The starcraft Trigo-183 had never been painted, except for the red symbol plastered onto both sides. It resembled a birdlike creature taking flight, a symbol of peace in the empty space around Wise 0855-0714. Jayn had been aboard Trigo-183 for almost 4 years. She worked in the part of the ship that repaired all of the damaged items owned by the crew, and she was responsible for their mechanical items. Mechanical movement was very difficult to understand due to the digitalization of the universe, so being in charge of all of it was a very high honor.
One day, while waiting for items to come in, Jayn decided to take a break in the lounge area. It was then that her chest-mounted VisTron vibrated, and an image was projected onto the air in front of her. It looked like a man smiling, laughing even. The text read, "Incoming Call: Zeck Pytt." Two buttons were also projected, one in green and one in red. Jayn decided to press the green button. The image morphed into the same man, but older.
Jayn smiled. "Hey, Zeck. How've you been?" She took a seat and focused on the image in front of her. "Wow, he's gotten older," She thought, "When was the last time I talked to this guy?"
Zeck smiled back and even chuckled a little bit. "I been doin' just fine, other than the pain in m' back." Zeck chuckled a bit more, but Jayn could see the pain in his old, yellow eyes.
Zeck was not human. In fact, Jayn wasn't either. Both of them came from the planet Ivyn, a lush green planet similar to Earth, but mainly had silicone-based life, rather than carbon-based. Most of the intelligent life had evolved to be bipedal, with 4 digits on each foot, and anywhere from 4 to 6 digits on their hands, one of which being opposable, used as a thumb, and helped with the species' success over the planet.
The skin tones of the Ivycs ranged from green to blue to purple and sometimes, rarely, pink. Their eyes were extremely similar to those of a human's, but where human eye colors stopped, Ivycs' barely started. The evolution of Ivyc beings led to the areas around their irises being dyed a deep black, while the iris itself became colors ranging from black to brown to orange to yellow, with most of them being orange or yellow.
As Zeck finished his chuckle, he looked back at Jayn. "Jayn, we need to get back together. Here, on Mars. I wanna…" His voice trailed off. His eyes focused yet again on Jayn. "Look. just come here. I need you for something extremely important." Jayn thought his eyes were very sincere, so she decided that this was something very personal.
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After her workshift ended, Jayn walked to her private quarters, which was rather unusual. She usually rode the HPN, the HyperPneumaticNetwork, to get places around the ship. Today was different. Jayn needed to think, and the best way to think was to extend the amount of time it takes to travel to and from locations.
She thought of the easiest and hardest ways of getting to Mars to see Zeck. She figured that the Captain owed her something, and now was the best time to talk to him.
Jayn stopped when she reached her quarters. When she placed her hand on the wall, the large red door to the left instantly slid open with a slight hiss. Jayn entered her room and the door slid closed with another hiss. As soon as the door was fully closed, subtle music began to chirp from the sound system Jayn had installed in her first year as a crew member aboard the Trigo-183. She walked over to the food preparation area, she hadn't eaten in 14 standard hours!
As Jayn opened the storage capsule to examine the food produced on Ivyn, she realized how much she missed her home, how she missed her family. She grabbed a piece of meat and a dough roll. Her VisTron buzzed, and a warning message appeared in front of her. The meat had gone bad during her workshift. She placed the spoiled meat on the counter and grabbed a different piece from the storage capsule.
Jayn thought about Ivyn while she prepared her meal. She thought about its tallest mountains, its deepest canyons, its expansive forests.
She thought about the massive cities, with their tall skyscrapers and AirLanes weaving through them.
She thought about the industrial sectors, enormous nuclear power plants generating electricity for all, using only thorium reactors after uranium reactors were banned by the Ivyc leaders.
Jayn hadn't realized she was crying until she ran out of breath and had to draw another, very sharply.