Daydream

8. Ghost Ship

The Fungu-G-16 ship was a lot bigger than Daydream, a fact that became apparent when they entered it. Sure, Miguel already knew it was bigger from when he saw it earlier, but it was different when seeing it from afar and walking inside it. The ship's corridors were dark and spacey with lots of room between the floor and ceiling. Carlos made great use of the large area and the zero gravity and was jumping on the walls and ceiling. Miguel soon joined him in the fun. It had been quite a long time since he had been weightless and inside the ship there was no sound. Nothing could be heard in the vacuum. Zezilia didn't appear to care about the flying or floating and just went forward as quickly as she could. Miguel and Carlos tried to stay close to her, but Karen fell behind. Her suit really didn't help her going in the direction she wanted.

"Are you okay?" Miguel asked her. Their helmets had a connected communication system that worked in the vacuum, though the voices sounded a bit distorted.

"It could be better, it could be worse." That was her only answer. Miguel didn't know how to interpret it.

"Was that a yes or a no?" He followed up.

"It was a yes." Carlos intervened before Karen could reply. "Come, she'll catch up later." And Carlos pulled Miguel forward faster. He shot a glance behind him at Karen as they turned a corner.

"Aren't you worried she'll get lost like this?" He asked his friend.

"You saw her earlier, right? How she ordered Zezilia around and such. She'll be fine, she has a good head." Carlos answered. "I'm more worried about what Zezilia will do if we lose track of her."

"That is a concern indeed." Ernest said and Miguel jumped a bit. He had completely forgotten about the robot next to them since he couldn't hear any of its usual metallic sounds.

They rounded another corner and kept as close to Zezilia as possible. She was surprisingly quick. This was clearly not her first time inside a ship with dead gravity controls.

"Wait up!" Miguel shouted after her.

"Don't scream." Her voice cracked next to him. "We're using the com-radio in our helmets. There's no need to raise your voice. I hear it anyway."

"Sorry." Miguel said.

"Right." Said Karen. "That's why I can still hear you. You're all way too fast."

"You're the one's who's slow." Carlos answered and Miguel felt a bit relieved that they had a way to communicate with her. He couldn't see Carlos face through the darkness and the helmet, but he assumed his friend felt the same way.

"Are you doing okay back there?" Miguel asked her.

"So far everything's fine. Just don't forget about me when you're leaving later."

"No worries." Said Carlos. "As long as you're still in the ship I promise we remember to bring you with us."

"Why wouldn't I be in the ship?"

"I don't know, maybe you'll get kidnapped by aliens or something."

"Yeah, right." Karen scoffed. "That's likely to happen."

"To be precise, the probability of encountering foreign life forms in this sector of the galaxy is 0.00032%. The chance of said life forms removing one of you from these surroundings is 0.000000-"

"We get it!" Carlos said to Ernest. "You don't want to interact with us. Is there something else, more relevant, you want to say?"

"In the case of a kidnapping, I prefer it to be someone other than the human referred to as Karen."