ɪɴ ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴍᴀʀᴋɪᴘʟɪᴇʀ (ᴘᴀʀᴛ 1)

ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴀᴛᴛᴀᴄᴋ

"Leave it be, Mark... he said he's going to help us" Alise whispered, causing the head engineer to sigh deeply and toss the wrench away.
"Alright..."

Suddenly, the Wug turned around, and Alise feared he might've heard exactly what they were talking about. "You... choose, now!"

"Oh- oh well- uh..." Mark was put on the spot, what did that mean?! The Wug began counting up, and both the Captain and the head engineer grew more and more antsy as that went on, until finally Mark couldn't take it anymore and shouted "No, please! I want to live!!"

There was a moment of silence, then the alien spoke up "No?"

"Uuh... no, thank you?" Alise added, bracing themselves for whatever was to come.

"No, thank you?" he asked, typing something on his touchpad. "No!" then he gave both of them a thumbs up "Okay!"

The two humans looked at each other in complete confusion as the small ship pulled up to an odd space building. What was that about? Then they heard him talk to another Wug outside of the vessel.

"What?"

"Five!"

"Big?"

"Biggest!"

"More?"

"No!"

"Face me!"

"Gladly!"

Alise quickly glanced at Mark "Is he... ordering something?" they wondered.

"I have no idea..." Mark whispered, still on edge.

After a couple more exchanges, the Wug got up from his seat and went back to the two "If change mind, Wug have extra!" he said in a somewhat cheerful tone, offering them a cone filled with weird alien food. Mark stopped in shock and shook his head.

Alise widened their eyes as they finally understood where they'd stopped- a drive trough! "Oooh! You got food!"

"Yes! Want food?" he offered again, it seemed like he genuinely wanted them to try it, and who was the Captain to refuse? Besides, if it turned out humans couldn't eat that stuff, they would've just died... which they were slowly getting used to, as bad as that sounded.

"Uh- yes, thank you!" they finally answered, smiling.

"Yes, thank you!!" he repeated, seemingly excited, gently handing the cone to Alise. 

"C-captain, what are you doing?" Mark asked, sounding deeply concerned.

The Captain nonchalantly began eating the alien fast food, which was surprisingly tasty in it's own... alien way. "What's it look like? I'm accepting a kind offer! He probably paid extra for this, refusing would be so impolite-" they explained, taking another bite... they had no idea what was inside that cone, but it tasted unlike anything they'd ever tried before.

"O-oh... is it- good?" the head engineer asked.

Alise nodded "Yeah- it's a weird flavor, but it's good! Want a bite?" they eventually offered.

"Uh... nah, I'm good"

"Your loss" the Captain shrugged, going back to enjoying their alien food. 

The Wug looked happy, seeing that Alise liked the food, but eventually decided it was time to get back on track. He rummaged through the messy desk, pulling out a strange device.
"Me... Wug" he began, handing the device to the Captain "Press button... Wug find... Wug help! Wug happy help! Always!!"

"Thank you, Wug!" Alise said, quickly finishing up their snack.

"Thank YOU!!"

"Y-yeah, but how does that help exactly?" Mark asked, still feeling quite skeptical.