July 17th

“Okay, you didn’t answer the question. Why do you speak with a Californian accent? You’re not, and never have been, human. How is English your native language?” Scarlett asked as she looked at Malgorth. He had no SAD, and neither did we at the time, so it was a valid question. Not even Gruma was wearing it, though she learned to speak English somewhat fluently at this point.

“As I said, man, I just know it. It was, like, on all the television programs I liked. Like, do I question why some fox speaks? No, because that’s bogus,” he replied. Is his accent so heavy because all the shows he watched came out of Hollywood? Or did he only watch Scooby-Doo and picked up Shaggy’s speech pattern?

“I am not a fox! I just superficially resemble one because the Qarri are weird!” Scarlett shouted back. She sighed and said, “I just hope that it’s really the truth and I didn’t have my DNA hybridized.” I put my hand on her shoulder to show my support for her.

“Don’t worry. We’ll change you back. We already promised to do so,” I said before pulling a loose strand of fur off her. I hid it in my pocket as I added, “Besides, if you were a true hybrid, you would be shorter and older. Though it does seem awfully coincidental that we’re the same age.”

“Now that I think about it, you’re right. It’s strange that we’re all young adults. You’d think there’d be at least one child or middle-aged human somewhere away from Earth,” Scarlett replied as she was sidetracked by my comment. I took the opportunity to walk to the cockpit. I sat down in the captain’s seat and looked out the windshield. I need to come up with a better name for it.

Straight ahead was a wormhole. It was a horrifying sight. It looked like a tear in space and time. I swore I saw space bend inwards as all that awaited was a black gaping hole with a colorful border. “Ship, are you sure this isn’t going to kill us?” I asked as I hoped this wouldn’t be the end. I can’t die yet! I still haven’t got a job, a family, or anything to be remembered by! I don’t need to be massively famous; all I want is a family legacy.

“All the simulations I ran have shown this wormhole to be 99.6% safe. This one has been stabilized by the Ateri Federation so it could communicate with the Tellos Republic. Rest assured, the worst that could happen is getting sent to another dimension,” the ship replied in its robotic voice. I guess that confirms the existence of alternate dimensions. I just hope there isn’t some interdimensional horror waiting to devour us all. They destroyed too many of my Stellaris games to count.

As the ship approached, I noticed Scarlett entering the room. She sat down in the co-captain seat and looked at the wormhole. “Pretty, yet terrible. As if we’re about to enter the maws of hell,” she said as she looked at it. “You know, if our ship gets damaged, I feel like we’re going to have a hard time. Maybe we should’ve kept Zalex,” she said with a sigh.

“Maybe. But there’s no point in dwelling on the past. He made his own decision, and we have to respect it. We don’t have to agree with him. He could be wrong. But it was his choice and his alone,” I replied as I tapped my fingers against the armrests of the chair.

When we got closer to the wormhole, I noticed that Scarlett closed her eyes, bowed her head, and clasped her hands together. I could hear her mouthing out words but couldn’t understand them. Odd behavior, but who am I to criticize?

The moment the ship went past the invisible barrier of the wormhole, it shot through. Scarlett and I were thrown onto the floor right before the ship started spinning like crazy. We hurried under the controls and held onto the supports. “Why didn’t it warn us to put on our seatbelts?” I asked as held onto the support with my hands. As the ship spun, I discovered the worst position was when it was sideways. At those times, I was either falling away from the support or towards it. Neither felt good.

After what felt like an eternity, the spinning stopped. The ship corrected its position, allowing both of us to let go of the supports. We crawled back onto the chairs. When I got back on, I looked out and saw a vast expanse of stars. Considering that, I knew we probably exited the other side of the wormhole. “Ship, bring up the galactic map. More specifically, where are we?” I ordered as I tried to recover from the ordeal.

“Yes, Captain Quentin,” it replied as it brought up the map on the screen. “You didn’t travel too far. Consider yourself lucky. Most long-distance wormholes cause lasting damage to both a ship and its occupants. I know you wish to go home, but understand that you must use the gateways to get closer. Also, a fair warning, the gateway closest to Earth is surrounded by uninhabited and primitive planets. By comparison, Earth is relatively advanced. You’ll want to minimize the number of launches in that sector and stock up on fuel.”

“Thank you for that information. Now, point us to the closest gateway so we can go home already,” I said as I watched Scarlett brush her fur down. “Now then, tell us some threats that lay ahead.”

“Certainly,” the ship replied as it displayed a map of this region of space. I could see arrows pointing towards Qasan Station and Daraxes. In the center of the map was a large nation with the name Tellos Republic. I could see smaller spots that were labeled as Qasan Slaver Outposts. The ship explained, “Welcome to the Tellos Republic. The state is a syndicalist state which believes that capitalism must be destroyed with extreme prejudice. While they are the most fiercely anti-slavery country, they’re also fanatical in their quest to liberate the galaxy. Be careful about displaying wealth near them.”

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“Excuse my reactionary views, but how is it possible to achieve communism? All such nations that attempted it on Earth failed,” Scarlett replied with shocking levels of history knowledge for someone kidnapped as a kid. When she saw my face, she smiled and said, “I caught up on my history.”

“Matter replicators. They are rare archo-technologies that can create matter from ambient energy. Currently, the only ones exist inside the Republic. They’re the only reason their nation is stable. For reference, only five percent of their population works. The other ninety-five percent relies on robotic labor to do everything for them.”

“I’ve been on social media before. I know how to handle this,” I replied as I knew to play along. Besides, if it was truly utopian, then there was perhaps a reason to emulate them. I turned to Scarlett and said, “And by the way, syndicalism isn’t communism. They’re two separate political ideologies. Both are socialist, but that’s the only similarity.” I paused for a moment before saying, “Although, it is a bit strange that an ideology from an alien planet is similar to one humanity had.”

“Yes, captain. If I dare say, I think the galaxy is unoriginal. It’s almost as if everything was made to be understandable by every other species,” the ship replied. I wanted to laugh as this galaxy was insane. Advanced nations commit slavery due to paranoia and cruelty. Humans can be turned into cartoon creatures because science decided that it wanted to be stupid. Some aliens literally just look like humans with different colored skin and accessories attached. FTL travel obeys arbitrary laws because someone wanted me to compete in a stupid alien version of the Hunger Games. This would be maddening if I let it. It’s truly absurd, but I can’t deny that it’s real. I should make the most of this moment. No other human has had this opportunity to view the galaxy. I guess I should enjoy what I can.

“Quentin, shouldn’t we check on the rest of our crew? We left them in the living room,” the fox-woman reminded me, getting me to remember our friends. Dang it! I was too caught up in my own thoughts!

I entered the living room to see Gruma and Harry picking themselves up as Malgorth calmly stood in front of them. Gruma looked at me and said, “Don’t worry. Me and Harry are okay.”

“Good,” I replied before looking at demon-looking alien. “Now explain to me how you’re okay.”

“I can fly, dude,” he replied as he flapped his wings.

“Impossible. Your bones aren’t hollow enough for you to fly. Your wings are also too small,” I said as I paced around the room.

“It helps that I’m, like, latently psionic,” he replied as if it was nothing.

“Latently psionic? You mean to say that you have psychic powers dormant inside of you! How?” I asked as I tried to find out the secret to his powers.

“I don’t know, man. We are just born that way,” he said as he shrugged.

“I was just trying to find out how to activate psychic powers. I heard I needed to find a psionic being, but I have no idea where one would be. Do you?” I replied as I hoped to get something useful out of the conversation.

“I know how to search for one on a ship’s navigation system. I can show you,” he said as he walked towards the cockpit. I followed him into the room. Scarlett got off her chair and let him take over navigation. He typed some keys on a nearby keyboard before leaning back in his chair. “There. You can now see the locations of all psionic entities in the nearby galaxy.”

I looked at the galactic map. Along the path to the nearby gateway, I was able to see some dots which listed either plasma capsules or psionic entities. We needed both, so I paid attention to which ones could be easy to get. There was a plasma capsule on a frozen wasteland planet along with a psionic entity. With it being a frozen world, there shouldn’t have been many people there. No one will stop us from reaching our goal. There’ll be no fighting. But at the same time, no one can help us if we get in trouble. We’ll also have difficulty keeping warm. Wearing a spacesuit on a planet with breathable air is cumbersome, but it is too cold to go without one. We should focus on getting good winter gear and sending Scarlett to do the scouting. She seems the most resilient to the cold.

“My decision has been made. We’re going to that nameless frozen planet before heading straight to the gateway. The quicker we leave this sector, the better,” I ordered the ship.

“Course change accepted. In a month’s time, we’ll reach the planet,” the ship announced as the travel route was barely changed. “We’ll stop by a Tellos station to refuel and get supplies on the way.”

“Good,” I said as I walked to the door.

“Ship, do you know when we’ll reach Earth? Assuming we can activate all gateways in the way,” Scarlett asked as she tapped her foot.

“According to my best estimate, you should reach there by early next year in Earth time,” the ship explained. Assuming nothing happens between now and then, it shouldn’t take too long. My family should still be alive. But it’s Scarlett that I worry about. While I can see the resemblance between her current form and the avatar she uses in some simulations, it’s only because I mentally prepared myself to handle it. Otherwise, she’d look like an alien. One claiming to be a family’s lost child. It would be insulting. And then there’s Harry. He doesn’t intend to return. I don’t know what to think about his family since he never talks about them. I hope they won’t be too heartbroken. Maybe I should get my family to accept me back and use that leverage to get them to house my foxy friend for a while until we work out a way to reintroduce her to her family.

That’s, of course, assuming we don’t find a way to cure her. Perhaps then I’d be introducing my family to my girlfriend. Not now! I’m not a weirdo! I’ll find a way to make her human again and then I’ll try to date her. If she rejects me, that’s fine. There are literally billions of women on Earth. But then again, she’s one of the two women I consider a friend. The other is Gruma, but she’s taken. Perhaps I can get lucky like Captain Kirk and meet a beautiful alien woman who looks suspiciously like a human woman with shiny hair. Unlike him, I’m not some charismatic and handsome lead of a TV show. Perhaps I could work on that.

On the topic of the Tellos Republic, I am pleasantly surprised that it’s run on democratic and socialist principles. Though now that I think about it, there’s a concerning part. Since syndicalism has voting through labor unions, that means that only workers can vote. And since only five percent of their country works, that means that five percent vote on laws everyone follows. Then again, the US is infamous for have a low voter turnout. And the US isn’t a post-scarcity society like the Tellos Republic. Putting that into account, it should be a paradise. Perhaps I can take lessons from there to give to Earth.