April 15th
Scarlett
When I woke up, I was relieved by feeling returning to my limbs. I moved my arms to make sure it was the case. When that worked, I slowly got out of bed and walked over to the door. I was very clumsy at the moment, but that was going to go away soon.
As I entered the hallway, I could see Quentin sitting on the couch, watching TV. I slowly walked up to him and asked, “Quentin, are you feeling better?”
He turned to face me and flinched. He pointed a finger at me and screamed, “Help me! Some kind of mutant fox has snuck onto my ship! Get away from me!” He jumped behind the couch, making me tear up.
He had forgotten me. The zombies must’ve given him retrograde amnesia in their attack. I didn’t know what to do now. The one person I relied on for a sense of normality was gone. All that was left was me. But I had to make one last attempt to see if he remembered. “Quentin, it’s me, Scarlett! Don’t you remember me? Don’t you remember our adventures together?” I pleaded as I slowly approached him. He peeked over the couch before cowering again.
I walked over to the couch and placed a hand on it. I took a deep breath before continuing, “You remember when you first met me, right? You bought me from the slave market on Qasan Station. I knew you weren’t really a slaveowner. You were the first human I met. Your heart was big. You heard my story and knew I was human too… Wait a minute!” I glared down at him and noticed him smirking. I crossed my arms and sighed. Pinching the bridge of my snout, I asked, “Quentin, were you faking the amnesia the entire time?”
He tilted his head and tried to look confused, but I could see the smirk on his face. “I don’t remember doing any of that. Honestly, I don’t even know where I am. Is Quentin my name?” he replied.
I knelt down in front of him and kissed him on his lips. When I broke it off, he looked into my eyes. I smirked myself and sarcastically said, “No, honey, your name is truly John. The Qarri turned you into this furless freak. But don’t worry, I’ll find a way to turn you back. Unfortunately, it seems that they made you think humans were primates instead of canids.”
He chuckled and said, “I’m sorry. The amnesia make me forget everything.” We then burst out laughing together.
Once the laughing calmed down, I said, “Quentin, I’m going to get you back for that one. Just you watch.” He laughed at that and playfully slapped my shoulder. I was serious. I was going to find a way to prank him back.
We got up and sat down on one of the couches. He switched the channel to a cheesy space western where everyone actually dressed up as cowboys. He smirked at me and joked, “You know, you wouldn’t look out of place in this show.”
I was about to make an obvious reply, but then I saw the space cowboys doing an interstellar cattle drive, so I guessed what he said made sense. I just kept watching and said, “You’re right. But at the same time, literally herding cattle in space with space horses seems too stupid, even for me.”
“That’s the point,” he replied as he laughed at the ridiculousness of the show.
Once the show was over, he turned off the TV and stood up. He did some stretches, but stopped to hold his head. “Ugh! My head still aches from the fight!” he complained.
I stretched my legs before wincing as I pulled a muscle. I made sure to stand up straight and wait for the pain to subside. As I waited to recover, Quentin put his arm around me and let me lean on his shoulder. “Thank you,” I said as he walked me to the cockpit.
As we entered the room, I noticed that the galactic map was inactive, allowing us to look out into space. I looked out and saw the beauty of space. Endless stars greeted us. We were outside of a hyperlane, which meant all the planets were visible in the system we were in. There were no lights on the dark side of them, which showed that they had no sign of habitation. For those that had no water or visible atmosphere, the reason was obvious. But there was a perfectly habitable planet that had no lights. I pointed at it and asked, “Do you think something horrible happened there?”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Quentin shook his head and explained, “Evolutionarily, sapient life is rare to come upon. Only within the last two million years has there been a recognizably human species. They were very hairy. About as hairy as a chimpanzee.”
“As hairy as me?” I asked as I leaned over the console to get a better look.
“Are you an ape?” he asked.
“Well, I am human. And according to modern scientific classification, humans are great apes. So in a sense, we are both apes,” I replied before mimicking the sound of a chimp. He laughed as he stood back.
He looked at the console and asked, “Do you know of any habitable worlds near here?”
The ship beeped for a while as it displayed scanning on the screen. The beautiful field of stars was replaced with a wire frame map of this sector of the galaxy. It was eye-opening to see that this sector wasn’t even one percent of the galaxy yet still had thousands of stars and hundreds of planets in the habitable section. Yet one in particular was displayed on the screen in color.
The planet’s metrics almost perfectly matched up with Earth’s. There was more land on that planet than Earth, though the average temperature was lower. Jungles and deserts were sparse while boreal forests occupied most of the planet. Land where the tropics would be on Earth and some land a few latitude levels near it were temperate.
Quentin looked at it and read the name, “ARV-1432-5. It seems like a good colony location. Can I retrieve a copy of the coordinates on a flash drive or something?”
The ship ejected a flash drive and replied, “While archaic technology, there is some merit to having physical copies of data.”
Quentin grabbed the drive and smiled. He looked at me and explained, “When the age of space colonization begins, this seems like a prime candidate. Perhaps I’ll be the pioneer that builds humanity’s first off-world colony.”
I hugged him and said, “We’ll be the pioneers.” While I wanted to live on Earth, perhaps my adventures in space would make life on Earth too boring. I knew that relationships often ended, yet I acted like we were married. I broke off the hug and shook my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m acting like we’re married or something.”
He sat down in one of the seats and sighed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with us. Most people go through multiple dates and partners before finally settling down. Yet here we are, acting very committed despite not even being engaged.”
I sat down across from him and tapped my fingers against the console. Looking at him, I said, “Who’s to say we’ll ever date anyone else? Perhaps fate managed to get us together. To be honest, you buying me out of slavery was the best thing that happened in my life. We were best friends for half a year and partners for another half year. We share similar interests and get along great. And the best part is that you see me for the woman that I am. How many men could look past this exterior to see who I truly am?”
He walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. He looked into my eyes and said, “My love, you undersell your own beauty. You’re a vixen. Not just the appearance, but also an attractive mind.” He tapped my head before continuing, “Besides, you being a space cowgirl is awesome and I would like to take lesson from you on how to do those trick shots you do.”
I pointed finger guns at him and said, “You got that right! A space cowgirl who was born a rich brat and still doesn’t know how to mess with farm animals! I guess I’m more like the Lone Ranger.”
“If anything, the comparison to the Lone Ranger makes you more impressive. Perhaps if we have the opportunity to colonize other worlds, we could be traveling lawmen,” he replied before walking back to his room. A short time later, he came back into the cockpit using a black blanket as a cape along with a black mask. He held the cape in front of him and said in a gravely voice, “No one knows the evils that lurk in the night. No one but me.”
I laughed. “You’re not Batman, Quentin!”
He took off the mask and shrugged. “You have the money, so who’s to say that I can’t be a superhero. Think about it, people would be calling the names of the Shadow and Trickshot.” He paused before saying, “Both of those are taken, so we’d need to find different names.”
“Or perhaps they’ll call us Scarlett and Quentin. Because that’s who we are. What point is living a secret life when there’s much work we need to do in the open?”
“You’re right,” he said before tossing off the blanket. “But until then, let’s go play some videogames.”
I jumped to my feet as my ears perked and my tail wagged. “You’re going down, Quentin!” We walked into the living room. Whatever the rest of the days held in store, we were safe.