The fish was waking up, that tell-tale psionic pitter-patter of hurried clicks and groggy tutting the orchestral backing to his morning routine. Not that he had much of a routine to begin with, trapped in his personal Tartarus of metal and void as he was.

About goddamn time as well. I walked with loud steps across the infuriatingly not flush metal panelling of the bridge toward the flight deck. My foot falls echoing in the empty space which surrounded the central, nuclear sphere in which the cockpit was ensconced, the aforementioned sphere itself hovering uncomfortably like an afront to reality in the air in the centre of the artificial hollow between it and the main body of the ship, the only umbilical cord for us normal people the narrow, rickety and sickly looking metal gangway which swayed like a teenager drunk for the first time when someone of sufficient size and impatience marched across it.

“Who approaches?” The voice boomed like thunder through both the bridge and my bones, rattling each and causing the former to quiver dangerously in response, coming tantalisingly close to bucking me off.

“It’s me fish, open the door.” I banged my fist impotently against the flawless iron surface of the sphere in which both the fish and my flight equipment were housed.

“I know none by the name of ‘Me’ intruder scum, I would advise you to make yourself scarce before my Captain appears.” He spoke the name of this hypothetical intruder, Me, with a venom and accusatory spite which would cause someone less familiar with him to flinch in sympathetic pain for this imagined burglar.

“It’s Titus you irrepressible and ignorant twat now open the fucking door!”

“Oh, captain, my apologies, you were speaking with the verbal gait of one tainted with the seeds of treachery and strange natures. I feared for your intents toward me.”

“The door fish.” I said through the nasal tones of a hand massaging the bridge of my nose.

“Promptly and without delay.” The enthusiasm in his tone was palpable as the previously immaculate and chrome surface off the sphere before me rippled with the tines of his childlike voice before parting entirely leaving an ovular maw through which I stepped, relieving myself of the poorly crafted and infuriating umbilical bridge and gifting my form obsessed mind with the flush, chrome and distant surfaces of the inside of the flight core.

Entering never failed to be a novel experience for me, the weight of the world easing away as I began to float like a foetus through this womb of anti-gravity and flight control.

“Lights.” The cockpit responded with only milliseconds of latency, erupting in a warm and enrapturing glow of green which seemed to emanate from both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

“Welcome back captain.” The knowing and comforting voice of the otherworldly mass of entangled and alien tentacles, eyes, mouths and genitals which undulated slightly in the centre of the sphere touched my mind as I floated back into his domain, my domain. They felt comforting to my brain, like slipping into your own bed, the words felt like coming home.

“Good to be back fish, how long were you out for? Also bring up the scans of our current position.” The creature around which this shell of metal and reflection was built seemed to bristle at the requests, his body spitting and spiking like ferrofluid as he attempted to fulfill them. Still tired then. I mused at his uncharacteristic slowness.

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In time however he was able to, and the light around me began to pool together in varying structures of diaphanous glow and hard, moss green, almost what one would consider crystalline like constructs of light. I flew between them with a thought, checking the varying scans and dials, making sense of our situation.

“We are in noble orbit around the planet the native species designated as ‘Jupiter’ say Titus aren’t your ancestors from around here, we are in sector D-F-25391 aren’t we?” I had recently gotten used to the theatrical flourishes in the language of my thespian, Lovecraftian companion, what I wasn’t used to however were the personal questions about my origin and I flinched slightly, eyebrows knitting together in a queer mixture of tension and anticipation.

“A long time ago.” My voice was distant, whimsical, wondering. My travelling partner didn’t pick up on it.

“Interesting.” His tone didn’t convey the same message as his words. “Regardless in answer to your previous request I have been unconscious for 14 days, 9 hours, 17 minutes and 37 seconds. And to pre-empt what I am expecting to follow up that last query yes, I am currently able to perform a standard jump. Told you I recovered fast.” His self-satisfied, shit eating grins sprouted across the multitude of befouled and twisted facsimiles of mouths as he bathed in his psychic prowess. I didn’t tell him a majority of the other ships had already recovered and departed, I’ll let him have this one.

“Impressive.” Now it was my turn for some incongruity between the substance and delivery of my speech.

“Now, a question for you, I assume we completed the job so when and where are we planning to depart to, I can plot a course to the nearest way station immediately if you would like?” I didn’t answer, fiddling with a small holographic model of the planet Jupiter cast entirely in emerald light. “Titus.” The name was drawn out, almost more of an accusation than an addressing. Suppose it’s warranted.

“The job is partially complete.” A pause, a long, pregnant pause, laboured and sweating with the encumbrance of all the un-asked but desired questions of the fish, finally he settled upon…

“Partially?!” His body once more bristled with the quills of his rising and agitated surface.

“Partially, we have 97.3% of the required resource.” I said it with less authority than I desired. Fucking hell you’re the one in charge here, act like it.

“Why do we only have 97.3% of the required resource Titus, we had enough marks to buy 100% you mong, where the fuck did the other 2.7% go?!” It was one of the only few times I had heard the fish swear, at least in a profane way, he usually just devolved into his archaic and stiltedly formal cursing, along with all the verily’s and forsooth’s it so often entailed. Guess I’m rubbing off on him.

“I was required to make an unexpected but entirely necessary purchase.” I said, hands still wringing the now deformed image of the planet with the divine designation.

“What do you mean?” He said, his body squirming with the asymmetrical and tendrilous motions indicating he was attempting to access the ships records. I winced in anticipation. “Titus why am I locked out of the wider ship’s system?” His voice was quiet, one could almost mistake it for being gentle, one would be wrong, 4 years of working together had allowed me to recognise the considerable iron and frustration concealed behind the pretty façade of his words. The fish was always sent bristling with indignation whenever I pulled rank on him in regard to the ship’s systems, the exact reason I hadn’t forced the door to the flight deck to open myself.

“Because I didn’t trust you not to flush her into space out of spite.” Silence followed as I waited for the fish to come back with another, considerably more scathing barb. For all his faults he was much better at this verbal violence.

“Her?” Goddamn why couldn’t he have just insulted me. I paused, hands hovering above the now completely wrung out form of Jupiter and closed my eyes in self-flagellation.

“Manual Override, door!” I said quickly, rising from my place in front of the flight control desk I had been sitting at right when the fish descended into a tirade of self-righteous and frustrated anger.

“You bought one of them?! you blackguard! You incontestable fool! We sunk all our goddamn savings into this you spunk goblin, this was our big fucking break! Ahhhhhh, Titus, 97.3% of the requisite water when compressed is just a dense ball of useless shit, we needed all of it to be worth anything! You foul smelling, calloused, rotting shit! Now we’re poor again…” The psychic and audible eruptions of insults and impotent anger trailed off as I quickly retreated down the detestable and precariously swinging bridge.

In truth the fish was right, I had screwed us in an almost incomprehensibly sized manner, and I had come so close to not doing it too. So close to finally breaking out of the debt trap of a small-time merchant. But the alternative was too tempting, too tantalising to the animal part of my brain. I had traded our chance at the good life. But now, now I finally get to know where I come from. Finally be able to verify the half-remembered factoids passed down the generations of my family. I made my way to the holding cell, time to wake her up, time to finally get some answers.