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Two young boys lay in the breezy grass outside their small town. It was a cozy place on a small planet all by itself, with the vast waters of the ocean suspended high above them among the endless stars.
One of the boys was Quayl, a shy 14-year-old with big red curly hair, no fashion sense, and a desperate attempt to grow a beard so he could be taken seriously like a grown-up. The other boy was Nyhoh, also 14, who had a notorious record for stealing clippings of plants and trees to start his nursery in the back of an abandoned shed on the edge of town. He had high hopes and good intentions.
They pondered, and the two boys stared at the ceiling of their world. Outer space beyond them was filled with salty ocean water. Near the planets, wildlife would swim and surface, peeking their noses down at the little spheres of dirt, plants, and people.
“There!” Nyhoh shouted and pointed at an ambiguous section of the ocean above. “Pass the periscope!” Quayl did so and trusted his sharp eye. Nyhoh saw a school of flying fish jump and glide toward their world before being pushed back into the ocean again. “I wish they’d come down and live with us.” He said.
“They can’t,” Quayl stated factually. “The plants here push back salt water, only freshwater and animals can live down here. The salt in their bodies keeps them in the ocean.”
“Oh. I must’ve been asleep during that part of class.” Nyhoh admitted. It was like him to snore during important moments. He preferred gardening over learning facts and figures.
“I can share my notes with you.” Quayl kindly offered.
“You promise?” Nyhoh asked, and Quayl nodded.
“Always,” he promised.
“One day,” Nyhoh began as he tucked his hands behind his head, “I will buy my ship and sail the ocean. See other planets, meet other races of people, do good for someone.” Quayl smiled; he knew Nyhoh would say that. He had that kind of ambition. “You have a way with animals, do something with that,” Nyhoh suggested. Quayl smiled once again.
“I’ll probably end up with a remedial job. A delivery man or radio operator. Those jobs will always be in demand.” Nyhoh nodded in agreement. Silence followed as they continued to lie in the grass, gazing up at the ocean and watching the dolphins high above.
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Quayl awoke from his dream to a large fleshy nose booping him on the head. He startled and flailed his arms, splashing water around inside his bonsai’s bubble. He wrapped the strap of his satchel around him and the bonsai so he could sleep without potentially drowning. His eyes focused, and he found himself nose-to-nose with a giant ocean dugong.
“Ack! Stay back!” he yelled, not that it mattered, but perhaps it did. The dewgong slowly backed away and kept its distance, despite being 50 times his size. His arm and hand caught something rough and scaly, it was coral. All around him were solid and colorful corals of all kinds. He drifted far enough to land among an asteroid reef. It wouldn’t do him any good, he could still be hundreds of thousands of miles away from the nearest sign of civilization. He pushed himself from the coral to have a look around.
The asteroid reef stretched out seemingly forever, there was no telling exactly how far they went. Quayl looked around and found that he was on the outer edge of the reef. He still needed to keep to its edge and hope that a ship was still present. At least for now. If he were to survive, he needed some essentials first: shelter, food, fire, and fresh water.
He swam around the rock he was currently on — it was easily a hundred feet in diameter — and found a small nook-like cave. It didn’t seem to have any predators occupying it, he was lucky. He couldn’t risk swimming to a larger asteroid; something could see him in the open water and decide that he would be lunch. The cave would suffice as it was a bit shaded, and he found there was sea moss inside it.
The only option for food was either fish or kelp. He needed a spear first though. He looked around and found nothing on his asteroid, but nearby he spotted a blue sea urchin. As the saying goes, ‘Red means you’re dead, blue is good for you.’ Blue urchins weren’t venomous. They made for sharp spears if you could get one of their spines. Quayl daringly swam out into the open to the urchin on the further rock. His mind reeled with apprehension and took on the school of thought that was more ‘whatever happens, happens’ and much less optimistic. There were lowly howling vibrations heard when he reached the other side. It stuck with him, and he kept his wits sharp, sitting still for a moment before moving onward.
The blue urchin was the size of a house and had hundreds of spines to spare. He carefully maneuvered himself between the spines; he was small enough to do so. He swam between the long spines as far as he could go, with the width of them still being able to be broken. With his feet and arms, he broke one like a long wooden stick and then swam out. It was spear length and would be of good use as a defense weapon and as a tool. He only felt marginally safer when swimming back to his shallow cave.
De-shelling a snail made for good bait. The guts were stuck to the end of the spear, and he waited for any edible fish to come by that would make for a tasty meal. Quayl was hungry, he didn’t know how many days had gone by — there was no night or day in the ocean with the sun shining through — and because of the hard work of getting a spear, he had to conserve every bit of energy he had.
Spearing a curious herring with a clever twitch, he had himself food. Now he needed to cook it. He reached into his satchel bag and pulled out one of the digital letter hard drives. He used a jut of rock from his cave to break it open to get at its parts. Inside was the needle that wrote data and the data disc itself. He took the needle and struck it against the disc, causing sparks to flare. He was now optimistic as the bonsai tree had dried out some of the sea moss along the cave’s walls. He gathered some and put it in a bunch on the floor of his cave. Striking the hard drive parts, sparks fluttered onto the moss, and it began to smoke. He blew on it, and it birthed a small turquoise flame. He smiled in joy, as most do with creating a fire with the makeshift bare essentials.
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He had shelter, he had food, and now it was time to make fresh water. A spare half of a clamshell made for an excellent bowl. As the fire burned, parts of the bubble’s water walls were evaporated from saltwater into freshwater. It pooled at the top of the bubble and dripped down as freshwater. Quayl caught it in the cleaned-up clamshell and bit by bit, drank it up. He couldn’t stay like this forever. Eventually — not if but when — a predator would come to snatch him, that would be it. His chances were still very small.
The coral didn’t make for a comfortable bed to sleep on at all. Another lowly howl sounded near, and it woke him. His hand gripped the urchin spear, and his senses spiked in readiness for combat. His fire had gone out; the smoke was absorbed and dispersed by the surrounding water, and his clamshell was full of fresh water. He slowly drank from the shell; it would be best not to waste good water. He knew he might be in for a fight. The shadow of something long and spiny came over the entrance of his little cave, and he didn’t move despite the curiosity to poke his head out and see. It turned around and angled itself right for him, slowly creeping in on his territory. It was unknown whether or not this 20-foot-long eel saw him. He remained calm and sat still. Then it froze and opened its mouth wide. It had seen him. Spear gripped tight in his knuckles, he was ready to drive the point through its head when it attacked.
There was a thundering blast, and a web of net snarled around the eel. It was tangled and ensnared, not able to wriggle free at all. Quayl sighed in relief, and then he realized.
“Wait!” he yelled out. He swam for the net, leaving the spear behind. He kept his satchel bag on him as well as the letters and hard drives, and of course, he took his bonsai. The eel thrashed in its trap, and Quayl grabbed the net and held on for dear life. He was determined not to be bucked off by the eel. The ship was a trawler, and it began to reel in its catch. Quayl held on tight and went with the eel to the ship. Onward to a hopefully safer place.
The net with Quayl and the eel was pulled into the fishing bay of the trawler. Once he cleared the bay and was in the new air of the ship’s interior, he was relieved. A few men were overseeing the catch and they yelled and hollered when they saw Quayl grappling on the net. All operations stopped. The eel writhed and wriggled in protest and suffocation, and then Quayl let go and hopped down onto the solid surface of the ship’s steel-plated floor. A portly man who seemed to be important by the loose red jacket he wore walked up to him. Quayl was relieved, still holding onto his bonsai tree.
“Oh thank all that is holy you found me. The ship I was on was,“ His words were cut off abruptly when the man punched him in the jaw. Quayl was shocked and even more so confused. “What the hell man?”
“Silence!… that punch was supposed to knock you out.” Quayl rubbed his jaw as it swelled up from the impact.
“Punches normally don’t do that like in the movies,” Quayl informed him.
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“I am Captain Junne of the hunting ship Aerios!” A scoff came from behind him. A scrawny crewman spoke in a loose dialect from one of the more outer planets, it resembled Spanish and so did he.
“This is just a trawler. We capture eels for food and ‘aphrodisiacs.’ Nothing special.” He spoke on Quayl’s behalf. “We found you on the Doppler radar.” He sighed deeply and continued. “Please excuse the captain. Lately, he’s been under a lot of… stress.” The scrawny man came forward to help Quayl as Captain Junne withdrew with a disdainful look across his face.
“Thanks,” Quayl said, stretching his jaw open and close.
“I’m Stevero. Welcome aboard trawler 228. It’s on a mortgage until it’s paid off. Only then it can be renamed. Captain wants to call it Aerios.” He explained while Quayl smiled.
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“How touching. Do you know where we are? I need to get to a communications relay and make sure the governments know there are Namina in the area.” Stevero froze in his place.
“That’s bad. We need to get out of here as soon as possible then. Certainly don’t want to be attacked. We need to warn Lobora, that’s the nearest planet.” Quayl thought for a moment.
“The Namina is hunting green plant life. They’re gathering it all up for something. Can’t imagine why yet.” Quayl had some concern for his safety once again, but now he’s worried for another whole crew. He was hoping he wasn’t a walking curse. Stevero ushered him.
“C’mon, we need to talk to the captain.”
Stevero brought Quayl and his bonsai to the bridge of the trawler. In front of the controls was Captain Junne with an assortment of action figures and collectible figurines of pretty cartoon girls spread across the console. He had two in his hands mumbling to himself as he was pretending to be having conversations with them. Stevero came up behind him quietly to prevent spooking him. He was successful, but he saw Quayl and grunted in dismissal. Stevero continued to talk to him.
“Captain, he’s our guest and he needs our help. He needs to get home.”
“Home!?” He blurted out. “We’re not going home until we get another eel at least 20 feet long!”
“But captain…”
“No buts! We need that last eel to meet our quota!” Captain Junne wasn’t going to budge on the subject, and Stevero knew that. He sighed, and he and Quayl left the captain to his duties and personal tastes in entertainment.
Once out of earshot, Stevero made his thoughts known. “Captain needs more medicine. He usually isn’t this… odd. There isn’t any more of his medicine on the ship, we didn’t expect to be out here this long. I’ll need to make a run for it to Lobora. It’s only 40 minutes away by Seahawk.” Stevero took a turn at a stairwell and led Quayl down to the equipment hanger. Rob was there, fixing something on the heavy loader, he was covered in spots of grease from head to toe.
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“Good morning, Stevero.” He said.
“Taking the Seahawk out to town for medical supplies. Can I get you anything?” He asked.
“Antacids. Lots and lots of antacids.” Rob pleaded. Stevero gave him a confirming thumbs-up and pulled a protective sheet off of the Seahawk. Before Quayl was something that looked like a large motorcycle, but it was made for the ocean. Quayl was impressed.
“Nice.” He commented. “56-hundred series?”
“I wish.” Stevero scoffed. “Only 28 hundred series with some 48-hundred series parts. Worked on it myself all last summer with Rob. She’s got a top speed of 30 light years per hour. We have 40 minutes to spare I think.” He informed him. Quayl had only basic knowledge of Seahawks, but it didn’t mean he didn’t think they were cool and fun to ride. Quayl strapped his bonsai around his back again and tightened his mail satchel around his shoulder.
“Alright, let’s go.” He said enthusiastically. Stevero kick-started the bike and invited Quayl to sit up behind him in the seat. He straddled it and got as comfortable as he could. The bike hovered up and Stevero brought it around. The bay doors opened and beyond was the ocean being held by the air in the ship. The motoring hum of the Seahawk was powerful and calming and it purred like a tiger. Stevero revved it once just so Quayl could hear its engine as he brought it around and pointed it toward Lobora. With a disengaging click of the speed safety, the bike’s streamlines lit up with vigor and agility, ready to explode into pure speed.
“Ready?” Stevero asked, and Quayl replied.
“Yep.” With another twist of his wrist, Stevero hit it. The bike punched itself into the endless ocean at light speed. The Aerios disappeared behind them faster than a blink’s time, and they were off on their errand for medical supplies.