Survivors

Bonding

We meet groggily in the control room.

"Did you see that awesome thing I just did?" Xavier asks. Nobody answers. They're too submerged in their own conversation.

"They were looking for Wessa. How many more do you think there are?" Asks Maggie.

"I have no idea." Regeit shakes his head.

"Should we send her back to Kartrae?" Jade inquires.

"No. There, it's far easier for them to find her." Maggie scratches her chin.

"My parents! Do you think they'll be alright?" Wessa asks.

"If they wanted your parents, they'd go straight to Kartrae." I say. "Well, at least that's my theory. I haven't been here that long." Xavier yawns behind me.

"We'll have dinner, then you can go to bed. You'll have a big day tomorrow." Regeit says. We follow him to the dining room, where there's a lot of alien food and some from Earth, too.

"Oh! Mevenri! That's my favourite!" Wessa exclaims excitedly, piling some wobbly red grainy slime onto her plate. I decide to stick to Earth food and get some macaroni and cheese. The taste makes it evident some of the ingredients were substituted, but it still tastes more like home. Maggie pours herself some steaming blue liquid, and Regeit eats what looks to be some sort of fruit.

"Um, do you think any of your alien food would make me sick?" I ask.

"Just try a little bit if you're going for it." Regeit says, just as Xavier shoves a heaping spoonful of the mevenri stuff Wessa is eating into his mouth. I decide to try the drink Maggie has. It looks like steaming blue Gatorade, but smells completely unfamiliar. I take a sip.

It tastes sort of like green tea, a lot like dandelions, and even more like some sort of alien stuff.

I'm not that big of a fan, but I continue drinking to be polite.

Jade puts a little bit of everything on her plate, trying every single thing before her on the table.

"So, what are we gonna do tomorrow?" She asks.

"Get to know each other a bit better." Regeit shrugs.

"Are you a camp counselor or something? Or a kindergarten teacher?" She chuckles.

"I'm a Tarvean cadet." He replies.

"Wait, what? You're our peer?" I look up in surprise.

"I was assigned the leader role after a lot of training. I am also not your peer because I'm older than you." He takes a forkful of some alien greens.

"He used to always visit us on Kartrae! He was a lot younger then, though." Wessa smiles.

"Oh." Xavier swallows his food. "So, you have all the necessities of Earth life on the ship here, right? I'm not gonna run out of oxygen in the middle of the night?"

"Oh, no. Our mothership can sustain all forms of life." Responds Regeit.

"Good." I let out a sigh of relief.

"Are there any napkins here?" Inquires Jade.

"What's a napkin?" Maggie asks.

"It's a piece of cloth you wipe your hands with." She explains.

"That's what you wash your hands for, silly!" Wessa giggles.

"Yes, but in between-"

"I suppose we do not have napkins. We might be able to find some on the next planet." Regeit pulls out what appears to be a notepad and writes down something in an alien alphabet.

"Are you writing a shopping list?" I ask.

"Yes." He replies.

"It makes things easier to remember. I'm sure I'll have to go into more detail than that, seeing how unfamiliar you are with galactic practices." Wessa says.

"No, no. We have shopping lists on Earth." Jade chuckles.

Soon, everyone is finished dinner and we put the dishes in the kitchen, where they get magically cleaned by space somehow. Maggie explains that because of the high speeds of the ship, all of the food glides off of the slippery surface of the dishes and is sterilized by the coldness of the space air, which kills the bacteria. It all goes over my head, though, because I never was that good in science. Well, some parts, at least.

I head back to my room and look through by bag. I pull on a pair of pyjamas I had on me so I could return them to the store because they were a bit big on me. I wash my face in my room's sink and walk down the hall to get a glass of water for the bedside table. I pass by Maggie's room. Wessa and Jade are sitting on her bed. She has a few onion-shaped objects made of opaque glass with coloured lights inside them here and there, with cute faces painted on them. Jade is braiding Wessa's hair so it doesn't tangle as much in bed.

"-yeah, no. You aced the artillery controls. I mostly stuck to navigation. All of our work has to be credited to you." Maggie says.

"I can't drive for the life of me. We were both equally responsible for puncturing the side of the Black Star's ship." Jade laughs.

"It was really cool! Especially that part where you severed the cannon!" Wessa adds.

"Hey roomies. It seems like one of your fellow ladies would like to join in on your girl talk." Xavier says, pointing at me.

"It's not girl talk, just casual talk." Maggie purses her lips.

"So for you missiles and shooting stuff is casual?" I raise an eyebrow.

"I guess." She shrugs.

"You can come in if you want!" Smiles Wessa, scooting over on the bed.

"I'll take the floor, thanks." I remember the bed sucking me in, filled with some sort of liquid.

"At first, it's sort of squishy. But it gets less viscous the longer you stay on it. Kinda like a water bed." Jade tells me.

"Still, I'll pass." I say, sitting down next to a particularly large green glowing onion thing. "What are these, anyways?"

"Those represent nothing. They're just cute." Wessa tells me.

"I see." I nod. "So, uh, what time do you guys normally wake up?" I ask.

"We have no concept of time here. Time depends on the planet. We are currently not on a planet, and therefore cannot provide specific time." Maggie explains.

"Cool." I say. "Is there any loud noises or bright lights in the night? I'm a bit of an insomniac."

"Normally not." She says. "If either of those happen, it's just Regeit. He doesn't require as much sleep as us to survive." She replies.

"These things are just like my bed at home. I'll have no trouble falling asleep." Jade smiles.

"Honey helps you sleep." Xavier hands me a large jar of raw honey. I stare at him.

"Do you just carry honey with you everywhere?" I ask.

"It makes your throat less sore. It helps you sleep. It can be thrown at bears as a distraction if they're chasing you. Why would I not carry it everywhere?" He shrugs.

"Because it's, like, over a pound of honey!" I say.

"Whatever. Want it or not?" He asks.

"I'll take some, I guess." I mumble. I go to the kitchen and eat a spoonful, returning the honey to Xavier after I air-wash the dishes. I head over to the bed and lie down under the covers. Only the cover blanket it itchy, not the sheets. And, true to Jade's words, the bed becomes more comfortable the longer I stay in it.

Before I know it, I'm asleep.