Got through? What the hell was she talking about?
Alekai frowned. Had she been trying to hail them with some magikal means of communication all this time that he didn't know about?
If that was the case, then it was little wonder that she had been so obsessively staring at those twin points of lights in the distance.
Alekai kept still, not wanting to disturb Jesse as she communicated with whoever it was she had gotten in touch with. She must know their language to be able to make contact and communicate with them.
He silently gazed at her with a touch of admiration and a tinge of jealousy. Since Alekai was an abandoned child, a decoy for the true Crown Prince, his royal family had never bothered to educate him in the subjects that a prince needed to learn.
Living with Tom, he had learned how to be a good tree farmer.
Alekai grimaced.
It was probably good for something in his future life. Maybe he could be a tree farmer in the future…
He was still lying there, bemoaning his fate in life when she popped her head back over the side of the bed and poked at him with an excited finger.
"Hey! Wake up! I just finished talking to the Captain of the Skrillz— that's the scorpion ship's name."
Alekai opened his eyes. Her head was immediately hovering over his line of sight; her long blonde hair falling over his body like some thick fur scarf.
He instinctively reached out and scratched his chest.
"Owww, you're pulling my hair." She rubbed her head where her hair had been pulled.
"Sorry." He retracted his hand. "So what did you find out from the Captain of the Krill?"
"It's Skrillz, and the Captain is telling me they are here on a chase after a male and female scorpion fugitive."
"And what does that have to do with us?"
They were the ones who appeared in front of us and began shooting, remember? You returned fire and killed them."
"So they're dead. Why are those ships still out in the distance?"
"The Captain of the Skrillz wants to retrieve the babies of those two fugitives."
"Babies?"
"Yes. Apparently, what happened was the scorpion couple were stowaways on the Krystabella. They were undetected for awhile, but unfortunately, after a certain amount of time in close proximity, the female became pregnant and gave birth to hundreds of babies."
Alekai nodded. "Well, that's what happens when you have a male and female in close proximity for awhile…" he trailed off, unable to say much more as his throat tightened.
Jesse's face became animated. "That's right! You can hide two scorpions but you can't hide hundreds of rapidly growing scorpions."
"Right." Alekai closed his eyes. Her baby blue eyes were too much for him to take in at the moment.
"So when Captain Nir Ray came onboard, the scorpions were discovered." Alekai's mind grasped the salient details. "And somehow, the entire ship got shut down, perhaps to prevent the scorpions from cross-contaminating everything."
"Something like that. The Skrillz' Captain said the babies are still alive. Well…at least the ones we didn't hack at."
"Tell him the Krystabella and its contents are going to be incinerated tomorrow." Alekai turned away from Jesse's bright probing eyes. "Let's get some sleep so we can have enough energy to deal with it tomorrow."
"I can't tell him that!" Jesse shouted and began pummeling Alekai's shoulder. "Don't you dare go to sleep on me. This is important! We need to talk to your dad! Tell Tom what I found out from that Captain."
Alekai mumbled under his breath. "Why do all the crazy critical things always have to happen right before I get ready to go to sleep?"
He heaved a big sigh. It was hard enough to sleep in the same room with this girl. Having to deal with all the crises that she generated was just almost overwhelming.
He turned back and sat up, immediately banging his forehead hard onto hers.
"Owww!" She yelled, holding a hand over her face.
He hissed and rubbed his head. "Why are you hanging your face over my sleeping area?"
"I'm talking to you, that's why!"
"Well you can talk to me without having to be two inches away from my face."
"Alekai, this is important!"
He sighed. "Okay. It's important. Let me see if I can get Tom online."
He flicked on the virtual monitor and began hailing Tom. The dull brown digital image hovered in midair was dark for awhile but eventually, Tom's face showed up onscreen.
"This better be good. Do you know how little sleep I get any more now that I'm a freaking Captain of this tub?"
"Tom, Jesse got in contact with the Captain of the scorpion starship, the Skrillz."
Tom was immediately awake. "What? How? We've been hailing at them in all frequencies. You kids don't even have the necessary equipment to talk to them."
"Tom, I used mind-meld." Jesse interjected.
"You what?" Tom's eyes widened with startlement. "I thought that was voodoo nonsense."
"It's not. You know we turtles have some magik abilities. You've seen me use it at your house."
"To be honest, sweetheart, I thought all that was just some funky sleight-of-hand magic tricks."
"No, it's real Tom. What's also real is that the scorpions use a different frequency that your computers aren't tapping into."
"But they do occasionally talk to us."
"Yes. They occasionally drop into those frequencies and communicate with you, but it's fraught with mistakes that the machine translators inadvertently put in."
"I see. So what did he say?"
"It's a She. The Captain said that they want to retrieve the frozen baby scorpions on the Krystabella."
Tom scratched his head. "I'm afraid that's not going to be possible. The Krystabella is going to be destroyed tomorrow."
Jesse stared at Tom with unblinking eyes. "They are asking for the chance to retrieve their living babies."
Tom scratched his head. "It's not my call."
"Well then whose call is it? The Captain of the Krystabella is dead."
"Captain Jared and Captain Lansky of the Helene and the Vanessa starships have voted to do so. I just voted along with them because, well, even if I voted against them, I'd still lose the vote."
"So we don't have much time to get the baby scorpions out." Jesse concluded.
"Why do we even have to get them out?" Alekai turned to her.
"Because they're babies!!!" Jesse exclaimed!