Please Don’t Adopt the Space Velociraptor (pt 2)

Oya everyone!

I bring you more short story! This is going to be an every other week thing for a while, but I was told by many people that I had to post the next chapter this week. So here we are. You’re welcome, friends.

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Torve stretched his gangly limbs, smiling as he heard a crash and a curse coming from Lydra’s room. It wasn’t an uncommon noise when the Halo woman trained in there. They’d been meaning to convert one of the storage rooms into a proper training area, but never gotten around to it, so Lydra had to make do with her bedroom. 

Halo swords are not meant to be wielded in confined spaces. 

With another stretch and a chuff, Torve left the pilot seat and headed aft. He was pretty sure there were some leftovers from yesterday’s meal in the galley. Who knows, maybe he’d give his father a call while things were quiet. 

Things wouldn’t be quiet for long on this ship, he knew that. Not with a juvenile Elytron and an antisocial Halo on board. 

And a grumpy Boorlan, his mind supplied cheerfully. 

And a grumpy Boorlan, who just happened to be the captain. Even after . . . what had it been, a year? Year and a half? (It’s difficult to convert between the Standard and Boorlan calendar) Torve didn’t feel much like a captain should. Really, the only reason he was ‘captain’ was because he was the only one of the crew legally old enough to be. 

And because his father owned the ship. That too.

His father. Yes, he should call. Torve quickly heated up the small container of leftovers and munched on the slightly limp dish as he keyed in the contact on his datapad. A rustle from somewhere made his ears perk up, and he looked at the ceiling on instinct. 

Huh, maybe some trash got caught in the air ducts. He’d have to send Lydra to fix that later. 

The call only rang three or four times before someone picked up.

“Torve!” the man on the other end said happily. The video came into focus and Torve couldn’t help but mimic the way his father’s tail whipped back and forth. 

“Hi, dad! Sorry, is it late there? We just left Trexin.”

“No, no it isn’t late. Just finished a meeting, actually.” The older man paused, ears twitching. “Trexin. Wasn’t that where the human sighting happened?”

Torve made a confused chuff. “News travels fast . . . yeah, but don’t worry. We left pretty soon after that. Nothing happened.”

“Good.” His father visibly relaxed, the spines along his neck flattening and a quiet rumble coming through the speakers. “You been staying out of trouble?”

“Yes sir.”

“How’s that new one doing, the Elytron?”

“Krel? Oh, he’s great.” Another rustle. Weird. “He’s having a blast and he’s a great navigator. Fantastic with people, too, he’s been taking care of client relations and such.”

Father chuffed. “I should hope so. You and Lydra are hopeless.”

“I am deeply offended.”

There was a reply, but Torve didn’t hear it because that was the exact moment Krel burst into the room, wings flared and eyes wide. 

Torve rumbled in annoyance. “Krel, I’m on call–”

“Someone took my stuff,” Krel said breathlessly. “A few blankets and some of my maeleoruns.”

“It was probably Lydra, go bother her.”

“It wasn’t!” the younger boy squawked. “You were both in the cockpit, I went in there and you were both there! And then I went back and my nest was all messed up and stuff was gone!”

Torve’s father’s eyes narrowed. “Something wrong, son?”

“It’s fine. Might have to call you back, though. Tonight?”

“Tonight.”

Torve ended the call and stood, tail twitching. “You probably just misplaced them, your room is a mess–”

“No!” Feathers flew around the room as Krel flapped, upset. “No you don’t get it, it was like five minutes! Someone took them! Or something . . .”

The taller boy’s mouth twitched sideways. “We’ll find them, Krel. Probably one of the cleaning bots messed it up. There is nothing on the ship. No humans.”

Krel tucked his wings back in. “I know.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ll go bother Lydra. She probably took it, somehow.”

Torve ruffled the Elytron’s hair, relaxing at the happy trill the motion produced. “It’s okay, kid.” 

Krel left the galley heading for the living quarters. Torve watched him go, a happy rumble in his chest. Krel hadn’t been with them long — barely five months — but the flockless Elytron fledgling had become nothing less than family by now. He was like the little brother Torve had always secretly wanted. The little brother Lydra would never admit that she saw as such.

And there was that blasted rustling again. Torve returned to his now-cooled food, making a mental note to tell Lydra to figure out what was stuck in the vents as soon as possible. 

.

It had been, like, two days now. Benji was pretty sure. It was hard to tell, because there were no clocks anywhere that he could see. And its not like he could look out the window and see where the sun was, because there is no sun, he’s in space.

Maybe it had been a bad idea to sneak onto another ship. But it seemed like the best idea at the time! Some stupid squiddy thing had seen him after he escaped from the crash, and then when he tried to run through the massive city to find someone to help him, blurry pictures of him started showing up on all the buildings and screens.

Surely he didn’t look that bad, right?

He’d found the spaceport, at least he thought it was a spaceport. Lots of ships, in their little slots like the boats on the lake he used to live by. And this one had the bird thing, and the bird thing looked kind of human-ish, and he was just so tired and . . . not scared, he wasn’t scared. Just worried. 

The other alien on the ship made him kind of worried. 

That was the one he was watching now. 

It was a big guy, so tall. Way too tall, in Benji’s opinion. Nobody had a right to be that tall. Scaly too, shiny black that reflected colors sometimes. Which was cool. But only a little bit. It had long, creepy arms with claws on the end of its paw fingers or whatever. And a tail. The tail moved like a cat tail, but it could grab things. Which was . . . cool. 

But its face was not cool. Benji stuck his tongue out at it, even though the alien couldn’t see him in the vents. 

Its mouth was waaaaaay too big. Jaw could probably unhinge, hate that. Lots of sharp teeth. Flicky little ears that twitched whenever Benji moved around, which wasn’t very often. He was too worried to be doing that when Tall Idiot was around. 

There was another one somewhere, but Benji hadn’t seen it much. He knew it was a little smaller than Tall Idiot and Birdy One, and it wore a capey cloak thing that matched the uniforms the other two wore. 

Benji decided that was his least favorite alien. 

He curled the blanket tighter around himself, shivering. He was so hungry. The alien fruit hadn’t made him sick, but it wasn’t enough. He could feel all of his bones as he wrapped his arms around himself. The next time the aliens went to sleep, he was going to try to sneak into their kitchen. He knew it was the kitchen, there was a humming container that they got food out of. A weird fridge.

Hopefully none of that would make him sick either, because the thought of throwing up made him want to cry.

Except he wouldn’t cry.  That would be too loud. Benji had become very good at being quiet. 

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Ooooooh I wonder what’s gonna happen???

Please leave comments, the comments make me happy. Share predictions, maybe, on what you think will happen? Any suggestions?

I just really like comments.

See you next week!

~Ace