For a century, the System civilization existed, completely void of humans. Now every media outlet was covering the story of humans spotted in the System’s capital city.
Moments later, border stations surrounding Earth leaked footage of an alien spaceship entering and returning from the planet, proving that the impossible had been done. An identification of the ship verified that Kepler was the one responsible for illegally landing on the planet and abducting humans into the System, with the help of an alien named Jet, who was caught on camera by a Satellite drone before it was destroyed.
Now the System government was actively searching for any leads on finding the fugitives and the humans they abducted. When asked about what would happen to the humans once they were found by System Agents, they stated that the information was under disclosure.
Aliens on every media platform had something to say about this unprecedented situation. “It’s about time the humans got to experience what we’ve been going through for our entire existence,” one alien declared. “They’ve been enjoying the technology that we laboriously developed up here on a planet that actually supports life. A planet that we were all created on, but are forbidden to return to. Now humans finally get to know what it’s like to worry about where you’re getting your next breath of oxygen or what kind of tech you’ll need to prevent yourself from dying up here.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to take this human abduction into our advantage,” another alien said. “The humans have already been abducted. We can make an arrangement with the Creators for more resources in return for their kind. This is a good chance to show the Creators the extents we’re willing to go to survive.”
“This wasn’t a human abduction,” a different alien proclaimed. “The humans have infiltrated alien ships and are coming for us. Our best chance is for all of us to flee to the outskirts of the Solar System before we are all destroyed!”
A podcaster alien stated, “Now that there are humans in the System, no one is safe from the dangers they possess. Remember what they did to us in labs? Don’t forget that they’re just as smart as we are. Anyone now could be a human in disguise, waiting until we let our guard down. And the moment we do, that’s when they’ll strike!”
On a public transit ship traveling between cities through the emptiness of space, one alien glanced over while listening to his podcast to look at his seated neighbor, who was a caterpillar alien. The caterpillar had huge black and yellow eyes that were unmoving, and a moment’s inspection made him realize that the caterpillar’s eyes were fake spots. Their whole face looked like a mask portraying a cartoonish disguise. He reached towards his neighbor, expecting to pull the disguise off of this mysterious figure.
The caterpillar alien noticed him reaching out and they instinctively smacked his hand away. “That’s my actual face, asshole!”
On a System social media platform, someone commented, “If aliens really did land on Earth, they would not return to the System. The difficulty of hiding from the Creators on Earth is worth it to not spend another day up here. Are we forgetting how notoriously hard landing on Earth is? And now the aliens have abducted humans with no problem? #TheEarthLandingWasFaked.”
Someone else stated, “I swear if the Creators send us less resources because those aliens abducted humans, I’m going to hunt down those fugitives myself.”
“It doesn’t matter who abducted those humans,” somebody else said. “Humanity will blame all of us for it and declare war on the alien race.”
“Oh, that would be horrible,” Kepler muttered as they read from a screen in the ship’s common area. They were seated at the center table, amongst the rubble of machines and crates that were still scattered around from the crash landing on Earth.
“What is it, now?” Jet asked with a sigh. She looked up from her drink with half-open eyes, visibly exhausted from all she went through in the last few hours.
“Some aliens are saying that this is the beginning of a war between us and humans,” Kepler said, not looking up from their screen.
“If there was a war between aliens and humans, then all of humanity would have to know that we exist,” she said matter-of-factly. “The Creators are going to do everything they can to make sure that doesn’t happen, regardless of what happens to the humans already up here.”
Evie and Phoenix then rushed into the common area from the bridge, and Evie slammed a device onto the table with purpose. The device displayed a hologram that was a web of scattered ideas with the large heading, “Mission: Get Evie Home.”
“This is it,” she announced to the room boldly. “The gameplan to get me back to Earth.”
She nodded to Phoenix, who used an electronic pen to navigate to the part of the hologram depicting Earth, and the planet grew larger to take up the hologram. He then said smugly, “Check this out.” Phoenix clicked the pen before an animation played of a spaceship flying into Earth.
Evie looked to Kepler and said, “You’re going to teach me how to pilot a spaceship, and then we’ll find an abandoned one for me to fly myself back to Earth. That way you all don’t have to worry about the consequences of trying to land on Earth again.”
Jet narrowed her eyes. “Where are you going to get this spaceship?”
“Phoenix told me that spaceships get abandoned all the time,” she quickly replied.
“All sorts of spacecrafts do,” Phoenix pitched in. “This is how the System develops. The old gets discarded to make way for the new. Even parts of cities get broken off to be replaced with more advanced structures. Constantly developing is the only way for a space civilization to survive. The part of Q-23 we were in was so eroded that I wouldn’t be surprised if that whole district was soon detached to become a junkyard.”
Kepler shook their vines. “Junkyards look much worse than that, I’ll have you know!”
Jet snorted. “Spacecrafts get reused several times by poorer districts until they are no longer functional. And any that are abandoned are usually scavenged for all their worth before they’re left hollow.” She looked to Kepler as she said this. “Any completely abandoned spaceships are in no way capable of landing on Earth.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“And I can’t just teach you how to land a spaceship on a planet like that!” Kepler protested. “Have you ever piloted anything before?”
Evie shrugged. “I have a driver’s license.”
“You’re also forgetting that you’ve been caught on camera, which throws a huge wrench into all of this since the Creators now know that you’re up here.” Jet turned off the hologram of Evie’s plan and brought up a hologram of the news footage of Evie and Phoenix being spotted in the convenience store.
Evie studied the footage, which was blurry as they had moved through quickly and the camera didn’t have a very good lens. “How bad is it?” she asked.
“It is difficult to identify who you are exactly, but it’s enough to prove that you’re a human,” Jet stated. “You might be safe if you get back to Earth without being spotted again, but the Creators will definitely have more attention on the border stations now. While up here you have the System Agents to worry about, on Earth you’ll have to make sure that the Creators don’t find out who you are.”
Phoenix’s eyes seemed to cloud in thought at that last statement. Evie just crossed her arms and sighed. “Okay, so the plan isn’t foolproof yet. We’re still working on it.”
“Right now, we have another mission,” Jet pointed out. “We are all currently the most wanted fugitives in the System. Everyone is being told to turn us in to the System Agents, and on top of that, the most powerful company is also after us for some reason. This is mission hide from everybody and trust no one.”
“Trust no one but…” Kepler paused as they leaned forward eagerly, waiting for someone to finish their sentence before they just exclaimed, “each other!”
Jet scoffed at that and focused back on her drink. Evie and Phoenix glanced at each other hesitantly.
Kepler’s leaves sighed at the lack of any reaction. They got up from their seat and said defeatedly, “I think I have some spaceship piloting manuals down in the engine room. I’ll go find them.” They then left the common area to go down the ship’s stairs, leaving the others to reside amongst the scattered rubble.
An agonizing pause hung in the air as Kepler was now missing. The constant sound of the humming engine and the occasional mechanical beeps were in full focus.
Finally, Phoenix decided to point out to Jet, “You don’t know that everyone would turn us in to the System Agents. I’m sure there’s some aliens online I could talk to who would help us out.”
Jet gritted her teeth and pointed a robotic finger at him. “If you blow our cover online, I am going to punch you.”
“Woah!” Evie raised her eyebrows in surprise, not at all ready for Jet’s remark.
Phoenix pinched the bridge of his nose, visibly irked by this. “Holy shit, I was just trying to help!” He gestured to Jet frustratedly. “Have you considered fucking off?”
“You think you know how the System works, that you’re one of us. You think you know how to get back to Earth, or get an alien on your side, but that shit’s gonna get us all in trouble!” As Jet said this, she shot out of her seat and stormed towards Phoenix, forcing him to back against the wall of the common area.
Evie watched them nervously, and she pulled at her own jacket as she didn’t know what else to do. “Uh, guys…”
Jet couldn’t hear her. The blood pumping in her eardrums was overwhelming. “I won’t get caught,” she said sharply. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen!” Jet felt her fury swell and she instinctively threw a punch, which hit the wall right by Phoenix’s head.
Phoenix forcefully pushed Jet away, and they both turned back to see the dent left in the wall by Jet’s metallic fist.
He turned to her furiously. “What the hell, Jet!?”
Jet stared at the dent with wide eyes, and she felt the boiling rage start to dwindle down. “I didn’t mean to do that,” she said, taken aback.
"You sure? You did just threaten to beat the shit out of me!” he exclaimed bitterly.
Jet let out a short breath. “I can’t handle this.” She stepped away to leave the common area.
“What about the damage you just did?” Phoenix gestured to the dent in the wall, forcing Jet to stop and look back at what she created. “I’m not going to be responsible for that!”
Jet’s ear twitched and before she could reply, Evie pulled a crumpled rolled up poster from one of the fallen crates and used it to cover the dent in the wall. She stepped back to gaze at the poster, which was an artistic image of a cyborg cat.
“There,” Evie stated shortly. “Problem solved.”
Jet scowled at the poster. “That’s pathetic.”
Phoenix turned to her with an annoyed expression. “Yeah, you are,” he retorted.
Before Jet could respond, Evie stepped between them sternly. “Okay, the fighting ends now.” She pushed down her own nerves so that she could confront each of them. “Phoenix, you’ve never been to the System before. Admit that you don’t know everything and that you could learn a thing or two. Jet, learn to chill.”
Her hands balled up into fists. “I’ll teach you how to chill-”
She was cut off by an excited gasp from behind. All three of them turned around to see Kepler back in the common area, who was holding some manuals in their vines. “Are you guys redecorating?”
They looked at the cat poster and then back at Kepler. Evie quickly responded with, “We thought we’d help clean this place up.”
Kepler tossed the manuals to the table and cheered with celebration. “Wonderful! Please do make the place your own! I’ll put on some music.” They pulled up a screen and connected it to a speaker to start playing tracks from artists across the System.
While Kepler was busy finding the right playlist, Phoenix shoved Jet a bit and motioned for her to start cleaning. Jet huffed and shoved him right back. Before they could get into a full-on fight, Phoenix suddenly got distracted as he recognized the first song that started playing.
He turned to Kepler excitedly. “I love the Falling Asteroids!”
Their vines swayed joyfully in return. “Me too! I saw them in concert.”
“Ugh, you’re so lucky,” he groaned with jealousy.
Kepler’s vines moved in a little dance as they helped clean up the common area. Jet started moving crates at the other side of the room, trying to stay as far away from the others as possible.
The four of them stacked crates into neater piles, and carefully added machines that were too big for the crates amongst the organized stacks.
While Phoenix was busy cleaning up the dust left behind from the moved crates, he asked, “Kepler, does this ship have a name?”
“It just has its registration number,” they replied, “but we should totally give it a new name as a crew!”
Jet looked over with a narrowed expression. “This is a unique situation that we’re in, so I think it’s important to clarify that this,” she gestured at the four of them, “is not a crew.”
Evie had been staring out the nearby window for a while, just gazing at the haunting expanse of space. She suddenly turned towards the others as an idea came to her. “What about the Escape? For the spaceship name.”
“Oh, that’s good!” Kepler jittered in place and exclaimed, “The Escape! I like the hidden meaning.”
Evie pointed at Kepler in agreement. “That’s good delivery on the name.”
Kepler stood more confidently and proclaimed in a bold voice, “The Escape!”
Evie nodded contently. “Yes, perfect.”
Phoenix frowned in confusion. “What’s the hidden meaning?”
“It’s that I’m escaping you all right now,” Jet stated dryly.
As she left the common area, Kepler called out, “Aw, Jet, don’t leave now! We’re almost done here!”
“I’m about to pass out from exhaustion!” Jet called back. She then reclined a seat in the bridge so that she could lie in it and shut her eyes.
Phoenix lowered the dust pan he was holding. “Yeah, today was exhausting.” He thought to himself before he added, “Or tonight was exhausting.” He glanced towards Evie and realized aloud, “I literally haven’t slept in forever.”
Evie nodded tiredly as she realized the same thing.
“I have extra blankets in the nook,” Kepler immediately offered. They started setting up the bunk beds that resided on the wall of the common area.
Evie and Phoenix settled into their quickly made beds. In their nook, Kepler rested in their hydroponics tank beneath the purple UV-lights, next to their potted plant, Major Minor. The humming engine once again took over as everything else in the ship grew silent.
Evie took the lower bunk and lied directly beneath one of the starlit windows. She gazed up at her small view of the endless universe. That feeling of dread returned to her stomach and she turned onto her side to face the wall instead. She despised how much it hurt to fall asleep while homesick.