Under the double suns of Alpha Centauri AB, the space station gleamed with a dull bronze metallic patina.
All four starships had temporarily halted their refueling to deal with the two hostile pancrustacean hexapod invertebrate starships that were hovering in the distance.
Safely back within their quarters, Jesse was staring out the single window in their sleeping quarters, trying to see what she could with her own eyes.
Alekai thought it was silly to sit there, gazing into the darkness at two tiny points of light when he had already set up for them a virtual screen that had picked up the visual feed coming from the main Engineering deck.
It didn't matter though, where she looked. After they had destroyed the scorpion scout ships, there was a sudden lull in all activities.
Since he and Jesse were just low-ranking patrol guards, they were not privy to any discussions that were (or were not) happening between the Captains of the ships on all sides.
Alekai's eyes kept drawing back to the visual on the virtual monitor.
The feed showed two starships, side-by-side, maintaining a safety distance between themselves and the four United Coalition of Starspace (UCS) starships.
They looked nothing like what Alekai would have thought that a wasp and scorpion mothership would look like.
For starters, they weren't even metallic looking. It was as if the insects had just taken over some pock-marked crater-infested tiny moon, dug a hole within in it and flew it around.
It was quite insect-like in behavior, to be fair. The organic looking structures were not indicative however, of their scout ships which were quite wasp-y, or in the case of the scorpion, scorpion-y looking.
It made some mad sense to Alekai, since their Gear was very bi-pedal looking even though there was no land for two legs to stand upon.
Their Gear could have been a round pod-looking thing, or even a slim rocket-like object, but it wasn't. It was very humanoid-shaped. It had arms and legs that could shoot weapons, and a head where Alekai sat and looked through.
"Alekai." Jesse's voice chimed out.
"Hmm?"
"I wonder what's going on with Tom. I hope they haven't put him in an orange jumpsuit and hooked him up to some chain gang."
Alekai laughed. "Didn't you see the Captain of The Anastasia go ga-ga and drool all over himself when he met up with Tom?"
"Yes, but we haven't seen him in over a day. He wouldn't just abandon us and not even check in with us, would he?"
Alekai shook his head. "No he wouldn't, but I know Tom. He's about as close to a father as I have and I can safely say that whatever he's doing, it's to ensure our safety."
He narrowed his gaze and focused in on the two hostile starships on the virtual monitor. "I wouldn't be surprised if Tom is part of the negotiations team right now, talking with the wasps and the scorpions."
He got up and went over to the tiny food station. "Want something to eat or drink?"
Jesse turned to look at him and then shook her head. "I can't eat anything right now. Those two ships just sitting there staring at us make me so queasy."
Alekai sighed and waved a hand over the motion-detector of the wall-waiter. A panel opened up and he tapped in his order.
Within minutes, a tray extruded with his burger and fries, warm and steaming on a small platter. Next to it was his drink and a cup filled with steaming hot water.
He brought the tray over to Jesse and sat on the chair opposite the tiny table between them.
"If you're queasy, drink some warm weak ginger tea." He dunk a ginger teabag into the cup of hot water and placed it in front of her.
Jesse accepted it with a grateful smile. "I forgot how nice it is to have a roommate."
Alekai looked up from his fries. "So I'm your roommate now."
Jesse nodded. "What else would you be, sharing sleeping quarters with me?"
"Indeed." He cleared his throat and continued swallowing his food.
Perhaps he could talk to Tom and see if he could bunk in with the old man. Sleeping in the same room with a girl was just…it was uncomfortable in a way he could not describe.
His very act of thinking about the old man was most likely the catalyst that caused Tom to suddenly reach out to them.
A gentle alarm chimed up, alerting them of a call.
Alekai accepted the incoming and Tom's face popped up on the screen.
"How you kids doing?" His raspy voice came through the speaker system in the chamber.
"We're good. Not sure what's going on though, Tom."
"You kids have just made space news. Hahahaha." Tom Duncan roared with raucous laughter. "Here I was, bored out of my skull and suddenly, I look up and see your Gear, shooting the crap out of one of them scorpions."
He slapped his hands with glee. "I couldn't believe my boy took out two full-sized scout ships with his one rinky-dink Gear that's got nothing but a few rounds of warning-shot ammo."
"Warning-shot ammo?" Jesse's jaw dropped as she turned towards Alekai. "Wait. I thought we had gotten standard issue weaponry."
Tom shook his head. "Little Lady, that Gear they gave you is not Standard Issue Gear. It's a tiny prototype that's used for basic space patrolling."
"I don't understand. What's the difference between what we have and what everyone else has?"
"Well Jessica, your gear is small, agile, but most importantly, very light on weaponry. It's not meant to be a Fighter Gear. At most, all it can do is scout and evade enemy fire."
"Then how were we able to destroy an apoidean scout ship and two scorpion ships?"
Tom cackled, wiping the tears from his eyes. "That's because you are teamed up with my boy Alekai here. He's just about the sharpest Striker I've ever met in my life, and I'm an old grizzled captain. I've seen them all. On top of that, you navigate that thing like a top-notch pro!"
"Tom, I—" she began, only to have Alekai interrupt.
"You actually saw us in action out there?" He reached out under the table and held Jesse's arm in warning.
"Yep, along with the rest of the passengers and crews of six starships!"
"Six???" Jesse mouthed.
"I'm assuming the scorpions and wasps are watching this as well. But Whooooohoooo!!!" He howled into space like a galvanized wolf. "The two of you are an instant hit!"
"Instant hit for what?" Alekai turned with a horrified expression towards the virtual monitor showing Tom Duncan's face.
"You two have suddenly sky-rocketed up the charts of 'Reality Space-time', some new-fangled real-time show that folks are watching at the moment." He laughed.
"You're space stars!"