Gerome was back on the hologram. The battery was down to forty percent and couldn't go more than five minutes longer without needing to go back up. "So Timmy, we're running out of time. If you could send me back the probe I would be very glad and you would find yourself glad too. I wouldn’t want to get into any problems. Wouldn’t we?”

Timmy had this all thought out, "Sorry Mr. Alien—"

"My name is Gerome. I thought we went through that already."

"Sorry Gerome. I can’t just give it back. There's things like exchange and collateral and stuff that you should know about, you look like a business man anyways."

"All I know is that you have my probe and I'm here to take it back."

"Sure, but the thing is, I have the probe, I found it in space and you're coming to steal it.” He stood his ground. “The probe which I found. So finder's keepers, Loser's weepers."

"The kid sure knows his politics.”

Ginger laughed. “He might be better than you at your own job."

He turned back to the boy. "So what do you want kid?"

"Well, since I have your probe, and you have space flight technology, I want you to come down here so I can inspect your ship and find out how it flies."

"Sorry no can do, kid. Confederacy regulations, no contact with non-confederacy planets, especially those who can’t reach us, it's just the safe ethics of space travel."

"I also have this hologram thing too. If you want I could give you it to you." Timmy said tapping lightly on the top of the camera.

"Alright, alright.” What a little bastard. “We're coming down there. Just make sure nobody else knows about us."

"No problem," Timmy answered. "Do you have any sort of stealth mode or way to get off of other's radar?"

"Of course we do." Gerome replied.

"No we don't," Ginger reminded him. "But I can handle that."

Gerome looked at her in a 'what the hell do you mean we don’t have stealth or anti radar’ sort or way.

"I have stealth, you don't Gerome."

He looked insulted.

“I'm flying down there, not you." She said.

"Of course you are. You do most of the flying anyways. I can fly but…"

"You're a business man. You know who I am Gerome."

"Right." And he sat down and folded his arms on his chest.

He sent one last message to the boy. "We'll just have to wait until sundown on your side of the planet."

Timmy packed up everything and went to his room. "Best Saturday ever!" He yelled.

———

We had be in orbit following the light side of the planet for the time but now had to move back so we could land properly during dusk or night to eliminate being seen. Radar wasn't much of the problem but being seen by people's eye's was the harder part.

They ended up waiting another few hours, it was nothing compared to how long they’ve already been traveling. But she was still counting down the time. It had been such a long time since they did anything like this.

"Gerome, it’s time for planetary entry, are you going to want to be awake for this?"

"Thanks, Ginger. Just so I know where I am, I’d like to get an idea of which continent and where I'm landing."

Ginger shrugged, and tapped on map in between flicking switches and pushing buttons.

"Ginger, I really don't like this part of atmosphere entry. Can you take it slow?"

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"I'll try. But I have to get to a certain speed so that none of the radars can see us. All they'll see is a blip for nearly a second or two and then we're on the ground and they won't be able to make anything of it."

“Alright, just take it easy, please.”

We started. Getting closer and closer to the earth. It wasn't completely dark, but the location we were headed was. One half of the planet was a large lit up ocean. The other half was a continent pitch black except for the major cities. We were headed straight for the dark part, north of Portland, as the big neon sign had told us. Once they had gotten fully into the atmosphere she started accelerating faster and faster.

“At this speed nobody should see us, even with with radar.”

"I hate this part." Gerome cried, and shut his eyes.

It was all over in a second, faster than gravity could pull.

Gerome opened his eyes. "Are we already there?" He looked around outside. "Oh finally! Back on solid ground."

Ginger went out to stretch and yawn. Like finally coming out of prison and being able to walk more than two steps in any direction.

The planet was nothing too unusual, just like any planet’s suburban countryside with trees everywhere and houses in between. "It feels just like home,” they said in unison.

“I could get used to this.” Ginger said, taking a breath of the fresh air.

“We’re not staying.” Gerome said.

Timmy was sitting in his backyard facing his two acre backyard which was mainly un-mowed grass and now possessed the Creaton. He was sitting and eating popcorn, or was, until a space ship appeared out of nowhere. "Wow, that was fast,” he said, spilling his popcorn and taking another dumbstruck pose.

"Tell me about it." Gerome said. But this time it was his little dictaphone on his chest which had said it. He sounded just understandable, and not like any human on this planet.

"Wow, and you can basically speak English. How did you get the language down?"

"Intercepting radio frequencies and live communication; i.e. your little novel you told us before we came down here.” Ginger said.

“Did you like the lights I put down? I did it so you didn't run into a fence."

She had seen them, "They were great. I saw them perfectly and I couldn't have done it better without them. Thank you."

"I fortunately, I had to tell my mom about you two. I said I'd have guests over for dinner and we’ll have to serve you too. We had a barbecue. I think there's still some steaks on the grill you can have. We already finished eating but you can sit and eat out here if you like. There's more privacy away from my family." He led them off to the table on the patio outside. "I hope you can eat this. I or the dog will if you don't."

Gerome gladly sat down. “It’s hard to walk after sitting in a such low gravity for a month and then coming out to a full gravity planet.”

Timmy put a couple of steaks on the table, a bowl full of corn and a few baked potatoes. "Try that, really American."

Gerome scanned over the food. "What is it?"

"Steak, Corn and potatoes."

"You're not eating?" He said, noticing Timmy wasn’t, trying to catch some assassination attempt. Anyone would get kind of nervous coming to have dinner on an alien planet for the first time.

"I already did but if it makes you feel better I can have another one."

Gerome was getting suspicious thoughts. Ginger had already put a fork into one of the potatoes. "What is this?" She said. It looked familiar, but not the same as Xenobian food.

"No, that's just a potato, it grows under the ground as a plant and you eat the root part, which is what you're holding."

"How do you eat it?"

"Cut it in half. Put some butter on it with some salt and pepper, and voila!"

She tried it, very tasty. “Do you do that with the corn and steak too?"

"Not exactly, You can put some butter and salt and pepper on the corn. For the steak we grilled with homemade barbecue sauce but you can put some extra sauce or seasoning on it if you like."

Gerome still hadn't touched anything, he was looking at Ginger, waiting for her to keel over and die from food poisoning. He started talking to her with out the dictaphone. "Ginger, how do you know it's not poisoned? He's not eating either."

"I know a lot about poison Gerome. And he’s a good kid."

"Alright, but if I die from this…" There wasn’t much threat to say after being dead.

We finished dinner and started to chat with Timmy.

“It's nice having some new food every once in a while, just don’t cook the meat at all and you’re in the right direction for my likes. Good foreign food.” Ginger said.

“Better than space food.”

"Is there anything to drink?” She asked.

"Sure, Have some root beer."

They started sipping their root-beers while Timmy went over to the ship and started looking around the outside.

“I'll just have to ask you two to stay here for a day while I can inspect and get a good idea of how this space travel works.”

"No problem." Ginger replied.

Gerome looked at her. "We don't have so much time. We need to find Yanku." He whispered, though Timmy wouldn’t be able to hear him anyways.

"I know but look at him, he's the smartest kid on this planet."

A middle aged lady came out of the house came outside. "Timmy what are you doing? Are those the guests you've invited over? Have them come inside, the mosquitos are out."

"Is that your mother?"

"Yeah, she'll want to meet you two, so lets just make sure you have nothing on your face, wash up and come in."

“Good idea. We'll get back on the ship to clean up. We’ll be back in a minute.”

Timmy stayed outside to inspect the ship.

“Is this paint heat resistant?” He shouted. “It should have burnt up in the atmospheric entry.”

Ginger laughed and asked herself the same question. She never studied up on paints used in space.

They finished up and made it back to the house. Timmy lead us inside and introduced us to his mother.

Her response, "I didn't know that you were in acting class now?"

"I'm not mom, I told you already, I accidentally picked up this probe from outer space because of my worm hole incident last night. She’s his driver and that's their spaceship outside. They’re here to pick up their stuff while I get some data on how to make a spaceship."

"Ok, Timmy. Make sure to have fun."

And he lead them off to his room.