After Ixaer concluded his tale, silence settled over Rec Lounge 2. Most of the station workers were gathered around him and his fellow Metamorphs, having listened in rapt fascination. Alix herself was at a loss for words as her mind reeled with the new knowledge that Ixaer had just shared. In the end, it was Figaro who broke the silence.

“Well damn,” he said. “That’s bananas.”

“Yes,” Ixaer nodded at the bot on Alix’s shoulder. “It is, as you say, ‘bananas’. More pressingly, I do not know how long it will be before the fungus drains us once more of the energy you gifted us. We urgently need to disengage and interface with new material before we are consumed again.”

Director Werner ran a hand over his face and heaved a heavy sigh before replying. “Buddy, we’ll give you whatever material you want, so long as it keeps you from wrecking my station again.”

Ixaer smiled at him apologetically. “We wouldn’t dream of it. In fact, we shall ensure you are well-rewarded for helping us. Once we return to the Homeworld, we will send superior technological replacements for any damaged equipment to you.”

“That’s gonna be hard with your starship long gone,” Figaro said.

Alix nodded in agreement and looked to Director Werner. “Maybe we could loan them an evac ship, and have them send it back via autopilot.”

“We could, if the ship has the fuel to get there,” said Director Werner. “Captain Ixaer, where is your homeworld? Is it far from Deimos X?”

“A bit. Its star coordinates are . . . are . . .” Ixaer trailed off, suddenly uncertain. “That’s odd. I . . . I know the coordinates, I’ve always known the coordinates. The numbers, they . . . they aren’t coming to me.”

Ixaer turned to look back at his crewmates, who all seemed equally befuddled.

“Surely it was . . . well, I’m fairly certain there’s a five in there, somewhere . . .”

“No, there’s no five, the coordinates are . . . look, it’s right by that one star system. The one that has . . . um . ..”

“Pretty sure it’s one planet down from a gas giant.”

“Stars above.” Ixaer’s eyes widened. “We’ve lost the memory of the coordinates. It’s destroyed. Deleted.”

“Well, let’s not panic,” Alix said quickly as she hurried over to him. Ixaer was visibly trembling from the realization. “It’s not like the planet went anywhere, right? Or those bosses of yours. Maybe we can contact one and find out from them. What species are your ‘Masters’, exactly?”

“They are . . . they are the . . . they . . .” Ixaer’s eyes widened even more, his face twisting in horror. He gripped his head in his hands so tightly that they sank in. “Damn it, I cannot remember!”

As Ixaer desperately tried to summon the memory, his crew too began to descend into a panic as they realized they had lost it as well. They all began to pace and speak at once, as if it might click back into pace with the right words.

“They are shining, beautiful—”

“Tall, they dress in silver, gold, platinum. But their faces . . . if I could just remember their faces . . .”

“There was one with two blue eyes . . . or was it three? But he was the one who activated my neural network! I should know his name, I should remember!”

“Why is it all so blurry . . .”

“They spoke . . . the language I mean, it was . . . damn it, I can’t even remember the words.”

Ixaer collapsed to the ground with a gasp. The room went quiet again as the station workers and the Metamorph crew all turned their eyes to him. For a moment, the captain was still as stone. When he spoke again, his words were almost too quiet to hear.

“We’ve lost it all. After a thousand years of taking, that parasite took what we need the most. The way home.”

Figaro leaped down from Alix’s shoulder. The little robot scurried over to Ixaer and looked up to meet the Metamorph’s eyes. Ixaer met his gaze blankly, as though all the life had been drained from him again.

“Yo,” he called up to Ixaer with a stamp of his limb. “Cool your jets and listen up. There’s no parasite in the galaxy that can take the way home from you. Just because you can’t remember it doesn’t mean the path isn’t out there.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“We have no way to find that path,” said Ixaer.

“My good Captain, are you kiddin’ me?” Figaro gestured widely around. “You’re in a station with some of the greatest minds in the galaxy. Namely, mine and Alix’s. We can contact all the other greatest minds in a near instant. We belong to a formal collective of species that is billions upon billions of individuals strong, with all their information and resources at our disposal. We’ve terraformed planets, built Dyson swarms, and outraced comets! We’d be a pretty sorry bunch if we couldn’t figure out a way to find your home and ship you there.”

Ixaer tilted his head and looked down at Figaro. “Truly?”

“Truly.” Figaro nodded. “You’ll see your home again, Cap.”

Ixaer broke into a small smile. He regarded Figaro for a moment, looking down at him with a trace of wonder, then affectionately patted Figaro. “You are beautifully made too, little friend.”

Ixaer rose and shared a look with his crew. Though they still seemed shaken, they too had calmed down at Figaro’s words.

Alix grinned at Figaro as he scuttled back over to her. Damn, this robot was making her proud today. She wouldn’t trade him for the whole universe. She intended to tell him as much later, but for now, she had an idea.

“Ixaer, do you remember where exactly your starship crashed?” she asked.

Ixaer’s expression grew cloudy again, but one of the other Metamorphs spoke before he could panic again.

“Ooh! I remember! I’ve got that memory!” he said excitedly.

Ixaer glanced back at him. “You do, Rax?”

“Oh yeah. I saved, like, a dozen back-ups of that memory before we went full primitive, just in case.” Rax smiled widely. “Granted, I had to delete a few things to manage that. Like how to dance. And how to write my name. Also, I still know what a flashlight is, but I now have no idea what it does.”

“Way to take one for the team,” said Ixaer, before turning back to Alix. “What do you hope to find on our starship, or whatever’s left of it after all this time?”

“Clues,” Alix said brightly. “If anything remains or your navigation records, for instance. Or if anything is written anywhere on the wreckage that we can use to trace your native language.”

Director Werner nodded beside her. “That’s a good idea. We could send a field team out to scavenge for debris.”

“Which Figaro and I will be glad to lead,” Alix added, before glancing down at Figaro. “Right?”

“Er, ‘glad’ is a strong word, but sure, let’s do it,” said Figaro. “So long as there are no green beetles hanging around the crash site.”

“Green beetles? You mean those disgusting, glowing insectoids that burrow out of the ground?” Rax’s lip curled in disgust. “Those things are nasty! They breed like nuts, and they’ve got psychotropic chemicals in their wings.”

“You noticed that?” Alix asked him, surprised.

“Of course, on our first day on the ground,” Rax snorted. “You’d have to be a certified dummy not to.”

“Sir, you just admitted to not knowing what a flashlight does, you don’t get to throw out dummy certifications right now.” Alix pulled her tablet from her belt and pulled up a map of the area, with the research station positioned in the center. She enabled the ‘draw’ function and handed it over to Rax. “Trace the route from here.”

Rax squinted at the tablet screen and began tracing with his finger as instructed.

“Let us hope it’s not far. Time is not on our side, after all,” said Ixaer.

“Don’t worry, Captain. It’s not like your homeworld’s going anywhere,” said Alix. “And we don’t need the ship to get you new material to interface with. We can have a team take care of that right here while I lead another to the starship.”

“Well, certainly, but that’s not what I was concerned about.” Ixaer glanced at the windows. “We have limited time to salvage the ship and prepare for the storm.”

Alix stared at him blankly. She looked to the windows as well, but the sky was sunny and gold. Not a dark cloud to be seen. “What storm? Looks fine to me.”

“Fine for now, but it will be upon us. The storm that stranded us here strikes like clockwork.”

“Yeah, but you said that was, what? Once a century?” Alix laughed.

“Yes.”

“And when was the last one?”

“By my calculations, almost a century ago.”

All eyes in the room were on Ixaer once again. Alix looked out the window again, stunned by what Ixaer had just said. But it couldn’t be. They hadn’t picked up any alerts on their weather sensors. Then again, neither had the Metamorphs.

Director Werner went ashen. “When you say ‘almost’, what exactly do you mean? How many weeks do we have until this thing is supposed to hit our area?”

Ixaer frowned. “Er, week.”

“Pardon?”

“Week, not weeks.” Ixaer held up one finger. “As in single, not plural. As in, we have seven days.”

Director Werner’s jaw dropped at the same time Alix’s stomach did. The Rec Lounge erupted into panicked chatter among the station workers, the quiet of before completely shattered. Alix could see her nearby colleagues running the calculations in their heads as they looked at the station around them. How strong were the windows? Could the station walls bear the weight of a fallen tree, or more? How vulnerable was the lower level to severe flooding?

“Everyone, calm down!” Alix said loudly, holding out her hands. “Let’s not panic. We don’t even know how bad this storm is. The station was built to handle bad weather.”

“Lady, this is more than just bad weather!” said Rax, looking up from the tablet. “This thing is the apocalypse’s psycho cousin.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure the station can handle it,” said Alix, though her confidence wavered. She looked to Ixaer. “Right?”

Ixaer nodded slowly. “Certainly . . . if we can figure out the necessary fortifications to shield the entire building from the storm in time.”

Figaro tilted his head. “And if we can’t?”

Ixaer sighed.

“Then this station will be rubble by the storm’s end.”