The only tool left in Illise’s possession was a clickable pen and no matter how many times she dismantled it, there was no hidden gun, bomb, or tool to help her break out of her room. She shimmed the nib of the pen into a flathead screw, gave it a twist, and it cracked, proving that it was not a screwdriver as the ink percolated out and over her hands. Try to force something that it's not and you would get a failure of execution - the summary of her day since landing on PT-0237. She did not dare to step near the white rug by her bed, afraid of staining it blue. Even with a broken pen, she would not admit defeat. “Tony?”

He had been quiet the last few times, which, according to her Universal Standard Time clock, was twenty minutes ago. Her eyes wandered the room for any other tool she could use. Her docupad in the room was locked down, though it offered some old-fashioned card games able to be played. The pirates did not leave her with much to do and were lenient with the no handcuffs situation because of her good behavior to be locked up in her room. They cleaned out most of her desk beside the peeled apple snacks and her personal picture frames.

The pad dinged, displaying a black background and blue text, a single square blinking.

“Shall we play a game? []”

“Tony!” She ran over. “What is going on?”

“You looked like you could use a friend and the rest of the crew is playing games in the mess hall.”

She typed in “Y” for the game and a screen popped up of a pixel version of Tony as he bounced along the horizon. “How is everything for you?” Ilise asked.

“Your nimble fingers saved my tubing and kept everything cool. We’ll need more coolant though. I put it on the list.”

There is a list? She tapped the screen and pixel Tony jumped. It began the horizontal walk through the game, with her jumping over various mounds of cake, coffee mugs, and pirates. “Any clue where they are going?”

“None yet. They are trying to bandage up and lock me up with some sort of firewall so I can’t communicate with the CD-ROM.”

“Did you help Charyd get out?”

“No. He made that disaster on his own. I kicked him out because he was exponentially causing more. He’s a personified version of a virus.”

“That you willingly let in.”

A fishing hook dropped on the pad and grabbed pixel Tony by the pants and lifted him up, kicking. “I was phished and let him aboard thinking-”

She sighed. “We still have one trick up our sleeve to get out of here. Saar, he is safe in a wall. Send him a message about our situation and let him out when it’s safe.”

The pixel Tony was dropped down and bounced on a trampoline before he continued along, bouncing on its own. Her palm gently caressed the screen, she had almost lost Tony, they had done vigorous training to be on the Darkstorm together, and she would sacrifice it all if it meant keeping Tony’s sharp wit alive and going.

Blue text appeared at the top of the pad, “Message sent to Charyd: Officer Saar is starting to stink and needs food and water every 6 hours to stay alive.”

She tightened her jaw, debating what to say, she wanted to cuss him out for betraying everything they had done. They were supposed to be the best and prove this new technology. That it can work. That it made sense. That it was good. Instead, she smacked the docupad, ran to her pillows, and launched all of them at the pad while screaming. Without Tony, and even Saar, she was on her own waiting to hear what the pirates would do with her. It was amazing they hadn’t already thrown her out of the airlock. Tony was obsessed with the pirates and she did not understand it. Tony should have learned by now anyone would and could pass you off if you did not benefit them.

“Why are you being so unreasonable?” Ilise growled out, hoping both that Tony would hear her and not. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear his reply.

Tony remained silent, but it was like a white noise filled her room instead, making him pointedly quiet.

“Family,” Tony finally answered, what felt like hours later, though, was probably only a few seconds. The answer made no sense.

Ilise scoffed and punched into the soft bedding to expel some of her anger.

“What does that even–no. No. Do you even know what it's like to have a family who expects you to conquer the galaxy?” she asked instead, latching onto that single word as she thought about what her own family would think about her situation. “It’s full of nagging every chance they get. Sure, they praised me when I excelled at the academy- but after that, my career was stagnant until you and I met up.” She tossed the blankets up and she made a cocoon around herself as she walked over to her desk, two picture frames sat there. One picture was of her with her parents, all in military uniforms. While theirs had endless badges from their multiple turns at war, she was a recent cadet, naked of pins. They would be so disappointed in her now. “Either that or they decide that you’re not worth their time.” The other frame was of her with her sister hanging out in the gardens. She should have sent a message to her sister before this whole mess happened, even if it was against security protocols.

“They’re not like that.” Tony’s voice was meek, soft, almost gentle.

“Family isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be,” Ilise finished with a sigh, even as she realized that the smile on her sister’s face in that picture was the exact same as the one from the last time they saw each other.

Tony never replied, the whole ship was oddly quiet without the normal banter. Her body decided that it was enough and fell asleep instantly.

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—

Alice was not being gentle at all, as she finished wrapping the medi-tape over Charyd’s wounded leg. In fact, he was pretty sure that she applied a lot more of the antiseptic than needed. When she yanked the binding closed hard enough to shift him in his seat, he was sure about it.

“What’s up with you?” he asked, wary of her being so close to an open wound.

“You’re an idiot, that’s ‘what’s up with me’, you idiot,” she hissed out, refusing to look at his face.

“Hey, it worked,” Charyd said when he realized why she was so angry. He reached out to place a hand on her shoulder but she hit it away in anger. “Alice. We’re good–”

“We are lucky!” she interrupted with a growl and yanked harder on the bindings. They were so tight and secure that Charyd wasn’t sure he could bend his leg at all while it healed.

“We’re all here. We’re mostly unharmed–”

“Mostly?!” she scoffed out another interruption. “Do you even see yourself? I swear, you and that Cadoon captain did more damage to us than the prison did!”

Charyd paled at those words.

Alice immediately regretted them and he felt her feelings wash over him. He accepted her silent apology as she settled in the back of his mind, trying to project calm. It didn’t last for long. That wasn’t who Alice was. She pulled out of his head as soon as he felt the stirrings of her anger.

Charyd tried to head them off with a wide grin and said, “aren’t you happy you’ve got the luckiest guy in the galaxy as your captain?”

Alice mentally stumbled as she left his head, the anger thwarted for a second.

“You have a horseshoe shoved up your ass, don’t you?” she growled out the question.

“Either that or my prayers to Fortuna were answered.”

Alice rolled her eyes.

“We’re good, Alice. We’ll take a few days to heal and regroup, then we can get back out there! Look, we’ve got the Darkstorm back and–”

“And that’s another thing,” Alice talked over him, another interruption as her anger mounted again. “Darkstorm? Why?? This ship is what got us into this mess in the first place!”

“Not really. And we both know it. Black hole, everyone on the ship knows it. And I know it’s much easier to blame the ship, but know this Alice - nobody blames you.”

Her entire face scrunched up as she looked down, her skin a translucent color that looked almost pink in splotches everywhere. Alice was not used to hiding her emotions as they displayed on her body around Charyd. He loved that about her.

“They were from my pod,” Alice grumbled, still not looking up.

“And there is an idiot named Charyd in a prison cell somewhere because he got drunk and he has my name. Doesn’t make it my fault he’s an idiot.”

Alice let out a chuckle. “It actually does. You’re the one who put him there.”

“Semantics. You know what I mean. You had no control over them. Shitty third-cousin-five-times-removed.”

Alice rolled her eyes, but when she stopped, they finally settled on Charyd’s face and she had a small smile on her lips. “You know that’s not how Naureus pods work.”

Charyd shrugged. “Whatever. We’re safe, we’re good, we’re all here. Everybody back home has been worried sick about you all. Which reminds me-” Charyd turned to face the camera in the corner “-set a course for MRKT-0293.”

No response.

Alice rolled her eyes again and said, “Be nice. Tony? Do you mind please setting a course for home?”

No response.

“Maybe he’s still down?” Alice questioned.

It was Charyd’s turn to roll his eyes. Just because the Darkstorm’s AI used a male image in the hologram and everybody had taken to calling it a him. “I’ll go set the course. Make sure the others are okay?”

“Yea. Polo is baking you a new cake.”

“What happened to the original one?” Charyd asked and tested his leg. The medi-tape was keeping it together and numb so he could walk but not morph it yet.

“Posey–which we will talk about–used it to knock out Scooball.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Was it chocolate?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

Alice only nodded in response this time. “Mess hall?”

“As soon as I’m done on the deck.”

Alice raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing. She walked out of the med bay first and Charyd limped a few steps after her, testing his wounded leg before he realized he was good to walk. He made it to the main deck of the Darkstorm and sat in the captain’s chair. It was so comfortable. The hologram screen he pulled up was the same one Alice was using earlier during their unfortunate escape from the planet. He set the coordinates for home, a small market planet in a system quite far away, and turned off the hologram.

The ship shifted minutely through space and then was moving, speed increasing gradually enough that he did not need to remain seated or warn the others. Within minutes, they would be out of the system that housed one of the most horrible prisons in the galaxy.

The AI’s visual didn’t appear anywhere, not even as a tiny sprite to mock him. He was starting to miss Tony’s voice. The thought had him shaking his head, and he got up to get to the mess hall. If a computer program wanted to give him the cold shoulder, that was fine with him.

As soon as he walked in, all thoughts of Tony, Posey, the Darkstorm, and Cadoon were wiped clean.

It was his crew.

Polo was pulling a cake out of the small oven in the corner, his bald head covered in a worn beanie to keep it from reflecting the lights above and blinding everyone. Squilla was attached to the wall near the TV, reaching out with her antennae every now and then to catch the flying popcorn that Alice and the last member of their crew were throwing at the TV. They were watching that epic cooking show, The Intergalactic Cook-Off, where the contestants Eloise and Mikayla faced off in the Mushroom forest to find edible ingredients in a short 40 minutes. Scooball was in the corner, sprawled out under a UV lamp with a bag of iced lemons against his face. Her face, Charyd noted the long earring dangling from one pointed ear.

“Hey, you–”

“That’s not how you fucking make Kemapiawa, it needs a mousse!” Scooball jumped up to yell, pointing a finger at the TV.

“You’re okay,” Charyd answered his own unfinished question and turned to Alice. She smiled at him behind the bowl of popcorn.

“Stop with those!” Polo called from the cooking corner. “Cake just has to cool and we’re gonna eat.”

“Cake! Cake! Cake! Cake!” Squilla started the chant that all of them took up until they all dissolved into laughter.

Charyd fucking loved his crew. Now, it was time to take them back home and make sure their families all knew they were safe.