“Hello!” it called out in clear, unmistakable English.
Jude was so taken aback that he forgot to be scared.
“What the fuck?” he mumbled, staring.
Was he going insane?
The alien, unperturbed by Jude’s lack of manners, waved both of its top arms as if it was trying to get his attention. Once it was sure Jude had seen it—which, they had been making eye contact, so how could he not?—it looked behind itself at the wreckage, then back at Jude, its grin still cheerful, but now a little sheepish, too.
“Help?” it asked, and was itembarrassed?
Again, Jude said, “What”—and he really could not stress this enough—“the fuck?”
His new alien friend just grinned.
2
Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p
There was no use denying it—Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p was dead. Yes, he had survived the crash that had destroyed his beloved spaceship, but when his parents found out about what he’d done, they would feel such anger toward him, they would have him processed into pieces they would then feed to the Sand Dwellers one piece at a time.
Or, worse than death, they would ground him. He would be lucky if they ever permitted him to break the exosphere and enter a simple orbit ever again. But it was entirely his fault. His old, bad ship—a 1X82 P’lorus model—wasn’t made for flash jumps outside the solar system. The bend of the spacetime continuum was too hard on the engine with wormholes of any greater distance. He had been foolish, and it was not a surprise that this had been the outcome.
But what had his parents expected when they had handed him the keys?
He had made it clear to them he had wanted his own ship since the first day of astrophysics class in primary school, and it was therefore unreasonable of them to believe that he would have remained in close proximity to Darvrok 6, especially when there was a whole galaxy out there to explore. It had not mattered that it was his brother’s old ship and probably better off as scrap metal, or that the only reason he had been given it was because his parents had bought his brother a 3XY Q’pry model for getting straight 3’s on his transmutation evaluation. None of it had mattered because it washis,and as old and outdated as it was, he had wanted to explore the universe with it.
And now he’d gone and totaled it on his very first trip past Darvrok 6’s fifth moon.
A most disagreeable outcome indeed.
Frustrated beyond belief, Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p kicked the side of his ship and let out a long string of words he’d never be foolish enough to say in front of his prim and proper parents. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as he wanted it to be—all he ended up doing was hurting his foot.
When the pain became inconvenient, Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p huffed a sigh of defeat and let his arms fall limply to his sides. He stared at the smoldering hunk of metal that had once been his pride and joy and wondered where he was supposed to go from here, especially as he had only been flying by and did not know where “here” was.
Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p stood in silence, staring at his ship, as he searched his memory for information about this place. All he could remember was that there was a habitable planet in this part of the galaxy where intelligent life was rumored to have formed, but surely this could not be it. There was no sign of civilization here, and while the conditions were right for life, he did not see any around.
It was a problem.
Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p’s ship had just been on fire, and he knew it would not fly again—the bend in the spacetime continuum had ruined its engine during the last flash jump, and if it could fly at all, it would not withstand another trip through even the shortest wormhole. The damage to the engine had also caused the communication panel to become useless—a fact he had confirmed with his own two eyes while crawling past it on the way out of his ship, as it had been melting and on fire. In short, he was stuck, and as much as the thought made him feel dread, he needed assistance only an intelligent species would be able to provide in order to call home to request his parents come pick him up.
But if there were no intelligent species around…
Well, perhaps his parents would not have to feed his pieces to the Sand Dwellers after all.
Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p tried not to think about it.
Instead, he took off his helmet. According to the readings his ship had taken while it had been going down, the planet’s atmosphere was 21% oxygen, which was a little more than he was used to, but ultimately breathable. It was quite a fortunate turn of events, as Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p was starting to get claustrophobic in his spacesuit. Usually, spacesuits were tailored to be a perfect fit for maximum efficiency but, not unlike the ship itself, his suit was a hand-me-down that was a bit too tight in the nether region, and had a helmet that perpetually smelled like his brother’s cheap pheromone cologne.
A simple press of a button on his collar broke the airtight seal connecting the helmet to the suit, and the helmet retracted automatically, exposing him to the elements. There was always the fleeting paranoia, when taking that first big gulp of unfamiliar air, that the ship had somehow miscalculated and mistaken pure helium or other poisons for breathable atmosphere, but when Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p inhaled, his lungs expanded the way they were supposed to, and when he exhaled they contracted just as well. The only thing about breathing this air that was different from breathing the air on his home planet was the slight headrush he got when the excess oxygen hit him, but it didn’t cause him to feel discomfort. On the contrary, it had a relaxing effect that—given his current state of stress—he welcomed.
A few breaths later, once he was sure his insides weren’t about to combust, he noticed the climate was… lovely, actually. Low humidity. Warm. Sandy. That was a pleasant surprise. He might be having a terrible day, but at least he hadn’t crash-landed somewhere cold. He felt hatred of the cold. Based on first impressions alone, this planet wasn’t half bad.
But half bad didn’t mean safe, and it certainly didn’t mean home.
With that in mind, Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p determined his first course of action should be to get a feel for his surroundings. Even if the planet was not home to intelligent life, there could be other creatures here which could do him harm, and it would not do him any good if he was devoured by this planet’s version of Sand Dwellers due to his own incompetence.
Before Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p could start his investigation, however, a noise like a soft gasp sounded from somewhere behind him, alerting him to the fact that he was not alone. He spun around and instantly saw the source of the noise.
