The first hand to shoot up is my own. Captain Lister grins and says, “Good. Who–

“Will we get names?” I ask. He blinks all four eyes at the same time, lips immediately tightening before he forcibly relaxes them.

“What were you called before?” He asks with a surprising amount of patience.

“...I’d just like a new one if you’re in the business of assigning them.” No easy way to say I never got a name.

“Name yourself after your ship for all I care,” he says dismissively and addresses the others that have raised their hands. Nova is kind of cool. Not exactly unique, but I’ve had my share of unique.

Only one refuses and they’re ejected into space before they can give a self-important speech about it. The rest of us are corralled to make the trip to the other ship, strapped into whatever suits we had on the Nova for oxygen. Their ship, the Siren, looks down at us forebodingly.

The ship is large, resembling the balloon air boats from our long-past occupancy on Earth, with cannons mounted to its sides. Dark blue and green metal, almost black, coats the vessel and without lights it’s nearly invisible. More levels can be seen underneath the ship beneath the main ballooned compartment.

One of the Nymphs lifts me in the zero gravity and tosses me across the ships with the others. The black void underneath me seems to last forever, like when you’re convinced too much time has passed but you know it’s only been seconds, and then I’m wrapped up in arms again. I see a large man grinning down at me with a set of sharp teeth, bulging eyes aglow with a pink hue over purple irises.

The clear bubble helmet shows off all the beauty in his hard face. He’s bald but has a glorious dark beard that looks like a nesting animal would make a cozy home in. He’s tall like the Nymphs but much broader than they usually come with a tight barrel chest.

“Hiya, Greenhorn,” he says before tossing me to the side to grab another. I’m shuffled into the ship with the others, shoved into lifts that plummet into the ship’s depths. We come to a level that reminds me of the apartments crammed the streets in Pluto, some of them tall enough to reach three stories. It’s even built like a street with intersections and neon pipes disappearing around corners.

The Siren is a beauty of a tactical ship. I grew up watching ships flying in and out of our atmosphere from rooftops, usually by myself. I had spent more time dreaming of other galaxies and among aliens than with my own kind. I recognize some alien races here and others I don’t. Four armed humanoids roam, some with two, some not humanoid at all and instead sharing more traits with arachnid creatures. It’s overwhelming to witness.

When the Nymph leading us removes her helmet we do the same. Smells of the city hit me: garbage, food, machinery, and so many others at once. I look up and see the neon pipes ascend higher and higher, giving the rails of the floors above a light glow like a simulated sky. I remove my gloves and stretch my fingers, turning them to look at weathered palms.

“The empty ones are marked with green beacons. Doesn’t matter which one you pick. You’ll get an orientation after the debriefing,” one of the Nymphs says as she releases us. We all stand around and shuffle looks between each other.

Someone asks, “We’re supposed to just go? You’re not going to follow us around and make sure–

“You don’t escape?” She laughs. “Where would you go? The Nova is being decommissioned for parts as we speak. You could hide somewhere on our ship, but you won’t be hiding for long. We love a good hunt.”

I swallow hard and nod. We meekly make our way down the level, some splintering off at the first vacancies they see. A couple of us go to the next street to see what else we can find. Dozens of individuals bustle about in casual work suits while merchants show off blackmarket goods and artifacts to entice them. They display the jewels and technological pieces in the vending stalls with grins until they think no one is looking. There only seems to be trading kiosks on this street, nothing for actual sustenance.

Call me crazy, I know. I just technically got kidnapped, but there’s one thing on my mind: food. And not just any food but abundant Nymphian food. Vendors are plentiful on Pluto despite the distance, mostly because of the established farms but the cooler part is the food itself. Their crops have been cultivated to last for months, only just beginning to lose ripeness upon delivery. It made a dependency on the exotic Bannuts and Lash inevitable.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

My favorite dish was and is Ambertos, a starchy root vegetable roasted in a sweet, viscous substance created by animals on one of their planets. They served it speared on a stick and it was always delightfully messy. I’d spend all day stealing junk to trade for a serving.

I trust my nose to find it through the smog of the enclosed city. Neon lights flashing food items from gold to brown aid me as the vendor appears around the corner. A human woman sits inside, which is nice to see even if it’s not exactly the norm, with long black hair and narrow, hazel eyes, and a thick, filled out frame. Her tanned skin is adorned with freckles.

“You’re new,” she says cheerfully.

“Just got here. Ya’ll blew up my ship,” I reply.

She laughs and says, “Taking revenge by eating our food?”

“The food there sucked anyway,” I say and sit on the stool. She leans over the counter, the top button of her beige work suit undone and leaving a fun trail for eyes to wander down.

“What’s the name on this order?” She asks.

“Nova,” I take an awkward pause, “what’s your name?”

“That’s Sunisa, our honorary Nymph,” a jolly voice booms. I’m certain it’s the man from earlier but I still turn. He’s ditched the bubble helm now, beard now flowing freely against his chest.

“Finally done playing frisbee with the new recruits, Amon?” Sunisa asks.

“You didn’t seem to mind when we tossed you,” he jokes and sits down next to me. A new smell permeates the air: raspberries and sweet metal, what you’d smell in a space auto shop after a day’s worth of hyperdrive installations. It smells like the depths of space, or what everyone likes to describe it as.

Her face darkens. “If you mean ‘the most terrifying experience of my life and now I never want to be in space again despite that I will never escape it,’ then you got it pal!” She replies.

He laughs and turns to me. “We literally just got you on the ship and this is your first stop?” He asks.

“The very first. I haven’t even picked a home yet.” I look back at her and her smile comes back in full force. “Can I get some Ambertos…Sunisa, was it?”

“Yes, ma’am! You too, Amon?”

“You know I’m starving.”

Sunisa disappears behind a curtain.

“We had a Nymph working this stall before but they met an unfortunate end, to say the least. It doesn’t hurt she knows our recipes better than we do,” Amon prattles off after a second of silence. “You really didn’t get an apartment yet?” He adds before I can form a response in my head.

“I haven’t had Ambertos since I left. That was just a couple months ago but I don’t think I would have gone if I knew what I was giving up.”

“Should have sold yourself to a Nymphian ship, then.” He says, a half joke and half query to get more information out of me. Humans sell themselves/get sold for a plethora of reasons, but the type of ships they run with can be telling. For example, I sold myself to a technical cargo ship because I’m smart enough to survive but not smart enough to get scooped up for janitorial duty in the Nymphian fleet, and I’m strong enough to take a Nymph’s punch without falling to the ground but still small enough to get into things the bigger aliens can’t. Like I said, just an average human trying to find something interesting, or be found in this case. I’ve kind of let life pass me by so far and I haven’t figured out why yet.

Fortunately, Sunisa returns with two heaping sticks of Ambertos and assists the others wandering up to the vendor. The vegetables are smushed together, glossy from the honey-substance coating the chunks. The smell of the combo is too much to resist and I bite down hard only to recoil back in pain, steam pouring from my mouth. Amon laughs at my struggle, watching me spit the morsel into my hand and aggressively blow on it.

“It’s not going anywhere,” he laughs.

“Maybe here, but kids will snatch anything from your hands back home.”

“Oh we got those too. We try keeping them fed but they get greedy.”

"Is the Captain running an orphanage? Really, what’s the deal here?" I ask.

"You're not that far off. He's in the trafficking business, but he prefers to take them from other traffickers." Amon explains. I eye him as I finally get a bite of my food. It melts in my mouth, savory and sweet flavors coating my tongue. It’s better than any of the others I’ve tasted.

"What money's to be made from that?" I ask with a mouthful of food.

"People will pay a lot of money to see their loved ones again. If there's no one to pay for them he'll usually keep them." He sounds more placating than truthful but I play along.

"But not us?"

"Workers on a ship like that tend to be pretty useful. Flux still needs to complete her Pilgrimage so we might need numbers if we assist her," he scarfs down the last of his meal, "but he'll brief us later on what we're doing about that."

"You guys have a lot of faith in the lost people you keep picking up."

“Us doesn’t mean you guys, not until well after your orientations. And we have a lot of security measures in place to keep you complacent in the meantime. Now, come on and grab a room before they're all gone." Amon says.

"Are there that many people on board?"

"Nah, I'm just joking. We got jokes around here."

“I’m seeing that,” I say, catching one last glimpse at Sunisa before I follow after his swift legs. She’s leaned over at a Nymphian customer presenting femininely while pointing at items on the menu.