“Hello! Welcome to Nurfla. I’m Vesu. Are you here for business or pleasure?” The delicate Nurflan flashed warm colors as she greeted them. With her question, she turned robin’s egg blue for business, which gave way to spicy burnt orange for pleasure.
She smiled, which illuminated the soft yellow she’d mellowed. She wore a romper of similar material to what Frankie wore; however, hers did not have pant legs, long sleeves, or a turtle neck collar which made it look like the fun was being strangled out of its occupant on any given day.
The crew was quick to answer all at once. There was at least one vote for each. Someone began listing the arguments in labeling rescue missions as business or pleasure. Someone asked about snacks. Every one of them flirted. There was something enticing about uninhibited Nurflan responsiveness.
“How about I’m the captain? EVERYONE SHUT IT!” shouted Tarke over her crew. Vesu gave a small patient smile that warmed her face a pink lemonade.
Quaja shook her tentacles innocently in the direction of Vesu. “You don’t have to shout. You’re the captain, just tell us what you’d like us to do.”
“I’m sorry. Do you have business on Nurfla?” Her voice remained friendly, but her coloring had begun to darken.
“Yes, we’re looking for a Nurflan that was mistakenly deported here.”
Vesu’s skin pigmented equivalent to shaking her head. “They think we all look alike...”
“I know. It’s ridiculous,” agreed Tarke. “Anyway, will you direct us to an embassy or Nurfla’s processing center for intergalactic crimes?”
“Oh, OK. That shouldn’t be a problem,” she said in a way that sounded like it would be a big problem. “We will just do a quick security check of your ship. There’s been a boom in the fertisrat population, and a planet has to take precautions. They haven’t been seen in our galaxy yet, thankfully. Spin the color wheel.”
From Vesu’s inflection and the fact there was no color wheel in reach, Tarke understood the idiom to be akin to knock on wood. Neither made much sense. They’d need more than a color wheel or plank of wood to fight the overwhelming reproductive force. “No worries. No fertisrats or bombs on the ship.”
“Oh, we don’t even care about bombs anymore. It’s those damn fertisrats...”
After a quick search of the ship that for once didn’t reveal anything, they received another win in the form of consolidated agencies. Just across the street from the airport was the Trundle In-and-Out Processing Center for Immigration, Adoptions, and Extraditions building. Leading to the beautiful opalescent building, the pathway turned colors under their feet, responding to temperature, pressure, or some other unknown factor. Inside, the circular lobby was an immersive color wheel displayed as a self-guided tour through Nurflan genealogy. In the center, a paint swatch analyzer helped you identify your base color and trace your ancestral lines. It appeared to be as easy as mixing primary colors in primary school, and as difficult as choosing the correct shade of eggshell for your outdated living room.
The building served as museum and welcome center, showcasing Nurfla’s history and people for immigrants and visitors, as well as a convenient confinement center for those quarantined, interned, or otherwise detained. This dynamic combination lent itself to decentralized podular layouts, permanent poster billboards, and an eerie similarity to the airport they’d just left. One of the poster advertisements showed a small bubblegum-pink Nurflan infant in the arms of a Roswell Gray and a Raphcorh by their side, two species reproductively incompatible. The poster on its own seemed fine, but having it share space with “Watch the award-winning reenactment of the Battle of Fallen Angels every Fifth Day. Get your tickets now!” made the former seem less like a promotion for adoption and more like an exportable good.
At the front desk for detainees, the receptionist didn’t immediately look up when the crew arrived.
“Jerry?” asked Tarke. Jerry rolled her eyes up to the counter. “What happened to your job at the police station?”
“I got fired. I accidentally did a background check on myself.”
That didn’t seem like something you could accidentally do.
“What’d you find?”
“Nothing,”
“Then why’d you get fired?”
“I messed up their background check stats. Their Fantasy Police League is insanely competitive there.”
It seemed a long journey and a long galaxy to traverse for Tarke to be on the other side of a counter from Jerry and say, “I’m looking for a friend. She’s been mistakenly identified as Sossios Zadra,” but she did.
“Wait, what took you so long?” she asked.
Lorav wondered if she was being purposely obtuse. “We made a pit stop at Beramuda.”
“Oh, that explains it—except for the ‘now you’re here’ part. That place is like—” Apparently everyone outside the Atalan knew. “Oh, interesting...” said Jerry as she typed.
“Yes?” asked Lorav.
Jerry gave her a surprised look, then said, “Oh, I type and offer office-speak while the screen loads. I had to for another job. Old habits die hard, but my boss thinks I’m way busier than I am, so that’s nice.”
She typed some more.
“Zadra—very generic science fiction surname, if you ask me.”
No one asked her.
“You think that just because you add a ‘z’ to it, it’s suddenly alien and foreign. But, you know, ‘z’ is still a letter in the English alphabet—still fully translatable and accessible to readers. Now, my last name, [untranslatable], that’s a more realistic alien name.”
It was then Lorav realized her abilities were useless here. This woman said out loud everything she thought. She handed it off to Patav.
“OK, got it. Zadra, Sossios. Wanted for destruction of private, public, corporate, and government property—isn’t that redundant? Or perhaps they’re just trying to get across that she’s destroyed a lot of stuff?—assaulting a police officer on Z19—ooh, I bet that was a bad day for someone’s Fantasy Police League—blah, blah, blah, some other stuff. Yeah, she’s here. Identified by DNA too.”
“There’s been a mistake,” said Patav. “Frankie isn’t Sossios. Frankie’s adopted. Maybe they’re twins.”
“Long-lost sister with sordid past reunited by mistaken identity?” asked Jerry. “A little cliche, if you ask me.”
“We’re not asking you!” said Quaja, who needed a line.
“Don’t listen to her.” Patav adopted a leveled voice and a serious scowl. “Jerry, we need your help. I don’t think it’s chance that has brought you here, and neither do you. This is a rescue mission.”
“I can’t help you. I’ll get fired... again,” Jerry said, but her lips quivered in excitement. She gave a small wink.
“You don’t have to do anything illegal. We’re just going to create a diversion, and you’re going to go with it. Is she in there?” Patav glanced at the security door with a guard stationed outside it.
Jerry nodded. She jumped at the sound of a yelp that came from behind the group.
“Who was supposed to be watching Gail?” asked Tarke, turning around.
Gail was crouched low, reaching into the interior of a vending machine with products inside organized by color.
“It gave me the wrong candy!” Gail accused as she accosted the machine. It wobbled back and forth with the woman’s effort.
Jerry motioned to the guard and they both approached the half-robot, half-senile Gail and attempted to extricate the woman from their snack provider.
As Lorav sidled closer to the receptionist desk and more than a few of her tentacles worked to alter the security protocols, Lorav punched in the door code she’d siphoned. Patav and Tarke slipped inside with her. It seemed Nurfla prioritized customer care over security, as there’d been many more Nurfla employees to greet and receive them, than there were guarding the Nurfla in the holding cell.
Frankie was a sight for any eyes. She’d settled into a burgundy color, but
when Tarke called her name, her skin blossomed to its standard magenta. The lock on the cell door disengaged, no doubt with Quaja’s assistance. Rushed hugs were drawn up with hushed words. The door to the lobby opened and closed behind them.
The Nurflan did look a lot like Frankie, except Sossios wore no dark goggles; instead, jewelry adorned the skin around her eyes. Before any reason could be given for Sossios’s appearance at a place that wanted her in custody, Tarke dove, front paws on the ground, and with a giant bound leapt onto Sossios. Sossios remained a steely magenta, reflected into the seven-inch blade she pulled from a sheath on her side. Tarke’s back feet swung behind the woman, wrapping her up. Together they fell to the ground.
Frankie moved to help, but Lorav and Patav pressed her between them, and worked their way out the door. Outside, Quaja had left her station adjacent to Jerry’s station and was subtly positioning herself between the door and those meant to keep it closed. Gail or someone trying to help had managed to break the glass on the vending machine, and it appeared Gail had attempted to exit by continuing into rather than out of the flip-door dispenser. When the trio made their exit, Gail magically came undone and she and Quaja hurried away, yelling thanks to all who helped in today’s testing of the Vending Machine Safety Alert System. Behind them, a bloodied Cardalol followed.
Flecks of blood on the floor and a detainee who’d moved from depression to fury became puzzle pieces for the guard when he returned to his post.
“I know what it is,” he finally said. “You don’t have your goggles on anymore.”
Only Jerry out front knew the truth. Tarke hadn’t bothered to sweep her off for an adventure, but Sossios Zadra had. She understood receptionists wanted more lines, more action, more danger. When Patav had asked, it’d been too late. She had called Sossios up so she could confront the crew causing havoc in the media. And then, Jerry, the hero of her own story, had singlehandedly swapped out the fake Sossios for the real one. If only there were a Police Fantasy League stat for that.
SEVENTEEN
Lorav carried her brave captain back to the ship, and Patav carried Frankie. The Cardalol’s fur was matted with blood, which she began to lick clean, despite some well-timed jostles to distract her from such disgusting behavior.
“That sucked,” said Tarke with a smile on her face.
“You were great. I know why you were chosen captain.”
“My dumb luck?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
Patav set Frankie into her rightful spot on the bridge. Having been gone for weeks, and really a bit malnourished, she probably should have been taken to her room, but not everyone would have been able to fit in for the final scene. Frankie thanked everyone, hugged everyone, and also threw up a little bit.
“Let’s get out of here,” Frankie said, wiping her mouth with a greenish-pink hand.
“We can’t go now!” came the consensus around her.
“We have to figure out what’s going on!”
“Are you a twin?!”
“Did she get plastic surgery to look like you?”
“We need answers!” shouted the women.
“It is a curious thing,” said Frankie, remembering how similar that Nurflan had looked, except more composed, stronger, and well, bloodier. “But we don’t have time for an origin story. We’ve got mortgages to pay. I’m sorry, we’re not doing so hot and my time off might be the final nail in the coffin.”
“I hope those are weird Earth idioms, because you’re not making sense,” said Quaja. “And also, both payments have been made.”
Everyone smiled and waited for their gold stars. They received a weak smile and a hoarse, “Mevix, take me to bed.”
“OK, but THEN we’re doing this origin story,” said Lorav, scooping up her captain and taking her through the automatic door.
“Dammit, Tarke,” said the captain before she drifted off to sleep.
*
GALAXY’S MOST WANTED
R.M. HAMRICK
ONE
Someone had (wisely) turned off the automatic feature on the bridge door, and Frankie opened it with her security key. It had saved their lives on more than one occasion, giving people on the bridge more time to prepare for any invasion. OK, so maybe just that one occasion, but people didn’t get extra lives to learn and appreciate safety features. Unfortunately, said feature also gave the crew more time to stop any questionable tasks prior to the captain’s arrival. As the door opened, someone clicked to close a video she was playing on the windscreen. It would have worked, except for the confirmation window that asked if the viewer would like to bookmark their spot in their episode of Alien Adoption Aftermath.
Already caught, Tarke took the time to select yes. The wily first mate had Earth-French braided her mane, creating an elegant, kaleidoscopic ‘do which could easily beset royalty, if royalty also wore a crop top and daisy dukes. Slinky in motion and in fur, her body loped along both the chair and console of her station to the right of center. A collection of small vinyl and plastic figurine toys in various states of ‘fallen’ covered the console’s gunmetal-colored horizontal surfaces regardless of the switches, knobs, and functions underneath them. Despite her relaxed state of equally balanced ‘plush’ and ‘liquid,’ her tail twitched in anticipation for what she surely thought was her business. Namely, Real Life’s Alien Adoption Aftermath.
When the video display ended, Gail noticed the captain’s presence and began clapping. The metal hands clanged together in a way that made biological hands in the room sympathetically tingle. While loud, tiresome clapping was not the purpose of Gail’s mechanical enhancements, it appeared to be an accompanying feature. Well past retirement both career-wise and body-wise, Gail had replaced her arms and spine, and supplemented many other failing parts in order to become hire-able by the galaxy’s most heavily mortgaged salvage.
“What is she doing?” Lorav asked Patav, who was truly asking the less grammatically correct, “Why is she doing?” to her sister, the empath.
“She’s...pleased,” was all that Patav offered, just as confused as her mind-reading sister. Their violet eyes, astoundingly accurate to #9999FF with proper calibration, met and shared as many things as psychics, triplets, and work buddies can, which is mostly, “What the mevix?” The sisters’ eye color and shape weren’t the only things identical, just the ones sight-related. Well, it was all sight-related as far as likeness went. Parallelogrammatic features, close-set eyes above button snouts and a wispy whip-like antenna which danced for supposedly no reason (Frankie firmly believed the antennae were critical to their psychic powers, despite Lorav’s constant thought-intrusive corrections).
“The captain’s back! Everyone, clap!!” Gail encouraged.
Everyone did not clap.
Clapping was an unusual Earth meme. In group settings, clapping was understood as a show of admiration, gratitude, or congratulations for a species who didn’t seem equipped to praise effectively or harmoniously with any other portion of their bodies. Turning an anthropological eye to Earth’s vast media collection, the Applause Life Cycle was short-lived and contingent on an immediate tipping point, in which clapping traveled as a contagion obligating everyone to clap and in extreme cases, to also stand. Otherwise, it remained isolated to one or two subjects. Shame was a driving factor; the higher and faster it piled up, the sooner the clapping would end.
Gail seemed to be the exception, rather than the rule. Like water flowing to the lowest point, the shame settled around the chair in the middle of the room, instead.
If there was one thing Frankie didn’t like about being captain, it was sitting in the chair in the middle of the room like she demanded to be the center of attention—like, she was the captain, or something. If there was another thing she didn’t like—OK, there was a lot she didn’t like—it was being looked upon by her crew for direction, like she was captain, or something. Would they stay or would they go?
Indecision along with shame required distraction. Fran
kie thankfully found some in one of the few Birth Planet traditions she maintained—the consumption of Caffex, a crystal elixir providing warmth, energy, and facilitation of digestion. It steamed in a mug perched on the almost too-slanted command console in front of her chair.
The Xavier-class ship had been built during one of those time periods when Original Manufacturing cup holders had been banned—an overreaction to the Mega Chilly Gulp Incident of Earth II’s 2016. Frankie had bought some of those plastic frames that you wedge into car window wells, but they were only rated for very specific cup dimensions and volumes at very specific gravities and horizon lines. As such, hers sat empty on the console side. Truly, Caffex was meant to be enjoyed in a bottle with a straw which would fit into the cup holder, but Frankie’s Earth habits precluded her from enjoying hot beverages through a straw, even if—in an unusual turn of events—it would have saved the turtles. Instead, it sat in a double-walled glass mug as she liked it.
“Thank you,” she said to Quaja—correctly assuming the gift’s giver. Quaja’s deep forest green appendages completely hid the always-polished beach chair anchored to the floor where the pilot’s station had partly been before the triplets had moved it to be closer to one another. A specific number of tentacles waved a specific amount of nonchalance to communicate a “don’t even think about it.” Frankie’s guess hadn’t been based on Quaja’s position as resident chef (which was the least of Quaja’s duties—the most being responsible for mechanically keeping them just on this side of shipwreck). It was that she was the only one Frankie didn’t feel crushing pressure from. For a heavily tentacled and highly tactile species, Quaja hardly put her tentacles in other people’s business.
In contrast there was Tarke.
“In your absence, I’ve watched the first three seasons of Earth’s Long Lost Family, the three-part Nurflan Adoption Agency’s Color-vision miniseries, Your Child from Outer Space, and in case romantic sparks fly, I’ve re-watched fourteen episodes of The Jerry Springer Show featuring the cross-section of adoption, incest, and alien step-parents....” She counted off on her finger-claws to ensure she listed them all.
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