back the other way, before the thrusters started moving again and it came closer again.

The visor on its helmet was completely opaque, a deep black, so she couldn’t look in on it to see what it might look like. It grabbed its pad again and held it up to her ship, quickly pressing some buttons. A scanner of some kind, perhaps? Or some kind of data log? It glanced back at her and then waved again, mimicking her movement from earlier, this time much more assuredly. Lucille smiled back and waved again, feeling some of the tenseness in her back loosen. She could almost convince herself it would be okay.

Then the creature began to float again, this time to the side of her ship. What was she doing over there? Lucille hunched over her monitor, quickly activating camera controls and watching as the creature neared her airlock hatch. Oh god. Was she trying to get into the ship?

Lucille’s heart skipped a beat as the alien reached the airlock, and gave it a light slap. The slap echoed through her ship. Then another slap. It sounded almost like knocking. Did she want to get in and say hi?

She shot back straight up, no longer relaxed. What would it do if it got in her ship? She still didn’t know if it was peaceful or hostile. Its actions didn’t scream hostility to her, but as Jay would say, better safe than sorry, right?

She pursed her lips. When did she ever listen to Jay? She didn’t get here by listening to Jay.
Running over to the door, she cycled the airlock and made sure she looked presentable. She was wearing a plaid undershirt and jeans, not quite first contact regalia, and her hair was still a little messy, but it would probably be fine. The alien probably wouldn’t judge.

The airlock finished cycling, and confirmed a figure was inside. Feeling her breath catch from excitement, Lucille finished airlock procedures, and filled the airlock with oxygen. Hopefully the creature would be able to breath it.

A few agonizingly long moments later, the door opened to reveal it. It was certainly much larger than a human, though if it stood bipedal, it wouldn’t be too much taller, it was mostly the tail, which was curled into a coil behind it. Lucille let out a deep breath, smiled, and waved. “Hello!”

The alien slowly lurked into the ship, watching her closely, before raising a hand to wave back. Glancing down at its pad, it pressed a few buttons, and waved it through the air. Lucille watched in fascination as it read some kind of readings, symbols she couldn’t comprehend flashing on the screen. Seemingly they were satisfactory. The alien placed its pad nearby and pressed a button on its suit, which began to unzip, tail to head, and fall down around it, giving Lucille humanity’s first glance at an alien..

It had gray skin, with green markings and splotches. It was soft looking skin, maybe like a salamander, or some kind of gecko? The creature itself looked more reptilian than anything canid like she originally believed, with digitigrade limbs, and that giant tail. It wore several straps of some cloth-like material on its limbs and tail, but no other clothing, save for its face, which had some kind of spectacles.

Speaking of its face, which fully came into view after the creature removed its helmet and placed it to the side, it had a long snout with large round eyes, and a tongue that occasionally snuck out, as if sniffing the air like a snake. On top of its head was what looked like hair, green fluffy feathers that fell around its face and down its back, the tufts continuing some way down its back, like a long mohawk.

Overall Lucille found the creature strangely… elegant, and beautiful. The curves and long hair made it seem far more feminine than she’d expected. She decided to mentally refer to the creature as a she.

Sticking her tongue out slightly, the creature Lucille found elegant immediately tried to stand on her hind legs, bipedally, and bumped her head on the ceiling of the ship, letting out a high pitched squeak and grabbing at her head in pain.

“Oh no, you poor thing!” Lucille exclaimed, instinctively moving forward and rubbing the alien’s head. The hair, or feather floof or whatever it was, was extremely soft, like pillowy down. “I’m sorry, you’re a bit taller than most humans are,” she laughed.

The alien, still wincing a bit from her bump, did not shy away from Lucille’s touch. If anything, she moved into it, rubbing her head back on Lucille’s hand, almost like some kind of cat. Lucille couldn’t help herself from thinking it was a little adorable.
“Well… welcome to Earth’s temporary embassy!” Lucille laughed out a bit, taking a step back and spreading her arms at her ship.

The alien cocked its head to the side, as if studying her speech. Then it brought its hands up, hunching over low on its back legs, and began to sign something with her hands and tail, the tip of the tail flipping over to twist and move along with the alien’s hands. It moved a bit too fast for her to follow, which was possibly plain on Lucille’s face, because she began to slow down her signing, before stopping all together.

“Can you… do your people not make any kind of vocal communication?” Lucille asked slowly. The alien cocked its head to the side, trying to understand. Lucille slapped at her neck, making noises, “ahhhh-ah-ah-ah! Noises, like this?”

Still cocking its head slightly, the alien opened its mouth to speak, showing its teeth, which were huge and sharp, thick and terrifying. She could crush a skull with those things…
The alien made a squeaking chittering noise, not unlike a cat seeing a bird outside. It was absolutely adorable, and not any kind of speech in the slightest.

Lucille burst out giggling, grabbing the wall for support, shoulders shaking and rolling. Such a tall powerful creature making that kind of noise, it was almost too much to bear.

The alien watched and then started making another noise, a kind of “th th th th th”, holding a hand to its cheek, her tongue sticking out of her mouth slightly as she shook alongside Lucille. Lucille didn’t know if she was actually laughing or just trying to mimic her, but either way, it was cute.

“Okay,” she said out loud, “You don’t really speak, and I don’t know your sign language… How are we going to communicate with each other…” She was a mechanic, not a sociologist. How the hell would she be able to learn how to communicate with this person?

The alien tapped her foot a bit, then held out its hands. With deliberate movements she patted herself and made a shape with her hands that almost looked like the letter T. She then repeated this motion, a pat, and then the letter T. Then she motioned towards Lucille.
Lucille watched, puzzled, then it clicked into place. “You,” she said, pointing towards the creature, “are this? This T?” She made the same motion with her hands.

The alien let out a little chirp, then made a solid movement, a balled fist moving down. Was that a yes?

“You,” Lucille repeated, “are this T. Well if you have no spoken language, how should I refer to… oh!” Lucille hunched over a bit, hands extended. “You, are Tee,” she said slowly, making the sign, “Tee. I’ll call you Tee.” She then patted herself, like Tee had done earlier, “Lucille. You’re Tee, I’m Lucille.”

Tee made the same motion again, what was probably a “yes”, and then seemed to hop around giddily, like she was proud for figuring out Lucille’s name. Still hopping a bit, back from one foot to the other, she leaned over and began patting Lucille’s head.

She found her face growing hot. Wh-what?! What was she, a dog? Sure, Lucille had immediately pet her the moment they met, but… glancing up in indignation, her sass melted as soon as she saw Tee’s expression. There was a lot of warmth in those eyes. Although they couldn’t have been more different, she felt she knew exactly what Tee was thinking when she looked down at her. Maybe the same thing Lucille was thinking.

What a wonderful meeting. I’m so glad I made a new friend!

Tee finished patting Lucille’s head and hopped backwards, pointing towards her again, then gave a sign Lucille hadn’t seen before. A flat hand, with the other kind of sliding over it, then she pointed and signed again.

“Me? That’s me? I’m this?” Lucille asked, pointing at herself and doing the handsign, to which Tee enthusiastically signed yes.

Lucille glanced down at her hands, one cradling the other. Perhaps this was how you said her name in Tee’s language? Though that didn’t quite make sense. Lucille assumed this was just Tee assigning her a name, the way she had assigned Tee her’s. It worked. She was now this.

Tee, still hopping in place a little bit, grabbed her pad and began tapping things excitedly into it. Lucille leaned over to watch, staring at the fast and fluid movements as Tee scribbled notes down. She was using her finger like a pen, to write the characters which were then put right to left in her notes. Lucille stared, fascinated, and tried to see some rhyme or reason to the characters, and noticed something interesting: they looked like they were symbols relating to her hand movements. She could see that line on top of a line word repeated many times.

Maybe eventually she could learn how to read it… and how to communicate with Tee.
Lucille blinked. Wow, she had known this creature for less than twenty minutes, and she was already thinking about spending more time with it. It was… fun.

Lucille returned from her thoughts to find Tee had knelt down and was staring at her ass, rather close to it, writing something in her pad. Lucille squeaked out and grabbed at her ass, spinning around and taking a step back.

At this sudden movement Tee squeaked as well, standing back up straight at attention. She signed something a couple times, which of course Lucille couldn’t understand, but Lucille assumed it was an emphatic apology, since her facial expression showed some worry.
Lou let out a sigh and scratched the back of her head, letting out a slight smile. No, it’s okay. She’s just writing notes about her physiology. It was just a little alarming how close she got all of a sudden, and anyone else staring at her ass would get a smack in the nose. Or the snoot maybe, in this case. “It’s okay,” she said, “it’s okay. Here, you can study me however you want.” She turned back around, sticking her butt out a bit to make it clear what she was implying.

Tee watched, then glanced down at the butt, and stuck her tongue out. She then knelt back down, glancing up and down Lucille’s body and making notes in her pad. Lou almost laughed to herself at the thought. She couldn’t believe that she was turning her back on an alien lifeform she had just met. Wouldn’t that be like, one of the first big No’s in a guide on how to interact with new life forms? What if it stole her ship? Well if Tee really wanted to do that, Lucille assumed there wouldn’t be much she could do to stop her. The alien was kind of huge.

She noticed some movement in her peripheral vision and glanced down. Tee was practically wrapped around her at this point, that tail coiling around a couple times, the tip twitching. But she was not touching, never touching, just glancing and writing things down in her notes. Lucille did watch as she reached out to touch, or poke, or lift an article of clothing, but caught herself, returning her hands diligently to themselves.

Lucille found herself smirking. All this to study her? She was curious too, but she wasn’t about to poke at and massage Tee’s skin to figure out what made her tick. Maybe that was just the kind of person Tee was though. Or how her species was? Either way she didn’t really mind that much. As long as the hands didn’t go too far or anything, she didn’t mind getting poked a bit for science.

Lucile gently grabbed Tee’s hand, causing the alien to flinch in surprise and glance back up at her, before returning her gaze to their hands. Lou guided the hand over and placed it on her stomach. “It’s okay,” she said again softly, “it’s okay. I don’t mind. Y’know, a little bit.”

Tee kind of just sat there, still kneeling down, staring at their hands, then at Lucille, then at her hands again. She then squeaked a bit and began almost kneading Lucille, poking, then began poking herself. This was too much for Lou, who started cracking up, which only became worse after Tee started to essentially tickle her.

“Whoo! Whoo hoo okay, step back!” Lucille pushed Tee away, holding her at bay with both hands extended, gasping and shivering slightly, “No no, a LITTLE! I said a- oh who am I kidding why am I even trying to talk to you like this.”

Tee sort of just watched, eyes wide, tongue sticking out of her snoot. She glanced back down at Lucille’s belly that she had just tickled unknowingly, then back at Lucille, who slowly lowered her hands. Tentatively Tee reached back out, still watching Lucille’s face, and gave her shirt a slight lift and skin a gentle poke. When Lucille didn’t react negatively, Tee seemed to smile and gently pinched Lucille’s skin, then moved back to herself and pinched her own skin. Lucille snorted.

“You know, you’re kind of adorable,” Lucille commented. The alien kind of just stared, tongue still stuck out, further proving Lou’s point.

Tee wrote a few more things in her pad, then pushed it into Lucille’s face. Stumbling backwards a bit, Lucille steadied herself and took a glance at the pad. It had a picture of Tee next to another alien of her kind. Tee circled the two of them, then patted herself, and made a sign with her hands.

“I think I’m getting it,” Lou murmured to herself. That was… their species maybe? She pointed at the unfamiliar creature, then at Tee, and made that same sign with her hands. Tee emphatically motioned yes, and Lou smiled. Hey, there was some communication after all! This was easy! Well no it wasn’t, but it was rewarding. Sadly the name for their species wasn’t as simple as looking like the letter N or something, so she wasn’t quite sure what to call them in the spoken tongue.

Tee motioned towards Lucille, possibly asking what she was called. Lucille nodded, and walked into the cockpit, grabbing a terminal. “Hey computer,” she called out, waking up the personal assistant, “please open a picture on my computer of a human.”

“I’m sorry,” the computerized woman’s voice said back, “I didn’t quite catch that. Could you please-”

“Oh for the love of-” Lucille sputtered, canceling the assistant and just opening a file herself. Those stupid things were never reliable, but she thought it might look kind of cool in front of Tee. Tee, for what it's worth, continued to look content, curiously watching Lucille with her tongue sticking out some more. Lou couldn’t explain why she kept doing that, maybe just a facial expression of her people?

“Okay here!” She opened a picture of herself and Jay, a beanpole of a man with frazzled stubble, a baseball cap, and a cigarette in his mouth. Lucille had taken this selfie with him a couple of years ago at a party with the other shipcrackers. It couldn’t have killed him to look a little happier? Ah whatever. She handed her own PDA over to Tee, pointing at the two figures on the screen. “Humans! I am a human!”

Tee watched, and let out a two syllable squeak, as if she was trying to say human but failing. Lou giggled a bit, and signed back yes. This made Tee happy, giddily writing more notes in her notepad.

The two of them moved back and forth like this for hours. Showing something on their screen and trying to teach the other a word. Tee’s planet was two cupped hands making an orb, things like that. Luckily Lucille had an entire encyclopedia loaded up on her computer. It’s not like she could access Spacenet and go on Wikipedia or anything like that here, so an older out of date version would have to do.

Eventually however, Lou found herself growing both hungry and tired. She excused herself to grab some food while Tee sat in the corner and scrolled through images on Lucille’s tablet, occasionally glancing up to see what she was doing.

As Lucille pulled out some chilled rice, she thought about what the next steps were. Would they… keep in touch? How would that even work? Would Lou need to go to her homeworld next, meet more of them? That could be exciting. Imagine the stories she’d have to tell the others when she got back!

Some movement out of the corner of her eyes caused her to glance down and see Tee down below her, grabbing the counter and glancing at the fried rice she was making. For a creature that was so much taller than she was, Tee sure was low to the ground a lot. She could walk bipedally, but she seemed to prefer being low to the ground and on all fours when she could be.

“You wanna see?” She finished throwing all her ingredients into the pan and kicked on the heat for her stove. Although her ship wasn’t particularly large or anything, she knew she had to splurge and add a kitchen. Sure it was easier to just eat processed rations on long voyages to and from the station, but come on. A nice fried rice meal was way better.

As the smell of soy sauce and frying rice filled the air, Tee began to visibly sniff at it, before licking her lips. Lucille smirked. She wasn’t the best cook in the world, it was boring cooking for one person so she never did anything fancy, but the idea that her cooking could get an alien hungry for it touched her heart.

She threw some more ingredients in. Looks like she was making dinner for two tonight. Hopefully there wouldn’t be anything in the meal that Tee was dangerously allergic to or anything.

Plating the big heap of steaming rice, Lucille carried their two plates into her bedroom, Tee following behind dutifully. She didn’t really have a dining room table or anything, just a desk in her room she’d eat at. Well, it would probably be best to let Tee eat at her desk today. She placed Tee’s plate down on the desk and patted her chair. “Here you go! I hope you like it!”

Taking her own place on her bed, Lucille dug into her own rice as she watched the alien try desperately to figure out how human chairs worked. Tee first tried sitting in it normally, but her massive tail wouldn’t let that work. Hell, the tail was so long it was still trailing out of the room, it wasn’t getting over the back of that chair. She then tried sitting in it to the side, but found that a little too uncomfortable, the back of the chair blocking her arm awkwardly. Finally she just sat in it backwards, her tail twitching slightly as she straddled the chair. After a brief moment scanning the food with her pad, she then followed up conquering the concept of sitting in a chair with trying to conquer the concept of chopsticks.

Lucille watched in amusement as her new friend tried in vain to eat the food. Tee watched back, trying to mimic, but her fingers were more long and slender, her claws too awkward and elongated. Eventually she gave up and stuck out her tongue, scooping food awkwardly into her snout, chewing and letting out a gentle purring noise. She signed “yes!” multiple times before eating some more.

“Glad you like it,” Lucille said warmly, returning to her own meal. They ate in quiet for a few moments before Lucille heard some thumping. She glanced over to see Tee thumping her tail and feet gently into the ground, staring at her. Was she trying to get her attention? As soon as Lucille turned to face her Tee began signing something slowly. Pointing at Lou, then a cupped ball, and finally pointed at herself.

“Me… planet… you? Do you… want to visit my home?” Lucille grabbed her own tablet and scrolled back to the planet Earth. “You want to visit?” she asked, pointing at Tee then at the picture of Earth.

Tee happily signed yes. That might be… interesting. What were the protocols for bringing an alien life form to Earth? Lou was pretty sure she watched an old TV show where the whole point was they were trying desperately to NOT share where Earth was. Then again, it’s not like Tee seemed particularly aggressive. But the consequences could be dire.
Then again, the idea of showing an alien and rubbing it in Jay’s face overwhelmed the worries immediately. No, that had to be done. Lucille signed back yes, to which Tee giddily wiggled in her chair and finished up her rice.

Several minutes later, Lucille was back in her captain’s chair, Tee sitting behind her. The alien had curled her tail up and was sitting on it like a chair, because the cockpit was far too small for the two of them. Yawning slightly, Lucille brushed off the exhaustion of the exciting day and readied her Quasi-drive. Aiming back through the hole she had made in Quasi-Space, the ship blasted off, back into TrueSpace with no complications. The trip was short and simple, and Lucille patted herself on the back for a job well done on constructing that engine.

Moving to impulse, Lucille pushed the Shelley back towards the station and sent a radio request to Jay. It had only been a few hours, he was almost certainly still awake and available for a voice call, and he HAD asked her to let him know when she got back safe and sound.

The connecting sound played as she rang him up. She swiveled around in her chair, excitedly glancing at Tee, who was typing something up on her tablet, her tongue poking in and out of her mouth.

The ringing went on. And on. Finally, it disconnected with no one picking up. That was odd. Jay always kept his phone on him. Even if he had taken an early nap from worrying about her, it should have woken him up. Maybe it was a dead sleep.

Piazzi Station glistened in the distance as The Shelley made her way towards it, and Lucille got Tee’s attention. “Look, Tee! That’s Piazzi station, my home.”

Tee watched as it grew closer, and as Lucille hailed the station. “Piazzi, this is The Shelley, requesting permission to dock.”

The hail went unanswered. The station sat quietly, blinking, as they continued to drift closer. Lucille frowned. What was going on? “Piazzi, requesting permission to dock, please respond!”

Still silence. There was someone at the docking station every second of the day, she had never had a hailing request get ignored before. Her heart rate quickened. Did something happen at the station when she was gone? An air leak? Breathing heavily, Lucille grabbed at her computer and hooked onto the Hyperwave system, connecting to Comet, the solar system’s most popular social media site. She would search for Piazzi station, see if anyone had messaged out that there was a problem, surely someone would know?

Instead, she was met with a terrifying sight. Not only were there no messages about Piazzi, but there were no messages, at all, for the past four hours. Ever since she had left the solar system Comet had gone silent.

There were a billion people on that site every moment of the day. How could that be? Lucille continued to panic, implementing emergency docking procedures at the station.

As the ship clicked into place and the airlock connected, Lucille threw herself out of her chair and nearly tripped over Tee’s tail in the process. “I’m sorry,” she sputtered out, stumbling for the airlock, “I’m sorry.” She didn’t know how to communicate her terror to her, but for her credit, Tee looked worried too. The tongue was not poking out of her mouth, and she was following close behind as the airlock beeped clear and opened.

Lucille practically flew down the passageway and into the docks proper. The air was fine, so where was everyone? She screamed out, causing Tee to jump in alarm, still close by. “IS ANYONE HERE? PLEASE!”

No answer. She ran to the check in desk, which was empty, and glanced over the side to find an alarming sight. The chair held no people, but instead held empty clothes, draped as if the person inside of them had simply vanished into thin air.

Lucille’s blood ran cold. What… what was this? She stiffly grabbed the clothes and lifted them up. Was this… the rapture? She slowly glanced up from the clothes to find another pair not far away, someone who was walking down the pathway and simply poofed out from existence.

She was freezing. She was drowning. Her emotions slammed into her all at once as tears welled up into her eyes and she collapsed to her knees. Was she… all alone? Did everyone disappear, somewhere, and she was left behind?

Without warning, a warm mass pulled her into its grasp. Tee’s arms and tail wrapped itself around Lucille, blanketing her in a warm and soft hug. She could hear and feel Tee breathing against her, slow and deliberate, as she brought herself to match the breath, shaking hands grabbing Tee’s arms.

She would have thought the alien cold blooded, a reptile, with slimy skin. But that wasn’t further from the truth. Tee was warm and soft. She gently pet Lucille’s head. Was she trying to calm her down? To comfort her? Letting out a shaking breath, Lucille continued to cry, and they sat there for what felt like eternity.

Lucille’s sobs turned to whimpers, and finally to silence. As they sat there holding each other in the cold dock of the Piazzi, she felt herself pushed back slightly as Tee signed something to her. She could barely even focus on it, her thoughts in such disarray that she felt she almost wasn’t there to begin with. She blinked slowly, looking at the hand motions again. It was her sign for sorry. Was she apologizing for grabbing her?

“No, it’s okay,” Lucille muttered, her voice feeling so far away, “thank you. I needed to know I’m not alone.”

Tee signed something else. It was similar to what she had signed back on The Shelley, but backwards. “Are you… inviting me to your planet?”

Not responding, Tee grabbed her tablet, which she had stuck to one of the cloth strips on her leg, and brought up a picture of her planet. She pointed at Lucille, then at the planet. An invitation to her planet… would they take care of her? COULD they take care of her?
What choice did she have?

She tried shakily climbing to her feet. She stumbled and fell, but was caught by Tee’s tail, which was still wrapped gently around her. “Okay,” she said numbly.

The next several minutes were a blur. Tee practically carried her back to her ship, where they disconnected from the station and left it behind them, twinkling in the darkness of space. Within a few minutes they were back in Quasi-Space, the green glow bathing the inside of the ship. It didn’t feel quite as beautiful as it did the first time Lucille had seen it
Tee helped her towards the airlock, and they put their suits on. Everything blurred around her as Tee dragged her from The Shelley to her own ship. They floated through space, Tee’s tail wrapped around her as she limply got carried along, with no sounds but the rustling of her suit and her labored breathing.

Tee’s ship used a similar airlock system, and soon they were inside. The ship was certainly alien, but not so radically different from her own, but much more thin and long, rooms branching off from a long hallway system on two floors. Lou wasn’t paying too much attention to it though, slumping against a wall as Tee got to work.

The alien straddled into a giant hammock-like seat, her feet and hands and tail connecting with terminals to pilot her ship. Without a sound, Tee turned her ship around and through the portal she came from.

The shimmering walls of the tunnel reflected on Lucille’s clammy face, and she barely registered the end of the tunnel as it came, throwing them into the deepness of space, in front of a blue planet, rotating slowly below them. She only watched as Tee typed things into one of her consoles, and waited. And waited. The ship hummed under them, as she typed more… and more, frantically.

Lucille felt her heart go cold once more. Oh no.

Tee slowly glanced back at her, eyes wide, confirming her deepest fears.

They were alone.